Rock but nae roll

Anybody else noticed how hard it is in Glasgow to get a roll n sausage these days? I'm serious. I don't often go looking for comfort food but when I do I expect it to have pork meat on the inside and the two halves of a roll on the outside. And it's getting to be very elusive, the roll n sausage.

You want a 'panini'? Yes, we can do that - even if we canny spell it. Baguette? No problem. A club sandwich even? Fine. And all filled with tuna mayo, chicken salad (more mayo) and egg mayo. If you go to our local deli, you can have your baguette or 'panini' (yeah, the inverted commas are sarcastic now) toasted and filled with jalapenos, onion, tomato, cucumber, grated cheese, egg mayo, gammon, turkey and piri piri chicken. Yuk.

Not a square sausage to be seen. No fried egg. No chance of scrambled egg. Or a potato scone. Or black pudding. Or all of these in one roll. That would mean cooking and modern catering is all about scooping pre-prepared grub out of catering sized tubs onto very poor quality bread, not cooking. Sainsbury's in Darnley do a bacon roll all day but don't rush - it's boggin: claggy roll that sticks to the roof of your mouth and undercooked fatty bacon.

I like a greasy spoon cafe. The one we used to go to in Mosspark Boulevard went over to panini and posh nosh but there's still the Cherry Tree in Cardonald and there are are quite a few in Govan of which Gaynor's is the best.

You may be thinking: but these old style foods are bad for you - high in fat and low in veg. And that's true, but first of all does anybody really think large amounts of bread with large amounts of mayo are better for you? Even with a wee bit of salad on the side of the plate. And second of all, how many times a week are people scoffing the awful processed food above in their baguettes and panini? At least, in the greasy spoon, an egg is an egg. You know where it came from and what's in it. And if you ask for black pudding with your roll, you'll be told it comes from the butcher's next door. A fine recommendation as far as I'm concerned.

Is it us?

What's the difference between Sawney Bean, Robert Black, Peter Tobin and Angus Sinclair?

They are all Scottish. But Sawney Bean is a myth, and not exactly urban, since this story may date from the 15th century. He was dreamed up to make the good folk of Scotland glad they lived in nice cosy villages and towns, rather than out in the wild countryside.

The other three are serial killers. And they definitely exist.

Black killed at least 4 children, but probably many more, and his killing years extended from the late 60s on and his area covered Scotland, England, Northern Ireland and probably parts of the European mainland too. No one is sure how many women Tobin killed but he too predated all across the British Isles over a long period. He may have been 'Bible John', the notorious killer of women who haunted the streets of Glasgow in the 60s. Sinclair's is the most amazing case, since everyone involved with him recognised he was a psychopath and a danger to women and children from the age of 15 but our society had no way to deal with him and he was released from prison after murdering a child. He then murdered - it's believed - 7 women in 7 months.

I used to think serial killers were a uniquely American phenomenon, probably because US thriller writers seized on the idea of the serial killer very early on and wrote probably thousands of schlock horror stories of (usually) women being terrorised. It was years before I realised serial killers were also to be found in Russia, France and England, But finding three who have lived in Scotland in my lifetime has come as a bit of a shock.

Three murderous psychopaths in a population of 5 and a half million - well, make that 4 if you want to include Peter Manuel - is that a lot? I have no way of judging. I also know nothing about psychopathy or any other kind of 'abnormal psychology' so I'm not sure what treatment can be provided for people like this, if any.

When I was a teacher I occasionally came up against kids whose behaviour was extreme. I remember one boy of about 13 who had been adopted and showed signs of sexualised behaviour very early on in puberty. His adoptive mother, faced with the worries of the school staff, shrugged and said: 'That's what happens when you adopt - you don't know what you're getting.' I think her attitude was more chilling than anything the boy had ever done but then I don't know what she had been through since adopting him.

Do we in Scotland produce more disturbed individuals than other countries? Do we do enough for them? And do we start treatment early enough? I ask because only last week I saw an item in a newspaper that suggested referrals for children and adolescents to get psychiatric help now take up to 18 months. When I stopped work 6 years ago it was 9 months and we thought that was outrageous. What misery do young people and their families go through when they're waiting for help? How many suicides, attempted suicides, acts of aggression and self-harming, exclusions from school, family breakdowns occur during the waiting period? But, of course, mental health is still the forgotten bit of the health service.

Bring me the head of an rbs banker

I keep thinking it's all over.

We, the naive and pathetic taxpayers of the UK, most of us on PAYE so unable to find a way to avoid taxes, will soon get back the money we loaned to the likes of rbs and life will revert to something like normal: austerity will be shown the door, the public sector and the poor will stop carrying the can for all economic problems, the cuts will end, wages will rise above £6.50 an hour so we - the taxpayers again - is there a pattern developing here? - will no longer have to subsidise the wages of the 'working poor' - and I'll get a reasonable return on my savings once more.

If I sound bitter, it's because I am. I'm the mug who was tempted to join the Thatcherite 'property-owning democracy' of the 80s and then saw the mortgage rate rise pretty fast from 5% to 14%, watched my endowment policies decline till there was a gap of £35,000 and then - the final insult - saw the insurance policy I'd taken out to bridge the gap left by the failing endowment policies, not just fail to prosper but manage to lose - lose - £8,000 in under a year in a stock market that was doing so well for everybody else. (I seem to remember my lawyer who had arranged all these policies for me managed to cash in his own endowments in time and emerged with a nice new landrover, a trip on the Orient Express and the deposit on a holiday home - in Coupar, ffs).

But all is not lost, right?

Because the corruption and dishonesty that caused the biggest f*ckup in the history of capitalism are over, aren't they? It all happened before 2008 and the cost of 1.3 trillion pounds - that's £1,300,000, 000,000 - well that's a sad memory but it's in the past all the same. I honestly thought that was the case. I thought the wrong-doers inside the major UK banks had been caught and punished, or had at least been prevented from committing the same crimes again - and make no mistake, they committed crimes such as fraud, conspiracy and embezzlement.

But no. It turns out, some of the guys and gals were still defrauding us right up to 2013. That's last year, people. Five years after the collapse that we, the tax payers, had to save these banks from because they were 'too big to fail', they were still playing the market. Talking up Libor. Screwing money out of us, their employers, and in particular working people who have paid into pensions for the past 50 years thinking they were looking after their future.

And the banks are still standing there like huge monoliths out of 2001 A Space wotsit. Not split up. Still jeopardising the economy of the UK. And still demanding and getting huge bonuses. No one has gone to jail or even been fined. Apparently, we're all worried in case these golden guys and gals decide London is not a good place to work and head off elsewhere. They are that precious, these crooks. So here's an idea: let's charge a couple of bankers with fraud and, if possible, put them in jail. Pour encourager les autres. I've heard of a couple of people who tried to export the habits they had learned in the London financial market to Hong Kong and got fired within a year. There will be other folk around to take up their jobs - there always are.

And after we've dealt with these bankers, we need to split up the banks so the crash of 2008 never happens again. And we need to make sure the banks understand that they have failed. In fact, capitalism has failed. And we, the people who pay the bills, don't like it.

Don't start me...

I've been taking a break from blogging in the past few weeks. It's not that there's nothing to comment on - I'm Scottish, female and old - I've always got plenty to comment on. In fact, there's too much going on and almost all of it is annoying.

There's Christmas. You know: the December festival that started when Debenham's put a Christmas tree on display at the end of September. Before Guy Fawkes night, even before Hallowe'en, the ads were on the telly. Now there seem to be two TV stations showing non-stop Christmas movies and the chain stores are competing to see which one can produce the most sick-making advert. For the first time, I feel sorry for fairies and penguins. This fiasco will presumably go on for the next 45 days. If you're Christian, I'm guessing you've worked out a way to separate this kind of commercialism from your religion. But if you're one of the 42% of the population whose religious beliefs come under the heading 'other' or 'none', you may be at screaming point within a couple of weeks.

Then there are the poppies. Yes, I think our ex-service people should get every support we can give them. No, I don't think it should be left to charity. If we really care about looking after these people and their families, we should have a veterans' agency, properly funded by us - the taxpayers. And we should stop referring to the pathetic payments we make to the dependants of service people who died on our behalf as 'benefits' and making it look as if they are getting hand-outs or, worse, something for nothing. At least David Cameron has decided it's not not fair to cut people's 'benefits' if they remarry. That was a nasty policy that went on for years and years. And mostly punished women.

And there's the EU and the UK government's wish to pick and choose the bits of EU membership it wants. I loved the recent opinion poll that asked if people thought the British should be able to live and work anywhere they wanted in the EU. 76% wanted that right. Then they were asked if EU citizens should have the right to live and work in Britain. 28% - seriously, 28% - were in favour. Who says irony is dead? Just as bizarre is listening to Cameron telling British business people their businesses will not suffer if the UK leaves the European Union. Oddly, that didn't apply to Scotland leaving the UK. And it's nice to hear Cameron's advice to the CBI which is, basically, to button it.

And finally, there's Celtic Connections. I've already got tickets for two events: Ceol nam Feis (£12) and the Songs of Ewen McColl (£24).  Neither of these is the 'headline act': that's Van Morrison. I won't be chasing tickets to see Van. They're £55. The words rip and off come to mind. I'm disappointed Celtic Connections has gone down the road of chasing big names. Especially this big name, since his only celtic connection that I can see is that he was born in Northern Ireland.