Friday 13 March 2015

The second law of nitpicking

Just a quick update before anybody else steps in to pick me up for opening mouth without engaging brain.* Yes I have worked out why Alex Salmond might be still be legitimate shorthand for the Scottish National Party, even though he's been superseded as party leader and First Minister by Nicola Sturgeon. He will be standing for election to the Westminster parliament and, if elected, will presumably be the most senior SNP MP and could thus be expected to be in charge of any cross-party deals done in Westminster.

As an MSP, his party boss, Nicola Sturgeon, wouldn't be directly involved in any face-to-face Westminster negotiations (although, as party leader, I imagine she'd still have to approve any deal done in the name of the SNP).

The Iron Law of Nitpicking states that you are never more likely to make a grammatical error than when correcting someone else's grammar. The same general principle could be applied to factual, as opposed to grammatical, quibbles. So, for what it's worth, here's my proposed Second Law of Nitpicking:
You are never more likely to overlook an important fact than when accusing somebody else of sloppy fact-checking. 
My bad, lesson duly learnt, now moving on...



*Always assuming anybody reads my last post, or cares, which is by no means a given.

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