Doing the Dumb-Ass Thing

I've woken up in the damn morning thinking about that damn Taxi driver.

Alan Bisset and I had just been on the radio punting the monologues we've written for Perth Theatre's "Cross- Country Stories"...Damn, there I go again...where obediently we had neither of us mentioned the referendum, though we had talked ten to dozen about nothing else before going on air...

Anyway, the BBC got me a taxi home...I don't feel entirely corrupted, it was raining...and though I wasn't even wearing a YES badge, the driver asks me "Do you work for the BBC?  What do you think about the referendum?"  And I went into my spiel about democracy and all that...

And he stops me and says..."We'll be back in the Stone Age, I hope you know that?"

And I say, "Whit?" or words to that effect.

And he says : "We won't have any money"...and I go into a currency union bluff and bluster bit of patter about how a Yes vote means negotiations and a No vote means "We take whatever we're given once they've got no reason to give us anything"...and he stops me again...

"We'll have no MONEY. They won't let use the Euro."

And I don't get it, and the rest of the journey is blathered on some stuff about how thankfully he knows that the SNP aren't like the BNP...which I suppose is progress.  (He's a young Muslim guy)

And I write a wee piece where I mention this conversation last night, and retire to bed happy that I've made, I think, some reasonable points...been my usual smart-ass self...then I wake up this morning at 5am and say:

"Christ, he thinks that if we vote YES we won't have any bank notes..."

And I wish I had him back so I could shake him: "Jeepers, man, you're right! If only we had things in this country called...maybe we could call them...BANKS...who do things like PRINT BANK NOTES!  Oh wait...we've got three.  Most countries, like China and Germany, have only got one...we've got a two hundred per cent surplus of the fucking things..."

I think it's worth a broadcast.  See if we lose this vote because people think there won't be any currency at all...

Got to do the dumb-ass thing.