Your verdicts are emphatic : Tommy Sheridan should NOT be ostracised, and we should remain in the EU

As you'll probably have seen days ago, these were the final results of the two readers' polls I ran at the weekend...

Should the pro-independence movement ostracise Tommy Sheridan?

Yes : 135 votes (18.3%)
No : 604 votes (81.7%)

In the EU referendum, will you vote to 'Remain' or 'Leave'?

Remain : 651 votes (86.3%)
Leave : 103 votes (13.7%)

Apologies to anyone who was unable to vote because the polls were already closed.  If I'd known it was going to take me until the middle of week to post the results, I'd have left them open for much longer than 24 hours!

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It's almost reassuring to discover that the No2AV campaign was not (quite) the most disreputable campaign in the entire history of democratic politics.  Ladies and gentlemen, let me present to you the "No Men in Women's Bathrooms" campaign, which has just emerged victorious in the city of Houston.  You're way ahead of me here - the proposition that voters were deciding on had little or nothing to do with allowing men in women's bathrooms (the word "bathroom" wasn't even mentioned), but was instead a very broad anti-discrimination law.  Apparently, the No campaign's deception was so successful that polling evidence showed a large percentage of voters truly believed that they were voting on a straight choice between allowing men in women's bathrooms, and not allowing men in women's bathrooms.  Even the official victory rally was plastered with the slogan "No Men in Women's Bathrooms".

If this sort of thing wasn't so tragic, it would be hysterically funny.  It kind of is anyway.

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Just to give everyone fair warning, I'm resigning myself to the likelihood of having to run a third fundraiser soon.  I had hoped and expected that I could hold off for a while longer, which would have been a lot better, because it would have given me the opportunity of working out exactly what my plans are, what the purpose of the fundraiser is, exactly what timescale it will cover, etc, etc.  But a few random events that I hadn't budgeted for have suddenly caught up with me.   Daft though it may sound, one of them was getting stranded on Arran last month because of fog, which cost me a small fortune in accommodation (I had to book an expensive twin room because it seemed to be the only room left in the whole of Brodick), food and transport the next day.

So the objectives of the fundraiser may have to be slightly vaguer this time, although you can rest assured that I won't dream of running a fourth one until you've had your money's worth.  Even so, fans of "hypothecation" may not approve!

It seemed to me there was an organised "concern trolling" attempt to sabotage the second fundraiser last autumn.  It didn't succeed, but I still found it very upsetting, because the comments were essentially questioning my sincerity and commitment just days after the independence referendum.  For the sake of my own sanity (and probably everyone else's), I'll be deleting any suspicious comments this time as soon as I see them.