And here they are, they're so appealing...

Tonight at 7pm, my appeal hearing against expulsion from the Alba Party will take place, but my preparations have been interrupted by a bit of unexpected drama.  I was out walking near my home yesterday in a place that used to be very popular with dog walkers, but has become much harder to get to in recent years, so very few people go there now.  I probably hadn't been there myself for at least a year.  I found a sheep that was hopelessly tangled up in...well, I'm not quite sure what the correct terminology is, but branches and jaggedy bushy stuff.  I tried to free it myself but couldn't.  It suddenly dawned on me that because dog walkers don't go there anymore, there was an 80% chance that nobody would find it in time unless I made a phone call.  So I left a message on the answerphone of the farm where I thought the sheep must have come from, and then I phoned the SSPCA, who sent an officer around but they couldn't find the sheep.   They assumed the farmer had probably got to it first, but they told me to phone back if I was out walking again and it was still there.

So today I went back down there to doublecheck, assuming the sheep would be long gone, but it was still there and still trapped.  I phoned the SSPCA back, but I got very unlucky with the person who answered the call, and a frustrating five minutes ensued.  She was suffering from what I now call "McEleny Syndrome" after my experience of dozens of Alba committee meetings.  Because the written report from yesterday said that the sheep was no longer there, she was insistent that was the reality of the situation, even though I was standing at the exact spot and telling her it wasn't true.  "I'm not sure there's much more we can do" she said, "the location has been checked and the animal wasn't there".  Eventually I got exasperated enough with her that she said she'd pass the message on to an officer.  I didn't have any huge confidence that anything would actually happen, but fortunately two people turned up and this time I met them and led them to the sheep.  They freed it from the branches, but as I write this they're still down there deciding on the next steps.

But anyway, tonight's the night.  So could it still be a big night, if I play my cards right?

The answer to that question is likely to be "no", because according to Yvonne Ridley's boast, she had inside information months ago that the Alba leadership had made a secret decision to get rid of me from the party, meaning the extremely lengthy "disciplinary process" that has followed has just been for show.  However, let's stay optimistic for a few hours more, and in tribute to the late great Brucie say with absolute sincerity...

"Nice to see the Appeals Committee, to see the Appeals Committee...NICE!"