Davis Cup photos, or 'Entering the Lair of the Union Jack'

If you caught any of the TV coverage of Friday's rather wonderful session of the Davis Cup match between Great Britain and the USA, you'll have heard the Scot Goes Pop horn going into overdrive for Andy Murray and James Ward.  That's not a creepy euphemism - I was given a free horn when I arrived at the venue, and as a result I made my presence well and truly felt.

Now, obviously entering a "Deepest Fantasies of Craig Reedie" theme park in the East End of Glasgow does pose some dilemmas for a vile Cybernat such as myself.  For example...

Do I follow the instruction that came with my ticket to wear red, white and blue to show my undying devotion to all things British?  Er, probably not.

Do I proudly belt out the "national anthem", ie. God Save the Queen?  Er, probably not.

Do I stubbornly decline to see anything remotely provocative in the "let's all back the Brits in Glasgow" tweet from David Cameron that is gratuitously displayed on the big screen?  Er, probably not.

Do I resist the temptation to groan when the introduction for Andy Murray inevitably contains the dread words "seventy-seven years" and "Fred Perry"?  Er, probably not.

I had thought of getting my retaliation in first by bringing along the saltire that I bought for the closing ceremony of the Commonwealth Games, but I reckoned there was sure to be some fascistic Olympic-style ban on the flags of undesirable nations such as Scotland, and I couldn't be bothered with the hassle.  Credit where it's due, though - there were no ridiculous rules of that sort, and plenty of saltires could be seen in the crowd.  I suspect there would have been even more if people had realised it wouldn't be frowned upon.

I have to say that James Ward's epic comeback to beat John Isner was the most exciting sporting occasion I've ever witnessed in the flesh, although after the best part of five hours I was starting to think back to a quote from a female tennis player years and years ago (I don't recall who it was) after she won a ridiculously long match at Wimbledon -

"I knew I wanted to win, I just couldn't remember why."

Tweet from official BBC Sport account claims that Andy Murray and Colin Fleming are playing for the "England" team

Let's just double-check the facts here. Andy Murray is from Dunblane, and played for Scotland against England in the Aberdeen Cup team event. Colin Fleming is from Linlithgow, and won a Commonwealth Games gold medal for Scotland in the mixed doubles with his partner Jocelyn Rae. Both men speak with strong Scottish accents. And yet when they lost the third set in their Davis Cup doubles match for Great Britain about an hour ago, this was the summary from BBC Sport's Twitter account -

"Croatia take third set tie-break 8-6, but England lead 2-1."

Wow. We kind of expect that sort of geographical and political illiteracy from American news outlets, and yet we still rightly get annoyed when it happens. Indeed, when the all-Scottish curling team won Olympic gold for Great Britain in 2002, it was the BBC's own Reporting Scotland that mocked an American newspaper for describing it as an "English" triumph. I'm not quite sure how we're supposed to react when our own national broadcaster makes such an unmitigated howler. It would have been indefensible even if they had referred to a GB team wholly composed of English players as "England", but to do it when only Scottish players are on the court for GB is just breathtaking.

The tweet was swiftly deleted, but as of yet there doesn't seem to have been any apology (which frankly should have been instant and automatic).

Ah well. Let's hear it for our Scodavisians. If Murray wins his singles rubber tomorrow, then GB will be returning to the World Group courtesy of three matches won exclusively by Scottish players. It's getting to be ever more like those "British" curling teams...

* * *

There's an ICM poll on the independence referendum coming out tonight. No direct word on what it says yet, but the fact that Euan McColm and Blair McDougall went out of their way to retweet Kenny Farquharson's announcement probably isn't too promising. But let's wait and see. It's been so long since the last ICM poll on independence that it'll be difficult to draw any firm conclusions about the trend (and previous ICM polls have chopped and changed between different formats anyway).

A plea to Yahoo "UK" : would it be possible for me to check my emails without having to wade through Nat-bashing drivel from London-centric "commentators"?

As you can see from the top of the sidebar, I now mainly use a Gmail account, but I still have a Yahoo email account from years ago that I need to check fairly regularly. I'd really like to be able to do that without being forced to pass a link to a "news story" describing Alex Salmond's flag "stunt" (ie. waving the Scottish flag in celebration of the all-time greatest Scottish sporting triumph) as "childish". Or at a pinch, I'd even settle for not having to then find out that the "childish" jibe was solely based on the opinion of a single southern commentator - Ian Dunt - who knows nothing about Scotland and understands even less. Hint : the indulgence of one random man's opinion ain't "news", guys, anymore than the last piece of Scottish political "analysis" that you linked to on the Yahoo UK homepage was news.

In any case, can Dunt convincingly justify his claim that Salmond waving his country's flag was a "stunt" and "childish", when presumably Cameron's repeated breathless attempts to exploit Murray's triumph in the sacred name of Britishness were all perfectly "mature"? You won't be surprised to hear that the answer is a resounding no.

"Not so long ago Alex Salmond was considered a political genius. He outmanoeuvred his Westminster opponents at every turn, ran rings around the vestiges of talent in Hollyrood and struck the right balance of cheery bonhomie and statesmanlike vision in his TV appearances...

But yesterday's clumsy attempt to politicise Andy Murray's Wimbledon win showed the wheels coming off the Salmond bandwagon."

First of all, mate, I hope it's not too cruel of me to point out that most people who know the first thing about Scottish politics are generally aware that there's only one 'l' in the word 'Holyrood'. Secondly, are you seriously telling us that Salmond was a genius - but then he waved a flag and suddenly wasn't anymore? Do you have the faintest idea just how daft that sounds?

Oh, and by the way, if Salmond was indeed considered a genius by Mr Dunt until "not so long ago" (presumably in the halcyon pre-flag days), why did we mysteriously never see any articles on the Yahoo UK homepage telling us about that? Why were we treated to the "insight" of Mr Jeremy Warner instead?

"BBC cameras cut away just as he and his wife were unfurling a large Saltire behind David Cameron's head, amid crowds cheering the historic victory. It would have looked bad if the cameras caught him waving it, but by showing just his frantic efforts to get the flag out, it came across as particularly amateurish."

So let me get this straight - his main shortcoming was failing to hypnotise a television director? Is that what the "pros" do, Ian?

And justify the word "frantic", please. That kind of bluff to support your preferred narrative would work a hell of a lot better if we hadn't all seen the footage for ourselves.

"As Salmond insisted today, he had no control over the seating arrangements, so it wasn't a purposeful effort to photobomb the prime minister. Nevertheless, the short clip made Salmond look cheap, childish and, as Labour MP Tom Harris put it, 'naff'."

Wow. So you've found one Scot to agree with you, Ian - and he just happens to be the right-wing, constitutional reform hating, David Cameron installing, supremely ironic Downfall spoofing, teenage mother bashing, "Admin" of the Labour Hame website. Why not chuck in Duncan Hothersall and make us even more impressed?

"The Murray victory should, if anything, be a boost to the Scottish first minister. While most of the talk – including that from Murray himself – has been of the importance of a British winner in a British sporting event, it cements the impression of Scotland being a country of weight..."

Most of the talk? Would that be most of the talk from people like these who painted the streets of Dunblane in the blue and white of the saltire last September to salute Murray's US Open win? Or are you merely referring to the talk you hear from people very much like yourself, Ian, who live in exactly the same place that you do, ie. London? Or the talk from commentators in the same provincially-minded London media that you yourself are part of? If so, you've unwittingly put your finger right on the nub of this matter - a distorted and unbalanced London-centric perception was precisely the problem to which a well-placed saltire was the solution.

The acres of drivel written about Alex Salmond over the last couple of days - simply for capturing the mood of the nation by doing the most natural thing in the world - leaves only one possible conclusion to be drawn. If opponents of independence in the south of England are that desperate to find the tiniest excuse to smear the leader of the pro-independence movement, they must be profoundly scared of him.

Underground, overground, Scowimbling free, the Scowimblian of Scowimbledon Centre Court is he

When Andy Murray defeated Roger Federer in a best-of-five-set match on Wimbledon Centre Court to win Olympic gold last year, I suggested that although it might be drowned out by events elsewhere in London, in terms of pure achievement it was right up there with the greatest ever Scottish sporting moments. It was certainly one of the finest ever Scolympic accomplishments. But what we have just witnessed not only surpasses that, it might just go down as the greatest ever day in Scottish sport. It's hard to think of much else that matches it - possibly Celtic winning the European Cup with an all-Scottish team in 1967, or Allan Wells winning the blue riband athletics event at the 1980 Olympics. At the very least, though, a Scot winning the men's singles title at Wimbledon is on a par with those. And even as a curling fan, I'd probably have to concede that this is a slightly bigger deal than Eve Muirhead and co winning Scotland's second women's world championship a few months ago, although the two events in combination means we can certainly say this has already been a truly vintage year for Scottish sport!

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Here's an intriguing thought - if Scotland votes for independence next year, and Murray becomes a Scottish-registered player from 2016 onwards (he would still only be 28 or 29), how would the London media rationalise in retrospect all the stuff we've heard today about him being the first player from 'the country' to win Wimbledon in 77 years? Would they deem the rump UK to be right back to square one, with the legendary "drought" further extended? I don't ask that question in a gloating way, or even necessarily in the expectation that it will happen (there are various permutations), but there's no obvious answer. It would certainly be psychologically very difficult for them to backtrack after all this hoo-ha.

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Alas, Scottish sporting prowess has a habit of bringing out the worst in Britain's leading cat forum, as we discovered when Murray won gold last year. For obvious reasons I'm no longer your man on the spot, but you can read Mick Pork's account of what happened this time round (including his own 88th unexplained banning from the site) by clicking HERE.

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I'm not going to ruin a very special day by actually reading a blogpost with the cretinous title 'Andy Murray wins Wimbledon. This is a great day for Cameron, and the Union', but a small friendly hint for Toby Young - it can't be both of those things. It really can't. I suppose it's conceivable that it might be one or the other (although I'm struggling to see how or why), but anything that is good for Cameron must by definition be bad for 'the Union' (sniff). There is abundant evidence that support for Westminster rule in Scotland is in inverse proportion to support for the Tories in Middle England.

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You have to hand it to Alex Salmond - no-one has a greater talent for deftly capturing the mood of the nation, as he demonstrated once again by entering into the carnival atmosphere after Murray's triumph and unfurling a saltire in the Royal Box. Unsurprisingly, a few of the usual suspects weren't entirely happy about that. Prize for the most ill-judged tweet of the day goes to a chap who reckoned that what Salmond did was a bit like Nick Clegg waving a 'Yes2AV' banner at a sporting event. Yes, folks, you read that right - the Scottish national flag being waved by the political leader of Scotland in celebration of a Scottish sporting triumph is the equivalent of a referendum campaign banner. It's hard to know whether to laugh or cry. Perhaps there are some pills available that would help these people to finally "get it"? If not, they'll have to make do with explaining away why so many identical 'referendum campaign banners' were being waved enthusiastically by ordinary members of the crowd in Centre Court, not to mention on Henman Hill. Were all those people demonstrating their support for independence, rather than cheering on Murray? If so, we must be winning handily...

Of course, Salmond probably was making a point, albeit a more subtle one than the paranoid Brit Nats want to believe. If the media refuse to do their job by properly representing one of Murray's declared national identities, then the First Minister of Scotland might as well do that job for them, and he did it very effectively. I don't think any of us would begrudge English or Welsh fans for feeling that they have a stake in a triumph by a player from a fellow British nation, any more than Spaniards begrudged us for cheering on a golfer from a fellow European nation when Seve Ballesteros won his majors. But Salmond's gesture was a timely reminder to the world that Murray is, when all is said and done, a Scowimblian.

Is the painful 117-year Scowimblian drought about to end?

This is from Ethan Grant at the Bleacher Report -

"When it comes to Sunday's matchup, Djokovic and Murray are no strangers to staring each other down on opposite sides of the court. As noted by Live Tennis on Twitter, some of their matches have been legendary...

The duo last squared off at the Australian Open final, where Djokovic bested the Brit in four sets to win the first Grand Slam of the 2013 season. In doing so, Djokovic ran his head-to-head record against Murray to 11-7.

The lone meeting on grass, though, did go in Murray's favor.

The pair met in the semifinals at the Olympics, and Murray won in electrifying 7-5, 7-5 fashion. He also beat Djokovic in the 2012 U.S. Open final, but Djokovic has won the last three matches since.

Like the 77-year English drought at Wimbledon, expect that streak to end on Sunday."

Hmmm. Now I must admit that I haven't been closely following the girls' doubles, or the boys' singles, or the over-45s' invitational doubles, so I suppose it is just conceivable that some kind of 77-year "English drought" at Wimbledon will be ending today. But that sure as hell won't be happening in the men's singles final, which is being contested by a Serbian and a Scot. On the plus side, though, Andy Murray does have the chance to end an even longer drought than the presumably imaginary one suggested by Grant - he stands on the brink of becoming the first Scowimblian singles champion since Harold Mahony in 1896. Indeed, Ireland arguably have a stronger claim to Mahony (although he was born in Edinburgh), in which case Murray could be the first authentic Scowimblian singles champion ever. So quite a moment.

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I have the same thought almost every year - why is the women's singles final not played over the best of five sets, rather than three? It's such a big setpiece occasion, and yet more often than not it's over before it's even started. Even an attack of nerves as dreadful as Sabine Lisicki's would probably have eased by a third set, and we'd have had a chance to see what she was really capable of.

It's become taboo to say anything at all in defence of the very small differential in prize money that existed between men and women at Wimbledon until a few years ago, but arguably that was a perfectly rational way of reflecting the fact that the men's champion plays far more sets of tennis en route to the title. I don't really understand why the push for equality focused solely on prize money and not on the number of sets that women play, because the latter point is surely far more important in shaping public perceptions of the women's game.

I suspect the objection would be that five-set women's matches would wreak havoc with the tournament schedules, which may be a fair point - but it still isn't an excuse for leaving the final as a three-setter.

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It was refreshing that it was Garry Richardson rather than Scowimblian superstar Andy Murray that took most of the brickbats for that excruciating interview on Wednesday, although it baffles me that Richardson is still in his role of post-match interrogator after years on end of treating us to his Partridge-esque repertoire. It's also surprising that nobody (as far as I've seen) has referred in recent days to his encounter a few years back with Anna Kournikova, which was probably even worse and earned an on-air rebuke from John McEnroe. The fact that Richardson's fellow interviewer Phil Jones is such a consummate professional just brings his own shortcomings into even sharper relief.

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Were the TV commentators just being diplomatic, or did they really not notice that the engraver had made a monumental blunder by failing to leave a space between 'M.' and 'Bartoli'?

YouGov's attention to detail

I got mildly excited a few minutes ago when I checked the YouGov website and saw the words "Scottish Omnibus Survey", but it turned out to be not quite what I was expecting.  This is the breaking news - 8% of part-time workers in Scotland think that Serena Williams would beat Andy Murray in a three-set match.

It has to be said that YouGov aren't so hot on independence referendum polling at the moment, but as far as hypothetical tennis scenarios are concerned - they've got all the angles covered.  Stick with them to discover how many times female skateboarders in Glenrothes think that Elena Baltacha will be foot-faulted if she plays Urszula Radwanska in the second round of the 2015 French Open.

A tale of one Scowimblian and one Scolionian

On Saturday, Richie Gray will become the third different Scolionian in as many weeks to serve as the sole Scottish representative in the 23-man British and Irish Lions test squad.  If the fate of his two predecessors is anything to go by, he won't actually be allowed to take the field of play, in which case all 240 minutes of this year's series against Australia will have passed by without any Scottish input whatsoever.  Quite literally the only Scottish thing about this Lions test team has been the thistle on the jersey.

I haven't mentioned my misgivings about this turn of events up till now, because self-evidently this hasn't been the traditional tale of Anglocentric powers-that-be forgetting that the Celtic nations exist.  Instead we've had a New Zealander - who is the current coach of Wales and a former coach of Ireland - selecting Welsh-dominated sides that have also contained a fair smattering of English and Irish players.  At first glance, it was hard to think of any particular reason why he would be discriminating against Scottish players, other than an honest perception that they aren't good enough (which he can arguably be forgiven for based on the national side's results in recent years).

However, now that Brian O'Driscoll's sensational omission from Saturday's squad has opened the floodgates for criticisms from other parts of these islands that Gatland is effectively selecting a 'Wales + Guest Stars' team, perhaps we can at last feel emboldened to air the concerns that our Scolionians aren't getting a fair crack of the whip.  Indeed, a cynical person might almost conclude that Gatland is just randomly choosing a different token Scot to sit on the replacements bench each week, but without any real intention of bringing that player on unless it is absolutely unavoidable.

One Welsh newspaper has, to its credit, picked up on these concerns already, and even quotes a disgruntled Scotland supporter as saying he'll be supporting Australia on Saturday.  I wouldn't quite go that far, but it's certainly hard to passionately get behind a team that you have no stake in.

That said, I'm not sure Keith Wood's misty-eyed nostalgia for the days when the Lions represented a genuine blending together of four nations' strengths is entirely justified.  I had a look at the team's historical results the other day, and I was finding it increasingly hard to understand how on Earth the "legend of the Lions" ever got going in the first place - their track record really isn't that much to write home about.  Incredibly, the famous 1971 series was their one and only victory over New Zealand, and their record against the Southern Hemisphere's other traditional superpower South Africa is only marginally better.  There's no real evidence at all of the "Better Together" effect that Brit Nat politicians like to bang on about during events like the Olympics - if anything, there's some evidence that the reverse is true, with examples of individual 'Home Nations' outperforming the Lions against exactly the same opposition.  In 1983, the "worst ever Lions" were pulverised by a New Zealand team that later in the year was beaten by England at Twickenham and could only manage a draw against Scotland at Murrayfield.  And in 2001, Martin Johnson led the Lions to defeat in Australia, but two years later led a theoretically weaker England side to victory in the World Cup final against the same opposition.

*  *  *

So not a vintage year for the Scolionians whatever happens on Saturday, but by marked contrast Andy Murray is now well on his way to further cementing his place as the greatest ever Scowimblian.  Things didn't look quite so promising at about 5.30 this afternoon, so huge credit to Murray for digging himself out of what looked like an impossible hole.  Let's hope he spares our nerves on Friday, although I wouldn't bank on it!  If he manages to dodge that bullet, we can all look forward to the London media once again trotting out that age-old question - can Andy Murray become the first British player to win a Grand Slam title since Andy Murray way back in 2012?

Advantage Scotland

It's slightly mind-boggling that YouGov appear to have devoted more effort to tracking public opinion about Andy Murray's national identity than to tracking independence voting intentions (as far as I can see there hasn't been a published YouGov poll on independence VI since 2012!), but for what it's worth the figures on Murray are rather refreshing.  This is the perception of the British public as a whole, remember -

Thinking about Andy Murray, do you think of him as a Scottish sportsman or British sportsman?

Scottish 53%
British 35%

Those are fairly astounding figures a year on from the "Oh my God, he's touching OUR flag! Oh my God, he's singing OUR anthem!" moment at the Olympics. I'm not entirely sure about YouGov's spin, though -

"the polling appears to mostly contradict what many have claimed about British attitudes towards the tennis star – namely, that to non-Scottish Britons he is "Scottish when he loses and British when he wins"."

The way I would put it is that a determined - verging on embarrassing - effort by the establishment to gently extinguish Murray's Scottish identity in the public consciousness (most disgracefully by conflating his supposed 'maturing' process with a movement towards Britishness) has failed. It obviously deserved to fail, but it's still slightly surprising that it has. Probably the reason is that the hate campaign against Murray from a few years ago has come back to haunt the London media - it's a bit difficult to paint Murray as an anti-English brat and then embrace him as a True Brit icon, even with a cobbled-together 'maturing' narrative to explain away the dramatic transformation.

"Interestingly, though more people from England and Wales think of Murray as British now than in 2011, the proportion of Scots who think of Murray as Scottish has declined from 85% in 2011 to just 70% today."

That sentence doesn't make any sense. Do YouGov really believe that the other 30% of Scots don't think of Murray as Scottish? In a forced-choice question, you go with your perception of Murray's primary identity, but I'm sure virtually everyone would regard Murray as both Scottish and British, for the simple reason that he is. That will remain the case if Murray becomes a registered Scottish player post-independence. As I've pointed out many times, the word 'Britain' is not synonymous with 'whatever political state London happens to be capital city of at any given moment'.

Scotland salutes you again, Andy - this time as the champion

I've been trying to assess where Andy Murray stands now, in the wake of his sensational win over Roger Federer to secure Olympic gold. While I was actually watching the match, it seemed obvious that he was in the process of achieving something that was at least the equivalent of that elusive Grand Slam title, and yet somehow the elation doesn't seem quite as overwhelming as it would undoubtedly have been had he won Wimbledon last month. Perhaps that's simply because there are so many other events to distract us, but I still have a feeling that in a month's time we'll be back to asking "can he win his first Grand Slam?". However, regardless of what happens in the future, at least there's no longer any way that Murray's career is going to be looked back on as a failure, and that must be a huge weight off his mind. And the tennis event at the Olympics has also come of age over the last week - it's travelled a long way since the Seoul and Barcelona Games when it was regarded as a fairly pointless sideshow that half of the top players didn't even bother turning up for.

There's nothing more entertaining at moments of Scolympian triumph than observing the eager efforts of Political Betting's Tory contingent to Britify the gold medallist in question. In case you missed the fun, it went something like this -

He's touched the Union Jack! Astonishing! Look at the flag! Look at Murray! You see? No distance at all between the two! The Murray shoulder is in ACTUAL CONTACT with OUR flag! He's one of us!

He's singing the anthem! Oh my God! He's actually singing OUR anthem! OK, he's sort of mumbling it...but that'll do! He's one of us! No doubt about it!

He even knows the WORDS to the anthem! Well, he knows some of the words, anyway. At least seven of them. But nobody else knows the words to the anthem either, so that means...he's one of us! Irrefutable proof!

And he hasn't produced a claymore, started screaming "Death to the English" and attacked the Duchess of Cambridge! That's what we all expected him to do...but he hasn't! Incredible! True Brit!

Gosh, how that boy has MATURED...

For my own part, I don't possess the mind-reading talents of PB Tories, and I wouldn't presume for a moment to know what Andy Murray's views on the constitutional future of Scotland are - if, indeed, he has any such views at all. But what does seem reasonably likely is that he would be just as proud to compete for a Team Scotland at the Olympics, if such a thing came into existence. And what a supremely proud moment it would be for this entire country if Murray, as defending Olympic champion, was to carry the saltire into the stadium in Rio for its debut appearance at an opening ceremony in four years' time.

That can happen, if we make it happen. It's in our own hands.

Would you like to "upgrade" from Scot to Brit, sir?

This unwittingly revealing contribution from a Scottish Tory stalwart on Political Betting raised a smile in the early hours of this morning -

"Never mind poor Andy, well done Andy Murray for being first Brit to make it to the Wimbledon men's final in 74 years! Who said this guy was a dour Scot who didn't have any charisma, he really wanted to win this today, and for all the right reasons. And that was clear in the emotion he and family showed at the end when he lost. A Brit didn't win Wimbledon today, but Murray very clearly upgraded himself from that dour Scotsman to a true Brit as the loser on the day."

Note the effortless assumptions that Scottishness is a negative, that "Britishness" is a virtue, and that going from Scot to "Brit" constitutes an "upgrade". Pretty much the Tory mindset in a nutshell. When this was pointed out to her, she hastily redefined what she meant -

"Dour unsuccessful Scotsman = negative
But a fully committed if unsuccessful Scotsman and Brit = positive"

So adherence to the Tory version of "Britishness" is now merely an essential prerequisite for a Scot to be happy and "fully committed". Well, that's progress, I suppose.

As I touched on in my previous post, the spectacle of the last few days is a textbook example of how what the London media call "Britishness" is in reality Greater Englishness. How else can we explain the assumption that Andy Murray's success was somehow part of the same sporting canon as the English World Cup victory in 1966, and the English Rugby World Cup victory in 2003? A few weeks ago, Ed Miliband claimed that "it stands to reason" that Scots could no longer be British in an independent Scotland. The obvious inference to draw is that he takes it as read that "Britain" is whatever country London happens to be capital city of. Hardly surprising - many do.

In many ways, then, the independence referendum will be more about reclaiming Britishness than about reclaiming Scottishness. It'll be about decoupling Britishness from "state that London is capital city of" nationalism, and insisting that Britain belongs to all Britons. It isn't a London brand name - an independent state with its capital in Edinburgh will be every bit as much a British nation as an independent state with its capital in London. Norway didn't cease to be a Scandinavian nation when it declared independence from Stockholm.

Scotland salutes you, Andy

Well done to Andy Murray for giving it a right good go today. I was a bit worried that the match was going to be another anti-climax after the huge build-up, but no-one can doubt that Murray stepped up to the mark this time. And although it's not much consolation at the moment, I've always felt that in an ideal world it would be more fitting if he won his elusive first Grand Slam at Melbourne or New York, well away from the annual circus of trying to bludgeon him into maximal "Britishness" (aka Greater Englishness). I literally burst out laughing when the TV coverage commenced with Kenneth Wolstenholme's commentary from the 1966 World Cup final - I trust even some of our unionist friends were raising their eyebrows at such a grossly inappropriate choice. Admittedly there was a compilation of Scottish sporting highlights later, but it felt tokenistic in comparison.

Murray is of course a British player - Scottish players are registered as British for every tournament other than the Commonwealth Games. But that could change. After what happened with Peter Nicol a decade ago, we perhaps shouldn't make any assumptions about which country Murray would choose to represent in a post-independence scenario (he does have an English granny, after all). If he did go with Scotland, however, what a moment of pride it would be for this country as he stepped onto the Centre Court of Wimbledon in 2016 as a fully-fledged, Scottish-registered player.

Last but not least, congratulations to Federer - it hasn't been mentioned much yet, but among the other records he's broken, he's just become the first player over the age of 30 to win Wimbledon since Arthur Ashe in 1975.

History beckons : can Andy Murray win Wimbledon for NATO?

Dare we bring ourselves to hope? NATO's Andy Murray is now just one game away from ending the alliance's seemingly endless wait for another Wimbledon champion. When the North Atlantic's finest sealed victory with a successful Hawkeye challenge, Spanish television put in perspective what is really at stake in Sunday's final by cutting to a statue of Rafael Nadal - the last NATO player to win at SW19 way back in 2010. From the Yukon Territory to Anatolia, citizens of the alliance will be united in hoping that Murray can bring the years of heartache to a close.

And to add a little spice to the occasion, the final will be the mouthwatering NATO v EFTA showdown we all longed to see. EFTA itself is in raptures after seeing one of its sons reach the final for the first time since 2009. General Secretary Kåre Bryn will be marking the occasion by flying the EFTA and Swiss flags together outside his office, although there have been some mischievous suggestions that Mr Federer will "just be Swiss if he loses".

Poll : Would devo max bring independence closer?

In a recent guest post at Better Nation, Craig Gallagher cited Joan McAlpine and myself as two of the rare nationalist subscribers to the "A-ha paradigm". Clearly this wasn't intended as a compliment, but nevertheless I did briefly entertain the idea of embracing my hard-won reputation by changing the name of this blog to Knowing Me, Knowing You - A-HA!, or On That Bombshell, or something else Alan Partridge-related. (Ideally I would have gone for Bigamy At Christmas, but alas, that was Tony Ferrino.)

Leaving aside the question of whether Craig was right or wrong about me, I think he was bang on the money on one point - namely that the unionist camp simply don't 'get' what it is about devo max that many nationalists find attractive. There does seem to be a genuine belief that nationalists are so obsessed with independence that anything short of that can't possibly be of any interest, except as a stepping-stone to independence itself. Unionists are perhaps projecting their own narrow-minded assumptions onto us - after all, it's only a few weeks since Ed Miliband declared that Britishness would lose all meaning outside the context of a political state that has London as its capital. So maybe they instinctively assume we must feel the same, and that without a Scottish state our cause is a total failure. Not so. We're Scots now and always have been, with or without the political structures to match. And if we knew for certain that independence was never going to happen, there can't be many of us who would shrug our shoulders and say that it doesn't matter what degree of autonomy we have within the United Kingdom. Of course devo max is well worth having for its own sake, regardless of whether it would bring independence closer.

And it's not at all clear whether it would or wouldn't. I've always felt that Margaret Ewing was right in the 1990s when she dismissed the "Big Bang Theory" of the SNP fundamentalists. Some kind of Scottish Parliament was probably an essential first step if independence was going to happen. But would a parliament that has virtually all the powers of a sovereign state lead people to think that independence isn't necessary, or would they think "well, there's no harm in taking the final step now"? Without sucking it to see, we can only guess.

So that's what I'm inviting you to do in today's poll. From a purely tactical point of view, do you think devo max would bring independence closer, or not? You'll find the voting form at the top of the sidebar, and the poll will close in a couple of days.

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Some of you might remember an article by Gerry Hassan a couple of years ago, in which he claimed that the idea that English sports commentators still go on about 1966 is a figment of our imagination, and that the only people obsessed with the subject are in fact Scottish football fans.

Ahem. Gerry, allow me to present to you Exhibit Y - Chris Bradnam's commentary on the Andy Murray tennis match just a few hours ago...

"And as we look at Sir Bobby Charlton, it's 66 points apiece in the match."

I'm not making this up. He actually said that. In fact, given the circumstances, it seems all but certain that the production team realised in advance there was a chance that the overall points tally was going to reach 66 each, and lined up the shot of Bobby Charlton for precisely that eventuality.

Future Chris Bradnam commentary -

"Geoff Hurst in the crowd there. Coincidentally, the last rally contained nineteen strokes, and we're now sixty-six minutes into the match."

"Great to see Jack Charlton cheering on Andy today. Funnily enough, my co-commentator Lindsay Davenport was born in 1976, and the mathematicians among you will already have spotted how significant that is if you subtract just one decade."

All he has to do is throw in a "that night in Barcelona" at some point, and the search for Clive Tyldesley's natural successor will be at an end.

Come on, Tim!

Hard lines to Andy Murray for losing out at the semi-final stage again, although the first set offered a glimpse of what could have been possible.  I don't know about anyone else, but I'm getting slightly sick of London media people saying "of course he's never going to win Wimbledon, we went through this every year with Tim Henman".  Firstly, that's disrespectful to the consummate professional Henman, whose achievements were light-years ahead of any other English or British player for decades.  Secondly, it's monumentally silly to still be framing Murray as "just another Henman" in the year that he reached his third Grand Slam final - Henman never reached any.

The main consolation of the result yesterday is that if Murray does ever make the ultimate breakthrough, I'd actually quite like it to happen away from Wimbledon and everything that goes with it - the "come on, Tim" brigade, and the onlooking "as long as he wins, I'm British for the day" aristocracy (of both the literal and sporting varieties). Why should one of the greatest Scottish sporting triumphs of all-time be entirely reduced to the tedious billing "first Briton to win Wimbledon since Fred Perry"?  No, let's see it happen in New York this September, or Melbourne next January - the surfaces there suit Murray's game better anyway.

Makes you proud to be British...

The last twenty-four hours have been a rare feast for Scottish sport, with Andy Murray reaching his third Grand Slam final, and John and Sinead Kerr winning a bronze medal in the ice dance competition at the European Figure Skating Championships. It's probably fair to say that the latter achievement is somewhat less well-known, in spite of the fact that it's only the second medal Great Britain have won in the championships since Torvill and Dean's fleeting return to competition in 1994. It's more than a little bemusing that millions love skating so much that they would never dream of missing ex-soap stars and cricketers "walking on ice" live on TV every Sunday night, but it would never occur to them to actually take an interest in the talent on display in a major championship.

Also rather galling (as I've observed before) is the uncanny habit Scottish success stories have of occurring in sports where we compete under the GB banner. At least the TV tennis commentators seem to have noticed Andy Murray is Scottish - the Eurosport figure skating commentators, by contrast, must have called the Kerrs "the Brits" about a thousand times last night, which particularly jarred when the host Swiss broadcaster repeatedly zoomed in on the large saltire in the front row. Even just one passing reference to their Scottishness would have been nice. Shouldn't criticise too much, though - at least Chris Howarth and Nicky Slater are always brimming with enthusiasm and positivity, whereas Robin Cousins' commentary for the BBC never fails to remind me of a trip to the headmaster's office.

Scotland's new Rae of sunshine

What with Scotland's travails on the football and rugby pitch over the last decade or so, I'm sure many of us would happily settle for a national renaissance in just about any high-profile sport. The bitter irony, of course, is that in a sense we've had exactly that in tennis, but it's been entirely under the enforced camouflage of the Union Jack. Andy Murray even absurdly ended up having to distance himself slightly from his own Scottishness, in an effort to defuse the synthetic anger over his lighthearted "anyone but England" comment.

But, at last, the debut of tennis in the Commonwealth Games seemed to offer a fleeting chance for the golden generation of Scottish tennis to shine under their own flag. Well, it did, but understandably Andy Murray had other priorities. And Elena Baltacha withdrew because of health concerns. And Jamie Murray turned up, but without his form. Who'd have thought we'd have enough strength in depth to win a gold medal in spite of all that? Step forward Davis Cup stalwart Colin Fleming, and the virtually unknown Jocelyn Rae.

It's of course dangerous to heap too much expectation on any promising young sportsman or woman, but as the decisive force on the court tonight, and with an evidently superb temperament, the 19-year-old Rae looks like a genuine star in the making.

Rusedski urges GB to join the wildcard swap shop

Last night on Sky's coverage of the US Open, Greg Rusedski explained to a confused Annabelle Croft why French player Virginie Razzano had been granted a wildcard entry into the draw of America's Grand Slam. It turns out that three of the four countries that host Grand Slams (Britain is the exception) swap wildcards for their tournaments, so that middling French players can have a crack at the US Open, Aussies can get into the French Open, and so on. Rusedski emphasised that this is a 'GOOD THING' and urged Britain to join in, instead of hording the Wimbledon wildcards for mediocre British players. Of course, what he means is that it's a good thing from the entirely self-interested point of view of the countries lucky enough to have Grand Slams - given that players can often gain a substantial boost in the world rankings from a wildcard if they go on to win a match or two, I can't believe the rest of the world thinks it's that great a system. Indeed, the fact that France's inbuilt advantage even extends to a tournament beyond its shores simply underscores the unfairness.

Would a Murray loss send the Mirror homewards tae think again?

On the morning of Andy Murray's date with destiny (or the latest one) it's hard not to be impressed by the Mirror's unashamed desperation in its attempts to recast Andy Murray not merely as a True Brit, but as one of Merrie England's very own sons! In an article entitled 'Flower of England', the paper explains -

"Andy Murray may support "anyone but England" in the football but new research reveals his roots lie south of the border.

As the Scots tennis ace powered into the Wimbledon semi-final, genealogy experts traced his roots to England.

Website TheGenealogist.co.uk has discovered Andy's maternal grandmother was born to English parents from York and Berwick-upon-Tweed."

Hmmm. Would that, by any chance, be the same English granny that Murray has repeatedly said he is so fond of, and referred to at length in a newspaper article to try to defuse the synthetic outrage over "anyone but England" when the likes of the Mirror first started to witter on about it? What astonishing discoveries will this crack team of historical investigators turn up next - that there was a wee bit of a stooshie in Europe between the years 1939 and 1945?

The other obvious question is how the Mirror will react when Nadal extinguishes Murray's dream later today (pessimism keeps me sane). Will they reveal that further research has been urgently carried out, and it transpires that three of Murray's grandparents are, in fact, not English?

Weakest joke of the evening from the Eurovision hosts

I imagined myself being here all night trying to work that one out, but then Zeljko and Jovana came up with this, which I think is without question in a league all of its own -

"Give me five."
(She gives him high-five)
"No, I meant five envelopes."

And what on earth was Jovana wittering on about when she told Novak Djokovic that he was facing brighter lights in the hall than he would in Paris? Did no-one think to point out to her that they tend to play the French Open in daylight hours?