iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

Alex Johnstone @alexjohnstone01.bsky.social · 13/09/2026

City’s goal, while funny them beating United down to ten men, is an absolute farce. How Enzo Fernandez is not deemed offside there is insane. He’s influenced Martinez clearing the ball from an offside position.

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Alex Johnstone @alexjohnstone01.bsky.social · 14/08/2026

Incredibly sad news around Jason Arday. As a @theguardian.com subscriber I have to say the coverage these last couple of weeks has been over the top to say the least. That poor man has been hounded to this point by an unrelenting, uncaring press, both Liberal & Conservative leaning

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Alex Johnstone @alexjohnstone01.bsky.social · 30/07/2026

That’s UEFA statement is brilliant. Either Infantino backs down or FIFA as we know it will end up destroyed, which would be no loss.

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Alex Johnstone @alexjohnstone01.bsky.social · 11/07/2026

It’s just such a waste. What a daft celebration

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Alex Johnstone @alexjohnstone01.bsky.social · 28/06/2026

Crazy that if we’d beaten Haiti 5 nil; and all the other results were the same, we’d still of been knocked out on positive 1 goal difference.

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Alex Johnstone @alexjohnstone01.bsky.social · 28/06/2026

Thank you Steve Clarke. He has been the best manager of my lifetime and possibly ever, but this is the right time to go. So many great night outweigh the negatives, cheers 🍻

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Alex Johnstone @alexjohnstone01.bsky.social · 06/06/2026

“Russia is losing more men than it can recruit” - struggle to see how NATO chiefs could see this situation potentially continuing in Ukraine, while suggesting that Russia could continue re-arm and be in a more powerful position to threaten Nato in 2029/2030. Hard to do that with a injured/dead army

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Alex Johnstone @alexjohnstone01.bsky.social · 06/06/2026

Fair number of mental gymnastics required here to square the logic. “Trump as a moderating influence on Putin” The USA has withdrawn significant levels of both military & financial support to Ukraine - this has encouraged Putin to continue the “Special Military Operation” not moderated it.

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Alex Johnstone @alexjohnstone01.bsky.social · 01/06/2026

Graffiti not far from The Tenement House, Glasgow 👍🏴󠁧󠁢󠁳󠁣󠁴󠁿👍

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Alex Johnstone @alexjohnstone01.bsky.social · 21/05/2026

This Space X IPO document is wild, like the worst excesses of the 1920s or the late 1990d but potentially even more ridiculous. Price will likely skyrocket too on launch due to the restricted demand of free floated shares available but it’s all built on nonsense. Pie in the sky

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Alex Johnstone @alexjohnstone01.bsky.social · 26/03/2026

All veto’d in part I’d bet, by a UK govt having a deference to American reticence over Chinese involvement. I don’t subscribe to this “west is best” doctrine, especially when you have this particular US administration in power

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Alex Johnstone @alexjohnstone01.bsky.social · 26/03/2026

Never mind the fact that Ardersier and the wider Highland community could really do with the manufacturing jobs but in this moment in particular, of energy security driven by disorder in the Middle East, the ability to mass produce lower priced turbines at scale could have been really useful.

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Alex Johnstone @alexjohnstone01.bsky.social · 18/01/2026

Cannot stand NIMBYs but especially cannot stand left wing ones such As this www.bbc.co.uk/news/article... “Semi-rural” is doing some heavy lifting by the journalist here too 😂 If you build more houses you will increase supply, the interaction between demand and supply will reflect the price.

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Alex Johnstone @alexjohnstone01.bsky.social · 03/01/2026

It’s really handy that international law allows you the scope to bomb a capital city with no declaration of war & just kidnap the leadership.

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Alex Johnstone @alexjohnstone01.bsky.social · 14/12/2025

Kasper Schmeichel must absolutely have nightmares about Hampden now 🥰

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Alex Johnstone @alexjohnstone01.bsky.social · 17/11/2025

Genuine outside chance that we win a majority next year on 35-38% of the vote. Reform is taking more votes from the Tories & Labour than from the SNP, we aren’t that popular either, but “de-fault” is the two sweetest words in the English language

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Alex Johnstone @alexjohnstone01.bsky.social · 15/11/2025

If we make those level of chances, at home, versus Denmark, my gosh we have a chance. A very decent chance. We’ve rode our luck this campaign but we have good players - it’s still on (somehow) CMON SCOTLAND

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Alex Johnstone @alexjohnstone01.bsky.social · 15/11/2025

Too many players are far too complacent in our team. They are good players but far too many just get picked regardless of form: Hanley, Robbo, McTominay, McGinn especially, no one should be able to just coast through games & we do that so, so often. We need to wake up

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Alex Johnstone @alexjohnstone01.bsky.social · 12/11/2025

Very much looking forward to listening to this later today.

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Alex Johnstone @alexjohnstone01.bsky.social · 08/11/2025

Pretty amazing access that Tom has got there, a really fascinating read. Reminds me a bit of the Big Short scene when they realise that the sellers are openly bragging about dodgy deals and morally dubious dealings (that aren’t necessarily illegal)

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Alex Johnstone @alexjohnstone01.bsky.social · 31/10/2025

Just more SNP failure isn’t it, turning Scotland into the UK region with the highest performing productivity 😂 www.theguardian.com/business/202...

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Alex Johnstone @alexjohnstone01.bsky.social · 26/10/2025

Not a Hearts fan but cheered their goals today, desperate to see anyone other than Rangers or Celtic win the league, 40 years, longer than I’ve been on this earth, is a ridiculous timeframe of dominance from two teams.

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Alex Johnstone @alexjohnstone01.bsky.social · 13/10/2025

I’ve just seen “A TAKE” that says that they would rather us not qualify if we are going to stink the place out. Take a hard look at yourself. 100% I’d take those performances in games over Greece & Belarus if you guarantee me the win. Football doesn’t work that way though, no guarantees

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Alex Johnstone @alexjohnstone01.bsky.social · 13/10/2025

I want us to play better & was one of the moaners & groaners last night at times (though I didn’t boo a win ffs) but I’m annoyed as we know we can do better & I want us to do better. Performances have to improve in November and in Athens/home to Denmark we can’t just ride our luck but….

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Alex Johnstone @alexjohnstone01.bsky.social · 02/10/2025

This is why I think the stock market in the US will crash, pretty much the majority of folk getting any use form AI right now are the utter weirdo’s and wrong-ins. That’s not a way to build a profitable business in the long run

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Alex Johnstone @alexjohnstone01.bsky.social · 25/09/2025

The B team experiment in the challenge cup isn’t going too well, while the mighty Caley Jags are romping the first phase I wonder if this will bring benefits to the young boys of the 10 Prem sides, as they are being hammered by League One & League Two teams Championship teams arrive next round

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Alex Johnstone @alexjohnstone01.bsky.social · 25/09/2025

Maybe he’s just channeling his inner man inside him youtu.be/Po4adxJxqZk?...

youtu.be

But it might work for us!

YouTube video by Jesse Clark

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Alex Johnstone @alexjohnstone01.bsky.social · 24/09/2025

The only thing I would say in support of this that if you have to go above 32, then you should go in a multiple of 32. The “best” third place teams getting through the group with the 48 team format doesn’t sit well with me. Not a fan of it in the Euros either. 64 can at least can go: 32/16/8/4/2

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Alex Johnstone @alexjohnstone01.bsky.social · 13/09/2025

This is a great win for the Caley Jags. Very poor match overall but it’s a long season and these are the sort of games we have to win if we want Inverness back to where we should be, at the very least, the Scottish Championship

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Alex Johnstone @alexjohnstone01.bsky.social · 12/09/2025

I think the hype afforded to any youngster showing an ounce of promise in the EPL does lead to tonnes of kids being exposed to too much scrutiny far too young I really like that Scotland are now seeing players move to Italy allowing them develop outwith the goldfish bowl of the EPL.

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Alex Johnstone @alexjohnstone01.bsky.social · 12/09/2025

Just listened to Roy Keane’s take on the Irish National team on the latest episode of Stick to Football & I just remembered a YouTube video that was recommended to me 2 years ago via the algorithm The golden generation secret is so secret that not only do the fans don’t know, neither do the players

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Alex Johnstone @alexjohnstone01.bsky.social · 11/09/2025

Or the reception Margaret Thatcher received at the 1988 Scotland Cup Final - both sets of fans loudly booked her and waved red flags at her

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Alex Johnstone @alexjohnstone01.bsky.social · 31/08/2025

This is very long and goes into many different threads but I starting watching it yesterday and had to finish it today, expertly researched and incredibly hard hitting video essay youtu.be/QwpanShgOp4?...

youtu.be

The Unforgivable Sin of Ms Rachel

YouTube video by Lindsay Ellis

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Alex Johnstone @alexjohnstone01.bsky.social · 28/08/2025

Listening to Hibs on Sportscene, sounds like a great game, really invested in wanting Hibs to go through, pretty sick of Scottish glorious failure. You could see this Hibs team getting through the league stage if they win tonight. David Gray has done some job

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Alex Johnstone @alexjohnstone01.bsky.social · 14/08/2025

That’s not considering that different policy choices & the requirement to operate more “cannily” as a small independent state, would see a divergence of the structure of the current Scottish economy under the UK in the event of independence. But the fiscal position is not insurmountable

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Alex Johnstone @alexjohnstone01.bsky.social · 14/08/2025

Debt ran up by the British state, which is a state that has been badly mismanaged & defence spending - £13.6billion that are the two main drivers of the notional deficit of Scotland - take these two out and it’s broadly a country that can tax its citizens to afford the standard of spending as now

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Alex Johnstone @alexjohnstone01.bsky.social · 14/08/2025

The only comparable example of a section of the British state leaving was the Republic of Ireland, politics & defence considerations directly affected the level of actual debt paid by the state, with the continuation state being the ultimate debtor publisher-prod65.cliffordchance.com/content/dam/...

publisher-prod65.cliffordchance.com

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Alex Johnstone @alexjohnstone01.bsky.social · 14/08/2025

This deal would involve Scotland not becoming a member of NATO, nor committing to spend at the current proportion of its revenue on defence. Switzerland spends 0.76% of GDP on defence, that would be around £700 million for an independent Scotland, a notional deficit reduction of £4.4 billion!

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Alex Johnstone @alexjohnstone01.bsky.social · 14/08/2025

Scotland “owns” a proportional percentage of the assets of the British state, such as militarily equipment. We’d likely forego assets such as these in return for a deal over debt. This would also likely see the continuation of the Faslane as a “leased” base for a generation.

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Alex Johnstone @alexjohnstone01.bsky.social · 14/08/2025

The reserved function categories though clearly would not have the level of spending afforded to them if Scotland was independent. Scotland could not afford to pay £5.1 billion on defence. In fact, it would be likely that a political deal would be done with rUK over the assets of the British state

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Alex Johnstone @alexjohnstone01.bsky.social · 14/08/2025

Take this section in particular. If you add in the oddly bolder capital spending section “missed out” you get a total social security & capital spend of 94.4 billion versus revenues of 94.1 billion - a ‘deficit’ here then of £300 million

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Alex Johnstone @alexjohnstone01.bsky.social · 14/08/2025

The latest GERS report coverage by The Fraser of Allander institute is good fraserofallander.org/gers-reactio... I do always think that the key to understanding Scotland’s fiscal position now is the acknowledgement that policy choices can (and would change) in the advent of independence

fraserofallander.org

GERS: deficit widens due to higher devolved spending | FAI

The estimates of Scotland’s net fiscal balance are out for 2024-25. As we previewed on Friday, there was deterioration of the fiscal balance…

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Alex Johnstone @alexjohnstone01.bsky.social · 16/07/2025

I did love the part when the woman at the end that they could of just chopped down any other tree in Cumbria, so she’s not against tree chopping in general, just this particular tree. People have lost their collective minds. 4 years in prison is utter lunacy

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Alex Johnstone @alexjohnstone01.bsky.social · 09/07/2025

I find it odd that in 3 out of the 4 countries of the UK there exists nationalist movements yet in the largest country there exists little political expression of “Englishness” even though by the figures produced by the govt the removal of the Celtic fringe would reap tangible financial benefits

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Alex Johnstone @alexjohnstone01.bsky.social · 09/07/2025

Scotland’s apparent budget deficit for 2023/2024 is £22.7billion www.gov.scot/news/governm... so by just allowing Scotland to become independent this would lower the deficit to a level higher than any wealth tax would take in. I do find it odd that no English politician argues this point.

gov.scot

Government Expenditure & Revenue Scotland 2023-24

An Accredited Official Statistics Publication for Scotland.

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Alex Johnstone @alexjohnstone01.bsky.social · 02/07/2025

So weird that Reform may potentially form the official opposition at Holyrood in less than a year and yet I wouldn’t be able to tell you the name of (or even if they have one?) the Reform Scottish leader. I do think the one man band of Farage is a wrecking ball that may tear down Labour’s hopes

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