Bzzt -- wrong. "National Rail" doesn't exist -- "National Rail Enquiries" is the company responsible for centrally managing and communicating train running information to the public. Network Rail is the state-owned company that operates the entire UK rail network, including Scotland. Meanwhile, ScotRail is the operating name of the rail franchise that operates trains.

I didn't realise it was that simple. I'd thought that Spain might have bigger fish to fry... such as access to Scottish waters for their fishing boats. Fishing is about the only thing of any value to their economy right now, and they're in a serious financial funk, but they'll just throw away the access they get to Scottish waters on a whim, will they?

Nope. Standard practice when countries split is that their citizens automatically become citizens of the part of the country they live in, unless they choose otherwise. A Scottish born resident of Kent would therefore not become an "immegrant"[sic -- you know there are dictionaries online these days, right?]

No, but budgetary issues have not been divorced from everything else. The devolution settlement did not result in a proper separation of concerns. With a Scottish block grant, a Welsh block grand and a Northern Irish block grant, but no English block grant, the system is completely borked.

"Your opinion" and "fact" are two very different things. The figures do not support this assertion.

We've had TV weather for decades -- it was never a problem in the past.

There are actually precious few issues that don't have knock-on effects for Scotland. The Barnett Formula allocates block grants to Wales, Northern Ireland and Scotland, and it does so based on the expenditure under the Westminster government, meaning both UK-wide politicies and England-only policies.

This means that any issue that has a price-tag attached has a knock-on effect in Scotland. When Westminster cuts budgets for the English NHS, Scotland gets less money. When Westminster cuts funding for higher education, Scotland gets less money. If Scottish, Welsh and Northern Irish MPs abstained on all English matters, the result would essentially be that the UK budget was administered by English MPs alone, and that would also be unfair.

The devolution settlement is inherently dysfunctional, but again: that's not Scotland's fault.

I think the point is that none of their bacon was marked as gluten-free, and her demand was as ridiculous as complaining that they had no "low-fat sugar" or "nut-free oregano" on their shelves.

The problem is twofold: one, while the anti-GMO absolutists are in the minority in the anti-GMO camp, they shout the loudest. Many of us don't like GMO in principle, but are willing to accept it when it solves a problem more fundamental than "people buy other people's seeds". Secondly, when the governments try to appease the anti-GMO campaigners, they go for the easy targets, which means anyone other than Monsanto.

For the people who are specifically campaigning against GMO that exists more for profit than the betterment of humanity, it is kind of infuriating to see the famine-relief efforts wiped out in our name while Monsanto gets away with breeding a monoculture in the quest for increased sales of Roundup....

This is a 3D graphic simulating a satellite view. There is no technical reason whatsoever to do it that way, purely aesthetic ones. The result is distorted information, and a large portion of the UK landmass that is so badly shrunken that it typically only gets two weather symbols. The information given is next to useless. "But... 3D! Shiny shiny!"...

How about, you know, a map? Just a nice, ordinary, flat map? The satellite's-eye-view does nothing to improve the quality or understandability of the weather report. "It's more natural," they tell us. But I've never seen the Earth from that altitude, and I doubt any of them have, so there ain't nothing natural about it.

Indeed. Interviews start with heavily editorialised leading questions like "just how bad is this for the independence campaign?" The deck has definitely been stacked in favour of the "better together" side, and when a university called them on this, the BBC basically ignored the study.

That's exactly the complaint -- they claim we've been conditioned into thinking Scotland is smaller than it actually is, and that this will make voters think we can't be independent. Currently, opinion polls still show a "no" vote as the most likely outcome of the referendum.

It would be in the UK's interest (NB: UK, not GB) for an independent Scotland to be seen as a "continuing" state rather than a "successor" state -- successor states are new countries and do not inherit debt from the parent country. As the UK would want Scotland to take a proportionate share of the debt, the UK cannot veto Scotland's membership of the EU, of NATO or of the UN.

France or Belgium might object, but Spain's stance really depends on who's in power at the time -- Rajoy has made noises against Scotland, but some of the smarter heads in Spanish politics and diplomacy have hedged their bets more, going with the Yes Scotland line that Scotland is a completely different case due to the Treaty of the Union and the Edinburgh Agreement. I say "smarter heads", because while Rajoy doesn't want Scotland to become independent and set a precedent for Catalunya to follow, these guys appreciate that accepting the Yes Scotland line means that whatever Scotland does, no precedent can or would be set.

Not to mention some of the Spanish fleet's most productive fishing grounds. The last thing Spain needs at the moment is more unemployed people trying to claim benefits.

You mean UK nationalism? Like all the "rule Britannia, better together" nationalism?

There have been about 2 general elections where the Scottish vote would have made a difference, and in both of those the difference was between a hung parliament and an outright majority. "Labour can't win without Scotland" is a myth.