PHOTO OPPORTUNITY

It took me a good few hours to cool off after hearing of my Cabinet's incompetent handling of the 16 - 17 year old voters but my mood was lifted by a carefully planned visit to an environment where the the collective IQ was going to be a lot higher than in the cabinet room yesterday afternoon.

Yes, it was time for Scotland's Great Leader to visit those powerhouses of Free Caledonian tourism, the Chinese pandas Sunshine and Sweetie.

By God how I could do with a couple like that in my Yes Campaign. No calls for a separate currency; no enfranchising an age group which are overwhelmingly opposed to independence and no berating the  Managing Director of West Coast Buses for running a shi**y bus service.

These two just sit there eating bamboo and stare vacantly into space. Professor Stiglitz take note.

At the same time I was posing for photos with the massive headed duo, I'd agreed to let Princess Nicola and Monaco tax exile Jim McBlowhard go head to head with the leading lights of the Tory Unionist Westminster Junta.

Princess Nicola was debating Alistair Darling on the currency issue. Never a good idea. But who else was there? 

Meanwhile, McBlowhard was met by a room full of quizzical looks when he suggested to the audience that independence actually meant that Scotland would still be in the UK.  Now I've stretched the boundaries of logical argument a few times in my illustrious career (claiming that the UK would bow to my every demand on a sterling zone for example) but this was plain fantasy. Fantasy turned to farce when he then claimed that the tax on his car in Monaco was rather high.The sooner he's back in Monaco with Craig Whyte and his tax averse pals the better.

As for Princess Nicola, I'm afraid it was the usual mess. Putting on her fake stutter, she chuntered on about how it would be "incredible" for rUK to reject a currency union whilst the ex chancellor simply pointed out that the £ would be under the complete control of rUK and it it would be they who would dictate the terms of any approved currency union to a divorcing partner who accounts for only 10% of UK GDP. A lamb to the slaughter. 

And that's exactly why I chose to be here at Edinburgh Zoo with my two new acquiescent pals.

I wonder if there's room in there for three?