Locked out

Image by Freepik.com

If articles here have been a bit sparse of late, there are three reasons. Four if you count my inclination to laziness. Firstly, there is just the lack of anything new to say on Scotland’s constitutional issue and politics in general. This seems strange given that there is an election only a few weeks away. There should be plenty of things worthy of analysis and commentary. But I get the sense that the outcome of that election is already etched in stone and is essentially no change. Other than the presence of a few Reform UK MSPs, there will be little to distinguish the Scottish Parliament after the election from the one before. Another SNP administration bumbling along for five years while doing precisely nothing to further Scotland’s cause.

A lot of people are getting themselves in a lather about the presence of Reform UK in the Scottish Parliament. I don’t know why. It’s just another British party squatting in our parliament. They may be a bit nastier than the other British parties, but that could be a good thing. Whereas previously the British parties were able to present a united front against independence, the presence of Reform UK will divide them. None of the old British parties will want to be associated with Farage’s mob.

If Reform’s divisive presence is a good thing, then it is surely the only good thing that is going to come out of the election. This is heartbreaking for those of us who recognised the potential for 2026 Holyrood election to be the trigger for a process leading to a proper constitutional referendum and independence. You might think we should be inured to the squandering of opportunities by now. But it provokes the same frustration, anger, and resentment it always has.

There’s a limit to the number of times one can refer to this wasted opportunity without coming across as monomaniacal. It may be better not to write at all than to be constantly bemoaning the same failures and failings of the nominally pro-independence parties and the independence movement in general.

Then there are my various health issues. Yesterday, for example, I hardly had time to get online as I had to attend Perth Royal Infirmary (PRI) for knee and hip X-rays in the morning, and in the afternoon it was off to the Community Care & Treatment Centre at Drumhar where I’m being treated for leg ulcers. That happens twice a week. Next up will be a trip to Ninewells to see a dermatologist about the eczema I’ve developed for the first time in my life. I’m not complaining about these things. I’m glad to have such medical care available at no charge. But it takes big chunks out of the week when I might otherwise be banging away at this keyboard.

Incidentally, this is why the Proud Malcontent podcast hasn’t restarted as intended. Something like that demands a commitment of time on a regular basis, and I just can’t do that, at the moment.

Another thing that has come between me and my ‘work’ this past couple of weeks is my effort to de-Americanise my virtual life. I am trying as much as possible to use European free and open-source (FOSS) apps and Europe-based services. I’ve switched to Brave browser rather than Chrome, for example. I’ve also installed AtlasOS, which magically transforms Windows 11 into the operating system you always wanted it to be. All this takes time. Especially given the quite ridiculous number of computers I use. But I reckon it’s worth the effort. Installing AtlasOS is particularly time-consuming. But the difference it makes has to be experienced to be believed.

Inevitably, there have been cock-ups along the way. Some time ago, I switched my email, calendar, and cloud drive from Google to Proton. Then I decided I might as well also change to the Proton Pass password manager instead of Bitwarden and the Proton Authenticator instead of Google Authenticator. That is where things went seriously wrong. I somehow managed to delete all the accounts in Google Authenticator while failing to import them to Proton. I use 2-factor authentication (2FA) a lot. I basically locked myself out of a couple of dozen sites and services with a single keystroke. Not bad, eh?

Not good either. In a couple of cases—Proton and X—technical support was able to reset the 2FA so I could maintain access. There’s a lot more that I haven’t even attempted to recover. Some of them I’m not bothered about. With some, creating a new account is an acceptable solution. In at least one case, the cost of my clumsiness looks like being considerable. I’m able to write this because I’ve remained logged into Substack on this machine. If I am ever logged out, I won’t be able to get back in.

Substack technical support seems unable to help. You might think that as I am logged in here, I could just go into settings and switch off 2FA. But no! In order to switch off 2FA because you’ve lost access to your authenticator, you need a code from the authenticator that you don’t have access to.

So, if the articles stop altogether, you’ll know the reason. Until then, I’m off to scour the news for something about which there is something new to be said.