It can only be a matter of time before Johann Lamont takes to signing her letters "Disgusted, Pollok".
Just the thought of Alex Salmond seems to put the Labour leader off her food.
On such occasions, her face is a picture. In Lamont's case, it's the picture of someone who has just tasted something nasty. Fresh tripe, perhaps.
That would be SNP tripe, of course, the dish that only Salmond serves and only Lamont can smell everywhere and anywhere. If you believe her, it's also the only recipe he can cook up.
The First Minister might call it his gourmet Reshuffle Special with Freedom Sauce. Lamont says it's the same old reheated tripe, unfit for consumption by sensible Unionist folk.
If she trusted the chef, she'd send the platter back to the kitchen. Lamont, not to put too fine a point on it, barely trusts the First Minister to say "Hello". In the finest traditions of Scottish dining, she replies instead, "I'm not touching that."
There's no accounting for taste, of course. There is, though, a need to explain your complaints now and then. Yesterday Lamont's own culinary skills extended no further than the making of a fine old hash.
First she wanted to say that Salmond's reshuffle was of no consequence, less a rearranging of Titanic deckchairs than "swapping the mopheads on the Vital Spark". Then she tried to say that shifting Nicola Sturgeon to a constitutional brief was bad news for the NHS.
Not so long ago, you might remember, Sturgeon was supposed to be the bad news afflicting the NHS.
Besides, the independence referendum is allegedly the centre-piece of the SNP's programme. It makes a certain sense for Salmond to entrust the job to his deputy. But Lamont wasn't done with being disgusted.
On the one hand, Sturgeon should have been sticking with the NHS. On the other hand, she was being packed off to deal with "Scotland's biggest decision in 300 years", plus "the biggest economic crisis since the depression".
So which task is, in Labour's view, the biggest waste of time?
Here was the Unionist problem in a nutshell. Either the independence vote is a very big deal that matters to every Scot, or it's Salmond's private obsession.
Lamont wants to have her cake and eat it. Parts of the delicacy are still a bit hard to swallow.
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereComments are closed on this article