Cuddly MSPs get on like a house on fire

I passed a gaming shop with a big poster advertising Hordes of Chaos and advising: "Nothing can withstand them."

Further up the road, tourists took pictures of the gob-covered Heart of Midlothian while, nearby, a piper played Knick, Knack, Paddy Whack.

Outside the parliament’s media office sat a long, claret-coloured Daimler boasting the number-plate: "HI HAW". The weather was clammy and I began to feel faint.

There was only one thing for it. I had to get into the calm, reassuring confines of the debating chamber. Then everything would be fine.

Staggering to my seat, I accepted a programme. The main act was a motion about the fire brigade, which Richard Simpson, the deputy justice minister, promised would have "a specific duty to enhance community fire safety". This was a splendid breakthrough, quite revolutionary in its implications.

And there was more. "The fire service will have to become risk-managers," he averred, and once more I started to feel surreal. Richard’s beardy face leered wickedly as he havered about "disincentivising". What the heck was he on about?

Roseanna Cunningham (SNP) complained that the accompanying document containing this bilge was "frankly incomprehensible". However, she added: "The paper does cover a great deal of ground." Yes, especially when you tear out the pages and scatter them around (I’ve managed to decorate my entire house with Executive documents).

Scotland, we heard, has the worst fire safety record in Europe (hey, another one to go in the already crowded trophy room) and twice as many people die in fires here as in England and Wales. This, we were told obliquely, was partly attributable to the number of people getting blootered then frying huge vats of chips while dropping fag ash on the floor. Wha’s like us, eh?

Michael Matheson (SNP) wanted cleaning ladies with watering cans in every home. At least, that’s what was suggested to me by the term "domestic sprinklers".

Though Keith Harding (Con) feared the debate was going to "peter out like a damp squib", there was little chance of that happening with Donald Gorrie (Lib Dem) loitering on the premises. He announced: "I am always pretty suspicious of anything in a glossy cover" (editor of Humungous Jugs, please note).

Then he slid down the greasy pole of success to claim that sitting on joint boards was not the way to political advancement. "When I was on a joint board," he continued seamlessly, "it was rumoured that one of our fire engines was so old, it would only go downhill."

Donald’s not your man for coming home from the pub to fry chips, but he did admit: "We have a smoke alarm in our house. It unfortunately goes off whenever my wife puts anything in the frying pan." Like coal, paper, that kind of thing. He added: "On those occasions when we are seriously burning some food, it never goes off."

This disorientating information was followed by Lord James Douglas-Hamilton (Militant Lesbian Collective) praising the "fah seviss" for rescuing his son when he fell off Arthur’s Seat.

By this time, my head was swimming again. I could not, if I may mex my mitaphors, take the heat. So I got out of the chamber. What a relief to be back on the streets.

I mooned at the Daimler’s chauffeur, gobbed on the Heart of Midlothian, squeezed the air out of the piper’s bag and shouted into the gaming shop: "Hordes of Chaos? You want to see the real McCoy up the road, mate. Nothing can withstand them."