According to the haphazard logic of Conan Doyle, the dog that doesn’t bark is supposed to tell you something. Sir Arthur’s glittering career could probably tell you a lot, were you attentive, about the kinds of creature a Scot on the make can wind up becoming in a foreign capital.

            My dog, being a lazy hound, just barks in a routine way. Sometimes he says, “I think that might be trouble. Better have a look”. Mine is not a stupid dog. He is not often wrong.

            Everyone chases the noise, the racket. Everyone follows the argument they think they understand. Everyone, furthermore, ends up chasing the heady stench of the argument placed beneath their noses. That’s not wise, necessarily.

            Two of the grand distractions are called “Scotland” and “England”. No one involved with real power gives a crap about either. If they mean to prevent a northern fragment from asserting a democratic right over the southern part, that is simply because money is at stake.

            They’ll give all the good dogs a feint and a lure, though, with tales of hatred, treaties, coinage and grannies seized by border patrols. Reason it through. It’s just offal for the hounds, chum chucked in the water, a means to prevent debate. The intention is to stop thought.

            Meanwhile, my dog is barking his head off.

            He says that the mistake is to be taken in by those “Blow for the SNP” drolleries. They are meant – and, my, how well they succeed – to drag you into a muddy dogfight. My mutt invites you to wonder what is going on in the meantime in your country.

            A game rigged before it even begins. Notice, for example, how no point offered has anything to do with the point at hand while they talk currency theory. For example: who has legal title over Scotland’s assets?

            Some nights, when the wind is up, my dog just prowls the house, looking for trouble.