First problem? Define "Scottish."

SUNDAY is ye olde Christian holiday of Candlemas, the day when according to tradition we can foretell the weather for the year: "If Candlemas Day be fair and bright / Winter will have another flight. / If Candlemas Day be shower and rain / Winter is gone and will not come again." So you can definitely put away the snow shovel. Probably . . .

AND now, some lines on the Prime Minister ordering troops to assist at the flooded Somerset Levels: "When Cameron sends in army boats / He's probably thinking about the votes."

NOW, seriously, has anyone given this Scottish referendum one single ounce of thought? The vote is barely eight months away and yet the SNP has not even sorted out which currency an independent Scotland will use, whether it will be in the EU, who will defend it and what will happen to all those nasty Sassenach submarines. There is even, at this late stage, a legal challenge brewing over who is entitled to vote. As things stand, thousands of English people living in Scotland will get the vote but more than a million expat Scots, settled in England and around the world, will not. You can't help wondering whether Alex Salmond and his comrades were ever serious about turning Scotland into an independent, foreign country or were simply using the threat of secession in order to extract more self-government from Whitehall, the so-called independence-lite option. As the weeks tick away, history has called his bluff and Salmond, facing a constitutional and economic muddle entirely of his own making, must be praying for a No vote. (Which is precisely what the Scots, by a margin of two-to-one, will deliver).

AS for extending the vote to Scottish people everywhere, I defy anyone to define "Scottish." You could probably start by including anyone who believes homicide is mrrrdrrr.

HOW many Scots, hearing this week that Scotland could keep the pound only if it surrendered a degree of sovereignty, were wondering what this arrangement might be called. How about The United Kingdom?

SO FAREWELL, Pete Seeger, the American folk singer who challenged the system and used music as his weapon in the struggle. Sadly, he also spawned a new breed of rebels without a chord. In the Sixties and Seventies every party attracted at least one sad-looking teenager turning up in a US combat jacket inscribed "Che" with a CND badge, Palestinian scarf and a guitar. This unhappy breed would croon We Shall Overcome when everyone knew they were middle-class kids and the only thing they needed to overcome was acne.

JON Snow, the newsreader, says he thinks of sex every time he meets a woman. Sarah Vine, columnist and wife of the Education Secretary Michael Gove responds: "The mind of the average male must be a cesspit." Two points. Firstly, John, you are divulging secrets that are best not mentioned. It is a fact that most men spend an awful lot of time thinking about sex, in much the way that women spend an awful lot of time thinking about handbags. Secondly, I'm always a little worried when people equate sex with filth, muck or, in Ms Vine's case, cesspits. They must be doing something wrong.

HOW insurance works. A friend changed insurers two years ago when moneygrabbing Insurance Company A suddenly hiked his premium to £600. He took his business to friendly Company B which only wanted £200. Now, however, company friendly Company B wants to charge him £300 to renew, while moneygrabbing Company A will do it for £250. He asks: "Is it all a con?"

THE Australian Prime Minister Tony Abbott has criticised his country's national broadcaster ABC for "taking everyone's side but Australia's." He says it should at least show "some basic affection for the home team." We Poms have a similar problem.