Alex Salmond - an embarrassment for Scotland

Firstly, a big congratulations to Andy Murray for a superb win this afternoon. All the more so given the fight his opponent put up. Great tennis. Just a pity Alex Salmond had to get his oar in by waving a Saltire at the end. Thankfully the cameraman found better things to point his camera at.

It seems that the SNP are not the only ones not taking democracy seriously - former PM Tony Blair seems to have decided that it's not always the best thing in the Middle East. Looks like the Arab Spring has gone straight to Autumn, a phenomenon we Scots are pretty familiar with, although this year it looks like summer might just last more than one day. Calton's eyrie is certainly still sweltering in the heat from earlier on. For that reason he's going to finish this post and go and get himself a nice cold glass of white wine to toast Andy's win with. Cheers!

Head in the sand

Calton is just not convinced that our Prime Minister is right to say that the Woolwich murder was a betrayal of Islam and the Muslim community. Tony Blair is much nearer the truth when he talks of a "strain within Islam" which is "not the province of a few extremists" and is "not compatible with pluralistic, liberal, open-minded societies". Blair is urging politicians to be honest about the problem - something which Cameron seems to be reluctant to do. Of course it's easy for the former PM to talk - he no longer has to worry about votes - but that doesn't mean that what he says is not true. We will never deal with radical Muslims as long as we pretend that their actions have nothing to do with the teachings of Islam. In fact, we insult the radicals by saying that we know their motivation better than they do. Instead, if we want to get to grips with the problem of radicalised British Muslims, we need to start by understanding them, and that means taking our heads out of the sand and facing some difficult truths. Unfortunately, although our PM is here in body, his head still seems buried in an Ibiza beach.