The Last Word blog comes straight from the heart of WORD UP.

In our irregular online offering, we aim to please, entertain, and be brutally honest in our musings on small biz, the ageing process, and life. But we sometimes raise hackles and spark off debate, so feel free to join in, or fire back if you don’t like what you read.

Keep an eye on our @WordUpScot socials for updates about our latest wordy witterings.

The Blog

Gut reaction and re-ignition

When I’ve got my small biz head on, I generally shy away from any political commentary on these here digital pages, largely preferring to keep my personal slant under my pork pie hat. Even when I have dipped a tentative toe into the waters of online opinion, it’s usually been to say that I haven’t got a

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Missing in action

Two weeks on the Dalmatian coast did wonders for this old wordsmith’s suntan, but a long overdue holiday unexpectedly left me with a yawning gap in my life. This spiritual hole is not so much existential crisis, simply a severe case of ennui. That feels a bit wrong. Holidays are supposed to invigorate and energise, aren’t they? I’m

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Altogether now…

Loneliness comes with the territory when you’re a sole trader. Or at least, that’s the perceived small business wisdom. And yes, ploughing your own furrow can mean that working life is sometimes solitary and alienating. In fact, unless you are completely comfortable working on your ownio, you can go a bit bonkers without colleagues to shoot the

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A bad smell

Hold your noses, folks, there’s a foul stench in the air. It reeks to high heaven, is turning my stomach and making me mad. And that’s because my pungency allegory extends way beyond pong. I’ve been clamping my nostrils tightly for a couple of years now, particularly when travelling by bus (public  transport and two wheels being the favoured

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Happy talk

Happiness, huh? Totally overrated if you ask me. Truth told, I’m a crabbit old cow. My natural state of grump has been embedded even more deeply lately by the omnipresence of the happiness industry. Even a cursory glance through certain social media platforms or a skim of the self-help section in your local bookshop confirms our apparently limitless search

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Defeated by democracy

Today was momentous. Because today is the day we didn’t leave Europe. Not only did we fail to depart, but our conscious uncoupling is yet further delayed after the PM’s latest defeat looks set to leave democracy clinging on in utter disharmony for the foreseeable. But for ordinary punters like me (who didn’t want to

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Pretty vacant

February might mean that love is in the air (for those who are lucky enough to be wrapped in its warm, adoring embrace), but this is also the month when this wee one-woman enterprise always starts to run out of steam. As the natural world suddenly springs into action with crocuses and daffs turning their radiant

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Praise be

Even now in the darkened depths of a Glasgow January, when the annual Scottish SAD syndrome is dragging us all down in its icy, gloomy grip, faint glimmers of a feel-good golden glow have suffused the spirit of this wee sole trader. The annual gloom-fest that is Blue Monday was brightened this week by a stunning blood moon,

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Memories are made of this

Funny how it all comes around. Even if you wanted to dodge it, the past has a habit of creeping up on you and doing its time machine thing, taking you way back when. Some flashbacks have a golden tinge – sibling singalongs to the hit parade on Sunday bath night; the long, hot coming-of-age

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Silver Show-offs

Half a century, give or take. Fifty years of zigging and zagging through life trying to find the switch which flicks the bravery button on, permanently.  Shame it’s taken me so very long to feel solid and sorted, but from where I’m sitting on a tiny wee lump of rock clinging to the outer fringes

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