‘Resting’ Solicitor-Advocate, Alan Muir, takes a wry look at what made the news.

Regardless of your take on U.S. President, Barack Obama, the awarding of the Nobel Peace Prize to him must be seen as a bit odd. The coveted accolade comes less than a year into his first, possibly only, term. We don’t award someone a Manager of the Month after his or her first game in charge – a draw at that – so why has this happened now? It has been suggested that this is really a way of getting back at George W Bush his, as yet, unindicted for war crimes, predecessor. You disagree? Seems odd I know, but, a little known point on this is that the closing date for nominations fell nine days, yip nine, after his inauguration. Whatever he may go on to achieve, only God is recorded as building at a faster clip!

The whole episode hasn’t helped the previous reputation of impartiality attached to the awarding of the Nobel Awards. In 2008, Al Gore was awarded the prize for what was basically a slide show on global warming. Whilst a laudable project in itself, my vote would have gone to his fellow nominee, the late Irena Sendler. (Who? I hear you ask).  Exactly. Irena Sendler had no ‘constant camera crew’, nor a rich and successful family. She was just a little old lady of ninety-eight who you’d have walked past in the street, but, a little old lady of ninety-eight who, during World War II saw the way things were going and worked, on her own application, as a plumber in the Warsaw ghettos controlled by the Nazis. She hid Jewish babies and children in her specially made tool bag and sack, carrying them one by one to freedom, risking her own life each time. When caught, the Nazis beat her and broke both legs. In later years she worked tirelessly to reunite these children with their families – often an impossible task – at a conservative estimate, she was successful on over two thousand occasions.

So often, the prizewinner tells us more about those deciding the award. How else can we explain the Scottish Parliament building getting anything?