Following the Scottish media’s week-long frenzy of stories about the “scandal” of baby boxes – in which it was revealed to the astonishment of the nation that cardboard is flammable and incapable of stopping an armoured assault from a tank division or a zombie plague – we were a little startled to note that the Guardian (which has now run THREE stories about how terrible it is to give babies nice free stuff) didn’t always have such a downer on the project.

Apparently (and as recently as this February) baby boxes are “great innovations” and “hugely popular” – so long as the SNP aren’t involved, of course, at which point they turn into grotesque deathtraps.

And it got us wondering: what else is only terrible when it happens in Scotland?

There’s the terrible volatile curse of oil revenue, of course. (Even though it seems to be widely regarded as a good thing for other nations.)

And the awful nightmare of being popular with tourists who want to come and visit the country and spend money in it.

Obviously our world-leading bridges are all rubbish, whether they’re old or new, because no matter how many records they break they’re still in Scotland.

Our railway stations are similarly dreadful.

We can’t even deliver a pizza.

Whether we have more working-class people at universities or fewer, it’s always the wrong number and the wrong proportions, because we’re Scotland.

When we increase the number of teachers in our schools, that’s bad too.

If the First Minister makes herself accessible and approachable to kids, well, that sort of thing might be welcomed in other nations, but dammit, not OURS.

If we try to protect children from abuse and murder, which in some countries would be considered quite a good idea, well, that’s basically just turning into Nazi Germany.

It’s bad if we try to attract investment from China (although obviously it’s good for other countries to do it), and it’s also bad if we fail to attract investment from China. Honestly, we can’t do ANYTHING right.

When we’re talking about the Scottish media, we often jokingly suggest that if the FM personally discovered the cure for all cancer, the headline in the next day’s Scottish newspapers would be “RECKLESS STURGEON CREATES PENSIONS TIMEBOMB”. Soon, though, that won’t even be satire any more.