I’m not a fan of the new man in the White House but I must confess to being mesmerised by him. He’s like a burst pipe spraying in all directions as he blurts out whatever comes into his head and it’s doing him no political harm whatsoever. If any of the rest of us did it, we’d be confined to scratching our rear end in the political wilderness for eternity.

While you’d be taken aback by him, it’s not all bad. Don’t get me wrong, I hardly agree with a syllable of what he says but as a politician I have to admire his neck. He has certainly ploughed a new furrow in terms of political behaviour and has shaken things up.

A lot of people are caught up in the cosmetics of the man – the hair-do and the orange tan – but these things don’t concern me unduly. When you’ve been a rural councillor for as long as I have, nothing in the hair department or the cosmetic department will surprise you. I have seen comb-overs worthy of a Turner prize and hairpieces the like of which you wouldn’t see on a muppet or mannequin. Of late, some of my male council colleagues have taken to applying the odd bit of make-up. I’m sure botox isn’t far behind.

Apropos of things being shaken up, local politics badly needs a shake if not a tremor. You’ll notice I haven’t been commenting at all on council matters of late, simply because there is nothing to report from parishpump or council chamber.

We could badly do with a Trump to put a bit of jizz in the place – it’s as dull as ditchwater. Councillors are simply doing and saying what party headquarters is telling them, or declaring themselves to be “in total agreement with the recommendation of the manager”.

There are more lively and more heated political discussions at the recycling depot than there are in county buildings.

When it comes to dealing with some council business, you’d love to do the Trump and make outrageous proposals like building a wall or two around the county. I’m thinking of places like Bally.

In Bally they’d fight with their nails. When we send workers to fill in their potholes, they tell us we filled in the wrong ones. If we straighten the roads, they’ll tell us they were happier with the twists, turns and hairpin bends.

“These roads were good enough for our fathers and grandfathers and they’re good enough for us.”

If they get funding for one thing, they’ll use it for something else and no one dares question them. They’re like cross dogs – you wouldn’t go near them without a stick in your fist or a stone in your pocket. But in the council chamber you can’t speak your mind on these matters and I suppose that’s only proper and fair – being civilised is about controlling yourself. But there are times when I’m sorely tempted to cut loose.

For instance, when Liam Regan from Rathbinnis rings me for the fourth time in one day complaining about Tom Sheahan’s spreading of slurry near the village. I’ll be very reasonable and point out that Tom Sheahan and farmers like him are operating within their rights if they do it at the specified dates.

However, what I really want to say is this: “Get lost you cantankerous auld hoor and I hope Tom Sheahan will spray the entire contents of his slurry pit in through your kitchen window, up your stairs and up you nose so that the smell of the stuff will be stuck in your nostrils from now to eternity.”

And when I sit in the council chamber listening to Percy Pipplemoth Davis in full flight, I’m often tempted to break out and tell him what I think.

He regularly lectures us about global warming, carbon footprints and polar bears floating on icicles, while at the same time he’s travelling up and down the country to every flaky conference and new-age dog fight he can get to. The hoor is leaving a bigger carbon footprint than a herd of farting buffalos. I’d love to tell him to sit down and shut up before I make him eat his woolly jumper in lumps. However, I don’t and I probably wont.

And of course we have our own ‘fake news’ here in the form of Willy De Wig Ryan on The Sticks FM. Willy invented fake news. You go on air with him to talk about speed limits in Honetyne and you spend the whole time discussing transgender issues in Shronefodda One of these day I’ll find my inner Trump. If you see me buying tins of spray-on tan and an orange hairpiece, look out – I will be great, I will be tremendous, I will be beautiful, I will make Killdicken great again…