By John Knox BBC Scotland political reporter

If St Andrew had been alive today, how would he have explained the strange goings-on at Holyrood this week?

Health Minister Malcolm Chisholm presided over the worst NHS waiting list figures for four years but was nevertheless given the politician of the year award.

And poor Dr Richard Simpson had to resign as fire minister despite not saying the firefighters were fascists.

The St Andrew's day celebrations taking place at British embassies around the world were announced as part of the First Minister Jack McConnell's first anniversary re-launch last week.

Question time

But the SNP have only been able to find five embassies doing anything at all about it.

Perhaps they just haven't been invited to the others.

And not much wonder, after the hammering their leader John Swinney gave Mr McConnell on Thursday at question time.

Outpatients in the NHS were now waiting an average of 59 days to see a consultant, compared to 46 in 1999.

The average waiting time for hospital treatment was 35 days, compared to 30 back in 1999 and the number of patients waiting for over a year was more than 2,000, not the 19 the executive had been claiming.

Richard Simpson: Fascists

"We've had the closed waiting list con, the deferred waiting list con, the reclassified waiting list con, and now the 12 months waiting list con. When is the First Minister going to stop conning the people of Scotland and start telling them the truth?"

Mr McConnell replied that the executive's first priority had been to get waiting times down for Scotland's killer diseases - heart, stroke and cancer - and that had been achieved.

The executive was on target too to bring hospital waiting times down to a maximum of 9 months by the end of the year.

The next target would be outpatient times.

"Systematically, step by step, we are investing and reforming at the same time. We will ensure that patients are put first and, step by step, they will get the service they deserve."

Political history

The first minister was on less sure ground when, just before question time, he rose to announce his replacement for Dr Richard Simpson as fire minister.

Dr Simpson had been forced to resign on Tuesday afternoon over allegations that he had called the striking firefighters "bastards and fascists".

At first he said he'd been misquoted and then said he could no longer remember the conversation with the journalist concerned.

Mr Swinney said: "This is the first resignation in political history that took place because the minister involved had done nothing wrong and said nothing untoward."

The Conservative leader David McLetchie enjoyed the prospect of another ministerial reshuffle.

Des McNulty: Dizzy heights

He reminded Mr McConnell that only seven Labour backbenchers had not held some sort of office and he congratulated Des McNulty on being the latest to make it to the "dizzy heights" of deputy minister.

And in a reference to another serious minded politician he added: "You should never underestimate the determination of a quiet man."

The big debates this week at Holyrood have been on lifelong learning and domestic abuse.

The Conservatives staged special debates on education and drug courts.

And John Swinney himself led a member's debate calling for the A9 to be upgraded to dual carriageway all the way to Inverness.

Ten rabbits

He was told by the transport minister Lewis MacDonald that it would cost �500m and would mean the cancellation of many other more worthwhile projects.

He said: "The A9 between Perth and Inverness has a lower accident rate than the average for either single or dual carriageways across Scotland."

The health committee this week continued its inquiry into GM crop trials.

Dr Paul Rylott from the Bayer Crop Science Company, responsible for many of the trials, came under fierce cross examination over his testing procedures.

The independent MSP Dorothy Grace Elder established from him that only ten rats, ten birds and ten rabbits had been used in trials to test the effect on human health of GM material...and that only over a 14 day period.

Dorothy Grace Elder: Raised an eyebrow

Dr Rylott maintained that was sufficient. Dorothy Grace Elder simply raised an eyebrow.

The petitions committee received a heart-rending appeal from a family in Fife.

The O'Briens from Methil lost their 16 year old son Lee in a solvent sniffing accident back in January.

Ever since then they have been campaigning to have the law on the sale of butane lighter fuel tightened.

Apparently seven or eight children die every year in Scotland from solvent abuse.

On Wednesday, the justice committee published a 50-page report on the regulation of the legal profession.

Public holiday

It recommended more powers for the legal ombudsman, including the power to investigate the substance of a complaint, not just the way it was handled by the lawyers themselves.

It also wants 50% of the Law Society's complaints committee to be made up of lay people.

Finally, all the parliamentary staff were given the day off on Friday to mark St Andrew's Day.

Before we know where we are, it will be a public holiday!

It's perhaps time we found out a little more about the man who's provoked all this fun, 2,000 years after his death.

All I know is that he was a fisherman who helped distribute five loaves and two small fishes to five thousand people on the shores of Lake Galilee.

He then had the misfortune to be crucified upside down in Rome and to have his bones carried to a rocky part of the Fife coast.

Does anyone know any more?