Dearie me. Just messing about in boats is the ideal holiday pastime for the Chancellor. Here he is over at Great Bernera posing for Murdo, the Guardian’s photographer from Shawbost. Did Alistair Darling know then that his comments about the economy, about Wendy Alexander and goodness knows what else were going to cause such a stushie?
CHANCELLOR Alistair Darling has revealed that he nearly drowned as a boy when he fell into a filthy Scottish harbour. He made the dramatic admission during his recent summer break at the Hebridean cottage he has restored and uses as a hideaway from the pressures of government.
The Chancellor, who was born in 1953, said that he had been visiting the islands each July since he was a year old. His mother had grown up in Stornoway and her family were from Great Bernera, the island now connected to Lewis with a road bridge, where his cottage is. It was originally a thatched blackhouse built by his great-great-grandfather in 1851.
Speaking to the Stornoway Gazette, Mr Darling said: “I was fishing for cuddies. It was pretty dirty in those days and I was covered in oil and fish. I remember my friend just watching on and my auntie thought I was a goner. But I managed to get out.”
Although he was formally educated in Kirkcaldy and at the private Loretto School in Musselburgh before attending the University of Aberdeen, the Chancellor also revealed that he had for a short period been a pupil at the Nicolson Institute, the secondary school in Stornoway.
Many in his family spoke Gaelic but Mr Darling admitted the language had beaten him.
“There was a time when I could understand some Gaelic but it is not something you can dip in and out of. My mother spoke Gaelic to my aunts and that’s what she did when she did not want us to know what she was saying.”
Posted in politics, Scotland, Stornoway, Western Isles
Tagged Alistair Darling, Chancellor, Great Bernera, Stornoway harbour
A friend thinks it is hilarious that I am being harassed by a garage in Inverness. They have plenty of money so I will get good compensation when I take them to court, he reckons.
They were at it again this week. I would rather the thickheads at MacRae and Dick just stopped texting me with Iain and David’s latest unmissable Ride + Drive offer at Culloden battlefield.
Let me make it clear in text language. Am nt intrstd.
Despite writing by Royal Mail and texting them, the idiots who run the company just can’t get round to taking me off the distribution list. Duh.
We’ve never been customers. These clever dicks actually harvested our numbers from a website. Unsolicited texting is illegal. Shame on them. If we get one more text from them, we may visit their showroom the next time we are in the Highland capital. We may be carrying a bag of the most pungent Plasterfield manure. We may decide to add an organic atmosphere to the showroom.
On the other hand, Macrae and Dick could start acting responsibly and stop harassing ordinary people with unwanted texts. An apology would be nice. They know how to get in touch. After all, they have my number. That way they could even get our business for our next car. Right now, I would go to the south of England rather than give Dick’s one single penny.
Posted in Scotland
Tagged cars, harassment, Inverness, Macrae and Dick, showroom, sms, texting
AN INVITATION arrives from public landowner Storas Uibhist to the reopening of the Old Course at Askernish on South Uist, and they are offering free digs and a bash at the lodge.
I accept right away. But where’s this lodge? Oh no. They must think I am a masonic funny handshaker. What will they do when they find out that I am not one of the rolled-up-trouser-leg brigade? Will they think a journalist has deliberately infiltrated them?
But it is Grogarry Lodge, the magnificent old pile that came as part of the deal when the islanders bought out South Uist Estates for £4.5million nearly two years ago. It costs only £7,000 to book it for a week. And I’m invited. No black balls for me there, then.
It’s Wednesday night, so I’m preparing for the trip. Plenty of pants and pyjamas are packed. Better put fuel in the car, as I am driving down early in the morning. Pull into Manor Filling Station and fill up with unleaded as usual. There we are. It took £63-worth. Wait . . .
Aaaaargh. What have I done? This car is a diesel. Just got it a few days ago. I forgot. Allan Macdonald in the filling station is sympathetic, but what can he do? It is 9pm. No garages are open. I have to catch the ferry to Berneray at 8.30 in the morning.
A passing stand-up comedian spots my angst and offers his help. Billy Matheson, otherwise known as Mac a’ Noonoo when he is not writing Gaelic comedies, gives me a lift home so I can fret properly there and hear again from the missus how I am obviously going completely gaga and losing it big style.
Who can I call for help? Superman? Batman? No. This is one for . . . Cameraman. He is going to Uist, too. Cameraman knows about cars and engines and oily kinds of stuff. He finds bits for a makeshift fuel-extraction kit and sucks away. Retching as he swallows mouthfuls of my unleaded and diesel mix, I decide not to charge him for that. Well, fuel is so expensive in Stornoway. He siphons and sucks enough for me to put in a further £50-worth of diesel just before they close. My thanks to all the Samaritans.
With Cameraman still green-gilled from petroleum poisoning, we dash to the ferry. The exquisite Bella Cameron welcomes us at the lodge. She’s the housekeeper and has been there a while. About 37 years, in fact. She doesn’t quite whisper “we have been expecting you”, like in spooky films set in big houses, but she does instantly work out who I am. Spooky.
Guests are arriving for the evening’s bash. A twinkling Father Michael is busy meeting and greeting. Storas chairman Angus MacMillan is talking to himself. Has he had too many already? No, just rehearsin
g his speech. On show tonight will be Uist’s great and good. Brilliant piping and fiddling by the youngsters keep spirits high.
Golfers from Stornoway are to the fore. Careers officer Ken Galloway is telling people what to do with their lives; council housing man Sandy Bruce is being very accommodating, and I also spot lawyer Ken Macdonald, briefly. You can guess what Norrie Macdonald from TalkTalk is doing.
Yet there is just something about them that I have never encountered before in the golfing fraternity. I look into their eyes; in Sandy’s case, all four of them. Ah, I’ve got it. Nearly eight o’clock and they are all perfectly sober – incredible.
A cracking night it is. Several fingers of a particularly flavoursome malt are persistently squished into my glass by waiters Alana MacInnes and Tony MacNeil. Utterly professional they are.
Note to his wife: Having had just enough to rinse his still-oily palate, Cameraman is sensible and retires even before I do.
At Askernish, even more Uibhisteachs converge to see guest of honour Kenny Dalglish doing the honours at the Old Tom Morris course. Making journalists look even dumber than we are is his hobby. Expecting him to explain the lure of the islands, I ask why he is here. He mutters about how he just got on a plane and it came to Benbecula. Take Two and I try to ignore my own red face to ask something more sensible and he’s off yapping. Even more than Norrie Macdonald.
Before we leave Grogarry Lodge, we have breakfast. Suddenly, Bella appears. She asks Cameraman if he had seen a “bocan” at all. He turns to me, bewildered. I shrug and assure him I kept my pyjamas on all night.
Fellow breakfaster Donnie Morrison, of Hebrides.net, seems alarmed at this turn in the conversation. Mercifully, I remember just in time that “bocan” is just the Uist Gaelic word for ghost. Phew.
Published in the Press and Journal on August 27, 2008
Posted in Stornoway, Uist, Western Isles
Tagged Grogarry, Kenny Dalglish, Storas Uibhist
THE wiser women in our midst sum it up well. Easy on the eye, hard on the heart, they say.
As I understand it, they mean that good-looking people are more likely to be lying swines who will let you down. Conversely, there is far more chance that someone with a face like the back of a bus is going to be sincere and faithful.
As the light of my life loudly and often subscribes to this terribly interesting theory, I find myself, for all kinds of reasons, unable to fault the logic.
Which is why I had a lot of sympathy for the mayor of Mount Isa. John Moloney, who is Convener Alex Macdonald’s opposite number in the Queensland mining town, came up with a great plan to solve their shortage of eligible women. Moloney is inviting those he generously describes as “beauty disadvantaged” to move to Mount Isa where, he is convinced, they will find a man.
The males in Mount Isa currently outnumber the lassies by five to one.
There are ladies from Point and Lochs, I hear, who have already picked up their passport applications. And who can blame them? Have you seen the state of the men in Bayble and Leurbost?
Moloney’s plan is not the most romantically inspiring. Furthers the rights of women? Doubt it. Yet as a downright practical answer to the loneliness of the, er, less-picturesque, it is spot-on.
He is now backtracking and claims beauty can be a good set of teeth, nice wavy hair, blue eyes or green eyes, is in the eye of the beholder, is only skin deep. Yeah, yeah. Of course, what he is really saying is that ugly people can really be very nice when you get to know them. And grateful.
About 20 years ago, we had a similar difficulty here in the islands. The supply of young, available mademoiselles in Vatersay dried up. It wasn’t so easy then to get back and fore to mainland Barra. There was just the irregular wind-tossed wee ferry. If an islander asked a young lady to come down and see him some time, it was a major exercise in logistics to get them together.
The locals were also a bit suspicious of outsiders – even the ones across the sound on Barra. Before the causeway opened, an intrepid island-based BBC reporter of the time was sent to gauge the feelings of the Vatersay islanders. There was general consensus that it would be a good thing.
Apart from one old-timer who was very much against the development. He sighed wearily, shook his head and warned: “Our young people will be lured away to the fleshpots of Castlebay.”
Before then, a contingent of fine Vatersay bachelors had headed off to search for partners in Glasgow and Inverness. Some also landed up in Stornoway, where they took jobs on fishing boats while conducting their research at weekends.
Sadly, some were diverted from the task in hand by the late-night attractions of the bars and clubs in the administrative capital of the islands.
I was in court to see one of them plonked in the dock charged with theft having been discovered enjoying a sleepover of sorts in the public bar of a Stornoway hotel.
He told the procurator fiscal that after what was obviously a most convivial session with some fellow fishers of the deep, he awoke sitting on the toilet of the premises. Wandering out into the bar, he found the place deserted. He was upset, he declared, at finding himself locked in a hotel bar in the middle of the night. And alone.
Vatersay Boy decided that pouring himself a magnificent dram from one of the array of optics ranged in front of him might help settle this sense of unease. In fact, the soother worked so well that he had several more until eventually he passed out again. This time, he was found by the early shift who noticed the levels in many bottles on the gantry had mysteriously slumped overnight.
Trying to ascertain the level of pre-meditation, the grizzly old sheriff, who according to my note at the time had one of these faces that suggested he had been sucking lemons for breakfast, grappled with the mindset that led to this crime. He asked what had crossed the lad’s mind on finding he had awoken in a deserted bar.
The response in the thickest Vatersay accent from the wide-eyed fisherman was: “I thought I had died and gone to heaven, your honour.”
Cue collapse of judicial dignity as the snorting began with the panel of neds awaiting their turn in the dock, followed closely by the press pack, m’learned friends and eventually His Lordship himself.
Sadly, when the old lemon sucker composed himself, the verdict was guilty as charged.
Cramp stopped a hairdressser from snatching the world record for the most sit-ups in an hour.
But Patrick Broe, of Stornoway, did grab the record for the most in one minute on Saturday.
He achieved 196 sit-ups in 60 seconds smashing the world record of 177 held by Ashrita Furman, an American who also has the most records of anyone else in the world.
Referring to the intense concentration required, Patrick, 48, said he was spurred on by the record holder because he was keen to “be in the same place” as Furman. The American currently claims 85 world records but over the years has broken 205.
Furman had achieved 9,628 sit-ups in 60 minutes but, about 45 minutes in, Patrick had to stop due to the onset of cramp and was only able to manage 8,859 in the time.
For the Guinness records book’s purposes, a sit-up does not actually mean that the competitor has to physically sit up and an abdominal frame is allowed. However, certain parts of the body must leave the floor for each one.
The bid at the Lewis Sports Centre in Stornoway by married father-of-two Patrick, who is originally from Derbyshire, was watched by qualified observers and was also videoed for verification by officials from the Guinness World Records.
His wife Peggy, who runs PJ’s Hair Design with him, and son William, 12, helped with water and encouragement.
Patrick was also sponsored to raise cash for MacMillan Nurses and a fund to assist sick children who have to attend mainland hospitals for treatment.
Posted in Stornoway, Western Isles
Tagged Ashrita Furman, Guinness World Records, Patrick Broe, sit-ups
IT’S after midday and I am sitting here in my pants. I have just negotiated a deal with a TV executive and spoken to a glamorous actress about her next series. All in my pants.
The TV guy was in a suit on the fourth floor and the actress was wearing period costume on a busy set. I was in my own wee office. In just my pants.
Now I had better get down to writing this column. Hardly worth getting changed just to write, is it? I’ll do it in my pants.
Maybe I should flick through the newspapers again for ideas on what to write. But not yet. There’s no rush. Those guys in Aberdeen haven’t been shouting at me to hurry up. Yet. I’ll just go and look out the window and gaze at real Stornoway people. Because I can – unlike the people I have been speaking to this morning, who are not as comfortable in their tight-fitting corsets in their fancy offices in the big cities. Who can they see out of their windows? Other rats in a race, that’s who.
That’s the beauty of being not just self-employed but a regular homeworker. I can loll about without having to pretend to be busy. I can work hard when I want to or I can take it easy if I should so choose.
Like when the wife is out. Office workers tell me they are only really busy when the boss is around.
Look, there is John Norman. He owns that plumbing firm up there, you know. Off he goes up the hill with his faithful collie. I should go out and walk Hector, my schnauzer. But I can’t go out dressed like this.
Obviously. People here are so easily shocked. Except the ones who are shocking themselves.
See that woman in that car over there? She is up to something. Every few days, she sits there as if she is waiting for someone. Then she suddenly drives off.
Between you and me, last week I was round the corner and I’m sure I saw a man getting into her car. He was 20 years older than her if he was a day. This people-watching is great fun.
That’s whaddaya call him getting out of that wee car over there. The MSP fellow. You know. Alasdair thingummybob. Allan. Alasdair Allan, that’s it. He is looking very tweedy today. He clomps off down the hill in his sensible shoes, the stiff breeze making all his tweeds and important-looking papers flap about.
Now there’s a bigger wagon pulling up. A cool-looking dude in dark clothes alights. Hey, I know that face, too. That’s the MP. Angus MacNeil, for it is he, is not in tweeds but in a sharp suit. In his matching collar and tie, he could have just stepped out of Burton’s window, as my father used to say. Or John Lewis, maybe. Is that not where the MPs spend their big allowances? MacNeil also sprints off down the hill. They must be having a high-level meeting in the SNP office round the corner.
MacNeil is not carrying any papers, I notice. Is that the crucial difference between an MP and MSP? The one who sits in the big parliament is too important to be expected to carry anything. Poor Alasdair Allan. Maybe he is having to carry both their papers.
Maybe I’ll watch the Olympics for a bit. That’ll make a nice change from the usual daytime fare of wall-to-wall Jeremy Kyle.
Have you seen these saddos – I mean people with issues? You get, for example, a guy who says he suspects his partner is cheating. Then this shrieking banshee with tattoos and piercings through every sticky-out bit of her body explodes on to the stage. She’s got issues, all right. About 10 of them by the time she was 25.
Meanwhile, tonight I shall again embrace convention and climb into my clobber. It will be time to put the world to rights over a mound of satay or something with rice and peas with a fellow who has just jetted halfway round the world. He X-rays bits of oilrigs for a living in a place with an unpronounceable name in Malaysia.
I wonder if he does that in his pants. It is very hot there. I shall ask him. He is my brother, after all.
You have already worked out that I am just kidding, haven’t you? You don’t really think that I am still in my pants at this time of day.
Course not. I am just being discreet for the sake of all the ladies from the Free Church (Continuing) who say they read this avidly every week.
I am, of course, completely naked.
Published in the Press and Journal on August 13, 2008
Posted in Scotland, Stornoway, Uncategorized, Western Isles
Tagged homeworking, naked, pants
DO I LOOK dodgy? From my photo, have I the aura of a war criminal about me, or perhaps an insurance fraudster? I ask because the unearthing of Radovan Karadzic, the alleged Butcher of Bosnia, has put the focus on beards and prompted questions about the fine and distinguished gentlefolk who sport them.
First Saddam fled and got exceedingly whiskery in his hole in the ground. Then there was the canoe man, John Darwin, who also found he had the time for manly cultivation to alter his phizog. With Karadzic, Fleet Street’s finest have decided that all beardies are a bit bonkers and running away from something.
Never trust a beardie, they warn. They are all shifty types. Except Rolf Harris. Because he is lovely, apparently. He is the only beardie apart from Santa Claus that you should ever trust. Everyone else uses their bristles to consciously or otherwise conceal something dark about themselves, they claim.
Mine, of course, is only a wee one. Ask my wife. She dubbed it her little tickler. She used to call something else her little tickler, but now it is just my little hairy promontory. Problem is that it is going a bit grey.
Beards, grey or otherwise, have had appalling PR. Long ago, a full dark set was a sure sign the wearer was a psychopath or murderer. Ask them to draw a baddie and nine out of 10 kiddies who do not themselves have a parent with facial fungus will create a fearful depiction of a large, ugly man with a black beard.
Mad, staring eyes. That crazed smile. Like Councillor Angus McCormack when he was teaching me maths.
And if fuzzies are not bad, they are made out to be just boring. Think bewhiskered archaeologists, librarians, professors – and councillors. Of course, I am thinking not just of my former maths teacher, but also that well-grizzly Barra member, Donald Manford.
Not that this pair of hairies are boring. Quite the opposite. How could a teacher of algebra and geometry who was the spitting image of Grigori Rasputin and a committee chairman who has devoted his life to slagging off Caledonian MacBrayne be anything less than exciting?
Yet grey beards are not favoured in politics. When Frank Dobson was standing against Red Ken for London mayor, the Labour spinmeisters suggested he should have it off. Grey whiskers are not a good look, they reckoned. Dobbo’s rapid reply included the words get and stuffed.
Real Christians, as opposed to those others who go to church just because they hope to one day stand for council, should never take a blade to their stubble. The Bible is clear on the matter in Leviticus 19:27: “Ye shall not round the corners of your heads, neither shalt thou mar the corners of thy beard.” I don’t know about keeping my head corners sharp, but I do get the message about not trimming the straggly edges.
And we are blessed to have a splendidly hairy-faced Archbishop of Canterbury. Rowan Williams is the first symbolic head of the worldwide Anglican communion to resist the cheek-slapping TV commercials for razors and foam since 1677.
Other faiths set such fine examples compared to our wishy-washy, allegedly Bible-based Churches. Soon after arriving in London, I was sent to Stamford Hill. Go get some clients there. You’ll see why, they said. Off the bus and I was thunderstruck. Almost every guy on the street had on a black suit, a black hat and boasted a very long beard.
Far from looking in any way shifty, these Hasidic Jews had about them, with their absolute conformity and calm air of obedience, a deep-seated serenity and a mystical purpose that I had never come across. For all their fundamentalism, maybe Free Presbyterians have a long way to go. Bin the razors for a start, I say.
The most hardline, small and clever denominations in America realise that some girls like their lads smooth. In Amish and Hutterite settlements, for example, men shave when they are young, free and single. Then they marry and it all changes. They must never go near a razor again. Ever.
Bet the women thought of that one, keeping their men by making them grizzly.
While my beloved insists she adores it, her sisters have now taken to saying they are fed up seeing my little greying tickling thing every day. They think I should cut it off.
Having taken to stroking it fondly each day, such as when I am deep in thought, I am loath to give it the snip.
Billy Connolly tackled the problem by turning his purple. Like him and King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia and, methinks, Osama bin Laden, I must consider defying the march of time and having myself a tickler to dye for.
Published in the Press and Journal on August 6, 2008
