THERE may be merit in the suggestion I heard recently from a bodach I know (sorry, Donald) that there is a tendency for people in the islands to believe everything they read – far more than mainlanders, he reckons. It would explain a lot.
As I write a very serious piece here each week, I don’t want to put anyone off believing every word I write, but the problem is that in this technological age it is far too easy for anyone to send whoever they want a written message at the push of a button.
Many business people here in Stornoway got letters and e-mails that seemed to be too good to be true. Which they were.
Some did not delete them or chuck them in the bin. They actually thought the badly-written missives meant they had won £1million in a competition they had not even entered.
Sadly, they didn’t heed their friends’ warnings that the next e-mail would be asking for their bank details – so their new fortune would be shovelled in pronto, of course. I think I may have mentioned the cafe owner concerned here before, so I’ll spare his blushes. Next time, he should listen to what wise old Cameraman tells him. He’s not as daft as he looks.
Much more particular was one of our garage owners. Ian Ross got an awfully nice letter telling him about poor Alfred Ross who had sadly shuffled off this mortal coil after a terrible accident. In the personally-typed document, Chung “please note that I am a family man” Xien, who said he was a manager at the deceased’s namesake’s bank in Chile, was more than happy to offer Ian half of the lamented Alfred’s $8.5million fortune as he had no next-of-kin.
All he had to do was let Chung use his bank account for the garage at Caberfeidh Road for the transaction.
What the swindler didn’t know when he tackled Ian Ross was that he is from Point. It would be far easier to solve the world’s financial crisis than get anyone from the peninsula to reveal whether or not they even have a bank account.
People in Bayble, for example, are so tight with their pennies that they don’t take hot water bottles to bed with them to cuddle up to; they take their sporrans. Or maybe that is just Murdigan and Marisa.
They are not the only ones who keep a tight rein on their generosity. What on earth happened on Eurovision? Obviously that woman from Iceland with hair that looked like a pile of pasta on her head should have won. She was cool.
The winners, Norway, with that lad that looked like a young Costello, with black eyebrows but without the bifocals, was OK on the fiddle. But did they really deserve to get “douze pwa” from quite so many countries?
The big shock for me was Moldova. They could not have given us fewer points. A single, solitary one. What was that all about? Everyone knows that Eurovision has nothing to do with talent, whatever Lord Andrew Lloyd Webber says, and it is all about politics and which countries are friendly with each other. So?
I am speaking on behalf of Britain here when I say we have enjoyed very cordial relations with our friends in that former Soviet state. We did that by getting Charlie Nicolson to skive off regularly from being a councillor and get everyone in the islands packing toothpaste and tights into shoeboxes for the Blythswood appeal.
Then, a few times each year, we deport him to Moldova, telling him there is much good work to be done over there and that he is just the man for the job.
He’s a willing, kindly soul, is Charlie, so he doth not protest too much. The real reason, as everyone else but him knows, is to get him out of the way here so the more-sensible councillors and trustees can start planning ferries and golf on Sundays
It’s a great wheeze. After all, the Moldovans always say they are glad to have him over and will repay the kindness any way they can. Yeah right, do it, then.
I half-expected Charlie to pop up as the one talking live with the annoying pair in Russia to give the Moldovan vote. Either that or that Moldova would use the occasion to announce that Charlie had been installed as president.
But no. We were not chuffed in this house to discover the Moldovan nation gave our Jade Ewen only “une pwa”. If they don’t buck up their ideas over there in Chisinau, we will have to ship Charlie out somewhere else. There is always something to be done in deepest Siberia in the dead of winter.
Who remembers a TV programme in deepest Harris in the 1960s? It featured a glimpse into the life of a wee fellow called Donald Macsween. I remember thinking that A Boy in Harris was just like being in Bernera – except they were all speaking funny. That wee boy went on to become the Rev Donnie Macsween – a guitar-strumming preacher in Alness.
Now they are planning to do a reunion of everyone who was involved in the filming of the programme. It’s a fantastic idea for a follow-up. They are all getting together in Seilebost School tomorrow evening. I wish I could get along myself. I would have a few stern words to say to Mr Macsween. He was the one who wrung out of me a promise to stick with Mrs X as long as we both shall live. He has a lot to answer for.
As does another minister who buttonholed me the other day. He asked if there was any truth in the rumour that I was now the pin-up boy for the Free Church (Continuing). I am really not quite sure how closely he had been reading what I wrote.
Would the (Continuing) want me as a pin-up? I doubt it. A dartboard, maybe.
