Monthly Archives: November 2009

Not a good idea to let anyone else have the use of your wife

Posted on November 30, 2009 | Leave a comment

MY DECISION to buy Ardvourlie Castle on Harris was almost forced on me. Having been in residence in this pad in Stornoway for more than five years, I was mortified to discover the windows and much else are now badly in need of cleaning.

If truth be told, I have always suspected that housework was never Mrs X’s strong point. The cobwebs, the dust and the sea of discarded Pot Noodle tubs in every room tell their own grim story.

She would shout down to me to make my own dinner and that she would make something for herself later on. That’s not normal – not every evening since we moved here? Rather than have any unpleasantness this close to Christmas, I have decided just to move.

I know what you’re thinking. Is a castle of seven bedrooms, four reception rooms and five bathrooms too much with a wife who is a stranger to Windolene? Ah, I have a cunning plan. I’ll send her out to work more so that we can afford to have someone in to do stuff for us.

There is bound to be some wee cailleach somewhere in the bustling metropolis that is Bowglass who will come in and work her socks off every day picking up after me and my compact little family for less than that awful, crippling minimum wage.

Can we afford a castle? The sellers say they want £695,000, but there is a recession and everyone has to be flexible and do a bit of bartering. Maybe if I offer less and tell them they can have the use of Mrs X any time they want . . . then again, maybe not.

So why Ardvourlie? Well, we know what the castle looks like inside. It featured often enough in the Gaelic soap Machair where the castle was the fictional Gaelic college Bradan Mor. I have been studying the repeats, so I know where every cushion and decanter is.

And Harris people are a fine lot. Especially the ones who did so fantastically well for the moustache-growing charity Movember, the annual push to raise awareness of men’s issues like prostate cancer.

I was over in Tarbert at their fundraising bash in the Hotel Hebrides on Saturday night and how quite so many decent, clean-living guys could be transformed in just a month to look like 1970s porn stars is a mystery.

Not that I have a clue what entertainers of that genre were like, you understand. Just something I was told by someone who was around then. I’m far too young myself, of course.

Iain Turnbull, that outspoken former brewer, was there, too. He had the right side of his not-inconsiderable beard shaved off. Poor Iain. He shivered so much on the way back to town that the car was wobbling like mad all the way through Balallan. But just on one side.

It was all good fun – just like the crew of the CalMac ferry Hebrides had when they danced their version of the old Madness classic House of Fun. These guys are genuinely talented.

Have you not seen it? I don’t know who the choreographer was, but to get a bunch of Jack Tars to move so gracefully and rhythmically as that must have taken some doing. Just go to YouTube and search for Heb Madness.

I would never give away my darling wife, of course, but one of our prominent stalwarts of the Free Church here on Lewis went over to Inverness last week and got in a right fluster over just that.

Let’s just call him Mr Macleod. That may or may not be his right name, but there are so many of the blighters with that name round these parts that I think I am safe enough.

Mr Macleod and his missus found lovely accommodation down near the river for their few days’ break and they had a splendid time, seeing the sights of Invershneggie, visiting relatives and, of course, shopping.

It was in a shop in the Eastgate Centre that one of the helpful assistants, chatting to a colleague, mentioned that someone had brought back an item of clothing and “the wifey” had asked for her money back. Mr Macleod overheard what she said with horror.

“Wifey?” he exclaimed, with a look of sheer horror on his face as a grim realisation descended on him.

“Wifey. She said wifey,” he shouted again, as scores of Marks & Sparks shoppers turned in awe at the commotion. His own alarmed wife thought Mr Macleod was having a turn and ushered him gently out. He was very excitable.

“Mary,” he thundered, “This is a terrible, terrible place. They call their women wifeys in Inverness. Did you know that, Mary? Did you? Tell me now.”

She supposed she did, but thought nothing of it. They also say “bread and butter”, she assured him. Every place was different.

“Aye, but there is a great moral decline here. Did you know that they give their women away for the amusement of others. Like in the hotel we’re staying in. That is why it’s so busy for November. Oh, Mary, it is a place of great iniquity. We are not staying there one more night, that’s for sure.”

Mrs Macleod was completely baffled and was dragged down the High Street and over the bridge by her irate husband, who said he would show her exactly what he was talking about.

As they went, he ranted on about the sinful Invernessians and how they were now betraying the sanctity of marriage for the mere titillation of others.

Arriving at the hotel, he roared with anger and ordered his mystified missus to lift her eyes to the hotel window and there she would see the proof of what the God-forsaken capital of the Highlands was now reduced to as they tried desperately to boost visitor numbers.

Mrs Macleod sighed as she saw the offending sign in the window. It said: “Residents may take advantage of our free wi-fi.”

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Posted in ferries, Isle of Harris, Isle of Lewis, Outer Hebrides, Scotland, Western Isles

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How and why I invented the word Gawkenvelopophobia

Posted on November 23, 2009 | 1 Comment

WHO is this e-mail from? The writer says he is going to “FB” me in the evening. What? My nether regions begin to twitch.

Happily, it turns out to be a former colleague from 25 years ago who wants to chat on Facebook. Ah, FB. So glad it wasn’t someone intent on pulverising the tip of their Doc Martens with a soft part of my anatomy.

New acronyms, words and even phrases are appearing all the time. Take drivers who weave all over the road. If they have had a few bevvies, they are said to be intoxicated. But, if it is because they are reading or sending messages on their mobiles, they are now intexticated.

Another new one, unfriend, is the word of the year. It’s when you delete someone from your list of friends on Facebook or Bebo. They are no longer your online friend because you have unfriended them. Get it?

They have lists every few years of new words and phrases that have made it into the English language. Recently inserted are retail elephant, auto dentist and late plate.

A retail elephant is a business that dominates or monopolises an area. So the Lewis Crofters is the retail elephant of Island Road in Stornoway and the Cearns Shop is the retail elephant of, er, the Cearns. An auto dentist is someone who fixes dents on cars. Of course.

And a late plate is a train running behind time? Nope, it is a dish served coolly to a person who returns from the Carlton Bar, or some such fine establishment, well after the evening meal has been served.

In Gaelic, the process for integrating a new word or phrase is slightly different. New words and combinations that have never been used in a school or in a fank on a Saturday afternoon can be firmly installed in the Gaels’ consciousness by 9am on Monday.

If anchormen Donald Morrison and James Macdonald use a word on the 7.30am Gaelic news show, that’s all it takes. The power these people have is terrifying.

Even medical conditions can suddenly make it into our lexicon. Take thymestic syndrome, for example. This is when someone says they can forgive but they cannot forget – literally. Such is their power of recall about everything that they spend their lives thinking about silly little things that the rest of us forget in a day or two.

It is an actual medical condition. As a Maciver, I should really suffer from this terrible malady because our clan motto is Nunquam Obliviscar – I Will Never Forget. If only that were true. I can’t even remember why I brought this up.

Oh yes, new words. Like baggravation. That is something you suffer from when you fly from Glasgow to Stornoway, for example, and you realise that your bags are not on the carousel because the handlers at Glasgow could not be bothered as they were on a tea break.

In extreme circumstances, a bad bout of baggravation can go on for days when, as happened to a member of the Gaelic mafia travelling to London, a holdall containing two black puddings, 6lb of gigot – and, for all I know, a horse’s head – ended up in Italy.

However, it never, ever happens on the Stornoway-Glasgow route. And that is because Roddy Macleod and the guys at Flybe in Stornoway are just so very, very professional. They are all so polite and helpful, too. What an asset everyone in that office is to the airline.

And did I mention they are all very professional? Good. Because they are. Very.

Meanwhile, I need a new word for a rare medical condition that has wrecked the life of my good friend George Gawk Campbell. He is suffering from a puzzling phobia that is not in any medical books. Yet.

He had a letter delivered and, like all of us, he looked for clues about the sender.

No address on the back. It was just a white window envelope with a second-class stamp. That worried George.

Individuals do not send window envelopes. So, despite his recent efforts, it was not a love letter. Only businesses, he reasoned, send those envelopes. That is so an invoice, for example, can be folded so the recipient’s address is visible.

The crofter, oil worker and Labour Party activist from Back put the unopened envelope high up on a shelf and began to agonise over who would be demanding cash. If he opened it, he would be morally obliged to pay it, he decided. But who sent it?

The postmark was unclear. It wasn’t the council or the taxman, as they have brown identifiable envelopes. Must be a local company. Oh heck.

After a few days, the strain got to poor George. He stopped going for a pint. He stayed in, fretting.

Then, the other morning, at 3am, he snapped. Bolting upright in bed, he realised he had to end his torment. He paced the floor for a while then, pouring with sweat, he grabbed the envelope and ripped it open.

It was a shock demand, all right. It was a note asking him to fill in a survey about which party he was going to vote for at the next elections. It was signed by our SNP MP and MSP Angus MacNeil and Alasdair Allan respectively.

How ironic the SNP pair had, through no fault of their own, made George Gawk suffer the worst few days of his life. Don’t laugh, but George concedes he may have an extreme fear of . . . window envelopes. How else do you explain what happened?

My researches have found details of the condition known as defenestraphobia, an irrational fear of windows, but nowhere is the variety of the ailment associated with stationery mentioned in medical texts or learned papers. So we have to invent a term. Gawkenvelopophobia, perhaps?

To those of us who know him well, that George Gawk is an enigma pushing the boundaries of medical science is really no surprise at all.

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Posted in Gaelic, Isle of Lewis, Outer Hebrides, Scotland, Stornoway, Western Isles

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Wrong number? I’ll give you a wrong number? I’m coming round

Posted on November 16, 2009 | Leave a comment

A MAN living somewhere in the Stornoway area is probably either baffled, angry or chuffed to bits. The poor fellow had a very weird phone call that was meant for me.

Some weeks ago, I may have mentioned in this column gigglesome broadcaster and wizard with a slotted spoon Neen Mackay. I may also have inadvertently let slip that she had sent me an e-mail that could be construed by anyone with that kind of mind as being slightly saucy.

Being back here on Lewis for a wee break from her luxury hideaway in Perthshire, she decided to look me up and have words with me about my journalistic indiscretion.

Blinded by anger and a need for revenge, she misdialled and got someone completely different to vent her wrath on.

“Is that my so-called secret lover? Huh. Who do you think you are, Maciomhair? You have really done it this time. By the time I have finished with you, you will be wishing you had written about the Free Church (Continuing) instead. That was so out of order.

“Secret lover? I’ll give you a secret lover. I’m on the way round now to sort you out,” was one heck of an opening gambit.

The poor innocent fellow on the other end of the phone protested loudly that he was no one’s fancy man, had never written a word in the Press and Journal about anyone and was most keen to discover who on earth she was and why she was picking on him.

That didn’t work. The more the stunned subscriber complained, the more Ms Mackay was convinced that it was just me disguising my voice to avoid a roasting from the ferocious, flame-haired domestic goddess.

When the exasperated chap hung up eventually, something I have to say that I would not have been so likely to do in those circumstances without getting to the bottom of the matter, for some reason she decided to check the number she had just dialled.

She had got a digit wrong.

So she had been giving a piece of her mind and having another very personal conversation with someone who may not necessarily have had either the sparkling personality or the dazzling good looks of her columnist mate.

Her words.

But then again, Neen does sometimes need glasses nowadays, which is probably what caused the entire problem.

It is not for me to apologise for the good lady’s faux pas. However, if the unfortunate recipient of the call happens to read this, he could always get in touch and I might be able to point him in her direction.

Mind you, if he was so distressed that he called in the constabulary, the boys with the silver buttons will be feeling her collar round about now, anyway.

Because, like Gordon Brown, it is now the fashion to put our hands up for errors in communications.

I suppose I should ’fess up, too. I made a bit of a boo-boo the other day by not making myself clear. It could have resulted in some other poor souls thinking that I was also being somewhat fresh towards them.

“See you, I’m going to fill you in,” was always a slightly-worrying greeting to be had in some of the less-salubrious pubs round these parts, such as when, for example, you knocked someone’s hand and their pint went all over the floor.

Times have changed. Now, that phrase means something quite different and is as likely to come from someone with a medical qualification as a Rudhach ruffian.

Botox injections and wrinkle-filling treatments are now advertised in the islands. The advertisers are to be commended for their endeavours to drum up trade, but where is their customer base on these windswept Hebridean islands?

Everyone here has a rosy complexion and while there are some who love to look world-weary and sunken-faced at certain times of the week, that is just a put-on and they do look quite normal from Monday to Saturday.

I think it was the adverts for Botox that inspired my wife to tackle some longtime outstanding jobs around the house. Grout, putty and Polyfilla were getting laldy all week and before long there was more silicone in the bathroom and the kitchen than Jordan has had implanted in the last five years.

Being not very adept at DIY myself, I kept out of the way in case she turned on me for any other wee crevices to fill.shed_1118458c

Outside, she decided that the damage to the shed roof needed fixing before the winter. High-level negotiations ensued and Peter George, a brother of the said Mrs X and a man with a reputation for fixing anything that is broken, about to break or just out of guarantee, agreed to rush round with a hammer.

He is a handy fellow. I like to watch him work in case I pick up any PG tips.

With the prospect of a man who was good with his hands about to arrive, the hopeless man of the house was dispatched to get the necessary materials where, it was decided, there was less chance of me getting anything wrong.

At Bain Morrison, those fine builders’ merchants to the gentry, the faces of the girls in the office fairly lit up when I walked in and announced that my wife was hard at it and had sent me along to get felt as she was too busy to do it herself.

Even John Angus, the foreman, stared at me from under a raised eyebrow and nodded. I had, indeed, come to the right place.

While I am sure there are others who provide a similar service, I can confirm that the quality experience I encountered at Bain Morrison meant that getting felt at that particular trader of titillating timbers was painless, professional and so speedy that it was all over before I even realised it had happened. I’ll be back.

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Posted in Isle of Lewis, Outer Hebrides, Scotland, Stornoway, Western Isles

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Swimmer, 10, in legal bid over Sunday closing

Posted on November 10, 2009 | 2 Comments
Intolerance being challenged in the Western Isles

This from The Herald at http://www.heraldscotland.com/news/home-news/swimmer-10-in-legal-bid-over-sunday-closing-1.931758?localLinksEnabled=false

Exclusive, David Ross, Highland Correspondent

Published on 10 Nov 2009

A 10-year-old swimmer is challenging a council’s policy of keeping community facilities closed on a traditionally Presbyterian island on Sundays, while it allows those on other islands to remain open.

A leading solicitor is preparing to seek a judicial review on behalf of Ellen MacLeod’s mother Helen over the policy of Western Isles Council, which keeps the Stornoway sports centre shut but allows those in the religiously mixed Benbecula and the predominantly Roman Catholic Barra to open.

It could be yet another blow to the Sabbatarian tradition on Lewis, which this summer failed to prevent the introduction of the first-ever Sunday ferries to and from Stornoway.

Two other council pools on Lewis, at Lionel in the north and Shawbost in the west, shut on Sundays, as does the community-owned Harris Sports Centre in Tarbert.

Glasgow solicitor Cameron Fyfe is acting for Mrs MacLeod.

Mrs MacLeod, a native islander, is convinced most young people on Lewis want to see the £7 million Stornoway centre open over the entire weekend, when they can make most use of it. She does not accept this would impinge on traditional Sabbath observance. As well as the pool, facilities include a fitness centre, games hall, squash courts, health suite, climbing wall, creche, football pitch and running track.

Mrs MacLeod does not want to make any further public comment, but Mr Fyfe told The Herald: “I have been instructed to apply for legal aid on behalf of Ellen to raise an action for judicial review in the Court of Session against the decision of the Western Isles Council not to open their sports centre on a Sunday.

“We have Counsel’s Opinion to the effect that this decision is irrational and in breach of the Equality Act 2006 in that the council allows some of their other sports centres to open on a Sunday.”

Mr Fyfe also wrote words to that effect to the council on August 31, warning: “Our clients consider that this is a breach of the Equality Act of 2006 as sports centres elsewhere in the Outer Hebrides, over which you have jurisdiction, are open on a Sunday.

“Can you please confirm that you will now open the sports centre on a Sunday, otherwise our instructions are to proceed with a court action for judicial review of your decision. The action would be founded on section 46 of the 2006 Equality Act.”

This was the section about which directors of Caledonian MacBrayne sought legal advice. They were warned the company could be breaching section 46 if they did not introduce the first Sunday sailing to and from Stornoway this summer.

The Lord’s Day Observance Society, which had been campaigning against the Sunday service, sought its own legal opinion from Gordon Jackson, QC, which challenged Caledonian MacBrayne’s interpretation.

Ferries now sail twice-daily between Ullapool and Stornoway on Sundays.

A Western Isles Council spokesman said yesterday: “The comhairle will defend any such legal action. Is a court really going to dictate the opening hours of facilities to a local authority?

“That would be somewhat bizarre, particularly in these times of extreme budgetary pressures when opening hours are being looked at with a view to possible savings.

“The comhairle is confident that the opening hours of Lewis Sports Centre compare favourably with other such facilities in Scotland.”

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Posted in Benbecula, ferries, Isle of Harris, Isle of Lewis, Outer Hebrides, politics, religion, Scotland, Stornoway, Uist, Uncategorized, Western Isles

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I’ve won EuroMillions – but where should I spend it?

Posted on November 9, 2009 | 2 Comments

WINNING more than £45million is going to make things a bit easier for me and the missus but, och, it won’t change me. I have decided not to give up my job.

We might now be on the rich list of Britain’s wealthiest but I still scratch any itch that needs scratching myself.

The wife, though, has refused to do a hand’s turn since she found the ticket in the bin, wiped the lasagne and rotten tomatoes off it and then turned to me and said I was history unless I played my cards right.

I love her dearly and that’s nothing to do with the fact that she bought the ticket.

At 10 past six on Saturday, before we had even phoned Camelot, she took early retirement and started phoning everyone she knows to tell them the news and then adding not to tell anyone as we don’t want begging letters.

By using the same numbers 11, 19, 34, 43 and 45 each week, we knew straight away we had won. Eleven is for the number of idiots in teams chasing pieces of leather round a pitch, 19 is for the Renault 19 that ran me over a few years ago in Glasgow, 34 is for the film Miracle on 34th Street with Maureen O’Hara and the best Christmas film ever, 43 is the number of the squadron known as the Fighting Cocks at RAF Leuchars who once had me dangling upside down over the North Sea in a Phantom jet, and the ’45 is how we remember the Jacobite uprisings which actually went on till about 1746.inverted

Obvious, innit?

She thought it would be fun not to claim straight away as it would send everyone in Britain scrambling into their drawers looking for tickets in case they were the lucky ones.

Unfortunately, we have had to split our winnings. Otherwise, we would have won £91million. That was rotten luck for us, eh? Still, we are trying to keep positive in the face of such adversity.

The new housekeepers have been hired already, of course, but they won’t be starting for a few days. She chose them so they will all be old crones. She will want to look good beside them, I suppose. Meanwhile, I am feasting on bread and crisps.

There are so many things to decide. We need to find a new base but, and this may surprise you, there aren’t that many 20-bedroom properties around. The market is rubbish. You never think about it till you have to start looking. It is not easy but people just don’t understand.

We have been trying to decide which trendy hotspot to go for – Monaco, Monte Carlo, Mangurstadh. Just someplace quiet where nothing happens. That is, until people like us want to show off without anyone asking awkward questions.

However, we have decided that we want to live in the north of Scotland or maybe on one of the islands. I fancy Shetland. It has been on my mind a lot since I saw the shapely young lassies on the latest nudie calendar from up there.

Living on Lewis was at the back of our minds but after leering at those Lerwick lovelies leaping about on a crisp, cold morning in the altogether, I am not so sure now. After all, if the best alternative in the Hebrides is a side view of Jock Murray’s bellybutton and Kenny Mobil’s behind on the Naked Peatcutters’ calendar, could I stand that from January through to December? You have to weigh up all these things.

Then we remembered hearing the other day that hundreds of islanders between the Butt and Barra are getting fresh with people they are not even in the holy state of matrimony with.

One point five per cent of Outer Hebrideans, it said. Hundreds of islanders are apparently signed up to a website for flirty types who are looking for a bit of what they call fun and frolicks and what the Free Church (Continuing) calls fornication. Allegedly.

It must be business types and local politicians; people who go off regularly to the mainland. They are all suspects now. No one else has the time – or the stamina. If it is indeed the esteemed local politicians who are at it, maybe they all made an innocent mistake and just signed up by accident for a type of congress that you don’t actually get at the TUC.

Everyone on Lewis is now busy trying to work out who it could be. Is there any truth in the rumour that gaggles of elders’ wives can already be seen huddled outside the airport in Stornoway trying to figure out which passengers are likely to be getting up to what?

Still, I have nothing to worry about in that department. With up to £1million in my wallet, she has generously decided to keep the other £44million herself, I will not go short of ardent admirers. I heard her say she is worried that lots of money will prove too much for me. She fears it will prove to be an aphrodisiac.

An aphrodisiac indeed. While I am not exactly sure what that means, I think it is must be some sort of condition where your hair goes curly when you have a big wad of high-denomination notes making a bulge in your pocket.

Now, I would like to take the opportunity to thank everyone who has been buying lottery tickets week in, week out with little or no return. It is only through your selfless efforts that we have won all this money. So thank you very much.

Ta also to Camelot for all their help in keeping up our anonymity so we can avoid all these begging letters like the ones we used to send ourselves.

And, finally, for allowing me the chance to tell everyone what we plan to do with their money, I would like to thank Iain Maciver for letting me have his regular space in this newspaper.

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Posted in Isle of Lewis, Outer Hebrides, Scotland, Stornoway, Western Isles

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Ooh ooh ooh – why Saturday night is all right for frightening

Posted on November 2, 2009 | Leave a comment
HALLOWEEN was so different when I was a lad. We dressed up as ghosts and ghouls, but there was a lot more to it when we went guising round the village. We would be dragged into houses out of the downpour to give a rendition of some supposedly-prepared Gaelic song or poem.

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Posted in Gaelic, Isle of Lewis, Outer Hebrides, Scotland, Stornoway, TV, Western Isles

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