WHY is it called the tourist season if we can’t shoot them? Oh, is it not like the grouse season? Oops, my mistake. It used to be the case that, until August, all you would see in Stornoway would be poverty-stricken students who would smoke roll-ups and sit in the corner of the bar nursing a half-pint all night.
Now, our visitors are driving huge campervans that are bigger than most of the houses in the Cearns scheme and which are kitted out with microwave ovens and satellite TV.
Bankers who have taken early retirement because of their phenomenal bonuses take over beaches like Horgabost and Bosta.
They come out and scream “Sell, sell, sell” into their mobile phones. Just force of habit. There’s actually no signal over there.
Rich snobs like them have forked out £400 for mobile phones and then found out they don’t actually work. It’s brilliant. Is it so wrong to be happy about that?
The makers say the slimmer, shinier phone is just fine. All these problems are just down to daft users who are holding them wrong.
Honestly, these people. You would think they would learn how to hold a mobile phone properly before they started moaning.
I loved these reviewers breathlessly telling us how they had moved hell and high water to get themselves one ahead of everyone else and how it was the best thing since someone took a loaf of bread and sliced it.
It was already changing their lives and how they worked.
If two people go out and buy these technological wonders, they can even see each other, they told us. Gosh.
The sound quality was unbeatable. Golly gosh.
And the battery, wow. It lasted 38 hours. Yes, 38 hours. Golly, golly gosh.
And every one of them forgot to mention that if you hold it in your left hand, or too high or too low, then the new iPhone thingy is sometimes pretty much next to useless. Er, gosh.
Meanwhile, also visiting us in the island last week was an international man of mystery. And sadly he has come a cropper.
He uses the nom-de-plume Mackie Lamb and has the cover that he is “fae Aiberdeen, like, ye ken”.
He has a keen interest in golf and had been spotted in those watering holes favoured by people who whoop and jump when a wee ball goes into a hole in the ground.
Lamb appears in these parts around the time of the naked dancing at the Callanish Stones, although he maintains he has made his sojourn only to savour the delights of Stornoway Golf Week. Whatever.
That doesn’t kick off until next month. Hmm. Which other dedicated follower of the sport of outrageous trouser-wearers would turn up a month early and then say he had better make the most of it by seeing a bit of the island? What perfect cover for someone carrying out discreet surveillance. He’s a spy. It’s obvious.
It all went horribly wrong, however, when our man Lamb, ignoring the advice from the CIA or MI5 or whoever he is engaged by, accepted an offer of lodgings from the master of Ogilvie Towers.
For those who are strangers to lesser-known swanky Stornoway, we are talking about a deceptive mid-terrace house on Keith Street.
An unpretentious façade of cheap pebble dash and a stark notice warning it is not currently open to the public gives no clue that, if you peek behind the curtains, therein lies a residence so palatial and utterly grand that it is our sole and most stunning reminder of a less-hurried and more-polite bygone age.
Sadly for him, the sleuth Lamb felt the need to rise from his slumbers in the early hours and go walkabout. Alas, Master James Ogilvie had allocated the guest quarters on the first floor. The 4am somnambulist failed to negotiate the top of the stairs properly and ended up in a crumpled heap below.
With his government connections, Lamb was able to brief Master James on a special number to call and, within minutes, another government agency sent transport to whisk the woolly-minded Lamb away.
I can reveal exclusively that he was cared for by an agency known only by the letters N H and S and made a good recovery in his secret den at the far end of the medical ward.
We wish him well and hope that we have not divulged too much which could blow his cover for the remainder of his stay. That’s the thing about Stornoway, you see. You get all types suddenly turning up here.
For instance, in the last week or two, there have been all types of interesting people walking into the Carlton Bar. I even came across one of the many people who have had a go at me for the carefully-crafted opinions and knowledge that I impart in this column. However, Dan Mackay, from Wick, is different from the others. He is not in the Free Church (Continuing).
Dan is a literary type. He jumps on his motorbike and goes places and writes about them. He was on his way to St Kilda, he said. I suggested he would need better waterproofs than he was wearing to get there. Wisely, I think, he took my advice and was actually going to get a boat from Harris. I hope the expedition went well and I look forward to the book.
Van the man
We also get the occasional arty types calling in for a quench. Most of them are not artistic in the traditional sense of that word, but they have certainly been described as artists. Who called in on Tuesday but Vincent Van Gogh. Then, would you believe it, soon afterwards, in walks Rembrandt. That was a coincidence, eh? He recognised his fellow-painter chatting away to Morag and he called over: “Hi, cove, what’s the craic? Fancy a drink?”
“Naw, it’s OK, pal,” said Van the man. “I’ve got one ear.”
