Monthly Archives: November 2010

Radio interview with brother of missing man Donald Mackenzie

Posted on November 29, 2010 | Leave a comment

Interview with Derick Mackenzie, brother of Donald, who is still missing in the area of Mount Ararat in eastern Turkey.
Derick Mackenzie by IainMaciver
Derick’s blog is at http://ararathunt.blogspot.com and the search he mentions which was due to begin today (Monday 29th) has been postponed because of heavy snow.

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Posted in Isle of Lewis, Popular culture, Radio, religion, Scotland, Stornoway, Turkey, Western Isles

Did an electrician from Back really change Gaelic forever?

Posted on November 29, 2010 | Leave a comment

LANGUAGE and how we use it has been in the news again. Not just the latest gaffe by Sarah Palin, who didn’t know the difference between the really mad guys in North Korea and the not-so-barmy fellows in South Korea, but a kooky Caithness councillor invoking the spirit of the Nazis in deliberations on the recruitment of teachers who support Gaelic.

He’s the guy who has tried to find out how much is spent on the promotion of Gaelic. Fair enough, he should get that information and we should all know how much that costs us. It is quite disgusting, the cover-up that is going on over cash for Gaelic. He’s absolutely right about that.

However, that does not give anyone any excuse to spout the offensive nonsense he came out with the other day.

I hear he has been trying in vain down the Freedom of Information route to get the info from the Scottish Government. I suspect it’s as easy to get that kind of detail as it is to get sight of the legal advice that the council lawyers here in Stornoway gave our licensing board when the North Korean members threw out our golf club’s bid for a Sunday extension. I have been trying for ages to get that.

Wait a minute. Freedom of Information legislation? Now there’s an idea. What if I . . . ?

Sarah Palin should think herself lucky she doesn’t speak Gaelic. Certain words are spelled differently depending on where you see them. Simple words like tigh, which means house, becomes taigh when written in certain textbooks and posh newspapers. I always assumed it was people with degrees keeping the plebs with O-level woodwork in their place by confusing them.

The word for association, Comunn, is another one. The Royal National Mod organisers are An Comunn Gaidhealach, yet the learners’ body is Comann Luchd-Ionnsachaidh or, of course, CLI if you’re really lazy.

So is it comunn or comann? Maybe it’s just the difference by us only having tinker Gaelic here in the islands? Yeah, that’ll be it, I thought. I’d just keep quiet about that.

Then someone pointed out that Lews Castle College translates its own name to a colaisde while the rest of the world calls a college a colaiste. Even Sabhal Mòr Ostaig on incomer-rich Skye calls itself a colaiste – with a “t”.

Ah, got them. If even the academics are all mixed up about it, then what chance is there for the rest of us? So I asked both institutions, as well as the head honchos at Bòrd na Gàidhlig. Funnily enough, none of the responses was out-and-out admissions that they hadn’t a clue what they were doing. Far from it.

First, Professor Hugh Cheape phoned from the campus at the bottom of Skye. He told me the awful truth. It was all Gawk’s fault.

These changes were set out by the Gawk many years ago.

Strange. George never mentioned it. What did a full-time crofter and part-time insulated-screwdriver-wielding sparky on North Sea oil rigs have to do with it? He has short-circuited many things in his time – but an entire language? Was the prof sure? He had it there in black and white.

Then I got an e-mail from Angela Weir at our college here in Stornoway. She, too, blamed the Gawk and revealed he first started fiddling with the language of the Garden of Eden back in 1985. Apparently, he recommended “st” should be adopted in orthography rather than “sd” – hence ist, eist, fhathast, colaiste and so on, rather than isd, eisd, fhathasd, colaisde.

George Campbell from Coll – him with the mud-spattered Subaru Impreza and the fondness for the girls from Harris – said that? Blimey.

She explained that, as Lews Castle College was around before 1985, the name Colaisde a’ Chaisteil was part of its corporate identity, so the “sd” spelling was retained.

Even although it’s wrong. Excellent.

“GOC also recommended “-unn” be altered to “-ann”, as in Comann Luchd-Ionnsachaidh, however Comunn na Gaidhlig and An Comunn Gaidhealach retained the pre-1985 orthography, as they were established prior to the orthographic change. Therefore, the accepted convention is, if the body/agency/institution was established prior to 1985, it retains the pre-1985 orthography.”

I’ve got it. If you’re a bit long in the tooth, just ignore all the new words and rules that are being introduced every second week to keep the Gaelic Mafia in jobs.

Hold on. Did she say GOC? Is that how he spells his nickname? Well, yes, it probably is, but maybe GOC is something else, too.

Right then, Murdo Macleod at Sabhal Mòr writes to put me right.

“You’ve probably heard of the Gaelic Orthographic Conventions (GOC) first published around 1981 by the SCEEB, forerunner of the SQA, and at that time the body responsible for administering examinations and certification in high schools – O levels, Highers, etc.”

Of course I’ve heard of them. Yeah, hasn’t everyone? Well, they did it. Not George, then. I did wonder.

And Bòrd na Gàidhlig’s official response? They were obviously far too busy doing their expenses on Friday to bother with me. Well, it is the end of the month.

I’ve had loads of replies from mortar-board types, all putting the blame squarely on the GOC. Thank you. Fine work.

I just have one other job for you to do concerning those councillors who refused to interview anyone for the two teaching posts which ask for support for Gaelic.

As you know, one of them has reportedly claimed the Gaelic reference in the job spec echoes 1930s Germany when jobs were earmarked for Nazi members.

What is the correct Gaelic term for an anti-Gaelic councillor from Thurso who will stoop as low as referring to the Third Reich to make cheap political points?

And just remind me of the term for good riddance, which I can use when he has the good grace to step down or, even better, be booted out.

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Posted in Gaelic, Outer Hebrides, politics, Stornoway, Western Isles

Guide to everything you always wanted to know about marketing

Posted on November 23, 2010 | Leave a comment

DID you hear about that electrical shop in Israel giving away free sheep to anyone buying a fridge? Anyone spending more than 1,000 shekels, about £200 in our money, gets a Cheviot. Those eligible could just pick their own. Brilliant.

Except you had to tie it up and cram it into the boot alongside the Hotpoint or the Zanussi.

Arab customers are into slaughtering a few sheep for the Eid festival, which marks the end of Ramadan. It’s just like stocking up for the communions, but with a month of dawn-to-sunset fasting beforehand. Great idea. They sold loads.

I saw a trailer-load of blackfaces in Perceval Square car park, just behind the Scottish Hydro-Electric shop, in Stornoway the other day. Are they trying the same thing?

Clever marketing, you see. We easily forget about it, but it’s always everywhere.

People in politics can be marketed like fridges – although you have to be careful with that one. The Tories tried to market their old warhorses in pointless jobs, like running banks and energy companies. It worked well – at first.

Then they tried out Lord Young. Fine fellow, loads of experience, so make him an adviser, not a minister. That way he can’t do any damage, just in case Margaret Thatcher made him a bit gaga.

No sooner is Maggie’s former lieutenant let loose than he has a rush of blue blood to the head and claims that the vast majority of people in the country have never had it so good since the recession. Then he corrected himself: “This so-called recession.”

After recovering from the shock, David Cameron announced he had full confidence in his adviser – always a bad sign – and Young was terminated. I mean he apologised and quit before he was pushed and a minibus came to drive him slowly back to the boardrooms from whence he came.

There are always inadvertent opportunities for marketing. I remember when mouthwashes and lozenges called Victory Vs were secretly whispered about as the surefire way to beat these fancy breath test devices wielded by dedicated Stornoway cops like Jack O’Connor and Ruairidh Nicolson. You could have six pints and, as long as you scoffed half a packet of Victory Vs or brushed your teeth with these mouth rinsers, you had nothing to worry about. They sold loads here then.

Then it was in the paper the mouthwash had more alcohol than lager. So we ditched that one. But the myth about the lozenges persisted. It may still do in wilder places like Carloway and Creagorry.

So it was a bit of a shockeroonie to see the Australian who used to run the state of Victoria saying he uses mints to bamboozle the breath test after a few bevvies. Really? How? Polo mints don’t work. Not sure about Aussies, but the first thing the Stornoway cops do when they stop a car is have a sniff for booze – or mints. It’s the surest sign drivers have been having a wee swally. Every cop here says so.

Jeff Kennet reckons Kool Mints, which must be the Aussie equivalent of the mint with the non-fattening centre, also lower the blood count. So they don’t just mask the smell, they’re a soberer-upper, too.

Wow. Maybe the mints work or maybe they don’t. Either way, as far as inadvertent marketing goes, it’s a beaut.

I reckon Kennett is scoffing way too many. He claims to be just 62, but he looks like one of these old guys who wibble-wobble along Keith Street late in the evening.

And I don’t mean Jimmy, the longtime laird of Ogilvie Towers, who somehow forgot to invite me to his birthday celebrations at the weekend. He, of course, doesn’t wobble because he somehow manages to look at least 20 years younger than the 66 he has clocked up.

You never see Jimmy sucking mints. Sipping the occasional fine brandy, maybe, but mints play no part in those boyish good looks which recently resulted in him being recruited as a tour guide by a bevvy of foreign girl students who wanted a fun guy to show them around the Long Island.

Fun guy? Boyish good looks? Come on, James, that must be worth a large one at least.

Marketing happens all the time. Sometimes, though, it can change over time. Take the Free Church. We know what its marketing is – being dour, looking on the dark side and generally doing its utmost to avoid anything that brings a smile to anyone’s face.

Yes, I know there are people on the checkouts at the Co-op on Macaulay Road with the same outlook, but that’s only when they have a really long shift.

Now, the Free Church is bringing in hymns. Hey, wait a minute. They vowed that would never happen. Their customers aren’t getting what they expect. That’s a bad move.

It’s all right; don’t panic. It’ll happen only where congregations really, really want hymns. It won’t happen, then. It’s just marketing. That’s fine. Phew, had me worried there.

Marketing, of course, works better if you have a wee slogan. Preferably one that rhymes. On Saturday, Mrs X came back from the Co-op – whose slogan Good With Food also works well on that level – with a load of fancy toilet rolls.

They are, the marketing says, nice and soothing on your tenderest bits. Each sheet is impregnated with aloe vera. That’s a medicinal kind of plant and its sap is said to be good for burns, wounds and a whole host of painful and itchy conditions that can affect soft, pink skin like I have.

Oooh, lovely. Really soothing. Oh yes. That’s really nice. You should try it.

The loo rolls are sold with a charming wee ditty dreamed up by the marketing people for you to mull over as you sit there contemplating the universe.

It rhymes, too. It goes: “Be kind to your behind.”

Does that mean that the ordinary toilet tissue is harsh on your, er, hindquarters?

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Posted in Outer Hebrides, Popular culture, religion, Scotland, Stornoway, Uncategorized, Western Isles

Long to reign over us

Posted on November 23, 2010 | Leave a comment

A British journalist in his 70s was recently flung in a Singaporean jail for comments in his book saying the judiciary over there is a puppet of the government. There is plenty evidence to support his view.

The bish

A veteran UK politician said about the case that we Britons should not be surprised or complacent. Britain claims to be a free country, he said, but there are many privileged people here who cannot be criticised without dire retribution. Within a week, a bishop too honest for his own good, gives his long-held view about the philandering and abuses by our lovely, sweet, God-fearing Royal Family. There is plenty evidence to support his view.

The church and political establishment and most of the British media, which hypocritically claims to support freedom of expression, comes down on him like a ton of the proverbial building materials. The bish is condemned by those of money, privilege and gullibility and is then relieved of his duties.

Bit by bit, we are getting the type of country we deserve. Cruel Britannia.

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Posted in Popular culture, royals

Angie’s fishy fare is an ideal dish for jungle celebrities

Posted on November 15, 2010 | Leave a comment

WHO would have thought it? Britt Ekland on I’m A Celebrity … Get Me Out of Here? I know it’s for washed-up old has-beens but, as far as has-beens go, that is one lady with class.

She certainly would’ve had most of class 3B4 if she had wanted us back then when we used to discuss world events during Johnny Rednose’s registration class in the Springfield Building of the Nicolson Institute.

It was in those gap years between her splitting up with Peter Sellers and before she fell for Rod Stewart’s charms. We crofters’ sons all thought we were well in there.

The thought of her lovely head in a glass box of spiders makes me squirm. They had better not make Britt-Marie, as only us closest and dearest fans know her, eat kangaroos’ whatsits. I would spare her the pain and do it myself for her if I could. Actually, maybe not. Still, it’s the thought that counts, eh Miss E?

She was on my Christmas card list once after her agent’s address was in one of the papers. I can’t even do that now because Mrs X and I have decided to send our Christmas card cash to a good cause instead.

So, in case any friends and relations read this, just because you don’t get a card from us this year does not necessarily mean we are in the huff with you. Unless, of course, we are.

Here in Lewis, we really should have our own I Am A Celebrity show because we do have our own connoisseur of weird foods. Come with me to lovely Leurbost where we will find a chap so talented in off-the-wall culinary techniques and who, although he has been known to lose control of his tongue, puts TV’s potty-mouthed pot boilers in the shade.

Multi-skilling fisherman-cum-joiner Kenneth Angus Macmillan, or Angie Beag as Lochies know him, doesn’t often get the chance to show off his skills with the spatula or the Kenwood Chef. Too often, it’s only when he takes to the high seas he comes up with his finest haute cuisine.

He was out in the boat when he and his crewman had a breakdown in the Minch. Eventually, they had the engine purring away like a cat sitting in front of a plate of poached salmon. Or any Lochie for that matter.

Applied mechanics take their toll on the inner man. Angie and his crewman had a touch of the belly rumbles. The hard-working pair were beset with the munchies.

But what to do? Peering over the side, they would have eaten a scabby seahorse but none galloped by. And it was too far to steam to the Shiant Islands to sneak up on an unwary puffin.

A check of the inventory of the ship’s stores revealed that the onboard supplies amounted to a couple of haddies and a bag of porridge oats. Apart from the salt and pepper and two stale rolls. Angie decided no further investigation was required. They had the ingredients for Ceann Cropaig – apart from the suet and onions. And the cod. Thankfully, haddies have always been acceptable substitutes.

Ceann Cropaig is that supreme fish dish where the liver is mixed with oatmeal, stuffed in the head and lightly cooked to become a sensation of the senses with its gorgeous, aromatic tastiness.

In some places on the mainland, they call it Crappit Heid. That sounds far too much like how it looks for us sensitive Gaels.

Crewmate and galley slave Iain, according to my secret sources in Crossbost, was delegated to the mixing of the cropaig. Unfortunately, there was neither antiseptic hand cleansers nor even towels on board and time was getting on.

Iain filleted the haddies and into the bowl went the livers and oatmeal and Iain’s hands, still dripping in Castrol 25W-40 from the engine, began to knead.

Worried that the strangely-dark cropaig would not meet Angie’s approval, Iain dished up. Yet the ceann cropaig, which was oily enough to keep a small refinery in business for months, was declared by Angie to be the best he’d ever tasted.

In fact, the next time he had it, he said it was fine but insisted it was missing something.

“Ah yes, a dollop of engine oil. That would just make it fantastic,” said Lochs’s unlikely gourmand.

Another time, Angie Beag was all at sea on a hunt for herring down Loch Shell way with the same assistant when the hunger pangs returned. This time, he was well prepared having brought along a pound of sausages. However, for some reason, the frying pan couldn’t be found that fateful day.

Angie decided there was no reason why the teapot could not be filled with oil – this time the type that comes in a bottle marked Cooking Oil – and the pound of bangers deep-fried in that.

Crewmate Iain could only nibble on the end of one of the dripping porkies. Not so, the bold Angie. He devoured the first, the second and the third. In fact, the hunger which had perhaps been stoked by a wee stop-off at the Claitair Hotel resulted in him scoffing the lot.

Hunting for the shoals of herring is a tiring business. So, after a wee kip, the crew got up for another haul. Iain realised Angie had gone very quiet. He soon found out why. So much of the fat had oozed from the teapot-roasted porkies it had congealed on the roof of Angie’s mouth and his tongue was stuck to it. For the first time in his life, the poor fellow was quiet as a mouse.

They should do a TV series about his, er, culinary inventiveness.

Maybe it is just as well Britt Ekland is in the Australian jungle. A couple of days in the boat with Angie Beag would have been much worse than scoffing wichetty grubs and crocodiles’ privates.

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Posted in Isle of Lewis, Outer Hebrides, Popular culture, Scotland, Showbiz, Stornoway, TV, Western Isles

Would you like free mobile calls? Call me.

Posted on November 10, 2010 | 1 Comment

Having had a few inquiries asking if I’ll carry certain adverts on this blog, I’ve always said no because the blog is about the content, the comments, etc.  It would have to be a good product or service that was very helpful to me and readers to make me change my mind.

Well, I’ve found one.

Most of us use mobile phones but the cost of calls from mobiles is ridiculous in this country. Check the cost elsewhere and you will see the huge difference – cheaper than landline calls in some cases.

How would you like to get free calls? Free texts? All are now possible with the new mobile provider called giffgaff. How? Just change your sim card to a giffgaff one.

I can give you giffgaff sims free. Then register on the giffgaff website, add a little credit and off you go. Why? Let’s compare the latest Pay As You Go tariffs:

NETWORK      Orange       T-Mobile    Vodafone       O2         giffgaff
CALLS . . . . . . . . .20p                25p                    20p             25p            8p
TEXTS . . . . . . . . .10p               10p                     10p             10p            4p

That’s some saving. I know what you’re thinking. Pay As You Go is such a hassle. Having to always top up is a right faff. Er, no. With giffgaff, you can set it to top up automatically when your credit is down to £2. Handy, eh? It’s as handy as a monthly account – but without the massive bills.

giffgaff is a tiny company. O2 and Vodafone have thousands of employees. giffgaff has 15. Everything is done online so no waiting for incomprehensible operators in other countries to check your account. How is the giffgaff signal where you live? Well, if you can get O2 you can get giffgaff, because it is piggybacked onto the O2 network.

If you want, you can transfer your existing number to giffgaff in two working days. I’ll tell you how. There are lots of other offers for heavier users – like free internet on your mobile if you sign up for advance payments – which they call Goodybags. In fact, anyone can get free internet and 150 minutes of calls for just 10 quid a month.

And now the best bit. All calls and texts between giffgaff subscribers are completely free. Always. Up to an hour. Absolutely free every time. Think how much you could save if you, your family and friends were on giffgaff.

You can order sims at giffgaff.com. Or – and here’s the spiel – if you take a giffgaff sim from me, you will get £5 extra credit when you top up with £10 or more. I get a little credit too. I use it. My family and friends use it and we save loads.

Unless you are in a long contract with one of these awfully expensive providers, put your name and address in the form below or call me on 07922 609000 for a free sim. And the next time you phone me, the call will be free.

Iain

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Posted in giffgaff, telecom

More waiting for Alan Shadrake

Posted on November 9, 2010 | Leave a comment

Hullo, if you are googling, to a wonderful man. I mean you, Alan Shadrake.

Alan, 76, is the Essex-born journalist who now has to wait another week to find out the verdict which will be handed down by a Singapore judge after he was found guilty of contempt for writing what he did in his book Once A Jolly Hangman.

He made a series of allegations about how the judiciary is a puppet of the government. Alan did that after talking to many people, including Singapore’s last hangman. It was only only what most people already knew.

Having interviewed Alan by phone a few times in his recent difficult weeks, I am stunned by his commitment to doing what he believes is the right thing – whatever the cost to himself. He is not in the best of health but, with the help of M Ravi his lawyer, he faces the prospect of being flung in a Singaporean jail with such admirable bravery.

Some of the British media are finally waking up to what Alan is doing. I thank them for that. And shame on the rest of them.

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Posted in Government, politics, Radio

Staines is not such a bad name compared to these island ones

Posted on November 9, 2010 | 1 Comment

DRIVING to a colleague’s house in Bromley, Kent, some years ago, I managed to find the right exit off the M25 motorway and followed the signs, but somehow ended up in a wee village I had never heard of.

Well, did you know about Pratts Bottom?

Have you ever had that feeling when you wonder if you can believe your eyes, whether you are actually dreaming or even whether you have somehow stumbled on to the set of a movie? Will the locals speak to me? I’ll get out and try to engage them in conversation.

Strangely, they didn’t seem perturbed by yet another dizzy driver asking if they knew where he was.

They were charming, helpful and very normal.

Whizzing back out of Pratts Bottom, I remember thinking it might not be too long before these good folk of the village decided to do something about the name of their little hamlet. Visitors couldn’t keep a straight face. It’s just too embarrassing.

Australia, too, is a place where you can find very odd names. There is a wee town famous for its salt mine on a peninsula in Western Australia called Useless Loop. In New South Wales, there are nearly 1,000 people in Dunedoo.

Aussies themselves think that’s hilarious because to them a dunny is what we infinitely more refined Brits would call a loo. But not any old loo, because my guide to Australian slang is very pernickety about that. It describes a dunny as “an old-style outdoor unsewered toilet, usually a lean-to type of construction or occasionally free-standing”.

Thank you for that. It’s a bog.

The official explanation is that Dunedoo came from some Aboriginal word for swan. Fair dinkum, but I’ve looked up the aboriginal reference sites and, nah, it’s nothing like it. The likeliest theory, I have finally discovered, and one that has certainly been discussed before over there, is that it is, in fact, Gaelic.

The convicts we sent over probably called it Dunedin, based on Dun Eideann, the Gaelic for Edinburgh, like they did in New Zealand. But Aussies tend to stick in an “oo” or two, as in Woolloomooloo, so it became Dunedoo. That’s obvious to any drongo, cobber.

So it was a bit surprising that it was boring old Staines in Surrey that decided it might need to change its name. Some of the councillors there want it to be a bit posher – something like Staines-upon-Thames. All because Ali G and his gang, the Staines Massive, were always on about it and a washing powder advert referred to stubborn understains, or was that Stubborn-under-Staines?

I really don’t know what they are going on about. It’s a talking point. And the only thing worse than being talked about is not being talked about.

The Duchess of York knows that. Poor thing, she has all those financial problems because no one is interested in her any more. She was the one who said she did not want any more publicity for a while. She just wants to stay out of the media.

Just one problem: no TV companies have been interested in her after that, so there is no cash coming in. So, what is she doing about it? She is in talks with Oprah to do a new TV show. Er, what was that about keeping out of the media?

Maybe she is just hedging her bets in case her ex, Prince Andrew, is somehow demoted or cut off by the rest of them for calling the Ministry of Defence hopeless the other day.

Good for you, Andrew, dear. One should tell it like it is. Oh gosh, one thinks that one’s ex-husband has perhaps gone too far. Now, where did one put Oprah’s number?

Here’s an idea. Maybe Fergie could do a TV show about unusual place names? Would it not be very appropriate for her to do one about the former landlord in Harris who, long before the Duchess of York herself made the practice popular, used to get local girls to lick his toe?

That’s why the name of the charming wee village called Lickisto fondly recalls for generations to come those hedonistic days of yore when Harris was a fun place. However, I don’t think it’s recorded what the Manish Massive thought of that.

The sad thing is that many of these quaintly-named villages are now just about uninhabited. Which is why we are going through the painful process of having to close so many of our schools. Just not enough kids to keep them going.

There is an answer, though. We all have to become Free Presbyterians. It is obligatory for them to have families the size of football teams. There are various FPs I know and every time we meet, kapow, they have added one or two since last time.

Obviously, this is the way to go. I feel sure that those churches of ours that are less dedicated to going forth and multiplying will take this on board and realise that conversion to the FP way is the answer to the depopulation dilemma that threatens our very survival.

It’s working well in North Uist anyway which, of course, is where visitors often snigger when they see the road signs for Langass. Glaswegians, particularly, find that rib-tickling.

When you think about it, our island cartographers of old seem to have had a bit of a fixation with body parts. Here on Lewis, we have a Back and a Tong (pronounced tongue). Mind you, I think Orkney beats us with its Tongue of Gangsta.

You can, though, almost map out a whole body with the various human organs on the Ordnance Survey map of the Western Isles.

Unfortunately, it is all the wrong way round, because it’s down at the very bottom that they put Barra Head while you have to go up to the very top of Lewis to find the Butt.

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

How Miliband offended our red rodents even more than Harman

Posted on November 1, 2010 | Leave a comment
WHEN Harriet Harman was scribbling her speech in the train on the way up to Oban, I think she must have had a rush of blood to the head somewhere around Dumbarton. She thought it would be a giggle if she took the mickey out of a Scottish member of the ConDems. But who?Michael Moore, the Lib Dem Scottish Secretary? Who? OK, point taken. How about Danny Alexander, the Lib Dem treasury secretary? But how? He’s a ginger. Yeah. 

That’d lighten the atmosphere. The Scottish Labour confab would need any uplifting she could manage.

But what would she call him? Ginger whinger? Nah. A bit of a cliche that. Carrot top? Nope, he could just say he was ginger not green, because carrots have green leaves on top. Oh yeah. Forget that.

How about . . . how about Danny Duracell? Uh-uh. He could say he was powering ahead and battery-ing the opposition. Leave it.

She needed to say he was like a rat for working with the Tories these Scots detest so much. Yeah, a bunch of hungover Jocks would lap that up.

Couldn’t call him a rat, though. Unparliamentary language. Something rattish. A mouse? Paul Burrell? A rodent? Yes, the very dab. Good negative imagery and there are red squirrels so, yeah, that’s it.

Sure enough, when she delivered the punchline to the party of the working class, they laughed and clapped.

Even the dinosaurs on the platform grinned and did passable impressions of performing seals to endorse their deputy boss as full of wit.

Poor Danny Alexander. He would be devastated. It’s not long since Nick Clegg wound him up, calling him Beaker from The Muppet Show.

Gingerly, I checked his Twitter to look for clues as to whether or not he had yet announced he was so crushed he would quit politics.

Er, no. Seeming somewhat un-devastated, he tweeted: “I am proud to be ginger and rodents do valuable work cleaning up mess others leave behind. Red squirrel deserves to survive, unlike Labour.”

Well recovered, Ginge, I mean Mr A. And a most excellent dig at Labour’s mismanagement of the economy, too. I would call that a score draw.

See? Even rodents have funny bones. That’s because he was brought up in Uist. You need a sense of humour to live in Uist. That’s why they are now extending the tourist season by engineering wee stunts so the media will come and fill up the Dark Island Hotel and B&Bs.

That one last week with the trained whales from the Florida sea-life centre frolicking in Loch Carnan was a good one. Kept the tills jingling for a few days.

Lachie, the manager of the D.I., was radiant as he shook me warmly by the credit card last Thursday. Another proud ginger, too.

Meanwhile, they were lining up against poor Harriet. Perpetually po-faced Lib Dem George Lyon, the MEP who whinges about our tourist-friendly ferry fares, found a high horse to clamber on to.

He moaned there were no depths to which Labour wouldn’t stoop, as he whined in full over-the-top mode. His pals, too, raged to any reporters they could find that it was bullying.

The SNP, of course, because Alex Salmond apologised for witlessly calling Iain Gray schizophrenic a few days before, kept well out of the mud-slinging. Yeah, right. Shrill Shirley-Anne Somerville, a whingeing ginger ninja, couldn’t resist.

The great nation of Alba has the highest proportion of gingers on the planet, she pointed out helpfully. Harman’s silly remark wasn’t anti-Danny or anti-Lib Dem, it was anti-Scottish, she declared loftily from the parapets of the SNP website.

Och, get over yourselves, the lot of you. It was banter, even if not the Churchillian repartee of old. They are level pegging. End of.

Then, personality-free new Labour leader Ed Miliband got on the blower. He ordered his talented new gag-writer to grovel. Harman must call up The Ginger One to say sorry.

Bad move. Can you imagine how she grovelled?

“Hi, Danny, Harry here. Highness? No, no, not the ginger prince; the Harman one. Yeah, how’s it going, mate? Oh really, I’m sorry to hear that. What’s wrong? You’ve just heard someone called you a what? Oh no. Who on earth would say you were a . . . erm, actually Danny, mate, that was me.

“That’s why I’m calling, really. And I didn’t just call you that, I actually called you a ginger one. Ha-ha.

“Why? Well, it’s Halloween. I wanted to scare the pants off my lot and show I can be funny as Balls. We’re here in some yucky place called Oban, so we badly needed a laugh. Have you been here? Right, well you’ll know what it’s like, then. It’s so dreich, or whatever they call it. Anyway, sorry.

“Of course, we’ll have to put out a press release to say I said sorry. OK? Right, bye, and sorry again. Sorry I think I said sorry before. Sorry. Bye.”

Blimey, she was just joking. Admittedly, a really dire joke, but just a flipping joke. The barmy political correctness that grips the out-of-touch Labour and Lib Dem parties just made it all worse.

The apology, making a wee mistake official, validates the tiresome outrage whipped up by Lyon and the like.

Miliband minor must have thought certain parties were gravely offended. But who? Happy tweeter Danny Alexander obviously isn’t. Lib Dems like Lyon? He is only offended if he can’t launch a joyless tirade, so he’s happy now. The SNP? Nah. Glass houses and all that.

Maybe the entire Scottish nation thinks it was racist? Hardly, we loved the entire fiasco. It makes the rest of us seem normal.

So it must be the rodents. Miliband must be worried red squirrels could be offended at being compared to a homo sapiens who looks like one of the Muppets.

He’s nuts if he thinks squirrels won’t have a giggle at that.

Miliband must say sorry. It’s just rodentist.

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