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Category Archives: Gaelic
Niall Iain rows CY 2 SY
Award winning Gaelic TV and radio presenter Niall Iain Macdonald is taking to the waves once again for charity. Niall Iain, 37, will row the length of the Western Isles, from the Isle of Barra to the Isle of Lewis, this week to raise money for BBC Children In Need. 
- Niall Iain Macdonald in training for NY2SY. Photo by Leila Angus
Niall Iain will leave Castlebay at 8.30am on Wednesday (16th Nov) and hopes to complete the 100-mile challenge non-stop over 3 days, aiming to arrive in Stornoway in time for the BBC Radio nan Gaidheal ‘Children In Need Ceilidh’ which will be broadcast live on Friday night (18th Nov).
The broadcaster is currently busy with preparations for his ‘NY2SY: Solo North Atlantic Row 2012’, when he will attempt to row solo from New York to Stornoway at the end of May next year.
Said Niall Iain: “I’ve been wanting to tackle this route through the Minch all summer and I’m glad that I can do one final row before the end of the year. It will be my longest one to date, 100 miles over 3 days, and it will be strange as I will be rowing in darkness, more than daylight, due to the short days. I am aiming to be back in time for the ‘Children In Need Ceilidh’ at BBC Radio nan Gaidheal on Friday night so Pudsey will have to do a shift or two on the oars to make sure we make it!”
He hopes to raise £5,000 for this year BBC Children In Need appeal and has set up a JustGiving page for anyone wishing to support his efforts with a donation: www.justgiving.com/greatminchrow
His progress can also be tracked via his JustGiving page throughout the challenge.
Posted in Appeal, Barra, Gaelic, Isle of Lewis, Scotland, Western Isles
Could it be that I may have found Liam Fox’s adviser singing at that wet Mod?
Rumours are very much part of the Royal National Mod. At the very least, a good Mod has a rumour of a high-level ding-dong about the future of Gaelic, a royal visitor and claims that the organisers have banned the phrase Whisky Olympics. Of course, these are just rumours and nothing ever comes of them.
However, throughout Mod week there were whispers that Adam Werrity was up for it. A taxi driver had supposedly dropped off Dr Liam Fox’s constant companion in a kilt at Macneil’s and was in there with George Gawk, the North Sea crofter.
The best man turned worst man, for the career of the defence secretary anyway, was also supposedly seen propping up the bar at the Wild West Beer Festival in Tong and I had calls saying he was boogieing in the Clachan Bar until 6am.
Of course, always ready to bring you the latest happenings in Stornoway, I had to rush off to check each and every sighting but not be recognised myself. With my trusty kilt and the hairiest sporran to ever grace a Mod, off I went into the pouring rain.
Rushing into Macneil’s, everything was order. Very civilised the patrons were, all nodding politely as they sipped their mineral water. Hmm, I’m sure I saw one or two Press and Journal types there nursing an uisge beatha or two – without the beatha, of course. Anything else appearing on their expenses claim was “not dependent on transactional behaviour”, as a former government minister so eloquently put it.
Then I found George Gawk in the corner pretending there was no one with him. I’m wise to him now and it wasn’t long before I spotted a guy in a kilt with all the fresh features that had graced our scandal-filled newspapers for the previous couple of weeks. “Ah, Mr Werritty, I presume,” I said, puffing myself up as if I had just come across a white explorer on the shores of Lake Tanganyika. “I’ve been looking for you.” Terror flashed across his face, before he mumbled something about how he needed to sing. “Yes indeed. Unburden yourself to me. Ready when you are,” I said, whipping out my notebook to catch for posterity his account of what he did to heap scadal upon his head.
However, he took advantage of me rummaging for a pencil in my shaggy sporran. When I looked up he’d vanished. Turning to George Gawk, I asked if he’d seen the guy in the kilt I’d been speaking to. He nodded to the stage.
The bekilted vocalist did look a teeny bit like Werrity I suppose, but Calum Alex MacMillan, a well-kent Gaelic crooner, who was up there belting out a ballad, is not likely to have jetted around the globe with our country’s former defence secretary, is he? Stop it, George. Now you’re winding me up.
Poor Gawk. He’s got a lot on his mind. He has seen that story in the papers about the oil platform in the North Sea that a Norwegian oil company put up for sale. They are flogging it like it was a bungalow noting it is well-kept with 20 bedrooms, fantastic sea views and space for a helicopter. No way, George wouldn’t be interested even if the starting bid they are looking for, at about 13p, costs less than the bag of smokey bacon crisps he kindly bought me. George is just a crofter who happens to work in the North Sea, after all.
Ah, he corrects me, we non-crofters have no idea. There are times in all stockholders’ lives, he tells me, when it is necessary to separate the rams from the ewes. You have to put the rams somewhere secure where they cannot jump a fence. Well, I suppose but … No buts about it, he insisted, grimly. An oilrig in the North Sea would be ideal. Where else would he be able to put a lot of rams and be able to check the boy Blackfaces with a low chopper fly-by as he went back and fore to work? He could put loads of other crofters’ rams out there too and charge a hefty rent too with his cast-iron guarantee that even the fence jumpers wouldn’t get to the maiden ewes.
Still reeling from how entreprenurial the Gawk had become, I had to check out to our newest island festival celebrating the best of, well, what we do best. Having a pint. Sidling up to these thirsty guys at the bar in Tong Hall quaffing Organic Yellowhammer, Berserker and a delightful bevvy called Skullsplitter while trying to work out if they had noses like the one in Fox’s groom and best man photos wasn’t easy. They thought I was acting weird.
Finally, and desperate to change my appearance again, I plonked the hairy thingummyjig on my head to make me look younger and slunk into the Clachan for the all-nighter into Saturday morning. No Werrity but the woman singer in there, who looked a bit like Mrs X but when she was slim, kept winking at me.
Ach, I’ve still got it.
I wasn’t interested though. Better to rush home to my beloved. Don’t know why I bothered because when I got in, there was a note saying: “Don’t wait up. I’m entertaining Big Calum Clachan until morning. X (Mrs).” See if I find out that Adam Werrity is using the name Calum Clachan, there’s going to be trouble. I don’t care how big he is.
Posted in Gaelic, P&J column, Western Isles
I think she is telling me that maybe I should do something about our back garden
“Is that you, Ant? Oh, it’s you, Dec. Where’s the funny one today?” I heard Mrs X whisper in hushed tones. Why on earth is she calling that pair of excitable geehonks, I wondered, as I skulked in the airing cupboard. Why? Well, it’s what I do when she says I’m getting under her feet. I still have to keep tabs on her, you know. She’s getting to that funny age.
Then I heard her say she had a money-saving suggestion for the lads off the telly. Knowing how cash-strapped these broadcasters were nowadays, she had come up with a great wheeze to save them hundreds of thousands of pounds. You could just imagine Ant’s ears pricking up. Or is it Dec that has the sticky-out side flaps and the Herman Munster forehead? Who knows?
How did that pair become the country’s favourites when no one has any idea which is which? The cost of taking all these contestants on I’m a Celebrity – Get Me Out of Here to the Australian jungle must be astronomical, Mrs X suggested. About half a million? I could imagine the Dec head nodding furiously. Her cunning plan was for them to switch the filming to our back garden. She then went on at great length to one of the superstars who brought the world Let’s Get Ready To Rumble how, despite her constant nagging, I had failed to cut the grass for ages. Yes, it was like a jungle out there.
Wildlife? Oh yes, she assured him. There were ferocious creatures out there. And she had just heard what sounded like a badly wounded fox wailing over by the end wall. Oh well, I thought, I suppose the former Secretary of State for Defence has to hide out somewhere. Oh heck, it’s not Dr Liam. I forgot I had answered the urgent appeal for accommodation by Royal National Mod organisers An Comunn Gaidhealach. I’ve rented out the shed to half a dozen ladies from a choir on the mainland. One of them must have arrived early and had been getting in a bit of practice. Foxy lady.
The viewers of I Used To Be A Celebrity, Get Me Out Of Here Because I Want To Be One Again, insisted my beloved, would notice little difference between the slightly-unkempt area at the back of our house and the Numinbah Nature Reserve, where they currently go to get the atmosphere of a dangerous, uncared-for wilderness. They could have the run of the whole back garden for a couple of months for – what did she say? – a quarter of a million.
He would get back to her. There would be a lot to check out. The sponsors would have to be consulted. Stornoway air traffic control would have to OK a bunch of reality TV has-beens plunging from 10,000 feet onto that patch of ground opposite our house beside the headquarters of Stornoway Thespians. Either that or onto the roof of Kiwi’s Garage. Fine, don’t see a problem with that.
And she would have to help him figure out how he and his aerodynamic sidekick could wangle themselves onto the Air Discount Scheme so they could hop on Flybe and come back and fore as they needed to. No business use on that scheme. Hmm, could be tricky. I can see me having to apply for an discount card as Declan Donnelly. No one has a clear photo on their ID card. We could get away with that. Who will I get to apply for the other one? Who looks a bit like Antony McPartlin?
No one really but, och, I’ll just get my mate, George Gawk, to do it. How could I get George to look 25 years younger? I’ll get him to grow a beard, pin his ears forward and then take a photo of his head upside down. Then I airbrush out his nose and mouth. That should do it. The Gawk would have to tell his colleagues on the platform out in the North Sea that he had changed his name by deed poll – for tax reasons. When the supervisor needed an electrician for a job upstairs, he would
just shout: “Get Ant on deck.”
I’m not sure whether to be pleased at the entrepreneurial spirit of Mrs X or whether I should be furious that she is suggesting I am failing in yet another of my marital duties. No, don’t even ask about the other one. Who cuts the grass in October anyway? There’s no point. There’s precious little sun to nourish it and, according to the forecast I’ve just heard,
it’s going to be flattened anyway because it’s going to be blowing a right hoolie all through Mod Week.
Still, no hurricane will be strong enough to blow away all the fun in store this week as Stornoway is host to the Whisky Olympics. Oops, I said it. I know I could be arrested on sight for calling it that nowadays but, you know, I just don’t care. That ruling was brought in by John Macleod, the president of An Comunn, and he has upset so many people with his speech at last Friday’s grand opening that I am going to have to seek him out and have a stern word with the man.
On Saturday, the Press and Journal bravely told the world what he actually said. The headline was: “An Comunn chief calls for English-free zones.” What a cheek.
Some of my best friends are English.
Posted in Gaelic, P&J column
Religionists who broke Labour Party constitution to be expelled?
I have been passed a copy of a letter to the local Labour Party from a female member. Like many others, she too seems to fear the local party is now “a cesspit of discrimination, dogma and denial” – a recent quote to me from a young member who restricts his Labour activism to Glasgow because of the slide of the party in the isles into the hands of dogmatic religionists.
I have anonymised her letter below. She appears to say the constitution of the Labour Party bans discrimination on grounds of sexuality. Waow. Is this correct? Can we expect resignations from those who flouted the party’s constitution? If they were decent people, I would think so. Alternatively, if the party itself was decent and honest, they should be expelled. Well?
The CLP is obviously every busy getting ready for the next election because, I hear, after four weeks, they have still not found the time to let her have the courtesy of a reply. And what does the Donald John Macsween she quotes think?
I
The Secretary 18th May 2011
Western Isles Constituency Labour Party
ADDRESS DELETED
Dear Sir,
I write to you to voice my concerns about certain aspects of the recent Election Campaign,
and ask for clarification from the C.L.P. Executive.
I joined the Labour Party after reading coverage of a speech by Donald John Macsween, an inspiring speech about the equality of humanity. In this speech he stressed that he believed the Labour Party
was the party of everybody, and indeed that they were the champions of the oppressed and the
discriminated against.
You cannot imagine my shock at reading the coverage of our candidate for the Scottish
Parliamentary Elections performance at the hustings at Stornoway Primary School. He seemed to
suggest that people who ran businesses in the Western Isles could pick and choose customers on the
basis of their sexuality. This is ridiculous and under Equalities legislation, championed by the Labour
Party, illegal. Was he implying that “Christian” businesses should be encouraged to quiz customers
on their sexuality or to just assume that every male couple are gay? Was he also implying that
Western Isles businesses, under a Labour administration at Holyrood, would be exempt from
Equalities legislation?
The Labour Party states in its constitution that ALL are equal and should not be discriminated against
because of their:
• Religion (faith or creed).
• Race (colour or ethnicity).
• Nationality (actual or implied).
• Disability (physical or mental).
• Sexuality (Gay, lesbian or bisexuality).
• Gender (Corrected or uncorrected, implied or chosen)
Is the Western Isles C.L.P. claiming exemption from this?
I do not even want to consider his views on marriage as he seemed to say that married couples
should have more rights than unmarried couples.
I await your reply.
NAME WITHHELD
Posted in Crime, Free Church, Gaelic, Government, intolerance, Isle of Harris, Isle of Lewis, Outer Hebrides, politics, religion, Scotland, Stornoway, Uist, Western Isles
Islands’ Labour Party in meltdown
It is not just Stornoway High Church that is split and falling apart. The local Labour Party is in meltdown, according to many whispers on Facebook and elsewhere. The post-mortem into the election fiasco continues with a bitter split apparently between those with the magnificent politics degrees on one side and the experienced foot soldiers on the other.
Advice from people who have walked the walk is just not welcome, we learn. “They are just not listening,” seems the universal complaint.
Last week’s meeting didn’t go well, according to one online blow-by-blow report. The politically-correct insider wrote: “The Chair has gone.” I don’t think this is anything to do with rickety furniture. I suspect branch chairman George Ken Macdonald has had enough of herding cats and headed for the exit. Other named people are said to have huffily left the meeting early. Maybe these people of privilege are finding being in a party that is supposed to represent people without privilege is a big ask.
Interestingly, there is new blood waiting in the wings. However, a group of new wannabe activists who want to take up the cause of Keir Hardie told me last week that, after that traumatic election, they don’t want to join the local party while people who spout dogma which is against the party’s deeply-held principles of fairness and freedom are still deeply embedded. Interesting times ahead then and they are promising to keep me informed.
By contrast, my nationalist mole reveals the SNP meeting went on all night “in a spirit of triumphant love and joy”. What have they got that Labour does not? Answers on a postcard.
Posted in Free Church, Gaelic, intolerance, Isle of Harris, Isle of Lewis, Outer Hebrides, politics, religion, Scotland, Stornoway, Uist, Western Isles
No Gaelic programmes on isles’ new DAB service
THE BBC has admitted that Gaelic programmes will not be broadcast on its new digital radio service which has just launched in the Western Isles.
Islanders who bought new hi-tech radios for the start of the new Digital Audio Broadcasting (DAB) service have been mystified by the absence of Gaelic programmes and Radio Scotland, both of which are broadcast on digital elsewhere.
Although the government plans to switch over all services to DAB in 2015, Gaelic programmes will remain on obsolete FM for the foreseeable future even though radio manufacturers are due to stop making FM sets.
The new digital service, broadcast from the island’s main mast at Achmore on Lewis, carries 13 BBC stations including the Asian Network and the World Service. None of the Gaelic programmes made at the BBC studios in Stornoway and elsewhere in Scotland will be on the digital service.
The switch-on of the new service on March 22 happened with no fanfare or media announcements. A BBC insider explained: “Most people up here don’t know there are DAB broadcasts available in the Western Isles. There has been no announcement. The managers and editors of Radio nan Gàidheal were too embarrassed that their service had been dumped.”
After earlier rumours that engineers simply forgot to include Radio nan Gàidheal, as the Gaelic service is known, and Radio Scotland, the BBC eventually admitted there are no plans for any Scottish programming on DAB in the islands.
A BBC spokesman explained that because of an agreement with regulator Ofcom, both Scottish stations have to be carried on the commercial multiplexes rather than the public service multiplexes.
“Such coverage is, consequently, dependent on the commercial operators’ development plans and where the commercial multiplexes are sited.”
He said the recently-installed DAB multiplex on Lewis will provide access to the BBC network radio services. Thy are Radios 1, 2, 3, 4 and 5Live, as well as the six digital-only national stations – 1Xtra, 4 Extra, 6Music, 5Live Extra, World Service and the Asian Network.
Radio Scotland and Radio nan Gàidheal are available on DAB elsewhere in Scotland. That’s where commercial multiplex owners have developed services and, for commercial reasons, these tend to be in and around the main population centres.
The spokesman added: “Unfortunately, no commercial multiplex currently covers Lewis; consequently, Radio Scotland and Radio nan Gàidheal are not available there on DAB.
“Both are available, across Scotland, on analogue radio (FM and MW), as well as via cable and satellite and we are continuing to strive to improve viewer and listener access to the full range of BBC programmes and content.”
Ofcom yesterday confirmed that BBC non-network radio services – those available in parts of the country but not across the whole of the UK – are carried on commercial multiplexes licensed by Ofcom.
It said: “Currently Ofcom has no plans to advertise any new local multiplex licences given the discussions that are currently taking place with the UK Government and the radio industry regarding the migration of FM services to DAB, and the fact that a number of local multiplex licences previously awarded by Ofcom have still yet to launch.”
He insisted there were no plans to switch off any FM services, particularly if they are not also available via DAB. Radio Scotland and Radio nan Gàidheal would continue to be available to listeners only on FM frequencies.
Comunn na Gaidhlig chief executive Donald Macneil said: “This doesn’t make much practical sense, allowing an increase in DAB radio services, but excluding Gaelic programming in the language’s heartland. We would hope that this could be reconsidered and a more appropriate mix of programming could be made available in the area.”
Western Isles MP Angus Macneil, a former BBC Gaelic broadcaster himself, confirmed he was aware of the situation. He added: “I am going back to the BBC on the matter and am asking them for further clarification on this issue.”
So who is the mysterious Gaelic singer with the big pop star?
Published in Press and Journal 28/3/2011
I’LL tell you what’s a lovely word and miles better than its English equivalent. Norrag.
Great word. Nor-rag. It suggests something rare and small, yet it is so precise that it must be something you can only benefit from.
Everyone has heard someone use it, but they often forget to check with their local teuchter to find out exactly what it means.
You must always get the meaning confirmed when you come across an unfamiliar Gaelic word. It could mean anything.
I used to have an old English-born widow for a neighbour. Let’s call her Mary, because that was her name. She told me once how she always felt better for the rest of the day if she slept for half an hour after lunch.
So I would cheerfully inquire if I saw her in the afternoon as to whether or not she had taken her norrag yet. It means a nap, you see.
However, each time I asked, for some strange reason, the battling grannie would immediately scold me in that mischievous way that reminded me of a comedian off the telly.
“Oh, stop it. What do you take me for?” she would say, before giving me a clout round the back of the head for my trouble. I got walloped every time.
Don’t think 78-year-olds can’t hurt you. Ouch.
Her assault made me feel like the foil for that blousy Dick Emery character. When asked some question with a saucy double-meaning, the response was always: “Ooh, you are awful. But I like you.”
The comedian would then playfully thump his open-mouth victim before scurrying off on unfeasible heels. It felt a bit like that.
After months of being assaulted by this pugilistic pensioner, I discovered she thought a norrag was a dram.
Convinced I was suggesting she was on the gin rather earlier in the day than would be proper for a gentle-lady of her years, her strategy to stop me besmirching her reputation was to knock seven bells out of me.
Kenneth Clarke had 40 winks during the chancellor’s Budget speech. Mind you, having seen him recently turn up in parliament with a black eye, maybe I shouldn’t ask if he enjoyed his norrag.
How to have a norrag
Dick Emery reminded me of the women on high heels I saw the other day, rushing for the Point bus.
Two of them atop the highest heels somehow tripped on the pedestrian crossing outside the Clydesdale Bank. Poor dears, they ended up in close contact with the tarmacadam.
A double Naomi Campbell. Four ankles, knees and heels flailing about as the wee green man, and goodness knows what else, was flashing away.
Sorry, ladies. It wasn’t funny. Probably quite sore afterwards, were we? Could have happened to anyone. They were just unlucky.
And how do I know all this? They may remember that white van man who stopped at the lights and offered to help them in their moment of humiliating distress? ’Twas I. Yes, I saw it all.
Only their pride was badly bruised, I hear. I don’t know why I mentioned it. I promise I won’t do it again – at least not without naming names to really give the lassies a red face to go with their red behinds.
When it comes to naming names for the most surprising broadcast this week, I think the prize goes to the BBC’s Gaelic request programme Durachdan.
Normally, tuning in to Radio nan Gaidheal at teatime on Friday, you can be sure you will hear fine old Gaelic songs sung the way they should be, often by great, talented people who are no longer with us – and Costello, of Flair fame.
Not so at the end of last week. Not only did Ailig in Inverness and his co-presenter in Aberdeen, the other Ailig, have a certain jauntiness not often found in traditional music programmes, but they even played a track from a top-selling international chart star with fans in the millions.
Not Costello this time.
They played Cee Lo Green. He’s the guy who did the song with the rude lyrics that eventually became the cleaned-up chart-topper Forget You.
Cee Lo Green on Na Durachdan? How did that happen? It’s like Aled Jones doing Songs of Praise from The Free Church (Continuing).
It turns out that Green, who was also the guy in that Gnarls Barkley outfit which did Crazy a few years ago, recently did a New York R&B tune called The Language of Love. And it’s got loads of Gaelic in it.
And it’s no bad – as far as misty-eyed Gaelic ballads with a hint of R&B go.
Neither Ailig nor Ailig, both veritable masters in the art of analysing Gaelic performances, had any clue who was the female Gael with the delightful tones.
They even appealed for listeners to help. Not a beeg from anyone, even though that programme has listeners calling in from places like Australia, Algeria and Airidhbhruaich.
What do I think? Methinks it’s Cathy Ann MacPhee, who is nowadays to be found in Ottawa. Cathy Ann still hasn’t answered my question asking if that is her. So I think it probably is.
The Barra-born First Lady of Gaelic Song is probably thinking: “That big star Cee Lo Green wants me to keep my role in this song hush-hush and now Maciver is on my Facebook asking tricky questions about it. Trust him to recognise me.
“I’d better not upset an international superstar in case he is planning to give me a bigger role in something else. What am I going to do? I’d better not respond. Yeah, that’s what I’ll do. Nothing.”
Either that, or it’s not Cathy Ann at all.
Come on. Let me know, m’eudail. I can’t sleep until I find out.
Unlike Kenneth Clarke during the Budget speech. Still, he didn’t miss much that was interesting. Just that 1p cut from petrol.
You know, I don’t think etrol has quite the same ring to it.
Posted in Barra, Free Church, Gaelic, Isle of Harris, Isle of Lewis, Outer Hebrides, Radio, Scotland, Showbiz, Stornoway, Western Isles
Free clobber for Gaelic speakers
Whether you are a cove or a blone, of whatever age, would you like a free makeover? You will be kitted out in a set of new clothes chosen by fashion experts, accessories and tips for your skin and hair as well as some kind of a health activity whether it’s a massage or some other kind of workout.
You too could change
And you can keep the clothes. Good deal, eh? There must be a snag.
Just two: you have to speak Gaelic and let them film your transformation for the BBC Alba programme Grinn. They will also cough up for a slap-up meal for you and a mate who will talk about the new you.
If you, or someone you know, could do with being splogged up or could do with a few new threads, call Iain Macleod on 07789 501356. Warning – it could change your life. I did it last year and look at me now.
Posted in Gaelic, health, Scotland, TV, Western Isles
