Category Archives: P&J column

How positive thinking and the new-size Press and Journal can change your life

Posted on January 18, 2012 | 1 Comment

You didn’t expect me to pop up here today. Ha, you can’t get rid of me that easily. Much as I enjoyed having a column on a Monday, I am over the moon that the wise editor of this reinvigorated publication has switched it to a Wednesday. It means I get my weekends back. Joy.

I am now full of get up and go and brimming with positive thinking to try and get you to buy this newspaper on a Wednesday as well as every other day too. It’s just so handy in its new size. Be honest. These broadsheets really are a waste of time. They’re just too big. You can’t keep an eye on the TV news while reading them because they are just too wide and, far more importantly, when I was reading the broad P&J sheets, I couldn’t also keep an eye on the window to spy on the delightful Joan Stewart who lives up at the top of our road – except on a Monday and a Saturday when we had the handy-sized editions.

Now I can keep tabs on Joan every day of the week – and also see if her husband D A is prowling around without me having to battle with a huge wall of paper that took most of a rainforest to produce. See? Compact newspapers will help you live you enjoy life. Mrs X and I like the new size so much that we were fighting over who is going to read it first. Ony one answer. We have now ordered two copies each day. His and hers.

I’m a worrier. When I know I have a deadline, I can’t relax. When I did venture out on a Saturday eventide, it would be as well if I hadn’t gone past the front door. My head would be full of ideas as I wonderd what to write. Sometimes I would try and think of a theme with the help of some of my dearest friends.
Sitting in an alehouse with George Gawk, who has often been a source of inspiration – and who still speaks to me despite that, he suggested that I should write about positive thinking. I asked him if he had any examples that I could use.

He recounted a tale about how the fabled Angelo Dundee, the boxing manager, second, cut man and sponger offer, used to keep his all his fighters like Cassius Clay really positive by whispering to them as he sponged the streaks of blood out of their eyes. Yes, George. What did he say to them? Tell me. Tell me.
“Don’t worry, champ. I think it must be your round.” Ach, I shouldn’t have asked him. That’s pretty much George’s answer to any question you ask him.

Now, with no weekend deadline to fret over, I can go out carousing at the weekend with a clear conscience. I might still sit there with George nursing a flat iron brew, as I have done for years for the P&J cause.
Then again, I might not.

This column’s change of day means big changes for Mrs X too. Last Sunday, she did not have the pleasure of seeing me get up frightfully early to punch computer keys while she turned over and went back to snooze for a few hours. Nah, that’s not going to happen any more. I’ll lay back and relax too. Bliss.

“I ain’t going nowhere, baby. I’m staying right here with you while we read our compact-sized P&Js together. Now stop hogging that duvet. Oh, pardon me. I think I had too much of that late Saturday night curry. It’s been so long since I had one that it’s causing havoc down there.”

Now I just have to jump out of bed early and worry on a Tuesday. Oh well.
Positive thinking is a good theme. Have there been any other examples? Hmm, let me think. There was the lady here on Lewis who we heard about last week. She claimed she had nowhere to stable her pony. So she moved it into her own living room. I suppose it was positive thinking to hope that the neighbours wouldn’t complain. Sometimes positive thinking isn’t enough.

It has been claimed to help on the sports field too. Take our own local Point Football Club for example. They weren’t doing well in a match a while back, I am told. They were 3-0 down at half-time. The very positive manager was giving them a pep talk with their oranges.

It was all about how the lads had to be better at anticipating where all the other players were going to be in three seconds time, he said. They had to stop thinking of themselves as as individuals and begin working as a team.
To get them thinking about that, the coach came out with that famous inspirational line: “There is no I in team.”

Sadly, the words of encouragement did not get through to one doleful dribbler who was heard to say: “Aye, and there’s no F in Point.”

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Posted in P&J column

My husband is still snoring and has no idea I am on his computer so here goes

Posted on January 5, 2012 | 2 Comments

Psst, it’s me. Mrs X. I shall write this only once.  That’s because I will probably never get the chance again. You see, my husband, your usual scribbler in that silly photo there, has been out welcoming in the New Year in typical Great Bernera style. Too much. Too long. Too loud. Too late.

He rolled in here at 7am, carrying not just a lump of coal but most of the contents of our neighbour’s bunker. I’ll take the sack back later. A selection of lipsticks was on his collar and goodness only knows where else as he rolled in demanding I get up to make him a bedtime snack. Not on your life, mate. Husband or no husband, I wasn’t getting out from under that lovely warm duvet.

“Go on, go on, go on,” he wailed, pathetically. I didn’t budge even when he tried the old romantic approach. That man of mine doesn’t do romance very well. It wasn’t quite the balcony scene from Romeo and Juliet as he barged into the bedroom to declare his undying love for me. It wasn’t as if he didn’t try. He tried alright. I’ll give him that.

“You are lovelier with every hour that passes,” he slurred, thinking he was focussing on me as he gawped into the mirror on the wardrobe door. Lovelier with every hour? Probably true but only through the eyes of someone who has several whiskies every hour.

Standing there, nibbling on the end of an uncooked Stornoway black pudding with his flies undone and a bulge in his pocket which I rightly suspected was just a can of lager, I can share with you that I had no trouble keeping still my beating heart. He tried to get me up by going to the window and saying: “Please get up. Look out there; everyone’s enjoying themselves.”

“Come away from the window,” I said. “It’s New Year but if they see your face, people will think it’s Halloween.” Not getting anywhere, he clumped off up the stairs to the spare room mumbling he had only come home early because he had to write his column for the Press and Journal and he had to be up at 9am to start writing.  Yeah, like that was going to happen.

However, it gave me an idea – and this is it.

So when Iain eventually wakes up and finds out I have already sent off this piece, he will probably not be very happy. Then again, I think he will also be relieved as I suspect his head will be thumping a bit. Raw black pudding is well known for upsetting the hardiest of stomachs if you have it too late.

Earlier on, he said he was planning to write some really dull stuff about the horrors of the past year and how we could all look forward to a 2012 which, he reckons, will be just as grim as because of David Cameron’s economic policy.

How boring is that? No way, I think we all need a bit of cheering up after all the food and drink you’ve had to endure for the last 10 days or so. For me, the best part of 2011 was learning photography. You should try it. I like going out in the moors and hills on my own far away from barking dogs and husbands, the constant demands of teenagers and husbands, and the acrid smell of town traffic. And, yes, husbands.

The worst part? The fact that my tightwad of a spouse failed to pick up on all the clues about how I needed a better camera. You’d think he would realise that it is fairly important to have the right tool for the job.

Actually, forget that. I’ve never known him to have the right tool for any job since I met him. He always claims to have the finest tool for the job but can never find it when I want it. Bah.

Thinking he needed a wee shove before my birthday, I went out and bought photography magazines and left them lying about on the kitchen table. Sure enough, he flicked through them, muttering about the price of magazines. Then he said it. “That’s a nice camera. Bet that one costs an arm and a leg.”

That was when I coughed to get his attention and winked at him, knowingly. Eventually, he threw one of his withering glances over at me, in that daft and vacant way of his, and wondered what was wrong with my throat and my eye.

“Nothing. Must be some kind of reaction to hearing those words,” I said. “Don’t worry. I know what you’re getting at,” says he, tapping the side of his red nose. Really? I’ll believe that when I see it.

Off he went into town and was soon back with a large parcel. Then my heart really missed a beat. My darling husband had taken the hint and gone and bought me that camera.

Oh, my darling. You know, I have always loved that man. Where did he get the £1,300 from? Who cares? Woo-hoo. What’s this? It’s a big cardboard box with, well, not much in it. Just a packet of pastilles and an eye patch. I get it. Something for my throat and my eye. Typical.

I can hear footsteps up there. I have to go now. Our house is now filling up with the traditional sights and sounds of a New Year morning. 

Ah, the sight of an occupied bathroom and the sound of retching.

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Posted in P&J column

There must be a way to change the day I was born. I want to become a Libran

Posted on November 28, 2011 | 3 Comments

Did you hear about the man who applied for a job? At the bottom of the application form where it said “sign here” he wrote: “Scorpio.” You may giggle but, to some Chinese employers, your star sign is what they want to know. It leads me to wonder whether astrology the biggest load of codswollop ever devised – or is there something to it?

After years of sneakily checking to see what the stars had in store for me each day, I realised they must be referring to someone else entirely. You may disagree but be aware that I now officially reserve the right to consider you barmy. Or Chinese

So devoted are business types there that some companies are indeed taking people on just because of their star signs. You have more chance of getting a job with a certain company in Wuhuan in central China if you are Capricorn, Pisces or a Libran. They are not interested in Scorpios or Virgos. As a Virgoan I wanted to know why I was blackballed by this organisation before I’d even got round to applying.

I have been sceptical since one horoscope – not the Press and Journal one, obviously – said I was going to get great news in the post. Minutes after reading it, the letterbox clattered. It was a tax demand. So what’s the problem with those poisonous Scorpions and us cuddly Virgoans? may I ask.

“I hired people with those two star signs before, and they either liked quarrelling with colleagues or they couldn’t do the job for long,” a woman by the name of Xia explained. Scorpios quarrelsome? I’m trying to think of well-known Scorpios to see if they are. Ken Dodd certainly isn’t. Or Frank Bruno. He’s a laugh a minute.

Icelandic songbird Bjork is a tad grumpy allegedly and did I not hear somewhere that John Cleese can be too? Yes, he said it himself on the radio. Hmm, I’m not so sure about them, after all. I’d be careful about hiring any of them. Whereas the other lot who are shunned by Chinese human resources departments, us Virgos, never squabble, get depressed or walk out in the huff slamming doors. Ask my wife. Mrs X will confirm my sweet nature. That she’s had thick carpets put down so our doors have to be pushed shut is just a fascinating coincidence.

The Queen is one of us, you know. Oh yes, and one doesn’t see Her Maj snapping at anyone, do you? A typical Virgoan like myself, she is always so calm and serene. As was Mother Teresa, another lady we called our own.

Who in showbiz is under the sign of the virgin? Sean Connery is the most easy-going and generous fellow that Alex Salmond has ever had the pleasure of bumping into. However, Hugh Grant, as we have seen recently, can be very bolshie and Leonard Cohen did sing in a way which suggested he was a bit down in the dumps. So maybe we are a mixed bag, us Virgoans.

So why do Capricorns rate highly as workers? Maybe it’s because they have all been known to wear tartan at one time or another. Possibly the three best known Capricorns are Alex Salmond himself, Rod Stewart and the somewhat , er, unpredictable Mel Gibson. Poor Mel has been complaining that no one is hiring him so this latest Chinese theory is not really helping him one bit.

Librans though seem to be a divine bunch. They would be an asset on any payroll. Have you ever seen such a spiritually-inspiring lot? Would you hire Cliff Richard, Desmond Tutu and Mahatma Gandhi?  Of course you would. Librans all. Wot no Pope? No, he’s Aries and no one can stand them. Except His Holiness, of course.

Groucho Marx was another Cap. He’d be good fun in the canteen at tea break.
Stop there. I’ve got this all wrong. I would never hire any of them. I have just noticed David Cameron on this list of nose-to-the-grindstone Capricorns. Look, Baroness Thatcher is there too. Then there are the fishy people, the Pisceans. Highly regarded in the city of Wuhuan, they’re claimed to be happy and full of fun. They are supposed to be a joy to work with and no great Chinese company can ever have enough of them.

The late Tommy Cooper was one such busy giggler.  What’s this? Gordon Brown is a Piscean? Good grief. Happy and full of fun? There must be some mistake.
All of which means I cannot believe that when you are born can affect your life and in the same way as the lives of everyone else born around that time of year.
What’s important is not when you have a birthday but just how many of them you achieve.

What could be better than a big cake with an inferno of blazing candles atop it? A decorated cake can be so beautiful that often no one wants to eat the work of art.
That wasn’t the case with a certain pensioner who lives near Stornoway and who had a birthday recently. He told his carer how pleased he was that so many people had remembered and that his next door neighbour had even made him a big birthday cake.

He’d scoffed a big piece. It was lovely, he whispered to her, but it had given him the most terrible heartburn. “Oh, don’t worry about that, Mr Stewart,” she said. “Next year, we’ll make sure you don’t eat the candles.”

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Posted in Isle of Lewis, Outer Hebrides, P&J column, Scotland, Western Isles

A wee bite to eat 10 years ago stopped me taking a new life on the ocean wave

Posted on November 14, 2011 | 4 Comments

Since I decided to run away to sea, I have been taking stock of
everything in my life. Of course there would be a few things I would
miss for a while. But then, what is for me here? Just having to pay a hefty mortgage, swingeing council tax and a bill at the supermarket each week that not
long ago would keep an Army platoon in rations for a month.

If, however, I was to give it all up and become a crewman on an
ocean-going ship, I would just have the wee tin box I was living in to
keep tidy. Just think; no rent, mince and tatties and ship’s biscuits provided. And
no women; well, not the nagging kind anyway. It’s really quite tempting, you know.

When I got the invitation on Saturday to come on board for a chat from
François Chartier, the captain of the Greenpeace icebreaker Arctic
Sunrise that has been tied up in Stornoway for the last few days, I said
yes please. Looking around his slightly-battered tub made think long and
hard about whether I myself am steering the right course.

She is not as famous as the old Rainbow Warrior, the early one which got
bombed in New Zealand by French secret agents, but the Arctic Sunrise
has been around too. In February, she was caught in a hurricane off St
John’s, Newfoundland. Coast Guards were very concerned about them. She
made it through.

A few years ago, she was taunting Japanese whaling ships. The Japs
didn’t like that and there was a nasty collision between the Greenpeace
ship and an 8,000-tonne whaling factory ship. Look, it doesn’t matter
who was at fault. There is still debate about that. They both came away
a wee bit bent.

Now oceans campaigner Captain François and his crew had just had another
ferocious encounter just recently. He met up with some fellow French
seafarers off Barra. Greenpeace has a campaign against bottom trawling
and his countrymen on the fleet of trawlers were doing just that for a
supermarket chain in France.

Greenpeace eco-warriors are hardy. They took to the dinghies and
deliberately went ahead of the trawlers making them stop hauling. One of
the dinghies overturned at one stage, throwing them in the drink. The
plucky planet carers refused to be rescued by the desecrators. They are
fine – just needed a wee break in the pubs in Stornoway to recover.

They don’t care about danger. Bottom trawling is causing severe damage
to the ocean floor, they say. Someone has to care if idiotic governments
won’t. They said they would do the same again. And they will. I like
their style.

Do I look like an eco-warrior? Not at first glance maybe, but I’m sure
shinning up anchor chains and jumping out of dinghies seconds before a
ginormous whaler bears down on you is just matter of practise. I would
soon pick it up.

“If you want to avoid problems in the future, it is important to look after the bottom,” said the captain.
“Oh, I know,” I said, as I wondered why he had suddenly switched to general health advice. It is all the fault of what we used to call the Common Market. The
fleets are only economically viable because they are heavily supported
by EU taxpayer subsidies under the disastrous Common Fisheries Policy. So there.

It is, he said, just as important an issue as taking a stand against
those nations which continue to murder lovely, cuddly whales.
Oops, just then, like a great orca, a memory from the dim and distant
surfaced and roared through its blowhole. My mind went back to that
evening when I sat down and tucked into, er, a bit of whale.
Ten years ago, when a Norwegian hotel ship, the Midnatsol, came to the
Royal National Mod in Stornoway to provide extra accommodation, there it
was – whale on the dinner menu.

Hardly any of the bekilted diners would touch it – except me and
Cameraman, of course. It would be very wrong, we decided, if did not
even try it and then made up our minds about it. You know what; it was
rather tasty, in a blubbery kind of way.

Like all new foods when you first try them, the freshly-sliced leviathan
tasted a bit like chicken. Hmm. Might not be the best time to mention that particular meal right then, I thought, as I picked my way around the Arctic Sunrise helideck, upon which so many brave souls have defied the threats of guns, harpoons and rammings in defence of the endangered mammal I had so cruelly devoured with two veg and a dod of pickle.

Another mammal that is more likely to devour me, with or without pickle,
would be the panther. A big black cat has apparently been seen prowling
around by someone on the west of Lewis. This is an amazing story for
several reasons, not least that anyone from the west side would claim to
have been perfectly sober at the time of the sighting.

The tale though is suspiciously short on detail. There is no
confirmation of where or when the big cat was seen, the time of day, or
what it was doing. However, the anonymous spotter is said to be
“adamant” it was a panther. Some people I’ve been speaking to over Carloway way aren’t so sure. In the absence of any evidence, they have already named the unseen oversized feline Floyd. Maybe because they believe it’s pink.

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Posted in Isle of Lewis, Outer Hebrides, P&J column

Why hopefuls to lead political parties should all come up and see us sometime

Posted on November 8, 2011 | 8 Comments

Well done, Ruth Davidson. The election of the brand new leader of the Scottish Tories is a turn-up for a whole lot of reasons. She’s not old, she’s not boring, she’s not stinking rich and she’s not a man. This may be a good time to remind her that she failed at the first hurdle, as far as I’m concerned. When she came up to Stornoway to shake hands with all the important people she could find a few weeks ago, she didn’t come to see me.

Poor show. I’ve marked your card, missus. Her people told my people that that some other people hadn’t allocated any time for a wee chat. For goodness sake, I’d got the custard creams in specially. Maybe I should go easy on her. She is not just a former journalist, a Sunday school teacher but she is also a kickboxer. Ouch. Oh well, I’m sure the custard creams will keep until Johann Lamont appears. She is one of the Labour leadership candidates and she officially announces her campaign today. It will be lamentable of Lamont if she doesn’t make it here for a chinwag.

Murdo Fraser’s people were far more on the ball. They said they were happy for him to tell me and you, dear reader, what he was about when he came up. Except he didn’t. Methinks party bosses feel there are too few Tories here to make it worth the air fare. Nonsense. If they went to Goathill they’d find many a blue-blood. It’s crammed with very conservative Conservatives. Even my mate Cameraman has gone all Tory boy of late. He’s now sporting a blue car, a blue boat and, when he’s moaning about the prices, as he does all the time, he feels very blue.

Shame that Fraser didn’t make the effort to press some Hebridean flesh. I’d all sorts of deep and probing questions lined up for him. However, I am assured his failure to travel northwards was nothing to do with the fact I might have grilled him over why he quit the Free Presbyterians, then the APCs and when was he expecting to quit the Church of Scotland which I suspect is now far too namby-pamby for the likes of him.

Even that Davidson woman is a member. Anyone else think there are going to be ructions soon? Mr Fraser, I know someone who is selling what cricketers call a box. It’s good protection in case of accidental blows somewhere tender from someone practising martial arts. Such as, say, kickboxing?

So why do I feel so sure Labour hopeful Johann Lamont will make it here? Because a new street bears her name. As assistant deputy acting communities minister, or something, she helped fund a youth centre. Labour types somehow managed to get the address Lamont Lane for the new Bridge Centre because the wee dirt track beside it was unnamed. They said it was fitting recognition of Ms Lamont’s efforts. Nothing to do with the fact that it’s opposite the SNP office? “Is it? Oh, nothing to do with that at all.”

Just like remote, exposed, storm-blasted, South Uist has nothing to do with sunny Govan. They are now twinned by organisations which some think have too much time and cash on their hands. South Uist, or what’s left of it due to coastal erosion, is nothing like the inner-city village, nestling on the banks of the cool, calm Clyde.

Down Lochboisdale way is scenic, tranquil and an oasis in the maelstrom that is everyday life at the bottom end. Tourists come and stand in awe at the view out the loch, disturbed only by the roar and rumble of work on the new pier in the distance. Meander among the populace on a Friday evening and you may hear the occasional clink of whisky glasses. Another week of hard but honest toil is toasted in the Lochboisdale Hotel as the Atlantic laps the quay. “Och well, let’s hope we get a few more weeks out of this part of the contract. Slainte mhath.”

Govan, on the other hand, is loud and brash. Tourists come and stand in awe, thinking how lucky they are not to live there, disturbed by the roar of the subway and the rumble of expense claims being filled in at the BBC Scotland headquarters in the distance. If you dare get out of your car after 3pm on a Friday on Glasgow’s south side, you may be startled by the rat-tat-tat constant popping sounds. Fear not, ‘tis just the weekly ritual of champagne bottles being uncorked in someone’s lap in Pacific Quay. “Ooh, Ms Bird; your banter with the forecaster was simply marvellous, dahling. Bottoms up, everyone.”

Actually, I’ve changed my mind. There are such very strong simlarities between these communities that I must heap praise on Lochboisdale Amenity Trust, the Postcode Lottery’s Dream Fund and Oxfam for setting up such a unique and extremely useful partnership. Maybe Uist and Govan are indeed similar in some ways.

Hold on though, Govan is best-known for Rab C Nesbitt, that deadbeat, self-styled philosopher and style guru most often associated with lived-in pinstripe suits, plimsolls and holey underwear. South Uist has no one like that, surely? Well, I only see the local councillor Gerry Macleod in his business rig-out at the White House in Stornoway. However, put a can of Special Brew in his hand, stuff him into a string vest and, yes, I suppose, he could, well, maybe …

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Posted in Labour, Liberals, P&J column, politics, SNP, Tory

Could it be that I may have found Liam Fox’s adviser singing at that wet Mod?

Posted on October 24, 2011 | 1 Comment

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.

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Posted in Gaelic, P&J column, Western Isles

I think she is telling me that maybe I should do something about our back garden

Posted on October 17, 2011 | Leave a comment

“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.

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Posted in Gaelic, P&J column

The reason I do not want to sit on the fence is that it really, really hurts

Posted on September 19, 2011 | Leave a comment

Published in Press and Journal – Sep 19, 2011

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They are sharp and horrible and have caused me terrible pain and misery. I’m not actually talking about my in-laws – well, not this time. What I am talking about has had me agonisingly trapped by my shoulder, by my hand and one even came close to ripping off my undercarriage when I fell on it while straddling a stile in my rush to get to a beach.

The wretched instruments of torture of which I speak are, of course, our fearsome island fences. If there’s one thing guaranteed to bring tears to my eyes it is recalling that particular humiliating episode down at Coll Beach a few years ago when I was left dangling on the most penetrative barbed wire on which I have ever rested my wee pink bits.

And something equally painful happened on South Uist as well.  Trying to get a better position to take photos of that pod of ill-fated pilot whales which had ended up in Loch Carnan, I thought I’d go up the road and climb the hill. Just one problem. There was a sturdy fence barring the way and no gate for miles. Oh no, it had vicious-looking barbed wire all along it. Ach, no bother, I can tackle any fence after what happened to me in Coll. I never learn.

This time, there wasn’t even a stile. So I had to drop the camera over it first and begin my ascent. What I didn’t plan for was that I was fairly high up the hill so, just as I was getting my leg over, I was hit amidships by Hurricane Floraidh. A sudden wind swung me back like a weather vane slamming me against the groaning fence post.

In situations like this, the kindly advice of physics teachers like Mr Robbie, Mr Campbell and Mr Mackay come flooding back. For any non-scientific readers, kinetic energy is best explained by showing how it is changed to and from other forms of energy.

For example, I was using chemical energy provided by the sausage and black pudding I had at the Dark Island Hotel to climb that fence at my chosen velocity. That movement had to be maintained with enough oomph to overcome air resistance and friction.  So, the chemical energy was being converted into kinetic energy, the energy of motion, but that kind of process is never completely efficient and was also producing heat and sweatiness on certain parts of my anatomy. OK so far?

The law of gravity meant I’d acquired a whole shedload of even more kinetic energy and, by swinging back too far, had run out of options for transfer. Meanwhile, my right leg was still partly over the barbed wire and being dragged back over the by-now bloody pricks. Yeeeouch.

By the time I became completely dislodged and fell to earth, the pain was so intense I didn’t even notice my head bouncing off an ollack and rolling into the swamp.

Kinetic energy, of course, can be passed from one object to another and when I passed it to the fence post it went all wibbly-wobby and undoubtedly was thereon transferred by way of local terrestrial tremors. That’s kinetic energy. See? Science is so interesting when you have a tutor who has personally experienced what could otherwise be boring, theoretical situations. A bonus was that, as I eventually came to my senses, I realised there was no one around to witness my downfall. So no one could get offended if I let rip with the most fearsome oaths and curses about the usefulness of fences, the properties of barbed wire and my lessening affection for bewildered marine creatures.

Who’d have thought that loudly proclaiming unspecified doubts about the parentage of pilot whales above a Uist sea loch was an effective stress reliever? Worked for me, I tell you. Mind you, that was probably because this was South Uist and I was far away from the influence of the Free Church or the Continuing for the feelings of guilt at stooping to profanity to be sufficiently suppressed. I have to say I’m intrigued by a competition launched by a tradesmen’s website called Get Off The Fence. They are looking for get nominations for the biggest, best, ugliest or most ridiculous fences. Whether they are fabulous or very bad, they want to feature them.

Fences serve so many purposes, they say, including keeping out unwanted intruders, marking clear boundaries between neighbours and affording you privacy when you’re enjoying some time in the garden. They think it’s time to celebrate these brilliant boundary markers and fantastic fences which, while doing so many other things, actually brighten up our day. Yeah, right. One gets the impression it is more about poncey garden fences more than jaggy-topped livestock ones but, hey, a fence is a fence.

The blurb says Britain’s got millons so they acknowledge that not all are going to be that great. Some may be faded, splintered, too small or too tall, they expect. Whatever the reason, they are asking the public to get off the fence and name and shame the worst offenders. I think I could win this, you know. If I took them to those fences in Coll and Loch Carnan that are not just ugly to look at but capable of inflicting deep and lasting injury to innocent people, they would have to be impressed. No lily-livered lawn border or terrible trellis could beat my entries. Because I took photos before I applied the ointment.

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Posted in Free Church, Isle of Lewis, Outer Hebrides, P&J column, Popular culture, Scotland, Stornoway, Uist, Western Isles

Why the Outer Hebrides is just the place to send those looters and rioters

Posted on August 22, 2011 | 6 Comments

Published Press and Journal 22 August 2011

I love Sally Bercow. There, I’ve said it. What is there not to love about a dame who will take no sugar from nobody? My plan was to stay completely away from Big Brother this time but I know I’m going to rip up the pledge because of the pride of our alley.

She’s the wife of the Speaker of the House of Commons, who is a Tory MP. Not that she lets that wee detail stop her supporting, loudly and publicly, the Labour Party. She wants to be an MP herself too, a Labour one. As if that wasn’t enough to give hubby John a red face, he tried to stop her going in and making an amadan of herself. If you don’t know what that fine Gaelic word means, just think of the MP George Galloway in a catsuit lapping up milk from a bowl. That’s a complete amadan for you.

Did Sally do as her husband, famous for his ferocious tellings-off when MPs misbehave, cave in and do as he and other Tory bigwigs demanded? Did she heck. Which is why I now adore the lady. She doesn’t play by the rules of the rich and powerful. You can see what’s going to happen. Although she’s on the wagon now after admitting she thought nothing of swigging back two bottles of plonk most days, she is always up for telling it as it is. While most of the other housemates will need a few vino collapsos to loosen their tongues, I think Sally will give us some jaw-dropping revelations without benefit of even a wee swally.
Well done to John B for trying to stop her. He never had a chance though.

Well done too to the man of words who got round the 10 Downing Street tosh filter and somehow managed to post a petition on its website calling for English rioters to be shipped to my homeland here in the Hebrides. Deep thinker Richard Miller suggests that for five years, as an alternative to keeping them in clink where they are likely to come in contact with other Little Englanders who will corrupt them even further, they should instead be made to look after our Blackfaces and Cheviots.

Only in the sparkling jewels of the northern seas, where the islanders are on the straight and narrow – the descriptive term for the Pentland Road between Marybank in the east and Callanish and Carloway in the west – looters and common scallywags can be kept safe from the evil influences that have made them what they are. This product of the English education system, the envy of the world but a long time ago, declares that your typical namby-pamby lowlife found in Tottenham, Croydon or Manchester would get such a fright existing without comforts like running water, electricity, decent food, culture and shopping that they would be too petrified to riot or loot ever again.

He’s spot on. How I long for the day when I can make myself a cuppa of Earl Grey without tramping six miles to the well. As for that electricity thingummyjig, I saw on telly that it’s going up in price so we certainly don’t want any of that sort of thing here in our unspoilt islands – unless we generate it ourselves – as the People’s Socialist Republic of Point are going to do out on the Straight and Narrow. Decent food? Oh, for the day we had some of that here. Instead, we have to make do with a bit of locally-caught smoked salmon for breakfast, a rib-tickling rack of Lewis lamb for lunch and perhaps just a slab of Uig-reared venison for dindins – after a starter of a dod of black pudding and several plump, juicy, landed-that-day scallops, of course.

Eeh by gum, life is grim up north and then a bit further north. We make do but we lay awake at nights dreaming of tucking into a squish of jellified, slithery eels for our tea like those lucky Londoners. That’d be fab. The culture vultures of Englandshire may have the West End for the theatres and playhouses where they can watch musicals by various Americans and Lloyd Webber but we get by. We have An Lanntair arts centre and Gaelic singer Iain Mackay. That’ll do us.

Mind you, they would see a difference in petrol prices. These rioters who robbed the filling stations down south could certainly come up and get a taste of their own medicines. Up here, it’s the filling stations that are robbing everybody else. Which reminds me that I noticed something very peculiar when I happened to be at my local Manor filling station the other day having a chinwag. Although the conversation was very interesting, as it always is when bewildered-looking Labour party come and tell me of their woes, it was also a good chance to do some people watching out of the corner of my eye.

Has anyone else noticed how men and women behave differently when they’re getting fuel. It was very obvious to me that there was a particular ritual that men do but which the fairer sex just don’t bother with. It was the same, time after time after time. Maybe it’s because they are too tight to waste a drop of petrol because of the cost or, maybe, it’s because it’s triggered by some other habit.
Look for this yourself next time your at the pumps. When they have finished filling up, gentlemen motorists invariably shake the nozzle.

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Posted in Outer Hebrides, P&J column, Popular culture, Stornoway, Western Isles

Remind me to tell you that you should be grateful if you have a good memory

Posted on August 19, 2011 | 5 Comments

Press and Journal column 15 August 2011

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Now what was I going to tell you? It’s my memory, you see. While I may be remarkably well-preserved in all other departments, I do sometimes have a teeny wee problem in remembering fine details.

It’s the little things. I’m not actually going to write on my hand where I park. Maybe I should. Parking in Stornoway town centre is getting worse and no one cares. I’d driven round the Crowmwell Street-South Beach-Kenneth Street circuit a few times last week and could find nowhere to halt. Even the double-yellows had vehicles on them.

There was nothing else for it. I had to look for a piece of kerb away from the centre. Eventually, I spotted a corner for the Renault Trafic and rushed into my meeting only to find the others were late because they too were still trying to park. This is Stornoway not central London, remember.

Only a short meeting about the rock band Coast which some of us are working for. This week the lads, some of whom were brought up on Uist, can be found at Strathpeffer Pavilion, the Royal Hotel in Portree, the Stornoway British Legion and finishing up on Saturday with an emotional return to Benbecula and the Dark Island Hotel. Did I remember those venues correctly? Gosh.

Quick cuppa and off I went to find my van. Now, where did I put it? Give me a minute. It was … I couldn’t remember. Must be up by the Post Office. Nope. Ah, of course, I always put it on Scotland Street if the centre is chocca. Uh-uh.
It was only 15 minutes before. Why couldn’t I remember?

Must be on the quay. Ah, there it is. I ran up to it, thrust the key in the lock and it was as if I was pitched into a maritime war zone. A screeching like a submarine dive klaxon went off which, when I dared to take my hands off my ears, I realised was the van alarm. It wasn’t my van. Wishing I had a hood to put up, I slunk off and saw the guy from the harbour office running towards me and the blaring van.

“Hi cove, what’s the hurry? What alarm? Oh, so it is. I thought it was HMS Astute aground at Arnish. Me? No, I saw no one. They must have gone that way. Ach, kids today; what are they like, eh? If you catch them let me know and I’ll put it in the paper. Cheers the now.”

By now I was getting desperate. I wondered if I had risked the awful wrath of Miranda, our seemingly-meek and polite traffic warden, and parked on Point Street. No, of course not. Even I’m not that brave.

There was nothing else for it. I was going to have to ask the police for help in finding it. Maybe I should pretend it was stolen? Better not, they have CCTV up at that cop shop on Church Street and they don’t miss much. My old classmate Mairi Graham works on the front desk and she has the eyes of a hawk. It would be rather embarrassing if I reported that some scallies had made off with my van and then Mairi piped up that she had watched me parking it up not half an hour before. No, better tell the truth. My brain has turned to mush and I have forgotten everything, ossifer. They’ll probably lock me up.

Back I traipsed trying to work out a form of words that would avoid the cops coming to the conclusion that I was the doziest twonk they had come across that day. You know how when you have something on your mind, you then see plenty examples of that very thing? That’s how it was as I walked. There were white vans everywhere. Every second vehicle that passed me was the same kind of white van. They are all around us – or they were that day.

As I passed the Free Church, there was even a white van there. I shook my head which by then was hurting. As I reached Church Street, I took a deep breath. Here we go. Hold on. Wait a minute. Did I check the registration number of that one in the Free Church car-park? I’d better go back. Guess what? Yes, it was mine. It’s not a place I usually park although it is open to the public – well, most days of the week it is.

Relieved but kicking myself, I felt like one of the criminal classes because it crossed the mind of this white van man to tell the cops that it wasn’t my fault and that someone had made off with it.

You should be thankful if you have a good memory. I can’t even remember if I told you that the brilliant rock band Coast are on a Highlands and Islands tour this week. Wish I could remember where they’re playing. They’re in Strathpeffer, Portree, Stornoway and somewhere else. Now where is it again? No, it’s gone.

It’s not just me who has felt like a criminal. There’s been awful looting around the UK in the last week. People have just been helping themselves to other people’s property. Thankfully, it hasn’t reached up here. Or has it? On Saturday night, I went for a walk and a guy in a hoodie came up to me and offered me eight legs of venison for £30. Hmm, I thought to myself, is that too dear?

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Posted in Outer Hebrides, P&J column, Western Isles