HER friends say it is all about hormones and I should ignore her tantrums, but Mrs X has been up and down of late. She was very pleased ogling the photos of a topless Cliff Richard, which got her drooling and asking why I could not look like that. She was transformed into a devil woman. Geddit?
Cliff is 70 next month, but looks like a typical Lewisman at 25.
Thinking myself a savvy media person, I examined the image and concluded it was someone else’s body. They had just stuck his head on to Robbie Williams’s torso. Obvious.
Not impressed with this line of thought, she said I was being ridiculous because she had been a fan almost since Cliff looked his real age and she would know that bellybutton anywhere.
There was only one other possible explanation, then: If it was the same abdomen, it must have been airbrushed. Anyone can be made to look handsome and chisel-jawed after the pixel pixies have been all over their saggy bits with virtual Botox. Even I could be Adonis if I had that done.
No? Well, Adonis’s bigger-boned little brother, then.
Maybe I didn’t quite realise at first just how much distress was caused by my suggestion that the photos of Cliff had been tampered with more than he himself ever was. She became the ice maiden.
“Hi, would you like a coffee, darling, light of my life?”
No response. Not a beeg out of her. She had given me the cold shoulder. But what a fine, unretouched shoulder it was she was being cold to me with.
I think she is turning a bit Irish. The people of that republic have turned grumpy in style recently.
Poor old Axl Rose, of Guns N’ Roses. He wasn’t in the best of form anyway, but turning up late on stage put his Irish fans, who had sworn undying loyalty as they queued outside half an hour before, completely droll. They began throwing water bottles at him and everything. He got a hard time.
One screamed: “And another thing, Rose. Call yourself a mechanic? Youse don’t even know how to spell axle, ye eejit. Away wit’ ye.”
Quite right, I say. If you pay your money, the least you should expect is they turn up on time. Gaelic singers should also take note.
Then at Tony Blair’s book signing in Dublin on Saturday, they flung eggs and shoes at him.
A lot of people may not realise it, but an ugly scene was only just avoided when Blair visited Scalpay in 1998 to open the bridge. It was all Alastair Campbell’s fault.
After they had dropped in by helicopter, the PM went off to visit the school and he was then due to chat to local fishermen. That left the Number 10 spindoctor and some other well-built gentlemen with bulging jackets hanging around on the quay with us scribblers and snappers.
Someone thought it would make a good photo to get Campbell scowling at a group of Scalpachs in dungarees who came down to see what was going on. He wasn’t up for it.
“Put it away,” he bawled at the lensman. His warning promptly caused a laundry accident under the quay where a chap from a London broadsheet had ducked for a discreet Jimmy Riddle.
Thinking Campbell was being a bit over-sensitive, I suggested he relax and enjoy his gloriously sunny day in the Hebrides.
“Yeah, good day for a swim,” he snarled, and lurched towards me as if going to push me over the edge.
Knowing his hardman reputation, so not quite sure if he was jesting or not, I leaped sideways. I don’t really do leaping, so I tripped and nearly went over anyway.
An apologetic Campbell insisted he was only mucking about and was very concerned. Did he apologise? You’ll have to wait for my memoirs.
I will also be mentioning Stornoway Golf Club. They have not had a good year so far, what with being targeted by the licensing board, which seems to have been doing what it can to drive them out of business.
The golfers are now reduced to touting for companions to see them through the cold months ahead. When I saw the headline “Winter partners wanted by golfers” I thought, yeah, right, they’ll be lucky. What self-respecting lass is going to be tempted by such an offer – especially as they don’t even have a Sunday licence to help while away a chilly weekend lunchtime?
Farther down, beside a photo of club secretary Ken Galloway swinging away in a pair of trousers which could have been snaffled from the galley of a CalMac ferry, we learn another player “picked up four birdies”. I didn’t realise what fun could be had at Lady Lever Park when Norrie Tomsh asked me about improving my swing. There was me thinking he meant my golf swing.
Then, Stornoway Trust issued a warning about marauding deer in the castle grounds around the golf course. Apparently, they are losing their fear of man and were spotted “stomping” all over the 18th hole. You can’t blame dumb animals. They were probably just copying Ken after he heard of the licensing board decision to refuse their Sunday application.
The marauding deer could be a real problem. Some of the stags have even made it into Stornoway itself and there are now reports of them peering in people’s windows. Can you imagine what it must be like being disturbed by a racket at some unearthly hour and seeing this massive set of antlers thrashing about in the garden?
Mrs X, who was still nursing her long-lasting sulk, said she was not worried. I was baffled. I asked if she would not be petrified by nocturnal stags on the loose in the Bayhead area.
She snapped back that it had been far too long since she had been roused in the middle of the night by a horny beast.
