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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