Category Archives: Western Isles

Why is everyone being so horrible to Axl Rose, Tony Blair and me?

Posted on September 6, 2010 by Iain| Leave a comment

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.

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Posted in Isle of Harris, Isle of Lewis, Outer Hebrides, Stornoway, TV, Western Isles

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That very sad day when I too threw a cat into a wheelie bin

Posted on August 30, 2010 by Iain| Leave a comment

SO A NATION of animal lovers is outraged and everyone says only a sick and twisted person would chuck a perfectly serviceable mousecatcher into a bin and leave it there.

Bank clerk Mary Bale had some kind of rush of blood to the head and, after a quick shufti to make sure no one was watching her, grabbed Lola the moggy by the scruff and chucked her in the wheeled recycling receptacle.

Anyone who would even think about putting a cat in a bin must be totally doolally. Yeah?

Er . . . well. It was a long time ago, you see. I was very emotional. But I love all little furry animals, honestly.

My cat was a feisty feline called Jethro. As he had matured, he had taken to acting very oddly to me and the other lodgers in the house. Try offering cat food and he would look at you as if you were trying to poison him. No, he preferred sausages.

He had begun to show his disapproval loudly when his housemates did everyday things – like shout at him, fight with each other or roll in from the pub having had a few noggins. He was a bit Free Church in his ways, that cat.

Jethro would arch his back and hiss at us. The best thing to do when someone or some thing does that is to ignore them. Show them you are not bothered.

I take the same approach nowadays with Mrs X. She can have fabulously hissy fits. There have been many over the years, but they have never got her anywhere. I just gawp back at her, hissing myself.

Jethro would not be shunned. Streaking up the curtains, he would perch himself high up on the rail until you had forgotten about him.

He would crouch there, waiting. Then, when the object of his loathing came in from the kitchen, often carrying a bowl of hot soup or platter of steaming cheesy pasta, the mad moggy would launch himself into space and crash on to their unsuspecting head, sending them somersaulting into the fireplace in a splatter of lentils and tubes of pasta.

Ah, how we loved those games with Jethro.

Housemates in that Big Bother house, which included Bernera types like Heggo and Norman Murray and Peter Cameron and an Irishman called Paul, would emerge from encounters with Jethro having been “sgrobed” red raw. They looked as if they had done 10 rounds with Muhammad Ali and not a small, if slightly evil, sausage-munching pussy.

So how did Jethro end up in the wheelie bin, you ask. Oh, don’t talk about that. The memories are flooding back. I’m filling up here.

Here in the Western Isles, the brawny types in Ness like other animals, too. Like birds, for example. No, not those kind. Get your minds out of the gutter and think gugas.

The unpalatable, stinky mess that passes for food in places north of Barvas has been getting the SSPCA a tad excited. They think it is time the Scottish Government called a halt to the slaughter of a couple of thousand gannets every year on Sula Sgeir.

Like Eddie Mair at the BBC and several national newspapers, I had a chat about this needless slaughter, which casts such doubts on our claims of being civilised, with my old classmate, Donald S. Murray.

Now based in Shetland, the teacher and scribe reckons it is OK to lasso these birdies, clobber them senseless and serve them up, as all Ness people do, as an aphrodisiac disguised as a shabby mop head.

It was equally delightful to hear the review of the week on the Radio 4 PM programme on Friday afternoon.

There was a Mrs Disgusted from Tunbridge Wells-type who prattled on about how difficult it was to listen to D.S. and his defence of the “barbaric” bird hunt.

“If a person did this anywhere other than in the Western Isles, he would be hauled before the courts, and rightly so. Save the guga,” she shreiked.

Yeah, Niseachs, that’s you told. You could just feel all the Mrs Wilberforce-Smythes throughout the home counties nodding over their scones and clotted cream.

We are not all Niseachs, though. In case you’re traumatised about poor Jethro, he did, indeed, end up in a wheelie bin and was carted off to the Bennadrove Garden of Rest, otherwise known as the landfill site.

However, I should explain that, unlike lucky Lola, when he entered the bin, Jethro was no longer with us. He was not serviceable as a mousecatcher or as anything else. He was an ex-cat.

Dashing across Perceval Road to try to see off a neighbour’s much-better-behaved moggy, he met a grisly end under the wheels of one of two passing vehicles.

They were not going fast. One was a hearse. How ironic if it was the wheels of the hearse that did for him. However, just behind it was a butcher’s van. Maybe it was loaded up with sausages – just how Jethro would have wanted to go.

The next day was bin day. We all got up early and put on black ties. To make his final journey as comfortable as possible, Jethro was placed on a bed of crumpled pages from various newspapers and a colourful Scandinavian magazine that was found under one housemate’s bed.

The binmen noticed us and scratched their heads. Unwitting pallbearers, they grabbed the bin, as we peered through watery eyes.

As it was upended into the lorry, it all got too much for us. The hankies came out.

The binmen must have sensed the deep, unspoken emotion. As one, they looked down and shook their heads. That was lovely. Binmen in Stornoway can be so sensitive.

Just think: Jethro is probably up there now. After a good feed of celestial bangers, I bet he is perched on that great curtain rail in the sky, waiting and wondering who will be the first to come home.

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

Smoke on the water

Posted on August 24, 2010 by Iain| Leave a comment


Songwriters: Blackmore, Ritchie; Gillan, Ian; Glover, Roger; Lord, Jon; Paice, Ian;

We all came out to Montreux
On the Lake Geneva shoreline
To make records with a mobile
We didn’t have much time

Frank Zappa and the Mothers
Were at the best place around
But some stupid with a flare gun
Burned the place to the ground, now

Smoke on the water
A fire in the sky
Smoke on the water

But burning down

You know, they burned down the gambling house
It died with an awful sound
Funky Claude was running in and out
He was pulling kids out the ground

When it all was over
We had to find another place
Swiss time was running out
It seemed that we would lose the race, now

Smoke on the water
A fire in the sky, burning, burning
Smoke on the water

Down to the ground
Hear you play

You know now, we ended up at the Grand Hotel
It was empty cold and bare
With the Rolling truck Stones thing just outside
Making our music there

Few red lights and a few old beds
We made a place to sweat
No matter what we get out of this
I know, I know we’ll never forget, now

Smoke on the water
A fire in the sky
Smoke on the water

Everywhere, everywhere

See me burn, alright now
It was tumblin’ down
Burn, burn, burn, yeah
It’s burning down, oh baby
It’s burning down

It’s burning down
Burning down

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Posted in Isle of Lewis, Outer Hebrides, Scotland, Stornoway, Western Isles, ferries, politics, religion

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Daddy’s got a squeezebox and mammy never sleeps at night

Posted on August 23, 2010 by Iain| Leave a comment

OUR minds can play awful tricks with us – especially if you have just been woken up and are still a bit dozy.

That was brought home the other evening to a couple from Sandwick, near Stornoway, who had been out to visit friends.

Everyone was in good form and it was the early hours before they got back.

As she had an early start, Mrs Sandwick did a little tidying up and off they headed to the land of nod.

Then she woke with a start. What’s the time? 2.30am. She’d heard a noise. She turned to Mr Sandwick but he was snoring good-style.

Suddenly, she heard a rattle.

Swinging quietly out of bed, she padded over to the window. No rattle but in the distance, she could detect a gentle throbbing.

What could that be? It was dark. Her mind was racing.

What if the noise earlier was burglars trying the back door? In deadly-dull Sandwick, the most boring village in the history of the Hebrides? Always a first time, she reasoned.

Listen, there’s that distant throbbing again. That must be their getaway car parked round the corner.

She roused himself without him bawling out: “Aye, go on then and you might as well make a couple of slices of toast too.”

Rubbing the sleep from his peepers, he could hear the rattling. The intruders must have got in and they were going through their drawers.

There was only one thing for it. Mr Sandwick would have to do the decent thing and go and tackle them, she said, bravely.

Take a weapon, she urged.

“A weapon?” he said. “Well, I’m sorry but I think I left my AK-47 assault rifle in the garage. Oops, silly me.”

Having tidied up, she had left nothing handily lying around with which to bludgeon the marauding criminals in the dinette. What is that in the corner? The accordion.

She grabbed it, gingerly took it out of the case – and then quickly put it down again. Very wise. It is never a good idea for an undressed lady to pick up an accordion. Why? Do you want me to draw you a picture?

Her husband was more practical though. He took the accordion case, hoisted it above his head and, still hearing the ransacking going on, set off along the hall to catch the burglars by surprise. Bursting into the kitchen with the lethal Hohner box swinging menacingly above him, he found . . . no one at all.

“You’re under the table. Come out with your hands up or I’ll . . . I’ll . . . I’ll box your ears.”

No one in the freezer. What about the rattling?

It was from the washing machine.

Before retiring, Mrs Sandwick had put on a wash and, because its fixings were coming loose, the machine was doing the shake, rattle and roll on the final spin cycle. The ominous “getaway car” throbbing in neutral round the corner must have just been the wash cycle.

They shouldn’t be embarrassed. Everyone can get it wrong sometimes and a few here in the islands must have been smiling with quiet satisfaction when BBC weatherman Tomasz Schafernaker got into trouble. His wee unscripted gesture at a newsreader was caught on camera.

Gaffe-prone Tomasz has form here. He is the guy who called the islands Nowheresville. Silly man; that’s just Harris.

He also warned it was going to rain at the Glastonbury Festival saying it would soon be a muddy site. Except he said it as if there was an “h” somewhere in there.

Tomasz is of Polish extraction and the eminent current affairs analyst Dan Murray struggled to pronounce his surname on Gaelic radio on Friday. After a few stabs at it, Dan concluded: “Even his name sounds dirty.”

It certainly is the way you said it, Dan.

Meanwhile, our best-loved quango has been getting itself in knots with words. Jargon is killing communication and people in quangos are the worst offenders. They can’t help themselves. A crofter tells me of what is probably the unlikeliest direct quote in history by one such quasi-thingummybob, Highlands and Islands Enterprise.

It made an announcement the other day about the Harris Tweed industry’s new training course. It told of a weaver in Stornoway who decided he would take up weaving as it allowed him the chance to also take up his other crofting interests.

Fair enough. He is then quoted directly about the benefits of a proper training regime saying: “This accreditation drawn up by the prime movers in the textile industry should be the dynamic to drive Harris Tweed to the iconic discerning market it deserves.”

Would a real crofter actually say such meaningless drivel? I don’t think so either.

You can just see two weavers in the Crit leaning on the bar with a couple of nips and halves of ordinary. Murdo asks: “Haoi, a’ Chalum. What do you think of this accreditation?”

“Well,” says Calum, “I’ve thought of little else. That fellow Neil in the HIE announcement is absolutely right. It should be the dynamic that drives the clò mòr to the market. And, as you well know, a’ Mhurchaidh, it is a discerning market. And an iconic one. Oh well, yes.”

“Exactly. That was my own appraisal too, Mr Calum,” replies Murdo. “I’m glad we concur. Excuse moi, two more drinky-poohs, bartender. Make them gins with tonic and ice because we too are prime movers in our industry with the dynamic to drive our products to the iconic, discerning markets they deserve.

“Oh, and a half bottle and four cans for the bus.”

However, one of the lads has had problems with words before.

Murdo went into Calum’s barn and caught him doing a sexy striptease to one of his agricultural machines. Murdo was absolutely stunned. “What do you think you’re doing?”

“It’s not my fault,” says Calum. “Me and Mary have not been getting on lately and our counsellor said I should do something sexy to a tractor.”

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

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I bet you also wanted to slide down that escape chute

Posted on August 23, 2010 by Iain| Leave a comment

WE’VE all thought about it. That moment when we have realised that our job is just not worth the hassle.

Getting close to that point has caused many of us to at least think about chucking it all in and storming out.

Then again, not many of us have been working on board a plane just when we were ready to tell them to take their job and shove it. Which is why we are all a bit tickled by Steven Slater, the American flight attendant, who flipped when, according to himself anyway, some passengers were a tad rude to him. Aw, diddums.

Slater threw a wobbly, grabbed a few bevvies, released the emergency chute and – wheeee – slid right out on to the dole.

Yes, I know it was the wrong thing to do and he was very unprofessional and needs to keep his emotions in check. But, seriously, who has not secretly wanted a go on that inflatable slide thingy? It looks like so much fun. And the last thing you want to do is be in a real emergency where you have to use it as intended. So, if Slater was getting his jotters anyway, why not?

We all try and do the right thing but, usually, that is the boring option. So, sometimes, we just do what we really, really want to do and hang the consequences.

Like all this stuff about global warming. That’s got me all worried. I just don’t know what to do. I did try doing the right thing and following the advice about cutting down on heat and light but I’m afraid that didn’t go according to plan.

To cap it all, there was an accident on the road just ahead of me the other day.

Sadly, a cyclist was hurt and the poor chap is still sore but recovering. Not a happy chappy, I can tell you. It was actually me that found him but is he grateful? Nope.

I’m just too upset to talk about it right now. I’ll tell you some other time. Maybe.

Princess Anne was 60 yesterday. Now there’s someone who always does the right thing whenever she can. With her head usually swathed in a “beannag” — that’s a headsquare to any monoglots who chance upon this column — she is the reliable royal who will always tell it like it is.

When she is not telling pushy photographers to “naff off” or refusing to comply with crazed gunmen who order her to get out of her car, she turns up unannounced in the most unlikely of places – even here on Lewis.

She still regularly pops in for a cuppa to see friends who live in Lochs and was recently spotted by the tins of beans and peas in the Timsgarry shop in Uig.

All this fuss is going on now because of her big birthday. She, however, would rather not mention it as she says she has a lot of proper things to do. She had to be “advised” to dress up for the photos and interviews. Just like any other busy mother in a beannag, keen to get on lifting the peats, shearing the sheep or going for the messages. Well, almost.

Sometimes, though, we could be excused for throwing our hands up and going off on one. Not that we all would do that.

Take my mate, Iain Turnbull. Diagnosed with prostate cancer and not knowing how long he has to live, he could certainly have been excused for throwing a complete wobbly. Not our Iain, though.

Instead, he is fundraising for Macmillan Cancer Support. He’s had his beard shaved off in the Macleod Motel at Tarbert and, on Wednesday, Iain, whose father and sister died from cancer, will be over in Inverness where he will again be facing the glint of cold steel.

Yep, he is getting his entire head shaved this time. Those long flowing silver locks, the lovingly cultured ponytail — the lot is coming off to raise a few bob to help the charity which may be supporting him when the time comes.

An former brewer, Iain has had a big batch of a special beer made. It is called Swansong.

It is not for Iain himself, though. Swansong is for the party after he has gone. He wants to do the right thing for the ones he leaves behind. Now that’s what I call planning. Yep, that’s the right thing.

If you would like to help Iain’s fantastic fundraising bid, just call David Cameron. No, not the one now living at a posh address in Westminster but the one based at the Macmillan charity headquarters in Bridge of Don. They’re in the phone book and David has all the details.

And another Iain was in the news this week. Iain Thornber, a historian, says there is no reason why people cannot go back to living on St Kilda.

He has a point. It is so much easier to get there now. How would you market it though? A place to go for people to find themselves?

Maybe it would be ideal for those silly people who go in the huff for ages and just don’t want to speak to anyone?

Or maybe it would be just the place to live if you were interested in studying astronomy, the sea or our climate? Where better to look for the signs of global warming, for example?

Because, yes, I am very worried about this global warming. The warnings are everywhere and the message is that we can all do our little bit to help.

There was a guy on the radio the other evening and he was persuasive. He said that the polar ice caps would melt that bit slower if we all just switch off all our lights for a few minutes.

I could do that, I thought. I’ll just switch off all my lights right now. It’s the right thing to do.

And that’s how I ran over that poor cyclist.

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

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How I beat the police and got papal visit criminal to confess

Posted on August 9, 2010 by Iain| Leave a comment

COULD the Pope be coming to the islands? All that uncalled-for frostiness and threats of boycotts may have put His Holiness off the idea of staying in the central belt for long.

I can tell you that there have been quite a few pointers recently that suggest that something very papal is afoot up here. Did you know, for instance, that Aer Lingus has just announced flights from London to Knock for £24? Honestly. Have a peek at the company’s website.

For those not well up on island geography, Knock is that bit of Point you come to after the first bit. A really charming village with much to commend it, it has a wee school and, er, a lovely view from up the hill of other wonderful places you could visit. And, well, that’s about it. A really lovely school, though, with windows and everything.

Even although the airlines are now advertising flights to Point from London that are cheaper than a taxi from town, you can bet our council has done nothing to prepare.

Have they built an airport there? Can’t say I’ve noticed. Still, at least a month to go.

Knock is just two miles from Melbost International Airport and the technical services department will just have to get its finger out and cobble together something before the middle of next month.

If it quickly widens the double-track road between Seaview and Claypark, something smaller than an Airbus could land. Aer Lingus does fly BAe 146 planes, which are not as big, so the wingspan wouldn’t slice off the top storeys of quite so many of the Seaview houses.

You can put these things down anywhere – unless you are Prince Charles, of course. Was it not HRH who managed to put a 146 in the ditch on Islay in 1995? That’s what happens when you try to land a 146 on a proper runway.

The usual whingers will moan. Happily, the council leadership will be ready with their new mantra – we are doing it for the good of your health.

Everything they do, apparently, is now for the good of our health. They have denied the golf club a Sunday licence and are keeping the sports centre closed on Sundays, all for the good of our health. Brilliant.

Anywhere else in this country, hordes of people would be taking to the streets and asking what these people are on. There would be letters to the papers, calls for votes of no confidence and intervention by the government.

Not here. Everyone seems fine with decisions which fly in the face of logic.

It’s a heart-stopping approach to decision-making which is making the Western Isles what it is today. Luckily for them, no one cares.

Now that the NHS has decided that ward visits in hospitals by ministers are merely spiritual health, they can say the same about a papal visit. Forget those blood pressure tablets, come and see the Pope instead.

A parking area for the papal plane will be needed so the Pope can come down the steps and kiss the holy soil of Innse Gall. Oh dear.

Guess what? What? Point football pitch is absolutely adjacent. It could have been put there for that purpose. Of course. Why didn’t I think of that? And the clubhouse Ionad Stoodie would be ideal for the big man to meet the great leaders and decision-makers of the peninsula.

The Vatican security briefing is very specific. It says only those who can prove their ID can get in. So that’s Messrs Iain Don Maciver, of CalMac, and Iain D. Campbell, of the Free Church.

That’s fine; keeps it simple. It’ll be a lovely day.

Would it be a first if the Pontiff did decide to divert to Lewis? I ask because, in 1982, John Paul II also visited Scotland. A lovely, smiling man, so unlike most of the holy men we know, he visited Bellahouston in Glasgow and Murrayfield in Edinburgh. However, a few weeks later, an island newspaper had a jaw-dropping front-page story under the headline: “Sign of the Times – The Pope on Lewis.”

Someone on holiday in the capital just after the Pope’s visit saw the signs were still up. He put a few in his boot.

A few days later, a number of yellow 5ft x 4ft signs suddenly sprouted up outside Free Churches in Back, North Tolsta and Bayble, the FP church in Stornoway and on a Gress telephone pole. They said “Papal Visit” and, because they were urging drivers to go straight ahead, the signs pointed upwards.

Pandemonium. Was the Pope indeed in the island? Was it the end of the world as the Free Church knew it? People kept saying they thought it was a sign. Yes, Sherlock, it was.

The cops said it was none of the usual pre-CCTV Saturday night window breakers for which the island was then notorious. The file is probably in Church Street nick, still lying open.

Now the offender has, as His Holiness has always urged us, made a confession – to me.

I can reveal exclusively that, 28 years almost to the day, the phantom sign erector tells me he has seen the error of his ways.

He has carved a career in the media. It is not ideal, but probably better than walking the streets nicking road signs and causing much gnashing of teeth in more-fundamentalist churches.

Will Stornoway CID do a cold case review like they do on the telly? Probably. Will I be taken in? I was in London in 1982, but if that blonde sergeant is on duty I will suggest she gives me a strip search to be sure.

Spare a thought, though, for my friend tonight as he waits for the inevitable knock on the door, the slumped appearance in the dock and the shame that will be heaped on him.

Don’t worry, M, we will have a great party – whenever you get out.

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Posted in Gaelic, Isle of Harris, Isle of Lewis, Outer Hebrides, Popular culture, Scotland, Stornoway, Western Isles, religion, schools

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Chop chop. I’m up in the air about my fantastic new present

Posted on August 2, 2010 by Iain| Leave a comment

NOW that I am a trainee helicopter pilot, I have to make sure I get the language right. After all, I am the captain of a Sierra 107 and need to get myself a call sign so that I can be identified properly.

It is all so confusing and most people don’t understand the lingo. A certain young woman from Tong got talking in the Carlton Bar in Stornoway to one of these visiting pilots on a Nato exercise. Fed up he wasn’t buying a drink, she was told he had to keep a clear head as he was flying next day.

Just before he went off to the toilet, she asked what his plane was. He said: “It’s an F-15 Eagle, call sign Yankee Whiskey Foxtrot. Now pardon me, ma’am.”

The barmaid was baffled and asked what he said. Quick as a flash, our lassie retorted: “It’s obvious. He is American and he’s changed his mind. We’ll have two large drams and then we’re going dancing.” Poor girl. She got one out of the three right.

Meanwhile, we are still on holiday. While Mrs X was boosting the turnover of places like Schuh and Dorothy Perkins, I nipped into Sauchiehall Street’s only shop worth visiting – yes, the gadget shop. They had this wee remote-controlled helicopter buzzing around. I want, I want, I want. I was like a wee spoiled brat in a toy shop. Er, no like about it.

Mr Smooth Talking Salesman said its flying techniques were exactly the same as piloting a real one. Waow. How much, how much, how much?

Back in the flat, I got it up OK. Then down and then straight into a vase which smashed into a million bits. Mrs X pledged forgiveness only if I took her out.

Eating on the mainland is a problem due to my fondness for marag dubh. They’re everywhere. We would wander down Scotland’s precincts examining menus in the windows.

Rabbit with Stornoway black pudding, quail’s egg and Cox’s apple, or perhaps pork fillet on Stornoway black pudding with balsamic and raspberry sauce or, maybe, seared Black Pearl scallops with Stornoway black pudding served over creamy mashed potatoes and a smoked cheese sauce.

Thank you, Cuan Mor in Oban for that one.

Tramping round that infernal triangle of Sauchiehall, Argyle and Braehead shops had worked up such a hunger that I could have scoffed a scabby horse with jam in its armpits.

So we determined to try something else this time. Finally, we found one with no marag on the menu, so in we piled.

Strange. People seemed to be huddled round cookers. Ah, so. This was dining, Japanese-style. The grub is cooked there in front of you on a griddle. They call that Teppanyaki.

Not having gone completely Japanese, in the culinary sense, before – sushi from the supermarket doesn’t count – I wondered about their reputation of being like Germans and Free Churchers with no sense of humour. Not so. These chefs were also magicians, acrobats and stand-up comics.

Our personal griddler was a cheerful, lanky, knife juggler from down Tokyo way. He turned up the gas so much that when he put on the oil for my salmon with noodles and little green things a column of flame shot right up to the ceiling.

Peering under what was left of my eyebrows, a Munro of sliced potato was being fried up amid loud calls of “Onaka suiteru?” I assumed he was offering another Asahi Japanese bevvy. Nope. My nod resulted in a squadron of spud slices being flipped at me.

Picking the Kerr’s Pink out of my hair and nostrils, I learned this is a traditional icebreaker in Hokkaido. I was to catch them in my gob for the general amusement of various Belgians, French and Australians who were all just mightily relieved he had not picked them.

I did OK. Amazing just how wide you can gape when the pride of your nation depends on it.

Then there was another frenetic display of juggling. Keeping half a dozen eggs in the air seemed too dodgy even for Tokyo Joe, I decided. They were obviously just plastic eggs. In the finale, though, they were all split through by a spinning knife as they plummeted just before they plopped into a bowl. Shows how little I know.

After a fantastic feast, I went walkabout in the restaurant. It was fascinating talking to the staff and seeing their collection of old Japanese herbal medicines and asking them how often Mary Sandeman comes in.

Really? Does she still call herself Aneka and sing softly how she misses her Japanese boy? Fascinating, but I’m sworn to secrecy.

Mrs X got worried that I was hitting the old Japanese hooch and asked where I was. The ever-helpful Joe taught her the correct way to say that she was looking for me.

So I was summoned by Mrs X lovingly bellowing out: “Iain, wo sagashite imasu.”

What a coincidence. That’s not a million miles from what she calls me every day, anyway.

We are now heading back to Stornoway on the ferry. The art of helicopter flying is coming on.

I have mastered the slow climb and the hover, but I still have work to do on the emergency landing. It has now cost one chandelier, two vases and the consequences of an unplanned dive bombing of Mrs X.

She had emerged from the shower in a bath towel when, inexplicably, I lost control of the whirlybird and my trouble and strife suffered a collision amidships. The shampoo, the lady razor and, I must report, the towel went flying as the kamikaze attack from, gosh, six feet up, slammed into its well-sprung target.

It took yet another excursion to St Enoch’s to put that one right.

The only problem is she has now realised the fun I’m having. She keeps hinting that she would like a shot.

No way. This chopper is mine and no one else is getting their hands on it.

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Posted in Isle of Harris, Isle of Lewis, Scotland, Stornoway, Western Isles

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Interview with Donnie Macinnes of the Stornoway Gazette

Posted on July 31, 2010 by Iain| Leave a comment

This is a feed of the interview I did with Donnie ‘Gazette’ Macinnes as he retired after 47 years. It’s in two parts. Just click the arrow.

An interview with Donnie Gazette Macinnes

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Posted in Barra, Benbecula, Gaelic, Isle of Harris, Isle of Lewis, Outer Hebrides, Radio, Scotland, Stornoway, TV, Uist, Western Isles

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I shall never hear a bad word about our friendly oil barons

Posted on July 26, 2010 by Iain| Leave a comment

WHAT on earth is the point of putting cash into the deep pockets of the Hebridean oil barons for overpriced petrol if you know that you are about to head off to the mainland and be passing filling stations where the spondulicks demanded for premium unleaded are going to be considerably less?

It’s not that I am in any way tightfisted, you understand. But that was my reasoning as I managed to somehow squeeze the Vectra on to the now hugely-inadequate tub with which CalMac still inhibits the number of passengers that can cross the Minch.

My plan was to fill up there at the mainland’s first port of call, but some well-informed Ullapudlian shooter-of-the-breeze strolled up and made it clear that that also would be financial folly. Once I’d got south of Invershneggie, he suggested, quenching the thirst of the General Motors’ reps and reporters workhorse saloon would become a much less-painful affair.

Right, mate, good one. Just 20 quid’s worth would do in Ullapool and I would then fill my boots, fuelwise, on the highway south.

I remembered an American clever person on the radio recently. He told just how well signposted our country was. Much better than other nations like the States, he thought.

Across the pond, apparently, there just aren’t enough road signs, the ones they have are far too small and they don’t always give accurate information. Brilliant, I thought. Something we are better at than these bolshie Yank-types who have taken again to snapping their fingers and making Scottish politicians jump. Way to go. Literally.

As I bypassed the Highland capital and aimed the chariot at Perth, the bottles of water were being slurped and ditties of life in the land of the bald eagle were being sung. Yankee Doodle Dandy and Uncle Sam were getting a loud airing.

Then, a bit north of Perth, the fuel warning light came on. Already? Still, this would be when I would make a massive saving compared to dealing with those Stornoway fuel barons. I’ll show them, eh?

Seeing a sign for “services” somewhere near Bankfoot, I turned off and began the hunt for a petrol pump. And, because the issue was becoming somewhat pressing, a toilet.

No joy. However, I did find a place that did lovely tea – which did nothing for my most urgent issues.

Back on to the tarmacadam and, after a while, I saw a sign for more “services” at Aberuthven. Never heard of the place, but it will undoubtedly have a pump and facilities for the cross-legged, methought.

The turn-off took me past an industrial area and after that I realised I was heading into open countryside. Heck, where are these “services”? An answer to the toilet question was now getting urgent.

I did think of asking a raucous squad of young footballers where they were. However, I decided against that, having been guilty myself of once misdirecting a driver who was also very obviously bursting. I could not stand it if they did the same to me.

Hey, I was young. I was foolish. The other RAF lads with me put me up to it. I am just a very bad man.

So, already moist with sweat and in terror of a deluge, it was back on to the A9 to resume the quest for porcelain.

Then . . . I couldn’t believe it. There, rising out of the swirling mist ahead of me to the accompaniment, in my head at least, of a fanfare of golden trumpets was what was at that particular moment the most cherished of all of God’s creations – a filling station.

See? He doesn’t just answer Free Presbyterians. Not on a Saturday afternoon, anyway.

Slight snag, though. It was on the other side of the road, on the northbound carriageway. And, because that stretch of road is now more dug up than Stornoway town centre during a special music festival, it is all cones, barriers and heavy lorries, so no right turns are possible.

So near and yet so far. Seeing the sign for the toilets as I had to keep on driving by on the other carriageway was such torture that I would recommend it to the CIA if they have to give up waterboarding at places like Guantanamo Bay.

When I was able to turn off, I found myself in a wee village called Blackford. At least if there were no pumps in the village there wouldn’t be anything there to make me think of liquids and going to the smallest room.

What was the first thing I came to? The factory for Highland Spring water. Great.

Changing my prayer from filling stations to better bladder control, I kept right on and found myself in Auchterarder. Lovely place – just like bigger, cleaner Stornoway, but without toilets, or at least any WC signs.

What did that daft Yank on the radio say about our signposts? Twit.

Auchterarder is cute. During my pimply period, a childhood idol of mine was Eve Graham, of the New Seekers.

They did I’d Like to Teach the World to Sing, for Coca-Cola. Bonnie lass, memorable for her pair of large boots.

Eve, if I remember right is from Auchterarder. As I was looking around anyway, I wondered if I could spot her in her white, perfectly wrinkle-free, PVC knee-lengths.

Na. She was probably indoors rehearsing You Won’t Find Another Fool Like Me. With poor me outside singing I Can’t Find Another Place To Pee.

Eventually, I found a filling station. Great place. Officially, they only do takeaway, but I had a fantastic sit-down, if you know what I mean.

The moral, I suppose, is that perhaps we should be grateful for our wonderful fuel retailers. While they may charge a penny or two more than on the mainland, giving them our business could make our lives more comfortable in the long run.

No, I never thought I’d ever say that, either.

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Posted in Benbecula, Isle of Harris, Isle of Lewis, Outer Hebrides, Scotland, Stornoway, Western Isles, ferries

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I spy with my little eye some early political manoeuvring

Posted on July 19, 2010 by Iain| Leave a comment

WHO is Iain Choinnich Ruaidh? Ring a bell? Nope, me neither. He is the shadowy individual who has turned up in Lewis during this tepid Hebridean summer hoping to be our next MSP. But who is he?

My close encounter was at Campbell’s filling station as I invested a vast fortune filling my tank.

“Psst,” I heard a voice say from behind the unleaded pump.

I replied loudly that I most certainly was not as it was but lunchtime and not a drop had passed my lips.

Sneaking round to investigate, I found this fellow on his knees making out he was tying his laces. I knew he was pretending because he was wearing slip-ons.

He didn’t look up, but just mumbled he knew who I was.

A P&J reader wearing slip-ons? I suppose there must be some, I reasoned.

Still attending to his gussets, he asked if I knew who he was. As I could see little more than a bald patch and a fairly sizeable nose, I confessed I had too little to go on.

“Good. Let’s keep it that way for now.”

By now, recent stories of spy swaps were swirling in my head. I was convinced I had bumped into the Russian intelligence service’s man in the Hebrides.

My brain was racing. Oh heck, what’s that pass-phrase the secret services use – the top-secret one from those spy films?

The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog? No, that’s the one from typing class. Er, it’s cold in the Gulags this time of year; something like that?

Before I could say anything, the footwear fumbler said he wanted me to support his bid to become the Labour candidate for the election next year. Gosh, I thought. Infiltrating a political party, that’s serious stuff. What should I do? If I told him to get stuffed, would I find myself skewered on the tip of a poisoned umbrella?

Isn’t that what happened to Bulgarian dissident Georgi Markov? That, though, was on Waterloo Bridge. Not at Campbell’s filling station.

I don’t think so, anyway.

I promised to speak to people who mattered in Labour, but, as George Gawk was working offshore, there was nothing much I could do for a few weeks.

He mumbled again. This time, though, I detected a hint of Niseach. Knowing I was taking my life in my hands, I took the initiative. I asked if he was from Sverdlovsk or Swainbost?

His answer was short, in Gaelic, but not as revealing as it might seem. I was to refer to him as just Iain Choinnich Ruaidh. John, son of Red Kenneth.

That’ll be Swainbost, then. Thank you very much, Mr Spy. I think that’s all I wanted to know.

When I looked down, he was gone. Vanished. Vamoosed. Offski. Now I learn there is no such person in Ness, and Labour has had no approaches from anyone in slip-ons.

Your tip-offs about who he is will be treated in absolute confidence. Until the election.

Golf Week and the HebCelt have again brought all sorts of invaders to our shores. Some of them are still banned from when they were last here, but they get bolder knowing that there are more ferries out, especially on Sundays, if they need to beat a hasty retreat.

Making a low-profile return from deepest, darkest Argyll last week was a man who now lives in relative obscurity in that wee coastal town he hails from and where no one has a clue what he is really like. Tommy Wood was a legendary bar steward in the Stornoway of the 80s and 90s. How we remember him in the County, that big smile of his, slung from ear to ear.

Such a professional he was, his dishcloth always slung over his shoulder. Order a drink from Tommy and he would jump up and pour it with skill and love. Such a perfectionist. He would meticulously take his knife and slice the froth off the top. And he did the same with the beer.

Didn’t he work in the Clachan when James, the Laird of Ogilvie Towers, was in charge there? I do believe he did. For those who do not know these, I should just explain that they both had reputations as casanovas. How the fair womenfolk of Stornoway were able to get out of there is one of the town’s enduring mysteries.

Tommy told me he was now a taxi driver back home in Oban. Good on him for taking a week off and visiting his old haunts, I thought. Then I spotted a gleaming cab behind him. I bet the old rascal got himself a hire to pay for the trip north. Trust Tommy.

Another visitor has been planning for the future. Seeing an advertising banner, Graham Whyte thought one of our great churches had started promoting itself down on Bells Road. Graham was also very excited. He told how they did that back home in Aberdeen all the time.

Someone actually had to take Graham, a Golf Week regular for decades, and explain that Martin’s Memorials was not the same as Martin’s Memorial Church. It is more like a headstone hypermarket.

When the time comes to lay down your head, like Tom Dooley in that song, you just pop in there and ask Mr Martin to knock a chip off the old block.

Ever organised, Graham went in for a wee nosey, and he was very impressed with the choice on offer. Well, every Aberdonian gets dewy-eyed at the sight of granite.

Graham has revealed that he had hoped to be cremated, with half his ashes scattered on the fairway of Stornoway’s ninth hole and the other half in his landlady Betty Jappy’s back garden.

I hear he is now trying to pluck up the courage to ask Betty if she can find room behind the rose bushes for something a little bulkier. Good luck with that one, Graham.

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Posted in Barra, Gaelic, Isle of Harris, Isle of Lewis, Outer Hebrides, Stornoway, Western Isles

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