« September 2005 | Main | November 2005 »
October 31, 2005
A Sting In The Tail
Over the past week I have been required to scoot from one end of the country to the other and only now, on All Hallow’s Night can I find a moment to write a few words. I am hoping that some of the young from the village might come to call as over the years the Tower of Glen Trollaigh has hosted some super games and wheezes on this night. The Tower is, of course well suited to such a night with its dark stairs and corners were many an old Trollaigh may lurk. However, the best fun was always the riotous games of indoor football and tennis in the Long Gallery when the local urchins, faces blackened with soot and clothes turned inside out would beat the Trollaighs to pulp for a handful of peanuts, while the fathers were entertained at a roaring library fire and cheek warming drams. To-day it seems that one’s nipper must be dolled up in a starlet’s costume and a karaoke machine will blare out a version of X Factor’s latest whilst expensive gifts are exchanged. I rather favour the Brazilian Day of The Dead, when the cash is spent on decorating the tombs of the old ancestors, with enough set aside for a damned good party. Bah Humbug! We have had a range of unusual weather from storms and torrential rain through to spring like days of 20 degrees with bright sunshine, but always strong southerly winds. One evening I had the wypers on double time in a roaring Fort William, whilst the next morning I was breaking sweat in warm sunshine chopping winter firewood with Lachie. The main change is, of course our move to GMT, I always find this most depressing as the sun sets before 4 o’clock and it’s walking about dark at 4.30 with worse to come by 22nd December when we have three hours of sun on the Tower of Glen Trollaigh and only six hours of daylight. However, we shall have this wonderful lifting of spirits by the 10th of January, our Old New Year’s Day, when each day starts to lengthen by a few minutes. The warmer weather has brought us one visitor, wasps; I now understand that these buggers help gardeners by eating grubs and aphids in the spring then seek sugar in late summer and just become a bloody nuisance in the Autumn. One of these spiky devils managed to sting the baronial arse whilst I was adjusting the sluice on the number two septic tank that had been under pressure following illegal flushing of Johnnies from the guest wing. As I danced about in agony I must have kicked the bally lever to full open, my popular stock in the village must have fallen when the police had to patrol the street advising all and sundry to keep their windows and doors shut. Now a host of PhD’s are circling Glen Trollaigh with test meters, I can expect several missives each day about my activities, but we will fight them on the beaches! Yours Aye, Archie, The Baron Trollaigh.
Posted by The Baron at 09:15 PM | Comments (0)
October 24, 2005
Swan 68 Dreaming
I stand at the Morning Room french windows as torrential rain runs down them and I gaze onto a foul day complete with a full Easterly gale, perhaps some second hand hurricane from the mid Atlantic. I worry about our last night’s guests who have left for the Colonsay ferry; it will not be a smooth crossing. My dream of the momment is to let the Tower of Glen Trollaigh to some Russian oil tycoon with interests in Scottish football, whilst dearest Dottie and I live on a Swan 68, but days like these remind me that it probably would be pure Hell! As the day wears on, I have to get away from the desk, so I don the full wet weather togs and set off to blow the cobwebs away with a hike all the way across the high pass with a full pack of brutes hanging on. Quite splendid, why can I seldom find the time for this glory that is on my doorstep? I return as darkness begins to fall and the storm begins to abate, my e-mail box is full of enquiries about yesterday’s tale of the Lady D’Abanville. That is the whole point of the deathbed story so frequently told by my father, just whose member was she hanging onto at her last breath? My father was sure that it was the 9th Baron to whom she may have been reconciled, or was it one her many dusky admirers, perhaps the mulatto Colonel Mackay, of whom she was particularly fond. Certainly, the dark Captain had been hung at the yardarm some two years earlier. The most likely suitor was Winston Churchill’s great great grandfather who was known to be bollocking about Port au Prince at that time. What a terrible bore as the Churchills are an overrated bunch of snobs at the best of times. I feel an Ardbeg momment coming on to ward off the chill, cheers, Yours Aye, Archie, The Baron Trollaigh.
Posted by The Baron at 09:17 PM | Comments (0)
October 23, 2005
PC Blindness
The weather remains changeable with rain when one least expects it and dry autumn days in between. There is a nip in the air and the old fingers are seizing up when I am outdoors perhaps a sign of the hard winter ahead that the pundits are foretelling. A couple of chums, both captains of industry, have told me over a dram in the Lindsay Lodge that they are planning for a four day production week in February as power supplies will be restricted. Apparently, President Blair is steaming full speed ahead into a winter of hard weather and, of course, The Pestilence with eight of his sixteen nuclear power stations out of commission through lack of investment in maintenance. Time to service the generators, stock up on Calor Gas, kerosene and fuel, we had better test fire the AK47’s as they may be required to warn off the townies as they fan out from the cities in search of food and shelter next year. The last few croaks from the stags can be heard at night, the heating has been switched on and I have spent an evening or two in front of the Great Fire watching TV. Despite my fifty channels, I find it very difficult it find anything to watch amongst Wife Swap, Gender Swap, Race swap, House swap, Holiday swap etc., is this reality? I hope not. However, I very much enjoyed “A Very Social Secretary”, a docu-drama about the fall of the blind Blunket, it had me chuckling away, this unusual sound attracted both dearest Dottie and Mhairi to watch with me, and we all watched it through with a modest glass and thoroughly enjoyed our evening. What really interested me was the non-PC way the piece handled the blind B’s disability, I really did not think you could get away with that sort of thing nowadays. This brings me to the question of black sheep, for, as with the blind B’s philandering we Trollaighs have not been without our share of males who ran off with Chorus Girls and Maidservants. One such was the 9th Baron who set sail with his wife and retinue for the West Indies to invest in tobacco and sugar. The Baron refreshed by many a rum punch made free with a dusky maid and there is supposed to be a whole clan of “Trollee” in Kingston, Jamaica. However, worse was to befall the Baroness, reputedly a great beauty, who left her husband, made off with the dark and mysterious Captain D’Abanville to lead a life on the wrong side of decency on the high seas. Tales of her unconventional lifestyle were often retold by my father at our New Year family bashes, a personal favourite of mine being that of her death in a huge four-poster in Port au Prince, a cigarillo at her lips, in one hand a beaker of Brandy and in the other an erect phallus (attached!). Of course, Cat Stevens’ popular song was written in her honour and it often comes into my head when I am near Smithfield in London, I wonder if her ghost is still abroad, I do hope so. Yours Aye, Archie, The Baron Trollaigh.
PS. I did watch some of Gender Swap and Vicki Butler-Henderson was magnificent, of course she can do no wrong in my book. Cheers.
Posted by The Baron at 11:18 AM | Comments (0)
October 19, 2005
Identity
For those of you in search of nature notes we swing to a wet day with an unusual gusty north wind, and as I gaze from the drawing room windows, I first of all see the welcome sight of Field Fayres in the Holly trees. The visitors seem to have a strange effect on our resident Blackbirds who have been elusive for months, but now appear in profusion, I hurry to hang plenty of apples about the place as the Blackbirds adore them, and hope that Glen Trollaigh can support this unusually large population over the winter months. I toil at my desk listening to Radio Scotland and amongst a lot of tabloid drivel; they do spend a little time on the question of identity cards. I must say that I am ambivalent towards such proposals that seem to be uncosted and so far from introduction that I will probably never have the need for one. I am concerned that an executive who admits that 30% of motor vehicles on our roads, so closely policed and controlled by legislation, operate without paying road tax or insurance, cannot really be competent enough to handle an inclusive personal identity system. Let us face it the criminals, twisters and terrorists from whom we will allegedly be protected by the proposals will be more than one step ahead with forged identity documentation. Why must government always threaten rather than reward? Rather than penalise folk without identity cards, why not reward those with the cards? If you can produce the right card with your tax return, you get a 10% tax discount; if your motor has all the right bits of bumf, you get a discount on your road tax etc. A similar suggestion today was that those with wind farms in their back gardens should get free electricity, how very sensible and a reasonable proposal that would substantially reduce much of the protest against the expansion of this dubious alternative energy source, and a good counterbalance to any potential reduction in property value. In the countryside, we do see an example of the “carrot” approach to identity legislation with livestock and plant passports, where if all the amazingly complex paperwork is in order the land manager receives a cash payment. And of course the question of the accuracy of bio-metric measurement of bald headed, brown eyed males will be resolved at a stroke by painfully sticking large numbered yellow tags in each of their ears when only a few weeks old. Yours Aye, Archie, The Baron Trollaigh.
Posted by The Baron at 09:04 PM | Comments (0)
October 18, 2005
The Lord Mayor, The Captain and Ronnie
The following facts are connected; there are no domestic fowl between Dalmally and Ballachulish; the lifts failing on a newfangled tower in Pompey and Jubilation at 10 Downing Street. The link is one Ronnie Armstrong. This personable youngster was a guest of our daughters at the Tower of Glen Trollaigh for a few days in August; he has become my mole at Downing Street where he fills some junior position, personal private assistant to someone’s assistant I should imagine. Ronnie is just off the phone with the news that the champagne corks are popping tonight with the news that poor old Ken Clark is the first to fall in the current competition to select a new leader of the Conservative Party. Ken is the only Tory that both Blair and Brown fear and they are overjoyed that yet another no hoper will now be the leader of the opposition. The jubilation is so great that Blair and Brown appeared together at an upper window to fire corks at and pour scorn on, a group of peace protestors foolish enough to set up camp in the street below. The reason for their foolishness is to imagine for one momment that our president will take the slightest notice of any protest. Ronnie is also linked to the news that a tourist attraction in Portsmouth, an enormously high tower with bells and whistles, opened today some six years late and 36 million pounds over budget. Unfortunately, as the Lord Mayor of Pompey and the Captain of The Dockyard risked the inaugural run in the exterior glass lift, the bloody thing jammed and as far as I know, they are still up there. Ronnie’s part in this was to design the winding gear for the lift in a previous career. This shows that Ronnie is not perfect and brings me neatly to the missing hens of the Argyll Glens. Ronnie, perhaps having had one lunchtime Tesco’s gin and tonic too many, took dearest Dottie’s comments that the local hens were not worth their feed as they were not laying, rather too literally. He spent that afternoon riding a quad bike furiously up and down Glen Trollaigh and Glen Orchy dispatching every fowl he could find in a fusillade of gunfire. In view of the imminent arrival of the pestilence that cannot be named, perhaps the bollocking that poor Ronnie got from the girls was a little harsh, although extremely funny! Talking of The Pestilence, the radio that has gone absolutely potty about spreading fear and alarm, had a vox pop about who should be in receipt of the limited number of anti-viral treatments. A wonderful old biddy, quietly told us how as an old age pensioner, registered blind and a regular attendee of both her GP and her local A&E arriving at these facilities by free transport, must surely be in line for the life saving medication. I have bad news for you my dear; you will be the last bloody person to be saved! Cheers, Yours Aye, Archie, The Baron Trollaigh.
Posted by The Baron at 08:32 PM | Comments (0)
October 16, 2005
Your Urals Do Not Match
Fair autumn weather cheers us up this week, cloudy, dry and about 12 degrees, ideal for outside work and maintenance. Those of you who are in the happy band of regular readers of my scribblings will note that I have locked the comments section to block those annoying oicks who have found it funny to fill it with rubbish. My efforts have been so effective that I cannot get into the bloody thing myself and I spent the allotted 32 minutes trying to unfangle my IT problems with some Johnnie in Mumbai. I could not understand a word he said, however, it has something to do with the Urals apparently. Globalism seems to be a wonderful thing; my box of bits is designed in the US, assembled in China, sorted in India and its problems have something to do with Ivan. I can easily remember the happy days when the village Blacksmith sorted horses, garden gates as well as motors, and any local plumber worth his salt would fix lead work and roofs as well as drains. If you cannot find a local man for the job, its not worth doing. Speaking of local things, Argyll and Bute Council have at last started to make some progress towards their recycling obligations under a load of European directives cobbled together by hundreds of commissioners and a forest of Phds. A large blue wheelie bin has been delivered, well abandoned half a mile away. No more will we causally toss all our rubbish into the green wheelies, now paper and cardboard will go into the blue one, but for some reason the system will be jiggered if one envelope goes in with the paper, why? At the Tower of Glen Trollaigh, we already make an effort, composting everything degradable, avoiding plastic bags and over packaging and, of course making the all-important fortnightly run to the bottle bank. I think that all the efforts from Brussels to Oban on rubbish and recycling are to be applauded, however it remains the case that the vast majority could not give a toss and assume their waste is someone else’s problem as they gaily tip their rubbish as they go. What’s to be done? I must close by thanking Old Sea Dog for his obvious concern over my health, fear not old salt I am very much in the pink, my GP surgery get a cash incentive for keeping the old folk of the parish alive, assuming of course that everything falls neatly into office hours and outwith local or bank holidays. Yours Aye, Archie, The Baron Trollaigh.
Posted by The Baron at 11:05 AM | Comments (0)
October 13, 2005
Tally Ho in Bethal Green
After some days of rain and gales, we suddenly enjoy another spell of fine autumn weather that allows the Glen Trollaigh potato harvest. We still use the old west coast lazy bed system, where all the work is carried out by hand. From an economic standpoint, this is folly as the production cost of our crop is at east twenty times that of even the most inefficient commercial grower. However, it is tradition and we keep the bulk of our superb Golden Trollaighs for our own consumption giving away some surplus to a list of worthy widowed relatives who eagerly await the arrival of this largesse in their Hampstead flats. Talking of these old buzzards reminds me of an embarrassing day that I recently spent saying my farewells to Libby Forsyth-Trollaigh as she made her final journey at Bethnal Green Crematorium. The whole thing started badly as Lachie had to rush me straight to the early Ryan Air flight from Prestwick. In my haste, I was still dressed in hill tweeds, hat and heavy tackity boots, the security people gave me no end of stick about the steel studs in the boots, which had to travel to Heathrow in the cockpit, whilst I had to board in my stocking soles. There is no first class on these flights so the cabin staff then confiscated my baccy and the 19th Baron’s gunmetal Dunhill, all very vexing. I had to take a cab all the way to North London as time was of the essence, I almost didn’t make it when we were pulled over by the boys in blue following a misunderstanding when I shouted “Tally-Ho” out of the cab window at a mangy fox sunning itself in a side street. I was completely unaware of a bunch of elderly Burkas nearby who apparently texted the SWAT team proto. While they had me spread-eagled on the bonnet, they were also very agitated about the steel shod brogues, however, the traditional well-palmed £50 to the sergeant and an extra £20 to the cabbie and were on our way with police outriders. As the nominal chief mourner I puffed up to the front pew just as the organ struck up the first hymn, moments later as dear old Libby started to slip from sight my blasted mobile when off with the unique foghorn ring tone sounding the continuous blasts for “Abandon Ship”. I fumbled the buttons, cursing absentmindedly as I noted one ancient mariner keel over at the sound he feared most, nothing would do but that I had to mash the buggering phone into the crematorium flagstones with the said massive mincers. I was cold-shouldered at the tea and buns, which is a bit rich as the good management of Trollaigh Shipping keeps most of these old birds in strong drink. Hey Ho. A good forecast for tomorrow so back to the Golden Trollaighs. Yours Aye, Archie, The Baron Trollaigh.
Posted by The Baron at 09:05 PM | Comments (0)
October 11, 2005
St John
Following a visit to the Kirk on Sunday, dearest Dottie had taken the text from St John to heart and had instructed me to purchase a new bull to encourage the propagation of our modest fold of Highlanders. Those of you who know me will realise that firstly, an instruction from dearest Dottie must be taken seriously and acted upon instanter; secondly, that I hardly need an excuse to fling myself into a new project involving cash to purchase the best possible beast. The weather gods aided Lachie and my quest for the perfect bull by deluging us with torrential rain and throwing westerly gales at us for a day or two thereby rendering any other work impossible. The two of us have travelled from Warwickshire to Wick attending sales and interviewing potential fathers of our fold and although we are now ten thousand guineas lighter we are the proud owners of Cecil Hector Ian of Ackworth, or “St John” as Lachie insists on calling him. Despite Cecil’s huge balls and other testimonials, I fear that Lachie is somewhat sceptical about his performance, however, we shall see. Nothing would do for dearest Dottie but than Cecil should be immediately put to the fold, despite it being a little late in the year, to say nothing of the fact that the sixty page application to the EU for permission to procreate is only just in the post. Certainly, our quiet cows have taken quite a shine to Cecil and are cavorting and frolicking as only a beamy Highlander can. This is obviously much more welcome than the attentions of the old boring bull borrowed locally. As an OAP I have visited my local surgery to receive my flu jab, and I hope all of you are doing the same. However, now that my Doctor of many years has gone and the surgery is an IT linked business enterprise with services only available during office hours, I was dragged off by nursie to be weighed and measured, probed, and prodded. Then I was given a frightful lecture about the dangers of over indulgence, apparently it is a miracle that I am still alive. The fact that Trollaighs are notoriously long-lived has been set aside by modern primary health care methods and I am to report back next Monday morning with assorted samples and having had nothing to eat for twelve hours. To paraphrase Lachie, That will be shining bright! Ardbegs here I come, Cheers! Yours Aye, Archie, The Baron Trollaigh.
Posted by The Baron at 07:06 PM | Comments (0)
October 08, 2005
Roaring Rutters
Having cursed the weather we enjoy three almost dry days on the trot, my hours have been filled with the autumn garden clear up, Lachie and I labouring together to prepare for the hard winter weather. Acres of long grass and rushes have been topped, field drains cleared, tracks repaired, shrubs and trees pruned and the borders tidied, divided and protected. All this work has been delayed until now by poor conditions, however, it has been a pleasure to get to grips with it at last. There is a lot to see and hear outside at this time of year when each day we watch the colours changing. Already the bracken is brown, the Birches and Willows are yellow and gold and our majestic Beech trees are on the turn with strong gusts of southerly wind starting to strip the leaves, and not a midge in sight, although curiously enough a brightly coloured parrot flies northward. The constant sound both near and far is the roar of rutting Stags; this is akin to cattle in distress and goes on throughout the day and the night. In darkness, the Stags become more brave and move with shot of the Tower of Glen Trollaigh windows. The roaring disturbs the deepest sleep, I leapt from the Great Bed convinced that the Gun Room alarm was sounding only to spy a fine Royal standing proudly on the sanctuary of dearest Dottie’s sacred lawn. Several times Dottie has nudged me awake to complain about my stomach rumbling, when it is plainly the rut on a distant hillside. Although I mutter about the noise of the rut, I secretly rather enjoy its connection with autumn and wild highland glens when the tourists are gone and urban urchins safely back at school. Most of the large estate lodges are closed up now and will remain empty until New Year or even next Easter as their masters and mistresses have returned to town. I wonder how many of them wish they were as lucky as us to live in the glens all year, as they battle the rush hour traffic or wonder which of their swarthy travelling companions is about to blow himself up on the tube. I certainly know where I prefer to be, even if we have several miles of gutters to clear and hours will need to be spent in cramped and confined roof spaces tracing leaks in the blasted Tower of Glen Trollaigh, to say nothing of the annual firewood chop and split, a job that is never done. Of course, my ancestors kept any number of serfs to do all this sort of thing, however, Lachie and Mhairi are the only full time serfs I can afford these days, so my old muscles and joints will need to creak and groan along side my patient workers. I absent-mindedly reach for the young Ardbeg as the lists of “things to be done” extends onto the second recycled back of an envelope! Cheers, Your Aye, Archie, The Baron Trollaigh.
Hello Old Salty Dog, I am afraid I deleted a message from you without reading it whilst dealing with an assorted bunch of porn peddling nose pickers bombarding my comments page. I regret that I will be shutting the comments facility down next week as I cant be doing with timewasting tossers. However, do keep reading my diary and I may have the pleasure of your company over the festive season. God Bless, Archie Trollaigh.
Posted by The Baron at 08:45 PM | Comments (0)
October 04, 2005
The Curse Of The Sunglasses
As I contemplate the sodden landscape from the windows of the Tower of Glen Trollaigh, I have to admit that I have been fooling myself into thinking that we have had a good summer. The early part was dry and cloudy with average temperatures, however, on the 1st of August, it started raining and blowing gales, only the most ardent Argyll optimist would claim that we have had even half a dry day since then. What is even more galling is that much of the rest of the U.K. has basked in warm sunshine for months. The reason is plain enough; it is all because I bought a new part of sunglasses. I rarely wear “shades” however; I am an ardent collector of the latest style that always end up on a dressing room shelf, never having had to deflect a single UV ray from the baronial eyeballs. This year the must haves were Clic Sports from the states, which I am assured are all the rage and changing hands in London for hundreds of pounds. These nifty numbers have a magnetic gismo on the bridge, where they split or clic, allowing one to put them on without taking one’s Borsalino off, excellent! I have not seen blue sky since I bought them for a tidy sum eight weeks ago. It all reminds me of an expensive purchase of a pair of Oakley Frogeyes in 2001 the day before I set off on a yachting trip to Benodet. Within 36 hours, we were sailing in appalling conditions off the south coast of Ireland, 70 mile an hour gusts, driving rain, huge seas, almost impossible to keep the Ardbeg in a glass. These conditions remained for a fortnight until my cruise was over. I must make a note to purchase new wellies and a heavy field coat next July hoping that the weather Gods will punish me a with glorious 2006 summer! Yours Aye, Archie, The Baron Trollaigh.
Posted by The Baron at 08:15 PM | Comments (0)
October 02, 2005
Foul-Hooked Father And Son
Back to a wet and windy Glen Trollaigh after a few relaxing wet and windy days flogging some Sutherland rivers. Dearest Dottie and I were somewhat taken aback to find the Vestey lodge at Lochinver boarded up and shuttered for the winter and no sign of our hosts. Cross-examination of some lurking locals provided the info that the Vesteys had buggered off back to The Chilterns, which they also own, only one son remained in a remote highland lodge and would not take kindly to visitors. We were forced to put up in the hotel, which was no great hardship, although despite its efficient and friendly staff, has a slight feeling of the mausoleum about it, must be my age. The good news was that the river staff were expecting us and had planned a day or two of easy fishing on the best beats available. My days were split between getting my tweeds extremely wet in the rain and gales, then trying to get my tweeds dry again in various hostelries. My arms certainly ached after hours off Spey Casting with a heavy sinking line to combat the fast torrents, but such fun. The evenings were spent in the pleasant company of other fishers, the only blot being the appearance of young Tim McKessock-Bridge and Tony Gourley with a party of hoorays complete with the latest accessory foreign wives, who all fairly battered the Hotel white wine cellar, and left a drought of fizzy water from Inverness northwards. While adding my modest contribution to the catch records, I noticed that Tim and co had scored rather too highly on an unfishable upper beat, my companion suggested “good fishing” with some irony, definitely underhand tactics being employed, still Tim’s father was just as bad. At the Tower of Glen Trollaigh Mhairi and Lachie have coped well with difficult but high spending Bavarian stalkers, and of course the bad weather that has found many old roof leaks, and also caused a lot of damage to our water supply where flooding burns pound our flimsy pipes and tanks. I am pleased to report that my redesigned No 2 Septic tank seems to be standing up well to the pressures that the Bavarians have placed upon it. My main concern is the rocketing cost of living in rural Scotland, current year on year inflation running at 7% despite the rubbish produced by the Beastly Brown, who has more cause for tantrums as our President Blair has changed his mind and will not be standing down. We now learn that Beastly Brown’s wonderful economic reforms are not even his own work, but that of some schoolboy called Balls, how very appropriate! Certainly, we seem to going the way of France and Germany into high taxes and economic decline. Because our workers cannot understand that their ever increasing demands for improved terms and conditions, are food and drink to the workers in Poland and every other continent where they are happy with less than a quarter of our wages and none of the bells and whistles of protection and pensions. Even good old Cal-Mac is shifting offshore, saving some £5 million per annum in National Insurance contributions, and of course, Pension Fund? What Pension Fund. I feel that we all in for a bumpy road over the next few months, were only the vast army of civil servants and their cronies will flourish. I had better start stocking up on a few of life’s essentials. Yours Aye, Archie, The Baron Trollaigh.
Message for Hugo and Casino, I am back in charge and if you tossers do not stop botting my comments page, I will turn it off. Bugger off!
Posted by The Baron at 02:47 PM | Comments (0)