Saturday, June 11, 2005
Drun Alban
06/11/2005
Two fair days to finish the working week with good sunshine and temperatures, occasionally a large cloud threatens but the glen remains dry. The forecast is for more changeable weather to arrive over the weekend. The fair weather and a midge free breeze allow me to get some work done outside, but these are mostly routine maintenance tasks and checks. Dearest Dottie is in painting mode because the Tower of Glen Trollaigh absorbs a hundred gallons of paint each year into its extensive exterior woodwork. The sacred lawn is flourishing under Lachie’s care and the revised grass cutting schedule under BOGIE guidance is not only saving a lot of time and carbon emissions but is giving our new wild flower banks and edges a wonderful fresh look with bluebells flushing the woodland knolls and the longer grasses carrying a host of seed heads. I watch a pair of House martin chicks take their first tumbling flight from their snug nest in the stable block gable, ah summer! Europe is the main topic amongst the chatterers in the North Glens and generally, folk here are astounded by a naive “sound bite Tony” falling into the Franco/German trap of exchanging bon mot on the UK rebate versus French agricultural subsidy. This is a pure Chirac ploy to steer the spotlight away from the desperately needed total reinvention of euro-management, which does not suit Fritz or Frog. 10% unemployment and the disastrous economic state of french affairs makes Chirac’s autocratic delivery totally unacceptable to all but a power hungry German Chancellor, now where have we heard all that before? Blair appears unaware of the way in which top-heavy bureaucracy affects rural affairs, and obviously one cannot trust a French President who has never been prosecuted for his corrupt involvement with an African Dictator who kept the body parts of his political opposition in a freezer. Euroland fails to grasp the concept that most of its population apart from a few fascists and jingo maniacs support euro principles but are fed-up to the back teeth with the remote, corrupt and unaccountable top brass. A strange enquiry from someone called Foukes about Dorsum Britanniae which she claims straddles Glen Trollaigh, I fane ignorance, but of course the ninny is looking for Drum Alban or Carndroma in Glen Lochy. I suggest to her that I will exchange my intimate knowledge of these matters in exchange for a case of the young Ardbeg, she has already pencilled in an appointment, and is wildly enthusiastic about a visit to the Tower of Glen Trollaigh, “one of Argyll’s lost mansions” she croons, well I can always find it! Yours Aye, Archie, The Baron Trollaigh.
Thursday, June 09, 2005
Sunshine, Showers And Road Taxes
06/09/2005
A mixed few days of weather, while most of the UK or 98% of the population as the politicos call it have the first decent spell of summer, here in Argyll and the Isles there are good patches of blue sky then every afternoon the rain sweeps in and stays with us until lunchtime the following day. I do get many things done outside, but my modest list of chores lengthens rather than shortens particularly in the garden. After spending many hours researching the telephone problems in Glen Trollaigh one or two solutions do seem to be emerging from the chaos. I think that a feasibility study should be encouraged just the sort of thing that the Scottish Executive love, as long as the final proposals make a good “sound bite” and of course appear to be their idea in the first place. I will take this new pet project further. The main news must be the return of dearest Dottie sweeping up the drive in a battered Oban cab accompanied by Le Count Philippe d’Cadeaux who has kindly flown Dottie back from Nice piloting his famous black and gold Lear, causing quite a stir with a full reverse thrust landing on the short strip at Connel. Philippe’s friendship with Dottie dates back to their revolutionary student days in early 60’s Paris, where Dottie’s accurate launching of pavoir at the CRS became legendary. Like many an old fool with a younger bride I have always been a little jealous of this relationship; however, Philippe is just such a good all-round chap that I have always warmed to his charm. After a light lunch and bubbling with energy, Philippe heads back to Nice and Dottie armed with a paint scrapper attacks the southwest windows of the Tower of Glen Trollaigh that require their annual touch up. Dottie is most complimentary about the repair of the sacred lawn; I do admit that it is mainly down to Lachie and the Dalmally Golf Club. The media is full of Alistair Darling and his announcement that we will have “road charging” within ten years. It is a sorry reflexion on the current government that this basically sound idea using satellite-tracking technology is being treated with great suspicion as a tax raising scam. I have to say that if anyone can cock this whole thing up, Alistair Darling can. It does nothing to address the “green car” ownership issue and furthermore as at this time one in three road users avoid paying the current “road tax” and drive without licences or insurance there will be a huge aftermarket in gismos to defeat the IT system. If the police cannot enforce the current system, they will have no greater success with a new one. I pay about £2500 a year in taxes connected with motoring, if the new system abolishes all the old tax and I have to pay purely on mileage and type of road, in my case rural, my tax bill will halve. However, the cynics claim that the road charge will end up being an additional tax and the old taxes will not be removed as proposed. The “Big Brother” phobics are having a field day, am I the only person in the UK who could not give a damn if the police know where I am? That is in the library with a long Hendricks and Tonic! Cheers!, Yours Aye, Archie, The Baron Trollaigh.