Tuesday, May 08, 2007
Water Moles.
05/08/2007
“The Shadow of Farce Hangs Over The Scottish Parliament Once More”. I make no apology for pinching the above from a radio journalist speaking on the morning after our glorious election. The whole operation only proves once and for all that we British have been unable to organise a piss up in a brewery since the 1950’s. The blame can be placed firmly at the door of “Lucky” Jack McConnell (or “the liar” as his fellow university students christened him). As a Blairite sycophant and grasping the inevitability of a final defeat by the SNP, Lucky Jack came up with a voting system so complicated that even dearest Dottie had to ask for fresh papers before the dear had managed to use her six votes correctly, two ballot papers requiring crosses and the third needing numbers one to four in order of preference amongst a scattering of hopefuls. Not since universal suffrage has there been such a blatant attempt to mislead the voter and it is hardly surprising that 100,000 ballot papers have had to be set aside as “spoiled”. It seems a great shame that the wishes of these hundred thousand good men and true have had to be ignored, not for the old reasons of a vote being erroneously cast for the Pope or God, but just because it was too bloody confusing. The Nats did steal the show as forecast by yours truly; however, probably the most intriguing story comes from the damp votes from the loch side. The Americans may have invented swinging chads; however Argyll and Bute managed to shock the nation with extra “damp” votes. For some bizarre reason votes cast on one side of the loch must be carried by rowing boat to the other side for the count, rather than using the national road network. To cut a long story short not only did a hundred extra votes appear at the end of the ferry trip, but they were also damp, this being on the driest, warmest day of the year to date. Conspiracy theories abound, however the New Labour chump who has been ousted by a handful of votes is crying “foul” from the rooftops, although any fool knows that all parties suffer equally from voting balls ups. On this occasion the problem is not the whiff of fraud, but rather the fact that our splendid new electronic vote counting machines cannot cope with damp paper, in Scotland? Surely not, we must wait and see whether or not it all ends in tears.
My I.T. people keep banging on about Stats. I have only the vaguest of grip on all of this, and certainly do not understand most of it. However apparently one must constantly fret about the power of one’s web profile, it is not good enough that a Google enquiry about “Trollaigh” will bring you straight to this page; I am being urged to constantly update my meta tags and introduce some steamy prose. One thing that I have learnt is that several hundred of you do scan this drivel, and that most of you are agents of various government departments. The cat has been let out of the bag via a letter received from Scottish Water reminding me that “The current irrigation of The Great Lawn of Trollaigh, as described in your publication, requires an abstraction licence. An application form and scale of fees are enclosed with this letter to which you must reply by return, or cease said irrigation forthwith.” Thank God it has started raining again. Yours aye, Archie, The Baron Trollaigh.
Wednesday, May 02, 2007
Polling Day.
05/02/2007
Strange to think that I was sitting shivering as the wind and rain battered the Tower of Glen Trollaigh this time last week. Now the spring has returned, Dalmally records the hottest temp in Scotland at 24 degrees, not a cloud in the sky and dearest Dottie demands water to save the recently reseeded Great Lawn of Trollaigh. This decree has me constantly puffing up the hill to check our creaking water supply and sound the storage tanks. You may recall that the whole system was severely damaged in the December deluges, unfortunately baronial idleness has delayed the completion of the repairs and my pins are suffering as a result, although an early morning scramble did give me a sight of a Greenland Wheatear on migration to North Africa, a bird I have not seen for years. As an aside a recent guest from Kent was astounded to see our sprinklers idlely irrigating as the poor dears have been unable to wash even their motor for ten years because the Belgians are stealing the aquifers for brewing or some such.
Our deciduous trees are throwing on their green mantle and the grounds are full of the fragrance of Broom, the colour of its yellow blossom is reflected in the enormous SNP flag cracking at the flagstaff atop the Tower of Glen Trollaigh. Many of you may be somewhat surprised to hear that this lifelong Tory voter has changed sides for tomorrow’s Scottish election. There are three main reasons for this, whilst recognising that there remains the unresolved issue of the independence referendum, which is far enough in the future and uncertain enough to be ignored for the time being. Reason one; the SNP is the only party opposed to the selling off of Scottish Water. Scottish Water became a publicly owned body under the acts of Scottish devolution and it is completely unconstitutional to flog it off. Johnnie Foreigner can have as much of our water as he wants, as long as he is prepared to pay for it, not just grab it for the benefit of his shareholders. Reason two; the SNP are opposed to the renewal of the Trident weapons system. I fail to understand why any political party is prepared to pay out squillions on weapons controlled by Uncle Sam and plunge headlong into foreign wars when we desperately need the cash here for our drastically disintegrating infrastructure. Reason three; President Blair has now changed the voting system twice to keep the SNP out of power. With PR it seems certain that no party will have an overall majority tomorrow, although it is a distinct possibility that the SNP will have the largest vote and the largest number of MSPs in the new parliament. However, President Tony and the Beastly Brown, having sold the gold reserves, ruined the economy, impoverished pensioners, laughed at the provision of health care and public services and lead us into a couple of deadly wars, will attempt to marry the bully boys of New Labour and the ninnies of the Lib-Dems to seize control without an electoral mandate. Frankly, I `m going to vote for the other guys, it is time for a new lot of lunatics to run the asylum. Yours aye, Archie, The Baron Trollaigh.