PC Blindness

10/23/2005

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.