Puppy Dog’s Tails
03/01/2006
Last week I sat with a sore bum through a lecture on bio-diversity and eco-systems and why they are so terribly important to new age land managers such as I. Frankly, it was rubbish and to my mind failed to answer, or indeed consider the single most important question about today’s countryside, namely do the PhDs and clip boards want anyone other than conservationists living here. On a day like today, I can understand why they want us all to move into cities and leave this glory to the experts. It is simply wonderful with a chilly north wind keeping the skies blue and snow thick on the ridges and summits, at sunset we enjoy spectacular skies to the south and west, while wintery squalls rush down the mountainsides at the north end of Glen Trollaigh but fail to reach the sheltered Great Tower of Glen Trollaigh.
That wanker, Ross Finnie has once again added to the anti rural conspiracy by banning the docking of working dog’s tails. I will personally continue to bite the tails off my pups despite the ban. This practice avoids doggie damage and painful amputation in later life, but the whole point is lost on the bleeding hearts of Morningside who must cast more votes than us bumpkins. One such prole verbally abused me by telephone when it was reported that we were trapping Mink on the River Trollaigh as part of a successful programme to encourage the return of Water Vole and Otters. The argument ran that Mink could now be considered as an indigenous species and therefore part of our blasted bio-diversity, do they not know that Mink come from North America and were released by that misguided sod Burberry in Appin. Perhaps Mrs Morningside would care to see the carnage of wanton murder committed by Mink on native waterfowl before she sounds off about such utter nonsense.
On the subject of political correctness, I note that the populous are up in arms about giving school children ID numbers. It seems strange for the working classes to be making such a fuss when those of us who struggle to survive on the Single Farm Payment had numbers allocated from the age of five. Mine was 424 and I still come across long forgotten woolly socks with this number proudly stitched on. It does make one wonder whether or not some poor devil had the number 666 or 999 and if so what became of them in later life.
I cannot sign off without mentioning firstly, Scotland’s wonderful win over the English at Murrayfield, I was there close to the Princess Royal, we could hardly bare to watch, what a triumph! Secondly, Erica Kerr of Glen Orchy managed to squeeze a few column inches in the Sunday Times Travel Section, page 13, praising the North Argyll glens and our local chippy. Anything for a free meal, my dear? Yours aye, Archie, The Baron Trollaigh.