The Lord Mayor, The Captain and Ronnie

10/18/2005

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.