Thursday, January 24, 2008
Oh Bollocks
01/24/2008
As it has been such turmoil I tend to forget that many of you will not have learnt of the fate of yours truly over the past few weeks. It all started innocently enough with a sudden summons on January the fourth from Bruxelles to meet with Madam European Advisor to discuss this year’s tobacco farming strategy for North Argyll and Glen Trollaigh in particular. Tanya’s Taxi swept me to the aerodrome and BA Business Class, courtesy of you dear taxpayers had me unpacking at the European Advisor’s modest Chateaux for a pre meeting dinner to set one up for the rigours of planning one’s own subsidy on the morrow. It turns out that Herr European Advisor is an impoverished aristo of some sort until capturing the heart of my EA who was then willing and able to reverse the impoverishing pronto. The dinner was a huge success with dollops of entente cordial, the highlight being an invitation to hunt boar after the fifteenth August 2008 as the EU in all its wisdom have allowed French farmers carte blanche to slay wild boar when M le Fermiere decide that piggy numbers may be a threat to almost anything from crops to water supplies. A policy not allowed in Blighty where the clipboards have declared the Beastly Boars to be a “most endangered species” or some such bollocks and one needs a double PhD and a bobble hat to even glimpse the trotter prints in Epping Forest or wherever.
Dear readers you will be only too aware that good company can cause some Baronial over enthusiasm and so it proved at this eurocratic freebie, when spurred on by the Boar Hunt I suggested an Argyll Beaver Hunt. My innocent, though Chateaux Ycem fuelled, suggestion was unfortunately overheard by some totally wet Home Counties MEP whose Blackberry almost melted when it instantly relayed my guffaws to Scottish Natural Heretics who thinly disguised as The Edinburgh Zoo are pushing through the illegal “re-wilding” of Euro Beavers in West Argyll, dishonestly supported by a “public consultation” whose results have been spun by some failed Blairite PR has-been. At the end of the day a warrant for the arrest of The Baron Trollaigh was issued for “Wildlife Crime” and one is on the run. My EA was sporting enough to provide a helicopter over to non EU Montreux and in that pretty spot I am now a fugitive moving from caravan site to spartan B&B with only the odd visit undercover of darkness to a chum’s Swiss second home hopefully with maid service and laundry. Thank God for our girl’s swift return to The Tower of Glen Trollaigh waving a Power of Attorney (that I do not recall signing) and taking the reins on the home front. David my tame QC, between blamming at Sandringham claims that things should blow over soon although my Adam & Co gold card has been declined twice and communication with the rest of society has been limited. Things look bleak, yours from The Palace Hotel hot tub, Archie, still The Baron Trollaigh.