Iain Maciver writes …

ROAST kangaroo or wild boar sausages. Which should I go for? This was a fine menu. But would I regret it hours later? Was I brave enough? The story began when I was duped into agreeing to matrimony 12 years ago while taken unexpectedly dizzy following a four-hour watery lunch with George Gawk Campbell in the Criterion Bar.

Now, custom dictated that I should take resultant spouse and issue out to demonstrate that the momentous, if cash-swallowing, occasion was still foremost in my mind. And show them what a proper dinner looks like compared to the smoke-wreathed, charcoal delights that my devoted honeypie invariably turns out.

This menu was rather innovative. The staple pastas in various sauces were there, but so were some fine and slurpworthy alternatives. Junior suggested that the boar would be perfect for a dad who always hogs the TV and who constantly changes over from the Clubland TV channel to News 24.

“And why?” one inquired. Because there are two words pronounced boar, apparently. Yes, and there are two ways to silence brats. For her insolence, she is now banned from the computer as well. No point in just playing at this parenthood lark.

I had savoured a thick slab of Skippy the Bush Kangaroo’s cousin before. Flavoursome and satisfyingly chewy, the marsupial was a cross between liver and lamb. I remember it well; I was up and down all night. Wild boar could be an experience, though. I should have the backbone.

On the tusks of a dilemma, I opted for the bangers made from the raging, squealing beast that had charged through the undergrowth heading for intrepid explorers who had only managed to escape its lethal prongs by shinning up a handy tree. Well, that’s what happens in all films featuring a wild boar.

Good choice, Maciver. Four of Robbie Coltrane’s fingers were promptly sizzled, plated and served up. After amputation, they had been winched up on to a Munro of mash, with tractor shovels of sliced carrot, a plantation of broccoli and an ocean of golly-gosh onion gravy. Valour was vindicated.

While Junior lunged into her lasagne, my beloved oven-scorcher umm-ed and ahh-ed at her green-tinged pasty pesto pasta pallaver-on-a-plate. Mine was so much better. Fortune favours the braised. Who dares burrrrps. Pardon me.

What do you mean you want to know which was the eaterie with the menu so exotic for the Hebrides? Er, this is not a restaurant review. However, islanders past their first flush will understand when I say that this particular diner could have been called The Single or Return.

We sat where D.R. Macdonald once stood selling tickets for British European Airways before it became the world’s favourite airline. They realised it wasn’t a good idea to have “return” in the name. Too close to the suggestion of something coming back on you, perhaps?

If courage is that indefinable quality that makes you face danger without showing fear, then it is an overused word. Like when a demented music critic this week claimed that Amy Winehouse was courageous for turning up at T in the Park. That fellow abused the English language.

Fright night refugee Ms Winehouse slurred a la Boris Yeltsin through her emotion-free dirges. She turned up and turned off, whining on endlessly about that jailbird squeeze of hers. Yawn. She is not cool.

They try to make her out to be brave. But I say no, no, no.

Unlike Niall Iain Macdonald. He looked crushed on Monday having to postpone his solo row across the Minch as winds strengthened. Who would heave themselves backwards those 43 miles between Stornoway and Ullapool in a rowing boat bobbing about on the open sea? I get seasick stirring my morning Earl Grey.

To attempt what he’s doing in a 23ft boat, even if she is named CrazyBrave, over a day and a bit is just too stomach-pumpingly horrendous for a lubber like me. And he is raising cash for the lifeboats and the islands mental health association.

When we met last week, Niall Iain was open and honest about his own problems with depression. The feedback on the radio interview he gave was really good. Just talking about such a problem can help many sufferers. But the point is that he is not just talking about it. He is actually getting off his behind and proving something to us. And, I am sure, to himself.

Bewilderingly known as the tired sea, the Minch is a daunting stretch.

How did I survive the last tossing in the tender care of MacBrayne’s master mariners? Icy shivers. Hot flushes. Looking peely-wally. Feeling dreadful. And that was just Alex Morrison, the captain of the ferry.

I HAVE not been very well. Gordon Brown said not to throw out any food. Fine, I thought, we can be frugal. Invigorated with wartime spirit, I had a rummage around in the bottoms of various cupboards. I think it was those peeling tins of corned beef that did for my lower colon. They were there as emergency rations since we last invaded someone. It’s not that long ago.

Our nation, we are told, is made up of two societies – the haves and the have-nots. If we cannot now even chuck out any food, it will be the have-trots and the have-not-got-trots. Parents and teachers still bawl at youngsters to eat their greens. Now it is G. Brown Esq, who each day looks more like a flailing schoolmaster ordering us all to keep our greens. And our bread crusts. And shake every drop out of that ketchup bottle.

Which all reminds me that I met one of my old teachers the other day. Actually, I had better rub that out and put instead that she is one of my former teachers. Otherwise, I could be sent to stand in the corner. Although a lady of deserved leisure nowadays, having given up her second career as a Gaelic radio political pundit and analyst only recently, Mrs Zena Nicoll still has about her that air of quiet “don’t mess with me” authority, just as she did in Gaelic and history classes.

Since her days inspiring us pimply, long-haired yoofs, she mysteriously and completely transformed from gown-clad purveyor of homework into an unexpectedly barnstorming political activist. The steely determination, a prerequisite for both roles, helped.

It should have been no surprise to discover that she was an all-guns-blazing, union-bashing, privatising Tartan Tory.

Sadly for her and her fellow-blues, and happily for the conscience of the islands, their association meetings could have been held in a Stornoway phone box.

The most ardent Thatcherite in the Hebrides, on air and off, Mrs N would loudly rue the day that Mrs T had been deposed by a bunch of lily-livered male fainthearts. That’s as close a translation as I can recall of her summary in Gaelic of that ultimate betrayal.

On Friday, Mrs N greeted me, not with a “how are you?” or “are you well?” but by demanding to know what illegal activities I concerned myself with nowadays. Eek. It presupposed that I was, and had been previously, some sort of vagabond. That old, forgotten fear of extra homework rose up from my nether regions and reduced me to a quivering wreck.

Er, I was still writing bits here and there, I think I squeaked. In desperation, I seized on the subject of politics. What a mess Wendy leaves Scottish Labour in, we agreed. The Scottish Lib Dems? Who would succeed their newest former leader? They all have such back-to-front names: Stephen Nicol, Finnie Ross, Scott MacTavish. Enough said. Nor was any case advanced for Annabel Goldie.

Mrs N fears for the political longevity of Gordon Brown and, quite possibly, David Cameron, too. With that deep sigh, so well practised by Tories since 1997, she uttered the immortal line: “Ah, if only we had Maggie back again,” with a sweet smile of longing and fond memory. My jaundiced soul was somehow caressed by those heartfelt words of regret.

As her lamentations resonated around the inner recesses of my psyche, I felt that old familiar moist, warm glow spreading all over my lower body. But I had only spilled the tea in my lap.

In this uncertain, ever-changing world, Mrs N’s sincere words strangely reassured me. There is still stability to be found and crazy, unfashionable stances are taken by a dwindling few. Yet some things should always remain the same if sanity is to prevail. Had I not heard her refrain of regret for that dreaded old dragon who, I believe, decimated thriving British industries, vaporised workers rights, betrayed the rights of womenkind and personally delivered a new low in greed culture, I would have fretted for my erstwhile educator.

To each, his or her own. A cold compress on my fevered brow, her unstinting loyalty soothed me. An enduring faith in and support of someone she admired for so long is fantastic. Even as we spoke, the unreliable nature of politics elsewhere saw events take an unexpected and drastic turn in Glasgow East. Labour was catapulted into even more disarray.

As dustbin-denier Brown lurches towards inevitable ignominy and betrayal himself, we should celebrate the determined diehards, the unapologetic activists and proud proclaimers who toil for parties and leaders. If he had a few people like Mrs Nicoll in his corner, the dour man’s memory would be kept all the fresher.

Published in the Press and Journal on July 9, 2008

LIFEBOAT crewmen got the fright of their lives when they boarded a yacht lost in the middle of the night. Lashed to the deck on the American yacht was a black coffin.

The only person on board, skipper Jeffrey Kane, 45, originally from Lawrence in Massachusetts, claimed to the rescuers that his late mother-in-law was at rest in it. Later, to their huge relief he admitted it was empty and was taking it to Norway to put it on the wall of his friend’s theme pub.

The mercy crew from the Isle of Barra were called out to Barrahead at 3.30am yesterday (MONDAY) by coastguards after Kane, a self-employed sailor and mechanic, told them he was lost. He had been heading for Shetland after being at sea since heading off from Boston on May 21.

Last night, as he recovered in the Castlebay Bar, he told how he had a difficult crossing almost rolling the 36ft racing yacht in huge waves last month.

“The boat is 35 years old and she is my home so I go where she goes. I have been through six bad hurricanes in Florida but nothing like that out there. She almost went over on June 9.
“I got off course badly because of the northeast winds and ended up near Barra. I was lost.”

In his role as manager of a band called The Cuban Bohemian Refugee Orchestra, which has now dropped the word Cuban after being recently banned from performing in that country, Jeffrey explained they had used a coffin as a prop in a recent video.

“My friend, band member Frederik Juell, has opened a pub in Norway so I decided to sail there to visit him and I brought the coffin for the wall of the pub, the Rubber Pub Classic in Oslo. I suppose it was a bit spooky for the lifeboat guys to come aboard and just find it on deck.”

Lifeboat coxswain Donald Macleod said: “We couldn’t believe it. The coffin was there just on the deck. I just asked him directly what was in the box. He said ‘oh, it’s just my mother-in-law’. I had an idea that he was kidding but you never know. It was one of these moments in the middle of the night.”

Kane admitted he firstly claimed to them his mother-in-law was in the coffin as a joke and added: “Of course, she wasn’t in the coffin. I don’t even have a mother-in-law. I am single.”

The coxswain said Kane thought he was around the Sound of Harris but, after sailing 3,000 miles in sometimes horrendous conditions, the American could be forgiven for being just 100 miles further south than he thought.

Kane was last night contacting friends in the States some of whom are now expected to fly over to Barra to join him for the island’s annual Fishermen’s Mass on Sunday and to accompany him on the rest of the voyage to Norway.

RICHARD Gasquet was running rings round Andy Murray. Two sets down and snarling like councillors voting to close their own local secondary schools, the Mouth of Dunblane was about to crash out of Wimbledon. Despairing, I was ready to seek solace in the arms of Liz MacDonald in the Rovers Return. But my wee scrubber had abandoned the vacuuming and was glued. It was just too difficult to watch. I was embarrassed for him. For Scotland.

Toe-curling embarrassment can strike anywhere. In Bayhead post office the other day, a couple of schoolgirls snorted at me as I queued for the attentions of super-stamper and super-licker Marianne Flett. Wee beggars, I thought, or something similar. Outside, I was told off by a kindly fellow for taking the mickey out of the fine folk in his Church. He is, he claimed, a happy, non-grumpy adherent of the Free Church (Continuing). So it was him, I said. I’d heard there was one. Oops, there I go again.

The Continuing guy continued on his way, only to shout back loudly: “By the way, Mr Maciver, do you know your fly is undone?” A score of eyes swivelled to find who was airing their undies. I twirled round 180 degrees, as you do instinctively on learning of a downstairs wardrobe malfunction.

That brought me face to face with several senior ladies heading for Charley Barley’s black pudding emporium. Even their eyes were straying south. Not only was my zip wide open but my white shirt had taken on a life of its own. It was protruding prominently through the opening. That’s why the girls were snorting. Good job I wasn’t wearing my pink one.

It was a relief to hear how someone else got a very red face. Let’s call him Malcolm. That’s not his name, but I have been warned I will never get fresh clams again if I shame him. Although not a regular churchgoer himself, his wife asked him to take their daughter to Sunday school. He was to just sit in the same seat as last time and the kids would be summoned through to the Sunday school when it was time.

Taking their usual places near the front, Malcolm noticed “white pillowcases”, as he put it, on the front pews. Although people usually sit in their favourite places, this time some of his usual companions were farther back while others who normally sat elsewhere were in the smart, draped front pews.

A teacher sat behind him. After exchanging whispered pleasantries, the teacher asked when Malcolm began taking communion. He must be thinking of someone else, thought our lad. Then the penny dropped. He was sitting in the communion pews. I’m offski, said Malcolm, even although he’s from Lochs, not Leningrad. But just then, the minister and his entourage entered. Pulling Malcolm back down in his seat, the teacher told him not to clamber over innocent worshippers, but just to sit tight.

Malcolm was utterly panic-stricken. Obviously, he could not have even a sniff of the communion stuff. What could he do? He was stuck in the middle of some obviously very devout communicants. Crippling embarrassment chilled his very soul. The salver of bread arrived and polite words failed him. He could only squeak: “No, I don’t want it.”

In the stony silence, those scandalous words thundered round the church. I. Don’t. Want. It.

Communicants don’t refuse. The bewildered bearer repeated the offer as our Malcolm turned crimson. When the pole-axed bread man finally moved on, sheer unadulterated relief swept over Malcolm . . . until the man with the big goblet bore down on him. He hadn’t seen one that fancy since Indiana Jones went after the Holy Grail on that last crusade.

As hundreds of wide, unblinking eyes burned into the back of his neck, Malcolm also declined the plonk. Again, the offer was repeated with more insistence. Clamping his lips tightly shut over his bone-dry mouth, in case the bejewelled chalice was suddenly raised to them, our gallant lad could only shake his head wildly, gesturing to the kindly old dispenser to go and dispense somewhere else.

Malcolm perspires recalling those awful, mortifying minutes. But his secret is safe with me. I will clam up if he will.

Some embarrassment is premature, thankfully. Andy Murray made a humongous comeback and thrashed the Frenchman on Monday night.

My featherlight figure leaping up and down on the sofa as he blew the Gasquet away snapped something down below.

No, not another wardrobe misadventure. I now face a furniture repair bill. That’s also embarrassing.

Andy meets Spanish fireball Rafael Nadal in today’s quarter finals. Now that Andy has Popeye-style muscles, I’ll probably reduce that couch to matchwood and also take out an armchair or two while I’m at it.

Published in the Press and Journal on July 2, 2008

THE other day, I was asked: “So what do you think about Ms Campbell being sentenced to community service for kicking two cops and bad-mouthing the pilot of a plane?” I said I was not surprised and it was down to pressure. That, I have to admit, was because I thought, wrongly, that they were talking about Angus Campbell, the vice-convener of Western Isles Council.

While Angus is a permanently pleasant guy I have known since we were about 12 and very well since he tried to sneak a peek at my answers in the Higher English mock exam, he had been getting it in the ear from anti-wind turbine campaigners before the big plan was all scrapped. And he flies a lot. And Ms Campbell sounds very like Angus Campbell when said quickly. They may be soundalikes, but I must make it clear that Angus Campbell doesn’t really look like the fiery Naomi Campbell. Much.

Had I known the other Campbell was claiming it was a case of racial discrimination, I would have known we weren’t talking about the fair-skinned, unleaded baron from the Battery.

So, sorry, Angus, if I unwittingly sullied your reputation. I don’t think that even our other classmate Catriona, of Moorlands Without Turbines, would make you kick out in spike-heeled boots and use language like your clanswoman.

Everyone has been confused and confusing this week. On Friday, the BBC issued an online gale warning for northern Britain. Heck, I thought, this is northern Britain. All of Scotland is northern Britain. The Press and Journal covers the most northern part of Britain. Did they mean us? It was only when I read the detail that I discovered that Auntie Beeb did not mean northern Britain at all. She meant northern England. I asked for an immediate explanation on Friday. Still waiting, of course.

We have novel ways of raising the much-needed money for Bethesda, the care home and hospice in Stornoway. Last Friday, they were dancing in the streets, well, the car park, down in Back. The following night, there was drag racing. It was at Stornoway Airport. Steinish International is hardly Santa Pod raceway but, what the heck, they are both disused airfields. Or at least they were on Monday when the airport firefighters went on strike.

Sadly, I was not allowed to go. The missus wouldn’t let me. I did ask innocently if she fancied a night out at the drag racing, but that was when she really lost the plot. She lashed out: “Why would I want to go and see grown men in fancy dress and lipstick and stilettos trying to get to a finishing line?”

Uh? This is Kiwi and Asher and a wrench of mechanics we’re talking about. It would take too long to explain. She can just go on thinking that a posse of competitive Lily Savage lookalikes were teetering around Branahuie on high heels.

Dumbfounded I was when a Scottish politician I’d never heard of proclaimed we’re all too miserable. Don’t lump everyone in with the Free Church (Continuing), I thought. This was Glasgow MP and transport minister Tom Harris, who made the claim saying we should buck up and smile because we’re all so wealthy now.

No word that, under his government, food bills are soaring, you need a mortgage to fill up your tank, house prices are tumbling and the pay rises of newspaper columnists have become the norm.

Families are sliding into fuel poverty. What the Dickens have we to be grumpy about? Should we really take this from an out-of-touch, here today, gone tomorrow politico who gets £91,000 a year and a second-home allowance, free travel and goodness knows what else allowing him to rake in a further £150,000?

The same day that Happy Harris was making front page headlines, some newspapers also had the results of a survey that Scottish cities were in the happiest top 10 and that Scots had finally shaken off their dour image. All except G. Brown, Esq., I think that should be.

My confusion did not lift yesterday on hearing that night visits by the tooth fairy are now worth £23.4million a year. More than 3,000 parents were quizzed for the Children’s Mutual Tooth Fairy Inflation Index. I kid you not. It says the average cost of a child’s tooth is now £1.22, up 16% on last year.

Many parents suffer from fairy pressure, it found. More than one in five think they pay too much and nearly one in six feel compelled to give their wee darlings the market rate for a tooth.

I know. I was assured the going rate was £2, but can’t remember by whom. That was how much was sneakily slipped under the pillow in this house. I have been ripped off. By a fairy.

Published in the Press and Journal on June 25, 2008

When I greet the sunrise early on Saturday at the Callanish Stones with my wiggle of willing wenches, I shall be undraped and unashamed, as always. I must answer the distant call of the ancients and, in the morning moistness, wash away the dustiness of two decades since I last skipped up the avenue, calling on all the sun gods.

They never answer. They must all still be asleep. It is 4am, after all. Prostrating myself in the chilly dew of the stone circle, the maidens will gather round pushing to my lips milk, honey and warm, reviving kisses. It’s a tough job but . . .

The summer solstice festival lasts just hours and holds a significance to druidic types. I am a druid. It is Gaelic for a starling and is used to belittle someone for being ridiculously small. My uncle called me a druid when I was seven after I let his tyres down. Anyone under 5ft 8in is a wee druid.

We are well and truly in the season of latter-day festivals. Celebratory traditions are being recalled for a morning, a weekend or even a week. Modern lifestyles take us so far from the pull of Mother Earth that we yearn ever more for those al fresco get-togethers where we can speak freely of peace, love and whether Tennent’s is better than Stella.

Most festivals are not actually about taking your clothes off and having a yarn with the sun god Lugh. The idea nowadays is to celebrate music. Whereas we once had the Mod for that, in the last few years there have been fests at Durness, Rockness, Loopallu, Speyfest – and even Barrafest with Nolly, the Uistman from Barra, and his crew on next month’s bill.

Our own HebCeltFest is also upon us in a matter of weeks. Something Celtic for everyone, they promise, and they do deliver and a whole lot more. A fringe of superb sideshows and street entertainment, it even features, for the kids, the man in the balloon from Britain’s Got Talent.

Then if you can wait until October, there’s the Royal National Mod. This year, it descends on the diamond in the rough that is Falkirk or Spotty Church, if you literally translate its Gaelic name. The Mod provides its last chance for that settlement to redeem itself to me. Known for nothing wheely interesting, except that no one famous ever came from there, I have to say that I found it a scary place.

As young servicemen, we had to run the gauntlet of grunting knuckle-dragging Falkirkians. So manic were their growls, we had to forego our uniforms, just like the Army did in the Falls Road. I then learned that Falkirk had two mottoes, “Touch ane, touch a” and “Better meddle wi’ the de’il than the bairns o’ Fawkirk”. How cool is that? Mottoes celebrating juvenile aggression. Maybe municipal anger management is still called for.

Another big festival question is whether the Mod will happen in Caithness in 2010. Although they deny they are anti-Gaelic, there are a bunch of councillors up there who give fantastic impressions of people who are just that. These deniers claim they are only bothered about spending money on Gaelic road signs. The history books are obviously wrong. Whatever.

After all, it’s not as if Highland Council is anything like the Gaelic mafia in Stornoway. They are now erecting Gaelic signs in places which have been happily monolingual since Maciver and Dart began selling TVs. An example is Parkend. I have never heard it called by any other name in my puff. Now they have put up signs labelling it Ceann nam Buailtean. Duda?

Parkenders cannot fathom it. They have never really spoken Gaelic. Most of them struggle with English. Except Johnny Fraser, of course. As a young druid of a taxi operator, he heard passengers from Bernera in his yellow taxi muttering mysteriously in Gaelic about “am bradan”. Quickly learning the language in order to eavesdrop, Johnny discovered it meant salmon. That sparked his fascination with the king of fish. He would have it anytime. Usually lightly poached.

In Peebles, they have a wonderful-sounding festival called Dirty Weekend. I have cancelled my tickets as I have just found out it centres on nothing more thrilling than the muddiness of mountain biking. The festival with the potential for real fun and frolics will be in September next year. Alex Salmond has just ordered Barra people to hold a Whisky Galore feis.

I will suggest to Julian in the Craigard Hotel to offer free nips to anyone who has to travel more than 120 miles. That’ll stop the ever-thirsty Uibhisteachs and Hearrachs from mobbing the joint while leaving the way clear for Leodhasachs and Barrachs to boogie on down.

Party on, druids.

Published in the Press and Journal on June 18, 2008

Not only do people here deserve high fuel prices, that is what they really, really want. It is the only conclusion I can come to.

The editor of the local paper in Uist has put a petition up on the Scottish Parliament website calling on our politicians to take firmer action to get our fuel prices here under control. Otherwise, these islands are going to be cleared of people. Businesses will not come here. A place for rich southerners to retire but no businesses and no industry. And no work.

Yet the locals from the Butt of Lewis to Barra just do not care. They are not interested in signing the petition by Helen Coxshall of Am Paipear.

They simply do not care that fuel is already more than £1.40 a gallon - and rising. What is the other explanation? At the time of writing, only 744 people have bothered to sign up and show their support. And plenty of them do not even live in Scotland.

Make no mistake, we are being ripped off by our own government. Firstly, they add fuel duty. Then, as if that was not enough, they add VAT. The higher the basic price, the higher the taxes. They could reduce both these taxes if they wanted. They do it in other European countries and this government has voted for that to happen. But not for their own Scottish islands. No way. Not enough votes in that. Our politicians have raised it, of course. Briefly. Then they promptly went back to the usual phoney inter-party wars.

Government ministers will not do it out of the goodness of their hearts. Why? Because so few in the islands will even take two minutes to put their names on an online petition. Why should the government lower these taxes? No-one is creating a fuss about it. Islanders are so complacent. If this was the price in London, thousands would be protesting up and down Whitehall and blocking the gates of Downing Street. Cockney lorry drivers are already protesting - and their diesel is nothing like as expensive as here.

With an adult population of 20,000 in the Western Isles, you would think most people here would want to be associated with what this petition calls for. But no. Oh well. Sorry Helen, it must have seemed like a good idea but the people have spoken. Or, rather, they can’t be bothered to. If anyone is even remotely interested, here’s the link:

http://epetitions.scottish.parliament.uk/view_petition.asp?PetitionID=250

Am Pàipear, the community newspaper of the Uists in the Outer Hebrides, has launched a campaign on behalf of its readers and the wider community to demand the UK Government take action to reduce the cost of fuel in the islands.

Speaking about the paper’s campaign Editor, Helena Coxshall said: ‘We have been inundated with comments and concerns from the local community who have asked us what we are able to do to highlight the distress that high fuel prices are causing within our community.

‘Fuel prices have rocketed and our islands are suffering more than anyone. We have decided to take the issue to the government and have launched a petition to the Scottish Parliament requesting that they represent the views of not only our, but Scotland’s wider rural community.

‘Not only does the cost of fuel impact on us all here, with crofters, fishermen, business and drivers suffering, but the additional effect of a decline in tourism hits us even harder.

‘We are asking that everyone who is affected by the high cost of fuel sign our petition on the Scottish Parliament website at http://epetitions.scottish.parliament.uk/view_petition.asp?PetitionID=250 whether resident in the islands or not. If you live in the Highlands, or any other rural community, you will be among the hardest hit. If you live in our cities you will probably not be able to enjoy your own beautiful countryside and islands as holiday destinations because of the high cost of fuel. It is as beneficial to our urban communities as it is to our rural communities to ensure that the cost of fuel in the islands is not prohibitive.

‘We are not asking for any special treatment over our city neighbours: all we are asking for is that fuel in the islands doesn’t cost any more than it does on the mainland.’

The higher price of fuel in the Western Isles - where a litre of diesel has passed £1.45 at some petrol stations – means that islanders are paying more tax than anywhere else when VAT is added to the basic cost. Islanders have expressed outrage that VAT is added after fuel duty has been taken into account, effectively creating a third, hidden tax. It is believed that fuel in the Outer Hebrides is the most expensive anywhere in the world.

The newspaper’s campaign is supported by Western Isles politicians, Alasdair Allan MSP and Angus Brendan MacNeil MP. Alasdair Allan commented: ‘I would like to commend Am Pàipear for taking this step, and hope that their petition attracts signatures not just from Uist, but from around the Western Isles.

‘Angus Brendan MacNeil has been raising the issue of island fuel costs in Westminster - where the power over fuel taxes presently lies – and now, thanks to ‘Am Pàipear, we have the opportunity to formally ask Holyrood to lobby the UK government on behalf of islanders.

‘The Scottish Parliament has a unique system where any individual citizen can petition parliament to look at an issue and have their day in front of the Parliament’s Public Petitions Committee. This provides another chance for the islands to highlight the injustice of paying the highest prices in the world for fuel - in an oil producing country.’

Mr Allan recently secured a debate in the Scottish Parliament on the issue which garnered significant cross-party support.

Angus MacNeil added;

‘It is now at least 2 years since I got the famous answer from the London Treasury that they could not lower island fuel duty by 3%, as was agreed by all governments of the EU for rural France, in case people travelled from the cities to the Islands to take advantage of the concession. The Treasury was clearly massively out of touch with this part of Scotland and still is.

‘I hesitate to state the price of fuel per litre in black and white because it goes up so much and so quickly. However at over £1.40 per litre when almost 60% of that is tax is clearly far too much especially as the Chancellor will raise, according to estimates, £5-£6 billion, (that’s a £5-6 thousand million) more than he expected this year. Diesel in the Republic of Ireland, which has no oil fields as Scotland does, is £1.05 per litre, according to AA Fuel Price Reports.

‘But the overriding factor is that the Chancellor gets more tax per litre on fuel sold in the Uists, and other islands, than anywhere else in the UK and therefore, we probably pay the highest fuel taxes in the world. The Chancellor also charges VAT on his duty and VAT also goes on the increasing base price too. So a triple whammy for the Islands!

‘When I meet the Chancellor in Westminster I will be highlighting Am Pàipear’s important campaign and the real difficulty people are having with fuel prices that are 40p a litre above Irish prices.

‘Many people have contacted me with details and when it hits aspects of island life, the Chancellor will hear the message directly from me.’

Ends

More Information:

Fuel Petition Text:
Petition by Helena Coxshall calling on the Scottish Parliament to urge the Scottish Government to make representations to the UK Government about the cost of fuel in the Western Isles and other rural areas of Scotland which are now amongst the most expensive places in the world to buy petrol or diesel; to highlight in particular the refusal of the UK Government to introduce measures similar to those operating in France which reduce the tax on fuel in very remote areas; to protest at the serious consequences which high fuel prices have for fishermen, motorists and businesses in island and rural areas and to request parity with mainland city prices.

The petition is available for signing on the Scottish Parliament’s e-petition system at: http://epetitions.scottish.parliament.uk/view_petition.asp?PetitionID=250

Am Pàipear is the community newspaper of the southern isles of the Outer Hebrides and serves the communities of Berneray, North Uist, Benbecula, South Uist and Eriskay. The most widely read newspaper in the southern isles, it has been twice voted Community Newspaper of the Year and has a readership of over 5,000.

Am Pàipear is published by the Uist Council of Voluntary Organisations, the Uist branch of the CVS network.

Alasdair Allan’s motion was debated in the Scottish Parliament on Wednesday 28 May; motion S3M-1705 and is available at:

http://www.scottish.parliament.uk/business/officialReports/meetingsParliament/or-08/sor0528-02.htm#Col9062
For further information please call Helena Coxshall, Editor or Archie MacKay, Production Editor and Reporter on 01870 603299 or email editor@ampaipear.org.uk

Domhnall Iain Trump is a real estate titan. A bit like D J Peteranna of Uist Builders. Only bigger. He jetted into Stornoway having jigged to Bennie And The Jets at an Elton John concert just hours before. He was snuggled up in a huge double bed in his private Boeing 727 as it whooshed over the Atlantic to the Hebrides. Just like Maggie Thatcher, he needs only three or four hours sleep before he pops up again ready for another day of hiring, firing and slagging off Aberdeenshire refusenik councillor Martin Ford.

A jostle of big-name journalists and cameramen formed on the tarmac. They elbowed for position, crippling each other with tripods and heavy camera bags. Then the most recognised businessman on the planet glided down the steps from the back-end of Trump One.

Only The Donald could have the Western Isles’ top industrialist, North Tolsta whizzkid Innes Macleod, as his driver abouter. Reputedly a millionaire himself, Innes is the president of Texas-based electronic engineering outfit HDL International Inc who conducts worldwide business from the big house next to where Kenny the Barber lived on Oliver’s Brae.

I am told he is also an incurable bluenose. You would think an entrepreneur like him would be able to get tablets for poor circulation in his extremities.

But Donald always gets the top people to work for him. His butler was the mayor of Martinsburg, West Virginia. A mayor? That’s like our convener, Alex Macdonald, being hired to serve the soup in Oliver’s Brae.

The Donald’s weekends are mostly spent at his Mar-a-Lago home in Florida. It is also a private club with 58 bedrooms, 33 bathrooms, a spa, a ballroom, tennis courts, a nine-hole golf course, and a private tunnel leading to his favourite beach on the Atlantic Ocean. Hey, come to Bosta on Great Bernera, Mr T. We have a beach on the Atlantic Ocean. Just no private tunnel or tennis courts or, in fact, any of the rest. We used to have a one-hole golf course in front of our byre but that probably doesn’t count.

At the press conference, nobody except the national press wallahs cared much about the £1billion plans for the Balmedie golf resort. Trump would only harrumph: “Who? Martin Ford? Don’t know the man. I just hear he’s not very popular, that’s all.” No, the big buzz in the Woodlands Centre on Monday was whether he would say anything about saving Lews Castle, our own crumbling landmark. He’s gonna think about it and come back to us.

A mock-Tudor folly, built with the wealth of a dodgy opium king it would, consultants reckon, be just the job for a hotel and conference venue but could cost anything up to £20million to do up. The castle has a few towers so he could boast: “I have two towers in New York and four in Stornoway.” If he also snaps up the Tower Guesthouse on James Street he could have five.

The Donald’s sister is a star too. They call Maryanne Trump Barry the diva judge. You do not want to mess with her. She reminds me of the Golden Girls. Sweet as apple pie, she fondly recalled being chided with “a ghraidh” (my dear) as her grannie suggested she stop doing whatever she was doing on the Sabbath.

Don’t be fooled. Maryanne is as tough as old Arnish boots. Now a federal appeals court judge, she is a former prosecutrix. That means she was New York’s answer to David Teale, the supercool Stornoway procurator fiscal. But in a shawl. And high heels. Wow, imagine that? No, nor me.

Appointed by some white-haired guy who is married to the famous Hillary Clinton, they call Maryanne a diva because of her bench-slapping. That’s American for making mincemeat of opponents. I think I know why. She probably swears at them in Gaelic. And we all know that Tong Gaelic is a coarse, unintelligible dialect that has always baffled people in the civilised world this side of Ford Terrace in Tong.

She jumped right in there when she twigged that Domhnall Iain was being hassled by the scribblers. You could almost hear the snarl. “Mom would be proud, he’s a good boy. He’s funny too.” Coolly, calmly, she stared out the reptilian slitherers.

Her piercing don’t-even-go-there gaze made them recoil. Even the most noble among the pack, veteran scribbler Bill Lucas, belted up smartish. I heard a woman from an American paper gasping: “Oh no, Maryanne is looking this way.” It would be good to chat to Maryanne properly. I haven’t interviewed what you would call a real prima donna for ages. Not since Mary Bremner left the council anyway.

Published in the Press and Journal on June 11, 2008

This is probably the last time I write here. I have decided to join the police.

On the pretence of having an open day, they summoned me to Stornoway nick for a high-level meeting. It was upstairs. A cop from Scalpay, who does the press-ganging for Northern Constabulary, persuaded me to lay down my pen and recorder for a truncheon and pepper spray. Wallop. Whoosh. I can’t wait.

From my photo, you may think I am past the first flush yet I’m in supreme condition. While telling me that anyone can join at 18, Inspector Willie “Scalpach” Maclennan winked loudly and added that there was no upper age limit. I knew exactly what was going on. Top cop Ian Latimer wanted me on the team.

“Really? No upper limit at all?” I wondered. He looked me up and down, adding: “There will be a fitness test.” He didn’t get those pips on his shoulder by being slow and he quickly deduced that my proud abdomen may look like a big belly but is actually a powerhouse of muscle, relaxed muscle. What a big asset, he must have thought.

So why now? There is talk of fuel price riots, you see. Latimer needs cool heads to prevent the Shader Red Diesel Users And Abusers Association from storming the pumps at the Welcome In in Barvas. After a couple of weeks’ intense training in Tulliallan police college, I reckon he’ll want me back to co-ordinate the operation. Too important to leave to polite skinnymalinks like Chief Inspector Philip Macrae. Seniority is so overrated.

I passed the police entrance exam - in 1977. One question stumped me. It was “Who wrote the opera Pirates of Penzance?” Afterwards, the sergeant asked: “How did you get on, lad?” “Tricky pirates question,” I said. He goes: “I’m sure a bright spark like you knew it was Gilbert and Sullivan.” I said: “Didn’t they do Ooh Wakka Doo Wakka Day?”

Suddenly I yelled: “There’s a disturbance out there.” Whereupon the sergeant immediately exited the room and proceeded in a westerly direction to the front desk, giving me just enough time to retrieve my paper and insert his answer. Thick but cunning, that’s me. I would be ideal for CID.

Only a technicality stopped me joining up back then; my bum was technically too close to the pavement. But the Scalpach insists there is no height restriction now. Even a rookie gets £21,000 a year. That’s fantastic money for an 18-year-old - especially for someone unlikely to squander it on the mind-altering substances on offer in most pub toilets from Invershneckie to Lovely Stornoway.

And the salary goes up loads every year. So I am going to ask for mine to be sort of backdated to include every increase since I sat that entrance exam back then. I’ll hound the drunk drivers in lawless dives like Garynamonie and Garynahine for wonga like that. Not only am I confident of being accepted but also I’m very sure of being fast-tracked for meteoric promotion. When Ian Latimer realises that I could go back to writing about him in the P&J, he’ll make sure I go to the very top.

Me in a hat with scrambled egg on it. I can see it now. I’ll move force headquarters from Perth Road to the Barvas Moor. It will have an overhead watchroom to intimidate law-breaking Westsiders, which are all of them. I’ll bring in daily breathalyser tests for all drivers in the Free Church (Continuing). Well, they’re all on something. I shall also test the emissions from all Galson Motors buses daily - and from the councillor who runs them.

In fact, I will harass every councillor. The parent councils of all the schools earmarked for closure will help me with that, I suspect. No cost to the taxpayer.

Did I mention that another potential employer is coming to see me on Monday? Donald Trump has a record of getting the best people. I can see me in the Trump World Tower bawling out my posse of gorgeous, pouting secretaries - just like Sybil at the council here. “Get me Heimer in Great Falls, Montana. Get me Buck in Great Bend, Kansas. Get me Auntie Kirsty Ann in Great Bernera, Uig.”

Career choices, they say, are our most important. One thing is sure; Ian Latimer’s package is going to have to be a good one. Because I know The Donald’s cousins, Calum and Willie Murray in Tong.

I wouldn’t be surprised if I was writing to you next week - from the 27th floor of a skyscraper. Just imagine; Calum and Willie and me looking down over United Nations Plaza in downtown New York, a low-flier in each hand. Just like being in the Crow’s Nest in the Legion.

Published in the Press and Journal on June 4, 2008