danieru in tokyo: Stornoway

Tuesday, May 31, 2005

Stornoway

I can tell you, with absolute authority, that the skies above Stornoway are bright and blue. Of course, a cosmopolitan assortment of clouds varying from merely harmless and fluffy to "Grrrrr, I'm going to deluge" perpetually denies the inhabitants this wonderful sight. Yet, it was mine, as I flew to the Western Isles for the weekend, on a nausea inducing proppelor plane.

Iain, keen to display his newly found Highway prowess picks us up from the airport, and we head into town. It wasn't dark yet. In fact, this place is so far up North, that I'm sure they're giving the Norse a run for their money, and should open a SAD research centre here. But in summer, it's bright all night. Leave the house, and - WAIT - don't lock the door. Iain insists that there is no need to lock the front door of the house. I protest - flabbergasted that you would ever leave a front door unlocked for convenience.
"It won't be convenient when you come back to an empty house."
"It wont be empty - if someone steals something, where are they going to take it?"
"But, it's unlocked!!"
"This isn't London"
"But, it's unlocked!!"

But in reality, it is unlikely that there will be crime on the island. If you want to be alone, move to a big city, as it is the only true sanctuary for those seeking solitude today. Jesus would never roam the desert for 40 days today, he would move to London for a 3 month contract.

We head out to a Thai, and then beer. Not a lot of beer, for there was running to do the next day.

Saturday morning: Wind and Rain appeared to be the only two people who wanted to be outdoors. As they played violently outside, I made a conscience decision to get away with as little as possible. Which meant not even attempting to run the full half marathon. Reports came in that a plane had tipped over by the airport, and at the last moment, the course was changed to run around the town, and then around the castle grounds twice. Around the town, and around the castle grounds once was enough for me, as the soup was warm in the pavilion, and the weather was still abysmal outside.

As soon as the race was over, and the weather decided to improve, and we headed down to Tarbet for a drive. The car was unlocked, and the keys to the car were in the ignition. At this point I had decided that the whole insecurity thing was merely a ruse to scare me. Beautiful scenery, windy single track roads, and salmon in the surrounding lake. The Islanders are in line for bundles of grants from both the British government, and the EU.
At the moment, the EU grants appear to be flooding in, and so I would like the German taxpayer to be made aware that they are paying for this:

The small lighter green patch on the centre right is a tennis court. That's right, Berlin paid for some bloke to build a tennis court in the middle of nowhere, with a view to the coastline. Another story: A road was constructed for access to 5 houses at a cost of £5million. The man who runs the local road company built a bigger house - no doubt part of the house building cost could be offset with EU grants as well.
Yes, impoverished locals clinging to their historic lifestyle, with the aid of the generous Germans. Allowing the locals enough money to purchase that enormous Volvo to get about town. Poor pool locals. More photos at photos.killerkangaroo.com

Then back into Stornoway, dinner, and head out for inebriation, with whispers of a local band playing somewhere. Drinking, walk to next pub, drinking, walk to next pub, drinking, pickled egg - not to be repeated, drinking, drinking, the disappointment finding the local pizza shop closed at 2am, and then finally home.

Sunday, in Bible Island, and everything is closed, bar the petrol station and airport. Opening the airport on the Sabbath caused quite a raucous too. I even found a Bible in Gallic, and it made me realise that the dominance of English in the Western hemisphere may be convenient, but the price is clear. I doubt that Shakespeare translated into Finnish could be quite as good as the original, which makes me wonder how much is lost in the Dostoevsky I pretended to read. Gallic is already haemorrhaging from the years of English trampling that will surely see to it's death, and it is sad to see this end so near. Ironic though, that a Scottish King - James VI - begun the unification process for Britain. And how many Scottish Nationalist actually speak Gallic? However, having never bothered to learn another language, I cannot yet comment. Perhaps it is time to learn Italian, I tell myself once more.

The Christianity element is present and strong on this island, sure, but it is merely one more factor which unifies the islanders in a fashion that is perhaps conservative. I saw a copy of a Salvation Army publication left behind in a pub. However, Christianity is nothing more than the name given to the shackles that the powerful have used to control and organise the populous. In Saudi it is Islam, in the US it is consumer credit, and inJapan it is honour.

Enroute back the airport on Sunday, we passed Kenny The Barber, who shears hair - badly, I am reliably informed - whose business has grown large enough for him to buy a gargantuan detached property complete with drop-top Mercedes outside. "And he just cuts hair" I question. "There's a lot of loose ends to be cut in Stornoway"

- posted by Daniel @ Tuesday, May 31, 2005

Comments:

That would, of course, be gaelic. This does appear wrong when written down, but that would be because it's foreign. Gallic has a more Italian heritage.
Pedantic as I am, that just about exhausts the knowledge I have of my mother toungue.

# posted by

Al : 7:39 AM

> Gallic has a more Italian heritage

Filthy trolling.

# posted by

Aaron : 3:29 AM

Just some pointers for your mate, who is evidently a tosser. The poor, poor locals were indeed fucked off that a tennis court was placed miles away from any of the villages but an English twat who applied for funding received grants for a personal tennis court despite lots of complaints from locals. It gets used by very few aside from this man and his wife.

I'm assuming that when he's talking of the £5million road he's speaking of that to Rhenigidale. All villages on the island are by the coast. This is because they got from place to place by boat - I'm sure you don't need me to tell you this. Peat roads joined villages, which were then upgraded over time. Rhenigidale had to wait till the 20 century to get this work done. It could be argued that they should have all had to move but who would be happy with that? or that they should have paid the £5million themselves but again did you pay personally for the construction of your own road.

I'm assuming that the gargantuan detached property you speak of is that on Oliver's Brae which belong to the bloke who owns Point1 along with numerous other companies in the States and Europe and chose to move to Lewis. I'm
assuming the car outside it also his and that he hasn't nicked Kenny the Barber's car from outside his semi-detached in Leurbost.

Tell your mate that to save embarrassment in future he should get his facts straight before mouthing of on things he obviously been misinformed on.

# posted by

Daniel : 10:18 PM

I replied to MOGMACD the following:

uninhibited anger - the greatest reason to write a blog. MOGMACD@HOTMAIL
: the only information i have on you is as follows:

a. RACIST - who defines someone based on their ethnic origin, and
attempts to explain their differences toward that individual on race.
Of what relevance is it to me that the original campaigner for the
tennis court is English?
b. FOOL - the tennis court got built. irrespective of the events which
surrounded it, this, and this alone is plain fact. thus the German
taxpayer HAS paid for a tennis court in the middle of nowhere. To see
you dispute this, I am amused.
c. SNOT NOSED - i did not complain about paying (in part, as i did, as a
taxpayer) for the construction of the £5m road. I merely raised an
eyebrow toward the cost, which i consider to be a significant amount of
money. it appears that with my immigrant working class family
background, i have a very different perspective on finances to
yourself. i guess this explains why you feel it is the norm for people
to drive new volvos.
d. CHILDISH - the GDP of the western isles is lower than that of london,
per capita. this is indisputable. yet, i find you hating the very hand
that feeds you. is this simply childish rebellion, or do you truly wish
for london to stop lobbying for an egalitarian social and physical
infrastructure between provinces?
e. NITPICKER - i am not embarrassed about the fact that iain did not get
the facts straight. facts are quite often a burden for a good story. in
fact, i have added your comments to my blog.

And before you get too upset, there have been _at least_ 2 others who
have already complained about my one-sided condesceding writing. To
add you as number 3, i am proud. Especially given that I have never
met you, and you are a childish snooty foolish racist nitpicker.

Good day, and i hope you burst a vein at the next meaningless
opportunity to take offence - especially if i get to take a photo, and
blog it.

Dan.

# posted by

Daniel : 10:24 PM

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