dinky little twin-engine Cessna which left Edinburgh just 40 minutes earlier.
‘What was the delay?’
‘First one of the engines wouldn’t start, then the door wouldn’t close, then there was mist over the runway, then there was no air traffic control. The pilot was called Lorna and she was only 25. I said sorry for making her work on a Sunday but she said she’d only have been doing the decorating. It was
brilliant
!’
(Me, suspiciously:) ‘Have you been drinking coffee?’
The rest of Sunday – after Ann has settled in, had a welcoming dram or two with Toby and Harriet and promptly gone for a snooze – I spend with Martin the photographer, revisiting most of the distilleries John and I drove to yesterday. They’re still closed, of course, but looking very picturesque in the gently hazy sunshine with the calm sea lapping quietly against the rocks. We take what feels like about eighteen rolls of film, from which one frame later gets used.
Martin is staying with friends near Loch Gruinart, in the north-east of the island, but later comes to stay in the other self-catering flat along with Oliver, and apparently turns out to be an extremely good guitarist, though Ann and I miss the impromptu concert. Later it turns out we know people in common; Martin’s done a lot of album covers, including one or two for Shooglenifty; one of my favourite bands, plus I know a couple of the guys. Actually, the last time I saw Malcolm the guitarist was at my birthday bash in February; I vaguely recall getting all excited about a plan we hatched together about doing a joint musical/literary tour of Cuba with – hopefully – British Council money. I have a nasty feeling I was supposed to write the letter proposing this to the BC. Durn; I’d better tell Malc about my gratuitous passport-destroying antics …
We go mob-handed to the Machrie for dinner, utilising the bus-like carrying capacity of the Defender to transport everybody in one go. It’s on the way back in the darkness that I’m warned about the kamikaze proclivities of the local deer population, especially between the hotel and the farm, and so crawl dutifully along at 30 miles an hour, eyes peeled for antlers craftily disguised as branches lurking with malevolent intent amongst the roadside trees.
Each evening, I’m watching the progress of the war. It opens without the shock and awe we’ve been promised, but on the other hand there are no sudden chemical or biological counter attacks either. Which is good, obviously. Yet just a micron suspicious, too. I mean, if you’ve got weapons of mass destruction – as we have been so assiduously and indeed almost desperately assured Saddam has – isn’t now, when you’re being invaded by troop concentrations heading straight for your major cities, when you’d use them?
Anyway, it all goes very quickly and smoothly for the invading forces. The Brits sort of take Basra. The US Marines cross the Euphrates.
Then everything stalls, and it almost looks like another of the nightmare scenarios is going to kick in, with stubborn resistance in depth and behind the various fronts, irregulars attacking the supply chains. Then that all fades away too and it’s on to Baghdad.
Despite one or two scares, still no chemical or biological weapons turn up. I sit in the flat above the old barn each night, nursing a whisky, unable to believe this is really happening, that we’ve gone to war because, well, basically because George Dubya Bush and his right-wing pals wanted to, and Tony Blair was determined to do whatever Bush asked of him, seemingly happy to risk destroying the UN and sundering the EU just so that the US could have its second pushover war in two years.
But then, hey, I couldn’t believe it a couple of years ago when Bush lost the election and yet got given the presidency, and hardly anybody seemed to get upset (certainly almost nobody in America was
reported
as getting upset); not much national or worldwide outrage at
‘What was the delay?’
‘First one of the engines wouldn’t start, then the door wouldn’t close, then there was mist over the runway, then there was no air traffic control. The pilot was called Lorna and she was only 25. I said sorry for making her work on a Sunday but she said she’d only have been doing the decorating. It was
brilliant
!’
(Me, suspiciously:) ‘Have you been drinking coffee?’
The rest of Sunday – after Ann has settled in, had a welcoming dram or two with Toby and Harriet and promptly gone for a snooze – I spend with Martin the photographer, revisiting most of the distilleries John and I drove to yesterday. They’re still closed, of course, but looking very picturesque in the gently hazy sunshine with the calm sea lapping quietly against the rocks. We take what feels like about eighteen rolls of film, from which one frame later gets used.
Martin is staying with friends near Loch Gruinart, in the north-east of the island, but later comes to stay in the other self-catering flat along with Oliver, and apparently turns out to be an extremely good guitarist, though Ann and I miss the impromptu concert. Later it turns out we know people in common; Martin’s done a lot of album covers, including one or two for Shooglenifty; one of my favourite bands, plus I know a couple of the guys. Actually, the last time I saw Malcolm the guitarist was at my birthday bash in February; I vaguely recall getting all excited about a plan we hatched together about doing a joint musical/literary tour of Cuba with – hopefully – British Council money. I have a nasty feeling I was supposed to write the letter proposing this to the BC. Durn; I’d better tell Malc about my gratuitous passport-destroying antics …
We go mob-handed to the Machrie for dinner, utilising the bus-like carrying capacity of the Defender to transport everybody in one go. It’s on the way back in the darkness that I’m warned about the kamikaze proclivities of the local deer population, especially between the hotel and the farm, and so crawl dutifully along at 30 miles an hour, eyes peeled for antlers craftily disguised as branches lurking with malevolent intent amongst the roadside trees.
Each evening, I’m watching the progress of the war. It opens without the shock and awe we’ve been promised, but on the other hand there are no sudden chemical or biological counter attacks either. Which is good, obviously. Yet just a micron suspicious, too. I mean, if you’ve got weapons of mass destruction – as we have been so assiduously and indeed almost desperately assured Saddam has – isn’t now, when you’re being invaded by troop concentrations heading straight for your major cities, when you’d use them?
Anyway, it all goes very quickly and smoothly for the invading forces. The Brits sort of take Basra. The US Marines cross the Euphrates.
Then everything stalls, and it almost looks like another of the nightmare scenarios is going to kick in, with stubborn resistance in depth and behind the various fronts, irregulars attacking the supply chains. Then that all fades away too and it’s on to Baghdad.
Despite one or two scares, still no chemical or biological weapons turn up. I sit in the flat above the old barn each night, nursing a whisky, unable to believe this is really happening, that we’ve gone to war because, well, basically because George Dubya Bush and his right-wing pals wanted to, and Tony Blair was determined to do whatever Bush asked of him, seemingly happy to risk destroying the UN and sundering the EU just so that the US could have its second pushover war in two years.
But then, hey, I couldn’t believe it a couple of years ago when Bush lost the election and yet got given the presidency, and hardly anybody seemed to get upset (certainly almost nobody in America was
reported
as getting upset); not much national or worldwide outrage at
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