Am Bratach No. 214
August 2009
editor@bratach.co.uk

Backcoaster’s Diary

NAE VELAR FRICATIVE NOO

We ask, with not a little regret, if the Guid Scots Tongue is undergoing terminal decline. On July 29 the Sunbed King, Tommy Sheridan, tried to explain to Channel 4 News anchorman, Jon Snow, that damp, miserable weather is not exactly a novelty in Bonnie Scotland. “Naw,” said the university educated former MSP, “we have a word for it up here — ‘dreek’”.

WITHERING REMARK

It was all getting a bit beyond him, the well educated but elderly grazings clerk. The committee was getting anxious that, if the mountain of paper taking up more than its fair share of his kitchen table was not dealt with soon, the sheriff would be knocking on the door.
So it came to pass that a putsch was organised to allow a young, if less articulate, member of the committee to take up the reins. Some time passed, and the new clerk was duly installed.
No doubt wondering if the wound inflicted on the village elder’s pride had subsided, a neighbour enquired if he thought the new man was up to the job. “He’d be fully extended signing his own name,” remarked the former office holder tartly.

COULDN’T SEE THE TREES

That a good number of folk turned out on July 19 to witness an imaginative re-enactment of scenes from the life of Patrick Sellar, his shepherd, John Dryden, and victims of the forced expulsion of the people of Rosal, says something for the resourcefulness of the audience and less for the organisers, the Foresty Commission. Rosal, as the rest of the world knows, is near Syre, in the heart of Strathnaver. Not so, according an advert placed in The Northern Times a mere two days before the event. Rosal, stated the advert, is “near Bettyhill”. Actually, Bettyhill is on the coast, nearly thirteen miles to the north of Rosal, a fact that the organisation’s local honcho at least might have been expected to know since he is a crofter on, er, Syre.

See photo of “John Dryden” above.

DESPERATE TIMES

It’s not great fun trying to get your unpopular message across to an ungrateful public, the Scottish Government has discovered.

In an e-mail we received on July 27, a senior press officer wrote: “As you’ll be aware the future of crofting, and the Scottish Government’s draft crofting bill, have been the subject of heated debate in your area over recent weeks. Much of that debate and the resulting coverage has been one-sided with the Government’s opinion frequently not sought or carried.

“To redress the balance, and to encourage as many people as possible to have their say before the consultation ends on August 12, I’d be grateful if you’d consider running this piece by Roseanna Cunningham, Minister for Environment, in your pages.”

It seemed to escape the civil servant’s notice that he had circulated Republican Rose’s innocuous essay to rivals the week before thus lessening considerably its chances of being used again more than a fortnight later.