BY GOD, you can’t beat a good bannock. The Eshaness community centre was open for teas, and much appreciated too after a visit to the Tangwick Haa museum and an anorak-flapping walk by the cliffs near the lighthouse.
Now, bannocks tend to vary in size and consistency. Some are round, some square, some triangular, some are like a rhombus, though I’m only saying that because I love the rolling sound of the word.
Altogether now: rrrhommmbus. Hmm, shapely!
I’
ve seen some bannocks the shape of rock cakes, though softer, and tasted some so bland they barely merit the sainted name. On three occasions, two of them sober, I’ve written to the Prime Minister demanding a proper committee of inquiry be set up, perhaps under the aegis of that Lord Hutton, to determine the proper shape and consistency of a bannock.
Ultimately, the aim would be to establish a special government department to ensure standards are met throughout the nation. This would require a small rise in general taxation, but I’m sure most public-spirited citizens would approve.
A special sub-section of the department would be set up for the Selkirk bannock, which contains dried fruit, a practice about which I’d planned to disapprove until I tasted one.
The Eshaness bannock was nigh-on perfect, tasting a bit like morning rolls used to taste before the modern world. The consistency was superb, requiring just the right amount of chewing and allowing a kind of paste to form around the gums.
As an experiment, I was able to spit a perfect ball of expertly chewed bannock on to the back of an elderly gentleman who’d been making a noise with his tea. I was pleased to note the projectile was still adhering to his coat when he left the room and, indeed, may hang there still. This is the true mark of a good bannock. Try it when next you have one, though be careful. On several occasions, I’ve been fortunate to avoid arrest.
Few people know that bannocking, as the term is known in Scots law, carries a penalty of three years in prison or, if it causes a fatality, a two-week community service order.
WHENEVER I need reminding how awful life is furth of Shetland, I phone a press office in London. How harassed they sound. How they so obviously hate their jobs, their world, their lives. They never have any time to speak, being apparently devoid of any interest at all in Hibs or sheep or Ertie’s new boat with its bright blue cabin.
It seems to be "cool" (a sort of unpleasantness) to get rid of callers as quickly as possible. When I detect this is afoot, I change the subject to say I know someone in their office and have an amazing bit of gossip about them. Then, having got their interest, I say: "Would you excuse me for a moment? There’s someone at the door and it’s not me." Whereupon, I go into the other room and read the paper or put up some bookshelves. Some time later, I return to the phone and say: "Sorry, there was no-one there, after all. Now where was I? Oh yes, your colleague at the strip club. Oops, hang on, an asteroid has just landed in the garden ..." At this point, some of them just hang up the phone, which strikes me as awfully rude.
I SEE a letter implying I was against the Scottish Parliament when a sketch-writer. Before I go on, is it really worth writing another word, since so many people seem clinically dim? The thinking minority know I defended the parliament (and voted yes-yes in the referendum) at every opportunity. The problem is that many people, never having opened a London paper, didn’t know what a parliamentary sketch was. It’s a lampoon, a bit of fun at the expense of the politicians in the institution. It doesn’t say the institution itself is bad. When writers on the Guardian, Times, Telegraph or Independent poke gentle fun at the doings of the House of Commons, no-one in Englandshire’s mature democracy infers they want the institution itself scrapped. But that’s the cross sketch-writers must bear in a country with a semi-autonomous parliament and a hopelessly backward citizenry. Personally, like the bloke in Bertie Brecht’s poem, I’d keep the parliament and get rid of the people. They’re a disgrace.
DO NOT be alarmed. But I’ve place-name news to impart that will stretch your credulity to breaking point. There is, in Shetland, a mighty fine place called Muckle Roe. And right in the middle of Muckle Roe lies a place called The Bottoms. Well! Folk there sure got a bum deal. Do they rear sheep? Are they behind the times? Enough already!
The full article contains 846 words and appears in The Scotsman newspaper.
