calumannabel

I'm afriad this is not in the Jeffrey Barnard sense of the phrase. Annie is in a coma on a ventilator at Jimmies in Leeds with renal failure after a kidney stone operation. She has held her own over the weekend after being expected to peacefully pass away on Saturday morning. My little sister is six years younger than me so this is a big shock as she is my sparring partner when it comes to blogging. Please if you are at all prayerful remember her in your prayers. I'll keep you all posted. She was due back to Lweis in a couple of weeks tho that looks a tall order now.
Thanks
Calum

Sir Torquil Stanford, entrepreneur and sponsor last year's Dell Fank has gone into hiding causing a stampede on the First Bank of Habost which rents the former Post Office in South Dell. A queue of several cailleachs and bodachs waited patiently outside the portakabin for news of their savings. Meanwhile Sir Torquil has left his luxury penthouse at the Habost Hilton ( behind the water tower chust past the Free Church Manse which is bigger than the Hilton!) saying he was off to some communions on the mainland.
Sir Torquil first came to prominence when he turned up at the Dell Fank site last year with a perspex box filled with Scottish One hundred pound notes and a tonne of Penny Dainties. He was photographe gladhanding many of the Fank Committee and at one stage bouncing Chrissie Mary Morrison (Miss) up and down on his knee.
'What a sleazebag' Chrissie Mary told our scribbler. 'He persuaded me to invest my catalogue money with him and I suppose that's the last I'll see of it.'
Later in the day Sir Torquil was found hiding under an old loom in a barn in Knockaird. He looked a broken man but promised an explanantion to all his investors in the Ness region.
The demise of the First Bank of Habost puts several events in jeopardy including the annual Skigersta Shrove Tuesday race and the Butt to Barra Pedalo Grand Prix. The President of the Ness Allotment, Common Grazing and Crowdie Commission, Calum Angus O'Bama has promised to intervene although he acknowledges that this man operates outside Ness down as far as North Uist so is outside the President's jurisdiction.
Angus Morrison 77 in the queue for his money commented 'Who'd expect a Ponzi Scheme in Ness - we've only just had the Hydro Electric Scheme. Is there a fee for this interview?'

With the closure of island blogging by the BBC islanders are once again being thrown out of their homes and having to move to new sites - it's the clearances all over again! Fat cat lairds at the BBC in Glasgow are clearing the site so they can up sticks and come grouse shooting and set up their wind farms on our beloved islands. As we speak The Corries,Runrig and Andy Stewart ( some mistake surely) are all busy recording protest songs against the cyber clearances and BBC Alba are planning a Christmas Special on the subject headed by that thin Barra fellow from River City and the platinum blonde woman who is on practically everything else. How come Arnish Lighthouse hasn't even whimpered ( has he accepted the Beeb's shilling) or white settler not written a protest poem? Chrissie Mary Morrison (Miss) is the only one allowed to take things lying own - the rest of you where's your spirit gone and Donald says he knows where his has gone! It makes my blooboil when I see you all posting on this new hyphenated site - hyphens are so Hyacinth Bouquet!
I'm going to keep posting until, like that litttle Pepperami there is nothing of me left.
Slainte

Reregistered under a new name - cannot access my blogs or open the comments and worst of all I seem to be getting spam messages coming through so in the words of Lyndon B Johnson 'Include me Out'
I am not a total numbskull with a computer - I make my living writing on one for goodness sake but this new site is past a joke...
Oh and a happy new year everyone.
Calum

I'm finding the new site a little difficult to master so I think my contributions will be reduced to the occasional comment from now on. I did post the idea of a cyber works do at Christmas but the post was disallowed as I mentioned a brand of lager by name and that would have been my swansong. I've enjoyed the occasional sortie into the surreal and enjoyed posts esp from Flying Cat, mjc Bof B and of course Sunny. I think the bbc was the glue that held the community together and feel that it will be difficult to grow the community on Word Press. I may even start my own blog in '09. Happy New Year to one and all - au revoir
Calum

It's sad to see IB closing but understandable in that, in reality it was for a handful of bloggers who became a core of contributors. People came and people went and sometimes new blood enriched it and sometimes it didn't. If the community stays together the only way it can blossom is by attracting new bloggers and I can't see how this might happen unless IB is ceded to the 'members' in the same way we are getting our land back. Otherwise the 'goodwill' that IB has built just dies which is a waste of licence payers' money. I am sure if the BEEB gave us the site and we found a Moderator then the site might continue otherwise I see it going the same way as the Monarch of the Glen site did ( although that was a bleesing in my eyes). All that the BEEB would need to do would be to post a disclaimer and it could get the credit for the initial set up. It's an idea, not much of an idea but can anyone do better?

As Woolies on the mainland struggles against administration, the future of the Stornoway store has been assured. The island's main retailer, emporio alanjohn has been burning the midnight paraffin at his Lionel HQ with his main advisers, Chrissie Mary Morrison (Miss) head of human resources and Donald head of anything else that needs a head. As Woolies in total was on offer for a pound, alanjohn has successfully bid an old farthing for the one store with the aim of backing it into an offshore trust based in Bernera - that little known tax haven (so much more convenient than the Caymans and no injections needed before travelling). The new store will be called BigAJ and alanjohn looks forward to taking the store back to where it was in the Fifties.
'I will bring my specialist knowledge of Hebridean retailing to this ailing giant,' the Lionel oligarch told reporters from Fios and in an online interview with Fetlar School he laid out his blueprint for the new store.
'Stornoway is a windy place so a good headscarf department is a firm start - getting rid of the record department. Wrapped sweeties make too much noise in church so the ranges will be confined to unwrapped sweets sold loosely. There will a fag and a match counter for the pupils of the Nicolson Institute - there is a surprisong health benefit in this according to alanjohn as nicotine suppresses appetites so, by smoking, pupils will not feel like eating chips. 'My grandmother smoked a clay pipe till she was 92 and she died of pneumonia from a broken hip' the head of BigAJ told a stunned Gazette reporter. Puncture outfits, fencing requisites and haddock hooks are three other areas in which he feels Woolies lost sight of their traditional markets. Paraffin and candles are two other departments the Ness entrepreneur has earmarked for development along with more attention to the needs of the pipe smoker who has long been abandoned in the rush for technological products. What cailleach or bodach wants an X box for goodness sake?' the Ness man quipped.
As he helped unload the first load of boat varnish into the empty back warehouse, an excited alanjohn said 'This is a new beginning for an old Stornoway institution - we are in a new age - we must find new ways of engaging with our customers - on this basis we shall be sponsoring the next Stornoway Communions and rebranding it as Wee and Free to give it a more modern feel. When presssed about Woolworths tie in with BBC Worldwide alanjohn said, 'I am sorry to hear island blogging is coming to an end but as soon as you let poets and cat lovers loose on a website it's days are numbered.
There was too much of an emphasis on soap and homing cats and the site had lost touch with its main base - the guga killers, the sheep rustlers and the poachers of the island. I shall be sorry to see it go and I shant miss that stupid annual dating festival - I got stuck with a wife from the first one and can I get rid of her - can I hell?' On that note he stormed of to sack the staff on the make up counter.

Any other island plans to save their Woolies? Do other island have Woolies?
I know there's branch of MFI on the Shiant Islands.

The author of the guga book is one Donald Steven (surname can't remember as I know his Gaelic name). He is a poet from South Dell the same village as I'm from. The author of the Ness Man is also from South Dell - there must be something in the air! I went to a lecture of his last year at Habost where he aired some of the work before publicaction. His grandfather was also called Donald Steven and he died when I was 6. My mother, granny and aunty put my cousin and myself on pain of death on the day of th funeral in 1955.. We were told a procession would be going past the house and we must keep quiet. The procession duly came past and I noticed the men at the front carrying a large box and I asked my cousin quite loudly what was in the box.
'That's Donald Steven you fool,' she replied. When I told the author this story he was highly amused - he had been born after his grandfather's death.
The book will, I have no doubt, be very good.

For may years emporioalanjohn has relied on the sale of fenceposts and replacement dungaree buttons to eak out a profit. With the opening of the new instore bakery ( a grill from that American boxing guy) alanjohn has been experimenting with a new carageen biscuit filling. He has after extensive product testing on Chrissie Mary Morrison (miss) launched his new Credit Crunch Creams. They are selling out faster than his maracburgers and his guga wraps.
He is looking for outlets on the mainland for this product. Maybe he could set up a new concession in the foyer at IBHQ?

Donald asks Why is Point named after a fielding position in cricket. Logically Tolsta should be renamed Silly Mid On?
He also wants to know if you have to be bereaved to eat black pudding on Lewis as you have to be to wear black clothing.
Is RET got anything to do with Gone with the Wind?

Did I spot mjc at a presidential rally on TV the other day? I recognised the purple stetson and the John Denver glasses.
Have to go - matron is shepherding us back on the ward.
Calum

As the public face of the Broadford and Finlay Building Society I wish to allay the fears of all our investors from Barra to the Butt and from Dell to Dalmally
( enough alliteration get on with it woman) that our lending book is toxic. Admittedly my mother is a couple of months in arrears on her mortgage with us but she hopes to rectify things at the Bingo this week as she's sure it's her turn for the jackpot. As for us having Murdo John's blackhouse on our books at £1.25m, this was a simple typing error from an employee we had recently on a scheme. It is the same typist sent an email out concerning buy to let to our branch offices and the typo was the reason we have bought so many public conveniences ( think about it). We will continue to put sponsorship money into the Fank and we will be backing the Cross Inn Dominoes Team as we are certain Dominoes will feature in the 2012 Olympics. We are hoping to record a new commercial using Howard now redundant from the Halifax singing 'Don't cry for us Aunt Murdina' as a house in Brue is repossessed. We as a company feel this will let people know what happens if they default with us here at the Broadford. So to use another company's slogan, 'The future's bright there's nothing to worry your wee heads aboot'
PS Our offices and cash machines will be closed for the next few days until I return from the Cayman Islands.
Yours
Chrissie Mary Morrison (Miss)