That's easy for you to say?

I know nothing about whisky, other than I enjoy one dram as much as the next one, and I wouldn’t have known a Glenglassaugh from Glenn Miller. But since I inherited my father’s collection of miniature single malts I have started to take more than a passing interest in the amber nectar, while I catalogue hundreds of obscure bottles from distilleries with impossible names like A’Bainne or Pityvaich.  As I pour (no pun intended) over names, dates and intriguing locations, I have started to identify a few that are missing and tried to pick up the mantle of completing the collection via the internet – a tool that father never had at his disposal. Just as well in some cases, when I do a Google search for ‘Ladyburn 15 year-old’ and it comes back with a list of illegal brothels in Thailand!    Eventually I track down a Macallans 1961, the holy grail of rare bottles of which only 369 were ever made, missing from my collection and coming up for impending auction. Excitedly I register on their website. Sadly last Wednesday my courage , besides my soon to be wife, would not allow me to hit the button enough times to reach the three hundred quid it made, let alone £5000 that its full-bottle brother achieved. I am consoled with the fact that it was probably fake anyway, because who is ever going to check? The mischievous streak in me considers running up a 1961 label on photo-shop and gluing it on to a tiny bottle of petrol. Or better still, making up some names of distilleries that sound like someone trying to speak with a clothes peg on their tongue and selling them on ebay!

Strangely enough, it is unpronounceable Scottish names that are occupying most of my waking hours as it is, while I cement together the tome that will be the History of Aberdeen Angus cattle which, after 18 months work, is nearing a first draft. What in heaven’s name was it that drove breeders to call their animals things like ‘Proud Gairloch Ericina of Murdochcairnie?’ Didn’t they know that somewhere, some poor clerk would have to write them down in a book one day? Even now I have had to check the spelling 4 times in case Mrs McDreary from Lochnagoldfinch finds a spelling mistake and condemns my work with accusations of illiteracy.

They do that, though, those purists. That is something I have found out first hand with my travel-guides, when sad vindictive retired school-teachers are allowed to write reviews of my work on Amazon and hide behind cowardly nicknames such as Biblioprefect or LiteraryMother, condemning my book on Bordeaux to a one star rating because I had missed an accent off the name of her local restaurant.  There are probably similar ones who scrutinise this column with literary tooth-combs. To you I say, stick to reading the Observer!

Apologies for having a go at you, dear reader, but I am a little grumpy today having sat up half of last night to watching the golf on TV. On that subject, I have one observation to make. ‘Dear Mrs Watson, no matter what you were smoking, drinking or injecting at the time, naming a child Bubba is seriously, seriously wrong!’

I will admit that since finding a bit more time to play in the winter in East Lothian, I have got right into golf again; so much so that Wendy has got me tickets to the Ryder Cup this year in Gleneagles. This in itself was a complete mission because, although it is held in tranquil Scotland, the event is run by paranoid Americans. To get anywhere near the place, we have to fill out ten page immigration forms, submit passport details and solemnly declare, so help me god, that we are not terrorists. And it gets even worse for the locals. Poor Mrs McDreary will be ring-fenced into her home in Auchterarder village for a whole week in September. She will only be allowed in and out of her front door via a retina-scan and strip-search to fetch a loaf of bread, in case she takes it upon herself to murder anyone in obscenely loud check trousers and an idiotic name!

I am quite looking forward to it though, since Wendy and I have extended our love of live sporting events from rugby to other disciplines. As well as Wimbledon, this year we are also hoping to go to the snooker world championship, possibly the last year it will be in the quaint Crucible theatre in Sheffield before that vile promoter, Barry Hearn, gets it moved to Las Vagas or somewhere equally squalid. Mark my words, it won’t be long before he reduces snooker into a vulgar circus like everything else he promotes in a bid to attract the lowlife who currently frequent darts championships.  As we speak, John Parrot and Steve Davies are being measured up for over-sized baseball caps and the lovely Hazel Irvine fitted with Double D-cup silicone, while the lady referees will be clad in leopard-skin lycra hot-pants and stilettos. Commentary will be provided by Ant and Dec or Will.i.am and the scoreboard will be replaced by bimbos on roller-skates to an audience full of Bill Werbeniuk lookalikes! Incidentally, when that pillock John Virgo starts squealing ‘where’s the white ball going...!!!’ am I the only one who wishes it was ‘down his throat?!’

Finally, I cannot resist once again having a go at the BBC’s woeful Sunday night farcical look at the countryside who have descended to a new low in giving away ‘wild flower seeds!’ Any farmer, gardener and even city pedestrian will recognise that, in general, wild flowers are weeds. How can distributing 200,000 packets of weeds possibly be a benefit to anybody other that the makers of Round-Up? Thanks Ellie, I’ll look forward to planting my ragwort, sow-thistles, creeping buttercup and stinking mayweed – in your vegetable patch!

Meanwhile, our very own vegetable garden is now well populated with onions, potatoes, courgettes and beans, desperately awaiting some rain. Yes, after half a metre of rain in three months in France, we are once again as dry as our empty swimming pool. Never happy, are we?

Coq-au-vin

At last it is spring, when the days should be getting longer. So why do mine seem to get shorter? Maybe it’s my age. No sooner am I out of bed at daybreak, running around like a headless chicken, gardening, lambing, building, pruning, tidying and scheming, than the sun is going down and the gin beckoning. As I flop down to watch the golden glow disappearing on the horizon, my mind is a whirl with all the things I haven’t achieved that day, while tomorrow’s list spills on to extra pages. I am sure it never used to be like this – this hectic life of mine. I know, I shouldn’t complain, especially as it is 22 degrees here in France today, with the grass growing and the colourful blossom out.

While on the subject of headless chickens, why is it that while we are away in Scotland for the winter months, a whole zoo full of animals immediately move in? For the last three years, we have come back home to more cats than we left behind, and this time two toms have moved in, spraying their nasty smells around the garage and howling all night. That wouldn’t be so bad but we also have another unwelcomed resident, one red-crested cockerel which has taken to living with the sheep and waking up at 5am. In fact, I think it has palled up with the ram and the toms in some sort of male orientated sit-in, each one trying to outdo the other with its nocturnal din. Well be warned, incomers, amongst tomorrow’s list of jobs is to search out a couple of bricks with which to dull the tom’s enthusiasm, and then dig out the large pan from under the stairs ready for some coq-au-vin.

As it happens, pots and pans are one thing we are no longer short of, having cleared out Wendy’s mother’s house into my mother’s back bedroom a few years ago, and then eventually cleared that out and delivered it all the way to France. Not that it was an uneventful journey, towing a sheep trailer from which the newness had worn off long ago. By Oxford, we lost a wheel, and limped along on for a hundred more miles until I could collect a replacement. Then, just outside Rouen, the entire suspension collapsed, hanging on by one thin rusty bolt and threatening to upturn the whole thing every time it passed a pothole, despatching my whole cargo of junk all over the autoroute. Thankfully, with the aid of some rope, it did manage to stay together for the 1200 mile journey, at 40mph, which took two whole days.

After a glass of wine and well earned sleep, I take to unpacking the splitting cardboard boxes for which I had risked life and limb, to find them all full of completely useless stuff left over from 1973. We now have a very fine collection of pyrex dishes in avocado green, assortments of mis-matched tablecloths and a full set of cookery books by Fanny Craddock.  To compliment these, 300 vinyl albums weighing approximately seven tonnes also made the journey, which include such masterpieces as Edgar Broughton’s greatest hits (did he actually have a hit?) and the somewhat ironic Aerosmith’s Toys in the Attic, all from much the same era. Even that would have been an almost acceptable risk to take with my antique trailer, were it that we had a record player to air them on. I have to admit, albeit secretly, that I do get a feeling of ecstatic wistfulness  when I run my hand over the well worn cover of Led Zepplin’s Houses of the Holy, or a mint copy of Pink Floyd’s Wish You Were Here, that makes me want to root through the cupboard for my flares and headband. Who said nostalgia is a thing of the past?

Anyway, with that lot all safely tucked up in the loft for another decade, it’s onwards towards my next project, the extension of the house into our barn. Were I to stop and consider this for too long, it too might prove to be a rather futile exercise, as this house is surely big enough for two of us already. In fact, I am struggling to justify the mammoth task to myself, with the only really valid reason to convert the barn to living space I can come up with is that I am doing it ‘because it is there!’

However, straining at the leash as I am to get my teeth into it, there is one more pressing job to be undertaken, that of a seat with a view for the missus. Not just any seat, but one under water. You may recall that for most of last year our swimming pool was leaking water faster than the Titanic and a decision was made to invest in a replacement liner for it. So while the water is out, I have been instructed to build a metre wide platform in the shallow end where Wendy and her pals can sit in six inches of water and partake in their early evening G&T with their feet dangling in the depths. Having taken specific measurements for depth, and width, I now have to consider of what material to construct it and my choice of steel re-enforced concrete has been met with some rather stern retorts! If you don’t hear from me again, try looking for me in the deep end wearing wellies filled with the same material!

Proclaiming Independence

Rain instead of snow this winter? I know which I would prefer: at least you can move snow with a shovel and stay in your sitting room without wellies on. For those poor folks in the south, my heart goes out to you. But can we really blame global warming for all this watery mess? So-called experts say we can, and they should know, shouldn’t they? Although, apparently, the Ozone is only one theory among many, with others putting the blame on local planners, builders, government, otters or the Russians. One rather twisted MP for the UK Independence Party even blamed the flooding on gay marriages! But in Scotland, of course, there is only ever one direction to point the finger of fault – directly at the English. Today I got a whole newspaper through our Scottish letterbox telling me to vote ‘Yes’. In it Mr Salmon and Mrs Sturgeon (Scotland’s fishy ministers) promise me the earth in return for a cross in their box, come September. According to this rag, I will get tax bonuses, better schooling & housing and infinitely better weather without the Sassenachs in charge of Scotland’s well-being. All of this I dismiss as blatant lies until, on page ten I note that The Proclaimers are inviting me to share their ‘yes vote’. Well, that instantly swung it for me. If an Independent Scotland means I will have to listen to those two monotone morons droning on, I am off down the A1 faster than Richard Hammond on-fire!

Actually, we will be off down the A1 again quite soon, back to the land of milk and honey that is South West France.  Except, even that haven hasn’t managed to escape the rain this time, with local towns flooded and our sheep paddling about up to their bellies. Hopefully it will have dried up a bit by the time the lambs start dropping and the grass will be up to our knees once more.

Talking of Hammond, it was quite nice to see BBC Top Gear’s Three Stooges in Worcestershire last month, tearing up Shelsley Walsh, even if it was in a shamelessly irresponsible way. Preceding that we got the weekly drivel that is Countryfile in the home district too, depicting the ‘northern blonde-bird’ irritatingly twittering away in Wyre Forest! The things you see without a gun! I did enjoy seeing Witley Court on our national screens though and am sure the publicity will do it no harm. It reminded me of a tale that my grand-father once told me. Seemingly Herbert (Piggy) Smith had a number of outstanding invoices for chickens he had been purchasing from HS Frazier. By this time, Smith was short of money and instead of paying up, invited Grandpa to dinner. In his best tweeds, he was met at the door by a butler and shown into a massive dining room with a table as large as a football pitch. Old Harry was seated at one end while Piggy Smith was at the other, so far away he was even out of shouting range. While he ate his bangers and mash in silence (served on a silver salver), he was convinced that at the far end of the table, Smith was eating something far more sumptuous.  He left that evening, still with his debt unpaid, and a few days later, the whole place mysteriously burned to the ground, leaving Smith a rather handsome insurance payout. Father remembers, as a child, being bundled into the back of the car that night and driven to Great Witley so they could watch the flames. The things they did before television!

This month has been one of travelling for us, firstly to the snowy alps for some après-ski, then Stirling for the annual bull sales for some beefy business. Following that, I found myself in Makem Country and I was pleasantly surprised what lovely beaches Sunderland has - well, apart from the evening storm throwing waves at me over the seawall. On a sunny morning, I took the dogs for a long walk along Whitburn cliffs which, incidentally, the sea seems to be eroding at an alarming rate. If I possessed one of those spectacular sea-facing houses (which I suspect are all owned by football players), I think I would have it on the market before it slips silently down into the depths by the end of the decade. Anyway, I am used to walking the dogs along the coastal path in Scotland and generally I say hello, and even pass away a few minutes of idle conversation, with total strangers that I meet on the way. So I was quite surprised, and even upset, that whenever I so much as nodded to people along the Wear coast, not even one returned my acknowledgement, let alone a greeting or a smile. Is this typical of folks from the North East, or was I not addressing them correctly? All I said was ‘Howay, man, marra, let's gan doon the pub for some beltas scran?’

Then, just last weekend, we found ourselves invited to a weekend at that home of decadent opulence, Gleneagles Hotel. Oh my, how the other half live. The bedroom was bigger than our own apartment, and the bathroom could have housed and hosed the entire Scottish rugby team (except we are not mentioning that sore point, bless them). Also included in our overnight stay was full use of the spectacular spa facilities. Having glimpsed at the brochure, I determined that they were situated not too far from our room so instead of heading there fully clothed, I donned the fluffy white dressing gown provided, and padded down in my bare feet.  What I had failed to ascertain was that, in order to reach said pool complex, the route went directly through a dining room and then a shopping arcade! With every barefoot step, while wealthy visitors giggled at me from behind their hands, my face grew redder and near exploded when I bumped into one of my customers. Not just any customer either, by Lady Double-Barrelled Title from one of Scotland’s largest stately castles, whom I had recently interviewed for my latest book. Despite my best attempts at hiding my face, I am pretty sure she recognised me, even without my clothes on! On the way back, in a desperate effort not to meet more rich and famous clients, I took a detour through the kitchens and back corridors, now dripping with saline, and got hopelessly lost. After twenty minutes, I eventually found a lift which took me from the basement back to my room, only to find that my key-card no longer worked and I was locked out. Honestly, you couldn’t make this stuff up. So here I now was, sitting outside my room, wearing just a dressing gown, for twenty minutes until a smug porter arrived with a new key and frown as wide as the Forth Estuary. To cap it off, I inevitably bumped into Lady DBT at breakfast who raised her eyebrow at me before admitting, ‘I thought that was you in bare feet outside Prada!’ If you listen carefully, I am sure you can still hear them laughing! Oh, the shame. Thankfully I can never afford to go back again.

Finally, I would like to wish you a belated welcome to the Chinese Year of the Horse! How ironic that Tesco had one of those just last year?

No shit, Sherlock?

Unfortunately I never got chance to study literature at school. For some bizarre reason I had to make a choice between that subject and geography and, not keen on getting lost in the world, coupled with the offer of rainy day field trips to the Brecon Beacons, Geography narrowly won the day. Ironic really - when I consider my current profession.  Stupid too, having to make such sacrifice – but then my school did things like that. Art was another thing I am sorry I missed, in favour of history or rugby or some other essential. As a result I wouldn’t know a Goya from a Gammon-steak and for years I thought that Hertz Van-Rental was a Dutch painter! Anyway, my reason for broaching this subject is that, although I never analyzed works by Arthur Conan Doyle, I am pretty sure his words were highly intellectual and contained meaningful stories about good and evil, right and wrong and possibly large dogs in deerstalkers. So how did the BBC end up with such a load of bastardized piffle as the current Sherlock Homes series, which bears about as much relevance to the traditional stories and characters as my cat does to a dancing walrus!  In it we see Benedictine Cucumber-patch generally making a complete arse of himself in something that would more befit a comic Carry-On caper rather than a detective story. I half expected Sid James to make an appearance, or Norman Wisdom to come on and fall over. Maybe I have been misled, but isn’t Sherlock supposed to solve crimes? Perhaps he could start with the biggest crime so far this year – that of the BBC allowing this twaddle onto our screens.

I don’t want to speak too soon but, for once, this winter has been a bit kinder when it comes to the ‘big freeze’ issues, possibly making some newspaper sensational headline-writers redundant in the process. Not that nature has been completely nice, with its blowing down of age old trees and a gallant attempt to drown us all.  On this latter issue, I would like to make an observation regarding Britain’s coastline, with particular reference to sea-walls, and it is this. ‘If the wind is blowing up 20 feet high waves and you have a notion to walk on the harbour wall to take photos, don’t expect to live long.’ And furthermore, please do NOT expect to be rescued from the bottom of the ocean by the coastguard with your Nikon round your neck. Remember, stupidity is still the number killer in the world.

Well, by the time this gets to print, we will be hopefully high up on a mountain where no floods can reach us, possibly in a cabin buried under snow. It has been a few years since I had skis on, a fact that was quite telling when I found that my ski-suit appeared to have shrunk since its last use. In a vain attempt to get it back on again, I have now joined the local gym, something I haven’t done in years either.  In fact it is so long since I have been in one of those mirrored environments, that I now have no idea what half the machines do, nor how to work them. Gone are the days when you could just hope on a cycle-machine and pedal away a few pounds. No, now it has gone all hi-tech. Apparently I can simulate going uphill, downhill, forest-track, velodrome, even Boris-bike death-wish rides. In front of me, gadgets, TV screens and gobbledegook words tell me how many calories I am using, how close my heart is to exploding while my pulse defies medical science, how hot I am and what a fat-boy I have become.  Meanwhile, my own personal wafer-thin health-and-safety executive hangs around in her lycra, making sure I don’t die on the premises. I was quite surprised she didn’t make me wear a cycle helmet! Gleefully she informs me that, if I am going skiing, I should do some ball exercises! I’ve no idea what they are and I’ve been too scared to go back again to find out!

As we are heading to colder climes, the subject of winter-wear raises its ears above the parapet once more. Last summer, on possibly the hottest day of the year, I purchased an excellent winter coat, at a discount from a down-on-his-luck trader at an agricultural show. Wendy was with me at the time and I tried to persuade her to do the same. But no, she didn’t need a new coat – then. Strangely though, now it is minus 5 outside, she does. So off we go to the January sales, northwards into deepest Scotland to a shop called the House of Bruar. Those of a country pursuit persuasion may have heard of this place which is like the clothing equivalent of Fortnam and Masons.   Prince Charles shops there, apparently.  And Donald Trump. Not unlike F&M, they don’t lower themselves to such vulgarities as winter sales. I should have been put off by their slogan on the door which said, ‘.. if you have to ask the price, then b*gger-off to Primark!’  We now have a ‘his and hers’ country look. His: cheap and practical – hers: looks good with heels! Sadly, the winnings from our subsequent day at the races didn’t even manage to pay for the fuel to get there, let alone the jacket.

A tree is for life, not just for Christmas!

While glancing at the credits at the end of Masterchef on TV one evening recently, the words ‘sustainable fish list’ caught my eye, causing me to rush to Google. This latest fad is seemingly the aquatic equivalent of advising us to ‘drink responsibly’ and is designed to make the consumer feel guilty buying perfectly legal everyday things in a bid to save a planet that they are unable to manage. On the BBC website, an extensive list of endangered fish includes just about everything that can swim underwater. Cod, haddock, salmon, prawns, tinned tuna, they are all up there on the no-no scale, turning our every seafood meal into an ecological disaster. And woe-betide us if we dare to push the boat out with halibut, sole or monkfish. We might as well break into the Sea-life Centre and machine-gun all the dolphins! Towards the end of the list, though, we do get a little respite in the fact that we could, should we wish, eat Gurnard or squid as a sustainable substitute. Excuse me, what’s poor old Bernard the Gurnard done to get itself on the hit-list? Isn’t the thing unfortunate enough to look like something from a Ridley Scott movie, without us chasing it around the high seas just so we can brag about how ‘cuisinely responsible’ we are being. And as for squid, well thanks. Why don’t I just eat my dog’s rubber bone and be done with? What a load of pollocks?

And then there is all the political nonsense with the damn Xmas tree. How dare we chop down a poor defenceless tree minding its own business in a forest in Scotland? You villainous axe murderer, you! You should have bought one in B&Q for three hundred quid, made of plastic by slaves in a third world country earning sixpence a year, and then keep it until the end of eternity in the attic. Where’s the economic advantage in that?! Surely a fresh one every year creates far more jobs, as well as doing wonders for the vacuum cleaner industry?  A tree is not for life, it’s just for Christmas!

Isn’t it quite amazing the things you discover when you are not looking for them? A crumpled business card turned up in an old coat pocket for a contact I have been trying to track for ages. Then I accidentally learn that Wendy and I are both self-confessed oenophiles  - the scientific name for wine-lovers, apparently. Lastly, but much more to my horror, that no words in the English language rhyme with month, orange, silver or purple. This I found out while writing up some verse recently – 200 verses to be precise, all about a small lamb called Daisy Death-Wish. Despite being a writer for nearly 4 years, the English language still never ceases to amaze me, unless of course it is written by Americans who can’t spell!

And while on that subject, I recently bought a new laptop running Microsoft Windows 8. And it is crap. Nothing works like it did before, everything is American - and I can’t even get my emails anymore! The reason for the latter is that I now have extra built-in security to protect myself from acts of terrorism, whether I want it or not. It’s no longer satisfactory to be myself and let other people send me mail. No, Norton-Macafee-FortNoks will all need to read my mail first and send it via the FBI in case it contains coded messages that might endanger the US military! Except that they won’t understand my English spelling when they skeptically analize my humor! Incidentally, the American language even has a variation of the English word mediæval which I find quite amusing, as while the British were busying themselves during that period with marauding and beating peasants, Americans were still living in tree-houses!

I wish it could be Christmas every day....

My dog, Louis, is not clever – this is a known fact. So when he starts jumping up and down at 2pm in anticipation of his dinner, which he never has until 6pm, I do my best to console him about the impending 4 hour wait. By 5pm, he reaches fever-pitch, and spends the next hour barking at the cupboard door. But then the real problem arises in that he wolfs it down so fast that it is over in 5 seconds and the only thing he has left to look forward to is breakfast.

This is very much how I view Christmas – as a nation builds such deranged expectation on one day full of woeful anti-climax.

So, I have an idea.  Why don’t we have Christmas every 3 months? Or even make it a monthly event. Let’s face it, its religious anchoring has long been lost in the annuls of greed. With enough back-handers, I am sure the Conservative party could swing it through parliament. That way I wouldn’t have to scream when the whole TV gets taken over by Xmas adverts for things that I don’t want, as they would be on all year round and I would surely get used to ignoring them!  Simon Cowell could rehash endless Christmas number ones while we just wheel out the fake tree and some tinsel each third Monday in the month, grab a turkey sandwich and a glass of Astpi for lunch, and then get on with our lives, safe in the knowledge that it was not really worth getting excited about! The BBC could show repeats of everything we saw last month on a looped tape and the Queen could tell us that it was a tough month but the next one would be much better if we all spared a thought for those in poorer parts of her Empire. Then, if we chose to ignore the whole thing and hide under a blanket, nobody would get too upset, as there would always be next month’s to look forward to, along with three weeks of turkey curry. That’s where you’ll find me, anyway.

On the subject of TV ads, which tends to be my bugbear this time of year since the winter drives me indoors, am I the only one who fears that product placement has gone way, way too far? It seems that some companies no longer just have advertisements between the programmes but actually have programmes of their own. Yes, BBC4 have stooped to a new low, by giving high street stores their own shows, in return for large sums of money. In fact one despicable store, whose name I refuse to patronise even in this modest publication, has its own whole TV series, which it can use for as much product placement and self promotion as it wants. Ok, yes, I did watch half an episode, just so that I could rant about it! On it we see its marketing department and sleazy managing director trying to raise themselves and their products back out of the gutter after being caught peddling horsemeat to a whole nation for 20 years. Is there no longer a ruling body that scrutinises this stuff? Instead of being allowed to redeem themselves from such a dastardly and despicable act on national TV, Fridgeland (name changed to protect the polar ice cap) should have been closed down immediately and their MD thrown in jail. Whatever can we expect next? Will Fred Goodwin be offered a weekly show discussing the benefits of pension investments? Or Myra Hindley presenting children’s hour! It’s all gone too far.

By the time this goes to print, we are expecting once again to be in Scotland, suffering quietly from tinselphobia in our bolt-hole by the sea. This year, we have exchanged the tiny drafty cottage that we used to rent for a newly built, if somewhat soulless, apartment in a new built block, near the famous Muirfield golf course. It has gas central heating and all singing toilets which, for some reason, sound like HMS Ark Royal arriving through the fog every time they are flushed. My local plumber says we need to replace the shu-shu valve, but I reckon he may be taking the mickey! In fact, he probably has a mate on the counter at the nearby Know-it-All superstore waiting to ridicule me when I pop in and ask for a new one, so he can announce it over the tannoy and the whole 40 acre shop-floor can share in my shame.  I can hear him now: ‘..the gentleman on till number 5 is looking for a new shu-shu valve, could an assistant please bring one over, along with some left-handed spanners and a glass hammer…!’

As well as being warm - and handy for the golf course and pub - this flat also has another advantage, from a female prospective anyway: FIREMEN. Lots, and lots of them, all rushing around with their sultry good looks and long hoses, right outside our window. Why is it that us men never cotton on to the whole picture, when devious women are concerned? The fact that the block is situated right next to Scotland’s fire college never even crossed my mind, as Wendy enthusiastically signed the purchase deeds. I was hoping for a few quiet months, in which to get some writing done - but no. Now all her mates frequently pop in for coffee, and then shamelessly ogle out of the window, giggling. It’s disgraceful! Would I do the same were it opposite, say, the ladies beach-volleyball training camp? Too damn right! At least the location does present one advantage: When we are back south in the summer, I am considering renting the apartment out to ladies-of-a-certain-age through an advert in Harper’s Bizarre!

I AM John Sharpe

It’s that time of year again, where the daylight goes unnoticed and sleep is rare, while I am tucked away in my little bothy, hammering on the keys. Yes, National Novel Writing month is here again and, once again, I have decided to take part in this global event. Every one of us hundreds of thousand of wannabe writers have their reasons for needing to knock out 50,000 words in one month, each as valid as each other. Mine is quite simple. Currently my day job consists of research and writing for 8-10 hours per day, while I compile a massive history book, on a two year contract. With that and running this old farmhouse, it tends to leave little time for much else, except, of course, drinking.  With a project of that size, I find myself immersed into my own world, day and night, a personal world where nobody else would either understand or care what it entails. I am alone in there - just me and a whole bunch of cows.

So NanoWriMo offers me an escape to another world, although perhaps still not the real one. Now, I have to be someone completely different. Many years ago I did some acting and, to play a part well, you have to image yourself on that person, and become them for as long as the show runs. I feel the same about writing a novel. In the past, most of my 15 or so novels have been fiction, where the mind can run free and the central character does what I tell him to. In fact, in many cases, the protagonist takes over and skips happily through the story, while words appear on the pages as if by magic. But this year is a little different, as my story is a true one, waiting to be told or, at least, dramatised. This is the first time I have ever done this and am finding it damn hard. As the protagonist in real life has since died, and I have only sketchy details of him, I discover that the only way to bring him to the page is to don his shoes and coat, and be John Sharpe for a month. And he is very much, most definitely, not me!

Quiet, calm, clever, resourceful...need I go on, when I describe all the things I am not? Being someone else takes total dedication, probably twice as much as knocking out 50k words of fiction. Each morning, I have to pull on the mask and transform, not unlike Spiderman, except not as exciting and with baggier clothes. My partner thinks I am bonkers as my voice changes to broad glaswegan, my walking pace slows, and I stare at nothing much, saying even less. My dog has since disowned me and visitors think they have the wrong house. Today is day 4, and I am just starting to wake up with the same dreams that I think John Sharpe, an engineer from Aidrie, would have; ones where he achieves his objective of building and flying his own aircraft. Although he is not me, I have come to like him.

Only now we are one, can I proceed towards the goal of this exercise and get his story written, as it needs to be, within the allocated timescale. It will probably only sell one copy, to his grandson, but who knows, he might send it to the BBC so that the man can be immortalised in cellulite.

Strange, really, for once writing a book for an unselfish reason.