Press release: Celtic Festival "A Success"

Embargoed until 9pm 17 July.

The 2009 Hebridean Celtic Festival has been described as another outstanding success by Dr Alasdair Allan.

“This is the third Festival delivered under an SNP Government – something that Labour refused to do in office – and I it is the best yet.

“The lesson to be learned from this event is that an independent Scotland could show the world that we can nurture, produce and export world-beating artistes such as Africa Umbongo, the Vancouver Barbershop Quartet, Nova Scotia’s Flying Maraccas Sisters and the lilting Cajun sounds of Swedish thrash-metal combo ÜberDěathFuЖ, who sang in Swedish Gaelic.

“I spent the week in the Big Top (Kenny, check this is right) shaking my funky thang to the beats and getting down with the kids (Kenny!).

“It was heartening to see the youth of Lewis coming together - sharing their herbal cigarettes, anti-malarial tablets and bottles of Old McGregors 3-year-old Loch Portain Sump Oil “One dram will have you sailing” at the back of the tent behind the healthy-eating burger stalls, and just out of sight of the bouncers and the Police.

“The continued success of the festival was in no small measure to the good word I put in to Mr Alex about how good it was, and to the involvement of Mr Angus in providing musical support to the artistes.

“Mr Angus was able to explain to an audience of young female performers how he wrote his first symphony aged 3 before retiring from performing aged 10, having filled Carnegie Hall for a record 419 nights in a row.

“Mr Angus was utterly dedicated to the cause, working late into the night and all the way into the early morning; offering to show all the young females his fingering technique, and he was last seen trying to arrange private lessons in a local hotel room.

“The organisers and attendees should remember that the continuing success of the Festival is entirely dependant upon voting correctly at coming elections, and we have their names and details on file.

Visiting Constituents

Kenny can barely contain his excitement, spluttering through a mackerel jalfresi that I’ve been invited to meet my most remote constituent:

“Dear Dr Allan” it quite precisely began,

I am your most remote constituent and I would be grateful if you would come and see me. I have enclosed a ticket and a timetable to make it even easier for you.

I am currently working in a herring research lab in South Georgia, and if you catch the plane to Buenos Aires from Balivanich International, you will arrive just in time for us to have a meeting just before I finish my six-month shift.

Unfortunately, I cannot afford a return ticket, but you can wait here until the next plane returns with me. I look forward to seeing you soon.

Donald J MacSween (no relation)

Sadly the invitation clashes with my visit to St Kilda, and I have been reading up on the islands in my I-Spy Book of Uninhabitable Places. The islands are named after the town in Australia where the first settlers set sail in wooden Coracles in the 1300’s. When they landed on the Scottish islands they knew that they had found paradise, only with limited food supplies, horrendous weather and no human contact.

One of their number blessed the islands, and at that moment the SNP symbol appeared in the sky pointing them towards safety and Salmond Bay, where they landed and were attacked by giant rats. Within literally decades the settlers had killed and eaten the rats and driven out all the snakes, except for the deadly Qinetiq Asp.

There are five islands: Hoist, Seachd: The Inaccessible Pinnacle, The Old Man of Lochnagar, Tristan de Cunha and Fraggle Rock. It is on the latter that we will stay, living in the wild, with only our wits and our basic supplies to keep us alive. Like the former residents (who were murdered by Labour for voting SNP in the 1945 elections) we will have to scale the dangerous and perilous cliffs of Mordor to get our every provision in a precarious battle for survival.

At the base of the precipice lies our encampment, blown by the wind from three directions, and sheltered from the North. The high winds often catch unwary sheep and blow them down the North face reaching up to 100 miles per hour before they crash into buildings, people and even the sea. The sheep seem to enjoy the experience – one of Kenny’s favourite phrases – and can be seen making their way to the most exposed ridge in some kind of ovine extreme sport.

Huddled around open fires to keep warm, when we are not in the Holiday Inn, Village Bay, the smell of the cooking from the Military Base and the bar in the Puff Inn will mean that we will undoubtedly climb into the Land Rover for the trip to the top.

I will be travelling with the National Trust for Scotland who are there to try to drive out the remaining Qinetiq’s asp, representing as they do, the *British* Army and our job is to sympathetically beat these snakes to death and cast them into the sea. Obviously this might have an impact on some of my voters, so I am going in disguise myself in a low-profile mission about which I will make sure that there is no publicity.

Prior to leaving, Kenny has booked me into the British Legion, Balivanich, or as I prefer to call it, the Dark Island Hotel.

Kenny has thoughtfully provided some basic supplies from The Star of Skigersta Indo-Chino take-away including Rogan Josh Greylag Goose, Sweet’n’sour Guga, Hedgehog Tandoori and a portion of Red-throated Diver Chow Mein.

With any luck, by the time I return the hated *British* Army will be expelled from the islands forever, with no effect on my majority.