Contains: What to do with Donald Trump in Scotland, how to honeymoon like Outlander, and bye bye Boris
A version of this appeared in the Scottish Daily Mail on July 10 2018
Over the weekend, I was down on the Ayrshire Riviera, where the weather was gloriously cloudless, except for regular swarms of private helicopters overhead apparently scoping out the best routes for Donald Trump when the American president arrives in Scotland at the weekend for the private leg of his UK trip.
Unfortunately he won’t be meeting Nicola Sturgeon while he’s here because there’s a useful conversation to be had about the jobs promised to locals by Mr Trump’s golf courses as part of their planning applications, particularly in Menie.
However, as members of the UK cabinet fall on their swords, you can’t help wondering whether there’s going to be anyone left in the UK government to welcome his arrival either. At this rate, he could end up at Blenheim Palace on Thursday night to find the keys under the mat, and a Post-It note on the kitchen door saying “Help yourself to milk and cereal.”
We do know that Trump and his wife Melania will meet the Queen — although this seems to be a very brief encounter, timed to stop him saying anything racist, anything nice about Russian dictators currently poisoning British citizens, or describing to her Majesty anything he enjoyed doing on that Hollywood Access tape.
By Friday night the Trumps will be on their way to Scotland, although his plans for the weekend have been short on detail. However a trip from Prestwick to his golf resort in Turnberry seems on the cards.
No chance of cooling off with a refreshing glass of our other national drink on arrival though: White House diplomacy hit a new low when it emerged that Turnberry had banned the sale of Irn-Bru on its premises, amidst fears about the indelibility of its orange-staining properties.
Who knows whether Turnberry is equipped to deal with a trail of orange tanning cream on their linens, but conspiracy theorists must already be discussing the possibility that the real reason Turnberry has taken against our best-selling drink is because it could open up an awkward conversation about President Trump’s own close resemblance to a bottle of Bru.
With just 36 hours of downtime, what will Donald do in the land of his mother’s birth? Obviously, he could get better acquainted with Scottish culture — a two night-long diplomatic obstacle course that offers both opportunity and peril for a president eager to change the subject as the scandal over his policy of separating young migrant children from their families rages at home.
In Scotland, he could visit Edinburgh’s Dynamic Earth glacier, and learn that Global Warming actually is a reality, or perhaps make a pilgrimage to Burns Cottage in Alloway, despite giving the rest of the world that President Trump is more of an admirer of Charles Montgomery Burns, from The Simpsons.
At the very least it means that President Trump will have plenty of time to go souvenir shopping.
Let’s hope that someone points him in the direction of CU Jimmy bunnets. They always go down well with the folks back home because, as we all know, orange wigs are hilarious. Oh!
Beware, fellow runners. Every single seagull in town has had a chick and they are all fantastically irritable at the moment. They are also using my roof as a maternity ward.
After winning the Audience award at the Edinburgh Film Festival, Almost Fashionable: A Film About Travis is set to play cinemas all over the world, showcasing the bestselling cheery Glasgow strummers and their back catalogue of plangent songs featuring plenty of big acoustic guitars and lyrics about rain, or feeling a bit sad when sexy girls don’t fancy you.
Directed by the band’s singer-songwriter, Fran Healy, the documentary pivots around a critic who finds Travis a bit dull, so he’s invited to tour Mexico with them. Meanwhile I’m slightly put out that I seem to have missed out on a trip to Mexico.
How disappointing that Boris Johnson, David Davis and Steve Baker resigned on Sunday and Monday, instead of during the Brexit showdown at Chequers, when they might have been stripped of their ministerial limos and forced to wander around Buckinghamshire looking for a hire car. It could have been The Night of the Long Drives…
You can tell Scottish food is a true delicacy because, like olives, oysters and pig’s trotters, it’s something of an acquired taste. Yet tablet is probably the first thing I cooked without supervision — a pulsating brown lava made from sugar, vanilla, butter and condensed milk
Making tablet doesn’t have many steps, or indeed many ingredients, although anything involving melted sugar demands lots of stirring, attention to detail and, ideally, an actual recipe.
The almost zen-like patience involved in making confectionary is hard to communicate in our microwavable times; chucking a load of ingredients into the pan and hoping for the best is not enough, although admittedly most of my tablet was created by overboiling an old fudge recipe until it turned into sandy, crumbly trays of weaponised sugar.
Now the Scottish government’s Minister for Children and Young People has been castigated for posting her tablet recipe on Twitter, just days after the SNP announced a crackdown on sugary foods.
Is Maree Todd a hypocrite? I don’t think so: there is a difference between an MSP sharing the recipe used to create a gift for children in care, and a campaign against junk food in supermarkets. Clearly, there are good intentions at work and her tablet is supposed to be an occasional treat to be consumed in moderation — I defy anyone to consume a solid tray of the stuff any other way, unless you are chasing a sugar-high that allows you to smell time.
50 Shades of Tartan: Outlander fans can now relive their favourite highland romance in a Dean Village flat.
Airbnb in Edinburgh are offering an apartment that has lovingly recreated the quarters where our heroes Jamie and Claire enjoyed their 18th century honeymoon.
There’s a Lallybroch trunk, paraffin lamps and even a warrior’s long-sword, in case you need something to cut the wedding cake after tying the knot.
Of course, if couples really want to conjure the spirit of 1745, their lovenest would strip out fancypants accessories such as running water, electricity or an inside toilet.
The alcove bedding would be stuffed with straw — take it from me, romantic couples, there are more comfortable beds in Barlinnie — and as dusk spreads its fingers across your bolthole, you could end up sharing your marital happiness with a couple of cows, some sheep and a goat across the way.
Still, candlelight can be romantic, even if your loved one is shivering in bed as if they have the ague, forcing you to fend off the services of a doctor with a bucket of leeches.
And it could be worse: at least it hasn’t occurred to other Outlandish fans to re-enact some of the E4 series’ infamous jail scenes.
In 2011, the SNP promised to scrap the council tax. Seven years later, they appear to be seriously be considering ending its single person discount. In other words, a widowers and single parent’s tax: a sure-fire winner.
