Duncan Harley

What a state the place is in. As an election looms, yet another presidential visit is on the cards and the media is replete with tales of blue-blooded transgressions. You have to hand it to the Royals. When they are up, they are up, and when they are down, they are down. And when they are only halfway up, they are neither up nor down. Somewhat famously, Meghan is at odds with Associated Newspapers over claims that her tiny rural cottage @ Frogmore suffered renovations funded by the tax-payer to the tune of one cheap as chips copper bath plus the small matter of £500k worth of sound-insulation targeted at those nasty proles over at Heathrow. You can’t put a value on a good night’s sleep after all. Meanwhile Andrew is suffering memory loss over allegations of unsubstantiated impropriety with a seventeen-year-old Floridian in some lost year or other. He obviously needs to check with his press-secretary regarding his movements during the year in question. Surely it can’t be that ...

The news that Glasgow Caledonian University has a new chancellor naturally fills me with Aberdonian pride. Not that I am from the granite city, or indeed the fair city of Glasgow; but I am sure that the Eurhythmics lady will do a sterling job and I wish her good luck.  I met the woman in some far off year or so at Haddo House. She had fund-raised something about the then Arts Trust and was keen to promote the struggling theatre venue. I recall that she gave a short speech before advising listeners that “Yooose bastards had better not fuck it all up and I’m telling you you'd better not!” – or something splendidly similar. It was a long time ago and I may have gotten one expletive mixed up with another. Some Royals who were present for the Lennox speech left early in a fit of embarrassment despite the promise of champagne. In some ways, Annie’s Haddo tirade reminded me of Taggart star Mark McManus’s appearance at a long-forgotten trade fair in the Aviemore complex some decad...