Come all now and listen to me, and in prose Shakespearean
For upon the Sabbath day the Hebrides you cannot travel
Not even if you were to say please and grovel.
Rev Iain D Campbell, of the Lord's Day Observance Society,
Well known throughout the land for his piety
Said: "None of us have the absolute right to come and go from the island whenever and however we wish."
Which is a denial of basic rights, not to mention a load of pish.
A seven-day service would bring social and economic benefits to the islands
And let them compete with the rest of the highlands
Sunday travel should be a matter of individual choice.
And only those that wish to, will listen to the Wee, Free voice.
Conan im all for tradition being kept up but holding 32,000 people to ransom on the islands every Sunday is not on. Its bazzar but if the locals want it then thats fine but if not then the ferry must sail.
ReplyDeleteI prefer my Sunday with all the shops shut nobody working(unless for double time and a day of in lieu).
ReplyDeletePub's only open 12 till 2 pm last orders Ding!Ding! out by half past off home for me roast beef...
mum and spend time with the Children and visting family
"Work as if you live in the early days of a better nation."
Quoting a Scottish Nationalist Niko? Good for you.
ReplyDeleteIf there was nobody working, there would be no power, no pub, no visiting...
An ode to Brownlie Conan :) Of course if he wants to go on the golf course ...
ReplyDeleteI'm with Niko - gies some piece!
ReplyDeleteGood poesy BTW Conan.
ReplyDeleteConan,
ReplyDeleteSo you're drifting more to Shakespeare than McGonnigal - what a "quisling". I feel, in my capacity as Pedantic Pete, that you should be aware that your heading says "The walking-stick will come". There's an accent over the first "a" if you're referring to a boat.
Access to a Sunday ferry would enable me to have one day longer for all my holidays and enable me to travel on quieter roads but those who take the Bible literally have other ideas.
I suspect that the Reverend must be like one of the pulpit-pounders which were prevalent in my youth. I can still remember one, who would make Paisley sound like Larry Grayson, shouting from the pulpit "You are all sinners and will spend eternity in the flames and brimstones of hell and there will be weeping and wailing and gnashing of teeth". I remember thinking, "bloody hell, I'm only seven and have not even starting sinning yet and yet this guy's condemning me. I don't fancy this gnashing so I must go to the dentists and get all my teeth extracted". For some reason, the congregation called him "Happy Norman". I'm also frightened to look up "brimstone" in the dictionary.
I think he was the same preacher who shouted after the Psalm singing "You're verry quiet, there's some hoor singing, and some hoor not".
The same minister used to give stark warnings about fornication - whatever that is - on a Sunday and there was a wee rhyme
"No frolics on the Sunday bed,
you'll have to hold your own instead"
In my childhood they used to seperate the cockerels from the hens in case there was any hanky panky on the Lord's day on the basis that hens could not read the ten commandments.
Thankfully, things have changed and the cocks can do what they want on Sundays.
Brownlie, I can understand your strict criterion
ReplyDeleteBut *you* try and find a word that rhymes with presbyterian
Interesting stuff about cocks and fornication
Thinking about a walking stick that comes
I'll take my valediction...
Conan,
ReplyDeleteSorry I meant to stick the word "brilliant" somewhere in my reply but got diverted by fornication etc etc. Strangely enough, there's a bar called the Criterion in Stornoway but not very strict as I had my first pint in a pub there when I was a young sprog. Spooks probably thinks Hibernian rhymes with presbyterian!