Local News For Local People

I may live in Edinburgh now, but this wasn't always the case. Once upon a happenstance, before I lost my youthful good looks to become a cynical city slicker, twas the simple town of Blairgowrie that I called home.

The other week, I went back to the 'gowrie to house sit for my parents, who had absconded to the late 1950s (or Cuba, as it is also known). It seemed like a good opportunity to sit and write the first of those 12 books in 12 months, un-impinged by the trappings of metropolitan life.

Nice idea, but of course it didn't work. My folks have all the good TV channels, for one thing. And for another, Blairgowrie is home to some of the best journalism known to man. I ask you, dear reader, how could I possibly concentrate on my own work once I heard of the plight of the Blairgowrie Beavers?!!



For your information, Eric the Ericht Beaver - so called because he was found in the River Ericht, do you see? That's a river in Blairgowrie - was REMOVED from said river and evilly IMPRISONED (they genuinely used the word 'imprisoned' in the article) by Edinburgh Zoo. And some people got peeved and decided to get Eric back, so there was a dramatic prison break which you undoubtedly heard about in Reporting Scotland. Except not really. But what did happen was that the intrepid reporters at the Blairie threw their full weight behind the Scottish Wild Beaver Group's campaign against the trapping of beavers on local rivers.

Which is great and everything, but one of the ways they are doing this is by having T-Shirts made with the slogan HANDS OFF OUR BEAVERS.

Seriously?! Are they genuinely that far behind in terms of modern slang? How has NOBODY told them what a ridiculous thing that is to put on a T-Shirt?

Having said that, I'll be buying at least three.



P.S. For a slightly less incredulous look at the actual issue, see Suitably Despairing.