Subtle as a Ram Raid

Posted on August 19, 2011 by davidsberry

The Hootsmon has its faults but today’s piece from David Maddox on government debt could not be more timely, coming, as it does, on the back of the worst day for the FTSE for three years. To say that investors are serene at the prospect of a double-dip recession is to say the unions are relaxed about public sector budget reductions: it just ain’t so.

Nothing so characterised Labour dominated CoSLA and its Scottish council members through the late nineties & early noughties as their ‘dugs-at-broth’ enthusiasm for the most reprehensible wheeze that Chancellor Brown and his Treasury mandarins ever came up with: the Public-Private Partnership (PPP), more recently rebranded as the Private Finance Initiative (PFI).

That the enthusiasm with which the 1997-2010 Labour governments embraced this Tory concept was not drowned out by the noise of John Maclean, Bevan and Atlee spinning in their graves came as a shock to me. But when you look at the sheer advantage at local level—schools, libraries, hospitals being built and the real cost landing years down the road, what “see whit ah’ve done fur yez” councillor wouldn’t fall over one another to pass the necessary resolution through city hall to take credit for a split-new Auchenshoogle Community Centre.

As an idea to involve private finance in providing public buildings, it has some merit. But, as a vehicle to shift public borrowing off the books and claim that the debt does not show on national statistics, it is voodoo economics of the worst kind. It is the equivalent of the fifties’ ‘never-never’ when working people got their first telly or decent sofa or fridge on the agreement to pay for it over five years. After three it was worn out…but the payments were still due.

Bad enough that this subterfuge was foisted on a buoyant economy—such as Chancellor Brown seemed to have achieved when he ‘banished boom and bust’ through his ‘fiscal prudence’. Aye, right. But the unravelling of foundation-less fiscal cloud-cuckoo-lands like junk mortgage’ products that laid HBOS, RBS, Northern Rock, Bradford & Bingley—not to mention Lehman Bros—low in 2007-8 has piled public debt higher than in the worst days of wartime when the once-mighty UK almost went broke.

But this PFI gubbins is still lurking in the background. Nobody at Westminster has had the nerve to point to this particularly translucent suit that Emperors Brown & Darling passed on to Emperor Osborne. The ‘financial difficulties’ of 2007-8 with which we are wrestling revolve around the £160bn extra debt the UK swallowed to bale out the (still-shoogly) banks. Taking the PFI debt out of the closet puts that number closer to £200bn.

It’s never pleasant to shed imaginative, ethereal gossamer attire and pull on a hair shirt. But it’s time the UK government stopped ignoring this major component of our pain—and the Labour party showed some spine and admitted that its profligacy has made this whole mess that much worse than it needed to be.

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Nothing New Under the Sun

Posted on August 18, 2011 by davidsberry

Young whippersnappers with no memories of the sixties may think that ‘new’ politics—in which politicians live from spin and from answering any question but the one asked—derive from the Blair government and from hidden spin doctors like Alastair Campbell, forever blackberrying spokespeople into being eternally ‘on-message’.

Such whippersnappers are also unlikely to have heard of Hunter S. Thompson, subject of Terry Gilliam’s misguided 1998 stab at capturing his eccentricities in Fear & Loathing in Las Vegas and of Alex Gibney’s penetrating 2008 documentary Gonzo: the Life & Times of Dr Hunter S. Thompson. He provided the model for the ever-outrageous “Duke” in Gary Trudeau’s internationally syndicated cartoon saga Doonesbury. But he knew a thing or two about politics and what drove the people who chose to be in it.

Eleven US Presidential campaigns before this one, Thompson wrote an excoriating, insightful piece on the then-Presidential-hopeful, Richard Nixon. This was pre-Vietnam and pre-Watergate. But Thompson’s style of ‘gonzo’ journalism got to the heart of Nixon and demonstrated that—in politics, as with so much else in human endeavour—there is nothing new under the sun. The excerpts below are from the July 1968 issue of Pageant (pp. 6 – 16). (Pageant was an up-market version of People that went out of business)

“No interview with Richard Nixon will end until he refers to himself, at least once, as a “political man.” His opponents, by implication, are mere “politicians.” Especially the man Nixon plans to defeat this November. . . for the Presidency of the United States.

“So it was with a sense of morbid curiosity that I went to New England not long ago to check on “the real Richard Nixon.” Not necessarily the “new Nixon,” or even the newest model of the old “new Nixon,” who is known to the press corps that follows him as “Nixon Mark IV.” My assignment was to find the man behind all these masks, or maybe to find that there was no mask at all — that Richard Milhous Nixon, at age 55, was neither more nor less than what he appeared to be — a plastic man in a plastic bag, surrounded by hired wizards so cautious as to seem almost plastic themselves. . . These political handlers were chosen this time for their coolness and skill for only one job: to see that Richard Nixon is the next President of the United States.

“The major polls and surveys in the country suggest that Nixon may be right, despite the outraged howls of all those voters who insist that a choice between Nixon and Johnson is no choice at all. Sen. Eugene McCarthy has called it “a choice between obscenity and vulgarity.” Yet McCarthy is the political heir of Adlai Stevenson, who said that “People get the kind of government they deserve.” If this is true, then 1968 is probably the year in which the great American chicken will come home to roost. . . either for good or for ill.

Richard Nixon has never been one of my favorite people, anyway. For years I’ve regarded his very existence as a monument to all the rancid genes and broken chromosomes that corrupt the possibilities of the American Dream; he was a foul caricature of himself, a man with no soul, no inner convictions, with the integrity of a hyena and the style of a poison toad. The Nixon I remembered was absolutely humorless; I couldn’t imagine him laughing at anything except maybe a paraplegic who wanted to vote Democratic but couldn’t quite reach the lever on the voting machine.

“After 1960, though, I no longer took him seriously. Two years later he blew his bid for the governorship of California and made it overwhelmingly clear that he no longer took himself seriously — at least not as a politician. He made a national ass of himself by blaming his defeats on the “biased press.” He called a press conference and snarled into the microphone: “You won’t have Dick Nixon to kick around anymore, because, gentlemen, this is my final press conference.”

There is no avoiding the fact that Richard Nixon would not be running for President in 1968 if John Kennedy hadn’t been assassinated five years earlier. . . and if the GOP hadn’t nominated Barry Goldwater in 1964. . . which guaranteed the election of Lyndon Johnson, who has since done nearly everything wrong and botched the job so that now even Nixon looks good beside him.

“The situation is so obvious that Nixon, “the political man,” can’t resist it. And who can blame him for taking his luck where he finds it? He’s back on the “fast track” that he likes to talk about, with the Presidency to gain and nothing at all to lose. He’s obviously enjoying this campaign. It’s a bonus, a free shot, his last chance to stand eyeball to eyeball again with the high rollers.

“Even before the votes were counted in New Hampshire, GOP strategists said Nixon had already gathered more than 600 of the 667 votes he would need to win the nomination. There is no denying his fine understanding of the American political process. I went to New Hampshire expecting to find a braying ass, and I came away convinced that Richard Nixon has one of the best minds in politics. He understands problems very quickly; you can almost hear his brain working when he’s faced with a difficult question. He concentrates so visibly that it looks like he’s posing, and his answer, when it flows, will nearly always be right, for the situation — because Nixon’s mind is programmed, from long experience, to cope with difficult situations. The fact that he often distorts the question — and then either answers it dishonestly or uses it to change the subject — is usually lost in the rhetoric.

“The “new Nixon” is a very careful man when it comes to publicity; he smiles constantly for the cameras, talks always in friendly platitudes, and turns the other cheek to any sign of hostility. His press relations are “just fine,” he says, and if anyone mentions that “final press conference” he held in 1962, Nixon just smiles and changes the subject. He is making a conscious effort to avoid antagonizing reporters this time, but he is still very leery of them. His staffers sometimes join reporters in the bar, but never Nixon. He neither drinks nor smokes, they say, and bars make him nervous. Humphrey Bogart would have taken a dim view of Nixon. It was Bogart who said, “You can’t trust a man who doesn’t drink.” And it was Raoul Duke who said, “I’d never buy a used car from Nixon unless he was drunk.””

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Fringe Gets its Feet Wet

Posted on August 15, 2011 by davidsberry

OK, this was the fourth Fringe by the Sea event but this was the first one to face obstacles beyond its control in the shape of some of the worst mid-summer weather in memory. The week prior, the UK Topper Championship had been completed, despite being becalmed in two days of stair-rod rain and the Saturday just prior, North Berwick Highland Games was lucky to get its programme mostly done before the heavens opened.

But the thrawn weather continued into FbtS and a couple of days of biblical rain stotting off the pavements kept some at home and outdoor benches deserted. But the show, as tradition has it, went on. Indeed, starting with Fat Sam’s band and continuing through Eddi Reader, Fish, Capercaille, Ali Bain et al, each event was stowed out and those in the (bigger) Spiegeltent especially exuding a rare buzz from great performances in a cosy howf with room to shoe-horn in 600 dead-keen fans.

Fringe by the Sea HQ Spiegeltent, Food/Bar tent and Sitooterie

If there was an event that failed to pull a crowd—including the outdoor Walk the Toun—then I failed to spot it. And fine days like the Tuesday and the final weekend, the sun brought the crowds were in force. They spilled over into the town and parallel events, like the RNLI raft race around the West Bay.

Saturday's Raft Race base on the West Links

The sellout performance of Phil Cunningham and Aly Bain was a fitting ending to what had been a vintage event, now grown from 14 to almost seventy events that covered authors, comedy, children, dance, choirs and open mike sessions as well as the main ‘name’ acts. Eric and John—the pair that started all this—looked absolutely shattered by Sunday’s close. But they and their core organising team, plus the army of local ‘crew’ volunteers who manned the events, deserve huge praise for pulling off yet another smash event—this time achieving it under truly testing circumstances.

West Beach, North Berwick returns to its customary Sunday evening calm after Fringe by the Sea

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Not Such a Zoo: Still a Jungle

Posted on August 14, 2011 by davidsberry

In the August 2nd blog Are We Nuts Overpaying Monkeys?, some harsh views were expressed about senior council officials in general, although care was taken not to explicitly refer to any council and certainly not to impugn any individual.

Nonetheless, feedback has been received from individuals who felt that they were being referred to as monkeys and, given that we intended no personal slur, to those who felt thus maligned we extend an apology. We also did not wish to give any impression that the private sector garden was all roses either.

The point nonetheless remains that, from what was once a ‘calling’ of public service where council officials were originally poorly paid for their service and generally compensated in this by having a secure job for life and a comfortable pension at the end of it, the substantial hikes in public sector salaries—especially among senior management teams—has resulted in any clear distinction between top salaries in private and top salaries in public bodies of comparable size disappearing when all benefits are considered.

Seen from the lower paid echelons, top salaries in both private and public sectors are both seen as excessive in times of fiscal reductions, especially if they lead to involuntary job losses largely among the lower paid and reductions in public services. If there was a single point to be made by the previous blog, it was this:

Senior public officials in Scotland have enjoyed a decade or more in untrammelled salary growth in a relatively protected environment. Times have changed. The idea that they can continue at their salaries and benefits without demonstrating measurable and substantial efficiency improvements with the public monies in their care is an illusion.

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Hall of Shame: Update I

Posted on August 13, 2011 by davidsberry

On July 19th, we published our consolidated Hall of Shame list of those councillors in Scotland we felt had brought real shame to their public calling by improper, ignoble or otherwise reprehensible actions—whether they had admitted it or whether this had resulted in their losing their jobs or not. In order to grade the seriousness of the offense we had awarded between one and four blots (with no-one blatantly crass and amoral enough to deserve the most serious ‘5-blot’ category).

But solidly in the ☁☁☁☁ category “Substantial or systemic abuse of position or dishonesty conviction” was John Holden, until this week Labour councillor for the Inverness South ward of Highland Council.

John Holden's entry in our Hall of Shame on July 19th of this year

This week John got his comeuppance when he was given the maximum sentence possible of a year in jail at Inverness Sheriff Court. This means that he will be disqualified automatically from continuing as a councillor. A former labourer and union official, he was suspended by the Labour Party when the case came to light.  He was found guilty of falsely claiming £34,000 income support, council tax benefit of £6,925.24 and single occupancy of more than £2,309.73.

But he had lived for long periods with Mary Ewan, who later became his wife, and had amassed savings of about £250,000 during the period in question, between 2002 and 2008. Some of the most damning evidence about his living arrangements came from his own son.

In pronouncing sentence, Sheriff Ian Abercrombie said: “You are a liar and a cheat. You have deliberately and repeatedly lied to protect your undisclosed income over a number of years, the scale of which is simply breathtaking.”

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Inglorious Twelfth

Posted on August 12, 2011 by davidsberry

Covering most of Scotland north of the Highland Line (other than East Aberdeenshire), heather moors cover 67% of our country. According to the Moorland Association: “grouse shooting is now the only significant income earner there which is not heavily subsidised by the taxpayer. It provides the ‘economic engine’ to pay for conservation management and to maintain employment in remote rural areas.” Oh, aye.

Grouse shooting in England & Wales bags about £70m a year for the local economy, based on £150 a brace of birds shot. Data for Scotland is much harder to come by, in part because the Moorland Forum is much more a conservation operation than the openly hunter-oriented Moorland Association and Moorland Scotland has no website at present.

According to Robert Rattray, partner at sporting agency CKD Galbraith the take-up for grouse shooting this season had been “particularly strong” despite the poor weather hitting bird numbers. “We expect an influx of visitors to Scotland with teams of grouse shooters looking to spend on average £10,000 to £15,000 for a day’s shooting. Grouse shooting is a vital part of our fragile rural economy, with the grouse industry as a whole in Scotland valued at £30m and supporting some 950 full time jobs.”

Over 2/3rds of Scotland’s 78,000 sq. km. are classed as the “grasses and rough grazing” of these moorlands. Let’s leave aside the whole overhanging question of the Clearances that created these great empty estates in the first place, what is the actual opportunity cost of dedicating most of the country to grouse, deer and pheasant hunting? We will also leave aside the ongoing carnage among predators, even though the scale of shooting, poisoning or otherwise eradicating sea eagles, red kites, kestrels, etc. from estates verges on the criminal and just consider the environmental and economic impact.

The great. bleak glens of Cairngorm or Morvern are not natural. The original inhabitants did for the original Caledonian forest but three hundred years of deer over-stocking and stalking have ensured that it can’t regenerate. Add in that grouse need open heather to nest and the treeless, windswept character of most estates is a logical outcome. Now, whether Assynt or Lewis could ever be more than a wilderness of peat hags is not the point. Great swathes of the Highlands (not to mention the Southern Uplands) have been planted with equally bleak and uniform blankets of conifers.

However misguided, this proves that the land is nowhere near worthless for other uses, something the eyeless skeletons of villages from Mull to Bettyhill provide eloquent, if mute, testament. And with bracken spreading its poisonous presence across the more fertile open areas, all evidence is that this is an ecology out of balance, geared to private estates benefitting from a couple of overstocked species while taking up most of the country. And that for some £30m in income in a country with a GDP of £124bn. Think about the sheer waste in those numbers: 67% of the country provides 0.02% of the GDP.

Now, I make no claim to be an ecologist but, is it not conceivable that regeneration of the Caledonian forest across huge tracts and reintroduction of lost species like beaver and wolf might not, in itself, provide more jobs and tourism per sq. km., even if some estates were left to cater for those who insist blasting hapless local fauna constitutes civilised recreation? This would also reintroduce the biodiversity we claim to want and, at the same time, provide an organic blanket to buffer this wetter climate so large rainstorms no longer cause so many flood alerts in Perth, Elgin and the like.

Instead of our archaic land laws allowing absentee landlords and our own exclusion from great swathes of our country ‘in season’, we need some draconian measures, incentivising creative and historic restoration to redress the present ludicrous imbalance between Central Belt and deserted glen populations. This, in turn would be an economic shot in the arm to Highland & Island businesses, bringing with it transport improvements and more competitive pricing so that Mullachs, etc. need not pay £1,50 per litre for fuel.

Unlike most other attractions that bring many people to visit Scotland, over 95% of native Scots will never get near a grouse moor—with those that do likely to be chased off. There is a reek of class and unearned privilege about the whole business. Why it should dominate our country for a measly £30m in forelock-tugging income straight out of another era eludes me entirely.

£30m is what people in Highlands & Islands pay EXTRA in petrol costs (over & above elsewhere) just to live where they do amidst this massive waste of national resources.

Regenerated Caledonian Forest: Image courtesy of Trees for Life

 

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Recipe for Lemonade

Posted on August 11, 2011 by davidsberry

Just got off the phone with an old friend in the States who is anguishing about the decline in his pension investments, which he makes himself in the US stock market. After several weeks of jittery action and vertiginous movements in the Dow, I can understand the anguish but I did what I could to persuade him that Armageddon had not yet arrived.

Some may consider this just foolish optimism on my part. After all, the world is still struggling to recover from the 2008 financial implosion, profligate PIGS countries are teetering under mounds of debt, threatening the Euro’s very existence, most major English cities are picking up the pieces from the worst riots since the anti-Thatcher wave in the mid-eighties and Scotland is drowning under a St Swithen’s curse of biblical proportions. What’s to be cheerful about?

My first response would be to agree—in the last two weeks the boat trips I’ve been crewing have been cancelled in good weather because of heavy seas and running only in deluges the other 80% of the time. And yet…

…on the two boat trips that I did crew yesterday through the stair rods churning up the sea, passengers had a great time, half even spurning the cabin cowling providing some shelter to sit out on the seats on deck. They were rewarded by spotting a couple of the few remaining puffins, a glimpse of a whale and a pair of guillemots paddling along in the middle of the parental fishing lesson to this year’s chick. The gannets were, as usual, entirely unfazed by the weather, forming a huge ‘flying circus’ spiral Northwest of the Bass and floating along the East cliff edge in unbelievably dense gliding practice. This year’s gugas are now big as their parents, some already dark with adolescent feathers and only a Mohawk of down signaling they’re not quite ready to leave.

Even a Chinese family, unfamiliar with our birds and struggling with our language came back bubbling with enthusiasm. So, when I trudged through the rain to the Spiegeltent for last night’s concert, I was in a better mood than three weeks of poor weather should have allowed. Then Eddi Reader hit the stage. To say that the 600 of us packed in there enjoyed it is gross understatement. For almost two hours the rapport was intense. Her four-piece band were understated accompaniment to her rich variety of music from rocking, clap-along Perfect to a heartbreaking, definitive rendition of Burns Ae Fond Kiss.

At one point she broke into a long Connolly-esque rambling description of her family singalong, based on memories when she was five. Only if The Broons ever gets made into a musical will you witness such well-observed vignettes of savage Glasgow humour, laced with unbridled passion and expressed in song as Eddi mimicked her aunts varied voices and musical tastes—complete with sharp interruptions and even sharper ripostes. A high-energy criac buzzed around the Spiegeltent long after Eddi and the band had left.

Which left me in a good mood today, despite more relentless rain and cancelled boat trips. I was determined not to be put off doing the first of my Walk the Toun history tour contributions to Fringe by the Sea. But when I arrived early, the few people there were sheltering in the food tent next door and the only tickets arriving were for Maggie O’Farrel’s author chat in the Spiegeltent. I had visions of calling off or having to do the walk for the benefit of one or two: O me of little faith!

By showtime, two dozen people were there and ready. Off we went for our 90-minute jaunt through a thousand years and six reinventions of the town, undaunted by weather, by high tide or by traffic at the many street crossings. Perhaps a quarter of the group were local but everybody kept up, asked searching questions and generally joined in so that it felt more like an outdoor seminar with motivated students than anything else. Such was the engagement that we took a half-hour longer than scheduled and I truly hope they enjoyed the mobile talk as much as I enjoyed giving it.

When you have as fascinating material to work with as North Berwick gives you, it’s hard not to get wrapped up in enthusiasm. But when a whole bunch of people—even if they are largely strangers—get wrapped up with you, then you start to understand how a strong sense of place (and identity with it) goes a long way to combat evils far worse than persistently bad weather that life can throw at you.

When life gives you lemons, such things give you the sweetness to make lemonade.

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Correction: Sirius

Posted on August 9, 2011 by davidsberry

In the Parliamo Politico III blog of February 26th, I cited an example of “Enabling Development”, referring to the incomplete greyhound stadium at Wallyford and citing Sirius as the Developer that had “pocketed the dosh” in connection with the original 100 houses built. I also stated that Sirius had defaulted on their obligation to finish the stadium and provide services to the adjacent business park.

Since then, a major shareholder in the closely held Sirius company has been good enough to take time to explain their side of the matter to me. I now accept that Sirius was not the developer of the homes that were built. The Section 75 planning obligations which Sirius signed up to included completion of the stadium steelwork and provision of utilities for the proposed business park. These obligations were fulfilled, with the understandable exception of running gas services to an empty business park, for health and safety reasons.

I also made comment on Sirius’ attempt to gain consent for a further 94 homes with no “binding commitment” to finish the stadium. I now accept that Sirius was prepared to enter into such a binding commitment to ensure that the funds realised from the sale of this extra land for housing provided for completion of the stadium. I had not appreciated that council policy prohibits legal officials from spending time drafting such commitment if the Planning Department already intends recommending refusal of the application. Since the application had no provision for the business park, as the Local Plan requires, this was the case here. That a binding commitment was unavailable cannot therefore be blamed on Sirius.

I have always believed that building this stadium is desirable and still hope for an acceptable proposal that will allow that. But, because this later application would have eliminated the business park, I remain convinced that the Planning Committee’s refusal, which I supported, was correct. Nonetheless, I regret any implication that Sirius acted with anything less than integrity or with any intent to deceive. I offer my apologies for any distress inaccuracies in my original blog might have caused, especially to those involved with Sirius directly.

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Being Blacked Out

Posted on August 8, 2011 by davidsberry

Regular readers will be used to controversy here—and I hope they believe it’s never just for the sake of it. But even those should hold on to their hats as we’re about to test tolerances in 21st century Britain.

Only those holidaying on Mars will have missed riots erupting in various parts of London and the puzzlement of police spokespeople as to how such dark forces of public disorder could hit out of a clear blue sky. The torching of cars and houses and the looting of shops was no isolated anger at the death of Mark Duggan in Tottenham. Several other London boroughs have further suffered anarchic behaviour, including today’s aerial footage in broad daylight of looting, gratuitous wrecking of businesses and a sporadic running battle with mainly passive police around Hackney station.

On behalf of his community, Tottenham’s MP David Lammy denounced a minority causing the riot; local civic leaders were quick to distance themselves and call for more help taking young people off the streets for a more productive future. All, especially the police, were at pains to dismiss comparisons with 1985. But the footage around Hackney clearly shows four out of five of those hurling bricks, breaking windows, looting shops and surging about as a mob have three things in common: they are young; they are male; they are black. None of the three has been reported.

Now, before anyone draws any wrong conclusions, I have lived in Stoke Newington and do not judge people by culture/origin, nor the colour of their skin. But in these events there is a social disaster here everyone is pussy-footing around. And lest anyone think this a white-versus-minority issue, allow me to refer you to the table below.

Demographic Statistics of Selected London Boroughs

The eight boroughs include the four in which recent rioting took place (marked with *) and four others with differing ethnic statistics as contrast. Several factors that might have been linked to the rioting can be discounted by referring to this table:

  1. Political control of the council area is not necessarily associated with rioting
  2. Large percentages of ethnic minority are not necessarily associated with rioting
  3. Relatively less spend per head is not necessarily associated with rioting

But, however unpalatable or un-PC as it may be to highlight it, what stands out is that the four boroughs in which rioting flared are the four with the largest percentage black populations. Note that others with huge ethnic populations (but of South Asians and where most muslims are found) torched no police cars. Whatever genuine grievances there may be among blacks in those four boroughs, they cannot include money when the biggest black populations receive more spend per head than even pukka Kensington & Chelsea residents.

Even allowing for sensitivity to avoid ethnicity when reporting crime, it is still inexcusable that TV/press/politicians/etc have made no mention of this key dimension, one that we must both face up to and deal with. As well as Stoke Newington, I have hung wid da homies in East Oakland, parts of which make Mogadishu look like a model home estate. Their disenfranchisement from the American Dream is so acute that few homies ever make it out of the ghetto (rent Boyz ‘n’ da Hood for a graphic lesson in the reasons).

In London, as in California, South Asians and Chinese found themselves some niche to make a living and then dinned ambition and a hope for a better future into their kids’ heads. But—in Hackney or in Oakland—black kids have the hostility of cultural lepers, the resentment of witnessing someone else’s dream in a country they don’t see as theirs.

It is not just a matter of sensitive policing. Either those hoodies cudgelling Ladbroke’s windows in on Mare Street today start feeling ownership of their patch or it won’t be another 25 years before the next police car gets torched.

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It Must Be Summer: the Rain’s Less Cold

Posted on August 7, 2011 by davidsberry

After July’s doubled rainfall and 1 deg lower temperature, the continuation of unusually dreich summer weather into August was hardly a surprise. But I felt sorry for the Topper championship attendees this week. Coming to North Berwick from all round the UK for their national championship, 272 single-handed yachts brought close to 1,000 people here for the first week of August.

And it wasn’t that they got rained on heavily three of the days in the week they were here: rain matters little to enthusiastic teenage participants in wetsuits who get dunked in the water regularly. It was the lack of wind on those days it rained. To watch the entire fleet straggle in Tuesday last under lowering skies, with the last couple of dozen towed behind rescue RIBS like so many ducklings was to share their frustration.

Toppers straggle home under dark skies in less-than-demanding wind conditions

Thankfully, there were several bright days with plenty of wind so the contest was completed. But the participants’ temporary social centres at ELYC and the Hope Rooms were mobbed with a polyglot of young accents that seemed to be succeeding in keeping their spirits up in what must have been trying circumstances that includedtrying to launch into the lowest tide of the summer.

Toppers trying to launch down a shrunken Fairway: note how low the tide is on Point Garry & the Lamb behind them

As the West Links drained of departing Toppers today, the other end of the town was filling up with three dozen pipe bands and thousands of different visitors as our Highland Games kicked off in cloudy but encouragingly dry weather. Although not as mobbed as I have seen it, the whole proceedings seemed even better organised with a single, larger ring to include the heavies as well as the bands and this gave more space for parking.

The whole thing was in full swing around lunch time, with the dancers huddled in their usual corner, kids in face paint slurping ice cream and the skirl of pipes wafting over the town with the aroma of burgers and the screams of girls on the rides when the forecast heavy clouds rolled up from the Southeast and the heavens opened. Thankfully, they took and hour or two to get the taps fully unscrewed so that proceedings could be completed. But by late afternoon, despite heroic cheerfulness by Chieftain Sir David Tweedie, even the fellow selling twollies (double-shafted umbrellas for two) was for packing up and going home and the parade into town verged on a wash-out.

Clouds lower over the main arena at NBHG. Photo by Derek Braid

The simple law of averages (as well as the long-range forecast) predicts a drier, sunnier August which, with the sellout Fringe by the Sea approaching next week, would be just the ticket. But, if it is wet, the advantage of it being summer is that it’s easier to dry off your legs when you’re wearing shorts and deck shoes.

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