Journalist/Dad. Owner @IslayBeachHouse. Former correspondent in London, Paris, Brussels, Hong Kong & Rome. Gardening, food, nature. Some politics, dogs & sport.
Islay/Stirling, Scotland
Joined May 2013
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Last afternoon of our Portugal 🇵🇹 hols spent birding in idyllic conditions at Quinta do Lago (on the wetlands west of Faro airport). #GreaterFlamingo #BirdsSeenIn2026
Just read in the @FT that this never-opened 620-acre golf course next to Gleneagles is up for sale, 17 years after it was finished. Landowner, the owner of highly profitable Highland Spring bottled water business, selling off assets. Bargain to be had? Public ownership?
Story here: giftarticle.ft.com/giftartic… Highland Spring billionaire’s property empire hit by loan defaults and creditor action
Supervising my boys' surf lessons - tough job etc... Seriously impressed with the beaches, cliffs and coastal forests of 🇵🇹 Portugal's #CostaVicentina Lovely to have real warmth in the October holidays so close to home 🏴
Loving my Portuguese holiday bbq! Peppers that taste of peppers, fatty ribs to start. Bit of sea bream for main course.
Angus MacKinnon retweeted
I note that politicians and journalists have been falling over themselves in praise of Lord Jeffrey Archer who has died aged 86. I don’t share that view.
Back in 1987 Archer sued the Daily Star for libel after they reported he had paid for sex with a prostitute.
Thanks to his lies in the witness box he was awarded £500K in damages, a record at the time. Actually the paper was right he had had paid £6K for her services.
The editor, a talented Aussie called Lloyd Turner who had done a great job for the paper, was fired by the idiot owner who preferred to believe a politician than his own staff.
That verdict left Turner, according to his wife, a broken man, and he died five years later at 57.
So, he never had the pleasure, some six years later, of seeing Archer, being jailed for perjuring himself and forced to hand back the £500K.
Archer’s lies destroyed Turner’s career and hurried the end of his life.
Disgracefully, that story has been ignored by the good and great in the hagiographies.
Loving the big windows on the new Islay ferry, MV Isle of Islay. The non-stop vibration ... not so much.
Just heard Kemi Badenoch on @BBCr4today describe Jeffrey Archer's convictions for perjury and perverting the cause of justice as "being in tricky situations" - look forward to the Conservative leader showing similar generosity to the "benefits cheats" her party bangs on about
Ferry breakfast reading: a nice review for Ian Rankin's "multi-stranded and exuberant" new novel The Heights in the @ftweekend - intrigued to read @Beathhigh with a London backdrop and see how it compares to recent state-of-the-city works. Have you got it in yet @TheCelticHouse?
Excellent contextual perspective on the @ManCity guilty verdict.
Opinion
City fans, genuinely feel for you, we all support clubs through good and bad, and maybe hold our nose at times when something seems too good to be true. Being genuine here, no bs, no clucking, no delight. Could be any supporter today. Needed to say that.
But this now is the biggest football scandal in British football history
nothing comes close.
Expulsion from the Prem and EFL a bare minimum, several billion in fines, Abu Dhabi struck off global football ownership, selling all clubs, an independent commission into all Premier League clubs financial conduct, and where applicable, criminal fraud charges.
English football has been relatively lucky with financial or general cheating Scandals over 150 years ( there have been minor things) but this makes this season's Premier League ( are the practices alleged still happening? How many managers and players today are paid off books in contravention of HMRC and English law?) null and void until sanctions are implemented.
The motion that one club can fulfill fixtures while serious and potentially criminal allegations are pointed at the directors box would make it a circus and grossly unfair on every other club.
We all need to take a harder look at just letting anyone in to own our club on the promise of trophies and memories. Our forebears supported clubs simply for enjoyment and competition, not to end up like this. A mess.
Angus MacKinnon retweeted
Opinion
City fans, genuinely feel for you, we all support clubs through good and bad, and maybe hold our nose at times when something seems too good to be true. Being genuine here, no bs, no clucking, no delight. Could be any supporter today. Needed to say that.
But this now is the biggest football scandal in British football history
nothing comes close.
Expulsion from the Prem and EFL a bare minimum, several billion in fines, Abu Dhabi struck off global football ownership, selling all clubs, an independent commission into all Premier League clubs financial conduct, and where applicable, criminal fraud charges.
English football has been relatively lucky with financial or general cheating Scandals over 150 years ( there have been minor things) but this makes this season's Premier League ( are the practices alleged still happening? How many managers and players today are paid off books in contravention of HMRC and English law?) null and void until sanctions are implemented.
The motion that one club can fulfill fixtures while serious and potentially criminal allegations are pointed at the directors box would make it a circus and grossly unfair on every other club.
We all need to take a harder look at just letting anyone in to own our club on the promise of trophies and memories. Our forebears supported clubs simply for enjoyment and competition, not to end up like this. A mess.
BBC does not appear to have a single reporter or editor capable of putting the @ManCity guilty verdict into its proper context: it's a £900 million fraud that means the elite division of the national sport was rigged for nearly two decades and must inevitably have involved ..1/2
Come on @VirginAtlantic - you can do better than this!
Hoping @VirginAtlantic hurry up and call me after bumping me off my flight involuntarily due to overbooking!
Angus MacKinnon retweeted
@ScotRail Any chance of more carriages on the 6.58 Neilston to Glasgow? With just three, this is how busy it is approaching Central. Every. Single. Day.
Angus MacKinnon retweeted
Gardeners World pushing hard on the idea that allotments are about communal experiences and friendships
In my experience it’s quite the opposite- it’s predominantly grumpy old men who do it to get away from people
First fire of the season in Stirling. Our little Cocker Spaniel, Skipper, was initially wary but soon remembered.
