Colcam

The Oban Times, a newspaper renowned for its fearless and unbiased reporting of current affairs and world events, has again shocked the nation with the news that someone has written words critical of Fort William in a travel book.

Giles Gordon, in a book called Scotland From the Air, states that Fort William has little to offer in the way of culture, and that it rains all the time. The paper accuses the author of "putting the boot in" by including photographs of a packed car park, and log trucks on the bypass.

The bypass? I presume they mean the ugly dual carriageway that cuts off the town from the shores of the loch, where visitors might like to walk in the pissing rain if they could find the way over. Log trucks? How unreasonable they should use a road. Perhaps they should be banned. Why not ban the trucks that bring in the overpriced, tasteless trash the shops sell the tourists at the same time?

As for culture, musical, sporting and historical that the Oban Times say they can defend.......

C'mon boys and girls! You mean the busker in the underpass between that horrible main street and Morrisons supermarket? All right, that's the musical culture. Now the sporting. Is that people falling off Ben Nevis? Maybe the mountain bike championships count as "sporting culture". Frankly, after the traffic chaos it caused last year it should be banned from the area until the authorities do something about that disgraceful B road they have the cheek to call the A82.

Historical culture? Giles is spot on. It's a railway station on the West Highland Line and not much more.

The article concludes by offering to show the author a good time if he comes back to Fort William. How? Are they going to take him to Glasgow or Edinburgh, maybe Perth or Dundee?

Flying over Fort William was probably enough for the poor man, and at least he would be dry up there.