What happened to Donald Trump? He had such lovely parents.
That is the question posed by a relative of the former host of The Apprentice, who currently has another equally high-profile entertainment role, which gives him some even more airtime on both sides of the Atlantic.
Alice Mackay is also reported to be saying that during a visit by the TV star, whose trademark was pointing the finger and saying You’re Fired, he made off with her tasty pancakes. She doesn’t say how they were baked – pale or well-fired.
I’m not sure everyone would agree that both parents were lovely but his mother Mary Anne Macleod, originally from Tong, near Stornoway, is fondly remembered in a new film just out. A documentary, The President’s Mother, was made here on Lewis and on the other side of the pond. It was on BBC Alba last night so I will be able to catch up soon. There’s nothing like sitting down to watch the box with a mug of tea and a stack of pancakes. Hey, they’re mine, all mine. You’re not getting any – no matter who you are or who you’re related to.
It’s not just Donald Trump. I must ask what has happened to the Liberal Democrats? They’ve changed. They are the party who were told to go home and prepare for government, and then slept in. That was back in the early-1980s when David Steel was in charge and they were part of the Social Democratic Party-Liberal Party Alliance, a vote-losing mouthful which everyone got very excited about for a week or two. Yes, the latest reincarnation, as the LibDems, have been part of a coalition or two since then but, come on, they have not been able to do very much to write home about.
Maybe it is because it is currently party conference season and the politicos get the chance to grab the airwaves and some column inches but they are getting a bit, er, boisterous. Jo Swinson, the leader for the last few minutes, wants your votes because she says the LibDems are the party to stop Brexit. Gasps all round. No sooner has she sat back down than Willie Rennie, the friendly, smiley manager of her Scottish team, is saying we can all rely on the LibDems to stop another independence referendum as well. Really?
Half a dozen politicians from elsewhere have recently defected to the Lib Dems. Chuka Umunna has laid his hat there, actually his third party on a few months. The apple cart is wobbling and all they need to upset it, of course, are your votes, and mine. Don’t laugh. The pollsters are now saying if a general election was held tomorrow, the LibDems would romp home. As a week is famously a long time in politics, a rousing speech by Jeremy Corbyn at next weekend’s Labour Party conference could change all that. I said it could, but, no, I don’t think it will either.
He is saying this when more Scots seem to be saying they would back independence if it meant staying in Europe – while keeping the current great deal we have with the EU. Ahem. This is where my head begins to hurt and I begin to think that maybe there is something to all these mind-boggling posts all over Facebook which claim that Brexit is a fake, and that it is never going to happen, and that the last three to five years have all been about persuading us that there is no case to leave.
Then there are the other conspiracy theorists who say Brexit is a fake because the decision was taken years ago to kick us out and there is nothing we can do about it anyway. Then there are the ones that say Brexit is just healthy democracy in action and the arguments and the delays are a sign of a great nation making up its mind – but slowly as all big decisions should be – and they never noticed anything amiss written on the sides of any buses and, if there were, there is nothing there now.
Mrs X is back from shopping I see. She has bought cake. They were probably sold out of pancakes. Oh well. She has bought that lovely cake we got the other week. I call it Kim Kardashian cake and herself is baffled why. She is not so good at written Gaelic so I have to explain it. She is not so fantastic at spoken Gaelic either – apart from “Tha mi ag iarraidh airgiod” – which means I want money. She knows that phrase alright.
The confection in question is called Coulmore. I thought it was made near Inverness. After all, there is a Coulmore Bay Caravan Park in North Kessock. It turns out that it is actually made in County Cork in the Republic of Ireland. So Coulmore? I take that as the anglicisation of the same two words as we have in Scots Gaelic – cùl and mór. That is what happens if you eat too much of the cake because cùl mór means big behind.
