Jan 20 2010
The Bernera Bell
I read an article in last week’s Stornoway Gazette under the heading, ‘Bernera Bell’. My first thought was that this was some kind of beauty competition and that Bernera was being more selective as to who could go to the next Fank - thank God cos some real genetic throwbacks came to the last one though the lads from Tolsta seemed to enjoy their company. One of the Bernera women thought Clarins was a top London hotel!
Anyway it turns out that there is to be a bell installed on the beach at Bosta, not to alert summer bathers to lepers, or tourists to the presence of Alistair Darling holidaying on the island - no this is just a bell that sounds at certain states of the tide. It is to be a six foot bell embedded in concrete by an installation artist from Brighton called Marcus Vergette.
Chrissie Mary MacDonald (Miss) competitive as ever, when she read this, decided straight away that something similar for Port of Ness is required. Donald is getting his soldering iron out along with a few of the lads from the bothan who are going to collect empty tins of Tennants. They are going to built a ten foot model of a Clansman as per Calmac logo. It will be loosely assembled to rattle in the wind and only local labour and cans consumed locally will be used. The finished installation will be positioned on the breakwater at Port of Ness and will bring much needed visitors to the village. We are getting Donald a peaked cap and he will give guided tours starting at the sculpture and ending at the lighthouse- reduced rates for parties.
If Bernera can do it we’re darn sure Ness can - ‘can’ geddit?
16 responses so far
Surely that’s a bit exclusive? What about all the ‘red’ cans? Purrhaps the tastes of the Western Islanders don’t run to McEwens Export. Run being the operative word. They’re known as Shetland Roses up north…
Surely you’ll never assemble that many cans purely from local consumption? But then, you know better than I do…
Oh yes…
I’m seeing marketing opportunities here - keyrings, bottle openers, miniature replicas that double as pencil sharpeners. Heck, I’d buy ‘em.
It’s always been Tennents in the Lbochans - maybe for the photos of the women on the cans - the more you drank the more your wife or girlfriend looked like the woman on the can.
I did review of McEwans Expot for a Tonto Press publication which soild well - I poointed out that the best place to find it was on the Aberdeen to London train on a Friday in groups of thirty two with every eight cans attached to an oil worker.
Shetland Roses I like that !
I think it sounds really cutting edge, Calum, especially if you’re not careful with some of the bits of can.. I am pondering what kind of noise they will make, in the ceaseless whispering of the wind.. so to give me a bit of an idea, I’ve jist popped outside and rattled my blue Wheelie Bin whilst closing my eyes..
Ah,Lovely.
Believe me this more than cutting edge this is Turner Prize stuff. Forget your elephant dung pictures, lager can sculptures are the future.
Calum Offelly
A recycled lager fountain with golden rain forced out of multiple tin orifices showering passersby.
I N Contennant.
Golden rain??? Have you been at those websites again, KC?
Jill, I suspect KC is considering a very different golden shower there….maybe its a cross over from the viewfinder post re the proposed cat that micturated on the couch, a well known phrase in Auchensugge similar to ‘the cat s@at on the mat mammy’ which is frequently howled fae up oor close when the buckie boys shut the back dooor in their drunken Friday night stupor thus trapping downstairs cheechee in the close over night. Poor pussy!! The buckie boys say if you wish to expand this venture to a visitor centre they would be willing to ship you up their empties as Auchenshuggle cooncil dont recylce glass. They thought, (write THAT date in your diary folks) the bottoms of the bottles would come in handy for some nice windaes. They are presently in contract to StrathJedi polis who use the empties for their research into bottle breakin technique, as seen on telly last week. (However, rumour has it they use the dregs tae make a buckie concentrate to sell on tae high falootin eateries in weegieland for puddins, aye yous know who ah mean;) The bottle bottoms are returned to them as surplice to requirement being nae use fur chibbin, yur wlcome tae them.
I was shocked to hear that the monkies in’t’ Deep Sooth don’t even make the wine on which Buckie is based. They import it from France in tankers. That’s not a euphemism by the way…
It’s a bit like Orkney Wine…oh I so did not say that…
Without either sign or sound of their shock
The waves flow’d over the Inchcape Rock;
So little they rose, so little they fell,
They did not move the Inchcape Bell.
The Abbot of Aberbrothok
Had placed that bell on the Inchcape Rock;
On a buoy in the storm it floated and swung,
And over the waves its warning rung.
When the Rock was hid by the surge’s swell,
The mariners heard the warning bell;
And then they knew the perilous Rock,
And blest the Abbot of Aberbrothok.
etc. etc.
Life imitating Art agin’.
never heard that ,for years ,barney,thanks
We could just see the lighthouse on the Bell Rock from our kitchen window on a clear day. Later I sailed round the Bell Rock. It really is a killer, about 100 m diameter basalt pillar rising straight up from the depths to exactly sea level on a calm day. Brrrr!
A bell that sounds at certain states of the tide rather appeals to yr. correspondent. A mellow chiming in the distance rather than a metallic clanging come wind or rain, tide or no tide. Like “…sea nymphs hourly ring his knell”. rather than “Ring out, wild bells, ring out!”
The Golden Shower - I thought it was the name of the Chinese takeaway in Stornoway!