Beinn A' Ghlo

Carn nan Gabhar from Braigh Coire Chruinn-bhalgain

Route from Loch Moraig

I realised that the three munros collectively known as Beinn A' Ghlo had not been featured on the blog, probably because I last climbed them before I started recording all my walks on the munros on this blog in 2010. During my five previous walks on these hills, I had never encountered a day with good visibility. The forecast was reasonable and I was itching to spend some time in the hills so I left early to catch the best of the day. Normally I try to vary the routes by which I climb hills but there is no obvious alternative to the walk around these hills so I headed to the parking place by Loch Moraig beyond the Bridge of Tilt. It was 8:30am but there were already four cars parked. I began the walk about five minutes after a couple of well-equipped young walkers who were leaving as I arrived.

Tuesday, 17 September 2019

Ascent:      1360 metres
Distance:   23 kilometres
Time:         6 hours 50 minutes

Carn Liath                                    975m    1hr   29mins
Braigh Coire Chruinn-bhalgain     1070m     2hrs 43mins
Carn nan Gabhar                        1129m     3hrs 58mins

The skies were clear and visibility excellent in the morning sun and a cool breeze from the north meant it would be good walking conditions although blustery on the summits. It was my first day on the hills for a couple of months although I had run up a local hill on three occasions in the last few weeks. It must have helped because I was walking easily and kept the same distance behind the two young walkers despite making a few stops for photos. After a couple of kilometres on an excellent track, the path to Carn Liath starts by a large wooden shed. It is boggy at first, but a helicopter drop of large bags of rocks has enabled improvements to the path. The path gradually steepens and a new section of white quartzite keeps you above the old boggy path. There is then a quite remarkable stone staircase that climbs for almost 500 metres to a cairn at the end of the summit ridge.

I passed the two walkers who had decided to take a break from the fierce wind at the cairn and proceeded to the summit cairn and nearby trig point. I had kept a good pace, a quicker ascent than the last one ten years ago, and my fitness was better than I had expected. I took photos and had a drink before I was joined by the two walkers who were police officers enjoying a day off duty. We spent 10 minutes in conversation and left together but I didn't want to intrude so I pushed on to allow them to walk together. The first leg was into the strong northerly wind but after a couple of dog legs to Bheinn Mhan, there was protection from the wind by the bulk of Braigh Coire Chruinn-bhalgain, the next Munro. It was a steady climb but again I felt relaxed and skipped up the path. I found some shelter at the summit, after a few minutes I was joined by the police officers and we continued the conversation. I was offered a dram of malt whisky from a hip flask as we examined the skyline to identify the mountains, most of which were in the beat of one of the officers.

We set off together for the traverse over to Carn nan Gabhar. It is an easy walk along the ridge followed by a 200-metre drop to Bealach an Fhiodha and then a 250metre climb to the whaleback of Beinn a' Ghlo with its three cairns, all of which were subjected to mighty winds. Two walkers were departing and another lone walker was being thrown about by the wind as he tried to balance his way across the boulder field to the summit. We continued to the far summit and settled down behind the massive stone cairn to have some lunch topped by another nip of whisky. I went round to the windward side of the cairn to relieve myself and when I returned, the police officers told me that they had thought it was the onset of a shower. I figured that pissing on the police was probably a serious offence but they were good guys and they saw the humour in it. We spent some more time studying the nearby hills of Carn na Righ and Glas Tulaichean. Lochnagar was prominent and I thought Beinn a' Bhuird and Ben Avon were recognisable but this was disputed. I held my tongue but checked it out on returning home and was pleased that I had got it right.

The return gave us the option of going over the top, Airgiod Bheinn, which I have done on all previous visits, or dropping to the bealach and following a path down the side of Allt Bealach an Fhiodhe. We chose the latter to escape the wind and the steep rocky path down the southwest scarp of Airgiod Bheinn. The path became boggy so we dropped down to the burn and crossed to the west side and, after another kilometre, we hit a newly laid path that speeded us down to the track. The lone walker that we had met earlier swaying in the wind on the summit was sitting on a boulder looking content with his day. I opened an exchange with him that soon focused on the sad demise of the UK as it sought to extract itself from the EU.

He was British but had lived for over 30 years in Finland. He came to Scotland twice a year to climb the munros. He had 17 left to compleat his round but had found it difficult this year to rent a car because of his age, 79, so was travelling by train and bus. He had taken a taxi from Blair Atholl to get to the start of the walk. I offered to give him a lift back to the hostel he was staying at in Pitlochry.

We sauntered back over the last three kilometres and he gave me an abstract of his remarkable life story. His father had been killed after volunteering for the army in the Second World War. Because he had died overseas of a disease picked up on duty, his mother had been refused a war pension but she appealed and Lord Denning had overturned the Ministry decision. He was very positive about the Finnish way of life and thought their values were more ethical and caring than seemed apparent in the UK with its devotion to protecting the wealthy.

We arrived at the car park and I bade farewell to my police officer friends who had gone on ahead. The journey to Pitlochry was a continuation of his stories covering the paper industry and blogging as well as discussing his remaining munros and how he was going to approach them. He hoped to climb the In Pinn in the next week. I wished him well and asked for an invite to his final Munro.

Start of the walk at Loch Moraig

Looking back to Loch Moraig from the start of the path

Carn Liath

The start of the path to Carn Liath

Carn Liath summit

Braigh Coire C-b and Carn nan Gabhar from Carn Liath

Braigh Coire C-b on the route from Carn Liath

Looking back to Carn Liath

Final climb up Carn nan Gabhar

Carn nan Gabhar summit in high winds

Descending via Allt Bealach an Fhiodha

The new path back to Loch Moraig

Countdown for Boris

Bullshitter meets his match

What a week for Boris Johnson, the man who would be king. Despite claiming that his negotiations for a deal are going well, some of his own MPs and Cabinet members admit that there has been little or no progress and that it is a sham. The EU confirms that whilst there have been meetings there have been no negotiations to date because there have been no proposals from his government. He loses a vote on MPs taking over control of parliament. Parliament votes that a 'no deal' Brexit should be ruled out so he kicks out 21 conservative MPs who voted for this. He fails to get two thirds of MPs to call an election on 15 October that would allow him to leave without a deal on 31 October. He claims that the opposition parties are 'frit' whereas they do not trust him to carry out the decision of parliament to prevent a no deal. He then confirms that their reasoning is sound by saying he would rather 'die in a ditch' than request an extension to Brexit beyond 31 October.

But worst of all was watching his performance at his first PM questions and when launching his unofficial election campaign in front of police cadets in Wakefield. The man can hardly string a sentence together, he has a tendency to repetitively repeat abusive, childish and sexist remarks about opposition politicians, and contradicts things he has said a day, hour or minutes earlier. He answered no questions from opposition MPs during his first appearance at PM questions and had to be told by opposition leaders that they ask the questions and he is supposed to answer them. Fine chance of that ever happening. No wonder that the PM's minders have prorogued Parliament for five weeks, he really would have been found out, even Jeremy Corbyn scored a technical knockout in the first round.

Could things get any worse for a man whose self-belief goes off the Richter scale? Probably, given his total disregard for democracy, truth and reconciliation.Yet he remains 10% ahead in the polls and is unwilling to accept that Parliament has stopped a 'no deal'. I realise that Scotland is different and that most of my contacts are either baby boomers or millennials but I have yet to meet anyone in the past month who has a positive word to say about him and that includes ex Tory councillors, businesses along with a fairly large but random collection of people whom I have come across in daily activities. Am I living in a bubble? This will not end happily for the country formerly known as the UK.

A Dutch newspaper verdict

Great Trossachs Path

Blairgarry

The Great Trossachs Path is a 30-mile trail between Inversnaid on Loch Lomond and Callander that has been developed in recent years by a number of bodies including the Woodlands Trust and Forestry Commission. The section from Callander to Brig o' Turk runs along a newly constructed path above Loch Venachar just above the cottage where my in-laws lived for 38 years. It had been a regular haunt as we took childeren there at weekends, holidays and in later years visited regularly after we moved only thirteen miles away. At the weekend I would often run there through the Queen Elizabeth Forest Park over steep trails but the final 3 miles from Brig o' Turk was along the busy A821 road and, as traffic became heavier and faster and I became older and slower, I made fewer and fewer runs. I always longed for a decent trail on this final section. It has now been opened as part of the Great Trossachs Path.

Today we made our first foray along the trail starting from Kilmahog, passing above the cottage and finishing at Brig o' Turk where Gregor picked us up having completed his 17-mile Sunday morning training run from Callander to Strathyre and back. We started early and believing that we had plenty of time we climbed to Samson's Putting stone from where we could get a good view westwards along the length of Loch Venachar. The path was steep and muddy after a few days of torrential rain. The bracken was at full height and the rowan trees in full colour. We looked across at the Dunmore Iron Age Fort but decided against adding this to the walk after we encountered a large herd of cattle that were grazing on the trail and not for giving up ground.

Beyond here there is a gate into the lands now owned by the Woodland Trust that have been heavily planted in recent years with rowan, birch, oak, willow, scots pine and other native species. The path winds and undulates through the wild landscape, an abundant supply of blackberries provided flavour for the walk. We looked across the Loch to the sailing club, the Ripple Retreat Centre for Children with Cancer and the Menteith Hills, the skyline that was visible from Blairgarry's lounge. We continued to the Milton Burn, which had been the water supply for Blairgarry until the 1980s, and was harnessed for a micro-hydro-electric scheme 4 years ago.

I walked part of the way down the familiar oak woodland alongside the Milton Burn towards Blairgarry, a pipeline now crosses the burn above the cottage and runs down to the turbine house at the other side of the burn by the main road. We had discussed the scheme in a consultation with the developer and a community councillor and gained assurances that there would be community benefits. I was pleased to observe that there seemed to be no loss in the flow of the burn but there again it had been a wet weekend.

The path climbs quite steeply westwards from the Milton burn to a large water storage tankard then to the high point of the path at 240 metres. The Woodland Trust plantings have matured in this section and there is a fine stand of scots pine on the slopes of Stuc Odhar. This delightful hill is joined by a bealach to Ben Ledi and the two hills used to provide a fine horseshoe walk before the upper reaches of the Milton Burn were  heavily planted with conifers in the 1980s.

We had agreed with Gregor that we would meet him at the Glen Finglas visitor centre in 2 hours. It was a 10-kilometre walk but the additional jaunt up to Samson's Stone meant a total 500 metres of ascent. We were ten minutes behind time as we began the final 150 metres of descent to the visitor centre. Gregor was on the ascent having completed his run in well under 2 hours and driven up from Callander.  I reflected that whilst the new trail would have been useful for the final 3 miles of my run to Blairgarry that the 150 metres of ascent after the hilly 10 miles from Aberfoyle would have not have been the ideal answer to running along the A821. However, we all felt pleased with the morning's exercise and Gregor was doubly delighted to discover that he had earned another three crowns on Strava. He is regularly running 60 miles a week compared to the 30-40 miles a week that I managed during my peak running years.

First glimpse of Loch Venachar

Smpson's putting stone

Rownn berries

Striding out

Stuc Odhar

Ben Ledi

Climbing to the high point of the trail

Loch Venachar and Ben Venue

Scots Pine

Lochs Venachar and Drunkie

Loch Achray and Ben Venue

Blairgarry shoreline on Loch Venachar

V & A Dundee

Razzle Dazzle Wullie outside the V&A

V&A and RRS Discovery

Time Magazine has made the newly opened V&A design museum in Dundee one of its top 100 locations to visit. It was a dull day and, as Dundee is only an hour away, we decided to check it out. The proposal to build another V&A museum outside London had been made in 2007. Dundee was quick to seize the opportunity and offer a site as a key component in the redevelopment of the waterfront. I remember some of the early discussions with the Scottish Government. Some of us baulked at the initial cost of £41m, with the majority of funding coming from the City Council and Scottish Government at a time when austerity was beginning to bite, and Dundee had some of the worst social and economic problems in Scotland.

Since then, the costs have risen to £80m, with £65m coming from the public purse. This is hardly surprising when an internationally acclaimed architect wins a design competition; the cost is the last thought, and once agreed, the techniques of cost escalation are well understood by the architect and the construction companies. Kengo Kuma, the acclaimed Japanese architect, is no different from many others in this respect. His design is said to be based upon sea cliffs of northeast Scotland, although the resulting building seems far more akin to the cliffs on Orkney and Shetland that host thousands of nesting seabirds. Whatever the provenance of the design concept, it is alien to the vernacular style of Dundee on the Tay estuary, which is one of the few flatlands on the Scottish coastline. We were prepared to be wowed, but on a grey day, the building just added to the grimness of the seafront, with Kuma's inverted pyramids of dark grey slabs of concrete suggesting that this was a building where the function would follow form.

The irregular slabs of concrete that were bolted onto the outward-leaning concrete walls were mirrored on the inside by rectangular planks of oak that were fixed in a random pattern. We met an architect from Hong Kong who had made the visit to see Kengo Kuma's latest building. He explained that the idea behind the concrete slabs and the wooden planks was to reflect the complexity of nature. He thought that the rubber strips that were attached to the concrete slabs were to prevent birds from nesting and defecating on the building. If so, it would be disappointing because a couple of thousand guillemots or cormorants would have given some life to the building, although at some cost to the fabled fishing along the Tay.

The architect had no strong feelings for the building, saying that it was a failure compared to the Museum of Scotland in Edinburgh, which was the best museum that he had ever visited because it was designed with spaces to show off its collections. He thought the space in the V&A was largely wasted on cafes and open spaces and that there was little exhibition space for such an expensive project. He thought it was probably a good place for older people to come for lunch.

Inside the building, there was plenty of space, but most of it was located in the vast roof voids created by the inverted structure. It was unusable space, and the main exhibition space, the Scottish Design Galleries, was no larger than could be found in the average municipal museum. The collection of Scottish Design artefacts from the V&A collection and sourced from other Scottish museum collections was eclectic and showed the importance of manufacturing, engineering excellence, textiles and video games.

The exhibits gave evidence of Scotland's inventiveness and name-checked the Scottish diaspora. The ironwork from the Saracen Foundry in Possilpark, Glasgow was exquisite and exported to all parts of the world. Along with the superb models of the Clyde-built boats, the collection provided interesting glimpses of Scottish Design. However, far more comprehensive collections of these items were previously found in the Kelvingrove and now the Transport Museum in Glasgow. The V&A provided only numerous snippets of this history of design, although it had provided space for Mackintosh's Oak Tea Room to be on permanent display for the first time.

Another feature of the interior of the building was the narrow oblong portholes that were encased by the concrete external slabs. The minimal shafts of light were just a sample of what could and should have been picture frames for views of the Tay, with its snaking road and rail bridges and the Dundee waterfront. A poster of the 7:84 Theatre Group brought back fond memories of watching the plays during the late 1970s and 1980s at a time when Scotland was in meltdown from the collapse of its manufacturing industries and the decay of the public realm during the Thatcher years. Scotland will never forget this grim period in its history when it depended heavily on the EU for any new investment.

Whilst the visit had been worthwhile, it is not the sort of place like the Kelvingrove or the Museum of Scotland that demands repeat visits to savour the atmosphere as well as the splendid exhibits; it is too esoteric to reel you back. At £80m for 8500 square metres of floor space, it is a hugely expensive building, costing £9400 per square metre (psm). This compares with the typical UK construction costs for a hospital of £2580psm, a secondary school of £1750psm, a high rise air-conditioned office block of £1940psm, home for the elderly or mentally of £1830psm, or new social housing at £950psm.

Given that the main source of funding has been the Scottish public spending block, the question must be asked whether the V&A Dundee has merited the lavish expenditure that it has diverted from worthwhile and necessary public services. That excludes the £1.256m per annum contribution to the running costs that the Scottish government will be making for the next ten years in addition to the subsidies provided by Dundee City Council.

Randomly angled and pitched oak planks

External slabs 

Entrance cafe

Tay railway bridge through the oblong windows

RRS Discovery from the museum balcony

A walk across Flanders Moss

Start of the walk at Moss-side

The community were examining the opportunities to extend the local path network, which is non-existent beyond the village boundaries. We are probably the only village in the area with no footpath or cycle paths. Travelling on foot or by bike is highly dangerous along narrow and busy rural roads infested with timber lorries, tractors, white vans and speeding commuters..As Stuart McCulloch proclaimed in his excellent book on the social history of Thornhill, it is on the edge of everywhere. He even titled his book with this place epitaph.

I offered to investigate the routes to the west of the village towards Flanders Moss. I have always had a notion to walk across Flanders Moss, the largest raised bog in Britain. I cycled to Moss-side and asked Kate if it was possible to walk across her land to reach the Nature Reserve. It was two or three kilometres via a circuitous route to the viewing tower at the Flanders Moss National Nature Reserve. The SNH sometimes guide students across by this route, but it lacks any obvious paths.

It was a cool, cloudy afternoon, but the rain seemed unlikely. Kate came part of the way with me to point out features that would guide me across: old viewing towers, gates, trees and dykes. It took about half an hour to make the crossing with quite a few sections where I was balancing on clumps of heather and teetering on the verge of falling into the surrounding bog. I disturbed a couple of deer lying in the long grass by the field boundaries, a herd of Shetland cattle were grazing on the organic pastures, and a flock of geese flew over in a V-shaped formation. Do they know that autumn will be early?

I wobbled my way back across the bog and was met by Kate and her dog; she was apparently concerned for my safety. She explained how SNH had removed the birch trees on the bog and addressed the damage to the bog incurred by the peat extraction and the construction of dykes to drain the bog. I had hoped to identify a possible route across the east end of the Moss to reach the old Stirling to Buchlyvie railway line, but it would require at least a kilometre of boardwalks to make a safe passage. 

Perhaps a better option would be to find a route alongside the Goodie Water and then along the edge of the plantation to Blaircessnock, where a road runs towards Dykehead. There is a road to Gartur and then a mile of open land towards Gartrenich, from where there is a track all the way to Aberfoyle. I must explore this route next.

Improved organic  pasture

Young deer disturbed in the long grass

Looking south to sentry box and Campsies

Dyke left from peat workings

Approaching the SNH looking tower

West view

North to Ben Ledi

Northeast across Poldar Moss

A Cabinet of Reprobates

Welcome to the Brexit Dome

And here is my new cabinet

Spot the ones not previously sacked, resigned in disgrace or serial sycophants

Well, that went well. Elected as PM by less than 0.2% of the UK electorate, Boris Johnson's first task was to choose a cabinet to provide the leadership for the whole of the UK, with responsibility for the economy, foreign and home affairs, social support, infrastructure and all public services. He has chosen a collage of disruptors, malcontents and dimwits, requiring them to pledge their support for a no-deal Brexit before offering them a post. 

The PM (Eton and Oxford) has appointed Jacob Rees-Mogg (Eton and Oxford) as leader of the House, and  Michael Gove (Oxford) as chief of staff and Deputy PM. That should ensure that we are not in hock to experts or the establishment! The rest of the cabinet is a motley assembly of recycled cabinet ministers who fell on hard times by either being sacked or having resigned in disgrace, brash brexiteers or sycophantic former remainers who have forsaken their integrity to 'doing or dying' for a no-deal Brexit. 

There has been little attempt to bring onboard new talent, with the possible exception of Rishi Sunak, who oozes intelligence if not worthy principles. Talented new one nation Tory MPs can fester on the backbenches until the next Tory leader is elected. If the first week of the Boris ascendency is anything to go by that should not be very long but these are Strange Days. We are led by a libertine and ruled by reprobates. Jim Morrison got it right, 'They are going to destroy our casual joys."

In his first week, he went to Birmingham and promised to bring back the 20,000 police that the government had removed since 2010 and then to Manchester to back a high-speed rail route from Manchester to Leeds that was first announced by George Osborne five years ago. There was even a nod in support of the Northern Powerhouse that had languished in the buried to-do box during Theresa May's premiership.

Over the next three days, he popped up to Scotland to examine his nuclear deterrent and submarines before falling out with the Firs Minister, no surprise there, as well as the leader of the Tories in Scotland. He failed to convince the Welsh farmers or the Welsh Government that his Brexit plans were in the best interest of Wales. He visited Northern Ireland for a cosy dinner with Arlene Foster of the DUP, which unsurprisingly upset the Sinn Fein leaders who then suggested a referendum on a reunited Ireland. So his attempts to safeguard the already fragile Union have evaporated within weeks, as is evidenced by the latest  Scotland poll on Independence, which following the PMs visit is showing a majority in favour of independence for the first time.

He also failed to visit the EU or the Irish Taoiseach, Leo Varadkar to discuss Brexit or renegotiating the withdrawal agreement, a matter of common courtesy you would think. He lost a by-election in Brecon and Radnorshire to the Lib Dems with a 9.6% drop in the Tory vote. He set aside another £2.1bn, making it £6bn so far to prepare for a no-deal Brexit. He then was scrambled up to Derbyshire to sprinkle some stardust after discovering that a dam was collapsing and threatening to wipe out a small town.

Welcome to the Brexit Dome, what a whirligig of wanton waffle. 

Inchmahome

Looking east to the Lake Hotel and Port of Menteith church

Summer is the time to visit the island of Inchmahome on the Lake of Menteith. A priory was established on the island by Augustinian canons in 1238 and provided a secluded sanctuary for over 300 years. It was visited by Robert the Bruce and most famously by Mary, Queen of Scots when she was 4 years old. She stayed for three weeks when she fled from Stirling Castle to escape the 'Rough Wooing' by King Henry VIII's son, Edward. 

The Lake of Menteith became a tourist attraction to English gentry in the 19th century, this was partly attributed to the writings of Sir Walter Scott. This probably explains why it was renamed the Lake of Menteith, the only Lake in Scotland, rather than the Loch of Inchmahome, 

When our children were young it was a regular jaunt during the summer for the boat trip, the tranquillity and the chance to let them run free on the island. This year was a reprise with the grandchildren. Inchmahome is timeless, nothing has changed apart from the boatmen. We were entertained and educated by the current Historic Scotland boatman who took us across and regaled us with stories and facts about the lake and island. Such as the 1000 trout that are released each week, the 35 boats that are rented for £90 a day and the fact it was the European Young Fly Fishing championdship the next day. 

He also claimed that the UK's largest pike was caught in the Lake but subsequent research suggests that was in Loch Lomond. We walked around the priory and the island at a leisurely pace to the sound of birds and the occasional splutter of a boat engine as the fishermen looked for places to cast their flies. The children were captivated by the peaceful freedom, although wary of going too far into the water with giant pike praying on their minds.

Inchmhome Priory

From Attlee to Boris Johnson, Integrity to post truth

PM delivers pies to the Northern Powerhouse

Oh, what a travesty of democracy. First, we are disenfranchised from the appointment of yet another new prime minister and now we are about to be disengaged from the emergence of new government policies after the spurious arrival of PM Boris Johnson. There can be few Prime Ministers who have been trashed by colleagues, editors, and past friends with such unanimity as Boris Johnson. When senior Tory Party figures like John Major, Michael Heseltine, Ken Clarke and Malcolm Rifkind are queuing up to give interviews to TV, radio and the press about how unsuitable he is to be PM, and this is echoed by some of his erstwhile colleagues from the present cabinet and junior ministers like Philip Hammond, David Gauke, Rory Stewart, Alan Duncan and Margot James, you know that there is trouble ahead. 

Even more devastating has been the critique of Johnson by his former editor at the Daily Telegraph, Max Hastings, who in 2012 wrote, "He is not a man to believe in, to trust or respect, save as a superlative exhibitionist. He is bereft of judgment, loyalty and discretion. Only in the star-crazed, frivolous Britain of the 21st century could such a man have risen so high, and he is utterly unfit to go higher still." He added that "If the day ever comes that Boris Johnson becomes tenant of Downing Street, I shall be among those packing my bags for a new life in Buenos Aires or suchlike because it means that Britain has abandoned its last pretensions to be a serious country."

Sonia Purnell, his journalist colleague during his days as the Brussels correspondent of the Daily Telegraph, was equally dismissive of his integrity. She had previously published Just Boris: A Tale of Blond Ambition in 2011, which offered a withering insight into his lassitude in dealing with detail and his probity with the truth. Even the BBC are exposing him to more rigorous scrutiny than is their normal practice when they are in fear of being accused of imbalanced reporting. This may be because he has refused almost all invitations to be interviewed, although he did get speared by Andrew Neil, not that he seemed to worry. Channel 4 News appears to be in no doubt that he is a loose cannon and takes delight in highlighting his habit of evading questions, responsibility, and evidence.

His record as the Mayor of London was lauded by his team of sycophantic supporters but forensically dissembled by those who worked for him. Routemaster buses that cost £321.6m but were unsuitable for commercial operations as well as being major pollutants, a garden bridge that was 'vanity in Excelsis' and wasted £53.5m. The Thames estuary airport study cost £5.6m but was never published because it did not support his desired objective. The Boris bike scheme has cost a total of £225m when it was supposed to wash its face. Then, the debacle about the £323m funding for the refitting of the Olympic stadium for West Ham football club and its dodgy owners. What does Boris Johnson stand for, well according to one of his rare recent interviews, freedom and the better use of public money. The man has some serious chutzpah and, to be fair, he would probably claim this as a positive attribute.

He has talked of his implied Promethean qualities, but whilst he may be rebellious, he is more destructive than creative, and his innovative instincts are largely focused on humour rather than tangible ideas. What a contrast to the UK's best but least well-known post-war PM, Clem Attlee. He had integrity and diligence in spades and a genuine commitment to social justice following his years of voluntary work in London's East End. Reading his excellent biography by John Bew helped me understand the true characteristics of public service. The absence of rancour and his understanding of the need for collaboration were in stark contrast to the antipathy of compromise by more recent PMs such as Brown and May. Attlee established policies and created institutions that his Tory successors accepted, and in the case of Harold McMillan, further enhanced because they were proven to improve the lives of citizens.

With Boris Johnson, we have no idea what will happen; it will depend on who he listens to and his bent on the day. As John Crace summed up Mrs May's premiership, he captured the fears of Boris Johnson with astute and probably prophetic humour: "Her real legacy is leaving the country in the hands of someone even more unfit to be prime minister than herself."

Ben Lomond, a summer stroll

Monday, 8 July 2019

Ascent:        976 metres
Distance:     11 kilometres
Time:           5 hours 55 minutes

Ben Lomond     974m   2hrs  52mins
Ptarmigan         731m    4hrs  29mins

John phoned me the previous evening and asked if I would like to join his daughter and family for a walk up Ben Lomond. The garden could wait and I arrived at Rowardennan at 10:30am. It was nearer 11:00am when the others arrived and then ten minutes for all the family including Loki, the new dog, to start the walk. It was already baking hot and quite humid with light cloud cover. Young John had already climbed Tarmachan on my last Munro but Mia and Loki were on their first Munro so it was a staccato pace with random food, water and rest stops. Nevertheless, we were keeping up with most of the other parties on the ascent and Ben Lomond as always was a busy hill. The climb is fairly unrelenting for the first 577 metres after which there is a gentler climb to 800 metres before the final steep climb to the summit ridge that follows the rocky edge of Coire a' Bhathaich.

John and I walked ahead during the final section and it was worth it to see the joy of achievement as the family were pulled to the trig point by the eager dog. Photos were taken, food and drink followed and like most others on such a warm day, we lingered far longer than is normal on a summit. I suggested that we return via the Ptarmigan ridge, it is a more scenic route down with views of Loch Lomond although there is a steep drop down a rough stony path for the first 200 metres of descent. I was worried that the children and dog might find it difficult but they coped better than the adults. After crossing Bealach Buidhe, it is a pleasant stroll along the undulating ridge to Ptarmigan and then 3 kilometres down a long sinuous path through the waist-high bracken and vegetation. Several parties were still making the climb up. We reached the West Highland Way for the final 500 metres back to the car park. We were home for 6pm and Aileen had prepared a welcome meal for everyone.

Halfway there

Summit ridge

Bateman family arrival

Looking east to Loch Ard

Ben Lomond from Ptarmigan

Descending the Ptarmigan ridge