Adventures On The A9
A gorgeous day in Inverness and I'm completely staggered by the amount of new housing here. It's almost like they are building an entire New Town on the outskirts of the old one. The production team here were telling me that this is causing a lot more traffic congestion in the city centre, but, for all that, it's still a beautiful part of Scotland.
I came up in the car last night while conducting a hands-free phone conversation with our Press Office in Glasgow. Our latest Rajar listening figures were distributed at half past five, but can't be published until seven o'clock the next morning. We appear to have gained ninety thousand listeners in the past year.
Today in the office I was fielding calls from reporters about the figures, but the various measures - share, reach, hours-per-listener - can make it a complicated story. Radio Scotland's varied schedule means we tend to focus on reach, but music stations prefer to talk about share. That's why the subsequent newspaper stories tend to be unpredictable and, in some cases, unfathomable.
I had to leave Inverness about two o'clock in the afternoon and, (shock, horror) I completely forgot to have lunch. Hunger pangs forced me off the road at Aviemore where I raided the chilled cabinet of the supermarket and then had a lonely picnic in the car. Cold chicken.
Aviemore itself is much improved these days and seems to be shaking off its repuation for concrete eyesores. There are still one or two blips, mind you, which include the public toilets on the main street. I didn't realise there was a twenty pence entrance charge and I made the big mistake of asking the attendant if she had change. She gave me a look so evil that I thought she might have mis-heard me. Perhaps she thought I had asked if she would sell me her family. It was that bad a look.
She pulled out a cash drawer which glistened with row after row of pound coins.
"As long as you don't want change of a big note."
"I've only got a fiver, " I said, feeling ashamed. She let out a sigh and again the bad look.
"You should really come prepared!" she scolded. I felt like a five year old, but she handed me the change and I put my coin in the slot and went through the turnstile.
On the way out I saw her again and, in a fit of madness, told her, truthfully, that the cubicles had run out of loo paper and - wait for it - I asked her if I could get a refund on my entrance fee! She put her hands round a mop handle and I could see she regretted not having stuck it out at the voodoo night classes. Otherwise I would have been pulling at my collar and gasping for air.
"The paper must have been stolen", she explained, spitting out the words, "by backpackers!"
Ah yes, those dirty thieving backpackers. Let's hope they don't come back this way. I mean...this is supposed to be a tourist destination.
