Author Archives: Tim Lenton

My mother and father honeymooned in Scotland, in a small, thick-walled cottage in a village called Strathyre. I know it was thick-walled because just over 30 years later my wife and I spent part of our own honeymoon in the same cottage. The weather was very warm, but inside the cottage it was chilly enough to need an electric fire. Or we could huddle together. Sometimes we did that.

We didn’t spend all our time in Strathyre. We climbed a couple of mountains – first The Cobbler, which is otherwise known as Ben Arthur, near Arrochar. It reaches just under 3000ft, which means it is sadly not a Munro. The other was Ben Nevis, which is not only a Munro but the highest mountain in the United Kingdom (4413ft). We started climbing in the early afternoon and were probably the last ones down that day. 

We have not been back to that cottage, but we have been back many times to Scotland, largely because of a neighbour of ours who moved in next door when we came to live in Norwich. He came from Aberdeen, and he had a sister. Once we deciphered his accent, we established that his sister, Ella, had a house which – because she was a teacher, like my wife – she would be willing to rent to us. 

And that is why we have travelled to Ballater every year or two since 1990. 

Ballater is nowhere near Strathyre. It is in the north-east, on the edge of the Cairngorm mountains and just up the road from Balmoral. Ben Nevis may be the highest mountain in Scotland, but the next five are all in the Cairngorms. Not being great mountaineers, we have only climbed the second highest, which is Ben Macdui.

However, we have also climbed the stunning Lochnagar, visible from Ballater, four or five times. Lochnagar is probably the tenth highest peak in the Cairngorms, and to put things in perspective, over 200ft higher than the mighty Snowdon. This year our granddaughter climbed it on her own.

Much has changed since we first went to Ballater and fell in love (with the village: we were already in love with each other). There has been a major flood, in the winter of 2015-16, and two significant fires, the more recent of which destroyed our favourite hotel-restaurant, the Glen Lui. The other one ripped through the beautiful restored station, which functioned as a welcome area for visitors and a memorial to the time when the royal train reached so far (but no further). The station has been revamped, but the locals are not happy with the result, and I can see why. 

Things do change, of course. Our favourite restaurant in the world, the Green Inn, was lost – but has returned and is very nearly as good, which is saying something. There is an excellent Indian restaurant, and my wife’s favourite clothes shop, Byzantium, some nice breakfast and snack shops as well as the Clachan Grill, which we have known under two other names but which seems not to have changed too much. And our original rented accommodation has gone, though we still meet up with the lovely Ella. 

What about the big flood? It carved a chunk out of the A93 – reinstated, I believe, in 19 days: in our home county of Norfolk it would probably need 19 weeks and still not quite be finished. It also destroyed a bridge and a section of road that bordered Birkhall, a favourite dwelling of King Charles. This has not been reinstated, maybe because its absence increases royal security. The flood also changed the landscape – the banks of the River Dee are quite different now, and the beautiful bridge at Cambus O’May had to be repaired, which did take quite a time. 

Much more has been lost, but the lovely people and the feeling of the place live on. Outside the village though, on the surrounding roads, the pointless hand of authority is starting to be felt. On many major roads through villages, the speed limit is a ridiculous 20mph, and on the A93 down the road from Balmoral, traffic lights have been inserted on a bridge which was always wide enough for two in the past. The only reason they are needed is to make room for the intrusive block of concrete on which they have been mounted.

But that’s government for you. In the past 35 years one of the joys of Scotland has been getting away from that sort of thing. 

A good friend of mine has erected a placard on her property advising whoever passes by to vote for the Liberal Democrats at the upcoming council elections. This, she tells me, is because the candidate is a nice chap. 

An excellent reason, I’m sure you’ll agree. In fact the recently revived School of Penguins, Chess and Road Surfacing at the University of East Anglia has recently published a far-reaching, in-depth research paper that comes to very much the same conclusion. 

The author, Professor Ian “Sam” Aufmerksam, who has recently returned from a sabbatical in the Antarctic, said yesterday that it was quite clearly a waste of time to examine the policy statements of various parties, as the Prime Minister had made clear in the most brilliant way that policies were flexible, contradictory and in many cases irrelevant. 

“This is happening almost everywhere,” Prof Aufmerksam told our reporter. “If we merely determined which of the candidates for a particular seat was a nice chap –or chapess, obviously – we could vote for them without their suddenly revealing themselves to be antisemitic, or globalist, or in favour of potholes and ridiculously slow speed limits.  

Prof Aufmerksam’s findings were welcomed by local hero Henry (Fred) “Shrimp” Houseago, who described himself as a “nice chap, always ready to help”. Despite being defeated in a poll at Corpusty East some time ago following a 90 per cent swing, Mr Houseago has resurfaced after attending a retreat run by the radical Rev Nick Repps-cum-Bastwick in the Autonomous Republic of Hingham. 

As already reported, Mr Houseago spent some years taking part in an experiment run by Professor V A R Scheinlich, an expert in wormholes and time-space distortion. As a result of this he was reassessing his age to “something more realistic”. He felt he was ready to take control.

Meanwhile Len “Kissme” Hardy of Hindolveston, a whole food chef and comet chaser described by Mr Houseago as a “thorn in the flesh” after his dalliance with “nice chap” Dorothea Goodchild, is considering standing for the European Union, whatever that is. A search of Norfolk has revealed no placards in his name, however, and it is unclear which party he represents. 

Asked what his attitude was to the war in the Middle East, he said: “Yes.”

Corey Ford, an American writer and humourist, is also described as an outdoorsman. So it’s a little surprising that the only quotation of his I know is this: “I’d go away if it wasn’t so far.”

It is, however, a remark that rings bells for me. I have just spent three weeks in Canada, staying with our son and his wife. It was relaxing, and I love Canada. I know it’s an extensive country, but I’ve seen quite a lot of it. This trip was to Ontario, which meant landing at Toronto. Unfortunate, but there you are. You have to land somewhere. 

Other people have since told me that they love Canada – and some of them have not even been there. It’s a beautiful place, but it’s so far away. All right, it’s not as far as Australia, but I have no intention of going there. That’s too, too far. 

How wonderful it would be if we could simply press a button and suddenly relocate three thousand miles away.  I know that’s not very adventurous of me, but I have other faults that are much worse. 

One of them is being easily distracted. I had intended writing about the differences between Canada and the United Kingdom. One difference, of course, is the spelling of the word humourist. Or is it? Canadian and American are not always the same thing: anyone suggesting that they are is likely to come under strong attack – from Canadians, anyway. 

Canada is certainly big – considerably bigger than the USA and far, far, far bigger than the United Kingdom. Interestingly (I think) the part where we were staying is also further south than quite a lot of the USA. Toronto itself is considerably further south than Minneapolis, Rapid City and Seattle, and much of Windsor is south of Detroit. Little did I think as I strolled on the shores of Lake Erie that I was way south of Bob Dylan’s birthplace. Well, you wouldn’t, would you?

If a Canadian were to look east, he or she might be surprised to find that Toronto, at latitude 43.6 North, is not only way south of London (51.5 N), but south of Paris and Milan. It is roughly on a par with the French Riviera. So why is it so cold?

Well, I’ve been in Toronto when it was 40C. In the summer it’s always pretty warm in southern Ontario, as it is in Alberta, British Columbia, Manitoba, Quebec and Saskatchewan – and probably elsewhere, but those are the provinces I’ve visited.

Our holiday coincided with a very warm and dry spell (except for the thunderstorm which delayed our flight home for eight hours). The temperature was mostly in the high 20s. But it is cold in winter, because they don’t have the Atlantic. Well, they do, but it doesn’t perform the same function as it does for us, which is to keep us warmer than we should be in winter at such northern latitudes. Nothing to do with emissions, I’m glad to say. 

I suppose the biggest difference between Canada and the UK is the space. Except for the southern strip, especially in the neighbourhood of Toronto, where Highway 401 is like the M25 but much wider and busier, the countryside is pleasantly empty. The roads are bigger, there are few hedges, and you can see a long way. Even the rare hold-ups are quite relaxing. 

The downside, of course, is that everyone needs a car. Public transport is rather rudimentary, and even the corner shop – when there is one – is a long walk and probably not on a corner. Electric cars are worth having, because filling up with petrol in winter is not a pleasant experience.

But with the  space there is definitely a sense of freedom. Perhaps this is because you don’t have to keep your elbows in. As a result (maybe) people are generally considerate. I would definitely go back soon, if I could find that button.

PS As it turns out Canadians spell humourist like that too. I consulted an expert. But they also eat arigula and eggplant, whatever that is. And they have bears. Did I mention bears? They’re free.

One of the best pieces of advice given to me early in my “career” was to start what my editor at the time called a commonplace book. This was just a place to store any quotations that struck me as valuable for some reason – that reason varying from the profound to the funny, or even mysterious.

Obviously the idea was to make a note of who had originated the quote and in what context. This did not always work – as in this one, for instance. I don’t know where it came from, but it’s still memorable as far as I’m concerned:

“I would feel infinitely more comfortable in your presence if you would agree to treat gravity as a law, rather than one of a number of suggested options.”

This comes under the “funny” category, in case you were wondering. But at the same time, it always made me feel a little uneasy. How many things, especially in science, do we assume are settled?

And so I was intrigued to read the other day that gravity may not be a law or fundamental force after all, but possibly something that emerges from quantum electromagnetic interactions, potentially reshaping our view of spacetime itself. I’m sure you know what that means.

Science is a funny thing. We think it means establishing facts, but in fact it depends on doubt. The first thing a scientist should do when looking closely at a theory is try to prove it wrong. If this fails, he or she has something to work with. 

Unfortunately it seems to me that recently this truth has been forgotten. We collect data and come to conclusions, then forget that it is the data that (hopefully) are facts, and not the conclusions. Conclusions, or theories, are our attempts to knock the data into a shape that we understand. There is a huge capacity for error in there. 

People who are not scientists don’t really get this. They really want science to be the facts. Follow the science, they say. Well, that’s OK, as long as you realise that it might be leading you in the wrong direction. Test the science, or question the science, might be the more sensible option.

Unfortunately it seems to me that schools and universities look at things wrongly. They want consensus on a particular issue, but science is not democracy. They teach the consensus as if were the only option, and everything else as if it’s a conspiracy theory. 

Unfortunately, as I’ve said before – and here I delve into my commonplace collection again – the easiest and least stressful path to success is to adopt the status quo viewpoint without question. A guy called Fred Heffer wrote that five years ago.

So confusing consensus with certainty is a popular career move. It is also welcomed in the population at large, especially if you live in a democracy. And you don’t have to search far down the decades to find breakthrough theories that were resisted for years because those in charge preferred to deal with stuff they had been taught and had taught to others, whether it was right or not.

Science should be exciting, because it frequently does somersaults. But those in charge like straight lines. However, as R Buckminster Fuller pointed out, there are no straight lines in the universe. It’s a lot more interesting than that.

So maybe speed isn’t the main cause of accidents. Maybe theories of climate change are wrong. I’ll go further: they definitely are. I don’t know how, but I’d guess fundamentally. Really. That’s pretty obvious already. Take my word for it. One day everybody will say so.  

Magnus Carlsen, the best chess player in the world, turned up for a tournament in New York recently wearing jeans. Smart jeans (he’s a smart player), but jeans nevertheless. 

This offended the organisers, who had a dress code. Carlsen offered to pay a fine, but the organisers insisted he went back to his hotel and changed. Carlsen withdrew from the tournament. Checkmate. 

Who is at fault here? I should declare an interest in that I play chess and, more to the point, hate dress codes. I rarely wear a suit, almost never a tie, and have never trusted anyone who has a handkerchief in his (or her) breast pocket. 

This attitude has not served me well in life (except in telling me who not to trust). It has been stated that “the easiest and least stressful path to success is to adopt the status quo viewpoint without question”, and the status quo – apart from anything else – seems to be that looking smart means you can be promoted. 

This may be why so many idiots end up in charge of vital areas, where they see their role as preserving the status quo, particularly the system that has enabled them to reach the heights they are not really qualified to reach, and to get rewarded for failure. 

This is why the National Health Service is so hopeless, and why the scandal in the Post Office destroyed so many lives – though not the lives of the people “in charge” – the cover-up merchants who dress well and charge large fees. 

This sickness affects the whole of society, from the refusal to repair potholes to generally moronic management that can affect whole cities. Sadly, it affects the Church too – the very place that you would think ambition and status quo should have no role at all.

Thus, instead of focusing on preaching love and forgiveness, the Church is obsessed with looking good and making fatuous gestures, like promoting the idiocy of net zero, constructing columns of ineffective waffle on safeguarding, and earmarking money for meaningless slavery “reparations”.  

 I could go on, but I have to get dressed. I seem to have mislaid my jeans.