Inversnecky

Authorities surprise us all with really good St Andrews’ Day bash

Following the shock situation of a government in Edinburgh that actually cares about our patron saint, Highland Council has continued to brighten even the dourest and most sceptical members of the Inversnecky editorial team by laying on a splendiferous bash at the Northern Meeting Park this weekend.

With the castle and cathedral in various shades of blue and tartan, and the Ness Bridge in its usual shades of concrete, the free St Andrew’s Day gig has surprised Invernessians firstly by being attended by a fantastic crowd, and secondly by not being shit.

Pride in our city, pride in our council, pride in our country: whatever next from the town city’s (admittedly self-proclaimed) number one news source?

A very Happy St Andrew’s Day to you all.

Or as our Polish community would say, “Gdynia Andrzej Bledzewski”!

Highland Capital to become an all-year, never-ending marketing tool

There’s been Highland 2007 and its associated events and celebrations, now the current Inverness Winter Festival and Inverness Film Festival, and then the forthcoming Homecoming 2009 and the town city’s role therein.

With festivals for this, that and the next thing in the Highland Capital, and only three days in the last decade not having seen some sort of half-baked celebratory event, authorities have just decided “sod it”, and declared a permanent festival right across Inverness.

As such, the town city is to be renamed Invernestival, meaning it is now no longer a place but an event.

“Something will be happening every day, forever,” declared a spokesman for Invernestival, whose boss is now also the new self-appointed Mayor of the town city event at a press conference at the Town House, now renamed the Festival of Local Government.

“Whether it’s culture, food, fireworks or roadworks, there’s always something worth celebrating here,” he added.  “Next week, for instance, the mini-JCB on Falcon Square will double up as a bucking bronco, while the square itself will become a Festival of Goth Assembly.  The Ness Islands will soon be hosting the first-ever Festival of Dog-Walking, Cycling and Outdoor Drinking.  Meanwhile, the Longman Industrial Estate will be renamed a Festival of Industry, and the proposed Inverness College UHI move will be rebranded a never-ending Festival of Lifelong Learning.”

The spokesman could not confirm rumours that Merkinch and North Kessock would be rebranded a Festival of Poverty or that the Kessock Bridge would become a permanent Festival of Congestion.

Inversnecky’s new office livery for the Bunker is on order, as part of our rebranding as a Festival of Reliable Local Information.

All I want for Christmas, says Inverness, is a decent supermarket

The arrival of Santa Claus this week, with his new present of a new budget supermarket for Inverness, was greeted with enthusiasm by the choice-starved citizens of the town city.

With Aldi’s opening set to spark a supermarket war in the run-up to Christmas, which can only benefit consumers, Santa Claus’s spokesman told Inversnecky  “We’re delighted to help.  Mr Claus got loads of letters from Invernessians calling for a new supermarket in the Highland Capital, and we’re glad we could deliver.  Ho, ho, ho!”

Santa himself would not be drawn on whether he would be working with the council and business community to ensure that Sainsbury now came into the fold and delivered some quality.

UNESCO bid shirks mention of Inverness’s monster neighbour

Loch Ness’s recent application to UNESCO for World Heritage Status has broken the consensus among local Invernessians to tell all foreigners and visitors that yes, Nessie could well exist and really nobody knows…

In a shocking publication, the Loch Ness bid sells the area to UNESCO on the grounds that:

1. the area has water.  And it’s very, very deep.
2. it has big, tall mountains on either side.
3. there’s a canal.
4. it rains a lot.

The bid is an audacious betrayal of the Nessie legend, despite the fact nobody has ever heard of the loch except for the damn monster.

A spokesman for VisitScotland said simply “d’oh!”.

Inversnecky however firmly believes in the strength of stories of strange, elusive creatures who live down in the depths and emerge when least expected…

Highland 2007’s last delay takes to the streets

The Inverness Christmas Illuminations – or “inverluminations” – recently hung up around the town city centre, poised for their grand switching-on, can be revealed by Inversnecky not to be the 2008 lights, but those of 2007, delivered ten months late.

A spokesman for Highland 2007, dug up from his grave, explained: “Yeah, sorry.  We… er… forgot.  Never mind, it’s not the only delay of the year and hopefully everyone will just think it’s the 2008 lights.”

Highland Council denied rumours that the electricity required to power the inverluminations would finally kill off any hope of the Ness Bridge lights working properly.

Speculation is now mounting as to who will be switching on the inverluminations, and no doubt many of our loyal correspondents will have their own theories…

And will anyone notice?

Apathy and disinterest has greeted the news that the newsagent’s in the sleepy Crown area of Inverness has suddenly closed, due to being rubbish.

Coming after the closure of Crown’s post office some months ago – only just noticed by the majority of the district’s residents – plus the news that Crown’s largest and oldest prison facility is to relocate, fears are now being expressed for the future of the area.

A spokesman for the newly-formed Crown Liberation Front told Inversnecky “It’s not good news.  Soon there’ll be no point coming into Crown whatsoever, unless you’re coming back from Raigmore Motel and get badly lost.  We’d be up in arms, if any of us were under 80 and free of arthritis.”

Highland Council, however, gave assurances that the life would not be sucked out of the slow-beating heart of the uninspiring neighbourhood.  “After all,” a spokesman for the council said, “at least there’s still a college campus there… no, wait…”

“Gaelic village” idea modified to fit into Inverness merry-go-round

Plans by the lunatic fringe of Inverness’s Gaelic-speaking community to establish a Gaelic village on the outskirts of the town have been welcomed with open arms by grumpy, Viking helmet-wearing councillors of Caithness this week.

The people from the flat county over the mountains have encouraged Highland Council to endorse the nutters’ plans and offer up the soon-to-be evacuated Porterfield Prison in the town city’s Crown area for use by the monolingual utopians.

A spokesman for the Caithness rebels explained the rationale behind the internment development: “Aye, we all like agree that something has til be done.  We need a new prison til put all the dirty Wickers, and the bloody Gaels need til go somewhere so they stop harping on about our roadsigns.  So it’s all right enough.”

A statement from one of Inverness’s plethora of Gaelic development agencies reads… er… we’ll get back to you on that later once Inversnecky’s Gaelic correspondent gets back from the Mod.

Gleeful Gaels and legions of pro-celtic Germans are now due to utterly depopulate rural Skye and Lewis to fill the new Gaelic village.

News that the Highland Capital’s Polish population are demanding their own town (likely to fill no more than a couple of bedsits these days) cannot be accurately confirmed.