Saudi princess robbed of her 'pocket money'

A wave of crime in luxury hotels in Sardinia's Costa Smeralda has been taking place over recent days, in hotels of one particular hotel chain - insider skullduggery is suspected of having provided a professional gang with information to enable them to perpetrate their heists; a significant raid has also taken place in Portofino on Italy's north-west coast.

What drew my attention to this story was the headline about a Saudi princess having 11mio Euros stolen from her roomsafe; one presumes what we are actually describing here is a suite of rooms - I cannot imagine someone so wealthy having a mere room. What was she thinking? Holding such a large sum in her roomsafe seems to me to be most 'unwise', not to say completely mad. Possibly she was planning to buy a property, or more likely it was simply a reflection of habits in Saudi Arabia which favour holding cash rather than relying on banks - and in these parlous financial times such reticence is perhaps understandable, always provided that one ensures that the cash is securely held and a hotel roomsafe cannot by any stretch of the imagination be expected to foil a determined thief. The hotel's own main safe might be a better bet, I suppose, but even there I think you are taking a major risk. Ultimately one really needs to have one's own personal guard to guard the roomsafe or hotel safe when such sums are involved and the costs of doing so are likely to be trifling in comparison.

Early on in my banking career, whilst I was still in London as a management trainee, I often used to accompany a senior arab personal banking officer from our office, usually on Thursday or Friday afternoons, around various of the 'swankier' hotels in London to deliver to various clients of the bank their 'pocket money' for the weekend - this was in the 1970s and the sums were usually of the order of GBP10-30k (depending on which methods you use to evaluate current values, that might be equivalent to GBP40-120k to GBP100-300k in today's money) and usually we did two or three such deliveries during the afternoon, more during the summer when there were more visitors from the middle east in town. Normally we had to provide them with unused banknotes, not for any 'nefarious' purpose, but simply because of their desire not to have other people's fingerprints on their notes and in those days we had to get these notes specially from the Bank of England, with whom we had standing arrangements. Of course, those were still quite large sums of money, but most of it would have been 'blown' by their normal spending habits by the time the end of the following week came and they needed further injections of cash to keep the party going, but at least they didn't hoard massive amounts of cash in an unsecure roomsafe. Doh!

China-Inverness charter flights?

(PLease see UPDATE at end)

thought this might be a wind-up when I first caught the summary of this story in my Bloglines feed from the BBC website, but when I read the underlying report I can certainly see the logic and maybe it might even happen. It is certainly true that when I worked in Hong Kong many years ago one of my friends and colleagues, a Hong Kong Chinese, was completely infatuated by all things Scottish (not whisky though, because he was almost wholly tee-total) and was obsessed - and I don't think I exaggerate - with finding some plausible [or not] Scottish connection that he could latch on to and in particular he wanted me to try and find a tartan that he could use, so one summer whilst I was back in Scotland I did some research and found that his family name was quite similar to a Scottish name and that it was a sept of the Scottish Clan MacPherson, so I got him a tie of a MacPherson tartan and he was aboslutely over the moon with it. I can well believe, therefore, that there will be a worthwhile number of Chinese with the means and desire to take a visit to what some might see as, in a weird kind of way, their spiritual homeland, even if the 'spiritual' connection is merely a taste for our national product 'whisky'! Funnily enough, I happen to know the person quoted in the article and he is certainly no foolish romantic, simply someone trying to boost the tourism prospects of the Highlands through practical action, particularly when visitors from some other countries (such as the US or Canada) may currently be in decline because of currency and economic fluctuations.

UPDATE: (Saturday 13SEP08 0820 BST) There's a fuller article on this proposal in yesterday's Inverness Courier which addresses some of the issues covered in the comments to this article.

Day 2 - visit to Scottish Parliament and a minor 'Blogger' meet

Amongst other things I visited the Scottish Parliament this afternoon and sat through part of the 'Transport' debate in the Public Gallery. Very interesting the hear the truth behind the normal sanitised versions one sees on television from the edited highlights; lots of foot-stamping and desk-banging, not to mention some sotto voce asides when some particuarly outrageous remark was taken objection to by a political opponent!

Earlier in the day I had spent several hours, several enjoyable but tiring hours, trudging around the National Museum of Scotland. This was only my second visit, but to do the place justice one really needs to spend at least a week, although not more than two or three hours a days as after that'overload' and fatigue sets in. Following the visit to the Scottish Parliament it was just a short step across the road to the Queen's Gallery at Holyroodhouse for the third 'visit' of the day. The exhibition currently on display included several ink drawings by Leonardo da Vinci, and paintings and drawings by a number of other artists of flora and fauna - in fact paintings and ink drawings of flora are particular favourites of mine and I have quite a few at home by a local artist and friend who employs exactly the same technique of almost phtographic exactitude in capturing the detail of plants, leaves and flowers - it was only a visit of an hour, but it was an hour packed with content!

About fifteen minutes ago I just got back from a 'Blogger' meet, where I had the pleasure of meeting David from the Freedom and Whisky blog. We had a very enjoyable two or so hours discussing a great many subject of interest; unfortunately no other bloggers turned up, but it was still a very worthwhile experience; indeed it is the first time that I have met a fellow-blogger 'in the flesh' (as Nairn is not exactly blogging central!).

Tomorrow amongst other things I shall be visiting the Museum of Flight and various other places in East Lothian.

Day 1 - visit to Falkirk Wheel

The main event today, apart from the drive down from Nairn to Edinburgh, was a visit to the Falkirk Wheel - although I had seen lots of photographs of it in operation it is difficult to visualise until you actually see it. Well worth the visit and as it was the first day in at least a week that we have had blue skies it made for an attractive visit.

Checked in this evening at the Halls of Residence (Pollok Halls, aka 'Edinburgh First') close by Arthur's Seat, where I had stayed about four years ago. Very comfortable and there is fairly decent (and inexpensive) wine in the bar so that's always a good start! Tomorrow it's the Scottish Parliament following the Museum of Scotland, then onto the Queen's Gallery at Holyroodhouse.

If you're a golfer, don't overlook Nairn, says PGA

Whilst doing some research on recent developments affecting the Highlands I came across this very recent article on the PGA Tour official website about Nairn Golf Club, ranked as number 10 amongst Scottish golf courses, located as it is close to the shore of the Moray Firth with spectacular scenery as a back-drop to many of the holes. I'm not a golfer myself, but know that many people visit to play the game here, indeed many people own second homes here purely so they can come to have a game of golf on such a fine links course. However it is apparently not particularly well-known outside Scotland, except amongst the cognoscenti. Golf International organises a number of golf package tours which take in courses in the Highlands of Scotland and Nairn Golf Club is included in many of the tours.

Nairn Golf Club hosted the 1999 Walker Cup (see here also) and will host the female equivalent, the 2012 Curtis Cup.

No, I'm not a paid agent of Nairn Golf Club or indeed of VisitScotland.com (don't be droll - Ed.), but Nairn is a good place to live and to visit. If you are planning a golfing trip to Scotland, don't overlook Nairn.

PS/ Nairn has another golf course, Nairn Dunbar Golf Club, a fine course, too. Indeed it is joint host this year in August, with Nairn Golf Club, of The Seniors Open Amateur Championship

A trip to a Spanish Monastery

(Please see UPDATE at end)

We finally seem to have got over the period of rainy and quite cold weather we've had for the last 10 or so days; today it reached about 17.5 degC, really quite pleasant, and almost totally blue sky most of the day. After a trip to town (Mazarron) to mail some things at the post office, I decided to take a trip into the hills beyond Totana to a monastery near the mediaeval hill town of Aledo; the Hermitage of Saint Eulalia of Merida dates from the late 16th century and is located in very pretty countryside in the Sierra Espuna:

The entrance to the Church The altarpiece Illuminating a 'candle' Monastery and hotel complex Click here to see larger images.

I shall undoubtedly be back up there in coming weeks as there is a large statue of Jesus Christ on a nearby hill overlooking the monastery which, according to the lady in the information office at the Monastery, affords tremendous views over the surrounding countryside and down to the sea; photos to come.

UPDATE: I did make a trip back up to the Monastery later in the month when we walked up the hill to the see the view from there and to see the statue of Jesus Christ from close-up. The photographs above plus some additional photographs taken on my later visit are here.