Escaping Glasgow

Quickly fleeing Glasgow, but first running north and west through touristy, crowded Loch Lomond. Tourism rules here: the past, the 'picturesque' land (here the Loch) and the nearby officially 'preserved' villages (like Luss) as commodities. One of the main attractions at the Loch, judging by the full parking lot and lines of people returning with full shopping bags, seems to be a shopping mall/aquarium/park visitors centre complex. Someone seems to have decided that if you can turn places into people magnet spectacles, like Luss and Loch Lomond, then why not proide a tartan shop, highland perfumery or knick-knack shop or two.

In the evening I open a tourist booklet to a full page ad in which the Duke and Duchess of Argyll invite us to “Be enchanted” at their Inveraray Castle. But then every castle in the region makes its best pitch, as with Duart Castle shining ghostly under a rare sun or Photoshop beam, hints of rocky outcroppings and golden heath, all sitting under deep grey clouds that don't seem to speak of rain.

Another page: a stylish ad for Iona Abbey and Nunnery sits face to face with an ad for Tralee Rally Karting (“Turn up, put on a helmet, and you’re in for the biggest buzz of the summer.”).

The two page spread for Inverarary Jail and County Court promises you'll “Witness History,” Get locked up! Face torture, Death & Damnation,” “Discover how wrongdoers were trated before the days of prisons [i.e. our progressive times]. For petty theft, the punishment was thumbscrews, being branded with a hot iron or having your ear nailed to a post!” (No torture in our time!). The past as cartoon of some fantasy of unique cruelty, hardship that we've all grown beyond.

What happens to the past in this touristic world? To memory? The total packaging of both. How to have something of one's own experience in such a world?

End of day - and next. We are finally moving a little beyond the crowds and the call to be enchanted. A morning walk along quiet, remote Crinan Canal (where boaters lock themselves through and there's not a bikini to be seen - both unthinkable on the Rideau Canal we've been paddling), then to Kilmartin Glen to walk among the sheep rubbing themselves against the Neolithic standing stones that dot their pasture. Even the recurrent showers of the first two days let up for much of today.

Tom