Emma Cowing: Stay at home this summer – and fight Salmond for your deckchair

Published on Tuesday 27 January 2009 19:04

THE one good thing about January – apart from being able to watch Tommy Sheridan prance around a house in Elstree dressed as a pepper grinder – is being officially "allowed" to think about this year's summer holiday prospects.

I don't know about you, but for me, the dark and boggy mire that is January has always provided the perfect excuse to start hauling out the brochures and the Lonely Planet guides, looking up places I've barely heard of on Google images and wondering if that old, tatty blue suitcase at the back of the wardrobe is going to last another year on the Glasgow Airport luggage carousel.

This year is different for a number of reasons, including, of course, the recession. This year, I will very likely not be going abroad.

Heck, I might not even go anywhere this summer, just book a fortnight off and explore Glasgow or Edinburgh instead, putting on a bad American accent and a pair of ill-fitting shorts in order to complete the experience.

I do this out of choice. I've never spent a full fortnight exploring my own country before. Not only does it seem quite exciting and different, but it also seems the right thing to do economically, not just on a personal level, but on a national scale as well, when our homegrown tourist industry needs all the help it can get.

Pity, however, the Britneys, Tiffanys and Courtneys of Scotland, who are apparently "not welcome" to leave the country – at least not on a holiday with a company entitled Activities Abroad.

Last week, Alistair McLean, the firm's founder, wrote an e-mail to subscribers in which he listed the names of people you would "not encounter" on one of their holidays. Also on McLean's hitlist were Kylie-Liannes (a name I suspect he may have made up himself with fridge magnets), Dazzas, Candices and Chardonnays. Whether he had downed one too many glasses of Chardonnay before penning it was unclear.

However, things take a darker turn when you realise that also staying at home this year are all of the SNP's MSPs, who are apparently being "encouraged" not to take holidays abroad in 2009 in order to avoid embarrassing the party during the Homecoming celebrations.

Although one imagines party chiefs are also aware that the sight of any of said MSPs lounging around on a sunny beach might be enough to send half of Scotland running into the arms of the opposition.

Noble as these ambitions are, I'm not sure all this will encourage much tourism from abroad, what with Alex Salmond and Nicola Sturgeon clogging up the caravan park at Saltcoats, and Candice and Dazza monopolising the chip queues in Largs. Perhaps I'll go abroad after all.

A nearly exciting time was had by all

FAREWELL then, Celebrity Big Brother 2009. Where would we be without you and that Robert Burns fellow to get us through the cold, dark month of January? I feel particularly indebted to you for serving up such an unexpected final as the one witnessed on Friday night. Really, it was almost exciting.

Having banged on in this newspaper last week that I expected Verne would win (while desperately hoping he wouldn't), I was amazed to see him chucked out in fourth place, with Coolio trotting out in third, Terry in second and Ulrika (ka ka) romping home in pole position. Why?

No-one appears to be owning up to voting for her, and even though she herself suggested it was "a fix", there is no evidence at all to suggest it was. Which leaves us with the surprising conclusion that the folk who voted for her were just like her – middle-aged mothers who saw something likeable and admirable in her and wanted to lend their support. Fancy that.

&#149 FROM THE department of Did You Really Just Say That? comes a ludicrous tale of self-pity.

Sarah Symonds, the woman who claims to have had a seven-year affair with Gordon Ramsay (a glutton for punishment, if ever I saw one), had a longstanding tryst with Jeffery Archer and wrote a handbook for mistresses entitled Having An Affair? is feeling terribly sorry for herself. Symonds, who says she has also had a number of affairs with other high-profile men, recently moaned: "I'm sick of being involved with lying, cheating bastards. I want real love. I don't want to end up alone."

Tell it to your reflection first, dear.