In a world gone mad, Scotland suddenly seems so much saner

Published on Thursday 6 April 2006 01:39

IT MAY be due to the lack of smoke, or the joyous arrival of a brand new tax year, but life in Scotland seems a little bit more sane this week.

We may deep-fry the occasional Mars bar. Every now and again, a few of us are reputed to drink more than is strictly necessary. Our new parliament may be of Catalan design and sport unusual vanishing bolts, but these are mere details. When a calamitous downswing in Sunday-morning Christian activity dictated the closure of hundreds of churches, we turned them into carpet warehouses, bijou residences and nightclubs.

We were not even tempted to consult Barbel Mohr's best-selling book, The Cosmic Ordering Service, for alternatives. Mind you, because we are so canny, it has not escaped our attention that Noel Edmonds is a career-turnaround example made in heaven - as we once called the cosmos. When he attributed his brand new TV contract and relaunched career to "cosmic ordering", it couldn't fail to intrigue us. Sending out a personal shopping list to a benign, listening universe does seem like a splendid system. No guilt. No be-good clause. No bells, prayer shawls or penances. Just take delivery of that silver BMW and a nice new job.

But then, we're Scottish. And we know that when something seems too good to be true, it usually is not true. This drab little lesson tends to be learned early in these parts, courtesy of the playground barter system. It is inconceivable that Vanna Marchi, the 74-year-old Italian television saleswoman, could have amassed her 23 million fraudulent fortune here. Miss Marchi became famous in the Eighties, selling face creams and slimming aids on screen. In the mid-Nineties, she decided to branch out. Why bother with bulky products when customers were just as willing to buy thin air? So, between 1996 and 2001, she and her assistants sold "certain win" lottery numbers to more than 300,000 regular customers. If they complained about not winning, they were told that they were under the influence of the evil eye, and this curse would require a substantial series of payments to remove. Anyone who complained or missed payments was threatened.

Machi and her daughter, Stefania, were each sentenced to two-and-a-half years in jail. Not the heaviest of penalties for a 23 million racket. But perhaps the Milan court included some of the eight million Italians estimated to visit magicians and sorcerers every year.

IT ISN'T sorcery that is upsetting the Australians this week, however. A new research project completed by the University of Queensland has concluded that mobile-phone addiction has officially arrived. As Australia has a population of 22 million, and 19 million citizens own mobile phones, this is believed to represent the highest percentage of ownership in the world. So prevalent is mobile usage that some native birds have now adapted their calls to imitate the sound of mobile-phone ring tones. Students interviewed for the study admitted to suffering withdrawal symptoms and anxiety if they did not receive texts or calls. Dependency and self-esteem issues were the result. Can it be long before someone founds a Mobile Users Anonymous group? And would it have a helpline?

Help is something Bjoernar Haakensmoen will need very shortly when his thank-you present from Canada arrives. During the Winter Olympics, Haakensmoen, who trained the Norwegian cross-country ski team, lent one of his ski poles to the Canadian Sara Renner, who had broken hers. Renner went on to win the silver medal in the women's cross-country event. As thanks for this sporting gesture, the Canadians are sending the instructor just what every sporting enthusiast dreams of - five tonnes of maple syrup.

Now, I'd be the last to deny that a drizzle of maple syrup can be very pleasant with coffee ice-cream. Even with pancakes. But five tonnes of the stuff equals viscous hell. The Canadian sector of the cosmic ordering service must be very hard of hearing. I wonder what it was poor Bjoernar actually ordered. Suggestions welcome.