John Gibson: The Colonel's back with missing Lynx

Published on Friday 29 May 2009 09:57

WHEN I first met him he was rowing up the Water of Leith, Whisky Galore-ish, with crates of booze in the boat. Resplendent in Albanian army officer uniform. They don't call Brian Donkin the Mad Colonel for nothing.

He was on his way with Albanian wine to replenish the cellars of the adjacent La Camargue bistro and Cameo Bar in the port's Commercial Street. He was landlord there for ten years, up to October 2006 when he repaired to his Barcelona apartment by the beach.

No beach bum. He always planned to return some day to the trade he's known all his life and I found him back on the radar, with Leith Lynx, the eatery/drinkery he has created at the foot of Leith's Constitution Street.

Donkinesque, after his fashion, it's dispensing French wines, Belgian beers, good grub and Guinness at 8 per cent.

"A consignment of Guinness en route to Nigeria from Dublin somehow went adrift," he tried to explain, "and far as I know the Lynx in Scotland, with the 8 per cent brew and 8.6 Scotch Ale brewed in Belgium, is the only outlet."

The Colonel's mad streak has not been exorcised, I'm glad to relate. He is, too, a newspaper editor. He runs Leith Links on the web, attracting 4,000 hits a month and building.

The same Brian Donkin who was owner/chef of Edinburgh's prestigious Oyster Bar for 18 years. Still liable to rock the boat We won't mention his gold teeth.

Livin' to the Max

Telling it like it is. Or was. An old hand at the trade, a reflective Sir Max Hastings is saying: "Journalism is glamorous and it allows you to live a life you otherwise couldn't have done. If you've been slaving away on a daily newspaper, the danger is you wake up one morning in your fifties and you look in the mirror and say, 'well is that it then?' Otherwise it's a great life. You can't beat it."

In your seventies, Max, in your seventies!

Can I just add . . . drink is the curse of the journalistic classes. Well, it used to be. Journos can't afford it any more, nor can those dear people who used to pour it down our throats.

We're skint. Stoney. Oh for the good old days, gone forever.

But enough of this weeping and wailing. Things could be worse. We could be Westminster MPs wondering what fate awaits you in the Grand Exes Fiddle.