So its off to Ould Reekie for the last time this lecture year-appropriately Huttonian's lecture is on the run up to the Iraq war which kicked off with Shock and Awe etc three years ago to the day. This is the one lecture of the series which you can guarantee that those students who are still turning up will not snooze-Iraq is still a very live and contentious issue amongst the young people of the Uni -perhaps contentious is not the right word -as I have yet to meet an undergraduate who is in favour of the war in the first place.
Huttonian's lectures have a common theme-they are all connected with my previous existences-as a soldier (Suez) Colonial type (Aden) and postings with the Foreign and Commonwealth Office
(Jordan, Dubai and Kuwait) Indeed I narrowly escaped being a guest of Mr Soddom Hussein as I should have been in Kuwait on 2 August 1990 when the boys from Baghdad decided to liberate their 19th Province but an unexpected posting to Africa got me out of harms way in the nick of time. Thus my use to the proper academics is as what they call in the trade 'A primary Source'-been there etc; and oh yes, I am very cheap-being only paid, after a fashion, for each lecture.
Not that proper Lecturers have bulging pockets. Indeed they are taking 'industrial action' another oxymoron surely, but as I am not a member of the union I am excused inaction. It will however be a bit hard on the students if their teachers refuse to mark their exam papers and refrain from assessing their performance.
After I have deducted my train fare, had my tax removed I am in pocket to the tune of 75p for each lecture. I may have to sit with the mendicants in Princes Street or borrow some Pipes. Of course I can't play but then neither can they and I am sure that the early Japanese tourists and other cognoscenti will fill my sporran with specie for just standing there and refraining from imitating the death throws of a moggie. Good work if you can still get it especially as pipers have been banned from the London Underground under recently passed anti-terrorism legislation
