"I'm sure they wouldn't like it if I walked into their church and started handing out books on ancient festivals and beliefs!"

Hi Vicster,

I think that we need to be tolerant here. After all, it is their island, and they are entitled to their views.

Personally, I was far more concerned about the behaviour of a minority of the new age travellers. On Saturday they were akin to riotous, running around the site shouting, swearing, building fires and generally doing what out of control kids do on a Saturday night. I had to remind a few of them that this was an ancient monument that they were defacing, not a bus shelter. A lad with a half drunk bottle of whisky and didgeridoo challenged me on my concern whilst calling me an agent of the lizards (honest!).

I presume that by now they have found someone at Inverness General who has the surgical skills to remove an aboriginal wind instrument from the rectum of this lad!

Anyway, I intend to voice my concerns to Patricia Ferguson, MSP and Minister for Culture, about how we can protect this site from future vandalism. My main fear is that now they have found Callanish this may become an annual pilgrimage for them.

I don't know whether you noticed, but it was just as well that the moon was obscured by cloud before setting as some new agers had erected their tent and a wind break over the fissure in the rocks that it was meant to be reborn through. Before I left the Doune Braes, Hotel a couple in the bar were frantically trying to call Margaret Curtis to ask her to intercede with these revellers and try to get them to take it all down.

:-)