All I want for Christmas...

[David Dalglish]

We will have to change you title to "Laird of the kilts" Hamish

[auld argonian]

Just some more material on that Sgt. Preston business...

http://firstam.com/landsakes/html/em...02biginch.html

...which I cannot resist becaise it's so typical of the fifties in the USA.

And I certainly don't want anyone to think that I'm raining on the parade here...it seems like a relatively harmless bit of fun. Just think of all those people who have had a star named after them by that "Interstellar Registry" (or whatever it's called)....the assumption is that they'll never get there to enjoy their star...but if there are "beings" already there, they might take exception to some wise guy on Earth taking the liberty of re-naming their solar system.

Best

AA

[Hamish]

Gilmore, I cannot help thinking that you are taking this FAR too seriously! I parted with my £30.00 partly for the sheer fun of it, in the full knowledge that the entire thing carries no weight at all. Just off the famous Road to the Isles, this beautiful countryside is unlikely to be developed in any of our lifetimes, but if I am able to prevent ANY development there at ANY time in the future just by buying a square foot of the land, then I am proud to have done so - I wish I could have afforded a square mile of it!

I understand the fishing rights DO exist but, as I could not be less interested in that, I'll let someone else have my 'catch'. In the meantime, I'll continue to enjoy the laughs this 'investment' is providing amongst my friends.

And Scott: ma (verra) wee estate is about 2½ miles east of Spean Bridge, between Murlaggan and Roughburn.

[gilmore]

Gilmore, I cannot help thinking that you are taking this FAR too seriously! I parted with my £30.00 partly for the sheer fun of it, in the full knowledge that the entire thing carries no weight at all.

Hamish,

I am glad to hear that you are doing this for the fun of it. You may find it difficult to believe, but there are some who take this, and at least one other online Scottish feudal barony mill, as they are represented. With enough volume these sites can reel in enough suckers to keep themselves in business.

As you probably know, legitimate Scottish feudal baronies are the only European titles of nobility that can be legally bought and sold, and there is a somewhat shady market for them as well. They run in the neighborhood of GBP 10,000 to 100,000 or more, and for that you get nothing more the right to legitimately call yourself a feudal baron or laird. (The coat of arms, crest, etc, cost extra and are bought from the Lyon Court.) There is no land that goes with them anymore, and you would not be called to Scotland's feudal parliament (unless by some miracle the current parliament was abolished and Scotland decided to re-institute its medieval government.) Nor do the baronial courts have legal jurisdiction over anything any more, and haven't for several hundred years. Nonetheless some people, often Americans, are willing to part with that much money merely to "laird it over" their friends and aquaintances. Although legal, they are not taken seriously in Scotland of course, and people there dismiss them as rather ridiculous parvenus with more money than sense.

One of these newly ennobled lairds lives somewhere around here, and somehow got himself named as something called "Chieftan of the Games" of a small highland games and festival not too far away. It has created some controversy, lowered the credibility of the games, and things of Scottish heritage a bit generally---many of which have histories going back no further than the mid-Nineteeth Century and couldn't stand much close scrutiny, anyhow.