I had intended to spend this week investigating something closer to home, but reports concerning a man with strong family connections to the Western Isles, who allegedly wears adult nappies and has been known to lose control of his bowels during important public engagements, required the attention of Conspiracy Corner.
The man is Donald Trump, President of the United States, whose mother Mary Anne MacLeod was born on the Isle of Lewis before leaving for America, where her son would eventually become one of the world’s most recognisable men and, rather unexpectedly, the subject of an international debate about whether he regularly fills his trousers.
The allegations have circulated for years, accompanied by claims of unfortunate incidents during meetings and public appearances, together with descriptions of the resulting smell ranging from the merely unpleasant to something approaching a skunk on steroids with greater staying power than several established religions.
I have been unable to independently verify either measurement, and despite an impressive quantity of online discussion, photographs, videos and testimony, I could find remarkably little evidence establishing beyond reasonable doubt that there had actually been a jobee.
Following the Western Isles connection back towards its source seemed the obvious next step, so I got my trusty bus pass out and headed for Ullapool, confident it would once again deliver me to the evidence.
It performed faultlessly until I reached the harbour, where I encountered the Minch and discovered that the considerable powers bestowed upon my bus pass by the Scottish Government appeared to diminish rather abruptly at the water’s edge.
Stornoway was on the other side and there was a perfectly serviceable ferry capable of taking me there, but preliminary enquiries suggested boarding it might involve something I have worked extremely hard to avoid during my investigations, namely paying for public transport.
The possibility that somewhere across the Minch lay answers concerning the Presidential Jobee eventually persuaded me that journalism occasionally requires sacrifice.
My arrival in the Western Isles coincided with the inaugural Stornoway Fringe, which was preparing for a weekend of comedy, music, magic and entertainment, none of which had anything whatsoever to do with my investigation until I noticed the magicians.
I was already attempting to establish how a grown man could allegedly fill his trousers during important public meetings without leaving independently verifiable physical evidence, so the presence of people professionally skilled in making things disappear seemed an unnecessary complication.
At this stage I returned, as I increasingly do when the evidence becomes difficult, to the reassuring standards of the Official Loch Ness Monster Sightings Register, which now records 1,180 sightings dating back to 565 AD and has something neither the Inverness Tourist Board nor the Dingwall Tourist Board has yet satisfactorily provided me with.
An identifiable person.
Her name is Paige Daley, she is the Registrar of Sightings, and the simple fact that I know who she is and what she does provides a degree of administrative certainty sadly lacking from two tourist boards which have accumulated thousands of followers while stubbornly refusing to provide me with an identifiable board.
I have therefore reached the unusual position where Paige and the Official Loch Ness Monster Sightings Register, an organisation devoted to recording sightings of an unidentified creature in Loch Ness, represent one of the more reassuringly tangible institutions encountered during my investigations.
If somebody sees Nessie there is a procedure, there is an Official Register and there is Paige, while anybody witnessing an alleged Presidential Jobee appears to have no Registrar of Presidential Jobees, no recognised reporting procedure and nobody maintaining an official count.
On the evidence presently available, I can therefore neither confirm nor deny the existence of the Presidential Jobee, although Nessie remains considerably easier to substantiate than Poopy Pants.
There is, however, a more immediate problem, because having established that my bus pass could not get me across the Minch, I am now wondering how precisely it is going to get me off the island and back to the mainland.
I may inadvertently have become an island resident, which raises the intriguing possibility that I could now qualify for the ferry concessions I needed in order to become one in the first place.
My enquiries continue.
If you have any conspiracies you would like Aye to investigate, email conspiracycorner@thehighlandtimes.com
