Monty Halls’ Great big illusion-delusion

Sand Beach on the Applecross Peninsula - like Monty Halls, Colin left the MOD submarine base out of the picture.(photo Colin Baird)


It is no secret that one of my favourite places in the world is Applecross in the North West of Scotland. Colin and I had a house there for four years and know the area well. Imagine our delight on finding a programme made there. We watched it with interest last week and again this week. However after the first week my enjoyment was derived not only from the scenery and seeing old pals but also trying to spot how many distortions the BBC can cram into the show.

For anyone who hasn’t seen the show, Monty Hall has moved to a derelict shed on a deserted beach in the wilderness of Applecross, with the desire to live like a crofter. He was able to entice the local population into helping make the shed habitable, this included a guy who was impossible to get hold of when we were there. What the programme fails to point out is that the beach, Sand, is the busiest beach on the Applecross Peninsula and the ‘remote shed’ is only about 200 metres from a MOD submarine base. Like some alien movie the existence of this base has been evaporated and erased from the world of Monty Halls. Those are the most obvious fibs, there are loads of others. I will never believe another thing on the telly again. The programme is worth watch despite Monty Halls believing real life crofters have solar panels to power their iPods and seems to be incapable of catching mackerel with a full kit of high tech fishing gear. Maybe the friendly locals omitted to mention to him that if he drove his landrover four miles down the road to Toscaig Pier and stood with a rod for a couple of hour he would catch loads of mackerel.