Mohamed of the Glen

I recently wrote about Donald Trump and his coat of arms, commenting that if one was of the mind to manipulate a persons, or indeed peoples, thinking, then it is not the hardest thing in the world to do.

During the course of that, I also very briefly touched on Egyptian Mohammed al-Fayed, owner of Harrods and father of Dodi, hence his appearance yesterday at the Princess Diana enquiry where he was taking the stand and presenting his "conspiracy" allegations to the coroner.

We read today of a string of accusations: Tony Blair and Prince Philip ordered her murder to prevent her marrying his son, furthermore that Philip is the real power behind the "Dracula" Royal Family and is a Nazi. The list seemed endless.

Moving back though to the Scottish connection, Mr al-Fayed owns a 65,ooo-acre estate called Balnagown, "makes" his own whisky and takes great delight in roaming around in a kilt - his own tartan of course. He gave an interview to the Sunday Mirror in 1999 where he stated, in regard to proposed land reforms:

"My people, the people I employ love me; I am their laird and I will fight these plans all the way.

"The Scottish people are wonderful, but they are being badly let down by their politicians."

He added: "I feel like your Lawrence of Arabia, in reverse. I am Mohamed of the Glen."

Mr al-Fayed's use of this latter phrase - which gives rise to the title of this posting - is of course a pun on the Scots phrase Monarch of the Glen, the monarch referring to a stag, the male of the native red deer.

Which ties in quite nicely with the white stag portent of last week as well as the Spinningdale incident which I wrote about recently.





"I like to sit in the chair in my kilt," he said. "The ancient Egyptians wore a sort of kilt, so I don't think I look out of place."



cheers


Mirror article