Writings of Albert Morris
A five-days-a-week column to be grave but gay (in the old sense), pungent but subtle, learned but light. Articles by the Scotsman's legendary feature writer, Albert Morris, from 29 December, 2001 to 8th April, 2005. Our thanks to John Henderson for pulling all this together for us.

Published here, for no monetary gain, in accordance with the COPYRIGHT NOTICE AND LICENCE of Johnston Press plc, 108 Holyrood Road, Edinburgh, EH8 8AS for http://www.scotsman.com

Albert writes in the 8th April 'Farewell' ......

"In 1970, Alastair Dunnett, the then editor, summoned me to his room where I found him at a window gazing pensively at the North Bridge; editors earn their money easily.

In portentous tones, as one announcing the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse under starter’s orders at the Grand National, he said: "Albert, I’m offering you a column with thirty bob (£1:50) a week expenses and all the tripe you can write." It was an offer I couldn’t refuse and although my expenses increased, I have stuck rigidly to the spirit and practice of the offer’s last part.

Alastair indicated he wanted my then five-days-a-week column to be grave but gay (in the old sense), pungent but subtle, learned but light rather like a cross between the styles of the French essayist Montaigne and the music-hall comedian, Max Miller. Readers can judge whether I succeeded.

One columnar midnight, when Alastair saw me at the typewriter, prose-purpling on a real wham-bang mind-moulder about my toothbrush’s place in Einstein’s Theory of Relativity, he said in the demotic, "Ease up laddie or ye’ll bust yer biler", an adjuration I accepted gratefully. "

29th Dec., 2001 onwards ...

• Article 1 - That cleft-stick call to arms
• Article 2 - White-knuckle exploring days numbered
• Article 3 - No hair peace on a wig and a prayer
• Article 4 - Assailed by formidable regiments of women
• Article 5 - Crumbs of comfort in the Land o’ Cakes
• Article 6 - Byers besieged in a Byzantine conspiracy
• Article 7 - The nation’s meteorological pulse
• Article 8 - Lure of journalistic lucre blotted out teaching’s celestial light
• Article 9 - Another chapter in the life of 007
• Article 10 - Sneaking admiration for the caddish epitome of literary villains
• Article 11 - A man who stood head and shoulders above the political posturers
• Article 12 - Chapter and verse of a lifetime of public library pilgrimages
• Article 13 - How a hotel-hardened traveller met his match in a Basil Fawlty
• Article 14 - ALBERT MORRIS says he has only himself to blame for suffering torments undreamed of by Dante
• Article 15 - Sartorial satisfaction of presenting a crisply-knotted tie
• Article 16 - A childishly absurd stew over sovereignty of a goat-haunted wart
• Article 17 - Under fire in ear-splitting, over-amplified filmic sound caverns
• Article 18 - Lost in liquid introspection
• Article 19 - Cultural aspirations thwarted
• Article 20 - War-cry for the days of sans culottes’ militancy on the barricades
• Article 21 - He was adept at bowling a maiden over
• Article 22 - ALBERT MORRIS says he objects to MSPs getting their own 'think pods' each costing £17,000
• Article 23 - A Joan of Arc with a self-immolating desire to be burningly honest
• Article 24 - Vintage Buchan days redolent of intrigue and cryptic warnings
• Article 25 - Collectable gems among the creak of limbs
• Article 26 - A book-lover in des res realms of literary diamonds and dross
• Article 27 - Waxing lyrical over generous heart of States
• Article 28 - Tailor-made for stylish bespoke hours
• Article 29 - Mirage of a happy retirement never to be transformed into reality
• Article 30 - No laughing matter
• Article 31 - Dancing days at pagodas of waltzing pleasure
• Article 32 - Noughts for our comfort in a world of tumbling stocks and shares
• Article 33 - Arresting tales of Victorian low-life
• Article 34 - An old sweat out of step with the new namby-pamby Army
• Article 35 - Maintaining specific gravity in a city of barely perceptible smiles
• Article 36 - Filmic odyssey from a festering Gehenna of crime and corruption
• Article 37 - Bygone days of handsome tramcars
• Article 38 - Stockpiling for war with dry sherry
• Article 39 - Dapper human megaphone in the front line of the war of words
• Article 40 - Eastern promise glimpsed through a cigar-smoke haze of memory
• Article 41 - Standing out against the patriotic pomposity of national anthems
• Article 42 - Impressive new breeze in war reporting
• Article 43 - Out of my depth in the hoofing courtship rituals
• Article 44 - Scalpel-sharp words failed to have the operating staff in stitches
• Article 45 - 100 years of Hope
• Article 46 - Farewell to Bollywood's old joyful unreality
• Article 47 - A giant of the word written under the stress of cataclysmic events
• Article 48 - Trains of thought that carry affectionate Waverley memories
• Article 49 - I raise my steaming cuppa to the wisp of James Boswell's memory
• Article 50 - Farewell to blissful days a-wheel on heaven-sent country roads
• Article 51 - Opening up young minds to the thrust and parry of a mental duel
• Article 52 - Old geezer shows his cork age
• Article 53 - Oh for a non-mobile Nirvana devoid of electronic attachments
• Article 54 - The iron lady's swan song a bravura display of anger and defiance
• Article 55 - Oh chip shops of Scotland, when will we see your like again?
• Article 56 - Spaced-out Britons at the mercy of creatures from outer darkness
• Article 57 - I'm happy to let students rejoice riotously, but not in my backyard
• Article 58 - Best suited to blend tastefully into the broad cloth of civilisation
• Article 59 - Patient service on the way, courtesy of roller-coasting Dr Kildares
• Article 60 - Nectar fit for the gods that helped to glue the family together
• Article 61 - Voyages of surgical discovery in the holiday medication market
• Article 62 - Dancing the war away at the fabled frontier's Imperial-Splendide
• Article 63 - Lining up with Lenin
• Article 64 - Slim chance of a waistline melt-down
• Article 65 - Travellers doomed to roam the earth in bug-filled cruise ships
• Article 66 - Polishing sparkling platitudes and repartee
• Article 67 - Television dispels fears that history was becoming a thing of the past
• Article 68 - While around us the elements stormed, inside we were toast warm
• Article 69 - Renaissance Man of the honours rejectees hands in his bus pass
• Article 70 - Long-forgotten newshawk days
• Article 71 - Officialdom's bias towards the diversity of Caledonia
• Article 72 - New-fangled camera world unsettling for an old shutter-clicker
• Article 73 - Fishing for reassurance about food production
• Article 74 - Holyrood tale of cupidity, ineptitude and sloth
• Article 75 - Good manners just a fond memory in our cut-and-thrust age
• Article 76 - The verbally challenged are now speaking up
• Article 77 - Piquant persiflage made to a secret, age-old recipe
• Article 78 - A Lost world of forlorn knights and faerie ladies
• Article 79 - Aliens out there? Please come to the rescue
• Article 80 - Deep thinker who is stressed out in a watery world
• Article 81 - Syntactic hero of the red dawn proletariat
• Article 82 - Bucket-and-spade Hulot-holiday days in Spain
• Article 83 - Noise epidemic a prescription for hospital blues
• Article 84 - Bully for pupils who combatclass Flashmans
• Article 85 - It's no Navy lark for stressed-out submariners
• Article 86 - Gallic transports of delight for capital tramcars
• Article 87 - No Leica this idea of a digital diary that takes pictures
• Article 88 - Russian roulette of the pre-laptop world
• Article 89 - Bacteria-infected ties leave me hot under the collar
• Article 90 - Sands running out for seaside holiday symbol
• Article 91 - Welcome to the hang-gliding new centenarians
• Article 92 - No escape from all-pervading football worship
• Article 93 - A rare treasure in an island awash with antiques
• Article 94 - Dashing social activity among the sans culottes
• Article 95 - Driven potty by bedlam Britain's sue-mad culture
• Article 96 - Stop Teflon Tone's rollercoaster, I want to get off
• Article 97 - Flourishing days in the world of clairvoyance
• Article 98 - A dance to the music of a new, swinging age
• Article 99 - Festival curtain rises on the huddled masses
• Article 100 - Cacti take over from shrinking violets
• Article 101 - Goose-stepping days of comic Hitler-bashing
• Article 102 - A Plum of a masterly comic writer
• Article 103 - All at sea in a tidal wave of commercialism
• Article 104 - Wake-up call to invigorate quick-kip club
• Article 105 - All is lost in the warm embrace of great artworks
• Article 106 - Biting the bullet at the loss of an old friend
• Article 107 - Convulsive days at the court of 'King' Arthur
• Article 108 - Dreaming of that nice little earner in my Army days
• Article 109 - Getting off the crowded moral high ground
• Article 110 - Builders take the biscuit for a job well done
• Article 111 - Flower of Scotland evokes a drizzly, depressing Sunday
• Article 112 - Secret world of the pro-active pensioner
• Article 113 - Blissful world of the cat's whisker radio
• Article 114 - Scottish public sector staff seem particularly afflicted
• Article 115 - Escape from an evil world into filmic fantasies
• Article 116 - Bully for those discipline-rich service days
• Article 117 - Youthful dreams of a Paradise Fruit afterlife
• Article 118 - Caught in a spin-doctors phantasmagoria
• Article 119 - On a columnar healing mission with my ego
• Article 120 - Siren songs in an advertising dream world
• Article 121 - Trains of thought on railway comfort
• Article 122 - Mystery tour in a world of nudge, nod and wink
• Article 123 - Hungry for the old, bold meals of yesteryear
• Article 124 - In the pink as a serial lame duck
• Article 125 - In poll position with the lumpen uncommitted
• Article 126 - Woodnotes wild in my bath while plying the loofah
• Article 127 - Frayed nerves in the classroom's feral underworld
• Article 128 - I'll just switch off the light. That's it. Farewell

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