EVERY now and again chaps and woman-chaps engaged in the dry and dusty business of the law have to get out and about a bit. Away with learned tomes, crumbling parchment, arid piles of festering, migraine-laced, wind-inducing, impenetrably obscure but none the less fundamentally uninteresting, dull, oh God so dull, judgments.
The Great Outdoors beckons. Fresh air. The cry of exotic birds. Rain, sun, snow, hail hitting your cheeks, your lungs breathing deeply of God's good clean ozone, the mineral-rich soil teasing your toes, the lush vegetation caressing your calves lovingly like a gyrating nestload of naked virgins, their soft skin . . . well, you get the picture.
Well, here is a story of one lawyer who threw caution to the wind, and headed unheedingly and without a brolly to darkest Africa . . . and lived to regret it. Harken now to the tale of Angus MacRae and the Mad Warthog of Kwazulu-Natal.
Angus, a banking partner with Glasgow business law firm Semple Fraser, went to South Africa on a three-day safari with his wife, Jane Shirran, a solicitor with the Clydesdale Bank. Everything went swimmingly. The animals honked and gambolled on demand. Angus and Jane pointed and said, as jungle etiquette demanded, ''Ooooh!'' But all too soon it was time to go.
The game reserve had its own airstrip and a private plane, on which our intrepid duo were the sole passengers.
Angus takes up the tale: ''We approached the end of the runway and had got to about take-off speed when there was this great thump, which turned out to be a warthog. It appeared to have been frightened by the noise. But instead of running into the bush like any sensible animal would have done, it ran on to the runway and hit the undercarriage of the plane. The under-carriage half-collapsed and the plane went into a slide and headed for a huge acacia tree which, thankfully, the pilot managed to avoid.''
For a grim moment, Angus thought he was destined to appear before the celestial board of directors but did anyone care? Nope. ''More people were interested in the fate of the warthog. But we found no trace of it.''
Of course, when escaping from the crashed plane, it was a case of women and bankers first, wasn't it? ''Well, when we came to a halt I was nearest to the door and opened it with such force that I was propelled out.''
Well, as they say in Shetland, we hear you. Safe on Scottish soil, a relieved Angus told DA: ''It's a week in Kintail for us next year.'' Yup, some Outdoors are Greater than others.
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