Hooray! Hooray! Its a Holi- Holiday! destination Magaluf and Minsk

This week, a number of weel-kent local folk tell us what they did on their holidays.

JIMMY HOLLYWOOD – Sandilands’ most eligible bachelor

Fit a time I’ve hid wi’ the lads this summer – twa wiks o’ unadulterated carnage wi’ the Kittybrewster and Ashgrove posties “on tour” in Ibiza!  Weel, it wiznae much of’a tour given we flew direct fae the ‘Deen – mair like a tourette.Onywye, I spent the hale twa wiks getting bleezin and chattin’ up some tasty bits o’ stuff.  Back of the net!  Best bit wiz the all night rave at Pacha wi some o’ the world’s best DJ’s – Judge Jules (apparently he’s nae a real judge), Pete Tong and John McRuvie.  All the greats!Fit’s even better aboot the hodilay wiz that wir hotel hid free WiFi – so I could FaceTime mither every night fan I got hame tae let her ken I wiz safe and sound. I really miss her faniver I ging awa.  And no amount of “quality time” wi’ some nubile 19 year aul fae Slovenia will niver change that.

JONATHAN M LEWIS, Headteacher of Garioch Academy

Whilst the staff and pupils at Garioch Academy have been taking some well-earned rest, I have been working tirelessly to further our school’s journey to becoming a world-class centre of excellence.  Chief among my tasks has been posing for and overseeing the sculpting of a 20 foot bronze statue of myself.  Sadly, this understated tribute will not be unveiled when term starts as a stray bolt of lightning struck the effigy during a storm.  Hopefully the sculptor will soon have a gap in his schedule to return my face to its original pristine splendour.  In other news, parents will no doubt be delighted to hear that our exam results have proven to be the best in the country.  Cynics will suggest that this is related to the retrospective permanent exclusion of any pupil who did not obtain straight ‘A’ grades however I remind all stakeholders that I am a strict disciplinarian.  Some of the affected pupils had committed serious breaches of school rules like running in the corridor, waking the janitor and not saluting the headmaster.  Naturally, with a reduced senior school of only 7 pupils, the majority of our teaching staff have been placed on the Local Authority’s compulsory transfer list.  But I am sure we will all agree that disrupting the careers of a large number of talented professionals is a small price to pay for our leap up the league table.  Ever onwards!

TANYA SOUTAR – Lifestyle Guru

I had a crackin’ time on my hol’days!  Me and my chums hit Magaluf fer some sun, sea and sangria.  Fit a laugh we hid!  ‘Scept for Tracy, fa spent 4 days solid in the en-suite chunty!  Weel maybe “solid”’s nae the best word to use, noo I think on it.  I telt her nae tae drink ‘at tap water! Unfortunately, wir hol’day wis spoiled a bittie fan wi passed through airport security on the wye hame.  Melanie wis fumin’ fan they telt her she couldnae tak her Blue Label Smirnoff back in her hand luggage.  They wis ga’n tae poor it awa but she downed the hale lot!  She managed to keep it doon, too, right up til we wiz landin’ at Luton.  It wiz a shame aboot that wifie’s sombrero, mind. Aye, those security fowk really need to loosen up wi their rules and regulations.  I dinna even wint to think aboot fit they did tae the peer goldfish Shelley won at the fair.
THE REVEREND EDMOND REDMOND, Minster of Holburn North-North East.

I initially intended to spend my summer holiday in retreat on the Holy Isle of Lindisfarne.  “Holiday” is, after all, a contraction of “holy day” – a fact which is, I fear, sometimes lost on the Club 18-30 fraternity!  However, recent events moved me to alter my plans; to replace reflection with action.  So troubled have I been at the plight of “Pussy Riot”, the Russian punk feminist collective charged with hooliganism for invading the Cathedral of Christ the Saviour to demand that the church take a stand against Vladimir Putin, that I travelled to Moscow to join the protest against their arrest.  I realise, of course, that a provocatively named group of punk activists who have deeply offended their national church might seem a strange cause for me to to ally myself to.  But, in his own way, Jesus was a punk: an outsider not afraid to speak the unvarnished truth, irrespective of how unwelcome the authorities found his message.  It takes a hooligan to turn over the tables in the Temple.  It was while I was making this point through a loud-hailer outside the court that I was tear-gassed, baton-charged and clapped in irons by the Muscovite police.  My holiday, therefore, has not been all that I would have wished it to be.  Still, there have been positives.  Over the years I have often wished that I could find the time to travel, learn a language and become more physically fit.  It now seems that I will have a perfect opportunity to do so, as I serve out my sentence of two-years of hard physical labour in Siberia.