h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Just returned from a week back in the motherland. It mainly just served to reinforce my opinions that I should still be living there. A good time was had by all, but there were a few odd events and experiences that I have to share:

Surreal experience 1: sitting on the banks of Loch Tay while daughter swam; watching some chap standing waist-deep playing the ukulele while another - presumably unrelated - chap rows from one side of the loch to the other backwards. That is, blunt-end first.

Surreal experience 2: having a nice meal in an Italian restaurant with friends that subsequently turned into a full-blown karaoke competition between a bunch of girls and a bunch of lads on the surrounding tables.

Surreal experience 3: of the thousands of shows in the hundreds of venues at the Edinburgh fringe, we happen to go to the one where a girl we know from down south is doing the lighting. We then happen to stand up at just the right time so she spots us amongst the 2000-odd other punters. Being shown round the pubs of Edinburgh - my hometown - by a German girl who lives in the south of England. Being taken to a pub where an entire room is floored with mattresses.

Major gripe 1: why oh why do so many tourists when planning their visit to Scotland - in summer - think they need a large 4x4 to get about? Do they really think we don't have proper roads Have they forgotten the nationality of the guy who invented modern road surfacing?

Scotland has some amazing driving roads. They are perfect for small cars, sports cars and especially bikes. They are, however, often rather narrow and are therefore eminently unsuitable for wide, lumbering SUVs. In fact these monstrosities are even less practical here than in the London suburbs. In the couple of days we were away - 4 of us in a hatchback with room to spare - we encountered loads of these things either snarling up single-track roads or just holding everyone else up due to their supreme lack of speed and agility .

And as for off-roading, if you count the dirt track through the campsite then many normal people seem to manage it with a one-wheel-drive motorcycle.