Sat Nav Actually of Use

An Edinburgh man claimed today that his Sat Nav had been of some use. Apparently the computer navigation system had sent him on the fastest route to Cape Wrath on the North eastmost corner of Scotland via the Nevis Range.

"I couldn't believe it when I got diverted off the A9 to Inverness and sent as the crow flies towards Fort William via Ben Nevis", said Jocky McThicky. But believe it or not he did, and followed this mad itinery to nowhere fast. "Turn left, turn right, blah,blah, droned the bag on the Sat Nav, so I did. She was very insistent and I didn't know any better, " explained McThicky.

So off he went in his three wheeled Reliant Robin, crashing across fields, sheep and all sorts of rural things, until he approached the impassable edifice of Scotland's tallest mountain. "The pass seemed impassable, I thought, but what the hell, Ms Sat Nav insisted, increasingly loudly that I should do it. So I did!"

But half way up a sheer rock face, the track ran out and the three-wheeler got stuck - vertical. By a chance in a million, though, McThicky came to a halt just alongside a stranded rock climber. Together they called the mountain rescue on McThicky's mobile phone and within an hour helicopters were scrambled and they were winched to safety. By McThicky's misfortune the climber Hamish McAmish had been saved.

Sadly the Highland's mountain rescue do not have a heavy lifting Chinook 'copter at their disposal and the threewheeler and the Sat Nav are still stuck on the side of the mountain. McThicky is rueful, "I miss her, even if she's no great improvement on the wife as far as navigation is concerned." Climber McAmish was also wistful, "it's a shame because that three-wheeler could save lives when its equipped with such badly calibrated gear." But Flight Lieutenant McSpreader of RAF Auchtermuchternauchie merely said, "People who wander into the mountains should be well equippped and a Sat Nav and a three wheeler are not that."

Ministers were unsure which side of the fence to sit; but being MSPs, with their fancy new bamboo windows, should choose the inside - only they can''t cus the steelwork collapsed - just like another great construction I daren't name that's based in Wembley. Ministers just hid.