Cuillins...

Most Scottish hotels have a bar, probably with a separate entrance and no direct access to the hotel itself. The bar will typically be cheerless and unwelcoming - by design it seems, more than accident. If you must drink, the room would be saying, then don’t expect comfortable surroundings; crap lager, pork scratchings and formica tables are good enough for the likes of you.

I walked into a bar in Dunvegan, which, even by Scottish standards, was spartan. A guy sat one side of the the bar, the barman - with most of his teeth missing - on the other “Where are you from?”, he asked. “Yorkshire”. “Where in Yorkshire?” “Leeds”. “I was living in Leeds when the police were hunting the Yorkshire Ripper”. “Me too!”. We shared anecdotes about those strange, paranoid times, though I got the feeling that the barman had a rather less judgemental opinion about Peter Sutcliffe’s activities than were common in Leeds at the time… or, in fact, anywhere, at any time. We could, at least, agree on the ineptitude of the police who, despite all the manpower available, only picked up Sutcliffe by chance: he was sitting with a woman (potentially victim number 14?) in a car whose number plates didn’t match the model.

I actually like downbeat drinking holes, where half a dozen guys sit at the bar and complain that everything used to be better in the good old days, but even that attraction can wear off after a while… 

The Cuillins at Sligachan, Isle of Skye...