IT’S long been known as the island which features in the world’s shortest flight, but now Papa Westray in the Orkney Islands has a new claim to fame as it has suddenly acquired a Mama.
The strange tale of the Mamas and the Papas emerged when a brochure began circulating extolling the virtues of Mama Westray, an island which it reports as being regularly visited by the Oscar-winning actress Cate Blanchett.
That’s just one of the sensational claims made in the professionally produced brochure about Mama Westray, an island which also features the "fish eating pigs".
The brochure states the pigs have been trained to eat discarded surplus fish that must be thrown back into the sea under EU quotas.
“The younger pigs are fitted with buoyancy aids until they gain full confidence in the water,” the brochure adds.
The meat of the Mama Westray pigs sadly “has an unpleasant flavour reminiscent of rotten squid” but it is said to be “popular in Japan.”
Other clues that someone might be telling porkies can be found in the list of tourist attractions such as "the world-famous Tomb of the Haddock", the Hall of McFlummery, an annual Ratsmack event and The Tropical Gardens of Nether Biggings.
Also to be found on Mama is a harbour ringed with restaurants enjoying an international reputation with a helpful photograph featuring the local Burger King without which, of course, no Scottish island is complete. You cannot eat the local seafood in any of those establishments, however, as the brochure says that all catches are exported to Spain. As for Cate Blanchett, her pedal car can be seen at the garage at the island’s airport.
The spoof brochure has gained an international following on social media, and a few comments indicated that people were really rather taken with the completely non-existent place. Papa Westray – not to be confused with Westray proper – is one of the smallest islands in the Orkneys with a population of less than 100, but it is home to the Knap of Howar, a monument that is said to be nearly 6,000 years old.
The brochure may even boost tourism to the island, famously one of the two termini for the world’s shortest scheduled aircraft journey, being less than two minutes’ flying time from Kirkwall.
Tourism officials are worried that Mama might put people off Papa, as VisitScotland’s Orkney manager Barbara Foulkes explained: “We’ve no idea who is behind it but obviously it’s a prankster.
“I’ll be honest, when they popped up in the visitor information centre we binned them – we didn’t want them getting out in case they mislead visitors.”
Island resident Rachel Wakeham said: “I have no idea who is behind it. It doesn’t seem to be malicious, I think it’s just funny. It’s unlikely that people will get the two places mixed up.”
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