About the picture, by the way

It's of what is called a "broch," which is a circular, round and double-walled drystone tower. They date  from around 300 B.C. to 500 A.D tops and they're only found in Scotland. Somewhat mysterious, brochs are thought to have been both defensive and dwelling places, though no one seems totally sure. There are several hundred of them around, most, but not all, near the coast (which fits with the concept of them as defensive structures or at least watchtowers, of course.) Most, however, are badly ruined, and only a relative handful  are even easily recognizable as brochs to the casual viewer.

The one pictured is one of three (two in very good shape and but a few hundred feet from each other, a third just down the modern road is a ruin) to be found in the hard to find but definitely worth a visit Scottish village of Glen Elg, from where sails a community-supported in-season ferry to the tourist mecca of the Isle of Skye that's just great fun to take. The Glen Elg Inn is also an uncommonly friendly place in an already wildly charming and remote village. (Yet unlike Brigadoon, Glen Elg is busy day after day, with fishermen, craftspeople, sheep crofters, farmers and still hale retirees, all of whom after a few pints seem to display that shy but attentive curiosity about a stranger's own life that I find so typical of the Scots in general.)  Glen Elg was also the actual place naturalist Gavin Maxwell wrote about in his near-disturbingly icky but best-selling book about his relationship with his pet otter. "Ring Of Bright Water"; it's also where they filmed much of the movie version, which has a great theme song by Shirley Bassey.

I just like brochs because they represent solidity and forthrightness. Would that Jersey politicians were even one-tenth as forthright, you know? And because getting to them always takes some effort. I will also understand if the pugnacious bulk of the pictured broch, Dun Telve, reminds others of Governor Christie. (But far better that than the wimpiness of one of the Glen Elg area's many isolated, slimmer and thousands of years older standing stones, which remind me in their rocky reticence of Jon Corzine's plain refusal when Governor or in his subsequent Wall Street career to ever actually serve effectively and honestly.)