From: asr@castle.ed.ac.uk (Angus "Fluffy" Rae)
Newsgroups: rec.arts.tv.uk
Subject: Re: places to visit in th
Date: 19 Aug 92 15:58:40 GMT
Distribution: rec
Organization: CATHY_VoiceMail_Project

andrewc@spider.co.uk (Andrew Cannon) writes:
>In article <1992Aug18.1111.708@ALMAC> martin.briscoe@almac.co.uk writes:
>>JL4Second: The name of the town 'The Highlander' was taped in (I have a
>>  4good idea where it is).
>>Most of The Highlander was filmed around the Fort William area.  I
>>have not seen the film, so bit of guess-work involved.  There was a
>>small town which I think was supposed to be set in the Borders.  This
>>built out of wood and polystyrene etc in a field in Glen Nevis.
>>There was a small castle built at the side of the road in Glencoe -
>>this was just a wooden frontage supported on scaffolding.

Plus a great many polystyrene rocks which were to be found in driveways
and on top of cars for many months afterwards.

>The castle used in the film was Eileen Donnun(sp) castle. Its on the road to
>the Kyle of Loch Alsh and is well worth visiting.

That's Eilean Donan, you were pretty close... it's actually the castle
of the Clan MacRae, give to them by the Clan MacKenzie for being the
"Earl of Seaforth's Waistcoat", i.e. the poor grunts that the MacKenzies
sent into battle first. Also, they were part of a contingent of
Highlanders that were based in Edinburgh, who had it written into their
Army oaths that they were not to serve outside Scotland. After several
days of rumours about a ship docked in Leith and bound for India, the
Highlanders were ordered to march to the docks. The questioned their
officers about why they were doing this, and if they were to board the
ship. The officers replied that for security reasons they could not say.
So, they refused to march and climbed Arthur's Seat instead, and stayed
up there for a few days while the people below in Edinburgh got rather
worried about this group of dangerous looking clansmen, and talked the
Army into reconciliation. It had all be a mistake (they said, anyway)
and they were only to guard the ship.

No point to that story. Anyway, I get bloody annoyed by the start of the
film, with this bunch of smelly MacLeods marching out of _our_ castle
yelling "MacLeod"... smegheads.

>The moor land shots are of the moors around the castle.

Speaking of moor shots, Glencoe was used for most of the scenes in
"Monty Python and the Holy Grail", and the Castle Arggghhhhh is actually
the Castle Stalker, a small keep on the shores of Loch Linnhe near
Appin. The lake where they board the ship is in Rannoch Moor, Glencoe,
about 1400 feet up, and the castle where they disembark is 30 odd miles
away and sea level... neat boat...
And the Zulu sequence in "The Meaning of Life" was shot in Holyrood
Park, just below Salisbury Crags and Arthur's Seat in Edinburgh. Not
Glasgow... that was a joke for the people who know Edinburgh...

End of boring useless trivia...

-- 
Angus G Rae, the Cuddly Vampire Teddy Bear [asr@castle.edinburgh.ac.uk]
CATHY VoiceMail, Computer Science Dept., Edinburgh University
"I'm on the run from the Facist Police with a murderer and
 a mass murderer and a man in a bri-nylon shirt."  Rimmer, Red Dwarf V