Glencoe Mountain ski resort battles with poor internet connection, forced to do business ”like it’s 1899”

A few weeks ago, a BBC Scotland journalist was met with a hail of criticism when she had the temerity to inquire, on social media, if any of her followers knew of businesses in rural areas of Scotland which were struggling due to poor internet access. Roughly half the responses were from people who did indeed live in rural areas and either struggled with poor connectivity themselves or knew of others who did. The other half of the responses, however, were from people who saw this as yet another example of the mainstream media (or “MSM” – a bit like MSG although marginally less harmful) looking for an excuse to “talk Scotland down”. By way of a preamble to this column, then, I suppose I should stress that I have no ulterior motive for writing the things I am about to write. I am not party to any kind of sinister conspiracy to undermine confidence in Scotland and all things Scottish. As regular readers of this column will be aware, I am mostly guilty of talking Scottish skiing up, not down.