A A Gill, Columnist

As Austere England Grumbles, Scotland Is All Smiles: A.A. Gill

October 6, 2011 at 12:00 AM UTC

A.A. Gill is the television and restaurant critic for the Sunday Times of London and a contributing editor with Vanity Fair. Gill is the author of 10 books and collections, most recently "A.A. Gill is Further Away" and "Previous Convictions: Assignments from Here and There." Born in Scotland, he lives in London.

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The TV weather map shows the U.K. wreathed in autumnal sunshine. Records have been broken. The trees are turning golden, and there are girls in bikinis in the park.

There is, though, just one small cloud right up in the northwest of Scotland, and that’s the one I’m sitting under. Outside, the sky hangs like dirty laundry caught on the granite crags. The rain looks like smoke blowing up the glen. The burns are in spate, billowing peat-tanned water in great gulping cascades.