Searching for "Nessie", the Loch Ness Monster

newspaper article illustration, ink & pencil

The search for the legendary leviathian in the unfathomable Scottish lake is one of those hardy perennials of journalism. There always seems to be some bunch of boffins or adventurers being financed by one corporation or another to try out new techniques or theories.

In this article, a technology company had funded such a team and provided their latest hi-tech equipment. Great advertising gimmick. Unfortunately (or fortunately, depending on who's side your on), they didn't manage to net the elusive Nessie. I, for one, was relieved. An incurable anthropomorphist, I imagined her and her sub-aquatic chums having great fun at the humans' expense.

While she and a bespectacled fish gleefully read "The Loch News" (headline: "Human Sighted?"), a submarine periscope, video camera and sonar device intrude into their moistly murky midst. Somebody has even vainly dangled a movie contract (from Och Aye Films Inc.) as a lure for her. One cute piscean obviously loves the attention.

I gave the boat the name Scotch Mist. In Britain, if you can't find something which is right under your nose, your smartass companion may point to it, with the sarcastic (and purely rhetorical) question: "What's that then, Scotch mist?" Ouch.