Outlandish theories on where loyalties lie

WHILE everyone else was out at the January sales, I have been binge-watching the latest series of the time-travelling Celtic romance, Outlander, on Amazon.

If you haven’t caught up with Scotland’s answer to Goodnight Sweetheart, it continues to be marvellously bonkers, and I’ve started to notice that whenever there’s a scene in a moody bothy with a flickering fire, you can cook a soft-boiled egg in the time it takes Sam Heughan’s Jamie, pictured left, to unveil his magnificent bare bottom.

I also enjoyed a jailed Jamie asking the prison governor to help get more food for his fellow convicts. They shared a lavish threecourse meal during the negotiation, which Jamie later described in detail to the starving prisoners to raise spirits. That works? You could really see this move going either way.

Older episodes of Outlander have been running on More4, although the regular and explicit sex and violence keeps the series off terrestrial telly for the same reason that Game of Thrones isn’t on after MasterChef.

Some maintain that David Cameron himself blocked Outlander in 2014, in case it fuelled votes for Scottish independence.

Outlander’s creator Diana Gabaldon and its showrunner have dismissed this as poppy of the highest cock.

And there’s another blow to this theory in the new series, where the most bloodthirsty, amoral, villainous character commits murder on a regular basis in order to ensure an independent Scotland.