An absolutely wonderful Scots Adventure .
A record of those unimportant little things that are too important to be forgotten.
Friday, April 26, 2024
Deserted
Thursday, April 25, 2024
Lifes attributes,
A beautiful morning. Blue skies have got the students out. The grass on the Quad already filling up with early risers sipping their pre-exam Americanos. The grass is roped off in a half hearted attempt to keep people off it. GLWT !
The door is open in chapel and the choir are singing these words by Dylan Thomas. I'd not heard the piece before. It is apparently from Under Milk Wood and manages to be both charming and humorous :https://youtu.be/49znUV3fSCM
Culture clash :https://restofworld.org/2024/tsmc-arizona-expansion/
Our egg timer has never had this problem :https://www.sciencealert.com/physicists-can-finally-explain-how-sand-in-an-hourglass-can-suddenly-stop-flowing
Oh dear. Not what chocolate lovers want to hear :https://www.uta.edu/news/world-chocolate-supply-threatened-by-devastating-virus
Wednesday, April 24, 2024
Buying coffee as theatre
Now exams are underway the rain has stopped and the weather is on the bright and sunny side. The temperatures are forecast to get into double digits today and may reach 13 degrees on Friday.
Labrador humour :https://twitter.com/kwoade/status/1782328162602389695
The moon :https://www.sciencealert.com/this-crater-could-be-where-earths-second-moon-broke-off-the-first-one
It's all in the mind:https://www.apa.org/news/press/releases/2024/04/old-age-onset-perceptions
An exhibition worth visiting :https://www.themorgan.org/exhibitions/walton-ford
Tuesday, April 23, 2024
Enforced jolliness.
The local farmers are up early. By the time we set foot out of the front door there are four tractors working away in the fields down by the sea. With their red wheel rims and blue metal work they look quite jolly. The six month wet spell seems , finally, to be ending with the sodden ground finally being dried out by the wind. The football pitch sized lake outside 'The Fonts' cabin has all but disappeared. All of the local farmers seed potatoes used to go to Ireland but thanks to Brexit the Irish can no longer source them from outside the EU. Now the local potatoes all go to the big processing plant in Dundee where they're turned into crisps. The Irish consume 94 kilos of potatoes per head but this year, in the absence of Scottish imports, they may face a potato shortage. Brexit is the idiocy that keeps on giving.
A long chat with the super smart Los Angelinos. It's 9 pm LA time which is late for them and at 5 am early for me. We talk about Ukraine, Marjorie Taylor Green ( remarkable - perhaps the politest - word to describe her ) and Trumps court case. One of the Los Angelinos says the ex-Presidents New York lawyer is very, very good. The LA folk also tell me that China is stockpiling everything it can get its hands on - copper, oil and iron ore. This is the behaviour of a country that is about to do something big - they take the view that they're planning a major devaluation. Those Chinese EV's are going to get even cheaper.
Primroses :https://www.wildway.info/p/primula-vulgaris-primrose-wildflowers
A Glasgow flat for sale. Note the grand piano in the bedroom :https://www.onthemarket.com/details/13881367/
Ghana :https://articlesofinterest.substack.com/p/ghana-go-home
Worth a read :https://www.forkingpaths.co/p/big-gods-and-the-origin-of-human
Monday, April 22, 2024
The helicopter.
Monday morning. We have visitors at the front door. They know not to bark but the occasional short sharp 'yap' alerts us to their presence.
This mornings radio music :https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fuQdFsb2ybI
Londons newest hotel starting at £2050 a night :https://www.the-emory.co.uk/
Something all Celts understand :https://www.irishcentral.com/culture/ali-dunworth-funeral-pints
Sunday, April 21, 2024
The calm before the storm .
Saturday. Our usual postman is away in Dominica with his girlfriend. The stand in delivers four magazines. The New Yorker, The LRB, The NYRB and The Economist. Seems magazines are like buses - they all show up at once. It's the St Andrews film festival. 'The Font' goes into town for the first showing of a movie about an island. It turns out to be about the death of a fisherman on a Sabbath observing island ... on the Sabbath. This I'm told, on 'The Fonts' return , was 'very interesting'. 'The Font' doesn't stay for the question and answer session afterwards on Hebridean rites of death and passage. Tickets are bought for the screening of a Latvian Soviet realist cartoon about a man and his dog . It remains to be seen whether this will appear as interesting when the screening date rolls around. https://vimeo.com/764516710
Left alone I pick up the New Yorker. The New Yorker comes, without fail, once a week. I usually glance at the cover and put it in the soon to be forgotten ' read later' pile. Why we subscribe , and have done so for years and years , is something of a mystery. Somehow, the magazine has survived unchallenged the annual ' Do you read it ? I don't ' culling of subscriptions.
The magazine falls open at an article on flying cars. This is not a subject that figures on the list of things I wish I knew more about but the language is welcoming and the technical details are addressed with a 'who'd have believed it ?' openness that brings you along rather than shuts you out. The inventor of this particular make of flying car is described as 'tall, restless and rangy'. He says 'there are two things that will put us out of business - running out of money and killing people in our planes'. Guess he's right on that.
Bees again :https://www.quantamagazine.org/insects-and-other-animals-have-consciousness-experts-declare-20240419/
Saturday, April 20, 2024
A 9/10 croissant .
Some 'red squirrel' wall art in a Glasgow car park.
Back here on the coast the sun is out and the wind is almost, but not quite, balmy. We speak to Cabbages owner. She hasn't , despite her families 'it'll be good for you' prompting, got round to accepting that a move into a home would be a good idea. We'll stay in touch. Some decisions shouldn't be rushed. We, and Cabbage, can wait.