Two photos

I was in Edinburgh today, getting my favourite* train, the 0645, and got back earlier this evening.

My prize for such a long journey was the photo on the right on the way home. I’m quite chuffed with it.

Meanwhile the other evening I took the photo below of the castle which I also like. It got a couple of nice comments on Flickr, so I thought I’d brag about it here too.

No rest for the wicked**, however, as I will be taking in Aberdeen, Perth and Fraserburgh before the week is out.

Best get some sleep, then.

* did you detect the irony there?

** and even less for the sanctified.

Loud music

On Friday night, I went to see Mogwai at the Ironworks.

I had been looking forward to seeing them for a long time. I’d seen them once before, and so it was great they were coming to Inverness.

The gig was great - loud, dark, brooding instrumental rock music, and quite a few new songs. Their sound is gripping and engaging, with slow, long build-ups of guitars and drums that explode into the most intense crescendos of noise.

They didn’t play a few of their best songs which was a real shame - I particularly missed Mogwai Fear Satan, their 16-minute long epic that is a perfect gig-closer. But I’m just happy they’re still going after over a decade, and still putting out some excellent new pieces (which you can hear on their MySpace).

Last night, I was in the Market Bar in town and there was live music on (as there is every night). It’s a small intimate bar with a tiny stage, and yet they managed to pack in a five-piece classic rock cover band who were very talented but easily filled the shoebox-sized pub with their energetic sound, a second round of aural punishment after the ear-splitting noise of Mogwai.

This morning, my ears are understandably ringing from their ordeal. Tinnitus, as it’s known.

As opposed to listening to too much Hergé, which I imagine would be called Tintinitus.

Bring me sunshine…

I’ve spent the last couple of days in Aberdeen and Dundee for work.

The two nights in Aberdeen gave me a great chance to catch up with lots of friends and enjoy the wonderful sunshine that Scotland seems to be blessed with lately.  Aberdeen is always magnificent in the summer sunshine - colour, cheer and vibrancy bringing the city to life after a winter looking like a gothic film set.

Annoyingly I spent most of my time exploring Aberdeen having forgotten to take my camera out with me, so I missed the chance to capture the most magnificent red sunset on Tuesday night.  Ah well, next time.

I’m at home for the rest of the week and over the weekend, thankfully, so might get a chance to enjoy more of the sunshine here.

If it lasts.

Happy Star Wars Day

May the 4th be with you.

Yes ladies and gentlemen, the old ones are the best.

One year on

The SNP have been in power at Holyrood for a year now.

It’s a somewhat bizarre feeling for an SNP voter to finally have their party in power… though that’s not the objective, independence is.

But it’s been fascinating to look back on the past year and see how they have been doing and how the country has changed.

Like any government, they’ve not been perfect.  I’ve been particularly disappointed with what they’ve done (or rather not done) on transport - no major commitments to dualling the A9 any time soon, and the cancellation of the Edinburgh Airport Rail Link (EARL) was a silly idea.

They opposed both EARL and the Edinburgh trams scheme but compromised by getting rid of just one of them.  Of course they should have axed the trams and kept EARL (which would have made the airport more accessible to the rest of Scotland), but axed EARL instead.

On the other hand, they’ve done a number of wonderful things - scrapping road bridge toll and the graduate endowment, making moves to bring in a local income tax, freezing council tax, and various other grand initiatives.  Many more things they’d like to do are constrained by not having a parliamentary majority - which does at least lead to constructive dialogue with most of the other parties, and a chance for the healthy consensus politics we were promised in 1999 but are seeing only now we have a minority administration.

They’ve also continued to make the case for independence.  They’ve stated the case where it needs to be made that more powers would enhance the parliament and the country.  They’ve engaged firmly but constructively with London.  They’ve got people talking about independence more than ever.

And above all, they’ve introduced a positivity to Scotland - we’re a country that talks about what we can do rather than what we can’t do.  Our confidence is rising.  Independence may not be imminent but it is certainly more likely than before, and it really does at last seem like Scotland’s going somewhere.

Here’s to the next year.

Going nowhere

I was going to be in Aberdeen tonight, breaking a journey to Arbroath where I was working tomorrow.

Then I was going to Newcastle to see friends for the weekend, and then spend the Bank Holiday Monday back in Aberdeen before a meeting there on Tuesday.

However, I’ve spectacularly failed to shake the bug I had at the weekend - I’ll spare you the detailed symptoms but it involves lots of snot and phlegm.

After coughing my way through a long day of work in Edinburgh on Monday, I went off sick on Tuesday and Wednesday, and when I tried to go back to work today I found I was not yet one hundred percent, so to allow for a full recovery all my travels up until Tuesday have been cancelled.

While it’s never good to be off work, and I’m annoyed I’ll not see my friends in Newcastle, a city I really like, I think a few days just sitting at home quietly will do me good. It’s a good lesson, no doubt, to take it easier after what has been a very, very busy time.

The plan for my imposed long weekend is to read lots, take it easy, and hope that a combination of vitamin C and whisky nurses me back to health in time for the new week.

Knackered

I got home yesterday from the deathmarch in Strathfarrar a mere shadow of the man I used to be.

That could be unfitness, or the fact I was at the tail end of a bug, or even that I was walking with super-fit and experienced hillwalkers. Or it could have been that we did three hefty Munros in ferocious wind.

Either way, it really ought to be illegal to do that much exercise in a day.

Recovery involved hot water with honey and cider vinegar, a nice hot bath, and a good night’s sleep. A few aches and pains to show for yesterday’s exersions, plus a couple of photos.

Betwixt and between

Having realised I’ve not blogged since Monday, and even then that was a somewhat spurious post, I feel I ought to write something.

It’s been a busy week.  I’ve “done” Edinburgh, Aberdeen and Dundee for work this week, which included catchng up with various personalities in the Granite City.  Yet another week of long days and early mornings has left me shattered, and so I’m grateful for a quiet Friday night consisting of home-made curry and Rollcage.

No rest for the wicked, however, as the militant wing of the St Silas hillwalking group (aka the Deathmarchers) are in town this weekend, and I am out with them tomorrow for a day of Goretex pugilism.

Wish me luck.

10 facts about Montenegro

1. Montenegro is home to 7% of the world’s species of butterfly.
2. If you stretched out the coastline of Montenegro into a straight line, there would be enough leather to make scarves for the entire Indian Army.
3. The para-farthing, a penny-farthing with a built-in parachute, was designed and patented in Montenegro in 1845.
4. The music for the Swedish national anthem was actually written by a Montenegrin baker.
5. “Montenegro” is an anagram of “No! No! Megret!”
6. The Montenegrin city of Podgorica has the highest number of ice cream parlours per head of population out of all European capitals.
7. In the Montenegrin dialect of Serbian, the words for “putsch”, “excitedly” and “space-hopper” are pronounced exactly the same (although spelt subtly differently).
8. There are enough mountains in Montenegro to allocate one to each man, woman and child, which is done at birth. To achieve this, Montenegro is unique in the world in having a combined land and births registry.
9. In Montenegro, it is illegal to play golf alone.
10. The Montenegrin coastal resort of Budva is home to the largest Flemish basket-weaving festival outside Belgium.

It’s a funny old web

I had a nice catch-up with Niall last night.

Among the numerous deep and meaningful conversations we had, Niall mentioned that his blog seems to be attracting huge numbers of people who search for Brazil on the internet.  Indeed, if you Google “ten facts about brazil“, this is among the top results.

It got me thinking, because something similar has been happening to me in the past few weeks: according to my blog’s stats page, up to twenty or thirty visitors a day get here because they are searching for Montenegro.  Which is strange, because I’ve only mentioned Montenegro once on my blog.

Well, twice now.

I feel that if numerous people around the world are depending on me for their information about the small Balkan nation, then I really ought to have more for them.

So my next post is going to be “10 facts about Montenegro”.  I suspect that not all of them will be entirely true.

Oh, before I forget, Niall and I were out last night and as we departed the pub, Craig Brewster walked past.  He didn’t recognise us, though.

Not that he let on, anyway.