I got back to a dreich and rainy Glasgow to an Inverness basking in a gorgeous evening sunshine. It’s good to be back.
I had a grand old time catching up with people in amongst my work meetings and dentist’s appointment.
However, going back to Glasgow confirmed to me that I’m really not a huge fan of the place overall (I really noticed the pollution compared to Inverness) but I do love seeing various friends down there.
No more travels for… oh, at least five days.
It’s shocking that last year’s March of the Bigots (which I blogged about a year ago) is being repeated today.
Thankfully, the temptation to go and throw stones at it (I might be joking here) will be negated by the fact that I am about to disappear to catch a train.
To Glasgow, ironically.
Incidentally, talking of pillocks who think they’re Protestants but wouldn’t recognise Protestantism if it was nailed to their front door, I had to check that this article wasn’t written two days previously on April Fools’ Day.
Honestly, I sometimes despair of the world.
More evidence that I’ve been doing absolutely bugger all this week: I’ve discovered the magnificent Lark News.
It’s an American satirical Christian news site – basically, a heretical Onion, and it’s very, very funny. With headlines like “Small group members decide to stop feigning interest in each other” and “Obama heals hundreds“, how can you not like it?
Albania is a beautiful country. I’ve been there three times and read countless books on it.
However, its beauty – best seen in the dramatic mountains and hardy people – is rugged, unkept and wild, rather than asthetic or conventional.
In great contrast to this beauty, however, was the urban architecture. From my first visit, in 1999, it was clear that towns and cities like the capital, Tirana, were in a horrendous state.
Although there were some fine buildings – including some grand Art Deco in the government quarter – the ubiquitous ugly communist tower blocks, delapidated open spaces, and a general drearyness to the city almost (but thankfully not quite) disguised Tirana’s quirky, captivating and edgy side, which I instantly came to love.
However, the past few years have seen change, and I was delighted on my subsequent trips (2001 and 2003) to see various changes for the better. One of the most obvious ones was the bold, almost garish, splashes of colour put across the brutal concrete buildings.
I was reminded of this in an article on the Al Jazeera English website about the mayor of Tirana who has been behind many of the improvements. It also brought to mind a similar article on BBC News I remember reading a few years ago.
The Al Jazeera article was brought to my attention in a recent entry on Stepping Stones, written by an Albanian-based blogger who contacted me some weeks ago about a certain place called Mullet in Albania. But that’s another story.
It made me recall my trips to Albania with fondness. I have plenty stories from that part of the world, and really must blog them one day. I have photos somewhere too, but sadly they’re all pre-digital, and I have none to hand; and no scanner anyway.
Ah well, I’ll just have to take plenty photos on my next visit, which will probably be at the end of the mullet mission, to visit that village with the amusing name…
The CDs containing the latest four episodes of Lost arrived in the post today.
So important was this event, that Justin took a photo of them before posting them, as you can see.
I watched the episodes this afternoon (ah, the joys of holiday), and they were quite amazing. Season 4 is jetting along at quite a pace, and much is being finally revealed.
While all four were exceptional, the Desmond-centred episode was particularly so.
Annoyingly, there’s a break until late April due to the writers’ strike. So a wee bit of a wait before the rest of the season appears on my doormat.
