Everything you need in life

Seen in Dornoch this afternoon on a wee excursion with Nicole. Click the picture for an attempted explanation.

Between seasons

No sooner has the football season ended, it seems, than the next one has started, and we’ve almost had a team knocked out of Europe already.

The league season proper starts in a few weeks, but the European qualifiers are underway, with Motherwell having wobbled their way through their Europa League first round.

I’m not hugely optimistic about this season – Motherwell are a case in point, being a team in transition, being short of players and short of cash.  The story is the same throughout much of the league, and outside the top four or five I think it will be an all-encompassing relegation dogfight, which should at least be competitive and go down to the wire.

At the top there’s a bit of light, in that Hearts seem to have had one of their more settled pre-seasons in years, and their eccentric but thankfully intelligent manager has got a few semi-decent players in (when getting any player in at all is something of a bonus, outside the Old Firm).  The Old Firm themselves are not immune to financial problems, however, and the fact that Rangers are open to offers on pretty much all their players suggests that the gap between second and third might not be as great as in the past.

Aberdeen, too, with an excellent new manager in Mark MacGhee, should prove to be good runners, as should Dundee United.  They’ll probably take points off each other and Hearts, though, and as usual drop unnecessary points  to lesser teams, such that it will be sadly the same old story at the top of the league, albeit as I say with Hearts coming a wee tad closer to second than last season.

My pessimism extends to Europe, too – although Hearts and Aberdeen really should make it to the Europa League group stage, and the Old Firm to that of the Champions’ League, that’s about as far as we can expect anyone to go this season.

The SPL is of course bereft of Inverness Caley Thistle, which is bad news for the city’s economy and status, although on the footballing side they are now in the same division as the mighty Ross County for the first time in a few years.  With the prospect of the Highland derby back, I may even be tempted to venture to a County match or two this season.

Who else has a prediction or two?

Five minutes with…

A wee while ago, I discovered the rather excellent wee series on the BBC News website, Five Minutes With….

As the name suggests, it’s a series of five minute interviews, and those going under the clock are a diverse bunch ranging from Jason Donovan to William Hague, Moby to Terry Pratchett.  The interviewer, Matthew Stadlen, packs in an impressive array of questions, putting the interviewees under the spot a bit more intensely and unpredictably than conventional interviews.

More or less all the guests come over as likeable and interesting (largely because it’s hard to grow to hate someone in five minutes, though some guests put in a good effort), and it’s a fun and informative format.  Best of all, it fits neatly into those wee five minutes online that you might find yourself wanting to fill.

Trinity, and stuff

I got back from Glasgow yesterday evening, teeth all checked (24 hour trip for a 10 minute check-up – private dental care here I come?), and numerous friends all caught up with.  Now starts nearly two weeks with no travels, which will be a marvellous novelty.

It was wonderful being back in St Silas on the Sunday night, and the sermon was one of the best I have heard for a long, long time.  I didn’t particularly like it because it was spiritually uplifting (though it was): I liked it because it was simply a great explanation of faith, the Trinity, and all we must strive to be as Christians.

Kicking off a series on Ephesians, the preacher Gordon Reid used Ephesians 1 as a springboard for exploring a new relationship with God.

Basically (and you really needed to have seen the excellent accompanying powerpoint slides – though you can at least listen to the podcast), it started with an outline of the three types of Christian: liberal (illustrated as green), evangelical (illustrated as red), and charismatic (illustrated as blue), which were all visualised as thirds of a circle.

Each third was linked with:

• famous examples (respectively: Mother Theresa, Billy Graham, Jackie Pullinger)
• key motivations (respectively: achieving social justice, winning new souls; seeking spiritual experience)
• a point of reference which each takes (respectively: creation, Calvary and Pentecost)
• a part of the Trinity to which it is most closely aligned (respectively: the father, the son and the spirit)

We were told that if one point related to us more personally than the other two, we needed to grow into the other two parts of the circle too: partly through devoting our prayers to all three parts of the Trinity.

Finally, there was a brilliant link between each tradition through the three conversions we all need:

• from the world (in the liberal part of the circle) to Christ (in the evangelical part) – hopefully an obvious required conversion!
• from Christ to the church (in the charismatic part), because Christians must not be alone but a part of a bigger body
• from the church back to the world again, taking the Good News out to everyone else

Together these made the whole picture of the new relationship we should seek with God.

That’s probably not a sufficient or entirely accurate summary, and without the visuals it’s hard to do it full justice.  And admittedly, it was perhaps not of much value to someone not yet a Christian.

But for me, the sermon – delivered with great thoughtfulness and humour – helped me understand a whole lot more about why there is a diversity of views among how Christians view the world and view God, and how each perspective has a huge role to play in the relationships we seek with God as individuals and as a church.  It’s well worth a listen.

Hello from Weegieland

If it’s Sunday, it must be Glasgow.  Thankfully, it’s bright and sunny, and free of the humidity or rain that the city often throws up.

I’m sitting in Offshore, a nice wee cafe in the west end that is not as busy as it can be.  I’d be in iCafe just along the road (on the rare occasions I frequent such places here) but it’s seemingly closed due to fire damage.

I arrived earlier on today and am spending an hour or so here before St Silas’s evening service doing some writing and just enjoying chilling out.

Dentist’s tomorrow and then home by the evening.  Thereafter, there’ll be no travels – work or pleasure – for the best part of a fortnight.

Hurrah.

The rest of the Shetland photos

I’ve been enjoying a quiet Saturday so far, so have been pressing on with uploading photos from the rest of the Shetland trip.

It was so nice, after so many visits of rarely seeing more than the college, the airport and Lerwick town centre, to be able to get to pretty much most bits of the mainland and to a number of the smaller isles.

Shetland is such a diverse, beautiful and surprisingly large place.  With the weather as amazing as it was, and company in the form of my fiancee Nicole, it will definitely rank as one of the best holidays I’ve had.

I can’t be bothered doing much of a blow-by-blow account of the rest of the trip, but on many of the photos I have uploaded I’ve put a bit more background information and provided links where I can.  So you’re best just browsing today’s uploads, or the trip’s set as a whole.

Some highlights, however, include beautiful beaches such as Bannamin or St Ninian’s, the northernmost island of Unst, and the utterly charming and compelling Fetlar.

Shetland – like much of the rest of Scotland, I suppose – can always be a bit of a lottery in terms of transport and sightseeing due to the unpredictable weather, and the enjoyment of this trip was significantly boosted by what people told us had been the best sunshine in years.

However, seeing as it’s an amazing place in all weathers, it’s a trip worth taking and I can’t wait to go back some time – to see some place again, and perhaps make it to other parts I didn’t make it to this time…

Karma

Yesterday was a long day in Dundee.

The length of the day was not helped by the fact that my train from Inverness to Perth was delayed significantly, firstly before departure due to a late arrival, and secondly at Kingussie due to points failure.  Being couped up longer than necessary on such a hot day didn’t help the bout of hayfever I’ve been suffering, and so I spent most of the journey sneezing and blowing my nose.  As did many other people – perhaps the rumours of a swine flu increase are true…

Anyway, while I was standing in the vestibule of the carriage just as we approached Perth, where I would be changing for Dundee, I noticed a guy near me in the vestibule moving his bags to the door in the next carriage and repeatedly shouting “for f**k’s sake”.  He was exhibiting some rather odd behaviour that would suggest to a layman like me that he had some serious mental health difficulties.

It turned out it was my sneezing he was moving from – he said something about germs and called me a “filthy c**t”.  Much as my sneezing was probably unpleasant, his confrontational tone and language was uncalled for, and I told him so.  “F**k off”, came the response. Clearly he has issues with basic social situations – so quite what someone like that is doing being allowed to travel alone on trains, I’ve no idea.

When we arrived, the change in Perth was a bit of a hairy one – due to the delays, I’d already missed one connection and simply couldn’t afford to miss the second Dundee train, otherwise I would miss my meeting.  I had about a minute to get from platform 4 to platform 2, and after a mad sprint I made it in the nick of time.

As I sat down in my seat, the doors closed and the train pulled slowly away, guess who came running down the steps just a few seconds too late?  Yep, got it in one: the sweary mentalist himself.

I promise I tried not to smirk to myself, but I am afraid I failed.

As I believe Confucius put it: “karma’s a bitch, huh?”

Mullets in the post, and more from Shetland

Alright, own up – who sent me a copy of “Fishing – The Mythical Mullet With Mike Ladle And Steve Pitts“?

It arrived in the post while I was away, with no note in the envelope and nothing on the outside other than a London postmark and handwriting I don’t recognise.  Whoever it is, though, knows my full address.

It’s not the first time I’ve been sent unsolicited mullet paraphernalia.  In the past, I’ve been the recipient of a mullet t-shirt and no less than three sets of “Mullet Power” top trumps.

More than being an irritation, it’s more fundamentally a waste as it all ends up getting chucked out anyway – and I don’t think that’s ungrateful, because there’s nothing wrong with not wanting something you never asked for in the first place.

I don’t know why people send such stuff to me.  My mission is, after all, to visit every place in the world with the word “mullet” in its name.  Not collect every form of mullet tat available.

That would be just silly now, wouldn’t it?

In other news, I uploaded another batch of photos from Shetland today – these ones from around Lerwick.

One of my favourite towns at the best of times, Lerwick was on sparkling form when we were there.  It basked in gorgeous, cloudless sunshine, Shetland flags flying from poles and buildings across town and beyond, and locals and tourists alike making the most of the fun laid on by the Flavour of Shetland festival on the Victoria Pier.

Forming part of the midsummer Johnsmas Foy, the festival brought the centre of town to life throughout the day and into the evening (I’d say night, but that far north, night barely arrives in midsummer).

The highlight of the festival for me was sampling some of the wonderful beers from the Valhalla Brewery, the northerly brewery in Britain. It’s based in Unst, Shetland’s (and Scotland’s, and Britain’s) most northerly inhabited island

More on Unst later, though, when I get round to those photos.

Waiting

Greetings from near Pitlochry where I am trying out the WordPress application on my iPhone en route back from Edinburgh.

I feel should be doing something to celebrate this advancement in blogging technology, but there’s not a lot you can do on a hot, packed train with a dog sitting on your feet and a screaming kid opposite.

Ah well, not long until I get home and meet Niall, who is back from his rig and passing through Inverness for the night.

To pass the time before I get back to some work, here’s a wee anecdote I copied and pasted earlier.

While delayed for a couple of hours before going to Shetland, Nicole and I were sitting in a cafe at Aberdeen airport when we noticed a bit of a ruckus going on near us. A group of young guys were being accosted by various passengers and even airport staff who were keen to get autographs and photos.

Their attire, demeanour and the way they’d spontaneously start shaking their limbs to some silent rhythm, as if they were epileptics on dope, suggested to me they were dancers or rap artists of some sort. With their unnecessarily dark sunglasses, dreadlocks and self-confident swaggers, I wondered if it was perhaps even a support group for blind Rastafarians on the hip replacement waiting list.

Nicole and I had no idea what the fuss was about until they were all shepherded away by some officials, and as they moved past us I noticed they had badges on them which said “Britain’s Got Talent on Tour”.

Even though neither of us have a TV we are sadly not impervious to the dirge that is Britain’s Got Talent, and I vaguely recall that a Gordon Brown lookalike lost out in the final to a spoilt brat and a gang of street dancers.

This must have been them, I figured. What were they called? Diversity, or So Solid Juniors, or ^R-Selvz or something like that.

Good on them, though, and I hope their fifteen minutes are fun while they last until they break up and enter a lives of drugs and crime. Or, more likely, insurance or accountancy.

Needless to say, they didn’t recognise me.

Not that they let on, anyway.