Spring time in Paris

Just back from the most fantastic long weekend in the City of Light, a place I've known in literature, art, photography and cinema for years but never actually been to. Standing on the Pont Neuf, the location for Les Amants de Pont Neuf, the French film where I first saw (and fell in love with) Juliette Binoche gave me such a rush (just the first of many French film actresses I've fallen in love with, French cinema has a habit of producing the most engaging leading ladies, from Catherine Deneuve to Audrey Tautou). Turning round as I walked along the Seine past all the little green lock-ups of the bouquinistes selling rare and second hand books, art prints and bande dessinee right there in the open air I can see the towers of Notre Dame, the edge of the Ile de la Cite, the Louvre and then suddenly a glimpse of the Eiffel Tower. And for some reason it isn't until you finally see the Tower that you really, really feel like your are in Paris. And its a wonderful feeling. You're in Paris, its spring time and the sun is out and suddenly life is good...



More to come on Paris soon, I'm still kind of processing it all; late yesterday night I saw my last glimpse of the city from the air as we took off, the whole of Paris sparkling in the night and there was the Eiffel Tower, seen from the plane as we soared up into the night above France, glowing in the Parisian skyline, the great searchlight rotating on the top. An hour and a half later (and some nice red wine, merci Air France) descending through some clouds which clear to show the dark, night-time waters of the Forth and on the left Edinburgh lit up in the night and the Castle from the air, seemingly floating with the dark Castle Rock invisible from our height at night, only the floodlit battlements visible. I flew over the Eiffel Tower and Edinburgh Castle all lit up in the darkness within an hour and a half or so, even the simple act of the flight home was brilliant.

Two of the most beautiful cities in the world and I'm lucky enough that one of them is my home... More later and pics and vid to come, but I've only just started working on those and realised I took more than 2 gigs of images... Well, wouldn't you? And now I'm trying to get out of the habit of saying 'bonjour', 'merci' and 'au revoir' in any shop or bar I walk into... Missing Paris already...

Birds and lighthouses...

... down on the beach near Yellowcraig, as dusk falls and a flock of birds fly over and the Fidra Lighthouse comes to life...

New moon



Just after sunset a pale new moon hangs in the sky over the Victorian tenements of Edinburgh



The same section of canal as the earlier canoe photos, only a couple of hours later on (click for the bigger versions on Flickr)

The iron road to the Highlands

Early yesterday morning I caught the train for Inverness to cover a brand-new comics convention for the FPI blog. Crossing over the mighty Forth Bridge (I can't remember going over that since I was a kid, usually I'm going over the nearby road bridge) the train went along the Fife coast to begin with, curving around past Burntisland, giving great views right across the Firth of Forth where you could see all of Edinburgh in profile, the Pentland Hills behind the city dusted with snow and an orange glow behind them as the early morning winter sun struggled to rise above the hills. As the train turned further inland the rolling hills of Fife were sprinkled with snow too, while the rich farmland between them was mostly snow (although not ice) free.


(click the pics to see the full size version on the Woolamaloo Flickr stream)

However, as I got further north, heading up past Perth, Pitlochry and further, the snow went from a light sprinkle to deeper, purer, whiter. As we got up into the Highlands proper and the Cairngorms national park it got colder and ever more spectacular. The view from the train window was quite simply spectacular: snowbound forests (fallen trees with their skinny, snow-covered branches looked like the skeletons of some long-spined creature), rivers swollen and fast-running with recent rain and snow runoff from the mountains, except where the water had frozen fast into ice.



Deer ran lightly through the snow; as the train past one field I saw a young buck, couldn't have been more than two years old, bouncing through the snow and off into the treeline. There were a number of football fans, all loaded up with beer, on the train (I think their match ended up cancelled because of the weather) but even they grew quiet, totally taken in with the astonishing beauty of the Scottish Highlands passing outside their window to the clickety-clack, clickety-clack beat of the train on its rails. You can feel the pressure on your ears as the train begins to climb steeply - it isn't as clear from the view but your body can feel it as the train pulls you ever higher into the land of mountains.



I haven't been up that far north in years, not since going on a few ski trips many moons ago and that was driving so you don't get to appreciate the view quite so much. Sitting on a train with a great big window you could just watch all of this slip past, one of most scenic parts of the whole of Europe just sliding past my window. God we're so lucky to live in this country - next time any of us moan about our weather we should think about these scenes then realise just how utterly beautiful our mountain kingdom is.

Accordion by the beach



Down on Portobello beach this afternoon (a dry day!!! a day with no howling gales!!! Quick everyone outside!!!), my mate's dog happily running around sniffing interesting smells (most animals walk about with their heads held up to see around them, except dogs, who trot around with their head pointing downwards so they can sniff everything) and as we walked along the beach we could hear music. Walking up onto the nearby esplanade we saw this chap playing the accordion, while nearby a wee boy was dancing happily to the music. It sounded like a little bit of France in the middle of Edinburgh's seaside and put us in happy mind of our trip to Paris coming up in a few weeks. I imagine in Paris accordion players busking must be a bit like bagpipers in Edinburgh.

Surf's up!

Kite surfers taking advantage of the breeze at Longniddry Bents on the Forth for a bit of winter surfing across the waves and sometimes right into the air - so damned cool.





Take off time!

Quack quack

Walking along the Union Canal this weekend, ducks and other birds (sadly I do not know everything and bird types is one area I am weak in - anyone know what these black waterfowl with the white bills are?) swimming around. The ducks go past, the black birds swim past, their little red-orange webbed feet just visible through the greenish water, working away like the paddles on an old Mississippi steamboat. Then suddenly they start diving. Ploop! One minute they are there, next moment only concentric ripples spreading outwards on the surface of the water to show where they had been, then suddenly they pop up again elsewhere, like a WWII German U-Boat doing an emergency surface. I had a sudden urge to do my Jack Hawkins impression and call for the depth charges...

It was very hard to capture these sudden movements on the camera, so I switched to video mode instead. You can hear a voice at the start which is a tiny little girl with her dad shouting "quack quacks!" in delight. Nearby some narrowboats which are lived on the whole year long, the restored old Leamington Lift Bridge (I don't know why but it gives me such pleasure to see it raised and for holidaying folks to sail under it), the floating restaurant barge which cruises at the weekend, new waterfront cafes, offices and homes, the remains of the old Scottish and Newcastle brewery slowly being taken apart as the area is remade (Sean Connery lived just right round the corner from this spot as a boy and delivered milk in the area - now he comes back to the nearby cinema on a red carpet for the Film Festival every year). And this is all a short walk to my home in one direction and to Edinburgh Castle the other way. The little marvels we can see even in the middle of the city if we only stop and look for a moment and share that simple, childlike delight in these little surprises and presents the world offers us.



(apologies for the poor quality - my camera does very good video but that means big files so I need to reduce it so much to fit on YouTube it never looks right - oh well, it's free!)

Pardon for witches

A Lothians-based paranormal group, Full Moon Investigations, has asked the Scottish parliament to issue a posthumous pardon to all the people persecuted under charges of witchcraft throughout Scottish history; not the finest part of our long history and not a part the tourist industry likes to talk about too much, preferring either (often wrong) ancient history or extolling the Enlightenment (except, of course, if you are promoting a ghost walk tour!).

I know, I know, some people sigh cynically, what is the point of this nonsense? Every month there seems to be someone demanding a government issue a retroactive apology for something which happened long before most folks in the country were even born and aren't we all fed up with it, isn't it just trying to apply political correct modern sensibilities backwards onto long-past events to make us feel better? Well to be honest it is easy to think that way, but then consider that when we ignore past injustices we tend to allow those patterns to repeat.

What were some of the principal elements of witchcraft allegations in previous centuries? Picking on someone who was a bit different (old woman living on her own with cats), groups who may not have been popular with the majority (ultra Calvinists suspicious of Catholics), people in positions of power encouraging utterly irrational hatred, suspicion and fear of those who are different for their own ends and using them to consolidate their own grip over the populace, justify draconian changes in law and to prosecute actions which would normally be seen as uncivilised... Gee, sound even remotely like certain events in modern society? And if you are still thinking nah, it is just PC nonsense, just remember how the phrase 'witch hunt' has become a phrase we use regularly when talking about the persecution of any individual or small group. Then think again.

snowy Saltire
Originally uploaded by byronv2

Wind whipping around a Saltire above the entrance to the Balmoral Hotel in Edinburgh as snow makes streaks across a leaden night sky

Two sides of the Castle

Going to work a few days ago, south side of the Castle as the bus goes through the Grassmarket, home to old inns where Burns once stayed. At this time of year in Scotland the sun is so low in the sky it doesn't clear Castle Ridge in the early morning, so from the New Town side on the north it is silhouetted with the rising sun behind it. But from the southern view that same low sun, stretched out to a golden copper as warm as the morning air is frigid, washes across the ancient wall and makes the native stone glow with life against a clear, pale blue sky.

This morning, the north side of the Castle, looking from Princes Street, the battlements in shadow as the low sun hides behind the Ridge. Everything is covered in hard frost, from the plants in the valley of the Gardens below the volcanic mount to the walls of the Castle, glittering in morning light, sparkling as if millions of tiny diamonds had been dusted over the city. Beautiful.

Happy Saint Andrew's Day



And so one of the Scottish national emblems - the thistle - for the day of our patron saint who also gave us the form of our flag, the Saltire, the oldest national flag still in use, an insignia of Scottishness for over a thousand years. And since it is Saint Andrew's Day let's have some Scottish poetry - this one is by the poet and novelist Andrew Greig, who I've had the pleasure of sharing a drink and a natter with on a few occasions over the years:

As your lover on waking recounts her dreams,
unruly, striking, unfathomable as herself,
your attention wanders
to her moving lips, throat, those slim shoulders
draped in a shawl of light, and what's being christened here
is not what is said but who is saying it,
the overwhelming fact
she lives and breathes beside you another day.

Other folks' golf shots being even less interesting
than their dreams, I'll be brief:
as she spoke I thought of a putt yesterday at the 4th,
as many feet from the pin as I am years from my birth,
several more than I am from my death –
one stiff clip, it birled across the green,
curved up the rise, swung down the dip
like a miniature planet heading home,

and the strangest thing is not what's going to happen
but your dazed, incredulous knowing it will,
long before the ball reaches the cup then drops,
that it's turned out right after all,
like waking one morning to find yourself
unerringly in love with your wife.

"A Long Shot", by Andrew Greig, borrowed from the website of the Scottish Poetry Library (based here in Edinburgh), where you can enjoy a good browse at plenty of verse from Scottish writers.

World Whisky of the Year

Islay single malt Ardbeg has won the World Whisky of the Year title in the Whisky Bible 2008 (a much better Good Book than the Good Book). I heartily approve; there's a rapidly diminishing bottle of Ardbeg in my malt collection here in Woolamaloo Mansion and it is a damned fine malt. Along with Bowmore it is one I often recommend to people who aren't used to single malts as a very smooth drink, easy to go down but still with a lovely combination of scents and tastes (scent and taste being inextricably linked). Recently I had to dissuade a Norwegian friend who kept putting ice into his whisky from doing so - it isn't just insulting to the drink, it ruins it, since a glass of good malt should be held in the hand for a few moments to warm it with your own body heat, not chilled by ice like some cheap, trashy bourbon like Jack Daniels (which isn't a whisky, I don't care what the adds say, it's a bourbon and not worthy of the title 'whisky', even if they mis-spell it with an extra 'e').

Now don't get me wrong, I'm not a whisky bore, I'm not one of those folks who can take a sniff and say, ah, that's a 15 year old from the Angus Og Distillery on Auchenshoogle which has rested in oak barrels on the left hand side of the building... Nope, not that good - I can tell a good malt from a crap blend, but I'm not an expert. What I do like is - and increasingly as I get older - is enjoying the full range of a good drink (or food for that matter) and the includes the temperature, the scents that pre-inform my taste buds, then the taste on the tongue and, just as important, the after-taste it leaves. Malts come in such a complexity of colours and tastes and aromas that they are a delight to the senses and should never be treated like some cheap spirit with a few ice cubes, it isn't just a drink, it is an experience, a sensual experience of pleasure.

I tend to take the same approach with my coffee - I take the time at lunch to brew proper, fresh coffee rather than instant and every day before I drink it I take a sniff and let the aroma tingle my senses first. It turns an everyday happening into a sensual pleasure and makes me appreciate it ten times more, it tunes the senses and delights them. You can do the same with good cheeses, wines, all sorts of things; don't just drink it down or stuff it in, take a tiny bit of extra time, take it slightly slower, appreciate it, revel in it (and since someone took time to make it well, you should take a bit of time to appreciate it in turn). It's the difference between a quick peck on the cheek and a long, lingering kiss. And it makes everyday life more pleasurable.

The Bridge

A couple of weekends ago I took my parents on a belated anniversary gift of a trip on the Maid of the Forth, which sails out from South Queensferry opposite the Hawes Inn, where Davey Balfour is bundled aboard ship in Robert Louis Stevenson's superb adventure Kidnapped, then right under the mighty Forth Bridge.


(the Hawes Inn pub sign makes sport with its RLS connection)

I've seen this Victorian marvel of engineering a thousand times but this was the first time I had sailed under it; the real scale of the structure becomes staggeringly real when you are this close, right under the main cantilever sections, thousands of tons of steel hanging in the air above you, foundations driving right down into the river; it took the lives of over 50 men and boys to build it.


(going under the great Forth Bridge; check my Flickr stream for the full set of larger scale pictures)



From there the boat continues down the Forth, passing coastal towns old and new, country houses and modern oil and gas terminals, international ferries, Edinburgh in profile on one side, the Kingdom of Fife on the other and the Firth of Forth opening out towards the North Sea, islands - or 'inches' ranging from mere rocks to larger spots dotted throughout, many still showing marks of war, structures hurriedly added to protect the coast and nearby Rosyth naval dockyard during the two World Wars, now mostly they are full of colonies of seabirds (this whole part of the coast is a huge area for seabirds). History flows like the tidal waters here; Roman ships coming into nearby Cramond for the Antonine Wall forts, vikings, French men'o'war, English raiders, German aircraft - it's a working river still, tankers, international ferries, even aircraft carriers (HMS Ark Royal sailed down this route just a few months back, just barely fitting under even this high bridge).


(Inchcolm Abbey, my mum and dad in the foreground walking towards it, the Saltire fluttering in the breeze)

Eventually we come to Inchcolm island, home to a gorgeous 12th century abbey (although some maintain its religious life goes right back to Saint Columba himself, the man who brought Christianity to Scotland in the 500s AD). History and landscape and seascape and wildlife - birds, seals - of my beautiful homeland, a place so near to where I live but a place I had never been to before and I got to share it with my folks.


(sunset across the Forth from Inchcolm, the bridges in the distance; nearby some seals were popping their heads up to watch us, waiting on the visitors to leave for the day so they could come up and claim their beaches for the evening)

An hour and a half on Inchcolm wasn't nearly enough and we want go back again when the new season starts again next year. Afterwards we sailed back up the Forth as the sun set behind the Bridge, shafts of light breaking through the clouds at the end of the day as we sailed upriver, east to west. After docking, as dusk fell on a perfect day we wandered over to the Hawes Inn and settled ourselves down in the cosy wooden interior for drinks and dinner (lovely food, great, friendly service), a perfect end to a perfect day.

A morning of mists

Chilly in Edinburgh this morning, cold enough in the early morning and after sunset to see your breath; I can taste the winter on the air. Cold, but beautiful - the mist which often falls in Edinburgh, especially in autumn, lay over the city. By the time I was on Princes Street the sun was just barely above Castle Ridge; the Castle and buildings of the Old Town were faint through the mist, like fading dreams evaporating in the light of morning, or perhaps the reverse, perhaps the daytime city was dreaming itself into being as I watched. The copper-red sun struggled above Ridge, fuzzy and indistinct through the mist, making it glow like a living thing as it curled around old buildings, battlements and the peaks of Arthur's Seat. An hour later it was a clear, blue sky, crisp, sharp, as if the mist had never been, the world solid and defined, but I saw it change from dreamstate to waking world and know that both are, in their own ways, real and imaginary at the same time.

On the way home tonight the sun had just set, staining the sky red in the west; a darkening sky in the east and a huge, full moon rising in the sky even by 6 o'clock. The mist was rising once more, following the line of the setting sun, like a great, soft blanket being pulled over the city from east to west. The city changes again, slips herself into another form, another reality, another dream. All cities are both real and dream places, their ever-changing faces as much how we see them as any subjective view, presenting perspectives to those who will look and appreciate her special gifts.

Seachd - the Inaccessible Pinnacle

At the weekend I caught an absolutely beautiful Scottish film, the Gaelic-language Seachd: the Inaccessible Pinnacle. A man returns home from Glasgow to his dying grandfather back in the Western Isles, which leads to a series of tales - in many ways it is a story about stories. Rather fittingly, since Gaelic has an immensely rich oral tradition, a seam of folklore and tales told and retold by bards, singers and just ordinary folk generation after generation. In one scene the grandfather - who may have a much more personal link to the stories of centuries past he tells - talks to his wee grandson, angry and bitter after the death of his parents, rejecting his upbringing, calling it stupid and his grandad's stories false and tells him "no-one can tell the truth. We all tell stories."


(Angus Peter Campbell/Aonghas Pàdraig Caimbeul as the grandfather. A man well suited to play a storyteller since he was taught by Iain Crichton Smith and then later encouraged by Sorley MacLean at University. He is a published novelist and poet and it shows in his performance - like any good poet he has a feel for the fabric and rhythm of storytelling)

As a lifelong reader its hard for me to argue that point - narrative, story, is central to the human condition, it informs who we are in a personal day to day life (how was your day? You don't just say I did this, this and this, you tell it like a short story) and on the grander scale (the older stories which tell us on a deeper level who we are as a people, stories that repeat again and again - Arthur, the Iliad, Beowulf, Ramayana, the songs of the Dreamtime. We are story, we are words and images - we think in words and images, we talk in them, write and draw and sing in them. They're encoded into our DNA. And Seachd is stories within stories, stories defining and illustrating history, culture and the individuals too.


The film is beautiful to behold - much of it is shot on An t-Eilean Sgitheanach, better know to most of us as the Isle of Skye and the mighty Cuillins range. Even in scenes shot on gray, dull, overcast (very Scottish weather) days the imagery is stunning, clouds reaching down to the tops of the mountains, like angel's wings caressing the earth. The music (which is what is playing from the embedded player I got from the official site over on the left of the blog here) is also wonderful.

It makes my blood boil that the numpty heids at BAFTA have decided not to support this Scottish film and put it forward as their non-English language selection for Oscar consideration - not because they had something else they preferred to put forward either, they just didn't put Seachd or anything else forward, which totally undermines their supposed commitment to supporting British film-making (and nice to see London still haughtily mistreats Gaelic culture, some things never change it seems). BAFTA has attracted a raft of criticism, starting with the Scottish arts community, the Parliament and now worldwide condemnation for this shameful and inexcusable lack of support and rightly so. With the fine reception the film is receiving it makes BAFTA's ignorant decision look all the more foolish and ill-informed and I hope they are quite humiliated by their disgusting actions.



But enough negativity - the film itself is truly beautiful and moving; the seemingly simple idea of an elderly storyteller telling story after story doesn't convey the feel of the film. As with any story it isn't just the story, it is how the storytellers tell the story that often makes it and that's the case here. Its hauntingly beautiful, stories that you can feel on those deeper levels that the truly good stories can reach. Go and see it.

The turning of the seasons



Some leaves are clinging to their lush greenery, aided by the bursts of almost summer-like warmth, while some have already begun to dry and turn red and gold. In Mel's garden some late bloom roses have come out after we trimmed the plants back earlier in the year and some final insects are buzzing round the flowers in the sudden warmth before winter arrives, while the berries hang on the bushes. Walking home the long, red twilight stretches long, thin shadows, skies blue, wispy clouds tinged salmon pink. The wind rustles in the branches and with each little breath more leaves fall to join their cousins in little piles on the ground or to float along the canal alongside the ducks and swans. When the autumn moon rises it is a huge, harvest moon, glowing brightly in a purple-black sky, the stars changing their tempo to their winter configuration. Each warm day now is a gift; you wonder if it will be the last one before the inevitable slide into the long, dark winter.

National motto

Should the UK have a national motto? Since this idea of Gordon Brown's was first floated the Prime Eejit has distanced himself, saying that this wasn't actually his intent. Frankly I go with the Jim Hacker rule - when a politician denies something like this it normally means it is true. It seems a curiously old-fashioned idea which belongs to times past when governments and other institutions - education, religion, the monarchy, even the arts - tried their best to create a single idea of national unity. It was cobblers then, a pure fiction and one that would be badly misused too often (such as being used as a rallying point for the slaughter of the Great War, which is, ironically, when a lot of people really started to see it for the insidious nonsense that it is). To try and forge some sort of national identity in this day of multi-cultural societies, international travel and trans-border culture and communication seems simply stupid and as archaic as John Major's famously daft speech extolling a Britain of cricket on the village green and old ladies cycling to Evensong services at the parish church.

Still, no reason we can't have a little fun with the idea, though, is it? America has 'In God We Trust', which is actually fairly recent (only brought in during the 50s) and still controversial since church and state are supposed to be strictly seperate. Not to mention the fact they have ended up with mentally defective retard monkeys like George Dubyah Bush and Ronald Reagan being in charge of the country gives you the inkling that such trust in god may be misplaced... France has 'liberty, egality, fraternity' (unless you're an immigrant from the former colonies in which case it is 'fuck off and live in squalor in a crap overspill development'). But what motto would suit a United Kingdom which has parts which would rather be the Untied Kingdom (apologies to my mate James Lovegrove for borrowing a title from one of his excellent novels, I'm sure he'll forgive me using it)? Here are a few of my ideas, feel free to make your own suggestions:

Britain - please queue here

(this emphasises on of our great national characteristics and at the same time serves to educate those damned foreigners like Italians who seem to have no concept of queueing much to the fury of Britons when they walk in front of us at a big line. Although we are too polite to tell them off for it, preferring to mumble in low tones to our queueing neighbours)

Always Look on the Bright Side of Life

(uplifting and inspiring in hard times and a reminder of one of our great cultural gifts to the world)

Nice weather for ducks

(we probably should have a motto that reflects our national obsession with weather. Others don't understand why we have this obsession, but it is simply because we have so much endlessly changing weather, sometimes having sunshine, rain, hail and snow within the same afternoon)

Full up

(one for the xenophobic Daily Mail readers to enjoy waving in front of the immigrant population)

Watch what you say or we'll invade you next

(what a lot of right wing numpties would love)

Britain - now available in HiDef

(perhaps we need one which celebrates our technological achievements)

Britain - Press red button for more information

(for our cabled up digital age)

Five a day!

(to help boost the UK's health)

I think I'll stick to our own Scottish national motto as seen above the gates to Edinburgh Castle: nemo me impune lacessit, roughly translated as no-one touches me with impunity or, as would be more the case these days, we're friendly folks but don't piss us or you're for a kickin'.

Secret service spied on Scottish politicians

A long standing rumour that MI5 and Special Branch spooks spied on members of the Scottish National Party in the 1950s appears not to be paranoia but fact according to documents discussed in Scotland on Sunday today. Perfectly legal political parties and democratically elected representatives of the people seem to be fair game for these shadowy bastards - and we're not talking about intelligence services keeping an eye on extreme parties such as the BNP with many potential hidden links to secret agendas or links to even less savoury (and illegal) sub groups but to a party following a publicly espoused campaign to move for encouraging Scottish independence. Given the intelligence services also spied on Labour ministers and even the prime minister in the 60s and 70s it illustrates how much of a law unto themselves such groups can often be, how little real oversight there is from parliamentary committees and just why we should oppose the present government who want to use Fear to make us agree to an ever expanding range of new powers for them 'to make us safer'.

And given the SNP recently humiliated Labour in its heartland of Scotland to take control of the Scottish parliament this must be even more humiliating for the government, especially since there are still rumours of dirty tricks and spying to this day. Of course, such rumours are rubbished as paranoid conspiracy theory nonsense by Westminster government spokespersons, but since that's what they said of the 50s dirty tricks ops against the SNP who the hell believes a word that comes out of their mouths? As they used to say in the X-Files, "trust no-one"

Moments of transitory beauty

On the way to work, a glorious, almost perfect Scottish autumn morning; the sun is lower in the horizon and its light now stretched out to deeper, warmer tones than the harsher light of summer - we've entered the Golden Time. Our location north of the edge of Europe means our weather and climate isn't always the nicest but it also means we are at the curve of the Earth to see the sun tilt further as the seasons pass us, from the height of summer to the low arc of the sun's brief appearance in winter. At this time of year, when we are lucky enough to have a clear day, it means the sunlight becomes the most glorious golden-copper hue; against the older buildings constructed of great blocks of native stone rather than mere bricks it looks magnificent.

It looks even more beautiful against our nation's natural beauty (and regardless of weather one thing Scotland has in abundance is astonishing natural beauty), the warm gold of the autumnal sun matching the colours of the season perfectly, the gold of the harvest being brought in, the leaves browning, crisping, drying, turning, falling. Yesterday morning an almost perfect autumn scene - clear, pale blue sky and the sun, low now in the sky, just above Castle Ridge, shining directly through the rich foliage of the trees in Princes Street Gardens as I passed.

The branches are still full of heavy greenery from summer, but already some leaves are turning, a mix of verdant green with touches of red, brown and gold, the trees equivalent of the man with just a touch of distinguished gray, perhaps. The low morning sun came through them from behind and lit them up, the green still vibrantly alive, the turning leaves glowing as if from inner fire, a last reminder of beauty and life before the long sleep of winter; Edinburgh Castle, her ancient stones warming in the morning sun, the backdrop to this and what a backdrop. It lasted only seconds, the juxtaposition of where I was, where the sun was in relation to me, the trees, but for a few seconds I saw pure beauty shining in a dying leaf and the play of shadows and sunbeams across the Castle. For a few seconds I had no cares in this world, lost in the ephemeral, momentary beauty of my homeland, glowing with the glorious light of an Impressionist painting but infinitely more lovely than any artist's hand could capture.

The birds

A very disturbing story doing the rounds of the Scottish media this week - the unlawful killing of various Scottish birds of prey, from hen harriers to one of the nation's symbols, the magnificent Golden Eagle, are at a twenty year high despite legal protection. And gee, isn't it just a coincidence that the geographical distribution of the cases often matches the location of major 'sporting' estates where fat businessmen shoot flocks of tame pheasants scared into the line of their shotguns by beaters? (I put 'sporting' in commas because I don't see anything sporting in killing animals for kicks, especially when it involves practically tame creatures and almost no skill from the so-called 'hunter') Yes, I'm sure that's just coincidence and not gamekeepers and landowners poisoning, trapping and shooting raptors on the side to make sure they don't interfere with with their game birds.

Or maybe there are just a lot of scumbags out there who don't give a damn about our wildlife and environment (or law) as long as they can exploit it for money - a double irony some of the people in these sorts of jobs who are probably doing this vile act like to tell the rest of us that they are 'the guardians of the countryside' No, you're not, you condescending, tweed-clad twats, you're vicious, amoral bastards. I'm sure there are plenty of gamekeepers who do adhere to the law and try to protect species including raptors, but from the evidence there are obviously a hell of a lot of them who are only to happy to kill even endangered animals. The answer? Well these feckers all love hunting and complain we've restricted so much of that, so let's have some more hunting - open season on hunting anyone in tweeds or Barbour jackets and Deerstalker hat, anyone? Tally ho and give 'em both barrels - don't worry, its a humane way to kill 'em, you know, otherwise they ruin the environment...

Blue, green, gold

Suddenly after a depressingly bad summer (even for someone like me who is allergic to strong sunlight) we've had a sudden burst of sunny, warm weather, very summer like; the beaches by North Berwick were packed at the weekend. Ironically as we have this sudden splash of warmth and sun as we move into September and autumn - instead of light until late into the night the darkness is falling earlier each night and as soon as that sun goes down its cool, a coolness that whispers of the change of seasons and the autumn and winter knocking on the door.

Looking up from my book on the way home this evening the sky was the most beautiful shade of blue, glowing with light, the trees in Princes Street Gardens and the side of Castle Hill still a deep, lush myriad of green hues, a brilliant contrast against the blue, long, long shadows stretching out as the slow autumnal sunset drifts into golden beams. When we do get dry, sunny days at this time of year it really is a golden time in Scotland, the sun moving further round the horizon from its position of summer dominance so that now its light is stretched out to softer, more golden-copper tones. And here and there among the still-emerald foliage the odd leaf slowly turning brown; within a few weeks they will all being to turn, crisp, brown and red, fluttering to the ground and I'll go running through the piles of leaves and kick them in the air because you're never too old to enjoy that.

And just a few more weeks on from that it will be dark by the time I come home, the deep darkness of winter as the wheel of the seasons turns. My breath will mist in the frigid air and frost will sparkle on the bare branches. And again I'm not sad as some are when summer turns to autumn to winter because I love the seemingly eternal cycle of the seasons; each has its own transitory beauty and each connects us to nature and our world. When the long darkness falls it also means watching my cats contentedly sleeping in front of the fire's flickering flames, the lights of the Winter Wonderland, the wonderful warmth of a friendly pub after walking in from a cold, dark night, the simple delight of hot, homemade soup after a cold walk. Then the spring will dawn again behind that, then back to summer and Festivals once more. How quickly they seem to go past and yet how everlasting they feel. Goodybe to another summer, welcome to another autumn in its golden crown.

Harvest time


(click for the larger image)

Driving down the east coast from Edinburgh, down past North Berwick and all the fields either full of swaying, full, ripe crops, rippling like the sea in the breeze or already harvested like this one, all stacked and ready, the farmers making hay while the sun shines. Considering I shot this almost blind because there was a tall hedgerow in the way and I had to stand on tip-toes with the camera over my head I'm pleased it came out at all.

Referendum? Why would we want to know what the people think?

The three main opposition parties in Scotland have done pretty much what they threatened to do and joined together to try and block any possible referendum on the likelihood of Scottish independence in the face of the new SNP government's attempts. I remain far from convinced that independence is a good idea and so far the SNP hasn't really outlined exactly how it will work, how it can be paid for and sustained and how transnational obligations such as defence or even something as simple as running foreign embassies, will work. However, I am furious that the other political parties are not just campaigning against the idea of independence (which is their right if they choose) but against the idea of a referendum - put simply they are utterly against the idea of the citizens of the country being given the chance to put forward their own opinion, hardly a democratic stance. In fact, quite the opposite. If you don't believe in allowing the people to voice their own opinion and vote then why masquerade as a 'democratic representative of the people'? And I'm especially ashamed of the Scottish Liberal Democrats partaking in such anti-democratic actions - they held this stance before the recent elections and it certainly cost them my vote.

Sunset song



The view from the top of Arthur's Seat last night as the sun set across the city, dipping down over the Forth towards the hills of Fife. My friend Gordon decided on a whim to take Bruce the dog for a walk since it was such a fine evening and I went along - and this was the view we found as Bruce ran around looking for rabbits. I'm surprised this came out - no tripod, handheld and looking right towards the setting sun, I thought it would come out blurred and glared out. At the very top were tourists as well as locals enjoying this sight, as the world turned copper in that magical transition zone between the light of day and the dark of night, that magical realm of twilight when the Fair Folks were believed to come out to play in our world. I wonder, did our distant ancestors stand on this spot after the retreat of the great glaciers had sculpted the land, looking out at this view, praying for the sun to return.



I shot this brief video from the summit to give a 360 panoramic view; just think, this is a view millions of years in the making. Continents moving, crashing into one another to raise the mountains that shape Scotland, volcanoes born and then dying, glaciers passing, carving the world, people arriving, building, changing. I love that we have an extinct volcano right here, in the middle of a Royal Park in the heart of the city (I don't love how I huff and puff going up it these days - in my 20s I cycled up and down this all the time easily). And Arthur's Seat itself is part of our history - from the mysterious small coffins found here with little, rudely carved dolls in them (some think they were left as memorials to to Hutton, standing there pondering the mystery of the rocks themselves and forming ideas that would give birth to the science of geology and our modern understanding of how our magnificent world formed.

Things you don't want to see...

...Raindrops pooling along the brim and then dripping off of your nice Panama hat you put on to keep the summer sun from your face as you went on a walk of several miles along the beach...

Of course, being Scotland it was still sunny as it rained. Another thing you don't want to see, raindrops running off the dark lenses of your sunglasses.

And add in a a t-shirt that was now two-tone, darker on the front where it was soaked and sticking to me (yes, ladies, you missed Joe's Wet T-Shirt Beach-a-thon, try to contain your disappointment or your lunch, depending on your point of view or inclination) and still the normal on the back where it was dry. Still being summer the rain was reasonably warm. And when the sun came back out again the rain made all of the plants glisten as if covered in diamonds.

Limo at the Castle

I decided on a rare dry evening after work to walk up to Edinburgh Castle and take some pics of it while the seating is up for the upcoming Edinburgh Military Tattoo (it also gets used for some concerts before and after the Tattoo - Blondie played there last weekend. Scarily Debbie Harry is only a few years younger then my mum!). As I was taking pics this Daimler Limousine arrived taking someone into the Castle. I have no idea if it was a member of the royal family, or an official or whoever it was as an ignorant tourist stepped right in front of my camera as the limo passed me so she could take a pic. I wonder who it was?

Burns-themed poem on the recent Glasgow Airport attack my cousin forwarded me, which seems to be doing the rounds

To a Gallant Baggage Handler

(with apologies to Robert Burns)

'Twas doon by Inch o’ Abbots
Oor Johnny walked yin day

When he saw a sicht that troubled him
Far more that he could say.

A fanatic muslim bastard
Wiz doin' what he’d planned

And intae Glesca Airport's hall
A Cherokee he’d rammed.

A big Glaswegian polis
Came forward tae assist

He thocht, “A wumman driver!”
- Or at least some guy half-pissed

But to his shock nae drunken Jock
Emerged to grasp his hand

But a flamin' Arab loony
Frae yon Al Qaeda band

The mad Islamist nutcase
Had set hissel’ oan fire

And swung oot at the polis,
GBH his clear desire

'Hey, that’s no richt!' oor Johnny cried
And sallied tae the fray.

A left hook and a heid butt -
Nae bother! - saved the day.

So listen up Bin Laden:
Yer sort’s no' wanted here

For imported English radicals
We Scotsmen huv nae fear

Oor hame-grown Glesca Asians
Will have nae bloody truck

So tak yer world-wide jihad
An' get yersel' tae Fuck!

Walking through time: Holyrood Palace



The Palace of Holyrood with Arthur's Seat in the background, viewed from Calton Hill in Edinburgh, by James Valentine, thought to date to around 1878.



The Palace of Holyrood, the ruined Abbey and Arthur's Seat from Calton Hill taken by me, spring 2007.

I found this online recently as I was sorting out some of my photographs to upload to my Fotolog and Flickr sites. Despite the history Edinburgh isn't changeless, but obviously it has more than its share of places which do remain almost the same than most cities and sometimes you find photographs of buildings and streets which are almost the same today.

Imagine both pictures as portals to two different spots in history; imagine you could use them as the travelling points between those periods, to walk from the picture from now to emerge from then, to find yourself standing on Victorian-era Calton Hill, caressed by the wind, local worthies enjoying a peramabulation past you, lots of smoke rising from buildings in those days, a mix of tall masted ships and new fangled steamships visible down on the Forth an at the Leith docks, and perhaps Hill and Adamson, the great pioneers of early photography setting up one of their experiments with this new camera device, using the 'pencil of nature'. How lovely would it be if you could do that? I suppose I will have to make do with living and working around the sites, which is, in its own way, walking through time every single day.

Birds a go go

The changing of the tides at Cramond just by the edge of the rivers Forth and Almond on the edge of Edinburgh, bringing out a huge number of birds from graceful swans to howling seagulls (ye gods, what a racket!) and some ducks.In the 2nd century AD you'd have seen Romans moored hereabouts on their way to the Antonine Wall.





To the right of this picture is a causeway which is submerged by high tide, leading out to an island which still has the shells of hastily constructed buildings for gun emplacements to protect the Rosyth Naval Base just up the river a bit further. I used to cycle out here with friends when I was a student (and fit!); I still remember going out to the island at low tide one day with my friend Leonie. As we walked over to the far side we heard music - live music, not a stereo brought by someone having a beach party. We cleared some bushes and came down the far side to see a group of old WW2 buildings on the edge, each one with musicians in a doorway playing away while a friend filmed them with a