$50 coffee

The 'savage wee bug' is living up to its name but the sun is out and we manage a brief walk through town. The news this morning dominated by the 'surprising' fire that's knocked out all power to Heathrow. We pass the local Post Office and the neighbouring Bank of Scotland which are housed in truly awful 1920's era buildings. The architect(s) were big on straight lines. We try, vainly, to find something positive to say about their design.  The two buildings also have their own flagpoles although I've never seen a flag on either.

The upmarket student drop in centre now has olive trees positioned outside the front door. The great unveiling must be drawing nigh. A sign has appeared which  says 'SPACE' in capital letters. It's presumably the sort of name that signals style and conviviality to the average nineteen year old.

Through the - firmly locked - front door I can see a woman filling a shelf with house plants. Angus wonders how many students will pop in for a latte and a ficus but assumes that someone has thought this through.

The menu is more of a surprise.Does $50 for a cafetiere for six together with half a dozen croissants sound reasonable to you ?

Back at home the local Postie delivers some magazines and stops for a wee chat ( from a safe distance ). He and his girl friend are thinking of going to Egypt for their summer holiday. " We can be sure it'll be sunny and the prices are great but we have tae fly frae Manchester ". Angus wonders how long the typical pale skinned Scot would need to spend under the August Red Sea sun before suffering skin burn. Thirty minutes ?  Twenty ? He keeps this thought to himself. 

The front cover of Scottish Field with a Westie amid snowdrops has been designed as an attention grabber.

Private Eyes front cover keeps us abreast of current events.

A piece of art from The Met :https://www.metmuseum.org/art/collection/search/656912?

Pineapples:https://www.worksinprogress.news/p/king-of-fruits

A surprise if true:https://www.zmescience.com/science/news-science/are-there-billions-more-people-than-we-thought-controversial-study-suggests-rural-population-may-be-undercounted-by-50/

Molly the dog explores the local villages :https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ol4B6Vu0jKE  which links to this, our local salt maker :https://eastneuksalt.com/

Haar season.

 

There's a thin Haar this morning. This is the season for the local variety of sea fog that drifts randomly  in and out with the tides. It soon burns off. A few early risers are already heading off down the fairways. Despite shouts of 'Fore!' a couple walking across the seventeeth seem oblivious to the fact they're on an 'active' golf course. 

We observe two large black BMW limousines drive up to the R&A and deposit their passengers. A group of caddies are there to meet them. The men are tanned, dressed for California and exhibit the extreme self confidence of those who habitually call the C suite home. One of the men falls to his knees and kisses the turf. His colleagues take photos and laugh. This is a place where, for some, golf and religion are one. The caddies - who've seen it all - say nothing.

The local National Trust garden is a good place for someone suffering from a 'savage wee thing' to take a quiet walk. The gardeners seem surprised to see us. There are acres of crocuses.

In town the old Clydesdale Bank building is being converted into a gathering spot for students. I peer in and am surprised to see a reception desk, wood paneled walls and designer chairs. This is more Park Hyatt than student cafe. A workman tells me " It's nae open yet " which I take to be my cue to leave.

Two varieties of crisps I've never seen before. Grouse and Whinberry seems particularly improbable - is it rebranded roast chicken flavour ?

Smart dog :https://x.com/Rainmaker1973/status/1901098594469638544

And a book for dog people :https://granta.com/products/the-happiness-of-dogs/

No surprise :https://reason.com/2025/03/17/pandemic-lockdowns-made-the-world-ruder/

A brief post this morning.

 

At the start of the month the students had a study week. Many, if not most, of them chose to go home or fly off to somewhere sunny and warm.

Their return has coincided with an outbreak of student 'flu'. This is a consequence of having 10,000 adventurous youngsters return from travels to exotic places. Our delightful young lady GP has a brief chat with me over the phone and diagnoses that I've gone down with the current bug. She tells me to expect aches, a temperature of 39 and 3 days of tiredness and sneezing. " It's a savage wee thing but you should be human again by the weekend " her final words of encouragement.

This morning I make it to the courtyard wall where I'm happy to watch the farmer planting his seed potatoes. A dozen ravens sit sunbathing on the stone dyke and look at me looking at them. I fear that this may be my outing for the day.

Papal betting markets:https://nodumbideas.com/p/betting-on-the-pope-was-the-original

Solving puzzles: https://www.sciencefocus.com/planet-earth/how-were-about-to-solve-the-worlds-greatest-archaeological-puzzle

Our first 'get together' dinner with the Palo Altoans will be in a Tokyo restaurant with a British chef:https://tomaikens.co.uk/restaurants/the-jade-room/

The prefect espresso :https://arstechnica.com/science/2025/03/the-physics-of-brewing-the-perfect-espresso/

Cheery gardens and our neighbours job offering.

 

The St Patricks Day cupcakes proving slow to shift.

Here in the village the young American family are out walking their children who  have been up since first light. Young children and sleep are mutually exclusive. The little girl is examining the clumps of wild primroses that pepper the waters edge. The little boy claps and laughs when he sees seven deer wander into the barley field. They are going to the beach to build sandcastles and collect shells. Father has been offered a good job at the University of Austin but mother wants him to stay here. Career v children. The chances of them finding another house to rent in the area are minimal so the answer is almost certainly a return home. 

We have a wee blether with the university gardeners. We tell them they're doing a grand job. 'Grand' in this sense means an emphasis on putting in a planting scheme that's heavy on orange and pink. Colour schemes in these parts need to be cheery to cope with the grey skies. They're working on the ground where the graduation tent will soon be put up. Alongside it there's a small garden with trees commemorating former staff members.

A couple of hundred yards further on there are more groundsmen. They're working outside the large hall of residence where there's a glade of twenty or so specimen trees. Students coming and going to lectures walk through here so it's always busy. On weekends football is played here and youngsters sunbathe and read.  These trees are home to small , unobtrusive, memorial stones. We stop to study one that says  'Student at St Salvators Hall for six days' . This surely masks a tragedy beyond words. An icy road and speeding motor bike accident ? Was it all suddenly too much ? Why ? These youngsters  presence here was as light as dust but they're remembered like long term residents - which is perhaps a very Celtic notion.

The sound and the synch on this video are miserable but this is a fun interview with a punchy lady. I'd have to say that 40% of all HMG's ambassadors are women with this number set to rise further in the not too distant future :https://youtu.be/gNrrZ8k4rRQ?t=2161

The Italians would say 'yes' : https://www.mcgill.ca/oss/article/health-and-nutrition-history-did-you-know/dipping-science-olive-oil

The tourists are showing up at Rosslyn :https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=84yLFRi7h-A

Machiavellis advice.

 

This sung (beautifully) by an Irish post grad as part of a Sunday evening concert - https://youtu.be/Y-BmOhjbQ44?t=26  A hat tip to St Patricks Day. Afterwards dinner with old friends. One - a former ambassador (ambassadress ?) says that the new UK ambassador in DC would do well to remember Machiavellis advice that the best way to criticize a prince is to praise him for virtues he doesn't have. We all agree that our new man on Massachusetts Avenue will be kept busy troweling on the praise.

Sunday and the town was full of day trippers. The restaurant we chose for dinner busy with nice American  grandparents sensibly enjoying off season air fares and hotel rates. They talk to each other about the 'big storm' that's sweeping the South. The St Andrews dining experience has never recovered from the dual hit of Covid and Brexit. There was a time when the hotels and restaurants were full of eager and efficient  young Europeans wanting to polish their language skills. Now visas are impossible and  getting and retaining suitable  staff is the bane of the local hospitality industry. You can gather from this that last nights dinner was not stellar. Angus is horrified that scoop of vanilla ice cream and an even smaller scoop of chocolate ganache ( or Chocolate Summer Heaven as the menu would have it ) costs £24.

The tide is high this morning. We pause to watch the Cormorants and Shags fishing in the deep water where the small burn enters the sea. The field which was ploughed yesterday is being sown this morning. The local crows follow happily along behind the tractor. By contrast the curlews are not at all happy that their routine is being disrupted.

In town the hardware store by the roundabout has a rather desultory display of plastic garden ornaments. Perhaps they're waiting for the new 2025 season garden gnomes to be shipped in from Nanjing ?

The picture framer is open early. He has done an excellent job in restoring the 1920's picture of 'The Fonts' grandmother. Rather than put on a new frame they took the old one back to the underlying pine, re-gessoed it and then applied two or three layers of gilt. It now looks very golden. Perhaps too golden ?  Having down sized and already disposed of a mass of portraits we are left to wonder what to do with those that remain. This one may go to Goteborg.

Outside Sainsburys there is some dispute or misunderstanding between two members of the Syrian family who cheerfully sit outside the supermarkets doors in the hope that passers by will give them their change. Two of them have shown up for the Monday morning early shift. Voices are raised. The dispute is soon resolved and one takes up position in the sunshine while the other walks down to the other supermarket. There are some complaints about the refugees but most folk say ' Good morning' and take the view that what they've been through beggars description.

Clever crows :https://www.audubon.org/magazine/apparently-magpies-and-crows-are-using-anti-bird-spikes-make-their-nests

Measles. I haven't been on this site since COVID but this caught my eye :https://www.statnews.com/2025/03/14/rfk-jr-measles-vaccine-death-claims-scientists-disagree/

We are snt a link to this as part of our pre-travel preparations :https://bowofodysseus.substack.com/p/snowfall-on-the-plum-blossom-bd3

So quiet.

 

Complete silence this morning apart from the sound of a tractor working in a field by the sea. We can usually hear the waves throwing themselves against the rocks but this morning they're calm and well behaved. Puppy, who has been up for an hour, follows us down the track to the waters edge. She sees a flock of pigeons and hurries off after them. We bump into the farmer has been into town to buy the Sunday Times. " I'm afraid to open it and see what more bad news there might be " he says by way of greeting. We briefly discuss the Houthis and the Alien Enemies Act of 1798 before heading our separate ways.

There are a few clouds around but there's warmth in the sun. We're set for shirt sleeve weather.

Being a Sunday the streets are quiet. After their overnight revelries the students don't stir until late.

The woman behind the counter in the bakers is ambivalent about the St Patricks day biscuits. " Nae taste tae them ". This is not a holiday that has much resonance here. The woman also tells me that there will be special 'Irish events' in all the restaurants on Monday night. Her tone of voice hints at disapproval . 

 

I spot something called a 'Tipsy Cake'.  This it turns out is nothing to do with alcohol but is a kind of upside down trifle. " I dinnae like it " I'm told with a degree of conviction that makes me drop any idea of buying one. 

The university security people are setting out yellow bollards in front of the chapel to stop people parking there. In many places security teams worry about demonstrations or violence. In a small peaceful town like this making sure the bride can get a parking spot close to the chapel door is the #1 priority. We're now entering the long summer weekend wedding season. Todays lucky couples are set to enjoy blue skies of a hue and clarity that you'd expect to find on a Greek island.

An interesting insight into the psychology of using razor blades :https://www.econlib.org/averages-margins-and-memes/

The Beatles :https://www.cantgetmuchhigher.com/p/how-many-artists-did-the-beatles

Not a Scottish problem :https://www.upi.com/Odd_News/2025/03/13/pizza-alligator-Bradenton-Florida/2671741881859/

Mesmerism :https://www.historytoday.com/archive/great-debates/pain-management-anaesthetics

Saintly rivalry.

The church elder is out early with his labrador. He stops to tell us that Corn Buntings are now almost extinct. This is why there's so much excitement about the small flock that is nesting down by the Heron Pond. He also tells us Eric Trump is in town. Or, to be more precise, he thinks Eric Trump is in town. This belief is based on a member of the congregation seeing a fleet of large black Chevy Suburbans draw up outside the Royal and Ancient clubhouse. Chevy Suburbans and large men in black suits with ear pieces are an unusual sight here. The man seen being escorted in looked like the Presidents son but it may, or may not, have been him. Anyway, why let details stand in the way of a good story?  The great man himself comes to Scotland in June to open up a new golf course and lobby for the inclusion of his properties on the list of those that can host the British Open  :https://www.trumpgolfscotland.com/hotel . He may discover that the sheer Presbyterian bloody mindedness of the local golf committee makes Putin and Xi look like pushovers. Somethings around here change in decades not months.

Sunrise. Our Saturday starts with a touch of excitement. The taciturn Chinese gentlemans Puli rushes across the beach towards us and emits a single solitary shriek. It then turns and heads back to the safety of its taciturn owner. It looks over its shoulder and glares as it goes. This behaviour reminds us of a dog we knew. The Puli is wearing a coat in Ukrainian colours and seems to have had the long fur over its rear haunches braided.

The fish shop has lemon sole, turbot and some freshly landed ( literally ) cod.

Two green St Patricks day cupcakes in the bakers window. St Patricks day is not really celebrated here in the home of St Andrew. Saintly rivalry is a thing.

The trendy cafe that's popular with young lecturers has a menu that veers towards the challenging. We stick with our order of two Americanos.

The cafe has shelves that offer jars of stewed rhubarb and local lavender honey.

Margarine v butter :https://www.drvinayprasad.com/p/is-seed-oil-better-than-butter-a

Pollution :https://www.nbcnews.com/news/world/india-six-worlds-top-10-polluted-cities-report-shows-rcna195763

Has anyone tried this ? A trip all the way across Canada on a train would either be wonderful or a litany of uncomfortable beds, poor food and lost sleep :https://canadarail.ca/via-rail/the-canadian-train/

Birds :https://news.cornell.edu/stories/2025/03/state-americas-birds-population-declines-continue