A heavenly mince pie and Christmas music #21

Sunday afternoon. The fishmonger phones to say he's got two large lobsters left over. They've just been cooked and they're ours for £24 if we're interested. How's that for a bargain / Only problem is we have to pick them up by 4 pm as he's about to close for the week. We're out and in the car in double quick time. That's our dinner menu taken care of.

Lobsters collected and paid for we make a detour to the trendy cafe for a coffee. The place is run by uber cool young people wearing beany hats and trousers that stop above the ankle. Some of them have those slightly alarming nose rings. The staff would be right at home in La Jolla or Brooklyn. Usually It's packed to the rafters with hip young faculty types but today the cafe is empty. Presumably the usual crowd are battling with the hordes of last minute shoppers at the supermarket in town.

Politeness dictates I order a frangipane mince pie with my coffee. The expectation is that this is going to be disappointing but it isn't. The pastry crumbly, the filling light and fruity. It might quite possibly be the best mince pie ever but mince pie ranking is something that's never impinged on my consciousness ... until now. The flour the cafe uses is made from 'heritage' grains. We'd never knowingly come across 'heritage' grains before but the enthusiastic cafe owner and his team soon fill us in :https://scotlandthebread.org/flourandgrain/grain-research/ .

Off to the butcher on our way home for some nitrate free bacon. Nitrates in bacon are not at all good for you.

On our way to the car park we pass a new shop that has opened up alongside the organic brewery. It sells ( or seems to sell ) an unusual mix of  kitchen knives, salt, bees wax candles , pre-order dinners and chocolate covered raisins. The raisins are soaked in cognac before being dipped in chocolate. Why has it taken so long to discover anything this subtle and glorious ? We shall be regular customers. This eclectic retail combination may, or may not, support a sustainable business plan but the alcoholic raisins are a sure winner.

The weekend has proven to be an unexpected culinary  adventure. 

Sehr Deutsch. Christmas music #21 :https://youtu.be/fWgkl3EQKN4?t=247

The poet in us all. Christmas writing :https://laelneale.substack.com/p/waitress-at-night

Esoteric activities. Visiting a Parmesan factory :https://mollyyoung.substack.com/p/touch-the-cheese

The use of AI at the 0:34 mark is amazing although the accent is completely wrong and the use of tenses throughout is bizarre :https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BVhZ97X3OR4 . The Macaroni pie at the 10:07 stage looks like  AI humour but actually happened.

Christmas music #20 :

The electrician returns with the replacement BMW battery charging unit. To his irritation - and ours - the new one doesn't work either. Looks like we will continue to be petrol driven until the New Year.

Sunday morning. The dog walkers are out on the beach by the pier. Dogs and humans seem oblivious to the 60 mph winds. In fact the dogs seem to think a gale is the perfect way to start a day. The gusts reached 80 mph last night and whistled and banged the gutters at the last wee house before Denmark  like a heavy footed dervish.

In weather like this the lobster boats are safely moored in the harbour. Two of the flats that face the water now have Christmas lights decorating their balconies. As the absentee landlords return for the holidays I would expect this number to grow. St Andrews residents tend to be rather coy in their festive decorations. This is not true of the rest of the country which veers to the Blackpool Illuminations school of lighting. The farmer at the crossroads is BIG on turqoise and purple fairy lights - a  colour combination otherwise unknown in nature.

With most visitors gravitating towards the golf course and the 5 star hotels the university end of St Andrews remains surprisingly quiet(ish) until nine o'clock when the shops open. A mini bus is disgorging a group of Spanish tourists outside the small hotel facing the chapel. What they are doing, or planning to do, in the semi dark hours in the off season is beyond comprehension. The hotel doorman greets them with an aloofness that suggests his morning nap has been interrupted.

The shoe repair and key cutting shop has decorated their mechanical cobbler as one of Santas elves. It hammers away endlessly in their window. This seasonal wardrobe change is an incontrovertible indicator that the festive season is now in full swing.

The grumpy gentleman ( I think we can all agree that this notice has all the hallmarks of a gentleman of a certain age ) who usually writes excruciatingly bad poetry has posted up a new missive on the town notice board. His ire is now focused on the powers that be that run the golf course.

Hard to upstage the pageantry of this. The use of mobile phones is notable. Christmas music #20 :https://youtu.be/Hhrjxix3pAE?t=6

The photos don't do it justice but this if the first mosque to be designed by a woman. It is very beautiful and , on the inside, ethereally peaceful ( which is what I guess any religious space should be or at least aim for ) :https://yabangee.com/the-sakirin-mosque/

An interesting piece of writing - included here for its novelty - that looks at how literature, 'halucigenic' AI and a dead Mexican poet describe the moon :https://willdowd.substack.com/p/the-oak-moon-2024

This seemed a sensible Italian take on China :https://www.ispionline.it/en/publication/china-2025-peak-or-deal-with-trump-195327

Invisible routines and Christmas music #19

 

This morning there's a warship moored in the bay. We're never sure why the Navy uses this quiet spot as an anchorage apart from the fact the offshore waters are very deep. The treasurer of the village 'road safety' committee says he saw a group of Marines practising landing from Zodiacs on the rocks down by the heron pond. If true ( and it has to be said that the treasurer is an 82 year old gentleman with eyesight to match ) then this is the most exciting thing that's happened around here in decades. Angus thinks it more likely that he's seen lobster fishermen retrieving their creels. This thought is not voiced.

Another of the years invisible but inviolable routines underway. The Turkish barber is open early. There's a queue that stretches out of the front door and half way to the butchers. The six barbers chairs are already full.  This is the time of year when mothers drag unwilling pre-teen male offspring off for their seasonal short back and sides. " Yer granny's coming and I'll no have ye looking like a tramp". The boys manage to have that glum, long suffering, look that tells you that in their eyes not everything about Christmas is wonderful.

The church looking very spruce. A gentleman in a festive wooly cardigan is lighting the candles by the altar . He tells us that BBC Scotlands Christmas Eve Watch night service is being broadcast from here. It is also, he goes on to say , the winter solstice today which will occur at 9:21 am exactly.  After that the days start getting longer and brighter.

'The Font' picks this up from the bookshop. It has been highly recommended although the story of Handels Messiah doesn't sound the most enthralling of reads.

The cheese monger busy. We buy some Stilton and Orkney Brie. We're given some slivers of Wensleydale that's just been delivered. It's too bland and we politely decline. 

The switch that controls the seasons has been turned. Yesterday, this was a quietly dour small seaside town. Today the shoppers are out, families are getting ready for the arrival of in-laws and the AirBnB's are filling up with English families wanting to spend Christmas somewhere foreign and 'exotic'. Today we see three Porsches and two Maseratis parked by the old cinema. The Londoners are here ! The shop keepers will rejoice.

English formality is unbeatable. Christmas music #19:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ANmgEFa5QvU

Rediscovering old skills :https://www.theartnewspaper.com/2024/12/02/green-wood-axes-and-oaks-how-ancient-skills-helped-to-raise-notre-dames-new-roof

Fossil plants :https://www.sciencealert.com/fossils-reveal-mysterious-alien-plant-is-unlike-any-other-known

Christmas music # 18

The local hotels now girding up for the Christmas and Hogmanay crowd. The dog walking manager of one of the local 4 star establishments says that Christmas is set to be busy but Hogmanay looks like it will break - or at least match - all records. Summer visitor numbers , he informs us , are up more than 40% since the pandemic . This strong demand  may also explain the enthusiasm with which the builders are getting on with restoring the old hotel by the monument. It's barely light and they're already swarming all over the place in a rush to get it ready for its  Easter re-opening. The hotel manager tells us ( and we have no reason to doubt him ) that there are 40 million Scots expats scattered across New Zealand, Canada, Australia and the US and that ancestry tourism, thanks to Outlander, is becoming a big thing. In fact it's becoming a billion dollar industry. 

There is of course one attraction in St Andrews that continues to draw visitors whatever the weather or time of the year.

In the R&A shop window a collar and lead set for your dog. I'll wager there are a few of these to be seen  around Pebble Beach. The ultimate accessory for the canine golfer.

Out on the Old Course an American player takes a photo after each stroke. His colleague does the same. They will, literally, be able to say that they can remember every inch of their game - and have the photos to show it. Their progress around the course is conducted at a leisurely pace . A group of eight or so golfers from North Carolina are standing outside the club house chatting. From what we overhear it seems that something has happened the government is shutting down for a month and American troops won't get paid over Christmas - a fact which is causing the North Carolinians to raise their voices in a way that voices aren't usually raised outside the R&A. Their 'immoderate'  language attracts looks of disapproval from some of the Caddies. Swearing on the sacred turf is seen as being akin to swearing in church .

By the estuary  20 black sheep are enjoying the long grass. They are put out here in the winter . Their dense coats make them oblivious to whatever the local climate can throw at them. When the black sheep arrive you know Hogmanay can't be far behind.

So begins an overcast start to a Friday in an exceedingly quiet wee town on the North Sea. Parking is currently a dawdle but come Sunday the first of the Christmas visitors in Volvos rented from Edinburgh airport will descend on the town en masse.

Christmas music from an earlier era - #18 :https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yfY4b1NszpY

Building the pyramids :https://www.sciencefocus.com/science/egyptian-pyramids-new-studies

Well I never :https://www.space.com/the-universe/hubble-trouble-or-superbubble-astronomers-need-to-escape-the-supervoid-to-solve-cosmology-crisis

And here's a very Swedish story of Scandinavian Airlines first woman pilot and her battle to get accepted . Scandinavian Christmas ads are very different :https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VE2hKaD2RpU

Christmas music #17

How different the town feels. There's a few unfortunates waiting for their exams to  finish but the students have almost all gone and many of the faculty have followed them. The small , nondescript square in front of the library, usually crowded, is now completely empty. In summer the students are replaced by waves of golfers and tourists but in winter their absence gives the place the feel of a ghost town. There can be few other places where overnight the population rises and falls by 50% or so twice a year.

The youngsters may have gone but the local workmen are busy enjoying a bout of pre-Christmas overtime. The seal pens at the Aquarium are nearly finished and  the hotel that had all the lead stolen from its roof seems to be coming along quickly. On the ground floor a new awning has been put up . This will be the entrance to a  large 'Oyster pie and ale' restaurant designed to serve expensive and cholesterol heavy cuisine to the hotels high rolling golfer guests. Progress seems less smooth on the Old  Course where the new sewage pipe is still far from being ready. The mechanical excavators have had strings of fairy lights draped around their cabins which hints that they'll be here for a while.

We stop and watch as a large blue crane hoists an air conditioning unit high into the sky. This would ordinarily not be worthy of our attention but on a quiet December morning in a deserted seaside town this can be classed as high drama. We wander back to the car discussing how many weeks a year - if at all - the new air conditioner will be used.

A creative writing workshop in Ekphrastic Poetry being advertised in the coffee shop window. The coffee shop gets 95% of its business from students so has sensibly closed down until the start of the new semester. I wonder how popular an Ekphrastic poetry workshop will be.

To Leipzing for Christmas music #17 sung in perfect English :https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0MyPMMvqr14

Another video of Scotland in the winter snow :https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PC9W2ydXIY8

2024 :https://www.technologyreview.com/2024/12/17/1108883/the-8-worst-technology-failures-of-2024/

Christmas music #16

The electrician and his lad show up in the courtyard at six thirty. It's dark and the wind is howling. The plan is for them to repair the recently installed charger unit for the car. This worked for all of two days and then went wrong. The electrician spends ten minutes in the garage and pronounces it 'faulty'. A new one is ordered from the BMW garage. This should be here tomorrow but with the courier firms running at full pelt ahead of Christmas 'tomorrow' may be a flexible term. The electrician promises to come out as soon as the unit arrives even though Thursday is his last 'official' day at work before a two week vacation. 

The lights already on in the university buildings. Why is it exam halls all over the world look identical ? The exodus of students picking up pace as the final exam week moves , briskly, along. First year medics seem to have drawn the short straw. Their exam schedule continues until Friday evening. A 'lively' party will follow.

The statue of Tom Morris the golfer has been repaired. Seems that some drunken teenagers ( not students ) snapped the head off his putter. This has now been welded back on. The local golfing community has been shaken to its foundations by this act of violence. Letters have been written to the paper asking if it's safe for anyone to walk the streets at night.  " Town has become a war zone " says one irate observer who is not afraid of hyperbole. Common sense might have told the architects  that statues are put on pedestals for a reason - to keep them out of reach of boisterous sixteen year olds.

The seafood restaurant down on the shore is a large glass box with stunning views onto the water. How such a modern construct ever got planning permission is a mystery. It's the most consistently good restaurant in town. The other restaurants seem to have kitchen ( and service ) highs and lows which make dining out more of an adventure than it should be.

I thought Bettys were sending the mince pies out on the 17th. Instead I've ticked the box  to have them delivered on the 17th.

Early delivery is an excuse to try them before they reach their 'consume by' date.

Orange iced chocolate sponge cakes are an new addition to our order. They score 10/10 and will be a feature again next year.

Back to Germany for Christmas music #16:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RNTI8xdnU2A

The unhurried life of ferns :https://theconversation.com/ferns-ability-to-evolve-backward-offers-insights-into-the-meandering-path-of-evolution-243103

BBC comedy :https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BrJv_wUEKko

Wild swimming and Christmas music # 15

 

A local BBC programme reinforces my view that wild swimmers are completely mad . In fact I'm sure there's no clinical word for this sort of masochistic behaviour :https://youtu.be/Act1veCANwY?t=192

We watch the final episode of Wolf Hall. Casting Timothy Spall as the Duke of Norfolk was inspired. He has the most lugubrious of faces and brought the evil aristocrats role to life. 

The news this morning informs us that Canadas government is in trouble, the German coalition has collapsed, South Korea remains in turmoil and heaven alone  knows what's going on in France. In the UK the new government is unpopular. The MSM seem intent for blaming it for all the things that were left undone and unpaid for over the last 14 years. How quickly people forget. Not surprisingly, the dollar has surged in value against Europeans currencies which may - according to the manager  - explain the last minute surge in demand for rooms at the towns best 5 star hotel.

Only a few more days to the winter solstice. In the seven am darkness we're rewarded with the sight of the cathedral ruins outlined against the setting moon. The harbour spotlights are on and the fishermen are up early and ready for a day at sea. The local hotels demand for Christmas lobster remains robust. We greet 'Lob' our local fisherman and his two Boxers. They are real sea-dogs and keen to get underway. They leap onto the boat, rush to the bow and whine with anticipation. They have been bought flashing collars which can be seen twinkling away as the boat passes the pier and heads out to the point. It's calm and mild and 'Lob' hopes to be back and moored by early afternoon.

Not a soul to be seen between the harbour and the castle.

Even the centre of town is deserted. I'd reckon a third of the students have gone and by tonight that will be closer to half. Pity the poor souls who have to wait until Friday afternoon to finish their last papers. From the lack of cars it would seem that many of the university staff have also headed off.

The town fountain sparkles under the Christmas lights.

Christmas music #15 - something of an orchestral rarity :https://youtu.be/9qpP15t3Lh0

A New York exhibition :https://folkartmuseum.org/exhibitions/anything-but-simple-gift-drawings-and-the-shaker-aesthetic/

Indo-Anglians an interesting concept :https://sajithpai.com/indias-newest-fastest-growing-caste/