Cheery

I get up in the small hours to check the computer and find out what's going on in the world. Common sense seems to have won out.

With winter gone and the sun out the wee town is looking particularly cheerful. 

This is in some large part due to the university gardeners and their zest for vibrant colour. The flower beds outside the dorms are particularly memorable.

This is the first day that its comfortable being out without a coat. Most of the dog owners are enjoying this change in the weather. 

From its position on top of a strand of marram grass a reed bunting observes the golfers on the 4th tee. All four of the players have managed to avoid the fairways and play into the rough. The reed bunting watches them scramble around in the gorse.

Next to the 5th tee something blue is coming into bloom.

Summer, or a Scottish approximation of it, is on the way. Life away from the internet is grand.

Armageddon with pepperoni :https://www.pizzint.watch/

Maybe this is part of the reason the Brits are suddenly so unpopular in the US ? :https://goodallandgoodluck.substack.com/p/maga-isnt-splitting-its-turning-on

Playing at the Curzon in London. It is being raved about by fans of Camus but is possibly a little too 'arty'  :https://youtu.be/nLoFzIoLpQA

Easter photo from Texas :https://x.com/TracesofTexas/status/2040785140113174767

Nobody bothers them.

A bright and sunny start to the day. Partridges, pheasants and quail happily grubbing away in the freshly ploughed fields . In most places they'd be hunted but out here nobody , excepting the occasional bird watcher, bothers them.  

The farmers daughter and her boyfriend return to Oxford today. The seventeen year old son has been tasked with driving them down to the airport. He's finally got round to washing the Range Rover which - under the layers of caked on mud - reveals an anthracite grey paint job. There is a large dent in the rear door where the farmer reversed into some potato crates. The trip to the airport presumably gives the lad   more time to pitch for his idea of staying in Jackson Hole while commuting to the Scottish teams matches in Boston and Miami. He told his sister he was thinking of applying to Oxford if his baccalaureate results are good enough but her reaction was of the 'over my dead body' variety.

The ability of one man to command the global news cycle day after day after day is quite remarkable. Has anyone else ever done this with such consistency before ?  A commentator on the radio says we've never seen  a 'global historical figure' like him  since the 1930's. The parallels from that era are left unvoiced.  It seems that overnight the British Prime Minister was compared to Neville Chamberlain so perhaps the 30's analogy isn't far fetched. 

A new shop opens up by the old town gate. It's where a nail bar used to be. The town has recently become home to half a dozen nail bars and the one that was here has moved to larger premises. I'm not sure what this vogue for coffee shops and nail bars tells us about the state of the economy.

The shop owners girl friend has painted the ceiling. He's very proud of this.

The shop seems to sell wooden carvings. This is an unusual business model. We wish him well.

Some post Easter sponges in the bakers . I would buy one but we're off to London tomorrow for an old friends 70th birthday.

The hotels are fast emptying out. Most of the English contingent left yesterday. Todays it's the turn of the Glasgow crowd.

Making instant coffee ain't easy :https://www.worksinprogress.news/p/the-creation-of-instant-coffee

Candy and age :https://www.the-scientist.com/why-candy-can-become-harder-to-swallow-with-age-74317

Petrol price hikes :https://www.scmp.com/news/asia/south-asia/article/3349010/pakistan-offers-30-days-free-public-transport-following-40-petrol-hike

An unusual juxtaposition.  :https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_AOaHg3s2Nc

Less and less precise.

Another sign I've turned into my father. I read this Truth Social message and my first reaction is : 1) The King reigns 2) horses have reins and 3) hell rains down. 

The track that leads to the last wee house before Denmark has been churned up by tractors getting out to the fields by the heron pond. The surface is now deeply rutted and getting to be axle breakingly bad. I shall have to ask the farmer if he can do something to smooth it out. We do the last two hundred yards at a spine jarring 4 mph .

A normal workday in Scotland but south of the border it's an English holiday. The beach busy with joggers stretching their legs before getting in their car and heading back down the M6. It's a revision week for the students and many have taken the opportunity to fly out of Edinburgh to somewhere sunny and warm.  For others faced with final exams there is a definite sense of approaching panic. The path  to the library is usually quiet first thing in the morning but is now thronged with ' cramming ' fourth years. Can we really be so close to the end of the semester ?

The cold but sunny weather has brought the first of the wild flowers into sudden and sparkling bloom.

The back of the supermarket receipt asks a question. 'Were we remarkable today ?'  The answer to this is they were more than adequate but not remarkable in the literal sense. A man on the radio says that the British public hate Keir Starmer. This surprises me. Dislike maybe , possibly they're disappointed in him , but hate ? I can't say I hate anyone or certainly not anyone I've met. Language becomes less and less precise and more and more inflated.

Learning Mandarin :https://www.oldnorthwhale.com/p/why-modern-chinese-is-just-english

Philosophical rugby and a fun read. The author could only be French :https://vamoul.substack.com/p/a-pindaric-ode-for-louis-bielle-biarrey

Flamingoes :https://x.com/sanghaviharsh/status/2040640368203669612

You may need to be a Brit to relish this but Canvey Island is a place no one ever admits going to let alone write about :https://benyeoh.substack.com/p/flags-and-flat

Happy Easter crowds

A Happy Easter to one and all.

At one point last night Storm Dave barreled through bringing thunder and a ferocious blast of driving hail. There was, for all of two minutes, a complete white out. The sort of thing you might expect in the Highlands in January but not down here on the coast in April.  With the storm now safely out at sea Easter Sunday dawns bright and fair and full of promise. The chapel choir are busy practising that hymn with lots of alleluias in it for the morning service while out on the cliff there's a surprisingly large group of happy students welcoming the sunrise. The lads in dinner jackets with cans of lager are presumably Episcopalians heading home after a Saturday night spent partying. With resurrection in mind the Baptists have taken over the anatomy department car park for their Easter dawn gathering. 

On the town beach two horses have the place pretty much to themselves. The mess of pizza cartons and broken bottles left by Friday nights party goers has already been cleared up by the beach rangers.

The supermarket is out of unleaded but we're thankful when we find that the petrol station by the town gate has it. We fill the tank up. Everything should be back to normal by mid-week when the tourists have gone but why run the risk and wait ?

A cherry tree on a side road has managed to hold onto its petals through yesterdays gales. It's the only one to do so. University owned buildings have their doors painted in royal blue. This street has lots of royal blue doors.

A chocolate egg with a fudge doughnut is the bakers signature seasonal offering . Local grandparents stop off with toddlers to pick one up before they head off to the Easter service in the auld kirk. A taste sensation that hasn't changed in 50 years. 

This weeks cover on The Economist sums up the sense of bewilderment felt here. There is however huge relief that the missing airman has been recovered.

Hats everywhere. St Thomas New York Easter 1929 :https://youtu.be/k469Xs54fxA?t=91

The most expensive Indian painting :https://www.theartnewspaper.com/2026/04/02/vaccine-billionaire-buys-179m-raja-ravi-varma-setting-new-record-for-indian-painting-at-auction

Africa :https://thisweekinafrica.substack.com/p/five-trends-that-will-shape-urban-3a7

Croissants:https://theangel.nyc/p/the-whole-grains-revolution-has-come-for-your-croissant-brooklyn-granary-and-mill-tehachapi-grain-project

Pancakes :https://marianbull.substack.com/p/cookbooks-are-an-archive-of-a-moment

Obscure French phrases :https://pardonmyfrench101.substack.com/p/to-fall-in-the-apples

A petrol shortage and melted Easter eggs.

Both the towns filling stations have sold out of petrol. We first hear the news from the policemans wife at the check-out counter in the supermarket. Within half an hour the farmer is at the front door to tell us. He puts it down to panic buying. Fresh deliveries are expected this afternoon. This is the first time the war in the Gulf has made itself felt in a direct way. The little hybrid BMW might , after all, prove to be a sensible purchase.  We're left wondering if our flight to Shanghai in two weeks time will still go. Times are changing.

Saturday morning dawns bright and fair. Some holiday makers have been partying on the beach and half a dozen broken beer bottles litter the sand. The lady with the Pomeranian picks up her dog and carries it well away from danger.

The roadworks on the street outside the book store were supposed to be finished on Friday. They weren't.  A large, deep hole ( and a correspondingly large pile of excavated earth ) remain. The hole is near the trendy cafe that's popular with 'hip' students. Green railings have been put up to stop any teenagers falling in and injuring themselves.

The three large Easter eggs that were in the bakers window have gone. Seems the sunshine earlier in the week was too much for them and they , according to the young man behind the counter, 'softened and deformed'. This is an unusual way of saying they melted. Tomorrow I shall ask him what became of them. 

The four golf courses are already busy. No sign of any Congressmen or Senators but it's still early.

Two enterprising students have got themselves qualified as caddies and are out advising players new to St Andrews on what clubs to use. The student caddies dress for comfort and shout out 'brilliant shot' every so often in an ego massaging tone of voice. What a clever way to ensure the end of match gratuity is 'maximized '. These commercial skill sets learnt on the golf course will be useful in later life.

Positive thinking :https://miniphilosophy.substack.com/p/getting-out-of-bed-and-turning-up

Easter in Malaga with the Spanish Foreign Legion. This most certainly isn't Presbyterian Scotland :https://youtu.be/-JeWzighvfs?t=100

Modern childhood is changing :https://bigthink.com/mind-behavior/the-quiet-disappearance-of-the-free-range-childhood/

People stopped being happy in 2020 :https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=6465460

Towards a world of monosyllabic grunts :https://www.jezebel.com/speech-decline-in-words-humans-speak-per-day-year-loneliness-epidemic-friendship-recession-pandemic-phones

A French ambassador marks an anniversary 86 years ago :https://x.com/EmmanuelMignot2/status/2040320557590237198

No sooner do the tables go out than a storm arrives.

The serious man at the chocolate shop is opening up as we pass. His sales are down this year. A Galaxy Easter Egg is more than double the price it was in 2023 and the wildly popular Cadburys Creme Eggs , despite a bout of 'shrinkflation' , are 80% more expensive. Having digested this news ( and noted the intensity with which it is imparted ) we wish him well and walk on quickly .

Further down the road the ever hopeful local cafe owners are setting up tables on the pavement. It goes without saying that a  storm with 90 mph winds is forecast for Saturday night.

The bakers already selling out by the time we make it back into town from the beach. The holiday makers are in town.  A solitary rhubarb flan is all that remains of the dozen that were here half an hour ago.

As we're leaving a tray of Easter Chicks emerge from the store room.  They'll all be gone in half an hour. 

No comment about this headline on a paper in the supermarket. Seems the 'pearl clutching' UK  is being blamed for a war it wasn't consulted on. It also seems President Macron has also been facing some 'undiplomatic' comments. 

I'll wager that there will be some interesting presentations at this Iranian Studies gathering. 

This London exhibition is already a sell out :https://www.rct.uk/collection/exhibitions/queen-elizabeth-ii-her-life-in-style/the-kings-gallery-buckingham-palace

A good thing :https://sciencebasedmedicine.org/smart-drugs-are-here/

These people are always worth sitting down to read :https://www.rusi.org/explore-our-research/publications/commentary/four-alternative-end-states-iran-only-good-one-becomes-unlikely

Spiders with claws :https://www.eurekalert.org/news-releases/1121624

On the net :https://www.persuasion.community/p/theres-no-such-thing-as-the-trump

Congressional tourists, a limestone surprise and a busy farmhouse.

Scotlands tourism is enjoying an Easter boost. The great and the good are in Edinburgh. Not everyone approves: :https://www.tmz.com/2026/04/01/taxpayers-sponsor-congress-scotland-vacation/?adid=social-tw  Tonight some of them may be at the bar by the 16th hole on the Old Course. What a small world.

Janan Ganesh in the Financial Times is always worth reading. This morning his column contains a psychological take on the man who gave a speech last night. The opening paragraph sets the tone .

The American boyfriend of the farmers daughter has arrived for Easter. The two of them travelled up from Oxford yesterday and were met at the airport by the farmers wife. The Range Rover was due to be washed for the occasion but the youngest son - who is now on his Easter school holidays -  never got round to it. The farmers wife seems satisfied with the guest. He's apparently 'very tall , very polite and has short hair and an American accent'. The dogs have accepted him which is a major plus.  I'm guessing the poor lad is absolutely petrified . The farmer has a certain Presbyterian dourness at the best of times. What he must be like with his daughters 'boyfriend' doesn't bear thinking about.

Down on the beach three metal detectorists are beavering away. Every so often we pass a small pile of disturbed sand where they've dug down to find something. What is it they unearth ? Small change ? Bottle caps ? Or, do they unearth unexpected  treasures from far away ?

In the other direction, away from the sun, the beach is quite quite empty. The shoreline here reminds me of Kiawah on the South Carolina coast but without the people ... or the warmth.

Back out in the village the municipal archaeologist is examining the remains of the  standing stone the farmer recently unearthed. Its now been dragged up to a corner of the field up by the farm track where it can't get in the way of the harvesting.

Everything around here is either sandstone or whinstone . However, this rock is limestone. If it was a standing stone it would have stood out like a lightning bolt in the landscape . The original colour and texture can be seen in the sections of the rock that have broken in two.

Mysterious :https://thedebrief.org/ohios-serpent-mound-still-fuels-debate-as-haunting-questions-remain-about-americas-most-mysterious-earthwork/

Rats thrive on cooperation :https://bigthink.com/science-tech/how-rats-conquered-earth/

Expensive Easter fun :https://birleybakery.com/collections/easter/products/mother-hen-family-1

A former President on humility :https://inpursuit.substack.com/p/george-washington-by-george-w-bush

How cool is this ? :https://x.com/TheNationalMall/status/2039475914623352894