Living the life

The six am news broadcast leads with the possibility that there will be a two month ceasefire in the Gulf. It then lists a series of pre-conditions that the Iranians are expected to fulfil. Wisely, the bulletin goes on to say that more details may emerge during the day. One of those extremely serious Washington think tank types with a gravely voice expresses his view that America won the war but Iran has won the ceasefire. This is a great sound bite but is memorable more for its imprecision than its practicality. Faced with uncertainty I've filled up the little cars petrol tank ( Now £1.57 a litre. A month ago it was £1.39 ) and arranged for the heating oil to be topped up. Let's hope this unpleasantness with Iran is over and not just taking a pause. Meanwhile the poor residents of Kyiv have faced another heavy attack.

Down on the shore a Golden Retriever is living the best life. The ball is thrown, retrieved and then thrown again. This goes on for at least half an hour. The dog seems tireless .

At one point the dog turns on his back and rolls in the waves. We've never seen a dog do this before. Let's hope the owner has been sensible enough to buy one of those Subarus with the easily washable black plastic interiors. There is going to be a lot of sand, salt and wet hair to be vacuumed up.

The last students packing up after their exams and heading home. Some hearty  types will stay on to make money as caddies for visiting golfers and a few others will get summer jobs in the local restaurants. 'The Font' observes that the first years who arrived in 2022 after we moved here from France will now be getting ready for graduation. Can four years really have passed that quickly ? Did the time shoot by  as quickly for them as it has for us ? Four years for a teen is an eternity whereas at our age it seems like a long weekend.

Good news everywhere you look :https://brucemehlman.substack.com/p/six-chart-sunday-and-now-for-the

For this years grads the issue of AI and what it will mean for their chosen career path has been huge :https://x.com/itsolelehmann/status/2057909733491937555

Tooth decay :https://www.the-scientist.com/stem-cell-insight-turns-back-the-clock-on-tooth-decay-74505

A different business model :https://davidoks.blog/p/why-japanese-companies-do-so-many

This is so French ( as are the comments )  :https://x.com/gabriellecluzel/status/2058090069827658008

Back home.

We're back in Scotland. Public transport worked well. The tram from Edinburgh  airport to the station ran on time. We had ten minutes to buy some fresh fruit from the supermarket in the concourse before the connecting train arrived.  London hotel to home in five and a half hours.

We've found a new London watering hole - The Italian Greyhound - on Seymour Place. Ideal for a pre-dinner glass of wine and a bottle of San Pellegrino. The wine list was good (and reasonably priced) and the service friendly. Three members of staff said 'Hello' as we arrived and four thanked us as we left. This is a big difference from Scotland where the art of cheerful repartee is less developed.

There, are of course, those who prefer drinking outside pubs to the comfort of sitting in a wine bar. To an outside observer the number of pubs seems to be falling.

Near the hotel a vast Victorian church. We must have passed it by a hundred times without registering its scale.  It towers over everything else around. It's as if the architect was oblivious to its surroundings. There again it may have been designed to overawe. Think Notre Dame dropped down into a side street to get a sense of what it's like.

I'm not sure we could afford to live in London any more. Cherries on Blandford Street are £35 a kilo. I'm not sure Snake Fruit makes its way north of the border. Demand must be limited at £44.75 for a kilo.  How do families with three kids manage ?

Florists displays are also very un-Scottish in their style.

To the Occitane shop for some after shave.

The lady behind the counter tries to get me to change from Verveine to Cedre Gingembre. After forty years of using the same product I'm not for experimenting. She offers me 15% off if I buy a second bottle, which I do.

Now we're back St Andrews looks as if it is also going to be hot . 23 degrees forecast for today. With the students and many of the staff gone for the summer it is not so much quiet as deserted. In the space of a week the population has gone from 25,000 to half that number. During term time I happily complain about the students walking along the pavements fixated on their i-phones. Now they're gone I miss them. Soon the foreign golfers will arrive. With their disdain for looking before crossing the road they will happily provide me with a new source of irritation.

Photos from Houston :https://danielkalder.substack.com/p/tsdk-no-87-the-wire-temple

India :https://x.com/JesusFerna7026/status/2057926155588571435

A history lesson :https://www.edwest.co.uk/p/if-it-wasnt-for-us-youd-be-speaking

Intelligence :https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/social-instincts/202605/2-commonly-overlooked-signs-of-intelligence

250 years on :https://www.coolidgereview.com/articles/john-adams-declaration-independence

The memorial plaque

The Heathrow flight is cancelled but the flight to London City is going on time.  It's on one of those Brazilian planes with weak air conditioning and low headroom ( you can be sure to bang your head no matter how careful you try to be  ) but it's only an hours flight so we're happy to be 're-booked'. There's a group of thirty or so smiling folk from Fort Worth Texas onboard. We know this because 'Pastor Bob' , who is their leader, stands up before take off to introduce himself and tell his fellow passengers how ' blessed and uplifted they've been to visit Scotlands holy sites '.  He is wearing shorts, Birkenstocks, a large red money belt and a tee shirt with' School of Anesthesiology TCU Fort Worth Texas USA ' written in large letters across the back. He also has a closely shaved head which contrasts with a luxuriant beard that wouldn't shame an Old Testament prophet. Pre-flight  'sharing' may be common in Texas but is an unusual occurrence on British Airways.  'The Font' observes that anaesthesiology is spelt differently here. The Fort Worth group all clap as we land. One or two also shout out 'Praise the Lord'. This is also something that doesn't happen very often on British Airways although for those who are experiencing the rapid descent into London City for the first time it might be justified.

We have forgotten that it's a Bank Holiday on Monday. London is busy and hot. 30 degree + temperatures are expected over the weekend. Local cafe and restaurant owners have moved into continental mode with pavements and courtyards covered in tables. Our hotel is busy but not full.  Seems that visitors from the Gulf and American business men aren't travelling. By contrast leisure travellers from the US and Asia have taken up 90% of the slack. The staff at reception think this is because the UK is seen as the safely dull option for travel. On our way down we noticed that Jet Blue are now flying into Edinburgh which brings the number of daily flights from the US to Edinburgh to 8.

'The Font' heads off to Chelsea while Angus heads off for his six monthly check up with the eye doctor. ( For those heading down the Kings Road look out for the display in the bookstore where the flowers seem to magically grow through the window ).  My hospital visit is a periodic reminder that men of a certain age should not attempt to climb ladders ( repeatedly ) to prune tall wisteria without proper safety protection. There is a new AI enhanced system to measure my eyesight which is brilliant and takes a fifth of the time the old visual field tests used to take. On the way to the clinic I pass this house with a small plaque outside.

These days the number of people who pass by and who know who Benedict Arnold was could probably be counted on one hand. He's described on the plaque as an American patriot which may , by some, be seen as a somewhat subjective description. Will there be some sort of ceremony here on July 4th or has he been written out of history ?

On the plane I read this little book which turns out to be both interesting and well written.

Closing the Strait of Hormuz is something that's been happening for centuries. The British faced exactly the same problem in 1798. I Can't help but think that if only the book had been published a bit earlier someone in DC might have read it and remembered the possible pitfalls. There again who needs a foreign service and institutional memory ?:https://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/entry/jared-kushner-read-25-books_n_5e31f995c5b6fb636bae221f

Oddity of the day. The last handwritten newspaper in the world :https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LUmdx2YHGcA

This is unusual :https://www.discovermagazine.com/gabi-an-ai-robot-has-been-ordained-and-is-now-a-buddhist-monk-49119

Higher education faces a shake out :https://amardashehu.substack.com/p/what-the-university-is-now-for

The 'What do you want ?' stage.

Blogger has been playing up. I tried to post this morning but to no avail. We've spent the day travelling down to London which is extremely busy with visitors heading to the Chelsea Flower Show. Here somewhat belatedly are some pictures of life before we headed to the airport.

The calves on the village green are growing by the day. They have moved on from being shy to the adolescent  ' What do you want ?' stage . Twin brothers glare at us from the  middle of what they clearly consider to be their field.

The shop windows gearing up for visiting southerners who find themselves in need of warmer clothing. Mothers who turn up for graduation in clothes that would be ideal for the south of France but find the temperatures 20 degrees cooler are the target audience.

The 'other' town beach is usually crowded with surfers. Now, in the midst of exam week and with the towns population shrinking by 40% , we have it pretty much to ourselves.

Could any sign be more St Andrews than this one  ?

The hotel is up for sale

A large flag pole has gone up outside the hotel that Donald Trump once tried to buy. It wasn't there last week. Perhaps it's a sign that some truly important tournament is about to take place. The hotel is now owned by a Wisconsin sanitary fittings manufacturer but it's rumoured that the hotel no longer fits with their business model and is up for sale. There is a certain nervousness as to who the future buyer might be.

A group of sprightly American gentlemen of a certain age are the first to tee off this morning. They have the sure and certain air of golfers who have played here before.  Those 'Titleist' baseball caps that have become standard golf attire are once again much in evidence. 

Next up on the first tee are a younger ( but middle aged )  group from Cincinnati . They too are wearing 'Titleist' headware. These folk are rather more animated than the first group and spend some considerable time 'high fiving' each other when they make it onto the course. The caddies are all in shorts which demonstrates some optimism about the weather later in the day. For now it's grey and chill.

In the supermarket Pomegranate Rubies. Something I've never seen before. In France we used to drink a pre-dinner glass of champagne with Pomegranate juice. Perhaps it's something we should start doing again ? The big difference is that by seven in the evening the air up here is starting to turn cold. In France it stayed warm and prime champagne drinking temperatures until late.

Back at The last wee house before Denmark elder sister follows me into the kitchen. She makes her way directly to the cabinet where the biscuits are stored. Village farm dogs know the centrality of their place in the scheme of things.

Modern French tumblers - at a price :https://www.saint-louis.com/en/collections/les-endiables.html

Oops. Be careful what you wish for :https://x.com/factpostnews/status/2056461616162431323

I'm seeing a lot written about this :https://x.com/jesusferna7026/status/2056341632253862099?s=61

Falling birth rates also appear here :https://www.derekthompson.org/p/why-the-whole-world-stopped-having

Reducing health care costs at source. A cigarette free UK :https://www.politico.com/newsletters/forecast/2026/05/19/the-new-politics-of-smoking-00928285

The porpoise.

It's rained quite heavily overnight. This will delight the farmer who has been praying for a downpour to kick start his potato crop. We stop to chat to two village ladies who are repairing the fencing around the apple trees in the communal orchard. This year the deer have developed a liking passion for apples. The ladies are repairing the wire mesh to deter the animals from grazing on the low lying branches. They don't hold out great hopes for success. From them we learn that the Water Board has discovered that one of the feed pipes to the village is made of lead. It must have been laid down at least a century ago. Health and Safety regulations mean that the lead pipe will need to be replaced by a new non-toxic one. This, it can be assumed, will be a lengthy and disruptive process. 

Heading into town in the car the BBC news informs us that an attack on Iran that was scheduled for today has been cancelled. We also discover that American petrol pumps aren't programmed to deal with diesel or petrol prices above $9.99 a gallon. If they go to $10 then all of them need to be reset manually. This is the sort of stray factoid that will be repeated at dinner tables up and down the country tonight.

The high tide has washed up a dead porpoise. It's surprisingly small. The usual cast of dog owners are taking it in turn to warn other owners to keep their dogs away. The waters around here can be treacherous for weak swimmers. It's probably got stranded on a sand bank and drowned.

Heading back in the car we see three competing company vans out collecting student belongings. The companies wrap and store the youngsters possessions until their owners return in September. This is a service industry that didn't exist in our day. It is, as you might expect, a highly competitive and highly seasonal market with this being by far their busiest time. With each passing day the exodus of youngsters picks up pace. Local cab drivers are busy with bookings to Edinburgh airport. In a weeks time there will only be post-grads and heavy party goers who are left in town. For two or three weeks until the cohorts of summer golfers arrive the place will be left to the locals.

Down by the busy golf course we pass the Jake and Edie bench. On a morning like this we can quite understand why it was their favourite place. 'Golf, Bridge and a view of the Sea' is a succinct summary of lifes charms.

At the garden store two metal lions. They're the better part of £800 each. Someone might like them. 

This Parisian cafe has the most French advert ever ? :https://serpentaplume.com/

Careful preparation pays dividends :https://uvamillercenter.substack.com/p/lessons-from-the-osama-bin-laden

A place to stay in New Orleans :https://ash.world/hotels/peter-and-paul

Consequences :https://robinjbrooks.substack.com/p/a-different-perspective-on-the-strait

Wall Brown butterflies.

The Sand Martins are back and so too are the Swallows. A dozen of the former and half a dozen of the latter are wheeling above the courtyard as we head off on our morning walk. We're up early. It's the time of year when the fierce northern sun manages to find any chink in the curtains. This renders sleep impossible. It's light enough to read by four. This may explain why the farmer has already been at work for the last two hours. He stops his tractor and wanders over to tell us to look out for some small Wall Brown butterflies sun bathing on the wild roses near the potato barns. " Any idea when this bloody war's going to end ?" he asks. Seems the price of diesel for his tractors has nudged up again and he's wondering whether to top up his farm fuel tanks while he still can. We still have two thirds of our heating oil left but I might join the farmer in arranging a 'top up'. Right on cue the BBC six am news bulletin tells us that Senator Lindsey Graham thinks that Iranian energy infrastructure should be bombed  - again.

Buses and trains now starting to fill up with students heading home. For a lucky minority exams are done and dusted. As the week progresses the gentle trickle of homeward bound students will turn into a flood.

Thousands and thousands of razor clams washed up on the shore. They run in a strip three or four yards wide all along the two mile length of the beach. The crows and gulls are delighted with such a tasty and accessible breakfast.

For those students taking exams the weather has been annoyingly perfect. Today seems set to be another beautiful day.

With the students going it will soon be much easier to find a table at the pavement cafes. Cut throughs that are usually ( and annoyingly ) blocked with nineteen year olds rushing off to lectures are now deserted. By contrast local restaurants are now full with young lovers splurging out and having a romantic dinner together before heading home for the summer. Last night the calm of the fish restaurant is shaken by one young man trying to reassure his girlfriend that ' the next four months will rush by '. This insight is not well received.

The house that always has fresh flowers in the window has a white theme this morning.

If only all graduation speeches were like this :https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pSYEDc7-Ah0

An English garden re-opens :https://www.gardenmuseum.org.uk/benton-end/visit-the-walled-garden-at-benton-end/