Up early.

Last night a wonderful moonrise. We stand at the end of the garden and watch eight deer settling down in the shelter of the stone field wall. They completely relax when we head indoors. The navigation lights on the new wind farm can be seen on the horizon.

We're up at four thirty. 'The Font' is heading on a day trip to London on the first flight from Dundee. " No need for you to get up " I'm told in that tone of voice that makes it clear I'm expected to be up and about .

Driving back into town from the airport the bookstore is busy. At one end of the store the staff are having their morning meeting. This is a serious affair.  At the other end a group of youngsters from the local primary school are being given a tour of the travel section. The five year olds are having a whale of a time and the ensuing noise levels are rather higher than you would expect . When you're at that age bookstores are a great place for playing hide and seek.

I've ordered 'Stay Alive' ( which has had good reviews ) and pick up a copy of 'Exit Stalin' about which I know nothing. One of the staff members tells me he's reading a book - Advance Britannia -  I recommended to him. It's written by Alan Allport a professor at Syracuse and is 'reinterpretative' history at its best . He's enjoying it.  One of the joys about a small town is the interesting conversations that pepper the day.

In this mornings light the little cars paint has perhaps more blue to it than grey. It's one of those colours that can change depending on the weather. While we were away it was taken in for it's first service. We've managed to run up 20,000 miles since we got it. The young salesman who delivers it back wonders if we'd be interested in a new one. I decline his kind offer. " Maybe next year " he says hopefully. To make sure there are no hard feelings he calls me 'Pal'.

The Justin Timberlake/Tiger Woods cinema has an eclectic choice of movies. Wuthering Heights has been very popular with female students. The man restocking the bar tells me male students have been less enamoured.

Freeze or boil ? A constant challenge :https://gwern.net/shower-controls

Centenarians rarely get sick :https://x.com/davidasinclair/status/2028153528611463608

The oracle of Delphi was high :https://www.popsci.com/science/oracle-of-delphi-drugs/

Trapped overnight :https://x.com/seconds_0/status/2025852864724410699

Safely home

It is never a good idea to travel through airports at moments of 'heightened security'. Airports are chaotic at the best of times. When bombs are falling in the Middle East they become even more so. We'd allowed extra time to get through the additional checks which proved to be a sensible decision. Our flights left on time and were booked solid. At Heathrow there must have been all of thirty large Gulf and Israeli widebodies parked on the tarmac waiting for hostilities to cease. At Edinburgh, a quieter place, two large Qatar 787's stood on the apron near the rental car outlets.

Things we didn't know.

Portugal is big on pineapples. There are two types. The regular variety and smaller ones grown in smoked filled greenhouses in the Azores :https://azoresgetaways.com/en-us/destination/azores/islands/sao-miguel/azores-pineapple These are considered to be a delicacy and sell for a premium.

Portugese cuisine was good. It was great on fish . Restaurants seemed to get busy earlier than they would in Spain.

You see shops that you wouldn't see elsewhere. Small countries with large neighbours tend to guard and maintain their differences. This is something Scots can relate to.

Sunday night prime tv had a 1960's era 'wholesomeness' that JD Vance would have enjoyed. Accordion playing toddlers are a thing here.

We would go to Portugal again. The people were friendly, the wine excellent ( although like Italian wine it may not travel well to northern climates ) and Lisbon pleasantly chaotic in the way places used to be before corporate universality took over. Late March rather than late February might be a better choice weather wise.

We arrived home late last night. Today will be spent unpacking and getting ready for normal service to resume tomorrow. The news this morning leads with the story that our mild mannered and lawyerly Prime Minister is no Winston Churchill. 

The things you learn.

 We are back.

The trip was 'eventful'. 

Neither us knew that Funchal airport is frequently closed due to treacherous winds.

This video may hint at our three unsuccessful white knuckle attempts to fly from Lisbon to Madeira with Air Portugal. Yes, the locals do scream when it looks as if the plane is about to flip over and plummet into the sea. After three flights and three aborted landings we opted to head somewhere else :https://youtu.be/jAUAl587hL8?t=117

The good news was that the hotel in Lisbon was without a doubt the most tasteful and comfortable hotel we've ever stayed in.

The 1950's era artwork was stunning. In between cancelled flights we spent a lot of time in the bar 'recovering' . 'The Font' was impressed by the floral displays. Angus has discovered Portugese wines. The bar had a wall made out of a sheet of yellow marble. The floors were made of porphyry slabs. Both of these are unusual ( and expensive ) architectural features

When not in the Lisbon hotel we were at the airport trying to trace our bags . How civilized to have dog loos at the airport. At two in the morning airports are inhabited by 'characters'. 

Having failed to land in Madeira we foolishly booked into what we were told was a country hotel south of Lisbon that was 'sublime'. It wasn't. We headed back to the big city after three nights.

Excitement in the hotels local village came in the shape of two storks nesting on top of a telephone pole. This may have been the perfect way of forgetting what was going on in the wider world.

Back in a week

Into a fifth year. This song being played a lot this morning. Didn't he look young ?  :https://youtu.be/ZvlMnHizVso?list=RDZvlMnHizVso&t=84

Guys out with metal detectors on the beach. Every so often one of them bends down and digs into the sand with a small spade. What do they expect to find ?

In the churchyard the snowdrops are in full bloom.

We're now off to Portugal for a week. It's a long journey with a slightly too long layover in Heathrow. Rain is forecast in Lisbon so we may pop down to the Azores for a few days in search of sun. Neither of us has ever been there.We'll be back in a week.

A wreath has been laid outside the university chapel.

It marks the spot where Patrick Hamilton was burnt at the stake in 1528 at the age of 24. He was an early follower of Luther.  500 years on and someone still marks the anniversary in one of those ' you're not dead if you're still remembered' traditions. If you ignore the black ribbon the wreath is a cheerful wee thing. To this day new students are taught never  to walk on the letters PH marked out on the cobbles. If they do they'll fail their exams. Not a single one breaks this rule. Tradition can be stifling but sometimes it adds character to a place.

Didn't he look young and carefree then ? :https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KJBHEDnfGMI  This song being played a lot today

Some reflections four years on :https://paulkrugman.substack.com/p/day-1461-of-putins-three-day-war

Thrilling. How France hid its gold :https://x.com/Valen10Francois/status/2018745293777297792

Maintaining a library of old maps :https://www.forkingpaths.co/p/the-library-of-lost-maps

Racing towards springtime.

The six am BBC news broadcast reminds us what a blessing it is to live in an unexciting part of the world. Events in Ukraine, Iran and Mexico head the list with Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor relegated to fourth place. It seems his security team found him overbearingly arrogant and gave him a code name that was brief and to the point. The BBC deals with this in best maiden aunt fashion by informing listeners that the word begins with the letter 'C'. This is rather racy for the BBC. The US ambassador to Israel has also generated  a little heat by suggesting the boundaries of the middle east could be redrawn. Ramadan wasn't, perhaps, the most diplomatic time for him to voice these views.

We are off to Portugal tomorrow. Here in St Andrews, after a month of unrelenting gales, the weather has become bright and sunny. Over the next week it will, quite possibly, be milder  here than in Lisbon.  Angus is surprised that check-in time at the fancy hotel is 4 in the afternoon. I thought 3 was pretty much standard. Hotel prices seem to get ever higher and the standard of service ever lower.

Three lads are sitting at an outside table having their morning caffeine infusion and discussing Scotlands win ( their second ) in the six nations rugby tournament. After the long winter it is good to see the streets filling up again.  If you overlook the fact that the lads are all wearing hoodies to ward off the cold wind this could ( almost ) be a Parisian street scene. 'The Font' also wonders how many Parisians start their day with a bacon roll.

The whippet with the red coat is off for its morning walk. Whippets seem popular as pets in these parts. Last week we saw one whippet wearing no fewer that three  coats. They must feel - and suffer - from the North Sea cold. 

Apart from Australians ( and possibly Kiwis ) how many overseas students will know what Marmite is ?

Awareness update :https://x.com/ProfessorPape/status/2025214568050446627

Drving from Lagos to Calabar :https://www.1914reader.com/p/guest-post-a-meditation-on-the-road

A political funeral :https://apnews.com/article/zambia-burial-dispute-rival-presidents-bewitched-e8ee0535aaf63f966c2087f52953d0dc

Oman has changed :https://x.com/WillManidis/status/2024489454023405861

Evolving killer mushrooms come to California :https://www.sciencealert.com/californias-death-cap-mushrooms-are-making-new-compounds-scientists-discover

Released 30 years ago this week :https://youtu.be/aGSKrC7dGcY?t=25

The Gulls are back in town.

Seven dead puffins on the beach this morning. They were caught by the recent storms and have become exhausted and drowned. The storms have been an absolute  disaster for the local bird life :https://insideecology.com/2026/02/20/mass-death-of-seabirds-across-uk-and-europe-following-winter-storms-underlines-fragility-of-populations/  The farmers son will be along soon to bury them.

The Gulls don't venture far from shore and haven't suffered in the storms. In fact they're back to patrolling the town as if it's their own. A large specimen looks disapprovingly at us from a pile of lobster creels by the harbour. From the noise they're making it can be assumed that the seasons are changing.

At the old abbey down by the river  there are more aconites coming into bloom. According to the church elder this is set to be a bumper year for wild flowers. He says he hasn't seen the snowdrops grow rampant like this since he was a wee bairn in 1945.  Scottish village conversation is punctuated with gloriously imprecise 'factoids' like this. 

The locals claim the tree at the abbey  is 800 years old. The National Trust takes a more 'detached' view of its date.

Voting finishes today in the elections for the new university Chancellor. We'll know the results tomorrow. Our betting is that this candidate will prove to be the winner: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U4VP9J95y6M&t=4s  The campaign was conducted with old fashioned ( might you consider voting for me ?) courtesy and all of the candidates were worthy of the job.

The lady who cuts 'The Fonts' hair has had one of the two Cordyline plants at the front door of her studio stolen. She blames the students. In a small university town things that go  'missing' on a Saturday night often re-appear on a Sunday. Sobriety does that.

We see a poster advertising a spoof Nobel Peace Prize ceremony that's being run by some Scandinavian students.  Until recently the Peace Prize was a dourly unexciting affair that would be hard to parody. Times have changed.

There is a warmth to this piece of writing. Watching the Olympics in Ukraine :https://snyder.substack.com/p/watching-the-olympics-in-ukraine

Animal conversations:https://www.popsci.com/environment/parrots-complex-language-conversations/

Difficult conversations :https://miniphilosophy.substack.com/p/conversations-like-sex-are-better

For a foreigner this was the clearest explanation I've seen :https://www.apricitas.io/p/the-supreme-court-ruled-against-trumps

One of those subjects that I need to spend a lot more time trying to understand.The US and China view AI in totally different ways :https://afraw.substack.com/p/an-ai-maxi-new-year  Long but worth the read. The AI New Year movie ( with the Pet Shop Boys background ) is worth watching :https://x.com/FrankYan2/status/2023257752017981446/video/1

Illicit quad bike use.

Students aren't usually seen around town until ten but there are lots of youngsters around this morning heading towards the library. There's a sense of determination in the air that gives us the feeling that mid-term exams are about to take place. Of course now that exams are on the horizon and everyone's in the library the weather has markedly improved. Student time management has always seen long periods of indolence interspersed with brief bursts of manic activity.

A sign outside the candle shop would seem to support this 'exam' hypothesis.

Only one story in the newspapers.

When I say there's only one story in the papers I mean all the papers. The same photo is used on the cover of all of them. Has a single 'lucky' snap ever been so widely used ?

Elsewhere, the news broadcast has a story about American tariffs and three dissenting Supreme Court Justices. It seems not everyone is happy with this 'foolish and unpatriotic'  ruling. A final segment on the breakfast broadcast discusses whether the arrival of Ramadan will delay the drift to war in Iran. 

Here in the village preparations are underway for a car boot sale to raise money to have the bench by the notice board repaired and revarnished. The farmers sixteen year old has been seen driving his quad bike along the lane towards the potato barns at 'excessive' speed. A number of the older villagers have told his mother that it's not so much his speed as the fact he's been driving on the wrong side of the road that bothers them. " What can you do with them at that age ?" she says when she sees us. Good question and one that has faced the parents of all sixteen year olds and to this day remains unanswered.... or unanswerable. In four months he and his brother will be off to the World Cup with a group of their friends. This thought is still troubling his mother.

Crime :https://www.astralcodexten.com/p/crime-as-proxy-for-disorder

Wouldn't want to bump into this on a dark night :https://www.smithsonianmag.com/science-nature/this-giant-carnivore-ran-on-hooves-scientists-are-investigating-its-massive-skull-and-crushing-teeth-to-decipher-the-beasts-true-nature-180988212/

Myopia :https://www.the-scientist.com/a-clearer-look-at-the-rise-of-myopia-74094

This works in India but would it work in other cultures ? :https://restofworld.org/2026/ai-deepfakes-grief-celebrations-india/