Sixpence short of a shilling.

London, the BBC informs us, remains 'sweltering'. Here the mercury reached a more manageable high of 17C. Similar temperatures are expected today. We are back to layering up for our morning walk.

In town the rooks have been at the waste bins. Pizza boxes with their residue of crust, cheese and pepperoni are a favoured source of avian protein. Breakfasting  rooks line the pavements from Starbucks to the shoe shop.

Down by the golf course it's the sea gulls and the ravens who have been busy. An American lady stops to ask us if the coyotes have been at the garbage cans. We assure her that coyotes are not a problem here and that it's the fault of the gulls. She doesn't seem at all convinced by this and hurries away in the belief she's just met a couple who are sixpence short of a shilling. She has the certain air of a woman who knows what coyotes do to unattended garbage.

The rockery is now covered in lupins. They are rampant and exuberant. The surrounding heathers are past their best and are rapidly turning brown. The short Scottish summer is racing along.

The ducks who call the pavement outside The Shawarma House home have moved to the calm of the grass outside university lecture theatres. At this time of the year this part of town is gloriously quiet and the female seems to be relishing the move.

So starts a day in a part of the world where not much is happening. The first of the young staff members have arrived to set up the summer school. They wander round town with the seriousness that is particular to twenty year olds starting a new ( and quite possibly their first ever ) summer job. Alongside the seriousness ( and sensible haircuts ) they exude a wholesome vigour that hints that nothing can beat a summer of getting up at six to take their charges swimming in the North Sea. Angus has a horrible flashback to his time as a counsellor at a summer camp in Waymart , Pennsylvania in the days of Allegheny Airlines. Three agonizingly long months of teaching American teens how to paddle a Grumman canoe and right it without drowning themselves. I also learned how to spot poison ivy. These were skill sets I have never used since.

An innocent adventure :https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9mKYxx6i55o

I'd have to agree that this is a truly amazing story :https://x.com/Camlowandslow/status/2059632357871698014

An archeological site worth visiting ? :https://www.zmescience.com/science/news-science/archaeologists-reveal-stunning-scale-of-a-giant-greek-tomb-linked-to-alexander-the-great/

A Colorado hotel chain opens in Scotland . 'The Mull' looks like a welcoming room :https://www.duntondestinations.com/kilchoan-estate/

Change at Stanford :https://stanfordreview.org/number-of-right-wing-students-at-stanford-nearly-doubles/

A bumper year

Tuesday saw yet another new temperature high reached in London. The BBC informs us that sales of air conditioning units have gone through the roof.  In France the man with anger management issues phones to say it's 36C and muggy and he's thinking of spending the night sleeping by the pool to keep cool. Up here it reached 17C. Today maybe a tad cooler. We planned to have dinner in the garden but the temperature plummeted and the wind picked up the very second the table was laid. Last year we saw an influx of cool weather tourists trying to escape the heat in Madrid or Milan. I think we'll see the same this year. 

5:30 am. The farmers 19 year old can be seen driving a tractor in the potato field. He's finished his exams in Edinburgh. In two weeks he's off to Boston with his brother. Down by the potato barns we meet his mother out walking the Jack Russells. She makes the observation that when it comes to male offspring ' the years go by so quickly but the days are so long'.  There is a particular emphasis on the second 'so'.

This is a day for painting the garden benches which are looking a little faded after the winter storms.

In the supermarket all the headlines are about financial fraud in a local political party. The party Treasurer has misappropriated £400,000. He's used the money to buy a £100,000 motor home and a £3,000 coffee maker. He also bought a Lalique pepper grinder for £2,600 which must be some sort of record for pepper grinders. The list of bizarre purchases is oddly fascinating .  I can't help but feel that a £400,000 fraud would be considered small change in some places.

The bookstore calls to say part of our latest order is in. Three more books are due tomorrow. The author of the book on 'Weimar. Life on the edge of catastrophe ' will in town for a reading later in the week. We buy the last two remaining tickets. There is something about the title that is making the event extremely popular. A few of the bookstores staff are heading off to pastures new - Oakland, Fiji and Shetland. We shall miss their kind gentility. An American lady golfer in buying a book on Rory Mcilroy over hears our conversations and tells the lad that's heading to Oakland that Chez Panisse isn't what it used to be. I'm not sure he'd be dining there on the salary of a young faculty member but he thanks her for the information.

Bins. I'm sure there must be a better way of collecting rubbish. The impact of bins on the townscape is heavy and intrusive.  I'd like to criticize the local council but I can't think of a better way of doing things in an old medieval town centre.

Exotic things popping up in the garden. The warm weather has also brought out the butterflies that swarm over the buddlejas in the rockery. 2026 looks set to be a bumper year for butterflies. 

The peony looks pink at sunrise but has turned into something salmon pink by dinner time. Perhaps tomorrow it will be in full bloom and I can photograph it properly.

Things I didn't know. There are 200,000 Mennonites in Latin America farming an area he size of the Netherlands :https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/1747423X.2020.1855266#abstract

Books:https://arnoldkling.substack.com/p/why-are-you-reading-fewer-books

Carrots :https://www.sciencenorway.no/culture-food-and-health-war/where-the-carrot-myth-comes-from/2665915

And some more Norwegian common sense on viper bites . The gardens at the house in Italy used to be besieged by the things. They particulalrly loved the shade and cool of the pool house:https://www.sciencenorway.no/animal-world-ntb-english-snake/bitten-by-a-viper-heres-what-you-should-never-do/2665812

Rattling around .

The morning news bulletin tells us that London has just recorded the highest temperature ever recorded in May. 35 degrees - the sort of thing usually seen in August. More of the same is expected today. I'm glad we were there last week when it was in the low 20's. London in the heat can be a 'sticky' place. Here in Scotland it was a more pleasant 24 which the locals treated as somewhere between a heat wave and a climate emergency. By mid afternoon the towns  beaches were crammed to the gunnels with day trippers seeking the sea breezes. The heat has replaced events in the Gulf as the top story on  the radio. This is just as well as there still seems to be confusion as to whether the war is on or off again or what it's achieved.

The local farmer is up at 4:22 planting brassicas.  We know this because  a small army of tractors rushes  past The last wee house before Denmark making enough noise to wake us up. It's that time of the year when it's light pretty much all the time.

The overnight tide has spared the sand castles on the beach. Yesterday they were some wee lads pride and joy. The tide has also  brought in thousands of small jelly fish which have been deposited all the way along the sand. These intrigue the local dogs but alarm their owners.

Out of term time the university end of town is deserted. A couple of Spanish tourists rattle around in the empty cloisters.  The groundsmen have roped off the lawn outside chapel to ensure it's in pristine condition for the graduation ceremonies in a months time. 

In the absence of customers the student cafe in the old 16th century building  has only put out one table and two chairs. Even they are empty.

The Chinese chef emerges from the Asian supermarket with his dogs. I'm guessing this is the front end of the 'shaggy' one.

The peony has stopped whatever it was about to do and is deciding whether  to burst into bloom .... or not. Perhaps it's been shocked by the heat ?

So starts another day in an out of season small Scottish university town that is suddenly very quiet .

The first Scottish World Cup song makes it onto the radio. This one seems rather low key ( and low budget ) :https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yT3_NDeCql0&list=RDyT3_NDeCql0&start_radio=1

Ewan McGregor joins in the excitement with this slightly misty eyed contribution :https://x.com/i/status/2056676474787086606

Going decades without food or water :https://x.com/Rainmaker1973/status/2058744865744376129

Bank Holiday calm.

Yesterday the morning news bulletin was vaguely optimistic about peace in the Gulf. This morning things seem to be less positive. I'll carry on charging the little hybrid battery up every night. It has the range to get us into town and back twice. Interestingly this range is much better when its warm than it is in the depths of winter when it barely manages a single return journey.

Three gentlemen carrying golf bags head towards us on the street that leads down from the cathedral to the Old Course. Two of the men are wearing tartan hats with the inscription ' Jesus is my Savior. Trump is my President '. Seems that not every golfer wears 'Titleist' head gear.

Further down the street the student residents of a town centre apartment have headed off leaving their bikes padlocked to the railings.

At the cinema that's been turned into a sports bar a new poster of Tiger Woods has gone up. Why is he pictured alone ? Have Tiger and Justin split up ? Maybe Tiger is used for advertising in a golf town and Timberlake appears in 'hipper' locations ?

I must find out what plant this is. If it can survive in a front garden in town it might survive out at the 'wee house' on the coast.

The departing students have turned the old phone box by chapel into a poetry corner. We both agree that unexpected outbursts of poetry enhance life. 

At home the alliums and the ceanothus in the back garden are vying to see which is the more stridently colourful. There is a peony that was planted last year in a sheltered spot that is about to burst into bloom. It has the subtlest orange peach tones.  When it blooms I'll take a photo. It may be spectacular.

Life here, with the students gone, is calm and peaceful. Yesterday started warm and became, briefly, hot in the afternoon. More of the same is expected today. The village pre-schoolers are spending much of their day playing in the rock pools down on the beach. Graduation is five weeks away so there should now be a month of peace before the class of 2026 return one last time and the heavy partying kicks off.

El Nino :https://sketchplanations.substack.com/p/understanding-el-nino-basics

Unspoilt Italy :https://ladarbia.com/

We may try staying here when we're next in London :https://stclement.co.uk/

New choristers in a cathedral. Something you'd expect to see in Europe but not the US. A little reminder that pockets of quiet old fashioned gentleness still thrive . The man in the purple cassock smiles constantly :https://youtu.be/IfW-6oC_0zk?t=2700

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