Fighting gulls and a trench.

The country clothing store by the fountain has changed hands. The new owner has parked her little white car outside and is busily working on the window display. Did she buy all the old stock ? Will new styles be about to reach this small university town ? Later today 'The Font' will go in and buy something. Small retailers need a little encouragement from the locals. At the other end of the street the new chocolate shop is getting a final lick of paint ahead of Saturdays grand opening. 'Fun and treats' are promised.

Down by the harbour a Great black-backed gull is fighting three Herring gulls for ownership of a dead flounder that's been dropped by one of the fishermen. The Herring gulls dive down on it  - screaming and screeching like dervishes- time after time.
 

The Great black-backed gull finally grabs the fish in its beak and heads off to safety. The noise the fighting birds make is quite remarkable. Many of the bijou flats on the harbour edge have been turned into short term rentals. They're very popular with foreign visitors but perhaps less popular now that the tenants have discovered how noisy the local gull population can be.

The council gardeners were busy at work on the flower beds by the Martyrs Monument all of yesterday afternoon. This morning the fruit of  their labours are there for all to see. Red is clearly this years colour of choice.

As we drive along the farm track back to the last wee house before Denmark we're surprised to find thirty or so dog walkers coming in the opposite direction. They're enjoying a communal outing. The dogs race past us, off the lead, and head towards the potato barns. Their owners, plus a solitary Golden, follow along behind. The downside to these days of near 24 hour light is that dogs and toddlers are awake and raring to go at five in the morning. 

The water board workmen have dug up the road and promptly gone on strike leaving an impassable trench severing one side of the village from the other. Our fifteen minute detour along a rough farm track looks as if it will last until next week. 

Are whales trying to talk to us ? :https://www.zmescience.com/science/oceanography/scientists-stunned-to-observe-that-humpback-whales-might-be-trying-to-talk-to-us/

Climate change :https://www.talkingclimate.ca/p/are-we-really-doomed

A (proposed) Saudi ski resort provides a different perspective :https://www.neom.com/en-us/regions/trojena

Dinosaurs :https://bigthink.com/big-think-books/the-mesozoic-myth-dinosaurs/

Patterns on the suns surface :https://www.sciencealert.com/stunning-solar-curtains-phenomenon-revealed-on-the-sun-in-new-images

Nitrates free bacon, roses and sprinkler systems.

New born black lambs in the farmers field. The farmer wanders over to tell us that this is the driest summer since Victorian times. This is a somewhat vague statement but is still a surprise. He plans to set up his GPS guided irrigation system again in the potato field by the courtyard. The farmer goes on to tell us his daughter has returned from three weeks in Greece with her English boyfriend.  ' English' is said in a tone of voice that may hint at paternal disapproval . The daughter will soon be opening up the strawberry hut in time for the onset of the tourist season. This will ( hopefully ) provide her with spending money for her next year at Oxford.

Nitrates in bacon are apparently very bad for you. 'The Font' used to get nitrate free bacon from Marks and Spencer but they haven't yet recovered from their recent denial of service attack. Thankfully, Waitrose do an Ulster sourced alternative. Bacon, to his delight,  is back on the Angus breakfast menu.

Last week we'd seen the grounds men at the golf course installing irrigation pipes. This week the local paper informs us these will eventually be attached to 1500 sprinklers. There was a time when irrigation, like air conditioning, would have been the last thing you'd think of in Scotland.

The warm weather and recent rain has driven the roses into a frenzy of growth. An hour a day is spent trying to prune them hard back. It's that time of the year when every vase is full and the house smells like a perfume factory. In fact both houses smell like a perfume factory. The roses that line the sun gilded  garden walls at the wee house in town are also blooming as if its going out of fashion.

Another of those bizarre wee ceremonies that occur in Edinburgh at this time of the year. I keep on telling folks that Scotland isn't at all like Brigadoon then things like this appear . At the 0:26 mark the mouth of the lady in the striped shirt says it all. Over it all a statue of John Knox looks dourly down  :https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4EI8UVGyJM0

Big thinking:https://bigthink.com/the-future/what-happens-the-day-after-humans-create-agi/

Creatine- not just for rugby players :https://stories.tamu.edu/news/2025/06/09/creatine-is-safe-effective-and-important-for-everyone-longtime-researcher-says/

Mitochondria :https://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2025/06/maha-casey-means-mitochondria-wellness/683085/?lctg=6050e2b7f98ec7553cab3a85

Restricted legroom

It's a DOGE eat DOGE world says the presenter on the BBC breakfast radio bulletin with a touch of wry humour.

We downsized from the big Volvo to the small BMW to make parking easier. That logic can't be disputed. The new car manages to fit easily into parking spots the old one couldn't. What we didn't allow for is the legroom - or the lack of it - in the rear seats. You could fit three tall  Scandinavians in the back of the Volvo but you'd be lucky to fit two six year olds in the back of the BMW. With a stream of family and friends heading here for the summer the practicalities of what is effectively a two seat car became the topic of conversation over dinner last night. Why is it neither of us tried out the rear seats when buying it ? We also discover that the boot is the size of a postage stamp. Perhaps a second hand Land Rover as a back-up is the solution ?

The calves on the village green are getting bigger . They're also getting braver.

A group of them rush over to greet us as we set off on the morning walk. We're out early because the water board is due to start work installing a new lead free pipe in the middle of the village. The workmen will be here until Saturday. Until they go the only access to the house is along a long and bumpy farm track. Thankfully, the Edinburgh builders have finished installing the new windows and terrace doors and won't need to make the detour in their low slung vans. At one point there were eight of them busily hammering away.

Cornflowers appearing everywhere. Every week a new flower type seems to come into bloom while the prior weeks wild flowers fade gently away.

By the sand dunes a seafood outlet has found an ideal position to tap the lunchtime beach crowd.

Basels best hotel reopens. It is very Swiss :https://www.lestroisrois.com/en/

A new offering in Aldeburgh :https://the-suffolk.co.uk/

Pets and medical small print :https://beyondtheabstract.substack.com/p/no-dogs-allowed-questioning-pre-surgery

A nine armed octopus:https://arstechnica.com/science/2025/06/the-nine-armed-octopus-and-the-oddities-of-the-cephalopod-nervous-system/

The Versailles like hotel.

The good weather brings out the weekend crowds. By late afternoon the town is jam packed with day trippers. We try to get an early evening glass of wine in one of the hotels overlooking the beach but parking is impossible and every table is taken by German tourists.

On our way home we detour to the large 5 star hotel near the village. The hotel is an enormous faux-Versailles  construction that's popular with wealthy Chinese and Malaysian golfers. It has a fleet of large BMW 4x4's that shuttle guests back and forwards to the airport. Such is the current demand that the BMW's have been supplemented by half a dozen large black golf club swallowing Volvos . In the car park there's a rather fine Tesla in a kind of matt green. We both wonder if its politically acceptable to be a Tesla owner. Last week it wasn't but who knows what the political orthodoxy is this week?

Although it's sunny the outside terrace bar is closed. It has a wonderful view over the coast towards the cathedral. We wander inside to a cheerless and charmless lobby notable for its battleship grey gloom ( we both agree that battleship grey wall paint is a brave interior design choice this far north ) and a collection of over sized sofas with a 'zingy' pattern. The hotel was developed by a gentleman from Atlanta who thought it a good idea to have a five story atrium as its focal point. He'd clearly never been to Scotland. In the summer sun the atrium warms up like an oven. In winter it's impossible to heat. The question of what to do with a five story, barn like,  atrium also seems to have been left unaddressed. From the balcony we can look down onto the atrium floor below where a large screen television is playing footage of the Los Angeles riots to a group of Singaporean golfers marooned at a solitary table. Pity the poor waitresses who have been dressed up in tartan skirts with matching tartan sashes and scurry around in the half gloom . They may be enjoying their work but if they are they're hiding it well.

Today the Edinburgh builders come to replace the windows and terrace doors in The last wee house before Denmark. The old windows were supposedly double glazed but triple glazing and a super secure fit are necessities rather than luxuries here in the winter.

How chivalrous !

A group of lanky eighteen year old Canadian boys are heading off to the golf driving range. They're wearing tee shirts with the logo ' St Andrews Golf Experience Summer 2025 '. They stop to talk to some Italian girls sunbathing on the lawn in front of the library. The Italian girls are here for a six week intensive language course. The young golfers offer to meet up later to help them with their English. How chivalrous ! We have now entered that time of year when parents send their late teen youngsters off to summer schools in Scotland for the holidays. Parents like to think there is a limit to the mischief that teenagers can get up to in a small Scottish coastal town. Teenagers have a different view. For the university  renting out the empty halls of residence is a nice source of revenues.

The university gardeners have branched out from their usual highly colourful  begonia infused uniformity and have created a Japanese Zen garden in front of the anthropology department. The use of gravel will- hopefully- be less obvious when the plants finally grow.

Today the tour groups are starting early.

Down by the first tee things are getting busy. The time keeper is hurrying the foursomes along to stop a traffic jam developing. Golfers about to set off on the sacred turf are in no mood to be moved along and mill around having their photos taken. Two gentlemen discover that shorts are not approved attire. They head back to their hotel to change into golf 'pants'. Unflattering comparisons with golf courses  'Stateside' are voiced. We leave the golfers explaining to a surprised Scottish couple with a whippet that the management here would benefit from a trip to Fort Myers ' to learn how things are done '.

On the beach two ladies are raising money for the the RNLI.  They talk to the passing dog owners. Behind them a woman is busy clearing out bracken from the dunes. It may be early but in summer people are busy. Anew electronic sign has been installed. It tells us todays water quality is excellent.

Italian archeology :https://reason.com/2025/06/06/the-dreadful-policies-halting-archeological-discoveries/

The end of Turkmenistans top tourist attraction :https://www.sciencealert.com/infamous-gateway-to-hell-fire-could-finally-stop-raging-after-50-years

Things to be thankful about :https://www.smithsonianmag.com/articles/carnivorous-plants-have-been-trapping-animals-for-millions-of-years-so-why-have-they-never-grown-larger-180986708/

There may be a benefit to chickpeas :https://www.sciencenews.org/article/chickpeas-cholesterol-beans-health

Forgotten stars of the 60's:https://www.cantgetmuchhigher.com/p/which-stars-are-being-forgotten-the

Pipes.

This is not a town to linger in when the wind is blowing and the skies are grey. Yet, when the sun is out and there's warmth in the air there are few places more pleasant to walk around. This morning the cafe by the cathedral already doing a brisk business with visitors and dog owners. All the seats inside are taken and the overflow has spilled out onto the small tables on the pavement.

A group of a dozen or so casually dressed young Americans are waiting by the chapel gate for a christening . That age old story of American girl meets Scottish medical student and before you know it life is suddenly stepping up a couple of gears. The  American grandmothers ( who don't look old enough to be grandmothers ) exude quiet, but self evident, happiness. 

The tour groups still rolling contentedly through. A lot of Singaporeans today.

Pipers playing down by the new hotel. We're approaching peak wedding season. Quite what the hotel guests think of being woken by The Rowan Tree being played on the bagpipes is unknown.

On the Old Course three gentlemen have their photos taken by a fourth. The man with the camera seems to think he's David Bailey. We chat to one of our neighbours  who is waiting to tee off. He tells us the water board are planning to start work on replacing an old lead pipe next week and the road into the village will be closed for five days. To get to the house we will need to take the unpaved farm track that runs along the coast. Let's hope the little BMW has enough ground clearance to make it. I'd ordered some wine to be delivered on Tuesday but the chance of the courier company struggling along the farm track is less than zero. I shall phone up and see if they can deliver it to the wee house in town.

In the calm between the students leaving and the July holiday crowds arriving life here is everything one could hope for.

This years Serpentine gallery doesn't quite work ? :https://www.serpentinegalleries.org/

Another of those things I didn't know existed :https://www.ab.mpg.de/681130/news_publication_24804370_transferred

India - the land of the entrepreneur :https://x.com/indiantechguide/status/1930580367112618125?s=46

Photographing begonias.

Poppies springing into bloom by the side of the farm track. Small scatterings of scarlet for as far as the eye can see. The poppies have a brief but 'electric' impact on the landscape.

Wave after wave of serious French visitors strolling through town. They listen intently to their guides. Spanish and Italian tourists tend to be less disciplined when it comes to imbibing history.

The tour groups also do creative things with the university flower planters. Rarely can the works departments begonias have been so frequently photographed.

One group of French from Pau meet another group from Orleans by the university chapel. They all comment on how 'beau' the town is and then how 'froid'.

With the students all gone the bakers can take a pause from the mass production of fudge donuts. This morning strawberry buns take centre place in their window. The bakers is full of yet more French tourists marveling at the robustness of Scottish viennoiserie.

The Pope and the President:https://nationalinterest.org/feature/can-pope-leo-and-donald-trump-work-together

AI. Judging personality and career prospects from a single photograph :https://x.com/hamptonism/status/1929702249439412248

Rain from a (near) cloudless sky

A familiar figure emerges from the potato field and joins us for breakfast.

Back in town the librarians have  moved upstairs to clean out the bookcases there.  'The Font' is delighted that ornaments can be shifted onto the newly emptied shelves. 

One minute the skies are clear...

... and the next there's a downpour. I've never understood how it can rain when the sky is largely clear of clouds. The simple lesson is never go far from your front door in Scotland without rainwear.

Step over the line between Illinois and Wisconsin and you're in a different world of  sobriety : https://x.com/amazingmap/status/1927100006214803613

If I understand it correctly the local kids who were going to Harvard for a year won't be allowed entry into the US ? :https://archive.md/4VKEV#selection-603.0-603.110

A five hour drive but we may give it a try before the school holidays make booking impossible :https://www.thestaratharome.co.uk/

The topic du jour.

The Old Course already busy by six thirty. The outside breakfast patio of the large 5 star hotel packed solid with American golfers gorging on cholesterol and caffeine. The patio has truly wonderful views of the fairways. The golfers clap when they see someone play a particularly good shot. Some stand up and shout encouragement although such behaviour is frowned on by the less demonstrative locals. The hotel sensibly provides outside breakfasters with thick blankets to hang over their shoulders to ward off the wind. All of the blankets are being used which says something about the bracing nature of the weather here in early June. From the snippets of conversation we catch I can report that Elon and the Big Beautiful Bill are the topic du jour.

Graduation now a month away. The university gardeners are busy planting out the flower beds.

The university seems to like cheerful regularity in their planting schemes. 

Once a year a group of librarians come into the wee house in town and cull the bookshelves of anything that might be of interest to the university library. They settle in the downstairs office and scan the titles against their on line ' nice to have list '. Books that make the cut are put in plastic boxes that are picked up by a group of men from the 'estates' team. Later this month they will come out and do the same sifting at the last wee house before Denmark. This keeps the house from filling up to the roof with books. 'The Font'  is delighted with this arrangement and notices that the Scots librarians all speak with a Highland lilt and still  pronounce the 'h' in which, where ,when and who. 

Home cooked meals:https://www.acsh.org/news/2025/06/02/new-study-challenges-homemade-meals-health-halo-49518

Pretend jobs in China :https://english.elpais.com/international/2025-05-31/going-to-an-office-and-pretending-to-work-a-business-thats-booming-in-china.html

Musings of a Nobel prize winning economist  :https://paulkrugman.substack.com/p/we-are-no-longer-a-serious-country

Concrete :https://www.worksinprogress.news/p/the-beauty-of-concrete

Saharan sand heading to Florida :https://gizmodo.com/a-gigantic-cloud-of-saharan-dust-is-barreling-toward-florida-2000610200

Mothers and babies doing well.

A cheerful gentleman in a white van arrives in the courtyard. It's just turned seven so it's a surprise to find anyone out and about at this hour. He's here to repair the woggly door on the Falcon cooker. 'The Font' only reported the door problem to the supplier on Friday so to get a repairman out so quickly, if unexpectedly, is a cause of rejoicing. What he would have done if we'd been out is a subject left unexplored. The repair takes all of ten minutes. One door arm taken off and a new one screwed on.

In town an old VW Camper van is parked overlooking the sea. The owner has small solar panels set out on the pavement . These power a heating element that is warming up her cup of herbal tea. ' They work but it takes some time ' she informs us as we pass.

Three ladies in brightly coloured swim caps are sploshing around happily in the shallow water below the castle. The sound of their laughter drifts across the air towards us.

From the top of the cliffs we can see the eider ducks and their chicks. There must be a couple of hundred youngsters spread along the stretch of shoreline below us.  Fathers stand on guard while mothers shoo the little bundles of fluff onto the safety of the rocks. 

Half of the mothers seem to be resting or asleep so there's either another brood on the way or they're taking it in turns to keep an eye on the chicks. Eiders are on the amber list so I'm guessing the two hundred youngsters below us are a fair percentage of the national population.

On our way back to the beach car park a heron flies low over the lobster creels. The town is still small enough for nature and humans to co-exist in some form of balance.

1 in 4 Americans ate all their meals alone :https://worldhappiness.report/ed/2025/sharing-meals-with-others-how-sharing-meals-supports-happiness-and-social-connections/

June is bustin' out. The 1950's were a different universe :https://youtu.be/VCCuhpp3bb0

A changing New York :https://urbanomnibus.net/2025/05/neither-here-nor-there/

TikTok:https://www.sciencealert.com/doctors-deliver-verdict-on-tiktoks-mouth-taping-trend

'Shoogling' swallows.

A gulp of swallows land in the mud by the stream. They settle down, 'shoogle' their backsides in the mud,  then take off again. They repeat this behaviour over and over. It must be a way of cleaning their wings or their belly feathers. I've seen  swallows  swoop low and drink from our swimming pool in Italy and watched them play with young PONs in the rose garden in Scotland but I've never seen them take a mud bath before. Sadly, the i-Phone camera can't do justice to their pirouetting.

An expensive TORO irrigation system is being installed on the grass in front of the Royal and Ancient Clubhouse. Further down the road a small tractor towing a water tank is helping the gardeners douse the chapels flower troughs. Until recently the idea of irrigation systems or water tanks would have been considered ludicrous in these rain acquainted latitudes. Climate change seems to be something that everyone wants to forget but the signs are there.

As if to disprove my worries about climate change it's raining by the time we make it back home. The poppies on the farm track looking rather battered after the brief but hearty downpour.

A writer in the LRB has suggested that dogs align themselves with magnetic fields before they poo. A reader ( clearly a  sensible dog owner ) sends in a letter which points out that this claim is abject nonsense.

'The Font' has started to read this book about the source of language and how one small, insignificant language had its ' Big bang' moment and went global.

Monday morning ramblings :

Vitamin D for ageing bones :https://www.mcgill.ca/oss/article/student-contributors-health-and-nutrition/hard-facts-what-you-didnt-know-about-bone-health-should

A partial remedy for climate change :https://theconversation.com/how-seaweed-is-a-powerful-yet-surprising-climate-solution-251195

The other hand :https://www.insidehook.com/wellness/cognitive-benefits-using-non-dominant-hand

What a small world. The Swiss owners of a fish restaurant in Ballater in the Highlands have new outposts in Washington :https://fishshopdc.com/ and in NY :https://manuela-nyc.com/journal/about-us/

Saintly rivalry.

The university end of town is completely dead now. The halls of residence have finally closed for the summer. By contrast the streets surrounding the golf course are humming. Overnight twenty flag poles have appeared. A tournament must be in the offing. Eagle eyed readers will note that the Scots St Andrews flag is  probably 40% bigger than the spindly English flag of St George flying next to it. Let's put it down to saintly rivalry. 

Men in baseball caps are everywhere.100% of visiting golfers wear baseball caps. These are pulled down hard to stop them blowing away in the wind. Locals tend towards the more practical , if less stylish, woolen bobble hat. Baseball caps provide  a useful clue to the nationality of their owners. This morning I'd reckon we're 90% American,  5% Glaswegians and the rest a smattering of Koreans and South Africans. All, without exception, are male and the vast majority in the 45-55 age bracket. Some of the more wily students have stayed on to act as Caddies. Establish the right rapport, pray for a good round, hope the weather is kind and you might get a Pebble Beach sized tip. Two Australian second year medical students hoping to boost their bank accounts are waiting to escort a group of Californians onto the fairway. This is the Californians first time on the sacred turf and they cluster for a group 'hug' before teeing off. The Australians take this in their stride. The youngsters  have that easy Australian affability that almost guarantees they'll be well rewarded. They certainly seem to be living the life of their dreams.

Amidst the bustle sudden silence. A local is exercising his centuries old, God given,  legal right to walk across the sacred turf of the Old Course. His black labrador accompanies him. They move in a ' I will not be hurried' way. Amid fevered shouts of 'Fore !' he continues slowly and untroubled. Golf comes to a halt. Two of the aforementioned Glaswegian gentlemen , waiting for their turn to tee off, voice the opinion that golf here would be better if the 'Bloody locals' would go away. ' Go away ' isn't quite the way they phrase it but you get the message.

C-A-T-S:https://www.livescience.com/animals/cats/cats-may-have-been-domesticated-much-later-than-we-thought-with-earlier-felines-being-eaten-or-made-into-clothes

On the phone a Manhattanite tells me this is their favourite building in Europe. I'd never heard of it : https://heartbrut.com/compendium/stanthonyschurch/ 

France is - and always has been - turbulent :https://www.city-journal.org/article/the-french-coming-apart

1966 :https://www.zmescience.com/science/news-science/dark-year-1966-japan/