Monday, July 28, 2025

The action gets closer.

Press commentary on the visit by a New York real estate mogul to our small and windswept corner of the world has, by and large, been adult and moderate. The use of an old American saying in the Sunday Times made me smile.

The surprise of the visit has been the arrival of so many hangers-on. There again if you're going to conduct trade deals on vacation you need a lot of back-up staff. Today the whole  entourage moves over to the eastern side of the country which means that even more helicopters and large grey C-17's will be flying low overhead and annoying the cormorants. https://www.nationaljournal.com/s/729167/trump-embarks-on-the-first-ever-family-business-trip-by-a-president/


The weather, as you can see, is very Scottish. The rosebay willowherb thriving in these conditions.


Highland coo's remain a favourite tourist souvenir. The one on the right has a light sensitive switch that makes its arm swing up and down in never ending greeting. This, I think, would soon prove to be exceedingly annoying.

The gentlemans outfitters has a window full of light weight summer jackets. Two of the jackets are modeled with Paisley shirts while the third has a Paisley tie set against a black shirt. The lilac jacket features a flamboyant peach coloured pocket handkerchief. Who buys clothes like this ? Will visiting secret service agents wanting to blend in with the 'Scotch folk' be tempted ? Perhaps this is the go to destination for visitors who've lost their luggage ?


For a little town there is a mid-summer menu of world class music on offer.


Tonight we shall go to an organ recital in the Episcopal church. This is a large empty barn of a building built by the Victorians for visiting English. Episcopalianism has always been something of a foreign religion in these Presbyterian parts but somehow the old building and its ageing congregation soldier on. The acoustics are rather fine in that sound echoing way you only find in large churches with lots of brass, acres of ceramic tiles and rows of highly polished oak pews.


The trolley problem - a moral dilemma explained :https://sketchplanations.substack.com/p/the-trolley-problem  You can compare your decision(s) here :https://neal.fun/absurd-trolley-problems/

Tickets for this Royal Shakespeare Company performance are already proving difficult to get. The play of the year ? ( Helpful hint opt for a date after the schools go back in September ) :https://www.rsc.org.uk/born-with-teeth

Keeping the sun off Fido :https://rajtentclubshop.com/products/dog-tent

The Norwegians are further advanced than the Scots is promoting cold weather tourism :https://www.thebolder.no/

A bit long and slow to start but worth dipping into :https://www.edwest.co.uk/p/the-world-of-peter-brown


5 comments:

Linda said...

Episcopalians used to be pretty numerous up in the north east bordering the Moray Firth. Both sides of my family in my great grandparents' day were Episcopalians - one side very impoverished drift and Seine net fishers along the coast, the other side nouveau riche landed gentry. Presumably for the newly wealthy it was as near as they could get to the English establishment faith (or "the Tory party at prayer") of the Church of England. My great grandfather on the impoverished side successfully lobbied the Bishop of Aberdeen for an Episcopal school in their fishing town, the "Pisky school", because he valued education highly, his own father having been illiterate. His grandsons would become a director of British Oxygen and the principal of a nautical college.

Yamini MacLean said...

Hari OM
As a COOnnoisseur, none of those three items attract my eye! The piccie of the show winner the other day was an absolute delight. I have seen some souvenir horrors around the place... YAM xx

Lisa in France said...

Those outfits in the window really are something. The outfit with the black shirt in particular is rather Sopranoesque.

jabblog said...

The outfits are distinctive, the Highland cows less so.

Travel said...

I suspect few of the locals, would buy the shoes of many colors on the top right. 3.5 years and HeWhoShallNotBeNamed will be out of office.