Tuesday morning. The French government has lost its confidence vote, that Epstein signature is back in the news and London is getting ready for the American Presidents state visit. Out here on the coast it's a grey morning with a persistent wind blowing down from the glens. Sunshine is promised for this afternoon. The farmer and his team are busily harvesting the last strip of potatoes. After today that's pretty much all of the harvest safely brought in bar a couple of fields down by the doocot. There's already a steady stream of tractors taking the potatoes off to be washed and graded.
Having seen the painting we return to St Andrews where some bright spark has seen a niche in the student market and is exploiting it. There's a small forest of rubber trees waiting for the right teenage owner.
The omni-purpose biscuit has been updated with 'sprinkles' for freshers week.
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An awesome building :https://edition.cnn.com/travel/hagia-sophia-istanbul-history-secrets
The 'must have' for incoming freshers :https://www.anglepoise.com/
Chat GPT is big in India :https://www.visualcapitalist.com/how-often-people-use-chatgpt-across-21-countries/
PS : This is Alan Ramsay's 1761 picture of Queen Charlotte that hangs unseen and largely ignored in a local authority committee room. The night watchman at reception who unlocked the doors so that we could see it clearly thought we were lunatics . "It's ok I guess " he says before adding " If you like that sort of thing. Looks a wee bit drab to me ".
12 comments:
Angus, I am enjoying your reports about the Freshers of 2025. From what I recall you and "The Font" met as students while studying at St Andrews. I would love to know your favourite memories of university life when you both went there, and what the biggest changes (apart from technology) are between the years you both were there and 2025.
Hari OM
I'm glad you tagged the painting at the end, because I was going to ask which of the nine portraits held there was of particular interest to you. I am more fond of the Lutyens' of Robert Anstruther... though all are rather fine. YAM xx
That is indeed a majestic angel; quite lovely. I think the Queen Charlotte painting equally lovely but she seems perhaps to be in need of a restorative cleaning...or perhaps its just her age showing? I laughed out loud at the "special lamps" pricing. Heavens, one can traipse off to the local Walmart and purchase same for $24.95, although not in such eye catching colors. In fact, I think there may still be one lurking somewhere in my attic.
The bakers deserve a medal for keeping up with and providing for the latest trends.
The Queen Charlotte painting does look rather drab and unloved. If it's consigned to a meeting room it probably isn't even noticed. A restoration and clean-up might help.
In the same spirit of "Life of Riley", I often wonder about the farm in Scotland where you started. Did you farm? I picked up your story in France and wonder about the farm.
My college start was much like yours, photo id, buy books, off to class. When I went back for my JD, we had a couple of days of "orientation" including a couple of memorable lectures.
I, too, enjoy the various conversations attached to the photo. I’m glad to see the farmer was able to get his crops harvested before any nasty weather set in. The baker is doing a yeomans job.
JoAnn in Maryland
I am also enjoying all the back to school news, but today it was the "must have" link that grabbed me. I suddenly remembered having just such a lamp long, long ago - it is good to know that such a useful design lives on.
The structure of the town hasn't changed. It's still one of Europes better preserved small medieval towns - thanks to centuries of being a backwater. In some ways it still is. It is of course much busier. When we were here there were 3000 students including post grads. Now there's nearly 10,000. In those days there were two Chinese restaurants, three coffee shops and a 'trendy' vegan place that we thought was truly cutting edge. For anything fancy to eat you went to a hotel. In addition there were a dozen or hostelries one of which used to serve Angus with a steak pie and pint of bitter for his breakfast in pre-Font days. There was one supermarket and a variety of small specialist stores that wrapped your purchase in brown paper and had it delivered by bicycle to your front door. The specialist food stores with the exception of the butcher, baker, cheese monger and fish shop have all gone to be replaced by two indifferent supermarkets. In those days non-UK students were a relative rarity - I'm guessing 10% tops. Now worried parents have clocked onto the fact that a small historic town is a super safe place to send their offspring. Non UK intake is now around 50% and at times you could think you were in Princeton.
It was a very old and much haunted castle that had been a favourite of Mary Queen of Scots and blown up by Oliver Cromwell. What was left of it had been patched up and then romanticised by the Victorians. There were corridors we rarely if ever went down. The loos were powerful 1850's affairs called thunder boxes. There was a farm manager and a cast of inefficient farm hands who somehow managed to keep the place running. It had huge walled gardens that were the haunt of an early generation of Polish Lowland Sheepdogs. The new owner was a Goldman Sachs man and his family who spent their winters in Southampton and their summers in Scotland. Within three years they were spending all their time in Scotland apart from January and February when they found it too depressing and went to Vero Beach.
Thank you Angus for your interesting replies about your and The Font"s time at St Andrews and at your old farm. I also enjoyed the link to anglepoise lamps. I still have one on my desk.
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