Warm welcomes in Glasgow.

Great cover on the front of  the latest Private Eye. Pithily sums up life in Europe this summer .

We go to Glasgow for dinner with old friends visiting from Florida. The city in August is surprisingly quiet and feels even more so because so many restaurants are closed . The absence on vacation of 100,000 students and decidedly 'changeable' weather  may also have something to do with it.  Glasgow is chosen because Edinburgh ( a mere 50 miles away ) is booked solid with tourists in Scotland for the Festival. More than 3 million are expected this year which is a lot for the infrastructure to cope with.

The train to Queen Street is one of the old InterCity types that used to run to London and are now relegated to the Inverness and Aberdeen routes. They are due to be retired next year. They have a spaciousness that modern trains don't have. The ticket inspector happily informs us that this one first entered service in 1976. 'The Font' observes that we may well have taken it to London when we were students. The conductor responds to this insight with a dour  " Aye. Use it while ye can . We'll all get withdrawn from service one day ".  A reminder that the Presbyterian undertaker school of client 'interface' is still alive and kicking north of the border.

We try a gastro pub, The Clarence, for dinner. Cheerful and  efficient are not words you often use about Scottish service but here the staff welcome us with broad smiles and show us straight to our table by the window.  The wine list is full of reasonably priced gems and we start with a spicily zestful Pouilly-Fuisse.  Angus has a Barnsley lamb chop largely because it must be at least 30 years since I last had one. I also can't remember the last time I saw one on a menu. It was good but there is only so much you can do with a lamb chop. Oddly, there are no green side dishes on the menu but there are more potato based options than you might expect to see. We end the evening sitting at an outside table drinking our decafs by moonlight while  commenting on how light the traffic is.

We stay in the new Dakota hotel. This is one of those modern places that equates stylishness with black paint and subdued lighting. Anyone who has stayed at Schragers Royalton hotel in New York will know the style. Shaving in this twilight world is not easy. I note that in both the restaurant and hotel that local students were employed to run the 'front of house' which may explain why everything worked so well.  We were impressed  by the Dakota but may try the new Arthouse when we next go. One Devonshire Gardens is still my favourite but 'The Font' is a firm believer that we should try new places.

On our way home we change trains in Dundee. The poster with the caption " While living in Dundee, Mary Shelley wtore Frakenstien " may not have the positive vibe the PR agency imagines.

Of great interest :https://knowablemagazine.org/content/article/food-environment/2026/how-scientists-are-perfecting-chocolate

Glad to have been ignorant of these critters :https://news.arizona.edu/news/5-things-you-might-not-know-about-brown-recluse

Hope for hay fever sufferers :https://www.sciencealert.com/natural-protection-from-asthma-and-allergies-scientists-isolate-bacteria-behind-the-immune-system-farm-effect

Possibly important in helping understand what's going on:https://freesystems.substack.com/p/mapping-americas-political-conversations

This was interesting :https://www.stimson.org/2026/irans-political-system-after-the-war/