'Fearless' Ethel and ovine psychology.

We go to a lunchtime showing of 'Pressure' at the cinema. With so many visitors in town I thought the screening would be sold out but there's a grand total of nine in the auditorium. I won't say it's a mature audience but we probably reduce the average age by a decade or so. The movie is pleasantly unthreatening and redemptively 'feel good' in tone. Andrew Scott is solid as the Scottish meteorologist and Brendan Fraser plays the role of Eisenhower with chest thumping gusto. Both of us agree that there's something about going to the cinema in the daylight that's every so slightly 'louche'. The cinema has opened the bar but all of todays crowd  stick to buying bottles of water.

It pours cats and dogs overnight but we're greeted with another wonderful sunrise. This run of rosy dawns must be breaking some sort of record.

Mutual of Omaha signs have sprouted on the Old Course. These visual references to Omaha somehow feel strangely exotic. The signs are carefully positioned so the tv cameras catch them in every shot. We note that all the coffee shops have long lines of coaching staff and administrators enjoying the collegiate tournament. Golf is clearly a big thing at US universities. Traffic in town is dire. Based solely on the number of large black cars with drivers I can only assume the local hotels are full and  a lot of the visitors are commuting from Edinburgh. We pass two television trucks on our way down to the beach. The trucks are jacked up on stilts.

Regular readers of the blog will recognize Ethel the fearless sheep. She wanders over to stare at us while her sisters look away. There is a whole world of under researched ovine psychology just waiting to be explored . 'Fearless' Ethel is somehow a very special sheep.

In Starbucks a woman has recycled her husbands Aran sweater into a coat for her dog. The dog is waiting impatiently for the barista to prepare a small tub of milk foam.

So passes a mid-September day in a small golf mad town in central Scotland.

Now that must have been a surprise :https://www.sciencealert.com/scientists-collected-deep-sea-rocks-they-spontaneously-caught-fire-in-the-lab

The fiercest El Nino in a millennium :https://dashboard.theclimatebrink.com/#enso

Old faithful. I wonder if a gallery selling pictures of dogs would be a commercial success ? :https://timed.mctears.co.uk/auctions/9784/mctear3-10205/lot-details/7d5cf356-f017-4d2c-83cb-b4d000e880f5

Rethinking history :https://www.tabletmag.com/sections/history/articles/leonardo-da-vinci-jewish