Heat.

 

It was 23 degrees here yesterday afternoon. This got the villagers segueing seamlessly from complaining about the rain to complaining about the 'excessive' heat. 

The sheep are enjoying the warmth. A dozen or so have escaped from the cauliflower field and gone exploring. The retired professor with the black labrador tells me he saw them wandering past the potato barns on their way towards the luxurious grass of the 5 star golf resort . A day of straying sheep. This is about as exciting as things get in these parts.

In town 'The Font' observes that a student house has a sign on the door telling the postman to 'chap' the letterbox. This I'm told is a word that's only used in Scotland. 

Garlands are appearing on front doors. Landlords let their houses to students during the winter and then spruce them up for the high paying summer golfing crowd. You can recognize the Airbnb's in town because they all seem to have pristine floral decorations on their front doors. This must be part of the Airbnb owners manual. On a door by the administration building we spot a plastic garland which has a psychedelic beauty to it.

I pop into the supermarket to get some brass cleaner for the wee house in town. The letter box needs a good polishing. Salt seaside air and brass letterboxes do not get along well together. Canned Haggis is on sale. I'm not tempted but shudder at the thought of what might go into a can of non-premium Haggis.

Good news / bad news on climate :https://www.splinter.com/nobody-is-wrong-in-climate-changes-doom-versus-hope-debate

A study on how students vote differently in private ... and in public :https://www.thedartmouth.com/article/2024/05/dsg-fails-vote-of-no-confidence-in-college-leadership

Consciousness before life ? :https://iai.tv/articles/life-and-consciousness-what-are-they-auid-2836?_auid=2020

The book reading

 

We have tickets to a 'meet the author' event. I think it's J K Rowling speaking but it turns out to be Val McDermid. She writes tartan noir murder mysteries and her partner teaches Geography here. In fact her partner is Geographer Royal for Scotland. This is one of those old honorifics that sounds terribly grand but probably pays a stipend of 5 guineas a year and requires you to wear a tricorn hat on the Kings birthday.

There must be 300 people filling the downstairs pews. We head upstairs where the seats have better views but the acoustics are 'iffy'. It's an enjoyable night with the audience entering into the Q&A session with the peculiarly ferocious spirit that is the mark of retired gentlefolk. At one point passions rise and Mary Beard is consulted on the likelihood of ginger being an ingredient in the witches brew in Macbeth. Seeing an audience as involved as this I'm reminded that Scotlands  great contribution to humanity is the belief that intellectual curiosity is the right of all.

The architecture of the church is uninspiringly Presbyterian. 'The Font' spends some time trying to work out if the shape of the stained glass wall niche above the pulpit has a technical name. We settle on 'rounded triangle'.

The weather forecast promised a week of rain. Instead it turns out to be contrarily bright and sunny. It's forecast to hit 20 degrees today. It seems odd to be heading out of the house in shirt sleeves without at least four layers of protection against the North Sea wind.  The suns warmth has caused the grass to shoot up. From 'The Fonts' hut we look out across the courtyard  to green fields and the sea beyond. A group of sheep from the cauliflower field have managed to escape and are heading down to graze on the seaweed on the shore. I'll drive into the village later on and tell the farmer. It's not as if they can come to much harm.

In town the early rising dog owners are recolonizing the student hang outs. There's no tourists out and about at this time of the day so morning chats have an unhurried and leisurely pace to them. The cafe owner tells us that there are still a few students about during the 'extended exam diet'. We have no idea what this means. 

A little Nissan SUV parked on the main street attracts our attention. Two large golden balloons sway in the breeze. It's someones 40th birthday. They're going to be surprised when they return to the car.

Dentist time :https://arstechnica.com/science/2024/05/do-you-need-a-dentist-visit-every-6-months-that-filling-the-data-is-weak/

Debunking myths ? :https://thedebrief.org/this-well-known-ufo-debunker-is-skeptical-of-the-dods-recent-investigations-into-aerial-mysteries-heres-why/

This is a surprise : https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/when-were-blue-jeans-invented-these-paintings-suggest-fashion-trend-dates-back-1600s-180984315/

Some would say this is the best hotel in the world :https://www.passalacqua.it/en/

Faux flowers.

 'Puppy' has been to the local vets for that operation. The poor wee thing is decidedly unhappy. For the next couple of days she will be confined to the farmers back garden. Her sisters are wisely giving her a wide berth. I don't think the old tee shirt she's wearing to cover the wound will last long.

The Indian gentleman who owns the souvenir shop next door to the church has new stock. Anyone wishing to buy a plastic giraffe or a Hamish MacPiper snow globe knows where to come. Today a range of  'I love Scotland' avocado dishes appear. They've been placed, upside down, in some chunky mugs that claim to be of Scottish design ( although I'll happily wager they're made somewhere closer to the Yellow River Delta ). We both look at the tartan avocado dishes and marvel at human creativity.

Mothers taking their children to primary school enjoy a brief burst of sunshine and stop to let a pair of ducks waddle contentedly down the road.

The hostelries that usually cater to a student clientele are now sprucing themselves up to attract a more diverse audience. Presumably faux flower displays send out a message of refinement and sophistication. The plastic hydrangeas wouldn't last a week during term time. Scotland has ( by some margin ) more university students per head of capita than any other country in the world so there will be a  lot of hostelries undergoing this summer makeover.

This was a fun ( and informative ) read.

On the radio this morning :https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nnpOeIkafSo

A company that has managed to shred its corporate reputation :https://arstechnica.com/space/2024/05/the-surprise-is-not-that-boeing-lost-commercial-crew-but-that-it-finished-at-all/

A parable.

This mornings weather forecast brief and to the point - 'Lots of cloud above the mist and murk'.

The young postman returns from his two week holiday in Dominica. He's sporting a ferocious tan that makes it quite clear he's been somewhere 'sunny'. I ask him if he'd enjoyed himself and am told it was 'Far tae hot and the food was awfy greasy' . He asks for a signature for my new passport . The comfort of the old European burgundy version replaced by a glossy post Brexit  black. The British passports of my childhood had hard cardboard covers. This new one is flimsy laminate. I'm sure there's a parable about Brexit in that remark if I care to look.

'Puppy' shows up. She's been for a start of day swim with the farmers wife. 

'Puppy'  waits plaintively at the kitchen door while 'The Font ' goes in search of a biscuit. This is gratefully received.

Lemon turnovers brighten up the bakers otherwise 'brown' window display.

Graduation hats make an appearance in the fancy outfitters. How practical these haute couture creations will be on a windy Scottish day remains to be seen.

Town was packed solid yesterday. The May Monday holiday is  a big thing in Europe. We made three complete circuits of the place in the vain hope of finding somewhere to park. One French visitor managed to park his Peugeot 5008 outside the front door of the Royal and Ancient in a spot marked ' Reserved for the Captain '. The sheer Gallican audacity of this makes us laugh out loud. There will have been much harrumphing inside the clubhouse.

This morning, with the students and the English tourists gone, parking is much easier.  We find a spot near the small Italian coffee shop and admire one of the municipal gardeners street offerings. 

Playing on the radio this morning :https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N-aK6JnyFmk

and the radio tells us this piece of music is having its 200th birthday :https://youtu.be/a23945btJYw?t=34

The toddlers are impressed.

 

We're watched by new arrivals on the village green.

They seem untroubled by the drizzle or by two toddlers who are sitting on the stone wall of their enclosure. The toddlers father has worked out that a sure fire way of exhausting his two year old twins is to plonk them down on the wall and let them chat away to the calves. The toddlers are impressed ... the calves less so. How many generations of village children must have done this ? There is something reassuringly Enid Blytony about life in rural Scotland.

The students have largely gone. Larders have been cleared and contents dumped into bags that have been left on the street to be picked up the dustmen. The town crows and gulls have long ago mastered the skill of tearing black plastic bags with their beaks to access the delights hidden inside. A large crow has discovered two thirds of  a pack of rice cakes. It is not at all happy to be disturbed by us while it's enjoying this unexpected bounty. A partially eaten chicken tikka masala has been spread ( smeared ) across the pavement by a gull that glares at us from the safety of a rooftop. 

A new movie at the cinema. Interesting but probably not interesting enough to tempt us to see it.

We go to the bookstore to pick up an order. This has had great reviews.

The shops changing their window displays. The target demographic for the next couple of months has shifted from cost conscious students to the parents of soon to be graduates. Practical but colourful ladies wear much in evidence. Chelsea mothers, dressed for Antibes and unused to Scottish seaside temperatures, will be glad of a chance to layer up under thick wool.

Summers here and so's a week of rain

The weather forecast predicts a week of solid rain. This morning we have both rain and a thick sea fog. What the Italian tourists must make of this weather doesn't bear thinking about.

We take shelter in Starbucks where a customer gives us the once over in the hope we might have biscuits. He is disappointed and soon turns his attention elsewhere. 

The hotel that claims to have a 5 star rating has cut down some mature ( and protected ) trees and replaced them with an open air 'coffee space'. The towns  preservation trust is up in arms over this act of vandalism. It seems the local council has decided not to fine the tree fellers on the grounds they don't have the staff to enforce a penalty. This decision has further infuriated the members of the preservation trust. We are left wondering why anyone would want to cut down trees and replace them with such a nondescript alternative.

In Glasgow we see a picture of  Mistle Thrush for sale . Mistle Thrushes are rare and elusive things. We'd never glimpsed one until a pair of them showed up in the garden. We weren't looking to buy another picture but sometimes serendipity says ' Go for it '. So it is we become the owners of a watercolour of  a berry eating Mistle Thrush. This is carefully carried home on the train.

On the back a hand written label. I've taken the picture in to be reframed and with firm instructions for the label to be kept.

Nothing at the cinema to entice us in. Two formal change of use notices have been taped to the door informing us that the upgrading of the cinema by the Timberlake/Woods company is now going to the planning committee. 

Last night we watch the new 'Unfrosted' movie about Kellogg's Pop Tarts on Netflix. It claims to be a comedy but has a strong political subtext. Hugh Grant as the 1960's era QAnon shaman was brilliant.

Would you want to sit here ? :https://twitter.com/planesanity/status/1786076831650578881

Can they ? :https://theconversation.com/can-an-organ-transplant-really-change-someones-personality-228923

Columbia :https://adamtooze.substack.com/p/chartbook-279-columbia-universitys

Back home

 

By the early afternoon on Friday it's 23 degrees in Glasgow. By Scottish standards that's tropical. We look longingly at a real old fashioned greengrocer. That's the one thing St. Andrews doesn't have and could do with.

The journey back ( when all goes to plan ) can be done door to door in exactly two hours . Today, the journey does go to plan. As we get off the first train the connecting train glides into the adjacent platform.  Even better, out of Glasgow the train company has put on  the comfortable old Intercity rolling stock . We travel back in uncrowded luxury. From the carriage windows we see that the fields around Stirling are home to thousands and thousands of young lambs while on the river by Perth six swans take off and follow each other majestically  into the sky.

A hint of sea fog on the beach. This weekend is a big European and British holiday so the place is on the jam packed side of busy. The last of the exams were held yesterday afternoon so the crowds of tourists are augmented by large cars driven by parents collecting their offspring. I'm guessing tonight will be a big party night for those still left in town.

We pass a group of seven American gentlemen - or to be more precise we pass six American gentlemen led by another American gentleman . This seventh gentleman is walking ahead while providing a running commentary that none of the others is listening to. All of them are wearing Harris tweed caps. They are adherents to the ' If you want to fit in dress like a local ' school of tourism. The fact that the locals don't wear flat caps is neither here nor there. Collectively they have the air of a group that have taken a day trip from Edinburgh and discovered they've seen everything and there's now five hours to wait before their bus takes them back. Methinks a lengthy detour to the bar by the first tee lies in their collective future.

We're so alike :https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-024-01289-w

The age of deference :https://www.historytoday.com/archive/head-head/when-did-britains-age-deference-end-and-why

A quick trip.

The weather ( as this video shows ) has been awful. A thick sea fog has rolled in and seems to be in no hurry to leave :https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rIw6STH9ays

It's time to head over to the west coast where it's warm and sunny. Somehow, we manage to get bookings at a restaurant in Glasgow we've long wanted to try. It has an a la carte menu as an alternative to the tasting menu . This is a major positive. Who wants 14 courses that take for ever to serve ? Here the cooking was exceptional, the atmosphere refined and the service smooth and professional. We shall go again. 'The Font' considers this the best meal we've had since leaving France. They even have Gariguette strawberries. 

The reservation was for a deeply unfashionable six thirty. By the time we leave it's still light. The local dog owners are gathering for a walk in the park.

We stroll back to the hotel stopping off at the tennis club for a restorative drink on our way.

Glasgow has some lovely houses although most have long ago  been converted into flats. We'd never noticed that the window frames of many of them are painted black. This gives them a stern grandeur and  was presumably refreshed - daily -  with soot black in Victorian days.

Graduation nearing for all Scots universities. In a magazine the fashion correspondent suggests male  undergraduates go to the decidedly Scottish  firm of MacGregor MacDuff on the Dumbarton Road for their ' big occasion '. 

In a late opening art gallery we find this picture of two dogs and two Glaswegian drinkers. I don't like the picture but like the sentiment behind it.

The trendy new hotel we were going to try phones up as we're on our way to the station to tell us they have 'technical issues'. They go on to tell us that 'We've got a room for you but it may not be up to our usual standards '. Alarm bells ring. We re-book into Devonshire Gardens.

There was a time when we used to stay here a lot but it must be thirty years ago when we last visited. The rooms are large and are furnished 'eclectically '. On the landing outside a stained glass window is a feature. Having tried the options we shall go back to staying here on future trips. A group of students tell us that a restaurant called Crabshakk is the new place to try.

Politics for most people :https://www.natesilver.net/p/for-most-people-politics-is-about

A bargain :https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2024/04/us-government-auctions-5-34-petaflop-cheyenne-supercomputer/

Architecture :https://www.dezeen.com/2024/04/24/sacred-modernity-brutalist-churches-book-jamie-mcgregor-smith/

The carefree duck.

With the students going home the centre of town is getting quieter , very quickly.

Outside the bakers a duck walks unconcernedly down the road towards the church. I'd reckon that one in three of the passers by say hello to it. The others detour round it and give the duck plenty of space to get on its way.

I've never understood why private registration plates are such a thing. Is it status ? This morning there's a Range Rover with a registration plate that's one of a kind.

 

Exams , hormones and a dip in the North Sea.

 

We head into town to hear an economist summarize the key ideas in his new book. He's very lucid and concise and manages to combine a robust optimism for the future with an understanding of the political and environmental challenges we face. One of the students in the audience asks a lengthy question about exogenous growth theory. This is handled deftly but still leaves some of us in the audience trying to understand both the question and the answer. We head off to the towns cocktail bar for a post talk drink. It is half full. A young couple next to us sit in near silence. They are  about to part for the summer -  he to Exeter, she to Kensington. Not, one would think, an enormous distance.  His idea of cheering her up is to ask if she wants another drink. We leave before witnessing the first sob of the season. A teenagers path to true love is made all the more complicated by the confluence of exams and hormones. 

This is the book which I would recommend - or at least recommend to the economists and the irrepressible optimists  among the readers of this blog.

An aerodynamic delivery truck outside Costa Coffee. When did delivery trucks start being aerodynamic ?

The town has three streets. Traffic can travel freely in both directions along two of them. The third, for some reason dreamt up by the traffic managers, is two way as far as the fountain. After that it's one way.  A visitor ( a tourist or a parent come to collect their little angel ) heads the wrong way down the one way street. Cars coming in the other direction stop and tell him what he's doing wrong. He ignores them in a ' once you're committed there's no going back' sort of way. In Italy there would be much beeping of car horns. Here the reaction is more muted although there is a shaking of heads.

The daffodils on the golf course now well past their best. The harebells are taking over. It's May 1st so summer is now officially here. The sudden chill wind and cloud cover that sweeps cross from the far side of the bay tells us that the Scottish weather hasn't been told of the change in season. May 1st is also the morning when the remaining students go for a swim in the North Sea. Later this morning we'll wander down to the harbour to see what the turn out is like.

Dangerous books :https://theconversation.com/many-old-books-contain-toxic-chemicals-heres-how-to-spot-them-228834

Controversial issue of the day :https://www.afterbabel.com/p/the-revolution-has-begun-in-the-uk

Tunnocks passion :https://www.buzzfeed.com/jamieross/fifty-five-percent-of-scots-prefer-tunnocks