The year turning.

We started off the week knowing nothing about Charlamagne Tha God and Sydney Sweeney. How quickly we learn. I'm still not sure why either justifies being in the news. Trying to remain 'cool' and 'with it' as the birthdays pile up is a full time job.

Out here we watch the solitary male deer walk slowly through the potato field eating as he goes. With so much to graze on he's bulking up in front of our eyes. The local vet has been out to check up on the ewe that was bitten by the dog ten days ago. Both ewe and lamb are doing fine. They, and the rest of the herd, are almost invisible in the long grass. The vet has counted a dozen reed buntings on his walk out to here on the dunes. 

Snow globes a new addition to the souvenir shops windows. They aren't much of an improvement on the plastic figures of Mel Gibson as Braveheart reprising his Alba du grath role.

On the shelf above the snow globes three Highland Coos adopt a variety of cringeworthy poses.

The magazine rack in the supermarket leaves you in no doubt which country you're in.

After all the excitement with Puppy village life has settled back into a quieter tempo. This afternoon the community council has its quarterly meeting. One of us will go. I'm hoping it will be 'The Font'.

We detour to the good coffee street cafe to enjoy the sunshine and a decent Americano. The cafe owner pops out to tell us that Scottish school holidays end next week. This may explain why there are so many sad looking ten year olds around. The fun fair comes into town this weekend to give the youngsters a pre-school taste of excitement and excess. We dislike the funfair because it is an extremely noisy affair .

After three months during which it didn't get dark the nights are now drawing in quickly. Last night we were surprised to find that the moon was out by nine thirty. The year is turning.

Interpreting dreams :https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/consciousness-and-the-brain/202508/the-dreams-of-ancient-humans

Storm Floris :https://theconversation.com/storm-floris-the-weather-is-rarely-this-windy-in-august-which-makes-it-more-dangerous-262535

Sleep talking :https://www.popsci.com/health/why-do-people-sleep-talk/

Found.

The storms have blown over but the seas are still rough enough for the Fishery Protection vessels to be sheltering in the bay.

The gannets are out in force. The gale must have brought the shoals of fish in towards the shore. We stand on the grass and watch the birds climbing and then abruptly diving vertically into the sea. There's a stretch of deep water at the end of the track where the rocks suddenly cascade down and the herring and sand lance congregate. The birds catch rate is high.

A group of enthusiastic tourists being shown round by a student in her red gown. The first young  couples are returning to town to open up flats and start preparing for the coming semester. The start of the new academic year is barely a month away and relationships that have been on simmer over the summer are set to burst - afresh - into flame.

The morning sun is pleasantly warm. We stop and have an Americano at the pavement cafe by the cheese shop. This is one of the few places that still serves decent coffee and hasn't succumbed to using cheaper beans. At this time of the morning we are the only customers.

 

In the farm store they're selling a new brand of candy. I'm not sure this is a name I'd have chosen.

When we get back to the village there's a small crowd standing in the middle of the road by the doocot. This can either signal good news or bad. It turns out to be good news. Puppy has been found. Seems she headed a mile or so off across the fields in the dark amid the worsening storm. In the sheltered lee of a rock stack she found three German teenage boys in a tent. They were finishing cooking a dinner of baked beans and sausages. She happily dined with them and finding herself faced with 80 mph winds made it clear she was in no hurry to leave . ( They may have been less keen on having to share a tent with a super energetic sausage loving Jack Russell ). This morning one of the lads picked up the courage to ask a greenkeeper at the golf course if he knew someone who had lost a dog. The boys had tried to call the number on the collar but the cellular service was down in the storm. Puppy and her family are reunited. As they cycle away Puppy makes to follow the boys. Baked beans and sausages are clearly the way to a girls heart. The farmers wife is smiling again.

Do they ? :https://news.immunologic.org/p/do-all-celebrities-have-lyme-disease

Undomesticated dogs :https://www.smithsonianmag.com/science-nature/what-happened-to-the-bone-crushing-dogs-that-once-hunted-across-north-america-180987037/

The marshmallow test :https://psyche.co/ideas/what-the-marshmallow-test-got-wrong-about-child-psychology

These purple socks are great in the Scottish winter. The shop now ships direct :https://gammarelli.com/en/prodotto/socks-in-merino-wool/

Remarkable :https://electrek.co/2025/08/01/drone-drops-electric-bike-to-help-ukrainian-soldier-escape-russians/

Wandering dog

Sometime, in the lull between the storm lifting and the farmer checking the roof on the potato barns for damage, Puppy went missing. She was by the AGA when the family sat down for dinner but when it was her turn to be fed she was gone. She is a free spirit so to begin with no one was too alarmed. The front door was left ajar and her mince and tatties left in a bowl in the hall.

When the farmer got up at four this morning there was still no sign of her. He's been along the shore to make sure she's not got trapped on the rocks by the high tide. We have been out in the car checking the golf courses to the south of the village for a Jack Russell terrier. 

The young Australian golf professional at the fancy 5 star resort doesn't even look up from his phone when I ask him if he's seen a stray dog. 'Naw' the most I can get in terms of a response. Some eye contact or a shrug of the shoulder would have been appreciated. At the next course down the coast the woman behind the reception desk hasn't seen Puppy but knows all about her. She'll alert the greenkeepers . The man who owns the toasted cheese sandwich shop on the beach tells 'The Font' he's been clearing up after the storm and hasn't seen any dogs at all. He promises to call if she's spotted.

Three French camper vans are parked on the square by the church. Their owners must have had an exciting time in yesterdays remarkable gale.

We check the churchyard to make sure Puppy hasn't been locked in. Other villagers are out at different points of the compass doing the same thing. Just goes to show even small dogs have their guardian angels.

Blogger is having one of its moments so I'll come back later to see what can be done about the formatting.

Not all 17 year olds are created equal :https://www.quantamagazine.org/at-17-hannah-cairo-solved-a-major-math-mystery-20250801/

God isn't partisan -  Abraham Lincolns views :https://providencemag.com/2025/08/an-instrument-of-providence-abraham-lincoln-and-james-pennington/

This Nobel prize winning economist isn't happy :https://paulkrugman.substack.com/p/trump-is-getting-desperate-and-dangerous

Yukon tremors :https://www.livescience.com/planet-earth/earthquakes/sleeping-giant-fault-beneath-canada-could-unleash-a-major-earthquake-research-suggests

The art of conversation

It's busier than usual in the supermarket. Canny shoppers are out and about before the rain sets in. The lady who oversees the supermarkets scan and pay machines wanders over for a wee chat . " Have you noticed that people never take the first paper on the racks. They always go for the one behind ". This is something I'd never thought of before. A few moments observation and her insight proves to be true. I can think of no good reason why this should be the case. 

Elder sister stops by the last wee house before Denmark for a start of day treat. Today it's a Grissini. Her younger sister is still asleep by the AGA safely away from the wind that is picking up strength by the hour. It seems the Jet Stream is blowing at lower altitudes today and is about to hit Scotland with winds of 80 mph .

Over breakfast we discuss the fact that Angus has found a co-joined strawberry in the punnet he bought from the farm by the bridge. I'll leave it to you to judge whether this is a sign that the familial art of conversation has died a death or is alive and kicking. 

Mind reading dogs :https://theconversation.com/your-dog-can-read-your-mind-sort-of-261720

What a colossal waste of time :https://viewfromthewing.com/83-billion-wasted-showing-up-at-the-airport-3-hours-before-your-flight-is-a-system-failure-no-ones-trying-to-fix/

Jury duty in Georgia :https://tropicsofmeta.com/2025/08/01/jury-in-a-box-justice-and-democracy-in-georgias-dekalb-county/

Where Sweden goes others will follow :https://www.reddit.com/r/accelerate/comments/1mgfhkc/the_prime_minister_of_sweden_asks_ai_for_advice/

The murdered goldfish.

The Irish lady who writes children books is out walking her labrador. She stops to tell us that the fancy interior design store in town has been broken into. Some minor damage has been done and a pane of glass on the front door smashed. The Police arrived and found the burglar drunkenly asleep on an eau de Nile silk arm chair in the storeroom. Our Irish neighbour also says that the intruder knocked over a  bowl that was the watery home of a nine year old goldfish called Harry. Sadly, the Police did not arrive in time to save Harry from an untimely death . How much of this is fact and how much  embellishment will need to wait until the weekly paper is published and the full story unveiled.

Weather warnings have been issued. A severe Atlantic summer storm is expected  tomorrow. Winds of 70 mph + are forecast. With the trees in full leaf the impact may be dire. The farmer and his team are working round the clock to get as much of the the harvest in before the storm arrives. This morning he was up at five getting the calves on the village green ready to be shipped across the country to a farm in Ayrshire. By seven they've all gone. Seeing the calves go is another sign that autumn is waiting in the wings.

The beach is already busy with teenagers from the summer schools. Teenagers are of course oblivious to the weather. For them the promised strong winds mean better surfing.

The benches on the bluff by the old archery butts are lined with holiday makers catching the sun and eating their Greggs bacon rolls. The holiday makers seem to know that by mid-morning the cloud will have thickened and  by lunchtime the rain will have set in. This may be their one and only chance to enjoy the sun until mid-week.

The golf course is as crowded as I've ever seen it at this time of the morning. It seems the US East coast is suffering some sort of heat wave which has boosted the number of American visitors.  Across the water in Norway and Sweden the mercury has risen into the 30's. It can safely be said that Norway and Sweden are not prepared for those sorts of temperatures. With the temperatures in St Andrews  resolutely sticking in the low 20's I'm beginning to think cool weather tourism may be a sustainable business model. Further proof of climate change may lie in the car park on the beach which must have at least a hundred French registered motor homes in it.

The sea at the end of the track covered in gannets - tens of thousands of them. They breed on a rock outcrop further down the coast. Are they about to migrate ? :https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0WCh8alE8H8

Must read of the week. Mother in law on steroids :https://substack.com/home/post/p-168803790

Scandinavia has been having an unheard of 30 degrees plus summer. https://x.com/extremetemps/status/1951384795944001633  T

Can anywhere be more Italian than this hotel  ?:https://thefamilycoppolahideaways.com/resort/palazzo-margherita/

The surprise visit.

The sound of a klaxon has us scurrying into the garden to see what's going on. A hundred yards offshore a large naval vessel is storming into  the bay. When she draws level with the rock the cormorants call home she does a wide turn and then sprints out to sea again. The churning  wake trailing behind her indicating she's making good speed. Why HMS Iron Duke has come barreling past our quiet stretch of the coast is a mystery. By the time I've hurried back to get the i-Phone she's well on her way out to sea again. The klaxon is tooted three times in quick succession and then she's away across the waves towards the wind farms on the horizon. Navy grey camouflage works well in these northern latitudes.

Early birds - or at least those woken by a passing frigate - have a choice of finding parking spaces. Late risers heading into town are condemned to driving round in ever increasing circles looking for somewhere to park. We park by Parliament Hall on a shopping street that a large firm of estate agents has just ranked the 105th best in the UK and the best in Scotland. Edinburgh may be surprised with these rankings.

University towns out of season are oddly quiet. Last night we went to hear an entertaining American politician talk about tariffs. In term time he'd have had an audience of five hundred. Off season it's a more intimate chat with thirty or so local residents. Entrance is all of £5. His view is that tariffs will raise $5 trillion + over the next decade and now they're here they'll never go again no matter which party is in the White House. More plausibly they'll mutate into an American version of VAT. The politician is much, much more worried about nuclear sabre rattling which has been something Presidents of all parties have historically tried to avoid. After hearing this we stop off for a restorative glass of wine on our way home. Faced with his nervousness I'd have gladly drunk a bottle but I was driving.

One place you can be sure is busy on a weekend morning is the fishmongers.

Today, John Dory, lemon sole and two lobsters are acquired. If you're a seafood lover then there are few places that can hold a candle to Scotland. 

The same may not hold true for baked goods

One good reason to live in Helsinki ( if you can cope with the winters ) :https://yle.fi/a/74-20174831

New ways of representing climate change :https://thebulletin.org/2025/07/how-clear-and-simple-data-visualizations-bring-the-climate-crisis-home/

The shroud of Turin :https://www.livescience.com/archaeology/shroud-of-turin-wasnt-laid-on-jesus-body-but-rather-a-sculpture-modeling-study-suggests

America's automotive sector is doing just fine :https://eig.org/myths-and-lessons-from-american-automaking/

Let's hope joy is contagious.

The usual cast of dog walking characters on the beach. We greet them all with a hearty 'Good morning'. The ageing poodle with four arthritic paws is off to see the vet about new and more powerful painkillers. Todays big local news is something that Angus and President Trump find themselves wholly in agreement on :https://www.seabird.org/press-releases/devastating-news-for-scotland-s-seabirds-as-berwick-bank-is-consented

We detour back to Starbucks via the club house.

An ultra-competitive group of Californians are playing each stroke of the Old Course as if their lives depended on it. This is golf as performative art. 

The caddies and the locals look on in mute amazement. One gentleman lands on the green and then takes three putts to sink the ball. The others cheer him on.

Off to the side a sound recordist and a cameraman are capturing the impressions of four gentlemen who have been on a golf tour. We listen as they describe their experiences of the three Trump courses ( awesome ) , Carnoustie ( unforgiving ), Royal Dornoch ( God damn difficult ) and now here ( truly humbling ). They have paid the camera crew to follow them as they played each course and captured the drama of every hole they've played. Providing posterity with a weeks worth of their insights and memories can't have been cheap.

The Royal and Ancient have new garden plantings. They seem to have gone for the Mediterranean garden approach. How this will stand up to the rain and wind of the Scottish coast will be interesting to monitor.

Two fresh faced American college kids have discovered they're on the ballot and are going to be allowed to play the sacred turf.  They share their unexpected good news with anyone that will listen. Last night they had been told that there was no chance. This morning they've struck gold and have been told by the lady in the pavillion that they're on in half an hour. Luck favours the fresh faced and audacious. One youngster dances a jig. The other wipes his eyes. Parents in Cleveland are called with the good news. It's two thirty in the morning there so let's hope joy is contagious. 

By the corner shop a young gull is displaying the glory of its juvenile feathers. The young gulls are fearless. So, sadly, are the cars that seem to have finished off half a dozen of them on the stretch of road that leads from the cinema to the roundabout.

Blast from the past : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WEhS9Y9HYjU

Breakfast table discussion point :https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/insight-therapy/202507/women-are-more-competitive-with-each-other-than-are-men

Americans spend 4 hours a day on average thinking about money :https://www.empower.com/the-currency/money/money-on-the-mind-research?stream=business

AI :https://engelsbergideas.com/essays/making-sense-of-the-ai-revolution/

Plus ca change :https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/los-angeles-1936-bum-blockade-targeted-american-migrants-fleeing-poverty-and-drought-during-the-great-depression-180987022/

The first geese heading south.

August almost upon us. Here, after the summer period of endless nights, it's now getting dark by ten and there's a decided nip in the evening air after eight. Yesterday the farmer harvested the wheat in the large field by the main road. He's now working his way down towards us. This morning he saw the first flock of half a dozen or so geese heading south. Soon the fields around here will be home to hundreds of them gleaning what's left of the grain before starting their long journey home. The sight of geese, perhaps more than anything else, is a signal that we should order heating oil and make sure the rose in the wine cellar is drunk quickly. After the geese have gone the students arrive.

A snorting noise tells us we have company. 

Puppy is starting her day full of energy. After a good nights sleep she's supercharged. She doesn't so much run as fly down the track. Butterflies scatter on either side as she approaches.

Puppy follows us down to the shore then follows us back along the track to the courtyard. She drops a yellow ball at my feet every twenty yards or so.

When we head off in the car she's still sitting in the barley field and watches us drive away with disbelief. What could be more important than spending a morning throwing a ball ? The farmers wife has given up all hope of keeping her safely confined to the farmhouse garden. The latest attempt involved a sixty foot long nylon rope . Despite being 'indestructible' the rope was soon chewed through.

So starts a sunny Thursday morning on the east coast of Scotland. Town is still super-busy with severe looking men taking a few days R&R on their way back to Dulles.

Have your own Afghan rug made :https://afghanu.com/custom-handmade-rugs/

Swedens walking church is about to walk :https://kirunalapland.se/en/event/kiruna-church-move/

Indonesia progresses :https://www.global-developments.org/p/indonesia-climbs-the-chain

I shall ignore this article:https://www.sciencealert.com/study-reveals-turning-point-when-your-bodys-aging-accelerates

The classics for an AI generation :https://www.alexandria.wiki/home

Layering helps

A gentle sunset last night. It's still (just) warm enough to sit outside until near ten although layering helps. Before we turn in a group of large grey transport aircraft slowly move in formation towards the west. 'Someone' is heading home.

We'd not seen many butterflies this year but the warm weather finally brings them out. Each species seems to have its own micro-territory. The cabbage whites cluster around the top of the track, the red admirals prefer the middle and the peacocks swarm on the thistles where the track makes a sheltered dog leg down to the sea. 

There must be fifty or sixty peacocks which must be some sort of record. They are remarkably difficult to photograph part in due to their 'skittishness' and part due to the breeze which wildly rocks whatever plant they've settled on.

We park in town and observe a teacher with a particularly annoying group of Italian teenagers . She loses it when they wander, oblivious to oncoming cars, onto the street. " This is a pavement, that is the road " she screams in a way that tells us an alternative vocation to teaching may lie in her immediate future. The Italian teenagers ignore her and saunter, slowly, across the road. Italian teenagers take the teenage hormonal thing to whole new levels.

The American hedge fund managers new extension has got to the stage where the old buildings have been cleared away and the equipment for digging out the foundations has been delivered to the site. The view onto the old cathedral ruins from the new house will be 'awesome' although we're told he's unhappy that he didn't get permissions for a basement swimming pool.

Africa's population :https://asteriskmag.com/issues/11/yes-in-my-bamako-yard

Thoughts on India :https://andrewbatson.com/2025/07/27/india-and-the-invidious-comparison-with-china/

Flooding in Oregon :https://thedebrief.org/13000-years-ago-a-catastrophic-flood-scoured-oregons-ancient-landscape-new-satellite-images-reveal-the-lasting-impact/

Medicine :https://www.civitasinstitute.org/research/how-america-became-the-worlds-medicine-chest--and-why-that-status-is-at-risk

A map showing the largest sectorial employer by state. I'm sure the same is true in Europe :https://committeetounleashprosperity.com/hotlines/we-have-to-do-something-about-runaway-health-costs/

Retained warmth.

The village is  home to a number of 30 something academics who make the daily  five minute commute into town. Holiday house swapping is a big thing with this demographic. A chance for local Scots to experience life in other, hopefully warmer, parts of the world. The other side of the equation come here looking for relief from their summer heat. Everyone is happy. 30 somethings with families rarely have anything breakable that's not already been broken so having someone else in the house isn't a risk.  This morning we're passed by a Canadian father and three excited youngsters heading to the beach. Mother, we're told, was up late last night unpacking and is having a 'lie in'. The youngsters are at that age where life is all about adventure and sleep is impossible.

Despite the early hour folks are also out and about on the sand below the old castle. It's been cloudy overnight and the air has retained much of yesterdays warmth. Unbelievably, the summer schools are already in their wind down stage. Soon the bemused teenagers will be heading home :https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3onYec3tDe8 . 

At the garden centre a pretty comprehensive list of rules designed to stop the local teenagers from sniffing glue.

A defiant gull makes it clear that  the 'bird proof' trash cans are his territory. He glares at us to make sure we don't run off with any of last nights discarded fish and chip wrappers.

An idiot owner has allowed their dog off the lead by the sheep field. It's leapt over the boundary fence and badly bitten one of the nursing mothers. The ranger tells us that after being taken to the vet the ewe is nervous but otherwise fine. Two other dog owners saw what was happening and intervened. The culprit ( some form of terrier ) and its owner ran off.

The 13 mothers and 14 lambs have sensibly positioned themselves in the middle of the field.

Radio Scotland is in the groove this morning :https://youtu.be/RsELrcVNzG0?t=102

Must be a summer intern doing the breakfast radio music schedule. This is also played :https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nlbwLzUZEhk

African borders :https://www.noemamag.com/the-surprising-durability-of-africas-colonial-borders/

The earliest bird song :https://gizmodo.com/this-dinosaur-probably-chirped-like-a-bird-2000631482

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