November 2005

  • The breeze of bad luck: another crash

    Home by the skin of my teeth, having taken a notion to take the Wednesday boat north rather than the Friday one I was booked on. And just as well, given that all NorthLink sailings between Aberdeen and Shetland were cancelled on Thursday and Friday, due to the appalling weather. I was aboard the Hrossey,…

  • Mainlanding

    Apologies for the absence of new postings, and especially photographs. I have, however, been snapping furiously with my Sony Ericsson pile-of-crap cameraphone (useless, useless keyboard for anyone with normal size hands) and some of those pictures should make their way here soon. Currently in Aberdeen, following four days in frostbitten Glasgow. Good grief, it was…

  • The nine stages of the newspaper columnist’s life

    Stage one is INDIVIDUALISM: either as a working hack or some sort of pundit, you are identified as having something to say and the stylistic arsenal to say it well. So you get a column. Stage two is ECCENTRICITY: Loveable, preferably, but the whiff of sulphurous, ranting rancour can have its appeal. You’re special, some…

  • The end of the columnist?

    Journalism is like blogging, only you get paid. Though my Google Adsense feature has made me, oh, seven of your US dollars in the past three, err…months.I used to be a journalist, and on occasion still am. I have been a regular columnist, paid (sometimes handsomely) for The Scotsman, The SundayHerald, Scotland on Sunday, the…

  • Recent snaps…

    Variously: Dawn over Glasgow; the Assater Pillie; bizarre camping within the ruined St Ninian’s Isle kirk; Stroh and Skynbow fiddles at the Violin Shop, Glasgow (we came away with a double bass and a cello); telly on the beach; the north boat, or one of them; Ullapool; sign of the Pillie-obsessed times; a tree.

  • …meanwhile, back in Glasgow

    …I took this just after daybreak during my last visit to Glasgow, a week ago. I’d just come out of my hotel (the Devoncove – cheap, cheerful and not very clean) on Sauchiehall Street, in my favourite part of the west end – where Kelvingrove Park interfaces with Finniston, along from Mother India. The camera…

  • Walk into winter

    Worst summer in 40 years, best October in 20. Or so a local fisherman told me yesterday in the newly refurbished Brae Garage, which is now a shop, off licence and general impersonation of the Tardis, complete with computerised flight deck. Brae is the nearest sizeable village to our humble hamlet, some 10 miles away…