On St Andrews Day

…. two stories broke as we rose to face the new dawn.

The first was tragedy, the chopper crash in the centre of Glasgow.  I had to make sure that FirstBorn had not been out on the town that night – he had, but crossed the river by a different bridge, thankfully; then the whole tragic episode began to unfold, on the radio and on our screens.  I had a post ready to publish this morning, but have held it back for another day.  There are more important things.

The other story is one that may not see the light of day, and probably wouldn’t have anyway even without last night’s tragedy.  But those eagle eyes that are the readers at Wings Over Scotland, found this one, thereby guaranteeing at least 100,000 readers, plus both of you.

In the aftermath of the White Paper, and debates and so forth those wise men over at Bitter Th’gither have issued a cracker.  It may get withdrawn.  At the time of writing there have been, I am told, 600 comments on their faceache page.

As always they attack the Yes campaign.  It is not unknown for their bulletins, flyers, press releases etc to be substantially inaccurate, economical with the truth some may say.  But this latest one takes the biscuit.

They have set out to shred the financial forecasts, awarding an F-minus, after ‘we do the maths’.  But they’re doing the wrong maths, presenting figures from the White Paper as if they were projections for an i-future.  But the figures are indeed projections based on the current constitutional arrangement, and clearly stated to be so – the reality of the union years, 35 or so of my voting years of blue/red/blue tories, illegal wars, burst banks, shredded economy, austerity and cuts, cuts, cuts – to the taxes of the rich and the benefits of the poor as the create this 4th most unequal society in the developed world.  So Better Together are trashing their own record.

F-minus for the union.  Better Together say it to be so.  And you and I know that we can and will do better.  Thanks for the reminder BT; keep those press releases coming.  And, as always, we rely on Rev Stu checking the detail, analysing, and keeping us all in the loop.  Good man.

Wonderful thing t’internet; howlers live on for ever, and mine do too of course.  They can be removed, but the archive remains.

And finally, here’s to our friends at:

Pretty good St Andrews Day graphic is it not?  Meanwhile thoughts turn again to events around the Clutha, and those caught up in it. I finish these notes having heard that eight fatalities have just been announced. There may be more to follow, as I fear carnage may lie beneath the helicopter once they eventually get it moved.

So in the light of that nothing else of any importance really matters today; not Better Together, not the ‘Lok shipping three league points; not even Girl Urchin’s amdram show that means we have to miss an annual ceilidh. It’s a terrible tragedy.

Meanwhile, at the British Embassies…..

Just a quickie

If you missed that staggering discussion on Channel 5 the other day, the one I posted on the last thread, there’s a wee update.

After 80,000 views on You Tube the broadcasters have blocked further viewing.

But you can still tune in, I hope, on this link:

http://vimeo.com/80579833

Onwards, as A L Kennedy might say.

As Ithers See Us

The sad thing about this is, well draw your own conclusions:

And they wonder why. Let’s not even talk about failed Apprentice Katie Hopkins, forging ahead as a rent-a-gob meeja celeb type.

But for some light relief, here’s Elmer Fudd, remember him, in full flow:

And Labour wanted him as FM.  And then they gave us JoLa.

Here’s a prime example of what labour serve up as ‘witless bench fodder’, one Forrest McGump:

Let’s finish off with a bit of nostalgia.  #when you go will you send back….

Now did you see last night’s debate with the newly appointed Secretary of State – well they wanted a Big Bruiser?  Did you watch through horror-show-fingers?  My Goodness. And they’re both back on screen tonight, on Question Time. Mr Carmichael will be delighted it’s a different format; and that Labour’s Magrit Curran will be there to take the flak.

We have to talk about…

…. The White Paper.  It is the only topic of the moment, you may have noticed.

But let me start these notes by saying that I have not read it, yet.  But I will, for there is a hard copy version coming; all 670 pages and 170,000 words of it.   I was keen to secure a copy.  This is history in the making.

Now there has been much said in the media in the last 24 hours or so, much said by ‘experts’ who also had not then read the document; much pontificating; much in the way of traducing.  Indeed the response by the Westminster parties was leaked by The Spectator four days before Scotland’s Future was even published.  This clearly was on the basis of getting your defence in early, before even reading, far less considering, what was proposed.

Most vociferous, from the politicos, have been the two Allys, Carmichael and Darling.  And what rot they spoke, both of them.  I heard common sense from Gerry Hassan this morning, beginning to form his views by the following day.  He likened yesterday’s milestone as a good natured company flotation.  I like that analogy.

His common sense though, has been little in evidence elsewhere. Currency is the big topic. And bemoan a Plan B option all they like, these two fine men, like their seniors in government, cannot and will not rule out a currency union. For they know firstly that they can’t; and they know that it is the only sensible way forward, for all involved. Even Darling said so. It works for the Channel Islands and elsewhere. And to try and deny it as a viable working solution, is simply folly for the rUK.

We need to consider the role of our state-funded and supposedly impartial broadcaster.  I heard BBC reporters yesterday suggesting that Scotland needs to decide to vote either with the head or with the heart.  This is an appalling position to take.  My vote will be cast with both head and heart, in full alignment; it is not an either/or situation.  And I dare say that across the fence there will be votes cast to cancel mine from the same standpoint, head and heart together.  The implication from the BBC that to use one organ leads you in one direction, the other organ in t’other; and that only one of those routes is the right path, the one the BBC favour, is simply wrong; misleading, and slanted.

And in the news bulletins we have the usual propaganda; bulletins leading with faux outrage from each of the three leaders of the Westminster parties in the Holyrood session yesterday, but omitting completely the responses from the DFM.  I listened to those debates as they happened, and I nodded quietly, as Nicola Sturgeon tore to shreds the ridiculous positions put forward by her opposite numbers.  But the BBC overlooked those response, as they do.  And of balance there was nane. Not even a reference to Patrick Harvie of the Scottish Greens, tearing a strip of the doom-merchants, with his Babies, not Bombs, support for the proposals.

For the decision we face is not about identity, as I confirmed to a friend on the No side recently.  We have an identity today, and will have an identity tomorrow, proud Scots.  That will not change, though as an independent nation state the kilt may swing a bit more, the glengarry held a bit higher.  But identity is not an issue here.

What most certainly is an issue is being the 4th most unequal society in the developed world; and having this unique opportunity to re-shape our society for the better.  It will not happen again in my lifetime, possibly not even in that of my children.  But we can look to our Nordic neighbours, and we can aim to emulate them, from similar resources.  It is called vision.  The Westminster parties have yet to outline what vision, if any, they hold for our nation within their union.

And within the union, should we choose that as our future, there will be no status quo.  Be under no illusions of that.  The block grant under the Barnett formula will not remain in the present format.  The child care proposals, from the White Paper, that are integral to increasing the workforce and the tax take, which in turns funds the child care that makes it all possible, is not something that can be done now, despite the protests of the opposition.  For the funding from the workforce would go to Westminster, the block grant would be unchanged, and the costs of the child care could only come from cutting other areas in budgets that are otherwise finely balanced, as they have to be without the normal powers of government.  So we are stymied, for opting out of paying for those damned WMDs, of those illegal wars, of the accursed bedroom tax, is not available. Not yet.

And in Norway child poverty is at 3.2%, with a workforce, revenues and child care designed to make that investment in the future. In parts of Scotland child poverty, under the union, is at 50%. Thanks for that Westminster. What do you want for your grandchildren?

The ballot paper will not include a ‘more of the same please’ option.  It will never be the same again.  Similarly the ballot paper will not include ‘separation’.  But it will allow us the chance to create a fairer and more equal society; one that will become substantially less unpalatable than that which we have today, the 4th Most Unequal Society in the Developed World.

And on 19 September next year, the grandstanding ends; the negotiations begin. There is a share of debt at stake, and jointly held assets to be shared. We own 8.4 % of the BofE, of the armed forces, of the civil service, the DVLA too and the Passport Service. The structure is all in place, subject to the tinkering, to the re-branding. The deal can be done. And the politicians, who are all committed to doing so, will set aside today’s posturing and put that structure in place, sensibly.

Now the Better Together vision for the future in union, where can I download that?

Rather than a fruitless search for the fabled BT Vision, instead, better spend your time with Gordon MacIntyre-Kemp’s summary at Business for Scotland.

More Sand Between The Toes

Before relocating Jean Sprackland realised that she would miss the beach she had walked for a couple of decades.  So in her final year she paid particular attention to her stretch of sand.  It makes an engrossing read.

I have vague memories of a stretch of sand down Southport way, after the BB pitched their tents 40 years or so ago.  It’s flat, very flat, and the tide doesn’t just go out; it disappears.  So the sand is waterlogged, and weather patterns bring changes to what may be unearthed.  It is that stretch of coast that is the focus for Strands – A Year of Discoveries on the Beach.

There are barques and brigantines; wrecks that are here one day, gone the next, reappearing sporadically after years beneath the surface, victims yet to the storms that brought their end.

And there is plastic.  46,000 pieces of it, for each and every square mile of the world’s oceans.  Take a moment to let that sink in.  From bottle tops and pen caps, burst balloons and ‘disposable’ lighters, condom rings and wrappers and tampon applicators.  It’s all there; the detritus we leave behind or cast off our decks, entrust to the plumbing or whatever.

And it enters the food chain, in tiny pieces that look, to sea creatures, like plankton, little chips from Barbie dolls or ‘disposable’ razors.  These nurdles are known as mermaid’s tears to surfing fraternity, bringing illness in their wake.

Sprackland sprinkles words and verses through her texts; words from Robert Macfarlane and Kathleen Jamie among others, tempting me to read Findings once again.  And she takes us to other places.  We head south to the Gower, and the mysteries of laverbread.  And we delve into the world of the Cunard Queens, though only to the third class dining room, with a teacup, 50 years old, washed up in perfect condition.

And there’s footprints, there would be, in the sand.  But these are no ordinary prints.  They are Neolithic, of aurochs and red deer, and man; sealed in the sediment and revealed, briefly, thousands of years later; a glimpse at a world that once was, like cave art.

The beach sings too, with the skylark and the herring gull with it’s gales of manic laughter -that’s Mark Cocker again.  And a dead gull rests above the tide line, with carcases of sheep and seals, the occasional minke whale, and much more beyond.

Its a world of messages, and of course there’s one in a bottle, opening the door to conspiracy theories everywhere, and to the Golden Record aboard the Voyager, in search of other planets for another 40,000 years.  The Lusitania spawned a few, and we’re off on another quest, to track down a family, or nail a theory.

Aside from reading Findings again, Sprackland has me yearning to head to the beach, but to do so with my eyes and ears open.  My mind too.  There’s much more than a walk in the sand, and I enjoyed it for that.

November; It’s Quite a Month

It is after all National Blog Post Month, and I’m very conscious that NaBloPoMo seems to bring out the natural rebel in me, as my time at the keyboard dwindles.  Perhaps I’ve been spending too long reading the efforts of those determined to post every day of the month, keeping me richly entertained, at times.

And it’s a hairy month too, as sportsmen the world over release their inner Village People as they bring to the various arenas some specimens on top lips that take us straight back to the 70s; the decade of style unsurpassed.  And again I rebel, keeping said fur, and much more beyond the top lip, on show all year, every year.  But there is a serious side to Movember, don’t forget.

Perhaps my lethargy at the keyboard has been down to lack of sleep, for these past few days there has been very little as I spend the wee small hours glued to a serial drama from Down Under.  It is of course nothing to do with Skippy, or Neighbours, and all to do with events at The Gabba.  Gripping stuff.  But perhaps it’s just as well that they’ve decided to shelve the fifth day, giving me a chance to build up reserves before The Ashes moves on to Adelaide and beyond.  The joys of DAB radio and headphones on that bedside table.

All that and Borgen too, the final series, as we follow Birgitte, and Kaspar and the others around the politics and the media, their lives and loves in their sub-titled world.  It will be a real shame to see it end, but actually I think the Danes have it about right.  Quit at the top.  We are far too anxious to keep successful series going, spinning off others, introducing variants, until we’re all heartily sick and cynical about the whole damn thing.  But Borgen will suffer no death of dwindling audiences.  And a three-series boxed set might be a great one to watch again in the years ahead.

And as winter begins to make a mark, so the thrush has been feasting.  Sunshine in the gloom.  It’s those rowan berries again.

I haven’t forgotten Independence either.  I know we’ve gone through the 300 day mark; and there’s the White Paper to come in a few days.  Indeed just the other day I referred a good chum in the direction of the World Prosperity Index.  That’s the one that ranks the UK in 16th place.  Sliding back ever further, back behind that Arc of Insolvency as Labour’s Big Hitters down Westminster way would have it, the mighty Iceland and Ireland.  Go on have a look at the top ten countries in the world.

And while we’re at it let’s consider again the shame we have in being the fourth most unequal country in the world.  I was asked recently who the top three were.  I now know them to be Singapore, USA and Portugal.  But the report from Sheffield University is nearly four years old now; four years of doom and austerity, extending the 30 dismal unequal years that went before.  We may well have displaced the Portuguese on the podium by now.

Let’s ponder the other end of the scale.  Sandwiched between Japan and Germany, in the top five societies are none other than the Scandinavians – Finland, Norway and Sweden.  No doubt the Danes aren’t far behind.

And, hardly surprising, these same nations also feature at the top of that WPI too.  Keep these in mind as we consider what the White Paper outlines for us.  24 March 2016.  Mark it down now.  What type of society would you try and shape, if you had the chance?  I guarantee it’s not what we have right now.

Sadly, there has been no cycling of late, the horse-riders of the parish will have been glad to note.  Iodine, that’s cropped up a couple of times too, for there are wounds healing, and stitches suppurating.  Enough of that, for between iodine and red scarfs, that old Guy Marks classic has been entertaining The Urchins in the car, as we ask the waiter for one, and match our eyes to the other.  But I’ll be back out soon, and typing too.

 

 

White Nights

and Crisp Mornings.  They fair gladden the heart.

It was always going to be a corker today.  We knew it when we saw that moon; looming large, bright.  And it was still there this morning, high in the sky, reflecting the rays from the soon-to-be-seen sun,  Below, deep in the west, flamingo tints rise to meet the grey.  And in the east the crest of the hill holds back the rumours of the coming dawn.

In time the sun reflects back the snow covered ridges and peaks, the deep gullies, over on Arran, stark against the morning skies.  Even the summits are free from cloud on such days.  In the foreground frost-melt drips from the rowan, from ripe red berries, but the leaves are absent now, a sparse carpet on the ground all that remains.

It was one of those nights, the ones when you spend too long, book in hand.  Those necessary nocturnal wanderings were in the half light.  And the various clocks remain a blur, as the glasses rest on the bedside table.  So you might assume the radio could burst into life within a half hour or so.

But you had not taken account of the white nights; of that moon.  And just as the lids close, and the book folds on the fingers, so some happy jingle comes from the box in the corner.  And a day has to be faced three hours short of energising sleep.

And #the man in the moon is smiling, ‘cos he’s in love.  Oh yes, he’s in love with the girl in the world alright, and who can blame him.  She’s probably been out dancing with the moonlit knight.  For the moon, like the one that lit the miles home yesterday, brings out the music in us all; a moonlight serenade to take us home and through the night.

There is always a dark side of the moon, but we never see it.  Or maybe we’re just not looking.  But I like to see the moon in the morning.  And when it is high above a frost-cropped land so much the better.

Girl Urchin wants to look at the moon too, and the stars.  She’s been nagging for the old telescope to be taken outside.  And I’ve been searching for a suitable garden observatory to make the white nights a bit less frozen.  A tent would be great, with a removable top piece, and a little gas heater down below.  But they seem scarce.  There was a good one, from China, a few years back, but no current supplies.  There are clever people who do things with old tents and velcro and scissors and sewing machines.  But not I.

Excuses are few.  I have dark skies, and clear views.  There is no pollution from distant lights, no buildings blocking the pathways to the stars.  But sometimes it’s easier just to curl up under the duvet, with a good book, and Harry or Glenn in the background.  And to watch the moon as the frost crystals the crisp copper of the beech.

Or maybe I just need to get out more.

A Path Rarely Travelled

…. by the white man.  That was the one that Alistair Carr set out on.  Indeed he went where no Caucasian had been in living memory.  He went not just to the Sahel, but specifically to the Manga, in the south east corner of what we now know as Niger, the borderlands with Chad.  These are troubled lands of late, Tuaregs have been rebelling.  Carr needed, and obtained, specific consents for his planned journey.  That in itself was no easy task.  But he was as convincing in his pleadings as he is in narrating his tale.  Although he had to accept that anywhere north of the 16th parallel was out of bounds, he got his wish, and travelled with the caravans.

The Nomad’s Path is a superb account of a journey that few think of making; a journey though that is daily life for the Tubu of the desert.  Carr travelled with three camels, with Omar and Ahmet as his guides; joining other caravans at various stages.  In time his skin took on the hue, the very sun-dried texture, of the Arab; and he took to the saddle like a local, right foot resting on left thigh.  But it was virgin territory for un blanc; not straightforward then, as news of the rebels filtered through.

It is a beautiful volume, as most from Tauris are, sitting well in the hand, and with a careful selection of photographs to accompany a word selection made with precision.

I was hooked from the start.  As I gazed into his hazy umber irises, deep-set in wrinkled fissures, it was as if he was searching for me in the Saharan town’s twisting alleys or in the market’s warren-like corridors of stalls, where repellent smells of warm meat on the cusp of rancidity mingled with the enigmatic waft of spices amid the hum of whirring sewing machines.

Oh, yes Carr can write, for sure.  He has an earlier one in print, and I’ll put The Singing Bowl on my list, for Mongolia is another favourite destination on The Book Shelf.

But his trip through the harsh lands of the Manga is one to enjoy.  ‘You drink, when I drink’, quoth his guide.  And a sip of water through the day as the camels plashed their pads into the sand, was a moment to savour.  Not only was Carr complimented on his comfort aboard, but also in his turban, for the only suitable clothing was that of the nomads, robes and turbans, mixed at times with assorted leather bomber jackets.

We learn of the Wodaabe, aesthetes, who like the Tuareg, seem alien to the western mind; and we hear too of the long-horned zebu herds, the salt trail across the sands, and of tribal territories.  We learn of the differing role of women in the family huts.  And the instinctive awareness of direction, of both man and beast, across the harsh lands, from well to well.

And as the journey progresses, we enter the lands of the Fulani, and we come to Laraba, where white skin has never been seen, though there are scattered hints that the 20th century may have arrived .  It is another place, and could be another time.  There are swords, and daggers, and skins of water.  A fleece left behind, travel warrants in the pockets.  And safely returned.  Such are the people that tread the nomad’s path.

It is a land where prayers are muttered, at dawn and at dusk; where embers spit and hiss.  And in the company of each other Carr, with Omar and Ahmet, slip into the routines of the desert, the silences and the habits.

Some months ago I posited that I may not read a better book this year.  Alistair Carr has me thinking of those words.  And I remember too that we were in the sands of Niger, following Heinrich Barth, who preceded Carr by a century and a half.  Since then the country has changed identity, through French hands and beyond.  But the sands and the nomad’s path remains.  And we are fortunate that Carr has been able to take us there once more.

I can feel the sand in my toes.  It’s a good one.

The Welcome in the Valleys

There is a house, in North Wales, that I like.  I have spent only a handful of days there, but it has me, and won’t let go.

I first visited last year, with expectations and a long drive ahead of me.  I wrote of it then, but did not tell the whole story.  For it is a house of magic; and it weaves spells.  It wasn’t just me.

Oh no, it wasn’t just me who yearned to go back, to the house, with the same people.  It seemed unlikely, but it happened, and I am entranced all over again.

The house itself is not without notoriety.  It belonged to Lloyd George, who has his final resting place just across the road, in the woodland.  Literature Wales have it now, a Writers’ Centre.  And it is wonderful.

From The Lighthouse Window, as it became known to The Sleepy Sparrow, that one on the first floor at the rear, the view extends above the foliage at the end of the garden right across the bay.  And from the floor below it is the garden itself that captivates; alive with birdsong.  Said Sparrow upset a pheasant in the shrubbery.  But the robin pecks away by the door, by those moss-grouted cobbles; and the blackies greet the dawn.

On the road down to the foreshore, which may be on the muddy side at times, there are surprises that creep up on you.  There has been scurrying across the path, before the concrete set, furred rather than feathered.  After the concrete comes the mud.  It is good mud; the type that should be felt between the toes; Welsh mud.  Standing Stones emerge, and after you cross the rail line, a palm tree leaves you wondering.  Wondering where it came from, among the gorse hedging, a distance from the road or the farm.

On the beach there may be cormorants, drying their wings, and a turnstone pondering the ripples round the rock.  And all around there are mountains; rugged; and jagged.  Old.  A vanilla ice at Cadwaladers may set you up for the walk back to the house, though, it has be said, it is clear that the Italian community of the West of Scotland may have by-passed Wales on their travels.  Good, yes, but not quite.

There is a rich black Welsh stout too, and a dram, from Penderyn, which even a Scot with a taste for the Irish stuff might enjoy.  The whiskey and the stout, that is.  Welcoming, warming, enveloping.  Like Ty Newydd, in a bottle, or two.

But the house; the gathering.  Old friends, once strangers, meet up, bonded by a common thread and an experience shared, a special one.  Some return.  It is still there, the magic.  They all write about it, in their different ways.

And the house will pull them back again.

You can see more of these fine shots here, for they are not mine.  I stole them from Mr Hankey, and he knows it not, yet.  The Sleepy Sparrow will tell you more of the life outside the kitchen window than you will ever learn here.  Many of the books that fill the shelves may be talked about over at The Bike Shed, when Mark’s not blethering about eggs, or ugly pottery.  And he knows a turnstone when he sees one.

And the road home from Wales now, is calm, free of emotion this time.  For I know it is a one-way journey no more.

More film footage

It’s the next instalment in the adventures of Duggy Dug, from Newsnet Scotland.  Enjoy:

And there’s more for film fans.  I mentioned earlier those goodly chaps behind the excellent Fear Factor series, crowd-funding for a longer venture for early 2014, a vital part of the ongoing debate.  So if you haven’t already done so, throw a few shillings into the virtual bucket.  There’s only a few days left to reach the required target.

And just whilst we’re on the subject of movies, here’s 30 seconds with Elaine C Smith: