Getting on with my life and thinking about things.
Based in Aberdeen, Scotland.
Reached 200 within 72hrs
CLOSED at 2,017
APRES CLOSE: 2,021
Following on from earlier, here are some more photos from my visit to the Callanish Standing Stones on New Year’s Eve 2009. The weather lightened up and so I decided to risk the roads. My parents had a HOST guest staying, Zhe, from China, so we did the ‘circular’.
Yup, the 4,000 year old stones are still a useful shelter.
More to follow when I next get some time to myself.
I’m still around, just up to my eyes with other things – work, wargames, and women. Okay, so two out of three ain’t bad.
Here’s a dodgy photo from my Christmas break at my parents. The Callanish standing stones in the snow on the Isle of Lewis. When I get some time, I’ll do a catch-up post of my un-exciting life.
I haven’t visited the US National Archives site for a few years (not since doing some research), so I was pleased to see that they have a YouTube channel.
I’ll catch up with this one in the morning.
I’ll be having some biscuits later today.
Ignoring some of the inane comments on YouTube, SmileyNoir’s posted a good photostory set to The Pogues’ music. It is good to remember the dead, to look into their eyes in photographs, to steal a glimpse into their lives – maybe it curbs the hindsight, adds to the empathy, and makes us wonder how we would cope. Whilst our squaddies fight in different parts of the world, we squabble over getting cut up by some idiot trying to get to a meeting a few seconds earlier, or neighbours throwing shopping trollies over the fence, or shout at the tv when some prat tells us that Ghurkhas don’t deserve to live in a country that they have fought to protect.
Maybe old photographs let us civvies get things into perspective, and think that our lot in life could be far worse. Maybe it shows that some things haven’t changed much. Maybe we could live better lives, and give the dead more meaning. We stand on the shoulders of giants. Do something worthy of their passing.
One of the books I got in the excellent Ullapool Book Shop yesterday was the "Kingdom of the Isles:Scotland’s Western Seaboard, 1100–1336" by R. Andrew McDonald. I noticed that, once more, it was a book from the publishers, Birlinn. Rather appropriately, it features a birlinn on the cover, as seen on the right of the carving.
Sholto of Scheltrum Miniatures has been modelling some birlinn, and some of us at the club are talking about a "Lord of the Isles” campaign. It should be fun, and give us clansmen a bit of personal background to research.
Seeing the glint of Confederate bayonets concealed in the Cornfield, Hooker halted his infantry and brought up four batteries of artillery, which fired shell and canister over the heads of the Federal infantry, covering the field. The artillery and rifle fire from both sides acted like a scythe, cutting down cornstalks and men alike.
Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Antietam
More information: http://www.brotherswar.com/Antietam-3.htm
The lighting was poor, but at least the rain hadn’t come to anything. With dSLR in pack, I dodged round the growing crowds before 11am on a Sunday morning in Aberdeen. Yesterday’s recon had paid off and I could go from shot to shot with minimal fuss, and concentrate on the image in hand.
The Market Cross
Aberdeen Savings Bank (in 1860), Exchange Street
Denburn Valley. The original image can be found here on Scran. Scran notes: At the right is Belmont Congregational Church opened in 1865, and now closed. The church with the brick spire is known today as the Triple Kirks - Albion and St Paul's and East and Belmont Churches. Most of the building has now been demolished although the spire remains.
Bridge Street junction had changed so much that I selected an image that showed motion, even managing a seagull plonked on the top of the old King’s head as people stand around.
I dropped the Castle Street view, and Union Terrace Gardens had changed too much to recognise.
Post-production: RawShooter.
A bitter dispute ensued, until the mission house furniture and the missionary’s cow were burnt and twelve hens belonging to a Lemreway resident who had sided with the missionary were decapitated. Later a bull in the village died in mysterious circumstances...
Need a location map? Click here.
I think the tie still fits me.
Under the terms of the Geneva Convention, I am not permitted to show old photos of other people. So a lady I knew from the 1980’s was comically upset when I sent her a photo of her from 1985. So just to cheer you up, here’s one of me, fresh out of college, having finally graduated, and threatening Aberdeen Council with court action.
I’ve been having a dabble with Picasa 3 from Google to see if it is worth recommending for work.
A prince can mak a belted knight,
A marquis, duke, an' a' that;
But an honest man's abon his might,
Gude faith, he maunna fa' that!
For a' that, an' a' that,
Their dignities an' a' that;
The pith o' sense, an' pride o' worth,
Are higher rank than a' that.
Then let us pray that come it may,
(As come it will for a' that,)
That Sense and Worth, o'er a' the earth,
Shall bear the gree, an' a' that.
For a' that, an' a' that,
It's coming yet for a' that,
That Man to Man, the world o'er,
Shall brothers be for a' that.
Extract from Robert Burns’ "A Man's A Man For A' That" (1795) (source)
==
Do I need to write why this song has come to mean more to me over the years? A revolutionary work. For a’ that. A levelling piece. An’ a that. Words that resonate the world o’er through distant Vacana and speeches in lands that had newly gained their freedom in his lifetime. So have gude faith and read and think and ponder and re-interpret one Man’s work today, on his 250th birthday. That a mere farmer, born near to where I was born, wrote words that still echo through the centuries holding their truths to be self evident. Many still wish harm on the taxman, or the lad on the pull, or the squaddie’s love. And what about the age old dilemma?
Happy birthday, Mr Burns.
If you had difficulty with the Scots words, here’s a clip featuring Paola Nutini.
There was a very good programme on tonight about the Iolaire Disaster of New Year’s Day 1919. A horrific sinking of a boat packed with sailors coming home after the end of the Great War. 205 men, fathers, sons and brothers were killed. 80 survived.
It was a touching piece, and there is a website to investigate across bbc.co.uk/alba/tbh/iolaire/
To give some idea of the losses – between 1914 and 1918, the village of Leurbost lost 18 men (according to the memorial inscription listed by the North Lochs Historical Society). In addition to that, 11 were lost when the Iolaire hit the rocks at the entrance to Stornoway harbour. One poor soul’s body was found within sight of his house in Sandwick.
The programme discussed the impact that it had on those widows and families left behind. One girl had her Gaelic name changed to remove her father from it.
I go past it most times that I travel home. The sun sometimes marks the spot. (Maplink)
Have a look at the website. It doesn’t matter if you don’t speak Gaelic. They have video clips of the Iolaire sailing, interviews with the families and some historical ones of the survivors. Have a look at the faces of the departed, and you’ll see the same faces on many streets in Scotland, or Canada, or Australia or the myriad places we have diasporad to.
---
Footnote: The full, subtitled, programme isn’t being shown on the iPlayer, and the original showing on BBC Alba is now unavailable.
A couple of years back, when I started pulling together some of my family history, the local historical societies on Lewis mentioned that they were pooling resources for posting to the Internet.
A couple of days back, one of my brothers pointed me to this site: hebrideanconnections.com
It seems that what was talked about has now happened.
Looking for MacLeod's in Pairc returns 2117 results. Or I could go and try and fix the washing machine. Hmm, you can also search by location, and it cross-references the data back. Nice database. Oooh, even by fishing boat (there's the island culture showing through), and so the cycle is complete and the source of my middle name revealed in a few dabbling clicks.
Much kudos to those involved.
The US Geological Survey is scanning and posting some of their old photos. It might not sound exciting, but …
Even the opening page has a photo of Main street in Cheyenne. Laramie County, Wyoming. 1869.
http://libraryphoto.cr.usgs.gov/
The section on pioneer photographers lists some of the expeditions, not only photographing landscape features, but locals too. E.g., Apache Lake in 1873, with 2 Apache scouts in the foreground (I love the look on their faces):
http://libraryphoto.cr.usgs.gov/cgi-bin/show_picture.cgi?ID=ID.%20Wheeler%201873,%20%203
I picked up this site from the Goat's newsfeed. Thanks.
No doubt there are more hidden gems in there, but I must get on with some paperwork.
Holding the video camera as my Dad drives and Mum narrates. She's had a request to send a video to a relative in Australia.
Maplink
List of online newspaper archives. I found this list by accident when trying to find out about the NY Times archive project.
Saturday, 22nd November 1862. "The New South" newspaper from Port Royal, South Carolina. Kindly hosted by the University of South Carolina. link
I thought it strange that a South Carolina paper seemed to be focused on the Northern news. A quick search finds that although the state was the first to secede from the Union in 1861, Port Royal was captured by the USA in November 1861 (link). Completing my circular search, Captain Cannon of the steamer Delaware also received a mention earlier in 1862 in the NY Times (pdflink).
The closing lines of the soldier's poem on page 1 hold true today as back then. They strike me hard when I think of our squaddies getting abuse for REMF politics. No doubt it has been true since dawn's early light. At the Roman Wall, a squaddy asked for socks to be sent. Empathy across the ages. History is important. Social networking isn't limited to the living, but to the lessons from the dead too.
I'm off to catch up with over 150-years of newspapers from around the world.
A quick 13-hour round trip to Edinburgh to catch up with an old University pal.
Don't get me started on the tartan-invasion of the non-Highland Edinburgh - and he started it!
That's what a castle should look like - big, imposing and standing on an extinct volcano.
Faith, revolution, and economics. The roots of the English Civil Wars can be found in St Giles Cathedral whilst Adam Smith turns his back on the church.
I went on to the Syrup WordPress theme site to let the author, Nick, know about BG!'s problem. He's blocked from the site for "spamming", and so can't inform the author as his one point of contact (an online form) is on the site that he's blocked from. Yeah, kinda sodding stupid, 19th-century methodology, but it's Wordpress, so I really don't care.
Anyway, I leave a comment on the board. It spends ages failing to process the comment. So I find the guy's email form and send a message through with BG!'s details.
Later I check back to find that: You have been blacklisted from the website for spamming.
Here's the address, why don't you go and have a laugh. http://www.pancak.es/category/themes/
The email page is at http://www.pancak.es/contact-me/ - and like BG!, I'm now banned from it for spamming.
Like I said, I don't use WordPress, so it's no skin off my nose.
The guy's stoopid software must do it by IP address rather than cookie, as I've just tried it with another browser, and I'm still being defamed as a spammer there (ooh, I wonder what the chance is of a no win, no fee case?).
Killed connection and logged back in again, and opened 3rd browser (IE), which fails to load the site, and logs it as:
This error (HTTP 500 Internal Server Error) means that the website you are visiting had a server problem which prevented the webpage from displaying.
Safari still wrongfully knocks on my door in the middle of the night and calls me a spammer. IE crashes as I load a few WordPress help pages. Which was why I relegate IE to my 3rd browser.
Anyway, if it was me, I'd lose the theme and go for something with customer support, where you aren't accused of anti-social behaviour by some stoopid defence mechanism, and stop worrying about it. Life's too short for this nonsense.
Here's something more thought-provoking from Spain: They Still Draw Pictures (Spain 1938). Sadly, something that kids probably still do in conflicts throughout the world today. There are more important things to discover and ponder.
May all be well and happy.
Following up a link from Chasrle's blog, I end up at a blog adventureblog.visitscotland.com packed with exciting reports about adventuresome times in Scotland. I read about mountain biking in the Castle Grounds, some canoeing with a guy who lives down the road from my folks (who's surname is familiar from my school days). All fun, until I thought about it - or rather, about the authors - here's the list: adventureblog.visitscotland.com/about
They are all running their own businesses. Yup, the blog is a wee advert for their company. More power to their elbow, but is it really any different from, say, the BBC Scotland's "Adventure Show" or Radio Scotland's "Out of Doors", where they regularly promote private businesses. They can't help but do this.
In this case, VisitScotland.com is partly owned by VisitScotland.org - which is the national tourist board. Obviously the similarities in name are purely coincidental, as the .com business is partly funded three private companies as well as the .org body.
I'm sure all the funding is above board and my taxes aren't paying for anything that a private business should be paying for themselves. In the meantime, I'm off to have a look at scottishviewpoint.com and see if the same is true there. Lessee how this works - my taxes paid for the photographs used in VisitScotland (excluding those paid for by the private investors), which are now being hosted on a private site, where I (a taxpayer) can buy them... strangely, allwhois.com lists the registrar as Tucows Inc. No mention of a Scottish government body (in part or whole). Hey ho. Nice photos, whoever is making money from them.
I think this gets filed under "transparency". Maybe a quick call from Big Eck will sort it all out?
ps - I had to laugh when I noticed that folk know so little about Scottish history that they used the text from the Rough Guide (accredited on the site). I'd have thought that somewhere in all the ScotGov departments, my taxes would have already paid someone to have written articles on Scottish history without having to pay an outside agency for permission. Here's a famous extract from Scottish History. 100% accurate too.
Robert Burns, born 249 years ago; and with 11 months left to go until Christmas.
Here's an extract from the Bard:
"Look not alone on youthful prime,
Or manhood's active might;
Man then is useful to his kind,
Supported in his right:
But see him on the edge of life,
With cares and sorrows worn;
Then Age and Want-oh! ill-match'd pair-
Shew man was made to mourn.
