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Off-topic

Posted on January 02, 1968 by

For off-topic chat. Duh.

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40330 to “Off-topic”

  1. Tinto Chiel
    Ignored
    says:

    I could see Big Ronnie in such a suit and biking it along that road but since the skein of geese is obvs. CGI, I suspect the latter.

    I like the detail of the gear change as the hoof slips off.

    Mmmmmmm………

    Not so sure now.

  2. Dan
    Ignored
    says:

    @ Tinto

    Good timing posting that coo vid! Just for you I will try to find that spot tomorrow on a motorbike run. 🙂

  3. Dan
    Ignored
    says:

    Apparently the coo vid is on the north side of Kingshouse at Covis.
    Whilst on the south side of Kingshouse is the James Bond Skyfall Road.

  4. Tinto Chiel
    Ignored
    says:

    As Dan says, it’s the wee road behind the Kingshouse hotel, near the Glen Etive turn off. Look out for the bridge with the curved superstructure.

    Looks like a fine day for the bike: safe journey.

  5. Dan
    Ignored
    says:

    Frost clearing, sun’s oot and big blue skies for the cruise. 🙂

    Pre-ride checks complete…

    Public Service Broadcast – Go!

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BHIo6qwJarI

    Motorcycle – As The Rush Comes

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FGH8rnraxoE

    Steppen Wolf – Born To Be Wild

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=egMWlD3fLJ8

  6. Tinto Chiel
    Ignored
    says:

    Bet Da Rev likes “As The Rush Comes” too, mad raver that he is.

    And if you’re stepping on the wolf, surely this would also be appropriate: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eGkGNCUQtWY

  7. Tinto Chiel
    Ignored
    says:

    But never ride pillion with a biker who likes this one:

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P3Y8OWkiUts

    Apologies @ Dan: for some reason I thought it was BDTT going on the road this morning hence my “As Dan says…” remark.

  8. Dan
    Ignored
    says:

    Great success! Jist home after hunners o’ miles in the saddle.

  9. Brian Doonthetoon
    Ignored
    says:

    Dan’s pic from the video location, earlier today.

    https://i.imgur.com/fEaaXm5.jpg

  10. Brian Doonthetoon
    Ignored
    says:

    Dan’s pal’s pic from the video location, different angle.

    https://i.imgur.com/XUllRYO.jpg

  11. Dan
    Ignored
    says:

    Cheers for posting pics Brian.
    Chillin’ oot noo and enjoying the natural high that comes with a glass or twa of grape derived vino rouge, and to keep me hydrated some complimentary water I collected from the the river Etive at the end of the Jimmy Bond Skyfall road. The H2O tastes michty braw. Just hope none of the kayakers running the waterfall upstream were coked / doped / shroomed up and pissing in the water… 🙂

  12. Tinto Chiel
    Ignored
    says:

    @BDTT 7.47:braw, Crèise and BEM in the one shot via Dan Da Man.

    @Dan : meant to warn you re kayakers and their camper vans on the road to Loch Etive. Even I got pissed off with them in my evil Passat diesel last October. At least you got home safe.

  13. Brian Doonthetoon
    Ignored
    says:

    Yi know how most campervans/motorhomes are van-based?

    I saw one today that had a lorry front end. First I’ve ever seen. Onnyhoo, gonna be spending my April holiday attaching the stuff that I have in storage, to my wee Berlingo Romahome.

    Like the reversing sensors, reverse camera/mirror, two-tone horn, extra leisure battery, 240v inverter (to power a microwave), solar panels and so on.
    I wonder how many of these jobs will be completed?

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LIMCUL6f2Kw

  14. Brian Doonthetoon
    Ignored
    says:

    When I was, successfully, being educated towards my English Higher, our teacher, Mr Kippen, had a number of language philosophies.

    The one that has remained with me is that you should rarely have to use get/got or any of its derivatives in a sentence. He opined that the use of get/got was (I paraphrase) ‘clunky’, ie, inelegant and superfluous.

    You can say, ‘I got soaked’ or ‘I was soaked’.

    ‘Let’s see what we have got’. ‘Let’s see what we have’.

    I would love for Alexander Armstrong to proceed through an episode of ‘Pointless’ without using get/got or any of its derivatives. He is SO guilty!

  15. Tinto Chiel
    Ignored
    says:

    “He is SO guilty!”

    Indeed, of offences against singing. Yon Posh Boy can get stuffed 😉 .

    A few Christmasses ago I was in the queue at the supermarket and the woman in front of me with a full trolley had problems paying with her card. Eventually the payment went through but she then saw a pile of AA’s Christmas Album beside the till, so we had to endure another few minutes of payment delay, while she footered about.

    As she toddled off and I took her place the till-lady said, “All that fuss over a crap CD!”

    I rest my case.

  16. Brian Doonthetoon
    Ignored
    says:

    Typing about ‘singers’…

    This guy is one of my favourites. In the early 80s, whilst at a job in North Shields, on the way back home, I took a detour to visit Whitley Bay – couldn’t find the social club though…

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iHRB3Hy0Xu0

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Icd0A0FkSUE

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lW9prrFtr0k

  17. Brian Doonthetoon
    Ignored
    says:

    Whilst watching the videos linked to above, this one was a follow-on.

    Kinda appropriate for the royal shenanigans on 6th May. I’ll miss them – joining the march to Glasgow Green at George Square, then the rest of the afternoon at Glasgow Green. Then Wingers congregating at The Clutha.

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DozVCWKf0ns

  18. Tinto Chiel
    Ignored
    says:

    Good chish and fips (and crazy golf) in Whitley Bay IIRC.

    Been musing deeply about putting our faith in supposedly charismatic politicians to lead us to the promised land and have ended up sympathising with these naughty boys:

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2B4bsqYxwo0

  19. Brian Doonthetoon
    Ignored
    says:

    RE: The Stranglers.

    This cover always reminds me of the long version on ‘Light My Fire’ by The Doors. I think it’s the keyboard work and the way the whole thing is put together.

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4wynfnKBHR8

    The Doors…

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_g_tuOS-iZ4

  20. Brian Doonthetoon
    Ignored
    says:

    long version OF ‘Light My Fire’!

  21. Tinto Chiel
    Ignored
    says:

    Although I don’t think Dionne Warwick has aged particularly well in that vid, Dave Greenfield was always a mean keyboard player and I hear what you mean about similarities between the two tracks.

    Always loved the the wonderfully souped-up Bach twiddly bit (technical term) at the start and end of The Doors’ track.

  22. Tinto Chiel
    Ignored
    says:

    Twiddlybits à gogo here in this amazing piece by Rameau:

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1iuDjH86l8A

    Wonderful technique from JT, a young man who actually seems to enjoy playing music.

  23. Brian Doonthetoon
    Ignored
    says:

    Aye, he can play!

  24. Tinto Chiel
    Ignored
    says:

    Fanks, Brian, for taking the trouble to find the English bit. I’d given my comment up as I thought it was probably at the string’s dead end.

    Bonus track: Burns’ last poem, sung bravely a cappella by Mr Paterson.

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wkmfQcbE7x0

  25. Brian Doonthetoon
    Ignored
    says:

    Inspired by one of the questions on Pointless a couple of days ago, a little heard (now) Bee Gees single from 1967.
    Fine use of mellotron in this. Piano and mellotron work so well together.

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wc2hq3vbO7w

  26. Michael McCabe
    Ignored
    says:

    Just popping in to say hello. ?

  27. Brian Doonthetoon
    Ignored
    says:

    You’ve been keeping a low profile!

  28. Brian Doonthetoon
    Ignored
    says:

    I’ve been watching this over the past few days –

    https://player.stv.tv/summary/six-four

    Rather enjoyed it. The primary plot is looking at a cold case missing person case.
    There is a secondary plot, involving the investigator’s daughter, who is also missing. Then another (high profile) girl goes missing from a private school.
    However the trailer mention that got me watching it involves allegations of infiltration of the SNP by MI5.
    It is set mainly in Glasgow and Galloway, with a wee detour to London. And James Cosmo plays a central character in it.
    4 episodes, each around 46 minutes. Recommended.

  29. Tinto Chiel
    Ignored
    says:

    Some of the house scenes from Six Four were shot not far from me. The external scenes for the execrable Two Doors Down are also shot in the area.

    Walked up and down waiting to be discovered but zilch.

    “Ready for my close-up, Mr DeMille!”

  30. Brian Doonthetoon
    Ignored
    says:

    So, you could have been famous in your own lunchtime?

  31. Brian Doonthetoon
    Ignored
    says:

    My claim to fame is that, once upon a time, I regularly occupied Julie Andrews’ bed.

  32. Tinto Chiel
    Ignored
    says:

    Stop teasing and start telling.

  33. Brian Doonthetoon
    Ignored
    says:

    Hi TC.
    Up until I was 8 years old, my family lived in a 2 bedroom flat (with only a toilet and kitchen) on the second floor of a tenement in Nethergate. My maternal granny had a large front corner flat on the top floor in the same closie.
    The building was around 250 yards from The Palace Theatre. My Granny was what was known as a ‘theatrical landlady’, as she had many lodgers among the ‘turns’ who were on at The Palace.
    Julie Andrews’ parents had a music hall act and appeared now and again at The Palace. They had a young Julie with them. This would have been late 40s/early to mid 50s.
    Julie slept in a solid (iron?) bedstead.
    When my family moved to a 3 bedroom house in St Marys, Granny donated some furniture to furnish the extra bedroom, including the iron bedstead, which my brother and I shared for years, until we got bunk beds.
    So there!

  34. Tinto Chiel
    Ignored
    says:

    Och, Brian, I confess I’m a bit disappointed. I’d visualised some steamy convergence of the twain after one of your Broughty Ferry gigs.

    I always knew dear Julie was too good for this world 😉 .

  35. Brian Doonthetoon
    Ignored
    says:

    This quirky wee song was hidden away as the last track on side 2 of the LP.

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cN_11ik9bOM

  36. Tinto Chiel
    Ignored
    says:

    Sounds like Chas and Dave on absinthe.

    Oh, BDTT, where did it all go wrong?

  37. Brian Doonthetoon
    Ignored
    says:

    I’ve known of PP Arnold for dunkies, but had never seen a pic or video of her.

    Came across this video a few days ago. Thing is, I remember seeing the band doing this with Madeleine Bell on TOTP. This one was new to me.

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i0NTI14Pu2U

    And, to remind yooz of her own better known offerings…

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wchEYeJw7E0

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ujeUrXWJXBY

  38. Brian Doonthetoon
    Ignored
    says:

    The past few minutes, I’ve been reflecting on my ‘social interaction’.

    I reckon that around 80% of it is online, with a 70/30 split WOS/Facebook.
    Of the other 20%, I reckon around 18% is at work and the other 2% is face to face, away from work, like speaking to peeps on the bus or whatever.

    Don’t know what it means, or if it is typical of modern society.

    So here’s a UK Eurovision entry from back in the day, that I remember from the time.

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gQSncOYk-Cs

    And while I’m on a nostalgia kick, back in the late 50s/early 60s, we regularly visited my Mum’s cousin in Glasgow. She lived in Riddrie.
    My treat was when she took us to a wee cafe on Alexandra Parade for ice cream, and let me choose something from the jukebox. This was my choice.

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mWPnnY_BrMQ

  39. Tinto Chiel
    Ignored
    says:

    PPA had a great voice. I’ve seen that vid of her singing with The Small Faces before and she was pretty good, although it’s not really her style. Smallaxe had a lot of time for Steve M.

    Cripes! The Allisons! Playing live must have been nerve-racking for them.

    My brother had lots of Buddy Holly and Little Richard and I used to listen to his record collection when he was out: a strange mixture of stuff at times, like King Oliver and Lu Watters’ Yerba Buena Jazz Band (Tiger Rag, etc). My most memorable discovery was “I Feel Free” by Cream: it sounded like nothing else at the time. The B-Side was NSU. I remember thinking, “Why are they singing about a German motor car?” Ah, the innocence of youth……

    Meanwhile, in other news, was told at the game on Saturday that the ospreys have arrived on the Clyde in Lanarkshire.

    Yahaaaaay!

  40. Tinto Chiel
    Ignored
    says:

    The offending track: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tsrmxWcodd0

    I find it difficult to post more than one link at a time here.

  41. Brian Doonthetoon
    Ignored
    says:

    I always liked this one from another of their LPs.

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sYIg61FTi5s

  42. Brian Doonthetoon
    Ignored
    says:

    BTW: Ive found that there is a limit of 4 links in a comment.

  43. Marie Clark
    Ignored
    says:

    My goodness Brian, that’s a fair walk down memory lane you’ve been giving us these past couple of nights. Ah, the Allison’s. I remember it well, I must have been about 13 at the time. Wonder where all the years went.

    Hi Tinto, what a shame we never got to see your acting debut, Mr De Mille has a lot to answer for.

    Hope that you and yours are all well guys.

  44. Brian Doonthetoon
    Ignored
    says:

    Och, Marie, sumbdee’s gotta keep ‘off topic’ active. Tinto and I seem to be bearing the weight.
    So, I will offer this to all Wingers,

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qBXyjD9P-Qc

  45. Marie Clark
    Ignored
    says:

    Wiz that no the white heather club song that opened the show. Good grief I’m giein ma age awa noo, but I never claimed to be a young one.

  46. Tinto Chiel
    Ignored
    says:

    Hi, Marie. I coulda been a contender……

    ‘Twas not to be, unfortunately, so I had to fall back on my dancing (literally 🙂 ).

    Yes, it’s pretty much only BDTT and I on here. We should really just cut out the middle-man and exchange e-mail addresses. Most O/T stuff ends up on the M/T anyway.

    AOK here so hope the same with you and the fambly. Might be Indy marching season again soo.

  47. Brian Doonthetoon
    Ignored
    says:

    Here’s another couple that you don’t hear so often on the radio these days…

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8Vxq-Ilf17I

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=54Ya9RgEaaQ

    Och one more, one of my favourites from my teenage years, which I have linked to before, because Greg Lake was involved…

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5TyGsJpRoqw

  48. Tinto Chiel
    Ignored
    says:

    The last one was very WSoP-y. Bet Shy Limbs would feature in one of those Rock Family Tree diagrams they used to do on the telly.

    Don’t remember any of those tracks.

    Gets worse every day 🙂

  49. Brian Doonthetoon
    Ignored
    says:

    What is “WSoP-y”?

  50. Brian Doonthetoon
    Ignored
    says:

    BTH: made an @rse of my comment at 11.06.

    Repetition of links unintended.

    Try this as the third…

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ECOthzFvUXY

  51. Tinto Chiel
    Ignored
    says:

    Whiter Shade of Pale.

    What a big softy you are, BDTT. They certainly come from a more innocent time.

    Presumably we’ll still be able to listen to them when we’re locked up in our 15 Minute Cities to save the planet.

  52. Tinto Chiel
    Ignored
    says:

    No.1: Why? Why? Why?

    Aaaaaaargh!

    The others?

    Carry on!

  53. Brian Doonthetoon
    Ignored
    says:

    Hi TC.

    No 1…

    I was only 8. I find it rather twee and dire now that I am no longer 8.

    Try these…

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZntYBFyuZd4

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WOUtLPR43E8

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o8tMGdUrpLw

  54. Brian Doonthetoon
    Ignored
    says:

    Here’s a question for you – which two names connect these three bands?

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dnqxbdnzlhw

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eQluGs2SFRs

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0uiIxAUmPMA

  55. Marie Clark
    Ignored
    says:

    Haud oan a meenit Brian, what on earth are you trying to do ta an auld wumman.

    It’s All Over Now I remember buying it, 6/8d it cost me. AC DC yass, had me up bopping aboot, which is no guid for me as I had just finished eating my tea, I’ll need to sit down now.

    A memory lane is a great place. I’m with Tinto, Brian Johnstone, really! It’s that auld it’s got whiskers on it.

    Good man yourself Brian, feel free to keep us going, and thank you, fair brightened up my day.

  56. Brian Doonthetoon
    Ignored
    says:

    Hi Marie.

    Singles seemed to stay at 6/8d for years! I remember buying a Simon & Garfunkel EP (Mrs Robinson +3 tracks) around 1968/9 in Montrose and it was 12 Bob or thereaboots.

    Did you work out the two names connection to the three bands?

    BTW: these were also in the UK charts in 1960. Not quite Bryan Johnson, iye?

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n327ncoU_ZU

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2izTbEyxg0A

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E3meEmDpaDU

  57. Brian Doonthetoon
    Ignored
    says:

    Hi Marie.

    July 1964. “House of the Rising Sun” was at number 1, when I left Dundee for a week at BB camp, near Aberfeldy.
    Returned to Dundee a week later to find HOTRS at #2 and “It’s All Over Now” at #1.

  58. Tinto Chiel
    Ignored
    says:

    Your 11.48s: all acceptable.

    Not a clue about your quiz but the AC/DC vid was much better quality than others I have seen of the Melbourne gig.

    I see you have just posted another one. I will muse thereon……

    Marie: hope you have recovered from your impromptu bop. God knows what BDTT has planned for us tomorrow.

    The Archies?

  59. Marie Clark
    Ignored
    says:

    Sorry Brian, I never had a go at answering your question, I got sidetracked by his Bonness and AC/DC. I think it might be George Young and Stevie Young. George older brother of Malcolm and Angus. Stevie young nephew. Was George no Stevie’s da?

    Ah Johnny Kidd and the Pirates, saw them many a long year ago in Paisley toon hall. I think the Hollies were on the bill that night as well. In case you wonder what I was doing in Paisley, I was born and brought up there. Only moved to Dumfries and Galloway when I married a farmer. Used to skate to Apache at the ice rink, Running Bear was always it’s own source of rude amusement among the boys.

    Man I’m really beginning to feel auld noo looking back. Ah happy days.

  60. Tinto Chiel
    Ignored
    says:

    @Marie: yes, Running Bear/Bare did offer some amusement amongst the boys, like “I used to kiss her on the lips but it’s all over now.” 🙂

  61. Tinto Chiel
    Ignored
    says:

    My brother had this played at his funeral: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WLMK9-Ns-TY

    @Marie:”Ye dancin’?”

    Somewhat infectious, what?

  62. Marie Clark
    Ignored
    says:

    Are ye askin Tinto? Aye am dancin’ The local group used to play that on a Thursday and Sunday night at the youth club, used to be great fun jivin tae it.

    I really need to remember am no a young yin ony mair, but I just love to dance, as you well know.

    Cheers.

  63. Brian Doonthetoon
    Ignored
    says:

    Hi TC.

    An individual choice. Funnily enough, I was typing about funeral music with my god-daughter on Facebook Messenger during the week.

    For my funeral, the entry and exit music will be,

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WulAWn_N_O0.

    In the middle, will be,

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JVKAH5IQIa8

    and, if there’s time,

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QZh4GMr4rEU

    coz my Mum sang that to me regularly when I was a bairn – and took me to the Palace Theatre to see Robert Wilson on many occasions.

    I’ll post about the two names in a wee whiley.

  64. Tinto Chiel
    Ignored
    says:

    I’m pure asking but I think I put my back out reaching for my laptop.

    Ooh, missus!

  65. Brian Doonthetoon
    Ignored
    says:

    The two names are Harry Vanda and George Young. (A fair bit of copy/paste here.)

    George Redburn Young (6 November 1946 – 22 October 2017) was an Australian musician, songwriter and record producer. He was a founding member of the bands the Easybeats and Flash and the Pan, and was one-half of the songwriting and production duo Vanda & Young with his long-time musical collaborator Harry Vanda.

    Born in Scotland, Young moved to Australia with his family as a teenager, and became a naturalised citizen.[when?] He was a member of the 1960s Australian rock band the Easybeats, and co-wrote with bandmate Harry Vanda the international hits “Friday on My Mind” and “Love Is in the Air”, the latter recorded by John Paul Young (who is unrelated). Vanda and Young were also the producers of early work by the Australian hard rock band AC/DC, formed by his younger brothers Malcolm and Angus Young. Vanda & Young were inducted into the ARIA Hall of Fame in 1988 and the Easybeats were inducted in 2005.

    and

    The ‘big freeze’ of 1962–63 was the worst winter on record in Scotland, with snow eight feet deep.[3] A TV advertisement at the same time offered assisted travel for families for a different life in Australia.[3] Fifteen members of the Young family left Scotland by aeroplane in late June 1963,[3] including William’s fifth son, George, and younger sons Malcolm (6 January 1953 – 18 November 2017) and Angus (born 31 March 1955).[2][3] Also aboard were George’s eldest brother Stephen (24 June 1933 – 1989) and his wife and two sons, one of whom was Stevie Young, who later joined AC/DC to replace his uncle, Malcolm Young), his only sister, Mrs Margaret Horsburgh (2 May 1935 – 2019) and her husband and son, and brother, William Jr (born 15 December 1940) and his wife.[4]:?6–7? Another elder brother, Alex (28 December 1938 – 4 August 1997), stayed in the UK, and was later a member of London-based group Grapefruit.[5]:?6–7? A final brother, John Young (born 17 May 1937), had migrated to Australia separately.

    and


    Initially staying at Villawood Migrant Hostel (a site later developed as Villawood Immigration Detention Centre) in Nissen huts, George Young met and became friends with another migrant, Harry Vanda.

    The quotes above are from,
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_Young_(rock_musician)

    Johannes Hendrikus Jacob van den Berg (born 22 March 1946), better known as his stage name Harry Vanda, is a Dutch Australian musician, songwriter and record producer. He is best known as lead guitarist of the 1960s Australian rock band the Easybeats who with fellow member George Young formed the 1970s and 1980s songwriting and record production duo Vanda & Young.
    Early life
    Vanda’s family migrated to Australia from the Netherlands in 1963,[1] and settled in Sydney. In the same year he met rhythm guitarist George Young at the Villawood migrant hostel. In 2007, Australian Musician magazine selected this meeting as the most significant event in Australian pop and rock music history.[2] Vanda, who had been a guitarist with the Hague-based band the Starfighters,[3] came to fame in 1964–65 as the lead guitarist of the Easybeats.

    and

    AC/DC included George Young’s brothers, guitarists Angus and Malcolm Young. Vanda & Young produced landmark albums such as Let There Be Rock, Powerage, If You Want Blood You’ve Got It, Dirty Deeds Done Dirt Cheap, High Voltage/TNT, amongst others.

    Vanda and Young also had major international success with their own studio-only project Flash and the Pan, achieving many hits round the world over a 15-year period, particularly in Europe where they had many chart topping records. Grace Jones had a hit with a cover of the Flash and the Pan song “Walking in the Rain”.

    These quotes from,
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harry_Vanda

    This song, by Vanda & Young, has been adopted as a kinda anthem by Dundee United supporters.

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NNC0kIzM1Fo

  66. Brian Doonthetoon
    Ignored
    says:

    So, the quotes above led me to Grapefruit, a band I’ve always liked.

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WAGp6f1E0Ws

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GyYOUdrvhbk

    When Pete the Camera and I set up our mobile disco at the end of 1975, we chose the title of this song as the name, because I was able to make a jingle out of the chorus.

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZxKIgJTO-bo

  67. Tinto Chiel
    Ignored
    says:

    Dear God, BDTT, you’re surely not thinking of checking out any time soon?

    I pure kennt you’d choose the Bruce March onnyhoo, ya big softy.

    In any case, you’ve interrupted Marie and me putting our hips out to Chuck.

    Re:AC/DC, I knew the fierce winter of 62/63 convinced their parents to emigrate to Australia. Being an EK boy, where we could snowball the Orange Walk in July, it seemed only slightly worse than the other winters of the time (I wasn’t around for the 1948 version).

  68. Brian Doonthetoon
    Ignored
    says:

    Hi TC.
    I believe I still have petrol in the tank but the carburettor sometimes clogs up. Have you seen the video of “aunties” going mad at the Bay City Rollers? It’s been retweeted to buggery this past week.

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mHgME-U-9wU

  69. Brian Doonthetoon
    Ignored
    says:

    During the 2020 lockdown, being furloughed from work, I had loadsa time on my hands.

    One thing I did, that was fascinating, was to go back to the original front page in ‘off-topic’, then work my way forward till I was up to date.

    If anyone else wants to delve…

    https://wingsoverscotland.com/off-topic/comment-page-1/

    Check out the usernames who have disappeared.

  70. Brian Doonthetoon
    Ignored
    says:

    I find myself in a nostalgic mood tonight.

    This song rings many bells. In my case, the canvas was the beach at East Haven, just north-east of Carnoustie.

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8MCUXitxbTA

    And this dates in memory, from the same relationship.

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fKYDCSjnAIU

    And from a ‘friendship’ in the 80s, whereby a female of the opposite gender referred to me by this name,

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JCKXxJRgVgc

    And to finish off, I’ve always found this version of the same song to have a certain charm.

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bey0Akd-nPc

  71. Ian Brotherhood
    Ignored
    says:

    Hi All,

    Just realised I can get in here without a big palaver – must be this new laptop.

    Just wanted to repeat a heads-up I’ve posted on the MT re this ’emergency test’ the UK Govt has organised for tomorrow, 3pm.

    All mobile phones will be activated with an ’emergency alert’. Ostensibly it’s to make us aware that we may be contacted in the case of some major crisis.

    Plenty of vids on Twitter etc about how to disable the alarms. It turns out they’re already on our phones.

    Did you know? I didn’t.

    If you have an i-phone, go to Settings, then Notifications, scroll to the very bottom and you’ll see two buttons which are already ‘ON’.

    Switch them both off and get your family/friends to do likewise.

    Hoots!

    😉

  72. Stoker
    Ignored
    says:

    Mark Stewart, Pop Group frontman and revered countercultural musician, dies aged 62 https://archive.is/zxxBa

  73. Tinto Chiel
    Ignored
    says:

    Welcome, Brother Brotherhood: take a seat around the campfire.

    @BDTT: you’re certainly in a nostalgic mood tonight, ya Big Softy.

    Try this for size: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UWKUkuv8KLU

    Off up Wood Hill to Bedfordshire, mes braves.

  74. Brian Doonthetoon
    Ignored
    says:

    Hi TC.

    The melody was fine but the lyrics escaped me.

  75. Brian Doonthetoon
    Ignored
    says:

    Hi TC.

    Thanks for that.

  76. Brian Doonthetoon
    Ignored
    says:

    If anyone wants to explore the music of St Andrew & The Woollen Mill, here’s a link…

    https://www.musical1.com/saint-andrew/uploaded_audio/1049/selina-oh-selina

  77. Tinto Chiel
    Ignored
    says:

    Exclusive advance warning of the 3 p.m. Alert:

    https://web.cs.dal.ca/~johnston/poetry/attention.html

  78. George Ferguson
    Ignored
    says:

    My eyes are deceiving me. Aberdeen are 2 nil up against the Rangers. What a tonic for Scottish Fitba.

  79. Brian Doonthetoon
    Ignored
    says:

    Aye, good result all round.

    In other news…
    I didn’t realise there was a tune to this wee childhood rhyme.

    https://www.musical1.com/saint-andrew/uploaded_audio/642/eech-meech

  80. Tinto Chiel
    Ignored
    says:

    Sheer filth, that, Brian 🙂 .

    I shall attempt to elevate the tone by announcing that a black-crowned night heron has been spotted on the Clyde near Motherwell. This is very unusual, since even sightings in England are not at all common.

    Saw it myself yestreen.

    That is all.

  81. Brian Doonthetoon
    Ignored
    says:

    I’ve always liked this. It just sprung into my mind for some reason.
    The lyrics are all French words or phrases that are commonly used in the English language.

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FTlmeBBFLXg

  82. Tinto Chiel
    Ignored
    says:

    Always worth hearing again. It has a certain je ne sais quoi 🙂 .

    Kenneth was gifted but troubled, innit? Always good in Round The Horne, too.

    Talking of which, my favourite RTH line of all was after a take-off of Brief Encounter with the clueless middle-class couple Charles and Fiona (Hugh Paddick and Betty Marsden).

    Kenneth Horne’s next line was, “Ah, they knew how to make films in those days, they just didn’t bother.”

    Marty Feldman was a very funny script-writer.

  83. PhilM
    Ignored
    says:

    I suppose some moderator or other might see this. I’m not posting it on the main page as O/T or on Craig’s page. I don’t want to be shot as the messenger of awkward news.
    There’s a guy on Craig Murray’s website, AC Bruce, who’s pointed out, unfortunately, that it looks like Craig cannot take his case to the Human Rights Committee because the UK has not ratified the First Optional Protocol to the ICCPR. The FOP allows individuals to take their own complaints to the Committee but if a country has not ratified it, it simply cannot be done.
    This test of ‘admissibility’ is so basic that I thought this guy cannot be right. In going over the details, I thought surely I must have made the same mistake but I checked numerous times and it seems to be the case. In Craig’s article he even gets some of the legal jargon wrong. The Protocol didn’t establish the Committee, the Covenant did.
    I am not attacking Craig or his team. Honest to God I’m not but I fear he’s made a pretty big error and he might need to think about closing his fundraising effort as soon as possible.
    I sincerely hope this guy AC Bruce is wrong but I think Craig might have to make a climbdown very quickly.

  84. Brian Doonthetoon
    Ignored
    says:

    Hi PhilM.

    ‘off-topic’ tends to be light-hearted.

    “quarantine” is maybe where this should have been posted.

    Jiss sayin’ like…

  85. Brian Doonthetoon
    Ignored
    says:

    Onnyhoo…

    TC, you mentioned Marty Feldman.

    For those who haven’t seen it, the link takes you to the original “4 Yorkshiremen” sketch from the 60s.

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VKHFZBUTA4k

  86. Tinto Chiel
    Ignored
    says:

    Think I saw that the first time on TV. Funny but I suspect a lot of Yorkshire folk were tearing their hair out at the attempts at their accent by the Southrons.

    More nonsense: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xDgWht6Fe5U

  87. Brian Doonthetoon
    Ignored
    says:

    Onnyhoo again…

    I tend to download ‘Pointless” so, tonight, I was watching an episode from a couple of days ago, which featured a contestant, originally from Orkney but now in Lancashire, called “Senga”.

    An interesting name.

    A “Senga” was one of our wee social group in the Palais in Dundee in the early 70s. Somebody told me that the name was invented by someone in Glasgow called “Agnes”, who thought that it sounded elderly so reversed it to make Senga, which sounded more exotic.

    Then, while typing this, I remembered that, a few weeks ago, I bought some paperbacks (4 for a pound) from a charity shop just up from my closie. Two were crime fiction (MY genre) and, to make up the numbers, a copy of “1984” (which I have never read) and a “Dictionary of First Names”.
    So I consulted the latter tome.
    It says,
    “Scottish first name that probably evolved from the Gaelic ‘seang’ (slender). Another theory links the name with AGNES, which it spells when read backwards.”

    So, I guess you choose which derivation suits your psyche – Gaelic or Glasgow reverse snobbery.

  88. Brian Doonthetoon
    Ignored
    says:

    And to follow on,

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jGNAHTDqhFc

  89. Tinto Chiel
    Ignored
    says:

    Hmmmmmmm……….

    *Consults Big Boys’ Book of Mediaeval Gaelic*

    Think I would go with the playful reversal. Lots of wee, bought council houses with the wrought-iron name Nia Roo beside the front door Where I Am.

    I rest my case.

    Supplementary: my paternal grandmother’s first name was Agnes. When upbraiding my uncle (who was still living at home at the time) for his questionable behaviour involving booze and women, she followed him into his bedroom to carry on her tirade.

    My uncle’s quick-thinking response to put an end to this tiresome moralising was to undo his trouser belt and reply, “I’ll drap them, Senga!”

    Problem solved.

    He was quite a card was Uncle Jim (a jack, obviously).

  90. Brian Doonthetoon
    Ignored
    says:

    John Fred & his Playboy Band released an album in 1967 called “Agnes English”.

    Here are two tracks from it.

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Uz9iM73c724

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wvQkzQart08

  91. Brian Doonthetoon
    Ignored
    says:

    In the early 70s, after I had left school, I had a get-together with a pal from school on Tuesday evenings, to play chess and listen to vinyl. His Mum made us rather fine toast and bacon and coffee for supper.

    He introduced me to this band’s first album so I immediately went out and bought the single. I don’t think it made the charts but it was a decent precursor of what was to come. The interesting thing about it is that the lead vocals have been done in at least two takes, because he comes in over himself. And Brian May built his guitar, with help from his Dad.

    So, that single, and another three tracks that defined the band.

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JofwEB9g1zg

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FxIo57WURRE

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ieXcPZC0MJk

    You can probably tell that I lost interest after “Sheer Heart Attack”, although I did like some subsequent singles.

  92. Tinto Chiel
    Ignored
    says:

    “You can probably tell that I lost interest after “Sheer Heart Attack”, although I did like some subsequent singles.”

    How so, pilgrim?

    SSoR was a teaker, soaanitwas.

  93. Brian Doonthetoon
    Ignored
    says:

    Hi TC.

    Maybe it was because they had become ‘not so niche’ as they had been previously.

    I don’t know; they just didn’t interest me as much as they had done. Still a fine band though.

  94. Tinto Chiel
    Ignored
    says:

    I suppose most bands become less edgy and innovative as they develop. Art School and weird Roxy Music eventually became a smoothed out Byron Ferrari tribute band, innit?

  95. Brian Doonthetoon
    Ignored
    says:

    This is probably in my top 3 favourite Roxy Music tracks. I didn’t even know of its existence until a punter asked for it at my Bowlin’ Alley residence, around 1977.
    I was able to get it as a 12″ single.

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rmr-ANvGswg

  96. Tinto Chiel
    Ignored
    says:

    Couldn’t get on to Wings in the last 24 hours and then my post here disappeared.

    Mebbe see you at GG on Saturday if you’re coming down.

  97. Tinto Chiel
    Ignored
    says:

    Not sure if my lovely carer and I will walk all the way. Will probs hing aboot The Green for a couple of hours but I have a vital cultural event in Motherwell to attend later at 1500hrs which I can’t pure ding-y.

    Moanly going to wave the saltire (Scottish maritime flag, actually) to annoy unionists/NuSNP and to hear what AS has to say.

  98. Brian Doonthetoon
    Ignored
    says:

    Hopefully, AS will be on stage early.

    I’ll probably hang around an Alba or Now Scotland or Yes Rutherglen stall.

  99. Marie Clark
    Ignored
    says:

    Hi guys, sorry I can’t be with you on the march tomorrow, but I’ll be with you in spirit. Good luck, I hope that there is a great turn out.

  100. Tinto Chiel
    Ignored
    says:

    @MC: wanted a dance with you on The Green, Miss Rogers, but I suppose BDTT (or even Breeks) will have to do (oh, my bunion!).

    All the best to you and yours.

  101. Brian Doonthetoon
    Ignored
    says:

    A bra’ day oot!

    See my comments on the main page from after 9pm.

  102. Tinto Chiel
    Ignored
    says:

    Saw them, BDTT. Seems we were standing close to you to the right of stage. Met no-one I knew from the Olden Days but was pleasantly surprised by the numbers.

    One bum note for me was the average age of the crowds. Seems the Young ‘Uns ain’t too keen on marching, which probs ain’t cool.

  103. Marie Clark
    Ignored
    says:

    Hi guys, glad you had a good day out. From the Photos it looks like a good number of people on the march which is quite heartwarming.

    Unhappily Brian, I can’t read your comment on the main page because for some reason I am unable to connect with it. I can read twitter but not the main blog. I was beginning to wonder if it was another DOS but it sounds as if it’s just me. Sigh, I fair miss getting my daily fix just now.

  104. Brian Doonthetoon
    Ignored
    says:

    Hi Marie Clark.

    Try this link.

    https://wingsoverscotland.com/orthodox-pete/#comment-2758516

  105. Marie Clark
    Ignored
    says:

    Hi Brian, thanks for the link, it worked a treat. Let me catch up with the MP as well.

    That was a great turn out, about 22,000 they reckon, YES seems to be ready to stand up and fight again. About time too.

    I see from the MP that I’m not the only ne having problems accessing the wings site, wonder what’s going on?

    Onywho Brian thanks again for the link. Sorry that you all got drookit. that’s Scottish weather for you. I was surprised when folk started saying how wet it was, we had a lovely sunny afternoon her in D&G. Hopefully will be able to make some of the other marches.

  106. Brian Doonthetoon
    Ignored
    says:

    I have Channel 5’s “Britain’s Favourite Party Songs” on as my aural wallpaper at the moment and it reminded me of the song linked to below.

    When I started playing this at the Bowlin’ Alley, the punters very soon created a dance where they formed up in lines across the dancefloor and sorta ‘skipped’ back and forward in time to the music.
    So, there could be 10+ lines, one behind the other, all moving back and forward in unison.
    I haven’t come across any reference to this phenomenon online.

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WbsPt2_efHA

  107. Tinto Chiel
    Ignored
    says:

    Mebbe try that at the next march?

  108. Matt Quinn
    Ignored
    says:

    It’s a 3d animation…

    https://untoldstudios.tv/advertising/virgin-media-8/

    Even I am impressed with it!

  109. Brian Doonthetoon
    Ignored
    says:

    Hi Matt Quinn.

    See this link and what follows. You’ll have to click on “Newer Comments” on that page to follow the conversation.

    https://wingsoverscotland.com/off-topic/comment-page-81/#comment-2750435

  110. Tinto Chiel
    Ignored
    says:

    @MQ: so that’s how they did it! Great stuff.

  111. Brian Doonthetoon
    Ignored
    says:

    This is an interesting story.

    Surprising Brain Activity Moments Before Death

    The link below is to page 1 of 2.

    https://www.medscape.com/viewarticle/991370?ecd=mkm_ret_230510_mscpmrk-OUS_ICYMI&uac=213066SX&impID=5412248&faf=1

  112. Tinto Chiel
    Ignored
    says:

    A very good friend of mine had an NDE, a classic one with most of the commonly experienced features. I’ve seen a study of these NDEs which discovered that low oxygen in the brain was not a factor in creating the peoples’ “memories”.

    The friend’s strongest emotion was anger at having to get back in the body and returning to the physical plane.

  113. Tinto Chiel
    Ignored
    says:

    “The people’s memories” I meant.

  114. Tinto Chiel
    Ignored
    says:

    And now for something completely different: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xF9ekmIB-aM

    It should be Muir of Huntershill, of course.

  115. Ian Brotherhood
    Ignored
    says:

    Hiya pals,

    Just popped in to say hello.

    That is all.

    🙂

  116. Tinto Chiel
    Ignored
    says:

    Where’s you bin?

  117. Brian Doonthetoon
    Ignored
    says:

    I posted this comment this afternoon on the, now, third oldest page. It was inspired by Mia and Ruby discussing (not only gender) self-ID.

    I’ve added one word to it.

    ” Brian Doonthetoon says:
    19 May, 2023 at 2:44 pm

    Hi Mia and Ruby.

    The blonde singer with Pickettywitch, Polly Brown, “browned up” as half of the duo Sweet Dreams in 1974.

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AdWh-V3Gwx8
    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CFgi7y8d_7U

  118. Tinto Chiel
    Ignored
    says:

    Like many a Tory politician, I do like a good thrash:

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SSbBvKaM6sk

  119. Brian Doonthetoon
    Ignored
    says:

    Well, that was a decent tune but any comment on the ‘self-ID’?

  120. Ian Brotherhood
    Ignored
    says:

    @Tinto –

    ‘Where’s you bin?’

    Is that from the un-PC joke about the Chinese rubbish collector, the punchline being ‘Okay, where’s your wheelie-bin?’

  121. Tinto Chiel
    Ignored
    says:

    @BDTT: my expensive lawyer has advised me to refrain from commenting on that topic (although I may self-ID as George Clooney to get a good restaurant table, etc).

    @Ian B: I can do worse than that.

    How to become an actress: stand in front of the fire until you’re Googie Withers.

    Eh thank yow….

  122. JGedd
    Ignored
    says:

    I mistakenly posted this on another thread when I meant to post this here. ( I shouldn’t post when I’m busy doing other things. Women are good at multi-tasking? That’s another myth busted.)

    Does anyone remember the title of the Wings article that listed the MSPs who voted for the GRR legislation? I want to check if it highlighted particularly those (not just SNP) who voted down the amendment that would have prevented sex offenders being able to change their identity.) I’m hoping that Dan or that other supreme archivist of Wings, BDTT, will have that information.

    I aim to email all the South of Scotland MSPs who did so and ask if they stand by that choice in the light of the Andrew Miller case.

  123. JGedd
    Ignored
    says:

    Thanks, BDTT. Got your link over on the other thread where I mistakenly posted. I’ve been all over the place today – sometimes literally. Knew I could rely on you!

  124. Brian Doonthetoon
    Ignored
    says:

    Hi JGedd.

    In case you’re interested, I went to

    https://www.google.com/advanced_search

    In the “site or domain:” box, I pasted

    https://wingsoverscotland.com

    In the “all these words” box, I typed

    MSP vote amendment GRRB

    then hit enter/return.

    The page you wanted was at the top of the hits.

    Similarly, to find comments on WOS by, eg, “Smitty” or “Brian Doonthetoon” or whoever…

    Go to,
    https://www.google.com/advanced_search
    Paste or type the username into the “this exact word or phrase:” box.

    In the “site or domain:” box, paste
    https://wingsoverscotland.com
    then hit enter/return.

    You’ll get a list of hits. Click on each to open in a new tab and go to that tab.
    Press CONTROL and F (Windows) or COMMAND and F (MAC) and a bar will open at the foot of the tab.
    Type or paste the username into the text box there, then use the up/down arrows to find the pertinent comments.

  125. Brian Doonthetoon
    Ignored
    says:

    I’ve been following this Ruskian band for a couple of years. Bought a couple of their CDs for my son, who is into ‘symphonic rock’.
    When Ruskia invaded UK-rain, due to their anti-war stance, they moved to Turkey.
    They are now in the UK, having played Glasgow on 24th January.
    Here’s a quote from the news update email of 7th February.

    We have been endorsed by Arts Council England as Exceptional Talents for the Global Talent Visa UK!!

    This is a special immigration avenue reserved for internationally acclaimed scientists, athletes and artists willing to live and work in the UK.

    To move permanently we need to pay the NHS health surcharge 3 years in advance + other expenses.

    Staying in Turkey is no longer possible.

    We ask for your help to relocate ourselves and the cat to the UK for good, and to become a British band.

    We have set up a new Crowdfunding Page, where we offer tons of new Rewards including a backer-only concert (and there is of course the option to pledge without a reward if you wish so).

    Moving to the UK is a dream come true for us – it is a place where we can once again build on solid rock, and not on sand.
    We can re-create what we did before, but on a different scale, in a better environment and on a different level of quality.

    Help us move now: https://relocate.imperial-age.com

    We would have never made it this far without your support!!

    This is the tune wot they have wrote and have pushed it, referencing the UK-rain bourach. The lyrics are below the video.

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hZF6BglDS30

    A second offering – from the online concert they performed December 2021 (It was rather good). All the info below the video.

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0IZK9vUSAVw

    To finish off this comment, I am reminded of this band, who had a fine sound…

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8zow2Dblvwo

  126. Brian Doonthetoon
    Ignored
    says:

    Strange…

    This video was amongst those on the right of the last video’s page.

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pCAHsxB7u8k

    BTW: they’ve changed their name to “The Stone Preachers”.

  127. Brian Doonthetoon
    Ignored
    says:

    There’s an interesting comparison between two songs.

    Graham Brown wrote the first one, a number of years before the second link appeared on the scene.

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vU6GSd-S6EI

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jj4NvNw2G6o

  128. Ian Brotherhood
    Ignored
    says:

    Just popping in again.

    @BDTT – Do you remember a band called ‘Graham Central Station’?

    Just wondering, cause you clearly know your music from that period.

    I won their album at the fair, in the old Transport Museum, Glasgow, must’ve been 1981 or thereabouts. My cousin had an airgun and we used it for target practise. I hadn’t even given it a spin.

    In recent years I discovered that the man was a well-respected soul musician, had worked with James Brown, did some great turns on ‘Soul Train’.

    Have you ever heard of him?

  129. Brian Doonthetoon
    Ignored
    says:

    Hi Ian B.
    I remember the name ‘Graham Central Station’ but, as it wasn’t within my sphere of interest at the time, that’s all I know.

    You’ll be asking me about ‘Black Lace’ Next…

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tyInHg2239I

  130. Brian Doonthetoon
    Ignored
    says:

    Guess what? This one I uploaded came up as next to the previous video!

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JoZZVkDVZ0c

  131. Tinto Chiel
    Ignored
    says:

    And now for something completely different. Heard this on Radio 3 a few days ago and it caught my attention:

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=czuGs8nbJuI

    As someone said btl, it’s like listening to an intergalactic colliery band.

  132. Brian Doonthetoon
    Ignored
    says:

    Hi TC.
    yi dinnae half come up wie some strange stuff!

    Hannah Peel – Sunrise Through The Dusty Nebula

    Onnyhoo, watching TOTP on BBC4 tonight, this appeared.

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ln31raI2ezY

    Now, the interesting thing is that this music was released at least a year before as “Jet Boy Jet Girl” by Elton Motello.

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KgbtLJyLDu8

    What makes it more interesting is that I had an apprentice DJ at the time and we were in Chalmers & Joy listening to stuff and a different version of “Jet Boy Jet Girl” was one of the singles we were listening to.

    Different style of vocal but still the same backing track, which was the backing track used for “Ca Plane Par Moi”.

    “jet Boy Jet Girl” was on “Lightning Records” Plastic Bertrand wasn’t. I’m sure the PB single had on the label, “Produced by 4 Belgian businessmen”.

    It’s like they had produced this instrumental track but hadn’t quite worked out its market with vocals.

  133. Tinto Chiel
    Ignored
    says:

    “Yi dinnae half come up wie some strange stuff!”

    But none as strange as Elton Motello, surely, me old haricot?

    Rather an unpleasant little man, imo.

    Let’s have a soothing antidote to That Kind Of Thing:

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wwl9cf9uUFQ

  134. Dan
    Ignored
    says:

    Test post to check archive links submit okay.

    https://archive.is/fqHYk

  135. Brian Doonthetoon
    Ignored
    says:

    Has anyone else seen that advert on TV, for a finance company (can’t remember the name) who are offering online loans at an interest rate of 99.9%???

  136. Marie Clark
    Ignored
    says:

    Aye Brian, we were at a friends house when the advert came on. All you could hear was the sound of jaws hitting the table. Oh aye, and my beloved remarking, who the f*** is that stupid.

    He’s right enough in what he says, it’s just, eh, he’ll never make the diplomatic corp just calls it as he sees it bless him.

  137. Brian Doonthetoon
    Ignored
    says:

    I’m finding myself pronouncing ‘duration’ as “dooration’ rather than ‘dyooration’.

    Is this a sign of something?

  138. Tinto Chiel
    Ignored
    says:

    @BDTT: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zPCjXbvgqrU may be of interest.

    I remember Smallaxe found a WWI German archive of recordings of Scottish, Irish, Welsh and English POWs which its linguists undertook over a hundred years ago using Biblical texts as their standardisation measure.

    He posted an example of a Hamilton man who sounded very like the folk I hear around me even today, despite the supposedly insidious effect of Da Meeja on our accents.

    IMO three great reservoirs of authentic Scots pronunciation, expression and idiom are the farming community, the workplace and football crowds.

    I’m presuming the few remaining Gaelic dialects will show similar persistence. Lenny Hartley reported recently on the Wings M/T that a very old Gaelic-speaking lady on Arran had died as recently as The Noughties, although most “experts” had stated the last Gael there had died in the 1930s.

    It’s a funny old game, Saint.

  139. Brian Doonthetoon
    Ignored
    says:

    Interesting stuff TC.

    Onnyhoo…
    My aural wallpaper at the moment is Elton John at Glastonbury.
    TBH – I can’t understand the attraction of travelling hundreds of miles to stand half a mile from the stage, watching the performer on the big screens. Might as well stay at home, watch the same as the big screens on TV and hae a few swallies.

    Onnyhoo 2. Turns out Elton John played piano on “He Ain’t Heavy, He’s My Brother” for The Hollies. I may have posted this info before but more interesting is that Rick Wakeman played Stylophone on this hit.

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iYYRH4apXDo

    You’ll hear it coming in now and again right through the song.

  140. Brian Doonthetoon
    Ignored
    says:

    BTW: saw one or two saltires in the audience.

    BTW2: Graham Brown Band are now “The Stone Preachers”. They’ve got 16 tracks to download at the link below.

    Good stuff! Makes a decent ‘chill-out’ playlist on your favourite music app.

    https://stonepreachers.com/music

  141. Brian Doonthetoon
    Ignored
    says:

    BTW: The downloads are FREE!

    https://stonepreachers.com/music

  142. Tinto Chiel
    Ignored
    says:

    The Irish nightingale sings one of Mr Joyce’s favourites:

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jhe6rlo_jpI

    This song has many versions, depending on who’s singing it.

  143. chic.mcgregor
    Ignored
    says:

    Did a wee bit more digging on the EveryDoctor revelations (revelations to me at least. Apologies if you lot already know all this, I’ve been out of the game for a while).

    The biggest contributor to prominent Labour MPs by a donor with a strong interest in Private Health is a guy called Peter Hearn. He is described as a ‘recruitment mogul’ and a large part of his interests is in recruitment for private health sectors.

    Through a staffless registered company called MPM Connect he has donated hundreds of thousands of pounds to certain Labour MPs, mainly Yvette Cooper, Dan Jarvis and West Streeting (yes shadow health sec.)
    You have to wonder if he has a sense of humour and MPM stands for Memberof Parliament Money.

    Those three have also had smaller donations from other companies which operate in private health, tech, care etc.

    Starmer has not had any money from Hearn but he has had more than 150,000 donations from various US private health care companies who are trying to ‘break in’ to the UK market.

    The NHS is fucked folks.

  144. chic.mcgregor
    Ignored
    says:

    Brian

    It’s a Highland (and Lowland) Coup we need.

  145. Brian Doonthetoon
    Ignored
    says:

    Everybody knows that William Tell (and his son) were pretty proficient with the crossbow.
    However, it is not widely known that William and his son were pretty good bowlers.
    Unfortunately, the records of the Swiss Bowling League were lost in a disastrous fire.
    So, nobody knows for whom the Tells bowled.

  146. Tinto Chiel
    Ignored
    says:

    “So nobody knows for whom the Tells bowled.”

    Oh, BDTT, what have you done? Quite shameless.

    Thought you might have chosen this well-known hit from the same band: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dov7T44rDag

  147. Brian Doonthetoon
    Ignored
    says:

    Hi TC.

    This was the one I ditched in favour of Mr Dupree.

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=17HRV8k1YMw

  148. Brian Doonthetoon
    Ignored
    says:

    Hi TC.

    Have you heard this version? It was actually pre-Associates and was released under the name “39 Lyon Street”, the address of the flat where he lived at the time.

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3WzPqefk38s

  149. Tinto Chiel
    Ignored
    says:

    I’ve always loved Metallica’s subtlety 🙂 .

    This is a lot of bells too: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=etAIpkdhU9Q

    I rather like that other Kites version. Hearing Party Fears 2 recently made me feel very nostalgic. The world may have been crapola then too but somehow things didn’t seem so bad.

    Fitba’ starts again today: more to worry about.

  150. Brian Doonthetoon
    Ignored
    says:

    Hi TC.

    An earlier one featuring the same vocalist.

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pkds6pzy2NM

    That single was on the Regal Zonophone label. I still have it.

  151. Tinto Chiel
    Ignored
    says:

    I actually think Brian’s voice got weaker with age and he wasn’t a patch on Bon Scott, Kirriemuir’s finest, but I notice some folk btl disagree.

    The sight of that Newcastle strip reminds me of this whimsical wee song from when i was pure leaving skool 🙂 :

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ch_5dB1FkqY

  152. Brian Doonthetoon
    Ignored
    says:

    Hi TC.

    Fine song. I think these two are my favourites from them.

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m5oLO6H4xcE

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gzM-pPhLRsA

  153. Brian Doonthetoon
    Ignored
    says:

    Hi TC.

    Fine song. I think these two are my favourites from them.

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m5oLO6H4xcE

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gzM-pPhLRsA

    I’m having Orkney Cheddar on Lidl’s Cream Crackers tonight for supper. Why are they called “Cream Crackers”?
    I checked the list of ingredients and no cream is abused in their manufacture.

  154. Brian Doonthetoon
    Ignored
    says:

    Hi TC.

    Kr@p! Didn’t realise I’d submitted before I submitted with the biscuit info.

  155. Tinto Chiel
    Ignored
    says:

    @BDTT, sometimes Wiki can be your friend: “The name “cream crackers” refers to the method in which the mixture is creamed during manufacture”.

    Don’t think I’d ever heard Scotch Mist before but LE and FOTT were classics.

    Quiet here at the end of the internet, innit?

  156. Tinto Chiel
    Ignored
    says:

    Oh, look! A comet…

  157. Tinto Chiel
    Ignored
    says:

    I don’t think I’ve ever been a teenage girl but I can’t imagine what one would see in a man old enough to be her father with a kiss-curl like an overgrown baby.

  158. Brian Doonthetoon
    Ignored
    says:

    Hi TC.

    YOU may find this of interest…

    https://archive.org/details/feature_films

    I’ve just downloaded “Cathy Come Home (BBC 1966)” from:-

    https://ia802205.us.archive.org/31/items/CathyComeHome/Cathy_Come_Home_1966.mp4

  159. Tinto Chiel
    Ignored
    says:

    Thanks for the archive. I usually confine myself to lazily picking the free old films on YT. Call Northside 777 is an excellent Jimmy Stewart “movie” set in Chicago which I remember from my nipperhood. The relevatory scene in the darkroom at the end made a big impression on me.

    I remember CCH the first time around: truly shocking, especially the scene where the “social workers” take away the chillun. Don’t think I could watch it again, it was so powerful and distressing.

    I see those magnificent organs, the BBC and Sky News, gave the wrong score and details in their reporting of the QOS v Motherwell match on Tuesday. They had The Doonhamers as 5-4 victors in a penalty shoot-out after a 3-3 draw because presumably the reporter at the game couldn’t count up to five or tell which team was which (blue and claret and amber are easily confused, I suppose).

    As Macart used to say, “Who knew?”

  160. Brian Doonthetoon
    Ignored
    says:

    Hi TC.

    You’ve put me off watching CCH! I watch for entertainment. Of late it has been Outlander, Succession and a whole pile of crime shows, like Grantchester, Foyle’s War, Karen Pirie, DCI Banks, Grace and so on.
    Six-Four is worth watching.
    https://player.stv.tv/summary/six-four

  161. Tinto Chiel
    Ignored
    says:

    Yes, quite enjoyed Six-Four. Unfortunately they shot both it and the execrable Two Doors Down just down the road from Tinto Towers, much to the inconvenience of the lieges. In fact, they’re shooting a new series of TDD at the mo.

    I occasionally watch Foyle’s War for the hats. Hoping, like Frasier, that the Homburg one day makes a comeback 🙂 .

    Don’t let me put you off: CCH was a great piece of film-making but I couldn’t watch Threads again (a scenario becoming sadly all too possible these days).

  162. Brian Doonthetoon
    Ignored
    says:

    Hi TC.

    Homburg.

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S-KWrD6p7lo

  163. Tinto Chiel
    Ignored
    says:

    Remember that one: liked the lyrics.

    Here’s a whole lot of Hats from possibly Glasgow’s greatest synth band. I am reliably informed you can still see PB kicking around the West End.

    Weather looks good Where I Am. Off to hug a tree.

  164. Tinto Chiel
    Ignored
    says:

    After much reflection, I have decided it might have been better for me to have appended the link to the Hats comment:

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jO2YdtdTiYw&list=PLgtOYAIvc8d3ll0OzJHU-TzL2WigTsJsq

    The whole album is really two-in-the-morning mood music.

    You have been warned………

  165. Brian Doonthetoon
    Ignored
    says:

    Hi TC.

    Blue Nile link…

    Yes, rather ‘laid back’.

  166. Brian Doonthetoon
    Ignored
    says:

    Here’s a conjecture…
    What if there was a law brought in, that if all four of your grandparents were Scottish, you had to name your children after Scottish place names?

    Glasgow McGurk, Maree McRobb, Ayr Anderson, and so on?

  167. Tinto Chiel
    Ignored
    says:

    Obviously you would have to go fpr Ecclefechan, Freuchie, Achiltibuie and Gartocharn, epecially if they were girls. They knock Tracy and Amy into a cocked hat.

    Airdrie and Yoker not so much…

    Thrums, anyone?

  168. Brian Doonthetoon
    Ignored
    says:

    ‘Off-topic’ is becoming an oxbow lake. iye?

    I still have 4 of TC’s videos in tabs to continue watching.

    Just found out tonight that Sinead O’Connor sang the latest version of The Outlander song in Series 7.

    https://movgotv.net/episode/outlander-season-7-episode-6/

    Just close any pop-up windows that appear.

  169. Tinto Chiel
    Ignored
    says:

    Oxbow lake? More like a slightly damp patch on a carpet.

    Time to roll everything up, I think.

  170. Ruby Tuesday
    Ignored
    says:

    Any views on Katherine Stock saying

    The push back is going to come from men because men are able to say ‘this is bollocks’

    Do you think she is suggesting women are not able to say ‘this is bollocks’

    Is there a different set of standards for women with regards to swearing?

    I’m posting this here as there might be a chance of someone reading it.

  171. Brian Doonthetoon
    Ignored
    says:

    Hi Ruby.

    Have you met Alison Balharry? She could be captain of the Scottish Ladies’ Swearing Team.

    https://www.scottishdailyexpress.co.uk/news/politics/ghastly-sturgeon-murrell-obsessed-power-28932259

    I was gonna post this question:
    Does anyone know when and why a bunch of Spanish Dragoons were marching through Fyvie? Can’t be @r$€d Googling.

  172. Tinto Chiel
    Ignored
    says:

    Isn’t it Irish dragoons in the song?

  173. Brian Doonthetoon
    Ignored
    says:

    Hi TC.

    Maybe you’re right. I’ll check.

  174. Brian Doonthetoon
    Ignored
    says:

    Irish, right enough.

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e0Y37E9rqqg

  175. Brian Doonthetoon
    Ignored
    says:

    Well, I’ve listened (again) to the lyrics of

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e0Y37E9rqqg

    but I’m no further forward as to when and why Irish Dragoons were marching through Fyvie-o. Surely Peggy’s infamy had not stretched as far as Ireland?

  176. Tinto Chiel
    Ignored
    says:

    I think the original song was set during the turmoil of 17th century Scotland and The War of The Three Kingdoms which the English persist in calling The English Civil War. Irish troops were sometimes used by Montrose, I think.

    I’m sure as a Dundonian you will know what that psycopath Cromwell did to the people and city of Dundee (and Drogheda).

  177. Tinto Chiel
    Ignored
    says:

    Psychopath, obvs!

  178. Brian Doonthetoon
    Ignored
    says:

    I’m watching Celebrity Gogglebox at the moment.

    It got me wondering…

    What are the opposites of “full frontal nudity”?

  179. Tinto Chiel
    Ignored
    says:

    “What are the opposites of “full frontal nudity”?”

    Fully-clothed form? Just a wild guess.

  180. Tinto Chiel
    Ignored
    says:

    They don’t make ’em like this any more:

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3o5-3xtFsH0

  181. Tinto Chiel
    Ignored
    says:

    Tomorrow is International Apostrophe Day, ya bass!

    https://www.apostrophe.org.uk

    That is all…..

  182. Brian Doonthetoon
    Ignored
    says:

    Hi TC.

    Just watched and enjoyed that wee fullum, while recuperating from successful tumour removal in AIR (Aberdeen), ward 216.

    I’m on the mend but it will be next week till I’m back in
    Dundee.

    I have a pile of similar mp4s on my iMac 27″, which I used at work but haven’t fired up since I brought it home last year, after work station relocation.
    I’ll try to get them sorted out while I’m recuperating at home, in the next 2 or 3 months, then seek your interests, or provide a list. I have a Dropbox account.

    Onnyhoo, here’s a video featuring “quirky”.

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OISQx4A3qds

  183. Tinto Chiel
    Ignored
    says:

    Sorry to hear you’ve not been well, Brian, but glad you are recovering now. Don’t know if any of our mutual friends were aware either (or is it “friends in common” 🙂 ? I know you love a bit of pedantry.

    Loved the original wee Morris van myself but the lecky one doesn’t have the same appeal. I suspect Wee Greta will approve but she seems unconcerned about the kids in The Congo mining rare metals in appalling conditions to provide the batteries.

  184. Marie Clark
    Ignored
    says:

    Sorry to hear that you have not been very well Brian, hope you get better soon. Must show this wee film to my other half he will really enjoy it.

    Hi Tinto, how are you and yours, hope everyone is well. It’s my birthday today ( aye anither yin) they seem to come around faster every year. I think that must mean I’m getting auld. Mind you some days with all this trans nonsense, I feel like I’m a hundred, it disnae half weary a buddy. The bit that annoys me is being taken for an eejit, that I’ll just accept that a man can become a woman or a woman can become a man. Whit planet dae they think we aw inhabit? Madness complete and utter madness.

    I think this is why a lot of folk don’t contribute to some of the blogs these days. Between a’ this crap from wee weirdy Patrick’s greens, to the corruption of Sturgeon and her minions you just have to switch off at times to maintain your sanity.

    Onywho guys, keep well and don’t let the buggers get too you, as someone once said.

  185. Tinto Chiel
    Ignored
    says:

    @Marie: AOK @ Tinto Towers at the moment but you may find your forties to be more challenging. A regime of Pilates, spring water and bending exercises may be the way forward 🙂

    Yes, I’m afraid most of our independista bullshit filters are pretty clogged. We all need a focus, either a specific issue or individual to get behind but almost all of the political class are self-serving barstewards with little intelligence and fewer principles.

    It’s a sair fecht, as granny used to say before dragging on her pipe and spitting into the range…..

  186. Dan
    Ignored
    says:

    Well this recent Peter Gabriel release fair shocked this monkey.
    Imagery reeks of someone munching an exotic mushroom omelette!

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VMJGV7GWC5I

  187. Tinto Chiel
    Ignored
    says:

    @Dan: thanks for that brilliant vid.

    Sadly, it suggests our dystopian future once the Globalists exert complete control over us via digital banking and ID, 15-minute cities, 20-minute neighbourhoods, (U)LEZs, renewed vaccine mandates and spurious WHO Pandemic Declarations.

    And don’t think you’ll be driving very far in your battery-powered car either, peons, since there is no UK-wide infrastructure to cope with a massive transition to electric. Feudal-times ten mile travelling limit? You’re welcome!

    And that’s if we avoid Biden’s Neo-Cons causing a final nuclear holocaust.

    On the bright side, I saw kingfishers on The Clyde last week……

  188. Brian Doonthetoon
    Ignored
    says:

    That’s me back home to recuperate. Signed off work until 6th November. Was in ARI for 3 weeks, due to post-op complications. Op itself went ok but I had an air leak from my chest drain and surgical emphysema.
    Taking things easy and getting a wee bit of exercise daily.

  189. Ruby
    Ignored
    says:

    Hi Brian
    I was thinking about you earlier today and wondering how you were getting on.

    Glad to hear you are on the mend.

    ‘Taking things easy and getting a wee bit of exercise daily.’

    Sounds good! I’ll support you by doing likewise. 🙂

  190. Dorothy Devine
    Ignored
    says:

    Brian , glad your home ,there is no better place to recuperate than your own bed and home.

  191. Marie Clark
    Ignored
    says:

    Sorry to hear that you’ve had such a rotten time of things Brian. I’m glad that you’re home now, as Dorothy said there’s no better place to recuperate.

    Take care.

  192. Tinto Chiel
    Ignored
    says:

    BDTT, hope your hospital ward wasn’t like this one:

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p_GLSgJ39Dc

    Get perfect soon.

  193. Brian Doonthetoon
    Ignored
    says:

    Hi TC et al.

    Thanks for your good wishes.

    Ward 216 at ARI was fine. 4 of us in a room around 20′ by 25′, with its own toilet and shower and nurses available by the call of a buzzer.
    Food was fine, except for the vegetarian haggis, the only thing I rejected, taste-wise. The soups were all excellent. The ice cream was from a Cheshire company and reminded me of the taste of ice cream from the 60s. Bra’ stuff!
    I would recommend a stay in ward 216 if you get the offer.

    Music…
    There was a discussion on one of the main pages a few days ago about Sweet singles. I’ll repeat what I posted here.

    RE: Sweet singles.

    John Peel reckoned that this was the best rock single (track) of 1974.
    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8rGYtfC0R_U
    It was the B side of this, which was, unfortunately, released at the time of a BBC technicians’ strike, which meant that Top of the Pops was off-air for 6 weeks, otherwise, I’ve no doubt it would have been a #1.
    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J9MZ3ooM6wQ

  194. Chic McGregor
    Ignored
    says:

    Guid tae see ye back Brian.

    You’ll ken whit this funny wee buldin’ geid birth tae but a wunner if Stuart diz. He shid.

    http://www.google.com/maps/@56.4580928,-2.9742897,3a,67.8y,138.98h,102.16t/data=!3m6!1e1!3m4!1smyQRn3cXqCD7SXfEk4OqQQ!2e0!7i16384!8i8192?entry=ttu

  195. Brian Doonthetoon
    Ignored
    says:

    Hi Chic.

    Your Google link appears to show the car park of Caledonian House in Greenmarket.

    This pic has been all over Facebook over the past few days.

    https://i.imgur.com/5I10FcP.png

    Here’s a pic of the same building, showing the original “Deep Sea Restaurant” on the ground floor.

    https://i.imgur.com/mCR52Or.jpg

    If you go to this next link and scroll down, you will find,
    Dave had taken up the task of sorting a workspace out for the team. His father in law owned a chip shop, called the Deep Sea with an accompanying office space across the road. This quickly became the base for DMA Design which the members began the routine of commuting to on regular basis.
    There’s also another pic, adjacent to that text. This pic was taken after the Deep Sea had moved directly across the road. It is now the “Tailend” restaurant.

    https://www.nostalgianerd.com/from-dma-to-gta-the-story-of-dma-design/

  196. Dan
    Ignored
    says:

    @ Tinto

    That Peter Gabriel vid has so much going on with every part of the frame constantly evolving and morphing into something else. Modern tech obviously playing a huge part in generating the content of that vid possible.

    And talking of things evolving… in case folk missed it, here is the link Mac posted earlier on the MT which got clipped off.

    https://swinehoodsremedy.substack.com/p/unnatural-evolution-indisputable

  197. Tinto Chiel
    Ignored
    says:

    @Brian: yes, it’s brilliantly done and as deeply disturbing as that article you linked to.

    If it’s true, combining the “Follow the Money” mantra with Occam’s razor suggests to me that it will all be used to induce people to take more jags against “new variants” and make Big Pharma even more obscene amounts of money.

    And if the WHO manages to get the power to declare a pandemic and force national governments to have lockdowns, vaccine-and-mask mandates (coming round the bend next year if they can get way with it) then Gabriel’s vision will be well on its way to taking shape.

    Lovely weather we’ve been having lately…..

  198. Brian Doonthetoon
    Ignored
    says:

    Hi TC.

    You’ve conflated Dan and me.

  199. Brian Doonthetoon
    Ignored
    says:

    I see the notifications of comments and new pages have been restored in the past few days.

    I wonder how long for the text preview box?

  200. Tinto Chiel
    Ignored
    says:

    Sorry, @ Dan. How could I forget those lovable Rainbow scamps in your avatar?

    Re the vid: I did wonder if, ironically, AI might have played a part in its bewildering complexity?

  201. Chic McGregor
    Ignored
    says:

    BDTT

    Aye, I saw it on FB but thought I’d cut’npaste a Google street view.

    Obviously didnae work right.

    Good additional info. ta.

  202. Tinto Chiel
    Ignored
    says:

    @BDTT: yes, I think it’s because it’s usually just me and thee on here havering at the end of the internet.

  203. Tinto Chiel
    Ignored
    says:

    Ha! Ha!

    I clicked (but I did not inhale) 🙂 .

  204. Brian Doonthetoon
    Ignored
    says:

    I was introduced to this single around ¡977 by a pal at the Bowlin’ Alley, who was heavily into the film “American Graffiti”, which featured the band. (Some big names involved in the direction, production and acting in that film.)

    An excellent slice of 70s rock/pop, which wasn’t a hit in the UK.

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cKNSkutSjng

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cCwhjcu_1rM

  205. Ian Brotherhood
    Ignored
    says:

    Just dropped in to say hoots BDTT, you sound in fine fettle.

    😉

  206. Brian Doonthetoon
    Ignored
    says:

    Tired, mentally and physically Ian.

    But ca’in’ awa’, one day at a time.

  207. Ian Brotherhood
    Ignored
    says:

    Here’s a wee number to cheer abody up.

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SSwqj_tvVg8

  208. PhilM
    Ignored
    says:

    Going to try something as a test to see how Google crawls web.
    Please ignore folks.

  209. PhilM
    Ignored
    says:

    a bit late but ‘test’ coming up after this post

  210. PhilM
    Ignored
    says:

    favourable in-month movement of £0.119m as legal fees relating to 2 cases have now been recharged to litigation provision following receipt of quarter 3 Central Legal Office report

  211. Tinto Chiel
    Ignored
    says:

    @Dan The Man: stop clanging aboot in yer wee workshop and listen tae this…..

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6JUUNYASGk

  212. Brian Doonthetoon
    Ignored
    says:

    I’ve been watching this tonight –

    Through a Scottish Prism – Year End Report
    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KqPWNARxBkU

    Denise Findlay said a lot about canvassing and the like and it got me thinking.
    Back in 2014, I know RIC did a power of work in the Dundee schemes, to get people registered to vote. I guess they were just as active in Glasgow’s schemes.

    What I find strange is that Dundee and Glasgow both voted YES – but with a turnout substantially below average.

    What was going on there?

    Onnyhoo, will watch this tomorrow.

    Through a Scottish Prism – Year End Report Part 2
    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BWWpGB7EZpQ

  213. Tinto Chiel
    Ignored
    says:

    @BDTT: voting manipulation? You may find this real expert interesting, if you can thole Gorgeous George as the host: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CMTnkIOVix4

    I think the missing votes from Dundee and Glasgow in 2014 probably just disappeared mysteriously out the back of the vans which took them off for “central counting”.

  214. Brian Doonthetoon
    Ignored
    says:

    Hi TC.

    The count was evacuated in Dundee when the fire alarm sounded. Anything similar at the Glasgow count?

  215. Tinto Chiel
    Ignored
    says:

    SL count was in East Kilbride. No fire alarms as far as I know (just minor pochling of sneaking a yes vote amongst nine no votes to make ten according to a friend) but moving ballots to a central counting point is potentially insecure/ open to abuse.

  216. Patsy Millar
    Ignored
    says:

    @BrianDoonthetoon, I don’t think there were any alarms in Glasgow but I remember being very suspicious of the reported turnout as I know how much had been done to encourage voting. I’m quite sure there must have been some skulduggery there and have heard plenty accounts from people I trust about dodgy things going on in other places, e.g. non-standard voting boxes, and personnel turning up at polling stations who didn’t seem to have any reason for being there.
    Unfortunately, as soon as you say these things you sound like a conspiracy theorist as, I’m sure, was the intention!

  217. Tinto Chiel
    Ignored
    says:

    Tester:
    <blockquote
    Between Campbell-Sturgess’ contempt for voters (he hasn’t yet been selected for the seat, but any SNP candidate chosen will have the same stance or worse), the vast unpopularity of the SNP’s gender policies, the likelihood of Unionist tactical voting and other factors, it’s probable that despite their own unpopularity the Tories will take the seat for the first time since 1983, another brick in Humza Yousaf’s embarrassing “most seats” strategy will crumble to dust, and independence will disappear a little bit further over the horizon.

    Do hope this works…..

  218. Tinto Chiel
    Ignored
    says:

    Nah.

  219. Tinto Chiel
    Ignored
    says:

    Between Campbell-Sturgess’ contempt for voters (he hasn’t yet been selected for the seat, but any SNP candidate chosen will have the same stance or worse), the vast unpopularity of the SNP’s gender policies, the likelihood of Unionist tactical voting and other factors, it’s probable that despite their own unpopularity the Tories will take the seat for the first time since 1983, another brick in Humza Yousaf’s embarrassing “most seats” strategy will crumble to dust, and independence will disappear a little bit further over the horizon.

  220. Tinto Chiel
    Ignored
    says:

    Ya hay!

  221. Brian Doonthetoon
    Ignored
    says:

    Still haven’t watched Part 2 of The Prism.

    Onnyhoo, I see you mentioned the werewolves again on the main page.

    Have I posted this before?

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j941CWUC_gY

  222. Tinto Chiel
    Ignored
    says:

    @BDTT: no, I don’t think so.

    *Strokes chin and muses* Think you could be on to something there.

    A distinction without a difference, as the lawyers say.

  223. PhilM
    Ignored
    says:

    Watching Serpico, which I think is fantastic stuff.
    Unsung hero of the movie is the guy below. His obituary from the NYT follows (if anyone reads this…think of the current state of Police Scotland…):

    David Durk, Serpico’s Ally Against Graft, Dies at 77

    David Durk, a New York police detective who with Officer Frank Serpico shattered the infamous blue wall of silence to expose widespread corruption in the city’s Police Department in the 1960s and ’70s, died on Tuesday at his home in Putnam County, N.Y. He was 77.

    The cause was cardiac arrest, his wife, Arlene, said. He had been treated for mesothelioma for the past two years, she said.

    An Amherst College graduate who studied law at Columbia University, Mr. Durk joined the Police Department in 1963. He imagined a life of public service, as he put it rosily years later, to help “an old lady walk the streets safely” and “a storekeeper make a living without keeping a shotgun under his cash register.”

    But what he found was a culture of corruption: of officers and superiors taking payoffs from gamblers, drug dealers, merchants and mobsters for protection and information, like the names of informers they wanted to kill; of officers stealing and dealing drugs, riding shotgun for pushers and intimidating witnesses.
    In precinct after precinct, Mr. Durk found cash “pads” — lists of payoffs from gamblers — with shares for officers, sergeants and higher-ups. And behind the corruption, he discovered, was a litany of unwritten rules amounting to a pervasive acceptance of the wrongdoing, even among those not on the take — a code of silence, called the blue wall, which was corroding morale.

    Mr. Durk refused to join in, and became a pariah. While he made many arrests and was promoted to detective sergeant, he was shuttled among assignments, often just to get rid of him.

    In 1966, while attending classes for new plainclothes investigators, he met Officer Serpico. He too had refused to take payoffs, and had been shunned — and threatened — by fellow officers.

    Beyond hating graft, they had little in common. Mr. Durk was a clean-cut collegian with friends in government and the news media, wore conservative suits and lived on the Upper West Side of Manhattan with his wife and two daughters. Officer Serpico was a shaggy, bearded loner who grew up in Brooklyn, served in the Korean War, joined the police in 1959 and lived in Greenwich Village, a serape-clad bohemian called Paco.

    But in 1967 they became allies, and over the next few years they complained to high-ranking police and City Hall officials, including Jay Kriegel, Mayor John V. Lindsay’s police liaison, and Arnold G. Fraiman, the commissioner of investigation.
    They provided names, dates, places and other information, but were told that nothing could be done. Mr. Fraiman later said the information was not specific enough. Mr. Kriegel said City Hall was worried about alienating the police in a period of civil disturbances.

    As Mr. Durk recalled, “The fact is that almost wherever we turned in the Police Department, wherever we turned in the city administration, and almost wherever we went in the rest of the city, we were met not with cooperation, not with appreciation, not with an eagerness to seek out the truth, but with suspicion and hostility and laziness and inattention, and with our fear that at any moment our efforts might be betrayed.”

    Frustrated, they went to The New York Times. In a series of articles based on a six-month inquiry, David Burnham reported in 1970 that drug dealers, gamblers and merchants were making “illicit payments of millions of dollars a year to the policemen of New York.”
    Mayor Lindsay created a commission, with the lawyer Whitman Knapp as chairman, to investigate. After testimony in 1971 from Detective Durk, Officer Serpico and others, the commission found corruption was endemic. It said the mayor and the former police commissioner Howard R. Leary had failed to act.
    But the fallout was minimal. Dozens of officers were prosecuted, but no senior police or city officials were charged. Politically, however, the hearings virtually ended Mayor Lindsay’s presidential aspirations. Officer Serpico, promoted to detective, was shot in the face in a drug raid in 1971, and retired in 1972. But Detective Durk, promoted to lieutenant, remained in the department for more than a decade, at times in elite investigative units but often in lesser posts.

    The 1973 Sidney Lumet film “Serpico,” based on the Peter Maas book “Serpico: The Cop Who Defied the System,” minimized Mr. Durk’s role in the exposés. The film lionized Mr. Serpico, played by Al Pacino, but gave Mr. Durk short shrift. (A minor character based on Mr. Durk was given a fictional name.)

    In a book review for The Times, Mary Perot Nichols, who headed radio and television stations operated by New York City, called Mr. Serpico “honest and brave,” but said it was Mr. Durk who had sustained their campaign with his persistence and contacts. “It would be fair to say that without Durk, there would have been no police corruption exposé in The New York Times, no Knapp Commission investigations into the matter,” she wrote.

    A 1996 biography by James Lardner, “Crusader: The Hell-Raising Police Career of Detective David Durk,” offered a sympathetic treatment of its subject, who received a share of the book’s earnings.

    Books and films aside, Mr. Durk had been his own most eloquent spokesman.

    “Corruption is not about money at all,” he told the Knapp Commission, “because there is no amount of money that you can pay a cop to risk his life 365 days a year. Being a cop is a vocation or it is nothing at all, and that’s what I saw destroyed by the corruption of the New York City Police Department, destroyed for me and for thousands of others like me.”

    David Burton Durk was born in Manhattan on June 10, 1935, one of two sons of a Manhattan doctor. He attended Stuyvesant High School and graduated from Amherst with a degree in political science in 1958.

    He married Arlene Lepow in 1959. In addition to her, he is survived by their two daughters, Joan and Julie Durk.

    After a year at Columbia, Mr. Durk sold East African carvings for a time, then joined the Police Department. He patrolled in Harlem and Midtown Manhattan for several years, arresting muggers and pickpockets.

    College-educated officers were rare, and he moved up to jobs in the Chief of Detectives office, the city’s Department of Investigation and the Internal Affairs Division. In 1969, on a federal grant, he spent a year recruiting officers on college campuses.

    After the Knapp hearings, he continued pressing corruption reforms, but he found himself largely persona non grata in the department, in other agencies he worked for and even among some reporters, who regarded him as obsessively overzealous.

    In 1973 and 1974 he worked with a federal investigation of underworld influence in the garment center, but it was called off after 18 months. He was banished to a small police office in Queens, then took a year’s leave at the United Nations to study crime issues. He and his wife and Ira J. Silverman, an NBC producer, wrote a book on heroin traffic, “The Pleasant Avenue Connection.”

    In 1979, he took another leave to work on enforcement in the city’s Finance Department. He pounced on tobacco companies that failed to pay taxes on cigarettes given away in promotional campaigns. In 1985, he retired on a police pension of $17,000 a year, and in later years was a professed whistle-blowers’ consultant.

    End.

  224. Tinto Chiel
    Ignored
    says:

    @PhilM: very interesting. I remember the film.

    Wish he’s opened a wee office in Holyrood and started work there…..

  225. PhilM
    Ignored
    says:

    @Tinto Chiel
    You caught my drift exactly my friend…

  226. Tinto Chiel
    Ignored
    says:

    @PhilM: 🙂 .

    These things seem only to happen in fillums these days, sadly.

    “Stands Scotland where it did?” etc.

  227. Tinto Chiel
    Ignored
    says:

    Meet the new Professor of Modern History at Glasgow Uni:

    https://www.facebook.com/reel/281995051470675

    I blame it all on “Friends” masel…..

  228. Tinto Chiel
    Ignored
    says:

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7DbEDIKh0hI

    In Scottish folklore, seals were often regarded as “people under spells” who could sometimes shed their seal skins and reveal their true selves.

    If they could avoid getting shot or clubbed, of course.

    This is a surviving fragment of an old Uist song about a noblewoman in seal form hoping to avoid such a fate, sung by the true Queen of Scots, Julie Fowlis. In this seal’s-eye video, a mournful fog horn and some oystergatchers have been added for extra atmosphere.

    Beautiful frosty morning Where I Am, and Venus very bright.

  229. Marie Clark
    Ignored
    says:

    Hi Tinto, that song from Julie Fowlis is really quite haunting, absolutely beautiful.

    I always look in on off topic, but not too much happening these days. I still keep a watching brief on most of the indy sights, a wearisome task at times. Totally scunnered wi a the trans nonsense.

    I see you commented on Wings the other day about Harvey giving you a wee bit of advice. Does that mean it didn’t work out with the lady that he left you for, or does he just appear now and again to check on things.

    How is BDTT doing, he doesn’t seem to have posted too much recently. I hope that you’re doing well Brian, and maybe just feeling as fed up as the rest of us.

    I see the Rev seems to be to excited about the indy ref vote tomorrow, as promised by thon wee evil besom. These carrots are gie foosty noo.

    Keep well all of the folks who do still post here. Hope Dan’s no up on the roof now as this new storm might just blaw him awa.

    Take care folks.

  230. Tinto Chiel
    Ignored
    says:

    Hi, Marie: yes that song is a real ear worm and JF’s singing is pretty perfect. The Gaelic lyrics are a bit strange but then it’s an old song and and not much has survived.

    Sadly, Harvey is long gone. He went off with a bunny temptress after blowing all his moola on a 24 carrot ring :).

    And yet some folk still believe “thon wee wevil besom”. The other day I bumped into an an old acquaintance and fellow canvasser from when there was still an independence party who asked me how the SNP could have lost in Rutherglen and Hamilton West?

    As Mr Zappa use to say, “Weasels rip my flesh!”.

    Some folk just don’t see the bleedin’ obvious, innit?

    All the best!

  231. Tinto Chiel
    Ignored
    says:

    Shoulda been 🙂 .

  232. Brian Doonthetoon
    Ignored
    says:

    Hi Marie.
    I’ve just put this together to send to my boss tomorrow.
    ———————————

    I am to have a course of ‘adjuvant chemotherapy’ starting with a pre-assessment on 2nd November. Intravenous shot on 10th November, then a tablet on 17th November. Three week break then treatment is repeated another three times.
    This chemotherapy is usually given when a tumour is bigger than 5cm. Mine was around 7cm. The upper right lobe and a wee bit off the middle lobe of the right lung were removed at Aberdeen. Mr Khalil, surgeon at ARI, believed he had removed all the cancer cells but is satisfied with the planned preventative chemotherapy.
    This chemo has to happen within a three month window of surgery, and is to ensure non-recurrence – to mop up any possible cancer cells remaining.
    There are pages of possible side effects of the chemo, including breathlessness (which I have at the moment) and lowered immune system.
    It’s reckoned that I’ll have to be off work until at least the end of February but my sick line review is on 30th October at Lochee HC so I’ll know more then.
    I’m getting a phone call from Urology on 3rd November regarding my prostate cancer but that’s on the back burner for the moment as it is slow-growing, non-aggressive and the lung takes priority.

    So, that’s the news at 22.50.

  233. Tinto Chiel
    Ignored
    says:

    @BDTT: Sorry to hear about all your troubles. Take a good rest and come back the stronger.

    For those wanting to SingalongaJulie:

    Hò i hó i hì o hó i

    Hò i hò i hì o hì

    Hò i hó i hí o hó i,

    I wasn’t alone last night.

    And woe in this land, and woe in the land,

    eating people in the form of food.

    Do you not see the leader of the people,

    boil on a hard round fire.

    I am the daughter of Aoi, son of Eoaghin,

    that knew about the reefs.

    Woe would my beating,

    I am a noble woman from another land.

    Comes the thrush, comes the starling,

    each bird comes to a nest.

    The salmon comes across the ocean,

    until Monday I will not be moved’.

    Hò i hò i hì o hò i

    Hò i hò i hì o hì

    Hò i hò i hì o hò i,

    cha robh mi m’ aonar a-raoir.

    ’S mairg san tìr seo, ’s mairg san tìr,

    ’g ithe dhaoine ’n riochd a bhìdh.

    Nach fhaic sibh ceannard an t-sluaigh,

    goil air teine gu cruaidh cruinn.

    ’S mise nighean Aoidh mhic Eòghainn,

    gum b’ eòlach mi mu na sgeirean.

    Gur mairg a dhèanadh mo bhualadh,

    bean uasal mi o thìr eile.

    Thig an smeòrach, thig an druid,

    thig gach eun a dh’ionnsaigh nid.

    Thig am bradan thar a’ chuain,

    gu Latha Luain cha ghluaisear mis’.

  234. Marie Clark
    Ignored
    says:

    Hi Brian, I’m sorry to hear that you have been so seriously unwell, and like my own husband, not out of the woods yet. It’s very understandable that we haven’t heard much from you.

    Please take care and rest as much as you can, come back and join us when you feel ready and able.

    All the best to you.

  235. Brian Doonthetoon
    Ignored
    says:

    Been thinking, what with time on my hands an’ thah’.

    Any parliament of an iScotland, or before, should comprise “Peoples’ Representatives” (PRs) elected locally by STV and paid whatever the average manual wage is at the time of election. Kill the gravy train.

    A capped allowance for expenses (local enquiry offices, research assistants, and so on) should be in place, so that one PR can’t do any more than another PR with the same allowance. EG, a PR can’t pay more to her/his researchers than another PR pays theirs.

    Just thoughts, for further study…

  236. Brian Doonthetoon
    Ignored
    says:

    Dan’s got some good ideas about “local representation”…

  237. Tinto Chiel
    Ignored
    says:

    If only: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aQbsngo-aGw

    The genocide has to stop. our politicians are completely out of step with the people they represent.

  238. Tinto Chiel
    Ignored
    says:

    “Our.”

    Bugger! Seemed ok at the time.

  239. Brian Doonthetoon
    Ignored
    says:

    Pinched this from FB yesterday.

    Look at the pic (of Liverpool’s Lime Street Station), then slowly squeeze your eye shut.

    https://i.imgur.com/RNErQqy.jpg

  240. Tinto Chiel
    Ignored
    says:

    Just imagine!

  241. Tinto Chiel
    Ignored
    says:

    And talking of spooky, I’ve always found this tradition to be of the charmingly spooky kind. The site isn’t so far from the ancient yew at Fortingall, one of the oldest living things in the northern hemisphere.

    https://www.celticcountries.com/traditions/297-the-shrine-of-the-cailleach-at-glen-lyon

  242. Brian Doonthetoon
    Ignored
    says:

    A couple of links yooz may find of interest.

    https://tinyurl.com/bdd2jh7z

    https://www.change.org/p/protect-loch-tay

  243. Tinto Chiel
    Ignored
    says:

    That Loch Tay development in particular is a shocker. Nothing betrays our pretty powerless situation in Scotland (and a compliant Scottish Government) than these rich man’s playground developments.

    I think the Glen Lyon “stone family” was under threat from a proposed hydro scheme but I’m not sure if that is still the case.

  244. Brian Doonthetoon
    Ignored
    says:

    A new wildcat update. The fact that this behaviour is previously undocumented needs to be known widely.

    https://tinyurl.com/3p74f27f

  245. Brian Doonthetoon
    Ignored
    says:

    For some reason, whilst playing Mr Do! and watching tonight’s Pointless just now, this memory raise its head, from Andi mentioning going to the shop with your pocket money and getting your hands on a 7″ single.

    The day I bought this single, I took it home, stuck it on the Dansette, with the arm up, lay on my bed and heard it repeated around a dozen times.

    I’d first heard it on Alan Freeman’s ‘Pick of the Pops’.

    A rather interesting medley…

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5ynyo0vfK8E

  246. PhilM
    Ignored
    says:

    Well today was interesting. 1300 hrs to be very precise.
    I mean Wow, just Wow.
    Scotland has become for me a very sinister place.
    I love our people, our land, our humour, our history but the leadership of our public bodies is toxic, skull and crossbones toxic…are we the baddies?
    Yes, you are. All of you. For shame…

  247. Tinto Chiel
    Ignored
    says:

    I think this was played as the first piece of music each morning on the new Radio One for a time:

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c2zurZig4L8

    Looks pretty cold.

  248. Brian Doonthetoon
    Ignored
    says:

    Hi TC.

    That track was 1977 or thereaboots. Radio 1 was “new” in 1967.

  249. Tinto Chiel
    Ignored
    says:

    Thanks, BDTT, I think I was thinking of the original: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4NjssV8UuVA

  250. Brian Doonthetoon
    Ignored
    says:

    Another Copeland cover from ELP –

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GpBo2XWjC-Y

    I first saw this next video around 20 years ago but it was not in a downloadable format. Fortunately, somebody eventually uploaded it to YouTube. “Viking Kittens” –

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ApxnAr6pRt0

  251. Tinto Chiel
    Ignored
    says:

    Ha! Ha! Hoedown: very fast.

    Viking Kittens: hilarious but informative in a Vikingy way.

  252. Brian Doonthetoon
    Ignored
    says:

    Eh, it is educamational, once you see the lyrics as sub-titles.

    I’ve not watched this yet but have downloaded it for later viewing. I recorded his band back in the mid-90s, for a couple of guys serving in Bosnia, who used to be regulars at Jack Daniels on a Sunday night, where they had the residency.

    BTW: “The Mystery Men” were regulars at the “Saturday Morning Club” at The Gaumont in the early 60s. I saw them often – never knew who they were.

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UroduQqbs5s

  253. Brian Doonthetoon
    Ignored
    says:

    If you’re looking for a film made in Scotland to watch…

    Has Brian Cox, Robert Duvall, Michael Keaton and Ally McCoist.

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jjbe-X4-fos

    Further info here:-

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Shot_at_Glory

  254. Brian Doonthetoon
    Ignored
    says:

    Another full film for yooz.

    Around halfway through, Roy Castle plays trumpet with the Tubby Hayes band. The guy to his right (to the left onscreen) is legendary Dundee trumpet player Jimmy Deuchar.
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jimmy_Deuchar
    Jimmy Deuchar is playing a mellophonium at that point in the film.

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_yhhH6RcZMg

  255. Brian Doonthetoon
    Ignored
    says:

    I’ve just finished watching “A Shot At Glory” (over 3 nights). Rather enjoyable. Ally McCoist’s acting was eyebrow-raisingly ‘no bad’.

    Recommended 8/10.

  256. Dan
    Ignored
    says:

    Test post to see if this submits, as there is clearly an issue with posting on this site now.
    If you hover over the line of information below each posts that actually shows, you can see the numbers rise way out of sync with the number of posts that actually submit properly.
    There’s basically more posts been submitted (but not showing) btl on the new article than there are showing.

  257. Marie Clark
    Ignored
    says:

    Hi everyone,

    Just popped in to wish you all a merry Christmas.

    BDTT I hope that your health is on the improving side, that would be good news indeed. Tinto, Mrs TC and all at Tinto Towers hope all is well with you and you have a lovely time with family. Wee weans make Christmas, grandchildren and great grandchildren are giving us all something to look forward too this coming year.

    Mr C is doing well at the moment, fingers crossed that it stays that way. The sad bit us I lost my wee sister to cancer at the end of August, you fair miss folk at this time of year don’t you.

    Had a very busy day getting everything prepped for tomorrows dinner. Mr C is cooking the tea, and I plan to put my feet up with a wee dram and just relax later.

    So all the best to all the wingers on OT, not many these days I know. Sad innit. See some saddo has suggested the SNP take seats in the house of Lords. WHIT! Keep the gravy train going after you get turfed out on your ear, grifters. I never thought I would see the day.

  258. Tinto Chiel
    Ignored
    says:

    @Marie Clark: a Merry Christmas to you and the family. Delighted by Mr C’s good news.

    The wee ones are keeping us going and give us some hope in this dark world. A “Happy New Year” sounds so false when we witness the mass murders in Gaza and our mostly spineless politicians.

    I am still in touch from time to time with Mrs Smallaxe and Nana and Norman. Sadly, Tobias Ellwood’s little elves seem to have the run of the main thread at the moment, and to its detriment.

    If the SNP take seats in the Lords surely even the most blindly faithful SNP loyalists will realise the game’s up?

    All the best to you and the family, Marie.

  259. Brian Doonthetoon
    Ignored
    says:

    Hi Marie.

    Still ca’in’ awa’. Still tired all the time and a loss of appetite over the past few days.

    Nothing exciting to report, I’m afraid.

  260. Brian Doonthetoon
    Ignored
    says:

    Onnybuddy else wondered this?

    A comedy TV series, US or UK. Canned laughter seems to be prevalent. However, comedy full-length film – no canned laughter required.

    Why the difference?

  261. Brian Doonthetoon
    Ignored
    says:

    A Hogmanay choon fur yiz.

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F8KfcjMTLBY

  262. Marie Clark
    Ignored
    says:

    Thanks for the Choon Brian. Quiet aboot here these days innit.

    Happy New Year folks, let’s hope it might be a better yin than the last.

  263. Tinto Chiel
    Ignored
    says:

    Happy New Year, what’s left of us on O/T.

    The ultimate slippery beat: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=My1PH6H1Qpo

    Hard for the drummer.

  264. Tinto Chiel
    Ignored
    says:

    When you see the evil lunacy detailed in the last three M/T threads and the genocide in Gaza, this 80s song seems impossibly gentle, beautiful and unattainable:

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u1ZoHfJZACA

  265. Tinto Chiel
    Ignored
    says:

    On the same wavelength, really: they were unique, like so many others 🙂 .

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eNDdn4de35Y

  266. Brian Doonthetoon
    Ignored
    says:

    And similarly, following your Black comment and following link,

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QO_ToJRsuVs

  267. Tinto Chiel
    Ignored
    says:

    Yep, that’s where we are.

    I was that banana.

  268. Brian Doonthetoon
    Ignored
    says:

    Hi TC.

    Dan took some pics of beaver damage yesterday and asked me to make them available to you.
    The first shows Birnam Hill on the left horizon, and Caputh Hill on the right. Just above the bridge on the right side is where the biggest UK salmon ever caught at 64lb by Miss GW Ballantyne was landed.

    https://i.imgur.com/coT3zsh.jpg

    https://i.imgur.com/c3lqO5A.jpg

    https://i.imgur.com/lFXao5N.jpg

    https://i.imgur.com/6uqGSKx.jpg

    https://i.imgur.com/7044lw0.jpg

    https://i.imgur.com/QmUxT31.jpg

    https://i.imgur.com/r0c5X1n.jpg

  269. Brian Doonthetoon
    Ignored
    says:

    Hi TC.

    Dan took some pics of beaver damage yesterday and asked me to make them available to you.
    The first shows Birnam Hill on the left horizon, and Caputh Hill on the right. Just above the bridge on the right side is where the biggest UK salmon ever caught at 64lb by Miss GW Ballantyne was landed.

    https://i.imgur.com/coT3zsh.jpg

    https://i.imgur.com/c3lqO5A.jpg

    https://i.imgur.com/lFXao5N.jpg

    https://i.imgur.com/6uqGSKx.jpg

    And another 3 next.

  270. Tinto Chiel
    Ignored
    says:

    Thanks, BDTT.

    Taken near Dunkeld then? That tree does look badly damaged right enough but I simply don’t believe a beaver can ride a bike.

    BTW, this guy can actually persuade you that you can understand particle physics:

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TDYex6VSd7o

    I’d prefer to be walking through the woods by the Tay, though.

    Spotted moschatel or wee toun nock for the first time in years in woods beside the Tweed last spring: it’s a sign, ah tell ye.

    Very cold, with a dusting of snow Where I Am.

    Hope you are feeling better. The lack of light at this time of year doesn’t help.

  271. Dan
    Ignored
    says:

    Cheers for hosting the pics BDtt. Though seems to be duplication in pic links.
    @ Tinto

    It’s actually all six of those mature trees on the right riverbank that have been ringed by a beaver.
    I sent those pics to a tree surgeon pal and he said it is unlikely they will survive in good health or even at all after sustaining such damage.

  272. Tinto Chiel
    Ignored
    says:

    @Dan: yes, once the bark is stripped all the way around, the trees will be vulnerable to all manner of disease.

    Never mind, some rich landowner somewhere will have received more greewashing subsidy for hosting the furry ones, I suppose, and that’s all that matters, innit?

  273. Tinto Chiel
    Ignored
    says:

    Today, February the first, St Bridget’s or Bride’s Day, is the first day of spring in the Celtic calendar, when preparatory work in the fields was begun.

    That is all.

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u62W92lAmPE

  274. Tinto Chiel
    Ignored
    says:

    Oh no, it’s not!

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tP5FS6IXJJA

  275. Tinto Chiel
    Ignored
    says:

    Finally, something to energise the hypothetical workers in the fields:

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=frVqITAPXCo

    Special mention to drummer Bev Bevan.

  276. Dan
    Ignored
    says:

    @ Tinto

    I started work in the fields for this year’s crops last year by spreading a nutrient rich mulch on the veg beds then covering them in large cardboard pieces recycled from bicycle delivery boxes.
    This covering stops the winter precipitation washing all the goodness through the soil and the cardboard also stops the worst of the frosts so all the wee beasties and worms can do their thang without getting frozen.
    Planted a few dozen garlic cloves on the winter solstice too. Wanted to plant more but need to keep some for munching.

    Pumpkin soup is braw at this time of year. Roast some homegrown onions, garlic, and pumpkin chunks with some finely chopped chili. Then lob that mix into a blender with enough added water to help it mix properly and pour back into a saucepan. Then give it a wee simmer and stir in some coconut milk before serving. I’d have garnished with a bit of coriander but the minus 10 temps took out the coriander plants… 🙁

    Did you see the pic of yon monkey running away from the police up Glencoe. It’s a cracker and almost better than the heeland coo on the motorbike at the top of this comment page.

  277. Tinto Chiel
    Ignored
    says:

    Hi, Dan.

    I didn’t see the monkey coverage myself but Mrs Tinto has been mentioning it as a prime MSM distraction from all the other horrors of the world at the moment. I’m afraid the political class have finally outed themselves as having nothing in common with their constituents, who are too human to go along with them in their incesssant warmongering.

    I have long admired your tenacity on the M/T re matters “False Green” and all its attendant crapola as well as your indefatigable stuff re energy theft and that of Scottish resources generally. Sadly we lack a political class willing to exploit the obvious Show Us The Money.

    I will shortly have to consider getting rid of my 2.0 diesel VW engine, not because of any inherent problems but thinking ahead to further bannings by the Green puretariate. Supermarket diesel? Not for me. My local mechanic tells me my car could do twice my current 78,000 mileage if I am allowed by The Powers That Be.

    I found an old and very perceptive acount by the local minister (one David Ure) of the difficulties of trying to grow things in East Kilbride, a very high and frosty parish in Lanarkshire in 1793, where I lived from 1954-1982:

    “Insurmountable obstacles, both from the soil and climate, will always obstruct agricultural improvements in this parish. Nearly three-fourths of the arable land is composed of a stiff clayey soil, generally incumbent on till, a substance greatly unfavourable for vegetation: it is likewise, in most places, very much exposed to under-water, and is commonly known by the terms cold and sour. Many things highly unfavourable to the progress of agriculture naturally arise from such a soil. The season is far advanced before the ground is sufficiently dry to admit the plough: the seed, after being sown, sometimes rots before it has time to vegetate; and not infrequently the surface of the ground, after seed-time, cakes to such a degree of hardness, especially in a great drought after heavy rain, that the tender blade cannot get through……

    “The unfavourable state of the soil is, in some measure, owing to the climate, which, in the exposed situation of Kilbride, is cold and wet. The frost sets in very early in Autumn, and continues late in Spring.”

    One answer at the time was to burn lime, quite plentiful generally, in killogies or kilns to produce quicklime which could be slaked to reduce soil acidity and therefore boost fertility. Another was to plant hawthorn hedgerows (to produce shelter) in pits with oats to warm up the hedge-growing process via oat germination.

    It’s no surprise then, that, a long time ago, Bride/Bridget was invoked in an attempt to improve the fertility of such soil. IIRC, there are about 28 places in Scotland called Kilbride, most of them in Highland areas.

    Like your recipes too. Your diet will probably see you through to your 90s at least, if Our Rulers don’t get to us all first via nuclear oblivion.

    Lang mair yer lum reek, etc.

  278. Tinto Chiel
    Ignored
    says:

    I apologise in advance for my seriosity: here’s me (with the pipe) on the bike.

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YYOKMUTTDdA&list=RDYYOKMUTTDdA&start_radio=1

    Let’s all be happy.

  279. Tinto Chiel
    Ignored
    says:

    Och, sod it, let’s just Love Shack it (ya bass!):

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9SOryJvTAGs

  280. Dan
    Ignored
    says:

    The monkey meme pics must be the only decent thing ever printed in the Daily Record…
    Getting chased by rozzers is my favourite. Has a bit of a Restless Native vibe going on. Although technically it may a Restless NuScot if it’s an imported primate.

    https://archive.is/DpKlH

    Did you catch my lpg/autogas in France post? Incredible divergence between the UK phasing autogas out and France keeping it going.
    So disheartening watching this shite playing out and really getting to the point I question the worth of staying in Scotland and not just decamping to a land that more aligns with my outlook. Everything here is just so fucked up and compromised.

    Whilst out on bike earlier I had another decent chat with an older English man that has lived in my locale for well over a decade. He was a Tory and pro-EU but has now had it with Party politics due to the political class being so corrupted.
    He was aware of my proposal to facilitate the people regaining some political control by standing decent local non-party affiliated candidates to properly represent the wards and constituencies, and he asked why I hadn’t stood myself as he would vote for that.
    I explained the timing just isn’t right for me now as the past few years have been difficult with caring for and ultimately losing my mum to cancer (late diagnosis because covid…), then got a tick bit and lyme disease a month after she passed which has left me a bit stretched and fatigued and playing catch up.
    And even if I felt up for it the complete disjointedness of the current Indy movement is ridiculous. Bloggers still writing and posting endless reams of blogs daily on the internet, but I don’t see anything from these prominent supposedly politically savvy individuals actually doing anything on the ground in their own respective areas that would make actually make a difference.

    Proper planning would have had potential candidates identified years back and the necessary groundwork put in place to develop their profiles, skills, and campaign team network, whilst also planting the seeds in amongst the electorate in the area they plan to represent.
    But no, none of that has happened so piss poor planning will result in piss poor performance. And that is why I don’t have any faith in things improving any time soon.
    The final nail in the coffin for me standing was the recent local ward and constituency boundary changes which could not have been worse for myself as I’m now right on a new boundary and have therefore lost half of the area I have lots of history in and local connections too.
    So fuck it.

  281. Tinto Chiel
    Ignored
    says:

    Basically, Dan, we all lack a political focus at the moment: the SNP has ben killed by infiltration, Salmond has been smeared, probably irrevocably, and the rest of us can’t produce the Big Push as so many individuals.

    In normal times the good guys in Scotland would eventually regroup and pull through via conventional party politics but the world is facing war on at least two huge fronts, possibly more, with lashings of nuclear oblivion options on top, so our problems seem relatively trivial at the moment.

    Add psychopathic, authoritarian globalism and all its works (including digital ID, CBDC and lunatic Green Net Zero) and it all adds up to a clusterGove of epic proportions when our politicians have been bought and sold by hugely powerful lobby groups like Big Pharma, the military industrial complex, Big Agriculture, Zionism and The Green Dream.

    I’ll be entering my eighth decade in a few days so just about all I can do is try to think of my grandchildren and perhaps keep drag queens out of their primary school.

    The future’s looking dim to me at the moment, I have to say. We’ve been stitched up good and proper by Sturgeon and her handlers, the consequence of believing the political class shared our love for our country. May they rot in hell.

    It’s a sair fecht, as granny used to say before drawing on her cuttie pipe and spitting into the range……

  282. Brian Doonthetoon
    Ignored
    says:

    Apparently, St Bride’s (Bridget’s) day is an Irish thing.

  283. Tinto Chiel
    Ignored
    says:

    She was revered in Scotland too, Brian, which is why so many settlements in marginal agricultural lands here were dedicated to her because she was associated with fertilty, flocks, etc.

    In Scottish Gaelic, the oystercatcher is called “Bridie’s bird” and its two-tone call is supposed to represent the words Bi Glic, “be wise”.

    Hope you are gradually getting better and stronger.

  284. Brian Doonthetoon
    Ignored
    says:

    The chemo side effects really kicked in 3-4 weeks ago. becoming breathless too easy, tired all the time, taking medication to suppress nausea.
    Chemo finished this week and no appointments in February so far, except CT scan on 28th.

  285. Tinto Chiel
    Ignored
    says:

    Hope you gradually pull away now the chemo is over. The days are getting a little longer and some of the birds are practising their songs for the Big Event, i.e. spring.

  286. sarah
    Ignored
    says:

    Hi everyone. I noticed some off topic activity and having a little more time than last year thought I’d pop in. My sister was struck by pancreatic cancer last year so I was spending a lot of time with her down in Kent – and no wifi in her flat so well out of touch.

    Brian, my cousin had his prostate cancer treated at Ninewells and is, touch wood, clear. He was very happy with Ninewells. As for the lung, well you will know all about how one can manage without sections of lung. I know chemo is grim but a first cousin of mine had breast cancer last year, mastectomy followed by 6 chemo sessions – it was tough but she is OK now [touch wood again]. So I am hoping that you will soon start feeling better now that the treatment is over and Spring is starting.

    Hoping too that things will improve on the independence front but have my doubts. ISP and Salvo/Liberation are the only groups that seem honest and focused on the only thing that will help improve things for Scotland.

  287. Tinto Chiel
    Ignored
    says:

    @Sarah: springtime greetings to you and I wish you better health for your family too.

    Was watching an old episode of Endeavour recently and heard this old rock classic. Doubt Endeavour would approve: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LiczyhDwuBs

    May The Force be with Us All.

  288. sarah
    Ignored
    says:

    Greetings, Tinto, and thanks for the good wishes. First sign of Spring here today – I heard a bird talking. It’s only when you hear the first one that you realise how quiet it has been for so long. Mind you it strikes panic into me as I also realise how much I need to do in the veg beds – so far I have pruned a blackcurrant bush and that’s it! Don’t tell Dan…

  289. Tinto Chiel
    Ignored
    says:

    Yes, heard my first blackbird singing at dusk yesterday.

    It’s started…..

  290. Tinto Chiel
    Ignored
    says:

    Since the mis/disinformation and outright lies on the BBC are unbearable, I find my radio listening is mainly confined to Radio 3, which has only about four two-minute “news” summaries per day.

    A German pianist was playing her favourites on one R3 programme last week and this old song turned up: quite remarkable harmonies and listen to the bass!

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4NEeY_QMYUM

    https://www.mamalisa.com/?t=es&p=6703

    Meanwhile, in other news, saw a treecreeper on my birch tree the other day.

    That is all…

  291. Tinto Chiel
    Ignored
    says:

    This trail-blazing band could really play but forget the first 1.50 mins while they faff about:

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=imZUqkPlUaQ

  292. Brian Doonthetoon
    Ignored
    says:

    Gotta play this tonight – and it’s a live version of the long album original, with the ‘classical’ middle bit.

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EzoazPPC7b8

  293. Tinto Chiel
    Ignored
    says:

    Yes I saw the sad news that he’d just died.

    “All the world’s a stage, and all the men and women merely players. They have their exits and their entrances; And one man in his time plays many parts.”

  294. sarah
    Ignored
    says:

    Good to see you both finding something other than our dreadful politics to think about. Mind you, Independents for Independence gave a spark – at least they are prepared to fight.

    Lucky you to see a treecreeper, TC – haven’t seen one for a long time and it is always a thrill.

  295. Tinto Chiel
    Ignored
    says:

    Yes, Sarah, it’s a cute thing, with its decurved bill and wee white front. They climb up trees and nuthatches down. I’m near a large stretch of woodland so get some interesting birds at times.

    I see my German song got blootered by the YT algorithm so I’ll try another version, from the first take: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XkOJdk4FMWg

    I hear the SNP are voting for the downgrading of a local neo-natal unit in this area, no doubt much to the delight of the Tories and Labour.

    Are they committing political suicide deliberately?

    I’ve decided the whole political class are beyond saving and it seems pretty much the same throughout Europe and the USA. They don’t listen to their constituents but merely obey powerful lobby groups who either bribe or blackmail them into doing their bidding.

    Off to hug a tree and commune with The Great Spirit (I don’t mean malt whisky).

    Cheers!

  296. sarah
    Ignored
    says:

    We have just listened to Brian’s Eric Carmen piece, then wandered off via Fanny to Marvin Gaye, and ended up with The Harmonists. This is what we should spend our time on, not bashing our heads against the brick wall of the SNP.

    My brick wall bashing this week has been to try to get Councillors and MSP to attend a Salvo Freeports public meeting on 23rd March in Inverness. One councillor, a decent [I think] retired doctor and ex-Labour now SNP rep, has replied to say he had already agree to go. Will he have any influence over Kate Forbes when he tells her the truth of the horrendous Freeport? Not holding my breath.

  297. Tinto Chiel
    Ignored
    says:

    Yes, Sarah, “music therapy” can help in these dark times.

    Gaye’s original song is beautifully (sung as usual) and his lyrics are pretty sharp and almost poetic but Fanny’s completely different treatment feels equally convincing to me. The band was so “together” it’s a pity it didn’t last, as each member could sing as well as play and June’s voice and slide playing on that track were particularly good. They could out-rock most of the male bands at the time and seem completely at home in that style.

    As for the abomination which is the Freeport idea, it looks like Forbes’ supposed links with the American State Department may well be true. Despite taking her Holyrood oath in Gaelic (which is nice), it all looks like tartan window-dressing to hide another neo-liberal Globalist whose priorities aren’t us or Scotland.

    To cheer myself up, I’m going to listen again to this old Spanish song which was “repurposed” for propaganda purposes in the Spanish Civil War. I always find the “rambla la rambla la ra” bit amazingly catchy and almost too jolly for the warlike content:

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fko5fYIBJFU

    No Pasarán!

    (Except they did, unfortunately).

  298. Tinto Chiel
    Ignored
    says:

    “Rumba la rumba” I meant!

  299. Tinto Chiel
    Ignored
    says:

    And I forgot to mention the master:

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gP0Loe6tVB0



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