Off-topic
Posted on
January 02, 1968 by
Rev. Stuart Campbell
For off-topic chat. Duh.
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A tall tale
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Video
Probably a robbery
Transphobia
Just saw your recent comments, BDTT: thought this place was finally dead.
The lyrics are easily confusable, so just concentrate on the sublime Dirty Hammond (or is it a Vox?)
Onnyhoo, I give you something else to worry about:
link to youtube.com
Orgasmotronic rhythms apart, what do the actually lyrics mean?
Fifty years on and still an enigma.
“Orgasmotronic rhythms apart, what do the actually lyrics mean?” shoulda been, “Orgasmotronic rhythms apart, what do the lyrics actually mean?”
And I mean “mean” not “say”, for the avoidance of doubt 😉 .
Hi TC.
The organ he’s using in the Live In Finland video, is the same model as the one in this video:-
link to youtube.com
(There’s a 1.50 preamble before the music starts.)
I know Keith Emerson played a Hammond B3 so I did a Google image search and proved myself correct.
“Do It Again”. No idea what they mean but here are the lyrics onnyhoo.
In the mornin’ you go gunnin’ for the man who stole your water
And you fire ’til he is done in but they catch you at the border
And the mourners are all singin’ as they drag you by your feet
But the hangman isn’t hangin’ and they put you on the street
You go back, Jack, do it again, wheel turnin’ ’round and ’round
You go back, Jack, do it again
When you know she’s no high climber then you find your only friend
In a room with your two-timer, and you’re sure you’re near the end
Then you love a little wild one and she brings you only sorrow
All the time you know she’s smilin’ you’ll be on your knees tomorrow, yeah
You go back, Jack, do it again, wheel turnin’ ’round and ’round
You go back, Jack, do it again
Now you swear and kick and beg us that you’re not a gamblin’ man
Then you find you’re back in Vegas with a handle in your hand
Your black cards can make you money so you hide them when you’re able
In the land of milk and honey, you must put them on the table
You go back, Jack, do it again, wheels turnin’ ’round and ’round
You go back, Jack, do it again…
Nane the wezzer…
@BDTT: yes, you can only do Dirty Hammond on a Hammond, after all. Thanks for that, Sherlock 🙂 .
I’m none the wezzer either but I suppose the track is the triumph of rhythmic atmosphere over meaning.
Was at the Glasgow AUOB march a few weeks ago: sad and changed days indeed.
Ahh, I always wondered what Hammond was when mentioned in the Jazz Club clip with Desolate Shore.
(1 min 30 sec)
link to youtube.com
Wildlife update: Have been away from home for a week or so and came home to find that I’ve missed my “pet” Elephant Hawk Moth caterpillar chrysalis hatching.
Hi Dan.
It looks like a B3.
Hi Tinto, another walk down memory lane, as for the lyrics of the song, havnae a scooby. Never could figure them out,I put it down to something that they might have been smoking at the time.
I was kinda like yourself thinking that this place was finally dead, but up pops BDTT to prove us all wrong. I always have a wee look in to see if anything is doing, and it’s great to see some of us still posting. Good works lads, are we still allowed to say lads, ah, feck it who cares, lads it is.
Hi Sarah.
Next time you post a comment here, before you hit the “Submit Comment” button, check the “Notify me of new posts by email” box, then whenever somebody post here, you’ll get an email informing you.
A week or so ago, on Ken Bruce’s “Tracks of my years” feature, this track was played. The video is quite impressive. Check out the vanishing guitar at the end.
link to youtube.com
This song was performed on “Britain’s Got Talent” tonight. So I thought I would link to a relatively rare (radio play-wise) version of it.
The Spectres recorded it as a single in 1966. The link is to a BBC live recording of the band. By late 1967, they had changed their name to Status Quo.
link to youtube.com
OK Brian, I’ll try but I can’t say I have ever seen a box saying “notify me of new posts by email”! As you know, IT tech stuff is way beyond me.
Dan – sorry to hear you missed your Elephant Hawk Moth emerging. But at least it shows it was alive. I saw a glorious and exotic caterpillar the other day and excitedly took photos to show my husband and identify it – it was very furry and bright orange below and a grey top. Wow I thought – this is so rare – never seen one in the nearly 70 years of my life. Well it was only a COMMON Tiger Moth, found throughout the British Isles in gardens. Talk about deflated!
@ Brian: Found it! Impressive, eh?
@Marie: I’m now called Samantha but don’t let that stop you posting here 🙂 .
@Sarah: don’t get too downhearted. Common gulls are not common, so if you see one, be happy.
@ Tinto: uncommon common gulls! Who chooses these names, for heavens sake? However I do feel better for hearing that!
A white-tailed eagle came past our house today but I’m not boasting about that as my sister-in-law has one in the middle of their village in Sussex! It roosts on a pylon.
@Sarah: there is a theory they were called common gulls because they were often seen in flocks on commons but I haven’t seen this confirmed anywhere reliable.
WTEs in Sussex? Soon there’ll be Bigfoot sightings in the Cairngorms.
For all my times in Wester Ross and Skye, I was never lucky enough to see an otter. Then one day about three years ago down the bird reserve near Motherwell, I saw one several times at a bend in the Clyde.
It’s a funny old game, Saint…….
@ Tinto: right, gulls on a common. The only place I’ve seen several at once was high up a glen below Ben Dearg, Lochbroom – husband said they breed in such places i.e. not by the shore. It is indeed a funny old game…
The Sussex WTE had apparently popped over from the Isle of Wight breeding programme. Not far as the er WTE flies, I suppose.
As for the otter in the Clyde – I wonder if they like it now there is less [I presume] ship fuel in the water. When I was a child a trip to the beach always involved getting tar on one’s person! Anyway, lovely to see otters – they live along the shore here but I don’t see them often so it is always a thrill.
@Sarah: yes, gulls on common land. Perhaps, but who knows? They are handsome birds to me, beautiful large, dark eyes and a beak which is quite elegant for a gull, a look a bit like a kittiwake. Saw them up close while staying in a relative’s house on Arran.
I’d forgotten about the IoW WTE programme: makes sense now.
The Clyde at the Baron’s Haugh RSPB site is entirely rural, so no engine oil. You can see ospreys further up the river around Abington. It gets deeper and wider gradually once it picks up the Avon between M’well and Hamilton. In mediaeval times Rutherglen (“the Red Glen” in Gaelic) was regarded as the highest part of the Clyde which a ship could reach in them days. Clyde FC still has a three-masted ship on its badge.
Loch Broom area: Mellon Udrigill, Loch na Beiste and Gruinard island. Ah, the memories!
There are oystercatchers with chicks on the roof adjacent to the mailroom at Ninewells Hospital. Parents have to be on constant watch because of the number of gulls on the campus.
Revisited this video for the first time in years. They had to get rarely given permission from the authorities to film on top of Brooklyn Bridge.
link to youtube.com
Testing
Uk_raine
@ Tinto: those sandy beaches at Mellon and Gruinard are gorgeous, indeed. I sometimes wish Lochbroom shore was the same but as I stumble along our rocky shore I do realise that if it were sandy I would have a bit too much company!
I too like the look of the smaller gulls e.g. black-headed – not that we see them in summer but sometimes in winter when they don’t have black heads, as you know, just a black [grey] splodge on the side of the head to aid identification.
@ Brian: you are lucky to see the oystercatcher family. I see them flying by or feeding and know they must be nesting somewhere not too far but have never seen even the juveniles. And thank you for the tip about getting Wings emails – it is a pleasure to see them in my email!
Off now to put some netting over my onion bed and raspberries to stop the stag eating more of them…
That is an interesting snippet about Clyde FC’s badge. Thank you.
Hi Sarah.
The young oystercatchers are grey and white, where the adults are black and white.
link to youtube.com
@Sarah: the time we were there (early 80s) a dotty German woman owned the old school house by the shore. The silly sossage had tried to fence off the beach and the locals weren’t happy.
Coincidentally, I saw two oystercatchers last Friday on a grassy roundabout near a busy retail park in the east end of Glasgow, probing the ground for worms, etc. They didn’t seem to know they are supposed to be birds of sunlit upland and beautiful shoreline.
Their two-tone call is supposed to be “Be wise” in Gaelic (Bi glic) but these were obviously not very wise ones.
@ Brian: thanks for the lovely piece of film. I see they get their adult plumage very quickly – so many types of bird spend months or even years in immature plumage.
@ Tinto: Wester Ross seems to draw dotty Germans. There is one near Achiltibuie who has caused some “difficulties” over the past 20 years or so.
I do hope those urban roundabout oystercatchers survive. At least there won’t be many predators there!
@Sarah: no sign of the oystercatchers today but don’t worry too much, although there are plenty of sparrowhawks and buzzards about who also don’t seem to know they shouldn’t be inhabiting a gritty urban environment either 🙂 .
Those dotty Germans can’t hold a candle to Dane Anders Povlsen, who owns a colossal 221,000 acres of Scotland in his own right. Ironically, a non-Dane can’t own even a single acre of Denmark but that’s Scotland’s impotent status when controlled by another country.
Makes you fair proud, innit?
Hi Sarah.
The attraction, for oystercatchers, of Ninewells Hospital, is that many of the flat roofs are covered with pebbles, simulating their preferred nesting locations.
link to youtube.com
This is a QI documentary…
link to youtube.com
I’ll see your common gull and oystercatcher pair, and raise you with airborne heron wrestling an eel, and an osprey with a pike both spotted flying over my village in the last month.
See, I think the Whitney Houston version of the song took it right out of context, to those of us who had seen the original fuhllum – and bought the record.
And I found Whitney’s jaw/lip quivering off-putting.
link to youtube.com
@ Tinto re Anders Polvsen and others like him. No not proud – absolutely raging. I can’t say how angry I am in general at the lying, criminal, wicked, feeble, incompetent SNP parliamentary groups and HQ staff. Also The National whose editor and staff know the truth but won’t print it. How dare they all stand in the way of our country’s freedom?
To calm down I will turn to bird matters! We think pied wagtails are nesting in a drystone wall near the house – they are there every year but we have never been able to prove it as the exact spot is round a corner and inside the entrance to a boathouse. The adults are very active recently – flying to and fro non-stop. Our dog tells us where the nest entrance is!
@ Brian: we enjoyed that QI film about oystercatchers. What an amazing thing – to be able to grow a different shape of bill when needed. We never would have thought they do that. So the ones feeding on our rocky shore with no mud are not the same birds as at the head of the loch where there are mudflats.
@ Dan: alright. You win.
@Sarah: hardly surprising the SNP ducks the land question when Benny Higgins, the man who runs the Buccleuch Estates for His Grace, is one of Wee Blinky’s advisers.
@Dan:an osprey wrestling a pike in mid-air? Some sight: reminds me of the arms of Mexico.
@BDTT: re the quivers, seconded. Simply gwoosome, my dear. Give me Tiny Tim and his tulips any day.
@ Tinto: and Charlotte Street Partners and Murray “the Vow” Foote as advisors. You couldn’t make it up. What a bunch of ("Tractor" - Ed)s – no wonder we are further from independence than we were.
Main thread btl is going to pot again, sad to say.
Yes, Sarah, the Foote appointment was a sign which even the WGD loyalists should have seen as proof Nicky had sold the jerseys. Ever since January 2020 I have imagined “The Union: safe in my hands” scrolling along below NS’s wee lectern when I have them misfortune to see her speak.
Re the M/T situation: it could be solved quite easily if our host applied his own rules on trolling behaviour.
I can’t bear seeing or hearing NS now, nor those who do nothing to oust her e.g. Ian Blackford.
Having thought hitherto that we needed to get rid of NS I am now thinking that it would be easier to target her little helpers – SAS, Emma Roddick, Alyn Smith, Anne Mclaughlin, Stewart Macdonald etc etc etc. They are “littler” people and won’t get the protection of the media or the HQ staff to the same degree. And once all the little people are gone the leader will lose influence. “I have a dream…”.
Honestly there is no hiding from the Rev, is there? It never occurred to me that I couldn’t say tractors in Off Topic!
No, the All-Seeing Eye is everywhere, Sarah. It’s easier to say Massey Ferguson in any case :).
Saw a pipistrelle bat flying around in daylight again yesterday. Hope it’s not one of those Julius Caesar/End of Days things.
Well at this time of year it is mostly daylight, Tinto! A bat gotta eat, you know…
Yes but this was about elevenses time 🙂 . We normally see them at twilight flitting around the rooftops but mid-morning flight is strange. The time is out of joint and I don’t mean weed 😉 . Must be time for a hooky SNP independence plan.
A guy down the road investigated noises in his wall with one of those bendy wee camera things (technical term) and discovered a large bat colony in the wall space. Of course, he could not intervene with extreme prejudice because they are protected. Once all means of ingress had been blocked, a one-way bat-flap (out only) solved the problem (at least for him).
Yeah, Tinto, I did realise that it must have been in real daylight hours for you to have mentioned the oddity – just my little joke. 🙂
Howsomever, I don’t like NS’s latest joke speech. Jeezus. And I am very worried – am sure the spooks are going to make certain Scotland doesn’t escape soon, if at all. And are certain keen Yessers watching out for their personal security? I wouldn’t put it past the spooks bosses especially with these new laws allowing ministers to have people killed.
@Sarah: sorry. Tone, irony and humour often don’t travel well on the imterwebthingy. I’m a bit sluggish, today, I think.
I don’t believe anything so spookishly dramatic will be necessary. I can’t think of any highly charismatic Yes leaders anyway. Even if it came to a referendum, the SG is unprepared and has no clear positions on the topics they would be hounded on by the MSM: eight years of no planning or strategising is a criminal position to be in (but thank God Nicola “hearts” books, eh?). We know in any case any campaign would have neither the heart nor the head to win, even before the inevitable pochling by WM.
Then The Leaderene would say, “Well, I tried!” before toddling off to some non- but very lucrative post in the UN/WEF/WHO and leaving us deeper in doodoo than ever before.
Fot those readers who don’t get TC’s reference to “Tiny Tim and his tulips”, I offer these two links for your edumacation.
link to youtube.com
link to youtube.com
@BDTT: yes, he was always one of Greenwich Village’s strangest blooms, innit? Seemed a gentle soul, though.
Talking of strange blooms: link to youtube.com
AH! Following on from that, I’m sure I linked to this a fair while ago in ‘off-topic’.
link to youtube.com
And another of my videos, featuring a flying creature.
link to youtube.com
Just realised the pigeon connection…
@BDTT: never heard that before on here.
The pigeon connection?
Scene: Honeymoon Couple at bed time.
(Husband disrobes)
Bride: I didn’t realise you were so pigeon-chested.
Groom: That’s why I love you like a doo.
*I’ll get my coat*
Well there is something about “they’re coming to take me away..” that disturbs my dog! She is now lying under the table…
Have to agree with your analysis of the state of the independence cause, Tinto. Why and how has the entire [with a handful, if as many, exceptions] SNP parliamentary group and party administration fallen into line with this useless person? The result is a wreck.
Charismatic Yessers? I can think of only one, really.
Is it you or is it me?
🙂
Lieutenant Pigeon did “Mouldy Old Dough”.
The second video was the pigeon deterrent.
Tinto, it must be you. I’m not even charismatic to our dog – she gets hugely excited by a cheap squeaky yellow ball. I don’t register compared with that!
I found a clip of Margot MacDonald recently – my goodness what a powerhouse she was. Wouldn’t she turn Holyrood into a magnificent forum and get a fighting campaign going? I have been wondering if clips of her could be shown on buildings and display vans, as Lead by Donkeys does so well.
That exit-only bat flap is just what we need for the church building that our community bought from the Church of Scotland to save it falling into alien hands. There’s repairs needed [of course] and any time the repairs are near the roof we have to pay hundreds of pounds for bat surveys, bat licence, and bat aids. I agree with looking after wildlife but its not as if there aren’t plenty of other suitable places for these creatures.
Margo MacDonald? Without question she had it all, Sarah: great intelligence, compassion, a genuine commitment to fight for people’s rights (especially those of wives and mothers in difficult circumstances) and a fierce courage to win our freedom to put Wee Blinky to shame.
She and her family were well-known in the Hamilton and East Kilbride area and even my old-fashioned non-SNP parents had huge respect for her. Not just her: her(half-?) sister went to my school in the 60s and created a sensation when, as captain, she won a national debating competition at Glasgow University, beating many private school (and predominantly male) rivals.
You may remember some years ago that Margo warned that the SNP had been infiltrated by the security services. At the time, being somewhat naive, I thought this a bit paranoid (this was before my experience of the 2014 ref. campaign) but everything I have witnessed since then has vindicated her opinion.
I can imagine how Margo would have instantly shredded any Woke arguments as to what constitutes a woman. To mangle old William Wordsmith: “Margo! You should be living at this hour.”
Oh, Tinto, what an image you have presented of Margo making all the GRA wokists shrivel and fall silent, whilst rousing the rest of us to energetic enthusiasm. Even the best of the current activists aren’t in that league. Ah well, we just have to manage with what we’ve got.
Is her [half] sister available to help? She sounds to have the ability.
And I am sure she was right about the security services. After all, look at Willie MacRae and that was years and years before the independence-supporting vote was significant. That’s the kind of thing I was referring to the other day.
I’ve no idea what her relative did after her school days but she was certainly in the Margo mould. We were bussed to the event to hear her and she was a passionate and articulate speaker.
Looked at the situation logically, the SSs wouldn’t have been doing their job not to have their little helpers installed in the party but I had innocently thought this would be difficult to achieve. They didn’t even bother making a good job of Willie’s death, since they knew it could be easily covered up in our sham democracy and the ” investigative journalists” of our glorious Free Press wouldn’t look very closely.
Onnyhoo…….
Spiritually uplifting nature note: saw a magnificent, mature hornbeam yesterday in an old public park in Glasgow. Quite an unusual sight and much too big to hug properly.
It shoulda been “looking” in para 2.
You and me both, Tinto. I now realise how naive I am. I was always emailing Ian Blackford with helpful suggestions, trusting that he was entirely on board with trying to regain independence asap. I even emailed him when Alex Salmond was charged, saying how terrible and what a stitch-up by evil forces – Ian replied saying it was indeed a sad day for the SNP family!!!!!!!! He was party to the stitch-up, I now understand.
That hornbeam sounds superb. I could never be a forester because I can’t bear to fell trees even when they are endangering my garden walls – I have to steal myself to pull up seedlings even. We have a magnificent lime tree which thrills us every year when the flowers open and for several days the air is full of the buzz from thousands of honey bees.
Something else to cheer you up in case you haven’t seen my post btl on M/T – have a look at that clip of Billy Connolly that Broadcasting Scotland have on their site today. We were in fits of laughter.
@Sarah: Yes, every time I heard The Blowhard say we would not be taken out of the EU against our will, I believed him, and that Nicky had a cunning plan under her smart wee red coat and with one bound we would be free. What a sap I was!
I’ve always thought Connolly was one of the most naturally funny guys anywhere, but he’s been lukewarm at best over independence and I found his love affair with royalty at Highland Games, etc frankly embarrassing for such an apparently proud proletarian. I wish I were successful enough at something so I could tell them where they could stick their royal gong.
I’ve been having trouble finding the venison clip but will persevere: I could do with a laugh. His banjo playing on Cripple Creek was very good. Was it you or Daisy Walker who posted it a while back? He’s an impressive plucker. Yes, that’s what’s wot I sed.
@BDTT: ever since I got my MacBook I’ve been unable to click on the blue links under Previous Posts and the other list of links like Zany Comedy Relief, meaning I have to use the search button each time to access them. Any ideas how I could rectify the situation?
Tinto – go to Broadcasting Scotland’s site. Scroll down until a box with their tweets shows – scroll down to 16th June and look for a retweet of James Withers – he gives the Connolly clip. Or perhaps just go to James’ twitter! Sorry I can’t do links – Robert Peffers told me how in 2016 but I never got round to following his instructions!
Agree with you re Connolly’s feeble support for Scotland’s independent existence – very strange.
Reverting to Blackford – I could not believe that anyone would assert so many times that “Scotland will not be dragged out of Europe” if they didn’t have an action plan ready. If I had said such a thing I would have had to hide away in shame at not delivering. Yet there he still is. Unbelievable.
Fanx, Sarah. Most amusing (I have a similar problem grasping the concept of “Leftover Wine”).
I know there’s no-one here but us and BDTT but I’ll leave this for some stray cyber-wanderer:
link to twitter.com
I can’t be bothered tinyurling it.
To copy and paste I highlight the url of the clip which is in the wee bar at the top of the webpage, hold down the command key and press C. This saves it. When you want to post it on here press command plus V and it should appear. If it is a YouTube clip, you have to delete everything to the left of the www part of the url or it will disappear into The Rev’s Black Hole of Oblivion, never to return, like any comment which has a banned word.
R. Peffers? A blast from the past. I hope he is well. I can only imagine how he reacted to Stu’s The Great Betrayer post. Spontaneous human combustion, possibly.
Hi TC.
Haven’t come across your MacBook problem. I have had similar within the Finder on my MacPro, where the mouse will move the cursor around but the three clicks do nothing. Unplugging the mouse for a few seconds then plugging it back in usually does the job.
Onnyhoo…
Last night, I took my sister, Moira, who lives at Straloch, just outside Pitlochry, to see David Colvin’s play “Thunderstruck” at Dundee Rep. It’s about legendary piper Gordon Duncan. The reason I took her was because she and her family knew Gordon. His son, young Gordon, was best pals with my nephew Silas. They did some musical collaborations together.
The play was excellent! Full of sweary words, eg an explanation of how, in Fife, the ‘c-word’ is used instead of ‘chap’ or ‘guy’, and does not refer to a ladypart.
There was a standing ovation at the end.
On our way down the Nethergate after the show, Moira phoned young Gordon because she had told him about going to see the play. Turned out he was in Dundee visiting friends and was across the road in the DCA. So we did an ABT and met Gordon outside the DCA. Had a pleasant hour or so with him and his friends. Four of us had all gone to Kirkton High School and one of them, Gordon Mathieson, had been in my class!
Be warned though! A pint of Tennents and a large Chardonay in Wetherspoons = £5.75. The same in the DCA = £12.40!
Here’s an example of Gordon’s music, performed by his brother and nephew.
Alex plays The Sleeping Tune in a tribute to his uncle, Gordon Duncan, who wrote the tune. His father, Ian Duncan, joins in, followed by the Lothian & Borders Police Pipe Band. It is the band’s last concert, performed at the Royal Concert Hall, Glasgow, Scotland on January 12, 2012.
link to youtube.com
Incidentally, at my niece’s wedding a couple of weeks ago, one of the Red Hot Chilli Pipers was supposed to play but pulled out at the last minute. Ian Duncan stepped in and did the business.
The play is well worth seeing. This link is a good read. If you click the first ‘Thunderstruck’ graphic giving the tour dates, you will be taken to the play’s FB page, where the graphic is more legible.
link to bagpipe.news
I guess finishing off with this is appropriate. AC/DC was his favourite band.
link to youtube.com
@ Tinto: many thanks for the tutorial. I am clearly bottom of the class as I struggle to identify an url . However when I can give it my full attention I am sure it will become clear though I might have to come back for some further clarification…
Hi Sarah.
Whenever you’re on a web page, there is a long box at the top of your window, which contains text that starts with “https” or “http”.
What you do is select all the text in that box then (Control and c – Windows) or (Command and c – Mac) to copy all that text to your built-in clipboard.
Then, when you want to share that address in a comment, You press control and v (windows) or command and v (Mac) to paste the url in your comment, at the cursor position.
Always check the preview below the ‘submit’ box, to make sure your comment is legible. Remember, you must not include the “https://” or “http://” in a YouTube url.
Like this…
Here’s a link you may enjoy.
link to youtube.com
I posted that link starting with “www.”, not “https://” but the WordPress system adds the “https://” to the published comment in the background.
Just popped by and noticed you’ve been talking about Billy Connolly so I thought I’d share my anecdote! Many years ago I went with a friend to see John Renbourn (of Pentangle) and Robin Williamson (of The Incredible String Band) at the Castlemilk Folk Festival as they were doing a tour together. The place was stowed and my friend and I were sitting on chairs which had been arranged along one of the side walls. I looked around the room and saw someone that looked like Billy Connolly sitting at the back. I nudged my friend and said, “Do you not think that man over there looks just like Billy Connolly?”, and my friend replied, “Yes, he does, because it is Billy Connolly!”. I didn’t realise at the time that he was a banjo player (having started out in a band) and also a big fan of The Incredible String Band. He was invited up on stage at one point and joined in with John and Robin on his banjo! As you say, Tinto, he was actually very good.
BDTT: thanks anyway, Brian. It’s a strange problem. I may have to consult one of the Apple “geniuses” in their Glesca shop.
Lovely tune and performance in that tribute and the Thunderstruck performance on the bagpipes was astonishing: amazing technique.
Re the C-word, we met a quite refined lady while on holiday in France who used the French version con/conne a couple of times while referring to a neighbour. This surprised us a bit but it seemed to equate roughly to “silly bitch” rather than the full strength version.
@Saffron Robe: this is the clip I think Daisy Walker posted here a while ago.
link to youtube.com
Last time I saw BC (or his double) was on the big march to The Meadows from Holyrood (remember when we had those?). He was sitting at the side of the road, watching the marchers go past rather wistfully, it seemed to me. Perhaps he was was experiencing a Damascene conversion or summat.
Hi TC.
I only found one video of Gordon performing “Thunderstruck” live but it didn’t include the start.
Here it is onnyhoo, so you can checkout the fingerwork.
BTW: it is said that he reintroduced ‘notebending’ to the bagpipes and increased the 9 note limitation.
link to youtube.com
Blackbirds to be added to the list of birds of prey after chomping on my strawberries before I could get the plants netted…
Fortunately it looks like a bumper crop this year so losing just a few early ripe fruits ain’t too bad.
Think I managed to squish so many sawfly caterpillars before they stripped the bushes bare that I’ll still get a good crop of black and gooseberries.
@ BDtt
My old man made bagpipes and he helped develop and then made keyed chanters (think like keys on a clarinet) so extra note holes could be drilled in the chanter that previously the fingers could not reach to cover.
Not the best sound quality in this vid of Niteworks at Barrowlands but he made the chanter / pipes being played in this clip. 😉
link to youtube.com
Off topic has become very lively while I’ve been otherwise occupied!
Brian, thank you for the guidance on what an url is. I will report back idc. And I did enjoy that clip, by the way.
Musing on Billy Connolly after watching how he got such a funny act out of a phrase in a recipe book, I remembered a joke that always makes me giggle. He would be asking members of the audience where they were from and say something amusing. The bit that cracks me up is when he asks “Is there anyone here from Fife?”. Audience member “Aye”. BC “Your bananas are terrible.” Oh dear, giggling again..
@ Tinto, was that the October 2019 march that you saw BC watching? I was in that march as well. Happy days.
Not sure the exact date but it was the one which went up a bit of the Royal Mile and ended up in The Meadows. Bumped into Big Ronnie, BDTT and Krew near the Parliament building.
Last one I was on about six weeks ago in Glasgow barely filled Gibson Street, which isn’t a long one. Nicky’s great as a balloon burster, innit? I
Yup definitely the October 2019 one. I preferred the route the year before from Johnson’s [Terrace?] below the castle down the whole way to Holyrood and the park beyond. Jampacked, and loads of people on Arthur’s Seat with saltires. Lovely weather too!
And yes Nicola has been a complete disaster for Scotland – toothless except against our own. Criminal. Incompetent. I could go on but you know it all.
I remember JGedd and I on here a while back discussing our independent face-to-face encounters with her. We both experienced her Death Stare and her iceberg behind a force field demeanour, with no small talk/social skills. I thought it was because, as a white middle-aged male, I would be regarded as of no consequence and a vile agent of the patriarchy but JGedd is a womb-bearer and got the same impression of her, IIRC.
Don’t know quite was psychological classification to place her in but I’m working on it.
Hi Sarah.
Here are three more from ‘Derek and Clive Live’.
The first is a gentle love song. Sung by Dudley Moore as Derek.
link to youtube.com
The second is a tragedy ballad, again sung by Derek.
link to youtube.com
Lastly, ‘famous coloured singer’, Bo Duddley, explains the meaning of the lyrics of his song.
link to youtube.com
Socrates MacSporran has said several times that he worked with her uncle and she is just like him but I can’t remember what it was specifically that was “off” about the uncle. Others have said that things had to be done her way and that she didn’t hesitate to tell people with far more experience that they were wrong.
Narcissist and sociopath seem to fit.
Hi Sarah.
You typed,
“Others have said that things had to be done her way and that she didn’t hesitate to tell people with far more experience that they were wrong.”
We have a guy like that at work just now. So disruptive. He thinks because he was a “manager”, that gives him the right to nitpick the work of others, who have been in the job a lot longer than he.
I’ve been a manager but I wouldn’t presume to be more correct than my current line manager in my thinking.
I think “narcissist” is nearest the mark.
@Sarah: probably my own diagnosis (Tinto Chiel , M.D. Third Class, Univy. of Rockall, 1972). Personality By-Pass may be a contributory factor in her condition.
Sadly Socrates has given up since The Rev put the site into cold storage, like many other entertaining contributors.
May The Force be with you.
@BDTT: just caught up with your Derek and Clive cavalcade of utter filth. Their “back-catalogue” on YouTube does indeed cause a sharp intake of breath at times, but Free Speech is always much better than No Speech, which is where we are all headed with the Online Harms legislation (and other Tory attacks on freedom).
D&C outrage the mim-moued, pearl-clutching, offence-junky creeps (and governments who wish to increase their authoritarian control over us) who hypocritically on the sly wish to censor anyone who defends free speech and challenges their Woke Lunacy and other Holy Cows.
MTS: Elvis C warned us over forty years ago.
link to youtube.com
@ Tinto: I am as well-qualified as you, medically, but am in a good run at the moment. I diagnosed my husband via googling his symptoms as having fibro-myalgia this week – he told the GP that this is my view and she replied “oh, fibro-myalgia is rather difficult to diagnose”!! She very kindly didn’t ask Peter what medical qualifications I had. The University of Google might not have impressed her.
@ BDTT: all in the best possible taste, of course. But are there any satirist comics around now to match Dud and Pete, or John Bird and Fortune?
Hi Sarah.
You typed,
” But are there any satirist comics around now to match Dud and Pete, or John Bird and Fortune?”
I think Ricky Gervais came close recently.
He cleverly repeated the Trans-activists mantras, without comment. Result? Trans-activists going doo-lally at his “anti-trans” stance (in their eyes). Watch these two short videos.
link to youtube.com
link to youtube.com
Hi Brian,
Yes Ricky Gervais is good, and that trans activists piece spot-on. But what a life – fancy having to defend yourself for a comedy routine that used his critics own words.
Hi Sarah.
Typing about contemporary comedians…
Apart from being an excellent musician, Bill Bailey has a sharp mind when it comes to comedy.
link to youtube.com
link to youtube.com
link to youtube.com
I’m juss gonna type…
If Lidl and Aldi capitulate like Tesco did (removed their own brand of “Iron Brew”) I will go back to Whisky and Lemonade.
If Lidl can produce “Iron Brew” for 49p for 2 litres, Barr’s are profiteering, costing around £1.50.
There…. typed.
I have Gogglebox on E4 as my background video bubblegum.
Here’s an idea for STV: do a remake of “Baywatch”, located at Wemyss Bay Beach. A sort of “Take the sea road”.
link to youtube.com
Sexual innuendo a gogo: link to youtube.com
I’ve always found those rubber ankles quite astonishing.
Elvis was quite a guy before he “discovered” C&W.
Hi TC.
The first Elvis single I bought was this:-
link to youtube.com
I subsequently bough this one, which had been released previously. This one was Stiff Buy14 – the one above was Stiff Buy15.
link to youtube.com
Onnyhoo…
Yooz may recall that I posted a link for Jeff Beck’s “Beck’s Bolero” (B side of “Hi Ho Silver Lining”) a wee while ago.
Found this on Facebook a couple of days ago. QI.
————————————————
Beck recorded this with Jimmy Page, John Paul Jones, Keith Moon, and Nicky Hopkins during a single-day recording session in 1966.
They planned to record a whole album, but contractual obligations prevented them from recording together again, and this was the only song from that session that was released. This Beck/Page/Jones/Moon/Hopkins combination had the makings of a supergroup, and it nearly happened, but they couldn’t find a suitable lead singer, failing to pry Steve Marriott away from Small Faces. Page and Jones then formed Led Zeppelin.
In a 1977 interview with Guitar Player magazine, Jimmy Page said: “On the ‘Beck’s Bolero’ thing I was working with that, the track was done, and then the producer just disappeared. He was never seen again; he simply didn’t come back. Napier-Bell, he just sort of left me and Jeff to it.
Jeff was playing and I was in the box (recording booth). And even though he says he wrote it, I wrote it. I’m playing the electric 12-string on it. Beck’s doing the slide bits, and I’m basically playing around with chords. The idea was built around (classical composer) Maurice Ravel’s ‘Bolero.’ It’s got a lot of drama to it; it came off right. It was a good lineup too, with Keith Moon, and everything.”
Beck, Page, Hopkins, Jones, and Moon were pleased with the outcome of the recording session and there was talk of forming a working group and additional recordings. This led to the famous quip, “Yeah, it’ll go down like a lead zeppelin”, which Page later used, with a slight spelling change, for his new group. Page ascribed it to Moon, while Beck’s and Led Zeppelin’s later manager Peter Grant claimed Moon used the phrase “go down like a lead balloon”, to which Entwistle added, “more like a lead zeppelin”. Group biographer Keith Shadwick notes that forming an actual group at the time “was never a realistic option”, due to existing contractual obligations.
“Beck’s Bolero” is roughly divided into three parts. The first begins with a reworking of Ravel’s two-chord progression, transposed to the key of A. Power points out that by using a 12-string guitar, Page is able to take advantage of the instrument’s “rich chiming quality to emulate the distinct, orchestral ‘bolero’ sound”. Beck then introduces the melody line on electric guitar with a fuzz-tone effect producing indefinite sustain; alternating between major and minor modes, it is described as “haunting” by Power and as a “distinctive piercing, sinister tone” by critic Richie Unterberger.
In the second section, the piano, bass, and drums come in and the tension builds. Unterberger describes the third section as “suddenly set[ting] off from the main motif into a beautiful serene section highlighting slide-glissando guitars”, with Beck’s echo-laden slide sounding similar to a steel guitar.
The fourth section returns to the main melody with overlaid drawn-out descending slide. According to Beck, “the phasing was Jimmy’s idea … I played a load of waffle and he reversed it”. The tension mounts as Moon adds drum flourishes, climaxing with a break.
The second part begins with Moon’s simultaneous drum break and scream and launches in a different, hard rock direction. “It was my idea to cut off in the middle, Yardbirds-style”, Beck commented, “Keith upped the tempo and gave it an extra kick. It’s like a bit of the Who, a bit of the Yardbirds, and a bit of me”.
The amply-distorted guitar provides “a thick-toned, descending riff”, according to Power. He also describes the break, inspired by the Yardbirds’ rave-up technique, as “eerily presag[ing] the coming era of hard rock and heavy metal”.
The third part returns to the main motif with added guitar fills. The melody line is abandoned in the second section and replaced with multiple interwoven takes of guitar effects, including phasing, echo, and controlled feedback. It concludes with a few bars of hard blues rock-style lead guitar and an abrupt ending.
link to youtube.com
So Alison is now 45 years old? Truly frightening. Ou sont les neiges d’antan, innit?
Beck’s Bolero is a reminder of how rock stars In Them Days could play thae instrument hings because they had natural talent and they didn’t try to lecture us about fruit loop politics of various kinds to ensure the support of the so-called globalist “elites”.
Can’t imagine anyone being able to tell Cream what to play or think. Might have found a drum stick or the neck of a guitar in a painful place.
Remember the days when you bought a 7″ single for the A side. Then wore it out over a week or three, before discovering a humdinger on the B Side?
1968: The A side:
link to youtube.com
The B side:
link to youtube.com
Further info…
link to en.wikipedia.org
In that Wikipedia link, Tim Mycroft is mentioned. I will continue in a following comment, so as not to invoke the 4 link moderation.
I actually own the vinyl album from which this comes…
Tim Mycroft (Sounds Nice):
link to youtube.com
link to discogs.com
And typing about the late 60s, music-wise…
I remember seeing this performed live on TOTP but it’s not on Youtube, which has developed into a great archive of what’s gone before.
I was amazed at how fast he was able to move his fingers.
link to youtube.com
Yes, quite astonishing (he Lamonted). Dave’s really dropped off the R&R radar and I don’t get the impression he made oodles of moola compared to many of his contemporaries.
It’s a funny old game, Saint.
One more “classic” from Mr Edmunds…
link to youtube.com
I’ve never been a jazz aficionado – liked Kenny Ball’s singles and this left-field offering in the 60s by the Clyde Valley Stompers…
link to youtube.com
But this I’ve liked since I first heard it, back in the 70s.
link to youtube.com
Yes, the CVSs (though trad) were good and very tight but times were a-changing and by the 60s they just gave up the ghost, I think
Haven’t heard Weather Report for ages and that was one of their best.
Don’t want to upset Dan The Man but I saw a beautiful sawfly zoom past my kitchen back door yesterday. Not quite as big as one I saw on Skye in the late 80s though : that was a Lost World monster which looked rather intimidating.
Hi TC.
I always fancied doing a “mashup” of Weather Report and this:-
link to youtube.com
Unfortunately, they’ve already done it.
link to youtube.com
So, here’s another single from the 70s that I liked, meaning that it would be a miss.
link to youtube.com
I may as well offer this one, which was a hit all over Europe but not in the UK – probably because I bought it.
link to youtube.com
Google “Shabby Tiger” for more info about this British band. The info is QI.
Shabby Tiger? Good to see Nadine Dorries had an interesting career before politics 🙂 .
Hi TC.
The vocalist was one of Billy Connolly’s ‘surname clan’ – Henderson Gibson – from Glasgow.
link to lancashiretelegraph.co.uk
link to lancashiretelegraph.co.uk
They had a rather good logo…
One more bra’ single from the 70s, which I have in my vinyl collection, assuring that it would never make the charts…
link to youtube.com
(Check out the comments btl.)
Is anyone else getting this anomaly?
When I submit a comment in ‘off-topic’, the page refreshes to the ‘off-topic’ front page.
I then have to hit the back button, then the refresh button, to see my latest comment.
That Paranoids track had all the right hooks for a big hit right enough: weird how sheer luck and shameless plugging by a friendly DJ can play such a part in chart success.
The O/T problem you mentioned hasn’t happened to me yet. I’m still struggling with the fact that the links to previous M/T posts are dead when I click on them, like those to Scottish Politics, etc. Never happened with my chanky old laptops, chiz chiz.
Your mention of crotchless leather balaclavas reminded me of the big contributor in past years who used to talk about Tory “gimps” (and wasn’t “Orange Hitler/Mussolini” for Trump another one of his favourites?). For someone so prolific, his name escapes me now. Eventually Stu banned him for some reason I can’t remember/never knew. Any ideas what he was called?
Meanwhile, in other news, I hope the Prickly One is well. Haven’t seen anything from him for a long time.
Re. IT gremlins
Aye Brian, I have had a similar situation for some considerable time when posting in OT, and will see how I get on when submitting this post…
I also don’t keep the OT page open in a tab, so each time I try to open OT or click on a direct link to it such as Tinto’s post showing on the right hand side of recent posts box on main page, it takes me to the previous page of OT, which I then have to go to foot of page,, them click newer comments to open this current page, then drop all the way down to pick up that recent comment.
I’ve completed a complete cache and cookie clear, and even tried switching my laptop off then on again and it still does the same thing.
@Tinto
The sawflies that frequent my fruit bushes are pretty small, are you possibly describing a wood wasp as they are big and scare the wits out of me.
As expected, once I submitted that ^^^ post the page refreshed to the previous OT page and I had to work my way back to the foot of this page. If I do that journey too quick I can sometimes not see my post and have to then press Ctrl F5 to hard refresh this page for it to appear.
@Dan: I consulted my Big Boy’s Book of Insects and the one I saw was definitely the female Urocerus gigas, which is sometimes called the wood wasp as you rightly say (or horntail). I see from the tome that there are a good few smaller varieties of sawfly to annoy you and your crops, unfortunately.
I remember the one I saw on Skye was flying around near a pile of large logs on the edge of a wood, presumably where she would lay her eggs with her ovipositor. Quite what the one I saw in my quiet wee back garden was up to I know not but it/she/they zoomed about impressively in her Alloa Athletic strip for a few minutes in an inclusive and diversity-appropriate manner until I went back to my gloss painting.
@ me 9.21: the mystery man was heedtracker, ya lunkhead!
Just realised who my mystery man of 9.21 was but because I named him my comment is awaiting moderation. His name is like he@dtracker but not quite 😉 .
Typin’ aboot flying creatures…
Summer of 2008, Chris and I visited my sister at Straloch. On a warm, sunny afternoon, I, my son and nieces walked down to a swimming area of the River Ardle.
While we were messin’ aboot, the creature pictured below crash-landed in the river. We managed to rescue it and put it on a stone beside the river.
After around 10 minutes, it had dried out enough to carry out a successful take-off.
That’s an excellent foatie, Brian. Since it’s in Scotland,I think it’s more likely to be a Gold-ringed Dragonfly than anything else. Positively prehistoric, innit?
Good for you for restoring it to good Large Hawker health.
Talking about monsters, about forty years ago, I was working in a library when there were squeals form staff near a window. A cockchafer (steady!) or May-bug had flown in under a hopper window and was discomfiting the lieges. It’s an ugly but harmless-to-humans insect. As for the Devil’s Coach-horse wot I done see in a hearth in Brittany, well……..
Meant to get you back for your 10.30 of yesterday.
This is a hit from the month I left school (sighs), so it has a very nostalgic place in my flinty old heart. It’s The Move on the cusp of TRANSITIONING into the ELO and Wizzard/Wotever:
link to youtube.com
Those of a nervous disposition should look away NOW (sideburn alert!).
Those big yellow n black dragonflies must have a problem with flight navigation as I had one fly into and get stuck on one of my motorbike fork stanchions when I was cruising up around the Fortingall Yew tree area. (A wee gratuitous tree mention for ami des arbres, Tinto. 😉 )
Unfortunately it was stone deid by the time I noticed it when I stopped to gnaw my way through a Scotch pie in Aberfeldy.
* A wee gratuitous tree mention for ami des arbres, Tinto. 😉
Arse! How I hate typing on a freekin laptop without a proper keyboard plug intae it. Tried to shuffle text about in my post before submitting to keep BDtt’s pedant twitch from going aff, only to forget to delete the line I had copied and pasted leaving it duplicated… Which will probably now get BDtt more agitated than if I’d left my post as it was… sigh
I’m cool – it’s Friday night…
But…
typing about what was in vogue when we left school…
I was allowed to leave Kirkton High School a month early as I had a firm job offer – as a bank apprentice in the Clydesdale Bank, at 496 Strathmartine Road, 5 minutes walk from the school.
So, for the last month of school, I collected my Coke, hot savoury and crisps, then went back to the 5th Year common room to have my lunch.
There was a transistor – tuned to Radio 1. For around 6 weeks, this single was played almost every day, during “Radio 1 Club” at lunchtime. It was never a hit – but today, copies of the single can change hands for £40+.
Why? Because at one point, Greg Lake was a member of the band. If you listen to the first link below, then compare the vocal inflections in the second link, you can see the similarity of vocal style.
link to youtube.com
link to youtube.com
@Dan: that Glen Lyon road past Fortingall must be a good on a bike. I like the Timeline of History pathway they have leading up to the tree itself. That area has almost as many ancient sites/cup-and-ring markings as Kilmartin in the west: very atmospheric.
Strange, I don’t remember Shy Limbs at all (some rather dodgy drumming, don’t ya think?) but it was great to hear KC again in probably their best bombastic style.
FTS, Dan: want to see some foaties of some naked beauties you’d just love to get your arms around?
FWOARRRR!!! link to amazon.co.uk
As has been uttered in the past, “Friday Night is Music Night!”
So here are two helpings for you. The first features lady singers – two from the 60s and one from the 70s.
To get your brain gears grinding, I fancied two of them and saw one of them live in Dundee.
link to youtube.com
link to youtube.com
link to youtube.com
The second features three successful singles from the “Pop-syke” genre of the late 60s.
link to youtube.com
link to youtube.com
link to youtube.com
And your bonuses for tonight…
Graham Bonnet before Rainbow…
link to youtube.com
Lulu, when I was 16…
link to youtube.com
I liked this at the time…
link to youtube.com
Och, one last bonus, because it turned up after one of the previous…
link to youtube.com
That Norma Tanega track was a long-forgotten jewel, BDTT: thanks for the memory. I noticed in the Nancy Sinatra track that the second from left dancer was rather more nimble than the other kinky-booted hoofers (can I still say that?).
Of course, I knew you’d work Julie Driscoll into your segue, given Your Blonde Thingy.
Sadly, a flare-up between Smallaxe and Fred over Lulu a good few years ago ruined a beautiful on-line friendship but that’s the tone-free internet for you.
@BDTT: liked you Cap in Hand clip on the M/T yesterday, which sadly seemed to go unremarked.
It struck me that another of the Reids’ musical musings would be appropriate for many of those in the Scottish Meeja and Jocks like Gordon Ramsay:
link to youtube.com
Hi TC.
Funnily enough, I was thinking about the song in the link below and I put this comment into my head, before I saw your latest link.
An example of singing in the vernacular, years before The Proclaimers; a single I bought back in the day:-
link to youtube.com
Yes, our various accents in Scotland can confuse foreigners a bit. I once asked a Frenchman to pass the milk at a B&B and he said, “What eez theece MULK?” I think linguists call it the “dark” Lanarkshire vowel 🙂 .
This caused quite a stir ablaw the dyke when it was given a folksy twists with a drone and Kate’s flat Northern English vowels: link to youtube.com
Hi TC.
“MULK”. Immediately reminded me of the first link below, where you will find “MUWK” (no pronounced “L”). See also, “Acker Buwk”.
link to web.archive.org
You may also find this educational:-
link to dundonianforbeginners.co.uk
There are plenty of links to explore there (on the left of the page).
Glad you posted those links, BDTT, because I lost your Dundee dictionary from my faves a while ago when a previous laptop died on me without warning. I fear your definition of a TV may well land you in one of Nicky’s Quick Response Gender Tribunals 🙂 .
Not clear what a payvee is. Could you elucidate?
You may savour this still-sometimes-heard Lanarkshire construction, as in this sub-Stanley Baxter vignette:
“Yer no’ a bluenose!”
“Aye um urr!”
“No ye murny!”
P.S. Do they actually say, “Ma pinner’s fell down a cundie” in Dundee?
That should be “doun”, not down: auto-correct/PT or summat.
Hi TC.
A/the payvee/pavey is that thoroughfare provided for pedestrians at ground level, separated from a road by a cribbie, adjacent to which are found cundies at irregular intervals. Such cundies are magnets for fallen keys, etc. Not many young folk these days play games involving pinners.
That web site is the archived version of the original “St Andrew & The Woollen Mill” site.
link to web.archive.org
Here are the A Side and B Side of their/his most famous single:-
Featuring St Andrew with a spoons solo,
link to youtube.com
and
link to youtube.com
Hi TC.
A couple of documentaries you may enjoy:-
Saint andrew – the myth behind the legend
link to youtube.com
High Dubiety – a Dundee music archive compilation film
link to youtube.com
A final Dundee music offering for this morning.
Jump The Q – The Devil Went Doon Tae Forfar
link to youtube.com
BTW:
“The word on the pavey” harks back to “the word on the street” sections of the original “Police Squad” TV series (only 6 episodes) featuring Leslie Nielsen.
link to imdb.com
link to youtube.com
link to youtube.com
link to youtube.com
BTW:
“Police Squad” was shown on Grampian TV around 11pm in the early 80s.
Thanks for those, BDTT. Have been having difficulty getting on o Wings: keep getting Bad Gateway or Gateway Timeout messages, although I can access any any other site I want easily. I fear dirty work at the cyber-crossroads.
Rich fare in those links: will take my time and enjoy them since SWMBO is away for the day.
Hi TC.
The bad gateway has been happening for a period in the afternoon for a wee whiley. It was a tad earlier today.
Sorry to interrupt the conversation but… I wanted to ask if anyone knows anything about Dave Llewellyn’s court case i.e. is he going to appeal? It looks like another COPFS persecution of a staunch Yesser a la Mark Hirst but this time the sheriff got it wrong.
I don’t like to raise it on M/T yet as there’s enough ill-feeling on there and I don’t want to stir it up on this matter.
Still working my way through your big archive, Brian. So is St Andrew really a Man of Mystery?
I suspect you resisted the temptation to play his most sublime creation: link to youtube.com but I thought any passers-by might find it orgasmatronic.
Don’t apologise, Sarah, this is the internet’s Compost Corner where nothing happens, slowly.
Can’t help you re DL but you might get a better response on the M/T.
Forgot to say that this is a good food-themed insane bookend to the aforementioned, from a bit further north:
link to youtube.com
Some unsuspecting cyber-surfer who stumbles into O/T, the Grimpen Mire at the end of the internet, may find it tickles her/his/its fancy.
The Chiel meister isn’t you, Tinto, is he? I enjoyed it anyway – helping my Scots no end!
Hi TC.
Even I found the Moray mince rap a tad weird.
Still working my way through your archive, BDTT. So, does Saint Andrew still live? What was his connection to Michael Marra? Ou sont les neiges d’antan and is there honey still for tea?
@Sarah: no, that’s another chiel. Actually, all the womb-bearers in my family find that particular one rather creepy but he is truly unique, like so many others 🙂 . There’s a bit I don’t get when he bumps into his pals in the street but my ear can tune into the rest of it now.
Tinto: although I tell the Census that I can understand spoken Scots, that is stretching the truth rather!
Dinna fash, Sarah!
My childhood home was a battleground between My Dear Old Dad, who clung to Scots, and my “self-improving” mother, who for some reason, wanted to live down her miner’s daughter roots. He would go out of his way to annoy her by saying to me, ‘Scuse me for raxing forenenst ye fur the saut” at the dining table or “Yon Bogheid pitch (then home to Dumbarton FC) is a richt cowp!” when I returned from a football match. In his mind, goalies played in “yella ganseys”, a chaffinch was a shilfie, and a thrush a mavis.
Meanwhile, my mother fumed quietly in a sub-Hyacinth Bucket kind of way while I smirked at his winks 🙂 .
Aye mind, we’re aa ae oo…..
Hi TC.
As far as I know, he is still around. I believe he knew the Marras through the local music scene. He was an art teacher called Andrew Pelc. More info here:-
link to retrodundee.blogspot.com
You may find this of interest also:-
link to retrodundee.blogspot.com
Thanks, Brian.
Have to say I have really enjoyed Pelc’s very dry and, to use an old-fashioned term, arch, sense of very verbal humour, in the style of Cutler, Murray etc. By comparison, Connolly, whatever your political views about him, was a bit of a sledgehammer.
Meanwhile, as the latest M/T shows, our country circles the effing plughole under our nasty wee deranged imposter…..
@ TC: happy memories of your parents!
Terrible situation Scotland is in under nuSNP. It has been one disaster after another since Alex stood down.
Hi Sarah.
But we can still rise now
and be the nation again,
that fights against her,
Ms Nicola Sturgeon
and sends her homeward
to think again.
I’m not a poet and I know it.
This song’s for Andy Endless on the main thread:
link to youtube.com
(The Stranglers “Shut Up”)
(It is also suitable for plenty of other timewasters on there. 🙁 )
Oh Brian, I go round and round in my head trying to see a way to get rid of her but can’t find a solution that is quick enough. She has got the elected people either cowed or complicit in her wicked ways.
But as you say we must rise and keep fighting.
@ David: as you say, I too wish so many of them on M/T would shut up, or at least that others would just ignore them.
@David. Since we’re Strangling, this track puts me in mind of The Leaderene, and most of the the Lizard Folk like Blair who now inhabit the political sphere:
link to youtube.com
Or this, for that matter: link to youtube.com
Hip-hop may not be everyone’s cup of tea, but the lyrics and samples on “Indian Hip Hop Volume 1” are worth listening to. It always amazes me how as Scots we have such a natural affinity with the struggle of other indigenous people around the world.
link to morrisrecords02.bandcamp.com
I’m a big cinema buff, mainly giallos, horrors, and old B and B&W movies, and one seventies film I watched recently which I really enjoyed was “Black Samurai”. It’s such a zany mix of James Bond, blaxploitation and martial arts! Jim Kelly is so cool as the main character and it’s so un-PC it’s a joy to watch!
link to imdb.com
@Saffron Robe: wow! That Indian hip-hop (not my favourite style) seems polished, “big sound” and intelligent (NOT a criticism) compared to the traditional USA stuff. So much to enjoy there, including the “Network” track.
Can I access Black Samurai easily and cheaply?
I always thought that Take Five was a bit safe and sound jazzwise until I heard Joe Morello’s drum solo on this (4.45 and onwards):
link to youtube.com
Tinto, “Black Samurai” is quite hard to find online, but I watched it on Wi-Fi Movies (www.wifimovies.net). Direct link below, but please note only visit this site if you have an ad blocker installed, otherwise your browser will be overloaded with ads. (I use Adblocker Ultimate which is very good.)
link to wifimovies.net
And I agree with you about the Indian hip-hop album. Powerful stuff!
Great video, Tinto. I love “Take Five” and “Unsquare Dance”. I grew up listening to modern jazz courtesy of my father. I remember hearing “The Inch Worm” by John Coltrane and thinking, “What on earth is that?” I had never heard anything like it! I also remember being taken to see the Modern Jazz Quartet at the Theatre Royal and was mesmerised by how cultured and sophisticated they were. Archie Shepp was another favourite of mine, and I was fascinated by “The Magic of Ju-Ju”. Both the contents and the cover art!
@Saffron Robe: I’ll have a go at finding Black Samurai without the ads. Might even invest in a DVD if it’s available. I eventually had to buy an expensive copy of Executive Action just to see it ‘cos I hate all the streaming impediments.
To my shame, I can’t read music so only respond emotionally. Jazz is an ocean of mystery to me so I only like wot I like, innit? I graduated from listening furtively to my brother’s cache of King Oliver and Lu Watters Yerba Buena Jazz Band to Miles Davis and So What? In between I discovered heretical Cream and Spencer Davis group amongst his rack. He had a crappy Dansette record player but it didn’t seem to matter.
I’m going back to listen to your Indian hip-hop more leisurely to seek enlightenment 🙂 .
Eine kleine Nachtmusik: link to youtube.com
Wonderful off-beats when the drums come in.
Catching up here.
Not much in my sphere of interest. Sorry – except “Take 5″and “Unsquare Dance” (signature tune for an Emma Thomson series), which I have always liked.
Onnyhoo, this band was big in the early 60s, providing backing for various US acts in the UK.
link to youtube.com
link to youtube.com
link to youtube.com
link to youtube.com
Here’s 19 minutes of them live in Australia…
link to youtube.com
Might as well stick this in – the B side of “Top Of The Pops”.
link to youtube.com
Och, gotta include these…
link to youtube.com
And they’re still on the go…
link to youtube.com
Big Bands is it?
Naeb’dy does big band kitsch better than the schlockmeister himself: link to youtube.com
Love the German speaker @ 2.09 who expresses her surprise and admiration idiomatically. The two Germans who wrote HC and old Dutch Andre himself seem to have more genuine passion for our country than the SNP combined.
The Rezillos were great, as were their roll-up accessories 😉 .
A fine piece of aural videography, TC.
I still like this though…
link to youtube.com
Only popping in to say hello.
I use Safari and for some reason it cannot/will not allow me to select the menu buttons on Wings. All comes up as some weird kind of Indonesian-style text. So it’s a bit of a palaver to get onto OT, or any other recent thread.
Anyway, hope all is well with all youse.
🙂
@BDTT: nae wunner! I always find the btl comments touching and sad by turns.
We had a family holiday in St Valery sur Somme about twenty years ago. There’s an old archway there where I was told a Scottish army which was supporting Jeanne d’Arc passed through. I haven’t bothered to follow this up but it’s a nice thought. Incidentally, about 300 years earlier, William The Bastard sailed from there to begin his conquest of Anglo-Saxon England.
@ Ian B: are you the mad conspiracy theorist wot takes the piss out The Yoons on the M/T? If so, knock three times, ask for Samantha and take your seat by the camp fire.
Hi TC.
link to maidofheaven.com
Quote therefrom:-
“Joan was led into the besieged city of Orléans on April 28th, 1429, to the celebratory skirl of the Scottish pipes. The tune played for her was “Hey Tuttie Taiti”. The same tune that had marched Robert the Bruce into battle at Bannockburn a century before. The same tune that Robert Burns would set to his poem “Scots Wha Hae” centuries later.
Her escort consisted of 60 Scottish men-at-arms and 70 Scottish archers led by Sir Patrick Ogilvy of Auchterhouse, hereditary sheriff of Angus. And her standard, depicting God as King of Heaven, was made a few months previous by Hamish Powers, a Scotsman living in the city of Tours.
“
Hi IanB.
FOWIngs in Dow’s after the 18th September rally?
link to primary-sources-series.joan-of-arc-studies.org
Quote therefrom:-
“The significant number of Scottish commanders in the following entry is a good illustration of the degree to which Charles VII relied on noblemen from that kingdom, long allied with the French monarchy due to a common history of disputes with the English. In other portions of these campaigns, troops from Spain, Italy, and various other regions throughout Europe served in Joan of Arc’s armies, a situation which had likewise been a common element in French Royal forces throughout the Hundred Years War.”
My typing went a tad awry there.
“Hi IanB.
FOWIngs in Dow’s after the 18th September rally?”
should have been after
“…throughout the Hundred Years War.”
I’ve always wanted to climb Liathach but somehow family life and work got in the way, although I’ve had great times climbing on Skye, often with great trepidation.
This young chiel had a great day for his climb, but some may need a drink just to watch him sprachle up the path just to AVOID the pinnacles: link to youtube.com
Don’t know where he got his translation of Mullach an Rathain (long first A) from. No Polis on the hills in them days (or any day) so it probably means “summit of the wee fort” or a hill which resembled such a circular construction.
Reminds me that climbing can be a profoundly spiritual experience.
May The Force be with you all.
Och well, I’ve got my buses booked for 18/9/22, allowing for a couple of hours in Dows with Ronnie after the rally.
Onnyhoo, been meaning to do this for a wee whiley. When I was DJ in Jaspers rock club, back in the 90s, one of the regulars suggested that the easy listening genre was worth exploring.
I have explored, discovered and rediscovered stuff from my earlier life that I (still) like. My particular interest is instrumentals from the 50s, 60s, and later.
Thus, I will post some links to stuff that is in my many 2 hour “snooze” playlists on my leedle iMac.
Tonight, I will start with Ron Goodwin. This first one is a bit weird. It’s probably his best known tune.The weirdness comes in because it’s a theme from a British movie involving an attack by a Mosquito squadron on a Nazi heavy water plant in Norway, played by a German orchestra.
link to youtube.com
The second is just a nice relaxing melody.
link to youtube.com
The third is an interesting construction of various melodies within the overall piece.
link to youtube.com
I’ve done one Munro – Ben Lawers, on a school Geography field trip around 1968. The walk up was fine but the walk back down was done in a different direction, on a path that seemed to slope away rather alarmingly on either side.
I’ve had a hankering to do Schiehallion since I found that it is visible from the Law in Dundee. I don’t think my ageing body is up to the task now, though.
It says at this web site,
“It takes the form of a broad ridge, with the famous conical appearance only apparent from across Loch Rannoch.” As you can see from the first link above, “the famous conical appearance” is visible from Dundee, 44 miles away.
link to walkhighlands.co.uk
If you didn’t know, Schiehallion was used to calculate the mass of The Earth.
link to en.wikipedia.org
That 633 Squadron performed by a German band was seriously weird. Reminds me of an incident involving my best man, who one English Bank Holiday was down in the Leeds area for a business meeting the following day and ended up in a pub where The Battle of Britain was being played on the TV.
The saloon was pretty empty so he started talking to a guy around his age with a Yorkshire accent. As they gradually got more “relaxed’ he noticed his new-found friend getting excited whenever a Spitfire or Hurricane got shot down on the pub TV. Puzzled, he asked why. Turned out the guy’s father had been a Luftwaffe POW who hadn’t returned to Germany after the war and he had retained his loyalties.
In a similar vein, I was watching a documentary on Monte Cassino a good few years ago and was amazed by a German paratrooper’s interview when he replied to the interviewer’s questions in a very strong Yorkshire/Lancashire accent (as a Scot I find some difficult to distinguish). Once again, he was a POW who had ended up in Northern England and had stayed put after the war.
Binge’s Elizabethan Serenade always reminds me of another of his compositions:
link to youtube.com
Hi TC.
That Watermill video was rather pleasant musically but I found the graphics a strange mixture of visually pleasing and unsettling at the same time.
Another helping of favourite instrumentals…
link to youtube.com
link to youtube.com
link to youtube.com
and a bonus
link to youtube.com
Musical joke:
A pub pianist offered to play any song the customers could name. He knew thousands of songs, and had never been stuck, unable to recall a tune. Until…
…a customer who asked him to play “Paddy Me Boy”.
The pianist gave up, he didn’t know it, and asked the customer to sing it for him. (Click on link below for the tune.) 🙂
link to youtube.com
Wee, related, bonus joke:
link to youtube.com
Hi David.
I haven’t clicked the link but, I’ve heard it before. It’s gotta be “Chatanoogoo Choo Choo”.
I have linked to this in the past but a combination of Scottish country ethnic and syndrums appeals to me.
link to youtube.com
Today’s Trussmas Day soundtrack:
“Meet the new boss, same as the old boss”
(The Who – Won’t Get Fooled Again)
link to youtube.com
“No matter who you vote for, the government always gets in”
(Bonzo Dog Band)
link to youtube.com
“I predict a riot”
(Kaiser Chiefs)
link to youtube.com
‘Are you not entertained?’
@David: or possibly this…..
link to youtube.com
Desperate search for an antidote: link to youtube.com
Mind you, I always find this helps: link to youtube.com
The Answer to Barry McGuire…
link to youtube.com
Wow! I found that creepy and bizarre but maybe the singer’s appearance had something to do with it………
Hi folks, I have returned to the fray. Had to take some time out for wifely duties, in sickness and in health and all that. Other half not been too well but been up in Edinburgh for a month for his treatment, but it’s great tae be hame.
M/T as usual I see. When Rev puts a new post up occasionally, comments start away quite sensibly. and then he appears to pontificate to us lesser mortals. Deary me it’s wearing. I spend a lot of time scrolling past, or don’t read at all. Nice to see that some of folk here still managing to keep OT going. I miss the fun that we all used to get in the run up to 2014. Sad, but there we are.
I always try and have a wee look in on OT nice to keep in touch. Anybody know how Nana and Hacka are doing? I hope that they are well and thriving.
Nice to see you again, Marie. I noticed you on some twitter or was it Iain Lawson’s blog the other day.
Sorry to hear your other half has been so unwell. I had a scare myself this year – polymyalgia struck overnight and my husband could hardly move let alone do anything useful in the practical line. Happily steroids worked their weird magic.
Nana is very active retweeting on Nana [@McChew] usually but has been quiet since 4th September.
I don’t know if Hacka was at the Inverness march – I was sitting holding Sara Salyers dog during the speeches and didn’t arrive in time for the march itself so didn’t wander around meeting people.
Re quality of btl – I did a request the other day on the Contact tab to the Rev to boot out Christopher Pike who is so personally unpleasant, and I may have named Andy Ellis as another one who doesn’t help. Could have said John Main and Mark Boyle too but didn’t. I just read our friends comments really – Dan, Tinto, BDTT, Dorothy.
However I am currently hugely inspired by the Salvo.scot/SSRG research and the subsequent campaign – Proclamation and National Assembly. These are practical steps to put we the people back in charge and will pressurise Scot Gov/SNP as much as Westminster. So I try to spread the word to sign the Proclamation – local paper and the National, local Yes group, Highlands Yes group, Highland Alba etc etc. SNP members are signing which is encouraging. What do you think?
Hi Sarah, You would have seen me commenting on Iain Lawson’s blog. I’m always hoping to see some of the regulars here maybe commenting too. Only one I can recall seeing is socrates mcsporran now and again. It’s a decent blog to comment on and most of the times the debate is good, and always civil, even if you are disagreeng with someone else’s point of view. Very refreshing. You’re right about the usual suspects on the M/T.
Sorry to hear that you suffered from Polymyalgia, that’s and extremely painful condition. One of my friends had it and the steriods fairly helped her. I hope that you are enjoying better health.
Thank you for the update on Nana and Hacka. Inverness is a bit far from the southwest, wouldn’t have made it anyway owing to my Husband;s health. Won’t make the Yestival in George Square either, but I hope that it is well attended.
At least some good souls are trying to progress Independence by other routes SALVO and SSRG in particular. Funny how what they have done the past couple of weeks no one has got to hear about, seems to be a complete news blackout. Surprised, not really trying to deny any publicity at all. Mind you if you had been bunged £9 million you might do as the SG asks.
Great to hear from you, Marie. Was wondering how you and your husband were. Hope things improve for you both.
As Sarah says, I believe Nana still dishes it out to the deserving on Twitter. I think Haka, like me, is a bit semi-detached and concentrating on domestic remoulding/musing on the ineffable.
Hope we can all meet one day somewhere in a better Scotland. I’ll be on bongos and Ian B on slide guitar.
One of your favourite singers, I think, Marie, and one of my favourite places. What could possibly go wrong?
link to youtube.com
I bet Hacka is fishing! Perfect temperature and weather and plenty of mackerel about. Also very restful – can’t be thinking about land-based troubles when you’re on the water.
Have other Off-topic residents signed the Proclamation? I know an Inverness Alba activist got 99 shares when she put it on her facebook, and I know of 8 people who my message got to signed up, including active local SNP branch members. So despite The National’s blackout the message can get out. I just hope it won’t take a 5 year vigil like the 1988 Constitutional Convention to achieve independence!
I won’t be going to the Glasgow gathering on the 18th – we are still isolating from public transport having avoided covid so far and it is too far to drive.
I am fit and well, Marie – it’s my husband who got polymyalgia. Happily he had got the tatties planted first but he wasn’t fit enough to build a deer proof fence so the stag has had the raspberry canes, carrots, and now the runner beans! Dan will know how painful that is!!
Hi Tinto, the other half is doing all right at the moment. He’s not out of the woods yet, but so far, so good. More blood tests and scans to come, everything crossed that it keeps going the right way. Thank you and also Sarah for your kind wishes.
Well remembered Tinto, the incomparble Ishbel MacAskill, beautiful, thank you.
Sarah, sorry I picked you up wrong, but glad your other half is doing okay. Sorry about the garden. It’s a fair scunner when you do all the hard work, watch it grow, and some animal comes along and nabs it before you can. Send an SOS to Dan, maybe he can help. that’s if he’s not up on the roof or some other DIY. Take care.
@Marie: all the best.
link to youtube.com
Mebbe I could get BDTT on bass and Ronnie A on Moothie for our independence celebrations but can’t promise onyhing 😉 .
Hello all, just popped in for a look around. I see you are asking after us. We are just ticking over and fighting the cynicism. I didn’t make the Inverness march as I also have Polymyalgia(PMR). I thought I had it beat but it keeps flaring up.
I’ll be in Glasgow on the weekend of the 18th and as there isn’t any marching, I’m hoping to be at Freedom Square. Nana can’t make it as she will be dogsitting but she says hello from twitterville.
Hacka: not fishing? I felt sure you would be. Mind you PMR is so debilitating – Peter couldn’t get the boat out especially as he tore his rotator cuff [upper arm tendons/muscles] just before the PMR set in. The steroids have worked wonders – does your GP know about them? Though we suspect that once the course of pills finishes the PMR will be back.
Good that you are going to Glasgow – well done. Are you on the Inveryess bus?
And are you and Nana enthused about the Salvo discoveries about the Constitution? And the Edinburgh Proclamation/National Assembly activity?
Hi peeps.
Gotta few comments to address here.
First of all, TC, Eh’m a moothie and stylophone non-expert. I’d like a melodica to play around with.
Nana and Hacka are gems. In 2018, in advance of the Inverness march, my son, Chris, and I undertook a road trip up through Glencoe,via Kyle of Lochalsh, then Stromeferry, then Dingwall, ending up in Invergordon.
The plan was for me to have the pop-up tent in Nana’s garden and Chris to crash in the back of the Peugeot 807.
Ronnie A was at Nana’s and we had a very pleasant Friday evening, partaking of various malts. Me and Chris ended up crashing in the settees in the conservatory.
So much diversion going on in the M/T page, iye?
The primary offenders have been identified as trolls umpteen times. Why doesn’t Rev Stu pre-moderate them?
Onnyhoo, back to my favourite instrumentals, seeing as James Last elicited no comments.
BTW – these instrumentals use human voices as instruments.
link to youtube.com
This one’s a Beezer. Apparently, it was TOTP’s house backing singers, The Ladybirds, who provided the vocals here.
link to youtube.com
“Another track produced and arranged by Wirtz, the 1966 single “A Touch of Velvet – A Sting of Brass” credited to The Mood-Mosaic featuring the Ladybirds, became well-known in Germany as the theme tune for the Radio Bremen television show Musikladen, and was used by some radio stations and DJs in the United Kingdom
as an ident, notably Dave Lee Travis on Radio Caroline.
link to en.wikipedia.org
Gonna call a halt to the instrumental voices theme coz something just popped into my mind while I was refilling my whisky jar.
I think this is my earliest memory of an electronic organ being used on a Scottish record…
link to youtube.com
And while we’re on the Tenor them, gotta feature this by Dundee’s own… Unfortunately not on Youtube. So this celebration instead…
link to youtube.com
Tinto, Brian, thanks for the videos.
I know it’s ‘social media’, but ach I still feel pretty antisocial at times. Not going to post any videos today, the news about the Queen’s ill-health makes it seem inappropriate to be posting a lot of the snarky stuff I’d normally post.
No BBC tv here in Brazil, but I’ve got CNN and local news channels to keep me informed about the ‘Queen of England’ (sigh). Yes, that phrase was used today by a Portuguese tv channel, “a rainha da Inglaterra”.
Apparently the ‘English navy’ was in Brazilian waters yesterday, to pay their respects at Brazil’s 200th anniversary of independence. ( That was from one of the Brazilian channels.)
Independence for Scotland can’t come soon enough, I’m not getting any younger. 🙂
@BDTT: Wishbone Ash I’d almost forgotten about. Refreshing to see a band who could actually play their instruments.
That Ladybirds video was very nostalgic. I think we were generally happier in those days and not so divided by the schisms which sunder us via (anti-) “social media”.
David: I’m presuming your Brazilian Portuguese must be pretty good by this time. Been trying to learn some of the European variety for a future holiday but Duolingo only does the SA variety, I’m told.
Hi TC.
I rewatched the “Mood Mosaic” video after reading your comment. You’re right enough. Coincidentally, my brainbockers were working overtime a couple of days ago and I came to the conclusion that the three consecutive years that were out in front in terms of cultural and musical achievement and innovation in my lifetime were 1966, 7 and 8.
However, rewatching that video also provided me with the answer to who inspired Claudia Winkelman’s style. I first became aware of Ms Winkelman in the early 90s (I think), in the days when STV/Grampian had programmes running through the early hours of the morning.
On a Friday evening/Saturday morning, there was The James Whale Show, then a programme that was a female equivalent of a “lads’ show, featuring Claudia Winkelman and Davina McCall. I liked Claudia because her visual presentation was pure 60s. It hasn’t changed in the intervening years.
So, the Mood Mosaic video gave me the answer – Cathy McGowan. Specially her appearance in this short vid-ehe-oh…
link to youtube.com
As a bonus, this came up in my Cathy McGowan search. I found myself watching the whole 9 minutes. #2 was so Belgravia it was painful. Cathy’s hair was shorter than I remember so must have been early in the Ready Steady Go days.
link to youtube.com
I will leave you with a couple (so I don’t exceed the 4 link limit) of music videos from a well-ignored singer from the 60s. I had her album on vinyl but it was stolen years ago. Usenet is handy for finding mp3 downloads to replace lost vinyl…
link to youtube.com
link to youtube.com
FTS, film-pickers: came upon this film noir classic the other night.
Normally I would give a wide berth to anything with Victor Mature, whom I often regarded as a muscle-bound hulk devoid of depth but he is great in this. Add some wonderful B&W cinematography, a swaggering Alfred Newman score, some great NYC locations and the most terrifying masseuse wot I done ever see (she would have been a great Nurse Ratched and watch her first scene when she comes to the front door).
link to youtube.com
Robert Siodmak sure knew how to make ’em.
@BDTT: yes, I noticed Cathy in the Ladybirds vid you posted. CW really gets on my nazzums for a host of reasons whereas Cathy never did. Maybe it’s down to the shiny shampoo and smug gushing.
What the Gove happened to Billy? I only vaguely remember her from that time but looking back she had quite a voice. Maybe she had too many principles.
Hi TC.
You’ll remember this from the 70s…
link to youtube.com
Not the original but Billie live in 2016.
link to youtube.com
Och, here’s the original…
link to youtube.com
BTW: the graphic in that video is of my stolen album.
I remember the original Billie single but not Hello’s.
Good to see she’s still alive and kicking.
Why couldn’t I have had a granny like this?
link to youtube.com
Hi Tinto Chiel at 11:04 am.
You asked,
“Why couldn’t I have had a granny like this?”
That comment reawakened a blip in the back of my memory.
I’ll link to a pic. However, before you look at the pic, I should explain that all through the 90s, I was DJ at various rock clubs. Jaspers from 1989 to 1995, My own clubs Caesars, in the Colosseum, 1996 to 1998, then The Quarry in the Tay Hotel, now Malmaison, 1998 to 2000.
A fair number of Goths were regulars and I got pally with a couple of the feminale goth of the specie. One of them, Fi, introduced me to a band called Inkubus Sukkubus, who tended to included a cover on their, mostly, self composed CDs. Here’s an example…
link to youtube.com
Another example…
link to youtube.com
One more link, to one of the tracks on the album “Vampyre Erotica”, which Fi introduced me to. Got me researching “Lilith” which basically says that the whole story of Adam and Eve is a lie. Go to Wikipedia and do a search for “Lilith”.
link to youtube.com
So, the pic that appealed to my sense of whatever.
The pic below appeared on my Facebook Newsfeed and I immediately thought of Fi and her pal at my funeral.
@BDTT: the Goths I encountered in my job always struck me as gentle and imaginative types who generally were more free-thinking than others.
I wouldn’t have trusted the Tory Boys in the debating club, though 😉 .
Hush, little baby, don’t say a word: link to youtube.com
This film’s unique, like so many others……
Hello Tinto, I hope my Brazilian Portuguese is ok by now. I can understand it fine, both written and spoken, but speaking it is still a bit awkward.
The accent(s) here are bigly different from Portuguese from Portugal, though. There is some official multi-nation language committee which standardises Portuguese in all the nations that speak it, but I think the Portuguese believe “We invented it, so we’ll use it & write it however we like.” 😉 Definitely stick with the Duolingo lessons, the locals will be happy you’ve made the effort.
On a similar note, living outside UK it becomes apparent that world English is US English, not British English. Sheer force of numbers, and spread of American culture ensures it – awesome, dude!
Musical interlude provided by the Mamonas Assassinas:
link to youtube.com
I don’t like going to a country and not trying to speak the lingo in the usual holiday situations but I managed to find a European Portuguese language course, so no excuses for me.
Those young men look quite well-adjusted 🙂 .
Killer beans? Where did the naked bit disappear to?
Everything’s so confusing these days…….
Ahh Tinto, so wise and yet so naive! ‘Mamonas Assassinas’ is a bit of wordplay, a double entendre as the Europeans say. Think ‘A nice pair’ by Pink Floyd.
‘MA’ means ‘killer fruit’ and also ‘killer boobs’.
The band were hugely popular in Brazil, but they only released one album before they all died in a plane crash, in 1996.
To honour the accession of our new King could we rename a “citizen’s arrest” to “subject’s arrest”…
#TugsForelock
@David: many thanks for the explanation. The delights of idioms! Reminds me literally of Chesty Morgan/Deadly Weapons from the 70s.
You don’t know how lucky you are to be out of BBC/MSM range in Brazil: levels of compelled grovelling and insanity are off the scale. Oh, to be an undiscovered tribe deep in the rainforest!
The BBC have corralled a specially-trained group of voxpop operatives to recite, “I’m not a monarchist but…”
Beam me up, Scotty.
Apropos of nothing but I like it: link to youtube.com
Just to emphasise how conformist many people have been browbeaten to be, a refreshing piece of HUMOUR from an obviously malcontent Scot who should have been dragged to the Tower as a scum-sucking Bolshie:
link to youtube.com
Hi Folks. Has anyone been in contact with Cactus in the last 24 hrs?
Please respond a.s.a.p.
Hi Jock.
Looks like his name has been taken off the “banned word” list. He hasn’t been in here for ages.
Try Ronnie.
Hi Brian, If anyone hears from him get him to call one of us as the plods have him on missing list.
Hi Jock.
I typed,
“Looks like his name has been taken off the “banned word” list.”
I thought wrong. Your message above is timed at 6.53pm. I got an email notification at 22.35, which must have been when it was taken out of pre-moderation and appeared here.
Hi Jock.
I got his mobile number from Hevva Beccy Woss. I’ve left him a voicemail and text.
He left his phone which is why actual sightings or encounters from early hours of Saturday are needed.
Eight years ago next month…
link to youtube.com
And a wee Scottish bonus…
link to youtube.com
Nicola may have extinguished the fire but there are still some glowing embers.
Bummer, Jock.
The dude in the cowboy hat has touched base. Thanks Brian. Hope everyone else is as feckin’ angry with the state of things as we are and are doing as well as they can do.
Hi Jock.
I guess he had gone walkabout, as he is wont to do?
Hi Brian,
I reckoned that was what had happened and his friend didn’t quite appreciate his Crocodile Dundee tendencies. Best wishes.
Hi Jock.
At least I got his phone number out of it!
You going to Edinburgh on the 1st and Yestival on the 8th?
Came across this wee vid under some dry leaves near the end of the internet:
link to youtube.com
There’s a Wallace’s Cave in a gully and above a burn near me which is actually quite likely to be genuine.
I think the presenter does a pretty good job of presenting the complexity of Lowland Scotland at the time.
Sorry to hear that Liz G has died, another hard worker for independence gone and not able to see us achieve our goal. Probably be same for my at my age, cause it sure doesn’t look as if it will happen anytime soon. What a shame RIP LizG.
Looks an interesting video Tinto, I’ll come back to it later when I have a wee bit more time. Hope everyone is well in the family.
Unfortunately, Marie, I think pegging out before Scotland achieves independence will be the fate of many of us so it’s always sad to hear of the death of someone like Liz g who contributed a lot to on-line forums in general and, of course, Wings.
AOK at Tinto Towers but the grand-tinies are trying to dodge the bullets of hand, foot and mouth, winter vomiting virus and measles. It’s only a matter of time. Hope you and yours are fine and that Mr Ginger Rogers is better 🙂 .
The same guy above has a good one on the Wallace Monument (and many other Scottish history topics) which shows how the Britnats even in the 19th century were trying to co-opt WW as a “British” hero. Mind you, the same types in my Burns Club were telling me with a straight face in 2014 that Robert would have voted No.
It’s a funny old game, Saint.
link to youtube.com
Just because. The comments btl are often switched off because of racist comments.
I’m filing this under So Naff It’s Wunderbar 😉 .
link to youtube.com
Apparently, the mental lyrics were fashioned by John Major and Giorgio Moroder after an all-night bender in Moscow, Ayrshire.
The one and only disco ballad?
For Liz Truss:
(Robert Calvert – “I Resign”)
It’s only 37 seconds long, so hopefully no-one else resigns while it’s playing…
link to youtube.com
Don’t know why, David, but for some reason your comment reminded me of this band from the 70s, who were big in the USA. There may have been some connection with “American Graffiti”. They’re still on the go and doing live gigs. (I joined their Facebook page.)
I bought this single at the time of release and it still stands up. To me, it is in the same genre as the links I will paste in after it. It also features Wolfman Jack, where the “American Graffiti” connection comes in.
link to youtube.com
link to youtube.com
The story behind this next link…
Apparently, the song was written for Showaddwaddy but they rejected it. So the writers put together a bunch of session musicians to record it. The singer seen in the video, didn’t actually sing – he was miming. The actual singer was a guy called Paul da Vinci.
link to youtube.com
link to youtube.com
However, Paul da Vinci did have his own hit:-
link to youtube.com
@ Marie Clark… ‘LizG has died?’
Please say it isn’t so?
Hello Daisy, yes, sad to say it is true. Another stalwart of the independence side, gone an still no sign of being any nearer our goal.
Going by the recent utterances of the NUSNP it ain’t gonna happen anytime soon. Maybe they’re hoping that we auldies just fa’ aff the twig and they can then dae whit they like.
I think I have have shared this here at some point in the past but it’s a good track.
A cover of a well known song…
link to youtube.com
The Rev: “…..do it in Off Topic where nobody cares.”
Wot? Everyone wants to hear the anthem of a state which disappeared in 1453 🙂 .
link to youtube.com
@ Tinto
Ach, that might be a first non factual post by Stu on Wings, coz I jist cannae believe naebdy cares aboot a braw Pike Jalfrezi recipe. 😉
Dan: Dinna greet, ma mannie. I mind o’ it well.
A prophet is without honour in his own country, ‘n that 😉 .
Of course, there’s always this proposed national anthem…
link to youtube.com
Onnyhoo, in other news…
It’s surprising?/evident?/obvious? that ‘leaders’ worldwide are ignoring scientific evidence, when it comes to ‘climate change’.
From evidence garnered from ice cores taken from Arctic glaciers and mud cores from the bed of the Pacific Ocean, it has been proved that over the past 2 and a half million years, there have been 25 ice ages.
Each cycle lasts around 100,000 years – 90,000 years of glaciation and around 10,000 years ‘interglacial’.
We are now around 11,500 years into the current interglacial, since the end of the last ice age.
From these core samples, it has been found that an increase in CO2, to levels above 300 parts per million, appeared to have been the trigger for each ice age. (The current figure is around 370 parts per million.)
This was accompanied by extremes of climate – volcanic eruptions, floods, wildfires, droughts, and so on, in the period of 50-100 years prior to glaciation.
Once the temperature rise reaches a certain point, the amount of melting ice flowing into the North Atlantic, will halt the Atlantic Conveyor, which means no more Gulf Stream. Remember that the UK is on the same latitude as Hudson Bay.
Therefore the ice sheet will spread southwards from the Arctic, and during the last Ice Age, it reached the English Channel.
The potential effects are so horrific, that ‘world leaders’ are ignoring the science, so as not to ‘frighten the horses’.
“When will we ever learn, when will we ever learn?”
Links relevant to my previous comment…
link to sciencedaily.com
link to greatdreams.com
link to en.wikipedia.org
@BDTT: that guy was quite funny. Wonder what happened to him?
When I was wee the two most depressing musical intros were “Sing Something Simple” on a Sunday night and The Bloody Archers at any time.
@BDTT: never mind about the climate. Give us back our 1.6 billion years!
link to en.wikipedia.org
The Rev has a nerve – who does he think he is to send the dross over to Off Topic? Off Topic is for civilised, pleasant people.
Saw four beautiful redwings in a field yesterday. Hoping to see more fieldfares when they arrive from Scandinavia. And, oh, a waxwing?
Not quite the same bird in this song but as usual Julie produces a truly wonderful performance: link to youtube.com
My Dear Old Dad always referred to song thrushes as mavises and blackbirds as merles but I fear the female bird feeding her young in the film clip is actually a mistle thrush.
Never mind: but I’m still hoping for a BDTT Proud Pedant’s Badge 🙂 .
@ TC: just saying today that we haven’t seen any redwings yet. Waxwings aren’t regular with us but nice and easy to spot when they come as they stay happily perched when one is near unlike the others which scare so easily.
Nice to hear that your father called the birds mavis and merle – sounds very poetic.
Hi TC.
For you…
link to youtube.com
@Sarah: yes, waxwings are truly amazing-looking birds but we don’t get them often WIA. There was a lonely one about ten years ago, which was very strange, and then more recently two cherry trees were covered in a large party of them.
My Dear Old Dad also called greenfinches “green linties” but I won’t tell you what he called me on occasion 🙂 .
@BDTT: thanks for that. I’ll raise you this: link to allpoetry.com
The Rev ain’t a poetry lover but since nobody comes here anyway, I won’t fear the hammers.
For the music buffs in here, just in case you missed it. Announced yesterday:
Stealers Wheel co-founder, Scotsman, Rab Noakes has died aged 75.
Hadn’t noticed that, Stoker. Last time I saw him was when he was taking part in the Martyn Bennett “Grit” concert a few years ago.
Sadly I don’t think he ever crossed the floor to be a confirmed Yesser.
Stealers Wheel produced some great memories.
Yeah, TC, i like a few of theirs. Was always aware of them but they never really struck a chord with me until i watched the film ‘Reservoir Dogs’ which included Stuck in the Middle With You, then i seemed to take to them. Even though my favourite tracks from that film are Little Green Bag by The George Baker Selection and Hooked On A Feeling by Blue Swede. Top stuff! 😉
I didn’t know this either, until i read about him last night on the BBC text pages, that he was a big contributor to the BBC’s music. Quite a musically gifted chap by all accounts.
Yes, SITMWY was an instant classic but when Stealers imploded I think there were a lot of legal issues and animosity between some of the former members. Gerry Rafferty said that these problems were part of the background to “Baker Street”.
Rab was very talented musically but anyone who gets too close to the toxic BBC is bound to be affected in some way. I noticed Ian B on the M/T quite rightly having a go at Pat Kane, an achingly right-on type who seems to have drunk deeply from the Globalist Kool-Aid dispenser.
The Good Ship Independence has got a lot of such barnacles on its hull and the captain on the bridge is wilfully steering it in the wrong direction.
Tinto, I just googled green linties and discovered that there is a Scots language version of Wikipedia! Did you know?
As for blackbirds – my favourite songbird, rich and tuneful. The poem was spot on.
Didn’t know that, Sarah. Must take a look. Don’t think The Rev would approve and if there’s a Gaelic version he might spontaneously combust 🙂 .
I can recommend Amanda Thomson’s “A Scots Dictionary of Nature” (Glasgow, 2018): a treasure house of Scots expressions regarding the natural world. One of the names for a chaffinch recorded there is brichtie or bricht-lintie, incidentally. Shilfie is another name I’ve often heard for it. Always talk to farmers: they have held on to their Scots better than almost any other group. It’s the same for crofters (if you can find any of them these days) and Gaelic.
Might be worth a Christmas hint……. 😉 . It’s only about £12.99, probs less if you go on A____n.
Yes, RS Thomas could be a bit bleak at times but he was an excellent observer of nature.
Lovely day WIA. After my comment on redwings yesterday I saw a huge flock of them on farm land near Strathaven so today I’m going out fieldfare watching.
Test post again… trying with archived link removed.
@ RoS
It’s been mentioned many times on here previously and Stu also tweeted about it a day or so back.
She / Her Red Lines Klaxon
From 17th October 2016…
“Nicola Sturgeon to publish plan for Scotland to stay in single market after Brexit”
And to add to the outrage, she’s only wearing fookin purple tae!
Sigh, post still not showing correctly…
Try with this link instead.
link to web.archive.org
@Dan: yeah, she is a shameless aerosol. My spelling ain’t so good.
I’d wear a Motherwell FC scarf but I might get mistaken for a Gryffindor sophomore or whatever insult can be thrown at a bottom-dredging nativist moohowler like wot I am.
Green, heliotrope and white? ‘Mon The Hibees!
I hope you had a good birdwatching outing, TC. Nothing of interest birdwise to report here – wet today. Got the stag problem again – and now he has taken to browsing the gooseberry bushes – I had fondly hoped that he didn’t care for them. Thanks for the Scots Dictionary of Nature recommend. I have a Scots-Gaelic phrasebook by my bed for reference.
You are right about the repository of language being crofters and fishermen – I was just saying that to my husband this morning. Not only language but all the old ways and culture. We’d all be a lot better off if we had kept their skills and language.
I am torn between tears and rage today at the self id committee. They are wicked, criminal abusers – how dare they take away female’s identity, respect, safety? I despair.
“I am torn between tears and rage today at the self id committee. They are wicked, criminal abusers – how dare they take away female’s identity, respect, safety? I despair.”
Everything you said there, Sarah, but particularly these above. I have daughters and granddaughters and this alone means I’ll fight this crapola all the way.
Re today: I knew an old boy who’d fought in WWII, dirty stuff in Yugoslavia and Greece, who reminded me of an old saying, “There’s aye snaw on the peesie’s eggs.”
I think this means hope in adversity, a kind of Scottish Valley Forge. Of course, Imelda, being a self-seeking, superficial moron, couldn’t understand such sentiments. Nevertheless, I”m hoping today will open many people’s eyes to the reality of what we’re up against.
P.S. No sign of fieldfares or waxwings WIA: I swear they toy with us 🙂 . BTW, a doe roe and her two kids ate Mrs TC’s final rosebuds of the year on the trellis climber. I know ‘cos I was up with a fit of the sneezes at 0315 recently and saw them.
Beautiful things all the same…..
We miss those people who went through so much in the two wars. They learnt some very harsh lessons yet always behaved so kindly, in my experience, to those of us who had done and suffered so little in comparison. I live in Seaforth country so there are many families here that had relatives in POW camp for 5 years after the Highland Division’s capture at St Valery.
All those men, by the way, had a very short way with raiding deer!
My stag started off with my roses last year – didn’t do too much damage so we were quite pleased to see him. It was when he wrecked the raspberry beds that we began to feel less happy – if only our old neighbours were still with us, crack shots and expert butchers, every one.
As for the self-id, I pray that a general awakening is happening – the newspapers are picking up the stories at last. The perfect outcome is for the SNP members to oust the maniacs but I fear that isn’t possible due to the party administration being out of the membership’s control.
The Seaforths were a great regiment, like the Cameron Highlanders. I became interested in the 51st HD at St Valery-en-Caux and even went there while on holiday. It’s a very tight harbour with cliffs on either side and I can’t imagine it as a feasible place to take thousands of soldiers off. A cynic might think that the Highlanders were strung along just to keep the fight going to save some face. At least de Gaulle never forgot their sacrifice and he had fought alongside them. Not so sure about the British government…….
Have you read St Valery: The Impossible Odds by Bill Innes (Ed.)? It’s mainly a translation of the experience of two Gaelic bards after the surrender. “They were expendable” springs to mind. Grrrrrrrrr!
I have heard that some military police were sent to a Seaforth position in WW1 because they had been getting quite bolshie at being continually at the front and taking the brunt of the action. It’s said these MPs simply disappeared. Who knows, maybe they enlisted with the Highlanders?
I was fortunate to have worked with two men in particular who had some “memorable” war experiences. I only gradually got to hear a few of these over the years, since they were pretty reticent.
“Peesie man” was recruited by British Intelligence (ahem) and ended up being parachuted SOE-style into Yugoslavia to liaise with Tito and his partisans and organise anti-German resistance, a very dangerous job because you never knew who might betray you. He ended up sitting at the same table as The Marshal at a prestigious conference to decide a combined campaign of action. He was so impressed with him that he joined the CP after the war.
The other lied about his age to join up and had a terrible war. The Desert, Italy, Normandy and the Rhine Crossing, stumbling upon Belsen and seeing its horrors. He told me fairly recently, with tears in his eyes, that he and his men had fed some of the starving prisoners and they had died because their bodies could not cope with the sudden change in their diet. He still regretted it towards the end of his life, despite his courageous war service.
I wonder what these two men would think of the state of Scotland today under our Great Woke Leaderene?
Forgot to append this, although you probably know it already: the words are by Hamish Henderson and the artist is Dick Gaughan.
It’s not to everyone’s taste because of the slow tempo and Dick doesn’t start to sing until about two mins in but it’s an extraordinary attempt by a guitarist to mimic some of the characteristics of bagpipe music.
link to youtube.com
I have noted that book title “St Valery: the impossible odds” as I haven’t read it. One wonders why the Highland Division was chosen to be sent off as part of the French command rather than kept with the rest of the British troops.
The experiences of your two work colleagues are extraordinary – the type of thing that could be the subject of a film except the reality is almost unreal. How sad for the chap who tried to help the Belsen prisoners – counselling might have helped but such services are underfunded so people just have to struggle on.
I would love to see so many of our MSPs and MPs forced to hear from the brave people who have done so much. Imagine Emma Roddick with her self-id disability of Borderline Personality Disorder being faced with your chap’s story. And then explain to him why she thinks it is fine for children under 16 years to self-id as trans.
My husband knew a local Lochbroom man quite well who had been in the Chindits [from the Cameron Highlanders] – again an awful experience – on the retreat to India they were sent off in twos or threes, living off the land. He said they watched to see what the monkeys were eating and then did the same. He was quite a tall man but weighed 6 and a half stone when he got back across the border. Amazingly he lived to be 96 years old, dying just last year.
While a student, I worked in a summer job with a man who, like the highlander you knew, had fought in Burma. He also was reduced to six and a half stone, this time by amoebic dysentery. Burma was a dreadful theatre of war anyway but after Singapore the soldiers knew surrender to the Japanese wasn’t really an option either.
Particularly in the last three years I’ve thought of the “freedom” these men were supposedly fighting for and I look around and see the corrupt and authoritarian bunch in control of our country at the moment while our children become poorer and poorer in a country which could be the wealthiest in Europe if The Great Helmswoman would use just one of the many mandates she’s been handed.
As old Wilfred mused, “Was it for this the clay grew tall?”
Think I need a hill-walk to clear the cobwebs.
They are the most pathetic, incompetent, brainless and/or evil, perverted bunch in the SNP/Greens at Holyrood. No, our fellows who fought Hitler were not fighting for such people as these to be setting the rules in Scotland. It is a disgrace.
Please God there is something brewing to get shot of them.
Indeed, but without a whistleblower in the Salmond Affair, it’s unlikely.
Hate to indulge these unwashed delinquents 🙂 but………
link to youtube.com
I always loved J_J’s twanging bass.
Speaking of bass-playing, the nicest of this Bad Girls’ band was pretty good too: link to youtube.com
Inspired by a closing gag on ‘Family Guy’ just now…
If gulls don’t eat white food (they’ll eat anything), why do they produce only white $h!†?
Similarly, when we humans eat everything under the sun, why is our $h!† always a shade of brown?
What happens if a human only eats green vegetables for a week. What colour of $h!† would result?
And a couple of musical links to accompany this comment…
link to youtube.com
link to youtube.com
Would never had remembered Tin Tin was the group but remember the tune well.
So Weird Al was ahead of his time with that track?
BTW, Brian, I have noticed several times a delay between your date-stamped comment and its appearance here. Wotisgoingon?
@Tinto Chiel
I have not been visting, or posting here for a long, long time, but glad the wee man is back on the case now.
Thanks for that blast from the past.
to unexpectedly see Joan Jett AND Lita Ford… and they were soo young !!!
priceless.
@aLurker: you’re welcome. It’s a good video and Lita looks particularly crazy.
Maybe more old names will reappear btl once The Rev gets back into his stride.
BTW, TC, The Runaways were a fine band.
link to youtube.com
Hi TC.
No idea re: the time difference. However, what has happened in the past couple of months, is that firstly, the email notifications re: the Rev’s new posts ceased, while I still received them for new comments in ‘off-topic’ and ‘Quarantine’.
But, since last week, the email notifications for o-t and Quarantine have ceased.
“The Runaways were a fine band.” I thought you’d have Cherie on your famous List of Blonde Bombshells 🙂 .
IIRC, Stu said on the M/T that he had no idea about the lack of notifications, etc, either.
A grim feeling about today to rank with Nikla’s White Flag of January 2020…..
Hi TC.
Another couple of blondes for you.
link to youtube.com
link to youtube.com
link to youtube.com
link to ellenfoley.com
Yes, Lita was alaways so understated, wasn’t she ? 🙂 🙂 🙂
Showing my ignorance here, but I’ve never even heard of Ellen Foley but she can belt them out, innit?
Hi TC.
She was the female vocalist on “Bat Out Of Hell”, eg “Paradise By The Dashboard Light”.
link to youtube.com
On this live version, Karla DeVito takes the Ellen Foley role. (They are pals.)
link to youtube.com
Both together…
link to youtube.com
Ah! That explains my ignorance: not a Meatloaf fan.
Amazed these women apparently survived the rock/pop music world, a real meat-grinder of an exploitive industry.
Good night ladies; good night, sweet ladies; good night, good night.
Two blondes for the price of one, Rosemary Clooney and Brigitte Bardot: link to youtube.com
The wee Turkish guy shaking his booty with Brigitte is Dario Moreno, a Turkish multi-lingual atrist who sadly died quite young.
The cod (geddit?)-Italian lyrics are rather amusing.
Just in case anyone is looking for something a bit different to watch, devoid of Anglo-Saxon class-ridden Downton Abbey-style dreck and facile American wham-bam stars-and-stripes drivel, this series has just finished its fourth season.
Weimar Germany has never seemed so thrilling. sleazy, dangerous and seething in political ferment: link to youtube.com
Hi TC.
If we’re going French, here’s another couple of blondes. The first is English singing French; the second is French singing French.
link to youtube.com
link to youtube.com
I will follow shortly with my Belgian post, after I’ve done my research.
Hi TC.
The Belgian post.
The single in the first music link was released in 1977. I bought it coz it fitted in with the punk/rock I was playing it at the Bowlin’ Alley at the time. It was on ‘Lighting Records’.
link to bowlinalley.weebly.com
link to youtube.com
However, a year later, after Elton Motello hadn’t made the UK charts, another version was released, by Plastic Bertrand. On the label, it said “Produced by four Belgian Businessmen”.
link to youtube.com
That became the hit. It used the same backing track that had been used for Elton Motello’s verion.
The interesting thing is, that a third version was released, by Elton Motello, but with slightly different lyrics. I got my apprentice DJ to buy a copy of it but I don’t have one. It, once again, used the same backing track.
Somebody on Discogs actually commented that their are two version of the Elton Motello version.
link to discogs.com
Serge wasn’t a looker, was he? Hope you noticed Smallaxe and me on saxes in Vanessa’s clip.
What a strange man/band Elton M. was. Have to say I preferred Plastique B’s version.
Hi peeps.
I’ve known of this track since the early 70s, when a former ‘love of my life’ introduced me to it.
Here’s the info…
link to culturesonar.com
And here’s the track…
link to youtube.com
Hi peeps.
I’ve always loved the sounds created by the Mellotron so I’m gonna post three comments here.
The first is the background, the second and third are examples. Check out the video(s) in ‘the background’.
link to openculture.com
link to youtube.com
Three from the 60s.
Listen for the lush strings in the background.
link to youtube.com
link to youtube.com
link to youtube.com
Then two from the last days of the Mellotron…
It comes in around 3.40 into this video…
link to youtube.com
The mellotron is in this video from almost the beginning…
link to youtube.com
Nice combo, BDTT. The one I’d never heard before was the Free track at the end: quite a find. I’d heard KC, The Move and the BA tracks many times before w/o registering the mellotron so thanks for these.
Yi know, “Pointless” has probably done more to improve the general knowledge of the British public than any other TV programme.
Have to say I’m deeply allergic to Pointless: the prizes are crapola and we have to endure Posh Boy Armstrong patronising the proles. The very name suggests the BBC is taking the piss.
At least The Chase has some decent money if three or four can get through to the head-to-head with the chaser. And I believe Bradley’s mum is Scottish, which is nice.
This starts off really cheesy and then goes to Parts Unknown: link to youtube.com
Never the same after Eno left: more like a smooth Byron Ferrari tribute band without the grit, IMHO.
“Tis the season to be…..”
link to youtube.com
The most disturbing of M.R. James’ canon is undoubtedly Lost Hearts but it is really disturbing, without any of the cozy and distanced fear of most of his works.
It’s not for me to give you easy access to it.
I liked one or three Roxy Music tracks but I’ve never heard that one. A tad weird…
Typing about weird (but compelling)…
link to youtube.com
Followed by a different treatment…
link to youtube.com
@BDTT: the first Roxy album, called simply Roxy Music, was very Art School and Eno-esque. The second, For Your Pleasure, was a bit more mainstream, and then Eno left. The rest is cabaret….
MFAFH was right up my rue (ooh, matron!) and I have always liked Whisky Kiss. You know, when we thought independence was just around the corner…..
*Bites carpet*
Another Scottish band for yiz. (I think I may have linked to it in the past.)
link to youtube.com
I was introduced to that track when booked to dj at a 12-year-old’s birthday party in the 90s. He brought in the CD linked to below and asked me to play QFX and anything else if possible. That track has stuck in my noggin.
link to youtube.com
@BDTT: goes to prove that Scottish techno was marvellously mad. I think you have posted them here before because I have heard them somewhere.
I meant to play this when I heard of Christine McVie’s death. This is her in her pre-Fleetwood Mac days and she was certainly on form here: link to youtube.com
Hi TC.
Hadn’t heard that Chicken Shack track before. A fine example of its time.
Blues…
I may have mentioned this in the past but during a blether I had with Smallaxe at one of the rallies, we talked about the blues. (He was wearing his blue crocodile shoes.)
I mentioned the John Dummer Band but he hadn’t heard of them. I said I would send him further info. This is the album I mentioned to him (Cabal, link below). It was the John Dummer Blues Band’s debut.
The lineup was,
John Dummer – drums
Dave Kelly – guitar, vocals
Tony T.S. McPhee – guitar, vocals
John O’Leary – harmonica
Keith Tillman, Thumper Thompson – bass
Jo-Ann Kelly – vocals
Bob Hall, Steve Miller – Piano
Tony McPhee was only on “Cabal”, the debut album, before going on to reform The Groundhogs.
Dave Kelly eventually went on to be a member of “The Blues Band”. His sister, Jo-ann was a well respected blues singer for years.
Incidentally, their mum ran a transport cafe, where a lot of bands out on the road, would call in for apre-gig vittuls. The cafe achieved fame in the title of the Status Quo album, “Ma Kelly’s Greasy Spoon”.
John Dummer and Thumper Thompson wet on to form Darts, around 1977.
Bob Hall was gigging for years. I saw him live once, in Dundee.
Check out “Blue Guitar”, an instrumental at 32:42. I believe it is Dave Kelly playing the bottleneck guitar, Tony McPhee on the other.
Smallaxe certainly rated the album.
link to youtube.com
@BDTT: Thumper is a great name for a drummer, innit?. An excellent blues band, the JDBB. I’d never heard of them either.
I thought Blue Guitar was written by John Lee Hooker but it was Earl H.
When I see the craven state of the SNP at the moment, I’m reminded of Smallaxe’s Big Question: Scotland the Brave or Scotland The Slave? If this freezing weather goes on much longer, I fear you could add “Scotland The Grave?” to that question.
And all this in probably the most energy-rich country in Europe……
Hi TC.
It IS a good name for a drummer but he was a bassist!
Onnyhoo, two videos featuring him below. (Never start a sentence with “but”). But how I got into the JDBB is a bra’ wee story.
My cousin, Dave, left school the same year as me; he had done 6 years, I had done 5. I was a bank apprentice, he was doing Engineering at Dundee Uni, so we spent our weekends there, late ’69 into ’70.
One night, the JDBB were supposed to be on stage at 11 but the Union was getting updates, as they had broken down on the way up from Glasgow. Eventually, they were on stage around 1am.
I think they were out promoting their third album, as they featured a violinist. (See third link below.) They introduced the track as “Nine Bar Blues”, although on the third album, it is “Nine By Nine”. It got to #1 in France.
There were 4 of us walking home to adjacent schemes at 3.30am when we were huckled by a couple of policemen at the Coldside Circle. In these days, dancehalls closed at 1am. We told them the story of where we had been so late. They were fine about it.
As soon as I could, I was in to Chalmers & Joy on the Hilltown, to see what they had by the band. Bought their first two albums and ordered the third. BTW: they changed the name of the band for almost every album – there were 5 all together. My favourites are probably the first 2.
So back on track: the videos with Thumper.
One from TOGWT:
link to youtube.com
Then later on…
link to youtube.com
Finally, Nine By Nine…
link to youtube.com
HAA! a bonus link to a mashup!
link to youtube.com
(Linda Carter was a fine example of the feminale of the specie.)
I’ll provide the links for other JDBB albums in the next comment. (4 link rule.)
Links to JDBB albums…
The second, “John Dummer Band”…
link to youtube.com
(More info below the video.)
The third, “John Dummer’s Famous Music Band”:
link to youtube.com
The 4th, “Blue” “John Dummer Band featuring Nick Pickett”:
link to youtube.com
“Medicine Weasel” is ‘interesting’.
The 5th, “Jo?h?n? D??mme?r?’s? O?obl?e?e?do?o?b?l?ee? Band”:
link to youtube.com
And to finish off,here’s Jo-ann Kelly. Info,as usual, below video.
link to youtube.com
(Sorry Rev Stu. Made an @rs€ of that comment in moderation. Just delete it.)
Links to JDBB albums…
The second, “John Dummer Band”…
link to youtube.com
(More info below the video.)
The third, “John Dummer’s Famous Music Band”:
link to youtube.com
The 4th, “Blue” “John Dummer Band featuring Nick Pickett”:
link to youtube.com
“Medicine Weasel” is ‘interesting’.
The 5th, “John Dummer’s Oobleejooblee Jubillee Band”:
link to youtube.com
(Sorry Rev Stu. Made an @rs€ of that comment in moderation. Just delete it.)
Links to JDBB albums…
The second, “John Dummer Band”…
link to youtube.com
(More info below the video.)
The third, “John Dummer’s Famous Music Band”:
link to youtube.com
The 4th, “Blue” “John Dummer Band featuring Nick Pickett”:
link to youtube.com
“Medicine Weasel” is ‘interesting’.
The 5th, “John Dummer’s Oobleedooblee Jubillee Band”:
link to youtube.com
How did I manage to duplicate that? No “duplicate” notification.
Onnyhoo,
To finish off,here’s Jo-ann Kelly. Info,as usual, below video.
link to youtube.com
Ah. I see my spelling correction was a factor in the duplication.
“It IS a good name for a drummer but he was a bassist!”
Shows how much I know! In one of the album credits he is listed beside Drums but you’re quite right.
I’ll look at your other links once I’ve defrosted and had some breakfast.
Mmmmmmmmm! Links…..
Happy Christmas, Wingers!
link to youtube.com
Don’t have nightmares now, will you?
🙂 .
What we ain’t: link to youtube.com
Hi TC.
I’m getting email notifications again of new comments – but only for ‘off-topic’!
Onnyhoo best wishes for this yuletide from ‘doon the toon’, to all those perceptive Wingers who avidly keep up with all the serious input posted in ‘off-topic’. A song fur yooz tae sing along with.
link to youtube.com
Merry Christmas wingers. Aye TC your quite right we are not a happy nation. I can’t quite believe what has happened. I suppose we ladies rather hoped against hope that eventually some of the spineless scum of the SNP would maybe take some brave pills and stand up for women’s rights. Nope apart form nine MSPs a complete cowardly display.
I suppose like most laydees I fail to understand why this bill was so important to the wicked witch of Bute House, you know the mental she/her who is a feminist to her fingertips. Aye right. I hope for her sake she doesn’t meet too many of the women who she has completely and utterly thrown under the bus. This is a terrible and dangerous piece of legislation, and will come back to haunt them. They should always remember that Karma is a bitch, although I probably can’t say that anymore. Oh but I will say if if I want. Sadly shakes head.
Onywho, ready for Christmas now, pressies wrapped and under the tree. Less of us for dinner this year. Son and his partner hosting partners family this year. Daughter who has just become a granny three weeks ago away to Engelandshire to see new baby. That makes Mr C and I great grandparents. No sure about that, makes me feel really old, but she’s a wee cracker, the light in a thoroughly rotten 2022. Pleased to say Mr C is holding his own, blood tests good so far, let’s hope it stays that way.
Put all the other nonsense aside folks and have a good Christmas, I hope that Santa is good to you all.
@BDTT: Woke Queen Nikla would call this a shameful display of toxic (geddit?) masculinity, so please carry on and have a kool Yule and a HNY 🙂 .
Aye, Marie, a good summing up. What can I say that hasn’t been said before? How did we end up in this sick mess?
Focus on your family and their health and hope these lunatics become unstuck. To amend a saying, in future it looks like we’ll have to keep our friends close and our family closer, such will the threats to them.
Orrabestorratime!
A comparison.
Watch the original, then watch the piss-take…
link to youtube.com
link to youtube.com
Then there’s the other one, which I like…
link to youtube.com
BTW: Mark Knopfler actually played on that last link.
The Weird Al parodies are usually excellent but that Nirvana one takes the biscuit: the lyrics nail it nicely. Amazing how they can recreate these scenarios in such detail.
Hard overnight frost thawing to snow here. A beautiful redwing came into the garden yesterday looking for food, so things must be bad for the wee creatures.
That “Beverly Hillbillies” clip is from a Weird Al film called “UHF”, where he inherits a local TV station and is trying to increase viewing figures. Quite amusing.
Onnyhoo… one of my fave Christmas tracks.
link to youtube.com
Birds…
I’ve seen a grey wagtail on two occasions in the past 5 or 6 years, on the low roof at the back of my tenement in the city centre. Acts like a pied wagtail with a different coat on.
link to wildlifetrusts.org
A blithe yule to this band of brothers and sisters on Off Topic.
May something miraculous happen before too long [as in Bute House occupant flits] and we can all enjoy life to the full.
No redwings seen yet, mind you I’m not outside much except to and fro’ the woodstack. A solitary dabchick comes by from time to time. In all the years here on the shore we have never seen more than one at a time.
@BDTT: that’s amazing to see them in a town setting. they are lovely, graceful things. IIRC you also get oystercatchers on a roof with chuckies near the Yooni.
Hi, Sarah: a blithe Yule to you too. I hear there may be a gathering outside Bute House quite soon 🙂 .
For all the times I’ve spent in Wester Ross and Skye, I had never seen an otter until I was down the bird reserve near Motherwell a few years ago and saw one ploitering aboot at a bend on the Clyde. He/she/it (watch your pronouns) stayed for a long time in the area but I haven’t seen the otter for a while.
I wish you both a Happy New Year, though, as Granny would say, “Ah hae ma doots!”
@ TC: Your otter sighting was a good one, giving you plenty of time to enjoy watching it’s activity. Coincidentally my husband has just come in from outing the dog – she ran under the boathouse, yipping, so we think an otter has been there this evening. We don’t see otters every day but they are around, of course.
@BDTT: grey wagtails are lovely, as TC says. Again we only see one or two each year – we think they have nested up our burn but never spotted where.
I’d forgotten the Bute House demo – oh what fun. Mind you, since the police are so hot on hassling women about ribbons and chalked slogans and such like, I doubt that it will be a happy occasion. Plus the object of the protest will make very sure that she isn’t there that day. Sigh.
Thanks for the New Year good wishes. Your Granny was in the right of it, however!
BTW: it’s goldfinches, redpolls and siskins à gogo in the garden since I put out fresh niger seeds and a winter seed mixture. I can also hear goldcrests in the birches but can’t see them easily.
Ooh you’re showing off now, TC. ONE goldcrest sighting in my life – when we had a caravan amongst the trees about a mile from where we live now. Redpolls perhaps twice. However you’ve given the impetus for my husband to stick a post in the hole our terrier has dug and attach a bird feeder within sight of the porch. Happy days!
@Sarah: I only live in an urban environment on the edge of a large rural estate with fields, woodland, burns and rivers. Having said that, we get badgers and foxes passing through our garden all the time and roe deer wandering around at night.
I found that when I put out niger seeds the goldfinches came in large numbers, and redpolls and siskins too. I get all the tit family on the other mixed seed feeders, including the beautiful wee helicopters that are long-tailed tits. Having said that, I’ve never heard or seen a linnet (plenty in Picardy) and only once seen a female brambling in the winter.
I remember watching a BBC (!) programme in an old Highland Scots pine forest which had somehow escaped destruction (in the Cairngorms?). You saw nothing during the presenter’s ramblings until the camera focused on some feeders and then from nowhere all these birds arrived, from crested tits to bramblings.
It might work for you too if you give niger seed a try, you never know. Goldcrests are common but very hard to spot because they are very small and I think they are largely insectivorous, so won’t come to a feeder. Their circling, high-pitched song is distinctive though and you can find many examples on YT. I’d put a link on here but when I come away from this site to YT I’ll lose what I have written.
Happy hunting!
Here’s qute a good example, Sarah:
link to youtube.com
The goldcrest song is supposed to be a good test of hearing for “older people” hem, hem, whose higher frequency hearing may be weaker. They seem to like coniferous trees. I hear them regularly so you may be lucky Where You Are once you’re aware of their sound.
@ TC: I’ve only just popped into O/T this evening and seen your posts – many thanks for the youtube link. I thought we might not be able to hear the goldcrest song but we did – so we’re not as old as we thought!
You see far more birds than we do – our house is right on the shore and faces the sea [it was the shop when goods came by boat!] so from the house we don’t see many shrubs etc so land birds are mostly passing rather than perching. Longtailed and other tits are around – it will be good to see them when the feeder is installed.
We never see foxes or badgers on the croft – it is surprising not to see the foxes in particular given that they are in every town.
One thing I did see once, at the back of the house, was what I thought was a redstart – a distinctly rufous tail was what attracted my attention.
Morning, Sarah: absolutely dreadful weather here, torrential rain and very cold. Glad you both passed the goldcrest test 😉 .
Your situation explains your relative lack of perching birds and as you say, foxes find easy pickings in towns where there are no farmers with shotguns.
I’m told that there were pine martens on Skye before they built the bridge but I knew a crofter there latterly who left out peanut butter on bread for one he saw in his
garden. Of course the pine marten had refused to pay the bridge toll 🙂 .
Yes, the redstart’s tail is very distinctive (the robin is in the same family). It must have been in summer because they overwinter in Africa.
Going to get some gloom on the main thread. It’s a mad, mad, mad, mad, mad, mad world. I’ve always hated Hogmanay and NYD for some reason, from the maudlin “Those we have lost” programmes on TV to amateur drinkers making eejits of themselves and grinning Jackie Bird at The Bells.
It’s enough to make you open a battle of single malt…..
@Sarah: my reply to you is in moderation! Can’t think why but obviously some combination of letters has tripped the Rev’s alarm bells. It might appear here eventually.
@ TC: perhaps you started talking about Nicholas II’s adviser?
The Boney M fella 🙂 ? No, it’s not that and I’ve been racking my brains to see what combination of letters is causing the problem, since it was mainly about nature, no reference to countries east of Germany or other known no-go areas.
We really need Stu to follow Ian B’s suggestion of producing A List of Proscribed Words and letting us know. He’s probably out bear-hunting or feeding the swans down some park in Bath, though.
I’m not risking a hammering by wrongly removing the words which I suspect may be causing the problem and then re-submitting.
Morning, Sarah: absolutely dreadful weather here, torrential rain and very cold. Glad you both passed the goldcrest test ? .
Your situation explains your relative lack of perching birds and as you say, foxes find easy pickings in towns where there are no farmers with shotguns.
I’m told that there were pine martens on Skye before they built the bridge but I knew a crofter there latterly who left out peanut butter on bread for one he saw in his
garden. Of course the pine marten had refused to pay the bridge toll ? .
Yes, the redstart’s tail is very distinctive (the robin is in the same family). It must have been in summer because they overwinter in Africa.
Going to get some gloom on the main thread. I’ve always hated Hogmanay and NYD for some reason, from the maudlin “Those we have lost” programmes on TV to amateur drinkers making eejits of themselves and grinning unionists in kilts at The Bells.
It’s enough to make you open a battle of single malt…..
Yahaaaay!
After a long, tortured night of the soul, I decided to remove two possible culprits: a reference to a film called “It’s a Mad x4 World” and a grinning Reporting Scotland unionist and clothes-horse whose name rhymes with Thora Hird.
A Happy New Year to the three people who comment here!
Of course, the ?s should be 😉 and 🙂 respectively. Don’t know why they got changed.
And now for something completely different:
link to youtube.com
The contrast between the innocence of the child’s voice and the betrayal, sleaze, violence and corruption of the drama is, of course, deliberate.
And we know all about betrayal in Scotland, don’t we?
Good morning to the few O/T folks who still pop in here.
I hope that you are all well and managing to avoid the various bugs doing the rounds just now. Don’t know what to hope for in 2023, just that it might be better than 2022. Maybe the SNP will grow a backbone and rid itself of the rubbish that are hiding within it’s ranks. That includes Sturgeon, Robertson, Daddy Bear
etc, that would aye be a start.
Anyway folks, a guid New Year tae ye all when it comes.
Hi, Marie: same to you with Goves on 🙂 .
Wishing you and the family all the best in 2023. One of our daughters has already pulled out of our NYD dinner because of the sickness bug that’s going around.
No backbones in the SNP and it seems Police Scotland are happy to trivialise paedophiles by using the term Minor Attracted Persons. It’s the PIE-men all over again from the 1970s, you know the ones who wanted to remove the age of consent.
As I said before, in 2023, keep your friends close and your family closer still.
Last word on Birds… (I think).
When I moved doon the toon in 1983, I became aware of a largish flock of starlings, that appeared to live on the rooftops and tower of the Macmanus museum and art gallery.
When the refurbishment of that building commenced, the starlings disappeared and, as far as I know, have never come back.
I started work at Ninewells Hospital in 2001 and found a largish flock of starlings there also. They were rather gallus – when we were sitting in the smoking area outside the front door, they would be standing at your feet, awaiting any scraps that may fall their way.
However, over the years, they disappeared as well.
3 or 4 years ago, I stopped at the Bridgeview Restaurant carpark, to take in the sights and smells of the river for a few minutes. (It’s around 400 yards to the west of the rail bridge.) I soon noticed the number of starlings sharing the seawall with the gulls. Looks like they’ve left Urbania for the seaside!
Onnyhoo, it’s that time of year again, for reflection an’ thah’. I was searching for a comment of mine from a while ago in ‘off-topic’ and Google gave me a number of hits.
To explain, If I am looking for something I know that was in ‘off-topic’, I use Google’s Advance Search. In the “site or domain:” box I paste “https://wingsoverscotland.com/off-topic/” and then enter any specific phrase I can remember into the “this exact word or phrase:” box, and any single words I can recall in the “all these words:” box.
It’s more successful than the search box on the WOS page.
Onnyhoo, I spent far too much time reading interesting stuff from a few years ago. Read onwards from this 2017 link (30th December onwards, till you get tired) and spot how many usernames are still here and how many have disappeared.
link to wingsoverscotland.com
Final onnyhoo…
I wish all Wingers a Happy New Year and offer you this comment from 9 hours or so shy of a year ago.
link to wingsoverscotland.com
Ach weel, just submitted a comment at 3.15pm which has gone into moderation. Maybe a banned word has slipped in within another word.
Sailor V!
Bad luck, BDTT.
Did you, by any chance, mention this French Canadian delicacy?
link to en.wikipedia.org 😉 .
Nah…
Just reread my comment. I think the offending word is Macm@nus.
“Just reread my comment. I think the offending word is Macm@nus.”
Yeah. The A-word is filtered because of people thinking it’s a hilarious way to refer to Anas Sarwar.
Thanks Rev Stu.
My 3.15 comment can be read here:-
link to wingsoverscotland.com
@BDTT: thanks for that blast from the past, Brian. Still miss Thepnr, K1, Chick, Fred, Michael McCabe, Capella and others too many to mention. I am still in touch with those two stalwarts, Nana and Hacka.
Truly, The Wee Imposter has taken all the air out of the joyful soufflé: that old page reflects the energy and hope of those days.
I couldn’t attach this to my previous because I had another cut and paste selected but the person I miss the most from those days best sum up my feelings today:
“It’s getting to us all Tinto we need to remember who we are. Our identity was stolen from us, we have to have it returned, we feel the loss of something that we have never had. We are lost children seeking parents that we have never known and without knowledge of the parents how can we ever know where we came from, or where we’re going.”
I feel as if I/we need bereavement counselling. I feel a loss of pride, of self, homeless in my own home a stranger in my own country. I was made to feel like this by people who, try as I might, I cannot bring myself to think of as having any humanity or decency, alien in every way to my way of thinking and acting.I have only one thought, Independence, without it, we shall go the way of all aboriginal people that have had the misfortune to live somewhere that the “British Empire” covets.”
Smallaxe’s words are even more relevant today now that we know that those whom we had trusted previously have been secretly selling us out for years.
Looks like we’ll have to go on fighting for a while yet.
Hi TC.
I’ve just spent another wee whiley going through stuff that turned up in my Google search. This time it was comments from Feb, March and April 2022.
I’d forgotten about this. Interesting that the audience were singing the intro to the next section at 1:10. Must be truly “legendary”.
link to youtube.com
Here’s another version of it.
link to youtube.com
Hi TC.
We were typing at the same time.
This is the track that I promised Smallaxe I would upload, back in 2018. Here’s the background with link.
link to wingsoverscotland.com
@BDTT: you’ll get intae terrible bother with your Russo-centric musical choices. Carry on!
The lyrics of that upload were funny and only a Scot could have phrased it so and got away with it. I’m sure Smallaxe would have enjoyed it.
Since we’re almost at The Bells, I feel it’s time for this: link to youtube.com , almost a perfect Scots rendition.
Setting aside the SATC references, I feel it’s still the best version of the expected Hogmanay perennial.
I think we’ll have to hang onto our hats in 2023: it’s going to be a rough ride.
Sorry, that was a crapola version.
Try this: link to youtube.com
Hi TC.
She sounds like Sheena wellington but no video on Youtube.
Try this…
link to youtube.com
OOOH! This came on after Sheena.
link to youtube.com
What a voice Sheena has.
What is it with these Russians? I remember Thepnr liked this one, and who could blame him?
link to youtube.com
Hi TC.
I’ve heard Sheena sing “Auld Lang Syne” unaccompanied many times and Mairi Campbell sound just like her.
Good evening Marie, Tinto, BDTT, and Rev: times have changed indeed – “Bliss it was in that dawn to be alive” but the powers that be are doing their job well in scuppering progress on independence. However we aren’t dead yet and there’s plenty of good energetic activity going on around us so here’s to better days and may we on off-topic keep doing what we can for the cause.
Lovely music you posted earlier, TC – the quality of the cast list of Tinker, tailor etc made me nostalgic. I’m sure current actors etc are just as good really but… not that I see anything having binned the TV licence a few years ago.
Chez moi we will be asleep before the bells – I may do a loony dook tomorrow, as I did last year. It does still count if you go in fully clothed, doesn’t it?
Off to bed too afore The Bells but I append the following to snap us all back to reality:
link to youtube.com
I have the BBC Hogmanay show just now. I an disappointed. I want to hear rabble-rousing music like this:-
link to youtube.com
and this…
link to youtube.com
That’s the Bells. Happy New Year!!!
Test post… 🙂
Great success! But do appear to require to fill in name and email to post again.
Oh well, looks like my second post didn’t appear… even with the usual OT posting modus of the page reloading the previous comments page when you submit a comment, then going to bottom of that page, clicking newer comments, then CTRL F5ing the page when it loads…
This may not appear either if comments re. posting difficulties on MT anything to go by…
Okay, all previous 3 post now showing but defo some weird issues with posts showing in right hand box on home page, but not showing on thread. Maybe the site “upgrade” is just slowly working its way through the processes and will settle down soon.
All the best folks and hope you’re all keeping as well as possible in the current circumstances.
I had a quiet festive season after what was a very rough year, so taking a wee break for the time being.
I’ve said pretty much all I have to say anyway, and it’s getting rather tedious pissing my life away repeating stuff btl whilst the politics of Scotland focuses on bizarre matters. Pity those we empowered aren’t serious about repairing and building a healthy nation.
Hi Dan.
I emailed Rev Stu last night because a spurious + had appeared in my username, which put me into pre-moderation.
He told me that’s been happening to other users also. All the problems seem to have come about since the upgrade. He said that’s why he’s never keen to upgrade.
Hi Dan.
After I click on “Submit Comment” and the page reloads, I then click on the back button, then reload the page. My latest comment (usually) then appears.
However, my comment before this one didn’t appear when I did that. A number of people remarked last night that comments were taking around 10 minutes to appear. That was the case with my 6.52 comment last night on the pleasant-valley-monday page. I didn’t see it until around 5-10 past 7.
@Dan: yes, I noticed you had been quiet recently and wondered if you were well but, as you say, during this indy stagnation there’s only so much you can say w/o repetition on political matters and the Woke lunacy is a extremely dangerous but a massive distraction, which is why SWMBO is so keen on it.
Hope this year is a better one for you and the family.
P.S. I used to have saved on my faves that list of Scottish assets (you know the one: “Scotland has x% of [insert asset here]”) but I lost it when my old laptop went phut w/o warning just over a year ago. Do you have a link to it at all in your compendious archives? I thought John “Show Us The Moola” Main might find it interesting…..
Hi Dan – best wishes for 2023. It can’t get worse independence-wise. Can it?
The mood in our house is similar to yours. I’m still corresponding in a leisurely way with John Mason – not my MSP but I had thanked him for his GRR vote and took the opportunity to try to educate him about Scotland’s constitution. He believed that Scotland was dissolved by the Treaty of Union and there is very little that Holyrood can do to get independence! I told him of Salvo’s findings and referred him to the site – one can but try.
Hi Tinto
Here are those stats, but best to caveat when using them that they were initially compiled a fair while ago, so some may need updating slightly, eg. Scottish Wind Generation must have increased with all the new projects coming online.
I quickly threw together the English version a few months back to add some perspective to the numbers in relation to the two Kingdoms that make up The UnUnited Kingdom.
John Main will have seen them plenty times but chooses to ignore them, or parrot that nobody has come up with a plan to how Scotland would be better off if it returned to self-governing status… Which is also bollox from him as I suggested we could just apply Westminster’s current policies to manage Scottish resources and be better off, as at the moment our Scottish resources in the UUK generates an income to serve 65 million, but a self-governing Scotland we would only have to serve 5.5 million with that same generated revenue.
SCOTLAND WITH ONLY 9% OF THE UK POPULATION HAS:
32% of the land area.
61% of the sea area.
90% of the fresh water.
65% of the natural gas production
96.5% of the crude oil production.
47% of the open cast coal production
81% of the untapped coal reserves
62% of the timber production
46% of the total forest area
92% of the hydro electric production
40% of the wind wave and solar energy production
60% of the fish landings
30% of the beef herd
20% of the sheep herd
9% of the dairy herd
10% of the pig herd
15% if the cereal holdings
20% of the potato holdings
90% of the whisky industry
70% of gin production
Now compare to those stats to England.
ENGLAND WITH 91% OFTHE UK POPULATION ONLY HAS:
68% of the land area.
39% of the sea area.
10% of the fresh water.
35% of the natural gas production
3.5% of the crude oil production.
53% of the open cast coal production
19% of the untapped coal reserves
38% of the timber production
54% of the total forest area
8% of the hydro electric production
60% of the wind wave and solar energy production
40% of the fish landings
70% of the beef herd
80% of the sheep herd
91% of the dairy herd
90% of the pig herd
85% if the cereal holdings
80% of the potato holdings
10% of the whisky industry
30% of gin production
Now those resource to population stats look a bit sketchy for England to me…
I’ll also tack on these links in case you wish to bookmark for future reference.
Energy “Crisis”… Scots sitting cauld in oor homes due to high prices whilst we currently export almost double the leccy Scotland is using down south. (live data so does fluctuate)
link to extranet.nationalgrid.com
And to rebut any asshole that claims that we occasionally have to import leccy on the odd occasion we fall shy. Just remember to point out that England is burning Scottish gas in their Combined Cycle Gas Turbine generators to make that power.
link to mip-prd-web.azurewebsites.net
Jeezo, this site is almost unusable at the moment having to wait 15 mins and multiple hard page refreshes to see if what you posted will actually appear. Plus no preview now too. 🙁
Hope Stu can get it sorted sharpish.
Oh, here’s the GB Grid dashboard link to tie in that CCGT generation stat, amongst some others including the various Euro connections.
link to gridwatch.templar.co.uk
Hi Sarah,
Unfortunately I have zero faith that any SNP or Green politician or even Party member is worth communicating with. And the numerous petitions are to me just going to be ignored. They have shown us who they are numerous times already…
It is inconceivable politicians are not aware of what is going on with the hijacking of oor votes to push through these unwanted policies. And if there is a minuscule chance they are actually unaware of what is going on, then this shows they are not worthy of holding the position they do if they are so blind to or behind the curve on such matters.
Aye, here’s to a better year ahead. I may take a road trip around rural Scotland in spring on my motorbike, so if any Wingers want some chores doing I’ll trade for pitching a wee tent in yer garden! 🙂
Thanks, Dan, all safely pouched: much appreciated.
I knew the list of assets was a bit out of date in some categories but the general trend is unmistakable. I used to think that a big national billboard campaign with a revised version might actually open some Scots’s eyes but sometimes I doubt a San Andreas fault ‘quake would be enough.
@Sarah: “[Mason] believed that Scotland was dissolved by the Treaty of Union and there is very little that Holyrood can do to get independence!”
My God, it’s no surprise we’re deep in the crapola when that is the level of constitutional/historical knowledge amongst our representatives. Has this guy ever read the Treaty of Union (or even Wings btl and Breeks’s tutorials)?
Zut alors, as we say in Auld Cadzow.
Meant also to say re problems with posting that a) posts take several minutes to appear and b) you can’t fill in details on Stu’s contact page or enter information/questions at the mo.
@ Dan: my husband and I would welcome you with open arms to camp on the croft and help us with some projects which we now find a bit too much e.g. inserting extra-tall fence posts for as deer protection for our fruit and veg!
@ Tinto: I really think that the MSPs and MPs are on the whole very short of brain cells and just follow whatever they are told by their controllers. Having found a rebel on one issue I think it is worth trying to educate him on other issues. Who knows, something might get through.
@Sarah: at least he did the right thing with the GRRA.
Good luck with your re-education programme 😉 .
@ Tinto: 🙂 🙂
Been reading the comment guidelines today so I refrained from putting this following comment BTL on Stu’s latest post.
Here goes…
There’s quite a few well-known independence supporters whose apparent hatred for NATO is so ingrained that they’re constantly misleading people on independence blogs about the extent and influence of Ukraine’s far-right. Never any analysis, nor any links to supporting evidence. Just sly smears of a whole country whose people are fighting for its independent existence. You would think these long-time supporters of Scotland’s independence would see the irony of seeing Europe’s (or if you must, Eurasia’s) largest country trying to end another country’s existence because the latter is deemed not to be a real country by the former. There actually is a pre-WWWII analogy here but what’s the point in reasoning analogically with those who can’t seem to think outside of their existing prejudices. Nato is bad, enemy of NATO is good.
I think we all like to think we would oppose with everything we have the rise of a Hitler-type figure should one gain any traction in our own backyard but quite a few Indy supporters seem unable to see how a nationalist dictator has been trying for the last year to destroy eastern Europe’s largest country. Any amount of misleading justification is used to cover up this most basic of facts. How many war crimes, how many millions of displaced people, how many bombed-out cities do you need to see after less than one year of an unprovoked invasion before the ideological blinkers come off. Is it because we’re exposed to so many commemorations of WWII that we cannot recognise aggressively threatening foreign ultra-nationalists unless they wear peaked caps with skull insignias letting us know who the ‘baddies’ are? Do people bother to inform themselves about history anymore? Why are so many young Russians fleeing conscription? Why are so many ordinary Russians scared to express a negative opinion of their beloved leader? No, it’s Ukrainian Nazis, that’s the clincher.
OK. I’m done. Got it out of my system. The rant is over and I managed to adhere to the guidelines unlike some who seriously should know better.
@ sarah
Well as long as you don’t have a muckle veg garden needing dozens of posts replaced around the perimeter, then a task like that sounds feasible. Obviously there would need to be tools required on site as I can’t pack much on the motorbike.
@ PhilM
It’s complex and the written word is so easily misinterpreted or misconstrued, even without taking into account narrative motive.
I previously highlighted in related discussions that I can’t recall anybody btl highlighting Country 404’s plight during the regime change back in 2014.
And where is the famed “international community” with regard to our own plight with regard to the stealth regime change in Scotland where the Party that was supposedly for returning Scotland to self-governing status morphed into some other entity that clearly has other plans.
Nobody really gives a fuck, not even here in our own land as can be seen by endless threads on people overly concerned about their sexuality or expressed gender.
Clearly we are a people that have lost all rational and critical thought on what is required to actually exist. And managing through our democratic political expression, the basics of what our geographic area requires in terms of governance to sustain or develop what we as a people on this land need and want.
“Lesbians are important”, well aye, but in the scheme of things so is everyone else, and arguably the straight people creating kids and trying to raise them in these prolonged austere times should have far greater focus and support, especially when those kids will be the ones required to care for all the oldies, be they straight, gay, or just plain fucked up by having had their sexual reproductive organs cut off…
We have become a nation with a great deal of spoiled, lazy, and self-orientated people, wanting it all but not prepared to do the often hard dirty graft required to actually support the advantaged existence they live or crave.
@ Dan: don’t panic re the fenceposts! My husband bought about 8 or 9 long posts last year and then tore his shoulder tendons and then started polymyalgia which means pain in all his joints so couldn’t put the posts in. However we might get them done now our other task of project managing the repairs on a local building is paused. So you could just enjoy your holiday instead!
@Dan 6.55pm
I’ll stage another intervention from my sabbatical (moderation permitting) to at least try and address some of the points in your response to Phil M’s earlier post.
You are right that issues are complex, that written words are easily misinterpreted or misconstrued, and that there is likely to be a motive in narratives. In relation to country 404,*most* people – unless they are simply totally uninterested or don’t care about politics / international affairs at all – will “take sides” in relation to the current war. They may see that not everything is totally black and white, but they will tend either to support country 404, or support those who invaded country 404.
I don’t think it’s true that people supporting country 404 were either blind to plight of country 404 since 2014, or failed to highlight it. Again, there are different views of what happened, and why, and people – including many BTL here – often have entrenched and ideological positions about that. It’s hardly that surprising is it? The same could be said of any other contentious issues: Palestine, climate change, vaccination…you name it.
The international community doesn’t prioritise, or I’d wager particularly care, about Scotland’s situation because in the cold light of day it’s trivial in comparison with the plight of Country 404, or even – to posit a closer comparison – Catalonia. It’s important to us of course, but nobody is dying, our cities aren’t being levelled, or our grannies being beaten up by the police for voting in an “illegal” referendum.
I tend to agree with your closing paragraph: perhaps as a people we have become too comfortable, or too lazy, even if one doesn’t necessarily buy the idea that we’re colonised or being robbed. Most folk just aren’t as invested in the issues or politics generally as regular posters here: they have fairly mainstream views. You can argue they’re misinformed, or being misled, but it’s never generally a great look to regard them as a population as wrong headed or ignorant.
Folk know there are two sides to complex issues like Country 404, to the civil war in the east, the annexation of Crimea, even if they’re not anoraks or experts. They’ll have a view of what is right and what is wrong, what is justified and what isn’t. The fact that most people don’t buy the narratives being advanced by the Kremlin isn’t an accident, nor does it render them uncritical supporters of NATO, or US policy, or Country 404’s past record.
To return to Phil M’s general thesis, there’s a coterie of pro-independence supporters whose intellectual blinkers allow them to rationalise a worldview which is profoundly unpopular generally and bears little or no relation to the reality on the ground in country 404. Nobody is saying they aren’t entitled to their view of course, or to advance it here or anywhere else.
It is interesting however that many of those here advancing such views habitually other those of us who disagree with them. We’re MI5 plants, or not “real” independence supporters, despite the fact that support for NATO and country 404 is overwhelmingly the “mainstream” view, both amongst the public at large and within the movement.
Precisely the same tactic is being used by TRA’s and the woko haram wing of the movement right now to other anyone – including Rev Stu interestingly – as harming independence, being in league with unionists and in the pay of Mi5. Maybe now more folk will wake up to the danger that the small minority of extremists and ideologues fluffing for the aggressors in the current war pose to our movement.
I have my doubts of course, but the past few months have shown that this probably isn’t the place to argue the toss.
I submitted a comment around 1.40pm which disappeared. I rejigged it and submitted at around 2.12pm. It has not appeared either at 2.45pm.
So this is a test…
……………………………………
Well, I posted a comment around 1.40pm, which didn’t appear on the thread immediately.
So I waited 10 minutes and refreshed the page again – still didn’t appear but comments posted after mine were showing up. It’s now 2.10pm and it still isn’t showing. The latest comment is showing as 2.00pm. My comment didn’t go into moderation – it’s just disappeared so I’ll probably get hammers for this. Here’s what I posted…
————————————-
O/T but I’ll leave this link here for anyone who is interested in Scottish history from Charles I onwards. I found it QI…
Who Would Be Jacobite King of the UK Today?
link to youtube.com
HUH!
I worked out what went wrong with my second comment – forgot to delete the h-t-t-p-s!
@Dan, you might find this man’s words interesting on the complex question: link to euroweeklynews.com
He was a French army general in his own right, apart from his family connection.
@ Sarah
That amount of posts shouldn’t be that onerous a task (unless you live on rock!), and some physical activity would probably be a good thing to loosen off after sitting on the motorbike for hours!
I just had a look at the map to check out the west coast area as may be heading over that direction in next week or so and thought it might tie in with post installing… but jeezo, Scotland is big and Oban is nowhere near Ullapool!
So for planning ahead… when does the midge season start? I don’t want to end up gnawed to shreds on this trip.
@ Tinto
Aye, interesting to see at least some other folk on the planet can see things from a reasonably sensible perspective.
I’m just getting back to basics for a while, chopping firewood, burning firewood, rebuilding a 1961 Lister diesel during the day, and in the evenings creating chutney with the last of my stored marrows, making pumpkin soup and curry.
I’m harvesting the seeds from those gourdes to grow plants this summer, and also preserving the fruits I harvested and froze last summer into a syrup mix as still got loads of jams from previous year. A tablespoon of blackcurrants in syrup on a bowl of muesli is michty braw!
Hi Dan.
My brother, who was a keen hillwalker. advised me that to avoid the midgies, don’t go west of the A9 in July or August.
Hope that helps.
@Dan: any useful physical activity is a great way to keep the spirits up, or learning a new skill or making and mending things. As I have got older, I find mending/fixing something gives me a strange sense of satisfaction quite out of proportion to the simplicity of the job.
This may be one reason that social media/computer-obsessed throwaway-culture types seem to have lots of mental health problems, although having the bejaysus scared out of them by the Covid measures (including the effects of enforced isolation) can’t have helped. I’ve been having lots of fun recently with a pair of long-nosed pliers I got at Christmas and an induction hob repair kit………
@BDTT: it’s back! I know a proud pedant like wot you are will be thrilled…..
link to apostrophe.org.uk
Hi TC.
That’s a bra’ site! I’ve bookmarked it. Might aim it at Jame’s Che…
And on the same grammar theme:-
link to youtube.com
Ooh, you are awful! I think we’ll neeed to bring all this to a full stop 🙂 .
@ Dan: midge season here mid-June to mid-September although an old neighbour said they can be any time of year if mild enough!
Plague days are very rare with us – keep in a breezy spot and stay indoors at dawn and dusk when the wind tends to drop. I usually only find them a nuisance when picking fruit or weeding too late in the day.
@ Tinto and BDTT: I have just joined the Apostrophe Protection Society’s facebook page. I presume you have read that delightful book “Eats, Shoots & Leaves”?
You might also enjoy the Suetude Society’s efforts – founded by a couple of Lochbroom men. It seeks to restore the positive parts of words by discarding negative prefixes. http://www.herroyalmajesty.ca – or google Suetude Society.
@Sarah: I see one of the founders of the Suetude Society is a boat builder. I must try to work “futtocks’ into my conversations today……
Shouldabeen “futtocks”, before I get incoming pedants 😉 .
Hi TC.
Are you referencing this?
link to youtube.com
RE: Suetude Society.
One I came up with some time ago was “gruntled”, meaning at peace with the world, everything and everybody and perefectly content with one’s current life situation.
BDTT: “Are you referencing this?”
It may have crossed my mind at a subliminal level, but that could just be a load of rowlocks 🙂 .
I also deplore the lack of apostrophe in the film’s title, obvs.
Is it the end of Futtock or of Futtocks? I think we should be told…….
BDTT – “Gruntled” is very positive sounding! It would suit someone who is very ept and ert as well.
@ TC: I had to look up futtocks and I’m not sure that I am much the wider…
“wiser” not “wider” 🙂
@Sarah: I think they are the bottom spars across the hull, at your feet.
Dan The Man has probs fashioned them 😉 .
futtock |?f?t?k|
noun
each of the middle timbers of a ship’s frame, between the floor and the top timbers.
ORIGIN
Middle English: perhaps from Middle Low German, or from foot + hook.
“Dan has probs fashioned them.” No doubt at all, TC!
Just noticed this page in the recent comments box – what goes on here?
“Introspection, chit-chat and squabbling that isn’t about Scottish politics at all” is the original hover-description from His Nibs, KTL.
Anything goes, really: wotever floats your boat as long as it’s not too serious.
Watch out for fruit-loops, pedants and music freaks but in a warm supportive environment 😉 .
May contain nuts.
Scrolling back up the thread will give you some idea.
Hi TC.
2 or 3 years ago, I had the notion to read ‘off-topic’ from the very start, until I was up to date. It took a longer than wee whiley but was QI.
A pity a good few stalwarts have died during eight wasted years. 2016 was the year the wedge of Brexit should have been used to achieve independence. I doubt Salmond would have missed the chance.
I find it interesting that the “Yetts of Muckart” only achieved (in)Fame(y) via the sketch show, “Absolutely”.
I have driven through there, in a previous life. Two mentions here…
link to youtube.com
Also,
link to google.co.uk
The Yetts of Muckart must be recognised!
Accepting that I didn’t actually know the meaning of “yett”, I consulted,
link to dsl.ac.uk
@BDTT: and Muckart is Gaelic (sorry, Rev.) muc àirde “pig height”.
Strange how gates of pig height achieved such notoriety and longevity.
Well, the Gaelic name was much earlier as a place-name. The “yetts” was added once G. had been replaced by Scots.
Gates of Pig Height. Wonderful!
Perhaps Height or Point of the Pig[s]? Aird is point so can mean a hill or a point on the shore. Aird an Droighinn [where I live] is the point of the blackthorn and lies on the loch shore immediately below the hill Cnoc an Droighinn.
Across the loch is Aird an Tuirc – the point of the boar, apparently.
Perhaps the Rev will come to love the Gaelic. It is a great pity that there is only one form of Gaelic taught nowadays. Lochbroom Gaelic is different from e.g. Applecross Gaelic – so different that the Church of Scotland’s Gaelic Bible of the 1820’s wasn’t understood by several Highland districts and Lochbroom’s minister Thomas Ross was trying to do a translation for Lochbroom.
Didn’t know that about the Gaelics of Lochbroom and Applecross, Sarah. Re the latter, I do remember driving up the bendy and steep Bealach na Bà in an old Hillman Minx in the Great Heat of 1976, when the radiator went. Another memory was using the birly wee ferry at Kylesku. The skipper certainly needed to know about the tides and currents there.
Maybe the Rev’s off the Gaelic because the usual explanation for Pittodrie, home of his beloved Aberdeen FC, is “farm-of-dung place” 🙂 .
@ TC: thank you. I was feeling rather embarrassed at having perhaps sounded as if I was lecturing people on the forms of Gaelic, especially given that I have very little [alright, no] Gaelic myself. “Farm of dung place” – mmm, that must indeed be why the Rev isn’t a keen Gaelic supporter.
I feel for you about the packed-up radiator on the Bealach na Ba in the Great Heat. I’m surprised your bones, and the Hillman’s, aren’t lying bleached by the road!
Kylesku is no fun any more – a bridge and no ferry.
Yes, it’s a shame in a way that the ferry is no more because it was a great experience.
The best way onto Skye is still the wee ferry from Glen Shiel to Kylerhea which runs from Easter until October.
I’ve got a story about a ‘no ferry’ but it’s late so it will have to wait until tomorrow.
@BDTT: ferry ’nuff.
So pleased to hear that there is still a ferry to Skye. I still haven’t visited Skye so must be sure to go during ferry season.
RE: ferries.
I have an email buddy called Neale Elder. I’ve probably mentioned him before. He took the photo of a snow-covered Schiehallion from Dundee Law, which I think I linked to on ‘off-topic’ previously.
Onnyhoo Neale works for Network Rail and, thus, has free travel all over Scotland.
I’m gonna paste below an email he sent oor wee group back in January 2012.
I’ll insert a google streetview link in his text at the appropriate point.
Here’s what he sent us. Obviously I can’t include the pics and video he sent…
Hello again guys.
The other night, I mentioned there was something relating to the Highlands that I wanted to share. It’s an interest of mine that has nothing to do with Dundee and will probably provoke a response of, ‘Yeah well, each to his own!’ Anyway, since GC has revealed his penchant for TV Century 21, I say that anything goes!
I’m very fond of the Western Highlands and a long-standing interest has been the old turntable ferries that plied across the sea lochs and straits. My own project is to write an article about them, as they have been sadly neglected by historians, perhaps in favour of the more jaunty ‘puffers’ (themselves the reason for my Hotmail address). Only one of the turntable ferries remains in service – the Glenachulish, which operates the summer Glenelg-Skye crossing.
Just before Christmas a rockfall closed the A890 Stromeferry bypass on the south side of Loch Carron and effectively cut the road system of the North-West Highlands in half. The road (although not the railway) is still closed; and I could hardly believe it when I read that arrangements had been made to have the Glenachulish taken from its winter lay-over in order to reinstate the Strome crossing after a gap of over 40 years. During this time the road sign saying ‘Strome Ferry (No Ferry)’ has become a cult classic.
link to goo.gl
So the ferry was back and this I had to see! On Friday I travelled to Stromeferry by train and, on arrival, felt as though I had walked into a time portal. The little boat was shuttling across the loch with full loads of cars, vans and even lorries and diggers. Road vehicles were queuing patiently on the approach to the slipway. It was 1965, to all intents and purposes.
Best of all, there was no overarching health and safety to contend with (in fact I can’t believe how the whole operation got past the HSE!). They were using the original slipways, barely modified since 1970. Expecting to be refused on board as a foot passenger, I was instead welcomed by the skipper, then just managed to squeeze in beside the last car as the ramps were slammed up behind me and the deck was swung round. Then came that nostalgic sound of bygone holidays in the Highlands – the throaty exhaust as the engine went full astern away from the jetty.
I went through the whole day in a dreamlike state and was still euphoric when I got home. This was something I never dreamed I would see – the Strome ferry not only back up and running for real, but operated by exactly the same kind of vessel as 50 years ago. It was the equivalent of arriving in Dundee and finding the ‘Fifies’ back crossing the Tay!
The attached video clip (which I have squeezed down into a WMV file) is quite amusing, although my film making skills leave a bit to be desired. Anyway, thanks for allowing me to indulge this interest of mine. I’ve been telling anyone who will listen.
Cheers,
Neale
And a follow-up…
Hi GC
The boat is operating directly across the loch between the two old slipways. It’s an exact re-enactment of the old service: that’s why it’s so magical. Here are the views from either shore, with the opposite slipway in the distance.
Not surprised you haven’t heard of turntable ferries. It’s believed they only ever existed in the Scottish Highlands and Islands. I first travelled on one in 1974 and was so impressed that as soon as I got home I built a Lego model, complete with rotating car deck!
Be warned – I have plans later this year to indulge my interest in old ferries in an unusual way and from a different perspective, the results of which will amaze you.
Neale
When Chris and I had our summer holiday in 2018, we stopped at Eilean Donan Castle, before heading to our campsite at Balmacara. The next day, we crossed the Skye Bridge and drove along to Kyleakin, just so we could say that we’d set wheels on Skye.
From there, I wanted to visit Plockton, to see if I recognised any of the locations from the ‘Hamish Macbeth’ TV series. I did!
link to goo.gl
However, on the way to Plockton, we drove through Duirinish, which was fascinating. (Featured recently on ‘Landward’.)
link to goo.gl
link to goo.gl
From Plockton, it was Stromeferry, then up the main drag to Dingwall for lunch, before heading to Chez Nana & Hackalumpoff for a very pleasant evening, including Ronnie A and various Malts.
Next day was the Inverness rally, then back to Dundee.
A bra’ doddle!
And Kylerhea used to be quite good for seeing basking sharks.
This 15+ minutes delay in comments appearing fairly disrupts the flow, iye?
I posted quite a long comment which didn’t go into pre-moderation. It was posted between the 8.10 and 9.16 above.
So, I wonder, has WordPress just binned it?
I’m gonna try it again – and go through it with a nit comb looking for “words”, yi know “words”.
———————————————
RE: ferries.
I have an email buddy called Neale Elder. I’ve probably mentioned him before. He took the photo of a snow-covered Schiehallion from Dundee Law, which I think I linked to on ‘off-topic’ previously.
Onnyhoo Neale works for Network Rail and, thus, has free travel all over Scotland.
I’m gonna paste below an email he sent oor wee group back in January 2012.
I’ll insert a google streetview link in his text at the appropriate point.
Here’s what he sent us. Obviously I can’t include the pics and video he sent…
Hello again guys.
The other night, I mentioned there was something relating to the Highlands that I wanted to share. It’s an interest of mine that has nothing to do with Dundee and will probably provoke a response of, ‘Yeah well, each to his own!’ Anyway, since GC has revealed his penchant for TV Century 21, I say that anything goes!
I’m very fond of the Western Highlands and a long-standing interest has been the old turntable ferries that plied across the sea lochs and straits. My own project is to write an article about them, as they have been sadly neglected by historians, perhaps in favour of the more jaunty ‘puffers’ (themselves the reason for my Hotmail address). Only one of the turntable ferries remains in service – the Glenachulish, which operates the summer Glenelg-Skye crossing.
Just before Christmas a rockfall closed the A890 Stromeferry bypass on the south side of Loch Carron and effectively cut the road system of the North-West Highlands in half. The road (although not the railway) is still closed; and I could hardly believe it when I read that arrangements had been made to have the Glenachulish taken from its winter lay-over in order to reinstate the Strome crossing after a gap of over 40 years. During this time the road sign saying ‘Strome Ferry (No Ferry)’ has become a cult classic.
link to goo.gl
So the ferry was back and this I had to see! On Friday I travelled to Stromeferry by train and, on arrival, felt as though I had walked into a time portal. The little boat was shuttling across the loch with full loads of cars, vans and even lorries and diggers. Road vehicles were queuing patiently on the approach to the slipway. It was 1965, to all intents and purposes.
Best of all, there was no overarching health and safety to contend with (in fact I can’t believe how the whole operation got past the HSE!). They were using the original slipways, barely modified since 1970. Expecting to be refused on board as a foot passenger, I was instead welcomed by the skipper, then just managed to squeeze in beside the last car as the ramps were slammed up behind me and the deck was swung round. Then came that nostalgic sound of bygone holidays in the Highlands – the throaty exhaust as the engine went full astern away from the jetty.
I went through the whole day in a dreamlike state and was still euphoric when I got home. This was something I never dreamed I would see – the Strome ferry not only back up and running for real, but operated by exactly the same kind of vessel as 50 years ago. It was the equivalent of arriving in Dundee and finding the ‘Fifies’ back crossing the Tay!
The attached video clip (which I have squeezed down into a WMV file) is quite amusing, although my film making skills leave a bit to be desired. Anyway, thanks for allowing me to indulge this interest of mine. I’ve been telling anyone who will listen.
Cheers,
Neale
And a follow-up…
Hi GC
The boat is operating directly across the loch between the two old slipways. It’s an exact re-enactment of the old service: that’s why it’s so magical. Here are the views from either shore, with the opposite slipway in the distance.
Not surprised you haven’t heard of turntable ferries. It’s believed they only ever existed in the Scottish Highlands and Islands. I first travelled on one in 1974 and was so impressed that as soon as I got home I built a Lego model, complete with rotating car deck!
Be warned – I have plans later this year to indulge my interest in old ferries in an unusual way and from a different perspective, the results of which will amaze you.
Neale
When Chris and I had our summer holiday in 2018, we stopped at Eilean Donan Castle, before heading to our campsite at Balmacara. The next day, we crossed the Skye Bridge and drove along to Kyleakin, just so we could say that we’d set wheels on Skye.
From there, I wanted to visit Plockton, to see if I recognised any of the locations from the ‘Hamish Macbeth’ TV series. I did!
link to goo.gl
However, on the way to Plockton, we drove through Duirinish, which was fascinating. (Featured recently on ‘Landward’.)
link to goo.gl
link to goo.gl
From Plockton, it was Stromeferry, then up the main drag to Dingwall for lunch, before heading to Chez Nana & Hackalumpoff for a very pleasant evening, including Ronnie A and various Malts.
Next day was the Inverness rally, then back to Dundee.
A bra’ doddle!
“I’m gonna try it again – and go through it with a nit comb looking for “words”, yi know “words”.”
FOR THE LOVE OF GOD HOW MANY TIMES DO I HAVE TO TELL PEOPLE NOT TO DO THIS?
I’m not here monitoring comments 24/7. If it hasn’t appeared, I’LL GET AROUND TO IT.
What flow? 🙂
Hi TC.
I got an email notification of your “What flow” comment at 10.01pm.
————————————
I posted quite a long comment which didn’t go into pre-moderation. It was posted between the 8.10 and 9.16 above.
So, I wonder, has WordPress just binned it?
I’m gonna try it again – and go through it with a nit comb looking for “words”, yi know “words”.
————————————-
Both of these comments have not gone into pre-mod – they have just disappeared. The second one was around 9.30pm.
I’ll have to work out another way to share my “no ferries” comment with yooz. Probably won’t be tonight. Posted at 22.10 – I wonder when/if it will appear?
Hi TC.
I got an email notification of your “What flow” comment at 10.01pm.
————————————
It still wasn’t showing on WOS at 22.13.
Sorry Rev Stu but these disappearances and delays are really grinding the gears. Why do comments just disappear?
I know it’s a WordPress “feature” but it doesn’t add to the enjoyment of WOS.
@BDTT: that’s a great story about the Glenachulish. I’d no idea it was pressed into service that winter at Stromeferry. The turntable ferry was a great invention. I can’t remember if the ferry at Kylesku was a t/t one but suspect it was.
About a decade ago I was down at Kylerhea and saw on the road on the Glen Shiel side a long line of motorbikes coming down to the ferry. When they eventually all got across I saw they were Indian bikes, big American jobs that sounded very burbly. Their owners were all Australian on some bizarre tour. I can’t imagine how much it must have cost to get them over to Europe.
I wouldn’t have fancied riding them up the narrow Glen Arrol road from the ferry. It has steep drops on one side and rocky walls on the other in places. I know a Skye man whose father’s tractor crashed through the stone dyke and plunged off. Fortunately he had managed to jump and save himself.
@ Tinto Chiel
You need to raise your google search game!
Simply search Kylesku Ferry then click images and peruse the results.
I think this pic will confirm your suspicion was correct. 😉
link to canmore.org.uk
Thanks, Dan, as usual. When I am President of Scotland I will appoint you State Archivist with a vast budget.
I didn’t think of Googling the ferry but was working from my defective memory: great foatie too.
Aye BDTT that wiz ah braw weekend .
Good to see you commenting again, Ronnie. Hope you are well.
Came upon this near the end of the internet: link to youtube.com
It’s CalVEEN in Perthshire they’re talking about.
Think this was the B-side to <emLife's Been Good by Joe Walsh, Master of the Slide: link to youtube.com
Obscure perhaps but nostalgic for me.
link to youtube.com
Reconstruct your crime scene……
Calvine (pronounced ‘Calvin’ by locals)…
I shot this video in 2008. It features the River Garry, my son, nephew and various nieces, plus a bunch of adventurers passing through.
link to youtube.com
In 1967/68, when I was 15/16, every band in Dundee who had an organist, played this. Even ‘The Oryx’ from Alloa, whom we had up every 3 months for the BB/Girl Guide dances in the church hall did a decent version.
First link is the unedited album version. Second link is a live performance from 2016.
link to youtube.com
link to youtube.com
As Jeff Beck has been newsworthy of late, here’s an example of his short-term collaboration with two former Fudges.
link to youtube.com
‘Off-topic’ appears to be hibernating.
That could also be a verb meaning ‘supporting the Edinburgh team whose strip features the colour green’.
Can you tell I’m bored yet?
Most folk are probably down kitting out their nuclear shelters now.
I believe Hibernian FC has heliotrope as one of its change strip colours: fascinating, eh?
I probably won’t check back here but I was wondering if the good people of WoS BTL would like to join me in prayer for the coming passage of Asteroid 2023 BU. Apparently it will pass Earth around 1227 GMT (Greenock Mean Time) tomorrow in what is being called a ‘near miss’ by reality deniers, I mean scientists.
So I was thinking if we all pray hard enough, at least a chunk of it might fall in the Firth of Forth. I have nothing against anyone in Edinburgh in particular, just all of them in general. As no-one says, it’s an ill asteroid that doesn’t flatten Holyrood. If it passes without incident, that will be a shame but as a second best option, we could start our own asteroid cult. People in Scotland believe any old sh*te, so there’s money to be made…just a thought.
O Holy Asteroid 2023 BU, full of grace…
Reminds me of: link to npdsurrey.wordpress.com
As I was walking doon the road,
I saw a coo – a buhl beh goad!
In a field, all forlorner.
Standing there wie a leg at each corner.
Definite McGonagall tendencies you have, Brian.
Hey, Dan, this gentle wee soul would definitely benefit from your technical knowledge: link to youtube.com
Windows with panes of cellophane in Siberia?
@ Tinto
I think there is a bit more to these sort of vids showing solitary folk existing in those sort of extreme climatic conditions.
His flour looked extremely well milled so unlikely it’s home grown and processed grain, doubtful he could catch enough hares to provide meat to sustain himself and twa dugs, especially when they need to take in calories when burning them off with physically work collecting firewood in freezing temps, plus I noticed there were tailor made ciggy butts in the ashtray!
Maybe his cellophane windaes were double glazed! I don’t know the U value of cellophane versus glass but it might be it conducts less heat than glass.
At least he has access to land to get firewood though, around Scotland if a pleb even dares to prune a tree the handmaiden middle class green environmentalist gestapo members operating on behalf of the inbred Etonian landowners will rock up in high viz in a matter of minutes siting said pleb for numerous breeches of law and code.
Of course, it’s okay for the beavers to indiscriminately gnaw hundreds of trees to death because BLM, but woe betide an ordinary indigenous human attempts to grab a stick by hook or by crook to burn to keep their arse warm seeing as energy prices are so out of kilter with the lived financial reality of many Scots.
The loss of the post preview function prior to submitting is causing muchos angst due to not spotting and correcting errors.
physical, not physically.
citing, not siting.
In my defence, I am currently making another batch of chutney so my concentration is on not burning my savoury confiture to the arse of the pan.
“At least he has access to land to get firewood though, around Scotland if a pleb even dares to prune a tree the handmaiden middle class green environmentalist gestapo members operating on behalf of the inbred Etonian landowners will rock up in high viz in a matter of minutes siting said pleb for numerous breeches of law and code.”
Ha! ha! I pure kennt you would have spotted that. Tbf, Samuel (Scots version), did go into town for provisions such as fags and flour and matches once he could face the long walk-in to the nearest village, IIRC. I also wondered whether the low-density non-frost conducting cellophane might not be better at keeping out the cold, but wot do I know?
Your post re all those Gigawatts of our energy going south yesterday was a real stammy-gaster but who the Gove seems to care?
Facts are chiels that winna ding, except in the land of the idiom’s birth, it seems to me.
As Tony Soprano said in despair, “Wot ya gonna do?”
Ach Tinto, you’re a man for prompts, iye?
link to youtube.com
But this is my favourite of theirs…
link to youtube.com
Once upon a time, I could have played that on a keyboard – a rather classical take, with an arpeggio as backing. Haven’t hit the keys in anger for years…
FTM : Dan, get fresh and get dumplings!
link to youtube.com
That first ditty came into my mind yesterday as a matter of fact but I don’t remember the second at all.
Getting on for 60 years……
*Thousand yard stare out of window*
And A Happy St Bride’s Day to you all. She is a saint associated with sowing, planting, flocks, midwives, etc. (anything to do with fertility, basically).
February 1st is the first day of the Celtic spring.
link to thecourier.co.uk
@BDTT: never has an ancient saint been so relevant and needed. She is much older than the Christian Bride or Brigit and was a pagan deity (Brigantia or Brigid) whom the Christians “adopted” for continuity of belief.
Good on the women of Ireland.
Imbolc, ya bass!
Tonight, while playing MR DO!, I have had this on as my aural wallpaper. Sorry, no longer available on BBC iPlayer.
Totally British 70s Rock n Roll – 01. 1970-1974)
Totally British 70s Rock n Roll – 02. 1975-1979)
Onnyhoo, I was reminded of the Roy Young Band. I possess one 7″ single, which I bought because of its title –
link to youtube.com
Here’s the other RY I know…
link to youtube.com
For some reason, those reminded me of this:-
link to youtube.com
In Early 1970, I was a Bank Apprentice with the Clydesdale Branch in Downfield, Dundee. With next to no notice, I was transferred to the Newburgh branch for a week, due to staff sickness.
The problem was that I had bought tickets for me and my cousin to see Family in the The Palais in Dundee on the Tuesday night.
I was in digs in Newburgh so had to explain to the landlady that I wouldn’t be ‘at home’ on the Tuesday night.
To see Family involved a bus to Perth, then bus to Dundee. I stayed at my parents after the gig, then in the morning, it was a bus to Perth, then another to Newburgh. And I got to work on time!
And you tell the kids today and they just haven’t a clue what we put up with to have the rock ‘n’ roll lifestyle.
Roy Young had a very interesting bio, innit? Had no idea he had such a long and varied career (and a great set of gnashers for them days 🙂 ).
Thanks for reminding me about Family: sort of Jethro Tull via Fairport Convention with a pinch of Duncan Browne, only more so.
I’ve just watched an excellent episode of M*A*S*H on Great TV, Freeview 50.
Summary
Hawkeye: Hawkeye is rescued by a Korean family when he is injured in a jeep accident. He knows how dangerous it can be to fall asleep with a concussion, so he talks to the family non-stop. (S4 Ep19).
That’s about it. 95% of the episode was Hawkeye prattling on, while the Korean family understood no English.
Makes you appreciate how good TV was some decades ago.
link to youtube.com
@DVD: how about this? link to youtube.com
The DVD boxed set was expensive but it’s difficult to get in other media, I think.
Not as depressing as “Threads” but there’s not much in it.
Shouldabeen “@ BDTT” and, no, I have no idea how that happened.
I was searching YouTube for the video of Grave Digger “The Bruce”, which I linked to here a year or three ago.
Came across this: it appears to be the opening of Grave Digger’s set at Wacken 2010, where “The Bruce” video came from.
I’ll give you both links.
link to youtube.com
link to youtube.com
Why is it some ‘furriners’ have more knowledge of Scottish history than a lot of Scots?
I was chatting to a guy at the Dundee Alba Party Burns Night shindig on Saturday. He was at school in the late 70s and 80s and was taught nothing of Scottish history.
I told him of what I had been taught in school in the 60s – from the stone age forward (Scara Brae, etc), Alexander III, Maid of Norway, right up to James the I and 6.
Whereas he was taught about Magna Carta, Henry VIII and so on, I wasn’t. I only heard about the Battle of Agincourt years after I left school.
It appears that some misdirection took place in the Scottish history curriculum, going into the 70s and 80s.
Time it was sorted.
BTW: while I’ve been typing this, I’ve just let Grave Digger play on. Bagpipes feature again in “Rebellion”.
Hi TC.
I’ll have a wee t’interweb search for “Edge of Darkness”.
Might as well share this.
Graham Brown solo, on Tuesday evening on the Caird Hall steps in City Square, Dundee.
link to facebook.com
That was last Tuesday, not tonight.
Hi TC.
link to ww1.couchtuner.space
Fanx BDTT: got it in DVD form. Sometimes streaming can be a pain.
I’ve had
Totally British 70s Rock n Roll – 02. 1975-1979
as my aural wallpaper tonight as I play Mr DO!.
It’s a good prog if you can find it. All those bands from the mid-70s who were bubblin’ under, whose members went on to greater things, in nwere bands, chartwise.
Onnyhoo, two singles from that period. The first is, possibly, the only single that featured in its lyrics, the word “bereft”.
link to youtube.com
Then this… The lyrics here are 110%.
link to youtube.com
Onnyhoo…
Are you peeps who dip into ‘off-topic’ getting any enjoyment out of the music links here? Or they only for my own satisfaction and TC’s?
I’ll stick this in, from around 1974…
link to youtube.com
There isn’t anybody else, BDTT.
Nice to hear the Kursaal Flyers but.
I have a number of two hour playlists on my leedle iMac, a good few of which are what I call ‘easy-listening instrumental’. They are my aural wallpaper when I want to relax/snooze on the settee.
This is a rather good example. It’s almost like a ’round’ for accordions.
link to youtube.com
I suspect you’ll be in Bert Kampfärt territory next, Brian. It doesn’t make you a bad person 🙂 .
After your Kursall Flyers disc I mused upon Great Overproduction Tracks of All Time and remembered this:
link to youtube.com
Typing of Bert Kaempfert…
I was aware of this
link to youtube.com
before I was aware of this
link to youtube.com
which, it sounds like, was the inspiration for the former.
For a sec. I thought one of the percussionists in DDDBM&T was Mickey Finn of Bolan fame.
It’s such a strange song but certainly original.
Burt Bacharach…
did the music for the original “Casino Royale (1967).
Had Dusty Springfield in mind for this:-
link to youtube.com
Herb Alpert & The Tijuana Brass did the theme song:-
link to youtube.com
Further info (Check out the cast list!):-
link to imdb.com
Talking of OTT production: link to youtube.com
Somehow, charming.
@BDTT: my bruvver sent me to a cinema in Rutherglen to “critique” Casino Royale ‘cos he was too lazy to bother.
I thought it was crapola at the time and no amount of teenage angst/cynicism denial since has convinced me otherwise.
Think it’s time for us to roll things up here: never seen The Bed Sitting Room (1969)?
And so to bed.
Hi TC.
As a 15 year old, I enjoyed it on first release. I’ve rewatched it a couple of times since.
Just stumbled over this on YouTube…
Doomwatch (1972) 1080p HD British Sci-Fi Judie Geeson Ian Bannen Sci-Fi Classic FULL MOVIE
link to youtube.com
Thanks for that freebie: never seen the feature film so will enjoy it (I hope).
I watched all the BBC series when I was young and lovely and always remember Dr Quist’s (John Paul) customary rejoinder, “You baaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaastard!”
Hi TC.
If you paste
“Full Movie”
into YouTube’s search box and hit enter, you’ll get a long list of (mostly) full movies, of all genres and going back to the 40s.
Like this example…
link to youtube.com
Click on the “show more” link below the video to see another list of full movies.
Hi TC.
There’s also this YouTube channel, which has more links:-
link to youtube.com
@BDTT: that was Doomwatch versus The Wicker Man.
Really ran out of steam towards the end but thanks anyhow.
Song for gregor:
link to youtube.com
“I’m A Wanker” a.k.a. “The Winker Song (misprint)” by Ivor Biggun.
@David: yes, it’s most annoying but it’s up to Stu, innit?
How about a nice cheery song to keep us all going?
link to youtube.com
Hi TC.
The response to your ‘nice cheery song’. (I may have posted this at some point in the past.)
link to youtube.com
Jeepers, creepers! Bizarre doesn’t cover it.
*Lies down in darkened room*
Fancy some calm before the storm (no, not that storm)?
link to youtube.com
@Dan Da Man: if you’re looking in here through your cough-remedy induced haze, I’m sending you this just to cheer you up……….
link to youtube.com
You’re welcome!
Hi TC.
link to youtube.com
I enjoyed that! Inspired me to go on a ‘pop music’ info tangent, which I will follow up in the next couple of comments.
When Pete the Camera and I set up our mobile disco in 1975, I used to have my lunch (Wallace’s Bridie from Castle Street with a packet of cheese and onion crisps and a can of Coke) upstairs in Chalmers & Joy, whilst listening to what new releases had come in.
I also perused the Decca catalogue, because they kept stuff available for years after release. That is why my copy of this single was bought new, around 1975/76. I’ll add a couple of links for background. Until reading the further info links below, I hadn’t realised that they were the first British band to have a #1 in the US charts.
The A side.
link to youtube.com
The B side.
link to youtube.com
The further info, which I found interesting…
link to vintagerockmag.com
link to recordcollectormag.com
This single is mentioned in the second info link above. Released in the 60s, I bought a new copy in the mid 70s. courtesy of Decca. I got a lot of mileage out of this single, particularly at parties.
link to youtube.com
Last one for tonight, also bought new in the mid 70s. Subsequently covered by The Stranglers.
link to youtube.com
@ Tinto
Just clocked your post the noo. Indeed, the tune put a wee smile on my snot covered coupon! Though I’d prefer if we get a fair bit more time before we all go together.
Don’t recall ever having a cold that felt so burning in the throat. Think I’m over the worst of it now, and than the painless bleeding noses when clearing my snout of the last residues are nothing compared to the soar ear, nose, and throat I’ve endured for 4 days.
I wonder how the past few years of us generally being uber careful not to catch anything have impacted our immune systems as they haven’t been exposed to as many bugs as normal.
At some point, I’m gonna describe my NHS treatment from the 16th December 2022, when I woke up with a pain in my right side, which felt like someone had punched or kicked me in the ribs, right up to date.
Stay tuned for no film at 11.
@BDTT: Telstar was sensationally original when it came out, innit? although I have never heard the B side. I’ve definitely heard The Martian Hop before but never knew its name.
@Dan: I’ve heard so many people complaining about persistent coughs, sore throats and snot à gogo recently that your theory is probably correct. Strange that WHO suddenly reversed accepted and established pracices for pandemics such as no masking or “lockdowns” in 2020, measures which had been regarded as counter-productive for many decades.
Play-groups and nurseries seem similarly affected (our grandchildren attend them).
Perhaps young children’s immunities will settle down with exposure to the usual bugs. They shouldn’t have been getting jabbed at all anyway since Covid posed no threat to them anyway so things might correct themselves naturally.
Hope you’re over the worst and looking furrit to BDTT’s revelations 😉 .
Hi Brian Doonthetoon, your link above at 8th Feb 4.31 is redirecting to all sorts of crap. It may depend on OS blah blah an all that, I don’t know.
The contact forms oot and I don’t twitter so maybe you can contact the rev or know someone who can.
It was a grand poem by the way.
Hi DaveL.
On any web site, eg Couchtuner, you don’t click on any pop-up links that appear and you close any extraneous tabs or windows that appear.
That’s what I did and was able to download all 6 episodes of ‘Edge Of Darkness’ using a Firefox add-on.
Hi DaveL.
These free web sites make their money from ads. That’s why there are so many. As I typed, you just don’t click on any links, other than the one you actually want – and close any pop-ups.
A short cartoon to brighten up your Sunday morning.
link to facebook.com
HUH! There’s no audio at that link. But found it at YouTube.
link to youtube.com
BTW: it’s taking 20 minutes for comments to appear this morning.
JEEZ! That one appeared after 2 minutes!
Hi Brian Doonthetoon
Any video’s obscured by pop ups, when cancelled a whole new fresh page and the original wind up at a ‘Jenny and her giant webcam’ sort of place; just press the button.
I’m thinking it’ll be down to this cranky machine being plagued with something horrible. It should’ve been into the shop (a couple of million updates probably) years ago but there’s nothing like procrastinating.
One day at a time.
So I’ll do it tomorrow.
Wanted to put this list in one place. Might make an interesting little article sometime in the near future…
Short list of recent European leaders who were either convicted or lost office because of corrupt party-funding scandals:
Helmut Kohl, Germany: The CDU donations scandal was a political scandal resulting from the illegal forms of party financing used by the German Christian Democratic Union (CDU) during the 1990s. These included accepting hidden donations, the non-disclosure of cash donations, the maintenance of secret bank accounts, and illegal wire transfers to and from foreign banks. After his chancellorship, Kohl became honorary chairman of the CDU in 1998 but resigned from the position in 2000 in the wake of the CDU donations scandal which damaged his reputation domestically. (Wikipedia)
Jacques Chirac, France: former French president Jacques Chirac has been handed a two-year suspended prison sentence after being found guilty of embezzling public funds to illegally finance the conservative party he led (Guardian 2010)
Nicolas Sarkozy, France: He was charged with corruption by French prosecutors in two cases, notably concerning the alleged Libyan interference in the 2007 French elections. In 2021, Sarkozy was convicted of corruption in two separate trials. His first conviction resulted in him receiving a sentence of three years, two of them suspended and one in prison; he has appealed against the ruling. For his second conviction, he received a one-year sentence, which he is allowed to serve under home confinement.
Mariano Rajoy, Spain: Gürtel corruption scandal
The first definitive court ruling on the Gürtel corruption scandal convicted a series of former PP party officials. Former treasurer Luis Bárcenas was sentenced to 33 years of prison and a fine of 44 million euros for hiding a fortune of an uncertain amount in Swiss banks.The 1,687-page ruling also said that it was settled that there was a “network of institutionalised corruption” and that the PP “financially benefited” from the Gürtel affair, something for which it was fined 245,492 euros. The sentence also recognised that it was proven that the PP had a slush fund since 1989, consisting of a “financial and accounting structure that was parallel to the official one”. More court rulings are pending, as this ruling only covered the 1999-2005 period of the Gürtel scandal.
Following the court ruling, the leader of PSOE, Pedro Sánchez, promoted a motion of no confidence against Rajoy to be voted on Friday, 1 June. 176 votes were needed to get it approved. In the debate of the previous day, a sufficient number of deputies expressed their intention to support it. Rajoy lost this motion,[60] (with 180 votes in favour of the motion, 169 against, and 1 abstention) and was succeeded as Prime Minister by Sánchez.
Bettino Craxi, Italy: Craxi received his first prosecution notice in December 1992. More followed in January and February, at which point the Court of Milan explicitly asked Parliament to authorise Craxi’s prosecution for bribery and corruption (at the time, Italian MPs were immune from prosecution unless authorised by Parliament). The authorisation was denied on 29 April 1993 after Craxi gave an emotional speech.
In December 1993, after his prosecution was finally authorised, Craxi was called to testify…Craxi, after admitting to the charges brought against himself and other parties, stated that the bribes were “the cost of politics.” Craxi, noting that the legal process had accelerated in his case, claimed that his prosecution was politically motivated.
In May 1994, he fled to Tunis in order to escape jail. His political career ended in less than two years.
Silvio Berlusconi, Italy: Berlusconi has been involved in many controversies and over 20 court cases during his political career, including being sentenced to four years imprisonment and a five-year ban from public office by the Court of Appeals for €7M tax evasion (and €280M slush fund) on 8 May 2013, confirmed by the Court of Cassation on 1 August 2013. Due to a general pardon, his imprisonment was reduced to one year, which due to his age can be served either as a house arrest at his private residence or as community service.
Finally, the greatest of all corrupt European politicians…Giulio Andreotti, Italy: At the height of his statesman career, Andreotti was subjected to criminal prosecutions and charged with colluding with Cosa Nostra. Courts managed to prove that he was undoubtedly linked with them until 1980; however, the case was closed due to past statutes of limitations. The most sensational allegation came from prosecutors in Perugia, who charged him with ordering the murder of a journalist. He was found guilty at a trial, which led to complaints that the justice system had “gone mad”. After being acquitted of all charges, in part due to statute-barred limitations, Andreotti remarked: “Apart from the Punic Wars, for which I was too young, I have been blamed for everything that’s happened in Italy.”
Andreotti said the opinion of others was of little consequence to him, and “In any case, a few years from now, no one will remember me.” Indeed, though a week is long enough in today’s hyperfast news world.
So there is a nice list of very powerful and corrupt European politicians. Corrupt party-funding scandals are ten a penny. It should surprise no-one if one were to arise or be uncovered here in wee Scotland.
Hi PhilM.
I would suggest your comment is an acceptable use of ‘off-topic’ but maybe ‘Quarantine” would have been more appropriate?
Quarantine has many ‘left of centre’ comments covering many topics. whereas ‘off-topic’ seems to have evolved into a music and video sharing location.
Like this…
I had never heard of this Scottish band but Ken Bruce introduced me to them during his Radio 2 show on Thursday. I have since downloaded two full albums from Youtube.
This is the track which hooked my ears. The Beta Band – Dry The Rain.
link to youtube.com
Further info:-
link to en.wikipedia.org
And a live version of the song, from their last gig before they split.
link to youtube.com
ffs Brian, that’s a load o’ keich. Yer far better aff wi’ summit an eachan more lively than that.
link to youtube.com
ach, ah couldnae resist it, am aff tae ma pit.
Hi auld highlander.
A Dundee pianist for you.
link to youtube.com
Tonight, whilst playing Mr Do!, I have had, as my aural wallpaper, “Olivia Newton-John at the BBC”, which I snaffled off iPlayer.
link to bbc.co.uk
The prog reminded me of two artistes – Lesley Duncan, who was reckoned to be the UK’s first female singer-songwriter, and Andy Ellison, whose music was featured in one of my fave fillums from the 60s, “Here We Go Round The Mulberry Bush”.
link to youtube.com
link to youtube.com
And here’s a wee bonus…
link to youtube.com
And another wee bonus…
link to youtube.com
Another rather clever episode of M*A*S*H tonight on Great TV (Freeview 50) at 7pm.
The whole episode was shot from the perspective of a patient watching what was going on while he was been treated.
I think the TV series has not gained the respect it should have had.
Watched 3 hours of music documentaries tonight- two Fleetwood Macs and a Meat Loaf, all snaffled from iPlayer.
The situation of Ellen Foley (singer on the “Bat Out Of Hell” album), and Carla Devito (singer on the “Bat Out Of Hell” promo tour) got me thinking about other female vocalists with bra’ voices, who are generally unrecognised.
Three of my faves…
The lead singer on this:-
link to youtube.com
The lead singer on this:-
link to youtube.com
The lead singer on this:-
link to youtube.com
Them were the days – they were either a band member or able to keep an audience’s attention. No need for an entourage of dancers onstage to divert the audience’s attention.
Watching another BBC documentary tonight – “The Everly Brothers Harmonies from Heaven”.
Rather good. It’s fine that these documentaries provide background info that one hadn’t previously known.
While out way beyond the internet equivalent of the Oort Cloud, I chanced upon this item from the time of my materialisation and which I thought might bring joy to Dan, from a distant era when people repaired things and found pleasure in such, instead of chucking them away and then buying a new one on A____n:
link to amazon.co.uk
Might even get a copy masel’……
Fwoarrrrrrrrrrr!
Hi TC.
An interesting-looking book. If my hovelhold wasn’t already filled with books (I have never willingly ‘disposed of’ a book in my entire life), I’d be tempted.
I noticed that they used as the main pic, a pic from the copy with dustjacket, that was going for just over £6 + £2.80 p&p.
When my Dad died, I inherited his bookcase, which supplemented my formal primary education. It still contains a full set of encyclopedias from the 1930s + loads of other stuff – history, geography, and so on. I also have a pile of ‘Popular Mechanics’ that he amassed.
Must get my hovelhold decluttered…
@ Brian: in my boyhood household there resided about 12 volumes (open to correction) of Arthur Mee’s Children’s Encyclopedia. It was full of essays and facts on a world-wide scale at a level of language most “teachers” today would think beyond the contemporary tinies but it clearly wasn’t, since I am here to attest to the contrary.
It was there I discovered that Scotland had kings and queens before 1603 and 1707 and from that point on I became a believer in my country, despite the lack of education on Scottish matters which I had to endure.
I recently chanced upon a full Arthur Mee set in the Kingshouse Hotel in Glencoe and it was as I remembered it. It was pretty Anglocentric but the quality of the articles shone through. Shows you how we expect so little of pre-secondary children today.
I keep telling myself that hope lies with the proles but increasingly I’m beginning tae hae ma doots.
Does anyone really give a flying fruit bat on Scottish matters onny mair onny hoo?
OK, a bit of ‘classical’ music for this Sunday evening.
I found this during a forage in the Dens Road Market, in the very early 70s. A 6 track EP, it cost me a shilling.
Put together by Arthur Wilkinson & his orchestra, around 1965/6. It arranged Beatles songs in the style of Tchaikovsky – ‘The Beatlecracker Suite’.
The arrangement of “All Your Loving” (the last movement) is SO Tchaikovsky.
link to youtube.com
And to finish, one of my all-time Lennon/McCartney covers. Originally a hit for Cilla Black.
link to youtube.com
That TDN version is rather clever and I’d forgotten all about it. This track is the one I’ll always remember:
link to youtube.com
Beautiful morning with a dusting of snow Where I Am.
I first heard this while parked in my car, outside the family home in St Marys, with Pete the Camera, listening to the John Peel Show on Radio 1, around 1978.
I couldn’t get it via Chalmers & Joy, because they, at the time, as a chart return shop, didn’t deal with the independent distributors.
So I had to order it via I&N Records in Crichton Street. It took 6 weeks to arrive.
A unique slice of vinyl.
BTW: it was the first single on MUTE Records, MUTE 001.
link to youtube.com
Sounds ahead of its time for ’78, innit? The video is very well done, unlike many clunky ones on YT.
Forgot to add this, as Vice-President of the The Bonnie Purple Heather Brigade: link to youtube.com
Ishbel had a wonderful voice, particularly in the lower register.
Hankies oot!
As you type, a fine voice, TC.
You may find this of interest:-
link to youtube.com
Enjoyed that and nice to see the younger generation of Gaelic singers recognising her greatness.
Greetings Tinto and BDTT, and ony ither off topic folk lurking. Hell’s bells, it’s all kicking of now big time. Murrell away now too. Wunner wha is next. We always new that when the collapse came it would be sudden. Hate tae say this but I did tell you KARMA IS A BITCH, and more power to her elbow.
Surely this farce of a leadership election has to stop now, by the by, hasn’t Useless gone quite, wonder where he is hiding. Squeaky bum time now for all the plotters against oor Eck, the truth will come out now I reckon.
Onywho, gentlemen, thank you for the incomparable Ishbell, that has made my day, and maybe brought a wee tear to the auld eyes. Wonderful.
Hope you are all well, rest up and build your strength up. This fight for independence may just be starting in earnest now.
Hi, Marie, hope you and the family are well.
God knows where it will all end now but it feels like the Fall of Rome and there will be much more to come in the next few weeks I suspect. Perhaps Salmond will be seen to be vindicated and jail time may become for the back-stabbers.
I think some in the NEC are slowly realising that they may be personally liable for any discrepancies in the accounts.
I’m optimistic that a guid redd oot of the SNP might save them from oblivion but I can’t see myself ever placing my trust in them again.
Yes, Ishbel was incomparable but the North Uist pixie is a wonder too and can play several instruments as well as sing like a mavis.
Here she is getting the awkward rhythms and tongue-twisters right while singing a wonderful Irish song beside her husband (on the bouzouki): link to youtube.com
Maybe we’ll finally meet on the barricades now The Borg seem to be on the way out and the independence movement can start afresh.
Hi Tinto, Aye the Fall of the Sturgeonista and the perverts that she encouraged. I hope to goodness that the are jailed for a long time for what they have done. The NEC I have discussed on Iain Lawson’s blog. Having run our own business for over forty years I had never heard of that accountancy term ” woven through the accounts”. Our accountant and the auditors would have chased you for that rubbish. I did point out that I thought the NEC would be liable financially for any misappropriation of monies. Iain reckoned that I was correct as the party did not take out any insurance to protect them. The wiser ones cleared out a while ago when the realised that fact, Iain reckons the ones left don’t have much anyway.
Thon Julie Fowlis is a very talented lassie, not only a first class singer but a very talented musician as well. Were lucky in Scotland to be blessed with such people.
The family are all well thank you, Mr C doing all right so far, and the great granwean is fair thriving. Hope all are well at Tinto Towers. Maybe as you say we will yet meet on the barricades as we are definitely not done yet.
Great to hear Mr C (Fred Astaire? 🙂 ) is doing well. Keep healthy you two ‘cos we’ll need you for the long haul.
I didn’t know you posted on IL’s blog but even an ignoramus like wot I am knows that “woven throught the accounts” wouldn’t last for a minute if a forensic accountant or Tax Inspector took a keek at the books.
Julie voted Yes in 2014 and she just seems to go from strength to strength. I wish I’d chosen my parents more carefully so that at least one of them could speak Gaelic 😉 .
Our two grand-tinies are delightful too (but exhausting!) but they’re the ones we’re striving for, innit?
All the best for you and yours.
Yi’ know, we should be more appreciative of Channels 4 and 5.
They produce some stonkin’ documentaries, like tonight on 5 about Hitler and 1938.
Long may they be free of commercial influence.
So a song…
link to youtube.com
Hope people don’t mind me putting this comment here but it was on my mind today.
Three years ago today two things happened, Alex Salmond was cleared of all allegations against him and Scotland and England formally went into lockdown.
I remember at the time thinking why were they waiting to lockdown and I couldn’t shake the feeling that both Nicola Sturgeon and Boris Johnston were waiting for the trial to finish. And sure enough within a few hours of Alex Salmond walking free, the announcement came.
I know the Coronavirus Act was being put in place, but that wasn’t legal until later and the timing of the announcement just seemed too perfect to be coincidental.
It was already becoming clear at least a couple of weeks before then that a lockdown was inevitable so why wait so long? I work for a large company and they had already closed all their offices a week earlier and people had independently started to stay at home.
In hindsight, and knowing more about the likely involvement of Nicola Sturgeon in the allegations, it makes even more sense. If everyone’s suspicions are correct then she was hoping he would be sent to prison and if the trial was cancelled then he would have been free indefinitely.
Genuinely curious whether anyone else had the same feeling at the time and what they think now. At the time, the fortnight before 23rd March was critical in terms of the spread of Covid. Did more people die at the start of Covid so Nicola could see Alex Salmond behind bars?
I’m not as sure of the UK govt position (Boris Johnston didn’t want to go into lockdown so may have only waited until forced to by Scotland’s decision) – but it wouldn’t surprise me if other powers that be were waiting for the outcome too.
Here’s a question fur yooz.
Remember ‘The Monkees’ TV show, around 1966/67? My memory recalls that it was on at the back of 6 on a Saturday night. Is my memory correct, or is it playing with me?
Three of my favourite Monkees songs…
link to youtube.com
link to youtube.com
link to youtube.com
Heard this on Radio 2’s Jazz & Blues show last night.
Quirky. “Eurovision Blues”.
link to youtube.com
Shhhhhh!
link to youtube.com
Yon chiel’s hardy and he’s no’ me.
His route is detailed under “Show more” in the credits/description and he ends up at the abandoned township of Boreraig.
This is the crazy Virgin Media ad I noticed recently on TV. It’s actually filmed on the wee back road to the Kingshouse Hotel in Glencoe and the main road with the curved bridge over the River Etive can be seen running parallel:
link to youtube.com
The first big lump of a mountain you see is Creise (formerly Clach Leathad), with the geese above it, and then the famous Buachaille Etive More.
A big improvement on VM’s usually woke-infused stuff, imo.
The question is…
Is it a wildly realistic ‘heilan coo’ suit, or CGI?
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.
@ Tinto
Good timing posting that coo vid! Just for you I will try to find that spot tomorrow on a motorbike run. 🙂