I couldn’t let the moment pass without marking the fact that this is this blog’s 6000th post. And, with all respect to Paul Leyland and the marvellous image with interesting words coming up here at 6pm, I did want a landmark post to be written by me. From the very first blog post, which rather…
Category: Z SMALLER CATEGORIES
You support the youth climate ‘strike’.
Hardly surprising for readers of this blog but an overwhelming majority of you support those young people who walked out of school to protest over climate inaction; of 341 respondents, 95.6% (326) support the ‘strike’ and 4.4% (15) do not. The Prime Minister’s official spokesperson was reported as saying, rather unwisely I thought; Everybody wants…
Guest blog series, A Break from Humanity (12) by Ian Carter.
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Continued from last Saturday A few days later I went back to the north-east of the island, this time with my fishing rod, threading it through the tall stems of Bracken as I walked, or even hoisting it over my head, above the dense canopy of fronds. I’d not managed to find anywhere else on…
School strike over climate
I have great admiration for those young people walking out of school today to protest about inaction on climate change. I wish I could go back to school to walk out with them! The hashtags #climatestrike #YouthForClimate #FridaysForFuture and #schoolstrike4climate will get you to posts about it on social media. Our schools must, these days, promote…
Guest blog series, A Break from Humanity (11) by Ian Carter.
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Continued from last Saturday Down on a remote stretch of rocky coastline, away from the woodland I had walked through, the feel of the place was very different. The magic of the woodland on the slopes above was closed off from view by a shielding canopy of leaves, and the wood itself was dwarfed by…
Guest blog series, A Break from Humanity (10) by Ian Carter.
Continued from last Saturday After a few days of getting to know the Colonsay, with lots of short drives and walks to the most accessible places, I thought it was time to venture out into one of the more remote and wilder parts of the island. A look at the Ordnance Survey map drew me…
Guest blog series, A Break from Humanity (9) by Ian Carter.
Continued from last Saturday Walking out from the cottage one morning we came across a freshly dead sheep not far from the house, interrupting the feeding aspirations of a young Great Black-backed Gull and two Hooded Crows as we approached. It was so fresh, I half-expected it to struggle to its feet, but the eyes…
Various
I went to the pictures last night – to see Mary Queen of Scots. Good film! I recommend it. She had her head lopped off down the road from here at Fotheringhay. The anniversary comes up on 8 February. It’s impossible for me to watch a film without noticing the bird noises. There were some…
Guest blog series, A Break from Humanity (8) by Ian Carter.
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Continued from last Saturday If you read anything about the island of Colonsay you probably won’t get far without a reference to ‘the Scottish Highlands and Islands in miniature’. A cursory assessment from the deck of the ferry, followed by a twenty-minute drive around the island’s only single-track loop road showed why it had earned…
Icelandic whaling
A Minke Whale steak. This report in Icelandreview, of a report on the economics of whaling in Iceland (see account in Icelandic here), suggests that the hunting of whales for their meat is of net economic benefit to the Icelandic economy and that it is not putting off whale-watching tourists. The latter suggestion is difficult…