Pencaitland

I went cycling with Shaun this afternoon to Pencaitland and back.  Fat Mac was supposed to have come, but he is suffering from general malaise at the moment.  He’s virtually a basket case, and has not had the energy to even get to the offie for over a week.  I think he caught a chill when he fell asleep in the bath a while back.  Basically, he doesn’t get enough fresh air.

Anyway, the bike ride turned out to be quite interesting, and the weather was fine as well.

At Pencaitland there’s a stone cross by the side of the road.

Pencaitland Cross

Plaque

The plaque explains the history of the cross, and was compiled by Ralph Barker.  In the 1950s I went to primary school with Ralph and his identical twin brother Harry.  Many people could not tell them apart, but after a while it was quite easy for me and their other friends.  A couple of times I went out to their house in Pencaitland, ‘Rose Cottage’, for birthday parties.  I still have a cactus that came from a cutting of a cutting of one otheir mother’s cacti.

Shaun and I looked for the old railway at Pencaitland, and eventually found a track that took us nearly all the way back to Carberry.

Along the route of the old railway

There were various information signs alonng the track, one of which explained that spectators used to travel by rail to get to the football at Ormiston.

HyperSmash

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Blocked

I found out, during our trip to China earlier this year, that many websites were blocked there, including Twitter, Facebook, YouTube and WordPress.  Alternative Chinese sites were sometimes available.  The government blocks western social media sites presumably because it fears social media that it can’t control.

Talking to some UK National Health Service (NHS) information people the other I learnt that the same sites are blocked from their work networks.  This is presumably so that they don’t waste time whilst at work, though on the same principle many books and other printed material should surely be banned as well, as it is equally possible to waste time reading non work related stuff.

I can understand, to some extent, Facebook being blocked.  So much interesting, useful and possibly work related material can appear on Twitter that blocking it is more difficult to understand.  Why on earth WordPress and other blogging sites should be blocked is very hard to understand, and puts such people at a disadvantage.  Some scholarly journals are now being published on WordPress, and there’s a lot of serious, quality and informative material that appears on WordPress blogs.  When I searched Google for “wordpress university library blog” there were 233 million hits.  Not all will be WordPress blogs, of course.

The NHS people I spoke to were not entirely sure what other sites were blocked at their work, but were aware that many sites that many of us take for granted were simply not available to them.

The new Nature Publishing Group blogging network for scientists, called SciLogs, is a WordPress-based site.  It would be ludicrous if this site is blocked.

Presumably, blocking of some websites happens in lots of work places. I’ve just read that More than half of UK business leaders ban Facebook & Twitter in the workplace.

Hamish

Band money

I found this envelope on the kitchen floor, and it made me think that maybe I spent my own working life in the wrong business.

Hamish and offspring

Hamish is a bull – a pedigree Highland bull.  He lives in a field in the Trossachs, outside the Trossachs Woollen Mill about a mile north of Callander.

His full name is Hamish McKay Denovan, he’s been on TV and he has his own Facebook page where he has over 270 friends.

If we’re on the way north to climb hills or stay somewhere in the campervan, we usually stop at the Woollen Mill for a coffee and smoko, and it’s while we’ve been parking the van there that I’ve noticed what a fantastic attraction Hamish is for the tourists.  Many touring bus trips stop at the retail outlet and the tourists actually run over from their buses to take photos of Hamish.  They also buy vegetable blocks from the shop so that they can feed him, and they get quite excited about seeing highland cattle.  Hamish does very well, and so does the Mill shop.

These sorts of things are exactly what tourists, and children, like to see, and there’s nothing wrong with that at all.  It’s part of the Scottish heritage.

What I visited Edinburgh Castle a few weeks back I didn’t see any people in kilts or highland outfits, and no-one playing bagpipes.  Maybe there were some men wearing kilts, but I certainly didn’t see them.  This is a shame, as the place heaves with tourists, and they surely would be delighted to see such things.  At every tourist attraction we visited in China, back in May, there were local people in traditional dress, either acting as guides, or selling things, or dancing or just walking around, and they looked beautiful.

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Average White Band clears the bar

Tonight we braved the acoustics of the Queens/Queen’s Hall and saw the Average White Band play, as part of the Edinburgh Jazz Festival.  We are very fortunate to have so many festivals in Edinburgh at this time of year.

This is the start of Lindsey and my musical extravaganza this summer.  Still to come are: Neil Innes, Grandaddy, The Beach Boys, and then the big one, Papa Nez.  I don’t think that I could ever imagine a better lineup than that one.  OK, add The Eagles, or even The Dutch Eagles, and it would be perfect.

The acoustics in the Queens Hall are weird, but by the second half the mixer got things right, and the band sounded great and very tight.  This is where I have to admit that the only song I really know by the AWB is Pick Up The Pieces.   Lindsey knows the band’s songs much better, and told me that they were THE band in the late seventies/early eighties, at parties and discos.

Well, where was I when they were being played at such parties?  In the queue for the cludgie?  Looking in the oven for stashed carryouts?  Having a ciggie outside?  In those days you didn’t have to go outside for a smoko, so I have no idea.  But somehow I missed most of that band.

The band tonight were hot.

What I noticed tonight was that women of a certain age were really and totally into their sound.

Women love AWB

From the first song onwards, they were up and jigging.

Most of the attendees were about our age (oldish).  The bar was so heaving when we arrived that I had to use some EFT (extreme flatulence technique) to get near the counter.

The busy bar

But what I noticed when I went for a second drink, half way through the band’s second set, was that the band was so good that they had cleared the bar!

Half way through the second set

Not many bands can do that.

AWB at the Queens Hall

Retirement ‘do’

Yesterday I went to Eve’s retirement presentation, out at Riccarton, where I used to work.  Eve has worked there for a long time, and several ex-staff as well as all the existing staff attended, so it was a really good ‘do’.

It was strange, but nice, to talk to some people I’d worked with many years ago, including Penny, Doreen, and Jackie.

Retirement ‘do’

As usual, Gill gave an excellent summary of Eve’s time in the library.

Since I left, there have been numerous changes and improvements to the library, and some more organisational changes are on the way.

Jamie’s 23rd

Wednesday was Jamie’s birthday!

Shaun baked a cake, and did really well apart from running out of icing.  Anyway, it tasted very good.

The cake that Shaun baked