Tomorrow, the Man from Maryport enplanes for South Africa. We were doing some end of year errands in Turriff, which was looking particularly grey and dreich even for the weeping end of winter, with the forlorn Christmas lights somehow making the whole thing that bit worse. As we plodded from point to point through the […]
The Ed ballet design duly arrived in this morning’s post. Very fine it is too. It’s typical of Ed in that he was mean about paper (it may be that in 1948, paper was still not that easy to get): since it is a design, thus from his point of view, of limited utility, he […]
We have had a very nice Christmas up in the Deep North, and we hope you have too. It was, in accordance with local tradition, deeply peaceful, since everyone had been given at least three books and much of the day was spent reading them in front of the fire, while outside, the Apparitional […]
I put the last posting together just before a major emergency blew up. The Doubtful Guest, who was showing signs of general giving-up at the beginning of the week, was taken to the vet, given a big antibiotic and a huge steriod, and made the most wonderful recovery. He went for a moonlight walk with […]
There was a bizarre story on the BBC news website this evening, under the heading of ‘Heroin Chic‘. In case my link doesn’t work, this is the head of the story: ‘Five drug smugglers have been jailed for stitching heroin into the linings of dresses and posting them from Pakistan to Oldham, Greater Manchester’. […]
One of our well-informed correspondents has shed new light on the affairs of Dunnybittoch (vide, for those of you with whom we correspond other than purely electronically, this year’s Christmas book), which we are delighted to share with anyone who shares our deep interest in the alternative history of Scotland.
‘I believe that there is […]
Having now received three or four examples of the “midnight service in an English village in the snow” Christmas card, it struck us this morning how very peculiar the architecture of the dear old village church appears.
The general type of the church would appear to be Midland perpendicular with displacements. The transept is roughly […]
I’ve just spent an adrenaline rich five minutes with Ebay. Sniping is the only blood sport I enjoy. In this case, the object was one of particular desire, one of Ed’s ballet designs — a watercolour of two female dancers, whom I recognise as members of the corps de ballet in Don Juan, which […]
The Doubtful Guest is with us once more. He and Miss Best Friend have met and exchanged civilities, he has revisited old haunts, and rediscovered his favourite chair. The DG is a cat of considerable character. He was supposed to die six months ago but decided against it. He has terminal cancer and is becoming […]
Before I get on to the topic of the by-line, let me note that it is perishing cold. On the Met Office map for today the whole of NE Scotland has been a forbidding red (i.e. ‘weather warnings are in place’), though I am relieved to state on the whole nothing very apocalyptic had […]
The morning’s mail included two or three Christmas cards from the more organized of our acquaintance, which is the sort of thing you expect at this time of year. One of them, mysteriously, was in a plastic bag. Nice card it was too, from Dr Biswell’s parents. But why was it in a bag? The […]
The utterly brilliant Arts Consultant swung by to pick up post and say hello, and while she was at it, sorted out the interventions to my computer which have been puzzling some of the finest brains in blogdom. German Guest’s suggestion covered the presentation of a page of stuff on the Web, which was very […]