Saturday 13 August

A day of increasing amounts of sunshine, but with quite a strong breeze going. We had force 6 at one point, something we don't often see in summer. The temperature was OK, with a reading of 16C / 60F at the airport, better than it has been for most of the week. I have kept myself busy with transcripts of WW2 tributes (see this link), some research into the priest who was instrumental in building the present-day Roman Catholic Church in Castlebay (Barra) and a rip-roaring tale about the sinking of the SS Rangitane in the southwestern Pacific in 1940.

I shall close this post with some of the pics I took on Thursday, and which I have been promising over the past two days. A walk in the Castle Grounds, and out to the War Memorial.

Cameron's riots

I'm beginning to feel that our government is flying off the handle with its responses to the rioting earlier this week. Prime Minister David Cameron wants to be able to shut down Facebook and Twitter at times of crisis. Hey, who else is doing that? Muammar Gaddafi, our old fox in Tripoli that we've been trying to bomb into submission for five months. Bashar al-Assad, Syria's president, who is still doing a grand job killing his own people for no reason. Hosni Mubarak, erstwhile president of Egypt, now self-induced invalid, tried to do the same before his people kicked him out. What's the saying again, if you can't beat them, join 'em?

On the same subject, what is the point in throwing people out of their council houses? Yes, they or their cohabitants have acted in a disgraceful manner if they participated in the riots. But it requires a fair bit of warped thinking to have people kicked out for something they did not do whilst in their houses.

So far, Her Majesty's Loyal Opposition has carefully refrained from attributing the rioting to Government policies. At the end of the day, there was no excuse for it whatsoever. A man got shot by police in Tottenham, North London, last week and the police were slow off the mark in dealing with the incident. A peaceful demonstration got hijacked by the rent-a-mob crowd - very bad indeed. But what happened after last Saturday had nothing whatsoever to do with the death of the man in Tottenham.

I'll postulate a few of my own theories as to why people felt it was OK to go on the rampage.

1. The expenses scandal. MP's fiddling their expenses to line their pockets, on top of an already generous salary. Let's face it, £60k per annum is a large amount in anybody's book.

2. The War in Iraq. The government went to war, tying itself in knots to justify it - copying the lyrics from George W. Bush's hymnsheets, whilst not noticing that they were set in the wrong clef. Very few people in this country were in favour of it, and the government was advised left, right and centre against it. Note: this was a Labour government.

3. The bankers. Again, a breed of people who were seen to be pocketing colossal bonuses (7-figure sums) for heading up a loss-making enterprise, lending money to people who could never afford to pay back the loan, leaving holes that could never be filled. Perhaps it would have been better to let Northern Rock go to pot in 2008, rather than prop them up the way Gordon Brown did.

4. Rupert Murdoch. Mr Murdoch (both jr and sr) were only interested in making vast amounts of money through newspaper sales. Nothing wrong with that. But politicians would tremble at the sight of him, as Rupert Murdoch decided who would win the elections. If the Sun newspaper said it would back political party X or party Y, that party would win the poll. And after their win, the leader of that party would invite him to No 10 for a thank-you do. The police were in it too, as shown by the resignation of the two most senior officers at Scotland Yard on allegations of corruption.

5. Nick Clegg. "I agree with Nick", the infamous quote from the prime-ministerial debates on TV in April 2010, when the leader of the Lib Dems was propelled to the dizzying heights of David Cameron and Gordon Brown, and he got delusions of grandeur. It was television that put Mr Clegg in government, forcing him to abandon his Lib Dem principles to the greater good of being in power.
Nick Clegg is a rich man, and so is David Cameron. What do they know about those in society who are struggling with little money in the bank, if any? Nothing at all.

It all points to the fact that people do not have confidence in those that are placed above them in positions of authority and power. So why would they be quiescent when those above them are shown to be corrupt or corruptible, out to stuff their pockets out of tax-payers' money? Why would they be law abiding, when the police, there to protect and serve, is seen to be more interested in bowing to the newspaper barons?

There was no excuse for the violence. But when all the people who committed crimes have been dealt with some hard questions will have to be asked and answered - by all political parties. Labour, Conservative and Liberal Democrat; and Scottish National Party. Alex Salmond also came to power because of Rupert Murdoch (and because 110,000 Scottish voters were disenfranchised through a poorly designed ballot form).

Are we going to see some political courage?
I don't think so.

Friday 12 August

The day started out fairly bright, but cloud rolled in and at 3 o'clock it started to rain. It has not stopped, and if anything, the rain got worse as darkness fell, now over an hour ago. Yep, it's nearly mid-August and sunset times are creeping back towards the 9pm mark. A far cry from the 10.30pm in late June. Sigh.

I have set up the transcript site for the Napier Report from Inverness-shire, but as there is nothing to see, I won't link to it. I have also completed the transcripts for tributes for Second World War casualties from the Stornoway Gazettes. I have transcribed them, but not copied them onto the relevant website. I have opened a new blog for that (my 56th blog on Blogger). You will have noticed by now that I use blogs as websites. Perfectly feasible, and saves having to faff about with HTML, CSS and other stuff.

I promised pictures from my walk, yesterday. Apologies, still haven't gotten round to it. 

Thursday 11 August

Well, we got the sun back today, which served to lift the mercury to 16C / 60F. Torrential rainfall caused extensive problems with flooding, even causing severe disruption to train services in and out of Glasgow's Queen Street Station. No problems like that here in the Western Isles, where we had the best weather in the country.

I went for a walk in the Castle Grounds in the afternoon, partly to re-walk one of the walks I have submitted to Walkingworld.com. A few things had changed since I created the walk in 2006, and I was able to log it on my GPS. I shall put pictures up tomorrow.

I also completed another transcript from the Napier Report, which I have been working on during the past twelve months. The evidence from Ross-shire can now be viewed on-line. The next chunk is Inverness-shire, both on the Scottish west coast and near the town of Inverness - the place is a city today, but was not so in 1883. The link for Inverness is as yet completely blank, but I shall dress it up tomorrow.

Today I received information from a South Uist contact about one of the witnesses to the Napier Commission in Barra, including a photograph. Bearing in mind the year that Lord Napier went round (1883) this is fairly unique. I have come across a publication with some more portrait photographs of the witnesses.

Wednesday 10 August

Thoroughly wet, miserable and cold today. We managed all of 12 degrees C today, which is 54 in Fahrenheit. It has only recently dried up (typing this just before 10pm). Let's hope tomorrow is a bit brighter. Spent the day in transcripts. More WW2 tributes from the Stornoway Gazette of 1940, as well as the Napier Commission's findings at Dingwall in October 1883. One witness describes the grinding poverty near Strathpeffer: A man had a hole in his roof. The snow of winter fell through it and settled on his bed. 


Next month, the Lewis Chessmen, currently being exhibited in the Museum of the Isles here in Stornoway, will return to the place of their find: the district of Uig. The 91 chess pieces were found in 1831 by a man in the sands of Uig Beach near Ardroil, or as the local bard put it more accurately: Capadal - a tiny hamlet near the mouth of the Red River. On 13 September only, the Chessmen will be on view at Uig Museum in Timsgarry.

Tuesday 9 August

Overcast today, but mainly dry and less windy than yesterday. Was watching more TV footage from yesterday's rioting across London and other parts of England. And looking at Twitter a minute ago, there are more messages going round organising more "meets" tonight, in other words, further rioting being organised. I have reposted those tweets, minus source, for the attention of the local police Twitterfeed. Let's hope everybody informs the police of any such "meets", because we can all do without that sort of mindless nonsense.

The Scottish Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (SSPCA) has called for the annual guga hunt from Ness (in Lewis) to Sula Sgeir to be banned. Guga is the dried and salted meat of gannet chicks, 2000 of which can be 'harvested' on Sula Sgeir (45 miles northeast of Lewis) for consumption in Ness. It is held to be a local delicacy, described by some as looking like a bicycle saddle and requiring diesel to boil them. The chicks, which stand about 2 feet tall, are clubbed on the head, before being plucked, singed in a fire and torn in four for salting and drying. They are then shipped to mainland Lewis for consumption.

Monday 8 August

Today was cold, windy and showery. We only briefly managed 15C, the average was more like 12C / 54F. The showers were mercifully brief, but it was not very pleasant.

Less than pleasant is the situation in London, which has once more erupted into violence, and this time without pretext. Gangs of hooded thugs roam the streets, destroying or looting property, police seem to be on the backfoot. And tonight, it's not just London - Birmingham is also the scene of riots. Prime Minister David Cameron, the London Mayor Boris Johnston are hurrying back from their summer hols. I am very glad that I'm 600 miles away in this quiet corner of the land.

I have posted 6 Postcrossing cards, and need to wait for those to reach their destination before I can send more. That could be a while; one was bound for China, and the one going to Portugal had (by my estimation) an incomplete address, as no name was included.

I have transcribed several more WW2 tributes, unearthed a story about a reverend minister in Nova Scotia whose ancestors had roots in the Isle of Rum, 60 miles south of Stornoway. I'm awaiting the NS archivists to get back to me with further details. I have also been transcribing more evidence from the Napier Commission's visit to Balmacara, a dozen miles east of Kyle of Lochalsh. The estate manager wishes that his tenants would stop slushing tea and start eating solid, healthy food. Dear me. The natives need educating, eh?

Sunday 7 August

Overcast and at times wet in the afternoon, not really warm. In other words, weather not inviting for any outside exploits. I spent some time transcribing WW2 tributes from the pages of the Stornoway Gazette of 1940.

I was stunned to see the devastation wreaked by serious rioting in North London overnight, following the fatal shooting by police of a local resident three days ago. Violence never resolves anything, and in situations like that, the rent-a-mob element is certain to put in an appearance.

It is still busy on the tropical cyclones front, and in the next couple of days former typhoon Muifa will move ashore just west of the border between North Korea and China. Another typhoon, Merbok, is moving north along the 154th degree longitude east and may end up affecting the Aleutian Islands or the Kamchatka Peninsula in the far east of Russia. By that time, Merbok will be a storm-force depression of the type that those areas commonly see through the year. Emily has come back from death over Hispaniola, but only as a shadow of its former self: the depression is scooting away northeast from the Bahamas.

Out of office - be back with my baby

I currently have 79 subscribers to my Tropical Cyclones blog, and every now and again they'll be away from their computers for a matter of days, weeks or longer. They put up an out-office reply for the benefit of anyone who may be emailing them. This one, from an employee of the Edgewater Resort and Spa in Rarotonga, in the Cook Islands in the South Pacific made me smile tonight:

I am currently on Maternity leave at the end of this week. 

I wish the lady, who works in the offices of Edgewater, well for her confinement and birth of her child. For reasons of privacy, I will not put her name on here, but if anyone from Edgewater comes across this message, please pass on my good wishes.

Saturday 6 August

Well, it's my birthday today, and I got birthday cards by snailmail as well as Facebook. Through latter service I received more than fifty greetings - many thanks to all who went to the bother. It's a nice bright day here, with good spells of sunshine but with a bit of a breeze going. It wasn't there in the night, when the fishing trawler Vellee went down off Benbecula. It sprang a leak and went to the bottom at a rate of knots. The crew all managed to get into liferafts and were picked up by the Stornoway lifeboat. This brought them ashore at Stornoway, and the crew went on the 7 am ferry to the mainland.

Today was also the day for the annual carnival. The number of floats has not changed a lot in recent years, and today there were 6 entries to the procession, preceded by the pipebandAll in all, a colour if slightly short pageant. I watched it outside the Bridge Centre, a quarter of a mile from the town centre, which would have been heaving with people.


Tall Sheeps


Jellyfish


The Doyal Wedding



Miss Lewis & Harris


Chocolate factory

Friday 5 August

I went to Uig today, which involved a journey by postbus. Although the distance was 39 miles, it took more than an hour and a half. For the latter part of the journey, the driver - well, what do you think? Delivers mail. So, we set out from Stornoway at midday, and I jumped off in Timsgarry at 1.40pm. The object was to attend the St Kilda Day at the community centre in Erista, next to Tmsgarry, which would show films and provide transport for the proposed site for the St Kilda Centre, which will be constructed just north of Islivig. Everybody talks about Mangersta, but Islivig is closer. Never mind. The films were old footage of the St Kilda residents from the 1920s (they were all evacuated on 30 August 1930, 81 years ago this year), aerial footage from British Pathe and a recording of the St Kilda Opera, which was performed on the cliffs at Mangersta in 2009. Attendance was woeful. When I was there between 2 and 3pm, there would have been about a dozen people; upon returning from the proposed site, only 3 or 4 others were in the hall, watching the videos. Between 4 and 6 o'clock, I went for a walk round Baile na Cille and sat on the edge of the strand there. In the evening, local historian Calum Ferguson was going to do a storytelling session, but due to the constraints of public transport (last bus back to town at 6pm), I had to forego that. Pity. The return journey diverted to Aird Uig and Reef Beach - and saw a wee shower passing through. The weather was beautifully sunny and warm, with the mercury at Stornoway Airport cresting the dizzy heights of 19C / 66F.

 Uig

 Caravans at Reef Beach

 At the proposed site for the St Kilda Centre

 Mealisbhal

 Abhainn Dearg / Red River

 Timsgarry

 Bridge to Uig Sands

 Baile na Cille bay

 Uig Lodge

Aird Uig

Thursday 4 August

A thoroughly wet day, although not really cold. We managed 16C / 60F. Although our day was a wash-out, it is as nothing in comparison to the Dominican Republic and Haiti, which are being deluged with between 6 and 12 inches of rain, with up to 20 inches in the mountains. Tropical storm Emily has fallen to pieces on crossing the mountainous terrain of the island of Hispaniola, but continues to dump large amounts of rain on the island. These are very likely to cause mudslides and flash floods. Although Emily is no longer a tropical cyclone, it could regenerate upon passing over the Bahamas in a few days' time.

I have spent a few hours in the library, looking for tributes to WW2 casualties in the Stornoway Gazette of 1940. I take photographs, which I will transcribe later. I managed to unearth about 55 stories. This edition of the Gazette is available in its original form, but older editions can only be viewed on microfilm due to the precarious state of the newsprint.

It would appear that a lot of people are thinking that re-introducing the death penalty in this country would be worth considering. I disagree in the strongest possible terms. Once carried out, there will never be any way to reverse the decision, should new evidence come to light at a later stage. It was put to me today that Anders Breivik, the man who murdered dozens of people in Norway last month should be put to death. Yes, he was guilty as hell. Executing him does not return his victims to life, however. Taking a view of the American practices in capital punishment, I am disgusted with the way prisoners on death row are kept there for years and years and years, whilst all manner of appeal procedures are run. The other day, one state ran out of the stuff they put in lethal injections. No thanks.

Carloway Show

Tossing the caber


Horses


Cockerel


Sheep


Produce


Waulking the tweed


Where did we leave the car?

Scrutiny of the press

Which depths will the British press be found to have plumbed now? It is becoming more a question of which paper has not hacked anyone's phone, and is there anyone in the public eye whose phone has not been hacked. Why is it that our esteemed politicians trembled at the sight of Rupert Murdoch? He it was who determined the outcome of the general elections in this country - because The Sun declared it was backing either of the two main parties. But it wasn't just the Murdochs that were pulling strings that were not theirs to pull. Other newspapers and proprietors are alleged to have indulged in similar practices. Invasion of privacy is another, all this under the pretext of "public interest". Chasing the story, is more likely, because everybody likes a juicy tale to read over their morning cornflakes. In one instant, now nearly 14 years ago, one such chase ended the life of the subject of the story - Princess Di. The hacks claim that we, as British public, wanted to know all about Lady Di and her alleged lover, Dodi al-Fayed. They both died, because their driver tried to speed away from pursuing journalists - or felt they were being pursued. Last week, Lord Justice Leveson started a long process, to conduct an inquiry into phonehacking and the press. It will last years. At the end of that process, possibly by 2015, I hope we will see a redefining of the role of the press in this country.

Even locally, I have seen 'the press' in action in a negative way. Two years ago, our ferry began sailings on Sundays. A group of Free Church adherents stood outside the Stornoway ferry terminal, singing psalm 46. I found it cringeworthy. The journalists were running around with ecstatic expressions on their faces as they scrambled to train their cameras on the group. They had their scoop.

Wednesday 3 August

Today started overcast, but the cloud soon broke and by mid afternoon we were bathing in broad sunshine. The mercury rose to 18C / 64F once more, but out of the breeze it felt quite warm. In the afternoon, I took the bus to Carloway, 16 miles west of Stornoway near the Atlantic coast, to attend the centenary of the annual agricultural show there. This held the usual mix of farm or home produce, lifestock and the heavy events, such as tossing the caber. I have not yet uploaded the pictures (of which I took nearly 70), but will make a separate post with a selection tomorrow morning.

A note on busfares: using the main road, Carloway is 25 miles from Stornoway, and I got a return fare of £4.75. The route takes you past all the main tourist sites, such as the Callanish Stones, Carloway Broch and Arnol Blackhouse (sometimes also the Garenin Blackhouse Village), and for a few quid extra, you can hop off and on as much as you want. On the mainland, a single ticket from Ullapool to Inverness (55 miles, just over double the distance) costs more than £12.

Tuesday 2 August

Another bright but not sunny day, with the mercury at a pleasant 18C / 64F. Went to the library to trace more tributes to WW2 casualties from this island, which were printed in the Stornoway Gazette in the first 5 momths of 1940. The main event I came across was the sinking of the destroyed HMS Exmouth on 21 January 1940, which was lost off Wick (Caithness) through aerial attack. Six Lewis men went down with that ship.

I am an Archers addict (British readers will know what I'm talking about), and have been for nearly 30 years. The present storyline, where a contaminated batch of icecream from a family farm has put two children in hospital because of E-coli 0157 is a pertinent subject. Food hygiene is a subject of high importance, and the merest omission can bring about disaster. A farm worker returning to the job a little too soon after suffering a spell of diarrhoea was the cause of the contamination. But getting the all-clear from Environmental Health will probably do little to undo the damage to their brandname. The worker in question will not be dismissed (should be), as she is a family friend. And therefore, the farm is not seen to be addressing the root cause of the problem, and 25 years of hard work could come crashing down.

Monday 1 August

Overcast but feeling warmish - we managed 17C / 63F today. There was some activity with shipping in port, with a cargo ship taking on cargo at Arnish, and a tug with barge arriving to presumably do the same. Some very long piece of pipe are awaiting transportation across the water from here.

Journalists at the BBC were on strike today, leaving us without our regional newsbulletins today. At least it spared us the usual rundown of the weekend football results on Monday morning. Why the possible departure of a footballer from a certain Glasgow football club is headline news still baffles me.

Social media

Mashable is reporting that Google Chrome has overtaken Firefox as the most popular browser (after Internet Explorer) in the UK. I have consigned IE to the recycling bin a long time ago, as it is slow and riddled with security holes. I have tried Google Chrome, but it causes problems when using Blogger. When updating my Tropical Cyclones blog, I tend to copy an old post into a new one. Chrome loses the formatting, or shows up a whole morass of code, whereas Firefox does the job faultlessly.

I have a LinkedIn account, but I am beginning to contemplate deleting it. I shall make a final decision in the near future, and the outlook for it is bleak. I cannot go into details on a public blog.

Sunday 31 July

July is going out on a dreich (wet, grey and breezy) note. A fine drizzle punctuated the afternoon. As I type this (9.40pm), it has dried up, but it remains very overcast and dull. A cargoship, the Bondenau, came into port, this afternoon, when conditions looked like this. Bear in mind that the ship is less than a mile away from where I took the pic. And it's not the small boat I'm referring to!


The ferry was once again delayed by technical problems this afternoon; a mooring rope had gotten into the ship's propellor, and a diver had to go down to get it off. The Isle of Lewis finally departed at 5pm, and she won't be back much before midnight tonight. That's a bit better than the 5 am she turned up last Monday morning, instead of the scheduled 9pm on Sunday.

I was asked to look into someone's connection to the Isle of Lewis, only to discover that the ancestor they had referred to was in fact an illegitimate child. In other words, not born out of a marriage. We are talking early 20th century here, when there was a different attitude to these events. The relevant page on the birth register showed two illegitimate births. The question is of course: how do you broach that subject to the person asking the question? Knowing a little about springing bad news on people, I'll just find out how much they do know. But sometimes it's better to let sleeping dogs lie.

Saturday 30 July

Another bright day with some spells of sunshine, which lifted the mercury to 18C. By evening, cloud increased but it stayed dry. Midges are beginning to be a right pain at the moment. We had another cruiseliner in, the Spirit of Adventure, which left in the early evening. I went for an amble round the back streets, and discovered a petrol station where you can fuel up 24/7 - presumably using pumps which take bank cards for payment. The shop remains shut on Sunday, unlike its competitor a quarter of a mile away on the main road into town.

 Hello puss - Battery Road

 Bee busy on ragwort blooms

MV Spirit of Adventure