Where lies the heart of Aberdeen?
In which I reflect on the debate around Aberdeen’s Union Terrace Gardens, and wonder whether everyone’s missed the point somewhat – by a several hundred metres, in fact.
Personal bits and bobs, plus miscellaneous observations
In which I reflect on the debate around Aberdeen’s Union Terrace Gardens, and wonder whether everyone’s missed the point somewhat – by a several hundred metres, in fact.
I’ve always been interested in languages. It’s probably the single thing that most powerfully demonstrates human diversity and represents the gateway to understanding the world better. If there is one free skill I’d love to have for no effort in return, it would be fluency in one or more other languages. I am not fluent…
If you ever want to know what it feels like to travel to the other side of the world, but don’t have the time or money to do so, then allow me to suggest that you take the overnight bus from London to Inverness. The feeling of exhaustion, plus the desperate need to sleep during…
In which I ponder the famous Inverness statue trio of Faith, Hope and Charity, and why they’re standing in the wrong order…
The EU will be jealous of me, because unlike them I am shortly to remove that annoying grey bit from the middle of my “where I’ve been” map. Just as Lesotho makes South Africa look like it’s forgotten something, the European Union purists must have been annoyed for some years now by that irritating and…
In which I rant about the desperately sad habit of towns and cities to declare themselves “capital” of something.
This past weekend, we hit the west coast with a group of friends to go hillwalking. We climbed a mountain at Torridon on Saturday (Mullach an Rathain, for those are interested). It would have been two peaks but the weather was against us. Then on Sunday Nicole and I drove around the spectacular Applecross peninsula…
I’m not long back from my Inverness Book Festival appearance, which was really good fun, and wonderfully supported by the brilliant staff at Eden Court. I was lucky enough to have a great audience who asked lots of interesting questions, and I hope my slideshow presentation tour of the mullet adventures (both those featured in…
You may remember me speaking back in June at A Night of Adventure, a fundraising evening in Edinburgh for the great charity Hope and Homes for Children. It turned out to be a really fun evening, and very inspiring because I was rubbing shoulders with fellow speakers that included round the world cyclists, mountaineers, endurance…
You’ve perhaps heard about Google+ , the latest of Google’s many attempts at creating a social networking site to rival Facebook. Previous attempts have sunk, but Google+ seems to be their best effort yet. It’s much like other social networks, in that you connect with people to share ideas, links, photos and suchlike. However, Google+ really…
Today is my last day before going back to work after a month off spent writing. I’d set myself the target of finishing a first draft of my second book, and while I haven’t quite achieved that I am about 75% of the way there and am pleased with my progress. The momentum remains as…
I was away hillwalking this weekend with a group of friends in Kintail, in the northwest Highlands near Skye. It is a beautiful part of the world, but one I had frequently passed through rather than stopping to explore, so it was nice to see something of the area. The weather was pretty rotten –…
Have you ever been to, or heard of, Biceps Land? Nope, me neither. But it exists in the world of popular board game Articulate. We were playing it with friends last night and it came up as one of the anwers in the “world” category. Searching on the internet renders no mention of such a place,…
Nicole and I are heading off to France in September. It’ll be a chance to catch up with a few friends we have over there, and while we both really like the country I’ve not seen too much of it and my French could do with some significant practice. We’ve decided we’re going overland, which…
Until my previous post earlier today, it was three weeks since I last blogged. Perhaps a record. Not that I have ever committed to any frequency on here, but the absence does reflect a similar lack of finger-to-keyboard when it comes to other writing, and most acutely the sequel to Up The Creek Without a…
You might remember me recently reporting that I will be presenting at a Night of Adventure – the first Scottish date in a long-running series of charity fundraisers organised by Alastair Humphreys in aid of Hope & Homes for Children. Details are have now been confirmed, and you can find them here (and here on…
This afternoon I’ve finished uploading my photos from our trip to the Western Isles and Skye (from which we returned a week ago). The slideshow above contains what I think are some of my better ones, though I’m disappointed not to have got, at least in my own opinion, any true crackers. I shot mostly…
It’s been a busy and packed couple of days. I got back last night from an overnight trip that saw me take in Dundee, Stirling and Cupar for work, involving seven different trains and time spent waiting on freezing platforms in illustrious highlights of the Scottish rail network such as Perth and Ladybank. I suppose…
After having got tickets for Explosions in the Sky in London in May, a friend and I are now a bit annoyed that they’ve just announced an Edinburgh date, which we are hoping to make instead. So if you are interested in a couple of tickets to see EITS at the Roundhouse, London on Thursday…
This weekend, I survived an earthquake. No, really. Actually, to be more correct, I slept through it. Yes, Scotland may boast a fautline in the form of the Great Glen, but quakes are rarely noticeable, and Sunday morning’s came in at a modest 3.5 on the Richter scale. Nicole and I were in Fort Augustus…