The moving finger rants

In 1787, Robert Burns the Ploughman Poet walked along the riverside by the Falls of Bruar. Bruar Falls, in Athole, are exceedingly picturesque and beautiful; said he, misspelling ‘Atholl’ as he did so, but their effect is much impaired by the want of trees and shrubs. Thus inspired to action, he did what any of us would do. He wrote a poem and addressed it to the landowner.

Let lofty firs, and ashes cool,
My lowly banks o'erspread,
And view, deep-bending in the pool,
Their shadow's wat'ry bed:
Let fragrant birks, in woodbines drest,
My craggy cliffs adorn;

and so on and so on

There was already a birk adorning those cliffs, but he'd gone home to write a poem.

As a result the Duke of Atholl instituted a massive tree-planting programme. Because some inkstained twit wrote a poem. Is that how you get a public works project approved? Is some latter-day Bard even now penning A Humble Petition to just get the damn trams finished already? Or is that, as I suspect, a niche that these days is filled by the letters page of the Scotsman?

Nonetheless, a couple of weeks ago I popped up north to view the result. The Falls of Bruar is an area of outstanding natural beauty, and these days you can't see any of it because there are trees everywhere.

I already can't stand Robert Burns. Now he's actively ruining things I like to do (viz., looking at waterfalls). I'm inclined to start taking this personal.

I can't write like Burns (thank Christ), so perhaps a humble petition after the style of Scotland's other favourite son will suffice.

Ohh, 'twas in the month of July two thousand and twelve,
Into the woods around the Falls of Bruar did we delve,
And tho' the scenery was beautiful like a painting or a frieze,
None of it could we see because of all the bloody trees,
and ooowhhh ...

I may have slipped into a Milligoon voice towards the end there, but in my defence, it's hard not to.

Remainder of the photoset is here. I had to climb down slippery rocks on cliff edges to get some of these shots. Rabbie is actually trying to kill me.

This was the view from my window today. An unending cavalcade of motorbikes, some inventively adorned—one had Crazy Frog riding pillion^[0]—and mostly making a bloody noise, streaming past the window for a good ten or fifteen minutes. There were a lot of them. I watched them for a while, then went to get the camera, took some photos, then got dressed and left the flat. They were still going.

Since I look like a tour guide, people often ask me stuff. In this case, unsurprisingly, a huge bloke waiting at the crossing with me asked me in very careful English: this motorcycle rally is for what? I didn't know, but I provide the best customer service in Edinburgh and this sort of thing switches me instantly into Customer Service Mode, so reflexively I had to find out.

Once the bikes had passed, I asked the nice policeman who'd been directing traffic at the crossing.

Yr. corresp.: What was all that in aid of?
Nice clean-shaven policeman in a uniform and everything: Move along.

Fuck you, too.

Undeterred, and still in Customer Service Mode, I asked the biggest, hairiest, tattooed-est, motorcycle-leather-wearing-est I could find.

Yr. corresp.: You look like you might know. What was all that about?
Giant hairy tattooed biker: It's a charity run, in aid of a biker who's died. We're going down the Royal Mile later.

In summary, then—smart policeman who I pay for: rude fuckface. Scary Hells-Angel type: polite, friendly, helpful, and charitable.

I got the impression, walking away, that this anecdote was the singular of data. The exchange was symbolic of something. If only I could put my finger on what.

This is the view from the Library at work:

The wind was heading straight towards me from the Castle and I could hear the music and smell the gunpowder. There was about a one-and-a-half second delay between the son and the lumière. Didn't get much work done for the last hour.

This is the view on my way home:

I love this city.

Also! Now I've worked out how to get photos off this dog-awful phone camera^[0] (I've only had it since 2008), a selection of other daguerrotypes are presented for your edification below the cut. Most of these were sent as text messages at some point.

( Herewith, the cut )

Hungry now.

Today is Everybody Draw Mohammad Day.

What, you want all of this deathless prose and good artistry?

Not trapped in the Cairngorms any more. Was only trapped for a few hours actually, when they'd shut the A9 north and south, Inverness was closed and Aberdeen was shut off—but it was pretty hairy there for a while. We had to sit in the pub in Carrbridge with a log fire and local Cairngorm Brewery ales on tap and wait for the road-status update. It was hell in there, I tell you.

We'd taken a week of J's parents' timeshare and gone to the Lochanhully Woodland Club, a Macdonald (spit) resort a mile up the road from Carrbridge, near Aviemore. Carrbridge is where they have that half-ruined semicircular stone bridge you see in all the Scotland photos. This bridge, in fact:

( Pictures begin here )

Also I got me one of those Flickr things. This is my photo-stream here, and here are all of my photos from last week. What do you think? How am I doing?

Also I seem to have turned thirty years old. When did that happen?