Changing Fluids

I've lived in the United Kingdom twice, and in the Middle East once. The United Kingdom introduced me to tea, and refined my taste in alcohol. The Middle East was basically devoid of alcohol - Kuwait being a dry country, and my travels elsewhere in the region being fairly limited - but further ingrained tea culture into my system. A year in Scotland left me with a taste for a dram of twelve-year-old Highland Park Scotch whisky, and time spent in West Sussex and Kuwait eventually led me to prefer Ahmad Tea's loose leaf Earl Grey - oh, and Rakkasan Tea's Himalayan Black Dragon oolong.

Recently, I've had occasion to discover a new variety of grain alcohol that I've been enjoying, and a new tea that I'm trying out. So, I figured I'd share.

On a recent trip to Portland, I visited the Oregon Afghan Halal Market, and purchased a bag of Afghan style Saffroni Dholla green tea. I've had a few cups of it, typically with a couple of teaspoons of sugar in an attempt to replicate the Afghan style. Quite honestly, I find it fascinating that only a single website on the Internet shows any indication that this stuff exists, but whatever, right? By the way, the only reason I knew to look for a special Afghan green tea was because of a Veterans Day marketing E-mail from Rakkasan Tea.

On a side note: if you're in Portland, you should swing by the Oregon Afghan Halal Market and buy something. If you're anywhere where you can support Afghan refugees in America, you should do what you can.

Anyway, at some point in either February or early March, I had occasion to grab a bottle at my local liquor store to take to a buddy. I found a cheap bottle of huckleberry whiskey, and gave it to him almost as a gag gift. We both decided to sample it, and it was actually really good. I don't know how available it is nationwide, but it's Porter's Huckleberry Whiskey from the locale that's known for its bourbon purveyances... Ogden, Utah? Okay, so that doesn't make a ton of sense, but trust me, the stuff is good, smooth, easy to drink. I definitely recommend it.

Am I bailing on Highland Park or Ahmad's Earl Grey? Of course not, but as they say, variety is the spice of life.

The Extraordinary Life and Peculiar Death of Tim Boyd

It recently dawned on me that I never posted the story of some events that unfolded early in my tenure in Aberdeen.

The university that would eventually become my alma mater used to run a program called Saturday Academy, later re-named STEM Academy. The program, which usually ran on Saturdays, provided local middle and high school students the opportunity to learn about science, technology, engineering, and mathematics from folks who were associated with the university. Over the years, I took a class about astronomy, another about bats, one about engineering, another about ham radio, one that toured a circuit board factory... Over the course of several years, I probably participated in eight or ten different classes.

Around 1999, as I was planning to pursue a career as a Navy submariner, one particular event grabbed my interest: a professor had participated in a scientific cruise aboard a U.S. Navy submarine, and would be discussing his experience as part of the program. Obviously, I signed up for the event.

Professor Tim Boyd deployed as part of the SCICEX program, a five-year-long research collaboration between the Navy and the academic community to study Arctic ice. While the Wikipedia listing omits it, I'm fairly confident that Dr. Boyd's expedition utilized USS Parche, the same boat that was famously modified to participate in Operation Ivy Bells, an extended mission to tap Soviet communications cables in the Sea of Okhotsk. That story was related in the 1998 book Blind Man's Bluff, and the True Spies podcast recently did an episode on the operation.

I never bothered to look Professor Boyd up while I was an undergrad. My designs on a Navy career eventually dissolved, and my actual career took a pretty abrupt detour that eventually took me to Scotland. Then, in early 2013, I was stunned to read that Professor Boyd had relocated to Scotland in 2007 to work at the Scottish Association for Marine Science. In January of 2013, he was apparently struck by lightning while walking his dog near Oban.

More than a decade later, it still feels unsettling that this man that I'd met so briefly would die in such a bizarre fashion, and that I would be so relatively close to him when it happened. I sent a note back to the States offering to represent the University at his funeral, but received no response. While our acquaintance was brief, I'll never forget the opportunity he provided for me to learn about his expedition aboard one of America's nuclear submarines.

Christmas 2021

Well, Christmas has come and gone once again. Among the many thoughtful gifts that I received during our Christmas celebration with my in-laws, my sister-in-law scored a pristine, antique copy of The Orkneyinga Saga. It's a 1981 facsimile of the 1873 edition by Edmonston and Douglas - the same one to which I've linked several times previously. About half of this edition is an extensive introduction that covers such topics as early Christianity in the Northern Isles, the various dynasties that ruled Orkney between 872 and 1469, and such. I told my sister-in-law that she'd hit a home run. Apparently that home run involved purchasing from an actual specialty book shop in the United Kingdom, and the customs slip on the packaging took my brother-in-law by surprise.

Christmas also involved two five hour road trips - normally, that would be a couple of three hour road trips, but road conditions significantly altered the normal experience (and route) of my round trip from our home to Lady Jaye's family compound. I like to fill these road trips with podcasts, and I wanted to share three selections from Dan Snow's History Hit that I enjoyed during my longer-than-usual drive:

The Origins of Scotland

The Sinking and Recovery of Germany's Battle Fleet in Scapa Flow with Ian Murray Taylor

From the Punjab to the Western Front

The first of the three is pretty self-explanatory. Longtime readers of this blog will know that Scapa Flow is Orkney's large natural anchorage, and they may also remember that in 1919, the German High Seas Fleet was scuttled in the Flow while diplomats were negotiating the Treaty of Versailles. I was aware that some of the ships had been salvaged, but the podcast linked above goes into really fascinating detail about the specifics of that effort. The third podcast doesn't deal specifically with Scotland, but I took some interest due to my ongoing research on the First World War. I've been a beneficiary of the wealth of documentation that's made its way into publicly accessible channels in recent years, so learning of the records that were (somewhat) recently discovered in a basement museum on Lahore brought a satisfied grin to my face.

FarNorth Podcast Episodes

I've been spending some time on the roads outside our town, largely to give the dog some enrichment. In my last post, I mentioned that I'd been listening to the FarNorth Podcast, and my recent drives have given me the opportunity to listen to three such episodes: Politics with Gail Ross MSP, Highlands Food with Andy Waugh, and Scots Language with Alistair Heather. Each of these are worth a listen, and having been absent from Scotland for nearly eight years now, it's refreshing to hear about locales that aren't so far away from my old stomping grounds.

The interview with Gail Ross was interesting, and I'll admit that it left me a bit conflicted. Ms. Ross is a member of the Scottish National Party, and I've been rather vocal in my disapproval of the party writ large, its leaders, and its secessionist agenda. I don't think that Ms. Ross laid it on too thick - in fact, for an SNP MSP, she was probably more balanced than one might expect - but it still left me feeling as if the whole thing was a bit unbalanced. It's a hard balance to strike, because the question of whether or not to secede remains the omnipresent question in Scottish politics. Conversely, the "once in a lifetime" referendum of 2014 resulted in a resounding defeat, so the SNP's insistence on continuing to posture for it continues to rankle me.

More to come.

Back in the Saddle? Here's Hoping

As I mentioned over at Beyond the Joshua Tree, I'd like to resume blogging. Will I be able to? Well, that depends upon my ability to consolidate some projects, and to complete some others. One project that offers a partial explanation for my absence, and which is difficult or impossible to consolidate into other projects, is our two-year-old Weimaraner, Tango. He's been amazing, probably added years to my life, and greatly adjusted my outlook on the world; but he consumes a lot - a lot - of time and effort.

Rather than just blathering about myself, I wanted to take a few minutes to bring a couple of podcasts to your attention. One of these is the Far North podcast, which focuses on topics involving the Scottish Highlands and Islands region. You can find it here... Or, if you're an Apple Podcasts person, you can find it here. Or, if you want to go directly to the feed, you can find that right here. Oh, and if you're like me, and you'd rather have the actual mp3 links for downloading, that would be right here.

I also wanted to share this podcast from The Guardian, and you can download it directly here. I spent several years blathering on about the Scottish National Party and their ill-advised policy of seeking to secede from the United Kingdom. I found the inside story of turmoil between the current and prior First Ministers to be entirely fascinating, though not surprising.

More to come, fingers crossed!

Nationalizing Northlink? Not So Fast!

When I was yet in Scotland (and even thereafter), I wrote extensively about Scottish ferries, particularly those serving Orkney and Shetland. This week, Around Orkney featured an interview with a representative from the Rail, Maritime, and Transport (RMT) union, which is advocating for the nationalization of the Northern Isles ferry services that serve Orkney and Shetland. I have to be honest: the idea that anyone would actually suggest this sort of boggles my mind.

To the members of my American audience who may be reading this (and who may not be familiar with the term), "nationalization" means that the government takes over a private enterprise and runs it. So, for example, Social Security is a nationalized pension program. It denotes the running of a service or production effort as a function of the government.

The Scottish Government, which has been held by the Scottish National Party (SNP) for many years (see also: prior discussion of the SNP), has come under frequent criticism by Orkney and Shetland for treating the Northern Isles as an afterthought. This sentiment mirrors that in other areas of Scotland. To vastly oversimplify matters: the bulk of the SNP's voters reside in the "Central Belt" between Glasgow and Edinburgh, and those areas get budgetary priority from the SNP. As I've noted previously, the SNP has consolidated things like police control centers (about which I've posted before, and which continue). Rural Scots have regularly expressed their worries that this consolidation, which eliminates local knowledge and institutional memory, would result in diminished service. That contingency seems to be playing out through incidents such as the mistaken dispatch of an air ambulance to Shetland when it was supposed to have gone to Orkney. The trend continues in other sectors, such as Highlands and Islands Airports investigating the possibility of introducing "centralised surveillance" (which I think means consolidation).

The BBC also reported this week that despite the controversies about subsidies for the Northern Isles ferries connecting Orkney and Shetland with Scrabster and Aberdeen; and the inter-island ferries connecting the various Orcadian and Shetlandic islands; the Scottish ferry services have enjoyed a doubling of their overall subsidies in the last decade. So, it sounds as if more money is being thrown at ferries, but that money isn't getting to Orkney or Shetland.

Basically, when you add all of this up, nationalizing the Northern Isles ferry services sounds like a fantastic way to get a ferry service that takes passengers straight from the Firth of Clyde, up through the Minch, through the Pentland Firth, and on down past Aberdeen and into the Firth of Forth, and back again. But, what do I know?

Separated by a Common Language: Orcadian Dialect Edition, Part 5

In years past, I've posted not once, but twice, the words from the entire season(s) of BBC Radio Orkney's Orcadian dialect word game, Whassigo. I'm at it again, despite a shorter season during the 2016/'17 season (owing in part to some staffing disruptions at Castle Street during the Spring of 2017, the April 2017 episode seems to have been lost to history). I'm once again late in posting them, having originally intended to do so in April or May of this year; however, as I've been rather busy this year, and I got to it earlier than I did in 2016, so I'm not apologizing!

I'm not sure if this is a constant, but I've now been following the program long enough to have caught the quiz master, Orkney Islands Councillor Harvey Johnston... REUSING WORDS FROM PRIOR SEASONS! (Cue dramatic music.) This included the word "skiggan" (Norse for clear, transparent, bright, and clean) in both February 2015 and April 2016; "skreeo" (from the Old Norse for a shriveled, dessicated person or beast) in December 2016 and in October of 2017; and "rammelgoforth" (a rash and hurried person) in April 2015 and October 2017. Scandalous! A modest proposal: the august Mr. Johnston should consult the 1866 Etymological Glossary of the Shetland & Orkney Dialect to keep things fresh. And now, without further delay... The words!

October 2016

"snoddy" - a thick cake of oatmeal (from Old Norse for a lump of dough)

"misleared" - to be misguided

"planker" - laying out land after the end of the runrig system

"streelka" - a notion

"russey imp" - a cord made from a mare's tail hair

"cowtheist" - Scots word for being friendly

November 2016

"cooter" - the end of a plough that digs into the ground

"frugsy" - untidy or messy

"fimro" - a peedie crab that runs about, related to a Norse word meaning "quick"

"tusky" - Old Norse word for stormy, foul weather

"sarro" - excrement, otherwise unpalatable food

"grunyasie" - ugly, from a Norse word meaning the snout of a pig

"December" 2016

"skreeo" - a shriveled, dessicated person or beast, from the Old Norse

"parago" - wool of a mixture of different colors; a known term among Westray and Sanday knitting circles

"rillagory" - speaking carelessly or gossiping

"oonwandin" - something no one expects, such as the Spanish Inquisition

"charve" - to be headstrong, bold, or audacious, recently commonly used in Rousay, from the Old Norse word "jarfer" (sp?)

"peese" - a line to please or pester

February 2017

"kammo" - a knock on the head

"ongelid" - a strong gale, from Norse "ang" (against)

"kulkie" - the horizon

"simmy" - to wander about aimlessly, wasting time; to "simmy about"

"camsho" - a rude, ill-tempered person

"baileyment" - a state of prosperity or vigor

March 2017

"swarf" - to overturn or capsize

"tivish" - to handle someone in a rough manner

"swarral" - a large, inanimate object ("But not a coo, unless it's dead.")

"klimse" - being so dehydrated you can hardly speak, from a Norse word meaning "to be rendered speechless"

"muller" - a pebbly beach

YouTube Train Videos: Thurso to Inverness

A few months ago, I accidentally discovered that there are people who will ride the trains in Scotland, point a camcorder out the window, and then post the entire thing on YouTube... Sometimes years later. The first one I discovered is included below, and was recorded in April of 2002 - that's actually almost three years before YouTube was even founded.


One of my favorite memories of all time took place on the 10th of September, 2004. I'd just completed my first visit to Orkney, and was en route to Glasgow to fetch a resupply package that I'd sent myself at the office of a professional contact. I sat on the left side of the train, looking rearward, and spent part of the journey reading Nineteen Eighty-Four. I saw a stag out the window. (Not the one in the linked post, obviously.) In 2013, I wanted to take the train back down from Thurso to Inverness, but owing to time constraints (generally speaking, the imperative to get to Aberdeen in a timely manner), I always ended up taking the bus from Scrabster to Inverness, then charging from the bus depot to the train station to make my rail connection with mere seconds to spare. I went the other direction twice: once when I commenced Operation Bold Brigand, and again after graduation. In the latter case, inclement weather prevented the MV Hamnavoe from making its scheduled trip from Scrabster to Stromness, so I enjoyed the opportunity to get a great night of sleep and a lovely Scottish breakfast at the Weigh Inn - thanks entirely to the kind coordination of the train's refreshment cart sales lass and her taxi driver boyfriend.

Ahhhhhhh... Memories...