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!