ST ANDREW'S DAY TRAGEDY IN GLASGOW

It is St Andrew's Day and it falls 9 months before Scotland is going to decide about Independence.  All thoughts of this vanished as we awoke to news this morning of a terrible accident in the city centre.

Eye witnesses spoke of a (presumably) Police helicopter falling like a stone from the sky.

Rescue services and the general public have been praised for reacting quickly when the roof came in on the Clutha Vaults pub which was full of people on a busy Friday night (at the end of the  month). This is Nicola Sturgeon, Deputy First Minister for Scotland describing how people helped each other out of the pub and also came in from the street to assist.  Glasgow has 5 large hospitals and apparently a much rehearsed disaster rescue plan in place.  Not for the first time has it had to be used.  See my blog here about the terrorist attack in Glasgow International Airport in July 30, 2007.

Rescue operations are still going on as masonry is lifted using a crane.  Flags are at half mast.

Football games observed a minute's silence. Concerts are being cancelled.

A couple of doors along from the Clutha Vaults pub on Clyde Street is the Catholic Cathedra of St Andrew's.  They have opened their doors for people to use the building as a place of quiet and reflection. (I was sitting in one of those pews less than a week ago when I attended a charity concert there. It is a beautiful building which has recently been refurbished.)

I do know the Clutha Vaults as when I was involved with the Glasgow Fiddle Workshop we would adjourn there after our Wednesday night fiddle classes. It always was, and still is, a focus for live music.

However life goes on.  Here is the Milngavie Pipe Band on the precinct today.

TROPHY (HUSBAND AND) WIFE

Last week was the Clyde Cruising Club's Annual Prizegiving and Dinner Dance for 2013.  It is a "Black Tie and Carriages at 1 am" sort of affair.  These are my photos with the exception of the one of myself that was taken by C. Reeves.

Prizes are given in the form of trophies given by various people over many, many years.... 103 years to be exact!

Iain has the Ogg Cup for his log on his summer cruise with all his pals. An excellent photo if I do say so myself!

I was given the decanter and 2 wine glasses which I can keep. Like all trophies awarded they go back after one year.  I accidentally dropped the blue box and one of the wine glasses rolled out and smashed on the floor as I returned to the dinner table.  Blush ... the snib came open on the side of the blue box holding them.

Here is our trophy shelf now with my one remaining (rather large) wine glass.  The whole display fairly raises the tone of our living room!  The little quaich on the left is one that Iain was awarded as a keeper some years ago.

The men in all their finery really add to the glamorous evening!  Tartan trews were also in evidence!

THE PILLOW BOOK BY SEI SHONAGON TRANS. M MCKINNEY

I have just finished a book which I really enjoyed.  It is a Penguin Classic (2006 edition) called The Pillow Book by a Japanese court gentlewoman, Sei Shonagon.  Apparently it is one of the great works of Japanese literature.  (I had never heard of it.)

 
As a ponderous reader who is always looking for new ways of looking at things this book ticked all the boxes! I read it from cover to cover taking my time to look up the notes at the back (which is a third of the thickness of the book).

What is the book about?  Well it is NOT what it sounds i.e. something out of Playboy magazine.  Far from it; it is basically about Japanese aesthetics.  Written about 1000 years ago it is the observations of a well-born Japanese lady whose life at court is recorded in her musings.  So it is rather a female collection of what she finds beautiful or delightful.

Japanese bowl left to Iain by his Auntie Ruth.

The very end of the books explains exactly how she was handed sheaves of paper by Her Majesty and simply used them up with all her day to day notes -  a bit like a diary or a blog.  A better title (and less mis-leading) might have been Sei’s Book of Delights.

It is not in diary form but rather the writer uses headings of categories (or if you were mathematically inclined you might say “sets”) such as “Things Which .....” Only on rare occasions does she look at life’s opposites e.g. “Things Which Irritate Me” sort of topics. (I laughed at her example of “Things Which Are Cocky” ... 3 year olds!)

The translator, Meredith McKinney, makes the book come alive.  The subject matter is often taken up with with poems Sei composes or uses in witty exchanges. The more I read of her ability to use words in speech or writing  e.g. repartee, quickly compose a poem on her inkstone and also how she enjoyed high status in the courtly inner circle, the more it reminded me of Shakespearean plays where 2 actors bantered back and forth using puns which the audience would understand and find delightful.

So given that the book is about all those things that she finds “delightful” I have gathered a few of the categories together and placed them below.  I used a photo to illustrate an example or two.

A few categories of "delight" might be:

DELIGHT TO THE EYE: Himalayan Poppies in the garden

BEAUTIFUL WORKMANSHIP: Ropework on a Tall Ship

CHARMING: Ishie in her summer dress aged 3 years old

MAKE YOU SMILE: Alastair on the beach in Orkney, aged 5 years old

ELEGANCE: The glass staircase in the Glasgow Apple Store

TRULY SPLENDID: The Scottish Exhibition Centre Hydro Arena and the Finneston Crane.  I took the photo a couple of days ago.  There is a man just left of centre who is kneeling down putting the finishing touches to the paving (as part of the final "snagging" of the construction project.)

Another TRULY SPENDID: Alastair and Indy on the beach on the west coast of Islay in August.

UNEXPECTED ENCOUNTER:  On walking around Hampton Court, London, I came upon this figure leaning against the wall.  It's a "sculpture" and it made me laugh.

Another UNEXPECTED ENCOUNTER:  I took this photo on Saturday in Edinburgh.  I had been at a lecture and listening to one very good, then one very bad, presentation. I just had to escape into the fresh air as there had been no interval and lunch was another 1 1/2 hours off.  I walked across the street and there before me was this little fellow, Grey Friar's Bobby!  The shiny bit on his nose is where everyone reaches up high and rubs it as well as reading the plague of his story.

SATISFYING: Results of visiting distilleries in Islay while on holiday.

THE FOUR BEARS

If you go down to the woods today ... no ... if you walk to school on a frosty morning ... you're in for a big surprise!

Two little people heading to school.  Crossing the Stockiemuir Playpark adjacent to Kilmardinny Loch and stopped off to look at the frost of the bears' fur. 

 And here are the Three Bears in the morning sunshine.

Wrong ... there are Four Bears as one has been carved on the bottom of the big tree stump.  His nose and tail end are just sticking out of the bench part of the work.  Clever!

Next day: some kind person had tied Ishie's dropped scarf to a bush.  Grandpa did his Boy Scout untying of knots routine.

Grandma needs to go back to school: there are FIVE bears!