Bletherin’ Bitch

BELOW thir stanes lie Jamie’s banes;
O Death, it’s my opinion,
Thou ne’er took such a bleth’rin bitch
Into thy dark dominion!

Robert Burns writing about his friend James Humphrey.

Epitaph on a Noisy Polemic

In fact Humphrey outlived Burns by 48 years so the epitaph was written well in advance of the event of Humphrey’s death in 1844.

I was at the Mauchline Holy Fair yesterday and noticed this in the churchyard:

Humphrey, a stone-mason from Mauchline who was employed at both Lochlie and Mossgiel.

He was interviewed by Allan Cunningham in 1834, and recalled Burns with affection, indeed he was flattered even to have been on the receiving end of his poetic dig.

Humphrey had a degree of education and would sometimes engage Burns in debate, hence the subject of the epitaph.

It was also included as one of the epitaphs in the Kilmarnock edition.

I found this on a search:

North Korea – New Shock!

One Brave Lady

According to the Telegraph, cub scout leader Ingrid Loyau-Kennett asked (one of the attackers): “Would you like to give me what you have in your hands?”

She added: “I did not want to say weapons but I thought it was better having them aimed on one person like me rather than everybody there – children were starting to leave school as well.”

More Sailing Matters

Firstly, Lenit the Parakeet reports that today’s ship at Greenock was the Vega Stockholm.

Who knew that Ryanair had entered the cruise market?

And Glade Rover sends the following news of events in Oban last night

Hi Robert,

Re my comment to http://bigrab.wordpress.com/2013/05/20/and-todays-luxury-cruiser-at-greenock-was/

Attached are screen grabs of her track history for yesterday from marinetraffic.com. The apparent overland passage of Scarba will be because she went out of range of the land based signal receiver. The Corran Ledge runs out from approximately the Catherdral and can be clearly seen on Google Map.

 

Great pic here including the buoy – including flash – that she should have passed the other side of…

London 1927

Thanks to Glade Rover for forwarding details of this remarkable film

Scottish Football = Car Crash

Quite a weekend for the fitba’ with St Johnstone qualifying for the Europa League and SPL deciding not to ‘kick out the jams’.

Of more interest to this blog though was the result from East End Park Dunfermline where the home side failed to overcome Alloa’s 3-0 advantage from the first leg of the play offs and thus were relegated to the second division.

A big deciding factor in the Pars’ plight was the 15 point deduction they received for going into administration. The main reason for this was that for years Dunfermline have overspent in a vain attempt to maintain SPL status.

Dunfermline boss Jim Jeffries doesn’t see it like this. In a radio interview after the game I heard Jeffries brand the points deduction as ‘a disgrace’ and recommending that the people who made the decision ‘hang their heads in shame’.

Whaaaaaat?…….

Jeffries has always been a bit of a dour, ungracious sod but this takes the biscuit. Personally I’m delighted that a seemingly well run part-time club has taken the Pars place in division one.

That is where the future lies for clubs at the intermediate professional level in Scotland. Living on the credit card and binning the bills when they come in hasn’t worked in the past. In the reality of the current austere financial climate it ain’t gonna work any time soon.

So Mr Jeffries, when you’re looking for people to blame for your club’s plight, cast your eyes and your thoughts towards the boardroom at your own club.

The 15 point deduction was fair. Dunfermline spent money (in industrial quantities) they didn’t have in trying to seek unfair sporting advantage over their neighbours. Now they are paying the price (sic) for that.

Ray Manzarek RIP