440 Years Ago. The Battle of Langside.

Mary Queen of Scots
The Battle of Langside, the biggest battle to ever take place in Glasgow (apart from the 1980 Scottish Cup Final) was fought on May 13th 1568. It was the final defeat of Mary Queen of Scots.
Because of the religious situation in Scotland Mary Queen of Scots had been forced to abdicate [...]

Message in a Bottle!

I had a rather unexpected interesting afternoon today. After doing a bit of overtime at the shop this morning I took the dog for a walk. We strayed a bit from our normal route and ended up at an area which is obviously a disused dump. I found hundreds of old bottles and stone jars [...]

So Farewell Then Firs Park.

Last night I attended the East Stirlingshire v Dumbarton match at Firs Park, Bainsford in Falkirk. The match ended in an unremarkable 1-1 draw and I have to admit that Sons were very fortunate to come away with a point.

The following comes from the excellent Scottish Football Ground Guide
where there is also a good landscape [...]

Welcome to 1387.

Happy Norooz indeed. Today is the vernal equinox which marks the Persian (Iranian) new year. All the best for 1387 and lang may yer lum reek.
The Iranian calendar (Persian: تقویم هجری شمسی؛ گاهشماری هجری خورشیدی) is an astronomical solar calendar and one of the longest chronological records in history and is currently used [...]

The Spirit of ‘72

Almost certainly only of interest to you if you are a Dumbarton fan of a certain vintage. There are still a few of us around! The photo below was taken on a glorious spring night in 1972 before a 5-0 demolition of Raith Rovers in front of 5,000 or so. Kenny Wilson (pictured below) scored [...]

MI5 Hitler and Astrology

I heard a bit about this on the news yesterday. This comes from yesterday’s Scotsman:

HE CLAIMED to be descended from Hungarian nobility, was fond of vivid silk dressing gowns and spoke to the spirits while flourishing a large cigar.
But during the Second World War, the outlandish figure of Louis de Wohl was [...]

Walt Disney - The Hitler Connection?

The director of a Norwegian museum claims to have found cartoons drawn by Adolf Hitler during the Second World War.
William Hakvaag, the director of a war museum in northern Norway, said he found the drawings hidden in a painting signed “A. Hitler” that he bought at an auction in Germany. The coloured cartoons included [...]

A History Lesson

On 21st February 1952, Winston Churchill’s government abolished Identity Cards with the slogan “To set the people free!”
Clarence Willcock, a 54-year-old dry cleaner from suburban north London, must rank as one of the unlikeliest Davids ever to take on a Goliath.
Mr Willcock was stopped on December 7 1950 while driving his car along Ballard’s Lane [...]

On the Mary Queen of Scots Trail

My elder daughter has been doing a project (topic as they call it these days) at school about Mary Queen of Scots. It is fair to say that the story of Scotland’s most famous monarch has captured her imagination so much that it has almost become an obsession. Indeed the conversation at chez bigrab has [...]