It’s inevitable that being something of a cycling fan, your country-bound correspondent’s interest has been piqued by the label on local maps that denotes the ‘former Hibernian Bicycle Racing Track’ just down other end of Duncan Street. It’s on someone’s land now, so I haven’t been able to have a sticky-beak, but what a tantalising …
There’s a kind of individual out there we’ve all encountered, I’m sure, and that’s ‘dog people’ – you know, people whose existence revolves around their domestic canines; whose homes run to the rhythm of their Best Friends’ whims and fancies, and who can think and speak of little else but the doings and misdoings of …
Those who've stuck with us through the lockdown months in Braidwood may recall the glib statement way back in April that as soon as we could, we’d be adding another to our number – that most essential component of any well-rounded family, a canine companion. Unbeknownst to us at the time, in a now-established social …
You will of course be familiar with my distaste for the popular tendency to anthropomorphise animals – not merely because of a grumpy, jaundiced outlook on the world in general and mankind in particular, but because that’s not what wildlife is really about – it’s a human-centric way of looking at the world, and look …
I wish I hadn’t used the sophisticated and witty wisecrack, “call me butter because I’m on a roll” the other day, because it turns out that at the moment, I’m . . . well, on a roll. Except now I can’t call myself butter without unfunnily repeating said bon mot. So, moving right along, the …
Yesterday I thought I saw a platypus! This deserves an exclamation mark due to its unexpectedness – I didn’t set out to find one, but to paraphrase the Bard, some people achieve platypus and some have platypus thrust upon them. I hadn’t given platypi much thought – there was a vague notion that they were …
One of the familiar phenomena arising from the COVID-19 lockdown is the iso-beard. Chaps and chums all over the globe, liberated from the repressive regime of grooming for work, have thrown in the razor and joyfully sprouted facial fungus. On a recent four-way Zoom with some UK mates, three participants were sporting some degree of …
Remember that stuff I wrote about Adam in the Garden of Eden, and how in his pre-Eve bachelorhood he spent his time wandering about giving things names? It was also pre the serpent and banishment into the harsh world, so very much a state of grace. It’s an attractive idea – apart from the nudity, …
Remember that movie about the people who spent all their time driving across the continental USA in pursuit of tornados? Twister, I seem to recall it being titled. It depicted the lives and loves of people so obsessed with extreme weather phenomena that they’d risk life, limb and ute to hunt a tornado and subject …
What do you think of when you hear the word ‘goat’? It’s an animal with a wealth of associations, and many not that positive: lust, gluttony and evil – in Western culture, anyway. They’re known to be nimble-footed – think mountain goat – and for climbing stuff. Hold that thought. Our family, collectively and individually, …
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