scenes from a scottish BnB 🩶

Book Rec: Weak Heart by Ban Gilmartin

“…Thomas Madigan is living in a nightmare. Isla just wants to go back to the sea. Kit Macrae thinks he’s drowning. Tanis Hughes needs to feed. And Owen Darrow doesn’t seem to exist…”

I can’t remember how I initially came across this book, but damn am I glad I did. Weak Heart is a magical mystery with high stakes and high emotions, nestled deeply in Scottish folklore. This book has its cozy moments, bundled inside with a cup of tea next to a fire, but you have to spend time fighting outside in a freezing rainstorm first, and it’s stunning. Things get bleak, there’s blood, some horror, and there’s so much pain, both emotional and physical — but there’s also scores of love, trust, healing, and a found family to boot.

Gilmartin structures their mysteries without flaws, and their characters tore me apart in the best ways. Weak Heart is told in alternating first person perspectives, and each different voice is distinct and true to each character, the different ways each narrator views themselves, each other, and the world around them coming together to paint the rainy gray landscape and grim circumstances with vivid color. The cast is diverse, deep, and lovable to a fault.

I desperately need other people to pick this book up and fall in love with it as I now have. Just be warned— in Weak Heart, nothing is truly as it first seems.

Poor Things by Alasdair Gray

"But you need not believe this if it disturbs you."

This was only on my radar because it's been adapted into a film by Yorgos Lanthimos with a cast boasting the likes of Emma Stone, Willem Dafoe and Mark Ruffalo, and the trailers for the film look so magnificently weird that I just had to experience the source material before the film hits cinemas. I don't normally gravitate toward Scottish satire, and have never read anything by Alasdair Gray before, so I really wasn't sure what exactly I was in for.

Well, what I got was definitely not as weird as I'd been hoping it would be. Sure, it's weird, but never in a manner as bizarrely grotesque as it could've been, and rarely as absurd as it probably should've been. The characters of Bella Baxter and Godwin Baxter (the characters that will be portrayed by Emma Stone and Willem Dafoe, respectively) were the best parts of the book. Godwin's oddities make for exciting ideas, and Bella's voice is so incredibly unique - and changes in a very interesting manner as the story unfolds. The worst is very much the narrative style - especially the framing device and use of letters. This really would've read better had it been a straight-forward, third-person narrative. But hey, who am I? Anyway, that's all I've really got on this one. I'm still really excited to see what Lanthimos & Co. deliver with the adaptation. From the looks of it we're in for a wild ride.

5/10

-Timothy Patrick Boyer.

The Hanging Stone on Gallows Hill, Rosehearty

The Hanging Stone on Gallows Hill, Rosehearty

A couple of years ago, I decided to search for the Hanging Stone near Rosehearty, here in Aberdeenshire. It’s another witch stone, a place of historical execution and, according to local folklore, ‘dooking’ as well. I’ve reached the stage in my current malady of being able to sit at my desk for short times, but obviously I’m not able to run around the countryside visiting interesting places. But…

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Jill Karla Schwarz, 'Tam Lin', ''Fairies and Elves'', 1984 Source I'm going to use this post as the perfect opportunity to direct you to my favorite song from the folk band Fairport Convention from their 1969 album 'Liege & Lief', Tam Lin (which, I'm sure, I've posted about at some point)

Illustrations from Thomas Malory's Le Morte d'Arthur by William Russell Flint (1911)

just saw someone say Rick Riordan making a TV show is just as bad as anything JKR has done. BFFR you're comparing Rick Riordan trying to make his world more inclusive, changing some parts because of money/time constraints, or just making changes cus he thinks they're needed, to JKR being a terrible person!

I don't like this for so many reasons. Anglophone (usually USAmerican) writers often take foreign words and misrepresent them in their books, misinforming a whole new wave of readers in the process. They regularly do this with Greek as well. These languages haven't resisted assimilation and suppression so they can be used as USAmerican accessories in 2023.

James McAvoy

as Pontius Pilate in The Book of Clarence (2023)

commonplace on the Scottish Mountain Birch Project - repost with credit only

From 'The Scottish Fairy Book' illustration by Morris Meredith Williams, 1910

Not Diana Gabaldon getting both Scottish history and linguistics wrong in one staggeringly arrogant breath. Surely not.

Scotch bonnets. Like the fucking pepper 🤣

Just call us all Jocks, Diana. Just say it with your whole chest.

I also cannae believe @ayeforscotland is off on his holidays, and I’ve got no one to roast her with. I’m like Statler without Waldorf over here: half a muppet double act.

Also, the name of the hat the OP is looking for is a tam o’ shanter. Or you could just call it a bunnet.

Fucking Scotch bonnet. 🌶️

Good grief 😂

The sweater says "collects comic books" and the face says "collects phone numbers"

The Guardian Weekend (2006)

Transcript:

Hi, I'm David-in-my-pants," says the very boyish, handsome 34-year-old striding towards me, arm extended, wearing, as promised, his underpants. Perhaps the train journey from London to Cardiff was worth it after all.

"I just don't have the courage of my convictions about my fashion decisions-I think I need some guidance there," he adds in his charming Scottish accent, his eyes all characteristically puppyish and pleading. Yes, the trip is definitely worth it so far.

This fashion insecurity is a bit surprising, though, seeing as it comes from David Tennant, the tenth and latest Dr Who (he's in Cardiff filming the newseries) and, according to the Pink Paper, "the sexiest man in the universe" (Tennant claimed, sweetly, that he was "somewhat surprised" by that accolade.)

When playing the title role in the BBC's widely acclaimed Casanova, Tennant wore flouncy blouses with aplomb; and his outfit for Dr Who English tweeds paired with scruffy Converse - has already received plaudits from the fashion press. "It's not a million miles from what I usually wear," he says, "so I now have to be careful if people see me out and about looking too much like Dr. Who, that would be pretty naff."

The Converse were inspired by Tennant himself - he's been devoted to the brand for more than 20 years - so when I tell him that David Cameron wears them, too, he reels back into the sofa, aghast "No!" he whispers. "You`ve just ruined them for me.

He insists that becoming a recognised face has not changed his style, but has made him more conscious that he shouldn't wear something more than once because people comment on it. This, naturally, means constant wardrobe updates, which rather goes against a Presbyterian upbringing "that would never permit any conspicuous consumption."

Tennant's teenage years were a swamp of fashion mistakes, he says, citing in particular a pink jumper that we wore for years until someone told him that it was, well, terrible. And at 15 he sported a paisley shirt, skinny tie and cropped jacket combo that "properly expressed myself" - unfortunately, his tracksuit-wearing peers disagreed and punched him in the face. "Yeah, that didn't work out too well."

He is, he says repeatedly, not a shopper. "I do that typical male thing of finding one thing and doing it to death, like Paul Smith suits." He recently discovered H&M, he adds, enunciating each of the letters carefully, as if tentatively speaking in a new language. "Plain T-shirts for only a tuppence."

Yet despite all of this he seems at ease during the shoot. He particularly likes a tan jumper, which prompts him to stroke his hands over his chest in a most distracting manner. "I love this - what is it?"

Burberry, comes the answer.

A Loch Through the Seasons: mist, sunsets and snow

A Loch Through the Seasons: mist, sunsets and snow #Scotland

Clouds of mist swirl over the surface of the loch. The picture above was taken after an unexpectedly hot day led to unexpectedly beautiful conditions. Well, not completely unexpected. It’s always beautiful, always different. Summer Loch Summer brings lush green foliage and colour to the loch*. It’s not very deep so swimming can be warm, though muddy. Autumn That glassy ‘stand and stare’…

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Anne Anderson (1874-1952), 'The Travelling Companions', ''The Mammoth Wonder Book for Children'', 1935 Source

Illustrations from Geoffrey Chaucer's The Canterbury Tales by W. Russell Flint (1913)