James News

  1. Sir Andy Hints at Retirement in the Summer

    Sir Andy Hints at Retirement in the Summer

    One of Sir Andy Murray’s favourite sporting places is definitely not one of mine.  It’s Florida and I have to admit I never enjoyed going there. Admittedly I’ve only ever been to the Everglades State to work. I filmed shows about the now old rockers, Creed and Limp Bizkit,if you want to know.  But Sir Braveheart himself loves it there and he almost made the fourth round at the Miami Open.  The warrior Flying Scot battled for three hours and 28 minutes,  but eventually to no avail as a new ankle injury impacted the result. Sir Andy was playing the talented youngster Tomas Machac.  Andy has admitted that he doesn’t anticipate  playing on much after the summer, when he has hopes of playing doubles in the Olympics.  Or perhaps he might bow out at Wimbledon, but I won’t be there as this year I lost out on the ballot for tickets.

    The Great Scot is now an amazing 36 years old and the Olympics may be his goal as he is the only male tennis player in histor

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  2. Don't Duck Our Great Offer

    Don't Duck Our Great Offer

    Scotland is a wondrous and strange place. I’ve just watched a video of wild pigs and wild boar mixes roaming the Great Glen in the Highlands. They are pretty frightening. There are herds of feral pigs roaming the area and out of control. They have been blamed for sheep killings and as they feed much more heavily than other beasts, they are ruining the grazing for other animals. There are calls for a reduction in numbers of the thousands of  pigs, which include escapees and others that have been illegally released to roam free. They are highly unpopular with farmers and crofters, who of course are constrained in what they can do to the animals. They can’t be shot without a deal of trouble landing on the shooter’s head.

    I’ll give you an example. I was dropping off a new van in one of my odd jobs not so long ago and other motorists started flashing me. Odd I thought, but carried on and arrived at the address for the van, only to find the house next door was under police siege.

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  3. Flower of Scotland Bargains

    Flower of Scotland Bargains

    Flower of Scotland

    O flower of ScotlandWhen will we seeYour like again,

    In a salute to the brave Scots who defeated the Norse invaders  the thistle that was adopted as the national flower and symbol of Scotland and now we bring you a brilliant offer the Thistle design single Flower of Scotland - Gin and Tonic Copa Glass with a great 60% off offer. It comes in a lovely gold blocked gift box and you can ask for free gift wrapping at checkout.  

    The Scottish Thistle is most definitely the oldest 'National Flower' and is probably one of the most famous, and most easily recognized symbols of Scotland and all things Scottish, along with tartan. It has been the symbol of the brave folk north of the border since around about the 13th century when Norway ruled part of the country. One legend has it that Norse

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  4. A James Pirie Message in a Bottle

     A James Pirie Message in a Bottle

    It’s becoming harder and harder to distinguish fakes from the authentic and with the news that a web site will allow you to create songs in the style of, say Amy Winehouse and Artificial Intelligence that is able to make incredible pictures from fresh air and not a lot else, it’s hard to know what’s real. There was a detectorist in Herefordshire who planted five Crusader coins in a field that would have changed the view of history in that area. He wanted the fame and kudos that the find would have given him, but he was arrested and tried, not guilty was the verdict. So it was great to see a real feel good story of a group of school pupils from Wormit Primary School in Fife who launched message in bottles when those messages were finally found 40 years later.

    The messages were written in wax crayon and the pupils who wrote the messages are now back in touch with each other thanks to the discovery. The finder dried out the messages at home and surprisingly they were still legible. One o

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  5. Lovely Oats

    Lovely Oats

    Easy Oat Bread

    Now I’ve extolled the breakfast of champions that is porridge, now I’d like to introduce you to the wonder of Oat Bread. It’s very good for you, unlike ordinary white bread which is very bad, and even better for you than wholemeal bread and sourdough bread. This is a simple bake, almost foolproof, that anyone can do. And as you can freeze it happily you can use the oven for a couple of loaves at the same time to save money in the cost of living crisis we seem mired in.   Oat bread is what we call low GI. The NHS says that glycaemic index (GI) is a rating system for foods containing carbohydrates. It shows how quickly each food affects your blood sugar or glucose level when that food is eaten on its own.  Bread and rice and other stodge is much higher GI and therefore worse for you, especially if you are carrying that bit of extra timber round the waist, just like me.

    You’ll need an oven, but if you have an air fryer you can probably use tha

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  6. Getting Your Oats Under Threat

    Getting Your Oats Under Threat

    News just out that will alarm Scottish mothers everywhere; Porridge Oats may be classified as junk food. By jings that seems to be at the best a bit mad, at the worst totally cracked. Now we all know that eating the wrong food in the wrong amounts is one of the biggest problems facing the nation, but we are also in a cost of living crisis and porridge is just cracking value for money.  

    Because my mum told me to do it I have eaten porridge for breakfast all my life. Admittedly I’m not a purist who just adds a pinch of salt. I add walnuts, honey and soft fruit like strawberries and blueberries, frozen mind you because I’m not made of money. Although after some research by my wife I now eat the more expensive organic porridge oats. The cereal grows in wet climes and is therefore more likely to absorb pesticides etc, so the missus will only buy organic.  My frugal bones ache at even the thought of the extra cost.  

    Porridge oats are being targeted under plans to

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  7. Ted Lasso and Mothers

    Ted Lasso and Mothers

    I am a great fan of the feel good Apple +  TV show Ted Lasso, which if you haven’t seen it I thoroughly recommend. Ted is the most optimistic person ever, in fact he is almost pathologically so. His smile is always pasted on and his cookie cooking is sublime. The premise for the show is that Lasso, a second rate American Football coach from the US Midwest, is brought in to manage an English Premier League side Richmond FC with zero understanding of soccer at all. In fact he’s brought in to sabotage the team to upset the owner’s ex-husband, but enough of the spoilers. Ted said in one episode:  ”I love meeting people’s moms. It’s like reading an instruction manual as to why they are nuts.” Ted himself has the occasional bolt loose too, the word screw being too small for his monster hang ups. It’s a wonderful life affirming watch, with some amazing supporting characters. In fact just writing about it makes me smile

    But mothers get a raw deal in the media. I was lo

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  8. A Mother's Day Gift That Lasts for decades

     A Mother's Day  Gift That Lasts for decades

    Now that Mother’s day is round the corner, it’s on the 10th March this year, have you thought about buying your mum or woman in your life a lovely bunch of blooms, or bouquet of flowers? Well if you want to be a thoughtful giver pause a moment to think where those lovely blooms come from and does it matter? And of course the answer is yes. We don’t live in a climate where you can grow flowers at this time of the year and so they are imported and also often grown in hot houses abroad. Yes we are talking carbon footprint! In the UK the market for cut flowers and ornamental plants is worth £1.3bn, that’s a lot of flowers that are literally here today and gone tomorrow.

    Because of the weather we import 90% of flowers mostly from our friends in the Netherlands who use copious amounts of electricity to heat their greenhouses. But of course elektrickery is currently very expensive in Europe and so many other places like Kenya are now getting into the game, which means more car

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  9. The Best of Both Worlds

    The Best of Both Worlds

    It’s pretty warm just now, but I’ve caught the weather forecast for the end of the week and next and it’s less rosy and more ferocious, so passengers on the so called “Polar Express” will be looking out their thermals, hats, gloves, scarves and packing extra togs for the journey.  The West Highland Line between Oban and Glasgow has gained honorary membership of the Arctic Circle as the temperatures regularly plunge to minus zero on the ScotRail train. And if you are of a certain age the lack of heat could indeed pose a threat to health. The trains themselves are diesels of a certain age, built in the 1980s and well into their forties. The diesel locos are meant to send excess heat from their engines to heat the carriages, but if it’s minus 10° C outside there isn’t a lot of spare heat to go round.  Aside from breaking up the seats and burning them, there’s not a lot that can be done to heat up the old carriages. Passengers describe the three hour journey as “positively Baltic.”  Not

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  10. Artificial Intelligence and Mother’s Day Gifts

    Artificial Intelligence and Mother’s Day Gifts

    Well that’s Saint Valentine’s Day in the rear view mirror and now there’s a gap in the heady gift buying schedule of us mere mortals. So I thought I should have a look at the way the world is turning and take a gander at Artificial Intelligence.  Usually I take the photographs for this blog myself, as I don’t want to pay copyright charges, but this time I used generative A I to produce some pictures for Mother’s Day, which is on the horizon quite soon. The results are startling and available in a second, yes literally a second. You can get strikingly realistic pictures. I used it at Christmas to get a picture of Elvis Presley as an elf, and that was incredibly glossy if a little soulless. This is obviously the way forward for many businesses trawling the internet, but it is a challenge to those who make a living out of scribbling. Indeed one of the reasons why there isn’t as much new stuff on the telly this year, because of the writers and actors strike in the USA last year which

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