Page 13 - James Pirie News

Well I hope you are enjoying the St Andrew’s Day bank holiday and have you fingers hovering over the computer or phone screen.  It’s also Cyber Monday which is the digital extension of Black Friday and as we are in the business of making people happy we have extended our Black Friday offers with as much as 70% off our already keen prices.  After our Gold Star weekend we have carried on those lovely...

As you might know all blog writers are very partial to a survey, because it allows them a bit of wind under their writing wings and a chance to poke fun at surveys. However, sometimes one comes along that suggests something pretty big. And in the week that Typhoo tea filed for protection in insolvency comes the news that Gin and Tonics have overtaken tea as the nation’s favourite drink. The survey...

Once the glens rang to the sound of some wild and  pretty hefty cattle called aurochs a breed of fearsome giants that were the ancestor of our modern cows and bulls. Now with the trend for re-wilding and even bringing species back from extinction it’s sort of going to happen to the auroch. Did you know there are plans to bring back dodos from DNA samples and woolly mammoths too, it’s a wild west...

Are you fond of a bit of seafood? I must admit that I am a late adopter of the fruits of the sea, but now I love them, but in moderation of course as they tend to be a bit dear. Last year we went to France and as part of the trip there was a stop-over in Dieppe and the highlight was a restaurant on a desolate dock road called the Comptoir A Huitres or the Oyster Counter. I have to tell you it was...

This Black Friday we give a nod to the greatness of the national treasure that is whisky, which is one of the nation’s biggest exports. Last year Scotland exported over £5.6 billion worth of Scotch, which makes the nectar the world's top-selling spirit. Now on Barra in the Outer Hebrides they are taking advantage of this world wide liking of the spirit and opening a big new £12 million distillery which...

“I think that I shall never see a poem lovely as a tree” Joyce Kilmer (1886-1918)

What a thought that is and I can say I am a huge fan of beautiful trees and when me and the missus go to those big gardens I always come back with a myriad photos of trees. Especially if the trees are champion trees, which means they are the largest specimen of the genus in the nation. Every year the powers that be in...

One of the great problems of the modern age is rubbish, trash, garbage or anything else you call it and what we do with it. There was a scandal a while back about plastic waste being shipped off to the third world and there being burnt. And one of the biggest culprits is fashion. The fashion industry produces 92 million tonnes of textile waste each year, most of which ends up in landfills. And if you...

As we live beside the beach we are forever seeing those people with their electronic wands searching the ground for valuables and historic artefacts. They call themselves detectorists and they often make a valuable contribution to the nation’s history. And in Peebles one very lucky detectorist found an amazing hoard of Bronze Age treasures from 800- 1,000 BC. The find was a made up of more than 500...

In my last blog I wrote about the old custom of hazel nut burning to determine if you were marrying a wrong’un, but there are many other customs at this time of year.  How about kale pulling? In the old days kale was often thought of as animal feed , but now with its lustrous dark leaves it’s regarded as a super food and many a  doctor will tell you to eat as much of it as you can get down you...

It’s well known that Great Scot Sir Andy Murray is generous of himself, his time and his purse and recently he demonstrated just how generous he is. After his fabulous career in tennis where he might well have been our greatest ever sportsman after winning three Grand Slam titles, two Olympic gold medals and a silver, without ever being the best naturally talented player in the world. Now he’s taken...