Page 14 - James Pirie News

The Americans are mad about Halloween, but not so much in my family as my son was born on the 31^st October and so he’s had too many Halloween themed parties to be thrilled by the event. But for the rest of us the day is something we always remember from our youth, when we might have called it “Mischief Night”.  But I guess that was just because I was a pretty mischievous child, oops!

Across the...

As you know many great and good things originate in St Andrews and the latest is a discovery in an ancient city in Jordan.

Are you a fan of the movie character Indiana Jones?  Do you remember the scene with the ancient Knight Templar and the Holy Grail? Do you hanker after archaeology finds? Then the ancient remains in Petra, used in that scene, may be your bag. There you will find the majestic Nabataean...

Welcome to the Autumn, the season of Autumn mists and mellow fruitfulness and of course Tartan! The plaid is in fashion and on the way back again, whether it’s on the catwalk or the red carpet, the second most famous of Scotland’s products is on the march. The Princess of Wales is a proud wearer of the weave, she did go to St Andrews University after all, and as everyone knows James Pirie was founded...

If you want to make music from nature would you go the Antarctic and ask to be marooned for the day on a volcanic island with just the penguins for company? One Scottish composer did just that with the Royal Navy and the British Antarctic Survey.  The musician is a native of Edinburgh and he wanted to track in audio and on film the changing nature of the cold continent. I am a big fan of the frozen...

Are you old enough to remember the BBCs Balamory from CBeebies? It’s been a while and it was cancelled back in the balmy days of 2005, before financial crashes, COVID and the wars dominating headlines. Balmory was actually set in Tobermory in Argyll and Bute. It was a pretty dream of a place, all pastels and oddball characters working out complicated, but heart warming problems. Well it’s going to...

After a marvellous playing career Sir Andy Murray the Great Scot retired just a few weeks ago at the Paris Olympics. He went out on a high with Dan Evans, but missed out on the U S Open which finished on Sunday. But the deuce of a questions is, will retirement drive the tennis ace nuts? And the answer  surprisingly is not at all. One nature’s great obsessives  Andy’s found a couple of new obsessions...

Are you happy where you live?

Do you worry that other places are more fun, safer to live in, cheaper, or more fashionable?

Well there are always experts to help you get a fix on how you should feel and they have determined that a Scottish city is the “happiest,”whatever that means, in the whole of the United Kingdom, and that city is Inverness! It scored nearly 8 out of 10 and was a “happier” place...

The Galloway Hoard is an immensely rich and famous assortment of silver and gold valuables from the age of the Vikings. The Hoard was unearthed by metal detectorists, like Mackenzie Crook, in 2014 at Balmaghie, Kirkcudbrightshire. The gold and silver weigh in at some 5kg and some of it wrapped in well preserved textiles from the period.  With ever more cutting edge techniques revealing the fascinating...

Back in the day when I was talking to and filming emerging rock bands in America the stories I heard were all so familiar. A band would sign to a label and get and advance. Every band wanted an advance, but the advance was just a loan against future royalties.  Every time they went into a studio or had a beer in the studio that would be taken off the advance. So even a big band with a $1 million...

As a coastal dweller I am fully aware of the ferocity of seagulls. My next door neighbour has a sign in their house saying: “I’m as happy as a seagull with a stolen chip.” Gulls are both elegant and super flyers, inspiration for the iconic Spitfire war plane, but they are also sometimes a darn nuisance. Recently they disrupted Royal mail deliveries by dive bombing posties delivering letters, but now...