Page 10 - Blog

Cash in the Attic

Only last week I was on the horns of a dilemma writing about restored horns on a whisky tasting venue in the capital and today there is another  whisky venue that is featuring a rare four stroke Victorian engine that that once kept the capital’s coppers cool. It was in a building that once housed the courthouse and jail called the Edinburgh Police Chambers and which is now going...

In the week when a major supermarket has recalled my favourite sausages it is nice to have a fun story to report. There is news that shows that the world’s first purpose made football ground was in Scotland! As you might know the rules of football are jointly owned by the four home nations and they are leased to the bad boys of UEFA , so what was called compelling evidence about the origins of fooba...

Excuse the headline, but it’s one that I could not resist. For those who know the capital there’s a pair of unicorns on the parapet of the whisky experience just off the Edinburgh Esplanade and until very recently the beasties didn’t have horns. The building is a red brick edifice in the grandest style and built in mock Georgian Gothic as was the taste in the 19^th century just a little bit before...

Now you might have heard of the hoo-ha that was set up over the sawing up of  some of Charles Rennie Mackintosh’s church pews, but the man is hardly ever out of the news even though he died nearly a hundred years ago. Well 1928 to be precise. But his gifts to Scottish culture are outstanding as is the value of his creations.  Now in the news a set of cutlery that he designed has been sold at auction...

Now we all know about that well known” documentary” Jurassic Park has lessons about the recreation of dinosaurs and this week dinosaurs, Dire Wolves and Universal Studios which made the aforementioned “dinodoc” are all in the news. 

Some Americans claim that they have “de-extincted” the Dire Wolf, as famously seen in the royalty succession documentary Game of Thrones, but generally speaking it isn’t...

I am somewhat schizophrenic in my attitude to birds. I spend the entire winter feeding the little ones and the spring and summer trying to deter the large ones from despoiling the house and garden.  Regular readers will know that we live beside the sea, right on the beach and there are twin horrors. seagulls and wood pigeons.  A one legged seagull we call stumpy was trying to make a nest with its...

Well, I’ve just entered a load of competitions in a national newspaper for free stays in hotels and pubs around the country, because let’s face it it’s a funny year.  Belts are being tightened around the nation and I could do with a stay in the finest highland Hotel, but for free. It won’t be Andy Murray’s though, as I read today that his beautiful country house hotel lost a heap of money this last...

 It’s time to become a mum again for one of Scotland’s most famous birds, an osprey that has returned to its Highlands home after over wintering in sunny Africa. But she’s back and on time to Loch of the Lowes Wildlife Reserve, near Dunkeld which is run by the Scottish Wildlife Trust.

She’s known to the scientists and bird experts as NC0, but I have my own nickname for her, Jessie, after a friend’s...

Are you old enough to remember those 1970s and 80s chimps that drank tea on the telly to advertise the beverage? Well I’m afraid I am and they were very funny at the time. But now the chimpanzees Ada Lott, real name Choppers, and Mr Shifter, real name Louis, have gone to the great tea party in the sky. They all enjoyed a long and happy retirement but research, published in a scientific ­journal and...

I’ve previously chronicled the Great Scots who have done some much for science and history not just of the nation, but of all humankind. And now archaeologist Piers Litherland  who is from Galashiels  has uncovered the two tombs of an Egyptian pharaoh which is pretty big news in the world of Egyptology. The Scottish archaeologist announced the find of the century – the first discovery of a rock-cut...