The Mitre

Last week I was out walking round the cliff top promenade of my home town with my life long friend Jim. Hirondelles were amassing in readiness for their southerly migration. Autumn coming round.

Just off the skerries, the surface of the Forth as calm as a mill pond we see unusual activity in the water and it is not s.u.p.

A pod of dolphins. About 30 of them and they spread over about 4 or 5 hundred metres. The larger in the lead and I wonder about the wonder of their sonar to keep in touch over such a range.

Transfixed. A WOW moment in time. Why is it that Cetacea can do that to most of us?     ( A wee test and at the end of blog, check out your knowledge on Cetacea . Name the other different types. And as ever nae cheatin’ )

We walk round the edge of the golf course and arrive at Belhaven Bay. The wonderfully named “bridge to nowhere” crosses the Biel burn right here and stretches out to what seems like infinity. This is a spot I used to come to with my mum and it was quite scary that that particular day sitting on my mum and dad’s commerative bench was a distant cousin of mine.  Well ok, he wasn’t distant right at that moment because he was right in front of me. The English language can get you into a bit of bovver  if you’re not too careful!  Like a friend of mine who one time in conversation quoted a calm scene as a milk pond!

This week’s hostelry is the Mitre on the Royal Mile and it is another Nicholson pub. Trying the Pale Ale again. I must confess I thought that a mitre was a ceremonial stick of some sort but I now know that it is the ku klux klan like headgear that bishops wear. In the 17th century Archbishop Spottiswood was lord chancellor and primate of All Scotland and lived on this site. If you know your Scottish history you will have heard of Jenny Geddes who caused a stooshy at St Giles Cathedral. This was in response to the bishop trying to impose the Anglican Book of Common Prayer on the Scottish hoi polloi. Big mistake Johnny! Fled the country shortly after.

 

Sorry about the Scaffold,  and it was very tempting to 🎤drink a drink to Lily the Pink – but beer  is the saviour of the human race.

After her swim the gin queen joins me, not for a pink one, which would have been scarily coincidental given The Scaffold link, but for Aviaton, an American variety which we’ve never happened on before. Last night on our Thursday date night Brighton Rock was a pre prandial addition. So many gins, so little time!

If you can zoom in, check out the dude in the shades. Could be the best wrap- over ever?  Also turns out that Trump and Netanyahu are to meet. Seems that the comb-over and I have to build a wall gene are dominant and inextricably linked.

10 million souls watch Strictly Come Dancing and they were plugging the weekends programmes as I left home. Our former Secretary of State in Gordon Brown’s government Ed Balls, is (was) on and when picked he said it was a “Dream come true”

No comment.  ( Well actually a lot of comment but it has all been deleted by me, Ed )

Just finished reading Guerra. Hadn’t a clue about the Spanish civil war. Very much second fiddle in school history to, appropriately enough, the Second World War. However the depravity to which mankind can fall is reflected and shared in both conflicts. Yesterday Spain, today Syria.

In the Scottish Parliament you can find, until early December, an exhibition based on the work of a Scottish born press photographer Harry Benson. The theme is the American presidents from Eisenhower onward but it touches on many of the major post war events.

Do you remember the photos of the Beatles pillow fight?    (How major is that?  Ed.)  Ok let me explain, alright?

The young photographer is sent to cover a Beatles tour of France. He is not happy but then follows them on their U.S. trip in 1964. This leads to coverage of Afro American civil rights struggles, Watergate, the Kennedys / Luther King assisinations, Vietnam war, rise of the ku klux klan etc.

Rescue dog getting glucose drip after 9/11. Brought back memories of my 50th birthday when we celebrated one of our nights in the Big Apple with supper in the North tower at Windows on the World.  Shortly after our return home a tourist helicopter came down in the Hudson River and yes we had been on such a flight.  Time and space, right?

 

Despicable Dave’s former chief of staff who was made a life peer in our craven ex PM’s resignation honours list has been appointed Britain’s ambassador to France. ( That patronage option has to go don’t you think? ) Our Foreign Secretary  Bo Jo the buffoon has said “E. L is hugely well qualified for this post and I look forward to working with him. He will help us make a great success of Brexit while ensuring that Britain is more engaged in the continent of Europe than ever” 

Irony anyone?

Those of us who care what is to become of England’s green and pleasant land ( Eh? WTF!  Ed.) will all have different ideas of how we think our exit will pan out.

Down that pan?

What I’m hearing at the moment from the powers that aren’t is that hey we are now about to be once again in control of our own destiny but that we will still have access to all the benefits of the single market. When we wake up to discover that the chances of that happening has morphed from wishful thinking into total fantasy we may well find that our erstwhile partners have learnt from our Bulldog war time Prime Minister and have decided to give us the V sign.

( Coincidence [Happy!] – our house gin this week is Bulldog!) Today I have also just discovered that a local pub claims to have the biggest selection of gins in Scotland. And it is within easy stumbling distance —

Pub quizzers. Did you get the other types of cetacae?

Porpoises and whales.

Cetacae derives from the Latin, Cetus, meaning whale and the Greek, Ketos meaning huge-fish. Whoever came up with the term must have been some classic scholar freak.

The Labour Party conference is drawing to a close and if re-elected intend to make Britain back into a manufacturing powerhouse. As the gin queen said tonight “They are living in cloud cuckoo land” Couldn’t agree more.

One flew over —-

To the next swallow.  SORRY!