310: Gaelic, Golspie and Glasgow

Gaelic is an adjective that means "pertaining to the Gaels", including language and culture. As a noun, it may refer to the group of languages spoken by the Gaels, or to any one of the languages individually. Different "flavours" of Gaelic are spoken in parts of Scotland, Ireland, Wales and the Isle of Man. In most of Wales, and parts of Scotland, signs are in English and Gaelic. As you can see, Gaelic is a very different language from English

I've been staying in the village of Golspie for the last week or so. This afternoon I'm heading off to Glasgow and tomorrow to Iceland. 

Icelandair have a very cunning auction to allow folks to bid for an upgrade to the cabin class. Remind me to tell you about it one day. 

To finish, here is a song sung in Gaelic by the Scottish group Runrig. Subtitles in Gaelic and English.

309: Hill walking in Sutherland

A picture tells a thousand words:

308: The Jacobites

I'm relaxing in the Highlands of Scotland. Last night and tonight in a hotel in Spean Bridge and today travelling on the Jacobite steam train from Fort William to Mallaig (and back).
The name Jacobite is well-known in this region, and throughout Scotland, as the generic name given to a series of rebellions against the English - in 1689, 1715 and 1745. For more information on these uprisings click here.
Here are a few of the photos I took during the day today, showing not only the train but also some of the magnificent scenery and the Commando memorial here at Spean Bridge.
My video clip is entitled "ye Jacobites by name" and is by the Scottish folk group The Corries.

307: False friends

The term "false friends", from a language point of view, means those words which sound the same in the foreign language but which have a different meaning. In Russian there are quite a few of these false friends, some of which are shown here, on the Master Russian site.

I came across this poster at a bus stop the other day - it is quite common to see "public service" announcements - and, as you can probably guess, it is instructions on how to recognize the symptoms of stroke. The Russian word for stroke is инсульт, which is pronounced insult. The primary usage of the English word insult is translated into Russian as оскорбление.

1.   can't smile or the mouth is skewed at an angle?

2.   can't lift both arms, or is one weaker?

3.   can't pronounce their name clearly.

4.   Doctors have just 4.5 hours to save the life of the patient.

I'm in UK at the moment and on Sunday I will be in Scotland and will take a train ride on the Jacobite steam train on the West Highland Railway line from Fort William to Mallaig. Parts of the journey (Glenfinnan viaduct) were used as the backdrop in some of the Harry Potter films. The scenery is magnificent. Looking forward to it very much.

306: Fate?

As I get older I am coming more and more to the conclusion that our destiny is preordained - that somebody or something is steering us as individuals. Perhaps we can make small trimming adjustments to the sails ourselves but fate has already decided what is to happen to us.
I often travel up to four hours a day on the Moscow Metro so in theory I have more chance than most of being involved in any accident.
Luckily, for me at least, the horrific accident on the metro this morning, which has claimed the lives of more than 20 passengers and injured more than 100 others, didn't involve me at all. I did pass by later on a parallel line and the sardines were packed tighter than usual. The police presence was also much larger.
All the metro stations were playing a standard pre-recorded message "due to technical reasons no trains are running between Kievskaya and Molodyozhnaya".The expression "due to technical reasons" is often trotted out, whatever the real reason for the 'incident'.
Here are the details

Something else happened to me today, which I'm not a liberty to discuss here. Suffice to say that I thought that chapter of my life was over. Apparently not. There are more pages to be written. But not here.

On the plus side, it is nice to see Moscow beginning to embrace recycling. Must remember to save my empty bottles and newspapers rather than just chucking them willy-nilly down the 'chute'.

 Talking about fate reminded me of the expression "the fickle finger of fate" often voiced on one of my favourite comedy programmes from the 60s: "Rowan and Martin's Laugh-In". Who, of my readers, is old to enough to remember the show? Is it so dated now, or still funny?

305: An old joke

My holiday on the Costa Brava is coming to an end. I will fly back to the UK tomorrow. Good timing - the French ATC have called off their strike and the airlines have worked through their backlog.
A shortage of material today (for some reason my phone photos won't upload to dropbox) so I will regale (bore?) you with a very old joke. It is a mix of fact and fiction and I will leave you to decide which is fact and which is embellished.
I went for a run today in the heat of the mid-afternoon sun. I wanted to kill two birds with one stone by topping up the tan and working on the fitness at the same time. Not really the best time of the day to run though with the rays of the sun beating down. I ran out along the beach at a pace of 5:1 (5 minutes gentle jogging and 1 minute walking). After 30 minutes I decided to turn back and this time the sun was in front of me. I slowed the pace right down to 1:1 and even so I almost became dehydrated and started thinking about water. Halfway along the beach there was a tent set up on the sand. When I looked in there was a man selling ties. Nothing else, only ties. What do I want with a stupid tie I thought.
I pushed on, gagging for a drink. When I finally made it back to the hotel there was another tent. This time they had water but, just as I was about to go in, they stopped me and said "no admission without a tie!"
Ran past some people playing petanque (big boys' marbles!)
Have a nice weekend.

304: Barcelona

On the evening of June 23rd, Catalonians and many many tourists celebrate midsummer. Despite it being almost the shortest night of the year for me it felt like the longest. As a committed stick-in-the-mud I was trying to sleep and the noise from the music and what seemed to be non-stop bangers being let off all night prevented sleep for most of the night.
The next day, Tuesday, I took a train into Barcelona with the intention of doing some shopping. Only when I got there did I discover that the cunning Catalonians have tagged on another holiday (this time to mark the birth of St John the Baptist) so that they could rest after the revelries of the night before. This meant that all the shops were closed. Apart from restaurants and cafes. A wasted trip. Even a trip to McDonald's failed to lift my spirits. Never mind, such is life.
It is the time of the year for French Air Traffic Controllers to go on strike again and cause chaos all over Europe. I have read that they have been joined now by the Belgian Air Traffic Controllers. I hope both sets of employers capitulate soon, as they do every year, otherwise my flight back to Stansted on Saturday will be in jeopardy. I could face a long train journey up through Spain and France and through the Chunnel. Let's hope it doesn't come to that.
For a video clip I thought perhaps Freddie Mercury and Montserrat Caballé singing Barcelona. Enjoy!