1. I’ve been waiting for you. Where have you been?2. After yesterday, I don’t want any Smart Alec talk about getting my hair cut. I’m like David Bowie.3. They never said there would be this much snow in Scotland!4. Hello. I was looking for Munguin… Anyone seen him?5. Well, which is it?6. Me and my buddy cat.7. Sniffffff…. Oh that’s nice.
8. This is fascinating.9. Gaborone, Botswana.10. There’s that Andi with his camera, looking for a star of Soppy Whatsit… I think I’m perfect for it and this is my best side.11. Fife milestone.12. Did someone say that cute animals were in demand?… Here I am13. This fellow was having a break in the sunshine by the Dighty, glanced in our direction and got on with his sunbathing. 14. Rusty oil platform in the Tay for repair.15. It’s the lockdown. I can’t get a hair cut…16. So, I said ….17. Majestic caribou bull in front of the mount Denali, ( mount Mckinley), Alaska18. We could sing you the Donkey Serenade.19. Walking holiday in Nepal, anyone?20. Nothing like a head scratch. Well that’s it for today. See you next week if you’re good.
Thanks to Andi, Jim, David, Erik, John.
NIGHT VISITOR
An ode to a cat.
Sly, stealthy Trojan of the secret night,
On padded hooves you creep to stand outside my walls.
Nuzzling.
To infiltrate defenceless sheets and blankets.
And my heart.
You risk an unresisting armpit (non-repellent too!)
And stretch front paws on bicep for a pillow,
Rear stretched out below, impaling thigh.
Turn slightly, press your back against my chest,
And I, poor sucker, stretch out mine
To find, a rippling rhythmic orchestra of happiness,
I remember breaking the news on SS that a new species had been found. I call them the fluffy orangs for obvious reasons. If human actions result in their loss, genocide it would be and homo sapiens would be neither wise not humane.
Jim sent me that. They really are beautiful… Yes, I’d grieve with you, but I really hope that their human cousins can take steps to reverse the decline.
Beautiful view of Denali, in the Alaska Range of south central Alaska, north of Anchorage and well south of Fairbanks. An impressive mountain for both its altitude (20,310 ft / 6,190 m) and its massive overall size, although few visitors ever see it because of obscuring clouds from moist air patterns that move north from the Gulf of Alaska and are lifted upward by the Alaska Range.
From the US National Park Service, an article on the geology of Denali and the Alaska Range, with two photo galleries.
Certainly a mountain to be reckoned with. Some sources claim that it’s a higher peak than Everest above surrounding terrain. However, by technical definition, Wiki says it’s the “third most prominent and third most isolated peak on Earth, after Mount Everest and Aconcagua.”
I’d like to go to Alaska to see it, but like most of the people who try that, I probably wouldn’t be able to see it through the clouds anyway. Pictures are probably your best bet.
It seems to be something of a standing joke that tourists come to the far north to see a mountain that can’t usually be seen. The National Park Service estimates that about 30% of tourists who come to Denali National Park see some part of the mountain at some time during their visit. I had a friend who visited the area for a few days and never saw any of the mountain while he was there. Often the problem involves low clouds that obscure the view from the ground, but you can take plane flights that can observe the peak of the mountain above the clouds…….sometimes.
As for the best time of the year, I’d guess summer too. The explanation for the clouds is that relatively warm wet air moving north from the Gulf of Alaska gets lifted by the Alaska Range and forms clouds when it meets cold dry air from the north. That might be minimized in the Summer when the air to the north is warmer.
I just don’t trust high mountains though. I was in Colorado Springs (south of Denver along the Front Range of the Colorado Rockies) for three days and looked forward to seeing Pikes Peak……a 14,000 ft mountain only 15 miles outside of town. It was cloudy the whole time, and I wouldn’t even have known there was a mountain there. I had a friend who did see Pikes Peak though; then paid his money to drive to the top on the toll road, immediately developed symptoms of altitude sickness and had to drive right back down. Not a lot of air for flatlanders not acclimated to the altitude to breathe at 14,000 ft, and supplementary oxygen is apparently not provided at the top. Another big mountain not friendly to tourists!
OMG I must be drunk as a skunk because I totally saw a bird and needed to look very hard to see the kitty. It reminds me of the old lady/young lady illusion.
I have to look REALLY hard to see the old lady despite the fact that the older you are the more likely you are to see the old lady.
Anyway some lovely photos as ever. I liked the lynx, the coo and the sheep. They are talking about re-introducing Eurasian lynx to Scotland. They are quite shy and won’t eat us. Unless they are very hungry…
We live in Lynx country (Extremadura, spain), they even have signs on the side of the road warning to look out for them (like signs for deer in Scotland), but sadly I have not seen one. Yet.
The scruffy guy at the back is me. The portly gent in the front is Sir Edmund himself. Behind the camera is the first view you get of Everest when you walk in.
Lovely photograph of Sir Edmund Hillery and his lady wife (who always reminds me of Perry Como for some reason). Which raises an interesting point that your esteemed readers might help with. I’m sure we all recall Perry Como’s jolly song about the states in the USA – What did Delaware, boys? – a witty play on words. But does anyone remember the words of the duet that Perry sang with Moira Anderson featuring the counties – I’m flying through the Ayr?
I asked Moira about it on a trip to the Isle of Man last year, but she hastily drew a veil over the conversation. Understandably, given Signor Como’s links to a certain dubious organisation based not a million miles from Naples.
Readers may remember MI6 confiscating copies of the Delaware song and (with Moira’s expert help in cryptology) scanning the lyrics for hidden references to arms caches across the USA.
Quite topical considering events in that invigorating if brash society.
Sadly, Tris, it doesn’t have a happy ending. After walking for 3 weeks I experienced altitude sickness a mere 3 hour walk from our goal of the summit of Kala Patthar. Although I felt great I knew the dangers so I had to return home without seeing the classic view of Everest.
10 years later I reached the higher summit of Kilimanjaro without a problem.
Hundreds of golden monkeys went down the mountain to play after a snowfall in Shennongjia, C China’s Hubei. Shennongjia golden monkey is a primate species unique to China and is an endangered animal under national first-class protection. pic.twitter.com/FfexaTeuQ4
Lovely to see the Capital of Botswana, another too poor country.
I worked there in their new college, funded in part by the EU, not empire money.
There was no hunger but lots of low income.
Their big problem was the results of HIV, passed into the young adult community through the travelling truck drivers, condoms freely available in a government led health education programme.
My sister’s car was due for service. She delivered the car to the garage and called a taxi to get to work. When the taxi arrived the driver was her Ex. No time to get another taxi there was an embarrassing journey to work. When she had related the tale of woe to mother, mother respnded ‘And did he give you any condoms?’. Stunned sister thought that mother had taken leave of her senses. Unbeknown to her the local health board had started a sexual health campaign and recruited taxi drivers to hand out leaflets and free condoms to passengers.
I am from Clackmannanshire, so the Kingdom of Fife is hardly Terra Incognita.
But I can’t place Pettycur, even though it must be within 30-odd miles of Newport.
Yet Pettycur is important enough to be signposted from so far away?
Hard to believe that Fife is over 30 miles across.
I’ll give it this though: Pettycur looks like a name derived from Pictish.
Towards the end of Alexander’s reign, the death of all three of his children within a few years made the question of the succession one of pressing importance. In 1284 he induced the Estates to recognize as his heir-presumptive his granddaughter Margaret, the “Maid of Norway”. The need for a male heir led him to contract a second marriage to Yolande de Dreux[7] on 1 November 1285.
Alexander died in a fall from his horse while riding in the dark to visit the queen at Kinghorn in Fife on 19 March 1286 because it was her birthday the next day.[8] He had spent the evening at Edinburgh Castle celebrating his second marriage and overseeing a meeting with royal advisors. He was cautioned against making the journey to Fife because of weather conditions, but crossed the Forth from Dalmeny to Inverkeithing anyway.[9] On arriving in Inverkeithing, he insisted on not stopping for the night, despite the pleas of the nobles accompanying him and one of the burgesses of the town, Alexander Le Saucier. Le Saucier (who was either linked to the King’s kitchen or the master of the local saltpans) must have been known to the King, since his rather blunt warning to the King lacks the usual deference: “My lord, what are you doing out in such weather and darkness? How many times have I tried to persuade you that midnight travelling will do you no good?”[10]
However, Alexander ignored the repeated warnings about travelling in a storm, and set off with his retinue and two local guides.[9] The king became separated from his party near Kinghorn, and was found dead with a broken neck near the shore the following morning. It is assumed that his horse lost its footing in the dark. While some texts say that he fell off a cliff,[11] there is none at the site where his body was found; however, there is a very steep rocky embankment, which “would have been fatal in the dark.”[12] After Alexander’s death, his realm was plunged into a period of darkness that would eventually lead to war with England. He was buried in Dunfermline Abbey.
Just to spoil your Sunday, Tris, I will deliver a smack on the wrist.
Pic 14 is a rig, not a platform (the first drills exploration wells, the second extracts oil from wells). Journalists frequently get it wrong so Munguin should enforce higher standards.
And they are not rusting and in for repair. They are stuck for work as exploration has virtually halted. But my neighbour is currently evaluating one of the rigs in Dundee for a future project.
MUNGUIN'S NEW REPUBLIC 
A trip to the Amazon Rainforest.
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Magical animals, plants, waterfalls, scenery, Marcia
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Oh, the Tapanuli orangutans, Tris! Talk about life-affirming!
If they are forced into extinction, I shall grieve.
I particularly loved the photies this week. Thank you!
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I shall grieve, and call it not murder but genocide.
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I remember breaking the news on SS that a new species had been found. I call them the fluffy orangs for obvious reasons. If human actions result in their loss, genocide it would be and homo sapiens would be neither wise not humane.
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Jim sent me that. They really are beautiful… Yes, I’d grieve with you, but I really hope that their human cousins can take steps to reverse the decline.
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Beautiful view of Denali, in the Alaska Range of south central Alaska, north of Anchorage and well south of Fairbanks. An impressive mountain for both its altitude (20,310 ft / 6,190 m) and its massive overall size, although few visitors ever see it because of obscuring clouds from moist air patterns that move north from the Gulf of Alaska and are lifted upward by the Alaska Range.
From the US National Park Service, an article on the geology of Denali and the Alaska Range, with two photo galleries.
https://www.nps.gov/articles/denali.htm
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I know it keeps on getting featured here, but it truly is spectacular.
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Certainly a mountain to be reckoned with. Some sources claim that it’s a higher peak than Everest above surrounding terrain. However, by technical definition, Wiki says it’s the “third most prominent and third most isolated peak on Earth, after Mount Everest and Aconcagua.”
I’d like to go to Alaska to see it, but like most of the people who try that, I probably wouldn’t be able to see it through the clouds anyway. Pictures are probably your best bet.
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How many days of the year is it visible, Danny? And have you worked out a good time of the year to go… I’m imagining summer?
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It seems to be something of a standing joke that tourists come to the far north to see a mountain that can’t usually be seen. The National Park Service estimates that about 30% of tourists who come to Denali National Park see some part of the mountain at some time during their visit. I had a friend who visited the area for a few days and never saw any of the mountain while he was there. Often the problem involves low clouds that obscure the view from the ground, but you can take plane flights that can observe the peak of the mountain above the clouds…….sometimes.
As for the best time of the year, I’d guess summer too. The explanation for the clouds is that relatively warm wet air moving north from the Gulf of Alaska gets lifted by the Alaska Range and forms clouds when it meets cold dry air from the north. That might be minimized in the Summer when the air to the north is warmer.
I just don’t trust high mountains though. I was in Colorado Springs (south of Denver along the Front Range of the Colorado Rockies) for three days and looked forward to seeing Pikes Peak……a 14,000 ft mountain only 15 miles outside of town. It was cloudy the whole time, and I wouldn’t even have known there was a mountain there. I had a friend who did see Pikes Peak though; then paid his money to drive to the top on the toll road, immediately developed symptoms of altitude sickness and had to drive right back down. Not a lot of air for flatlanders not acclimated to the altitude to breathe at 14,000 ft, and supplementary oxygen is apparently not provided at the top. Another big mountain not friendly to tourists!
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LOL. Tales of woe for mountain spotters, Danny.
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Big mountains will break a mountain spotters heart. 😉
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The Ode to a Cat. Beautiful. And true
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Thanks to John for that!
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OMG I must be drunk as a skunk because I totally saw a bird and needed to look very hard to see the kitty. It reminds me of the old lady/young lady illusion.
https://www.livescience.com/63645-optical-illusion-young-old-woman.html
I have to look REALLY hard to see the old lady despite the fact that the older you are the more likely you are to see the old lady.
Anyway some lovely photos as ever. I liked the lynx, the coo and the sheep. They are talking about re-introducing Eurasian lynx to Scotland. They are quite shy and won’t eat us. Unless they are very hungry…
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For a moment, I saw a hummingbird that turned out to be a snail. Don’t know how a snail got in that position.
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Lynx are lovely looking cats… and well, if you’re VERY hungry, you’ll eat almost anything!
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We live in Lynx country (Extremadura, spain), they even have signs on the side of the road warning to look out for them (like signs for deer in Scotland), but sadly I have not seen one. Yet.
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Yes, they are shy animals, as PP says
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Ahem. You did mention going to Nepal, Tris.
The scruffy guy at the back is me. The portly gent in the front is Sir Edmund himself. Behind the camera is the first view you get of Everest when you walk in.
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Dave…..Interesting picture! Sir Edmund is recognizable there (with your identification), but he did put on some weight in his later years.
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Lovely photograph of Sir Edmund Hillery and his lady wife (who always reminds me of Perry Como for some reason). Which raises an interesting point that your esteemed readers might help with. I’m sure we all recall Perry Como’s jolly song about the states in the USA – What did Delaware, boys? – a witty play on words. But does anyone remember the words of the duet that Perry sang with Moira Anderson featuring the counties – I’m flying through the Ayr?
I asked Moira about it on a trip to the Isle of Man last year, but she hastily drew a veil over the conversation. Understandably, given Signor Como’s links to a certain dubious organisation based not a million miles from Naples.
Readers may remember MI6 confiscating copies of the Delaware song and (with Moira’s expert help in cryptology) scanning the lyrics for hidden references to arms caches across the USA.
Quite topical considering events in that invigorating if brash society.
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The soul of discretion, as ever.
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Who could forget her cover of Fly Me To Dunoon, Let Me Play Among Its Bars?
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One of my favourite works. A treasure.
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He he he he he
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Wow, Dave. I didn’t know you were famous. You’re not that scruffy either.
Thanks for sharing your fame… a story to follow?
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Sadly, Tris, it doesn’t have a happy ending. After walking for 3 weeks I experienced altitude sickness a mere 3 hour walk from our goal of the summit of Kala Patthar. Although I felt great I knew the dangers so I had to return home without seeing the classic view of Everest.
10 years later I reached the higher summit of Kilimanjaro without a problem.
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That is sad, Dave. To be so near and yet not get there.
You were wise to act though. It’s very unpleasant is altitude sickness.
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Edd’s there too, wi oot his budgie.
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I know this is more of a Monday comment but in case I can’t find it again – via Abu’s twitter.
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LOL Excellent.
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Lovely to see the Capital of Botswana, another too poor country.
I worked there in their new college, funded in part by the EU, not empire money.
There was no hunger but lots of low income.
Their big problem was the results of HIV, passed into the young adult community through the travelling truck drivers, condoms freely available in a government led health education programme.
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I’d love to go Dave. I got to know a bit about it through Alexander McCall Smith’s books set there.
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My sister’s car was due for service. She delivered the car to the garage and called a taxi to get to work. When the taxi arrived the driver was her Ex. No time to get another taxi there was an embarrassing journey to work. When she had related the tale of woe to mother, mother respnded ‘And did he give you any condoms?’. Stunned sister thought that mother had taken leave of her senses. Unbeknown to her the local health board had started a sexual health campaign and recruited taxi drivers to hand out leaflets and free condoms to passengers.
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LOL.
I think they might be better off giving out masks right now!
Must have been a bit of a shock to your sister though, Dave.
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Pic 11 mystifies me.
I am from Clackmannanshire, so the Kingdom of Fife is hardly Terra Incognita.
But I can’t place Pettycur, even though it must be within 30-odd miles of Newport.
Yet Pettycur is important enough to be signposted from so far away?
Hard to believe that Fife is over 30 miles across.
I’ll give it this though: Pettycur looks like a name derived from Pictish.
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It’s part of Burntisland, consisting mainly of caravans.
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🙂
Sorry Conan. I didn’t see you’d answered.
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Kinghorn, actually. I grew up in Burntisland. Pettycur is where King Alexander III fell to his death, therebye precpitating the wars of independence.
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Thanks, Jim. This is From Wiki:
Towards the end of Alexander’s reign, the death of all three of his children within a few years made the question of the succession one of pressing importance. In 1284 he induced the Estates to recognize as his heir-presumptive his granddaughter Margaret, the “Maid of Norway”. The need for a male heir led him to contract a second marriage to Yolande de Dreux[7] on 1 November 1285.
Alexander died in a fall from his horse while riding in the dark to visit the queen at Kinghorn in Fife on 19 March 1286 because it was her birthday the next day.[8] He had spent the evening at Edinburgh Castle celebrating his second marriage and overseeing a meeting with royal advisors. He was cautioned against making the journey to Fife because of weather conditions, but crossed the Forth from Dalmeny to Inverkeithing anyway.[9] On arriving in Inverkeithing, he insisted on not stopping for the night, despite the pleas of the nobles accompanying him and one of the burgesses of the town, Alexander Le Saucier. Le Saucier (who was either linked to the King’s kitchen or the master of the local saltpans) must have been known to the King, since his rather blunt warning to the King lacks the usual deference: “My lord, what are you doing out in such weather and darkness? How many times have I tried to persuade you that midnight travelling will do you no good?”[10]
However, Alexander ignored the repeated warnings about travelling in a storm, and set off with his retinue and two local guides.[9] The king became separated from his party near Kinghorn, and was found dead with a broken neck near the shore the following morning. It is assumed that his horse lost its footing in the dark. While some texts say that he fell off a cliff,[11] there is none at the site where his body was found; however, there is a very steep rocky embankment, which “would have been fatal in the dark.”[12] After Alexander’s death, his realm was plunged into a period of darkness that would eventually lead to war with England. He was buried in Dunfermline Abbey.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alexander_III_of_Scotland
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Fair enough, Conan, that might explain why I haven’t heard of it.
But that doesn’t explain why it’s signposted as the end-destination from 30-odd miles away.
Perhaps this just confirms the impression that non-Fifers tradtionally had: that the roads and signposting in the Kingdom of Fife are all wonky.
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https://www.tripadvisor.co.uk/Attraction_Review-g1137957-d13197274-Reviews-Pettycur_Beach-Kinghorn_Fife_Scotland.html
I’m not sure why it was on the sign and not Kinghorn, but… there you go, DonDon.
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Ah, Kinghorn! I have heard of Kinghorn!
Dreux til Kinghorn
Frae France she cam, a bonny young bride;
Wordy o a king.
Frae the ferry, her man rade alane intil the blawie mirk nicht.
He was nivver seen alive again.
Frae the scaur o Kinghorn his horse tuik a tummel.
They fund him in the morn, whaur he brak his neck-bane.
Gordon Donaldson
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Nice one, DonDon.
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Just to spoil your Sunday, Tris, I will deliver a smack on the wrist.
Pic 14 is a rig, not a platform (the first drills exploration wells, the second extracts oil from wells). Journalists frequently get it wrong so Munguin should enforce higher standards.
And they are not rusting and in for repair. They are stuck for work as exploration has virtually halted. But my neighbour is currently evaluating one of the rigs in Dundee for a future project.
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Dave. I am suitably chastised.
I have been sent to my butler’s pantry and told to write out lines, in Latin… and No Rees Mogg to assist me.
Scire debet investigationibus propriis et secretum extraneo non veraret urguere Munguin
To be honest, with no knowledge whatsoever, I was tossing up whether to call it a rig or a platform.
Just my luck to get it wrong.
Munguin thanks you for putting us right.
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