The Rampant Scotland Newsletter - your weekly insight into what has been happening in Scotland, snipped from the Scottish media, for Scots in Scotland and abroad, bringing you news, events plus a Scottish magazine section. Printed with 100% recycled electrons.
Previous editions of this Newsletter are available in the Archive and the Index to the other pages of the Rampant Scotland site is available here.
Rampant Scotland Newsletter is also available by e-mail. Just send an e-mail to Scottie with "Subscribe Newsletter" as the subject line and a text version of these Scottish snippets of news will arrive in your mailbox every weekend!
|
Historical Affairs - Topical Items from Scotland's Past
|
|
|
The "Magazine" section consists mainly of brief descriptions of the items involved and a link to the Web page where you can find the full feature, if you find the subject of interest to you.
|
We all feel the optimism of the start of a new year, not least because it means that we are heading out of winter. But it takes a poet like Walter Wingate to put it into words. The Young Year Though whirling drift may blind us,
Our spirits subtly lighter,
We know that some to-morrow
Jeannie went to a new Glasgow restaurant called "The Moon". She said the food was great - but there was no atmosphere... "Is it not strange that at a time when we have lost our Princes, our Parliament, our independent Government... are unhappy in our accent... and speak a very corrupt dialect of the tongue which we make use of, is it not strange, I say, that in theses circumstances, we shou'd really be the People most distinguished for Literature in Europe?"
There's the tree that never grew, |
Where else would you like to go in Scotland?
The £70 billion plan to modernise Britain's railways over the next ten years (assuming that private investors can be persuaded to provide £33.5bn of the cash) concentrates on centres of population where investment can significantly increase passenger numbers. 70% of all rail journeys in the UK start or end in London - so that means much of the money will go to projects in the south of England, leaving Scotland, particularly in the north, with only a few crumbs. Even so, the long awaited redevelopment of Waverley station in Edinburgh is the main plus in Scotland, with the airport link to Edinburgh also in the frame - but probably a number of years away. The Edinburgh cross-rail commuter project is also to proceed. The franchise for the east coast mainline service has been extended by two years to allow GNER to invest £100 million on the service to Aberdeen and Inverness. But the first stage of upgrading of the London-Carlisle-Glasgow line to allow tilting trains will not be completed until the middle of 2003 and further work to allow these trains to travel at 140mph by 2005 looks unlikely. However, 140 stations across Scotland will be upgraded by 2005 - as one passenger remarked "They're upgrading the waiting rooms so we can be more comfortable when the trains are late again."
Charles Kennedy, the leader of the Liberal Democrat Party and MP for Ross, Skye and Inverness West, has revealed that he went down on one knee at his family's croft near Fort William to propose to his girlfriend Sarah Girling. The couple have been together for four years and Kennedy claimed he had not proposed marriage sooner because of "the small matters of the general election and the party leadership contest." He also commented that it showed that "politicians do sometimes keep their promises." 
Sir Eddie George, the Governor of the Bank of England was in Scotland this week - he attends an annual meeting with the Committee of Scottish Clearing Bankers (the trade association of the major Scottish banks) and had a number of other appointments. When he called to see the Scottish First Minister, Jack McConnell, at his official residence at Charlotte Square (pictured here), he had to wait on the doorstep until someone answered the door. It turns out that security at the building is almost non-existent and nobody monitors the one and only security camera. It appears that the late Donald Dewar asked for the previous system to be removed. It is not unknown for the First Minister to have to answer the door himself! Following the incident this week there has now been a review of security and a 24-hour security guard service has now been appointed. 
Across Scotland, local authority council house tenants are £42 million in arrears on their rent - 10% above the previous year. The worst area is in West Dunbartonshire where 25% of rents are overdue. In Glasgow, arrears amount to £11 million. More than a third of the 82,000 tenants are behind with their rent, with 10% over 13 weeks late. 
A flat which was owned by the late Donald Dewar, the first Scottish First Minister, was sold last July at offers over £149,000 (though it reportedly sold for closer to £200,000). But after some redevelopment, it is back on the market at a fixed price of £375,000. The flat, in Cleveden Road in Glasgow's West End, had originally been bought by Mr Dewar in 1970 for £6,800. But the frugal, workaholic politician largely neglected the property and was rarely in it.
While manufacturing jobs are in a steady decline, employment in the service industries continues to grow. ASDA, a UK-wide supermarket chain, has announced that it is expanding in Scotland and expects to recruit another 1,000 staff during 2002. ASDA is the third largest supermarket chain in Britain and is owned by the US retail giant Wal-Mart. It has 34 stores in Scotland and employs around 14,000 people, many of them part-time. A number of stores are now open 24 hours a day.
Ian Mackie, the award-winning chef at the Buttery restaurant in Glasgow which closed last week, has joined Gordon Yuill and Company and will be head chef at two existing restaurants plus a new champagne and seafood bar to be opened in May. Gordon Yuill was general manager and maître d' of the Rogano (pictured here) in Glasgow until 14 months ago when he left to set up his own business. The Rogano and the Buttery are both subsidiaries of English-based company Punch Retail. More of the Buttery staff are expected to follow, with none prepared to accept alternative employment in other Punch Retail premises.
Peter de Savary, the owner of Skibo Castle, a favourite vacation stop for the wealthy jet-set, including Madonna who got married there in 2000, is getting the wind up about proposals by Scottish Power for a wind farm on a prominent position on the Dornoch Firth. Skibo is just over seven miles from the proposed site but de Savary, who has invested millions in his 7,500 acre estate, says it will ruin the outlook from the golf course. The wind farm will have 20 large turbines on the slopes of Beinn Tharsuinn, three miles from the village of Tain.
Over the last two years, customers at Gleneagles Hotel have drunk their way through eight bottles of 40-year-old Bowmore whisky - at £375 a 50ml glass. There are only another 294 bottles of the prestigious whisky left in the world but Gleneagles has ordered more so as to the keep the customers, and the tills, happy.
A recent donation of £130,000 from an anonymous donor in England, who has never visited Crarae Gardens, has brought the appeal for funds by the National Trust to £1.34 million, just £166,000 short of the target of £1.5 million - which would allow the Trust to take over what has been described as the UK's Himalayas. The Argyllshire gardens, managed by a private trust, have suffered from declining visitor numbers and had to be closed last year. The National Trust will only take over the property if they can set up an endowment fund to cover future maintenance. The Trust have now extended the timescale for the appeal to the end of April in the hope that the target can be met.
Sir William Gordon Cumming, Baronet of Altyre and Gordonstoun and Chief of Clan Cumming, died peacefully at his home, Altyre House, Forres, on Thursday after an illness. He was born in 1928 and had run the Altyre Estate for around 50 years. He was a keen sportsman but in later years became a noted conservationist and participated in the restoration of the osprey to Scotland. He is succeeded to the Baronetcy of Altyre and Gordonstoun by his son, Alastair.
Anyone who has visited the Ayrshire holiday resort of Largs knows about Nardini's. The largest café on the main street, it's 52 varieties of ice cream are famous not just in Largs but are sold in other cafés in the west of Scotland. The institution was formed by a Tuscan family who moved to Scotland in 1890. In 1935 they built their art deco ice cream palace in Largs and generations of holidaymakers and visitors (even members of the Royal Family) have dropped in for a "pokey hat" (an ice cream cone). But in recent years there has been a well publicised family feud which has resulted in a split and some family members starting another chain of cafés. Now the family has decided to sell out and a deal looks as though it is imminent. But one thing which the family are agreed about - whoever buys the business must continue to use the Nardini name. 
After temperatures hovering around 10/12C (50/54F) in the early part of the week and Kinloss even reaching 13C (55F) on Sunday, the thermometer took a dip in the middle of the week to a more seasonable 6/8C (43/46F) on Tuesday. Sunshine was in short supply over much of the country though Aberdeen had nearly six hours on Tuesday and Lerwick in Shetland had three hours of sun on Friday. There were a number of showers on most days though no spells of prolonged rain.
Research by historians for a new exhibition to be held later this year at Stirling castle, has shown that the wedding of Margaret Tudor (sister of King Henry VIII of England) and King James IV of Scotland (pictured here) cost in the region of £500,000 at today's prices. Margaret's dress of white damask and flowered with gold and bordered with red velvet would have cost nearly £100,000. After the marriage the guests were treated to a 15-course banquet. The marriage was to set the seal on the "Treaty of Everlasting Friendship" between Scotland and England, signed in 1502. In 1513, James IV was killed at the battle of Flodden, in the English county of Northumberland. But it was as a consequence of the marriage that the Union of the Crowns was to take place in 1603. The exhibition at Stirling will run from March 20 to May 20.
Mary King's Close, a 17th century street which is now buried beneath later buildings, has been open as a tourist attraction for a number of years. Tours of the dimly lit streets and adjoining houses have been popular - especially on a dark winter's night. Now the company which has successfully created the Viking Jorvik Centre in York is to carry out a £500,000 overhaul of the premises which lie below Edinburgh city chambers, the home of local government in the capital. New multimedia technology will be used to bring the street and old shops and houses back to life. At the moment, there is not a lot of period items there - apart from this sedan chair, pictured here.
There have no doubt been many birthday parties celebrated at the Balmoral Hotel in Edinburgh, but this time it's the turn of the hotel itself to mark 100 years of dominating the Princes Street skyline above Waverley station. Like many of Scotland's great Victorian hotels, it was built by a railway company and was known initially as the North British Station Hotel (or "NB" to the locals and its patrons). Even in those days, there were planning objections to its tall clock tower (the clock is always kept a couple of minutes fast to encourage tardy travellers to hurry up!) In 1988 the 186-bedroom hotel was given a £6 million refit and eventually emerged as the Balmoral Hotel. The present owners, Rocco Forte Hotels UK, are looking for former employees and guests to contribute memorabilia for an in-house exhibition. The hotel already has a copy of a large, ornate book of photographs of the hotel which was published with photos of the hotel in its early days.
A new comedy venue opened in Glasgow last week. No, not the City Chambers (the seat of local government) but "Jongleurs" - in the basement of the recently opened UGC cinema complex (one of the more bizarre buildings to go up in the city in the last few years - see picture here). The invited audience of 400 on the first night were mainly reporters there for the free food and drink, though they did seem to enjoy the comedy as well. Once the comedy acts were finished, the tables and chairs were cleared away and the place was transformed into a dance hall called Club Fromage - the venue is trying to cater for all tastes.
The Scottish Premier League has turned down a £45 million deal with Sky TV to show live matches. Instead, the 12 clubs plan to launch their own subscription and pay-to-view TV channel. Match highlights will continue to be shown by terrestrial channels such as BBC or Scottish Television. The decision has been described as "bold and brave" as well as "crazy". The new channel will have to be in place for the start of the new season at the end of August. Hopes that the SPL could utilise the BBC production resources have already been dashed as the corporation has no spare capacity. Meantime, Sky have said that their offer is still "on the table".
The new salmon fishing season got under way on the river Tay on Tuesday, 15th January. The season starts on different dates, depending on the river - the rivers Dee and Esk start in February. Traditionally, a bottle of whisky is poured over the bow of a rowing boat to start the season. The heaviest salmon caught in the UK, weighing 64lb 8oz, was caught on the Tay in 1922. In recent years, however, salmon stocks have declined. The illustration here is of fishermen on the river Tay at Dunkeld.