Scottish Snippets

17 September 2011

Number 611



The Scottish Snippets Newsletter in its original format began in April 1997 and continued in an unbroken series for 591 issues. Although no longer produced in that style, there is now this regular update on the new and updated pages on the Rampant Scotland site including "Scottie's Photo Diary From Scotland".

HotTo receive a text version of this newsletter as a reminder to look at these Web pages when they are published, just send an e-mail to Scottie@RampantScotland.com with "Subscribe Newsletter" in the subject line.


Scottish Banknotes

The United Kingdom is one of the few countries in the world where the issue of bank notes is not restricted to the Government and/or its Central Bank. In Scotland, there is a continuous tradition of producing bank notes since 1695. In recent years, some of the Scottish banks have produced some colourful banknotes to commemorate special occasions, including the Queen Mother's 100th birthday on 4 August 2000 (which included references to her Scottish roots in the design) and the 50th anniversary of the accession of Queen Elizabeth II in 2002. The days of bank managers playing golf with important customers may be in the past, but the connection between banks and golf have been perpetuated with commemorative banknotes for the 250th Anniversary of the Royal and Ancient Golf Club and another paying homage to that golfing great Jack Nicklaus. On a more serious historic note there has also been a banknote marking the 700th anniversary of the crowning of King Robert the Bruce, issued on 25 March 2006, followed up in 2006 by a banknote linked to the Commonwealth Games held that year in Melbourne, Australia. For illustrations of these and many others, see the recently updated Scottish Banknotes page.

Birds of Scotland

The YouTube slide slow of illustrations of many of the wild birds to be found in Scotland proved to be very popular. Although it is possible to pause the slideshow if you want to look longer at a particular illustration, it is not so easy to find specific birds or indeed to take copies of the graphics. So I've created a more traditional Web feature with index pages of thumbnail graphics leading to larger versions of the pictures. If you want to go through all the illustrations, there is a link from each picture to the next in the alphabetical sequence. Unlike the YouTube version there is no background music - but of course you can play your own choice of music on your PC instead! The Web collection of 155 graphics of Scottish birds can be found at Birds of Scotland

And the YouTube version is always available at YouTube - Birds of Scotland.

Scottish Humour

The Scottish Snippets newsletter which I used to write always contained a humour section. It used to be one of the most difficult sections to write as I went through countless books and recorded Scottish-related items sent by email that made me smile. At one stage I collected together all the jokes from the Snippets from over many months and that formed the basis of the Humour section on Rampant Scotland. Categories include Thrifty Scots, Bagpipes, Too Much to Drink, Glaswegians, Graveyard Humour and of course Lachlan's Laws, philosopher Lachlan McLachlan's observations on life, the universe and everything. I'm hoping to go over more copies of the old Snippets and collect more examples to expand the section. In the meantime, if you want to renew your acquaintance with a lot of Scottish humour, have a look at Scottish Humour

Yours aye

Scottie

Previous editions of this Newsletter are available in an Archive. The Index to the other pages of the Rampant Scotland site is available here.



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