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 revised pages on the Rampant Scotland site including "Scottie's Photo Diary From Scotland".
To 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.
Dunblane
It's a while since I've been in the Stirlingshire town of Dunblane with its ancient cathedral. But I was there recently, drawn partly by wanting a photograph of the post box which had been painted gold by the Royal Mail to mark the Olympic Gold Medal by international tennis star Andy Murray. A post box in a town associated with each of the Team GB gold medalists. But I also took the opportunity to take more photos of the cathedral and other attractions in the town and update and expand the "Places to Visit" article on the Rampant Scotland site. You can see the revised page at Places to Visit - Dunblane
Scottie's Photo Diary - Battle of Britain Air Display at Leuchars, Fife
Having been to air shows in various types of weather, it was a real pleasure to be at Leuchars on 15 September for the Battle of Britain Air Display where the skies were blue and the sun shone on a wide variety of aircraft on the ground and in the sky. The weather meant that the flying display was not curtailed by low cloud and the pilots took full advantage of that. I particularly enjoyed seeing the delt-winged Avro Vulcan bomber, the high speed aerobatics of the new Eurofighter and the venerable Boeing B52 Startofortress still going strong as part of the USAF nuclear deterrent force. And of course no UK air display is complete without the spectacular formation flying of the RAF's "Red Arrows" display team. I've taken a selection of the best photos and created a page with large pictures of each of them and added explanatory text about each of the wide range of aircraft at Leuchars that day. See Scottie's Photo Diary - Battle of Britain Air Display at Leuchars, Fife
Scottie's Photo Diary - September 2012
Although September is not yet ended, I had enough pictures from Scone Palace in Perthshire, Dunblane in Stirlingshire and Greenbank Gardens in East Renfrewshire to more than fill a Photo Diary page During the month I was glad to be able to photograph a number of butterflies as well as the usual flowers and buildings in the various locations. See Scottie's Photo Diary - September 2012
Scottish Place Names Around the World
Ian Kendall has been busy updating pages of his series on place names found in towns and cities around the world with revisions to Hamilton (New Zealand) and Halifax (Canada). Of the names of the 57 suburbs in the Hamilton area that have been identified to date, 19 (33.3%) can be found in Scotland or are based on Scottish family or personal names. Of course, some of the names are used in other parts of the British Isles as well, but at least 11 of them (19.3%), including the name Hamilton itself, appear to have a definite Scottish association. Of the names of the 248 communities and neighbourhoods that have been identified to date in Greater Halifax, 72 (29.0%) can be found as place names in Scotland or are based on Scottish family names. Of course, some of these names are used in other parts of the British Isles as well, but at least 31 of them (12.5%) appear to be unique to Scotland. See Scottish Place Names - Hamilton NZ and Scottish Place Names - Halifax, Canada. That's Halifax Nova Scotia, pictured here.
Next Newsletter
The next newsletter is scheduled for 27 October - I had so many photographs to process from Leuchars that I haven't yet started the 2013 Pictorial Calendar, so there's a four week gap to the next newsletter to allow me to identify the 48 pictures for the calendar and to create the actual pages as well.
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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