Scottish Snippets

17 September 2016

Number 710




Red Admiral and Comma Butterflies

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" and Tam's Tall Tales.

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.



Photo Diary July/August

Pictures include butterflies and flowers at Scone Palace near Perth and Drumpellier Country Park in North Lanarkshire. After a notable lack of butterflies this year those two locations provided a good number of these beautiful insects. Then there are the "Kelpies" - giant metal sculptures of the heads of two horses near Falkirk. Followed by pictures of Edinburgh during the international arts festival, plus the Edinburgh residence of Sir Walter Scott. And ends with "Dolly" the world's first cloned sheep! And don't overlook the slide show of a selection of the graphics at the top of that page! See: Photo Diary July/August

Places to Visit - "Kelpies" Visitor Attraction

These full scale sculptures are 30 metres (98 feet) high and uses a tubular steel skeleton and 928 stainless steel plates. Each of the 928 individual plates are unique to create the curved appearance. It took 90 days to put it together on the site near Falkirk and cost £5 million to build. The Kelpies are the largest equine sculptures in the world and the largest public art works in Scotland. See: Places to Visit - "Kelpies" Visitor Attraction

Scottish Castles Photo Library - Balwearie Castle, near Kirkcaldy, Fife

Balwearie was the estate of Michael Scott, who created an off-shoot of the Scott clan which is more usually associated with the Scottish Bonders. Michael made a name for himself across Europe due to his learning and writing (including Arabic translations of the Greek Philosophers) and eventually became known as "Michael Scott the Wizard" Later writers such as Sir Walter Scott perpetuated the magical aspects of the man. See: Balwearie Castle, near Kirkcaldy, Fife

Scottish Humour - Chic Murray

Someone recently wrote to me about Chic Murray, a Scottish a popular stand-up comedy star of the 1970s and 1980s, was a stand-up comedian and actor who offered a comic vision of the world that was both absurd and surreal. Even though his facial expressions often added greatly to his joke telling, his "one liners" are still quoted by other comedians today. For a selection of these, see: Scottish Humour - Chic Murray

And of course there is an index page to lots more humour with a Scottish flavour at Scottish Humour - Index

Whisky Galore! - Special LA Screening

The last News & Views edition should have included an item on a special screening of the remake of the movie film "Whisky Galore!" organised by the St Andrew's Society Los Angeles on 24th of September. Due to an oversight by myself, it was omitted from the Index listing on News & Views at that time. But the page is now in the index and can be found at Whisky Galore! - Special LA Screening

Still time to get a ticket (if there are any left!)

Next Newsletter



The next newsletter is scheduled for three weeks from now on 8 October and will be mainly Current News and Events in Scotland from David, the News and Views Editor.

Of course, if you have any Scottish memories which you would like to contribute to "Memory Lane" please send them in!

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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Where else would you like to go in Scotland?

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