Bothwell Castle

Near scenic, rural Uddingston, by the verdant banks of the upper Clyde, lies the impressive, hulking ruin of Bothwell Castle. This medieval/renaissance castle (it's a mix, you know!) is the best one Heather and I have visited so far, for two main reasons: 1. It's actually a castle- not a mall, a tourist trap, or a museum (though they have their place). 2. They let you climb it! Also amazing is the forested land surrounding the castle, which acts as a buffer against encroaching (modern) civilization. Remind me to post a sound clip of the birds chirping... Heather has posted an album of pictures from our recent visit. I especially enjoy the picture of the castle earthworm.

Stirling Castle: No copper added

	Aaron accompanied us to Stirling, where we saw Stirling Castle and the Wallace Monument. If the name rings a bell, it's because I went there last year (although I suppose you could remember the name from UK history, as the site of several famous battles between England and Scotland, led by Mel Gibson). Last year, there was a picture of the Wallace Monument as seen from Stirling Castle.
Here I include the answering photograph: Stirling Castle as seen from the Wallace Monument. Heather has posted several more images, all of them quite charming. Aaron took the really good picture of the bridge.

We did it!

Aaron Pettis visited us this week, and we all had a good time together, walking aimlessly for miles and miles and finding parking lots to stand in. During our survey of the Finnieston area of Glasgow, we found something that is sad: an abandoned piano, completely dismantled, in an alley.

Yeah! Balkan Ceilidh!

In Banchory, we saw Jani (Janos) Lang & the Balkan Ceilidh band! I'm all about multicultural fusion music, and this was its acme. The band features Jani on fiddle (Irish, Balkan, Gypsy, Scandinavian, and Scottish styles). I can't find a website for the Balkan Ceilidh, but I did find a sample of one of Jani's songs that they played at the concert: The Wind that Shakes the Paprika. Jani is a funny guy as well as a fiddle genius, and his song introductions and descriptions were the other best part of the show.

Here's the site of his other Hungarian Anglo-Irish band, Fianna (where I got the audio sample, and where more of the same await you), and here's a brief profile of Jani.

Bonus: Here's a whole Fianna song: Da snock oda smaalie. Not very Balkan, though.

Banchory Weekend

Heather has recently posted a Flickr set from our weekend up in Banchory (Aberdeenshire), where we stayed with our friend Michaela and her parents. Highlights of the weekend included: cow chasing, ruined castles, Balkan Ceilidh music, good fish, and warm butteries. link

Newspaper headline nouns superfluity confusion!

Here is a headline from the BBC news today:

Balloon crash safety changes call

When I read a sentence, I usually look for the various parts of it that help me decipher its meaning. In English, we usually have at least one noun and one verb per sentence. In the sentence 'the cat fell,' for example, you have a clear ACTOR, the cat, and something that the cat did, which is fall.

It is an established tradition for newspaper headlines to include only the parts of a thought necessary to get the meaning across while still sounding URGENT. The BBC, whose ability to sound URGENT is always clearly evident, has nevertheless been doing a pretty terrible job lately at the whole 'making sense' bit. Why is this?

Newspaper headlines like

Japanese bomb Pearl Harbor

though not what you would call a complete sentence, make the actors and actions contained within the articles' text evident through inclusion of a standard complement of subjects, verbs, and objects, almost always in that order. This is how we communicate in English; we can figure out that the word 'bomb' should be taken as a verb because it occurs where we expect it to. The BBC's headlines, though, have been increasingly consisting of lists of nouns with no verbs at all.

Even in this dire situation, sense can usually be made of the headlines. A mild case, like

Obese mothers-to-be 'a burden'

includes helpful adjectives, articles, and punctuation (imagine the BBC copy editor's panic upon reading Obese mothers to be a burden!), and sticks mostly to nouns that are lexically unambiguous (can't be used as verbs). Slightly murkier, but still intelligible, is the recent headline

Hunt for clues to Indonesia crash

which contains two nouns that, without context, could function as verbs. Is the BBC commanding us to hunt? Does the hunt crash? What are the clues to Indonesia? But we are thinking, reasoning beings, after all, and surely some verbosity must be sacrificed for URGENCY and quickness of reporting.

Read today's example again, though.

Balloon crash safety changes call

There is only one noun in this whole headline that cannot be construed as a verb ('safety'). When you read a sentence expecting at least one verb, as most readers of English tend to do, such a buffet of potential action words can be staggering. Even more so when none of these 'verbs' makes the headline understandable. Not until the bewildered reader consults the text of the article (which is disappointingly dull compared to the Dadaistic headline) does it emerge that the BBC is hammering us over the head with one big, unwieldy compound noun with its head at the very end (call). What they are trying to tell us is that there has been a call for changes to crash safety guidelines in (hot air) ballooning. Sometimes reading the BBC feels like playing charades with Yoda...

Stay tuned for further special report: BBC noun club plot giant success. (Like the ambiguity in that one!?)

The movie that ate my computer.

If anyone wants to see the movie that I spent 60 solid hours making for my church, you can download it here now!

[5/18/07 - fixed video URL]

Not this kind...

Here are some photos of the demolition of Partick Central Station. This kind of destruction is not my hobby. Those apartments in the background look like better candidates...

Photos by Ewan Crawford. Used by permission.

Lunch

I fried some sliced porridge today for lunch. It's nice!

RIP Partick Central Station (1896-2007)

"Workmen yesterday sealed off the former Partick Central Station booking office in Glasgow in preparation for knocking down the building, which is thought to date from 1896 and has been praised by Historic Scotland and the Glasgow Building Preservation Trust."
(link to the Glasgow Herald article, and another in the Evening Times.)

Partick Central Station was built in 1896, in the middle of a bridge, but was more recently used as an auction.

They're going to use the site for a park or a Tesco.

We wanted to try to turn the building into a coffee house...

This is Her.

This is my wife, Heather, in the morning, dressed for work. Every day she goes to her social work job, helping the people of Glasgow. Glasgow is a cold city, so she wears this special coat to keep her warm. Heather's favorite breakfast is corn flakes with bananas, and a cup of tea. She is happy because she likes the morning. She can watch the sun rise as she walks to her job. Sometimes on the way to work she sees cats, and pets them. Hi Heather!

John Jacob Niles

Hi! I'm taking this opportunity to link to a song that I think is interesting as a piece of American history. John Jacob Niles (1892-1980, I think) was an American folk musician, composer, and singer. He was actually the author of 'I Wonder As I Wander,' which may surprise you once you hear his eerie vocal style. I've posted about music before, as you'll remember, about Sacred Harp singing, which also had a distinctive sound ('sounds like drunken Gregorian chanting?'). As before, don't expect music that I post to sound particularly pleasant. It's just so cool.

John Jacob Niles - The Maid Freed From the Gallows

PS The link might expire some day.

[update] It's been pointed out that I didn't provide the URL for the music. Here it is!
http://www.redruin.com/2006/03/10/john-jacob-niles-dean-of-american-balladeers/

How To Break Into Our House

Happy Rabbie Day

I always thought Satchel was a pretty good name.

Today in Get Fuzzy, Satch discovers anti-fun comics. Welcome aboard, Satchel!



Of course, it would be better without the last frame...

Merry Christmas!

Merry Christmas from Joel, Heather, and Des'Ree! Doo doot doo...

It'd take a miracle...

We thought it was impossible. We saw it cut down in its prime: the blog that wrote the story of our lives; the blog that made us laugh, cry, and hiccup in unison, had surely met its bitter end. Yet now, with a bang and a lurch, the laughter, the tears, and the glottal discomfort are resurrected! Heather's blog lives again! And this time, it's an artichoke!

Wedding Pictures!

Here are our lovely wedding pictures! Or here, if you'd rather watch a slide show.
I know Joel doesn't post much, so if you weren't aware that he actually got married, I'm sure he'll be very sorry. Since he doesn't update, I figured I better break in to tell y'all about our freshly uploaded photos.

There are a few on there from Lynne, who made us a gorgeous photo album full of her own photos from the wedding!

Here is something else, to make the post more exciting (or really scary).

Thanks for Brad!

Thanksgiving night.



Richard: I want a ferret...
Graham: You could be like... The Beastmaster!
Joel: Yeah... What were the names of his ferrets? They were really dumb names...
Krista: Tawnya?
Joel: Tawnya and Brad!

Thus you may see that Brad is the optimal animal name. Not a bad name in itself, it becomes the best name for animals. Imagine:

Brad the Iguana
Brad the Hermit Crab
Brad the Snail
Brad the Pot-Bellied Pig
Brad the Pit Viper (BradLEY! Get your venomous fangs out of him!)
Brad the Box Turtle

The Auncestral Hamelauns

Upon the arrival last Thursday (Thanksgiving, FYI) of my cousin Krista, we took an expedition to the town of Arrochar, whence the MacFarlanes, my auld ancestors (on me da's mither's side) hail. We climbed halfway up the local hill, Ben Arthur a.k.a. "The Cobbler" before we had to come down again and catch the bus. The MacFarlanes, as evidenced by the official clan gathering tune, were expert cattle thieves (we even got outlawed!), which explains, probably, my love for a good burger. Of course, the Scots mostly are annoyed with Americans who come over here to 'seek their heriage' and regard all claims of Scottishness on our part to be 'dodgy' at best. This makes sense- I really am an American, not even a Scottish citizen. Many of the ethnic Pakistanis around here are more Scottish than me!



P.S. Photos on this post by Krista
P.P.S. Except the one with Krista in it. I took that one.