A brief "plug" for my YouTube channel

Although I have had a YouTube channel for not far short of ten years, I have done very little with it to date, partly beacuse of a lack of particularly good camera equipment, but more as a result of a lack of suitable editing software, other than of a very basic kind. However, at least as important a reason was lack of confidence, both in appearing before a camera and in how to structure and edit videos.

However, in the past couple of years, I have been subscribed to quite a decent number of YouTube channels, operated by various other people, and have been trying my best to glean tips from them. For the past few years too, I've had better camera equipment of various kinds and am planning to add additional equipment as I gain a little more confidence, and more recently I obtained a much better piece of editing software, although I am still very much feeling my way with that. But doing is learning, so that's what I am now trying to do a little more seriously than I have before. Along the way I'll no doubt continue to make glaring errors, but I hope to improve gradually.

Until now I have made almost zero effort to tell anyone else about my YouTube channel, other than close family and friends, but I think now is the time to at least make others more aware of it. If you do care to visit my channel, or even "subscribe" to it, I shall be very grateful - but please be gentle with your comments.

My YouTube channel may be visited here.
(To see links to videos I have uploaded, click on the "Videos" link from the link above.)
- as with all my other 'social media' accounts (Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, YouTube), there are permanent buttons/links in the right-hand column.

A "senior moment" with my refrigerator and temperature monitoring

I feel a bit silly writing this, but perhaps knowing about my forgetfulness might prompt others not to be so careless as I've obviously been.

I have always had a thermometer inside my refrigerator to monitor the internal temperature for chilled food, but I haven't been checking it as often as I obviously should have been - or "putting two and two together" over the past several weeks when certain foods (specially cream, for example) have been "spoiling" far more rapidly than they normally do, so I have been disposing of half-full tubs after only a very few days and buying fresh tubs. The problem is that, because it is summer (or at least what passes for summer in the north of Scotland), I have not been taking account of the fact that ambient temperatures indoors, specially at night, have been considerably higher than in much of the rest of the year.

Although my refrigerator is pretty modern (and large) and works very well, and because it is frost-free requires little maintenance whilst in use, apart from making sure the interior shelving remains clean and hygienic, specially after any inadvertent spillage or leakage, I had forgotten to adjust the rotary thermostat inside the door to regulate the temperature inside the refrigerator part to take account of the warmer weather we've been having recently; the freezer part is completely automatic and has never not done the job it is supposed to.

Yesterday I did check the inrerior thermometer properly, however, and was a little shocked to realise the refrigerator interior temperature was hovering around 12-13 degreesC, instead of the 3-5 degreesC it should be. So I have now turned up the rotary control by several steps. Overnight the refrigerator cooled down considerably, to about 0-1 degrees, so throughout today I've been making small adjustments to achieve the desired 3-5 range. I won't be making the elementary mistake of not checking the internal temperature regularly in future!

I'm now reasonably confident I won't have to throw away so much prematurely spoiled food in coming weeks as I have been finding it necessary to do recently.

NB/ It so happens the refrigerator at my home in Spain is almost exactly the same as the unit in my kitchen here in Scotland (same make and model, slightly different trim and a different body colour), but I've always been much more aware of the need to monitor/regulate the temperature there, because I expect it to be warmer, whereas for most of the year in Scotland it's less necessary, even though the central heating is on from early Autumn until late-Spring, but except in really severe winter weather I prefer not to have the central heating on all night, because I sleep better in slightly cooler air.

Bill gets married

Friends on Facebook and Twitter already know this, but I recently got married (to a man, lest there be any smidgen of a doubt); we are very happy. Our wedding took place at the Registry Office in the Court House, Nairn on 29th February 2016; our very nice cake was made by Asher's and lunch followed at a nearby Chinese restaurant, The Dragon Pearl, all in the presence and company of friends, neighbours and relatives. Later that day we had a lovely dinner with family and friends at another local restaurant, The Classroom. Our quasi-honeymoon began the following day with a couple of days spent in Edinburgh, although we plan a somewhat longer vacation sometime later in the year.

Those who may be interested can view an online gallery of some of our wedding photographs in my personal website here.

An addendum to my article yesterday about 'malware'

In the update to my article yesterday, I mentioned that the source of the 'malware' which had infected this blog (and which has now been eliminated), was a link to a blog from Zimbabwe which had been inactive for some time and which I had not removed. In fact, I think the reason the 'malware' got into my blog was not the link to that blog per se, but its inclusion in a separate part of my blog-lists designed to highlight blogs which had recently been updated, which obviously required each blog included there to be visited ('looked-up') to check whether it had indeed been updated recently; as part of my 'cleansing' process I have therefore eliminated this utility completely and will not be reinstating it. As I had the same 'blogs recently updated' utility installed in my other Spanish blog as well, it has been eliminated there too, even though the offending Zimbabwean blog was not included there, as it seems to me that particular utility is a potential risk.

In addition, apart from probably needlessly replacing my customised blog template with a standard blogger templated (as part of my initial frantic efforts to identify where the 'malware' had hidden itself), one other action I have taken is to remove all my blog entries relating to Zimbabwe, because many of my earlier such articles relied upon articles which had been written in the now inactive offending blog. Over the 11+ years my blog has been in existence there were about 64 such articles - this is a pity, but I felt I had to take this action to eliminate so far as possible any future risk to the operational integrity of the coding of this blog.

My blog has apparently been infected with 'malware' - care!

UPDATE: - (Thursday 29AUG2013 - 22.20 BST) I have now successfully eliminated the 'malware' from this blog, at the cost of losing my customised template, a probably unnecessary 'over-kill' measure, but so be it. Most of the functionality of the blog remains, if differently organised. I will probably over the course of coming days/weeks reinstate a similar customised template. For information, the source of the 'malware' was a link here to a blog from Zimbabwe which had been inactive for some time, but which I had neglected to remove.

I am leaving the rest of this blog entry text in place, but italicised, for the record:
I have just substituted my pre-existing blog template for a standard blogger template as part of my efforts to expunge some 'malware' which has apparently affected my blog; I have just become aware of this infection today, but suspect it may have been in place for the past few days. If I am unable to trace and remove the 'malware' over the next few days, I may feel obliged to take the very hard decision to delete this blog completely, a hard decision because it has been in place for over 11 years - but if this is what I have to do, then so be it.

I am aware of the apparent source of the 'malware' infection, but will not say any more about that just now. Fortunately my other blog and my other websites are unaffected.

If you see a 'malware' warning when you visit this blog, please navigate away from it without delay. Thank you.

Happy New Year folks

This blog entry is really just to indicate that I am still here and that I wish everyone who happens to pass this way a very Happy New Year for 2013.

Of late, however, I have felt no particular impulse to blog regularly so have not done so. Whenever anything that I consider to be of especial interest happens, though, I shall most probably record it in print here.

Meantime - Go in Peace.

A vignette from a supermarket visit and a slight feeling of guilt

I usually visit a supermarket 3 or 4 times a week, usually to do a couple of larger shops, the other two usually for smaller quantities, often of things I forgot to get before or for salads and things which I prefer to buy every day or so anyway. Earlier this week I was doing a larger shop in Inverness in the ubiquitous Tesco and was waiting in line at the check-out behind a man who had only a few items to pay for, so I assumed it would be a speedy transaction and he would soon be gone and my own purchases would be rung through the till.

However, that was not to be. Instead, his transaction seemed to be taking rather a long time; at first I wasn't paying attention, but the delay made me watch and listen in a little more closely, whilst trying not to pry. As I mentioned above, he had only a few items to pay for (I think a sandwich, a small soft drink and perhaps some crisps or a small confectionery bar) - as it was early afternoon I assumed it was his lunch on a break from his office or sales route. I think the total was less than £5-, perhaps even less than £4-, but he wanted to pay by card - he put it in the card-reader, but it was rejected. He tried it with the same card a couple more times, with the same result. Then he tried it with another card, but it was rejected too. He then started to look in his wallet/money-purse, presumably for a bank note or some coins, but it seems he did not have ANY cash at all, so could not pay and had to leave without the items he had tried to purchase.

Who knows what the story is behind this little incident - someone who has lost his job or whatever benefits he may have been receiving, or someone who has exceeded his account limits and the bank has stopped all his cards, perhaps someone who is undergoing a messy divorce and his partner/wife has cleared out his account, or perhaps even that someone has cloned his cards and cleaned out his accounts that way. Whatever, I don't think he could have been completely unaware of what might be likely to happen, because he did (on later reflection - and that's where the slight feeling of guilt comes in which I'll explain a little later) seem to have a slightly hang-dog demeanour. He was wearing a suit and tie, with a rain jacket on top and seemed perhaps to be in his thirties - I took him to be an office-worker or perhaps a travelling salesman doing his sales route around this part of the country. Whatever the case, it was obviously part of a bigger drama in this young-ish man's life.

It was only a little later, after he had left the supermarket, that I was jerked out of my abstraction whilst packing my own purchases into bags in my trolley and rebuked myself for not doing the charitable thing and offering him the money to pay for his lunch - a £5 or a £10 note from my wallet, or a few £1 coins from my purse, would have meant almost nothing to me. I hope that if I observe another similar incident in the future, I will be quicker to react and offer the paltry sum required as a gesture from one human being to another - that's where the slight feeling of guilt comes in, that I didn't react quickly enough to allow him to have his lunch-time snack and simply offer a small hand of friendship to someone going through some kind of personal tragedy.

Back to reality with a bump - and a cough - it's almost winter!

I arrived back home in Scotland for the winter a few days ago, having left behind slightly deteriorating weather in Spain, typical of this time of year, but still rather warmer than here of course. I left the house there very early (about 5.45am - argh!) on Thursday morning to drive to the airport at Alicante, about one hour and twenty minutes up the motorway, to be well in time for check-in as I have never liked to have to rush or be late for anything. Anyway the flight left on time and arrived in Gatwick a little early, so after retrieving my luggage I had plenty of time to transfer between terminals and check-in for the next flight, which meant I could get through security (again) and have plenty of time for a proper and fairly relaxed lunch.

The flight up to Inverness was on time, too, but when stepping off the aircraft (no air-bridges at Inverness) down the stairs onto the tarmac the cold blast of air hit me in the face. Truly, I was home. After a speedy luggage-retrieval process (the advantage of arriving at a small airport - mind you my luggage was delivered remarkably rapidly at Gatwick earlier in the day, too), with the taxi I had booked by telephone before leaving London awaiting me (*) I was back home about 15 minutes later. The neighbour who kindly holds my keys when I am away, and who collects and organises my mail as well as doing a check of my property (central heating, tap running and toilet flushing, etc) had as she usually does left me some eggs, cheese, grapes and oatcakes so as I was feeling quite tired after many hours of travelling I contented myself with this and did not even think about going to the supermarket that evening.

So the next day, Friday, I took myself along to the supermarket to stock up the refrigerator again. All good, except that someone must have been carrying a cold/cough virus and 'kindly' passed it on to me - thanks so much. By Saturday afternoon I was not feeling too good so had to decline an invitation to attend an opera performance to use a ticket that another person couldn't use because she was unwell. In the event I took myself off to bed at about 8pm, not forgetting to put all my clocks back to 7pm before doing so. I wakened up around 1.30 am on Sunday feeling 'like death warmed up', with a VERY sore throat; I remembered I had some 'Lemsip' (paracetamol-based cough/cold remedy) sachets and some Strepsil throat lozenges from last winter so went and took a dose of each - back to bed and slept soundly (well, after an hour or two on the laptop propped up on my lap in bed to pass the time) and wakened up about 8am feeling a very great deal better. On reflection it is probably better I was infected with this cold/cough virus quickly so I could begin to build up an immunity to it - I'll see just how effective that immunity is after another night in bed tonight.

One of the advantages of the clocks having gone back an hour last night is that one wakens up to lighter skies in the mornings, at least for a few weeks longer until the longest night/shortest day just before Christmas, against which of course is the 'penalty' that it gets darker an hour earlier in the afternoon/early evening. I jest slightly of course, but this is the usual seasonal pattern here, until the days begin to get noticeably longer toward the end of February and early March. And later in March I will be heading back to Spain again for my usual 3-months there in Spring - something to look forward to.

(*) Recently the taxi-parking regime at Inverness Airport was tightened-up even more than it had been been before. Only taxis from one particular Inverness-based taxi firm are permitted to queue for business at Inverness Airport (I understand they pay a substantial annual fee for the privilege), with passengers headed for other towns in the area and who wish to travel by taxi obliged to book ahead. But as those booked taxis are not permitted to wait at the airport without payment for more than 15 or 20 minutes, it makes it necessary to re-confirm by telephone to the taxi-firm from the arrivals hall/luggage collection area, so they can come into the airport from where they have been waiting outside the airport perimeter to collect their passengers - it is all very inconvenient both for passengers and taxi firms not based in Inverness. Surely there is a better and more equitable way of catering for passengers' needs without infringing over-much the 'monopoly' created by HIA (the airport authority) and its fee-paying Inverness-based taxi firm, which passengers living outside Inverness could not use even if they wished to?

On the importance of not over-filling a washing machine

(Please see UPDATE at end)

I suspect that, like most people, I have a tendency to over-fill my washing machines with laundry, this applies whether I'm in Spain (as I am at present) or at my home in Scotland. I think this is partly an attempt at frugality in use of resources, from a 'green' point of view, also simple parsimoniousness. I have wondered occasionally whether my laundry was really being cleaned properly because although of course I use the recommended amount of detergent (in recent times I have been using a gel rather than powder tablets) there often seems not to be much tumbling going on within the drum.

So where is all this going, you may be wondering. Well, I bleed from time to time - occasionally from my nose and occasionally from other parts of the body - my skin scratches and gets damaged pretty easily and this has perhaps grown a little worse over the years, possibly as a result of the general weakening of this 'organ' (because that's what the skin is, the largest organ in the body) since I began to suffer from eczema 15-20 years ago, against which I make occasional use of a topical [corticosteroid] cream, which I get on prescription from my doctor, to bring outbreaks under control. In any case, I recently had quite a bad nose-bleed during the night and of course the pillow-case got blood on it, as did the pillow-protector below it and indeed the pillow itself - I noticed all of this only in the morning when I awakened.

I laundered the pillow-case and the pillow-protector the next day, as part of a[n over-]full load of laundry and the stains were not completely removed - I was planning to buy some more of both to replace them in due course, but have plenty spares so it was not an urgent matter. However, yesterday I was changing all my bed-linen and when putting on fresh linen a cut on my finger which had happened earlier in the day (*) began to bleed again quite badly and I got several spots of blood on the new top-sheet. This morning I decided to launder that sheet right away, perhaps before the blood would have a chance to 'set' and I also included an offending pillow-case and the pillow-protector from a previous unsuccessful wash, and very few other items. As the drum of the machine was much less congested than it usually is I think the washing-action must have performed a lot better than usual, because ALL the blood-stains are now gone, including what I thought were most probably 'set' stains on the pillow-protector and pillow-case.

Currently I've got the blood-spotted pillow itself in the machine - I've never washed a pillow before, I usually just replace them every few years - and will report later on what the result is. The pillow is polyester (I stopped using goose-down pillows some years ago as although they are comfortable, they can be messy and I think I was sometimes subject to an allergic reaction when using them) and assuming the filler is not distorted too much should be able to dry it naturally over a couple of days, but if I do have to buy another one, then so be it.

(*) That particular finger-bleed was on a knuckle, the result of carelessness when washing my stove-top espresso machine, which has a stainless steel and quite sharp-edged lid.

UPDATE (Wednesday 13JUN2012 13.55 CET+1) As mentioned earlier, I decided to put the blood-stained pillow into the washing-machine on its own to see if the stains would wash away. Well, I took the pillow out of the machine about 1 1/2 hours ago and am very pleased to say it is now pristine clean and the blood-spot is completely gone. Even better, the filler is not distorted in any way, so I have had it out hanging in my back patio since I took it from the machine and it is already almost dry and will certainly be ready to go back on the bed by this evening - of course the temperature here is around 30 degC today and there is a bit of a breeze with bright sunshine, so it is ideal drying conditions.

Blog lists - blogs which have been taken private

I have noticed a tendency recently for some blogs to be taken 'private' - in other words access to them has been restricted only to invited readers. Those who write these blogs have presumably taken this step for reasons of their own and I make no comment whatsoever about that. Whether I have asked for access and been granted it is however irrelevant in relation to the continuing appearance of such blogs in lists of blogs linked to from my little blog - in all cases where I become aware of a blog which is included in my blogrolls having been taken 'private' it will be removed from such lists here as my blog is, and will always remain [so far as I am concerned], viewable by anyone who cares to visit and read it and it is only logical that blogs I suggest others may like too, should actually be viewable by anyone who cares to try and do so. I will continue to monitor such 'private' blogs [where I can] and if and when they are restored to 'public' view I will consider reinstating them in my blogrolls here.

Celebrating the big "10 years" of blogging

It was today, 10 years ago, that I began this blog. To be quite honest, I am pretty surprised I made it! The frequency of adding blog articles here has been much less than in earlier years - partly this has been a result of some difficult events in my personal life (for example I mentioned some of these in my article to mark the 9-year anniversary, a year ago), but has also been affected by the other blog I started 4 1/2 years ago to deal with matters "Spanish" as undoubtedly many of the articles I now write there would otherwise have appeared in this blog. In fact, this is the sixth year I have been in Spain over my blogging anniversary, as I now spend about three months here every Spring and a further month or two here in the Autumn as well. On other matters, I decided to put off any thought of moving home in the UK as I had indicated might happen a year ago - basically I like where I am already there (the north of Scotland) too much so I decided to put any idea of moving 'on hold' for the time being, but who knows what will happen next; I have a feeling this story has a little way more to run ..

It is probably true that this blog has become a little less strident and overtly 'political' over the past couple of years, because whilst I still feel strongly about many of the major issues I have always been interested in (politics, current affairs, 'gay' issues, etc) it is also true that there is now a government in power in the UK much more congenial to my general outlook on life; the current Coalition government certainly has its faults, but it is to my way of thinking a much more rationally run outfit that that run by our last two Labour Prime Ministers, Tony Blair and Gordon Brown; both were political charlatans, but Brown in particular, both during his time as Chancellor of the Exchequer and his disastrous and mercifully relatively brief period as Prime Minister, presided over an unprecedented 'trashing' of the British economy, the consequences of which we will as a country be living with for many years and very probably for the remainder of my life. Another factor in my lessened 'stridency' here is that what is still the world's most powerful country, the US, is no longer run by George W Bush; the current President, Barack Obama, has proved pretty disappointing of course, but is immeasurably better than his predecessor; one must hope that if the American people do decide to change horses later this year they opt for the least-bad likely alternative, Mitt Romney, rather than the frankly alarming Rick Santorum!

As well as my other 'Spanish' blog, I have of course for some years made use of Twitter as I find it a very convenient way of giving voice to my thoughts on various issues which before it existed would probably have been fodder for blog articles here; I do use Facebook, too, but this tends to be mainly a repository of feeds from my Twitter account. However, I expect I'll be continuing to blog here for a good while yet whenever there are controversial topics of interest to me to talk about. To those who have been kind enough to visit my little blog over the years I can only repeat how grateful and honoured I am to have you here and I hope you will continue to join me here in the future, too.

Facebook account deleted

(Please see UPDATE at end)

I have just permanently deleted my Facebook account. It is very difficult to find out how to do this, but I have finally managed it. Apparently my data will be retained for two weeks, in case I change my mind, but I think this most unlikely. I am currently in process of removing all references to my former Facebook account in my other websites and blogs.

On one previous occasion I 'deactivated' my Facebook account, because at that time it seemed impossible to delete it, but was persuaded back for various reasons, but those reasons have disappeared. I continue to use Twitter, which I find a much more congenial and less obtrusive platform.

UPDATE (Tuesday 7FEB2012 08.02 GMT) I have resurrected my Facebook account, but will be restricting severely the way I use it from now on; I will not (at least for the present) be adding back the link to it here. Apart from a few specific uses (to exchange information with one or two people only), the only motivation for me to return is to retain the username and not allow it to be used by someone else in the future - I'm afraid I cannot write anything more positive.

Bill's encounter with a hot steam iron ...

I tweeted a couple of days ago about my carelessness whilst using my steam iron:

After a day the scorch marks on my arm began to be quite visible and this morning I took this shot of the affected arm after my shower:

- the longer scorch at the top is a little sore, as the wound is beginning to scab, but it doesn't seem to be infected in any way - in any case a dab of Savlon has been applied just to be sure. I'm sure in a week or so it'll just be a painful memory.

My Kindle in its new 'skin'

I had tried to order this, without success, from the Gelaskins US website a few months ago, but now Gelaskins are available through the Amazon UK website I ordered "The Great Wave" skin of a painting by Katsushika Hokusai (probably one of the most famous Japanese paintings) a few days ago and it arrived today. It looks quite good I think.

Front

Back

Apart from reading books on my Kindle, I download the Telegraph newspaper daily (GBP9.99 a month) and the Spectator magazine weekly (GBP2.99 a month) - pretty good value, I think - even without all the pictures and cartoons.

Blogroll updated - at last!

(Please see UPDATES at end)

Since the blog-listing utility 'Blogrolling' closed some months back, I haven't had a proper public blogroll for the blogs I read which I select to list here. I don't like using the standard Blogger blogrolling utility (for various reasons I won't bore you with), so have instead created my own in a format which will be relatively easy to keep updated and which is readily exportable for other purposes (for example to appear in my other [Spanish] blog and in the links page of my main website).

Now I have done the work from A-B, but as this includes blogs which I classify as American, Australian, Belgian, Brazilian and British, that covers probably three-quarters of the blogs I read regularly. I'll get the rest of the blogs that I'm going to add to the list done in the next few days. You can see the blogs so far added in the right-column under the header "Blogs you may like".

As part of this exercise I have taken the opportunity to remove quite a large number of blogs both from my old bloglist and from the rss feeds I monitor, because many of the really brilliant blogs I once followed have, like the parrot in Monty Python, ceased to be, an inevitable result of having been blogging for nigh on nine years. However, I've also had the pleasure of reading a number of much more recently-started blogs and some of these are now in my blogroll, too.

By the way, and as I have written here a number of times before, I do not have a policy of reciprocity for my blogrolls - requests to include a link in my blogroll usually push that blog to the bottom of the list for inclusion, and I NEVER ask for my blog to be included in anyone else's blogroll list, although obviously I am grateful to those who have chosen to. In particular, those who ask me to place a link in my blogroll to their blog with the promise that they will in turn place a link to my blog in their blogroll will be sent away "with a flea in their ear" (to employ a Scottishism); attempting to increase the number of blogs which link to one's own blog by such base means cuts no ice with me (on the few occasions I've made an exception to this rule I have always come to regret it later - I'm far too polite to name names). On the other hand, when I do add a blog to my blogroll I often highlight the fact with a brief article here, specially if it is what I consider to be a particularly interesting blog.

UPDATE (Monday 14FEB2010 19.15 GMT) I've now added the blogroll from C-Z for my main blogroll. I'll be putting the blogroll for Spanish blogs in place shortly.

2nd UPDATE (Monday 14FEB2010 19.50 GMT) As always with this kind of exercise there have been a couple of errors [of omission], for inexplicable reasons. A couple have been corrected; there may be more, unfortunately.

My brother named "Carnival Prince of Sweikhuizen"

My brother becomes this year's "Carnival Prince of Sweikhuizen", South Limburg, The Netherlands, the village where he now lives; it is quite a big event locally. You can see a video-clip of the event as shown on a local television station in the Netherlands by clicking here.

You can see a local print article about it here (obviously the article is in Dutch, which I'm afraid I can't help you with, but there is a nice photograph); the young lady in the photograph is the Carnival Princess for this year, Lorelle I.
Congratulations to them both!

Local 'good service' award - "Stitch in Time, Inverness"

I can sew on a button, I can do a few other basic haberdashery tasks where functionality is more necessary than elegance in the finished product, although I am a reasonably proficient embroiderer and enjoy the detailed work this involves - it relaxes me.

However, hemming trousers is way beyond me; it is probably unnecessary to add that I do NOT possess a sewing machine. I did occasionally (under supervison) use my mother's sewing machine when I was a boy, but only avoided sewing my finger to a piece of material as a result of her panicked intervention on one memorable occasion, so it is probably safer for me to stay away from these devil's devices! I jest, of course.

In any case, apart from the quite rare occasions nowadays when I wear a suit or even more occasionally a dinner suit, as a 'retired gent' I tend to wear jeans or chinos. I usually buy both from the UK part of an American mail-order/on-line company [Lands' End] because their styling suits me and because their sizing is reasonably 'generous', no doubt to cater for its mainly US clientele and of course British people such as me. One important feature that particularly attracted me to them is that they offer 'free' hemming (either turn-up or plain) for all their trousers and jeans and as I am shorter than the standard 29" shortest trouser length this is quite important so that I can get a good fit. I've been using the Lands' End service for over 15 years and have always been and remain completely happy with it. In addition to trousers and jeans, I tend to buy shirts, polo shirts, t-shirts and jackets from them and various other items from time to time.

Fairly recently I got a pair of dark brown chinos from them, perfect as usual, but after two or three cleanings the stitching on one of the leg hemmings unravelled, so for a couple of months they have hung forlornly in one of my wardrobes. Rather than send them back to Lands' End for repair I hoped to find a local solution, but in recent years places to get minor jobs of this kind done have grown scarce in most cities and towns. I was not aware of a local service (apart from a lady who used to do adjustments for my late mother) and whilst I had thought of contacting her I had never gotten around to doing so. Anyway, yesterday a leaflet appeared in my postal mail-box from a local firm in Inverness called "Stitch in Time" offering all manner of tailoring adjustments for male and female clothing, so I thought I'd give them a whirl for my minor problem. Today I had occasion to go to Inverness to do some food shopping and during the visit I popped in to "Sitch in Time", located in the Victorian Market (covered market) at 5 Queensgate Arcade - one of the assistants took the torusers from me, asked me if I could wait and I said 'Yes'. He moved across to one of the sewing mahines along one side of the shop and in less than 5 minutes had done the job perfectly. I got out my wallet to pay and he waved it away, saying that for such a small job they didn't want payment; I said I was happy to pay and he laughed and said no, it wasn't necessary. Now that is what I call service! And good business tactics, too! I shall certainly always think of them for jobs like this in future and recommend them to friends. Incidentally, two of the three staff I saw were Indian/Pakistani/Iranian (not sure which) and the other was British. I dealt with one of the former as it so happens. It is really pleasing to find such courteous, willing and helpful service nowadays - and offered with a smile. I have a lot of experience with Indian/Pakistani/Iranian/Chinese tailoring services from my time in the Middle and Far East, invariably they were expert at their jobs, friendly, courteous and willing. It is a pleasure (and a little bit of a surprise, I must admit) to find such similar superb service so close to home.

Early planning - possible house move in prospect

A desire I have been harbouring for some years to move from the north of Scotland to the south of England may possibly come to fruition later this year. With the recent passing of my mother I now have no very close family ties locally (in the north of Scotland) to keep me here (apart from a cousin and her husband and their son); I would gladly have remained here in Nairn, in all probability, however long my mother might have lived, but now that is no longer the case I feel free to look to my own future without regard to anyone else. Much as I love living in the north of Scotland (specially during the longer days of the summer months) - and I was after all born and had close family ties in this area, even if I never lived here as a child - I do find it somewhat isolated and lacking in some of the things I want out of life.

Whilst there is no particular urgency to a possible move, I would ideally like it to happen within the next year; apart from anything else, I am not getting any younger, however trite that may sound. The first step is to make a number of exploratory visits to my target destination (the Sussex coast of England) and the first of those visits will be happening early next month. In all probability I shall make a further visit in early May so that I may see the area in Spring (as I shall be at my home in Spain from March to June I shall be travelling to England from there for this second visit) and there will probably be several subsequent visits prior to any final move. Of course I have visited various parts of Kent, Sussex and Hampshire many times over the years so none of it is entirely new to me.

There are various attractions for me in considering a move:
- a slightly milder climate than we have here on the Moray Firth coast of Scotland;
- proximity to Gatwick aiprort for my regular visits to and from my home in Spain;
- proximity to the Channel Tunnel to allow me to make occasional visits by car and/or train to various parts of Europe, particularly Normandy and Brittany;
- proximity to London to allow me to make regular visits to concerts and the theatre, not to mention close proximity to Brighton and the 'delights' on offer there.

I don't often post very personal and self-indulgent articles here; this is one of those occasions, if you will forgive me.

A Joyous Christmas and a Peaceful, Happy and Prosperous New Year

My favourite composer is, by a long way, Johann Sebastian Bach so for my pre-Christmas message this year I'm going to feature two of my favourite pieces of music by Bach, one of which (the second) is rarely performed so there are not many recordings of it. The first is slightly better known, I think. Although I have little religious belief and much of Bach's compositions were written with religion in mind, I have no difficulty in reconciling this contradiction at all; Bach's works are sublime, whatever the motivation for them having been written.

Happy Christmas!


Der Herr ist mein getreuer Hirt, BWV 112
(The Lord is my faithful shepherd)

(Unfortunately I have no information about the record label from which this video-clip is taken. My own recording is on the Joker label, reference SM1047 - see below for more information.)



Barmherziges Herze der ewigen Liebe, BWV 185
(Merciful heart of eternal love)

(A 1951 recording of a performance by the Swabian Choral Society and the Bach Orchestra of Stuttgart - under the direction of Hans Grischkat - Renaissance label, serial number X36. My own recording is of the same performance, but on the Joker label reference SM1047, purchased in Casablanca in 1973. The record pressing from which the recording in this YouTube video-clip is taken also contains a recording of BWV 112, the first video-clip above, as does my own record, although they are on different labels.)


I hope you enjoy these pieces of music as much as I do.

I have lost the urge to write my blog ...

J'ai perdu l'envie d'écrire mon blog ...
He perdido las ganas de escribir mi blog ...
لقد فقدت الرغبة في كتابة بلوق بلدي
Tôi đã mất đi các yêu cầu để viết blog của tôi ...

If this situation changes I will resuscitate this blog ...
Si cette situation change je vais ressusciter ce blog ...
Si esta situación cambia voy a resucitar este blog ...
وسوف يبعث هذا بلوق اذا تغير الوضع
Nếu tình hình này thay đổi tôi sẽ làm hồi sinh blog này ...

Meantime I wish you a Joyous Christmas and a Happy New Year ...
En attendant, je vous souhaite un joyeux Noël et une Bonne Année ...
Mientras tanto les deseo una Navidad alegre y un Feliz Año Nuevo ...
حتى ذلك الحين آمل أن تكونوا قد رأس السنة الميلادية
Trong lúc này tôi muốn cho bạn một Giáng sinh vui vẻ và một năm mới hạnh phúc ...