Pretty much every anniversary of the slightest significance to anyone anywhere gets its share of the limelight these days. This year, though, there are some anniversaries that I reckon deserve pretty much all the attention that's being lavished upon them. Both are, in their very different ways, writing-related, and both are ultimately about the power of words - and that's nice stuff to be celebrating, if you ask me.

The greatest hullabaloo, not unreasonably, surrounds a two for the price of one special offer: the 200th anniversary of Charles Darwin's birth, and the 150th of the publication of On the Origin of Species.

Origin of Species would be pretty high on my personal list of most significant books ever published. Nowadays, if Darwin was unleashing his radical ideas upon an unsuspecting world, there'd no doubt be not only the book, but soon enough the TV series, the website, the YouTube channel of explanatory lectures etc. etc. But even now, in this digital age, I can't help but think it would be the book that really mattered. It would be the book that lasted, and that constituted the most complete prospectus for his theories. All the other, digital, stuff might be seen by more people in the short term, but it would be the book that was the real defining, immortalising statement of his beliefs over future centuries. I think. Or maybe I just hope.

Still, Origin wouldn't be that high on my list of 'great reads'. Since one of the many flavours of my geekishness is 'biological sciences nerd' (a little known subspecies, that), I did find it interesting when I read it long ago, but the journal of his voyage on HMS Beagle is a bit more of a straightforwardly enjoyable read: an intelligent and observant 19th century traveller visiting places that most of us, even now, will never get to, and thinking about what he sees there in ways that most of us are not capable of. You can get abridged mp3s of it here, and this would be a good year to give it a listen.

I'm halfway through Janet Browne's giant two volume biography of Darwin, incidentally, and for any fellow biological sciences nerds out there I can thoroughly recommend it.

The other big commemorative party this year, in Scotland at least, is for the 250th anniversary of Robert Burns' birth. I can't claim to be much of a Burnsologist (though I'm a big fan of Burns Night - especially the food and drink involved) but I've always thought he had a certain special something: he wrote populist, accessible stuff, without great literary pretension or elobarate, elitist intent, but he wrote it with such elegance, with such a neat turn of phrase and such an instinct for the rhythms of language, that he sometimes conjured a kind of magic out of apparently simple series of words.

Plenty of people seem to agree with me, since he is a Scottish national icon who is actively and genuinely treasured here (as well as overseas) almost as much as the international publicity and tourist-targeted promotions would have you believe.

So a couple of Burns' best bits, for your listening/viewing pleasure:

Thou Gloomy December

and, of course, A Man's A Man For A' That, first spoken:



and then done in a way I suspect Robert Burns would wholly approve of:

Labels: Books, Scotland

A ritual of sorts has been enacted: the all but annual trip to the Isle of May (2007 version was recorded here). Good news for me, since it's one of my favourite places. Less predictable in its consequences for readers of this blog, as it leads inexorably and inevitably to ... my photos! Hooray.

That's the Isle in question, and very pretty it is too, but here's the real reason I actually take the hour long boat trip required to reach it:




The birds, obviously. But there's no denying the place itself is so extremely pleasant it might be worth even if there was nothing with wings within ten miles of it:


The last of the bird pictures, by the way, is an Arctic tern. These are heroes of the bird world, going from the Antarctic to the Arctic and back again every year (and no, Scotland is not quite in the Arctic - for all that it feels like it occasionally. I guess our Arctic terns are ever so slightly less motivated than most of their brethren). Watching them, if you take a moment to reflect that not so very long ago these very birds were surfing the breezes of the Antarctic Ocean, perhaps even dodging Antipodean icebergs, it blows your mind just a little. I think they're fantastic.

That sentiment is not, it has to be said, mutual. This year, the tern colony has taken a collective decision to locate itself right next to the landing stage. To reach the boat, therefore, you have to run the gauntlet of righteously agitated and protective parents. I am thus able to leave you with this world exclusive video. A brief (and I do mean brief, like 2 seconds brief, so pay attention) clip revealing, for the first time anywhere, the sound a fantasy author makes when the immensely well-travelled beak of an Arctic tern connects with his skull at high velocity:

Labels: Clips, Photos, Scotland, Wildlife

So ... Edinburgh in August. Pretty much unlike anywhere else on Earth. Festival mania reigns. You've got the Festival, the Fringe, the Book Festival, the Film Festival, the Tattoo, and one or two minor hangers-on like the no doubt well-intentioned but, if you ask me, just plain spurious Festival of Politics.

I'll be taking in some potentially interesting stuff, including Beowulf, The Bacchae (with Dionysus played by Nightcrawler!), and Stardust. Half the fun, though, you don't need a ticket for. It's in the random blizzard of activity, and the sense of semi-organised and mostly good-humoured chaos that engulfs the city. And the dedicated performers going to great lengths to promote their shows:
And that, by the way, was not the first but the second person I saw lying in a coffin on the street within a hundred yards or so. Great minds evidently think alike, though I'm not entirely sure 'great' is the operative word here.

The streets heave with tourists, performers, the famous and the not-so-famous, turning the whole city into one giant show (and, supposedly, doubling its population). I'll be looking for Albannach, who are regulars at this time of year, and put on one of the best street gigs:



All in all, it's a fun few weeks. It turns out (I discovered via the Woolamaloo Gazette) that this is the last year that the Film Festival will take place during August. They're shifting it to June from next year. I really like the concentrated insanity that results from having all the festivals going on at more or less the same time. Losing films from the August mix is a bit of a pity. Not that there's exactly a shortage of other stuff going on, I suppose.

Labels: Edinburgh, Movies, Scotland

One more installment - probably the last for a little while, you might be relieved to hear - in my intermittent campaign to convince everybody that Scotland is (a) gorgeous and (b) always blessed with nice weather. Hey! Who's that laughing at (b)? Stop that immediately. (Although, to be honest, if the weather gods are listening, feel free to get summer underway any time you like now. Really. Is a day or two of proper sunshine in June too much to ask for?)

Labels: Photos, Scotland

A visit to one of Scotland's lesser-known gems: The Isle of May. Sea air. Ruins. Lighthouses. Puffins. Thousands and thousands of puffins. More puffins than you could eat in a whole lifetime, even if you really liked the taste of puffin.

Labels: Photos, Scotland

A visit to one of my favourite near-Edinburgh spots: Aberlady Bay. A place of sand dunes, bird song, big skies and bracing air.

Labels: Photos, Scotland

I mentioned weather, a couple of posts back, as an example of how the real world shows up in my books. Just thought I might as well come clean on another shocking case of plagiarism. Castle Kolglas, as described in Winterbirth, is a real place. Sort of. It certainly started off as a real place: Castle Tioram, on the west coast of Scotland. One of my favourite ruins, now sadly threatened by terminal collapse. I tweaked it quite a bit - I added a whole town next to it, apart from anything else - but that's the place, really. Deep down.

Sadly, I can't find a good, free-to-use pic of it to insert here - or can't find one quickly enough, since I'm in a bit of a hurry - but while searching for one I found somewhere else you can go to view this splendid castle in all its glory, and get a handy biography of its stony life as a bonus, so I'll just point you there instead: the rather excellent website of the Moidart Local History Group.

Labels: Scotland