In my previous post about this word, I described how the Scottish Gaelic name for Scotland, Alba, originated in the reconstructed Proto-Indo-European albho-, meaning “white”. In Proto-Celtic, this evolved into another word something like albiyu. This word seems to have meant something like “bright place” or “high place”, and in the later Celtic languages Brittonic and Goidelic (spoken on the islands of Britain and Ireland, respectively) it produced place-names that ended up as Alba, Albion and Albany. Likewise in the Germanic languages, albho- gave rise to a “high place” word that gives us the name of the Alps mountain range.
We Are Stardust
A few months ago I ran into the periodic table above, detailing the cosmological origins of the chemical elements. And it occurred to me that I could quantify Joni Mitchell’s claim that “we are stardust”. How much of the human body is actually produced by the stars? But before I get to that, I should probably explain a little about the various categories indicated by the colours in the chart above.
Glen Doll: Craig Mellon to Cairn Damff
Craig Mellon (NO 262773, 866m)Cairn Broadlands (NO 270777, 852m)Craig Damff (NO 247777, 846m) 15.5 kilometres800 metres of ascent Craig Mellon and Cairn Broadlands dominate the view up Glen Clova as you approach the road-head—neatly paired humps with Glen Doll on the left and upper Glen Clova on the right. The broad slope between the two … Continue reading Glen Doll: Craig Mellon to Cairn Damff
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Eduard 1/48 Westland Lysander (Special Duties In France): Part 4
By the end of my previous post in this build log, I’d managed to get the aeroplane mostly assembled and primed. The next task was an all-over coat of Tamiya gloss black (softened with a little white and blue), ready for decals and weathering. Once that was in place, I was able to add the … Continue reading Eduard 1/48 Westland Lysander (Special Duties In France): Part 4
Lockdown Walks: Three Brochs
An exploration of three lowland broch sites near Dundee
Two Unique Polar Crossings
In 1968-9, The British Trans-Arctic Expedition, led by Wally Herbert, made the first crossing of the Arctic Ocean, using skis and dog-sleds. The four men set off from Point Barrow, Alaska, on 21 February 1968, and made their next landfall at Vesle Tavleøya, a tiny island in the extreme north of the Svalbard archipelago, on 29 May 1969, after crossing the Geographical North Pole and spending an astonishing 464 days on the Arctic pack-ice.
In 1989-90, the International Trans-Antarctic Expedition, co-led by Will Steger and Jean-Louis Étienne, crossed the long axis of the Antarctic continent, using skis and dog-sleds. The team of six set off from Seal Nunataks, near the tip of the Antarctic Peninsula, on 27 July 1989, crossed the Geographical South Pole, and reached the Davis Sea coast at the Russian research base of Mirnyy on 3 March 1990, 6048 kilometres and 220 days later.
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Impending Transfer To New E-mail Notification Provider (Update)
A couple of weeks ago I made the shift from Feedburner to follow.it as the provider of my e-mail notifications. That seems to have gone fine, as far as I can tell. But it also seems to have been unusually prescient on my part. I’ve just received word from Feedburner that they will stop serving e-mail notifications in July.
Alba: Part 1
How did “Alba” come to be a name for Scotland?
Old Lady-Day
Yesterday (as this post goes live) was Old Lady-Day, once a significant day in the English agricultural calendar. And today (April 6th), a new tax year begins in the UK. These dates are not unrelated to each other, and are also linked to the Christian Feast of the Annunciation, which commemorates the Biblical event depicted in the Leonardo painting at the head of this post—the arrival of the Angel Gabriel to inform the Virgin Mary that she was to conceive a miraculous child.
Lockdown Walks: The Dundee-Newtyle Railway (Part 2)
At the end of my previous post, I left you gazing at the blind end of the old railway bridge over Lochee High Street.
Back in the ’70s, there used to be several of these bricked-off gaps along the line of the old Dundee-Newtyle railway, But this is the last one left—it doesn’t even have a partner on the other side of the road.