View across the Outer Harbour of Stornoway

Thursday 11 December 2008

Thursday 11 December

Gradually increasing cloud cover, which leads to some phenomenal cloudscapes. It's been a good week in that respect. Today, a nationwide sale starts in Woolworths, a British department store. The sale is the pre-amble to a shutdown of the chain, which is currently in administration. Buyers are being sought, but things are looking bleaker by the day. In most British towns and cities, Woolies would not really be missed. It will be badly missed in Stornoway. We don't have that many shops selling a variety of household and other items, and what else we do have is mostly (a lot) dearer. No I'm not plugging Woolies. I'm just bemoaning the imminent loss of a useful shop.

Robert Mugabe, 9-digit inflation man, may well become an ostrich in his next life. He is already going round with his head firmly stuck in the sand over the cholera outbreak in his country. Mugabe has declared that there is no cholera in Zimbabwe, which is in stark contrast to the fact that 800 people have already died of the disease and it is spreading across his country's borders. Naturally, everybody else gets the blame. Read and weep.