View across the Outer Harbour of Stornoway

Tuesday 3 November 2009

Tuesday 3 November

Day started out very wet, but it is clearing up nicely now, and the mainland hills are even trying to put in an appearance, from 60 miles away. Spoke to someone this morning who may be a relative of one of the men, lost off a ship during the First World War off the Butt of Lewis. It was a converted trawler, the Thomas Stratten, which hit a mine on 20 October 1917. Seven others lost their lives on her that day. This entry is dedicated to their memory.

I am very pleased with the notion of "a post a day" that is going round this month. I hope many more people will rediscover their blog and find they can write more on there than on Facebook or Twitter.

Radovan Karadzic, on trial for war crimes in The Hague, has made an appearance in court, in spite of previously stating he was boycotting proceedings. He says he needs another 10 months to prepare his defence, to work through 1.3 million pages of material. The court will determine whether this will be allowed or not. It has already become clear from prosecution statements that it appears likely that Mr Karadzic was personally in charge of a lot of the war crimes, allegedly committed under his aegis.