View across the Outer Harbour of Stornoway

Thursday 2 June 2011

Thursday 2 June

Quite a nice day, with no rain for a change. There was a steady force 5 wind going all day, but there was plenty of sunshine to be had. Turning on the computer elicited no response this morning. It turned out that the fuse in the plug had overheated and melted. Had to throw the powercord out, which had a smell of burning about it. The local computershop had a new powercord.

The Duke and Duchess of Rothesay (Charles and Camilla) were in Harris today, doing their bit to promote the Harris Tweed industry. I hope it has some success. Following its crashing decline over the past decade or two, it would take a miracle to bring it back to its former glory times. The BBC's Reporting Scotland programme did not pay any attention to it; I don't know if the commercial broadcaster did.

I nipped into the An Lanntair arts centre this afternoon, and was confronted with a collection of Time and Tide bells, an exhibition by Marcus Vergette. He is installing a dozen of the bells around the UK coastline, and one of them stands at Bosta. Last time I was there, it was not working, unfortunately. I had to tap the bell in An Lanntair to hear its tone. Apparently, the one at Bosta needs tuning. I'm bemused by that, because you usually tune a bell before it leaves the factory.

Wednesday 1 June

Not a nice day in terms of weather, you wouldn't believe it was June. Wind and driving rain. Quite unpleasant.
Ratko Mladic, the commander of the Bosnian Serb army, has arrived in Holland to face the International War Crimes Tribunal on the former Yugoslavia on Friday. I personally know one or two people who came face-to-face with Mladic at Srebrenica in July 1995, who will be able to pierce the lies he is telling.

The North Atlantic hurricane season starts today, and we promptly have a tropical disturbance homing in on Florida. 93L was given a 30% chance of developing into a formal tropical cyclone, but fell apart after crossing the Sunshine State. Two other disturbances in the Western Pacific also fell to pieces, so nothing left to write about on the TC front.

The island of Taransay is for sale, and one of the Castaways has expressed an interest: Ben Fogle. I wish him well in his endeavours; I could think of worse potential buyers.