View across the Outer Harbour of Stornoway

Friday 9 April 2010

Friday evening

As the evening fades towards sunset, now by about half past eight, I can look back on a successful day's catch-up on local history tracing. With the aid of a more experienced researcher elsewhere in Scotland, I have been able to amend the details of several dozen WW1 casualties.

My mission statement remains unaltered: this is a piece of heritage which is not exclusive, it is inclusive. Everybody owes a debt of gratitude to the people who died in war, whether it be the wars from 1914-1919 and 1939-1945, or any conflict before or after. They laid down their lives in the service of King and country. They died so we can live in peace and prosperity These men and women should be, must be remembered, and keeping their memory alive is a duty to all who are in a position to do so. I count myself among those, even if I am free-lance and not allied to any specific group. I would be quite prepared to help anyone who seeks assistance in this field - or any other.

Wisdom

A local contact posted this on their Facebook page, and I take the liberty to copy it:

A grandfather is telling his young grandson a story. "Inside everyone there are two wolves who are always fighting - one wolf is full of evil (jealousy, hatred, greed, etc) and the other one is full of good (tolerance, kindness and patience). "And which one wins?" asks the grandchild. "The one you feed!" replied the old man. :)

Friday 9 April

Overcast with a cold wind today. It's supposed to get up to 12C, but we're a notch or two short of that.

A notch or two short of the mark was the candidate for the Labour Party in the constituency of Moray, east of Inverness. He tweeted himself into oblivion by writing offensive comments on Twitter. Stuart Maclennan was promptly deselected by the party. An object lesson to treat social media with caution. People have got sacked by blogging in the past, thinking they were just talking to themselves. Nope. You're talking to the world on here.

We shall have our newspapers delivered at a normal hour again as of tomorrow. Since Highland Airways folded, our papers came on the ferry (with the exception of the P&J) and in the shops after 3pm. Outlying districts did not get any papers before 9pm in some instances. Loganair will now take the papers in first thing in the morning, and we'll have our reads again by 10.30 am.