Friday 25 July

Another sunny and warm morning in Stornoway, with the mercury merrily cruising up the Celsius scale: currently at 23C / 73F. We could well clock up another mid- to high-20s day - the last one for a while. Although it has been very dry, the wind has not been strong, so I'm not too worried about wildfires. Rain is forecast for tomorrow, and we'll back in the high teens.


Russian paper Novaja Gazeta is offering a front-page apology for the crash of MH17. A page-sized photograph shows a cortege of hearses driving down a motorway. The caption, in Dutch and Russian, reads: "Forgive us, Holland".

Novaja Gazeta is one of the few independent newspapers in Russia, and does a lot of investigative journalism. Russian opposition is among its readership.

Another 75 coffins from #MH17 have landed at Eindhoven AFB in the Netherlands. By tomorrow, when 38 are due, the total number will have risen to 227.

So Hamas is lobbing rockets into Israel. That doesn't help.
So Israel is bombing Gaza. That doesn't help.
Neither protagonist has an attitude conducive towards resolution.
Civilians are the losers, and the numbers of dead will only harden attitudes. I totally despair of that bunch of idiots on both sides of this senseless conflict.