Archaic Humans Discovered in Scotland

Scientists all over the world are turning their attention to Scotland in the wake of a shock discovery that ‘archaic’ humans may be alive and well and living there.

The discovery came when one of them was filmed saying that they ‘were not evolved to make political decisions’.

Professor of Anthropology Farquhar Mc Farquharson of the University of Aberdeen explained: ‘All modern humans – Homo sapiens – have highly sophisticated social behaviour including the ability to arrive at complex decisions within a formal political framework. The discovery of a population that lacks this ability, apparently living alongside more developed hominids, is very exciting.’

Wood in Traditional Building 1: Oak

Pic: Rod Fleming

Wood is, along with stone and earth, one of the principal materials used in the construction of buildings, and particularly older buildings. It is important to have some understanding of the nature of wood, its uses in the older house and some sympathy for its virtues as well as its limitations.

Timber is used in a wide variety of applications, and the most important of these are the support structure for floors; the roof timbers and associated work; and the interior finishing timber. Timber is also used in the construction of interior walls and in many areas in the construction of supporting walls.

There are three timbers commonly found in older buildings in France, namely oak, poplar and pine. Other timbers are often found as parts of outhouses and sheds.

Oak (Quercus sp) is without question the most important constructional timber

Hosting Migration Complete

Just to let you know that after a tricky week, the main rodfleming.com blog has now been migrated to a new host. Actual downtime was minimal, but there are still many little things to fix. Hopefully load times should be much faster.

After quite a few years with GoDaddy I had to draw a line under it. The hosting server had become ridiculously slow – indeed last week died altogether for several days – and instead of just fixing it, and giving me what I had paid for, they wanted me to buy a new ‘plan’ which they assured me would make everything all right – but with no guarantee and I would have been locked into another year at least with them. No thanks. That’s not what I call customer service.

I’ll do a more in-depth post soon, but for the moment, I would have to advise that no-one with a WordPress-based blog or site should even consider hosting with GoDaddy. There are far better options out there.

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Tryst on Februar Fowerteen – A Scots Allegory

Pic: Rod Fleming

A fell cauld wind wis sauchin ower the muir as the bonny wumman gart her wey tae tryst her jo. For the necht wis Februar the fowerteen, an aabody kens at’s the necht for luve.

She wis winsome eneuch, tho the first blush o youth, it maun be said, was left ahent her a lang while syne. A body mecht hae speirit at himsel how comes a lass o sic natral attractions hidnae been wad this mony a lang year.

At last she reached the spot ablow an auld aik whaur she an her jo hiv met this necht mony mair years nor either of them wad care tae hink on. Her jo wis aaready there, a puckle fashit, ye mecht hink, wi the wye he wis stridin up an doon, his een flashin faniver he luikit up.

“Ah, here you are, at last,” he intoned, as the lass presented hersel.

The Vampire Rises : Roads to Referendum 3

Pic: Rod Fleming

Eight years after Scotland voted ‘Yes’ to Devolution, but had seen this victory snatched away by Westminster, things were very different.

The most hated Prime Minister in recent history – possibly all history as far as the Scots are concerned – Margaret Thatcher, had focussed minds on the fight against her all over the UK. Scottish Labour rode high on this wave of anti-Tory sentiment, and lost no time in asserting that it was the only way to be sure to get rid of the Tories. A vote, they claimed, for any other party, was a ‘vote for the Tories’.

But it was a gamble. Thatcher’s popularity in England had increased radically since she first had been elected. In England, though far less in Scotland, her resolve in fighting and defeating the Argentinean invasion of the Falkland Isles, had played well for her. She called an election in 1983 and found her majority increased.

In 1987, Thatcher called another General Election.

Migrating the SIte to a New Host

Because of excessive downtime and 'server overload' I am migrating rodfleming.com to a new host. My other sites will follow over the next few weeks. This is just to reassure those of you who have been patient enough to put up with the last week's ongoing hosting catastrophe, that things will get better soon.

I will post a more full explanation once the migration is complete and the site installed on the new server. I will try to keep posting as this process goes on, but we may end up with a double post or two. I'll sort it later. Thank you for being patient.

 

The Empty Palace: Roads to Referendum 2

During the 1980s, Scotland’s political scene was polarised by a cathartic and visceral detestation of the UK Tory Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher. This, for perhaps the last time, caused a genuinely British response, in that many Scottish opponents of Conservatism, badly discouraged by the calculating and dishonest way which the Home Rule that Scots had voted for had been snatched away by a self-interested Westminster, fell back to old loyalties, and threw their weight behind the familiar Labour Party, in an effort to rid themselves of the hated Tories.