"On immigration, you better get your act together or you’re not going to have Europe anymore. You got to get your act together."

"You know, last month, we had nobody entering our country. Nobody. Shut it down.... We took out a lot of bad people that got there with Biden. Biden was a total stiff. And what he allowed to happen, but you’re allowing it to happen to your countries. And you got to stop this horrible invasion that’s happening to Europe. Many countries in Europe. Some people, some leaders have not let it happen. And they’re not getting the proper credit they should. I could name them to you right now, but I’m not going to embarrass the other ones. But stop. This immigration is killing Europe." And also: "Stop the windmills. You’re ruining your countries. I really mean it. It’s so sad. You fly over and you see these windmills all over the place, ruining your beautiful fields and valleys and killing your birds. And if they’re stuck in the ocean, ruining your oceans. Stop the windmills."

Said Trump, quoted in "Trump arrives in Scotland to claim immigration is ‘killing Europe’/The US president said there had been ‘a horrible invasion’ of migrants after he landed in Scotland for a four-day visit on Friday evening" (London Times).

"I hope they don’t do all these protests because I’ll be raging. I want him welcomed. I like Big Donald."

Said Irene Wright, 66, "a retired council worker from Glasgow," quoted in "Turnberry locals on Trump: We love ‘Big Donald’ and his $50 tips/Donald Trump will stop by his Scottish golf courses on a ‘private visit’ this weekend. Despite the protests, many Ayrshire residents are happy to see him" (London Times).

Trump bought the Turnberry golf course and hotel in 2014, saving it from what one local described as the threat of “rack and ruin.” Most locals know a family or friend who is employed by the resort.

Tam Cuthill, 63, from Kirkoswald, worked as a greenkeeper at Turnberry for 38 years.... “It’s one of them ones, it’s 50/50, you either love or hate him,” he said.... “I never found anything wrong with him as such.... He certainly didn’t commit to saying anything bad or anything like that, he’s more likely to shake your hand.”

Charming turns of phrase. I'd go to Scotland to hear more of them but I'm imagining not understanding a word they say. I wonder how much of Trump's interesting speech idiosyncrasies have to do with Scotland, the place of his mother's birth.

"What a bunch of moaning me minnies commenting on this article: had some great wild swimming days in Scotland and hope to be swimming in Loch Morluch tomorrow- forecast for Aviemore this weekend is 30C."

A comment, commenting on comments like "Hypothermia, optional. Midgies, inevitable" on the London Times article "Five of the best walks with a swim in Scotland/The author of Wild Swimming picks his favourite hikes to hidden pools and waterfalls" (London Times).

Minnie is, according to the OED, a way to say grandmother (or old woman) in Orkney and Shetland. For example, Robert Burns wrote, in "Tam Glen":

My minnie does constantly deave me, 

         And bids me beware o' young men; 

They flatter, she says, to deceive me; 

         But wha can think sae o' Tam Glen?

Midgies are just midges, the "annoying insects" featured in last month's post "What are these annoying insects that were swarming like mad by Lake Mendota at sunrise today?"

30C is 86°.

"A bothy is a basic shelter, usually left unlocked and available for anyone to use free of charge."

"It was also a term for basic accommodation, usually for gardeners or other workers on an estate. Bothies are found in remote mountainous areas of Scotland, Northern England, Ulster and Wales. They are particularly common in the Scottish Highlands, but related buildings can be found around the world...."

I'm reading the Wikipedia article "Bothy," after encountering this word, which I don't remember ever seeing before, in the London Times article "Have William and Kate fallen for ‘west coast bothy frenzy’?It’s never been more fashionable to hole up in the Scottish isles like the Waleses, says Victoria Brzezinski."

Ben Pentreath, head of the architectural and interior design studio of the same name, is widely reported to have assisted the Prince and Princess of Wales... has had a connection with the Scottish west coast since he was a teen.... In 2018 Pentreath and his gardener husband, Charlie McCormick, bought a teeny pair of buildings (a Victorian two-roomed cottage and a much earlier stone bothy) on a sea pink-covered estuary in the far west coast of Scotland. “It really does feel a long way away,” Pentreath says. “Bothies really can’t be more than one or two rooms. And I think we all find romance in living in small places — for a while!”

"The left is full of empathic people. Right. And so those who parasitize empathy have a field day on the left...."

"The ethic is pretty straightforward. Anything that cries is a baby, it's like, no, some things that cry are monsters....Well, let, let's take the case of Nicola Sturgeon. The, the Scottish Prime Minister, the previous Scottish Prime Minister. Any man who wants to can be a woman. It's like, okay, any man, you mean any man? Do you? Yeah. Ha! Have you encountered the nightmare men? Oh, they don't exist. They're all victims. Yeah. You just bloody well wait till you encounter one. You'll change your story very rapidly. Yeah. And for the, for the naive and sheltered empaths of the radical left, they're either psychopaths, so they're wolves in sheep clothing, or they're people so that are so naive that the, the — what would you say? — Red Riding Hood's grandmother can definitely have his way with.... There are no shortage of naive people who've never really encountered a monster and have no imagination for it.... And they're, and they're very good at crying like infants... And then the mothers, the naive mothers come flooding out...."

Said Jordan Peterson on Joe Rogan's podcast. Scroll to 02:30:52 for the part I excerpted.

 

"I simply made myself available for a chat, should anybody like to approach me and speak about any matter on their mind."

"I didn’t breach the rules of the buffer zone – I didn’t harass, intimidate, or even seek to influence anyone. I simply stood there, available to speak with love and compassion. It isn’t right to deprive anyone of the right to take up my offer to talk. And it isn’t right to censor zones within our country from thoughts, beliefs and conversations that authorities may simply disapprove of. Buffer zones aren’t 'pro-choice' – they deprive women of the choice to have a chat outside the clinic. That isn’t right."

Said Rose Docherty, quoted in "Grandmother arrested for holding sign offering conversation outside Scottish hospital performing abortions/'Buffer zones aren’t ‘pro-choice’ – they deprive women of the choice to have a chat outside the clinic,' Rose Docherty said" (Fox News).

Scotland's The Abortion Services (Safe Access Zones) Act purports to forbid any "acts" that  "Intentionally or recklessly influence someone’s decision to access, provide, or facilitate abortion services," expressly including "acts" that we Americans would consider speech: "attempts to persuade or dissuade someone through verbal communication, handing out leaflets with anti-abortion messages, or displaying signs intended to affect choices." It also forbids "acts" that "Cause Harassment, Alarm, or Distress," including "shouting, religious preaching directed at individuals, or silent vigils that target and emotionally affect those entering or leaving the facility."

Docherty's sign read "Coercion is a crime, here to talk if you want."

"Alongside Romania, Germany and Sweden, Vance singled out the UK for some of the most scathing passages of his tirade."

"He complained that the British authorities had been jailing journalists.... Vance also railed against the 'crazy' conviction last year of Adam Smith-Connor, a physiotherapist and army reserve veteran, who was fined £9,000 for conducting a brief 'silent prayer' protest in the legal 'buffer zone' around an abortion clinic in Bournemouth. He then turned to the Scottish government, which he said had been distributing letters to households near abortion clinics that warned residents they would be committing a crime if they prayed against abortion in the privacy of their own homes. 'Actually, the government urged the readers to report any fellow citizens suspected to be guilty of thoughtcrime,' Vance told the Munich Security Conference. 'In Britain and across Europe, free speech, I fear, is in retreat.'"

From "JD Vance attacks UK and EU over 'retreat of free speech'/Addressing the Munich Security Conference, the US vice-president avoided mentioning Ukraine but said censorship was more dangerous to the West than Russia" (London Times).

The full speech:

From the Old Parish Church in Cathcart.

A beautiful rendition of "O Holy Night":

J.K. Rowling's powerful defense of free speech in Scotland — #ArrestMe.

It's hard to overstate how important - and strategically brilliant - @jk_rowling's power move was today, a first-move checkmate that effectively
neutered Scotland's dangerous new #HateCrimeBill. By openly and unambiguously breaking this law - on a massive public platform - on… https://t.co/dWKhCSERud

— The Heretical Liberal 🇨🇦🏳️‍🌈 (@Rob_ThaBuilder) April 2, 2024

Here's what she did.

ADDED: Oh, how I love "your friend History":

"Staying in bed after you wake up is appealing because we crave agency..."

"... said Eleanor McGlinchey, a sleep psychologist at Manhattan Therapy Collective.... Much like 'revenge bedtime procrastination' — the act of staying up too long to make up for the hours you spent working or caring for others during the day — lolling about in the morning is front-loading that 'me' time before responsibilities invade.... Quality time for yourself can slip into something more detrimental — such as a mindless hour or even longer on social media....  Generally speaking, though, lounging in bed can be time well-spent...."

From "How Long Is Too Long to Stay in Bed? Asking for a friend" (NYT).

I think the right question is not how long but how good — quality, not quantity. That's true about staying in bed and it's true about being on social media. Hence the "mindless" in front of "hour."

Googling, I see this article has also had the title "‘Bed Rotting’ and ‘Hurkle Durkle’: Can You Stay In Bed Too Long?" That's a more exciting headline, especially for those of us who respond to words.

And it looks as though this article, positing the sort of question you'd want answered by a sleep psychologist, was inspired by a TikTok trend...

.

"I know it’s a quaint wee village and this is a strong mural, but I did my own research into the women who were killed there, and I wanted to get people talking.

Said street artist Bobby McNamara, quoted in "'Rather insensitive': Fife council to remove menacing witch mural/Mural by Rogue One found to be not in keeping with historic area, after complaints about portrayal of women accused of witchcraft" (The Guardian).

[T]he row comes as the drive for posthumous justice for the thousands of people persecuted as witches in post-Reformation Scotland is growing, with campaigners pushing for an official pardon after the former first minister Nicola Sturgeon issued a formal apology last International Women’s Day to those tortured and often executed under the Witchcraft Act 1563.... The charity Remembering the Accused Witches of Scotland (RAWS) estimates that during the great witch-hunts of the 16th and 17th centuries there were approximately 350 known accused witches in Fife, with up to 28 accused in Pittenweem itself, most famously Janet Cornfoot, who escaped from the local tollbooth but was caught and returned to Pittenweem, where she was lynched by a mob....

RAWS wants "respectful and dignified" "memorialisation" of the women who were unjustly accused and punished, but the mural shows a Halloween-style stereotype of a witch. Supporters of the mural are calling its critics "snowflakes" and emphasizing economics: "I think the mural is fantastic and I absolutely endorse it. It’s about time somebody was milking the place for the tourism it deserves." 

McNamara accepts the death penalty imposed on his mural: "As a street artist, you’re used to murals coming and going. I’m surprised it’s lasted this long and everyone’s got something out of it, whether that’s publicity for me, the pub, the village or for the women."

"None of this is new behaviour, it has been exacerbated by technology but it is not new behaviour. Sharing consensual imagery..."

"... was the norm when I was growing up, the difference was it was a disposal camera. Whereas now it’s 'aye, alright I’ll do it,' and you click that button and you think 'I wish I hadn’t done it.'"

Said Daljeet Dagon, programme manager at Barnardo’s Scotland, quoted in "Young people sharing indecent pictures online has ‘become the norm’" (London Times).

She said "teenagers are 'pestered again and again and again' to share pictures with many believing it is '“better to get it over and done with.'"

A "disposal camera" is,  I presume, what we called a "disposable camera," that is, a type of film camera, a type associated with the 1980s and 90s. Because you needed to get the pictures developed and printed, you had time to think about whether you really wanted to share them. Regret is just not the same these days. I wonder how today's young people will live with their old mistakes years from now.

Women running out of gas.

From "Scotland’s Leader Nicola Sturgeon Says She Will Step Down in Surprise Move" (NYT):

Only last month, she said in an interview with the BBC that she had “plenty in the tank” to continue leading Scotland and @bl@bloomswas [sic] “nowhere near ready” to step down. 

On Wednesday, however, Ms. Sturgeon said she had been wrestling for weeks with the decision to resign. She spoke about being exhausted by the pandemic, during which she adopted a more cautious stance on masks and other social-distancing policies than the government in England. 

There was an echo in Ms. Sturgeon’s resignation of that of Jacinda Ardern, the prime minister of New Zealand, who announced her resignation last month by saying she “no longer had enough in the tank.” 

"But I’m also getting more obsessive about human beings over huge swaths of time. Part of that came out of being on the Isle of Skye..."

"... during the serious U.K. lockdown. On Skye, if there’s a rock somewhere, it’s probably because somebody put it there. I realized that the rock that I was using to keep the lid on my dustbin was a stone that had been dragged around. People have been in this place for thousands and thousands of years, and in this bay I’m living in, they’ve left behind rocks!"

Said Neil Gaiman, quoted in "Neil Gaiman Knows What Happens When You Dream" (NYT).

6 TikToks for you tonight. Let me know what you like best.

1. People in 5 different countries show what they would make with an orange.

2. How well could you do if you had to adapt to walking on all fours?

3. Hiking from one coast of Scotland to the other.

4. A West Coast Trail hike.

5. What it's like being one of the infinite monkeys who will eventually type the complete works of Shakespeare.

6. The history of Roland the Farter.

I've selected 8 TikToks for you tonight. Let me know what you liked best.

1. CoCo's sad checklist.

2. Rooster crowing in slow motion must be the sound the dinosaurs made.

3. Oh my gosh! Look! It's a pretzel from last night.

4. Whoa! That hat!  

5. The most beautiful landscape in Scotland?

6. Downtown L.A. is really dodgy.

7. Moose versus grizzly bear.

8. Don't get Paul McCartney mad.

"Scotland goes to the polls Thursday in a vote that could eventually lead to a truly historic event: the crackup of the United Kingdom."

"The independence movement has gained momentum in the wake of Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s Brexit. And the pandemic has further encouraged the idea that Scotland might be better off going its own way, with policies determined in Edinburgh viewed more favorably by Scots than those pronounced at Westminster. As a result, the Scottish National Party, led by the popular First Minister of Scotland, Nicola Sturgeon, 50, is expected to perform well in Thursday’s vote for seats in the regional Parliament, with pro-independence parties winning a solid majority of the 129 seats in Holyrood. The talk shows, political magazines and news columns in Britain are full of speculation about a looming breakup...."

WaPo reports.

"In Scottish custom, Unspoken Water was water believed to have healing properties when collected 'from under a bridge, over which the living pass and the dead are carried...'"

"'... brought in the dawn or twilight to the house of a sick person, without the bearer’s speaking, either in going or returning.'... The custom is long obsolete. The 1901 The Book of Saint Fittick by Thomas White Ogilvie contains an elderly woman's account of being 'the last wife in Torry to cure a bairn wi' unspoken water ... comin' or gaun I spak' tae naebody — for that's what mak's unspoken water.'"

From "Unspoken Water," Wikipedia, clicked on from "Religion and Water," Wikipedia, which I was reading to pursue some ideas that occurred to me as I was listening to the song "Drifting Too Far From the Shore," which Meade has been playing — in various versions — all morning. (The Dylan song with virtually the same title is different, but influenced by this old song.)

The Scottish meaning of "unspoken" is "Without having spoken" — according to the OED, which quotes an 1825 Scottish dictionary: "Unspoken water, water..brought..to the house of a sick person, without the bearer's speaking either in going or returning."

"Fifty years ago in Guzhen, China, a 15-year-old Red Guard called Zhang Hongbing heard his mother denounce Chairman Mao."

"Drilled in loyalty to the great leader, the boy told the authorities. Days later she was executed by firing squad. Zhang remains distraught. 'I killed my mother. I am tormented by this.' A tragedy so far from our experience: state spies in the home; blood betrayed for the regime. And yet, extraordinarily, we may ourselves be heading to a future in which children could snitch on their parents for expressing the wrong opinions. Last week Humza Yousaf, the Scottish justice secretary, talked about changes he wishes to make to hate crime legislation.... The Hate Crime and Public Order (Scotland) Bill will introduce an offence of 'stirring up hatred' against people with protected characteristics, including disability, age and sexual orientation.... Yousaf believes that this law should apply not only in public places but in private dwellings.... An Englishman’s home is his castle, a Scotsman’s home may soon be a sieve with forbidden conversations leaking out to the rozzers.... [A] fervently 'progressive' new son-in-law comes over to spend his first Christmas Day with the family, only to be appalled by batty aunt Doris with her tutting about 'coloured' people and her wondering aloud whether long hair on a young man automatically signifies that he is gay these days...." 

From "Hate crime law is an attack on our liberties/Scottish minister’s plan to criminalise ‘offensive’ remarks made in private homes is a foolish way to promote tolerance" by Clare Foges (London Times).

I learned a new word there. "Rozzers." Cops. 

"Our nation today mourns one of her best loved sons. Sean was born into a working class Edinburgh family..."

"... and through talent and sheer hard work, became an international film icon and one of the world's most accomplished actors. Sean will be remembered best as James Bond - the classic 007 - but his roles were many and varied. He was a global legend but, first and foremost, a patriotic and proud Scot - his towering presence at the opening of the Scottish Parliament in 1999 showed his love for the country of his birth. Sean was a lifelong advocate of an independent Scotland and those of us who share that belief owe him a great debt of gratitude." 

Said Scotland's First Minister Nicola Sturgeon, quoted in BBC.

Goodbye to Sean Connery.

 

"Too bad you had to go — just as things were getting interesting."

ADDED: There have been 25 James Bond movies. I have seen 5 of them: "Dr. No" (1962), "From Russia with Love" (1963), "Goldfinger (1964), Thunderball" (1965), and "Diamonds Are Forever" (1971). 

There are 2 is one other Bond movies with Sean Connery — "You Only Live Twice" (1967) and "On Her Majesty's Secret Service" (1969). The rest don't have Sean Connery. I've never gone to the movies to see a James Bond that was not Sean Connery. I realize there've been a lot of other James Bonds, but they have no meaning at all to me. 

What a big deal "Goldfinger" was in 1964 — the same year that brought us The Beatles. I was 13, and it seemed that the culture was going to serve us up endless amazing delights. Now, I'm nearly 70, and it doesn't feel like that at all. 

Why did I see "Diamonds Are Forever" in 1971 when I'd skipped "You Only Live Twice" and "On Her Majesty's Secret Service"? Because we went as a joke. We went to laugh at James Bond as an absurd remnant of the past. 

He was in many other movies, but the only one I saw was "Marnie."

AND: From 1953 (when he competed in bodybuilding contests):