Glen Esk

First of all the photos of our hike to Glen Esk during our recent visit to Chez MacKlug. I used to use Picassa for photos and that was coll. But it has become so linked with Google + and everything and is now so user friendly, with so many options for sharing and linking that I find the whole conflation almost unusable. Which is why I posted the previous photos singly. However, today I am pushed for time so I will make this one last attempt at uploading an album. Here the pictures can be found:


https://plus.google.com/photos/103609811127849277427/albums/5780922071509310289

I will also try this . You should be able to find the album at one of these.

At http://www.walkhighlands.co.uk/angus/loch-lee.shtml you can find great links, photos and and OS map of what we intended to hike.

The walk was a great and terrible becuase we got completely lost because I claimed I remembered a route from 1988 which was the last time we were in Glen Esk. So we took no map, compass or GPS and relied on memory for the hike. Consequenly we did about 22kms in the afternoon, mostly over very tough terrain which was 'unpathed' and boggy. ANd I know, mea culpa, that this is a dangerous way of approaching the Scottish Highlands even in summer, because although not very high, they are one of Europe's largest expanses of 'wilderness' and the weather systems that sweep across can be sudden, vicious and disorienting.
I was going to add that levels of fitness and good clothing provide us with a suitable defence, but they dont really - we took a risk that we would not have done 99 times out of a hundred and this time we were fortunate. The risks in going off path in the Socttish Highlands are generally exposure through getting lost (its amazing how similar everyhting looks once the mist comes in) but in the terrian we found oursleves in, ankle twists, sprains and break would be the biggest immediate problem.

We talked about this as we hiked and constantly assessed the situation as we walked and we realised through chatting that after we had finished the climb that took us South looking down on Loch Lee we should have just gone straight back down again. We would have been on boring twin track pathway, but it woulld have been the correct thing to do . Instead, if you consult the map ( http://www.walkhighlands.co.uk/maps/map1_12af.shtml ), what we did was somewhere on the Burn of Inchgrundle, we headed towards Muckle Cairn instead of Craig Damff. We peaked Muckle Cairn then headed to East Carin, Burnt Hill, Criag of Duone and scrambled back down Glen Effrock before joining back the road and back to the world's ugliest car.

I promised I would discuss the Trump golf course up the coast from Aberdeen. In truth, I cannot face doing this this fine morning as it will put me in a very bad mood.So I will briefly note some other stuff, in relation to some of the events I hinted at in my first post re this Scottish minivacation. First up is that our friends Amelia and Brad, who live near Joe and Anna, and are also know to them, are to have their first baby very soon (within the next two weeks). And it came out, during a fantastic beach picnic with A&B and J&A that Amelia (who is 'due' about one week from now) had been climbing until last week, using a specially designed maternity climbing harness. Of course, having written tales of our derring do in the Scottish Highlands, it should be noted that Brad and Amelia make our adventures look like coach potatoism. Second up is that the phrase "We are all capitalism" (AK 2012) has been voted the best phrase of the year in Large MAnsions Annual Best Phrase of the Year competition. Third is that we are now triple glazing our house in a DIY fashion and the results are amazing. A brief tutorial will probablky be posted at some point.

The Hike of Duality - beauty or the beast?

Its hard to know where to start - the urban fox, a rubber ducky, Russian colds, expensive cars, grey greyness, getting lost, pregnancy, dolphins, a beautiful beach, or the world's ugliest cars. So I'll start with juxtaposition and Donald Trump's recent attempts to build a golf course and resort north of Aberdeen. Aberdeen of course, being the locale Chez MacKrug AKA Joey Mac and Anna's current residence . Last week, self and RHB headed up North to Scotland for our only vacation of this year, as we have decided to FINISH the house before Christmas, mainly so we can spend more time away from it on vacation. It was a split journey - train to Edinburgh then a three hour drive in a rented car to Aberdeen. Train journey uneventful apart from the wistful reflection on my part that we, the people, used to own this railway. In Aberdeen "This is the ugliest car you will ever see" said the assistantat the car rental, "But I guarantee you will fall in love with it at the end of your week". It was, and we didnt. (BTW the car is called a Nissan Juke).
Driving toward Aberdeen, close to and through the Cairngorms, familiarity came surging back: we'd vacationed here for about eight consecutive years, concentrating our efforts on a small area in the Eastern Cairngorms south of Deeside. It was here that a conversion from decadent rock and rollers began. Unfortunately, as I have no idea what the end point of that conversion might eventually be, all I can say is that somewhere in Scotland, we were captured by the Trossachs. [ I should immediatley apologise, fulsomely and sincerely for the previous sentences in this paragraph. Such an enforced faux double entendre is entirely unjustifiable unless I trundle out the old English cultural affinity for this type of humour, and as I spend most of my life trying to be as un-English as possible, it is impossible to proceed further as this paragraph leaves me with yet another unresolved juxtaposition. ]

Anon and anon, there was a Canadian by birth , a Russian (presumably a Canadian by marriage), a Canadian by citizenship and a Scouser (a Canadian by aspiration) and two cats (both Canadian barn cats) in Joe and Anna's crib. I hope its obvious that we had some great conversations but I am not Beckett and I dont capture the detail of conversations well. Suffice to say that we all agreed about some things, and disagreed about others, but by and large we agree about more things than we disagree. We agreed, especially, that the car was very ugly. We may disagree somewhat the exact location to tickle Chupra the cat, or whether to swim in the North Sea but on the whole we agreed about mosyt things. In that tradition, a walk was proposed, which we all agreed upon, and so we set off to do a small hike from Cove (South of Aberdeen) to Aberdeen - approximately 9-9.5 kms along the cliffs.

[Incidentally, it may seem ludicrous to have to state that when visiting friends you should generally agree about things and not hate eachother - even if you argue a lot about sport or philosophy, you have essentially agreed what to talk about and presumably enjoy the cut and thrust of a good old intellectual joust. This implies that when visiting people, you approach the event with a degree of positivity, conviviality even, as it seems ludicrous to travel long distances to see people you dislike, or to recieve visitors from afar who you dont approve of in any way, shape or form. Given the ubiquity of Facebook, it would seem easier to me to 'Private Message' someone you dont like, with a detailed list of their faults (if you consider such teenage fetishism for lists and tallies necessary) and just tell them not to come to visit anymore. In this new era of branding and relabelling you could call it an un-invitation. But it has been surprising recently how someone invited a great friend of mine for weekend with the apparent premeditation to verbally attack the person who had made a substantial journey to visit. That to me is not friendship, that is arseholeship. And it really screws with language as well, because you cant really 'invite' anyone to an event where you want to do terrible things to them: I suppose you can grammatically, but only by effectively substituting 'invitation' for 'kidnap'. Its not even really another juxtaposition because juxtapods make sense, whereas being an arsehole doesnt. ]

So, on our pleasant hike we walked, and sometimes talked, and we did discover a physical juxtaposition, which was that the hike started off in vey attractive - pretty rather than rugged - countryside and wound north in a similar fashion for about 8kms. There was a washed up rusted container on the beach in one small cove, but that wasnt really juxtaposed as it had rusted beautifully and was now part of the landscape. No the juxtaposition came at the end of the hike when you are suddenly just dumped into urban Aberdeen in the middle of its poorest housing estate. Its very wierd - sea,sand, sea eagles, seals and dolphins on one side of the road and needles, beer cans, grey industrial slums and kids with thousand-year-old eyes on the other side of the road. Later in the vacation I found out another possible juxtaposition , althjough I will be telling it in terms of opposition, in the form of a golf course and the USA's most well known 'entrepreneur'.

In very short news, the time in Aberdeen was great fun. I will write more about the other hike we went on and the beach picnic, but right now renovation beckons. All todays photos are from the hike Cave to Aberdeen.

A Preliminary Report

A preliminary report from Aberdeen can conclude that self and RHB satill have it, if "if" is the ability to get hopelesslessy lost among Scotland's vast landscapes, decide to take a short cut and thus turn a quick 10K hike into a 20 Km epic. All of which is by introduction to our very recent visit to Joe and Anna in Aberdeen, a visit which included cats, some food, an unexpected beach, a surprise pregnancy and no dolphins. It was a great "mini-break@ until almost ruined on our return leg by the UK's privatised rail system (so much more efficient than if it had remained nationalised! _ NOT) but overall a great time.

The attached photo is the only one I have had a chance to down load ths far. It shows the site of our epic hike yesterday.i SHOULD ADD THAT YOU SHOULD CLICK ON THE PHOTO TO SEE ITS DETAILS. More will follow tomoz..........

The Ride of Hope III

This year, the Ride of Hope was endangered, mostly through bad planning, inattention, sloth and laziness. But both principle riders, as we sat in the pub early one Monday morning, decided that it was time to act. We have therefore mapped out a possible venue where we can bring our message of Hope - namely Scotland. And this year, we have determined that we will not go off message (as we did last year) by forgetting to articulate, in advance, exactly what our message is. Admittedly, we have not yet agreed between ourselves what Hope is, or does, or how we carry it (Skarra suggested small pieces of cake) but I have appointed Skarra as Ride of Hope Organiser and Brand Identity Manager, whose job is to flesh out the detail of these things. My job is Thought Leader, which I have found taxing becuase I am currently (for health reasons) on a 'thought restricted' diet and am limiting myself to five thoughts per day. If during the course of a day I think "get up" then later  "eat" (x3),  I find that by evening I only have one thought left to think out of my daily allowance. This causes a problem because often I want to think "drink" but obviously I need to think "sleep" as science has proved long periods without sleep is delerious to health.

A cautious whiff of optimism IV (or V?)

I believe this is the fourth or fifth time I have posted this particular post. As the blindness that accompanies it is perennial, I see no reason to amend it form the original posting: 


"I have never posted on the beautiful game before on this blog, perhaps because the most succesful club in the history of English football have been rather disappointing over the last few years (apart from a fifth European Championship in 05 and runners-up in 06).

But watching the magnificent progess through pre-season , I think every English, and European club should be very afraid of Liverpool Football Club this season.

There, I've done it, I've made a prediction. Now all I need to do is persuade Nel to let me gamble the proceeds from our house sale on Liverpool success this year. It's a sure bet, a dead cert..."

Place : Probably still in Finland. Time: Havent got a clue because the stupid sun wont go down and the curtains don’t block the light properly so it could be Saturnalia for all it know.

Sub-title: Bio-ethnographic semiotic mediations in paralinguistic ecologies: Toward a quantum theory of metaphor .

Well the conference is ended and the talk, eventually, went very well.  Which is a relief because sometime around “Its-still- friggin -Light” O’Clock on the ‘evening’ prior to the talk,  things were looking bleak. Not as bleak  as the previous day because some progress was being made, and after observing some talks I had developed some “What to do if your talk is crap” strategies, but there was still a massive hill up which to follow three particularly uninterested cats. 

In the end I didnt use the "What to do if you talk is crap" strategies, but one day, I am sure, I will. I offer them here as help and advice for others with a brief description of said strategies as follows. The first of these strategies was to spend the entire talk talking about everyone else’s work. This was a technique I have witnessed on more than one occasion. You stand up to give your talk but as soon as you’ve introduced yourself, you say something like “And I have to say that when I was preparing this talk I thought I’d talk about semiotics, but before I do, I’d just like to say a few words about what Steve was saying in his inspiring talk because it really got me thinking……” A few essential features of this approach are:

• 1.       Always say you were going to talk about semiotics. No-one will understand what you say you were going to talk about  (there are no Department of Semiotics anywhere as far as I know yet everyone talks about them. Or it.) but will be impressed that you were going to talk about it.
• 2.       The person who’s work you then go on to talk about must be much more famous than you.  This is called an ‘affordance’.

The second strategy to use is to invent a new word that sounds a bit like an old word then pretend that the small difference you have identified is significant. This technique mostly  applies in the social sciences for reasons that will be discussed in ‘3’. In fact, I have already successfully employed this technique domestically, albeit not in an attempt to break new research ground, but instead in an attempt to get RHB to look like an idiot in front of a class she is lecturing. I did this  by inventing the word ‘interpretatitive’ and deliberately using the word in conversation with her over several days hoping that she would pick it up and use it in her own conversation. You can employ  this techniquewith any existing word, provided that everyone already understands the initial word and knows how to use it. So, for example, this week I have seen a lecture where great importance was placed by the speaker on why they no longer used the word ‘interaction’ but instead now used the word ‘interactivist’. This change of word also involved a change from verb to adjective and hence meant that the guy who was impassionaetley calling for an end to the tyranny of using the word 'interaction' had to use  sentences that were impossibly long and convoluted. For this guy, there was a big advantage in employing this technique because  what he was saying was ok (something about natural language use), but he just didn’t have enough of it to fill the time he was allocated.So by making your own life much more complicated, and the listener's hearing experience almost unfathomably opaque you can spin out your own  threadbaricity (see I've done it there and should now gone on to talk about threadbaricty at some length).

The third strategy is to borrow a word from science – like ecology – then follow it with a word from the social sciences – like ‘mediation’ then add a word from another social science (but not your own discipline) but modify it with a prefix . Exemplars of this technique actually string together whole sequences of words in this manner and the subtitle of this entry is an example of this. Why this only applies to the social sciences is that science is much better at inventing words than the social sciences, albeit that they themselves steal them all from Greek.

The subtitle is also an example of the final technique which is to add a “Towards….” in your title. I realize this is controversial. I realize that Bakhtin was forever going towards stuff and is generally considered brilliant. But maybe its just a translation mistake ? Maybe Bakhtin wasnt going towards something, maybe he never claimed to be "towards" . Butt for others than Bakhtin, the justification for writing "Towards.." at the start of your paper is  (and I just know this is going to kill some philosophers I know) derived from philosophy and discussions about ‘Becoming…” . I have to confess I know absolutely nothing about these philosophical discussions, nor anything about philosophy, not anything about the discussions of Being, and hardly need to,  but I do know (from a conversation this week) that there’s a kind of philosophy-lite that goes on in the social sciences that is prepared to steal from anywhere in order to get a new idea.  To that end, these philospoher-lite guys justify the use of  “Toward..”  on the grounds that nothing is permanent, nothing is fixed and nothing can be described in terms of either time or space. All is simply Becoming... And because of reflectivity, reflexivity and something else (I am usually asleep by this part of the explanation) the Becomingness of everything also applies to your explanations for stuff as well.   So your own position can only be described as a “towards” and you never get anywhere.

My attitude to all this is that it’s plagiarism. Therefore it’s wrong. Its also unnecessary, there’s plenty of good stuff in the social sciences and no reason to steal  (inaccurately) from other disciplines. Of course, there’s synthesis,  and healthy eclecticism,  and beyond this global relevance of some ideas that are valuable tools, attitudes of everyone aspiring to have thoughts. . But there are limits and when linguistists stop talking about the ways humans communicate and start talking about fishponds, or seriously discussing that we (applied linguists) should expand themselves beyond describing words, gestures, emotions, pauses, gestures, signs etc etc etc and should start describing the 'vibrations between entities such as when you talk to plants'   I worry. There’s  too much already imperfectly understood, described or interpretated and this search for ‘newness’, this  whole paradigm busting approach, sometimes smacks,  a little,  of ‘trying to hard’.

Having said that, I did have a little moment this week myself. I was busy writing my talk, trying to avoid using any of the techniques described above, when I had a thought. Now I should explain that as a rule, I hate thoughts. Like cats they usually arrive at inappropriate moments, go nowhere and you can definitely have too many. For someone who’s serious about academia, they also get in the way of the real business at hand,  which is writing papers, attending conferences and doing research. Nevertheless, a thought I had. Now usually, I don’t share my thoughts on this blog as they are too banal. Usually, I try to imagine what someone else would think and write it down.  But on this occasion to tell the rest of the tale with any satisfaction, the thought I had must be shared.Please note that I am not claiming it is not banal. 

“Hello” the thought said to me, “I've had an idea so stop writing  and listen carefully now.  What if,  instead of asking people ‘What are you doing?’, you ask them ‘What do you think you are doing?’”

“What?” I said to the thought “.. you are making no sense. I’m going back to writing”

“Hang on a mo” said the thought “ just hear me out”.

So I did, and eventually what the thought was saying began to make  sense. Firstly, the thought established that I was in an interpretive discipline. Correct, I agreed.

 “Which” it said, “involves you asking other people all kinds of questions, the aim of which is to find out why they think they are doing what they are doing”. I assented.

 “Well” said the thought, “why don’t you just ask them ?”. 

The thought went on to explain that because everything I did was an interpretation anyway, one person’s perspective is as valuable as any other’s. And  usually, I refer to some framework or something (after I have interviewed people) to try and tease out the person's meaning and usually what I am trying to find out is why they are doing what they are doing. All of this of course requires hours of transcribing long conversations in which the interviewer (me) tries to  use various strategies to uncover, illuminate, elucidate and interpretate what other people are thinking. And this is a completely futile exercise because you know, having read most of the stuff that Bahktin managed to write before smoking all his own work,  that knowing the Other is impossible anyway. Or its totally possible, I cant remember. So why don’t you just cut out a load of work which may or may not be futile, cut out all the interpretatatititve nonsense,   and ask the people you interview what they think they are doing, preferably limiting their answers to twenty five words or less. After all, the thought concluded, why should you do all the work? 

I don’t have many thoughts - as I have mentioned I don’t really like them – but this one I grew quite fond of as the day progressed. I went for a massive hike (about 20Kms round the lake), went for a few beers downtown, went to the hotel, slept about an hour, got up, got a train, a coach,  a plane, a train and a taxi and I was home. When I got home the thought had left, so I claimed the idea that the thought had had as my own. I really hope thoughts cant sue for plagiarism.

I have added photos of the trip at :

https://plus.google.com/photos/103609811127849277427/albums/5752029911502474961

Unfortunaltely, since I last used Picassa and Google, they have improved the utility of thier photo sharing stuff. Which means I now cannot uses said photosharing programmes, software, sites etc (like Google+) because I have no idea how to. Hopefully you can see the photos by clicking the link below. Let me know if you cannothttps://plus.google.com/photos/103609811127849277427/albums/5752029911502474961

Jyvaskyla: Day One of Now I dont know how long I have been in Finland: Day Two and Three of conference

I wake up slightly disoriented. I have been following cats all night and they are still out playing somewhere. I gave up four hours ago, fell asleep to some American reality how called "The Biggest Loser" and the talk is no-where near finished because after starting badly, it deteriorates rapidly between minute four and six before finally falling apart somewhere round minute 9. A new strategy is needed if I am to finish the talk, that is obvious, but quite what that strategy might be, I am in two minds. The first mind says "Go Back to the lake and jump in" and the second mind says "No, the lake is really cold". One of the cats comes back with an idea which the third mind (currently trying to decide what to wear) seizes on eagerly. Instead of staying in your room all day writing your talk, go to conference and watch a few talks. Once you have got an idea of the standard of talks, all you have to do is to aim to be no worse than the worst talk you see. It's a great idea, albeit somewhat un-collegiate, so I prepare for the short walk along the lake.

After a shower, I glance in the mirror and all three minds realise I need a shave. The beard is the salt and pepper of old, but not-quite-old-enough-to-be-distinguished, age. Unfortunately I havent yet bought any razors and I didnt bring any with me, so I decide it might look as if I am intense. Then there's the choice of shirt. Due to restrictions on baggage allowance on the airline I flew with I havent brought enough clothes, figuring I could wash them in the hotel, but I have worn all the decent clothes I brought and am now down to a choice of two shirts. Choice #1 is a skintight, long sleeved base layer designed to be worn under other outdoor wear that I brought in case of snow. You can stop laughing now, but when I packed this item, my reasoning was that this is Finland. In Scandanavia. Unfortunately, it is pure white as well. Or rather, it was pure white, but having seen a few seasons, its now a bit mangy with a yellowing around the collar and cuffs from sunblock, a few pulled seams and a large black mark on the left forearm from a fibre tip pen. Choice #2 is a vintage 1987 Liverpool football shirt with a number on the back and a Liverbird badge proudly sitting on the chest. Deciding which one is more appropriate for an academic conference is somewhat of a challenge. Next its the jeans, which have a bit of mud down the inside of the calves but are other wise ok. The hiking boots could do with a quick clean and are a lot muddier than the jeans, but the real problem with the boots is the laces which have finally dissolved after Sunday's hike and are now just frayed and tattered bits of string located sporadically among the eyelets of the upper part of the boot. I put my glasses on to examine myself in the mirror and remember that I cant find my posh glasses so am wearing the ones with the chipped lenses from a cycling accident  and bent frame from where I sat on them. I dont look perfect, but this is strictly a reconnaisance so I guess it doesnt matter. I put on the heavy winter jacket I have broughtin an attempt to reduce the effect of the football shirt and set off.

I shuffle (because of the laces) along the lake side mumbling my 'talk' to myself  amid a gaggle of athletic looking Finnish people who are roller skating, or rollerskiing in the bright sunshine but am grateful that they appear to be keeping a safety cordon around me, presumably so they dont crash into me. Pretty soon I get quite hot, so I hook the coat over one of the straps of my pack. I am nervous because of the talk, but I start to get really freaked out when I begin to feel a burning sensation down the back of first my left leg, then my right leg. The sensation starts just above the knee and gets more intense lower down the leg. At first I try to walk it off, but it just gets worse, so I try altering my gait and changing the shuffle to a little hopping/jogging motion but it keeps getting worse. Presumably for added safety, the Finns extend their safety cordon. I am also slightly late for the talks so I dont want to but reluctantly I stop and give the back of the leg an exploratory, tentative touch. My hand comes away wet and when I realise its not blood, I also realise that the back of my pack is very very wet as well. It appears, after further exploration that my massive 2.5litre  water bottle did not have its top secured correctly and has been leaking, slowly at first then more rapidly, down the back of the leg.

I arrive at conference looking like........well, its hard to say actually. Its also hard making my way to the room where the talks are because I am forced to shuffle sideways along the wall, like crab with a broken leg, in order to hide the massive water stain down the back of each leg. Earlier I said that I didnt believe in metaphor, but circumstances have proven me wrong,because I am not actually a crab, I am just like a crab which is problematic because a human-being being like a crab is a very unnatural looking thing. Incidentally, this volte face on metaphor is the only independent insight I gain from the whole conference.

It is a wet and miserable couple of hours. The speakers are all disappointingly good. I miss coffee because I have to stay in my seat as my jeans are still wet but I give in towards the end of the coffee break because I need to answer nature's call. So I sprint to the bathroom, kind of sideways, hopeful that this doesnt attract attention and sprint back, barging students out of the way, anxious to be back before anyone else returns from coffee and sits in my puddle. It is mine, after all.