Fresh from the success ( and I use the word in it's uniquely Scottish sense ) of my Christmas charity appeal, I will now start buggimplementing a carefully planned strategic remodelling of the blog. This will probably result in some faux posts. And possibly some faux pas. But hopefully no mauvais pas. Here's something religious for Christmas.
Well, it's almost here again - the time for feeling merry and gay. Our Reader Demographic Research Team tell me that many of you will spend Christmas with your children and grandchildren in the bosom of your family. Some of you may spend it in other bosoms. Whatever. Enjoy. Enjoy. Enjoy. Enjoy.
* I wanted a Christmas Carol themed post, and when I googled Tiny Tim I got this.What the Dickens !!
L
Look out for Cumbernauld bus station in the video.
And it is.....(fumbles
with envelope) …. Danny ! Within an hour of the post going up he
had the answer complete with grid reference and latitude/longitude. I
suspect he somehow used yon internet, but that wasn't prohibited so,
after a steward's enqoiry, the result stands (subject to passing the
usual drugs test). So a crisp tenner will be whizzing its way through
the ether to Mind in his name.
Alan Rayner also got the
correct answer (twice), but his finger wasn't quick enough on the
buzzer.Dave had a good attempt – I know what he was thinking about,
but I can't remember the name either – and Scott entered into the
spirit of the thing with a wild guess. Mike of course, knew, but was
ineligible ( it's not a stigma these days ) Good game, good game.
So, if you didn't win,
here's your chance to get yourself a warm fuzzy feeling in time for
Christmas. Just get out the plastic (credit/debit/library/bus pass)
click on this link and Bob's your auntie's live in partner.
1.Mental health issues
affect every family in the land – Mind ( and SAMH in Scotland) do
great work in a hugely underfunded area.
2.If you are reading this,
odds are you read the Pieblog. Good value, innit ? Averages 3 posts
aweek – you get a bit of a titter (sic) and useful walk routes,
plus loads of helpful hill lore based on a lifetime's experience (I'm
not overdoing this, am I ,Mike ? No, keep going MK.) And
dog pics.All this would cost you about £400 a year in the Daily
Telegraph!!. So, cash that 10/- postal order you got for Christmas
and do the decent thing.
3.
Well, I had hoped you wouldn't make me do this.....
But.
No
more Mr. Niceguy
What
? Where is it ? Ah, yes.
It's
the Three Brethern near Selkirk. The cairns mark the meeting point of
three estates ( Philiphaugh, The Yair and another one I can't
remember). They sit on the route of the old Minch Moor drove road
along the ridge between Tweed and Yarrow.The Southern Upland Way
partly follows this route . The picture, scanned from a print, was
taken sometime in the mid-80's on a day walk from Gala to
Innerleithen.Lovely Borders landscape, hoaching with history and soon
to be improved by the obligatory windfarm.
Hyperbole Productions
present the biggest cash giveaway since the Royal Mail privatisation
!
OK. Here's the deal.
I'm preparing to revamp
the blog – new skin, new “feel”, updated bloglist, new Reader's
Wives section, new celebrity gossip, - you know the sort of thing.
I'm also planning to
change the rather bleak cover page picture of the Madonna tribute
cairns. Hence the competition.
Winner is the first person
to name, via the comments, the location of the current picture.
Couldn't be simpler.I will apply comment moderation for the duration
to make it more interesting (as if that were possible). FIFA rules of
fairness and transparency apply.
First Prize. I will donate
10 spondulics, in your name, to the Mind charity via the Virgin
giving page set up by award-winning blogger Mike Knipe.You will of
course receive the warm fuzzy feeling you get from doing good, plus
you will still have a tenner in your sky rocket to spent on some of
the exiting, must-have gear advert reviewd by the top-style bloggers.
Result.
The first 500 runners-up
will receive a voucher allowing them to donate their own £10 to this
worthy cause. In this case you will still receive the warm fuzzy
feeling, but in addition you will have the satisfaction of knowing
that you haven't wasted your money on badly made overpriced designer
label tat.Result 2.
Due to an unforseen IT failure, similar to that recently suffered by the air traffic control system (NADS), I have hitherto been unable to bring you the second part (and climax) of this years top blog awards.
I have, however, availed myself of the services of top IT consultancy firm Reckless, Boring, and Odious (LLP), and they dispatched a young man with badly written legs and an ill-concealed drink habit who at least partially solved my problem.
Like many of the award winners, Alan has been around a bit and actually has something to write about. As well as interesting posts about his walks and backpacking, he is the “go to man” for gear reviews.Meticulous, practical and objective are words which come to mind.And where he perceives a weakness in a product, he can often advise on a simple mod.
He is also renowned for his DIY gear tips, where he shows how to make items of kit in your own kitchen using only items of domestic waste, a capstan lathe, mig welder and hydraulic press.
While talking of Alan, I have given a special award jointly to Sheila and to Sue Banfield for smiling bravely beside various trig pillars in driving sleet while their better halves fumble with the lens cover.
Now I must declare an interest here.Many people have been friendly and helpful to me since I strated blogging, but Alan has regularly plugged the site on his hugely popular blog, often resulting in page view numbers well into double figures.Now I am aware of rumours that, in return, he received cash,drugs, and sexual favours from me.This is nonsense. The cash, drugs, and sexual favours were for something completely different. I hope that clears that up
Alan Sloman wers his heart on his sleeve – his liver in his pocket and various extraneous organs concealed about his person..
Many people these days know of Alan in his “Outraged of Berkshire” persona, but he also writes in more relaxed mode. His Lejog account is a classic of its kind and was one of the first things I read when I discovered outdoor blogs.The Challenge chronicles are much read for route information by those who follow, but are also infused with much love and pain.
Alen goes to interesting places and illuminates them for us. He also goes to mundane places and makes them interesting.
Each post is carefully crafted with a beginnining, a middle and an end. They are thought-out and thoughtful. A man with a life and a sense of place, humanity and a love of words. And the pictures are no bad either.
And finally (in descending order of inside leg measurement)
This blog ticks all the boxes – as does the writer. Having ticked off the Birketts, he is now working on the Greggs and the Baynes.
When others pull the duvet over their head, Mike is out on the hill. When others turn up the central heating and settle down with a good book, Mike is out on the hill. When others are sitting beside the log fire in the pub supping pints of ale, Mike......well nobody's perfect.After years of acting as Boswell to Bruno's Doctor Johnson, he now chronicles the wit and wisdom of a new companion, (I should be so) Lucky. Lots of good stuff, lots of variety, witty, and sensible (?). Comes complete with the smell of wet dog. Fab!
Two very different entries.Lets just say Alen gets Blog of the Year, and Mike gets the Lifetime Achievement (So Far!) Award.
Thanks and apologies to everyone else, especially Andy JJ, Louise, Laura, Iain, David, Ken, Purple Traveller, James etc who have supported the blog, but haven't made it onto the red carpet this time. Next year ?
Right. Everyone back to my place for the after-party.What's on the menu, Bessie ?
It may have come to your attention that, in recent months, I have become somewhat disenchanted with the functionality of the Google editor.Comments such as "Fucking shite" - "Total garbage", etc read in cunjunction with my frequent out-flouncings from the blogoshere in fits of pique (and other small dogs) may have hinted at my mild disapproval. Some of you may have been bemused and distressed by this outflowing of angst. Not, however, the Geek coterie among the readership, with their tweeters and their loom bands.They knew all the time that the dopey old git was one of the 20% of computer users cast adrift by the great god Microsoft and still struggling with Windows XP and IE8.And they were right. Today I had a Road to Damascus (ok Causewayhead, actually) moment.The Flaming Pie that had appeared to St. John ("with an A") told me the answer in two words Firefox. And so here we are.
It appears that I can now edit and manipulate text/pics/ clips and post Links
It's not perfect but then who amongst is ? Really ? OK, apart from you ?
Here's a couple of clips wot you missed from a previously deleted post
PS. After previewing it appears that the links dont work and that certain random (in its classical meaning) words appear in big blue letters, but not in the draft. So it's as you were, I'm afraid. (Flounces out stage left
Mount Sloman has erupted again (6.5 on the Richter scale), apparently about some poll of outdoor blogs in a hiking comic called GTO (formerly McNeish's Monthly.)
As a retired outdoor blogger myself (yeah yeah – pining for the fjords) I feel I aam ideally placed to arbitrate on this matter, and in the process reveal the red carpet list for the first ever Bloggies Awards.
Entries were confined to the blogs on my side bar because – well just because, right ? And I might add in a blog thats not on the sidebar if I feel like it . OK?
So, can I start then ?
Right.
Postcard from Timperley is first because I used to have a Phreerunner tent (single skin goretex- ripped to shreds on a fence).Martin gets the Duracell Bunny award.Fascinating trips all over the world and many other places. Requires careful reading – you are following daily posts fron some Haute Route, miss a couple of days aand you find he's Munroing on Skye after a brief stop off on Spitzbergen !
FFS, Martin, do you never have a day sprawled on the couch in your pants with some beer and Pringles watching Jeremy Kyle and Loose Women ?
Seriously, interesting stuff, but I have to have wee lie down after reading.
Scott's blog is great, but I don't see it on too many blogrolls. Scott is doing the Munros as weekend day trips from the Central Belt.
I spent a lot of Sunday mornings in the eighties shivering in a cold kitchen at stupid o clock filling a flask and making a piece, listening to the rain lashing the window. Then driving 3-4 hours in a mixture of extreme conditions, not knowing if we would even get on the hill when we arrived, never mind summit it.This blog brings all that back for me and features some great foties of the roof of the world, Scottish style.Also features dogs and rock n roll.
Then there is Danny.What to say about Danny that hasn't been said in the police reports. Posts irregularly with each little gem eagerly awaited by a small but dedicated band of afficionados.Can quote Walter de la Mare and Aldous Huxley. Like most of my favourite bloggers, Danny is a human being with a ”hinterland” - he's done stuff, he knows stuff. He's just the right side of weird (“Which side is that,OM ?”).Not for the PC minded.
So why should big rough tough hillwalkers follow a blog by an middle aged spinster who makes shopping bags out of cat food sachets ? Well, because its Ilona, a national treaure.A fellow seeker after yellow tickets, I'v got some good “economy” recipes from this blog. But every now and then she gets someone to look after the cats and sets off on multi-day backpacks. The routes are usually “non-standard” but have their own internal logic. Her “kit list” for these rambles would baffle most of the youngsters and was probably put together, including her unusual underwear, for less than £20. Again, someone with a life,and with stories to tell.
And then there is Mark. When I first started playing with Blogger, I sent my first post off into the ether and waited for a response.Response came there none until Mark dropped in an encouraging comment and the rest, as they say, is geography. Had he not bothered, One Small Step would have withered on the vine, the skies would have darkened, and civilisation would have come to an end in line with the Mayan prediction (allegedly). Posts appear irregularly and mainly feature a little corner of the planet which I have visited briefly, but which intrigues me.The most talked about feature of this blog is the exquisite close-up flora and fauna photography.What appeals to me about this is not the camera technique, but the fact that he spots the bugs plants etc in the first place. This tells me he is not tanking along at 4+ mph while updating his Facebook page.Also includes kids.
So, if I havent mentioned your blog does this mean that it's crap ?
Weeeeeell
I may not have mentioned it for one or more of the following reasons
1.You don't post very often
2.I've never read your blog.I'm a busy man, subject to regular tests and experiments conducted by less scrupulous members of the medical profession. Ars longa, vita brevis
3 I read your blog and its informative but lacks the X-factor.
4Your name is Sian
5 Your blog is crap.
6Your blog has made it onto the elite list and will be dissected on a subsequent post when my fingers have stopped bleeding
