Renfrew Ferry, Whiteinch side

Whiteinch side, Renfrew Ferry, Sunday morning. I'm sipping instant coffee and eating nuts. This is the last of the many Clyde ferries that used, in the great industrial past, to shuttle workers back and forth. One of my favourite places in Greater Glasgow. If I hadn't been hungover and on a health kick, I might have left things until later and had a drink in the bars on each side of the river. As it was, I decided to kick out for Loch Lomond.
The bike's a curiosity: Dutch, it still has an Amsterdam licence on it. Don't know if that means it's nicked, but it has strange Netherlandish aspects: a back-pedalling hub brake, seven-speed hub gears (fantastic) a stand and a dynamo. Weighs a ton, but for 40 quid, who's complaining? Great Schwalbe Marathon tyres. Takes towpaths in its stride.

Louisiana 1927

Randy Newman's song Louisiana 1927 has always sent shivers up and down my spine. There's something about that opening line: What has happened down here is the wind have changed...
Apparently a direct transcript of something said by one of the survivors of the great 1927 Mississippi flood - reckoned as "the greatest natural disaster in the history of the USA". Until now.
The 1927 flood did not bring the same level of catastrophe as the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, but the parallels are very interesting. Refugee camps, mainly black. A lack of investment in flood prevention. There are the stories of governmental ineptitude and alleged corruption. And racism: It is possible to trace the development of the New Deal, the desertion by blacks of the Republican Party, the rise of Huey 'Kingfisher Long and the downfall of a president to the 1927 flood.
All of this has remained little discussed in the media thus far, though there are signs that things are changing. This book is now in the American best seller charts, and Greg Palast has a powerful and brief summary of the potential effects on the Democrats. Although Todd Leopold of CNN has written movingly of the song and his own background. From the personal to the political, though: remember, history always repeats, as Steve Turner wrote. Has to. No-one listens. Get Newman's album Good Old Boys, by the way. It's a masterpiece.

Violent Storm Force 11?

Shipping forecast said "Violent Storm Force 11" for today, Monday at 10.00 am, and this is what that looks like. Not hugely impressive, visually, but it's a funny direction for us - south westerly and I'm not convinced it really is that strong a wind. Mind you, I didn't really want to get out of the car, because there are various objects flying through the air - cows, sheep, small buildings etc. So far no power or phone cuts, so the show goes on from the Barn of Bannocks. If the roof remains intact.

Belladrum - Tartan Heart Festival

Roll on next year! I mean, what other festival has EVER featured live kipper-smoking (there it is, in front of the 'Scott's Fresh Fish' van)? It was wet, but it wouldn't have been Scotland if it was dry, would it? Thanks a million to Joe Gibbs for allowing his lovely estate to be trampled and churned.
The pictures show, variously, Margaret Bennett and the lime tree planted in memory of her late son Martyn; Ricky Ross and Davie Scott on Saturday afternoon in the worst of the rain; Larry Love of the Alabama 3 in full flight; kipper smoking; Cosy Camping amid the mud; looking down on the main stage; extracting the 'honey wagon' from the mud' Emiliana Torrini on Friday; Larry Love and Mr James Morton of Hillswick.

A cleared croft

Sannions is one of two crofts north of Boatsgeo, Heylor, Shetland, cleared in the 19th century. The other is called Sumra, and both roofless houses were evidently carefully and strongly built.
I walked out from the road end on Saturday morning, the first time I'd ever been there. And it's amazing. Further north on what I suppose is the Tingon peninsula, there is the landmark headland called The Faither, large lochs, and I already know the volcanic outcrops and huge waterfalls. But the two crofts are incredibly atmospheric. You stand inside the walls, the wind dies away, and you can imagine everything that happened there in the past.
Below Sannions is a small beach, obviously used as a landing and reached by a precipitous path down the geo. On Sunday I was at a party with some local folk who knew the crofts well, and one man whose great grandfather used to dry fish on the same beach, every day during the season of 'Da Haaf' - the great herring fishery, conducted in open boats far out to sea. The crofts were cleared, apparently, after two Shetlanders came back from a profitable gold mining expedition and bought up the land. The Sannions and Sumra families loaded everything they owned - animals, furniture, goods and chattels, even the newly-cut corn, and sailed up Ronas Voe, landing at the head.
I had to leave, alas, before exploring Sumra, but I'll be back. It's one of the strangest, most melancholy, yet seductive areas I've ever been in Shetland.