Apparently the photographer, Dr Norman “The Adder King” Morrison, Shawbost, Lewis, took these photos over a period of years with a view to record island life. It’s great that he did. Photos from that time, especially in places like the Outer Hebrides, are rare indeed.

I’ve been searching myself for nineteenth century photos of MacMillan and MacRury Uist people – with zero success. So, lucky are the progeny of Catherine Maclennan, pictured here, who have a photo of their ancestor.

But really; I suggest not an entirely flattering shot of Catherine. I’d suspect she’d untag this pic had facebook been around at the time and she was riding the big time-wasting pony that it is.

Bless her heart.

M.

M.

[Throws head back as exiting elevator], “Well, its not our fault she upped and moved to France.”

C’est vrai.

M.

Colin was quick to nix the texting. I was incredulous ["ooooh, incredulous!"]. And didn’t I experience the same damned thing just the other day while doing my best to pass on what I was able during my own lesson.

I don’t really think young piping people – or maybe just young people – think too much about it. There’s an obsession to check the phone, to respond, to make sure they know their friends know they’re alive. But when it comes to the phone thing, do what you like, wear your thumbs red raw, just don’t do it during a piping lesson. It’s a sure-fire strategy if you’re looking to get fired.

Be in the moment. The moment is what’s real.

M.

Anyway, he’s put an item up this evening that is quite amazing, at least to me. Up for auction is a genuine miner’s canary cage, used for centuries by miners (until 1986 in the UK) to enable early detection of lethal gases. It wouldn’t be much of a life for the poor little yellow bird but a useful life in the extreme. My dad’s offering is nineteenth century vintage and there for the taking. It’s most interesting to me, I think, because it represents a really common saying: “like a canary in a coal mine“. And here we have that old expression fairly spring to flight.

To keep in line with usual blog blab I think I really have to tie this to a piping thingie. So, “a canary in a coal mine”: are there things in the piping and pipe band game that might be likened to canaries in coal mines? Early warnings?

Random, off the top of my big square head:

- Games and competitions disappearing
- A reduction in the number of bands – everywhere (especially in the higher grades)
- Continually low attendance at the annual general meetings of governing organizations – everywhere
- Pipe bands competing with rubber drum pad “covers”

I’m sure there are others. You’ll have your own thoughts, I know.

M.

And what follows is pretty much how the conversation went; and get ready for a surprise ending …

“About a half hour a day”, he said. I told him that wasn’t enough. He needed to bump that up to at least an hour.

He then said, “Well I’ve always been good at regular practice – expect for a three month time last year.”

“What do you mean?”, I ask.

“Well, I broke my neck and couldn’t play.”

Gulp.

Now this kid is the picture of teenage health – no sign of any illness, let alone a broken neck.

He then proceeds to tell me in the most nonchalant way the story of his broken neck. It went something like this:

“Me and my friends were playing around on a trampoline at a summer party in Lynden. I was jumping on the trampoline and fell; my ex-girlfriend was jumping, too, except she landed on me. I could hear my neck snap. I felt weird and knew something was really wrong.”

And here is the kicker:

“The first thing that went through my head was, ‘will I play the pipes again?’ – the second was, ‘will I be able to walk?’”

Now isn’t that something? To walk or to pipe? Breaking your neck must stand as the ultimate acid test for true love of the pipes.

His story has stuck with me. Like most stories and like most things that happen to others we know, they, one way or another, find a way to reflect on us – and we, of course, reflect: “how would I handle that?”, “what would I do?”, “could that happen to me?”. And so it goes. I’ve thought about his story more than once since his telling – and I told him so yesterday at his lesson – at the same time he gave me permission to pass along to you.

So there you have it; take from it what you will.

M.

I bet my birl you will be in a better place in the long run for the decision to restrain.

M.

Yeah, I know I chundered on about flying in my last blurb, but here we are, and the flying subject continues. For good reason: many of the world’s pipers and pipe bands outside of Scotland are now looking to find, or book, their way to the various and assorted late-summer Scottish gatherings. Like pipebandsmen to an open bar, the big Scottish contests are magnetic to pipers and drummers. And they’re not always easy to make happen. Money’s often tight and year-after-year Caledonian jaunts wear big-time on the family budget.

Still, passion breeds sacrifice and the Scottish adventure invariably happens (I mean, who really needs to save money for retirement?).

Enter Air Canada’s recent pronouncement: new “low-cost carrier to fly in July [2013]” and Edinburgh is a destination – sounds great! After 10 years or so Air Canada finally finds a way to fly direct to Scotland – Scotland! The source of so (so) many of our founding people. But read the fine print – any Scottish banker would tell you that – check out the travel conditions: Air Canada’s new cheapie trans-Atlantic airline, “Rouge”, compared to standard Air Canada seating rules, has dramatically different cabin conditions.

Suck in your stomach, squeeze on your spanx and have a look:

Standard international flights on Air Canada offer economy class seating with a seat pitch of 31 to 33 inches [pardon the metric gap, I'm using airline lingo]. Seat width varies at 17 to 19 inches (17 inches! An impressive measure if you’re a porn star, not so much as a prolonged seating option).

Air Canada’s new Rouge airline offers 29 inch pitch and an expansive 18 between arm rests. So we see seating pitch reduced two to four inches and any futile hope for a sniff of comfort jammed somewhere in the overhead compartment. The airline buffers this thin offering by introducing something called – ca-ching – “Premium Economy” (imagine dramatic echoes when you read this). At roughly twice the price of DVT class (deep vein thrombosis) flyers are given the opportunity to luxuriate in the rarefied comfort of 38 inch seat pitch and an arse-ample 20 inch seat width.

I understand airlines are not charities in place to jet itinerant pipers and drummers around the world but isn’t the move to dramatically increase aircraft passenger seating (often at the expense of lavatory facilities, by the way) getting just a little crazy?

I have to give a small shout out to the airline where my previously blogged PVI (passenger vomiting incident) occured. Air Transat – apparently named the World’s Best Leisure Airline of 2012 – offers economy class seat pitch on their international flights at 32 to 33 inches and seat width of 16 and a half inches. So, I guess, when you fly economy on Air Transat you can put your fork to your mouth without pressing elbows to stomach – you just can’t feel your legs since blood flow is cut off from waist down. They do offer “Club Class”: seat pitch 34 inches and width 19. I have always found their crews excellent, just by the way – a great attitude.

So aside from a general airline whinge I say that when it comes to buying a seat on a plane, watch what you’re buying. The cheapest seats may not be good value, especially when you consider your health.

I hope, too, that instead of a little less, the air travel market swings a little more the way of passenger health and comfort.

Caveat emptor.

M.

Have you ever noticed on flights to or from Scotland there is almost always one guy in a kilt? On the way to Glasgow there was a devoted elderly kiltie walking the floor at the departure gate, his MacLean of Duart kilt and “Jacobite” shirt ready for old country action. Going home? A first time dream visit to his ancestral homeland? I don’t know. But there he was all set for bare-legs-on-leather across the pond.

A week later, return flight: same thing – different guy but still a “kilt”. I use quotation marks as he wore (and as of this moment he still does – thankfully) a £50 High Street special: two yards of Sialkot’s best; this time a purple number. With toque, dark (purple) sunglasses and Doc Martens he had NQR rubber-stamped all over his beefy pre-middle-aged face. I’m not saying a person’s Not Quite Right if they lean to be-kilted travel. I’m just, well, saying.

As it turned out, KiltBoy was, indeedy, Not Quite Right. My seat happened to be near the front this rare time and I noted KB was the last – the last – to board. He sat down in the row in front of me – not directly in front of me, but a few seats over.

About 15 minutes after take-off the woman two seats over from me let’s rip a scream of bombardic proportions, followed up with a “THAT MAN JUST FUCKING THREW UP ALL OVER ME!” (Read in your best Maryhill). So KB was definitely NQR.

I’m guessing he made the effort to turn his rear to his rear for one reason only. Nothing against the lady (well, a little chunder maybe) but he must’ve thought he had to save his kilt and rabbitty sporran from a dose of breakfast revisited.

And do you know what he said to the poor lady after his warm unasked-for greeting? “You don’t have to make such a big deal about it”. Nice.

Lucky for all, the plane had spare seats and people were moved to drier ground.

OK. Maybe I am saying it: kilts and flying: just NQR.

M.

Here’s the work of Italian-American artist, Cyrus Cuneo (1879 -1916). This image represents the famous Sir George Simpson, the Dingwall-born (Scotland) governor of what was once known in Canada as Rupert’s Land, an unbelievably massive expanse that surrounded Hudson’s Bay.

George Simpson was the formidable head of the Hudson’s Bay Company, one of the oldest companies in the world and today one of Canada’s biggest department stores (they’re not paying me to say it, but it is a good store). He was apparently an eccentric type, loved the pipes, and so would have them, and a piper, close at hand on his travels – including those in the deep Canadian wilderness [why is it eccentrics are so often the go-to bagpipe lovers of the world?].

Like pipers in some parts of the world – like, say, Cape Breton – who prefer to play sitting down (surely an open invitation to hemorrhoids, by the way), I can’t imagine much fine technique, tuning and rhythm happening while playing pipes in a canoe.

But we’ll see. I hope to report back sometime over the coming warmer months – at least sometime after the spring thaw. Who knows? Maybe the whole canoe experience will prove to be the optimum bagpipe playing place.

Funny how people from the modestly-sized Dingwall can sometimes be the most interesting.

M.