Not so crabbit now!

Whoooo! Today is the Cowal Highland Gathering and the Buckie is flowing. In about an hour the March Past begins. When a hundred or so pipe bands will leave the competions for the day at the stadium, with the trophies proudly carried at the hea dof the wining bands, and process through the town to the pier to depart the twon- only thanks to some farcial political ging son there are n longer vechile carrying boats to take them away oso they all have to get ion buses and drive back the other way again to get to the ferry which does! But hey nobody cares we are too drunk.
Couple of pics taken on a crappy phone-cam. While hopefully post some better stuff when I get them.

Here's the main stadium where the bands compete and the Highland Dancing competions are as well as Caber Tossing, hammer throwing, wrestling etc.

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You bump into bands practisicing all over the place in every corner. I like the confusion of tunes and sounds you get here more than listening to just a single band!

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Even on the way home you are highly likely to wander into packs of lost pipers roaming the back streets.

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Watch Cowal Games live form a cam in the main street! March Past due to start any minute. Plus street to the left is all pubs so might be entertaining.

http://www.dunoon.tv/


edit add- theMarch Past is notorious for never being on time, or being later than expected. When I said any minute that could be any ten minutes, half hour or even hour! Depends how drunk everyone is.

Chucking out time for pubs is 1 or 2 am- might always be worth checking out about then for some alcohol related entertainment. I may even put in an appearance!

In case you miss the March Past or are wondering why nothing is happening at the momoent (I said its often late) heres a previus years.

Aha! So this is what you've been doing instead of your picnic duties, organising the Cowal Highland Games. Clever. What a tricky way of advertising them! "Oh Forumshire, keep an eye out on the 28th for the Picnic" and then "Here, it's the Cowal Highland Games!" (You're even more cunning than Odo Banks! )

Speaking of groups of Men in ladies clothing, I went and saw "Divas" an Australian live show where men dress up and impersonate Divas like Barbra Streisland, Liza Minelli, Lady Ga Ga, Whitney Houston, Pink, Tina Turner, Britney Speers and the like. Quite entertaining. I think I may have fallen in love with Britney all over again!

Pettytyrant101 wrote:In case you miss the March Past or are wondering why nothing is happening at the momoent (I said its often late) heres a previus years.

Doesn't get better than that... (doesn't it...? )

"Tudor Tea House and Curiousity Shoppe" and "Home Hardware"... which part of England do you live in, Petty? (Shouldn't it be: "Black Douglas Buckie Barn and Inverness Shoppe" and "Bonnie Wee Nockzaneeware"? )

very true Orwell- but the town was a big Victorian holiday resort and all except the Hardware Store (it was a Woolworths till the recession did for them) are from that time period. Hence the English, Victorian style names.

Heres a bit of this years- the massed pipe bands.



And a bit of dancing in the Ceildh Tent- and yes those are females in kilts - its permissable if they are part of a pipe band (note they are RIGHT length!)



The Highland Dancing Competition



George Watson Junior Pipe Band marching through the town (I assume this was in the morning as by the main march past in the evening you can't move the streets so packed) but you do get to see my home town as they progress right down th eMain Street (I bought my first copy of LotR in Bookpoint on a Cowal Games when I was but a youngster, you will see it in the background if you keep a beady eye- best Cowal Games ever that was. I was more excited about it- was the single volume edition I had only read FotR at that point- than any amount of pipe bands). The tune they break into at 8.50 is one of my personnal favourites- a right devil of a piece to play.



Bizarrely I can't find any footage of the main march past. Unusual as most other years are there- maybe peeople still a bit to hungover to upload!
But heres a link to how it used to be- not a huge deal has changed really.

http://www.britishpathe.com/record.php?id=49167

Incidentally the mass pipe bands bit at the end is the same thing as is going on in the first vid in this post. We are a traditional bunch if nothing else.

Question on this weeks Shooting Stars;

True or false. The illiterate book club meets once a week to judge a book by its cover.

Was reading the Discworld book The Last Continent. Which is set on the Discworld (of course) on the mysterious contintent of XXXX- or Ecksian. As the intro puts it ;
"This is not a book about Australia. No, it's about somewhere entirely different which just happens to be, here and there, a bit.....australian. Still.......no worries, right?'

The following exchange made me laugh out loud which books rarely make a crabbit ole Tyrant do these days. The set up is that Rincewind the wizard, city dweller to his core has found himself on the Last Continent of XXXX and following a series of terrifying and funny encounters with local wildlife and fauna and some (possibly/possibly not) magic wall paintings he runs into a group of herders, whose leader is called Remorse.

"Where was it he wanted to go?"
"Bugarup," murmured Rincewind.
"Oh, you don't wanna go to Bugarup," said Remorse. "Nothing in Bugarup but a bunch of wowsers and pooftahs."
"'s okay, I like parrots," mumbled Rincewind, "er...what's Ecksian for going mad with terrified fatigue and collapsing in a boneless heap?"
The men looked at one another.
"Isn't that 'snagged as a wombat's tonker'?"
"No, no, no, that's when you chuck a twister, isn't it?"
"What? Strewth no. Chucking a twister's when ..when...Hang on, that's 'bend a smartie'"
"Er-" said Rincewind clutching his head.
"What? 'Bend a smartie' is when your ears get blocked underwater."
"Nah, that's 'gonging like a possum's armpit' mate."
"Excuse me- "Rincewind said.
"That ain't right. 'Gonging like a possums' armpit' is when you crack a crusty. When your ears are stuffed like a Mudjee's keetle after a week of Fridays, that's 'stuck up like Morgan's mule in a choccy patch'-"
"You mean 'as fast as Morgan's mule after it ate Ma's crow pie'."
"How fast was that? Exactly" said Rincewind.
They all stared at him.
"Faster'n an eel in a snakepit, mate! said Remorse, "Don't you understand plain language?"





Such a metaphorical folks- explains a lot about Orwell really....

Stone the crows, that's not true blue Ozlingo, mate! It's mostly made up crap, strewth! Some people! Orrite, some of it might be legit - as Oz iz a big place and the local lingo does vary from place to place, me ol' Scottiecobber - but I sure smell a dunny rat.

Pretty chuffed as my beloved all blacks started their world cup with an excellent performance...

"that's not true blue Ozlingo, mate!"- Orwell

Well in fairness to Pratchett its not set in Oz just somewhere remarkaby similar- and its inhabitants have only recently been arriving, usually by raft- when theres room, what with all the camels- so the inhabitants are at this point trying to invent their own dialects. Hence the uncertainty over meanings.

Oh.... that's alright then.

Luuuurrrrrvvvveeeeeeeee Pratchet!!!! Luuuuurrrrvvveeeeeeeeee

But not quite as much as I love Orwell...

WHOA!!!!!
A psuedo-Kafria????? I thought only the Banks had multiple personalities????

But I've just fell in love with the music from the Lord of the Rings Musical! It's amazing!!!!!!!! Especially Galadriel!!

"I thought only the Banks had multiple personalities????"- Tin

As always your Maj you thought right!

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Shot an all time best today in my golf tournament, 79!!!!

I suppose it's a side effect of peachberry buckie....

Well buckie and golf- they are both Scottish!
Congrats Tin. Rooting for you to win the tournament. Go Tin!!

Congrats, Tin! I'm not familiar with golf but apparently that's good, so celebrations are in order.

And another thing... I was using one of those "20 Questions" balls from a while back, and I decided to screw with it. I was going to answer all of the questions for one of the elves. First, I said animal, and then answered the other questions accordingly. Keep in mind, I did not answer for Santa's Elves, but Tolkiens. Astonishingly, the damn ball got it right Don't know how it did. I suppose those Balls CAN read minds....

Tinuviel wrote:And another thing... I was using one of those "20 Questions" balls from a while back, and I decided to screw with it. I was going to answer all of the questions for one of the elves. First, I said animal, and then answered the other questions accordingly. Keep in mind, I did not answer for Santa's Elves, but Tolkiens. Astonishingly, the damn ball got it right Don't know how it did. I suppose those Balls CAN read minds....

What?