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Showing posts from March, 2022

Inhabited west coast Scottish islands - Jura and the Corryvreckan whirlpool

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Jura is Scotland’s eighth biggest island by area. It has also one of the lowest population densities (of Scotland’s inhabited islands) with around only two hundred inhabitants. The latter statistic is not surprising as the island, unlike Islay to the south of it, is unremittingly wild and rugged with only a narrow strip of land, mainly around the east coast, where habitation might be reasonably easily established. It is almost two separate islands with Loch Tarbert almost cutting it, from the west, in two. The southern part hosts three mountains, all around 2500 feet high. These are known as ‘the Paps of Jura’. The term ‘Paps’ means breasts - as in human female breasts. I can only presume that whomever gave them this name was thinking of a very young woman (lying on her back and before gravity took over) as their conical shapes are unlike any woman I have ever seen. As mentioned, there are three of them - also unlike any woman I have ever see (although, to be fair, usually only two of

Current affairs - Putin and Russia's invasion of the Ukraine

As I start to draft this post (1st March 2022 at 05:30) the Russian invasion of the Ukraine continues - although not quite as swiftly as Putin probably wanted or expected. This is down to the stiff resistance of the Ukrainian people - but a resistance which, I fear, is bound to fail in the long run without more direct support from the West. I have so far not made any comment on this horrendous situation. This because I have been both shocked and perplexed by what is happening. Having said that, I did, in a previous post, indicate that I was concerned about both the EU and NATO seemingly encouraging ex-soviet countries to seek membership of those Western organisations, and how I feared this was seriously angering Russia. I noted that the Ukraine was an independent country and that it should be free to follow whatever path it wanted - but that I felt encouraging it to look towards the West was not conducive to peace in the region. Sometimes, in such circumstances, what is wanted needs to