Tweet
For the latest news from Scotland see our ScotNews feed at:
https://electricscotland.com/scotnews.htm
Electric Scotland News
Lot of health related stuff this week. Got my third booster shot for Covid on the advice of Health, Ontario. Got four monthly blood work done and my A1C has gone down by .5 to 6.4 which is good. Also got another injection in my good eye and the eye specialist is very happy with my eye sight so that's also positive.
Also got a lot of work done on my home... mostly bits and pieces like getting my outside doors stained and door handle fixed. Siding power washed, painted my porch stairs, some lights bulbs replaced, lawn mowed and tree pruned. Back garden mowed and weeds removed. Basement cleared of rubbish and other wee bits and pieces. More to do on Friday like removing carpet from upstairs landing and then floor board cleaned and stained.
So busy on the home front.
-------
See we have a new Prime Minister in the UK. It may feel like a footnote, given the extraordinary economic crisis the country faces, but the arrival of Britain’s first non-white Prime Minister does feel like a watershed moment. (Rishi Sunak is not Britain’s first ethnic minority PM, however – that was Benjamin Disraeli way back in 1868.)
Sunak’s rise to PM will understandably carry a great deal of significance for many Britons from Indian-origin families who trace their roots back to east Africa – communities which have made outstanding contributions to the social, economic and cultural spheres of British life. It is particularly fitting that Sunak, who was proven so right over Liz Truss’s disastrous economic plans, becomes our country’s first Hindu prime minister on Diwali – a festival that celebrates the spiritual victory of light over darkness and knowledge over ignorance.
You can learn more about him at: https://capx.co/the-arrival-of-a-non...-his-identity/
Scottish News from this weeks newspapers
Note that this is a selection and more can be read in our ScotNews feed on our index page where we list news from the past 1-2 weeks. I am partly doing this to build an archive of modern news from and about Scotland and world news stories that can affect Scotland and as all the newsletters are archived and also indexed on Google and other search engines it becomes a good resource. I might also add that in a number of newspapers you will find many comments which can be just as interesting as the news story itself and of course you can also add your own comments if you wish which I do myself from time to time.
Nearly 6,000 council jobs could be axed after years of SNP Government neglect
A COSLA paper obtained by the Record shows councils are poised to slash jobs and cut services
Read more at:
https://www.dailyrecord.co.uk/news/p...could-28309033
Federal government backs nuclear with $970M investment in Ontario small reactor project
The country's first small modular reactor, located at the site of an existing nuclear plant in Ontario, is expected to produce energy by 2028
Read more at:
https://nationalpost.com/news/canada...uclear-project
Courage of Iran’s women and girls deserves awe and absolute support
The whole world now knows how it started.
Read more at:
https://www.sundaypost.com/fp/courag...solute-support
SNP minister resigns over gender recognition plans
An SNP minister has resigned over Scottish government plans to make it easier for someone to change their legally-recognised gender. Ash Regan quit as community safety minister, saying her conscience would not allow her to support the plans.
Read more at:
https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-scotland...itics-63416857
King delighted with TV repair of favourite vase
King Charles was visibly moved to see a cherished piece of ceramics restored by the team at BBC One's The Repair Shop. The work was carried out for a special edition of the BBC One show filmed last year when Charles was still a prince.
Read more at:
https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-scotland-63411913
What are the plans for gender reforms in Scotland?
Legislation that aims to make it easier for people to change their legally recognised gender is being debated in the Scottish Parliament.
Read more at:
https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-scotland...itics-60221034
Conrad Black: Canada, the U.S. and U.K. have become the new sick man of the world
All three countries must pull themselves together and resume their rightful places among the most respected nations in the world
Read more at:
https://nationalpost.com/opinion/con...n-of-the-world
Electric Canadian
Over Prarie Trails
By Frederick Philip Grove (pdf)
FEW years ago it so happened that my work — teaching school — kept me during the week in a small country town in the centre of one of the prairie provinces while my family — wife and little daughter — lived in the southern fringe of the great northern timber expanse, not very far from the western shore of a great lake.
You can read this book at:
http://www.electriccanadian.com/life...il0000grov.pdf
Militia Chieftains
Profiling the Founders of Canada's Scottish Militia Regiments by Patrick Watt (2014) (pdf)
Following a downturn after the Napoleonic Wars, citizen soldiery experienced somewhat of a revival in the British Empire in the Victorian period. The successes of imperial troops in the Crimea and Indian Mutiny, coupled with the withdrawal of British soldiers from the dominions, meant that in Canada, the militia, “once envisioned as nothing more than an armed auxiliary to the British Army in North America, was increasingly called upon to act as a self-supporting field army.” Cities, towns and communities across Canada responded to external threats from the USA and internal rebellions by forming companies or regiments of local militia.
You can read this at:
http://www.electriccanadian.com/forc...he_Founder.pdf
The Lobstick Trail
A novel by Douglas Durkin (1921) (pdf)
You can read this at:
http://www.electriccanadian.com/life...il0000durk.pdf
By Star and Compass
Tales of the Explorers of Canada by William Stewart Wallace (1922) (pdf)
SINCE the readers for whom this little book is primarily intended are seldom addicted to the unhappy practice of reading prefaces, and since book-reviewers and public librarians and school-teachers and rich uncles (all of whom, it is hoped, may look on the book with a kindly eye) sometimes are, it is perhaps fitting to explain here that the following pages are not intended to be a history of Canadian exploration. They are intended rather to set forth a series of stories illustrating the history of Canadian exploration, linked together by such brief comment as seems to be necessary. It is hoped that these stories will be found, by those most familiar with the subject, to be abreast of recent scholarship; but it should be understood that, though based in the main on primary rather than on secondary sources, they are in no sense contributions to the history of Canada. They are merely an attempt to put into story form some of the achievements of the great pathfinders of the northern half of
North America, and thus to invest these achievements with an interest which is perhaps lacking in historical narratives of the traditional type.
It is also fitting that acknowledgment should be made here of the debt the author owes to Mr. H. H. Langton, Librarian of the University of Toronto, for his kindness in reading the proofs of the following pages, and for a number of helpful criticisms and suggestions.
W. S.
You can read this at:
http://www.electriccanadian.com/life...tarcompass.pdf
Thoughts on a Sunday Morning - the 23rd day of October 2022 - The Environment
By the Rev. Nola Crewe
You can view this at:
http://www.electricscotland.org/foru...he-environment
Sawing with the Widest Sawmill in Canada
Added a video to the foot of our logging page which you can view at:
http://www.electriccanadian.com/pioneering/logging.htm
Herbert Symonds
A Memoir compiled by friends (1921) (pdf)
On the death of Dr. Herbert Symonds there was a very strong feeling expressed by many friends and acquaintances that an account of his life and influence should be given permanent form in a volume containing extracts from some of his sermons and essays. A few personal friends undertook the compilation of such a book. For them it was a labour of love; they rejoiced in the opportunity to give tangible form to the universal appreciation of the Vicar’s worth, as well as to meet the pressing demand for copies of his more important public utterances. The hope is expressed that this memoir contains at least some of the things that eager and admiring friends have longed to possess.
You can read this book at:
http://www.electriccanadian.com/make...me0000unse.pdf
Electric Scotland
Beth's Video Talks
October 26th 2022 - On wind and rain and games disasters
You can view this talk at: https://electricscotland.com/bnft
Beth's Newfangled Family Tree
Hi Everyone. Stone Mountain was great for me! I had the best time. I was really afraid I had forgotten how to do speeches, but nobody threw anything at me, and we had many folks coming.
I did have one thing happen that puzzles me. Friday afternoon, after the last speech, a very nice gentleman came up and gave me his business card and asked for a copy of one of my speeches. I'm always glad to do that for folks, but the business card disappeared. If you gave me a business card after the last speech, please write me at <bethscribble@aol.com> with your email and tell me it was you, and I will get you a copy of that speech immediately. I wrote a little box in this BNFT about this, but I felt I also needed to put it here. If you ever wish for a copy of my speeches, just email me.
It was so good to see dear friends at the hotel the day of the talks and also at the wonderful reception Friday night. I had tears of joy in my eyes most of the time at the reception. We had hardly seen any friends at all since 2018. I also had lots and lots of hugs and kisses. It's been long enough now that I am sure my myriad Covid shots and boosters protected me if there were any of those bad germs there. The entire time I got to be at Stone Mountain felt like "normal" times had returned. Hurrah!
I always want to thank the committee at Stone Mountain who has invited me for so many years. Thank you all!
We had the very good word that the Pipes of Christmas will resume with full wonderfulness this year. You'll see a little banner at the bottom of the front page and then two pages of information later in the publication. Be sure and read all of the information. They need our help this year.
There are lots of interesting articles and things I hope you will enjoy reading about. Be sure to let me know if you need to change your email address. Be sure to write me should you have a genealogical query you'd like published. Don't forget to send me any Flowers of the Forest information you'd like published in BNFT. Of course, news of what is happening at your own clan is always welcome.
With wishes for a wonderful Thanksgiving next month, although I'll write you again before then, I just realized.
Aye,
beth
You can get this November 2022 issue 1 at: https://electricscotland.com/bnft/index.htm
The Scot of the Eighteenth Century
His Religion and his Life By John Watson, D.D. (1907) (pdf)
The story this week is taken from Chapter IX of this book.
A most enjoyable read which you can get to at:
https://electricscotland.com/lifesty...00macluoft.pdf
Ruinous Pride
The construction of the Scottish Military Identity, 1745-1918 by Calum Lister Matheson, B.A. (2011) (pdf)
An interesting paper which you can read at:
https://electricscotland.com/history..._of_the_Sc.pdf
The Education of the Wage-Earners
A Contribution toward the Solution of the Educational Problem of Democracy by Thomas Davidson (1904) (pdf)
You can read this at:
https://electricscotland.com/educati...ee0000unse.pdf
A Bookman's Letters
By W. Robertson Nicoll (Fourth Edition) (1913) (pdf)
This volume is, in the main, a selection from some hundreds of similar letters contributed to the British Weekly under the general title ‘The Correspondence of Claudius Clear,’ and addressed to a large popular audience interested in books and authors.
You can read this at:
https://electricscotland.com/lifesty...rs0000nico.pdf
Language revitalization discourses as metaculture
Gaelic in Scotland from the 18th to 20th centuries by Emily McEwan-Fujita (pdf)
Discourses of Gaelic language revitalization in Scotland are analyzed as examples of Greg Urban’s ‘metaculture’ in order to gain a better understanding of how people attempt sociolinguistic change through minority language revitalization efforts. After describing the 18th-century emergence of ‘discourses of revitalization and redemption’ about Gaelic, this paper analyzes seven different themes or predications about Gaelic made in the 18th through 20th centuries to justify its salvation. I demonstrate how the discourses constitute metacultural and meta-linguistic commentaries on cultural and linguistic practices, and how previously circulating elements of culture, including language ideologies and affective stances, are dialogically contained within each creative revitalizing response and facilitate
its circulation.
You can read this paper at:
https://electricscotland.com/gaelic/...rses_as_Me.pdf
Highland rogues and the roots of Highland Romanticism
By Domhnall Uilleam Stiubhart (pdf)
The second most famous anecdote concerning the late-seventeenth-century poet Màiri
nighean Alasdair Ruaidh recounts how MacLeod of Dunvegan – possibly Ruairidh
son of Iain Breac – forbade her for a second time to make poetry, this time neither
within nor without her house. She is supposed to have composed her work standing
over the maide-buinn, the threshold.
You can read this paper at:
https://electricscotland.com/poetry/..._of_Highla.pdf
Book of the Farm
Added the BBC six part TV series to our Book of the Farm page.
You can watch all six parts at:
https://electricscotland.com/agriculture/farm.htm
Auld Licht Idylls
By J. M. Barrie (1913) (pdf)
This is how the first chapter starts...
EARLY this morning I opened a window in my schoolhouse in the glen of Quharity, awakened by the shivering of a starving sparrow against the frosted glass. As the snowy sash creaked in my hand, he made off to the waterspout that suspends its tangles of ice over a gaping tank, and, rebounding from that, with a quiver of his little black breast, bobbed through the network of wire and joined a few of his fellows in a forlorn hop round the henhouse in search of food. Two days ago my hilarious bantamcock, saucy to the last, my cheeriest companion, was found frozen in his own water-trough, the corn-saucer in three pieces by his side. Since then I have taken the hens into the house. At meal-times they litter the hearth with each other's feathers ; but for the most part they give little trouble, roosting on the rafters of the low-roofed kitchen among staves and fishing-rods.
You can read this at:
https://electricscotland.com/history...00barruoft.pdf
McCombie, William, Editor,
Added to our Significant Scots section.
Farmer, self-educated joint founder and first editor of the Aberdeen Free Press.
You can read about him at:
https://electricscotland.com/history...m-McCombie.htm
MacDonell, James - Journalist
By W. Robertson Nicoll, M.A. (1889) (pdf)Added to our Significant Scots section.
THE object of this volume is sufficiently explained in the opening chapter. As this is probably the first book of its kind, I have had no precedent to follow. It is obvious that many difficult and critical questions present themselves to a biographer with such a subject, and that he is also not without temptations. But I have done my best to act with scrupulous regard for the great traditions of English journalism, to violate no confidence, to insert nothing that would give pain, to write the life of James Macdonell in something of the spirit it was lived in. My obligations to his surviving friends and correspondents are many, and cannot fully be acknowledged here. Without the unwearied help of his wife this book could never have been written. Of several chapters (viii. xi. especially) she is virtually the author, and in almost every page her influence is to be traced. Miss Margaret A. Macdonell has given the most generous and valuable aid, especially in writing the story of her brother's early days. Mr. H. Gilzean Eeid, President of the Institute of Journalists, has, in the kindest manner, put into my hands the larger part of his long and confidential correspondence with Mr. Macdonell, and has besides favoured me with many helpful suggestions. Mrs. John Macdonell wrote for me a very interesting paper of reminiscences. My friend Professor Minto of Aberdeen sent me a very useful letter on Mr. Macdonell as a journalist. I have also to acknowledge the kindness of Dr. Alexander of Aberdeen, and other correspondents. It is hardly needful to say that for any errors of judgment or fact I alone am responsible. This can be read at: https://electricscotland.com/history/other/jamesmacdonelljo00nicoiala.pd
Intimate Golf Talks
By John Duncan Dunn, Los Angeles Country Club with Elon Jessup, Associate Editor of Outing, With 82 Illustrations (1920) (pdf)
You can read this book at:
https://electricscotland.com/history...talk00dunn.pdf
Story
You can read the rest of this chapter at:
https://electricscotland.com/lifesty...tinhishome.pdf
END
Weekend is almost here and hope it's a good one for you.
Alastair
https://electricscotland.com/scotnews.htm
Electric Scotland News
Lot of health related stuff this week. Got my third booster shot for Covid on the advice of Health, Ontario. Got four monthly blood work done and my A1C has gone down by .5 to 6.4 which is good. Also got another injection in my good eye and the eye specialist is very happy with my eye sight so that's also positive.
Also got a lot of work done on my home... mostly bits and pieces like getting my outside doors stained and door handle fixed. Siding power washed, painted my porch stairs, some lights bulbs replaced, lawn mowed and tree pruned. Back garden mowed and weeds removed. Basement cleared of rubbish and other wee bits and pieces. More to do on Friday like removing carpet from upstairs landing and then floor board cleaned and stained.
So busy on the home front.
-------
See we have a new Prime Minister in the UK. It may feel like a footnote, given the extraordinary economic crisis the country faces, but the arrival of Britain’s first non-white Prime Minister does feel like a watershed moment. (Rishi Sunak is not Britain’s first ethnic minority PM, however – that was Benjamin Disraeli way back in 1868.)
Sunak’s rise to PM will understandably carry a great deal of significance for many Britons from Indian-origin families who trace their roots back to east Africa – communities which have made outstanding contributions to the social, economic and cultural spheres of British life. It is particularly fitting that Sunak, who was proven so right over Liz Truss’s disastrous economic plans, becomes our country’s first Hindu prime minister on Diwali – a festival that celebrates the spiritual victory of light over darkness and knowledge over ignorance.
You can learn more about him at: https://capx.co/the-arrival-of-a-non...-his-identity/
Scottish News from this weeks newspapers
Note that this is a selection and more can be read in our ScotNews feed on our index page where we list news from the past 1-2 weeks. I am partly doing this to build an archive of modern news from and about Scotland and world news stories that can affect Scotland and as all the newsletters are archived and also indexed on Google and other search engines it becomes a good resource. I might also add that in a number of newspapers you will find many comments which can be just as interesting as the news story itself and of course you can also add your own comments if you wish which I do myself from time to time.
Nearly 6,000 council jobs could be axed after years of SNP Government neglect
A COSLA paper obtained by the Record shows councils are poised to slash jobs and cut services
Read more at:
https://www.dailyrecord.co.uk/news/p...could-28309033
Federal government backs nuclear with $970M investment in Ontario small reactor project
The country's first small modular reactor, located at the site of an existing nuclear plant in Ontario, is expected to produce energy by 2028
Read more at:
https://nationalpost.com/news/canada...uclear-project
Courage of Iran’s women and girls deserves awe and absolute support
The whole world now knows how it started.
Read more at:
https://www.sundaypost.com/fp/courag...solute-support
SNP minister resigns over gender recognition plans
An SNP minister has resigned over Scottish government plans to make it easier for someone to change their legally-recognised gender. Ash Regan quit as community safety minister, saying her conscience would not allow her to support the plans.
Read more at:
https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-scotland...itics-63416857
King delighted with TV repair of favourite vase
King Charles was visibly moved to see a cherished piece of ceramics restored by the team at BBC One's The Repair Shop. The work was carried out for a special edition of the BBC One show filmed last year when Charles was still a prince.
Read more at:
https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-scotland-63411913
What are the plans for gender reforms in Scotland?
Legislation that aims to make it easier for people to change their legally recognised gender is being debated in the Scottish Parliament.
Read more at:
https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-scotland...itics-60221034
Conrad Black: Canada, the U.S. and U.K. have become the new sick man of the world
All three countries must pull themselves together and resume their rightful places among the most respected nations in the world
Read more at:
https://nationalpost.com/opinion/con...n-of-the-world
Electric Canadian
Over Prarie Trails
By Frederick Philip Grove (pdf)
FEW years ago it so happened that my work — teaching school — kept me during the week in a small country town in the centre of one of the prairie provinces while my family — wife and little daughter — lived in the southern fringe of the great northern timber expanse, not very far from the western shore of a great lake.
You can read this book at:
http://www.electriccanadian.com/life...il0000grov.pdf
Militia Chieftains
Profiling the Founders of Canada's Scottish Militia Regiments by Patrick Watt (2014) (pdf)
Following a downturn after the Napoleonic Wars, citizen soldiery experienced somewhat of a revival in the British Empire in the Victorian period. The successes of imperial troops in the Crimea and Indian Mutiny, coupled with the withdrawal of British soldiers from the dominions, meant that in Canada, the militia, “once envisioned as nothing more than an armed auxiliary to the British Army in North America, was increasingly called upon to act as a self-supporting field army.” Cities, towns and communities across Canada responded to external threats from the USA and internal rebellions by forming companies or regiments of local militia.
You can read this at:
http://www.electriccanadian.com/forc...he_Founder.pdf
The Lobstick Trail
A novel by Douglas Durkin (1921) (pdf)
You can read this at:
http://www.electriccanadian.com/life...il0000durk.pdf
By Star and Compass
Tales of the Explorers of Canada by William Stewart Wallace (1922) (pdf)
SINCE the readers for whom this little book is primarily intended are seldom addicted to the unhappy practice of reading prefaces, and since book-reviewers and public librarians and school-teachers and rich uncles (all of whom, it is hoped, may look on the book with a kindly eye) sometimes are, it is perhaps fitting to explain here that the following pages are not intended to be a history of Canadian exploration. They are intended rather to set forth a series of stories illustrating the history of Canadian exploration, linked together by such brief comment as seems to be necessary. It is hoped that these stories will be found, by those most familiar with the subject, to be abreast of recent scholarship; but it should be understood that, though based in the main on primary rather than on secondary sources, they are in no sense contributions to the history of Canada. They are merely an attempt to put into story form some of the achievements of the great pathfinders of the northern half of
North America, and thus to invest these achievements with an interest which is perhaps lacking in historical narratives of the traditional type.
It is also fitting that acknowledgment should be made here of the debt the author owes to Mr. H. H. Langton, Librarian of the University of Toronto, for his kindness in reading the proofs of the following pages, and for a number of helpful criticisms and suggestions.
W. S.
You can read this at:
http://www.electriccanadian.com/life...tarcompass.pdf
Thoughts on a Sunday Morning - the 23rd day of October 2022 - The Environment
By the Rev. Nola Crewe
You can view this at:
http://www.electricscotland.org/foru...he-environment
Sawing with the Widest Sawmill in Canada
Added a video to the foot of our logging page which you can view at:
http://www.electriccanadian.com/pioneering/logging.htm
Herbert Symonds
A Memoir compiled by friends (1921) (pdf)
On the death of Dr. Herbert Symonds there was a very strong feeling expressed by many friends and acquaintances that an account of his life and influence should be given permanent form in a volume containing extracts from some of his sermons and essays. A few personal friends undertook the compilation of such a book. For them it was a labour of love; they rejoiced in the opportunity to give tangible form to the universal appreciation of the Vicar’s worth, as well as to meet the pressing demand for copies of his more important public utterances. The hope is expressed that this memoir contains at least some of the things that eager and admiring friends have longed to possess.
You can read this book at:
http://www.electriccanadian.com/make...me0000unse.pdf
Electric Scotland
Beth's Video Talks
October 26th 2022 - On wind and rain and games disasters
You can view this talk at: https://electricscotland.com/bnft
Beth's Newfangled Family Tree
Hi Everyone. Stone Mountain was great for me! I had the best time. I was really afraid I had forgotten how to do speeches, but nobody threw anything at me, and we had many folks coming.
I did have one thing happen that puzzles me. Friday afternoon, after the last speech, a very nice gentleman came up and gave me his business card and asked for a copy of one of my speeches. I'm always glad to do that for folks, but the business card disappeared. If you gave me a business card after the last speech, please write me at <bethscribble@aol.com> with your email and tell me it was you, and I will get you a copy of that speech immediately. I wrote a little box in this BNFT about this, but I felt I also needed to put it here. If you ever wish for a copy of my speeches, just email me.
It was so good to see dear friends at the hotel the day of the talks and also at the wonderful reception Friday night. I had tears of joy in my eyes most of the time at the reception. We had hardly seen any friends at all since 2018. I also had lots and lots of hugs and kisses. It's been long enough now that I am sure my myriad Covid shots and boosters protected me if there were any of those bad germs there. The entire time I got to be at Stone Mountain felt like "normal" times had returned. Hurrah!
I always want to thank the committee at Stone Mountain who has invited me for so many years. Thank you all!
We had the very good word that the Pipes of Christmas will resume with full wonderfulness this year. You'll see a little banner at the bottom of the front page and then two pages of information later in the publication. Be sure and read all of the information. They need our help this year.
There are lots of interesting articles and things I hope you will enjoy reading about. Be sure to let me know if you need to change your email address. Be sure to write me should you have a genealogical query you'd like published. Don't forget to send me any Flowers of the Forest information you'd like published in BNFT. Of course, news of what is happening at your own clan is always welcome.
With wishes for a wonderful Thanksgiving next month, although I'll write you again before then, I just realized.
Aye,
beth
You can get this November 2022 issue 1 at: https://electricscotland.com/bnft/index.htm
The Scot of the Eighteenth Century
His Religion and his Life By John Watson, D.D. (1907) (pdf)
The story this week is taken from Chapter IX of this book.
A most enjoyable read which you can get to at:
https://electricscotland.com/lifesty...00macluoft.pdf
Ruinous Pride
The construction of the Scottish Military Identity, 1745-1918 by Calum Lister Matheson, B.A. (2011) (pdf)
An interesting paper which you can read at:
https://electricscotland.com/history..._of_the_Sc.pdf
The Education of the Wage-Earners
A Contribution toward the Solution of the Educational Problem of Democracy by Thomas Davidson (1904) (pdf)
You can read this at:
https://electricscotland.com/educati...ee0000unse.pdf
A Bookman's Letters
By W. Robertson Nicoll (Fourth Edition) (1913) (pdf)
This volume is, in the main, a selection from some hundreds of similar letters contributed to the British Weekly under the general title ‘The Correspondence of Claudius Clear,’ and addressed to a large popular audience interested in books and authors.
You can read this at:
https://electricscotland.com/lifesty...rs0000nico.pdf
Language revitalization discourses as metaculture
Gaelic in Scotland from the 18th to 20th centuries by Emily McEwan-Fujita (pdf)
Discourses of Gaelic language revitalization in Scotland are analyzed as examples of Greg Urban’s ‘metaculture’ in order to gain a better understanding of how people attempt sociolinguistic change through minority language revitalization efforts. After describing the 18th-century emergence of ‘discourses of revitalization and redemption’ about Gaelic, this paper analyzes seven different themes or predications about Gaelic made in the 18th through 20th centuries to justify its salvation. I demonstrate how the discourses constitute metacultural and meta-linguistic commentaries on cultural and linguistic practices, and how previously circulating elements of culture, including language ideologies and affective stances, are dialogically contained within each creative revitalizing response and facilitate
its circulation.
You can read this paper at:
https://electricscotland.com/gaelic/...rses_as_Me.pdf
Highland rogues and the roots of Highland Romanticism
By Domhnall Uilleam Stiubhart (pdf)
The second most famous anecdote concerning the late-seventeenth-century poet Màiri
nighean Alasdair Ruaidh recounts how MacLeod of Dunvegan – possibly Ruairidh
son of Iain Breac – forbade her for a second time to make poetry, this time neither
within nor without her house. She is supposed to have composed her work standing
over the maide-buinn, the threshold.
You can read this paper at:
https://electricscotland.com/poetry/..._of_Highla.pdf
Book of the Farm
Added the BBC six part TV series to our Book of the Farm page.
You can watch all six parts at:
https://electricscotland.com/agriculture/farm.htm
Auld Licht Idylls
By J. M. Barrie (1913) (pdf)
This is how the first chapter starts...
EARLY this morning I opened a window in my schoolhouse in the glen of Quharity, awakened by the shivering of a starving sparrow against the frosted glass. As the snowy sash creaked in my hand, he made off to the waterspout that suspends its tangles of ice over a gaping tank, and, rebounding from that, with a quiver of his little black breast, bobbed through the network of wire and joined a few of his fellows in a forlorn hop round the henhouse in search of food. Two days ago my hilarious bantamcock, saucy to the last, my cheeriest companion, was found frozen in his own water-trough, the corn-saucer in three pieces by his side. Since then I have taken the hens into the house. At meal-times they litter the hearth with each other's feathers ; but for the most part they give little trouble, roosting on the rafters of the low-roofed kitchen among staves and fishing-rods.
You can read this at:
https://electricscotland.com/history...00barruoft.pdf
McCombie, William, Editor,
Added to our Significant Scots section.
Farmer, self-educated joint founder and first editor of the Aberdeen Free Press.
You can read about him at:
https://electricscotland.com/history...m-McCombie.htm
MacDonell, James - Journalist
By W. Robertson Nicoll, M.A. (1889) (pdf)Added to our Significant Scots section.
THE object of this volume is sufficiently explained in the opening chapter. As this is probably the first book of its kind, I have had no precedent to follow. It is obvious that many difficult and critical questions present themselves to a biographer with such a subject, and that he is also not without temptations. But I have done my best to act with scrupulous regard for the great traditions of English journalism, to violate no confidence, to insert nothing that would give pain, to write the life of James Macdonell in something of the spirit it was lived in. My obligations to his surviving friends and correspondents are many, and cannot fully be acknowledged here. Without the unwearied help of his wife this book could never have been written. Of several chapters (viii. xi. especially) she is virtually the author, and in almost every page her influence is to be traced. Miss Margaret A. Macdonell has given the most generous and valuable aid, especially in writing the story of her brother's early days. Mr. H. Gilzean Eeid, President of the Institute of Journalists, has, in the kindest manner, put into my hands the larger part of his long and confidential correspondence with Mr. Macdonell, and has besides favoured me with many helpful suggestions. Mrs. John Macdonell wrote for me a very interesting paper of reminiscences. My friend Professor Minto of Aberdeen sent me a very useful letter on Mr. Macdonell as a journalist. I have also to acknowledge the kindness of Dr. Alexander of Aberdeen, and other correspondents. It is hardly needful to say that for any errors of judgment or fact I alone am responsible. This can be read at: https://electricscotland.com/history/other/jamesmacdonelljo00nicoiala.pd
Intimate Golf Talks
By John Duncan Dunn, Los Angeles Country Club with Elon Jessup, Associate Editor of Outing, With 82 Illustrations (1920) (pdf)
You can read this book at:
https://electricscotland.com/history...talk00dunn.pdf
Story
Scots in his home from the book by John Watson
This is Chapter IX from the Book: The Scot of the Eighteenth Century
His Religion and his Life By John Watson, D.D. (1907) (pdf)
MY endeavour now will be to give a plain, but I trust not inaccurate, nor wholly uninteresting account of how my countrymen lived and thought in the eighteenth century, and our method will be to visit the country as a traveller might, and to observe the ways of the people, as well as to meet their leaders in the Kirk and in Letters. It would be quite impossible, besides being very wearisome, to enumerate all the authorities, yet it may be convenient to mention half a dozen outside statistical accounts, agricultural reports, county histories and such like, to which every reader in this century must be greatly indebted. One authority is an English officer of Engineers, who was sent to Scotland in connexion with public works about the year 1730, and who in a series of letters to a friend in London gave an extremely frank account of the condition of the Highlands of that time, with not a little interesting information about the Lowlands; and as Captain Burt was a thorough Englishman, with all the honesty and some of the superiority of the national blood, his observations on Scotland have the keener flavour to a Scot. Another is a Stirlingshire squire, Ramsay of Ochtertyre, who was born less than thirty years after the Union, and died the year before the Battle of Waterloo, who had a keen eye for things, and knew many distinguished folk, and left behind him a mass of manuscript with notes on every side of Scots life. Selections from the bulk were published in 1887 in two volumes, under the title of Scotland and Scotsmen in the Eighteenth Century, and are a mine of treasure. Every one, of course, knows Volume V in Boswell's Life of Johnson, Clarendon Press Edition, so perfectly edited by Dr. Birkbeck Hill, wherein that autocrat of Letters condescended to make a royal progress of inspection and criticism through Scotland, even unto the Hebrides, and if any one will read the autobiography of Dr. Alexander Carlyle, parish minister of Inveresk, who was born in 1722 and died in 1805, and who left behind him memorials of the men and events of his time, he will not weary once through six hundred pages, and he will place himself within the Scots Kirk at a time when it contained more men of literary distinction and worldwide fame than it has ever done before or since.You can read the rest of this chapter at:
https://electricscotland.com/lifesty...tinhishome.pdf
END
Weekend is almost here and hope it's a good one for you.
Alastair