Medieval Festival at Volterra, Tuscany

It is Sunday 28^th August 2011. Two family friends, my wife and me, are holidaying at Podera S. Barbara, in the tranquil montagna area a few kilometres to the west of Siena, near Simignano, a small hamlet over the hill from Ancaiano, Sovicille, Toscana. Incidentally, Simignano was to be the site for the city that now is Siena, however lack of a suitable water supply changed all that. Anyway, be that as it may, we are off to visit Volterra and enjoy the annual medieval festival that commemorates what the city may have looked like in AD 1398. The journey takes us many miles along a torturous winding road. We are in Italy. We are not alone, Volterra is thronging with people. The festival is obviously an important and popular day for local people and tourists alike. We get our bearings then pay our nine euros entrance fee. Once behind the barriers we encounter AD 1398. As we wander the alleyways and squares our heads spin back and forward trying to catch sight of passing peasants, noblemen and their ladies, all bedecked in realistic looking medieval costume. Bill informed us that we could hire a costume ourselves. We decided not, maybe next time.

Having spent many years working in and with communities back home we were impressed by the commitment of the local people and we assumed, the local authority, or the Volterra equivalent, to make the festival a success. A success it surely was. We are not convinced we would find the same commitment and organisation back home. The place is buzzing with community pride.

We spent some time watching the flag waving, or is it throwing, competition. We understood that this involved groups representing the contrada's of Volterra. A contrada being a community or area within a city. The Palio in Siena involves that city's contradas competing in a horse race. Volterra uses flag throwing. Maybe we have that wrong, it is our best guess. Anyway, it was very entertaining and we were really impressed by the skills displayed.

The streets were full of stalls, where various craftspersons demonstrated their skills and sold their produce and crafts. Probably more interesting to our group were the many food stalls. Mouth watering smells and sights. There were many cheese stalls, mostly varieties of that local delicacy, pecorino. Wonderful. There was a bread stuffed with, to the best of my knowledge, ricotta. I think they said it was called necci, or was that a pasta, not sure. Whatever they call it, I couldn't get enough of it. There were stalls with focaccine and others with medieval sweet treats. No idea what they were called but tasty nonetheless. At one stall I asked if the dark bits in a pastry type knob were chocolate chips. Even the stall holder’s limited English was enough to scold my ignorance. Seems chocolate was not a delicacy in 1398, not by a long shot. My abiding memory will be the smells of cheese and meats roasting.

There were jugglers, costumed people on long stilts, people being dragged through the streets and placed in stocks by a gang of rough looking males carrying a variety of weapons, including fearsome axes and whips. Many of the men wore multi-coloured tights, maybe we should just have hired the gear.

In one square they had a medieval version of line dancing, or perhaps highland dancing, complete with a caller to make sure the participants had some notion of what to do. I recall lots of sinistra, destra and centro instructions being issued, followed by lots of people bouncing first one way then the other. All to lute and flute music. Looked like great fun.

In short, there was never a dull moment, the place was alive from morning until dark. It was a wonderful day and to be recommended.

Another feature; at no time during a long day did I see one drunk person nor anything that even remotely looked threatening. I honestly can say, with some experience, one would struggle to attend such a large, well attended event in the UK, there were thousands there, without some incident to spoil it. In addition I can only recall seeing six police officers all day and they looked pretty laid back. They were toting firearms.

Then off we went back along the twisty, turny road. We stopped in the delightful village of Pieve a Scuola where we sat outside and sampled some local vino rossi and chatted with some local people. They suggested we visit there on the forthcoming Friday evening as it was the start of their annual mushroom festival. Put that in your diary and make sure you call in if in the area.

All in all a very successful day. When next in Toscana give Volterra a whirl, you will enjoy it.

To finish our day we sat in the garden of Pod. S Barbara, listened to crickets, quaffed vino rossi and gazed at the setting sun. Blissful.

To Cook a Roast, or Not

This is a true story, a touching tale of friendship. I have not used real names and I have related the telephone conversation just as it sounded and have not 'translated' it into BBC English.

Peter, Jake and Hughie reside in an area of North Lanarkshire, famous for an alcoholic beverage brewed by Monks in a quite corner of England. The brewers of this dark enticing liquid seem oblivious to it's effect on some of the young and not so young people of this quaint corner of North Lanarkshire. Our trio are connoisseurs of this drink. An expertise gained over many years of experimentation, coupled with a lot of trial and error. Certainly a lot of trials. They are particularly fond of the Monks Brew, not to mention the equally famous, 'Purple Tinnies' supplemented by a large cocktail of other supporting substances, few, if any, legal. This modern tale has a European twist. While Jake and Hughie are home grown, never having ventured too far from the safe haven of their childhood, apart from the occasional train adventure to Glasgow, via Whifflet, that world famous transport hub. Peter on the other hand is an alcoholic from Northern Europe. Our trio brave demonstrate what the European Union had in mind when first conceived. Citizens bonding across boundaries.

To our heart warming tale about team spirit and friendship in this 'dog eat dog' world. Circumstances conspired to split up our trio, our 'three musketeers'. Jake was put on a detoxification programme and to give him a glimmer of a chance, those in power separated him, using family support, from his erstwhile substance sharing partners. So now Jake is lodged with a caring relative in a strange town on the other side of Glasgow. Jake is effectively, to use his own words, 'Gulaged'. Undaunted and not to be outdone our 'trio brave', have technology on their side and several times each day they engage in a mobile telephone conference. They are finding the estrangement hard to take and need to keep in regular contact, particularly with a view to keep Jake 'up to speed', pardon the pun, with 'what's going down', reassuring him that their supply of substances remains intact and urging him not to worry, when he gets back things will be fine. These conversations always start, no matter who calls who, with that quaint old Scottish greeting, 'whits happenin' man'. One assumes learned at Primary School when engaged in a Burns Poetry competition.

One particularly touching call, overheard by Jake's supportive relative, goes along these lines:

Hughie, ' Jake! Peter an I tanned the wee grocer's shop last night and got two crates o' 'Purple Tinnies', fucking magic man. It's a shame yur no here. '

Jake, 'Yis did nut?'

Hughie, 'Fuckin' right we did.”

Jake, 'That's brilliant.'

Hughie, ' That's no aw man. We got a roast an aw'.

Jake, 'Brilliant man, brilliant'.

Hughie, 'We don't know whit tae dae wae it. Like how long dae we cook it fur.'

Jake, 'How fuckin big is it man?'

Hughie, 'Naw, it fits in the oven aw right.'

Jake, 'Naw, a mean, whit dis it weigh.'

Hughie, 'Fucked if a know, ma scales ur too wee.'

Jake, (after seeking advice and guidance from his caring relative) ' Ah think ye should gie it aboot forty five minutes or mibae an oor, am no that sure man, a've never done it afore.'

Hughie, 'Whit gas mark?'

Jake, 'Hus Peter no cooked a roast before?'

Hughie, (after a pause) 'Naw he's no goat a scoobie either. (then after another pause) Fuck it man, we'll jist cut it intae wee slices and fry it. We kin hae it wi some breed. Thanks fur yer help man, we wish ye wur here.'

Two days later Jake moved back to rejoin his friends. It is not clear at this early stage how his detoxification is progressing. Perhaps his cooking skills will relegate his substance use problems to 'the least of his worries'.

cost cutting and tweeting

Comhairle nan Eilean Siar, or as most of you will know it, Western Isles Council, is

resorting to innovative measures in it's attempt to reduce costs. The following is an

example of that twentieth century innovation. One of their information signs near Horgabost on Harris evidences the Council's progress in cost cutting as they miss out punctuation and an unimportant letter.

A Council spokesperson told our roving reporter that while this example only resulted

in a small saving on paint, it was the way forward. 'If we watch the pennies then the

pounds will follow.' The spokesperson went on to say that all internal Council

memorandums and e mails are now 'twittered'. The plan, once they perfect the

system in-house, will be to tweet all Council communications, internal and external.

When asked what percentage of the Council's customers presently tweeted, the

spokesperson had no idea, but was adamant about one thing. If people vote in a

Council to run the place, they should expect their councillors, aided and advised by

the officers, to 'run the place'. After all, he opined, they are the experts and a

forward looking Council like Comhairle nan Eilean Siar would not be held back by

people who, in all likelihood, had hardly ever been off the Island. No that is not how

it works. People have to learn to trust their Council to make the decisions that are

good for them. In terms of this 'tweeting' idea, Council experts have carried out

research in many far of places; New Zealand, Tahiti, California and Thailand and have

come back quite sunburned but more importantly, full of praise for the innovative

ideas picked up in these far flung corners of the globe. The spokesperson seemed a

tad defensive when asked if the research could not have been carried out a bit

nearer home, replying, 'well, in an attempt to keep the research realistic we had to

find places similar to those in our own area, such as Pabail Uarach and Tolastadh a'

Chaolais, a difficult task, but worth the effort. We have to get this right.'

In terms of 'Tweeting', they expect it will take a few months to 'bed in', a quaint

Thailand expression apparently. No doubt there will have to be a steep learning curve,

however I see none of that as a long term problem and if they all simply trust their

Council and follow instructions things would work out for the better and they will be

thanking the Council. The spokesperson was confident that when the public, their

'customers', realized just how much their elected members twittered they would

soon warm to the idea. The Council's accountants and Corporate Communication

experts estimate that once all Council communications are tweeted they will save in

the region of a third to half a million pounds in the first year and expect that to

increase in the years that follow. They look forward to the day when they, Comhairle

nan Eilean Siar, will be the first in the UK to twitter their Annual Report.

Feedback from people in the street was less than enthusiastic. One gentleman

suggested that the only tweeting was coming from the twits at the Council and if he

needed 'tweeting' he would have bought a canary. Another said they could 'twitter

on' before he learned to tweet, adding that with my false teeth I can hardly fecken

whistle never mind tweet. A lady who did not wish to be named said it sounded a bit

like the 'Clangers' and she wondered if the Council were on the same planet. As us or

the Clangers? She never said.

tight squeeze

                                                  Did you find a space darling?

proceeds of crime

We are in the middle of investigations into media telephone tapping, or hacking. Not a lot of ethics or morality there. If I am correct, part of the need for such behaviour stems from commercial pressure, probably with a touch of career strategy and ego, topped up with a sprinkling of arrogance. What seems clear is that such behaviour is seen as a way to gain the edge over rivals in the war of ratings and ultimately profit.

A question to ponder and I hope it is being pondered by those who serve us in the criminal justice system. If such 'hacking' is illegal and if it has led to profits for the perpetrators, then does it not come under the banner of 'proceeds of crime'? If so will there be action taken to recoup the illegally gained profits? If not, why not?

Just a thought.

a day in september 2001

The news this week has been full of the death of Osama bin Laden and obviously therefore the tragedy, now universally known as 'nine eleven', has also featured. The latter being one of these moments in time that indelibly ingrains itself into the subconscious, when any mention of the event immediately brings to mind exactly where one was when first hearing of it. What follows is not about politics or tragedy or right or wrong and is simply my recollection of that September day in two thousand and one.

During September 2001, I spent a couple of weeks holidaying at the Bunnahabhian distillery cottages, on the inner Hebridean island of Islay, an island internationally known for it's malt whisky. Some may have noticed the spelling of 'whisky'. No 'e' before the 'y'. That marks it as Scots, as opposed to 'whiskey', an Irish version and as far as my memory serves the form of spelling used by some American 'whiskey' manufacturers. Enough of the whisky lesson and to my tale.

On the morning of the eleventh I rose early and headed, binoculars at the ready, from my holiday cottage, south along the rocky shore of the Sound of Islay to look for wildlife and hopefully an otter. After about half a mile or so I come across the wreck of a fishing boat that had obviously come a cropper some years before. More about the wreck of 'Wyre Majestic' in another tale.

I settled into a comfortable spot, apart from the annoying midges that is, in the rocks about twenty yards from the water and near the shipwreck. The backcloth to the wreck being the beautiful Isle of Jura. The tide must have been just right for boat movement in the Sound because within ten minutes three ships passed, all heading north. First was a fishery protection vessel named, 'Vigilant', flying a yellow and blue quartered pennant. A red and white fishing boat then passed. It had the letters, G Y on it's flank. The morning rush then concluded with the, 'Hazel Anne' a small crabbing vessel out of Campbeltown. I continued my patient wait and soon am alerted by a snorting nose to my right. Then I spot, no more than ten feet or so from the rocky shore and about 30 yards from my position, two seals slowly fishing their way north up the Sound. They dipped below the surface and reappeared several times as they pass in front of me and out of sight beyond the wreck. I guess they were grey seals, but not being up on seal identification perhaps they were common seals. They were probably more interested in a fishy breakfast than considering my identification skills, or lack thereof. I next spy a hunting buzzard to my right and a merlin heading speedily out over the Sound. To Jura, who knows?

My ears then pick up the sound of splashing. Directly in front of me and about 30 yards distant I see an otter. It quickly goes out of sight amongst rocks and I wait with baited breath. My patience is rewarded, the otter comes out of the water onto rocks about 20 yards away. It seems oblivious to my presence. I slowly and with great care sight it through my binoculars. It is so much bigger, bulkier than I expected, such a big head. Sea water drips from the otter onto the rocks and the morning sun glistens off it's wet coat. It is a wonderful sight. I am afraid to breathe. Hanging from it's mouth is an eel. Soon devoured to the accompaniment of loud crunching noises. Breakfast lasts a good few minutes then, after a bit of preening, the otter gracefully slides back into the water. I am entranced as it spends the next few minutes playing about, diving and reappearing before climbing out and onto the rocks again. Some more preening then it once more slides gracefully into the water, not a splash, before heading south along the shore. It seems to be hunting as it moves away from my position, head breaking the surface for a few seconds before it arches out of the water as it executes a dive, it's final action is a wave of it's tail. It is gone. I think it was waving at me, it knew all along.

All this played out against a backcloth of the Isle of Jura. The Paps, the local name given to Jura's two prominent mountains, have a raiment of early morning mist clinging to each like velvet duvets. On a higher plain the morning clouds are being dispersed by a watery sun. The effect being a diffused light ranging through hues of pastel blues, wispy white and sombre grey hanging over glistening hillsides of purple heather, bronze to scree greys. Mind stopping beauty and all before breakfast.

In the afternoon I am aboard a small craft, the 'Angie' whilst Roger guides it north out of the Sound of Islay, past the Bunnahabhain shore, heading for Loch Tarbert, a natural feature that almost cuts Jura into two islands, but not quite. On board is an English High Court Judge, an apple farmer from Somerset and their families. Our trip turns into a wonderful afternoon. We hug the Jura coast and shortly before swinging into Loch Tarbert we hove to by 'Sgeir Traighe' a small flat island inhabited by grey seals and a whole raft of different seabirds. Shag, oyster catchers and much more. Stars of that day being a large cow seal and it's pup, only a few hours old. We bounce on through ever choppier seas and as we turn into the wide mouth of Loch Tarbert we pass close to a raft of razor bills and then two Great Northern Divers, then Roger draws our attention to a Golden Eagle high over the the Jura headland.

A really interesting period of raised pebble beaches, shapely rocky islands topped by short bushes and trees, giving the impression of green short haircuts then follows. Browsing amongst Jura's rocky shoreline we spy red deer and wild goats. At the head of the loch, now a narrow channel, made navigationally interesting by a cluster of green topped islands that necessitate careful manoeuvring we drop anchor for afternoon tea amidst a spellbinding backcloth of islands, sand, rocks and blue sky.

Too soon we are wending our way through a maze of channels back to the open Sound of Islay before scudding along on a stiff breeze and a strong tide to Port Askaig where a dram of Bunnahabhain single malt and pub grub awaits to finish a fantastic day.

It is about 5.30 p.m. When we enter the Port Askaig Hotel. There are a few people in the bar area, nothing unusual. We order food and drink and as we wait and chat the landlady comes into the bar area, she looks shocked, her face ashen. She speaks to everyone in the bar, obviously about something they have knowledge of, updating them of an incident we have no knowledge of. It is not clear what she is describing so when she leaves the room I ask what has happened. We, my wife, son and daughter in law then learn of the terrible events in New York and Washington, unbelievable events that over the next few years would shape a new order and have far reaching consequences to communities throughout our small world.

Was this what they planned?

Over the intervening years when I am reminded of the terrible events of that day in September 2001 my mind often wanders to 'Sgeir Traighe' and to a seal cow and it's hours old pup, and I wonder about their fate.

ice age cometh?

The following article may be of interest to some. I take no credit, it is by Gregory F Fegal, I merely found it and thought it worth passing on. I hope Gregory does not mind. It appeared in Pravda, January 2009.

Approaching Ice Age

The earth is now on the brink of entering another Ice Age, according to a large and compelling body of evidence from within the field of climate science. Many sources of data which provide our knowledge base of long-term climate change indicate that the warm, twelve thousand year-long Holocene period will rather soon be coming to an end, and then the earth will return to Ice Age conditions for the next 100,000 years.

Ice cores, ocean sediment cores, the geologic record, and studies of ancient plant and animal populations all demonstrate a regular cyclic pattern of Ice Age glacial maximums which each last about 100,000 years, separated by intervening warm interglacials, each lasting about 12,000 years.

Most of the long-term climate data collected from various sources also shows a strong correlation with the three astronomical cycles which are together known as the Milankovich cycles. The three Milankovich cycles include the tilt of the earth, which varies over a 41,000 year period; the shape of the earth’s orbit, which changes over a period of 100,000 years; and the Precession of the Equinoxes, also known as the earth’s ‘wobble’, which gradually rotates the direction of the earth’s axis over a period of 26,000 years. According to the Milankovich theory of Ice Age causation, these three astronomical cycles, each of which effects the amount of solar radiation which reaches the earth, act together to produce the cycle of cold Ice Age maximums and warm interglacials.

Elements of the astronomical theory of Ice Age causation were first presented by the French mathematician Joseph Adhemar in 1842, it was developed further by the English prodigy Joseph Croll in 1875, and the theory was established in its present form by the Czech mathematician Milutin Milankovich in the 1920s and 30s. In 1976 the prestigious journal “Science” published a landmark paper by John Imbrie, James Hays, and Nicholas Shackleton entitled “Variations in the Earth's orbit: Pacemaker of the Ice Ages,” which described the correlation which the trio of scientist/authors had found between the climate data obtained from ocean sediment cores and the patterns of the astronomical Milankovich cycles. Since the late 1970s, the Milankovich theory has remained the predominant theory to account for Ice Age causation among climate scientists, and hence the Milankovich theory is always described in textbooks of climatology and in encyclopaedia articles about the Ice Ages.

In their 1976 paper Imbrie, Hays, and Shackleton wrote that their own climate forecasts, which were based on sea-sediment cores and the Milankovich cycles, "… must be qualified in two ways. First, they apply only to the natural component of future climatic trends - and not to anthropogenic effects such as those due to the burning of fossil fuels. Second, they describe only the long-term trends, because they are linked to orbital variations with periods of 20,000 years and longer. Climatic oscillations at higher frequencies are not predicted... the results indicate that the long-term trend over the next 20,000 years is towards extensive Northern Hemisphere glaciation and cooler climate."

During the 1970s the famous American astronomer Carl Sagan and other scientists began promoting the theory that ‘greenhouse gasses’ such as carbon dioxide, or CO2, produced by human industries could lead to catastrophic global warming. Since the 1970s the theory of ‘anthropogenic global warming’ (AGW) has gradually become accepted as fact by most of the academic establishment, and their acceptance of AGW has inspired a global movement to encourage governments to make pivotal changes to prevent the worsening of AGW.

The central piece of evidence that is cited in support of the AGW theory is the famous ‘hockey stick’ graph which was presented by Al Gore in his 2006 film “An Inconvenient Truth.” The ‘hockey stick’ graph shows an acute upward spike in global temperatures which began during the 1970s and continued through the winter of 2006/07. However, this warming trend was interrupted when the winter of 2007/8 delivered the deepest snow cover to the Northern Hemisphere since 1966 and the coldest temperatures since 2001. It now appears that the current Northern Hemisphere winter of 2008/09 will probably equal or surpass the winter of 2007/08 for both snow depth and cold temperatures.

The main flaw in the AGW theory is that its proponents focus on evidence from only the past one thousand years at most, while ignoring the evidence from the past million years -- evidence which is essential for a true understanding of climatology. The data from paleoclimatology provides us with an alternative and more credible explanation for the recent global temperature spike, based on the natural cycle of Ice Age maximums and interglacials.

In 1999 the British journal “Nature” published the results of data derived from glacial ice cores collected at the Russia ’s Vostok station in Antarctica during the 1990s. The Vostok ice core data includes a record of global atmospheric temperatures, atmospheric CO2 and other greenhouse gases, and airborne particulates starting from 420,000 years ago and continuing through history up to our present time.

The graph of the Vostok ice core data shows that the Ice Age maximums and the warm interglacials occur within a regular cyclic pattern, the graph-line of which is similar to the rhythm of a heartbeat on an electrocardiogram tracing. The Vostok data graph also shows that changes in global CO2 levels lag behind global temperature changes by about eight hundred years. What that indicates is that global temperatures precede or cause global CO2 changes, and not the reverse. In other words, increasing atmospheric CO2 is not causing global temperature to rise; instead the natural cyclic increase in global temperature is causing global CO2 to rise.

The reason that global CO2 levels rise and fall in response to the global temperature is because cold water is capable of retaining more CO2 than warm water. That is why carbonated beverages loose their carbonation, or CO2, when stored in a warm environment. We store our carbonated soft drinks, wine, and beer in a cool place to prevent them from loosing their ‘fizz’, which is a feature of their carbonation, or CO2 content. The earth is currently warming as a result of the natural Ice Age cycle, and as the oceans get warmer, they release increasing amounts of CO2 into the atmosphere.

Because the release of CO2 by the warming oceans lags behind the changes in the earth’s temperature, we should expect to see global CO2 levels continue to rise for another eight hundred years after the end of the earth’s current Interglacial warm period. We should already be eight hundred years into the coming Ice Age before global CO2 levels begin to drop in response to the increased chilling of the world’s oceans.

The Vostok ice core data graph reveals that global CO2 levels regularly rose and fell in a direct response to the natural cycle of Ice Age minimums and maximums during the past four hundred and twenty thousand years. Within that natural cycle, about every 110,000 years global temperatures, followed by global CO2 levels, have peaked at approximately the same levels which they are at today.

About 325,000 years ago, at the peak of a warm interglacial, global temperature and CO2 levels were higher than they are today. Today we are again at the peak, and near to the end, of a warm interglacial, and the earth is now due to enter the next Ice Age. If we are lucky, we may have a few years to prepare for it. The Ice Age will return, as it always has, in its regular and natural cycle, with or without any influence from the effects of AGW.

The AGW theory is based on data that is drawn from a ridiculously narrow span of time and it demonstrates a wanton disregard for the ‘big picture’ of long-term climate change. The data from paleoclimatology, including ice cores, sea sediments, geology, paleobotany and zoology, indicate that we are on the verge of entering another Ice Age, and the data also shows that severe and lasting climate change can occur within only a few years. While concern over the dubious threat of Anthropogenic Global Warming continues to distract the attention of people throughout the world, the very real threat of the approaching and inevitable Ice Age, which will render large parts of the Northern Hemisphere uninhabitable, is being foolishly ignored.