tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-166394472024-03-13T11:22:07.173+00:00Dark Mutterings from DrumsleetHugh McMillanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05353561780315527799noreply@blogger.comBlogger352125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-16639447.post-21045488056923945942020-03-17T10:18:00.000+00:002020-03-17T10:51:46.872+00:00Poetry in the Days of PestilencePoetry in the time of pestilence. This is my last day at school before I retreat into a life of monkish contemplation. I have a few projects to do with the Holywood Trust (I'm writing a small history) and my school writing group anthology but I have also decided to try and video a poem a day and post it on the blog, for my own and others entertainment maybe. I think I'll gibber for a minute insanely then read a poem I like a lot then a new poem of mine? Those whom I have bored rigid recently will know of my 50 scots poems project on the theme of 'What if?' I may read some of them but in the meantime here's my Scottish Enlightenment Night Out poem. Keep safe folks, see you soon.<br />
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Whit if Thaur Wis a Scottish Enlightenment Nicht Oot<br />
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It a stairtit in the Rat an Monkey<br />
whan Tam Reid telt Davy Hume<br />
tae hae sim common sense<br />
an he went daft<br />
cos auld Davy theenks<br />
since a knowledge is empirical,<br />
its possible, no likely mind ye,<br />
no to have ony.<br />
Adam said if thaur wis an example <br />
o someyin hivin nae common sense<br />
Tam wis it- look at yon fucking stupit<br />
hat he wis wearin<br />
in this blowsy weather,<br />
like an auld pair odf drawers<br />
crossit wi a fucking tea cosy.<br />
Dugald pipes up tryin<br />
tae breeng saucht<br />
but they a shout him doon.<br />
Naebody fuckin remembers<br />
a fuckin word ye scrieve<br />
quoth Jim Hutton,<br />
yer anely weel kent cos o us,<br />
am seek o ye hingin aboot wi us onyweys<br />
this is a Select Club,<br />
next hing we'll hae wummen in it<br />
and they stapit fir a meenit tae laugh at that<br />
thocht, but then stairt again<br />
an then they a get chucked oot o the pub<br />
an stairt rollin heester gowdie doon the road<br />
kickin fuck oot o each ither<br />
till the French Revolution.<br />
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Shughttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03595952760142971192noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-16639447.post-12919288110216837702019-06-30T10:24:00.003+01:002019-06-30T10:34:01.336+01:00Poetry at the Vic Beer Garden<br />
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Unlike many other poets who cross the road when they see me coming, the makar Stuart Paterson<br />
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has been a long and warm companion on many a seasonal and unseasonal day and is always keen for a chat usually over a drink. The other day, we ventured to a little known oasis in Drumsleet, the beautiful, well appointed and lush beer garden of the Victoria Arms. There we exchanged news about our recent poetry successes. Stuart is just back from a triumphant tour of South Africa, where he made many important contacts with isXhosa poets, some details of which can be found here:<br />
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<a href="https://www.dgwgo.com/featured-author/local-writer-stuart-paterson-african-tour/">https://www.dgwgo.com/featured-author/local-writer-stuart-paterson-african-tour/</a><br />
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He is of course one of the best writers of Scots poetry there is and was also excited to reveal great news of a new book, and many new opportunities lying ahead in the year to come. I was happy also to talk, among other things, about my upcoming tour of the Blash o God, a multi media collaboration with a French based artist focused on the Buchanites which is due to appear in three cities and the Wigtown Book Festival. <a href="https://www.photokennel.com/the-poetry-connection">https://www.photokennel.com/the-poetry-connection</a><br />
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All in all we shared the multiplicity of rich poetry projects and achievements that you might expect from two poets at the very top of their game.<br />
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What an afternoon! I think we had eight quid between us.Shughttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03595952760142971192noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-16639447.post-35630699649816741982017-09-06T14:52:00.001+01:002017-09-06T14:55:44.744+01:00Walking Quietly I'm afraid this blog, rich source of wisdom though it is, fell foul of the easy lures of Facebook. I am less enamoured of pussbook now so am inclined to meander back here in my dotage, back to tales of Theosyphilis Neill- yes still bringing in the contraband thistlemilk by barge down the Nith every Sunday morning- Macduff and the rest.<br />
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I have retired from being a pedagogue though have been drawn back by episodic penury. I am still writing to some effect, but this effect is not so far visible in my wallet. Two books have come and gone, <a href="https://www.waterstones.com/book/not-actually-being-in-dumfries/hugh-mcmillan/9781910745106">https://www.waterstones.com/book/not-actually-being-in-dumfries/hugh-mcmillan/9781910745106</a> and <a href="https://www.waterstones.com/book/mcmillans-galloway/hugh-mcmillan/9781910745182">https://www.waterstones.com/book/mcmillans-galloway/hugh-mcmillan/9781910745182</a> Others are on the stocks, more talk of them soon.<br />
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Currently I am writing some poems about Original Nations in America. There has always been a rumour, backed up it must be said by DNA evidence, that a great grandparent was of this stock: a very exciting prospect. I have always walked quietly in Capenoch Wood, for instance, another sure sign. Researching Bufallo Bill's Wild West Show and its visits to Scotland, I came upon the tale of Crazy Dancer, one of the Sioux Ghost Dancers who was sprung from incarceration to tour with Bufallo Bill and re-enact the destruction of his own people on daily basis. He spent some time in Barlinnie having been arrested in a pub. here's a poem about it: The picture is from Buffalo Bills visit to Dumfries. <br />
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12pt;">Ghost<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Dancing</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12pt;">After one whisky too many</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12pt;">Crazy Dancer </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12pt;">but before that had reached</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12pt;">beyond the need for words </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12pt;">with Donald from Sligachan</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12pt;">whose leg was shot off </span></div>
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12pt;">in Egypt with the Seaforths.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12pt;">They both lived in </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12pt;">ragged at the edges </span></div>
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12pt;">telling stories for beer</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12pt;">over and over</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12pt;">in the insistent poetry of tongues </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12pt;">as though the fevered act </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12pt;">and the landscapes</span><br />
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<br />Hugh McMillanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05353561780315527799noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-16639447.post-45414572172161355442016-09-04T09:46:00.002+01:002016-09-04T11:17:44.378+01:00Arts in Dumfries in Rude Health<b><br /></b>
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<span style="color: #454545; font-family: "uictfonttextstylebody"; font-size: 17px;"><b>The Arts in Dumfries are in Rude Health as Twelve People Follow a Man in a Horse's Head and Four Girls with Pink Faces hold Smoke Sticks as a Machine Lifts a Cow</b></span><br />
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<b>Not for the first time </b></div>
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<b>the town is being reanimated,</b></div>
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<b>filled with colour, music and ritual.</b></div>
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<b>and the cries of What the Fuck,</b></div>
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<b>we are empowering the people</b></div>
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<b>and what risks we take! </b></div>
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<b>It harks back to the time</b></div>
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<b>the Vikings sailed here </b></div>
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<b>trading beads and origami herons. </b></div>
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<b>Our links with this proud race</b></div>
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<b>are perpetuated in</b></div>
<div style="color: #454545; font-family: UICTFontTextStyleBody; font-size: 17px;">
<a href="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-j20aaF6CiXg/V8v0YCLfzdI/AAAAAAAABWw/VqXwZpo3JLkHY-fO73Jto335YQz1zUkzQCLcB/s1600/nithraid.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"></a><b></b><i></i><u></u><sub></sub><sup></sup><strike></strike><br /></div>
<div style="color: #454545; font-family: UICTFontTextStyleBody; font-size: 17px;">
<b>a vegetarian stovie recipe,</b></div>
<div style="color: #454545; font-family: UICTFontTextStyleBody; font-size: 17px;">
<b>our sense of destiny,</b></div>
<div style="color: #454545; font-family: UICTFontTextStyleBody; font-size: 17px;">
<b>and the ruthless way we fill</b></div>
<div style="color: #454545; font-family: UICTFontTextStyleBody; font-size: 17px;">
<b>in our funding applications. </b></div>
<div style="color: #454545; font-family: UICTFontTextStyleBody; font-size: 17px;">
<b><br /></b></div>
<div style="color: #454545; font-family: UICTFontTextStyleBody; font-size: 17px;">
<br /></div>
</div>
Hugh McMillanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05353561780315527799noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-16639447.post-65679145778996441462016-05-01T13:22:00.003+01:002016-05-01T13:22:58.563+01:00And so the months passed....Two new books folks. When I recover the knowledge of the ancients I shall put them up for sale to the right of this page. <br />
<br />
I'm not going to attempt to summarise what's happened since December 2015 though highlights might creep out. Talking of creeps I am regaled this morning with pictures of the folically unchallenged Neil Oliver, sneering at the case for Scottish independence in an unashamedly adolescent manner. I wrote a section about Neil in 'McMillan's Galloway' which was far too kind but I reproduce it here, by way of a cheeky advert for the book. <br />
<br />
<i>Examining one of
the panels of the ancient Knockhill Cross, it is clear that the figure near the
Archangel Gabriel depicted with long hair and a microphone, is Neil Oliver, the
historian with the best hair on television, even more beautiful than Walter Scott's Helen of
Kirkconnell:</i><br />
<i><br /></i><br />
<div style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt 36pt;">
<br /></div>
<i>O Helen fair! beyond compare,<br />
A ringlet of thy flowing hair,<br />
I'll wear it still for evermair<br />
Until the day I die.</i><br />
<i><br /></i><br />
<div style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt 36pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-v8hruaIfOWs/VyX036WhkqI/AAAAAAAABWA/yykrJlkshl8yxqbTk8ECIlDMfvKFLfK7gCLcB/s1600/2016-04-27%2B09.48.55.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-v8hruaIfOWs/VyX036WhkqI/AAAAAAAABWA/yykrJlkshl8yxqbTk8ECIlDMfvKFLfK7gCLcB/s320/2016-04-27%2B09.48.55.jpg" width="240" /></a></div>
<br />
<i>Neil is
an ex-pupil of my old school Dumfries Academy where, so we are told by his
agent, ‘his love of history was born’. As well as having hair, Neil is a great
walker and has starred on TV tramping coastal paths round many countries that
have a coast, like Scotland, Ireland and now Australia. My coastal walking is
not as good as Neil’s, and in fact only consists of a 22 mile hike done in the
dead of night while completely drunk in Mull after my glasses had been buried
in a landslide, but even that small experience has filled me with admiration
for Neil’s achievements as well as those of the TV crew who will have to trek
the 35,846 kilometres round the variable coastline of Australia with heavy
equipment and products to maintain Neil’s hair in its good condition. Going at
the pace they were in the programme I saw , they should be finished when Neil
is 107 years old, in the year 2074, the year which is, coincidentally, the
250th anniversary of the publication of Mactaggart’s Gallovidian Encyclopedia. What an achievement that will be.</i><br />
<i><br /></i><br />
<div style="margin: 12pt 0cm 0pt;">
<i>Of course walking
long distances without thought to fatigue is a well-established tradition in
Dumfries and Galloway. The old Well Path from Durisdeer in Nithsdale north is
thought to be the pilgrimage route that linked the south, ultimately Whithorn,
with Edinburgh, Dunfermline and other royal centres. It’s also where ‘men of
pairts’ would think nothing of walking to university in Edinburgh or St Andrews
from their homes. Alexander Murray for instance walked to Edinburgh from
Minigaff to become eventually Professor of Oriental Languages in St Andrews.
Joseph Thomson, the famous explorer, was famous for his pedestrian activities.
His brother noted in 1882:</i></div>
<i><br /></i><br />
<div style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt 36pt;">
<i>On the hottest day of summer he walked from Gatelawbridge to
the top of Criffel and back, a distance of 55 miles … indulging cheerfully in a
dance on his return.</i></div>
<i><br /></i><br />
<div style="margin: 12pt 0cm 0pt;">
<i>And not a hair out of place.</i></div>
<b></b><u></u><sub></sub><sup></sup><strike></strike><i></i>Hugh McMillanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05353561780315527799noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-16639447.post-50257303194476539812014-12-04T12:33:00.001+00:002014-12-04T12:35:15.441+00:00Book of the Year<br />
<br />
<a href="http://www.heraldscotland.com/books-poetry/comment-debate/books-of-the-year-2014-x.25928684">http://www.heraldscotland.com/books-poetry/comment-debate/books-of-the-year-2014-x.25928684</a><div>
<br />Nice to get wee bit of recognition. Andrew Greig chooses Other Creatures as one of his books of the Year.<br />
<br />
<br />
<br /></div>
Hugh McMillanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05353561780315527799noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-16639447.post-42331704362668746022014-10-18T14:57:00.000+01:002014-10-18T14:57:19.775+01:00Blooms<div style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px; min-height: 13.8px;">
<span style="font-size: 12pt;"></span><br /></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
</div>
<div style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;">
<br /></div>
<div style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px; min-height: 13.8px;">
<span style="font-size: 12pt;"></span><br /></div>
<div style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;">
<span style="font-size: 12pt;">Blooms on la Mur de la Memòria</span></div>
<div style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;">
<span style="font-size: 12pt;">colour running onto stucco and stone</span></div>
<div style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;">
<span style="font-size: 12pt;">like sun or bursting veins. </span></div>
<div style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;">
<span style="font-size: 12pt;">Last time I saw the catalan flag</span></div>
<div style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;">
<span style="font-size: 12pt;">was in George Square</span></div>
<div style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;">
<span style="font-size: 12pt;">the night our hot Scottish summer</span></div>
<div style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;">
<span style="font-size: 12pt;">died. We don't want blood,</span></div>
<div style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;">
<span style="font-size: 12pt;">just our hearts desire,</span></div>
<div style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;">
<span style="font-size: 12pt;">says a drunk, or was it me?</span></div>
<div style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;">
<span style="font-size: 12pt;">"El desig del cor, </span></div>
<div style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;">
<span style="font-size: 12pt;">guerra no, persones si,</span></div>
<div style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;">
<span style="font-size: 12pt;">es la via catalania, la via escocia."</span></div>
<div style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px; min-height: 13.8px;">
<span style="font-size: 12pt;"></span><br /></div>
<br />
<div style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px; min-height: 13.8px;">
<span style="font-size: 12pt;"></span><br /></div>
Hugh McMillanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05353561780315527799noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-16639447.post-66281106489852684052014-08-03T10:31:00.000+01:002014-08-03T10:34:00.683+01:00Commission over80,000 words completed folks and handed in. Thank God. Next step another full collection of poems and a novel about Michael Scott, wizard. Watch this space.<br />
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
<div style="font-family: '.Helvetica Neue Interface'; font-size: 17px;">
<br /></div>
<div style="font-family: '.Helvetica Neue Interface'; font-size: 17px;">
<br /></div>
<div style="font-family: '.Helvetica Neue Interface'; font-size: 17px;">
<span style="font-family: '.HelveticaNeueInterface-Regular'; font-size: 17pt;">Afterword</span></div>
<div style="font-family: '.Helvetica Neue Interface'; font-size: 17px;">
<span style="font-family: '.HelveticaNeueInterface-Regular'; font-size: 17pt;"><br />
</span></div>
<div style="font-family: '.Helvetica Neue Interface'; font-size: 17px;">
<span style="font-family: '.HelveticaNeueInterface-Regular'; font-size: 17pt;">I take off my specs</span></div>
<div style="font-family: '.Helvetica Neue Interface'; font-size: 17px;">
<span style="font-family: '.HelveticaNeueInterface-Regular'; font-size: 17pt;">and the sea breaks to pieces</span></div>
<div style="font-family: '.Helvetica Neue Interface'; font-size: 17px;">
<span style="font-family: '.HelveticaNeueInterface-Regular'; font-size: 17pt;">of brilliant glass,</span></div>
<div style="font-family: '.Helvetica Neue Interface'; font-size: 17px;">
<span style="font-family: '.HelveticaNeueInterface-Regular'; font-size: 17pt;">each an electric pulse,</span></div>
<div style="font-family: '.Helvetica Neue Interface'; font-size: 17px;">
<span style="font-family: '.HelveticaNeueInterface-Regular'; font-size: 17pt;">each a prism for the sun.</span></div>
<div style="font-family: '.Helvetica Neue Interface'; font-size: 17px;">
<span style="font-family: '.HelveticaNeueInterface-Regular'; font-size: 17pt;">Cracking open a can of Estrella,</span></div>
<div style="font-family: '.Helvetica Neue Interface'; font-size: 17px;">
<span style="font-family: '.HelveticaNeueInterface-Regular'; font-size: 17pt;">I take up my pen like Byron in Sintra,</span></div>
<div style="font-family: '.Helvetica Neue Interface'; font-size: 17px;">
<span style="font-family: '.HelveticaNeueInterface-Regular'; font-size: 17pt;">or Ovid in Constanta, </span></div>
<div style="font-family: '.Helvetica Neue Interface'; font-size: 17px;">
<span style="font-family: '.HelveticaNeueInterface-Regular'; font-size: 17pt;">happy with the heat, the fish oil,</span></div>
<div style="font-family: '.Helvetica Neue Interface'; font-size: 17px;">
<span style="font-family: '.HelveticaNeueInterface-Regular'; font-size: 17pt;">and the homage of innumerable fans</span></div>
<div style="font-family: '.Helvetica Neue Interface'; font-size: 17px;">
<span style="font-family: '.HelveticaNeueInterface-Regular'; font-size: 17pt;">back home in the sleet.</span></div>
<div style="font-family: '.Helvetica Neue Interface'; font-size: 17px;">
<span style="font-family: '.HelveticaNeueInterface-Regular'; font-size: 17pt;"><br />
</span></div>
<div style="font-family: '.Helvetica Neue Interface'; font-size: 17px;">
<span style="font-family: '.HelveticaNeueInterface-Regular'; font-size: 17pt;">Why do I think of the Solway then,</span></div>
<div style="font-family: '.Helvetica Neue Interface'; font-size: 17px;">
<span style="font-family: '.HelveticaNeueInterface-Regular'; font-size: 17pt;">that miserable excuse for a sea,</span></div>
<div style="font-family: '.Helvetica Neue Interface'; font-size: 17px;">
<span style="font-family: '.HelveticaNeueInterface-Regular'; font-size: 17pt;">with its rocks nudging out of the silt</span></div>
<div style="font-family: '.Helvetica Neue Interface'; font-size: 17px;">
<span style="font-family: '.HelveticaNeueInterface-Regular'; font-size: 17pt;">like knees in a bath?</span></div>
<div style="font-family: '.Helvetica Neue Interface'; font-size: 17px;">
<span style="font-family: '.HelveticaNeueInterface-Regular'; font-size: 17pt;">Stone upon stone I ignite a light</span></div>
<div style="font-family: '.Helvetica Neue Interface'; font-size: 17px;">
<span style="font-family: '.HelveticaNeueInterface-Regular'; font-size: 17pt;">of a different sort, in memory,</span></div>
<div style="font-family: '.Helvetica Neue Interface'; font-size: 17px;">
<span style="font-family: '.HelveticaNeueInterface-Regular'; font-size: 17pt;">pale on the gorse, hot in the heart.</span></div>
<div style="font-family: '.Helvetica Neue Interface'; font-size: 17px; margin-bottom: 16px;">
<br /></div>
</div>
<div>
<span style="font-family: '.HelveticaNeueInterface-Regular'; font-size: 17pt;"><br /></span></div>
Hugh McMillanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05353561780315527799noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-16639447.post-40138405213901883132014-05-09T23:13:00.000+01:002014-05-09T23:14:26.284+01:00Shannon the Sheep Shearer<div style="font-family: '.Helvetica Neue Interface';">
<span style="font-family: '.HelveticaNeueInterface-Regular';">On the way to Australia, I only have to go a few hundred miles at 35,000 feet to meet part of the Galloway diaspora, Shannon from Springholm on her way to train and work as a sheep shearer in New Zealand. She tells me with pride she was part of the ten "sheep shearing sheilas" who raised £14,000 pounds in a charity shearing event held in Newton Stewart in 2013, money that went to the local community hospital and the Royal Educational Trust. "800 sheep" she said, "and there were another 400 in reserve. It was gey tough, but we did it. It's something I could be guid at." </span></div>
<div style="font-family: '.Helvetica Neue Interface'; min-height: 28.6px;">
<span style="font-family: '.HelveticaNeueInterface-Regular';"></span><br /></div>
<div style="font-family: '.Helvetica Neue Interface';">
<span style="font-family: '.HelveticaNeueInterface-Regular';">Shannon worked in her fathers business installing stoves. "I had work, aye, I was lucky, but I'm looking for something else." "Adventure?" I ask. She nods. "Something different, onyways." </span></div>
<div style="font-family: '.Helvetica Neue Interface'; min-height: 28.6px;">
<span style="font-family: '.HelveticaNeueInterface-Regular';"></span><br /></div>
<div style="font-family: '.Helvetica Neue Interface';">
<span style="font-family: '.HelveticaNeueInterface-Regular';">Shannon can't contain her glee at flying off into the blue. She has somewhere to stay and work arranged after a few months of travelling but everything's up for grabs. "I'm going to make it up as I go along" she says, finally. It's a up for grabs", and she gives a deep long chuckle.</span></div>
<div style="font-family: '.Helvetica Neue Interface'; min-height: 28.6px;">
<span style="font-family: '.HelveticaNeueInterface-Regular';"></span><br /></div>
<br />
<div style="font-family: '.Helvetica Neue Interface'; min-height: 28.6px;">
<span style="font-family: '.HelveticaNeueInterface-Regular'; font-size: 24pt;"></span><br /></div>
Hugh McMillanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05353561780315527799noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-16639447.post-34899424421274719342014-05-01T10:12:00.000+01:002014-05-01T10:12:14.368+01:00Welcome<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><img border="0" height="148" src="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-0-O9FKjUp_Q/U2IPVHgK7xI/AAAAAAAABS4/2PYf00rvHRE/s1600/book.jpg" width="200" /></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Welcome to the World, Sexy Book</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<!-- Blogger automated replacement: "https://images-blogger-opensocial.googleusercontent.com/gadgets/proxy?url=http%3A%2F%2F2.bp.blogspot.com%2F-0-O9FKjUp_Q%2FU2IPVHgK7xI%2FAAAAAAAABS4%2F2PYf00rvHRE%2Fs1600%2Fbook.jpg&container=blogger&gadget=a&rewriteMime=image%2F*" with "https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-0-O9FKjUp_Q/U2IPVHgK7xI/AAAAAAAABS4/2PYf00rvHRE/s1600/book.jpg" --><!-- Blogger automated replacement: "https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-0-O9FKjUp_Q/U2IPVHgK7xI/AAAAAAAABS4/2PYf00rvHRE/s1600/book.jpg" with "https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-0-O9FKjUp_Q/U2IPVHgK7xI/AAAAAAAABS4/2PYf00rvHRE/s1600/book.jpg" -->Hugh McMillanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05353561780315527799noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-16639447.post-6172919234747197322014-04-06T16:33:00.002+01:002014-04-06T16:35:18.555+01:00Oooo-er MadamWell these Canadians know how to do a poetry reading! I have absolutely no erotic poetry to read so feel free to send me any dirty ditties before I go to Edmonton.<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-GwBma5L02A8/U0Fy-mextMI/AAAAAAAABSU/WdGY-6kBBMc/s1600/redgala.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-GwBma5L02A8/U0Fy-mextMI/AAAAAAAABSU/WdGY-6kBBMc/s1600/redgala.jpg" height="400" width="205" /></a></div>
<br />
<br />
<br />
Galloway Tales continue on my other blog http://thegreatgallowaytalehunt.blogspot.co.ukHugh McMillanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05353561780315527799noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-16639447.post-12511769742748830262014-03-30T17:03:00.000+01:002014-03-30T17:04:54.192+01:00Auchencairn, and Scotland, as it Should Be<!--[if gte mso 9]><xml>
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Dick Hattaraik and Billy Marshall</div>
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On the bay, the Black Pearl, no Prince,</div>
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rocks at anchor, carronades trained</div>
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steadily up the Dumfries
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some of Billy's eighty six children</div>
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whose beauty like Helen of Troy's</div>
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Should I speak? </div>
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Tell my tales of a bit of baccy </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
smuggled in euro lorries, </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
the angry letters I've written to the Standard,</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
my hidden fear that in an independent Scotland</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
my pension might suffer?</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Maybe not.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
</div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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Hugh McMillanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05353561780315527799noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-16639447.post-20483042852233920212014-03-23T09:10:00.001+00:002014-03-23T09:10:35.884+00:00Mid-Term Report<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-cGNxaeR-M74/Uy6kyIfT7BI/AAAAAAAABRU/fQXomOMGDL8/s1600/pile.png" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-cGNxaeR-M74/Uy6kyIfT7BI/AAAAAAAABRU/fQXomOMGDL8/s1600/pile.png" /></a></div>
I
am pausing for breath soon, off to Alberta to read at the Edmonton
Poetry Fest then to Australia in May after the launch of my wee book
from Mariscat. I'm about 50,000 words in but have much still to do,
though this is the kind of project you could do for the rest of your
life. This week I've been talking about camels, Lawrence of Arabia, Bram
Stoker and the A75. Why? You'll need to buy the book! Ive designated
the end of July as the finish of the project, or at least the handing in
of a MS.
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<div>
<b style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">Pockle or Pauchle:</b></div>
<div>
<span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);"><br /></span></div>
<div>
<span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">Unfairly gain an advantage by underhand methods. For instance you will often hear that England <b>pauchled</b> the 1966 World Cup because not only were they at home, they also contrived to play all their games at Wembley Stadium. Also in the final they were given a goal when any idiot could see the ball did not cross the line. And they scored their final goal when the opposing team were filing off the park. So if you multiply the German score by two (because England were playing West Germany, only half of the country) and subtract the illegal goals, it's clear that if England had not <b>pauchled</b>, they would have lost 4-2.</span></div>
<div style="min-height: 28.6px;">
<span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);"><br /></span></div>
<span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);"><br /></span>
<br />
<div>
<span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);"><b>Shelpit</b>: </span></div>
<div>
<span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);"><br /></span></div>
<br />
<div>
</div>
<br />
<div style="font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; orphans: auto; text-align: start; text-indent: 0px; widows: auto;">
<div style="margin: 0px;">
<span style="font-family: '.HelveticaNeueInterface-M3';">Thin and cowed, like a dog that has been badly fed and treated. This term is often applied in private to small children you don't like the look of, because it is inpolite to say it out loud. People often say <b>bonny</b> when admiring babies and liken them to their mothers however <b>mawkit</b> these mothers might be but they never say <b>shelpit</b> when they don't like them. People can still be extremely rude, however, when viewing babies as in the old lady who upon surveying a child in a pram was heard to say "what a Bonny baby he's like none o ye". See <b>Nathan</b> for further misunderstandings with newly borns.</span></div>
</div>
Hugh McMillanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05353561780315527799noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-16639447.post-36296808450023552212014-03-09T11:17:00.001+00:002014-03-09T12:07:14.176+00:00A Conversation about Davie Coulthard in Dalbeattie<!--[if gte mso 9]><xml>
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
"Davie Coulthard gave us a lift up the road"<br />
<br />
"Davie Coulthard that drives?"<br />
<br />
"Aye, he gave us a lift up the road I said"<br />
<br />
"Aye he's good at driving"<br />
<br />
"Aye"<br />
<br />
"I saw him driving in what's it called, Monaco"<br />
<br />
"Never knew he'd been there"<br />
<br />
"Oh aye, no just there, Singapore"<br />
<br />
"Singapore?"<br />
<br />
"Aye"<br />
<br />
"Davie Coulthard?"<br />
<br />
"Aye"<br />
<br />
"You sure?"<br />
<br />
"Aye"<br />
<br />
"Davie Coulthard the butcher?"Hugh McMillanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05353561780315527799noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-16639447.post-79648380452047907022014-03-02T09:33:00.002+00:002014-03-02T09:34:54.854+00:00Geofantasapsychiatry<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-4z7v2NSUFiM/UxL6pR4X-tI/AAAAAAAABQ0/TOzr6IJ62T8/s1600/nessus.png" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-4z7v2NSUFiM/UxL6pR4X-tI/AAAAAAAABQ0/TOzr6IJ62T8/s1600/nessus.png" /></a></div>
<br />
<br />
<br />
The longer I do this the more I realise
that I don't have to go to Dumfries and Galloway but that Dumfries and
Galloway comes to me, in all shapes and forms, in day to day reality and
dreams. You can't move and function anywhere without some kind of
interaction with people and place and where that happens it's sometimes a
cause to write. However the process goes beyond that to a kind of magic
or at the very least a succession of leading coincidences. Or has this
obsession and sleep deprivation finally taken its toll? <br />
<br />
Recently
I got a parcel of William Macilvanney novels I hadn't read. As I set
out yesterday I absent mindedly stuffed one in my bag. I had planned to
have a wee search for Dirk Hatterick's cave, on the coast just past
Auchenlarie. No car, but juggling with buses, a finely honed art form of
which I think I am, by now, one of the world's finest exponents. I had a
wee lunch in Gatehouse in the hotel opposite the Bakehouse, then caught
the bus. It was a nice day on the coast, if a little overcast, and when
I got off I wandered about on the shore. The road was invisible, and
there was only silence and the Solway glittering and clouds running wool
white overhead. After a while I sat down and for the sheer hell of it
gave a loud howl, frightening the family I hadn't spotted that was
walking along the shingle kicking a ball for their dog. <br />
<br />
Out
of embarrassment, I took out the novel, 'A Gift from Nessus', opened it
randomly and began to pretend to read. I saw the word 'Dumfries',
skipped a few pages, followed the main character, who I later discovered
to be a window salesman from Glasgow, on the road south. A few pages
later he was in a hotel, 'the Angel' in the middle of Gatehouse. Then,
on the foreshore before Creetown "looking through a rock cleft that was
open to a bay, where the wind was farming empty acres of dun sky." Of
course, at the end of the chapter, he was disturbed by a family
"throwing a ball that was being tirelessly retrieved by a dog." <br />
<br />
Even
if I hadn't just been sold a new set of windows, I would have found
this a bit odd. I think I'll invent a new term for all this.
Geofantaspsychiatry. There I've done it. <br />
<br />
<i>and in his brain,--<br /> Which is as dry as the remainder biscuit<br /> After a voyage,--he hath strange places crammed<br /> With observation, the which he vents </i><br />
<i>In mangled forms. <br /><br />(As you Like it) </i> <br />
<br />
And what has that got to do with This book? Well everything really. <br />
<br />
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<br />
<br />
<br />
The great tour of Wigtownshire designed to
inform an eager public about the MacTaggart project gets off to an
inauspicious start in Wigtown Library where the staff are shocked to see
me, there is no audience, and I retire into the local collection to
research furiously to overcome my humiliation. I look in a mirror and am
shocked to see myself to tell you the truth: it's been a long bus
journey without a toilet stop and a large man bound for the Stranraer
boat has spent the whole journey telling me how desperate he is to get
out of Scotland because it's destroying his liver. <br />
<br />
This
is not the first time this has happened to me. I was once invited to a
reading in Wick when only the janitor came, and, unlike these discreetly
embarrassed librarians, he insisted on making things worse by telling
me Edwin Morgan had been the the fortnight before and they had been
"queued round the block." Worse I suppose, is a story that Tom Pow once
told me about a reading in The Edinburgh Festival at the Art College,
entitled 'Bards o Gallowa' featuring himself and the great Willie Neill.
In spite of extensive publicity no-one turned up at all and the poets
were about to leave quietly and in a dignified way, when the organiser
said "wait a minute" and pointing to the door of the bar from where
extravagant noise and laughter issued, said " I'll see if anyone wants
to come for free." After what seemed an eternity he emerged furiously
shaking his head, muttering "no, no-one".
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<![endif]--><br /><br />Bobby Dalrymple of Newton Stewart, having just shown an approving gaggle of spectators the mark of an adder bite he'd got as a boy on Cairnsmore, moves effortlessly onto a discourse on the science of coincidence. <br /><br /> 'Is it not bloody strange' he asks us, rhetorically, 'My Grandfather Bobby was in the KOSB, and was killed in Cape Hellas in Gallipoli on the 4th June 1915, his body was never found, though he's on the memorial there. My youngest brother is going in October to see it, by the way. Anyway, do you know the Turkish man who's got the cafe across the road?' Everybody nods. 'Aye a really good man. Anyway I was telling him all this and - this is completely kosher now, he showed me the proof- his grandfather was killed in exactly the same place on exactly the same day, except fighting on the other side. Is that no incredible now? ' Everybody agrees. Hugh McMillanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05353561780315527799noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-16639447.post-35174480077517921482014-02-09T14:15:00.002+00:002014-02-09T14:15:08.610+00:00On the Trail of the Wickerman<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-RYdq1SripU4/UveNGheVA6I/AAAAAAAABPk/JBWQaiuBYGI/s1600/creebaby.png" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-RYdq1SripU4/UveNGheVA6I/AAAAAAAABPk/JBWQaiuBYGI/s1600/creebaby.png" /></a></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<i>Summerisle</i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<i>What has happened
here?</i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<i>Why are the cottages
shuttered,</i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<i>the streets primed for
tumbleweed?</i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<i>Where are the
zimmers, </i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<i>the folk carrying
parcels of fish,</i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<i>the kids drumming on
fences,</i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<i>the men and women
walking back</i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<i>leaden footed from
work?</i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<i>Only the offices to
prevent</i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<i>rural depopulation are
open,</i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<i>their computer screens
flickering</i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<i>madly behind half
closed blinds.</i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<i>I am waiting for these
small villages </i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<i>by the sea to
regenerate, </i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<i>like in some film,</i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<i>to be born of flame,</i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<i>and while I do, public
art sprouts</i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<i>above me,</i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<i>huge and mysterious
like alien pods.</i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<br />
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<a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-2Pn0FfkrlOU/Uu5SdxMCLwI/AAAAAAAABPM/QCYQG7iYZqY/s1600/tong+2.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-2Pn0FfkrlOU/Uu5SdxMCLwI/AAAAAAAABPM/QCYQG7iYZqY/s1600/tong+2.jpg" /></a></div>
</b><div class="MsoNormal">
<b>The Clatteringshaws
Hydro Electric System as described by Keith Downes in the King's Hotel
Dalbeattie 21st January 2014</b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
It's f...........incredible, see the loch we ca Loch Ken, it's an artificial loch, ye ken? On an old
tidal system, 6 dams, a third o the power o the whole Stewartry comes fae that,
ken, it's a f.........great system, I'm proud as f........of it. Built in the
1930s ken. It's incredible. I'd like you to see it. You'd be f.........dancing
for joy when you see it, mukker. F.........dancing. Feenished in 1937, yon
Tongland, what a great wee power station. See I'm a Stewartry man, born an
bred. F........Dumfries . C'mon now Dumfries has stolen New Abbey frae us,
f...........Southerness, f.............Creeton's awa. Shocking. It's a f.............land
grab by Dumfries, it's a
f.............disgrace. A f...............conspiracy pure and simple. I'm makin
too much noise am I? Should be shoutin it frae the rooftops.
F...............shocking. Pure and simple.</div>
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<br /></div>
<br />
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A Monday morning, and just finished my stint
at one of
Scotland's newest festivals, the Big Burns Supper in Dumfries, reading
McTaggart and some possible extracts from this book on the Saturday and
then, along with the poet Stuart
Paterson, doing my own poetical response to the Bard on the Sunday. In
between
times, I was whisked by Burns Helicopter to Gatehouse for a poetry
reading
there. Great fun and liver bashing all round. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 18pt;"> </span>The parade in Dumfries,
involving lots of weans who had created their own masks and giant puppets and
formed their own drumming bands, was lively and dramatic and the town was
buzzing in spite of the fact that for the second year running the weather did
its worst to screw things up. To my eyes, most of the faces were locals
delighted to be having acts like Big Country and Dick Gaughan on the doorstep
and thrilled to see the town coursing a wee bit with unusual electricity. All
three of our events had strangers and some kent faces in the audience and went
well . Sometimes the creative life seems compelling. Sometimes.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-hlkZrFFZxRY/Uua2VSV2IbI/AAAAAAAABO8/ZY--rgWZDy4/s1600/bbs.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-hlkZrFFZxRY/Uua2VSV2IbI/AAAAAAAABO8/ZY--rgWZDy4/s1600/bbs.jpg" /></a></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
On Sunday's events we read our poems by Burns and about him.
Because I’m twisted and had just heard that a fellow poet was on a
beach in Africa having been flown out for a
ten minute role in a Burns Supper, I read my poem <i>Suppertime</i>. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<i>It’s that time again:</i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<i>erubescent men are
boarding planes</i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<i>to Fiji and Azerbaijan.</i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<i>They will blow east
and west</i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<i>on airs of malt. The
world will be</i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<i>necklaced by these
ambassadors</i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<i>preaching love of
literature</i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<i>and other stuff they
say</i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<i>they understand, or
even claim</i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<i>their nation has
invented,</i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<i>things like passion
and equality,</i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<i>humanity and pride.</i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<i>Avoid them if you can</i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<i>They come from a
country</i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<i>so stuffed with
hypocrisy and cant</i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<i>it explodes like this
once a year.</i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<i>The rest of the time</i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<i>these man are sober</i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<i>rotarians. Unionists.
And that apart,</i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<i>wouldn’t know a poem</i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<i>if it bit them on the
arse.</i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
After that we rolled up to the Globe snug and witnessed Jane Brown, currently President of the World Burns Federation as well as
the Globe's landlady, reducing the whole experience of a burns supper into
manageable, and profitable, ten minute packages. I was totally impressed, and
after it, felt compelled to read poems to a couple from Lochgilphead, even
after they were clearly bored.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br />
The Big Burns Supper is an attempt to regenerate a town
whose unique association with Scotland's most charismatic artist has
always seemed to me both a curse and a blessing, and do it through art. It
seemed to me, and mine was certainly not a scientific survey, that the
community or at least a part of it was enjoying it hugely.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Maybe it was guid scots drink.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<i>O Whisky! soul o'
plays and pranks! <br />
Accept a bardie's gratfu' thanks! <br />
When wanting thee, what tuneless <a href="http://www.robertburns.org/works/glossary/446.html"><span style="color: black; text-decoration: none;">cranks</span></a>
<br />
Are my poor verses! <br />
Thou comes-they rattle in their ranks, <br />
At ither's arses! </i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<i>Fortune! if thou'll
but gie me still<br />
Hale breeks, a scone, an' whisky gill<br />
An' rowth o' rhyme to rave at will<br />
Tak a' the rest<br />
An' deal't about as thy blind skill<br />
Directs thee best.</i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<i>(Guid Scots Drink)</i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br />
Under the influence of strong drink, and under the roof of
the man himself's favourite pub, it was hard not to be suffused by a general
bonhomie and believe maybe that in the face of all the evidence, it is actually
comin yet for a that.</div>
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Boab and Shug
</h3>
<div class="post-header">
</div>
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-pL5tpjiq6HM/UtuvPWa2I5I/AAAAAAAABOs/fNHfJ8gOQzA/s1600/bbs.png" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="195" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-pL5tpjiq6HM/UtuvPWa2I5I/AAAAAAAABOs/fNHfJ8gOQzA/s1600/bbs.png" width="200" /></a></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-1CBEgOHhgeE/UtuvETnSk2I/AAAAAAAABOc/3g1bOq-MeFE/s1600/burns.jpg" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-1CBEgOHhgeE/UtuvETnSk2I/AAAAAAAABOc/3g1bOq-MeFE/s1600/burns.jpg" /></a>I'm
engaging in a few events to try and spread a bit of awareness of my
project. As you know, I've been commissioned by the Wigtown
Book Festival to write a sequel to the funny and notorious 'Gallovidian
Encyclopaedia' written by John McTaggart in 1824, a hilarious and partly
slanderous work which was withdrawn from publication as a result of the
furore
it caused at the time.<span style="font-family: "Segoe UI"; font-size: 10.5pt;"></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: ".Helvetica Neue Interface"; font-size: 18pt;"> </span>Im
going to hold a regular series of events across the region
introducing people to the work of McTaggart and revealing some of my own
eccentric
vision of the region today. I'll be appearing in regional libraries from
the middle of February but in the meantime you can catch me first on <span style="color: yellow; font-size: medium;">Saturday 25th
January upstairs in the Coach and Horses at 3.00pm</span> as part of the <span style="color: yellow; font-size: medium;">Big Burns
Supper Festival.</span> Entry is £5.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
</div>
Immediately after that I'll be whisked by Burns Helicopter to Gatehouse of Fleet to appear with Stuart Paterson at the fabulous <span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="color: yellow;">Bakehouse for their Burns Night Celebrations</span><span style="color: yellow;">.7.30pm. </span></span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
http://www.thebakehouse.info/</div>
Hugh McMillanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05353561780315527799noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-16639447.post-36397282226337890522014-01-12T10:21:00.001+00:002014-01-12T11:16:57.449+00:00Nith Cross<br />
<div style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<b><br /></b></div>
<div style="background-color: black; color: white;">
Here's a
thing. I'm standing in a muddy field one late afternoon. I've been diverted
from my walk along the main road from Penpont to Thornhill, (a walk
necessitated by the unnecessary closure of the historic Volunteer Arms in
Penpont, though I may have mentioned this before) by a monument that no-one
seems to care about but is quite remarkable. I'm nearly always diverted by it,
trying to catch it when the sun is sliding across it for good photos or to best
make out the carvings, because there are carvings, amazing zoomorphic shapes of
winged beasts. It's remarkable for a lot of reasons but one of them is that
nobody seems to care about it. No protective glass panels for it like the
Kirkmadrine stones, or interpretation boards to tell us what we're looking at
or what we should be thinking. The locals tend to think it’s a monument to
people who lost their lives in an accident here, on the ferry that used to run
before the <st1:place w:st="on"><st1:placename w:st="on">Nith</st1:placename> <st1:placetype w:st="on">Bridge</st1:placetype></st1:place> was built.</div>
<div style="background-color: black; color: white;">
<br /></div>
<div style="background: none repeat scroll 0% 0% rgb(0, 0, 0); color: white; margin: 0cm 0cm 16.2pt;">
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-LysQI1CP4Q8/UtJ4ZqpfQtI/AAAAAAAABOA/Yz628-Ko0mM/s1600/nith.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-LysQI1CP4Q8/UtJ4ZqpfQtI/AAAAAAAABOA/Yz628-Ko0mM/s1600/nith.png" /></a></div>
The truth is
also remarkable because it dates from the 10th century and is the Ruthwell
Cross’ poor neglected scabby cousin, a Northumbrian cross shaft, its bestiary of carved symbols and bible stories being slowly
eroded by wind and rain, its warm stone turning smooth as a plum. </div>
<div style="background-color: black; color: white;">
<br /></div>
<div style="background: none repeat scroll 0% 0% rgb(0, 0, 0); color: white; margin: 0cm 0cm 16.2pt;">
What it's doing here I don't know, but this appears to be
its natural location. Its neglect is a history crime, but I also can't help
thinking how romantic and lonely and enigmatic it is standing here with its
necklace of rusty fence, and a backdrop of fields and gentle slopes and torn
pink and grey sky furling round the dark fortress of Tynron Doon. It
seems a suitable sentinel for that strange quasi island between the Nith and
the Scaur that I call home.</div>
<div style="background-color: black; color: white;">
<br /></div>
<div style="background-color: black; color: white; margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<i>Leave the world between bridges: </i></div>
<div style="background-color: black; color: white;">
<i>the narrow one across the Nith </i></div>
<div style="background-color: black; color: white;">
<i>with its sentry box and the old</i></div>
<div style="background-color: black; color: white;">
<i>crossing at Scaur squatting on its Roman haunch.</i></div>
<div style="background-color: black; color: white;">
<i>There’s a shaded cup of fields between the bridges,</i></div>
<div style="background-color: black; color: white;">
<i>moss and trees darkened on every side by hills. </i></div>
<div style="background-color: black; color: white;">
<i>The royal holm is here where Bruce camped on his
way </i></div>
<div style="background-color: black; color: white;">
<i>to heaven via Whithorn, and Penpont, still
scratched </i></div>
<div style="background-color: black; color: white;">
<i>on maps after seven hundred years. Penpont, </i></div>
<div style="background-color: black; color: white;">
<i>an island, and The Nith Stone, totem of this pagan
space. </i></div>
<div style="background-color: black; color: white;">
<i>Rain has swept the
dogma from its sides </i></div>
<div style="background-color: black; color: white;">
<i>and smooth as a grape
it stares from a bright clasp </i></div>
<div style="background-color: black; color: white;">
<i>of weeds, sizing up
visitors and their burdens,</i></div>
<div style="background-color: black; color: white;">
<i>daring them to stay
for a night here </i></div>
<div style="background-color: black; color: white;">
<i>in the blaze between
the bridges,</i></div>
<div style="background-color: black; color: white;">
<i>below our thin, bright
slice of moon.</i></div>
<div style="background-color: black; color: white;">
<br /></div>
<div style="background-color: black; color: white; margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<i> (Nith Stone)</i></div>
<div style="background-color: black; color: white;">
<br /></div>
<div style="background: none repeat scroll 0% 0% rgb(0, 0, 0); color: white; margin: 0cm 0cm 16.2pt;">
<i> </i>It's also a kind of totem pole
for the forgotten landscape. Children, let us do a creative writing workshop
standing here, ankle deep in glaur. Place your hands upon this cold stone and
trace the carvings. Take your earphones out, Daytona, there is a place for
Pixie Lott but this is not it. Take a deep breath, extend your arms against
this chill January sky, imagine, imagine, imagine.......</div>
<div style="background-color: black; color: white;">
<br /></div>
<div style="background-color: black; color: white; margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
</div>
<div style="background-color: black; color: white;">
<br /></div>
<div style="background-color: black; color: white; margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
</div>
<br />
<div style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
</div>
Hugh McMillanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05353561780315527799noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-16639447.post-28038589291802656452014-01-05T23:46:00.002+00:002014-01-06T20:50:48.447+00:00S for Stagecoach, an exerpt<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<span style="color: white;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">Stagecoach-</b> Once a hugely expensive, uncomfortable, unending and unreliable way to travel between destinations, and still is. I'm not talking about particular companies here, just buses in general. My ire while writing this is fuelled by standing in a bus shelter for three hours last week in sub-zero temperatures, my only company being a man with a huge slowly freezing drip coming from his nose and the electronic display, installed at massive expense by the Regional Council, which instead of saying something useful like ‘your bus is 40 minutes late/been cancelled/ or whatever, insisted instead on wishing me, repeatedly, a Merry Christmas. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<span style="color: white;"> </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<span style="color: white;">Coach transport has always been tough.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<span style="color: white;"></span><br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="color: white;">“When the Marquis of Downshire attempted to make a journey through Galloway in his coach about the year 1760 a party of labourers attended him to lift the vehicle out of ruts and put on the wheels when it got dismounted.....when within 3 miles of the village of Freetown near Wigtown he was obliged to ......pass the night in the coach with his family”<o:p></o:p></span></i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<span style="color: white;"></span><br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="color: white;">(Thomas Telford; Samuel Smiles)<o:p></o:p></span></i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<span style="color: white;"></span><br /></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-ueB69tN7q8c/UslY2MyzTKI/AAAAAAAABNE/7cQgS95XCV0/s1600/coach.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="color: white;"><img border="0" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-ueB69tN7q8c/UslY2MyzTKI/AAAAAAAABNE/7cQgS95XCV0/s1600/coach.jpg" /></span></a></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<span style="color: white;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10.5pt;"><o:p> </o:p></span>I’ve often sympathised with the Marquis of Downshire, especially when sitting at the side of the road in a bus after the alternator’s packed up or the doors blown off, or a tree has tumbled across the road. I’ve never driven, as poets don’t drive, everyone knows that, so I judge myself an expert in public transport. Why should everyone need to have a car to live in the countryside? </span><br />
<span style="color: white;"></span><br />
<span style="color: white;">Rural buses are a lifeline but the service is poor, though the drivers are often, though not always, men and women of great humanity and kindness. If you depended on the buses completely, though, you would evolve into a creature with no social life past quarter to five in the evening. I have thought this more keenly since my local pub shut down and often, at a bus stop, think of Henry Thoreau’s words, “<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">It would be some advantage to live a primitive and frontier life, though in the midst of an outward civilization, if only to learn what are the gross necessaries of life and what methods have been taken to obtain them</i>”<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Helvetica; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";">. </span><span lang="EN-US"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span>I have a theory that in the centre of all this technological advance, some of the population are, through poverty or remoteness, living a medieval life, or a medieval life with some mod cons<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Helvetica; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";">.</span> Some folk embrace this lifestyle, of course, and become rekei therapists but most are just trying to have a decent life. </span><br />
<span style="color: white;"></span><br />
<span style="color: white;">Difficulties in rural transport encourage depopulation and foster the ghost landscape. Mind you, there’s another way of looking at it. I was having a conversation with a young man about to leave school in Newton Stewart, but who lives some miles from there, and the talk got to buses. I was saying what a shame it was that there weren’t more services and he said “aye it’s a conspiracy to keep us here, they don’t want us to leave. Even the ones you get take you round in circles.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<span style="color: white;"></span><br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<span style="color: black;"><span style="color: white;">It’s true of course. I used to get a bus that took 50 minutes to travel the 13 miles to <st1:place w:st="on">Dumfries</st1:place>, and half an hour into the journey we were further away than when we started. There’s an inherent symbolism in the Region’s bus services which should not be underestimated</span>.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<span style="color: black;"></span> </div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
</div>
<span style="color: black;"></span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<span style="color: black;"> </span></div>
<span style="color: black;"><o:p></o:p></span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="color: white;">We butt into the countryside.<o:p></o:p></span></i></div>
<span style="color: black;"><span style="color: white;"></span></span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<span style="color: black;"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="color: white;">Our bus is aggrieved:<o:p></o:p></span></i></span></div>
<span style="color: black;"><span style="color: white;"></span></span><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<span style="color: black;"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="color: white;">it grinds through swamps and ruts,<o:p></o:p></span></i></span></div>
<span style="color: black;">
<span style="color: white;"></span><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="color: white;">between dykes and crippled hedges,<o:p></o:p></span></i></div>
<span style="color: white;"></span><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="color: white;">down miles of wet tarmac, <o:p></o:p></span></i></div>
<span style="color: white;"></span><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="color: white;">from one telegraph pole to another,<o:p></o:p></span></i></div>
<span style="color: white;"></span><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="color: white;">from one five bar gate to another,<o:p></o:p></span></i></div>
<span style="color: white;"></span><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="color: white;">from one muddy bunkered cottage to another,<o:p></o:p></span></i></div>
<span style="color: white;"></span><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="color: white;">criss-crossing land dank and paralysed<o:p></o:p></span></i></div>
<span style="color: white;"></span><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="color: white;">below an oatmeal sky.<o:p></o:p></span></i></div>
<span style="color: white;"></span><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="color: white;">There seem hundreds of miles,<o:p></o:p></span></i></div>
<span style="color: white;"></span><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="color: white;">thousands, but it is the same mean mile<o:p></o:p></span></i></div>
<span style="color: white;"></span><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="color: white;">circling, taking us back where we didn’t want<o:p></o:p></span></i></div>
<span style="color: white;"></span><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="color: white;">to come from, where we didn’t want to leave.<o:p></o:p></span></i></div>
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<span style="color: white;"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><o:p> </o:p></i><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">(From Mean Mile)<o:p></o:p></i></span></div>
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</span><br />Hugh McMillanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05353561780315527799noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-16639447.post-81628048195084083382013-12-29T20:23:00.001+00:002013-12-29T20:23:00.072+00:00So Far<span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">Christmas and soon the New Year. I've had meetings in the Stewartry, Nithsdale and Wigtownshire with various people and groups. The best is just having a hingin ear as you go through your life though, listening to folk talk. Since I've had my head adjusted to this task, every time I enter into any conversation at all ideas jump out.</span><br />
<span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);"><br /></span>
<span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">I'm going to approach it as an encyclopaedia, same as the McTaggart original, part as an homage, partly because it gives me a chance to indulge flights of fancy, very much like he did. I'm including definitions of words, phrases, idioms, and looking at places, people, themes.</span><br />
<span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);"><br /></span>
<span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">Recent entries I've drafted have been under A: Anthony Hopkins bench; Away with the Fairies, under H: Hollow; Hingin Ee, under F: Feisty; Funerals.</span><br />
<span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);"><br /></span>
<span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">It's not going to be a work of ethnology though it will include what people have said to me. The object is to show how rich I feel Galloway is, it's history and legacy, its people. The object is mostly to entertain. Me. You, also. And maybe those that come after.</span><br />
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