#dogs trust glasgow

[sgiandubh]

From barf bag to pity party

The whole 'Kick in the hornets' nest' involuntary series was started by this Anon, received by the de facto leader of the Disgruntled Tumblrettes yesterday evening (in Europe):

The next morning, another Anon chimed in, on the same page, with what prompted the First Kick: S has a child with 'a woman', but God forbid, not with C 🤣🤣🤣.

And then, one of their group felt the need (then the clearly irritated urge) to come back and comment on the above Anon. No less than 5 (five!) long and plethoric comments were written, prompting my Second and Third Kicks - as you all know, the woman practically begged for them.

I feel it's time to show some mercy and draw the line here.

This blog is read (and trusted) by many. Comments were received. Very interesting, matter-of-fact submissions, to say the least. You know: FACTS (🤣🤣🤣). People who have rich and full and loving lives, people who travel. People who don't even agree on many things, yet spontaneously concurred on what things very probably looked like, on that Palm Sunday morning.

Exhibit 1: Mom and Traveler #1 (a mom I am not - but I was a child, unbelievable as it might sound, and I absolutely confirm every single bit of it)

I am not yet ridden with dementia, and I remember very well waking everyone up at ungodly hours and refusing my mandatory afternoon siesta (a very bad habit we have in Southern Europe). I wish I would still have that same insane energy now. I also wish I would have kept my 3 year old fashion model food quirks - but that is another story.

However, I am a dog slave (not owner) and as such, I am taking Baby out for his short (but excruciating) morning routine at 7:30 AM. Come rain or shine. Beg him to finish his business with grace and dignity. He never listens. Labs are a charming, addictive handful and my Greek boy is no exception:

Exhibit 2: Mom and Traveler #2. Who happened to be in GLA on Palm Sunday, March 24, 2024 (for the thick people at the back!):

All that trip was abundantly documented on her own page. I am reasonably sure she might be reblogging this with her own pics from that day.

And now, for the real questions at stake:

Why make such an unbelievable fuss over an Anon with no pic, that I was reluctant to publish myself?

Why have a cosmic meltdown, in public nonetheless, if you do think this is such a pile of unbelievable nonsense crap? (*imagine the freakout in DMs, if this made the headlines!)

How many times has/have S (or C, or SC) been seen by Antis in GLA in similar postures, without a word being uttered in public?

Why would such an occurrence be An Event, outside of this (help me, I have no words) fandom?

Why insist with your crappy arguments, when it is plain to see you have got all your facts dreadfully wrong?

Why mention 'central Glasgow', when it is public lore (and included in Waypoints!) that S does not live there anymore? (* I blacked out the exact reference, which makes total sense - the least thing I would like to see happening is freaks like you stalking them)

One last time, you insist - comments 6 and 7 (wow, girl!):

First comment is a lie and if you read my Anon (and you know you all did and discussed it to oblivion) you'll have also read this:

Which part of 'he didn't approach' you don't get, in plain English, madam? I am lousy at drawing, but hey - for the cause (open in separate page, questionable humor included):

Second comment, I won't even get into it. God only knows what the hell you meant. I am Romanian and we tend to be a very sarcastic bunch - especially the Southerners.

You posted those at about 2:45 AM, local time (if you are, indeed, a Scot). That's 4:45 AM my time.

I am a lifelong sufferer of insomnia. You, madam, you are mad wae it, as they say in Glasgow.

Don't drink and post, seriously. It makes for a very #sorry hangover show.

And with this, I am done with you. All of you, in that corner. You showed me more than enough. You know there is substance to that Anon, despite the lack of a picture - hence the collective freakout.

From barf bag to pity party. Who knew?

[Later edit:] re-reading the sixth comment, I think she wants to imply it was the 'other child' - I was literally blind with sleep when I first saw it. Well, there is no evidence of whatever she is trying to explain (has she contacted The Climber? between midnight and 2 AM, local time?). Also, a 5 year old child is not a toddler anymore: kids are considered toddlers up to 3, only. That boy, as we all know (and I am sorry we do), has dark hair - where is the resemblance Anon noticed?

Desperate, grasping at straws, lying through her teeth and mad wae it, all the way.

@pamalissou, thanks for bringing us a third mom's POV in your reblog.

[nevadas-night-time-novelist]

Can I request Doc x Nurse assistant! Reader who was treated badly by nurses where they work?

Doc x Nurse!reader

CW: Past abuse/trauma

"Ahem." You jumped slightly, turning around to meet the goggles of your new employer. With his face bandaged and goggles over his eyes, his expression was hard to read. No doubt if you could see it, you'd see the same judgement and irritation from your previous coworkers, before it would spill into anger as they screamed how incompetent, how useless you-

"Could you hand me a roll of bandages? Above your head, to the right." You turned back around, seeing a small cardboard box with 'BANDAGES' scrawled on in sharpie. Rushing to avoid being screamed at, your fingers held the box and-

It slipped from your grasp, the rolls tumbling to the floor, one of them rolling away and unravelling as it went. You followed them to the floor, crying and flinching away. "I'm sorry! I-I didn't mean it-" You cried, shaking and preparing for a slap.

"Are you alright?" Doc's voice was soft, or as soft as he could manage. You looked at him, he was kneeling down on one leg, his hand inches from your shoulder. "It was an accident, I need some new boxes anyway... I'm guessing your training wasn't smooth sailing."

The pair of you were now sitting together, Doc behind his desk, and you in front of it. He'd cleared his desk, serving some lavender tea for you to help calm you down, breaking out a secret stash of cookies he kept hidden for himself. "I'm trusting you with this secret. If the boys knew of this, they'd be raiding my cupboards every night." He chuckled.

Even with his relaxed attitude, you were still on edge, preparing for him to snap in an instant. The Matron was very good at putting up a nice front before doing a rug pull and turning vicious. The physical abuse you could see coming, the mental abuse was something else. The sick irony in care workers being some of the most cruel people you've met.

"So," Doc lowered his mask, showing off his scarred face. Deep scars gouged into his face, a Glasgow smile slit into his cheeks. "do you want to discuss what just happened, or not?"

"Well...." You nibbled on a cookie, trying to calm your nerves. "yeah, I.. I guess. Uh.. um.. It wasn't nice. Well, it was to begin with, but it spiralled fast. Where I trained, it was a real dog-eat-dog place. The strong step on the weak to get what they want. You don't want to follow in their lead, you become a target yourself. I helped a patient another nurse was beating, and that's when the trouble started for me."

A shaky breath escaped your lips. "Take your time, you don't need to go over everything if it's too much." You glanced up at Doc. "We can take a break if you need to."

"How'd you get your scars?" You pointed at your cheek.

Doc cleared his throat and shrugged. "I suppose I can answer that. Deimos and I used to be part of the agency. We were dissenting, and happened to get caught. Or, I did. I was pinned down, one of my former friends pulled his knife and started carving. Deimos put a stop to it by shooting him in the back of the skull. He saved my life, as I had his many times before."

Doc had told you little pieces here and there about how he'd adopted a newborn and orphaned Deimos and raised him, they'd been together since Dei's beginning, a father figure to the little shit.

"He was sobbing, pretty upset. He thought I was gonna die since I was coughing up blood. I had to calm him, and get him to help treat my face. Kid's been through hell with me. Of course that means I know I can trust him with my life."

Out of everyone in the base, Dei and Doc had the strongest bond, but you knew from the subtle glances and awkward flirts that Dei and San's bond was pretty strong too.

"You trust the others?" You glanced behind, almost expecting them to be standing there, but they weren't even close to your location, the three of them on a mission to intercept some more firearms.

"Sanford, sure. He's helped since day one, using his strength, mechanic and cooking skills to help everyone. Sometimes I train with him. A skilled tactician, and a sadist when he needs to be. Good for getting information."

Doc paused, taking a long drink of tea. "Hank on the other hand, absolutely not. He's reckless, downright moronic when he's got a goal in mind. Nothing else matters but meeting it. I don't doubt that one day he's going to try and kill the team. But I know we can put him down when that happens."

That didn't really take away from your worries. "What if Hank hurts me?"

"I'll kill him." Doc's eyes narrowed. "It was hard enough to find a nurse to aid me, let alone one as competent as you are. The only think I believe holding you back is self doubt. You've got potential. I just wish you'd use it."

"You get told you're awful and beaten for it long enough, and you believe it." You replied, swallowing the lump in your throat.

Doc exhaled, a long and resolute sigh. "I suppose I've got a lot of work to do building you back up then." He smiled, his aged features looking rather handsome in the dull light. "I believe in you, and I know you'll be the perfect nurse to this doc."

[mermaidsirennikita]

hiii caro!! i'm looking for recs with a hairy mmc... like the hairier the better tbh. down for historical/paranormal/contemp, honestly anything that mentions a dude being hairy and the fmc or mmc (doesn't matter!) being into it. thank u queen you've never done me wrong and i trust your recommendations above all others. 🙏❣️

You're so kind! Whenever people say things like that I feel so undeserving lol, it's very sweet.

I also love pelt men. We need more.

SO! I would first off saying that Kresley Cole's werewolf IAD books generally feature big wolfy men (obviously) who tend to be pretty... scruffy. Pleasure of a Dark Prince is always going to be my go-to for entry-level Lykae (as she calls them) (though tbh, Garreth is still... a lot... and I mean that in the best way).

Knockout by Sarah MacLean features Tommy, who is bearded and has thighs like a giant oak trees, which is all what I want. He's supposed to give "the duke from Miss Scarlet and The Duke" (but he fucks) vibes.

A Holly Jolly Ever After by Sierra Simone and Julie Murphy has a hero who's both hairy AND dad bod-i-ful which is honestly just like a fucking dream.

The Game Plan by Kristen Callihan has a very brawny, very beardy, quietly strong NFL player who has been pining after the heroine (his best friend's sister in law) for quite some time. And he is! A virgin!

Devil in Disguise by Lisa Kleypas has Keir, a Scottish hero who is bearded for Plot Important Reasons, but also basically has to wear a beard because he's too pretty without it. Like. The women can't handle it. He's doing them a service.

A lot of Kleypas books have moments that note the heroes' hairy bodies, actually. Which is why she makes it a point to be like RHYS WINTERBORNE JUST CAN'T GROW BODY HAIR AND HE WAS BULLIED FOR IT. In Kleypas books having a smooth chest is like. Something people will spit on you for.

So yeah, basically every Kleypas hero aside from Rhys is gonna have her mention that he is Hairy.

I am not 10000% sure on this, but I feel like The Hawk by Monica McCarty has a hairy Scottish hero. Like I feel as if there's a scene where he pops out of the water completely naked and shakes himself off like a dog and the old man who's waiting for him for Spy Reasons is like dude your dick is just swinging in the wind

I believe Preferential Treatment by Heather Guerre, one of my favorite billionaire books, has a hero with a big hairy chest. He's also a Russian billionaire who pays the heroine, who works lower level shit in his company, to be his domme! And if you're asking "But Caro, does she use a vibrating butt plug on him?" The answer is I'd be mad if she didn't. You have to wait for it, but yes.

Pretty sure that the hero of Eva Leigh's A Rogue's Rules for Seduction is hairy. And big. And upset about his horrible past which is why he has to get down on his knees and eat the heroine out until said knees bleed on the cobblestones.

I believe the hero of S.M. LaViolette's The Bastard has a plot important beard at one point because he has some pretty bad Glasgow Grin scars. My poor baby John. But the heroine helps him heal, etc etc.

EDIT:

Oh, preorder The Wedding Witch by Erin Sterling! It was a 4.5/5 for me and the hero is so hairy that his family jokes about him being a werewolf (he's not he's a witch)

Matilda Halifax Learns the Value of Restraint by Alexandra Vasti has a hero whose virile beard makes him look Villainous.

[healthydoghabits]

Dogs are our best friends in sickness and in health!

Learn just how dogs can contribute to our physical and emotional well-being.

Dogs, often hailed as humans’ best friends, have been the topic of many scientific studies looking into how they might boost our well-being. In this Spotlight, we’ll explain how your friendly pup can benefit your health across the board.

According to the American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (ASPCA), an estimated 78 million dogs are owned as pets in the United States. It is unclear when dogs were first domesticated, but a study Trusted Source published last year claims that, at least in Europe, dogs were tamed 20,000–40,000 years ago. It is likely that humans and dogs have shared a special bond of friendship and mutual support ever since at least the Neolithic period — but why has this bond been so long-lasting?

Of course, these cousins of the wolves have historically been great at keeping us and our dwellings safe, guarding our houses, our cattle, and our various material goods. Throughout history, humans have also trained dogs to assist them with hunting, or they have bred numerous quirky-looking species for their cuteness or elegance.

However, dogs are also — and might have always been — truly valued companions, famed for their loyalty and seemingly constant willingness to put a smile on their owners’ faces.

In this Spotlight, we outline the research that shows how our dogs make us happier, more resilient when facing stress, and physically healthier, to name but a few ways in which these much-loved quadrupeds support our well-being.

How dogs keep you in good health.

Many studies have suggested that having dogs as pets is associated with better physical health, as reviews Trusted Source of the existing literature show. These findings persist. Just last year, Medical News Today reported on a study that showed that owning a dog reduces a person’s risk of premature death by up to a third. Also, researchers at the University of Harvard in Cambridge, MA, suggest that dog owners have a lower risk of heart disease. Why is that? It is difficult to establish a causal relationship between owning a dog and enjoying better health.

However, the benefits may appear thanks to a series of factors related to lifestyle adjustments that people tend to make after they decide to adopt a canine friend.

The most prominent such lifestyle factor is physical activity. There is no way around it: if you own a dog, you have to commit to twice daily walks — and sometimes even more.

According to a paper Trusted Source published in The Journal of Physical Activity and Health, dog owners are more likely to walk for leisure purposes than both non-pet owners and people who own pet cats.

The results were based on studying a cohort of 41,514 participants from California, some of whom owned dogs, some of whom owned cats, and some of whom did not have any pet

Moreover, several recent studies — including one from the University of Missouri in Columbia and another from Glasgow Caledonian University in the United Kingdom — found that adults aged 60 and over enjoy better health thanks to the “enforced” exercise they get by walking their dogs.

Dogs can strengthen our health not just as we grow older, but also much, much earlier than that: before we are even born. Research published last year suggests that children who were exposed to dogs while still in the womb — as their mothers spent time around dogs during pregnancy — had a lower risk of developing eczema in early childhood.

Also, children exposed to certain bacteria carried by dogs also experienced a reduction of asthma symptoms, the researchers noted.

‘Dogs make people feel good’

Perhaps the most intuitive benefit of sharing your life and home with a canine friend is that dogs give you “feel-good vibes” almost instantly.

Dogs are often used as therapy animals because they have a calming effect on people.

It is really difficult not to cheer up, even after a hard day’s work, when you are greeted with — often vocal — enthusiasm by a friendly dog.

This, researchers explain, is due to the effect of the “love hormone” oxytocin.

“During the last decades,” write the authors of a review that featured in Frontiers in Psychology, “animal assistance in therapy, education, and care has greatly increased.”

When we interact with dogs, our oxytocin levels shoot up. Since this is the hormone largely responsible for social bonding, this hormonal “love injection” boosts our psychological well-being.

Previous studies analyzed in the review have revealed that dog owners have more positive social interactions, and that the presence of canine friends makes people more trusting…and also more deserving of trust. Moreover, dogs appear to reduce symptoms of depression and render people more resilient to stress. That is why dogs are often used as therapy animals.

As researcher Brian Hare, of Duke University in Durham, NC, noted in an interview for The Washington Post:

“Dogs make people feel good, and their only job is to help people in stressful situations feel better.”

Researchers hypothesize that therapy dogs can improve the psychological well-being of children going through cancer therapy, as well as help individuals diagnosed with post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) deal with disruptive symptom Trusted Source or even prevent the onset of PTSD episodes.

What clinical research in dogs can teach us. Our canine companions could also give us clues and open new avenues of research when it comes to clinical research concerning our own health problems.

Dogs share many diseases with humans; by learning more about them, we can also learn more about ourselves. A study that MNT covered earlier this year reveals that dogs share certain metabolic conditions — such as obesity — with their human owners.

Thus, learning more about dogs’ gut microbiota and how they are affected by diet could help us understand how best to tackle our own eating habits.

Like humans, dogs can also develop some forms of cancer. Much like us, dogs can get brain tumors to similarly destructive effect, so learning which genes predispose our canine companions to gliomas may also be translated into cancer research for human patients.

Moreover, a contagious form of canine cancer could shed light into how forms of cancer found in humans have come to develop. Dogs can also experience certain features characteristic of dementia, such as impaired problem-solving abilities.

Dr. Rosalind Arden, of the London School of Economics and Political Science in the U.K., “are one of the few animals that reproduce many of the key features of dementia.”

Researchers explain that by understanding how cognitive tasks are affected in these quadrupeds, we may become better equipped to solve the riddle of dementia in the case of humans, too “Dogs,” notes

“[S]o,” she goes on to add, “understanding their cognitive abilities could be valuable in helping us to understand the causes of this disorder in humans and possibly test treatments for it.”

Dogs are not just incredibly loveable and often very funny friends whose antics fuel the Internet’s store of memes continuously; their company also keeps us in good physical shape. Also, their health problems — sadly but endearingly — often mirror our own.

Most of all, however, we welcome them into our lives — and have done so since time immemorial — because they instantly bring us the sort of joy and calm that we would otherwise have to work hard to obtain.

Author Dean Koontz summarized this perfectly in his memoir of his own much-loved dog:

“One of the greatest gifts we receive from dogs is the tenderness they evoke in us."

By their delight in being with us, the reliable sunniness of their disposition, the joy they bring to playtime, the curiosity with which they embrace each new experience, dogs can melt cynicism, and sweeten the bitter heart..

[scotianostra]

Happy 47th birthday Scottish TV presenter  DJ and model. Jenni Falconer, born February 12th 1976 in Glasgow.

I always like when Jenni’s birthday comes around, not just because it gives me a chance to admire this Scottish beauty, but I always post the pics of her wsaring that saltire style dress!

Falconer spent her formative years in Bishopbriggs and Milngavie, before the family relocated to  South of England when she was seven.

Jenni Falconer was introduced to the world of TV in 1994, when she appeared as a contestant on Blind Date. Her good looks, bubbly personality and easy manner in front of the camera were noted by BBC Scotland, which invited the then university student to do some presenting. She spent 3 years cutting her teeth with Dougie Vipond in the show  The Big Country

It was in 2000 that she got her big break, when she was asked to host GMTV’s new entertainment segment.

Jenni ended up interviewing some of Hollywood’s biggest stars among them Tom Cruise and Will Smith in exotic locations. A self-confessed work-a-holic, she’s fronted a wide range of programmes, including The National Lottery Big Draw and Sky One show Cirque De Celebrite. When she isn’t travelling the world on assignment, Jenni, who shares her London base with former Cutting It boyfriend James Midgely and her dog Alfie, likes to keep fit by horse riding Jenni and James have a daughter, Ella born in 2011.

In July 2020 Falconer became the new running coach in the Start 2 Run app, guiding and motivating others to start and keep on running. 

Jenni has supported a number of charities,she was celebrity patron of the charity Breast Cancer 2000. In 2012, Falconer took part in her first London Marathon, raising money for CLIC Sargent,  she has run the race 8 times now, raising money for The Children's Trust the UK's leading charity for children with brain injury and neurodisability, and Cancer Research UK. Jenni is currently in training for this years London Marathon in April having returned from injury, my wee sis is hoping to run in the race, but is carrying an injury herself just now.

Falconer is a host on Smooth Radio, she also has a podcast series, RunPod guiding and motivating others to start and keep on running and welcomes special guests who share that passion for running.

Though she’s spent most of her adult life in the south of England, the presenter who’s proud of her Scottish heritage - still thinks of Glasgow as home.  

The final pic is probably Jenni's most recent just 8 days ago at Twickenham, with hubbie, actor James Midgley where she helped cheer Scotland to victory in the Calcutta Cup 6 nations match.  

[lalazeewrites]

tag game tuesday

ahhh thank you for the tag @energievie @stocious @whatwouldmickeydo @ian-galagher @juliakayyy @liamgallaghers 🥰✨

tea, coffee, or soda? coffee coffee coffee; former barista both in the usa and then in glasgow city's busiest starbucks. the coffee runs deep ☕️✨

dogs or cats? sob idk. i've had so many of both in my life. cats 🐈‍⬛

can you play an instrument? clarinet, bass clarinet, tenor sax 🎷

what’s your sun sign? i'm sun, mars, and mercury in cancer 🦀 (but the moon leo and rising sag keep me excessively spicy and obnoxious 🔥)

first song lyrics that pop into your head? "i've been around long enough to know you can't trust a man" - daytona sand by orville peck ❤️‍🩹

do you have any tattoos? i have three and had to cancel an appt last saturday for 2x tattoos in a sitting 'cause my back is still fucked. they were gonna be a clueless tattoo and a spice girls tattoo 💅🏻

favorite place you’ve traveled? isle of skye in scotland 🌄

what’s the last movie you watched? i had a watch party with my friends for [REC] (original Spanish version), my favorite zombie movie. it was so fun to hear everyone's reactions hehe 🩸

what languages do you speak? latvian is my first language and what my family speaks at home, but i'm not very proficient writing it. english, and then, i wouldn't starve and die in germany after taking 6yrs of german 😬

do you have any hobbies? aside from obvious reading and writing. karaoke! i used to be in musical theater from 4-18, so performing in any kind of way is important to me. singing w/my friends who play guitar. collecting horror movies, reading horror books. cooking! camping! hiking! photography! 🎤

you can hang out with one fictional character for an hour, who do you choose? oh gosh. . . if i only had a single hour, i'd want to spend it with someone super fun, 'cause i'm a good-time kinda gal, so maybe jim kirk LOL 💫

compliment yourself: kids love me and i love them 🥹

Tagging: @diemarysues @majjale @cheshirecaine @stroodlenoodles @ariesbilly @dragonflylady77

[scots-gallivanter]

TEN

In the far-off days, when Superstition, in close association with the ‘evil sister’ of Ignorance, walked abroad in the land, the south-western district of Scotland shared very largely in the beliefs and terrors embraced under the general descriptive term of witchcraft. Active interference in the routine of daily life on the part of the Prince of Darkness and his agencies was fully believed in.

J. MAXWELL WOOD, Witchcraft and Superstitious Record in the South-Western District of Scotland (1911)

TWO SIBLINGS ZOOM along a zipwire, smiling and laughing in the mid-day sun while the grown-ups sit on benches with ice creams. Chaffinches chirp cheer into Silvercraigs park in the artist’s town of Kirkcudbright on a glorious Spring Saturday full of light; but something very dark happened here. Elspeth McEwan, who had tried to live a free-spirited life communing with nature in the Galloway countryside, was strangled and burned at the stake where caravans now sit. A spiritual woman, she healed with herbs and had a way with animals, but Scotland’s satanic panic was at full pelt, and there are many column yards in old records that tell of the holocaust that a paranoid, misogynistic and propagandist Church meted out to so-called witches. She was executed in August 1698 and, while she burned, her executioner, William Kirk, drank a pint of ale that cost the burgh two Scots shillings. The provost pocketed £2, 16 shillings for his input. They spent two pounds on peat and coal to burn her, one Robert Creighton received eight shillings for beating the drum, Andrew Aitken pocketed £1, 4 shillings for ‘ane tarr barle’, and Hugh Anderson got six shillings for carrying the ‘peits and colls’. Such was the arithmetic of municipal murder.

Before the world enlarged for rural communities many people thrived on stories of ghosts, warlocks, witches, kelpies, spunkies, carlins, and brownies. Cattle were protected with pieces of rowan wood as charms against witchcraft. Long before television and the internet, most Scottish folk believed in tall tales and added to them around a cottar’s ingle or in one of the inns. At a time when the Church played God, devils appeared as hares or crows. Witches were seen going through keyholes or riding on broomsticks. Odd-looking people, eccentrics, loners, herbalists and nonconformists were all fair game to individuals who took a dislike to them and accused them of having the evil eye. Disgruntled cottagers would blame an easy target when livestock died or were ill.

Daniel Defoe had passed through Kirkcudbright in 1725 and moaned about local indolence: ‘Here is a harbour without ships, a port without trade, a fishery without nets, a people without business.’ If the gentry, over whom Defoe fawned, had concentrated on economic development rather than the murder and persecution of vulnerable and innocent souls, the English spy and provocateur might have left a more meaningful reportage.

Defoe passed by long before Kirkcudbright was talked of as ‘the St Ives of Scotland’. Artists, notably the so-called Glasgow Boys, were drawn to the light of the harbour town and it inspired them to paint rural subjects in the open air. In 1901 Edward Hornel bought Broughton House in Kirkcudbright and lived there the rest of his days. His house and library are now administered by the National Trust for Scotland. Jessie M King also made her home in Kirkcudbright and Charles Oppenheimer, William Mouncey, and several other artists had strong local connections.

The denizens of present-day Kirkcudbright recently converted a disused primary school into a ‘dark sky planetarium’ for skygazers. We saunter from there down a pleasant peninsula of old woodlands carpeted with hyacinths and campions. A woman in jodhpurs walks an unknown breed of dog on the longest lead I’ve ever witnessed and mouths a hello. The peninsula divides the bays of Manxman’s Lake and Goat Well Bay in the estuary of the River Dee. Up in the wild blue, two buzzards claim the sky, soaring on the thermals past bulging birches and born-again oaks on the peninsula of St Mary’s Isle, where John Paul Jones tried to kidnap the Earl of Selkirk and Burns first spoke his ‘Selkirk Grace’.

The ancient name of St. Mary’s Isle was Trayl, but it was renamed after a priory was built by Fergus, First Lord of Galloway, in the 12th century, and dedicated to St. Mary. There is very little left of the priory; all the buildings were removed long ago for Selkirk’s mansion and pleasure grounds.

Lord Cockburn called Kirkcudbright ‘the Venice of Scotland’, although he preferred it at high tide rather than in ‘a world of squelch’. But the tide is low as we traipse, and it looks splendid. A single red kite floats above as we munch oatcakes and gaze out at Little Ross Island lighthouse, whose keeper, Hugh Clark, was murdered by his colleague, Robert Dickson. According to M. M. Harper in his Rambles in Galloway (1876), there is a cavern or underground chamber on the islet, and King William’s fleet anchored in the bay out there on its passage to Ireland.

A stroll among the requiescats in Kirkcudbright cemetery reveals the grave of Billy Marshall, the king of the gypsies, who is said to have lived till he was 120. People still place pennies on top of gravestone, along from Scotland’s most southerly pagan Viking grave. Here lie rich merchants, Covenanters and benefactors, five of the 501 victims of the torpedoing of RMS Leinster in 1918, and also local boy John McClure, who became an admiral in the Chinese Navy during the first Sino-Japanese war.

From his cell in Newgate prison in the 1790s travel writer Robert Heron, who was Burns’s first biographer, hailed Gatehouse-of-Fleet one of the finest villages in Scotland. Nowadays it is within an Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty and is itself an Outstanding Conservation Area. It is hard to credit that the gentry spent a century or so trying in vain, via cotton mills, breweries and a shipyard, to turn Gatehouse, which the Cromwellian spy Thomas Tucker had described in 1655 as ‘not worth the nameing’ into a new Glasgow. It has a medieval fortress on its doorstep, an imposing greystone streetscape, a sylvan scarf of woodland, and a decent-sized hill next door. Even Cockburn admitted 40 years after Heron’s Scottish tour, that (although it was ‘too visibly the village at the Great Man’s Gate’) Gatehouse was clean and comfortable. He added: ‘.... with its wood, its well-kept home ground, its varied surfaces, its distant bounding hills and its obvious extensive idea of a great and beautiful domain it is one of the finest in Scotland.’

Cardoness Castle, an impressive 15th-century tower, which stands prominently on a bluff off the A75 just outside Gatehouse, has a chilling history. For generations it was held by the McCulloch family, who were notoriously lawless. The McCullochs, descendants of a king of the Britons of Strathclyde, were engaged in a vendetta with the Gordon family. Sir Godfrey McCulloch murdered William Gordon and fled to France. But he was finally tracked to a house in Edinburgh where he was masquerading as a Mr Johnstone; he was brought to justice after 13 years at large and was one of the last people to be executed on the Iron Maiden, a Scottish version of the guillotine. (There is a fanciful tale that a gnome saved him from the executioner.)

Until November 12th, 1909, a famous beech tree stood in the castle park, but it was destroyed in a storm. The MacCullochs had planned to cut it down in 1800, but there was considerable protest and the poet Thomas Campbell penned a poem he called The Beech Tree’s Petition. It was reprieved – for Nature eventually to take its course.

Thomas Carlyle is reputed to have told Queen Victoria that the road from Creetown to Gatehouse of Fleet was the most beautiful in her kingdom, and the road back was second best. Sir Walter Scott, the man who invented Scottish tourism, gathered a lot of smuggling tales and myths in these parts, many of them from Joseph Train, an exciseman, who worked in Dumfries and Galloway.

In 2012 archaeologists unearthed artefacts that proved that Trusty’s Hill, near Gatehouse, was the site of a sixth-century royal stronghold. Historians had hitherto assumed that the lost Dark Age kingdom of Rheged had been in Cumbria. Here was evidence that Galloway was at the heart of Rheged, the post-Roman Brythonic kingdom that was part of the Hen Ogledd of the Old North.

Gatehouse is the Kippletringan of Guy Mannering, and Dirk Hatterick’s cave is on the nearby Heughs of Barholm, which you can reach through Ravenshall Wood from a layby on the A75. (Cockburn called the cave ‘a narrow, wet, dirty slit in a rock, produced by the washing away of the loose matter between two vertically laminated rocks, and answering Scott’s scenery in no one respect, either outside or in’.) Scott had based Hatterick on the real-life Captain Yawkins, a vicious Manx pirate who operated along the Solway.

Burns is reputed to have written ‘Scots Wha Hae’ at the Murray Arms Hotel; much of John Buchan’s The Thirty-nine Steps was based on the moors beyond Gatehouse; Dorothy L Sayers based The Five Red Herrings in the town, and a John Buchan trail has been established in the area.

The demon drink was a frequent cause of moral concern among ministers and other moralisers in those days. Not so with the more proletarian Heron, who observed: ‘Tippling houses are wonderfully numerous. I was informed by the excellent Exciseman of the place [Gatehouse], that no fewer than 150 gallons of whisky alone had been consumed here for the last six months.’

But Heron’s fondness for liquor shortened his life and impoverished him, which is why he had been imprisoned in Newgate for debt.

The bohemian maverick Alexander Trocchi had an addictive personality too. That future bad boy of the literary world, and pornographer, was evacuated to Galloway during the war, to be schooled at what is now Gatehouse’s Cally Palace Hotel. Hugh McMillan, author of McMillan’s Galloway, told me Trocchi might have been expelled but for the fact that his great-uncle Tito was a cardinal on the shortlist to succeed Pope Pius XI.

‘He became obsessed with the number of UFO sightings in the area and, with a group of mates, started a secret society to discuss and speculate about them,’ said McMillan. ‘They dressed in tin foil suits and formed a ‘Martian Party’, which romped home in the school elections, beating Labour to a distant second.

‘Due to his many escapades, Trocchi nearly left school without the vital leaving certificate, but the headmaster relented and stuffed it through the bus window as he was leaving for Glasgow. I’m presuming that it’s easier to commemorate Jim Barrie because he didn’t pimp his wife out for heroin like Trocchi. However, a plaque would be the least we could do.’

Another obscure Galloway anecdote: if you walk the old railway line between Creetown and Gatehouse of Fleet you will come upon a bridge on which one Polish Joe, a refugee mason, inscribed the name of Hitler and a coffin when he repaired the bridge on August 15th, 1940.

[petnews2day]

Sweet three-legged Flump seeks a forever home

New Post has been published on https://petn.ws/0L8ev

Sweet three-legged Flump seeks a forever home

A sweet natured Staffordshire Bull Terrier who has spent nearly two years in Dog Trust care is seeking his Scottish sweetheart. Staff at Dogs Trust Glasgow Rehoming Centre are completely flummoxed as to why fabulous Flump is still to meet his special someone. Eight-year-old Flump, who is as sweet as his name suggests, is the […]

See full article at https://petn.ws/0L8ev #PetCharitiesNews

[amidst-wonderland]

[tv tropes: nora gray]

i tried not to put the obvious ones, like teen pregnancy but i'll probably add more to these over time.

abusive parents: by the nature of the times, and with carmen's deteriorating capacity.

addled addict: nora's an alcoholic and becomes reliant though not as reliant on cocaine as michael.

action mom: after michael leaves to the us, nora takes the kids back up to glasgow for a better life

babies make everything better: subverted. nora's life goes from upcoming stage actress partying with club dancers, to raising a son with a man she's growing to hate.

berserk button: being treated like a child, or cross her marriage (particularly in series four)

break the cutie: eilidh and for nora's it's a stark reminder of what could've been her reality.

cartwright curse: mildly subverted, nora's fate could've mirrored something much more sinister had she never married michael but that doesn't mean to say their ride was easy.

the clan: the mcleod's and taylor's (mentioned)

closet key: eilidh was nora's first romantic same-sex encounter and first sexual encounter generally.

coitus uninterrupts: polly, john, isaiah, esme and tommy - neither michael and nora are well acquainted with locks in their sex life.

collateral angst: eilidh is sent to bedlam under suspicious but obvious circumstances, nora falls back on her vices.

combat haircomb: nora never seems to be too far from something she can use whether its a lighter, hairbrush or kitchen knife.

curb stomping battle: the conks and the billy boys are consistently at each-others necks. particularly alec and jimmy mccavern.

death faked for you: polly, thomas and ada conspire against michael and nora to send michael to the us. faking nora and the kids had been killed by a rogue bottle-bomb.

deliberate values dissonance: smoking, drinking and drug abuse throughout her pregnancy.

fiery redhead: self-explanatory

foil: gina - marriage aside. gina is a poised, rich, fashionable, softly spoken american woman with a much sinister side. nora is a hot-headead, insecure loud mouth from glasgow with heart of sheer gold.

good girls avoid abortion: almost averted. nora plans on getting one before she catches polio (probably from someone on the train back down to england)

the heart: (for the mcleod's) nora is their rock, their baby who they wish to protect like she'd do the same for them.

the hedonist: very much so as a teenager when she first moved to london, then again when she and michael begin dating.

heroic blue-screen of death: when michael returns to thomas a week before christmas + when she learned of eilidh's admission she breaks ada's vase coming clean to someone she thought she could trust.

icy blue eyes: the mark of a shelby, rosalin has them.

it runs in the family: carmen was sixteen when she had the twins + colin was one of the founding members of the conks.

knight templar big brother: alec, but john takes on this role for nora especially in the early days of moving down south.

kick the dog:

campbell makes an unsavoury, off-hand comment about nora to michael.

similarly, thomas tells michael that jack nelson had made a pass at nora now that she was on her own and her kids needed a father.

mama bear: inverted ironically as polly threatens to cut off michael's hands if he ever raises them to his wife or kids, not wanting him to turn into his father.

neighbourhood friendly gangsters: despite having a violent past and the conks themselves still partaking in violence, the mcleods are not feared within their community, alec is no thomas shelby.

parental abandonment:

colin leaves when the kids are little, but carmen eventually reunites them before she then later leaves before the war.

michael is in and out of his children's lives

parental substitute:

colin's sister isabelle takes on most of the parenting after carmen is gone.

alec becomes somewhat of a father figure in place of michael for his niece and nephew

precision f-strike: a sleep-deprived nora shouts "fucking, fuck off." to thomas when tells her to get out michael's office. she does not.

pet the dog: being initially stand-offish, the shelby's are surprised with how quickly esme takes in nora, although lampshaded as nora is not a stranger esme has kindly been looking out for.

rage-breaking point: when john makes an off-hand comment about michael's affair with charlotte at nora's birthday party. seething, she storms out of the room and locks herself away. michael later finds her intoxicated on the beach after dark.

(can also be seen in kingdom come's opening)

the resenter: thomas, then gina.

violent glaswegian: nora's is lampshaded as she isn't as literally violent compared to the non-glaswegians around her and it's mainly played for laughs because she wouldn't get in anything more than a scrap, despite her claims.

alec and her father very much fit the bill though.

women are wiser: loosens as michael's arc develops. nora's a city-kid - having lived a childhood in glasgow and starting her career in london. she looks out for michael, who she still sees as a little village boy.

would hurt a child: jimmy mccavern attempts to harm george twice, almost succeeding before he is shot by michael in a bait-and-switch.

[bordercollieholland]

Holland tilted his head, the hint of a smile touching his lips. "Ah, l'odeur, oui," he said, his voice soft and contemplative. "C'est vrai, les shifters peuvent être assez sensibles aux nuances des émotions et des impressions. Ça peut être un peu déconcertant, surtout quand on est encore en train de s'adapter à un nouvel environnement." He paused, his gaze drifting as he recalled the scattered memories of his own experiences. "Pour moi, ça a pris du temps avant de comprendre ce que je sentais vraiment autour de moi. Les formes changent, mais parfois, les impressions restent les mêmes, même si elles ne sont pas toujours faciles à déchiffrer." His eyes met Adrasia's with a hint of understanding; despite coming from separate worlds, it seemed they were more alike than the dog had initially thought. As they made their way up the stairs, Holland’s silence was occasionally punctuated by soft, strained breaths. His gaze fixed ahead as they walked, his limp more pronounced as the pain in his joints flared. Adrasia's words hung in the air, the celestial's understanding cutting through the guarded walls Holland had built around himself. Trust wasn't something he gave easily, not here, not anywhere, but Adrasia's offer—subtle as it was—didn't go unnoticed.

"The instinct thing," Holland murmured after a beat, glancing sideways at Adrasia, "It's not always reliable. Sometimes it tells you to run when you should stay. Or to fight when you should let go." His tone was flat, but there was a hint of something deeper—regret, perhaps, or just weariness from lessons learned the hard way. "But…" He trailed off, unsure how to finish the thought. Trust was a foreign concept here, but maybe, just maybe, Adrasia was right about the healer. Holland wasn’t sure he had much faith left in him, but the celestial's calm, unwavering presence was almost enough to make him consider it. "I guess we'll see."

Holland took a deep breath of the fresh air, letting the moment settle him. He closed his eyes briefly, savoring the sensation of the wind against his face. When he opened them again, he looked at Adrasia with a thoughtful expression. “Un petit peu,” he said softly, “it was in the countryside. Fields and rolling hills, not unlike this. The land stretched out in every direction, and there was a certain freedom in that vastness. It was quiet, peaceful. For a brief time, it felt like I was living a simple, almost ordinary life.” He looked around at the grounds, the greenery and open space reminding him of those fleeting moments of calm. “But the beauty of the countryside couldn’t fully erase what was behind me or what lay ahead. It was a brief respite, but it was never going to be the end of my journey.”

Holland's expression grew distant as he stood beside Adrasia, the memories stirring within him like echoes of a life that was never fully his. “I…” he began slowly, his voice laced with a quiet resignation, “I didn’t see much of it until after I got out of the lab. Two weeks, that’s all the time I had to explore before we moved to Glasgow. My owner thought it would be good for me, that it would bring me peace. Maybe even healing.” He paused, the memory of those days briefly softening his features. “For a while, it felt like it worked. I had a taste of a simple dog’s life. Just… being. No experiments, no needles, just fields to run in, scents to follow. And then she left.” His gaze dropped to the ground as he recalled the car crash, the chaos that followed. “The crash… I still remember the sound, the way my crate flipped and tumbled around. When it was over, I wasn’t with her anymore. I got passed around after that. Eventually, I ended up on a farm in Texas.” He glanced at the distant horizon, the memory of the farm and its eventual collapse clear in his mind. “The farm… it didn’t last. It went under after a few years, and we were sold off just like the livestock I used to herd. They didn’t care about us, just needed to offload what they had left. Some found new homes, others… not so much.”

Holland’s voice grew quieter, the words more of a confession than a statement. “I didn’t choose any of it, just kept moving from one place to the next, trying to survive. Trying to figure out what was left of me after everything.” He glanced at Adrasia, a hint of vulnerability in his eyes before he masked it again. “France, Texas… they’re just places. The real prison is something you carry with you.”

Adrasia's brows quirked up in surprise at such a remark, though he nodded, feeling at the more curious at Holland's perceptiveness. "Que ça le fait," He murmured, taking his place at the shifter's side as they walked, glancing briefly down as he caught the first hitch in the other's gait, "Je suis étonné de voir à quel point la nature de nos âmes se révèle souvent aux autres sans mots. Raison de plus pour faire confiance à notre instinct," The celestial caught Holland's eye again with a knowing smile, "Quelle que soit son origine."

That hesitation did not go unnoticed. "Il est difficile de faire confiance à quoi que ce soit ici," Adrasia acknowledged solemnly, "Je comprends. Mais au moins l'un des guérisseurs ici est… comme moi. Lui, j'aurais confiance." He hadn't had the honor of meeting Florian face to face, but by now Adrasia knew of the kresnik by reputation and his trust in those who shared his heavenly blood was firm and immediate.

He had been resolved to offer Holland the dignity of choosing to ask for help if he needed it, given how used these pains the other slave claimed to be, but by the time they reached the top of the stairs the celestial was moments away from offering the other his arm if it would grant him a bit of relief. The shifter was truly not exaggerating his condition if it could be aggravated by so short an excursion, Adrasia still watching him worriedly out of the corner of his eye even as he laughed at the little comment about elevators. At the very least, the promise of fresh air seemed to take some weight from the younger man's shoulders as they finally reached the grounds, Adrasia giving him a moment to absorb these new surroundings and enjoy the caress of the wind on his own skin.

"Your time in France," He finally said, once he thought Holland might have had the time to center himself again, "Was it in the countryside, like this?" He nearly added that his own experience of the country was far from romantic, but that was unnecessary when this moment was for the shifter's story and besides, Adrasia couldn't say truthfully that much of what he'd seen there hadn't been beautiful. It could wait. They would surely not run out of time.

[low-key-theatre]

Plays I’ve seen Masterpost

(There’s probably a few I’ve forgotten.) X = forgotten the exact year.

-A few minor community and school productions I acted or worked back stage in growing up that I’ll keep private.

-British Pantos that all blend together in my head including the one with John Barrowman, the angry house and CGI giant

————

Seen On Stage

-Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat (saw it in Glasgow Old Fruitmarket sometime in the late 00’s or early 10’s)

-Citizens Theatre’s The Red Shoes (2010)

-Matilda, London West End (201X?)

-Wicked, London West End (201X?)

-Phantom of The Opera, London West End (201X?)

-The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time, UK Tour (2015)/(or Possibly 2017 I don’t remember)

- Book of Mormon, London West End (2018)

- Waitress, London West End (201X?)

- Heathers The Musical, UK tour (2021 (postponed))

-The Lion The Witch and The Wardrobe, UK Tour (2022)

-The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time, UK Tour (2022)

-Scottish Ballet's The Snow Queen (2022)

-Kidnapped, UK Tour (2023)

-Kinky Boots presented by The Lyric Club (2023)

-The Mousetrap, 70th UK Anniversary Tour (2023)

-SIX, UK Tour (2023)

-Heathers: The Musical, UK Tour (2023)

-42nd Street, UK Tour (2023)

-Ocean at The End of The Lane, UK Tour (2023)

-Dracula: Mina's Reckoning, UK Tour (2023)

-Jesus Christ Superstar, UK Tour (2023)

-RCS’s Into The Woods (2023)

- Wicked, UK Tour (2023)

- The Bodyguard, UK Tour (2024)

- Shrek: The Musical, UK Tour (2024)

- The Quare Fellow, The Abbey Dublin (2024)

- Charlie and The Chocolate Factory, UK Tour (2024)

-Jesus Christ Superstar, UK Tour (2024)

- RCS’s Urinetown (2024)

- Disney’s The Lion King, London West End (2024)

- Hadestown, London West End (2024)

- Peter Pan Goes Wrong, UK Tour (2024)

- Woman in Black, UK Tour (2024)

- Bonnie & Clyde, UK Tour (2024)

- Testmatch, Orange Tree Theatre London (2024)

- Sister Act, UK Tour (2024)

- Looking for the One, A Play A Pie & A Pint (2024)

- Everybody's Talking About Jamie, UK Tour (2024)

- Maggie & Me, UK Tour (2024)

- Grease, UK Tour (2024)

- RCS’s Sweet Charity (2024)

- Life of Pi, UK Tour (2024)

- Les Misérables, London West End (2024)

- Hamilton, London West End (2024)

- Moulin Rouge, London West End (2024)

- RCS’s Antigone (2024)

- The Wizard of Oz, UK Tour (2024)

- RCS’s Knight of the Burning Pestle (2024)

- Here You Come Again, UK Tour (2024)

- Cabaret, London West End (2024)

- Back to The Future The Musical, London West End (2024)

- Burlesque, UK Tour (2024)

- Love Beyond, Tron Theatre (2024)

- Don Pasquale, Scottish Opera Dress Rehearsal (2024)

- Lost Girls/At Bus Stops, A Play, A Pie & A Pint (2024)

- Blood Brothers, UK Tour (2024)

- Albert Herring, Scottish Opera (2024)

- RCS’s After Life (2024)

- RCS’s The Cosmonaut's Last Message To The Woman He Once Loved In The Former Soviet Union (2024)

————

Upcoming shows

- Disney’s Aladdin, UK Tour (2024)

- The Phantom of the Opera London, West End (2024)

- MAMMA MIA!, London West End (2024)

- Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat, UK Tour (2024)

- The Rocky Horror Show, UK Tour (2025)

- Hairspray The Musical, UK Tour (2025)

- Chicago, UK Tour (2025)

- Kinky Boots, UK Tour (2025)

- War Horse, UK Tour (2025)

- MAMMA MIA!, UK Tour (2025)

————

Plays I’ve seen on a screen

- National Theatre Live: Frankiensien (with Benedict Cumberbatch as the creature) (Live 2011)

- National Theatre Live: War Horse (Live 2014?)

-The SpongeBob Musical: Live On Stage! (Online 2019)

- Heathers: The Musical (High-school version? YouTube)

- Be more Chill (animatic reconstruction*)

- Dear Evan Hanson (animatic reconstruction*)

- Beetlejuice The Musical (trust me if I could see Alex Brightman as Beetlejuice in person I would I Stan this show)

- Urinetown: The Musical (YouTube upload of 2007 Studio Playhouse production with me occasionally switching to other YouTube upload of other community productions like Pebble Players Youth Theatre if I couldn’t make out what was being said)

- Into the Woods (1989 PBS recording)

- Fallcettos (proshoot? 2017)

- Zoonation’s The Mad Hatter’s Tea Party (2020 ROH free Livestream. it had a nice speech at the beginning about the Queen of Hearts actress)

- Spies Are Forever (Tin Can Bros)

- The Solve It Squad (Tin Can Bros)

- The Guy Who Didn't Like Musicals (Team StarKid)

- Black Friday (Team StarKid)

- Firebringer (Team StarKid)

- Kinky Boots: The Musical (2019 M2S / Trafalgar Proshoot)

- National Theatre Live: Good (2023)

- National Theatre Live: Best of Enemies (2023)

- National Theatre Live: Fleabag (2023 rebroadcast of 2019 recording)

- Legally Blond: The Musical (MTV’s 2007 Pro-Shot)

- Hamilton (Disney+ 2016 Pro-Shot)

- Anything Goes (Trafalgar 2021 Pro-Shot)

- National Theatre Live: Nye (rescreening 2024)

- Ghost: Rite Here Rite Now (Trafalgar 2024 Cinema Sceening)

- National Theatre Live: Prima Facie (rescreening 2024)

————

Shows I saw during Edinburgh Fringe 2023**

Lost & Found

Queer Street

Hersterectomy

Waiting for Champagne

The Haunted

OommoO

Shakesperimental: Euripides' Hekabe

Awake, Gay and Writing a Play

Birthmarked

Adventures of the Improvised Sherlock Holmes

A Fairie Tale

Sunday in the Park with George

Sherlock Holmes The Last Act

Cowboys and Lesbians

Shakesperimental: Harold Pinter's The Dumb Waiter

Jazz Emu: You Shouldn't Have

————

Shows I saw during Edinburgh Fringe 2024

- no one is coming to save us

- Jake Roche: Neporrhoids

- Paper Swans

- Dylan Thomas: Return Journey – Bob Kingdom, Original Direction by Anthony Hopkins

- Rebels & Patriots

- Anna Akana: It Gets Darker

- Huge Davies: Album For My Ancestors (Dead)

- This Doesn't Leave The Room w/ Steen Raskopoulos

- A Jaffa Cake Musical

- Dee Allum: Deadname

- Ashley Gavin: My Therapist is Dying

- Alice Snedden: Highly Credible

- This Doesn't Leave The Room w/ Sophie Duker

- Solve-it Squad

- For the Love of Spam

- Babe Lincoln

- Jazz Emu: Knight Fever

- All the Fraudulent Horse Girls

- The Greatest Musical Ever Written

- Spring Day: Exvangelical

- Henry Rowley: Just Literally

- Jobsworth

- Emma Sidi Is Sue Gray

- Love’s a Beach

- Bi-Curious George

- John Tothill: Thank God This Lasts Forever

- Damien Power: Not So Funny Now Is It?

- BriTANicK: Dummy

- Dan Wye Am I Sam Smith?

- Steen Raskopolous: Friendly Stranger

- Sophie Duker: But Daddy I Love Her

- Garry Starr: Classic Penguins

- The Emu War: A New Musical

- Willy's Candy Spectacular: A Musical Parody

- The Importance of Being... Earnest?

- Flight

- Tit Swingers

- Screen test

- Ghost Huns Live

- Sorry (I Broke your Arms and Legs)

- RCS’s Fountain of You

- OommoO: I am A Walking Universe

- The Smeds and The Smoos

- Gay Witch Cult

- Frankenstein (On a Budget)

- Burning Down the Horse

- Duck

- Chatterbox

- Shellshocked – An Explosive New Play

- Fool's Paradise – A Comedy of Cross-Continental Courting, Clowns and Catastrophes

- Tarot: Shuffle

- Moscow Love Story

- Gang Bang

- Demi Adejuyigbe Is Going To Do One (1) Backflip

- Elf Lyons: Horses

- Two Hearts

- Jordan brookes: fontanelle

- RCS’s A Little Night Music

- Juniper and Jules

- 44 Sex Acts in One Week

- Stamptown

- The Daughters Of Róisín

- The Lady Garden

- Tom Brace: The Ride 4D

- Riki Lindhome: Dead Inside

- One Man Musical By Flo & Joan

- The Master

- Diana: The Untold and Untrue Story

- Yoga With Gillian

- Spy Movie: The Play

- Kafka's Metamorphosis: The Musical! With Puppets!

- Kemah Bob: Miss Fortunate

- Abby Wambaugh: The First 3 Minutes of 17 Shows

- Runi Talwar as 'Runi Talwar' in Runi Talwar: The Runi Talwar Story

————

Plays I’d love to see some day

- BEETLEJUICE - THE MUSICAL, THE MUSICAL, THE MUSICAL!!!!

- Natasha, Pierre & the Great Comet of 1812

————

Theatre Tours I’ve been on

- The Theatre Royal Drury Lane (201X)

- King’s Theatre - Glasgow (Doors Open Days Festival September 2023)

- Websters Theatre - Glasgow (Doors Open Days Festival September 2023)

- National Theatre - London Southbank (November 2023)

- King’s Theatre - Glasgow (Building And Heritage Tour January 2024)

- BBC Scotland (June 2024)

- Theatre Royal- Glasgow (Building And Heritage Tour June 2024)

————

*I don’t know which animatic reconstructions they where and they are probably gone but now. they where basically a few people’s animatics of each song with “slime tutorial” footage in between for the dialogue which between taking the exact versions of the song from the album, uploading bootleg footage and taking other people animatics possibly without permission was a doomed endeavour from the start.

** excluding stand up comedy

[owly-sims]

I am at the emergency vet because my neighbor's dog attacked my lab, Indy, over the fence. She latched on to him and wouldn't let go, and the neighbors pretended not to be home even with my husband screaming at their dog and me ringing their doorbell over and over (I'm sure their ring doorbell footage is going to be hilarious since I'm visibly panicking and almost crying). We don't know their dog's medical history. All we know about them is they leave her outside in the snow and the heat and they never play with her.

My dog has a Glasgow smile now and I'm standing in the lobby of the emergency vet clinic trying not to cry because even though he's up to date on his shots I'm so, so worried that something is going to go terribly wrong. I can't go back with him as they take vitals and clean the wound and I feel so, so helpless and so, so angry.

Tomorrow I get to tell my neighbors that their dog attacked mine and to please have their dog checked, but I don't trust that they'll be kind and I don't trust they'll take care of their dog.

I don't know why I'm posting this. Sorry it's so dark, I just feel so helpless right now.

[scotianostra]

Happy 46th birthday Scottish TV presenter and former DJ Jenni Falconer, born February 12th 1976 in Glasgow.

Jenni Falconer was introduced to the world of TV in 1994, when she appeared as a contestant on Blind Date. Her good looks, bubbly personality and easy manner in front of the camera were noted by BBC Scotland, which invited the then university student to do some presenting. It was in 2000 that she got her big break, when she was asked to host GMTV’s new entertainment segment.

She ended up interviewing some of Hollywood’s biggest stars among them Tom Cruise and Will Smith in exotic locations. A self-confessed work-a-holic, she’s fronted a wide range of programmes, including The National Lottery Big Draw and Sky One show Cirque De Celebrite. 

Jenni was a radio presenter on Heart FM, presenting Heart Early Breakfast on weekdays from 4 am to 6:30am and Sunday Breakfast from 6 am to 9 am. She stepped down from Sunday Breakfast in June 2019 after Early Weekday Breakfast was extended from 4-6am to 4–6.30am (an extra 30 minutes) due to changes of scheduling and presenting at Heart Breakfast. 

In December 2019, it was announced that Jenni Falconer would leave the show after the new year. She presented her final show on Friday 20 December 2019. In January 2020, it was announced that Falconer will be the new host for Smooth London breakfast & hosting on Saturday mid-mornings, where she remains to this day.

When she isn’t travelling the world on assignment, Jenni, who shares her London base with former Cutting It husband James Midgely and her dog Alfie, likes to keep fit by horse riding Jenni and James have a daughter, Ella born in 2011. 

Jenni is a keen runner, she has run 3 marathons  for the charity, Children’s Trust, Cancer Research UK and for CLIC Sargent. 2009, 2014 and 2019 and hosted gala fundraising events. 

Jenni is much more than a pretty face, she recently won £6,000 for the  Children’s Trust, which she has been an ambassador for since 2019, on the quiz show The Weakest Link.

Though she’s spent most of her adult life in the south of England, the presenter who’s proud of her Scottish heritage - still thinks of Glasgow as home.

[iomhair]

Robb x Jaime headcanons

And since those two is pretty much all I can think about on a daily basis - here are some headcanons for Robb and Jaime just because I need them to be here <3 

During the war Robb’s curls are getting absolutely out of hand. They are messy, they are tangled, they have to be sheared for once. Or brushed at the very least. Jaime says it’s a bird’s nest. Robb snarls and says that his hair is fine. Secretly he will try to do something about them. 

Robb’s face is insanely expressive. 

Jaime’s not so much. He at least tries to hide his emotions. 

Does not really work very well. Everything is in his eyes. Everything.

Robb loves Jaime’s eyes, loves the colour, loves every emotion that he sees reflected there.  

Jaime has learnt to use it to his benefit.

Robb has a very keen scent. Jaime is amused by this and for him it is just another proof of Robb being raised in a pack of direwolves. Starks are savages, for sure.

Robb is smart, but sometimes he is really not. Like at all. He does not even consider all the dangers of King’s Landing because he got used to trust someone’s word. Just like Ned did. Jaime freaks out when they are in the capital, he still remembers what happens to all Starks within these walls. He will not let that happen again.

When Jaime sees Robb talking to Littlefinger or Varys, he is absolutely terrified. He will intrude, he will grab Robb and he will drag him out from the conversation this very second. He does not care how suspicious it looks. He will care later though.

If it was up to Jaime, he’d keep Robb locked up and he would let him out only when Robb’s men are finally returning back to Winterfell with all his Northern army.

Robb feels uneasy in King’s Landing. Jaime knows it. The nights they spend together he sometimes asks Robb to tell him about Winterfell and the North. Robb loves to talk about his home. He smiles and his eyes sparkle. These talks make him feel better. Jaime makes Robb feel better.

Jaime loves Robb’s accent. And Robb loves the way Jaime speaks. 

Especially when Jaime calls his name. Not “Your Grace” like everyone else. Not even “My Lord”. Just “Robb”. Quiet, loud, calm, whispering, laughing, moaning, anything. Even when angry. 

Although when angry Jaime calls him “Stark”. Only Jaime can make it sound like a swear word. Eventually Robb learned this trick as well. The effect was quite the opposite though. 

The way Robb growls “Lannisterrrr” and wrinkles his nose makes Jaime feel all sorts of things. He is not angry with Robb anymore. In fact, he will let Robb have an indulgence for today.

Robb is very curious about Jaime’s past. He asks him about his knighthood days, tournaments, his life at Casterly Rock, about the Targaryen reign and the last dragons. He wants to know everything.

Robb strives to be as disciplined as Jaime. When needed, and even when not needed, Jaime Lannister is damn stoic. No, seriously. Disciplined bastard. Must have been an army experience. Robb hates it. He also loves it. 

Robb has very little patience. Especially when it comes to teasing. Jaime knows it and uses it every time when he thinks he can get away with it. Big surprise: he does not really want to get away with it. 

Jaime is not fond of North to put it lightly. But he will learn to love it for Robb. Soon he’ll find it quite comforting. One day he will even visit Godswood that would be covered in snow. North grew on Jaime and he did not even notice it. 

When sleeping, Robb is taking the whole bed, it’s not even a question. Jaime does not mind, he likes to warm himself up against Robb, he is like a personal fireplace, always warm.

Jaime would be very intimidated by Grey Wind at first. Which is understandable since this is the huge ass direwolf. That is until one time he comes to Jaime and falls on the back with the quiet sigh, demanding belly scratches. 

When Robb is angry with Jaime he is using Grey Wind as a post dog. He’d give give him the parchment with the elaborate angry message and ask to bring it to the Lannister. Or not bring. Whatever, really. What does he care. Grey Wind always brings them to Jaime. He then stays for more scratches.

Jaime is a snuggler. He is very affectionate and devoted when there is just the two of them. He never shies to smile or laugh when he is with Robb. Robb loves to see him happy. 

Robb is taking his title extremely seriously. This was a huge responsibility out of damn nowhere and he was definitely not ready for it. Eventually it grows on him. Jaime tells him that it’s similar to just being the Lord of Winterfell, only on a bigger scale. Like.. imagine the whole North is Winterfell. And Robb cares about Winterfell. He’ll do just fine.

Robb would absolutely disintegrate house Locke, ripping it out with its routes. Not even Boltons. Their name will disappear. Every memory of them will disappear. But Jaime will decide what to do with the head of the house.

Robb values Jaime’s advice. A lot. He is the part of his council, his right hand, he is always there, and his every advice and observation are always considered, no questions asked. The final word always stays with Robb though. He is the King.

Robb really likes when Jaime compares him to the wolf. On some level he really is, as wild and untamed as a true predator. 

Robb gave Jaime a Valyrian steel sword as a gift, because of course he would. They have very similar swords that were melted from one. Yep. Jaime’s sword has a lion on the handle, and Robb’s has a wolf. 

Robb Stark is a romantic. There, screw it, I said it. 

Robb x Jaime modern headcanons:

Scotland. Of course Robb is from Scotland.

Jaime would sigh every time he even has to think of the nasty mess that is Glasgow.

Every time Robb comes to London he makes it a damn point to speak with the strongest accent ever. Posh folks from London, Lannisters included, do not quite understand him. Jaime still does though. 

Robb is feisty. One night he’ll have too many drinks and will start a brawl in the center of London only because he thought that someone said something nasty behind Jaime’s back. 

Robb loves borrowing Jaime’s clothes. T-shirts, hoodies, anything will do. Secretly Jaime loves to do the same. Jaime’s clothes is more clean. 

Whenever Robb visits Jaime, he always brings a bottle of good scotch from the airport. Surprisingly, at some point, all the whiskey in Lannister’s house was switched to the American bourbon. Robb does not quite like it. But hey, better that than the stab in the back from Tywin. Although it kinda felt like it.

Robb has a BMW motorcycle. He is a damn good driver. It does not make Jaime feel easier though, since motorcycles are dangerous. He specifically forbade Robb to park his motorcycle anywhere near Lannister’s manor. He knows his family better than Robb does and he knows what they can do. 

They both have big families with complicated relationships. This is kind of a problem, for Jaime especially.

Robb does not really care what others will say. Jaime thinks it’s because he is young yet. It’s not though. Robb truly does not care. He likes to be honest in his intentions and hates hiding Jaime from everyone. 

He does a very bad job at hiding though. Everybody knows at this point. The reactions... vary. 

Robb knows and loves most of the hiking routes in Scotland. Jaime thinks that this is crazy. He does not quite like hiking or any similar activities. The wine tasting on a nice boat though, right by the southern France... Now we talking. 

Jaime loves the warmth. Summer suits him, just as autumn and winter suits Robb. 

Sometimes Jaime thinks that Robb is some sort of fey that came out from the old Gaelic legends. Especially in the mornings when he watches Robb sleeping. It should be a full crime to be this beautiful.

Robb is good at cooking. Very good and efficient. Not surprisingly, really, if you have house full of younger siblings and their pets, who are constantly hungry. And Robb was raised to be a damn good big brother who will never leave little Starks hungry even if they have to eat burned porridge. 

Jaime finds it quite odd and a bit worrisome that most all of the local pub owners near Edinburgh know Robb and greet him heartily whenever they visit a pub. Back in London Jaime’s visits to the restaurants are a bit more formal. Lannisters have a certain reputation. He can’t just barge into a random place and get drunk there. He wants to though. 

They love Starks in the North. Stark’s sigils are quite common there.  

Once Robb came into Jaime’s house with the bag of fresh muffins and coffee from Starbucks. It was 5 AM. He spent the last couple of hours in the train from Glasgow to London St.Pancrass.

Robb threw stones into his window and loudly quoted Shakespeare, very amused with himself. 

Jaime was not sure if he wanted to kiss Robb after that or to kill him right there. 

Robb is not a fan of London.

But Jaime made sure to show him the best of it. 

Hugo Boss store in Soho was one of the stops. Robb really likes dressing up nicely. And Jaime knows it.

Since then Robb even have a couple of favourite places in the city. Nothing to do with the stores though. 

Robb hates leaving London. When he does, he prefers doing it by train. Somehow it feels less painful. 

He cheers up as soon as he sees road signs in Gaelic. 

Once Jaime just said “fuck it” and jumped to the train with Robb. He did not have anything with him, not even a wallet. Not even a ticket. The things he does for love.

Robb was shocked, but his smile could probably light up the whole station, if not the whole city.

This was the best train ride that Robb ever had in his life, although Jaime napped on his shoulder almost all the way.  

[thewolfruns]

face closer to his for the sake of whispering, she was able to glean some more information. he wasn't a scar, that much was easy to tell, though his tightly-cropped hair had made that a possibility, he didn't have the ubiquitous facial scars that marked the members of the cult. a glasgow smile, someone in the wlf had called it once. the name had stuck with her. it seemed somehow profane, violent. how appropriate for this world, but to be worn on the face of every member of the cult made her so sad. just another bleak reminder of what was outside of the walls. no, his scars were something else entirely, though no less profane.

he wasn't from the wlf either or, at least, she'd never seen him. the stadium was densely populated compared to many other regions, so she didn't know everyone. something told her that she would remember running into him though. even in the dark, he was somewhat striking. even in the dark; even while a big part of her worried she was making a mistake by trusting him. it was the only reasonable mistake to make.

he could be a firefly, she thought, but they seemed to be no more than the subject of fairy tales. and, anyway, he was probably too young. a slaver, sure, there were those around, but not in an organized way. not in seattle anymore really. probably, he belonged to no one. even in the dark, she could tell the scars hadn't healed the way they do with tidy sutures. at some point, she figured, he'd been alone, just as he was now. just like she was too.

he kept quiet at her whisper, only shrugging, which she found reasonable though infuriating. why couldn't this mysterious stranger have all of the answers? it was life or death and he didn't know anymore than she did. she didn't even know if she'd really miss anything. her parents were fine enough, but they were more like coworkers than family. she'd miss the dogs maybe the most. tulip more than any of them. was that all her life had become? yearning to say goodbye to a dog and no one else?

finally he spoke and she wondered what his voice sounded like when it wasn't a whisper. it was so weird to pass by survivors in this crazy world and know nothing about them. here they were entirely reliant on one another and they knew nothing about each other. he wouldn't even know who to notify if she died.

she slid her pack off her arms silently. she wasn't big or that good at fighting, but she could be quiet and quick. she was good with injuries too. he looked like he could be fast, too. "a bomb?" she mouthed, the slightest sound escaping her lips. she leaned in closer. "i have stuff for a molotov." her med pack was already too heavy to add the ieds the other members of the wlf carried on runs, but she could usually fashion a molotov.

it was, oddly, easier to survive by himself. the world outside the qtz was a dead one, beyond the infected. nothing worked, or if it did, barely so. supplies were so scarce that it was another one of those weird apocalyptic blessings any time he found something of use, all the better that he didn’t have to share it. no longer did he have to rely on selling loose hand rolled cigarettes for ration cards, or stealing little things here and there that would certainly get him killed—or worse—if he was caught. it helped that his father was head of the council. well, it was entirely because he was the head of the council that becks got away with being a little shit. he had grown up inside the vegas quarantine zone, though born in ohio, and he was allowed all the privileges of the privileged. he played pretend with the new arrivals, that he was just some punk named becks and not adam, son of councilman becher. he pretended that he struggled like his other friends, because being the post-infection version of rich would’ve put a target on his back (a well deserved one, perhaps). he pretended that he was rough and hardcore, until he took shiloh blake’s life and soon, his father’s afterwards.

he was set to be executed, but his father circumvented the rest of the council, and opted for exile. becks executed his father before he could be exiled, then exiled himself before he could be caught. it was the ultimate betrayal on both their ends. of course the one time that becks wanted his father to protect him, his father gave him a slightly less shitty punishment than the alternative. at least out in the world, becks would have a chance at survival; maybe that was his father protecting him, but the damage had been done. becks had to pay for his crime with exile, while his father had to pay for his crime by patricide.

so that was what led him to his current circumstances, scavenging in an abandoned building while clickers hunted overhead. if push came to shove, he could’ve waited it out in that room. waited until someone outside made a noise and became clicker food. waited until they chased the girl he just saved to her untimely death. he probably could’ve even slept in that room, at least until the night passed, but he doubted he could keep completely silent in his sleep. he may even die in that room, but that was worst case scenario. as long as the girl didn’t get him killed.

he stared in the lowlight, trying to figure out her features from the darkness. he could see she was young, like himself, and had large, expressive eyes. doll’s eyes, though he couldn’t tell the color. he could see that she was small and slim, truthfully she looked weak. becks wondered if she had somehow gotten lost on her way back to  her quarantine zone or whichever group she belonged to. there was just no way she was a roader like him. maybe people thought the same of him, the first few months after his exile, until he proved his worth—he wore that worthiness in the form of three scars sprawled over his left eye, given to him by a wlf member’s knife. he was a hardened survivor now, so now he had to survive.

becks tried to formulate a plan that wouldn’t get them killed. his body stilled as she approached, feeling her breath against her ear. good question; he responded with a vague shrug. was there another way out? becks got in by entering a broken window on the first floor. they had a lot of floors between them and the ground. the fire escape clearly wasn’t a viable option, and sure they could survive the night staying in the room, but it was only a matter of time before either of them inevitably made a noise. if they were going to survive, they had to be smart, and completely silent. becks leaned back a bit, his expression stony and a tad bit dumbfounded. seeing her up close, even in the evening light, he was pretty sure she was the prettiest girl he had ever seen—granted, he hadn’t seen many, but she would outshine them all if he had met twenty or even a hundred girls. he couldn’t get distracted like that, though. they needed a plan! clickers were attracted to sound, everyone knew that, so they needed to use that to their advantage. they needed something loud enough that it’d capture the attention of the blind infected for long enough that they could make it down six flights of stairs. unfortunately, he was fresh out of grenades. “you got a bomb on you?” he whispered, barely audible. he hoped she caught his meaning, even if it sounded a little bit like a joke.