...in their tartan array! So spake Sir Walter Scott, and so it was in Oban today when the great and the good from the aristocracy of Argyll marched ahead of the pipe band to the annual Games.
There is a ton of prejudice and inverted snobbery larded on when it comes to the Oban Games, which is, quite genuinely, a date in the high society calender for the whole of the UK, and does indeed bring some very beautiful, wealthy and wonderfully dressed people to the town. Right now, this minute, they are stripping-the-willow in ball gowns, filling out dance cards (yes! Dance cards!) and moving towards the famous breakfast tomorrow morning at the Gathering Ball.
The Games are run and supported financially by the Argyll county set, and they put on a fantastic show. Lots of local people either can't go because it is a weekday, or won't go because they object to the toffs. I love the toffs. They are really nice folk who keep some splendid traditions going, strutting about all day with bog myrtle in their bonnets and leaning on their cromachs.
We had great fun in the heritage tent, met loads of new folk and old friends, avoided the regular bores, were treated to free whisky, and all in all I can't see the harm in it. You are not supposed to go into the members enclosure, where the voices are suddenly conspicuously loud and rather yaa, but I wandered through to find one of the Games Stewards and no-one threw me out.
People need to chill about toffs. They can no more help the way they speak, move, stand, dress, shake hands with their peers and say "hallay niyce to meechaw" despite only being aged 14, than I can help doing it the way I do. We are all accidents of birth however it turns out.
Apart from anything else, I bought a splendid hat today in Lochaber tartan with bobbing feathers, and refused to take it off for the rest of the afternoon. I even wore it ...well, not quite home, but as far as the traffic lights by the High School where I got such odd looks I took it off. Mainly for the sake of my daughter who also has to live in this town.
Thursday, 26 August 2010
Wednesday, 25 August 2010
The squeeze
OK. This post isn't going to be fun.
I am lucky. I have a job doing something I love in a beautiful and endlessly interesting place, but I am awake at 5am because I am overwhelmed by the sheer weight of work that lies ahead of me. Like I say, I am lucky because I have a job, but the 5am thing is as much a product of recession as the anguished and increasingly flat entries of my former fellow students on Facebook, as they fill in the umpteenth application form and wonder whether they will even get a reply, never mind an interview.
I have to do the work of two people over the next few months because we need to get things moving to secure a future, but income from investments is so low that money for staff barely scrapes above my salary, which is roughly 30% below the level I could expect for my qualifications and experience. My stress is matched by colleagues in other museums who are, some of them, down by half in their staffing but still have to achieve the same outputs.
(If you start to go down the road of thinking museums/heritage centres as expendable luxuries, then stop right now. You tell that to the the hundreds of thousands of people whose family income relies on servicing the tourism industry, and they will have you for dinner. Heritage and culture is the single biggest draw to Scotland: 49% of visitors come for it, as opposed to 3% for golf. Not a luxury: a core product; part of the economic machine. So lets get that out of the way).
I don't think museums are being hit harder than anybody else, it is just the area I know. Nobody from my course last year has managed to launch into the world of work properly. One four month job, three internships, one PhD. By this stage last year two thirds of the newly qualified curators were placed. The rash of graduates from under-grad courses is now spilling into the workplace, where they will be lucky to hold onto the cafe and bar jobs after the season, never mind finding career starts. I was lucky to be able to return to mine.
There has been much in the news about A level results this week: crazy stuff about 92% pass rate, 2 % up on the top grades, but shortages of university places. Also the telling aside that one teacher gave her A* pupils an English exam paper from 20 years ago and they all failed it. It is clearly arse-over-tit, the whole thing, but do you blame school leavers for wanting to go to university or college? It is the right thing to do to try to improve your CV, and the sensible thing to do to remove yourself from the horrendous non-jobs market and indulge in the opiate of student life. The student loan debt is, of course, a huge issue, but as my son said recently, you should just not worry about it, as no-one is getting jobs which pay enough to kick-start repayments. While I don't feel sorry for them at all, will the banks ever get it back? At what point will they and the government say hang on, student loans are too high a risk?
So you ignore your student debt, pick up your degree and do what David Cameron wants everyone to do, which is volunteer. That sounds so public spirited and nice, and anyone who says "why should I work for nothing" is branded a heel. But that is the reality of what he is saying. Apart from the fact that volunteering has already been at capacity for years, people need to eat, and sooner or later the volunteers are going to have to sign on, and so the money flows out in social security and the fiscal deficit suffers still more.
It feels like the country is closing in on itself. The only people I don't see suffering are people I don't like; ruthless opportunists, bad employers, "I'm-all-right-jack"s. The good guys are struggling across the board.
I can't remember it ever being this close to the wire.
So no, I can't sleep. Because we have to collectively do something. It is not Cameron-style volunteering, it is deeper than that. It is a fundamental shift in the way we live and interconnect as communities and individuals. When I think I have a clue to what it is we need to do I will tell you. And if you have a clue, please tell me.
And now I have to go. It is dawn, and in three hours I will be arranging a lobster pot, netting needles and some very itchy-looking fishermens long johns in the heritage tent at the Oban Games. Like I say, I am lucky.
I am lucky. I have a job doing something I love in a beautiful and endlessly interesting place, but I am awake at 5am because I am overwhelmed by the sheer weight of work that lies ahead of me. Like I say, I am lucky because I have a job, but the 5am thing is as much a product of recession as the anguished and increasingly flat entries of my former fellow students on Facebook, as they fill in the umpteenth application form and wonder whether they will even get a reply, never mind an interview.
I have to do the work of two people over the next few months because we need to get things moving to secure a future, but income from investments is so low that money for staff barely scrapes above my salary, which is roughly 30% below the level I could expect for my qualifications and experience. My stress is matched by colleagues in other museums who are, some of them, down by half in their staffing but still have to achieve the same outputs.
(If you start to go down the road of thinking museums/heritage centres as expendable luxuries, then stop right now. You tell that to the the hundreds of thousands of people whose family income relies on servicing the tourism industry, and they will have you for dinner. Heritage and culture is the single biggest draw to Scotland: 49% of visitors come for it, as opposed to 3% for golf. Not a luxury: a core product; part of the economic machine. So lets get that out of the way).
I don't think museums are being hit harder than anybody else, it is just the area I know. Nobody from my course last year has managed to launch into the world of work properly. One four month job, three internships, one PhD. By this stage last year two thirds of the newly qualified curators were placed. The rash of graduates from under-grad courses is now spilling into the workplace, where they will be lucky to hold onto the cafe and bar jobs after the season, never mind finding career starts. I was lucky to be able to return to mine.
There has been much in the news about A level results this week: crazy stuff about 92% pass rate, 2 % up on the top grades, but shortages of university places. Also the telling aside that one teacher gave her A* pupils an English exam paper from 20 years ago and they all failed it. It is clearly arse-over-tit, the whole thing, but do you blame school leavers for wanting to go to university or college? It is the right thing to do to try to improve your CV, and the sensible thing to do to remove yourself from the horrendous non-jobs market and indulge in the opiate of student life. The student loan debt is, of course, a huge issue, but as my son said recently, you should just not worry about it, as no-one is getting jobs which pay enough to kick-start repayments. While I don't feel sorry for them at all, will the banks ever get it back? At what point will they and the government say hang on, student loans are too high a risk?
So you ignore your student debt, pick up your degree and do what David Cameron wants everyone to do, which is volunteer. That sounds so public spirited and nice, and anyone who says "why should I work for nothing" is branded a heel. But that is the reality of what he is saying. Apart from the fact that volunteering has already been at capacity for years, people need to eat, and sooner or later the volunteers are going to have to sign on, and so the money flows out in social security and the fiscal deficit suffers still more.
It feels like the country is closing in on itself. The only people I don't see suffering are people I don't like; ruthless opportunists, bad employers, "I'm-all-right-jack"s. The good guys are struggling across the board.
I can't remember it ever being this close to the wire.
So no, I can't sleep. Because we have to collectively do something. It is not Cameron-style volunteering, it is deeper than that. It is a fundamental shift in the way we live and interconnect as communities and individuals. When I think I have a clue to what it is we need to do I will tell you. And if you have a clue, please tell me.
And now I have to go. It is dawn, and in three hours I will be arranging a lobster pot, netting needles and some very itchy-looking fishermens long johns in the heritage tent at the Oban Games. Like I say, I am lucky.
Monday, 23 August 2010
Brazilian Darkness
There is a rogue chocolate namer at large in the Roses organisation.
One of my splendid birthday presents yesterday was a large box of Roses chocolates, and some happy minutes were spent reading the legend on the back, but I was brought up short on my nostalgic journey through the comforting and traditional glade of 'Orange Cream' and 'Hazel Whirl' by the startling 'Brazilian Darkness'. Brazilian Darkness?! Did no-one consult the style guide to the coach tour chocolate market: the format of upright box that fits in the shopper, a good range of soft centres and toffees ideal for both fixed and glass-by-the-bed teeth, the 'you know what it is from the shape' design?
Roses are a heritage range; you know where you are. They are also a milk chocolate range, and I believe that herein lies the explanation. Someone, somewhere, decided the moment had come to introduce a dark chocolate, which is bold for a generation brought up on Milk Tray and never fully convinced by Black Magic. Overwhelmed with their own exoticism, the rogue namer went straight for the Joseph Conrad effect with a mysterious latino edge, redolent of canoeing down the Amazon to meet primitive peoples, or dancing wildly with a dusky eyed beauty as the sun sets over the Copa Cabana.
Sadly for Roses the conoisseur has moved on already, and now buys their dark chocolate by the percentage: 'Ecuador 40%' and so forth. Brazilian is also a dangerous moniker to use, meaning so many things in our modern times, and not always two days of carnival on a 10 package tour to South America with Thompsons.
But the client group is probably safe from all that. The rogue Brazilian Darkness is merely the mystery player in the troupe; the single dangerous moment in the box when you can break out from 'Strawberry Dream' and 'Country Fudge' - a spot of excitement on the long journey from Yorkshire to Tyndrum with Highland Holidays. Well take it from me, it's not. They should have stayed with the programme and not raised hopes.It is a slightly dark chocolate caramel, and not a very good one at that.
If you think this is not an important enough subject for a blog, just let me ask you this: would you prefer an under-researched and pre-judged tirade on the intafada? No? Well tough. That might be next.
One of my splendid birthday presents yesterday was a large box of Roses chocolates, and some happy minutes were spent reading the legend on the back, but I was brought up short on my nostalgic journey through the comforting and traditional glade of 'Orange Cream' and 'Hazel Whirl' by the startling 'Brazilian Darkness'. Brazilian Darkness?! Did no-one consult the style guide to the coach tour chocolate market: the format of upright box that fits in the shopper, a good range of soft centres and toffees ideal for both fixed and glass-by-the-bed teeth, the 'you know what it is from the shape' design?
Roses are a heritage range; you know where you are. They are also a milk chocolate range, and I believe that herein lies the explanation. Someone, somewhere, decided the moment had come to introduce a dark chocolate, which is bold for a generation brought up on Milk Tray and never fully convinced by Black Magic. Overwhelmed with their own exoticism, the rogue namer went straight for the Joseph Conrad effect with a mysterious latino edge, redolent of canoeing down the Amazon to meet primitive peoples, or dancing wildly with a dusky eyed beauty as the sun sets over the Copa Cabana.
Sadly for Roses the conoisseur has moved on already, and now buys their dark chocolate by the percentage: 'Ecuador 40%' and so forth. Brazilian is also a dangerous moniker to use, meaning so many things in our modern times, and not always two days of carnival on a 10 package tour to South America with Thompsons.
But the client group is probably safe from all that. The rogue Brazilian Darkness is merely the mystery player in the troupe; the single dangerous moment in the box when you can break out from 'Strawberry Dream' and 'Country Fudge' - a spot of excitement on the long journey from Yorkshire to Tyndrum with Highland Holidays. Well take it from me, it's not. They should have stayed with the programme and not raised hopes.It is a slightly dark chocolate caramel, and not a very good one at that.
If you think this is not an important enough subject for a blog, just let me ask you this: would you prefer an under-researched and pre-judged tirade on the intafada? No? Well tough. That might be next.
Sunday, 22 August 2010
So rested he by the Tumtum tree...
...and stood a while in thought. I have no intentions of shunning the frumious bandersnatch in my journey through the slithy toves, nor slaying the Jabberwocky. But I will rest awhile by the Tumtum tree deep in thought en route, and the reason why he will remain unslain is that I will never get past the Tumtum tree: too much thought, then too much complaining, and too much sheer talking. It is the affliction of a woman embarking on her second half century who really enjoys discussing every little thing.
Is this yet another grumpy old woman blog? Oh I hope it will be better than that. With the conceit of a woman in her prime, I believe people are interested in what I have to say. And so I will say it.
I am 51 today, and have wrestled for much of the afternoon with the concept of the passage of time and exactly how old I am. Have I been in my 50th year? Am I now in my 52nd? Is this the beginning of the second half century, or have I missed that moment? As the American friend I entertained this morning would say, "I am not good at math". He also asked if we were troubled in my museum store by "moth". In both instances, the use of 'math' and 'moth' leaves you hanging on a verbal precipice for an 's'. Life is suspended while the sibilant hangs unsaid, and conversation lurches helplesly onward as if the stride has gone; a speed bump on a motorway, a missing stepping stone in a river.
I suspect I have lived for 51 years, on the principle that you celebrate your first birthday only after you have done the 52 weeks time. I can live with that concept, and so I enter (probably) my 52nd year. My 51st was brillig (see Jabberwocky and make your own mind up).
That is pretty much all for the first outing. After all, it is my birthday and why should I work too hard for you? I will end it calmly, and try to avoid having to accompany my daughter to a bar. And then I will to bed, perchance to dream, as I often do, of a range of curious subjects. My least favourite of which involves a wide street, closed doors, nudity (mine), and being chased by lion (s).
And you thought this would be dull?
Is this yet another grumpy old woman blog? Oh I hope it will be better than that. With the conceit of a woman in her prime, I believe people are interested in what I have to say. And so I will say it.
I am 51 today, and have wrestled for much of the afternoon with the concept of the passage of time and exactly how old I am. Have I been in my 50th year? Am I now in my 52nd? Is this the beginning of the second half century, or have I missed that moment? As the American friend I entertained this morning would say, "I am not good at math". He also asked if we were troubled in my museum store by "moth". In both instances, the use of 'math' and 'moth' leaves you hanging on a verbal precipice for an 's'. Life is suspended while the sibilant hangs unsaid, and conversation lurches helplesly onward as if the stride has gone; a speed bump on a motorway, a missing stepping stone in a river.
I suspect I have lived for 51 years, on the principle that you celebrate your first birthday only after you have done the 52 weeks time. I can live with that concept, and so I enter (probably) my 52nd year. My 51st was brillig (see Jabberwocky and make your own mind up).
That is pretty much all for the first outing. After all, it is my birthday and why should I work too hard for you? I will end it calmly, and try to avoid having to accompany my daughter to a bar. And then I will to bed, perchance to dream, as I often do, of a range of curious subjects. My least favourite of which involves a wide street, closed doors, nudity (mine), and being chased by lion (s).
And you thought this would be dull?
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