The Shorkneys: Singing to Seals in Orkney and Shetland

(Note: "Shorkney" is not a real word. We're just using it to write about our recent trip to Aberdeen, Orkney, and Shetland.)

We're going a bit nuts over here at the Educated Burgher, what with all the dissertating and moving to Japan (so soon!). . . which is a bad thing, when you're as nuts as the two of us are to begin with.

Case in point:

Nothing like putting your toes in the North Sea, folks!

But that's not all--we spent a shamefully large portion of our trip singing to seals.

You see, Orkney and Shetland have a ton of the critters, and they're super curious little guys. Any time you're walking along the water (which is pretty much all the time in Orkney and Shetland), you're likely to see at least one of their little heads popping up, watching the strange world of the shore pass them by. They seem especially curious about dogs, probably because they look so much like dogs themselves.

(In fact, the German word for seal is "seehund," or "sea dog." You can tell why from this Wikipedia photo of a harbor seal, one of two species found in the Shorkneys.)

Anyway, the seals are apparently attracted to human voices, and especially human singing. So, naturally, when confronted with a lone seal in the Kirkwall harbor late at night (yes, late at night), Nana's first instinct was to belt out an a capella rendition of "Kiss From a Rose." (The seal is the little black dot in the background.)

Unfortunately, the seal promptly swam away, and our impromptu cover of "Hey Seal" (to the tune of "Hey Jude") met with similar scorn.

We had some more luck in Shetland, where a little family of seals was hanging out in a broad bay we were walking by just south of Lerwick. I assume they were there to watch the dogs passing on the trail. (Again, seals = black dots.)

Then again, it could just mean that seals like Aretha Franklin ("Chain of Seals") more than Seal or the Beatles. But given the very unscientific nature of our study, I would hesitate to draw any firm conclusions.

Bonus: What's the difference between a seal and a sea lion? Basically, true seals spend more time in the water, have no external ears, and short flippers which make them pretty much useless on land.

In contrast, sea lions (and the closely related, but misleadingly named fur seals) have small ear flaps and longer flippers. Sea lions can actually move pretty well on land, with a posture similar to that of a very large and very clumsy dachshund. This combination of cuteness and dexterity probably explains why sea lions the ones you find doing shows at Sea World.

Seals, on the other hand, are pretty much limited to flopping around on their fat stomachs. Hilarious, but not not much acting range. Kind of like Jack Black.

The Wild Haggis Beast!

In response to a recent survey that revealed 1 in 5 Brits think the haggis is an actual animal native to the Scottish highlands, BoingBoing asked its readers to submit their own drawings of what they think a wild haggis would look like. Here are the results!

The East is... Plaid?

Does this picture of me from our trip to the Highlands remind you of anything?

How about now?

If this is what happens when you study East Asia and fashion history, then I'm not looking forward to the moment I'm inspired by sumo.

(Poster courtesy of http://chineseposters.net. This flurry of posts courtesy of a survived dissertation proposal deadline and a serious lack of work ethic.)

Scone Palace: The Stone of Scone

(Scone, by the way, is pronounced "skoon" by the guides at Edinburgh Castle but "scohn" by my Shetlander friend - see here for more on accents)

Scone Palace, which I briefly mentioned before, belongs to the Earl of Mansfield. It's a 19th century building on the site of the old Scone Abbey. General rule of thumb when dealing with British architecture: if it looks the way you think something medieval should look, it's 19th century (and usually Victorian). Genuinely medieval things are, for the most part, ruins.

The interior at the Palace (technically more of a manor house, but that doesn't draw the tourists) is quite interesting and a fun visit. You can see the chamber where Queen Victoria slept, a remarkable collection of ivories and porcelains, and pictures of the family past and present. You can't take photographs inside, however, so we just have some shots of the grounds.

The kings of Scotland were traditionally crowned at the former Abbey while seated on the Stone of Scone, reputed to be Jacob's pillow from the Bible. It's also called the Stone of Destiny, which I always hear in my mind in the same squeaky voice as the pigs from Babe saying "PIG..... OF..... DESSTINYYYYY." But we already know I have problems.

"Stone of Destiny" is "Lia Fail" in Gaelic, and, as many Scottish icons do, has a beer named after it. (Justin's verdict for said beer. which he sampled last fall - "Meh.")

In any case, in 1296, the English King Edward I (the bad guy from Braveheart) pilfered the Stone and took it back to England as part of his campaign to subdue the Scots. No crowning stone, no crowned king, as the logic went.

According to my grandfather's genealogy research, my family is vaguely descended from Edward I. Blood, as they say, will out, and overcome by family tradition, I attempted to make off with the replica Stone.

I may have been more authentic than I knew, as my great-great-whatever-grandfather may also have targeted a replica. It is said that Edward's stolen Stone was a substitute, sneaked into Scone by Scottish subversives, while Scone Abbey monks secretly submerged the original in the River Tay.

The Stone generally believed to be the original resides today at Edinburgh Castle, but it has been a bit of a circuitous journey. It was lodged in a chair used in the English coronation ceremony at Westminster Abbey, thereby integrating (or coopting, depending on your point of view) the Scottish tradition for the joint monarch of England and Scotland after the 1707 Act of Union. It remained there until the 1950s, when radical students stole it, but eventually gave it back. There's a move about this called Stone of Destiny; for trivia buffs, it stars not only Billy Boyd, but also Kate Mara, descended from the American families which own the Steelers and the New York Giants.

The Stone finally made it back to Scotland in 1996 in what the Edinburgh Castle tour guides describe as a failed attempt by the Conservative Party to buy off Scottish voters. The agreement states that the stone will be loaned back to Westminster for the next royal coronation; Scots like to joke that they will send it back tied to a string.

Here in the cafe beneath the palace, Justin consumes a scone. A Scone of Scone. (Justin's verdict: "6.5/10. I prefer crumbly. The jam was good, though.")

We're pretty sure this means that Justin is now the king of Scotland.

Scone Palace: A Tragic Love Story

Yesterday, Justin and I took a day trip to Perth. (No, not THAT Perth, the OTHER Perth. The original one.) It doesn't quite make up for losing Athens, but it was the best we could do on short notice.

We visited historic Scone Palace (pronounced "Skoon Palace") and being colossal dorks, we will, of course, have extensive historical posts coming along shortly. However, after my recent dweebifesto on libraries, I thought it might behoove me to seek a less academic topic to give us all a break.

Thus, I present to you: Scone Palace: A Tragic Love Story.

Once upon a time, there was a girl in the gardens at Scone Palace.

The gardens at Scone Palace are almost painfully upper class. First, it's the site of the Central Scotland International Horse Trials. Second they're full of oh-so-British fauna:

And PEACOCKS:


The girl's joy at the sight of the birds displeased a wicked enchanter with a suspiciously large wand.

He placed a curse on the girl that made her believe she was a peacock. The girl obligingly set out to win the heart of a local hero:


But alas! He was more interested in other women:

The girl's heart was broken.

The magician found all of this very amusing.

And so the girl was cursed to wander the gardens of Scone Palace forever, squawking obnoxiously and begging for snacks from tourists. Oh! The tragedy!


(Come on. This makes at least as much sense as Swan Lake. I mean, did you ever READ that story?)

Segway Segue

Wow, even I'm a little ashamed of that pun.

Anyway--we interrupt your regularly scheduled program of Maltese prehistory to bring you . . . Nana and Justin riding Segways!

On our last day in Malta, the local Segway dealer (did you know such a thing existed?) descended on a small classic car show with some demo models. (Don't worry, Herr Kessler--we'll post the photos of all the old cars and buses!)

If you know us at all, you know we couldn't resist.

The things are surprisingly fun to ride, and they're so responsive it's almost disorienting. I mean, you barely have to move at all to get it going. But it will always be hard to overlook how silly people look on them. There's just something ludicrous about moving while standing perfectly still.

Hogmanay terror obliterates town!

The other day, Nana and I were just enjoying a simple walk through an ice-bound Holyrood Park . . .

. . . when, coming to the end of our trail, we spotted what looked like a giant green pod of some sort. (And I had a sheep in my pocket, for some reason.)

A crowd began to gather. Then, after a little while, there appeared a gaggle of oddly dressed artistes (in ankle warmers!) who performed some strange ritual before opening the egg.


At first, the blue giant was calm--drowsy, even. That is, until some guy who looked like a bearded Screech from Saved by the Bell donned a red wizard's robe and sang what I can only assume was a Gaelic love song to the beast.


When the song ended, the blue giant broke free!


Although some of the bystanders seemed oddly sanguine about his rampage up the Royal Mile.

Seriously, though, the Big Man was just a small piece of the three-day New Year's celebration known in Scotland as Hogmanay. Hogmanay has become a kind of blanket term for a variety of traditional winter solstice celebrations, and different towns throughout Scotland celebrate Hogmanay in a variety of ways.

Edinburgh celebrates the holiday with a festival (something had to fill in the three-week gap between Christmas and Burns Night!) that includes a street party, a giant rendition of Auld Lang Syne (a poem written by none other than Rabbie Burns himself), an enormous blue puppet walking up the Royal Mile for some reason, ceilidh dances, copious amounts of food and drink, and of course lots and lots of fire. All in all, a fitting way for a city like Edinburgh to ring in the New Year!

New Year's Inspirational Messages

... courtesy of the Stirling Boys' Club: (e-mail subscribers, these are pictures)




Not Pictured: "Take the fall! Act hurt! Get indignant!"

Over the Sea to Skye

A much-belated revisitation of our trip to the Highlands, also discussed here, here and here.

The Isle of Skye is a much-romanticized part of the Highlands due to its role in the '45 uprising (what, weren't you paying attention to Justin's post? He worked hard on that!). Flora Macdonald, a Highland Jacobite lady, was engaged to help Bonnie Prince Charlie escape from Scotland by taking him in a boat "over the sea to Skye," as described in the famous Skye Boat Song.

(You can get more insight into the romanticism of the '45 if you click on the video, which is "dedicated to Jacobites everywhere." What does that even mean? How can you be a Jacobite these days? Are you going to go get Franz, Duke of Bavaria and try to put him on the throne - over his own indifference? I get that in many cases, Jacobitism is conflated with Scottish nationalism or Scottish patriotism, but it's just not correct. As Justin pointed out in his post, more Scots fought against Charlie than for him. Anyway, if, like me, you're not a fan of historical whitewashing, just try to concentrate on the fact that Charlie made his escape in drag, as Flora's Irish maid Betty Burke. Surely one of the great examples of monarchical transvestitism.)

Ahem. Focus.

Skye is a four-hour round-trip day-trip from Inverness and allowed us to see some beautiful scenery on the way. It was also a day in which the winds were so heavy that the ferries to Skye were cancelled (we took the bridge, fortunately) which explains our hair in this, and subsequent, pictures:

Once on the island, we visited the Clan Macdonald center, the Armadale Castle Gardens and Museum of the Isles. My only complaint about this day trip was that with Justin and my penchant for nerding, we spent so much time in the museum that we didn't actually have time to eat any lunch on Skye. Fortunately, we brought granola. We're like hardcore hikers, but for museums.

Armadale Castle ruins (that's me in the pink hat)


I strongly recommend the museum. It had very interesting regional history exhibits, often in both Scottish Gaelic and English. Gaelic (pronounced "Gallic" for the Scottish version; same root as "Gaul" for France) was the indigenous Celtic language of Scotland. It's closely related to Irish Gaelic and more distantly related to Welsh, which is the only Celtic language to be very widely spoken. There are 50,000-odd speakers of Scots Gaelic today, contrasted with about 1/2 million for Welsh. These speakers are disproportionately concentrated in the northwest of Scotland and the islands, where their isolation has helped shield them from English. Skye is the island about 1/3 of the way down that map, with a bright purple top tip. The Scottish Gaelic Language College is on Skye, as is a new Gaelic elementary school. Another new one just opened in Inverness. Since regaining some parliamentary powers in 1999, Scotland has been able to leverage some protection for Scots Gaelic, including a broadcast channel in Gaelic on the BBC; however, 50,000 speakers is right on the cusp of the number needed to prevent language extinction. Nobody can say for sure if Gaelic will survive.

Educational trivia about Skye: There is only one high school, Portree High School. It can be so far from students' homes that the students commute to school on Monday and stay in a hostel for the rest of the week.

Pet peeve rant: I have been endlessly amused by the usage across Scotland of what I perceive as schlocky faux-Celtic fonts like the ones on the Portree web site. In the US, it's the sort of thing you'd see at cheesy Irish pubs like Molly Brannigan's. I have NOT been amused by the omnipresence of the font Papyrus. I see it probably every other block. There is not, nor has there ever been, widespread use of papyrus to make paper anywhere in the British Isles. Get a new font.

Skye has some typical Highland scenery, down to the little white dots of sheep:


But it also has massively damp, lush areas straight out of Jurassic Park:


Other events of the afternoon involved whisky tasting. The MacNamaras are from Skye; Justin is part MacNamara.


NOOOOOOOO! CURSE YOU, PAPYRUS!!!

We also visited a beach....


... the ruined castle shown the TV series Highlander...


... and a lovely scenic bridge. Justin looks odd because he's trying to talk the photographer into stepping out of traffic. But wait! What's that in the background? Click to zoom!

The photographer said, "I hope that's your wife." Some days, Justin probably hopes it's not!