Orkney

Of course he's right , but it's shooting fish in barrel , it was just entertainment with an archaeo slant .

I'm halfway through reading The Outrun by Amy Liptrot. She was brought up on Orkney and returns after basically fucking her life up in London with alcohol addiction and drugs. She is quite honest about it all, staying on as part of the recovery process to work for the RSPB tracking Corncrakes - now virtually extinct in the rest of the British Isles. She over winters in an RSPB property on Papay where she spends a lot of time looking at the night sky. A much wider and personal account of life on the Orkneys.

PS: She makes reference to the archaeology too.

Thanks for the Liptrot book tip..interested. O/T /sideways ..corncrakes. They nest, not in great numbers, Durness way, on Skye, Canna, Tiree, Colonsay and other places too. The North and South Rhins of Galloway is a pitstop on their migratory M1. I sit outside my tent in autumn in the dark and listen to them flying south overhead under the stars, calling. They stop overnight down near the lighthouse at the Mull too. Another pitstop..and discretely, still a breeding site...is in the environs of the Hope Valley and Hayfield in Derbyshire. They're around, just, despite it all. Nice bird : )

Re "Kenny" Brophy (as he is known by his adoring students), my guess is he's miffed that the mini-series didn't engage people like him to contribute. I thought it was crowded enough already! His passion is "build & burn". (Okay)

He refers to himself as Kenny too .

Would he really have expected to be on it .?

There is a slew of others more appropriate who didn't appear , but again it would have detracted from the entertainment .

The corncrake and cuckoo are probably the biggest nightmares for disturbed sleep in some areas ,particularly when camping .

Just below midgies in nuisance value .

If you are an anorak the cuckoo can be worst , you listen for the change in pitch in the call which changes by as much as a tone through the spring /summer and start thinking about that . At least the corncrake stays much the same .

Top place to avoid if you are cuckoo-averse is the top end of Glen Affric in late-Spring. We were kept awake by corncrake on North Uist........a message to GET UP and get going!

It's always a pleasure, and you come over all Delius like when you hear a cuckoo whilst out walking , but not in sleeping bag at 4 in the morning .

Soutar is great .

Violet Jacob is mibbe no quite in the same league but another avian verse that is never far from thoughts , particularly in winter .

'Oh tell me what was on yer road, ye roarin’ norlan’ Wind,

As ye cam’ blawin’ frae the land that’s niver frae my mind?

My feet they traivel England, but I’m deein’ for the north.'

'My man, I heard the siller tides rin up the Firth o Forth.'

'Aye, Wind, I ken them weel eneuch, and fine they fa’ and rise,

And fain I’d feel the creepin’ mist on yonder shore that lies,

But tell me, ere ye passed them by, what saw ye on the way?'

'My man, I rocked the rovin’ gulls that sail abune the Tay.'

'But saw ye naething, leein’ Wind, afore ye cam’ to Fife?

There’s muckle lyin’ ‘yont the Tay that’s mair to me nor life.'

'My man, I swept the Angus braes ye hae'na trod for years.'

'O Wind, forgi’e a hameless loon that canna see for tears!'

'And far abune the Angus straths I saw the wild geese flee,

A lang, lang skein o’ beatin’ wings, wi’ their heids towards the sea,

And aye their cryin’ voices trailed ahint them on the air –'

'O Wind, hae maircy, haud yer whisht, for I daurna listen mair!'

The Wild Geese .

You had a cuckoo in your sleeping bag, George? Cor! : )

Sadly not , only heard them .

news being fleshed out from the Scottish Herald....

tinyurl.com/hjx4ud4

Having birds in sleeping bags has, I'm sure, been an aspiration for many. Can but dream, eh ? : )

"There through the branches go the ravens of unresting thought" W.B. Yeats

In response [to Brophy] Rachel Bell, executive producer of the programme, said: “People understand that national identities and capitals did not exist as such then, but it provides an anchor for a modern audience to get to grips with complicated subject matter.”

In other words: in the post-Brexit, post-truth age, who gives a rats about the facts? People are thick anyway, and we can come up with our own specious, [pre]historical narrative that suits the political movements of today.

This is the context .

theislandreview.com/content/bbc-neolithic-orkney-neil-oliver-kenneth-brophy-archaeology-stonehenge

To be fair to Kenny it's nice wee essay in a magazine , maybe somebody had to say it .

Flemington , the novel is ok but I'm not recommending .