From aye.tf
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‘People are utterly stupid, just look at them,’ says the oldest, as the six of them lie in the lush grass, relishing the rare winter sunshine. ‘Aye, they have this deep rooted herd mentality, following each other like zombies, questioning nothing, scared to be different. Not a hint of an...
on Feb 16
From aye.tf
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Beep! Beep! Beep! I flay about a bit, until my brain works out what is the meaning of the ruckus — my 4.50am alarm clock, a photograph in the making.
on Wed, 5PM
From aye.tf
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My new Trailstar tarp has arrived, begging to be taken out, and this weekend is the only chance I’ll get till June. Alas, the forecast is for two days of steady rain. But then, what better weather to test a shelter in, right? 🙂
on Apr 28
From aye.tf
Warty Cavalier (Melanoleuca verrucipes)
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Usually found in the late summer and autumn, this mushroom was first recorded in the UK only in 2000*, and is mostly found in the south of England. Well, this one appeared in my garden in the Central Belt of Scotland last Friday (11 April)! It popped out in an old abandoned flower pot.
on Apr 14
From aye.tf
Uber Complex Chief Engineer Fail (contd)
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Time for another update on the OpenReach ‘Uber Complex Chief Engineer’ fail. I have now worked out why I am not getting emails from them: their email system is not compliant with email addressing standard, as set out by RFC 5332!
on Apr 14
From aye.tf
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A couple of weeks ago I stumbled on a reflection on the Caorach air crash site that I wrote the day after running the Assynt Traverse nine years ago.
on Apr 13
From aye.tf
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Yesterday a blog by Peter Saint-Andre took me to his much older (2015) post on self-patronage that touches on the subject of an ‘artist as an entrepreneur’. This struck a chord with me.
on Apr 10
From aye.tf
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I have a handful of ‘current’ OS maps of Scotland, but most of my paper maps come from the ’90s, and the electronic versions I am currently using are an edition from 2016. There is lot to be said for that, as I was reminded on our walk yesterday.
on Apr 7
From aye.tf
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This is a continuation of a comments thread on the linked Alex Roddie’s post; I decided it’s too long to dump on someone else’s blog (and also too important, to burry in a comment).
on Apr 4
From aye.tf
Uber Complex Chief Engineer Fail
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Last week I mentioned our FTTP case was now handled by OpenReach’s Uber Complex Chief Engineer – I can now report back that it’s about as much bullshit as it sounds. On Tuesday I received the following text from OpenReach:
on Apr 3
From aye.tf
Mamiya 7ii — Second Impressions
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The 80mm lens arrived several days earlier than expected (these days it’s far quicker to buy second had stuff from Japan than the EU; another unsang Brexit benefit), so I had a chance to get a roll through in the house to test it and the impressions are also very good.
on Mar 29
From aye.tf
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As far as bullshit titles go, OpenReach’s Uber Complex Chief Engineer has to be right up there with the best of them. Not making this up, this from my most excellent ISP, A&A:
on Mar 27
From aye.tf
Mamiya 7ii — First Impressions
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Why am I only getting this camera now? The first impressions are very good indeed.
on Mar 25
From aye.tf
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For a number of years now I have been on a quest for the perfect hiking camera. There have been one or two candidates over that time that started promising but ultimately didn’t entirely meet the expectations.
on Mar 23
From aye.tf
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The Cape Wrath Trail has been on my ‘One Day’ list for around a decade now. Originally thinking of a self-supported run, but that isn’t going to happen; my distance running days are long over. Also, as the years pass, I am increasingly interested in being in a place, even of a place, rather than...
on Mar 19
From aye.tf
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I think some progress is being made around the modern CT airport scanners, as I have not run into any problems with getting my film hand inspected on my recent trip that included passing through EDI, STN and TIA (in contrast when I flew about a year ago, EDI was still repeating the ‘safe up to...
on Mar 11
From aye.tf
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Perhaps I don’t know where to look, but I am struggling to find any contemporary writing from the outdoors that would stir me, produce some sort of a meaningful emotional reaction in me. What I come across these days are gear reviews, more great reviews, some route descriptions, and accounts of...
on Feb 21
From aye.tf
The Biggest Camera I Can Carry
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Yesterday I emptied the chest freezer in the garage, to check whether there is any 35mm film at the bottom of it; I thought there might be and turns out I was right about that. Thing is, I find myself in a bit of a bind just now. I have a mountain trip coming up later this spring, and can’t...
on Feb 18
From aye.tf
Velvet Shank (Flammulina velutipes)
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A rather pretty sight, the velvet shank is one of the mushrooms that fruit in the winter and is most commonly found on dead elm trees (it can also be found in a supermarket, under the Japanese name ‘Enoki’, though the commercially grown specimen look nothing like the ‘real thing’ due to being...
on Feb 5
From aye.tf
The Settled Weather Problem of Renewables (again)
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So just now a (foreign owned) electricity generator is charging the UK grid £5000/MWh (about 20x the consumer price) to spin up their gas power station to take up the shortage due to the lack of wind power. This is the direct consequence of the UK not making the necessary investment into nuclear...
on Jan 9
From aye.tf
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Recently there has been some chatter about using lightweight footwear in the winter hills, and in that context microspikes have been mentioned. As someone who uses microspikes a lot, I'd really like to warn quite emphatically against taking microspikes into the hills as a substitute for crampons...
on May 3, 2024
From aye.tf
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Every time I pass through the grassy bowl north of Beinn an Fhurain, a shiver runs down my spine. Here a temporal singularity is created by the intersection of the merciless nature of these 'wee hills' of ours with the brokenness of the world we have created for ourselves on
on Apr 13, 2024
From aye.tf
The Assynt Traverse: Blow by blow
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It's 2:55am and the day, which is supposed to be a culmination of a three year long dream, is being (un)ceremonially drummed in by rain on a skylight window in Inchnadamph Lodge Hostel. Over the last couple of weeks I have dithered much over this 'alpine' start. I
on Apr 13, 2024
From aye.tf
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Glen Ogle. Most of the time a place on the way to somewhere else, somewhere more exciting. Yet, for me also a special, magical place where years ago my inner eye first really glimpsed the beauty of this land. We just got our first car, a decade old Astra Belmont,
on Mar 25, 2024