Ikutaro Kakehashi died on Saturday at the age of 87. A check check of the Interwebz doesn’t reveal the cause of his death, and he was Japanese – but he has to get a Great British Strokes-shaped post.
Y’see, this…
[For more repetitive beats, check out the Apoplexy Tiny Letter.] Continue reading Everybody Needs a 303
It has never been hard to tell the difference between a Scotsman with a grievance and a ray of sunshine, PG Wodehouse once wrote. And today, as the Scottish Parliament debates the merits of approaching Westminster regarding another Independence referendum and just under half of the MSPs grumble about the Scottish Government manufacturing grievances, maybe it’s time to change the stereotype?
[For more sugar, spice, and nice things, check out the Apoplexy Tiny Letter]
Continue reading A Ray of Sunshine
Long-suffering readers of the blog may recall that a couple of years ago I went through a bit of an obsession with the moon. (1, 2)
Yeah. Not Mark Kozelek’s Sun Kil Moon, messiah claimant Sun Myung Moon and his Unification Church, or even Ban Ki-moon, eighth Secretary General of the United Nations.
[More, occasionally stroke-related, whimsy here.] Continue reading Moonage Daydream
1. Superbowl LIe
Long-suffering readers of the blog will know that I’m more than a little obsessed with time and how it works and how it’s expressed. If time is more elastic and less concrete than we imagine – and it is – then that would just about explain Sunday’s Superbowl LI.
And that diagram doesn’t incorporate an extended half-time show, overtime, etc. I assume the Superbowl is still going on, although Mrs Stroke Bloke seems happy about the current score. Oddly. I mean, who could root for a man who lies about eating strawberries? Continue reading Time Is On Your Side
I’ve mentioned it before, but in a scholarship interview to go to the United States to study I was asked to related how I would sum up my idea of Scotland for a curious New Yorker. Social justice and hardcore techno, I said.
I didn’t get that one, funnily enough. But after I honed my interview technique. I did end up going to study in the United States. I started on a J1 student visa before moving on to an H1B visa for foreign workers in specialty occupations which require highly specialized knowledge. [See picture above.]
[Want more of this? Check out the Apoplexy Tiny Letter.]
Continue reading America
Happy New Year!
Hogmanay in Scotland is a time for traditions. First-footing, coal, whisky, Auld Lang Syne, steak pie (apparently), black bun, and all the rest. When I lived in America, New Year’s Eve was the hardest time of year to be away from the country of my birth.
But there’s another tradition that covers all of Scotland, England, Wales, and Northern Ireland that I didn’t miss so much – the New Year’s Honours List.
[Check out the Apoplexy Tiny Letter for more of this sort of thing.
If this is the sort of thing you’re into.] Continue reading New Year’s Day
I’ve been kind of obsessed with chairs for around a decade-and-a-half.
I can’t remember if it started when I got a copy of 100 Masterpieces from the Vitra Design Museum Collection, or if I got the book because the seeds of my obsession had already started to sprout.
In fact, I’m surprised this hasn’t cropped up on the blog before.
[For things that don’t show up on the blog, check out the apoplexy newsletter.] Continue reading Three Chairs!!!
On Tuesday, I was invited to an event run by The Open University’s Reading Communities team in association with The Scottish Book Trust’s Book Week Scotland and the Being Human festival of the Humanities. It was called Edinburgh: A City of Readers. As well as my story Valhalla, I was asked to read an extract from an 1830 letter written by the actress, writer, and abolitionist campaigner Fanny Kemble in which she talks of breakfasting with Walter Scott and a small party of other Scottish luminaries of the time.
Apparently, she found it
strange that so varied and noble an intellect should be expressed in the features of a shrewd, kindly, but not otherwise striking countenance.
[For more Walter Scott/Teenage Fanclub mash-ups, head over to the Apoplexy newsletter] Continue reading Thanksgiving
As readers of last week’s blog post will know, I like to listen to BBC Radio Scotland’s Good Morning Scotland when I’m making breakfast in the morning.
Mrs Stroke Bloke worries about my blood pressure, I’m sure, as a disconcerting mixture of laughter and swearie words escapes the kitchen. But it keeps me somewhat connected to the larger world, and sometimes, there’s a wee gem of an item to consider. Say, on the subject of #strokes. Continue reading The Standard Version
My love for BBC Radio 4’s PM programme, as hosted by Eddie Mair, is well-documented on this website (1, 2). During #indyref the first, I remember him conducting one of the better interviews I heard with Scotland’s First Minister.
However, it’s becoming increasingly apparent – from, for example, the Today programme’s coverage of yesterday’s news that the Westminster government is mulling making substantial payments to the EU to retain financial services passporting rights for the City of London– that The Herald‘s chief reporter has captured a larger truth about the BBC’s output.
I think the talking heads who review newspapers on London TV shows like Marr are running out of excuses for not understanding Scotland.
— David Leask (@LeaskyHT) October 16, 2016
[Yes, somehow I’ll pivot this into strokes and art. Read on to find out how.] Continue reading Thought For The Day