WEE BITS..

SCOTS ORRALS AND WHIGMALEERIES [ORRALS define as - bits and pieces, odds and ends; WHIGMALEERIE - several meanings, eg a fantastic, useless ornament; a foolish fancy, a whimsy]

*****

When we - Wullie and Frank - decided to set up this website, one of our basic decisions was that the site must be entertaining; we ourselves get awfy fed up with high-powered, sell-at any-cost, bombard-you-with-lots of facts, confuse-the-heck-out-of-you websites which, without trying, and not realising it, have turned into LISTS, and BORING!

So this section is about things of possible interest; wee bits frae a'wheres. We'll keep adding our "wee bits..." at the top of the list, so the latest whimsies are easy to see.

Our orrals will be in no particular order, but as the muse dictates: some stories, some facts; tales of folk and tales of fancy; bits of prose and bits of poesy; who did what and what was where, and how it was, as weel; history, geography; arts & crafts; lassies, laddies an' wee bittie bairnies...

"an awfu' soul fur books wus he

an' things aboot the Land;

he kent sae muckle he culd spoot

fur meenits, 'oors, e'en days, aboot

things - dottle-sma' tae Grand.

( Wullie Lang; "Beuk-lair, and a' the guid it daes" )

If YOU have any tales to tell, or Scots-related "wee bits" we'll use any printable ones with an acknowledgement of the sender - if you elect to allow us to put your name out to the world; this site gets hits from all across the globe, and some pretty exotic places, at that. Just goes to show, we're everywhere.

So here goes - wi' oor Wee Bits...

*****

ABERDEEN, known as "the granite city" because so many of its buildings are made from that material, has been a royal burgh since the reign of King David I in the 12th century . The burgh records date from 1398, and are the oldest in Scotland.

It rains often on Aberdeen but, when the sun shines afterwards, the city shines and glistens as the light reflects off the flecks of mica in the granite.

*****

THE Highest Waterfall in the United Kingdom is Eas a'Chual Aluinn, near Glen Coul in the Highlands. It has a drop of 201 metres (663 feet).

The closest rival is in Wales - Pistyll Rhaeadr - at only 73 metres (241 feet).

*****

A not very well-kept Scottish secret…midges (or as we say - Midgies) …one of our resident wildlife chums! Many of our most welcome visitors – especially to the West Coast – have met these wee chaps. “Culicodes impucantus” to give them their proper titles. More than one of the people – local or tourist – to meet them has remarked that “You can kill one of the little blighters but thousands of their relatives turn up for the funeral!” It’s really unfortunate that the ten weeks of their breeding season coincides with the main tourist season!

Midges prefer areas where there is good annual rainfall – so the West of Scotland is its favourite haunt as many places there have over 50 inches of rain a year (Lochaber had 220 inches in 1990!). It is only the female of the species that bites, having first detected its prey from the carbon dioxide which they produce. The insect scrapes the skin, then inserts a hollow hypodermic-style needle under the skin to draw blood – a nourishing meal for the midge prior to laying its eggs.

Over the centuries, many remedies have been formulated to deter the little demons and the British consumer magazine “Which” has even run tests on brands of insect repellents. Surprisingly, the US army has found that a cosmetic product “O So Soft” works wonders!

Smoke is also a good deterrent – Queen Victoria is said to have smoked cigarettes on her Highland visits for that very reason! A system has now been developed by Advanced Pest Solutions, based at Edinburgh University, which collects known densities of midge populations in various locations and combines that with weather forecasts to predict the worst affected places – similar to the pollen index of hay-fever sufferers. The forecast is refined by midge catch data provided by a network of traps at weather stations located from Shetland to the Borders. The forecast is being reported each day in the Aberdeen-based Press & Journal newspaper and is available online at www.midgeforecast.co.uk.

*****

Not so, indeed, though most folk think it is. The honour goes to Out Stack or Ootsta in Shetland. Out Stack is the northernmost of the British Isles, lying immediately to the north of Muckle Flugga and 1.8 miles (3 km) north of the island of Unst. It is one of the North Isles of the Shetland Islands and lies within the Hermaness National Nature Reserve.

Out Stack is little more than a rocky outcrop, and is uninhabited. It has been described as "the full stop at the end of Britain". Travellers do not encounter any further land masses between Out Stack and the North Pole if heading directly north.

It can get gey windy up there: in 1972, the wind gauge went off the scale at 150 knots (173mph), and estimates made the top windspeed around 194mph.

*****

It's weel kent how before the Battle of Athelstaneford, the Scots saw a cross formation of clouds in the sky resembling a St Andrew's cross - the patron Saint. They took this sign as an omen and indeed they were successful in battle the next day. Thus the colours in the flag are supposed to be white to represent the clouds and azure, the colour of the sky towards the end of the day. However, Sky Blue is not the right colour - it is too light.

The Scottish Parliament has debated this matter and decided on Pantone 300 as the recommended colour. If you want this colour on your PC, the RGB Value on the colour sliders for Pantone 300 should be 0, 132, 202. The web value for fill colours should be "#0084CA".

But this is, as it says, "recommended"; there's no law saying it has to be this colour - so Flag Makers everywhere can breathe a sigh of relief.

*****

...the idea for the poem "To a mouse" came to Rabbie Burns when he was ploughing a field in 1785, and the plough turned up the nest of a field-mouse, or harvest mouse. The beastie was trying to escape when one of the farm servants - one John Blane- went to smite it with the plough-spade. Burns stopped him from killing the wee thing and reportedly "fell into a pensive mood, in which he composed the piece just as it stands".

The full title of the piece is " To a Mouse, on turning her up in her nest with the plough, November 1785"...

*****

AE is a tiny village eight miles north of Dumfries, Galloway. It was founded in 1947 to house forestry workers, and has the shortest name of any village or town in Britain

It's also the only place name in Britain without a consonant...

*****

America's first newspaper, the Boston News Letter, was published in 1704 by Islay-born bookseller and postmaster, John Campbell

*****

Donald Sutherland (1835-1919) from Wick, Caithness, discovered Sutherland Falls (one of the highest in the world) which bears his name at Milford Sound, in New Zealand.

He became known as The Hermit of Milford Sound"

*****

Use this link to go to the suggestions page if you have any "WEE BITS" to share with us.