Following on from last week’s post, here are some more of the best things I experienced last year, starting with another book.
Soil and Soul, by Alastair MacIntosh
This book is about the history of Highland living and the poetry of the Celtic bardic tradition. It is about the power of the lairds (unearned) and the power of the people (built and paid for in blood).
It is about the fightback of the people in places like Eigg and Harris against the lairds and the supercorporations who are always trying (as is their prerogative as supercorporations) to take from the people what rightfully belongs to them.
These powers succeeded in the Highland Clearances, but people have had enough. Sometimes this indignation isn't enough to put a stop to nefarious expansionism, but sometimes, in the case of the megaquarry on Harris and the community ownership of Eigg, it is.
This book is a revelation on the subject of there being a Better Way To Do Things, and eminently convincing on the value of community and a connection to land and place, all of which have been lost (and forcibly taken from us) over the past few centuries of so-called human development.
If I were to recommend one thing from all of the Best Things in this newsletter this would be it.
If you want to read it here is an affiliate link to buy it from Bookshop.org.
Now... podcasts?
If you have a passing interest in American Sports, Bill Simmons is my guy. For football it’s the Football Ramble.
Otherwise, the Blindboy Podcast.
Recommended by a friend on a stag do, this is a marvel. Blindboy exercises his curiosity to the depths of what is possible, drawing connections between seemingly unrelated things delightfully and insightfully.
He is a storyteller who modernises the notion of the Celtic bardic tradition, as referenced in Soil and Soul and is an inspiration (though I fall far short) for the storytelling I am trying to achieve in this newsletter.
As a starter, I recommend one of these episodes:
342 - A Psychosexual history of Digestive biscuits and their use as instruments of Physical Force Republicanism
345 - The History of Whales Who Wear Dead Salmon As Hats
348 - The tumescent glans of Ronald McDonald
Let's get miscellaneous...
Best peninsula - Knoydart
We went there for my birthday, and other than the fact we were creepy-crawled to the absolute maximum by deer keds, it is an awesome place.
Accessible only by boat or by hiking over some rather large mountains (we took the boat), it is host to a community-owned pub, and the sun was shining something fierce the days we were there.
There is also an amazing pop-up vegan restaurant at which we ate both breakfast and lunch before and after the deer-ked hike.
Best hill - Binnein Mor
L’s first Munro, which ended with a spectacular cloud inversion at the summit.
A view that was unbelievable. And not in the superlative sense. More in the sense that even when you are there experiencing them, feeling the wind on your face, the same wind which is blowing the clouds over the mountain like a waterfall, even then you don't believe that what you are seeing is real.
Best theatre - Player Kings at the Opera House
First live experience of Shakespeare for Henry IV Part I and II mashup featuring Ian McKellen as Falstaff. Absolutely magnificent. The rhythm of it all is so entrancing, even in the second half when I had less clue who each of the people were and what was going on it remained captivating. Like when you are a child being read a story by your parents before you have properly learned how to speak. The storytelling is enough by itself.
The guy from Ted Lasso was also great as Hal, but its McKellen’s Falstaff who is the star of the show. A master at work.
Went on for a bit, but didn’t feel like I was desperate to leave at any point. Want to get down even more how enjoyable it was, but can’t think of what to say.
Best new skill - Baking Baguettes
Not much more to say on this other than - et voila.
Baking bread is so much easier than I had imagined it to be. These baguettes are also very tasty and perfect for taking on hikes. Picture shows my first attempt, I have since improved…
And now for one Worst…
There's not much to be gained from hating on things publicly, but there was one thing which did enough to make the list despite that.
Worst village - Crianlarich.
Bloody Crianlarich.
From my West Highland Way log...
We turn off to Crianlarich. Down the hill. We didn’t do this last year and have been curious because all signs in the Highlands point to Crianlarich.
It is a disappointment.
The shop closed at 7 (it is now 7.30), and the pub is inexplicably closed too (there is a sign on the door listing a series of Wednesdays which it will be closed. Today is a Wednesday but it is not one of the listed Wednesdays).
This claims to be part of the West Highland Way. Not like this it’s not.
The Best Western receptionist offers us tea and a space in the drying room which we take up, but the restaurant has a big booking and refuses to let us in. I think they are refusing to let us in because they are scared our hiking garb will scandalise their other clientele.
No Funny Business
So we traipse in Crocs to the Ben More lodge for the worst pizza I’ve ever had.
I then found a tick on my leg and removed it in the toilets but got scared that I hadn’t got all of it so asked L in to check I’d done it correctly.
Someone must have grassed on her because the chef barged in to say that girls weren’t allowed in the men’s bathroom. Did they think we were up to mischief? She wasn’t even in the men’s bathroom — just the corridor adjacent to the men’s bathroom.
We will not be going back to Crianlarich in a hurry.
But because I don't want to end on a downer, here's another best of, from directly after the disaster that was Crianlarich...
Best Night Sky (and best live music)
Shooting Stars
Cold and tired, we hike by phonelight in the darkness back up to the wild camp spot we’d scouted earlier. This, unlike Crianlarich, is beautiful.
R, again, pitches up as far away from our tent as possible in a bid to avoid my snoring.
Tents under trees, stars like you wouldn’t believe, more stars than you could ever imagine seeing at one time.
These stars were like the music of the Tinderbox Orchestra.
But you probably don’t know who they are, so I must first tell you a story.
The weekend before we left for this hike, we saw a musical collective called the Tinderbox Orchestra in a library at the Edinburgh Festival.
They were transcendental, romping around the room with mics attached to oboes and saxophones and flutes, making music like the future. Music which gives purpose to modernity while sucking the past into the room.
A throughline for the connectivity and communalism of the human spirit, equally at home around a Bronze Age campfire and in this library, today.
Music which makes you think ‘This is why’.
These stars were like the music of the Tinderbox Orchestra.
Watching side by side, we share a shooting star and finally, it is time to rest.