Scotland on the Tele

Today I would like to share - whether it be introducing for the first time or simply reminding of an old favorite - some of Scotland's finest moments on cable.

The first (and my personal favorite) is a sit-com produced right here in Glasgow's Kelvingrove park (a wee jog from our flat and site of my occasion hill reps or interval workouts) - "Dear Green Place." The way this show captures the speech, attitudes, and behavioral suites of Glasgow's blue-collar workers (whether they be park rangers, close sweepers, window washers, trash collectors, or street sweepers) is 'pure brilliant':



The next clip, a comedy sketch from the show "Absolutely," depicts Scotland's desperate attempt to take the spotlight on the world's stage - a punch line more recently brought to life with Glasgow's (successful) bid for the Commonwealth games in 2014:



And finally, though not pertaining to Scotland specifically but Britain more generally, is the hilarious "Little Britain":



Just one more from Little Britain!

B.O.W.W.O.W.

Beer of the Week:

An oddity this week, the b.o.w. is a German-style beer, though brewed here in Glasgow - West brewing company's Hefeweizen (their Vienna-style lager, St. Mungo's, deserves honorable mention). This Hefeweizen was as good as any sampled while living and traveling in Germany - floral, spicy, fig and banana. I regret not trying the Dunkelweizen ... next time.

Whisky of the Week:

"Talisker" 10-year, the only single malt from the Isle of Skye, is this week's w.o.w. and this month's nightly sipping whisky (now that the weather is turning colder and the sun is setting at 4:40!). Complex earthy and herbaceous qualities are central - mint and spruce - with a peripheral warm sweet bread.

Cross-Country Relays

Dunbartonshire AAA Relay Championships:

Posties Park, in the shadow of Dumbarton Rock (photo below), played host to a small 4 x 4 kilometer cross-country meet for competing clubs in the area.

The site of the relay can be seen to the right of where the River Leven empties into the Firth of Clyde on the west of Scotland:

Since the Garscube men's team was the defending champion, there was a strong motivation to field our best squad and retain said championship. On a mostly flat, slightly boggy (for Scotland anyway), not quite 4 km course, our team of Stephen Mulrine (12:32), Lindsay Cunningham (12:36), myself (11:56), and Euan Mackay (13:14) were successful in over-coming an early lead by Victoria Park of Glasgow and remaining the top harrier squad in Dunbartonshire.


Scottish National Relay Championships:

Cumbernauld - the oft voted runner-up as 'crappiest place to live' and champion in the category of 'most derelict town center' played host to last weekend's Scottish National Cross-country Relays. Behold the lovely Cumbernauld shopping center:


An afternoon walk down main street:Exiting one of the local markets:

Cumbernauld: the perfect place to raise your neds
The cross-country race itself - another 4 x 4 km relay - was made equally lovely by the atrocious weather conditions, with high winds and heavy rains turning Cumbernauld's 3 acres of green space into what was, for all intents and purposes, a muddy cattle yard. Due to the weather conditions, I did not bring the camera and thus have no photo documentation of the runner's sliding up and down muddy slopes, drudging through mucky suck pockets of pure muck.

As this was a national level competition, our Garscube Harrier squad was something of an underdog. We (Stephen, Euan, Joe, and I) finished 26th place overall, myself only managing a 16:15 for the 4 kilometer loop. However, congratulations go to the Garscube ladies vet's team (Ali, Kristy, and Mairi) for winning the ladies vets title!

DNS

16 weeks base phase + 8 weeks speed phase + 10 weeks stamina phase + 2 week taper = DNS.

Did Not Start: sinus infection hit me on Friday; hoped it might be better by Sunday morning; but, no. The subtitle to my blog (taken from William Blake's "Europe: a Prophecy") turned out to be prophetic indeed, eerily so: "the nostrils golden gates shut" ... did they ever!

Inverness was beautiful though - the weather, river, loch, hills, streets, buildings, old-growth trees, landscaping... everything was pristine and glorious, even through the haze of a head-crushing congestion.