Maciej Winiarczyk’s beautiful time lapse photography of an aurora display on Sandigoe Beach in Caithness, Scotland, from January 17th, 2013. 

Winiarczyk explains that ‘each frame was exposed for 8 sec. with ISO 3200 and lens aperture set to f/2.8. All frames were shot in RAW and later postprocessed in Adobe Lightroom 4.3 and LRTimelapse software.

‘Equipment used, Canon 7D with 10mm Sigma diagonal fisheye lens.’

See more of Maciej’s work here.
 

 
When Hugh MacDiarmid died in 1978, his fellow poet Norman MacCaig suggested Scotland commemorate the great man’s passing by holding 3 minute’s pandemonium. It was typical of MacCaig’s caustic wit, but his suggestion did capture something of the unquantifiable enormity of MacDiarmid’s importance on Scottish culture, politics, literature and life during the twentieth century.

Hugh MacDiarmid is perhaps best described by a line from his greatest poem A Drunk Man Looks at the Thistle (1926), in which he wrote:

‘I’ll ha’e nae hauf-way hoose, but aye be whaur
Extremes meet - it’s the only way I ken
To dodge the curst conceit o’ bein’ richt
That damns the vast majority o’ men.

It explains the contradictory elements that merged to make him a poet.

Born Christopher Murray Grieve, on August 11, 1892, he changed his name to the more Scottish sounding Hugh MacDiarmid to publish his poetry. He was a Modernist poet who wrote in Scots vernacular. One might expect this choice of language to make his poetry parochial, but MacDiarmid was a poet of international ambition and standing, who was recognized as an equal with T. S. Eliot, Boris Pasternak and W. H. Auden.

In politics, MacDiarmid had been one of the co-founder’s of the National Party for Scotland in 1928, but was ejected when he moved towards Communism. He was then ejected from the Communist Party for his “nationalist deviation.” He maintained a Nationalist - in favor of an independent Scotland - and a Communist throughout his life.

As literature scholar and writer Kenneth Butlay notes, MacDiarmid was:

..as incensed by his countrymen’s neglect of their native traditions as by their abrogation of responsibility for their own affairs, and he took it upon himself to “keep up perpetually a sort of Berseker rage” of protest, and to act as “the catfish that vitalizes the other torpid of the aquarium.”

 
In 1964, the experimental film-maker Margaret Tait made short documentary portrait of Hugh MacDiarmid, which captured the poet at home in Langholme, his sense of childish fun, his socializing his the bars and public houses of Edinburgh (the Abbotsford on Rose Street).
 

 
More on Hugh MacDiarmid, plus poetry and reading, after the jump…
 

 
You can never judge a man by his knitwear, as Jack Bruce proves in this documentary Jack Bruce: The Man Behind the Bass, in which the legendary musician returns to his homeland of Scotland, to give a guided tour through his life and career, and re-interprets 6 of his classic songs. Here are the ingredients:

Jack Bruce fronted the Sixties supergroup Cream alongside Eric Clapton and Ginger Baker, and has played with everyone from Marvin Gaye to Jimi Hendrix and from Lulu to Lou Reed. ArtWorks tells the story of his life, from childhood in Scotland to global superstardom, through some of Jack’s favourite songs and with contributions from Eric Clapton, Ginger Baker, Flea of Red Hot Chilli Peppers and Adam Clayton of U2.

The story encompasses some of the biggest riffs and rifts in rock, taking in family tragedy, drugs and near death. A specially chosen set of six songs mark crucial moments in Jack’s life, including Cream’s “Sunshine of Your Love”. Jack rerecorded the tracks with some of Scotland’s finest musicians including folk trio Lau, percussionist Jim Sutherland, keyboard player Andy May, guitarist Taj Wyzgowski, drummer Chris Peacock, his nephew Nico Bruce on bass and string ensemble Mr McFall’s Chamber.

This is an excellent documentary, which showcases some of the best of the brilliant Jack Bruce.
 

 
Previously on Dangerous Minds

‘Rope Ladder to the Moon’: Solo genius from Cream’s Jack Bruce

 
This is Morrissey’s first correspondence to his Scottish pen-pal Robert Mackie, from 1980.

21-year-old Morrissey was writing in response to a personal ad placed in Sounds magazine, and his message, written on the back of a postcard featuring a picture of James Dean reads:

Steven Morrissey
384- Kings Rd
STRETFORD
Manchester- M32 8GW

Dear Person,

So nice to know there’s another soul out there, even if it is in Glasgow.

Does being Scottish bother you? Manchester is a lovely little place, if you happen to be a bedridden deaf mute.

I’m unhappy, hope you’re unhappy too.

In poverty,

Steven

Morrissey and Mackie remained pen-pals for 18 months, shortly before the formation of The Smiths in 1983.
 

 
With thanks to Letter of Note
 

 
On March 8th, 1973, Paul McCartney was fined $240 for growing cannabis on his farm in Campbelltown,  Scotland. Outside the court house, McCartney gave a short, amusing interview to BBC journalist, David Scott - a man known for his assiduous reporting and wry sense of humor.

McCartney told Scott that he was glad he didn’t receive a gaol sentence, although that “...would have been okay if I could have taken my guitar in with me and, you know, write a few songs, and stuff, but I wasn’t looking forward to it.”

“It was said in court,” probed Scott, “That you have considerable interest in horticulture. Now this might surprise some of your friends, when did this start?”

“A couple of years ago, you know.”

“And where have you been doing your gardening, et cetera?” asked Scott, with the emphasis on et cetera.

“On the farm. My dad’s a keen gardener, you know, I think it’s rubbed off.”

“It was said that those seeds had been sent to you, how did you come to grow them?”

“Well, we got a load of seeds, you know, kind of in the post, and we didn’t know what they were you know, and we kind of planted them all, and five of them came up like - five of them came up illegal.”
 

 
With thanks to nellym
 

 
The Los Angeles Times reports Siri the voice activated assistant for the i-Phone is having difficulty understanding the Scottish accent, as according to reporter Henry Chu:

Scots who rushed to buy it have discovered that their new “smart” gadget can’t understand them. This is true despite the fact that their phones are set to “English (United Kingdom)” under the “language” setting for Siri, which doesn’t seem to take the distinctive Scottish burr into much account.

“What’s the weather like today?” Darren Lillie said hopefully into his iPhone recently here in the Scottish capital, in a demonstration for an American reporter.

Lillie, 25, is Edinburgh born and bred, and his thick accent shows it.

Siri thought for a moment, then decided it best to repeat what it thought it heard.

“What’s available in Labor Day?” it asked.

Lillie shook his head. “I don’t even know what Labor Day is,” he said ruefully to the American, who told him.

...

In other clips, “Can you dance with me?” gets misinterpreted as “Can you Dutch women?” and the question “How many miles are there in 10 kilometers?” elicits the helpful, if irrelevant, response: “I don’t see any email for yesterday.”

Lillie admits to adjusting his speech patterns to get Siri to understand him.

“I find I speak slower. It’s like when I speak to tourists,” he said to the American reporter, who felt at once both patronized and relieved.

Hardly news, and the kind of story best suited to the “Jings! Crivvens! Help ma boab!” kind of headline, allowing for the usual nationalistic rebuttal, name-checking Edinburgh-born inventor of the telephone, Alexander Graham Bell turning in his grave, and the success of such Scots accents as Schir Schean Connery, Ewan MacGregor, Kelly MacDonald, Robert Carlyle, Billy Connolly and Craig Ferguson, mcetc mcetc. But really, it just made me of Stanley Baxter’s excellent Parliamo Glasgow from the 1960s, and this wonderfully apt sketch from present day and the rather splendid Burnistoun.
 

 
Via LA Times, with thanks to Richard Metzger
 
Bonus clip of ‘Parliamo Glasgow’, after the jump…
 

 
Opening with “Happy Hunting Ground” and finishing with “Suburban Homeboy”, this is fifty minutes of sheer bloody joy, as brothers Ron and Russell Mael take us and an audience, at the Isle Skye Festival, from June 2006, through the glorious history of Sparks.
 

 
Previously on Dangerous Minds

Rarely Seen 1974 Promo for Sparks ‘This Town Ain’t Big Enough for the Both of Us’

When Sparks met Jacques Tati in 1974

 
A sign seen at Prince William’s alma mater, Saint Andrew’s University.
 
Click here to see larger image.

Via Ronnie MacKintosh
 

 
More Scottish food shenanigans, only this time it’s not curry or chilli but an ode to the good old humble Chip Shop by the Scottish rapper MC Tickle, set to the beat of the classic “Hip Hop” by Dead Prez. Scottish people do indeed love their chips (or “fries” for my American friends) and lots of other deep-fried delights, like Mars bars and pizza slices. So much so that it can be hard to find decently priced non-Scottish cuisine on in the major cities without paying top dollar, a fact which is reflected in the poor health of the Scottish people. Yeah, it may not be the healthiest fare, which Tickle acknowledges, but at least eating at your local chippie (rather than McDonalds or KFC) has an upside in that it is supporting your local businesses and agriculture:

“Pizza Hut we say “nuh”
We say fuck Mackie D’s
BK shut your face or that mutt KFC
Pre-chewed meat pseudo food
What is this total shit?
Try and support local business
Aye and buy a poke o’chips”

Tickle v Dead Prez “cHip sHop”
 

 
I know this is harsh, and my sympathies go out to everyone injured (including the unlucky “Curry” Kim), but c’mon, it’s also quite funny. Sorry but it is!

From the Edinburgh Evening News:

A CURRY house is under fire after its “world’s hottest chilli” competition went badly wrong, landing two people in hospital. Emergency services had to rush to Kismot Restaurant’s curry-eating challenge, on St Leonards Street [Edinburgh], after competitors started writhing on the floor in agony, vomiting and fainting during the contest. One participant, Curie Kim - pronounced curry - was so ill after sampling the “Kismot Killer” that she had to be taken by ambulance to the ERI twice in a matter of hours.

Participants were required to sign a legal disclaimer prior to taking part in the competition, and two members of the British Red Cross were on hand, but they could not cope with the nature of the injuries sustained. Curry house owner Abdul Ali admitted that he would have to “tone down” the contest, but said the challenge had raised hundreds of pounds for charity CHAS. He added that half of the 20 people who took part in the challenge had dropped out after witnessing the first 10 diners vomiting, collapsing, sweating and panting. Previously the restaurant’s Kismot Killer dish has caused diners to suffer nose bleeds and one elderly man had to go to hospital.

Looks like the “Kismot Killer” is well named. Oh dear!

UPDATE:

Via commenter stussyboy99, here‘s a BBC News report about the contest. Victim Curie “Curry” Kim, who is actually American, described the sensation after eating the chilli as being like “a chainsaw covered in tabasco sauce going up and down your esophagus”. Yikes!

 
Was it a case of more money than sense that led Bill Drummond and Jimmy Cauty, formerly of the KLF, to burn 1 million pounds sterling on the Isle of Jura in 1994? It’s a question neither man has fully answered.

After the event, both said they wouldn’t talk about it for twenty-three years. Since then, Drummond has spoken about it twice: once in 2000, when he said he was unrepentent; then in 2004, when he admitted to the BBC he regretted burning the cash.

The money allegedly came from royalties Drummond and Cauty made through the success of their band the KLF - the world’s most successful band in 1991. After retiring from music, Drummond and Cauty reunited the K Foundation, and established an award for the “worst artist of the year”, which they gave as a £40,000 prize to that year’s Turner Prize winner, Rachel Whiteread.

The following year, the pair carried out their biggest stunt - burning a million quid of their own money.

Was it real? Did they actually burn a million? Or, was the money bogus?

One theory suggests it was all a hoax and the notes burnt had been intended for incineration, being purchased from the Bank of England by the K Foundation for £40,000.

Seems possible, but Drummond and Cauty were accompanied by journalist Jim Reid who wrote the whole event up in the Observer newspaper:

“The money is not beautiful, and it is only intimidating for a while. It is impossible, looking at it, to imagine what you might buy with it. Four bundles for a nice flat in Chelsea, the whole lot for a lifetime not working. It doesn’t look that impressive. The next thing you feel is the need to do something, not to let it just stand there. Because, of course, I, like anybody else with healthy appetites, want it.

“Lying on the floor in its proud plastic packages, the money represents power. But it is a power that is painfully vulnerable. Cauty separates two fifties from a bundle, hands one to Drummond, and taking his lighter, lights them both. Despite the rain and wind outside, the money is going to burn. In fact, nothing could burn better.

“Drummond is standing to the left of the fireplace throwing fresh bundles in, Cauty is to the right, screwing up three or four fifties at a time. After five minutes their actions become mechanical, almost like it is peat or coal that they are fuelling their fire with. But this is going to take some time. ‘Well that’s OK,’ says Cauty, rolling a cigarette. ‘It’d take a long time to spend it. Can I spend an hour out of my life to burn a million quid? (Drummond laughs)... All the time you say about things: ‘I haven’t got the time to do that.’ Well, I’ve definitely got time to do this.’

“The fireplace is a rough affair. Occasional fifties get wedged in crevices above the fire before they eventually fall down to be destroyed. Cauty is poking at the fire with a stick, moving the bigger bundles into the heat. Whole blocks of 50 grand remain resolutely unburnt: singed, charred, but perfectly legal. We have a bottle of whisky with us and it is passed round as if nothing could be more natural than burning £1 million on a remote Scottish island in the middle of the night. This is the truly shocking thing about the evening. It almost seems inevitable.

“It took about two hours for that cash to go up in flames. I looked at it closely, it was real. It came from a bona fide security firm and was not swapped at any time on our journey. More importantly, perhaps, after working with the K Foundation I know they are capable of this.”

A few days later, a total of £1500 in charred notes were washed up on the shores of Jura, much to the islanders’ disgust.

Did they actually burn £1m? And what did it mean? Julian Cope called the stunt “intellectual dry wank”, while the Observer in 2000 returned to it stating:

“It wasn’t a stunt. They really did it. If you want to rile Bill Drummond, you call him a hoaxer. ‘I knew it was real,’ a long-time friend and associate of his group The KLF tells me, ‘because afterwards, Jimmy and Bill looked so harrowed and haunted. And to be honest, they’ve never really been the same since.”

Watch the K Foundation Burn a Million Quid questions our strange and fetishistic relationship with money - who has not considered how they would spend a million? - as it reaffirms a moral responsibility wealth (in any form) brings, by exploring a one-off event that now runs counter to the current global obsession with failing banks, bankrupt economies and corrupt financial markets.
 

 
Described as “sheer bloody poetry”, this is Industrial Revolutions, the latest film from Street Trials riding phenomenon Danny MacAskill. Since arriving on the scene in 2009, MacAskill‘s films have been seen on YouTube by over 30 million people, now:

Industrial Revolutions sees Danny take his incredible bike skills into an industrial train yard and some derelict buildings.’ Filmed in the beautiful Scottish countryside Danny MacAskill’s latest film was directed by Stu Thomson for Channel 4’s documentary Concrete Circus.

 
Bonus clip of Danny MacAskill’s ‘Streets of London’, after the jump…
 
With thanks to Woody Mcmillan
 

 
There are few actors who have exploited their accent as successfully as Sir Sean Connery.

No matter the role, Sir Sean’s always sounds the same, whether he’s an Egyptian immortal in Highlander, an English King, in Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves, or a New York beatnik in A Fine Madness, he never alters his lispy Scotch accent.

Here’s a quick trip around the world according to Sir Sean.
 

Egypt: Who can forget Connery’s wonderful Egyptian Tak Ne (aka Juan Sanchez Villa-Lobos Ramirez), who teaches Christopher Lambert’s Connor MacLeod all he needs to know to be the only one in Highlander (1986)
 
Previously on Dangerous Minds

 
More vocal riches from Sean after the jump…
 

 
If Dustin Hoffman had been born Scottish, then his recent advert for Sky Atlantic (a satellite channel which broadcasts mainly US programing to the UK), might have sounded something like this, focusing on our love of “stovies” rather than “stories”.

Stovies - a traditional Scottish dish, made from left-over meat, potatoes and dripping. A good recipe for stovies can be found here.
 

 
With thanks to Mark MacLachlan
 

 
Oh dear, I wonder who thought this was a good idea? BBC Scotland News presented a live link-up to a bar, in tennis player Andy Murray’s hometown of Dunblane, after Murray had lost in the Australian Open final.

This little vignette confirms a lot of Scottish stereotypes in one go, and explains why TV News should never do live link-ups from bars.