My Thought for the Day, BBC Radio Scotland, tomorrow at 7.20am will be a tribute to Brian Quail.
Photo from one of our retreats at Pluscarden Abbey.
02.03.2026 22:11
👍 1
🔁 0
💬 0
📌 0
My Thought for the Day, BBC Radio Scotland, tomorrow at 7.20am will be a tribute to Brian Quail.
Photo from one of our retreats at Pluscarden Abbey.
You thumbed grit
into my furrowed brow,
marking me
with the sign of mortality,
the dust of last year's palms.
The cross you traced
seared, smudged skin
and I recalled
other ashes
etched
into my heart
by those who loved too little
or not at all.
Elizabeth-Anne Vanek
That sounds like Brian alright! What a character and what a great teacher he must have been. He fought the good fight, he finished the race, he kept the faith.
I'll let Brian know and send him the link!
None may pass though this world without experiencing loss of some kind. As an ancient hymn has it: "what earthly sweetness remains unmixed with grief?"
My Thought for the Day, live from Barra in the Outer Hebrides, tomorrow BBC Radio Scotland, 7.20am and online on BBC Sounds.
Beautiful candlelit Missa Cantata midnight Mass at St Vincent de Paul in Thornliebank. I hope wherever you are you have a peaceful and relaxing Christmas day
Two Scottish gamekeepers on trial today in relation to alleged killing of Red Kites in Cairngorms National Park.
NB: Comments are turned off as legal proceedings are live ⚖️
#RaptorResearch #WildlifeCrime
raptorpersecutionuk.org/2025/12/09/t...
Released today! The audiobook of “Awake! William Blake and the Power of the Imagination”. Available on all usual audiobook platforms. @tantoraudio #WilliamBlake #imagination #audiobooks
Part of the reason I'm slowly abandoning twitter/X is because I've discovered that I can read people's posts here as an RSS feed, unlike Musk's model of proprietary API. Eg @rokewood.bsky.social 's feed is my unofficial RSS guide to the best of BBC Radio :)
That's it! Today's vital online spots are tomorrow's abandoned sepulchres. I suspect because of the 'death' of blogging & rise of enshittified walled gardens & apps, if I clear out a subscription list in 10 years there will be far fewer extant colourful and personal sites.
(dead link) www.patrickharviemsp.com Patrick Harvie's homepage. Hmm.
(dead link) www.100repchallenge.com Rannoch Donald's humane and hype free fitness blog from Edinburgh. He was one of the first to bring the new ubiquitous kettlebells to Scotland.
A Closet of Curiosities music blog. There were many such blogs in 2015 and I rejoiced in the weird and fantastic music I discovered on them. closetcurios2.blogspot.com
commongoodwatch.wordpress.com Common Good Watch, a spiky watchdog blog written by Bob Hamilton about Glasgow City Council's (mis)management of common good assets in the city circa 2015.
Mark Boyle, the 'Moneyless Man' whom I met at the @darkmountainarts.bsky.social Uncivilisation. His 'The Way Home' book is fascinating on his singular resourceful minimal-tech life, and explains why he's not been on the Guardian website, or anywhere else online for the last 10 years.
sujato.wordpress.com The Australian Buddhist monk Bhikkhu Sujato Bhikkhu Sujato
It's a bit of a time machine of what I was reading and interested in 10 years ago: such as: my old pal Hanna Tuulikkis' Away with the Birds awaywith-thebirds.tumblr.com
My RSS reader has reached the max level of subscriptions (I use this now-neglected technology to keep up to date with writers, musicians & others, especially now social media has become much more fragmented and less useful. I've been unsubscribing from sites that have not been updated for 10 years.
I had a great time on BBCRadioScot Sunday Morning Faith Forum with fellow contributors Rupa Mooker & Zara Mohammed & the skilled convening of the great Tony Kearney. Hear us here about 1hr in on celebrating Scotland, the meanings of sanctuary & asylum—& demons!
www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m...
It looks more complicated to use than it is. Just move the point in the map to where you want to see from, set the viewpoint direction and click the 'generate panorama' button at the bottom
A brilliant website for learning the names of mountains that you can see in a given panorama, once you put in your location on the map and what direction you're looking. This is what I see from my local Honeybog Hill looking north. @alastairmci.bsky.social www.udeuschle.de/panoramas/ma...
On “the co-opting of the cross” by the political right. But wait until they find that central to Christian theology is “the quartet of the vulnerable”: the widow (or bereaved), the orphan (or bereft), the “alien in your midst” (or refugee), and the poor.
www.bbc.com/news/article...
On July 3, 2025, the Vatican made a historic announcement: the introduction of a new Mass “For the Care of Creation” (Missa pro custodia creationis)
New Mass for Our Common Home buff.ly/Dtn9uiw