Couch Potato Chronicles: Laddie, Come Home - "Outlander" Returns

The STARZ adaptation of Diana Gabaldon's historical fiction novels returns, and not a moment too soon.  I need to forget the lunacy in the news and the home stretch-to-final exams rush at school.  Fun fact: Ron Moore of Battlestar Galactica is one of the showrunners for this.  (At first the two shows seem wildly different, but they both deal intensely with politics and characterization.)

Short version of Outlander: Claire Randall, an English World War II nurse, is on a second honeymoon to Scotland with historian husband Frank when she suddenly finds herself transported to the 1740s in the same location.  Those are the days of Highlander clans, English redcoats, and the Jacobite risings for Bonnie Prince Charlie that would culminate in the catastrophic Battle of Culloden, the last pitched battle in the British Isles.  Claire finds herself a stranger in a strange land ... and a dangerous one, in which she is a Sassenach, a foreigner, a stranger, and - yep - outlander.
She soon gets caught up in local political turmoil, for the redcoats suspect her of being a spy (for the French, perhaps?) and the Scots suspect her of being an English one.  What would you make of a stranger who suddenly appears in your lands, who has odd mannerisms and no connections? As Claire quickly finds out, she's caught between two radically different worlds.

OK, I must admit, it doesn't hurt in the slightest that the scenery is beautiful, the re-creation of that historical period is quite evocative, Caitriona Balfe as Claire offers us a heroine with brains and spunk (thank goodness for that as an anti-Anastasia Steele!), and Sam Heughan as Jamie Fraser provides both a complex personality and ample testimony to just how much of a chick magnet an outlaw Scotsman in a kilt can be. 

There's a good deal of violence and some nudity, but both are pretty much nothing compared to HBO's (also wildly popular) fantasy-political epic Game of Thrones.  Still, Outlander is a cable show and not for little ones.

LOL: Tweets of the Scottish Independence Vote

@WhiteHouse @Jamie_Merrill NO one in Scotland gives a rats arse what BO thinks as he sits in a nation that broke away from the UK,idiot .
— Ian MacGregor (@macgregor63) September 17, 2014

By the way, the polls have closed in the Scottish referendum, and you can follow the vote-counting live here. 

"Should I stay or should I go?" - Scotland

UPDATE: Not going anywhere (which is the smart pragmatic move, frankly).

LOL: P.J. O'Rourke and Iowahawk vs. Scottish Independence Vote

The vote on Scottish independence is today, and P.J. O'Rourke casts a characteristically sardonic and hilarious look at the prospect. This is how it starts:

We Irish don’t hate the Scots per se. They’re too much like us Irish, who all hate each other. So we’re just looking for a fine entertainment from across the Irish Sea as Highland Scots have a donnybrook with Lowland Scots, Glaswegians dust up with Edinburghians, and Clan Dewers unsheathes its claymores for battle with Clan Johnny Walker.

Iowahawk, on the hand, doesn't need to bother with writing an actual piece when he can just tweet stuff like this:

I'm worried that Scotland independence could disrupt global supplies of haggis and bagpipes.
— David Burge (@iowahawkblog) September 15, 2014

Simpsons' Groundskeeper Willie on the Scottish Independence Vote

Friday Fun Video: The British Monarchy In Song

After all the hoopla this week about the royal bun in the oven, let's take a look at the line of monarchs that Baby Cambridge will join as third in line to the throne (it's Queen Elizabeth II now, then Prince Charles, then Prince William, and then Baby Cambridge).  The song starts with William the Conqueror.  Sorry, Anglo-Saxons!  Too bad about that whole Battle of Hastings thing, guys.

Nerd News: A Remarkable Scottish Lecturer

Caveat: it's not because of his teaching or research.

Awesome: A Delightful Mystery in Scotland

Utterly charming.  You really must see the photographs embedded in the news story.

Higher Edpocalypse: Hey, How About Selling A Kidney to Pay Your Student Loan Debt?

An academic at Scotland's University of Dundee actually suggested this recently, so of course the story is winging its way across a horrified Internet.  OK, I'm only going to say this once: if I wake up tomorrow in an ice-filled bathtub with a note nearby that says "Call 911; we took your kidney to pay our student debts," I am going to be SERIOUSLY FRIGGIN' ANNOYED.

Rule, Britannia: the United Kingdom, Great Britain, England, and the British Empire

Via Neatorama comes this intriguing (and humorous) explanation of terms and places.  Here's a link to the text too.

Nerd Notes: British History in a Nutshell

Daniel Hannan has encapsulated the whole of British history into 6 key themes.  What do you think?

1.   Where we came from. The earliest Britons; the invaders – Romans, Saxons, Danes and Normans; the Flemings, Huguenots and Jews; the Commonwealth settlers.

2.   How we became a country. The Acts of Union with Wales (1536 and 1542), Scotland (1707) and Ireland (1801); and the Partition (1921).

3.   The roots of our rights. Anglo-Saxon common law; the Great Charter; the Grand Remonstrance; the Levellers; the Bill of Rights; the Great Reform Act; the Chartists; the Suffragettes.

4.   When we fought each other. The Reformation; the English Civil War, and its associated Scottish and Irish conflicts; the Glorious Revolution.

5.   When we fought our neighbours. The intermittent French campaigns between 1340 and 1815; the Spanish Armada; the wars against the Kaiser and Hitler.

6.   Why the world speaks our language. The settlement of North America, and the American Revolution; the British Empire and Commonwealth; decolonisation.

You may also be interested in the lovely Brits at Their Best blog, which highlights the British inheritance and its contributions.  In a very real way, we all share that inheritance.

What's In a Name: Nicknames for British Places

Take a look!  Some names are clever, some amusing, and some just plain insulting -- but hilarious all the same.

Nerdworld Soundtrack: The Fratellis

This is for La Parisienne for a Friday afternoon treat.  Look who else likes the Fratellis... !  It's adorkable, all right.  Oh, and if you, gentle reader, don't know this Scottish alternative rock band from Glasgow, you can have a listen at Pandora or Rhapsody or on their MySpace page.

Look Out Sunshine!

World Cup Obsession: I Have A Question

What kind of world is it if you can't trash-talk a bit about your rivals in sport? Aren't we all big enough to give and take a few hits? I mean, REALLY.

Anyway, England has plenty of fans.

Killjoy Thermomaniac Watermelons Vs. Coffee

Oh, for crying out loud! My jokes about "Satan Coffee" are JOKES. Of course, Greenies have no sense of humor. Some of them honestly seem to think that coffee is an enviro-sin. A blurb:

Dr Dave Reay, a world-renowned expert on carbon emissions, has calculated that filter coffees pump 50 per cent more carbon into the atmosphere than cheaper instant coffees.

And he says that ditching expensive filter coffees could help reduce your carbon footprint by the same amount as a gas-guzzling flight across Europe.

Dr Reay, a senior lecturer in carbon management at Edinburgh University, claims that the average cup of black filter coffee is responsible for 125 grams of carbon emissions. But the figure for a regular cup of black instant coffee is around 80g.

I have a reply: "YOU FIRST."

As awesome Aussie Tim Blair sarcastically comments about this in context with a bunch of other "do this or the Earth will die!" directives from the enviro-fringe: "Dull lights, slow cars, no meat … and rubbish coffee. Greentopia will be such a fun place to live."

So far this morning, I've already added 250 grams of coffee carbon to the earth, and I'M JUST GETTING STARTED. If loving coffee is wrong, then I don't want to be right. Sure, Greenies, you can have my good coffee ... when you pry it out of my cold, dead hand!

Never gonna give you up,
. . .
Never gonna say goodbye!

History Remembered: France to Honor the Bagpiper of D-Day

You know, so often on this blog I'm railing about the ignorance of history, so I'm delighted in this post to note that someone remembers something significant. From Brits at Their Best comes this excellent link. News blurb:

Second World War veteran who played the bagpipes on the Normandy beach during the D-Day landings 65 years ago is to be honoured by French officials for his role in liberating them from Nazi Germany.

Bill Millin, now 86, tried to raise the morale of incoming troops with his tunes, as shells exploded overhead and machine gun fire raked Sword Beach.

The picture of the 21-year-old commando became one of the enduring images of the landings which paved the way to Hitler's defeat in the Second World War.

Now he is to be immortalised in a life-sized statue by the people of Colleville Montgomery, which he helped to liberate in 1944.

That is just all kinds of awesome. Do go to the Brits at Their Best post on the subject, as it links to a clip from the film "The Longest Day" which has a depiction of this famous incident. If your eyes are sharp, you may see a little bonus -- a certain now-famous actor who is playing only a tiny part in that film.

I'll leave you, though, with this archival photo:

Highland laddie.

History Remembered: Viking Travel Advice = "Avoid Scotland"

OK, I thought this was absolutely hilarious.

Storytelling: A Lost Art Rediscovered

This sounds good! Who doesn't love a great tale well told? By ancient bards, medieval troubadours, or these modern raconteurs, storytelling is magic.

Great Moments in Higher Education: Scottish University Offers Class on Amy Winehouse

Yes, Virginia, at the University of the West of Scotland you now can take a university course on Amy Winehouse.

They tried to make me go to Winehouse class -- I said, "No, no, no..."

Quirky Euro Files: 20 Things to Do with a Haggis

November 30 is St. Andrew's Day, celebrating Scotland's patron saint, so I can't help myself. Here's an amusing list of 20 things that you can do with a haggis, that Scottish dish/punch line.

Don't make me quote the conversation that Sean Connery and Christopher Lambert had about haggis in "Highlander."

The Scotsman newspaper, by the way, is hosting its annual Haggis Hunt. Can you find the elusive wild haggis? (Gotta love that Scottish sense of humor.)

*MM goes back to making cookies while compulsively humming "Scotland Depraved" -- err... she means, "Scotland the Brave"!*

Nerd Notes: Amusing Student Prank Alert as Scottish Kids Cover Classroom Floor with Turf

I thought this prank was darn amusing (and also very creative), though clearly the officials did not. Note how the adults involved haven't the foggiest clue about the student psyche!

Perhaps the students can defend themselves by saying that they were motivated by concern for Gaia and that they only wanted their school to be environmentally friendly...