In praise of the Giant’s Organ

The Giant’s Causeway in Antrim, Northern Ireland is quite rightly a Mecca for tourists. In fact, the Causeway itself is quite microcosmic. When I recently visited there, I was more awestruck by the Giant’s Organ. Here’s a great picture of it from teatme67 on Webshots:

For sea-faring anoraks only

It was a surprise to myself, but I have, for a long time, had an ambition to visit Strangford Lough (Northern Ireland) and witness the extraordinary exchange of waters which happen at the “narrows” twice a day. It is apparently the largest exchange of tidal waters in Europe. It surprises me that I am interested in such things, but I put it down to some sort of inheritance from my grandfather, Randolph. He worked on a ferry and was a lifetime seafarer. He was shipwrecked nine times (or was it three? or two?). I imagine that if he had been with me a few weeks ago, as I stood at Portaferry and looked at the remarkable current with which the Strangford Lough ferry was having to negotiate, he would have been sucking on his pipe with glee and making that funny “Ghhhaaaaaaaaaaaawwwwww” noise which he used to make in moments of maritime excitement. (My interest in this maritime phenomenum could also be explained by the fact that my father was in the Royal Navy in the Second World War and was an RNLI coxswain and that my mother was in the WRNS and I was born within a couple of stones’ throws of the sea.)

Anyway, I have now uploaded to YouTube my little anorakish video of the Strangford Lough Ferry leaving Portaferry on a very windy and reasonably choppy day.

Bushmills distillery

For whiskey fans, here are some photos of Bush Mills distillery, taken on my recent pilgrimage there.

Leaked email from Tory MP reveals true thoughts on expenses

From the Evening Standard:

A Tory frontbencher has defended MPs’ pay and expenses – stressing he did “not intend to become personally poorer” at this stage of his career.
In a leaked email, Laurence Robertson also played down the controversy over Derek Conway – who was sacked as a Tory MP after paying his son Freddie to “work” for him as a researcher while he was studying at Newcastle University.
The stance taken by Mr Robertson, 51, the shadow Northern Ireland minister, could prove embarrassing for Tory leader David Cameron as he seeks the moral high ground over MPs’ expenses. Mr Robertson has claimed £144,591 in second home allowance over seven years.
Separately, a senior Labour MP attacked Gordon Brown, Mr Cameron and Liberal Democrat leader Nick Clegg over their plans to overhaul the discredited system of expenses.
Jimmy Hood, MP for Lanark and Hamilton East, says he finds the “spectacle of GB, DC & NC in the proverbial political auction, bidding and counter-bidding against each other embarrassing and unhelpful”. The emails leaked to the Standard reveal the huge row going on in Westminster over the second home allowance and other perks paid to MPs.
Mr Robertson’s email said: “Perception in politics is almost everything so, yes, we must be seen to be cleaning up our act. But we should NOT be bounced into a system…simply because the Home Secretary mistakenly claimed less than £10 for a porn film or because another MP employed someone who did very little.”