@ncdominie@mastodon.scot
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ncdominie

@ncdominie@mastodon.scot

University maths teacher; amateur of geology and poetry; ignorant spectator of history, politics and most other things. Uaireannan beagan Gàidhlig cuideachd. Same handle on the bird site.

This profile is from a federated server and may be incomplete. Browse more on the original instance.

ncdominie, to random
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Sensible historian: When using newspaper archives, do not let yourself be distracted by nearby articles.

Me: ... but MUTINY! Captain last seen standing on the deck, a pistol in each hand and a cutlass-wielding cabin boy beside him, telling the crew he'd "attend to them out at sea". I NEED TO KNOW.

thisismyglasgow, to glasgow
@thisismyglasgow@mastodon.scot avatar

Lambhill Stables on the Forth and Clyde Canal in Glasgow. This was one of four stables built to the same classical design (similar to that used for Canal House at Speirs Wharf) along the canal in the early 1800s. These provided fresh horses at regular intervals for Swifts (fast passenger boats travellig the length of the canal). The other similar stables were at Shirva, Crainmarloch and Easter Cadder near Kirkintilloch.

Cont./

ncdominie,
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@thisismyglasgow That's interesting! I suspect the stables pre-date the Swifts proper, which came in from about 1831 (Thomas Graham's original "Swift" was trialled in July 1830) and were a last-gasp attempt to head off the threat from the railways. However, passage boats of increasing speed had run on the F&C for years beforehand, so I'd guess that the Swifts and Hoolets inherited the infrastructure.

ncdominie, to random
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Swan.

thisismyglasgow, to glasgow
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Is this the best gushet building in Glasgow? A gushet building is one constructed on a narrow strip of land at a junction between two roads (in this case Paisley Road West and Govan Road). Designed in a Renaissance style by Bruce and Hay, it was built in the 1880s as the Ogg Brothers Drapery Warehouse and Department Store.

ncdominie,
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@thisismyglasgow Originally the site of the Parkhouse Toll, controlling the entrance to two turnpike roads, as this plaque on a surviving gatepost recalls.

Close-up of the plaque: "This post was part of the old toll gate known as Parkhouse Toll which operated the turnpike roads Glasgow to Greenock via Govan and to Paisley via the Half Way from 1780 till 1883 when tolls were abolished."

ncdominie, to random
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xkcd 2347: cathedral edition.

ncdominie, to random
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Just saying: if this ever happens to me then I will stay in the race out of sheer perversity, campaign on a single policy of visiting bad UX designers with fire and the sword, and quite possibly win as a result.

And that is now my supervillain origin story.

https://uxdesign.cc/how-do-you-accidentally-run-for-president-of-iceland-0d71a4785a1e

ncdominie, to random
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"I SAID 'DID YOU KNOW IT'S INTERNATIONAL CROW AND RAVEN APPRECIATION DAY TODAY?'"

[Riga, 2023]

ncdominie, to random
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Victoria Street, Edinburgh

ncdominie, to random
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Even Wile E. Coyote didn't have to build his roadrunner traps out of giant springs that perpetually argued with each other, wandered off half-way through meetings, and replied to emails without reading them.

(Yes, I am trying to get academics to do something. I don't learn.)

fkamiah17, to UKpolitics
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Absolute honking state of it.

ncdominie,
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@fkamiah17 I just have no way of telling which of Playmobil Thatcher's antics are real any more. Someone could set up a bot that spat out daily headlines like "Liz Truss wants to abolish chlorophyll" or "Thursday is communist, warns Truss" and 30-35% of them would be accurate by coincidence.

ncdominie, to random
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Just spent a few idle minutes down the oddly fascinating rabbit-hole of England's ancient judicial offices, and I can report with some sadness that no Earl of Sandwich has ever served as Master of the Rolls.

ncdominie,
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@simonvarwell 👏

ncdominie, to random
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The newly rebranded House of Gods on Glassford Street, with its guardian demons.

Is it like Yubaba's bathhouse, I wonder, where eight million kami come to refresh themselves? Or is it a lodging-house for the wandering small gods of the old town?

ncdominie,
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@RogerBW Window-shopping worshippers dropping in to speak eagerly to sales acolytes: "I'm looking for a basic thunder god, with good general pantheon compatibility; I need them to be cool with intoxicants but opposed to heterosexual marriage; also I'd prefer if their feast days operated on a lunar calendar. Oh, and they should run Linux.

ncdominie, to random
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Back from getting a filling, and: why do they insist you wear a pair of outsize sunglasses while they're doing dental work?

(My best guess is that it helps the dentist focus. Any squeamishness about drilling holes in a human being is presumably reduced when that human being resembles Bono.)

DarkGalloway, to Scotland

Fading evening light at the eerie Moat Knowe, High Baltersan. Looking like a scene for an M.R. James tale.

ncdominie,
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@DarkGalloway Do not excavate the knowe in search of an ancient crown...

ncdominie, to random
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awaits the inevitable email from Republic demanding to know how much Kensington Palace paid for their Photoshop licence and calling a vigil to insist they switch to GIMP

ncdominie,
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(Really not sure the British republican movement is geared up for the threat of a royal who can edit her own image. In constitutional-monarchy terms that's basically the Singularity.)

thisismyglasgow, to glasgow
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Love this unusual little gushet building I came across when passing through Cumnock in Ayrshire yesterday. I particularly like its bottle-like shape.


ncdominie,
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@thisismyglasgow HES tells me that's the coat of arms of the (defunct) Earl of Glencairn over the door and not, as I thought seeing it from a distance, the face of a gray alien...

ncdominie,
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@thisismyglasgow Maybe a gray alien wearing a jousting helmet, then?

ncdominie, to random
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Reminded that in the 1820s it became impossible to fight fires in Glasgow at night because the private Water Companies were legally obliged to let their pipes be tapped but not to maintain a supply of water in them, and they turned the pumps off overnight to save money.

... Anyway, I'm sure that building so much social infrastructure on top of Facebook is going to continue to work just fine.

ncdominie, to random
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If you follow me, partly or solely, for the photos, may I ask a favour?

I've been asked to put some prints in for a charity auction (details tbc) and I have no idea which of my photos, if any, other people actually like.

Advice, positive or negative, would be welcome...

ncdominie, to random
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Watching the synthetic outrage over imaginary "religious no-go areas" with interest.

Imagine if a fundamentalist sect were given licence regularly to close public streets with militaristic shows of force in order to assert their cultural and constitutional supremacy.

I'm sure the UK Right would be lining up to condemn it.

ncdominie, to random
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Ah f*ck. Positive Covid test with a bonus helping of symptoms. Not going to be a fun week.

If I've not given it to anyone else then I guess the masking's still been worth it; but.

ncdominie, to random
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