Scotland's Medieval Burghs: an Archaeological Heritage in Danger

I decided to read this after visiting various Scottish medieval burghs at the weekend (as well as living in one).

It was more of a booklet than a book. It was written in 1972, so hopefully its pleas for excavation and recording of medieval sites (before they were destroyed by new building projects) have been heard. I've certainly heard of a few excavations recently although no doubt there is always more that could be done.

Good old Wikipedia has a list of Scottish burghs here. Pittenweem is a royal burgh, unlike some of its neighbours, ha ha!

Day 250; Book 238

An Apology ...

to people who have left me a comment recently. I'd like to leave a reply BUT BLOGGER WON'T LET ME! I don't know why ...

Wigtown, Scotland's Book Town

Mr F and I visited Wigtown in Dumfries and Galloway at the weekend. It's "Scotland's Book Town" with 19 bookshops (which I think was started 10 years ago as a regeneration project). The town is an ancient one with a harbour (now a lonely spot) going back to the thirteenth century. Here's an image from their website:



We're planning to go back for the festival in September, featuring Christopher Brookmyre among many other authors.

We also visited Kirkcudbright, the town where Jessie M King the illustrator lived.



Her house is now a B&B. There are many artists in the town nowadays as well and they have an open-studios week in July.

So not much reading done over the weekend but a literary location visited, as well as an artistic one.

A Village Affair by Joanna Trollope

An Aga-saga where the moral of the tale might be that not even an Aga can bring you happiness ... this book has the author's usual perfectly-observed children and clever characterisation where your opinion of the characters can change as the book goes on. Beautifully-written and one you won't want to put down.

Day 249; book 237

No books read but scrapbook finished

It took me until midnight last night, frantically cutting and sticking. Why did I leave it till the last minute? Human nature I suppose. I was pleased with it in the end, although I've just thought of something I have to amend before I hand it over tonight ...

I'm a bad book-a-dayer ...

at the moment, because I've got a scrapbook to finish for my local roller hockey club before tomorrow night. I love deadlines; they are very motivating! I got three pages done last night and had a lot of fun illustrating the coaches' page with Cartman from South Park in his "Respect my authorit-ay" phase. Then I listed the committee members under the heading "You can't get the staff these days". I thought it was funny - hope they don't think it's too cheeky! My third page was a bit of a disappointment so I might have to change it if I have time. Three or so pages to go tonight and then it's done.

So what with decorating the bathroom (still ongoing and not a stroke of paint applied yet), my books have slipped recently. Must get back on track, especially as I feature in our staff magazine today ...

The Wisdom of Crowds by James Surowieki

I've just started this but it seems like a fascinating book (with lots of case studies which I like). Here's a quote from the website about the book:

"In this endlessly fascinating book, New Yorker columnist James Surowiecki explores a deceptively simple idea that has profound implications: large groups of people are smarter than an elite few, no matter how brilliant—better at solving problems, fostering innovation, coming to wise decisions, even predicting the future".

I don't quite understand how this would be, but perhaps somebody mathematically-minded will be along to explain it (if it can be explained by maths). I'm prepared to be convinced by examples though.