Departing - it's still Leningrad at the Docks

St Petersburg - June 2006
Originally uploaded by David Farrer.

Downtown

St Petersburg - June 2006
Originally uploaded by David Farrer.

In the Hermitage

St Petersburg - June 2006
Originally uploaded by David Farrer.

The Aurora (Click here)

St Petersburg - June 2006
Originally uploaded by David Farrer.

Some of them have money:

St Petersburg - June 2006
Originally uploaded by David Farrer.

My pre-G8 visit to St Petersburg

You can click here to see a full set of the photos that I took in St Petersburg a couple of weeks ago. I'll also post a few shots individually.

If you click on the photos and then click on "All Sizes", you can get a full-screen shot. You can also "View as Slideshow".

Branding

I'm a 100% believer in the value of the free market. However, that doesn't mean that I think that every business decision is necessarily wise.

Consider this:

FOR generations of shoppers, Jenners has been a byword for discerning retailing.

But the iconic name could soon be consigned to history after it emerged the expected new owner is considering re-branding the 150-year-old Edinburgh store.

Utterly bonkers.

Someone understands:

Richard Ratner, a retail analyst with City firm Seymour Pierce, warned that Baugur would be unwise to go ahead with plans to drop the Jenners name, arguing that it would be bad for future sales.

"Ratner"!

Now where have I heard that name before?

The trip

Since we returned from holiday I've been busy sorting out the 600-odd photographs that were taken. Three were posted here earlier. The full set will eventually be available on my Flickr account.

Here are a few taken on departure from Copenhagen.

The first port of call was Tallinn. Apart from a couple of hours in East Berlin just after the Wall came down, this was my first visit to the former (?) Soviet Empire.

It's obvious that a vast amount of money has been spent on the renovation of Tallinn's old town. Photos are here. Next to the old town is - surprise, surprise - the new town. But unlike its Edinburgh namesake, this one really is new and the small bit that I saw looked much the same as any other sizable city elsewhere in northern Europe. I have no idea what Estonia looks like outside the tourist-friendly centre of Tallinn, but of course the country has one of the lowest tax regimes in the EU and perhaps other parts are prospering too. Naturally, Tallinn boasts an Irish-Scottish pub.

Back

I've been away on a trip round the Baltic and now hope to get back to regular blogging.

Keeping in touch with the UK was done using e-mail but I did have my mobile phone with me. I'm a very recent convert to the mobile phone phenomenon and was impressed with my el-cheapo machine bleeping at me every morning with a message like "Welcome to Norway, calls cost 95p per minute." In one country - it may have been Germany - the welcome message also gave the number of the British Embassy...

But now I hear that the Eurocrats want to cut the high cost of using a mobile abroad, or at least within the EU. When I say, "cut the high cost", I don't of course mean that any of these people are going to enter the phone business. No, they mean legislation to bring down prices. Last night on the TV news an industry spokesman actually defended his employers by saying that competition was the best way to reduce prices. Apparently, the British phone companies could reduce prices of international calls but would have to make up the lost revenue by increasing the cost of our subsidised handsets. There's no such thing as a free phone.

In the quest for lower consumer prices, I place far greater trust with profit-seeking entrepreneurs than with politicians whose prime motivation is the creation of a European superstate.

Anyone for tennis?

First quote

From Money Week of 30th June:

Lebedev, 46, is the first to admit that the KGB taught its recruits the value of elitism. "Tennis was encouraged, so you could move easily in high society in the West," he told the New York Times in 2000.

Second quote

From Ryrie's Bar at lunchtime today:

Can't we change at least one of the TVs to the golf? Who plays tennis in this place?

At least the anti-elitist Scottish working class is immune from the charms of the KGB!

Red Army

Credit card? That'll do nicely.

St Petersburg 25th June 2006
Originally uploaded by David Farrer.

Russian Icon - since retired

St Petersburg 25th June 2006
Originally uploaded by David Farrer.

Back from the USSR (or whatever it's called nowadays)

Capitalists sponsoring street signs. Now there's an idea.

St Petersburg 25th June 2006 Originally uploaded by David Farrer.

Apologies

Work commitments mean that posts will be few and far between (if at all) for the next week or so.

Into the Kingdom

I visited Glenrothes Airfield a month ago and have posted some of the photos over on Scottish Clouds.

For those who don't know, Glenrothes is in the county of Fife...

Glenrothes 13th May 2006
Originally uploaded by David Farrer.

I told you so!

Only two weeks ago (scroll down) I warned what was on the cards.

And today there's an "exclusive" in the Scottish Mail on Sunday:

Scotland is set to become the first country in Europe to ban alcohol for under-21s as part of a radical shake-up of licensing laws.

The controversial crackdown would also see all members of the public limited to only four alcoholic drinks per visit to a pub or club.

So, we become an international laughing-stock, we kiss goodbye to much of the Edinburgh and Glasgow tourist business and, just like 1920s America, we create a vast criminal class. The tyrannical morons who propose things like this have no understanding of human behaviour. The insane "war on drugs" is the biggest subsidy to crime in history, and now some idiots want to expand it!

Restricting freedom merely drives the target underground. Does anyone think that the five-pints-a-night man will refrain from upgrading to a higher-strength beer? Will those of us who prefer something less powerful find that our's is the one to be dropped by the breweries?

Then the "human rights" lawyers will have a field day. Poor old Joe Bloggs in his one pub village is limited to four pints. He realises that his cousin in Edinburgh can buy 2,400 pints a night quite legally - there are around 600 pubs in Edinburgh. This is discrimination against those living in the countryside. Ruralism, we could call it. At least it's another earning-opportunity for the likes of Cherie Blair. In fact, Joe's Edinburgh cousin may well decide to get as many in as possible before ID cards or forehead bar codes limit him to four drinks a night.

To hell with betting on the World Cup - I'm off to place a bet on when Scotland will see its first lynching of a politician.

Confusion

This article by the Liberal Democrat group chairman on Edinburgh council is behind the Scotsman's subscription window. Nevertheless, comment is necessary.

Councillor Rev Dr George Grubb writes at length about the "good old days" when the police were usually on the side of the law-abiding and hadn't yet become Gramscian tyrants. In general, I agreed with the Councillor until I came to this bit:

It is impossible to turn back the clock. Police discretion may be the casualty of too much legislation on individual rights.

What rubbish. The legislation that's caused so much trouble (supported by the LibDems) hasn't been in favour of individual rights, but against them. That's what the Gramscian project is all about. "Individual rights" aren't about doing whatever one wants, but about doing what one wants as long as one doesn't infringe upon the equal rights of others. In the good old days Liberals understood such matters.

Vote blue, get red?

Conservative Home has a piece on possible Tory support for a minority Labour administration after the next Scottish elections. Brian Monteith, an independent conservative MSP, opposes this plan.

A quiz

I enjoy reading some of the American conspiracy sites on the web. Looking at the World Cup schedule tonight I noticed that we could have had a group containing the USA, France, Iran and Mexico.

Would such an outcome be attributed by the conspiracy buffs to:

(a) Jacques Chirac?
(b) Osama Bin Laden?
(c) Hugo Chavez?
(d) Karl Rove?
(e) The luck of the draw?

Now hear this

I always listen to Jim Puplava's Financial Sense Newshour on Saturdays. This week's 2nd Hour Roundtable: New Era or The Perfect Financial Storm? is extremely good.

Click here and pick your audio format.

Ha!

This article by Duncan Hamilton is behind the Scotsman's subscription wall, but this is priceless:

SOMEONE with too much time on their hands once discovered that "Tony Blair MP" is an anagram of "I'm Tory Plan B".

Actually, that's not the priceless bit - I read that one years ago.

But how about this:

one anagram of "Conservative" is "craven soviet".

The coming closure of Scotland's pubs

Mark my words; it's going to happen:

Alcohol misuse has been identified by ministers as Scotland's next major health issue, it has emerged.

This is from the SNP:

"Simply legislating against irresponsible drinking will not work. A comprehensive solution will only come from a co-ordinated approach from all of these groups.

"That's why I'm calling on drinks companies as a first step to follow a voluntary code of conduct regarding children and the advertising of alcohol.

And the second step? It's going to be legislation or, as we say in Scotland, a ban.

It's Scotland's whisky? You'll have had your dram.

Macs in Scotland

I went through to Glasgow yesterday, and, as one does, took a few photos, had a few beers, went to Borders and just wandered around.

As I was walking along the Great Western Road I spotted and called into the Glasgow Apple Shop and had a wee peek at the new MacBook. I'd quite forgotten that I had my Nikon dangling from the neck when the salesman came up to me and asked, "Do you have your USB cable with you?" After a quick double take I realised that he wanted me to download my pictures onto the MacBook and perhaps be inspired to buy one of these desirable machines there and then.

I responded: "It's not a digital, it's a film camera."

You could have knocked him down with a feather.

"Eh, you mean, like it's using emulsion? It looks just like a D1." As if I'm from the stone ages, or at least 2004.

"D1," I countered. "That's been replaced by the D2, and the D2x, and this week, by the D2xs."

"Oh, I didn't know about that." He was so 2005.

I didn't buy the MacBook and ended up here instead where I read my pre-digital newspaper.

The travelling blogger

Which counties have you visited in mainland Great Britain and the Isle of Man?

I've visited the counties in yellow. Which counties have you visited? made by marnanel map reproduced from Ordnance Survey map data by permission of the Ordnance Survey. © Crown copyright 2001.

Must get to the Isle of Man.

For the record, Dumfriesshire was the first and I eventually got to Orkney in 1985. I've also been to all six counties in Northern Ireland.

Thanks to this blog.