A minor piece of deco this one. I think it used to be a bank at one time. It’s mainly the upper story styling that marks it out.

The windows are typical of the thirties. They might even not have been replaced though there is a hint of plastic about them. If they have it’s been done sympathetically.

Nice deco fanlight, too.

A while back I mentioned the Coptic Church in Kirkcaldy.

It’s in Links Street, in a part of the burgh known as Linktown, which used to be a separate entity but in 1876 was amalgamated into the Lang Toun along with three other burghs and, subsequently, Dysart.

The building is now known as St Mark’s. I suppose it was previously a Church of Scotland kirk of some description.

Further along Links Street are some newly built houses on one of which is a mural.

There is also an explanatory panel whose photo I have expanded to make it readable.

Still on Links Street, but nearer Kirkcaldy proper, is another church which has had its usage changed. It’s now a play centre for young children; birthday parties and such.

I was checking my blog’s stats earlier this week.

It never fails to amaze me that a high number of visits to this blog seem to arise from my post about Mary Campbell Smith’s poem The Boy In The Train.

There are lots of hits for Art Deco too, which actually tend to predominate.

However what caught my eye this time was someone looking for the spelling of sulphur.

I accessed the search page they’d used and found this blog entry. Its last line is a beauty.

I do hope Jon Edwards from the RSC has looked at it (and at my reply to his comment on my take on the subject here.)

I note also that I was 22^nd equal in the general blog category in the Scotblog Awards and 67^th equal overall. Four votes plus a panel nomination was all that took. (I’ll need to tout for votes next year.)

Well, not that one anyway.

The Woolies store in Kirkcaldy was L-shaped. The back part was the first to be taken over: by clothes retailer Peacocks – now looking like they’re in administration themselves what with the 70% off signs for their January sales. They moved in a few months ago.

Relatively recently the other part of the Woolies shop – which had originally been a Tesco’s before they took over William Low’s and moved their operation to the Low’s site in the Postings shopping area – morphed into something called Home Bargains, which is best described as Woolies with added food.

The half-price sale sign on the right edge of the picture is actually for a JJB Sports shop which is up some stairs and in which I’ve not set foot.

The Mercat is an indoor mall, hence the darkness of the photos, taken as they were around 5pm on a winter’s evening.

Edited to add:- Peacock’s isn’t in administration, just having a sale.

I know Christmas starts in about August for some shops (especially with the Children’s Annuals coming out then) but most nowadays have the decency to get at least Halloween, if not Bonfire Night, out of the way before setting out the bunting and the baubles.

(That’s the only bonus about the commercialisation of Halloween. It fends off Christmas for a bit. When I was a lad there wasn’t much “ghostly” tat, apart from perhaps paper masks or witches’ hats, on sale in the run up to All Hallows Eve. Certainly no pumpkins and none of the peculiar orange and black creations that seem to be the marker these days. We had our guising costumes made for us by the sweat of mother’s brow – or sewing fingers.)

In Kirkcaldy, Santa visits the Mercat and the town’s Christmas lights are switched on halfway through November but at least the latter has some point to it, as it brightens up the dark winter afternoons.

Yesterday, though, the 27^th of November, in my local corner shop I saw for sale not Christmas stuff, oh no, but creme eggs.

Creme eggs! In November. The leftovers from last Easter have barely cleared away.

It takes all the anticipation away.

Year round creme eggs. It’s just not right.

I took these photos on Sunday afternoon (Remembrance Day.) The wreaths from the morning’s memorial service are prominent. Among the wreaths from the local Council and councillor and various military and civilian organisations there was one from the US Marine Corps.

The central memorial pillar has bronzes on it displaying soldiers, seamen and airmen, ships, aircraft, airships etc. In this respect it resembles larger memorials I have seen such as the one in Plymouth (which is mainly dedicated to naval personnel.)

The building beyond the memorial contains Kirkcaldy Museum and Art Gallery and was built with money donated from the linoleum manufacturer family Nairn as part of the memorial to the dead of WW1.

This is to the right of the WW2 memorial and is a relatively recent addition. It provides a place for individual memorial poppies, as you can see, and also for commemoration of those who have died on active service since WW2. One time I looked there a poppy had been placed in memory of someone who had been killed in Basra.

Some years ago, when skateboarding was a newish fad and before special areas for it had been built in parks etc skateboarders used to use the tarred area in front of the memorial to do their thing. There were several letters to the local paper objecting to this as a mark of disrespect in part disguised by concern that they might be damaging the memorial itself.

I never saw it as disrespect. After all, wasn’t it precisely so that people could go about doing whatever they enjoyed within the law that those commemorated had given their lives for?

I also never noted any damage, even to the tarmac.

It’s mostly quiet these days of course.

Despite being on the North side of the Forth estuary Kirkcaldy promenade is aligned almost North-South as the coastline takes a sharp bend northwards after Kinghorn. This is a photo of the prom from the north end (looking south-westish.)

Boring isn’t it?

There is a dual carriageway road which goes along the whole frontage just to the right of this picture. Perfect for boy racers. They put in one of those “Your Speed Is …. mph” displays a few years ago. Nothing like encouraging them!

I noticed on Saturday, though, that a couple of pedestrian crossings have been erected on the first third which could break up the flow.

There is not a shop on the whole front. (Well, there’s a funeral director’s beside the car park over the road about halfway along. Also a pet shop [now closed] which used to be a sports shop, and before that an ironmonger’s, but that’s really in Tollbooth Street not on the prom.)

The sea wall was built in the 1920s to relieve unemployment. They could be doing with renewing it and for the same reason.

Here’s the plaque commemoraring it.

For a bit of relief, though, here’s proof that Kirkcaldy is, after all, a Fife seaside town.

Malcolm’s Wynd, with its steep steps, is more typical of somewhere like Pittenweem or Crail. You can imagine sailors in olden days rolling down towards the harbour to catch their sailing.

No pictures, I’m afraid. They were too far out and I didn’t have the camera with me anyway.

Yesterday myself and the good lady were strolling along the prom (prom, prom) at Kirkcaldy and our attention was attracted by raised voices and pointed arms to the Forth estuary.

Leaping and sporting out of the water some distance from shore was a pod of dolphins. It’s the first time both of us have ever seen any in real life as opposed to on TV.

The prom at Kirkcaldy, by the way, lacks anything that you might expect a prom to have. Certainly no brass bands playing (no bandstand) but also no shops selling candy floss or postcards or rock or kiss-me-quick hats. No shops period! It used to house the bus station before they moved that up into the town.

The prom is over a mile long and is more or less just a dual carriageway with a pedestrian walkway between it and the sea. A lost opportunity I’ve always thought.

Fine for a walk, though, if you don’t mind wind blown spume and seas fountaining up like fireworks from (and over) the sea-wall when the tide’s in and there’s a swell on.

I’ve now been doing this blogging thingy for a full calendar year. (To my loyal readers it just feels like longer.)

In that time I’ve made 305 posts – nearly one a day I’m astonished to note – and had 323 legitimate comments (including pingbacks.) Thank you to all who have taken the time to read my ravings and to the smaller number who have contributed.

I’ve had visitors from the Americas (North and South) Europe, Australasia, and the Near and Far East as well as from the UK.

There have also been over 4,000 spam comments. Why are a lot of them in Cyrillic?

According to the stats, apart from Gordon Lennon’s sad death the most interest has been in my Art Deco posts. I keep finding new Deco buildings in Scotland to include so that’s an ever extending topic. I’ll be doing a series on Art Deco in Dunfermline (where I work) soon but I think the most comments on any one post have been about the poem “The Boy In The Train.” Amazing what a piece of doggerel can engender.

As to this post’s title, my elder son said to me recently, “You come across as a terrible pedant on your blog, Dad.” He was using the word terrible in the colloquial sense of excessive, of course, rather than meaning that I was not very good at being pedantic – or that my posts inspire fear.

Guilty as charged as far as pedantry is concerned. The good lady swears I could be pedantic for Scotland. She is long suffering it’s true.

I can’t promise I’ll be cutting it down in future, though.

This is that rarity, a detached house in the Deco style, in Kirkcaldy.

Note the white rendering, flat roof(s) and cylindrical staircase. The windows seem to be original still.

Here’s the view from the right, where it looks a bit more boxy.

This side view shows a long narrow window. This looks to have been “poked out” with modern double glazing. The one on the opposite side wall is similar.

I don’t know if the front windows are subject to a preservation order, but they look like original Critall ones to me.