Another Motown song. Is that a harpsichord in the intro? Unusual for Motown.

This builds up from a slow, quiet start to something rather more ostentatious.

Gladys Knight and The Pips: Take Me in Your Arms and Love Me

SPFL Tier 2 Play-off Final, First Leg, Recreation Park, 9/5/18.

This could have turned out a lot worse. They’ve been going well and we haven’t really.

They had most of the ball in the first five minutes and then we scored in what was in effect our first attack. They didn’t clear the ball properly, left us a lot of space in midfield in their half and Danny Handling fed the ball to Stuart Carswell who fair thumped it. Outbursts of almost disbelieving joy in the away covered seating area. (It’s not a stand.) Carsy never scores. (His only other goal had a big deflection on it but this was an absolute belter, straight in.)

I remarked to Onebrow, “80 minutes of sitting in to go.” It wasn’t quite that but they did have a lot of the ball.

Carsy had our second effort too – again on target. On this evidence he should shoot more often.

They had a cute effort through ex-Son Jordan Kirkpatrick which it seems Scott Gallacher tipped on to the post – from my angle I couldn’t tell he’d got the touch – but apart from that there were only other long range efforts to worry about in the first half.

Second half Robert Nisbet really came onto a game up front before he was shifted into midfield after the substitutions. That’s the best I’ve seen from him. We had a good few efforts, notably Nisbet (just over) and Kyle Hutton (a great ping just past the post.) With a bit more care in the final pass we could have got even better chances.

They only really looked like scoring when we lost possession in their half and they sprang at us. Craig Barr had one superb defensive block (but the guy ought to have pulled the trigger earlier) and Scott Gallagher made a good save the one time he was really called on.

It’s going to be really hard to take if we blow this now, but we can’t afford to get ahead of ourselves; Sunday’s going to be a hard battle again.

Still.

I was there when Carsy scored!

Kemback is a village in the centre of Fife. It is near Cupar. The village is fairly off the beaten track so I hadn’t visited it before March last year.

The typically Scottish style Church is up quite a steep road off the one through the main part of the village and is a replacement for an older one. The War Memorial stands prominently beside it.

The Great War Memorial is a Celtic style cross with embedded sword and its plinth is inscribed, “In memory of the men of this parish who fell in the Great War 1914-1919.”

The Second World War Memorial is a plaque on the church wall. “1939-1945. In grateful memory of the menof Kemback parish who gave their lives in this war.”

There was one war grave in the cemetery, Private W Doig, Gordon Highlanders, 30/12/1919, one of the names on the Memorial. The poor soul lingered on for more than a year after the war ended.

Stickney Crater is almost half the diameter of the astronomical object of which it forms part of the surface, Mars’s largest moon, Phobos.

This view of it taken by the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter appeared on Astronomy Picture of the Day, on 5/5/18.

It’s a bit weird-looking, possibly due to enhanced colouring, but what an impressive sight!

Sons are off to the Recs* tonight for the SPFL Tier 2 Play-off Final, First Leg, against Alloa Athletic.

More torture to endure. You can catch it yourself on BBC Alba.

Kick-off is 7.45 pm.

*Recreation Park as was, now called the Indodrill Stadium.

The shortlist for this year’s Clarke Award has been announced.

It is:-

Sea of Rust by C. Robert Cargill
Dreams Before the Start of Time by Anne Charnock
American War by Omar El Akkad
Spaceman of Bohemia by Jaroslav Kalfar
Gather the Daughters by Jennie Melamed
Borne by Jeff VanderMeer

It’s a list shorn of the usual suspects and I’m delighted Spaceman of Bohemia is on there. I really enjoyed it.

I note, too, Anne Charnock’s Dreams Before the Start of Time again appearing on a short list.

At Ingiston Antique Fair, February 2017.

Lovely circular edged display stand here:-

Rearranged since previous photo:-

Reverse view of stall at Ingliston. I’ve got that Glasgow Art Deco book:-

Penguin, 1995, 91 p.

This is a small collection containing five of Gilman’s short stories, published as part of Penguin’s 60s Classics series. All could be considered to some degree feminist tales even if the term was not in widespread use at the time they were written. Three have some supernatural/speculative bent.
The Yellow Wallpaper is Gilman’s famous tale of a woman in her sick bed haunted by the yellow wallpaper of her bedroom room in the house her physician husband has rented for three months. Possibly being gaslighted (gaslit?) by her husband and his assurances that she needs to rest and take medicine to become well again, over the weeks she comes to see strange patterns in the wallpaper and an old woman behind its bars, as if imprisoned. The shift in the last two pages is impressive.
In When I Was a Witch a woman ventures onto a New York roof on a sultry night and is mewed at by a scalded black cat, witnesses a horse being mistreated and wishes for all the inflictors of such iniquities to feel the pain themselves and all ill-used cats and dogs to be relieved of their pain. Her wishes come true.
Turned is the old tale of a young innocent servant girl taken advantage of by the man of the house, here transmogrified by the response of his wife to the situation.
In Making a Change a new mother driven to distraction by sleeplessness and her mother-in-law’s criticisms attempts suicide. Her mother-in-law saves her and plans the change of the title.
The most overtly feminist story, If I Were a Man, embodies the wish of its title as Mollie comes to inhabit the consciousness of her husband – enhancing both her realisations and his.

Pedant’s corner:- would go down cellar (down to the cellar.) “a strange, provoking, formless sort of figure that seem to lurk” (seems,) “used to make my fairly frantic” (used to make me.) “The sobbed bitterly” (contexts demands, “She sobbed,” ) “the pangs of bitter jealously” (jealousy,) “joked his wife” (to his wife,)

Somebody still hopeful in Doune. Yes and EU flags. They had a Catalan flag too the next time I passed.

Willows Deli, Doune. We’ve had lunch there a few times. They do evening meals as well:-

In the Scottish vernacular style:-

Close-up on stepped corner gable:-

Nice turret with cartouche, tall thin window, archway and curved-top gates to side:-

Cartouche. I can’t decipher the monogram but the date is 1894:-

Doune houses, archway and gates. Note triangular shaped bay windows:-

Doune houses reverse angle:-