It’s ParSec time again. The seventh edition of the online SF magazine is now available to purchase.

This issue contains my reviews of The Chinese Time Machine by Ian Watson and Cold Water by Dave Hutchinson.

When I checked this out again before including it here the opening few acoustic guitar chords of this reminded me of A Day in the Life; but it’s something entirely different.

But typically The Verve.

The Verve: Sonnet

One of the places we visited on West Dunbartonshire’s Open Day last September was the Masonic Lodge in Gilmour Street, Alexandria. It was originally built as the Ewing Gilmour Institute for Working Girls in 1888 but by 1915 it had become the “Bonhill and Alexandria St Andrew’s Royal Arch Lodge, No. 321.”

It’s fairly imposing from the outside (this is a stitch of two photos to get it all in):-

However the interior is amazing. Murals adorn the corridor’s walls. This one is above the entranceway:-

The paintings were all done by Harrington Mann and we were told the model for all the female figures was a girl from the school.

Corridor window. Note the 1888 on the run-off collector above the rone pipe to left:-

The main hall is impressive:-

Close-up on mural above fireplace and below clock:-

The hall has a hammerbeam roof:-

There was a craft sale on that day. I had to drape back some of the items for sale in order to photograph the Lodge’s Roll of Honour:-

Vale of Leven lad Lachie Stewart won a gold medal in the 10,000 metres at the first Edinburgh Commonwealth Games in 1970.  Over the years since he has built a succession of ship models. Some of these were on display on the Maid of the Loch when we visited last September.

Exhibition poster:-

Lachie on the track:-

Lachie’s ship models posters:-

Lachie (centre) in conversation:-

Pocket, 1973, 376 p. Translated from the Japanese, 春の雪 (Haru no Yuki,) by Michael Gallagher.

I suppose any tale of star-cross’d lovers invites comparisons to Romeo and Juliet. I doubt, though, that most of them will contain references to the Russo-Japanese War, which is still in the recent memory of this novel’s protagonist, Kiyoaki Matsugae. That the book starts with his recollection of a photograph of the memorial services for the war dead is an indicator that the outcome of the novel is not likely to be joyful.

Kiyoaki had been entrusted by his father Marquis Matsugae to be raised in the noble but now relatively impoverished Ayakura family so as to acquire a touch of elegance and hope of advancement. The Ayakuras’ daughter, Satoko, had lavished affection on him and at the book’s start Kiyoaki knows she is in love with him but he is for the most part indifferent  hence it takes a while for the love story to gather momentum. Early parts of the book deal with Kiyoaki’s relationship with his friend Shikeguni Honda and two Siamese princes who are on a diplomatic visit of sorts and attend their school.

An exchange of letters between Satoko and Kiyoaki in which she reveals her feelings for him become central to the plot but his request for Satoko not to read his last one (where he eventually acknowledges his for her) comes too late. At first he does not know this and when he finds out she did read it he is angered and cuts off contact.

In the meantime Satoko, at twenty years old getting close to being on the shelf, is all but forced by her family into a betrothal to Prince Harunori of the Imperial family. Kiyoaki expresses to his father indifference to the engagement but, threatening to expose Satoko’s last letter to him, demands a meeting with her through the agency of her maid Tadeshina. This leads to the consummation of their relationship and further clandestine meetings. An odd aspect of the story is that Count Ayakura had years before instructed Tadeshina that Satoko should lose her virginity before any bridegroom chosen by the Marquis should touch her. Revelation of the affair would therefore reflect badly on him. Satoko’s resultant pregnancy presages disaster. Drastic attempts to avert it are not entirely availing.

While not absolutely following the template of Romeo and Juliet the parallels are unavoidable. Star-cross’d love is a universal theme, in Japan as elsewhere.

Pedant’s corner:- “wracked with sobs” (racked,) “cyprus wood” (cypress wood,) “wracked by her feelings” (racked,) “his amusement was tingled with disgust” (tinged is the usual verb here,) “the lay of the land” (the lie of the land.) “Count Ayakura was a hopeless coward in the face to the Countess at once, and when she in turn handed it quite a disturbance on the morning that Tadeshina did not get up.” (Make of those two sentences what you will. I confess I couldn’t.) There was over to her husband, he opened it at fingertips’ length, as if it were germ-ridden” (needs clarifying,) “from lack to sleep” (lack of sleep,) “the Masugaes” (Matsugaes.)

The Maid of the Loch was built at P&J Inglis yard in Glasgow then dismantled and shipped by rail to the slipway at Balloch where it was reassembled:-

These are some old photos of the Maid on board:-

There are also some models of older Loch Lomond steamers; The Marion, The Princess of Wales, Eurosyne,  the Prince Albert, the Prince of Wales, The Queen, Empress:-

Princess May, Prince Edward, The Maid of the Loch:-

Loch Lomond from the Maid, Loch Lomond Shores shops to left:-

Taken from Astronomy Picture of the Day for 11/5/23 this is spectacular view in infra-red light of the rings around Fomalhaut, which extend over twice as far as the Kuiper Belt is from our sun. A large dust cloud in the outermost ring is shown in highlight. The gaps in the rings may be evidence for planets.

SPFL Tier 3 Play-off, Semi-Final, Second Leg, The Rock, 13/5/23. Aggregate 0-6.

There’s not much to say about this. A damp squib.

Another season in the bottom division of the SPFL awaits.  With all the jeopardy that entails.

Our form since the turn of the year has been abysmal. I have an awful feeling that we’ll struggle next season.

The Maid of the Loch is a paddle steamer which was the last largish vessel to cruise up and down Loch Lomond. It was apparently the last paddle steamer to be built in Britain, at the Glasgow shipyard of A & J Inglis.

For a while it had been tied up at a pier in Balloch at the foot of the Loch and trading as a floating restaurant.

Latterly it has been under refurbishment.

Last September various buildings and organisations in the West Dunbartonshire area held an open day. We took the opportunity to visit.

Access to the interior was by a somewhat precarious metal stairway. The inside was of course far from pristine due to the refurbishments. Some of the original fittings were still in evidence, though.

Ship’s Bell:-

Art  Deco style clock in saloon:-

There was a model in lego:-

And what I assume was an older model. However, I remember her colour as being totally white back in the day:-

One of the traditions of a cruise on the loch (or indeed “Doon the Watter” – see first paragraph in link) was a visit to “see the engines.” (The inverted commas are because some male passengers used this phrase as an excuse to go to a ship’s bar.)

Engines:-

I always find these ships’ engines fascinating especally when they are in motion and powering a ship.

One of the internal exhibits was the decoration of one of the ship’s paddle boxes:-

Earlier this week my blog got moved across to a new hosting service. (Don’t ask me the details, I’m not that computer savvy. My blog administrator, however, is. So thank you, Duncan for the work you have put in here.)

It all seemed to have gone swimmingly.

That was until I checked in this afternoon and discovered there was no video in the post I had scheduled for noon today.

Looking at previous such posts I discovered that all the videos on those no longer show up.*

I quickly worked out that it was due to my use before the changeover of the classic WordPress editor system.

The new hosting I think gives me only a version of the ‘block’ system WordPress introduced some years ago and it doesn’t accept the embed codes for videos which I used to employ.

I have now found a way to put videos on the blog and restored some of the videos on older posts (back to February.)

It’s not an important enough issue to bother Duncan with it (I doubt there’s a quick fix) but there being innumerable old posts with videos embedded in them – far too many for me to go through them all – I fear I must live with those not now being accessible on historic posts.

Ah, well.

*Edited to add: I also haven’t found a way to centre photos on the page.