Photos taken on 3/6/2016.

North and central cable stay towers from South Queensferry. First Forth Road Bridge to right:-

South cable stay tower:-

Southern approach pillar and cable stay tower:-

Gap between southern approach pillar and cable stay tower portion – still unfilled 7 months later:-

First Forth Road Bridge with Queensferry Crossing behind:-

Northern approach pillar – section now joined to north cable stay tower section:-

Northern cable stay tower from North Queensferry:-

Central and southern cable stay towers from North Queensferry:-

All three bridges as seen from Dunfermline:-

From grounds of Dunfermline Abbey, bridges in distance on middle left, Dunfermline Great War Memorial to right:-

Zoom on Forth bridges from Dunfermline Abbey:-

Photos taken 11/2/2016.

North Support Pillar:-

North cable stay tower:-

Service boat near north cable stay tower:-

Centre cable stay tower from North Queensferry:-

South and centre cable stay towers and south support pillar from South Queensferry. I have read there’s a problem with this pillar as it’s leaning a bit:-

South, centre and north cable stay towers plus first Forth Road Bridge to right:-

New bridge seen through the original Forth Road Bridge:-

Forth Bridge (rail) seen through south piers of Forth Road Bridge. Road Bridge’s suspension cables feeding into their anchor point:-

In search of the perfect dram

Century, 2003, 368 p.

I bought this mainly for completeness. I’ve read all of Banks’s fiction and so his only non-fiction book kind of rounds things off. It also qualifies for the Read Scotland Challenge.

It is strange to be writing about this in the wake of the referendum. While the book is ostensibly about whisky it is in reality a hymn to Scotland, in particular its landscape, its “Great Wee Roads” and its inhabitants, not forgetting the West Highlands’ voracious midges and prodigious rainfall. Banks’s liking for fast cars can’t be missed and the numerous inns and hotels he frequented as well as the distilleries and their visitor centres (there is, it seems a whisky “experience” look) will be grateful for the exposure. Had the book been solely about whisky I would not have been the best person to appreciate it as I have never taken to the stuff.

That said, the history and processes of whisky production are described in extremely accessible terms. While Banks attempts descriptions of the single malts he samples in the course of his travels (for which he had no shortage of willing companions) this is perhaps an impossible task – in the way that descriptions of music are often lacking – but the word “peaty” does appear quite often.

Parts of Raw Spirit read like Banks’s non-SF fiction. The verbal interplay between the author and his friends is just like the conversations encountered in say Espedair Street, The Crow Road or Complicity, the asides and digressions – his journeys were undertaken and the book written around the time of the (second, the illegal) Iraq War, occasioning familiar Banksian rants – typical of his mainstream work.

As a book Raw Spirit is barely ten years old yet so much has changed since it was published. Banks himself is sadly no more, as are the Inverleven Distillery at Dumbarton and (not so sadly) the Forth Road and Skye Bridge tolls. The landscape, the Great Wee Roads, the whisky, though, remain – at least those bottles as yet unconsumed.

A delightful addition to the Banksian œuvre.

We were along the Fife coast a fortnight or so ago; at Limekilns where there is a good view of Rosyth Dockyard and the Forth Bridges.

Currently fitting out at the dockyard is the new Royal Navy aircraft carrier – the one there won’t be any planes for once it is completed. Both bridges are in the background.

We took a stroll around North Queensferry last week. It wasn’t much of a stroll because it’s not very big. It must be the best location in the world for viewing iconic bridges, though. It lies slap bang between the two famous ones over the River Forth.

The following two pictures were taken from the same spot. The angle between the photos is about 60⁰.

They’re doing some repair work on the Road Bridge which, thankfully, you can’t see from the road.

The next time I drive over it will be more scary than usual now I know all that is going on below.

Pictures of the northern cable anchor point and a support pillar are on my flickr site.

Looking west we could see the trans-North Sea ferry berthed at Rosyth.

There was an aircraft carrier at the Royal Navy base too. I had thought we no longer had any of those, or was it just the new ones the Coalition Government planned to scrap? My camera isn’t quite good enough for the distance involved but it was definitely an aircraft carrier. It had that upward sweep at the bow.

On BBC TV news yesterday – in Scotland certainly, and I think on UK-wide bulletins too – it was stated time and again that the Forth Road Bridge had been closed due to snow for the first time “in living memory.” For all I know other news providers said the same.

It was a significant event certainly, especially for all those inconvenienced by it, but since the bridge was opened in 1964 that would be the first time, then; first time ever, no qualification required. It was only 46 years ago after all, nowhere near three score and ten. There are loads of people older than me (and younger too no doubt) who can remember it opening.

It makes you wonder – again – about the accuracy of all the other comparisons we are provided with on these organs of supposed truth telling.

Maybe this isn’t really a linguistic annoyance; just one about those who don’t think about what they’re saying. Or writing, for those who composed the script.

This is a nice view of both Forth bridges. It was taken from the grounds of Dunfermline Abbey.

From this vantage point the more modern road bridge is in the foreground.

The Forth Bridge is in the background, still festooned with the plastic cladding they have been using in the latest painting effort.