Jim Malcolm

Just recovering from the incredible UK General Election results which has left Britain looking like Maggie from the Simpsons. The Scottish National Party came thundering back from the Referendum defeat to win an astonishing 56 out of 59 seats, losing the other three narrowly. In England the Conservatives disgraced all the pollsters by winning a small majority where a close result was universally predicted. Scotland and England have never been so far apart as they are now…. interesting times. Looking closely at this image Scotland should be even more yellow, this was tweeted before the results were finalised…

Snapped this pic of the new bridge being built across the Firth of Forth, whilst on my way south to do a gig in Biggar. This will be the third bridge at this point, alongside the wonderful rail bridge opened in 1890, and the more humdrum suspension bridge for autos completed in 1964. They started the new bridge primarily to replace the 1964 bridge as the cables are decaying and could not be replaced. However once they had fully started building this new effort engineers developed a revolutionary technique which will save the cables in the older one – Doh!

Down at the River Tay on a typical spring four-seasons-in-one day. At least hailstones don’t get you wet.

Many people ask me what fly fishing is all about and actually a fishing fly can represent a whole number of things that a fish will eat. But in it’s purest form fly fishing is about representing these little guys. This is a March Brown (although in Scotland they mostly appear in April) It is a type of mayfly, which emerges from the riverbed and flies off to mate. When they appear on the surface of the river the trout feed avidly on them and a imitation fishing fly made of feathers is cast infront of them.

Here’s one that fell for the ruse …

I’ll give you no guesses where this is. It is interesting that despite a great nation stuffed with ancient monuments, cities, castles and palaces that this relatively modern structure is the supreme icon of France. You can buy an Eiffel Tower shaped anything. But I have to say that as a piece of ironmongery the spectaular Forth Rail Bridge beats it hands down. An it takes you places.

Notre Dam Cathedral, home of Quasimodo and his bells. It took centuries to build, amazingly detailed stonework.

An appropriate image as Sandy is currently rehearsing as The Mad Hatter in a local production of Alice in Wonderland.

On a walk through the International University campus we stumbled upon some serious swords-people. They are attached to the walls and hits are registered electronically.

Malcolm lads on tour..The Three Amigos had a short trip to Paris as part of a ‘Sandy stick in at your French’ campaign. We slogged around the sites with many stops to take on coffee and pastries, but only scratching the surface of this wonderful capital city. On the banks of the Seinne.

The most popular lady in France. Out of many thousands of paintings in Paris galleries this is the one everybody wants to see. Is it all hype? It’s hard to get close enough to find out…

The original Statue of Liberty in the Musee d’Orsay. I have one at home only slightly smaller than this that used to have maple syrup in it…

You can only vulture so much culture so a day to Eurodisney was in order. It’s like Disneyland but in er Europe…