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This is the remains of the diesel islands of a truck stop/gas station/casino/motel complex in Coaldale, Nevada. Apparently the Nevada Department of Transportation folks practice painting double yellow lines here.
One of the older, more picturesque bits of Godmanchester - given a bit of 'treatment'!
EXPLORE #247 25 January 2009 (Highest)
Ex-LMS "Royal Scot" Class 4-6-0 46115 SCOTS GUARDSMAN passes Bridge of Earn powering 1Z26 09:46 Edinburgh Waverley to Inverness.
This was day 2 of The Railway Touring Company's THE GREAT BRITAIN XIV
Little Southern Pacific 10-Wheeler #18 is earning her money as she helps Train 463, the second daily Silverton-bound passenger train on the grueling climb from Hermosa to Rockwood, Colorado. The road engine today is the mighty K-36 #480, but this 15-car consist is more than she can handle on this section of the line, which averages about 2.5% grade. Although the grade eases a bit at Rockwood, the little SP loco will doublehead with the 480 all the way to Silverton. During the summer of 2021, the Durango & Silverton Narrow Gauge Railroad elected to use only their oil-burning steam locomotives on the regular passenger trains, to mitigate the risk of starting fires. Unfortunately, the process of converting the lines steamers from coal-firing to oil had only completed three locomotives, leaving them with a shortage of usable steam power. In order to fill the gap, the railroad elected to lease the Southern Pacific #18 (aka the "Slim Princess") from California's Carson & Colorado Railway, primarily for the helper role you see her performing here, as she approaches the Colorado 250 crossing at Milepost 468.1.
Post: donewivatwist.wordpress.com/2014/01/21/earn-your-stripes/
FB Blogger group: www.facebook.com/groups/SLBloggers/
East-German postcard VEB Progress Film-Vertrieb, Berlin, no. 55/71, 1971. Sophia Loren in The Fall of the Roman Empire (Anthony Mann, 1964).
Sophia Loren (1934) rose to fame in post-war Italy as a voluptuous sex goddess. Soon after, she became one of the most successful stars of the 20th Century, who won an Oscar for her mother role in La ciociara (Vittorio De Sica, 1960).
Sophia Loren was born Sofia Villani Scicolone in the charity ward of a Roman hospital in 1934. She was the illegitimate daughter of construction engineer Riccardo Scicolone and piano teacher and aspiring actress Romilda Villani. Riccardo was married to another woman and refused to marry Romilda, leaving her without support. Romilda, Sofia, and sister Maria returned to Pozzuoli to live with Sofia's grandmother. Pozzuoli was a small town outside Naples and one of the hardest hit during World War II. The family shared a two-room apartment with the grandmother and several aunts and uncles. The shy, stick-thin girl regularly went hungry and had to flee from bombings. At 14, Sofia had a voluptuous figure and entered a beauty contest. She was selected as one of the finalists but did not win. In 1950, she was one of the contestants in the Miss Italia competition. She earned 2nd place and was awarded ‘Miss Eleganza’. While attending the Miss Rome beauty contest, earlier in 1950, she had met judge Carlo Ponti, an up-and-coming film producer, 22 years her senior. Ponti had helped launch Gina Lollobrigida's career and now began grooming Sofia for stardom. He hired an acting coach to tutor her. At 16 she was in her first film, the Totó comedy Le Sei Mogli di Barbablù/Bluebeard’s Six Wives (Carlo Ludovico Bragaglia, 1950) under the name Sofia Lazzaro. She also appeared as an extra in Luci del varietà/Lights of the Variety (Federico Fellini, 1950), the smash hit Anna (Alberto Lattuada, 1951), and Quo Vadis (Mervyn Leroy, 1951). During the early 1950s, she secured work modelling for fumetti magazines. These comic-like magazines used actual photographs. The dialogue bubbles were called 'fumetti' - hence the popular name. At 17, she was cast by Ponti in her first larger role as the commoner who caught the prince's eye in the filmed opera La Favorita/The Favorite (Cesare Barlacchi, 1952). The next year she earned third billing after Silvana Pampanini and Eleanora Rossi-Drago in La Tratta Delle Bianche/The White Slave Trade (Luigi Comencini, 1953) and she played, complete with blackface and an Afro, the lead in another filmed opera, Aida (Clemente Fracassi, 1953) by Giuseppe Verdi. Her singing was dubbed by Renata Tebaldi. Ponti eventually changed her name to Sophia Loren.
Sophia Loren appeared for the first time with Marcello Mastroianni in the romantic comedy Peccato che sia una canaglia/Too Bad She's Bad (Alessandro Blasetti, 1954). They would make 13 films together, including Tempi nostri/A Slice of Life (Alessandro Blasetti, Paul Paviot, 1954), La bella mugnaia/The Miller's Wife (Mario Camerini, 1955), and La fortuna di essere donna/What A Woman (Alessandro Blasetti, 1956). L'Oro di Napoli/Gold of Naples (Vittorio de Sica, 1954), an anthology of tales depicting various aspects of Neapolitan life, was distributed internationally. At AllMovie, Jason Ankeny writes that in reviews "Loren was singled out for the strength of her performance as a Neapolitan shopkeeper, surprising many critics who had dismissed her as merely another bombshell". The film established her persona as a sensuous working-class earth mother. It also began a fruitful, career-long collaboration with De Sica. Sophia’s first film to find international success was La Donna del Fiume/The River Girl (Mario Soldati, 1955), in which she danced sensually the Mambo Bacan. Hal Erickson at AllMovie: "Through it all, Sophia Loren looks like a million lire - and she even gets to sing and dance!". She came to the attention of Stanley Kramer who offered her the female lead in The Pride And The Passion (Stanley Kramer, 1957) opposite Cary Grant and Frank Sinatra. Sophia played a Spanish peasant girl involved in an uprising against the French. This was the turning point in her career, and the film proved to be one of the top US box office successes of the year. Her next English-language film was Boy on a Dolphin (Jean Negulesco, 1957) with Alan Ladd, where she was memorable mostly for emerging from the water in a wet, skin-tight, transparent dress. With her va-va-va-voom image, she became an international film star and got a five-picture contract with Paramount Pictures. Among her Paramount films were Desire Under the Elms (Delbert Mann, 1958) with Anthony Perkins and based upon the Eugene O'Neill play, Houseboat (Melville Shavelson, 1958), a romantic comedy co-starring Cary Grant, and the Western Heller in Pink Tights (George Cukor, 1960) in which she appeared for the first time with blonde hair (a wig). Most of these films were received lukewarmly at best.
In 1960 Sophia Loren returned to Italy to star in the biggest success of her career, La Ciociara/Two Women (Vittorio De Sica, 1960). She played a widow desperately trying to protect her daughter from danger during WW II, only to end up in a destructive love triangle with a young radical (Jean-Paul Belmondo). Hal Erickson at AllMovie: "A last-minute replacement for Anna Magnani, Sophia Loren brought hitherto untapped depths of emotion to her performance in Two Women; she later stated that she was utilizing 'sensory recall,' dredging up memories of her own wartime experiences." Loren won the Best Actress Oscar for her performance, and also the Cannes, Venice ánd Berlin Film Festivals' best performance prizes. Next, she played in Spain Samuel Bronston's epic production of El Cid (Anthony Mann, 1961) with Charlton Heston, followed by the De Sica episode of the anthology Boccaccio '70 (Vittorio De Sica, Federico Fellini, Luchino Visconti, 1962). On the strength of her Oscar win, she also returned to English-language fare with Five Miles to Midnight (Anatole Litvak, 1963), followed a year later by The Fall of the Roman Empire (Anthony Mann, 1964), for which she received $1 million. Among Loren's other films of this period are The Millionairess (Anthony Asquith, 1960) with Peter Sellers, It Started in Naples (Melville Shavelson, 1960) with Clark Gable, Lady L (Peter Ustinov, 1965) with Paul Newman, Arabesque (Stanley Donen, 1966) with Gregory Peck, and Charlie Chaplin's final film, A Countess from Hong Kong (1967) with Marlon Brando. Despite the failure of many of her films to generate sales at the box office, she invariably turned in a charming performance and she wore some of the most lavish costumes ever created for the cinema. Her best Italian films include the triptych Ieri, oggi, domani/Yesterday, Today And Tomorrow (Vittorio De Sica, 1963), a comedy that poked fun at a Catholic priest and gently mocked the Italian law on birth control, and Matrimonio all' Italiana/Marriage Italian Style (Vittorio De Sica, 1964) with Loren as the hooker who lures Mastroianni into marriage.
After several miscarriages and a highly-publicized struggle to become pregnant, Sophia Loren gave birth to her son Hubert Leoni Carlo Ponti in 1968. She started to work less and moved into her 40s and 50s with roles in films like De Sica's war drama I Girasoli/The Sunflowers (Vittorio De Sica, 1972), Il Viaggio/The Voyage (Vittorio De Sica, 1974) opposite Richard Burton, and reuniting with Marcello Mastroianni in the mob comedy La Pupa del Gangster/Get Rita (Giorgio Capitani, 1975). An artistic highlight was Una giornata particolare/A Special Day (Ettore Scola, 1977) which earned a Golden Globe for Best Foreign Film. Loren played a bored housewife on the day of the first meeting between Mussolini and Hitler. Left alone in her tenement home when her fascist husband runs off to attend the historic event, Loren strikes up a friendship with her homosexual neighbour (Marcello Mastroianni). As the day segues into night, Loren and Mastroianni develop a very special relationship that will radically alter both of their outlooks on life. When a dubbed version of Una giornata particolare/A Special Day found favour with American audiences, Hollywood again came calling, resulting in a pair of thrillers, The Brass Target (John Hough, 1978) and Firepower (Michael Winner, 1979) which offered her a central role as a widow seeking answers in the murder of her chemist husband. In 1980, Loren portrayed herself, as well as her mother, in Sophia Loren: Her Own Story (Mel Stuart, 1980), a made-for-television biopic adaptation of her autobiography. Actresses Ritza Brown and Chiara Ferrari played Loren at younger ages. She made headlines in 1982 when she served an 18-day prison sentence in Italy on tax evasion charges, a fact that didn't damage her career or popularity. In her 60s, Loren ventured into various areas of business, including cookbooks, eyewear, jewellery, and perfume. In honour of her lengthy career, Loren was the recipient of a special Oscar in 1991. She also made well-received appearances in her final film with Mastroianni, Prêt-à-Porter/Ready to Wear (1994), Robert Altman's take on the French fashion scene, and in the comedy hit Grumpier Old Men (Howard Deutch, 1995) playing a femme fatale opposite Walter Matthau and Jack Lemmon. In 1995 she received the Golden Globe Cecil B. DeMille Award. At the age of 72, she appeared scantily clad in the 2007 edition of the famous calendar of Italian racing tire giant Pirelli. It made her the oldest model in the calendar's history. The photos by Dutch photographers Inez van Lamsweerde and Vinoodh Matadin proved that she was still a major international sex symbol. In 2007 Carlo Ponti died. It had been controversial in her native Italy when Sophia Loren had married her mentor Ponti in 1957. Not only was he 45 to her 23, but he had been married previously, and neither the Catholic Church nor the Italian government recognised his Mexican divorce. Ponti was charged with bigamy, but the charges were dropped when they had their marriage annulled. They continued living together - scandalous at the time - and remarried after his legal problems had been cleared. Ponti and Loren made three dozen films together. They had two children, symphony conductor Carlo Ponti Jr. and film director Edoardo Ponti. After four years off the big screen, Sophia Loren co-starred in a film version of the Broadway musical Nine (Rob Marshall, 2009). She played the mother of famous film director Guido Contini, portrayed by Daniel Day-Lewis. According to Jason Ankeny at AllMovie, "Loren proved she still had movie star charisma with a role in Chicago director Rob Marshall's Nine - a lavish tribute to all things Italian." Loren made a two-part television biopic of her early life titled La Mia Casa È Piena di Specchi/My House Is Full of Mirrors (Vittorio Sindoni, 2010), based on of the memoir written by her sister Maria Scicolone. At 80, Sophia Loren returned to the screen in Human Voice (2014) directed by her son Edoardo Ponti. At the presentation at the Tribeca Film Festival in New York, 'the timeless beauty' stunned the press once again when she walked on the red carpet in a chic red pantsuit hand-in-hand with her 41-year-old son to promote the short film. Human Voice is based on the play by iconic French playwright Jean Cocteau and sees La Loren play a woman in her twilight years facing revelations from her past. In late 2014, she also presented her first memoir, Ieri, oggi, domani. La mia vita/Today and Tomorrow: My Life as a Fairy Tale. It includes old pictures, letters, and notes detailing encounters with Cary Grant and other film partners.
Sources: Jason Ankeny (AllMovie), Hal Erickson (AllMovie), Shyam Dodge (Daily Mail), Jenny (IMDb), Wikipedia, NNDB, TCM, and IMDb.
And, please check out our blog European Film Star Postcards.
“What was the thought-process here?”
There hadn’t been much of one, really.
“We call the Dunbars and they tell us you aren’t there. They say Roger told them he would be HERE for the night.”
Yeah, that had been a rookie mistake.
“It’s one thing to lie to us, it’s another to let your friend be a part of it. Did you forget that we are your parents, and we want to know you’re safe? Chris.”
Chris jolts out of his internal reflection. He’s back at 231 Jewel Avenue. His mother sat forward on the couch, hands clasped under her chin. Some strands loosened from her otherwise kempt hair, and the dark of her eyelids, betrayed the anxiety she was trying to bury. His father had not spoken since driving Chris away from the scene at Frannie’s place.
“We… I didn’t do it to make you upset,” Chris explains sincerely.
“We don’t think that,” his father sighs.
…
“What we think-“ began Mrs. King.
“… is that you’re restless, moving back here,” Mr. King resolves, earning a fixed stare from his wife. “But we know, now that you and your old friends have caught up, you’re going to be focused on things like, let’s say, your classes. And you’re going to be responsible, not looking for trouble. Am I in the ballpark?”
“Yes sir.”
Neither Mr. nor Mrs. King follows up with ultimatums. Chris puffs air behind his lips, cringing as he takes turns studying each of their expressions. The living room clock ticks incessantly throughout their still largely-unfurnished home.
“Well,” Chris pitches forward onto his feet. “I guess if that’s all sorted out, I can make it to class if I hurry.”
“Chris, where-“ Mrs. King objects as he darts to various corners of the room, recovering his backpack and materials that had been dropped the other afternoon. “You haven’t slept or even-“
“Going to school, being responsible!” contests Chris, one arm through the wrong strap of his pack, attempting to unlock the already-unlocked front entrance. “I’ll be home on time! We won’t get into any more trouble, I promise!”
He manages the door and peels out down the sidewalk, in the direction of Hamilton Junior High. Chris’ parents approach the stoop uneasily. Detective King’s fingers curl in and out of a fist on the doorframe as he watches his son.
Mrs. King laces her fingers at her waist. “Couples finish each other’s sentences.”
“Mm.”
“You didn’t finish mine correctly though.”
…
“I was going to tell Chris that we think he needs to stay at home when he’s not at school, for the time being. Until he can be honest with us. Be honest with himself about-“
“Liz.”
Her husband’s interruption is indistinct, but only so in volume. Behind the airy word, a storm brews. “… Can you appreciate… that I cannot and will not tell our son how he should be handling this? We know what… happened. Christ I don’t even know how I’m handling this.”
“Forgiving yourself is a good place to start, Greg.”
“Easy for you to say, you were always the bigger man,” Greg King chokes on a laugh, and his wife lays one hand on his shoulder.
“I can’t t-“ he begins, faltering. “… take more of his life away from him.”
“It’s our job to keep him safe, not in the dark” Liz King asserts resolutely.
“Our son is fine.”
***
The room didn’t hurt anymore.
Bryan wasn’t sure how it had been hurting in the first place, but, whatever it was, it had finally dulled.
No. It hadn’t? Now that humming, which had plagued him every moment he could remember being here, was inside him. It didn’t hurt; it fueled him. He was a furnace, unquestionably alive.
He was standing upright as well: an unexpected revelation. The woman with the calmative eyes was there, like always. Her staid face, and even the way she stood, was a veneer, hiding a dangerous avidity.
“Wait,” Bryan stops her as she clears her throat. “You’re going to ask me if I… I know my name. You keep asking me that. It’s Bryan Smith. And I’m here. ‘Here’ is…”
“Out of the woods, Mr. Smith,” she affirms warmly. “It was about this time last week that you were caught in an atmospheric phenomenon brought on by the meltdown of Trojan Labs’ greenhouse reactor.”
“I’ve. Always heard people, like, died to that kind of thing.”
“It was highly experimental, we knew. But we had run enough simulations and smaller models, to persuade the city we were secure. To know there wouldn’t be malfunctions,” she elaborates to a puzzled Bryan. “… We thought we knew. We might have been looking at a termination of all our funding and projects, but you’ve pulled through. More than that, you’re why we aren’t back at square one.”
As she said this, someone very new swaggered into Bryan’s makeshift recovery room: Dressed in fluorescent green and baby blue, with a collar and beard of equivalent extravagance. He grinned with just his bottom teeth and gave the pair a tiny salute.
Bryan nearly blanked on everything the woman had just conveyed. “Uh, how’s that?”
“We lost the reactor, but we gained you. You didn’t simply survive the event; the energy we lost control of superseded your physiology. As we speak, your cardiovascular and respiratory systems are essentially backup generators; you’re running on emissions that weren’t scientifically recognized last week.”
Before he knew what was happening, the woman takes him by the back of his hand, and places it under a lip of the capsule in which he had been convalescing. She applies almost no pressure at all, and the bed lifts like a sheet of paper. As Bryan’s eyes bug out, she steps away, leaving the feat of strength to his body alone.
“That’s you,” is her assurance.
“Wh- HOW is that..?” he grasps the frame, for fear of it crashing down. “… Oh god, what did I eat last night?”
The amusement on the new arrival’s face had not broken for a second, even as he made to mollify Bryan’s perplexity. “Your eyes do not deceive, friend. You’re like a real superhero, what do you think about that, eh?”
Bryan lets the cradle drop to the tiles at their feet, and pinches his arm. “Real?.. I have to get home!”
“Mr. Smith- BRYAN!”
The woman’s outburst cuts short his sudden beeline to the closest door. “Everything you have to your name was found in your car. Like I said, you’ve been here for days. We checked your records, we consulted with the authorities while they were investigating our mishap… you’ve been living paycheck to paycheck. No residency,”
She takes a moment to formulate the words, but her eyes stay locked on Bryan’s.
“no living relatives.”
It was all still so dizzying. Bryan wanted to believe there was some mix-up, some grand prank being played on him. If not for the woman’s face… those eyes, like bottomless wells that seemed to encapsulate the sadness he had been relieved of for his time away from the conscious world… if not for the feeling in his fingers and soles deadening at the mention of the life he had carved out for himself thus far, Bryan might have bought into his own mercy.
“It’s true, isn’t it? … I remember now.”
“We’re sorry,” the woman stresses. “All of us at Trojan. We are so sorry our hubris—our lack of caution—disrupted your life. I have to tell you, behind closed doors… we didn’t know what the machine was capable of, not really. It could ended far worse for you.”
Bryan couldn’t be certain if she was about to cry, the way she hung her head. “Well… hey, don’t beat yourself up; I took the job. I guess I signed some kind of… liability thing. Yeah. And it turned out okay, so. If you were worried I was going to charge the presses, don’t be.”
“‘Press’… ‘charges’,” the bearded man corrects.
“Or that!” Bryan agrees.
The woman is hardly comforted. “You would be well within your rights…”
“How can I be mad when I got super-strength out of the deal?”
Bryan tenses his arms in front of himself as if to refresh her memory, and in doing so, realizes the small light display traveling along his skin: Suspended eddies of yellow and orange, their forms disturbing in sync with Bryan’s own heartbeat. They furled like the cloud Bryan saw swallow him on the day of the incident.
“Whoa.”
The woman inches nearer; at once, no longer keeping up the repentant facade, but Bryan was too entranced to notice.
“It’s for this unforeseeable… blessing that resulted from our error, and only because we are aware of your living situation…”
She passes a hand onto Bryan’s forearm, stealing his attention.
“… that Trojan is asking of you to aid us once again.”
Bryan flinches, as one would do to ward off a drunken stupor. “I hadn’t picked up on it… your red hair. ‘cause your eyes-“
“I get that sometimes.”
She smiles. On Bryan’s cot, the bearded man sits cross-legged, observing. He beams, when meeting Bryan’s baffled look.
The recently-created metahuman focuses. “Err, what was it you were thinking to have me do, missus..?”
“Doctor. I’m Dr. Angela Wainwright, a technician here at Trojan.”
What WAS it with those eyes…
“You’re going to deliver Fairfax, Mr. Smith.”
***
“’Never’, as in, ’NEVER never’?” Chris prods.
“Never.” Glinda tugs the bag’s strap firmly onto her shoulder again. “I take pride in my classes.”
“So your first time ever skipping a period, you skip three,” Roger summates. “Go big or go home.”
Both boys snicker lightly; the levity, complementing the brisk midday. A passerby would not have suspected the heightened nerves within the children’s ranks.
“Would you both leave it alone?” pleads Glinda. “I’m going to turn back if I think about it anymore…”
“It’s just this once.”
Vicki steps into the lead of their troop, as all five kids venture past the civilization of Fairfax, to the woods waiting ahead. She has in an iron grip her satchel, bearing the enigmatic H-Dial.
“We’re going to get to the bottom of this, and then we’re going to get out. For good. To be clear-“
Vicki halts, pointing at the boys individually with a middle and index finger.
“Glinda’s grounded. SHE’s got to be back in town when school lets out for real. So don’t be the reason we get hung up.”
“US?!”
“How did your guys’ parents not flip out over you being attacked by supervillains?” Glinda questions them, stumped. “Seriously, it’s so unfair.”
“I don’t know, my… dad bailed me out. It was weird,” Chris confesses.
“Grounding just isn’t my folks’ thing. Anyway, running into crazy metahumans is par for the course; I live in Fairfax,” Roger points out bleakly.
“So do I,” Glinda fires back. “Of course it’s only my family that treats it like I was out shopping for criminals to fight.”
“And, uh,” Chris takes his eyes off Frannie, who had—all through their cafeteria meeting and now the hike—only listened to the others’ recounts of last night, beyond one very stilted acknowledgement of the four of them saving her. “I’d have bet your mom wouldn’t have let you out of the house, Frannie. For your own safety, I mean.”
Chris, still quite unsure of how to engage with the quiet girl, covertly checks with Glinda: Her face tells him he was decidedly in “blunt” territory, nearing “tactless”.
He makes a move to patch things. “With how reclusiv-“
Roger holds his own face mournfully. Frannie merely shrugs.
“I stashed the Dial, then went back to see how she and her mom were doing,” Vicki brings up. “And to hear what the police were making of it, but, I couldn’t really get close. Offered to walk Frannie to school for Mrs. Nash, since I was the only one of us she didn’t see in the yard. I mean, she did, but I was… blue… and several different sizes.”
“She thinks I’m going to be at Vicki’s after school,” Frannie finishes.
“Everyone’s parents…” Glinda gripes. “EVERYone’s. But nooo, not mine…”
Vicki stops the other four with a barely-raised hand. She can’t seem to look any of them squarely in the eyes.
“Guys, I just want to tell you, I’m sorry I left you all to get chewed out by-”
“No, Vicki, we had to keep the Dial secret,” Roger cuts in. “We were all thinking it.”
Glinda softens, forgetting her self-pity. “No sense in all of us getting into hot water,” she offers. “There’s no guarantee your parents would’ve let you off the hook.”
“Yeah,” Vicki concurs dubiously, glancing away at the trees.
Deeper into the forest the five of them walk, led on by Vicki. It was only because the girl had been utterly lucid from terror the previous night that she could now find her way. A few short intermissions, allowing Vicki to reclaim her orientation, were all that deterred them, before they arrived at the large fern veiling the mines’ inconspicuous exit. Urging her friends to the tunnel, Vicki comes close to trampling over the hand of the man guarding the lip of the hole; he holds a hefty wrench aloft. The resolve on his face is intertwined with petrification, as he realizes who he is threatening. Frannie takes an uneven step back.
Vicki initiates the encounter with a “Hi”, wincing soon after. “You were there last night- or, early this morning, I guess. … when I fell through the ceiling. Right? I’m seriously hoping-“
“For godsakes, let them in before the entire county hears her!”
Behind the guard was the lady doctor whom Vicki had witnessed tending to Nick. The two adults hastily pull Vicki and Chris into cover. Glinda shields a still shaken Frannie and descends inside before either can be similarly handled.
“Hey, personal space. We can walk!” Roger adds.
“Quiet!” the doctor frowns.
“Before you ask,” Vicki confronts her with an only slightly lower tone, “no, I didn’t lead any supervillains here.”
“No, you didn’t.”
Now, it was the man from earlier, that had hounded Nick about the Dial, who was trudging up the tunnel. He was perhaps only approaching middle-age, but his hair had completely greyed. It was now that Vicki noted, with the exception of Nick, everyone in the mine appeared to have on a lab coat, or varying stages of scholarly wear; this man—their apparent leader—wore his with a morose demeanor.
“Just more accessories. Brilliant.”
“Uh. ‘Accessories’ makes it sound like you’re doing something illegal too,” comments Chris.
Seven pairs of disparaging eyes divert to him.
Chris hides his hands in his pockets. “I’m not… wrong…”
Vicki examines the stacked crates crowed near the mine’s mouth. “Planning a trip?”
The man looks at her down the length of his nose. “You saw to that. By tangling with Nick. By running off with that-”
“Nick gave it to me.”
“By involving YOUR FRIENDS, yes, we are now forced to relocate! Because whatever risks come of trying to flee, they are greatly outweighed by the suspicion you’ve brought here; running in and out as you have, leading our hunters straight to us-“
“I told you, one way or another I’m getting the full story. It just so happens I was in the neighborhood, dropping something off for a friend,” Vicki jiggles the H-Dial under the man’s nose. Then she waves an arm at the other kids. “And you know what? Pardon me if I think they deserve the same answers, considering they live here and each of us could’ve died in the last twenty-four hours thanks to whatever X-Files bull all of you are involved in.”
Beleaguered, the man sags his head at the girl, then his associates. He does his best to ignore the latter segment of Vicki’s counter. “We’ll take the Dial to him for you.”
“I’ll take it to him myself, thank you. C’mon guys.”
Hesitantly, Chris and the rest resume following the dauntless Vicki down the crumbling passageway. The grey-haired man and doctor keep the guard from blocking the children, but do not let their surprise-guests out of view. Frannie stays right on Glinda’s heels, of which Roger takes notice. He snaps the frizzy-haired girl out of her inwardness by shallowly swinging an arm out.
“Hey. I hope you didn’t feel like we forced you to tag along. Don’t worry though-“
“I wanted to come,” Frannie says distantly, but not conflicted.
This is enough to satisfy Roger. “That was a great pitch. Back at your place, when you clocked that red Stormtrooper guy.”
“‘Stormtrooper’?”
Roger tries again. “I like baseball too.”
Frannie shrugs again. Glinda, listening to them trail behind her, tries not to visibly sulk; she distracts herself, nudging Vicki.
“Psst. Vicki.”
“Why are you whispering?”
“It feels like we whisper right now,” Glinda supposed, thrown off. “… You said that that boy outside school was also using the Dial?”
“Yeah.”
“And you said he got hurt? What happened when you hung up the phone to use it for…”
“I don’t know,” Vicki draws a sharp breath. “I don’t know, but if he-“
Around a tight corner, their path empties into a cavern. Milling about are dozens more men and women than Vicki had approximated during her initial visit. Likewise, a smattering of floodlights reveal just how expansive the hideout is. Some of the adults have stopped carting supplies around, to regard Vicki and her entourage. A good number are angry. More are scared, though no one openly opposes the grey-haired man allowing them this far; he singles out one person to Vicki, coldly advising her:
“There’s your friend. Give him that deathtrap back, and then take your band of hellions and go. Home.”
Sitting right where Vicki remembered seeing Nick with his leg half-fused with the tunnel wall was a paunchy, towheaded man guzzling a water bottle. He wore thick glasses, a bright red button-up, jeans, sneakers. He was clearly older than the grey-haired man in charge, but had a very round, clean face. It was strange, but Vicki’s first thought was that he was like an unused person.
Vicki exaggerates tilting her neck, doubtfully judging. “That’s Nick. Really.”
“He’s old?” Glinda looks pale. “Oh, gross, I thought they could be an item.”
Nick overhears this, taking a swig of water at an inopportune time. He spits when he recognizes Vicki, immediately getting up and dusting off his pants.
“I told you not to bring that back here,” he announces loudly to Vicki, but also for the grey-haired man to hear. “… but uh, actually, this works out okay because-“
“First,” Vicki orders, “tell me something only the boy I saw would know about what happened yesterday.”
He thinks for a second. “At the park, I got your shoes all muddy when I ran into you. And uh, you accused me of throwing you into a tree… I’ll have you know I was perfectly in control.”
Vicki’s eyes narrow. “You don’t look like a ‘Nick’.”
He pokes at himself, as if to somehow rebut her thesis. “No?”
“Maybe St. Nick,” Roger coughs.
Vicki hands off the H-Dial to the peculiar man, who accepts it quickly, yet confusedly. She taps a foot on the loose dirt. “So. That young guy was just the hero you were using. You had me hang up and redial. That made you… you, again.”
Nick juggles the Dial, winding the cord up haphazardly. “That’s… exactly right. Hit the nail on the head. I had a feeling you’d get the hang-“
“You’re not dying anymore. As in, you had me use this thing, without any training, to go save my friend who YOU incriminated by running into us… when you could’ve just redialed, and helped Frannie yourself!”
“Kid…”
“‘Vicki’,” she amends curtly, making their introduction official. “… ’Nick’.”
“Vicki. I…” The words catch in Nick’s throat. He holds the back of his head and laughs to himself, aware of his own explanation. “… I didn’t think the real me would be alive to go back to!”
“You mean you had me… when you thought you were going to..!“
Vicki stomps back up to him. He grins skittishly, looking to the other adults for help.
“What is with you and involving me in things that will get one or both of us killed, without TELLING ME??”
She turns back to her four friends, to see them uncomfortably and quizzically standing in an row.
“Oh, yeah! That’s a whole thing with this guy!”
“Yeaahh…” Roger trails off. “So, we’ve got some ground to cover here, but, let’s go for why you were going to have Vicki kill you..?”
Nick had no sooner opened his mouth than he received a bombardment of other questions from the kids.
“Did these people hire you to help Fairfax?” Glinda wonders.
Chris interposes, “Where’d you even find that thing? Did you make it?”
“Why does the Dial-voice-guy sound like my dentist?” Vicki mumbles, distrait.
Nick, cupping his ears, can endure no more. “Okay, okay! You know what? Confession time, alright?”
As passive as he had been, the grey-haired man now moves alarmingly fast to be practically nose to nose with Nick. “Absolutely not.”
The kids, doctor and all the rest of their on-edge company freeze where they stand, but Nick restfully addresses the man. “Mike…”
The man recoils in frustration at his name being divulged; Nick does not let him turn away fully.
“It’s a lost cause now, keeping them in the dark. This is all coming down, probably sooner than we think. We may just need some more allies. Besides,” Nick smiles, pulling the three-finger sign to his shoulder, “Scout’s honor.”
“They’re children,” Mike tiredly cues him, not a hint of humor in the words.
“If even one more person makes it out of this cave alive because these kids could help… Mike, you can’t tell me you wouldn’t say that’s worth taking the chance.”
Nick doesn’t wait for a response. He sweeps his hands up to be noticed. “Everyone…”
The entire cavern was already giving him their full attention.
“Ah. … Well I… found the H-Dial—that’s what it calls itself—in a cave, in my hometown. That was out west. I was a little younger than these guys here.”
Nick gives a fatherly wink to Chris and Roger, both of whom eagerly await more of the story.
“I don’t know how it got here any more than you do. But I learned to use it. I told all of you,”
Nick motions to the crowd, “what it let me do. When I realized what was going on in Fairfax, I made the promise that I’d help you, whether or not… some of you thought I was insane.”
The man named Mike only adjusts his neck, saying nothing in dissent.
“But I didn’t tell you everything. ‘suh matter of fact, I haven’t told anyone everything for something like thirty years.”
…
“My real name’s Robby. Not Nick.”
…
“That hero I’ve been using—Maquette—I changed into him back in 1962. I’ve stayed that way, because that last time that I changed, Robby was mortally wounded. I thought if I ever went back, to be him again, I’d be a goner for sure. I thought…”
The deluge of admissions breaks; Robby, overwhelmed by those admissions, regulates his breathing for a moment. Then he holds his hands out to emphasize Vicki.
“… that last night was my time. Your friend needed help, and I had reason to believe I couldn’t be the one to give it to her. Seems like I gave the Dial to the right kid for the job.”
Vicki shies away from all the stares placed upon her; annoyed, more than embarrassed.
“As for why I’m still kickin’,” Robby ponders, with his chin tucked into his flannel like a turtle, “I couldn’t say… I guess being in limbo for a few decades did me some good.”
All is silent once again. Just as Chris and Roger appear to be shaping up to let loose another bout of scrutiny on Robby, someone’s shoes intrusively shuffle on the rocks and, stunning everyone, it is the reticent Frannie who lets her will be known. Glinda and the others clear away to give her a direct line of sight to the odd man, as all of Frannie’s social inhibitions seemingly fall to the wayside, overridden by her question’s import to her.
“If you became Maquette to save yourself… what happened to Robby’s life?”
Robby jerks back, caught quite off his guard. Then, feigning relaxation, he crosses his arms robotically and gives her a smile and a nod. “I’m glad Vicki got to you in time,” he states, avoiding her in uninventive fashion. But Vicki’s gaze bullies him into submission.
“Uh. Truth be told? I don’t really know what I’m going… to do with myself. I’ve been Nick longer than I was ever Robby.”
Glinda, remembering something, drifts from the conversation with Robby, to where Mike and the lady doctor stand.
“Mr. um… sorry, I should’ve said right away, Vicki told me there were a bunch of you down here and that you looked like you needed help, so I brought food and a little water, here. There’s some fruit…”
She starts to unload her rucksack onto an old workbench.
“I asked some of the kids at school to chip in-“
Mike’s eyes bulge with fury and fear, and the doctor intuitively steps between him and the girl.
Glinda panics. “I… I d-didn’t tell any of them what it was for!”
Mike holds his tongue. “… I’m sorry. But you need to understand-“
The doctor hugs Glinda.
“Dr. Clark and I, and all of us,” she says on behalf of their concealed community, “are very grateful. We haven’t had enough food since we’ve been here. This is more than generous, thank you. You can call me Shelly.”
“I’m Glinda.”
Her friends had migrated over now, with Robby and some other adults; all of them, commending Glinda in their own way. Most had stony faces as they did so, but all of them were genuine.
Vicki gives Glinda a slap on the back. “Pretty good idea, Glinda.”
The throng eventually settles. First the kids’, then everyone’s eyes fall to Dr. Michael Clark. He hunches over the bench, arms straight, watching what came across to the newcomers as a high-tech desk toy: A rotating tray, with spires of silver flowing up and down themselves, reconfiguring into a handful of simple structures every few seconds.
Vicki has the first go at reaching the man. “So this is the stuff you’ve got in all these crates?”
Nothing.
Roger steps up next, more fed up with the inaction than Vicki was. “Hey. I think we all get that you don’t want anything bad to happen to these people. And I get that you don’t know us from a hole in the wall. But you trusted this guy to help you…”
jabbing a thumb at Robby.
“Wow,” he exclaims.
“And we were neck-deep in all this, way before we knew names,” Roger determines. “I think you’re stuck with us, at this point.”
Dr. Clark reads the room, the looks being given by his peers. It was evident that metaphorical walls had been dismantled by Robby. Prolonged secrecy would be pretense. The consensus had shifted with Glinda’s act, and it was time to speak.
“… We worked for Trojan Laboratories. Biologists, engineers. I’m an architect.”
He accredits the shape-changing creation before them to himself, with his last comment. The kids raise an eyebrow at the already-suspect Trojan Labs being mentioned; Glinda, mouthing something to Vicki about the monster they saw. The five of them, even Frannie, near the senior scientist. Dr. Clark continues grimly, clinically, as though fending off a force of nature in order to get the words out.
“We signed on because we had aspirations of leading the world into a new revolution in all fields. Medicine, transportation, leisure… But Trojan didn’t want innovations for a better future. They want weapons, for reasons we never learned, which scared us even more.”
…
“We devised a way to smuggle our projects out in one night, or we would give Trojan the chance to catch on. … They did anyway. They had metahumans, from off the street no doubt. Guard dogs. We were ambushed just when we thought we were in the clear. They split us apart, kept us from leaving Fairfax where we might find authorities beyond their reach. We knew we were surrounded. Those of us you see now collapsed this branch of the mine behind us, and it seems to have worked in discouraging their hunters from thinking we could be here. For now.”
Shelly, the doctor, quits handing out Glinda’s donations to the more malnourished among them, long enough to add, “Twice, some of our number have left the cave to make it outside city limits. But it’s been months now. We have to assume Trojan got them.”
“But, your families-“ Roger attempts.
“Trojan’s employees were and are alone, every last one. We have no relatives or relationships outside of our work. They find you on that basis, they ensure it stays that way,” Dr. Clark informs bitterly. “That’s how they like us. Helpless.”
“Hang on, aren’t you throwing in the towel kinda early here?” Vicki spins around to all the Trojan defectors, then stops at Chris. “Didn’t your dad say anything about officers responding to a disturbance out here, by the mines, last night?”
Chris blinks. “No..? He wasn’t the one under a microscope, y’know.”
Vicki rolls her eyes.
Robby takes over before the kids can make more presumptions. “I told you Vicki, those weren’t cops last night. Trojan’s smoking us out. They’re at our front door. You can’t go to the ‘real’ police either, we don’t know how many Trojan’s bought out. But it has to be some higher-ups, and more than just a few; it’s the only reason Trojan can get away with that prototype reactor nonsense.”
“My dad’s not some spy,” Chris warns, defensive toward Robby’s intimation.
“Your father’s a cop?”
“A detective.”
“If you- sorry, this is weird being this tall,” Robby bows and grabs his knees to be less imposing, at Chris’ own height. “If you let your dad in on this, he has superiors to report to. Maybe some bad ones. That’s his job. It’s not his fault, but he could make things worse for these guys.”
“You know you were right, Robby,” Dr. Clark interrupts him. “This could all very well end tomorrow, or tonight. We can’t. Stay here. It’s getting to be that trying our luck with the local law is wiser than waiting for your Dial to… to part the Red Sea for us.”
Robby massages his forehead as if he has a migraine coming on. “We’ve been over this Mike, you haven’t been up there. You canNOT surface yet. And the Dial… it’s not NOT science just because we don’t get it yet. It’s… eccentric. That much is obvious. But it works. It’s saved me, and it can save you. And whereas I’ve been up there, dancing around with Trojan and apparently every superpowered criminal in New England… now there’s six of us that can be eyes and ears up there. Using the Dial to its full potential. Making Trojan go underground for a change.”
Vicki slashes at the air, miming for the debate to end. “Hey look, all I wanted were some answers. That’s what we deserved, after last night. Frannie and her mom are safe now; they’re going to have squad cars out front for the next year. Guys… we can’t actually… I mean c’mon!”
I’d like to do something,” declares Glinda, “but I-I really don’t think I want to use that thing…”
Robby withdraws a little. “No, no I’m not forcing anyone to help, or to use the Dial. But I can walk you through this. We can do some real good with it.”
At this, a scientist from the crowd speaks out, inciting more and more of them to object.
“You’ve barely kept yourself safe with that thing!”
“They need to get their families to leave Fairfax, now!”
Frannie ducks off towards an alcove of the mine as tensions mount.
Shelly stands by Glinda with a hand on her shoulder. “Nic- Robby, never mind forcing them. You can’t ask this of them.”
“I can,” Robby contradicts staunchly. “Easily, actually. Because I’ve known this whole time what could happen if I really am your one and only hope, and it terrifies me. You don’t want just me; you want us.”
“Ever since I got back,” Chris injects, surprising himself by suddenly having the floor, “Roger’s been telling me stuff like ‘let’s not go there’, ‘it’s best not to go there’… But, Rog, all I’ve been trying to do is to ‘go there’. So I can understand what in the world is going on with my home! So I can fit in again! I haven’t been around when everything went bad, but I didn’t have the choice then. I’m here now; I want to be involved, now! … That’s uh, how I feel about it.”
Vicki strides past him to be with Frannie, uttering offhandedly: “Chris I really don’t think you need to be extending devotion to friends into crime-fighting, okay?”
From the time he had met her the month prior, Chris had scarcely, if ever, been able to follow up her more charged remarks, let alone criticize them. He had yet to comprehend how she, as he perceived, could be heedlessly altruistic one instant, as it had been with racing to save Frannie, then so closed-off and cynical in the next breath. He was at last compelled to call her out.
“What- Are you telling me you could straight-up walk away from this, knowing these people are down here, knowing Trojan’s this villain think tank-“
“Don’t tell us you weren’t having fun, kicking those guys all over Frannie’s yard,” Roger goads her.
Vicki glares. “I’d stick with Chris’ argument. … I’m trying to be practical here, alright? We keep chancing it like dumb kids, and we’ll go out like dumb kids. That ASIDE, there’s one Dial. What would we do, play hot potato?”
“If that’s what keeps Trojan off balance, and all of you alive, then yes,” Robby proclaims with authority. “Any one of you may just need to use the Dial in the coming days. Yes, Frannie has the police keeping an eye out for her for now—and we can only hope they’re all on the level—but what about you, or him? You’re that sure Trojan can’t find you?”
“Frannie and I beat two of these bozos by throwing small, dense objects at them,” dismisses Vicki. “Are we really going to pretend like-“
Robby reproaches this scathingly, harsher than anyone present would have thought him able to channel. “They’ve killed before, or did you forget that?! You? You got damn lucky! You want to try going three for three, chucking rocks? Maybe one of you ends up getting kidnapped, or just turned into dust, but hey, it’ll be REAL impressive if you set them back a whole day!”
Though startled like the rest of them, Roger backs the man’s sentiment, hoping his friends will be convinced.
“Robby’s right. The look on that guy’s face when he saw we had the Dial… He and his pals want this tech and they want it bad. We’re not going hold them off just by sticking together. The best way to keep them from getting the Dial is to push back, using the Dial.”
Robby and Dr. Clark react to the boy’s earlier statement with equal consternation.
“Say again…”
“You SHOWED them the Dial…”
Roger protects himself. “Hey the guy was a second away from hurting Frannie! It bought us time! I’d do everything I did the same way if I had a do-over!”
“Then that’s that,” Robby digresses.
…
“You know what we’re up against. You know this doesn’t go away without a fight. What I swore to every man and woman in this cave, I swear the same thing to you five.”
Those same five—unconventional guardian angels to a fraught host—have no shared resolution to give the man in return. The illuminated walls of the mine stand silently by just as its occupants do. Robby exhales.
“You must all be ditching classes right now. Time’s a-wasting. What’s it going to be?”
***
“Why does it feel,” Cathan queries, drumming his fingers on the other fist, “like, instead of sending you boys out there to make improvements to our situation, what I’ve actually been doing is sending you boys out there to find out everything’s already properly shagged, and you only come back here to confirm it with me?”
Still dressed as Golden Web, minus the ruined mask, George rests his knuckles on the table between them. ”We’re telling you, the little snot-heads had this- this phone, and they used it to give one of ‘em powers. SO…”
He side-eyes Kaleidoscope and Chain Master.
“… our new bunkies didn’t exactly do their job either. Isn’t that right? So much for the stupid pen being-“
“If you want to give us a rundown of how we should’ve done a job you weren’t even there for,” Kaleidoscope glowers, drowning him out, “please, George, go ahead. I’ve got a great imagination.”
“You’re not my master and commander just because you do psycho-weed with the boss,” George spurns.
Chain Master shoots up from his seat on the bottom stair-step. The gloves in his balled fists squeak.
“There you go Brent, don’t let him talk to her that way,” Cableman seems to cheer the large man on, only his delivery is devoid of all passion as he does not avert his concentration from the minuscule components and circuitry at his fingertips.
George sizes up Brent, who eclipses him. The younger man calls his bluff. “Ooh, y’know I wasn’t going to apologize, but then I remembered you were tall. … Get outta town, man.”
Edward Murr steers away from the conflict, conversing with Cathan one-on-one. “What we need to do is weigh our priorities again. How wise can some delinquents be to what we’re aiming for, really? They think we’re just another band of these metas running all over this town, knocking over gas stations. They’ve got their hands full. We’ve got openings.”
Gazing at his right-hand man dolefully, so as to jog Murr’s recollection of their past, Cathan then imparts, “We’ve cut corners on jobs like this before, Ed. Did you sleep well afterwards? When you realized we didn’t get everyone out we could have, if we hadn’t gotten twitchy?”
To which, Murr has no challenge; only a quiet forewarning. “Before we sink, Cathan.”
“Would’ve been great if we’d had those comms by now,” George now directs at Cableman. “Might’ve coordinated things more quickly, might’ve surprised the kid and made a clean getaway… but, sure, let’s pretend it was all on me and Distortionex. So sorry we fell short of expectations.”
This time, the sullen Cableman does look up. “You act like I’m being paid.”
Cathan’s pent-up irritation runs over. He punches the central table; the arm fluctuates with numerous, alien textures in a split-second, sufficiently silencing his five onlookers.
“We’re doing all this to right wrongs where we can, not for pay.”
Their leader’s scowl bores holes in Cableman’s reflective face shield; it moves on, to George.
“Not for petty bragging rights.”
Golden Web backs off. “Hey… your cause is our cause, man. But honestly, where’s this big blue meathead get off, acting like he and his gal pal-“
“Give it a break George,” Murr begs, fatigued. “He hasn’t said anything.”
“Yeah? I’m beginning to wonder if he can say an-“
Cathan subtly recedes from the escalating disagreement, noticing Kaleidoscope has done the same. He follows her into a secondary, uncompleted nook of the basement, pausing at the doorway when he sees what she’s doing: a mouse at the base of the far wall noses through a mound of lint. Kaleidoscope flexes her wrist, and the harmless particles morph into a trap, triggering instantaneously and cracking the pest over the head. The woman and the mouse are still.
“Kalei.”
“You can just use my real name.”
“I’m not talking to Nancy, I’m talking to Kaleidoscope,” Cathan says matter-of-factly.
“I’m just… so ready for this plan to be over and done with.”
“So am I,” Cathan confirms sensitively, hovering a hand over his heart.
“I’m sorry.”
“I’ll have none of that from you.”
Nancy shakes her head vigorously, leaning against the tattered wallpaper, tracing the sculpted crystal of her palm with a thumb. “Getting rid of the boy should have been easy. I still… STILL can’t change things with a will of their own.”
She scoffs at her own words, swiveling on the wall with her shoulder, away from Cathan. He stifles the reflex to take hold of her hands. He makes two fists and collects himself.
“You haven’t let me down. You’re honing your abilities every day; I’ve seen so. The others will straighten themselves out sure enough, and soon-“
“These people you want us to save,” Nancy inquires, “… it really is important, isn’t it? Like you couldn’t forgive yourself if you didn’t.”
“It’s exactly that,” Cathan admits.
The glass woman walks up to him. “Then let’s. Just. Do that. We don’t need to cover all our bases, chasing down potential threats in some… some KIDS…”
A dejected look creeps onto Cathan’s face. “You wouldn’t kill that boy last night. Not that you couldn’t, but that you didn’t let yourself.”
“PLEASE Cathan. Let’s do the job and end this. For Brent and me.”
“For you and Brent,” Cathan echoes, shutting his eyes. “… Yes, alright. Within the month. I-I know that’s not quick enough for your liking, but this is me, promising you: Within the month, we’ll make our move.”
“And our debt will be paid, when they’re free,” Nancy prompts. “Then, we’ll be square.”
“I wish you would stay anyway, debts be damned,” Cathan smirks boyishly.
“We can’t live this life forever. Neither can you,” Nancy reminds him solemnly.
“Now you’re not going to get all serious on me. I’ll sing one of my shanties, and you’ll have to pretend you don’t like it.”
Nancy laughed wholeheartedly despite herself, only encouraging Cathan.
“Oh I shan’t forget the day
When I first met Maggie- Nancy Mae;
She was cruising up and down old Woolwich place.
She had a figure finer
Than the fastest ocean liner,
And me, being a sailor, I gave chase.”
The song went on unheard by those beyond the rooms’ divide, except for Brent, the Chain Master. He too sidled away (as well as his mammoth frame would allow him to do so) from George’s squabbling, and listened to the pair from around the corner.
“Oh Nancy, Nancy Mae,
They are taking you away,
And you’ll never walk down Lime Street anymore.
For you’ve rolled so many sailors,
And you’ve skinned so many whalers,
And now you’re doing time in Botany Bay!”
Brent felt a weight on his chest at Cathan completing the shanty, and at the ensuing chuckles.
“Can I call upon you to take us on another trip?” Cathan asks under his breath.
“You know how it riles the others, especially Cabl- Todd. Us, using my illusions that way. The look he had last time…”
“To the Devil with Todd. We could do with some beauty in our lives, us two.”
Colors dance out from Nancy, up to the vacant hinges of the doorway where Brent remained unnoticed. Cathan and Nancy are enveloped by her powers, transported to carefree days of the past, or to days that had never truly been at all. Brent did nothing.
***
What had Chris been thinking?
The armored man was crouched in the treetops across from the Nash household. All day, the police had made efforts to communicate with Frannie’s mother, and identify the order of events. They made note of the residual materials left by Distortionex’s attacks, and zoned the yard off for further analysis. For all the good it did; the successful captures of meta-criminals that Fairfax’s law enforcement had under their belt were due to luck. They knew it. The man knew it.
Chris was never this rash. What got into him? His friends? They should know even better than him that this is no town to fool around in. … I save them from one disaster and they go run into another one…
That thing from the cornfield had put up more of a fight than he had anticipated. By the time he had caught back up with the children, the scuffle here had subsided. All he had seen of Chris was the boy being escorted away by his father. It might have ended so much worse.
Greg was there for them; he’ll make sure they stay away from things like this. It’s all over now. But, Chris looked real rattled. If I could see him again, and know he’s alright-“
A red squirrel scurries along the next tree over from the man. The creature attempts a leap to a branch from his tree, but misses. It falls, all the way to a log waiting below, and onto exposed jags of bark in the rotted trunk. There is no more movement.
The man’s face hardens beneath his frightening disguise.
You’re too emotional right now. You know what happens if you get anywhere near him, like this. Get your head on straight. Then get back out there, and don’t let it come this close, ever again.
He only got a glimpse. That’s all he could ever get anymore.
Don’t jinx it.
***
Robby claps his hands. “Alrighty, lightning round. Hit me.”
“Why were you ’Nick’?” Glinda puts forward.
“Why not?”
“No like, why not any other name?”
“‘sjust a name,” Robby concocts sheepishly.
It was well into the afternoon, and the children had need to get back into town. In the wake of Robby’s move to get a solid decision out of them, an unspoken understanding had been achieved. They would be back. To what extent they might be aiding the Trojan refugees was, as ever, up in the air, but they knew this would not be their last time in the mine. The majority of the scientists had been won over, as far as accepting the kids as allies, partially thanks to Shelly ultimately showing faith in Robby. Dr. Clark had said all he would on the matter.
All that was left to be settled were a few discontented curiosities.
“What was the deal with ‘Maquette’ anyway?” Vicki throws in. “You would draw in a notebook-“
“Doodle-based aptitude. I could manipulate my own physicality and perform impossible stunts by drawing it first.”
“Sounds tedious.”
“Ah! Not so,” Robby contends. “It also made me draw subconsciously, faster than a human mind could design.”
“So it gave you a superpower just so you could use the actual superpower.”
“… Well when you put it like that. … Ah yes, the gentleman in the jersey,” Robby readily moves on to Roger.
Roger inspects the H-Dial. “So I was thinking, this thing’s gotta have someone that teleports, right? We can just… cycle through until we get one who can zap everyone out of here! Outside Fairfax. Or, like someone who can disguise all of you; Vicki said one of the creeps from last night was making it so she couldn’t see anyone in town.”
Robby slows him down, taking the Dial away from him and setting it aside. “Heroes with powers like that come once in a blue moon, and I do mean ‘once’. I had the Dial for three years before Maquette, and I’m telling you the only time I got a hero on the level you’re describing was with The Prime Mover. Now she was somethin’ else.”
A nostalgic twinkle enters his eyes, bemusing the kids.
“I was listening to my radio, and the Siren Gang was robbing a bank all the way over in Granite City, but she helped me get there and stop them in a matter of-“
“I’m sorry…” Vicki snorts, making a time-out “T” with her hands and exchanging a look with Glinda. “… You got a ‘she’?”
Robby takes a seat. “The Dial works in mysterious ways,” he enlightens her, a little too seriously.
Vicki lets up on ribbing him. “Right. About that: It was making me say Saturday morning cartoon catchphrases..? Basically as painful as the guy that disintegrated part of my leg.”
“The heroes have their own personalities that you have to make space for. If you stay on the line for as long as I did, you can work past it. But eh, the one-liners are more or less a feature of the H-Dial that’s here to stay. It’s a packaged deal.”
Vicki nods wryly. “Awesome. And by ‘awesome,’ I mean ‘that majorly blows.’”
“We really need to get going now, guys.” Chris recommends. “Remember, Glinda especially-“
Roger hops off his boulder. “Yeah, agreed.”
Glinda pats down her pack to make certain there was no more food to leave. “Do we have…”
“Hey,” Robby whips around. “Which one of you took the Dial-“
“… Frannie?”
The gang looks behind themselves, as one. She was loitering near the tunnel by which to exit.
The H-ring on the Dial is pulled back in her hand.
Letting go of the mechanism, the rotary phone ignites into a shower of neon sparks. It consumes itself in a collapsing cyclone, and where once was Frannie, a sleek and scarlet being emerges from the pinkish fog.
“Frannie.”
With the Dial, and without a word, the newly-summoned hero splits away for the tunnel in a puff of dust, impossibly fast, and she blinks out of sight.
LEGO Designer
requirements: creativity, sense of fun
earning prospects: good (I hope)
professional risks: stepping on a brick, running out of ideas
fun potential: high
usefulness to society: very high
thi is the last post of this series: I hope you have found at least some of the Careers interesting.
me, I'm going to post a couple more pics of Legoland then I'll pack my suitcase and go on holiday for a while.
My quilt in Scraps, Inc. Volume 1 published by Lucky Spool. This book has 15 block-based designs by 15 designers, all created to use your scraps.
Scotland, UK. Got a lot of shots of the loch, as this viewpoint was just across the road from where we stayed.
A Northern Pintail (Anas acuta) male with his graceful wings was entering into a resting place to join his partner. The lesser whistling ducks though in great numbers, looks like minnows to the personality of the great male duck. The full wing span from behind exhibiting the majesty of colours with the perfect symmetry earned it a very special charm. Pics was taken from Santragachi, West Bengal, India.
Bought these for $3. Also, the family having the yardsale was struggling pretty bad. Probably because they were buying this crap instead of saving money for harder times.
Dominatrix comic book, Hohner Rockwood guitar.
by Gene Simmons.
upstairs, Clint and Carolyn's house, Alexandria, Virginia.
May 16, 2015.
... Read my blog at ClintJCL at wordpress.com
... Read Carolyn's blog at CarolynCASL at wordpress.com
... Read my yard sale-related blogposts at clintjcl dot wordpress dot com/category/yard-sales/
BACKSTORY: Got up around 7:15AM, made it out driving by 7:51 AM and went out until around 1:30PM for a total of 5 hours, 39 minutes. Spent $73.00 plus ~$7.98 gas for 41 miles of driving (15.1 mpg @ $2.94/G), for a total cost of $80.98. We drove to 64 yard sales, stopping at 22 (34%) of them. We made 49 purchases (50 items) for a total estimated value of $743.64, leading to a profit/savings of $662.66. So in essence, we multiplied our $80.98 investment by 9.18X. (Also, if you think about it, the profit counts for even more when you consider that we have to earn $~755 on the job, pre-tax, in order to take home the $662 in cash that we saved. How long does $662 of disposable income take to earn, vs the 5.65 hrs we spent here?) Anyway, this works out to a *post-tax* "wage" of $117.29/hr as a couple or $58.64/hr per person.
THE TAKE:
$10.00: furniture, storage chest/ottoman/trunk, brown leather, 32x17.5x16", with storage area (EV:$±35.16±)
$7.00: guitar, electric, red, Rockwood by Hohner, only has 2 strings (EV:$±149.99±)
$3.00: instrument, zither, Small World Toys, Toys That Toot, only has 1 pick, missing second pick and tuning key (EV:$±9.99±)
$3.00: boom box, Durabrand, model cd-2036, AM/FM cassette cd player (EV:$±14.99±)
$3.00: game, Horseshoes, Billard, Rodeo Model (EV:$±31.49±)
$2.50: yard decoration, stone mushroom, maybe 8-10 inches high (EV:$±44.99±)
$2.00: game, Square Off, ±Parker± Brothers (EV:$±15.00±). Similar to ±Rubik's± Race.
$2.00: game, ±Rubik's± Race (EV:$±12.99±)
$2.00: baseball bat, wooden, Louisville Slugger 225YB, Powerized (EV:$±3.96 Goodwill price tag±)
$2.00: GPS, Garmin Nuvi 780, ICG014055, FCC ID: IPH-01278 IC: 1792A-01278, 10R-023994 (EV:$±29.49±)
$2.00: component video cable for Wii, 62606 (EV:$±1.69±)
$2.00: game, Tic Tac Toe beanbag toss, purple, including 5 beanbags (EV:$±14.99±)
$2.00: Inflatable Gigaball, Item# 6119, production date 201209 (EV:$±59.98±)
$2.00: swing, black, Game Time (EV:$±14.19±)
$2.00: swing, green (EV:$±14.19±)
$2.00: phone, retro, 10 memory speaker telephone, 10.25x9.5", Spirit of St Louis Collection Telephone Hands Free Speaker Retro Look (EV:$14.58)
$2.00: radio controlled helicopter, Helizone FireBird, #41164, 3 Channel Metal Frame Coaxial Helicopter, with USB charger (EV:$19.99±) A broken one was thrown in for free as parts.
$2.00: ±Guitar Hero± guitar, Wii, 19 stickers, skull buttons (EV:$±10.20±)
$2.00: ±Guitar Hero± guitar, Wii, 20 stickers (EV:$±10.20±)
$1.00: comic book, Gene Simmons Dominatrix, Lesson 4, IDW www.idwpublishing.com (EV:$3.99 price tag)
$1.00: comic book, Gene Simmons Dominatrix, Lesson 5, IDW www.idwpublishing.com (EV:$3.99 price tag)
$1.00: comic book, Gene Simmons Dominatrix, Lesson 6, IDW www.idwpublishing.com (EV:$3.99 price tag)
$1.00: liquor bottle, airplane sized, Tia Maria, from Jamiaca (EV:$12.67 based on $38 for 3 )
$1.00: liquor bottle, The Eternal City's Precious Liqueur, Chatham Importing Co, NY, 11222 (EV:$12.67 based on $38 for 3 ±) www.chathamimports.com/sambuca.php
$1.00: liquor bottle, Queen's Castle, ±Blended± Scotch Whiskey, Brooks & Bohm (EV:$±12.67 based on $38 for 3 ±)
$1.00: liquor bottle, Grand Old Parr, ±Blended± Scotch Whiskey, 12 years old, MacDonald Greenlees LTD (EV:$±12.67 based on $38 for 3 ±)
$1.00: liquor bottle, Cheri-Suisse, Swiss Chocolate Cherry Liqueur (EV:$±12.67 based on $38 for 3 ±)
$1.00: liquor bottle, Vandermint Liqueur, Park Avenue Imports (EV:$±12.67 based on $38 for 3 ±)
$1.00: liquor bottle, Royal Chambord Liqueur, Pres Chamboro, France (EV:$±12.67 based on $38 for 3 ±), however (EV:$±7.09 for just the empty bottle±)
$1.00: liquor bottle, hoglano Enziein Crreme RSchmes, Anton RiemerSchmrs Munchen, Norddeutscher Lloyd Bremen (EV:$±12.67 based on $38 for 3±)
$1.00: wig, black with magenta streaks (EV:$±2.99±)
$1.00: plastic Grim Reaper ±scythe±, Rubie's Costume, 1994 (EV:$±5.40±)
$1.00: guitar, First Act Discovery, missing 3 strings, FG 186 [not FG 125], 31"±x10±" (EV:$1.04)
$0.50: action figure, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, Raphael, McDonald's, 2007, shell opens, 5.25x2.25" (EV:$±.50±)
$0.50: action figure, ±Avatar±, 2009, 4 joints, battery operated, but maybe the batteries are dead. 5" tall (EV:$3.33±)
$0.50: action figure, The Incredible Hulk, Burger King, 2008, 3x3.375" (EV:$3.94)
$0.50: action figure, Shrek, Princess Fiona, McDonald's, 4.25x5", 3 joints, on/off switch and speaker on back don't seem to work (EV:$±8.11±)
$0.50: action figure, ±Fantastic Four±, The Thing, Burger King, 2007, 5x4", 3 joints (EV:$4.99)
$0.50: stockings, fishnet, Music Legs, Style 973, black with rhinestones up the backseam (EV:$10.80)
$0.50: stockings, fishnet, Music Legs, Style 973, white with rhinestones up the backseam (EV:$10.80)
$0.50: stockings, fishnet, Music Legs, Style 973, red with rhinestones up the backseam (EV:$10.80)
$0.50: stud bracelet, Hot Topic (EV:$3.00)
$0.10: medical paper tape, Care One, 10yards (EV:$3.49)
$FREE: Indian feather headdress, 11 feathers, 2ft wide (EV:$8.00)
$FREE: coloring book, G.I. Joe, Undersea Mission, Marvel Books, 1987, 02488501045 (EV:$3.90)
$FREE: sticker book, Batman, DK (EV:$6.95 price tag)
$FREE: coloring book, Cartoon Network Cartoon Cartoons, (EV:$2.99 price tag)
$FREE: Wiimote silicon sleeve skin, black (EV:$1.77±) They asked for a dollar and when ±Carolyn± tried to talk them down to $0.50, she said to just take it because she didn't want coins.
$FREE: bubbles, Super Miracle Bubbles, Imperial, 100 fl oz, about 60% full, 076666213481 (EV:$±15.00 based on $4.00 for 16 fl oz±)
$FREE: speakers (2), Panasonic, Model No. SB-AK520, Part No NX0224, Serial no. TN4CB089299 (EV:$±18.00±)
$FREE: action figure, ±Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles±, Michaelangelo, McDonald's, 2007, 5 joints, twisty action when squeezed, 4.5x3.5"(EV:$±4.31±)
The eastern Sierra mountain range in California is loaded with epic backcountry zones. This shot was taken on the shoulder of Dunderberg Peak near Virginia Lakes. This was my first trip to High Sierra Snowcat and Yurt. They are taking reservations for the upcoming winter season highsierrasnowcat.com
Professor John Norman Collie FRSE FRS (10 September 1859 – 1 November 1942), commonly referred to as J. Norman Collie, was an English scientist, mountaineer and explorer.
He was born in Alderley Edge, Cheshire, the second of four sons to John Collie and Selina Mary Winkworth. In 1870 the family moved to Clifton, near Bristol, and John was educated initially at Windlesham in Surrey and then in 1873 at Charterhouse School. The family money had been made in the cotton trade, but in 1875 the American Civil War resulted in their financial ruin when their American stock was burnt. Collie had to leave Charterhouse and transfer to Clifton College, Bristol where he realised he was completely unsuited for the classics. He attended University College in Bristol and developed an interest in chemistry.
He earned a PhD in chemistry under Johannes Wislicenus at Würzburg in 1884. Returning to Britain, he taught three years at Cheltenham Ladies College where, according to his niece, "he was far from being a ladies' man and probably found that schoolgirls in bulk were rather more than he could stomach". He left to join University College London (UCL) as an assistant to William Ramsay. His early work was the study of phosphonium and phosphine derivatives and allied ammonium compounds. Later he made important contributions to the knowledge of dehydroacetic acid (then called dehydracetic acid), describing a number of very remarkable 'condensations,' whereby it is converted into pyridine, orcinol and naphthalene derivatives.
Collie served as Professor of Organic Chemistry at UCL from 1896 to 1913, and headed its chemistry department from 1913 to 1928. He performed important research that led to the taking of the first x-ray for diagnosing medical conditions. According to Bentley, Collie "worked with Ramsay on the inert gases, constructed the first neon lamp, proposed a dynamic structure for benzene, and discovered the first oxonium salt." The work on neon discharge lamps was conducted in 1909. The effect of glowing neon in contact with mercury was later sometimes called the Collier effect.
He was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society of Edinburgh in 1888. His proposers included Alexander Crum Brown and Edmund Albert Letts. He was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society in June 1896.
John Morton MacKenzie (1856–1933) was a Gaelic speaking crofter from Sconser on the Island of Skye and Britain’s first professional mountain guide.
As a teenager MacKenzie worked as a pony man for Sligachan Hotel helping tourists to visit Loch Coruisk. It is believed that he first climbed Sgùrr nan Gillean at the age of ten. At 14 he made the first known ascent of Sgùrr a' Ghreadaidh with a Mr Tribe. 1887 was a productive year for MacKenzie. He is credited with the first ascent of Am Basteir with the Irish climber Henry Hart with whom he traversed most of the main ridge in two days and made the first traverse of what is now called Collie’s ledge on Sgùrr MhicChoinnich. Recently there has been a tendency to call this feature Hart's Ledge He was involved in the second ascent of the steep western side of the Inaccessible Pinnacle followed by first ascents of Sgùrr Thearlaich and Sgùrr Mhic Choinnich, a peak which was later named after him; its name being Gaelic for MacKenzie’s Peak.
When he met Norman Collie in 1886, and provided him with information on the route up Sgùrr nan Gillean, he was already an established guide. Thereafter he regularly climbed with Collie, exploring the remote, wild and largely unmapped Skye Cuillin. A strong bond of friendship developed between them. Neither seems to have been unduly interested in making money. They shared an urge to climb and explore and, as they grew older, their mutual love of fishing became increasingly important. Collie seems to have been the partner who could envisage the climbing line, while MacKenzie was normally the lead climber. Friendships across class boundaries were relatively uncommon at this time and it may have helped that both men were possessed of a deep sense of humanity.
The list of their achievements together is impressive. In 1891 they succeeded in crossing the Tearlach- Dubh gap, arguably technically the most difficult problem on the main ridge. In 1896 they made the first ascent of the outlying Sgùrr Coir’ an Lochain, probably the last summit in Britain to be climbed. Collie’s 1899 discovery of the Cioch, a remarkable rock feature on the Coire Lagan flank of Sron na Ciche was followed by his first ascent of it with MacKenzie in 1906. Since then this Skye landmark has featured in movies such as ‘’Highlander’’. In the 1997 BBC TV series on Scottish climbing, The Edge, Collie and MacKenzie's exploits were re-enacted by Alan Kimber (Collie) and John Lyall (MacKenzie)
Ken Crocket quotes Sheriff G.D. Valentine “The stalker’s cap, the loose jacket and the knickerbockers, which he wore suited the man; they seemed to grow out of him. He had the characteristics of the Highlander; the courtesy joined to self respect that are the heritage of the clans. His accent to the end smacked of the Gaelic speaker. His features were strong and embrowned by weather. He wore the old style of short beard, whiskers and moustache. Always alert, always cheerful, he was the perfect companion, but it was when the mist came swirling down on the wet rocks that his true worth was known.” [10] Crocket notes that in his career MacKenzie must have guided thousands of tourists and climbers without one recorded accident, a remarkable achievement for anyone working in such an unforgiving environment, arguably Britain’s most challenging range of hills. His achievements were recognised by the Alpine Club who made him something akin to an honorary member and mailed him their journal. MacKenzie never climbed outside Scotland.
Like Collie, John MacKenzie never married; living with two spinster sisters, a niece and a nephew on his croft where he built a house in 1912 from his income from guiding.
John MacKenzie died in 1933 at the age of 76. He is buried in the grave yard of Bracadale Free Church at Struan by Loch Harport on the west side of the island. Norman Collie wrote his obituary in the Scottish Mountaineering Club Journal. Collie himself died in 1942 and, in keeping with his wishes, was buried beside his great friend.
A ten-year project to raise £320,000 of funding to erect a bronze statue and memorial to John MacKenzie and Norman Collie on Skye was expected to be realised in 2017. Designed by sculptor, Stephen Tinney, it was positioned and unveiled on a rocky knoll opposite the Sligachan Hotel, overlooking the Cuillin Hills in Sept 2020.
Sligachan is a small settlement on Skye, Scotland. It is close to the Cuillin mountains and provides a good viewpoint for seeing the Black Cuillin mountains.
Sligachan is situated at the junction of the roads from Portree, Dunvegan, and Broadford. The hotel was built at this road junction around 1830. Many early climbers chose this as a spot to start ascents of the Cuillin. Today there is also a campsite and bunkhouse adjacent to the hotel. There is also a small microbrewery which is operated in the same building as the hotel.
Tradition has it that the Lord of the Isles attacked Skye in 1395, but William MacLeod met the MacDonalds at Sligachan and drove them back to Loch Eynort (Ainort). There they found that their galleys had been moved offshore by the MacAskills and every invader was killed. The spoils were divided at Creag an Fheannaidh ('Rock of the Flaying') or Creggan ni feavigh ('Rock of the Spoil'), sometimes identified with the Bloody Stone in Harta Corrie below the heights of Sgurr nan Gillean.
The Sligachan Old Bridge was built between 1810 and 1818 by engineer Thomas Telford. The bridge is for pedestrians and cyclists only following construction of a new road bridge parallel to it on the A87. It was listed as a Category B and scheduled in 1971 and 1974, respectively. Historic Environment Scotland de-scheduled the bridge in 2016 (the listing remains in place).
The Isle of Skye, is the largest and northernmost of the major islands in the Inner Hebrides of Scotland. The island's peninsulas radiate from a mountainous hub dominated by the Cuillin, the rocky slopes of which provide some of the most dramatic mountain scenery in the country. Although Sgitheanach has been suggested to describe a winged shape, no definitive agreement exists as to the name's origins.
The island has been occupied since the Mesolithic period, and over its history has been occupied at various times by Celtic tribes including the Picts and the Gaels, Scandinavian Vikings, and most notably the powerful integrated Norse-Gaels clans of MacLeod and MacDonald. The island was considered to be under Norwegian suzerainty until the 1266 Treaty of Perth, which transferred control over to Scotland. The 18th-century Jacobite risings led to the breaking-up of the clan system and later clearances that replaced entire communities with sheep farms, some of which involved forced emigrations to distant lands. Resident numbers declined from over 20,000 in the early 19th century to just under 9,000 by the closing decade of the 20th century. Skye's population increased by 4% between 1991 and 2001. About a third of the residents were Gaelic speakers in 2001, and although their numbers are in decline, this aspect of island culture remains important.
The main industries are tourism, agriculture, fishing, and forestry. Skye is part of the Highland Council local government area. The island's largest settlement is Portree, which is also its capital, known for its picturesque harbour. Links to various nearby islands by ferry are available, and since 1995, to the mainland by a road bridge. The climate is mild, wet, and windy. The abundant wildlife includes the golden eagle, red deer, and Atlantic salmon. The local flora is dominated by heather moor, and nationally important invertebrate populations live on the surrounding sea bed. Skye has provided the locations for various novels and feature films, and is celebrated in poetry and song.
A Mesolithic hunter-gatherer site dating to the seventh millennium BC at An Corran in Staffin is one of the oldest archaeological sites in Scotland. Its occupation is probably linked to that of the rock shelter at Sand, Applecross, on the mainland coast of Wester Ross, where tools made of a mudstone from An Corran have been found. Surveys of the area between the two shores of the Inner Sound and Sound of Raasay have revealed 33 sites with potentially Mesolithic deposits. Finds of bloodstone microliths on the foreshore at Orbost on the west coast of the island near Dunvegan also suggest Mesolithic occupation. These tools probably originated from the nearby island of Rùm. Similarly, bloodstone from Rum, and baked mudstone, from the Staffin area, were found at the Mesolithic site of Camas Daraich, also from the seventh millennium BC, on the Point of Sleat, which has led archaeologists to believe that Mesolithic people on Skye would travel fairly significant distances, at least 70 km, both by land and sea.
Rubha an Dùnain, an uninhabited peninsula to the south of the Cuillin, has a variety of archaeological sites dating from the Neolithic onwards. A second- or third-millennium BC chambered cairn, an Iron Age promontory fort, and the remains of another prehistoric settlement dating from the Bronze Age are nearby. Loch na h-Airde on the peninsula is linked to the sea by an artificial "Viking" canal that may date from the later period of Norse settlement. Dun Ringill is a ruined Iron Age hill fort on the Strathaird Peninsula, which was further fortified in the Middle Ages and may have become the seat of Clan MacKinnon.
The late Iron Age inhabitants of the northern and western Hebrides were probably Pictish, although the historical record is sparse. Three Pictish symbol stones have been found on Skye and a fourth on Raasay. More is known of the kingdom of Dál Riata to the south; Adomnán's life of Columba, written shortly before 697, portrays the saint visiting Skye (where he baptised a pagan leader using an interpreter) and Adomnán himself is thought to have been familiar with the island. The Irish annals record a number of events on Skye in the later seventh and early eighth centuries – mainly concerning the struggles between rival dynasties that formed the background to the Old Irish language romance Scéla Cano meic Gartnáin.
Legendary hero Cú Chulainn is said to have trained on the Isle of Skye with warrior woman Scáthach.
The Norse held sway throughout the Hebrides from the 9th century until after the Treaty of Perth in 1266. However, apart from placenames, little remains of their presence on Skye in the written or archaeological record. Apart from the name "Skye" itself, all pre-Norse placenames seem to have been obliterated by the Scandinavian settlers. Viking heritage, with Celtic heritage is claimed by Clan MacLeod. Norse tradition is celebrated in the winter fire festival at Dunvegan, during which a replica Viking long boat is set alight.
The most powerful clans on Skye in the post–Norse period were Clan MacLeod, originally based in Trotternish, and Clan Macdonald of Sleat. The isle was held by Donald Macdonald, Lord of the Isles’ half-brother, Godfrey, from 1389 until 1401, at which time Skye was declared part of Ross. When the Donald Macdonald, Lord of the Isles, re-gained Ross after the battle of Harlaw in 1411, they added "Earl of Ross" to their lords' titles. Skye came with Ross.
Following the disintegration of the Lordship of the Isles, Clan Mackinnon also emerged as an independent clan, whose substantial landholdings in Skye were centred on Strathaird. Clan MacNeacail also have a long association with Trotternish, and in the 16th century many of the MacInnes clan moved to Sleat. The MacDonalds of South Uist were bitter rivals of the MacLeods, and an attempt by the former to murder church-goers at Trumpan in retaliation for a previous massacre on Eigg, resulted in the Battle of the Spoiling Dyke of 1578.
After the failure of the Jacobite rebellion of 1745, Flora MacDonald became famous for rescuing Prince Charles Edward Stuart from the Hanoverian troops. Although she was born on South Uist, her story is strongly associated with their escape via Skye, and she is buried at Kilmuir in Trotternish. Samuel Johnson and James Boswell's visit to Skye in 1773 and their meeting with Flora MacDonald in Kilmuir is recorded in Boswell's The Journal of a Tour to the Hebrides. Boswell wrote, "To see Dr Samuel Johnson, the great champion of the English Tories, salute Miss Flora MacDonald in the isle of Sky, was a striking sight; for though somewhat congenial in their notions, it was very improbable they should meet here". Johnson's words that Flora MacDonald was "A name that will be mentioned in history, and if courage and fidelity be virtues, mentioned with honour" are written on her gravestone. After this rebellion, the clan system was broken up and Skye became a series of landed estates.
Of the island in general, Johnson observed:
I never was in any house of the islands, where I did not find books in more languages than one, if I staid long enough to want them, except one from which the family was removed. Literature is not neglected by the higher rank of the Hebrideans. It need not, I suppose, be mentioned, that in countries so little frequented as the islands, there are no houses where travellers are entertained for money. He that wanders about these wilds, either procures recommendations to those whose habitations lie near his way, or, when night and weariness come upon him, takes the chance of general hospitality. If he finds only a cottage he can expect little more than shelter; for the cottagers have little more for themselves but if his good fortune brings him to the residence of a gentleman, he will be glad of a storm to prolong his stay. There is, however, one inn by the sea-side at Sconsor, in Sky, where the post-office is kept.
— Samuel Johnson, A Journey to the Western Islands of Scotland.
Skye has a rich heritage of ancient monuments from this period. Dunvegan Castle has been the seat of Clan MacLeod since the 13th century. It contains the Fairy Flag and is reputed to have been inhabited by a single family for longer than any other house in Scotland. The 18th-century Armadale Castle, once home of Clan Donald of Sleat, was abandoned as a residence in 1925, but now hosts the Clan Donald Centre. Nearby are the ruins of two more MacDonald strongholds, Knock Castle, and Dunscaith Castle (called "Fortress of Shadows"), the legendary home of warrior woman, martial arts instructor (and, according to some sources, Queen) Scáthach. Caisteal Maol, a fortress built in the late 15th century near Kyleakin and once a seat of Clan MacKinnon, is another ruin.
In the late 18th century the harvesting of kelp became a significant activity, but from 1822 onward cheap imports led to a collapse of this industry throughout the Hebrides. During the 19th century, the inhabitants of Skye were also devastated by famine and Clearances. Thirty thousand people were evicted between 1840 and 1880 alone, many of them forced to emigrate to the New World. The "Battle of the Braes" involved a demonstration against a lack of access to land and the serving of eviction notices. The incident involved numerous crofters and about 50 police officers. This event was instrumental in the creation of the Napier Commission, which reported in 1884 on the situation in the Highlands. Disturbances continued until the passing of the 1886 Crofters' Act and on one occasion 400 marines were deployed on Skye to maintain order. The ruins of cleared villages can still be seen at Lorgill, Boreraig and Suisnish in Strath Swordale, and Tusdale on Minginish.
As with many Scottish islands, Skye's population peaked in the 19th century and then declined under the impact of the Clearances and the military losses in the First World War. From the 19th century until 1975 Skye was part of the county of Inverness-shire, but the crofting economy languished and according to Slesser, "Generations of UK governments have treated the island people contemptuously" --a charge that has been levelled at both Labour and Conservative administrations' policies in the Highlands and Islands. By 1971 the population was less than a third of its peak recorded figure in 1841. However, the number of residents then grew by over 28 percent in the thirty years to 2001. The changing relationship between the residents and the land is evidenced by Robert Carruthers's remark c. 1852, "There is now a village in Portree containing three hundred inhabitants." Even if this estimate is inexact the population of the island's largest settlement has probably increased sixfold or more since then. During the period the total number of island residents has declined by 50 percent or more. The island-wide population increase of 4 percent between 1991 and 2001 occurred against the background of an overall reduction in Scottish island populations of 3 percent for the same period. By 2011 the population had risen a further 8.4% to 10,008 with Scottish island populations as a whole growing by 4% to 103,702.
Historically, Skye was overwhelmingly Gaelic-speaking, but this changed between 1921 and 2001. In both the 1901 and 1921 censuses, all Skye parishes were more than 75 percent Gaelic-speaking. By 1971, only Kilmuir parish had more than three-quarters of Gaelic speakers while the rest of Skye ranged between 50 and 74 percent. At that time, Kilmuir was the only area outside the Western Isles that had such a high proportion of Gaelic speakers. In the 2001 census Kilmuir had just under half Gaelic speakers, and overall, Skye had 31 percent, distributed unevenly. The strongest Gaelic areas were in the north and southwest of the island, including Staffin at 61 percent. The weakest areas were in the west and east (e.g. Luib 23 percent and Kylerhea 19 percent). Other areas on Skye ranged between 48 percent and 25 percent.
In terms of local government, from 1975 to 1996, Skye, along with the neighbouring mainland area of Lochalsh, constituted a local government district within the Highland administrative area. In 1996 the district was included in the unitary Highland Council, (Comhairle na Gàidhealtachd) based in Inverness and formed one of the new council's area committees. Following the 2007 elections, Skye now forms a four-member ward called Eilean a' Cheò; it is currently represented by two independents, one Scottish National Party, and one Liberal Democrat councillor.
Skye is in the Highlands and Islands electoral region and comprises a part of the Skye, Lochaber and Badenoch constituency of the Scottish Parliament, which elects one member under the first past the post basis to represent it. Kate Forbes is the current MSP for the SNP. In addition, Skye forms part of the wider Ross, Skye and Lochaber constituency, which elects one member to the House of Commons in Westminster. The present MP Member of Parliament is Ian Blackford of the Scottish National Party, who took office after the SNP's sweep in the General Election of 2015. Before this, Charles Kennedy, a Liberal Democrat, had represented the area since the 1983 general election.
The ruins of an old building sit on top of a prominent hillock that overlooks a pier attended by fishing boats.
Caisteal Maol and fishing boats in Kyleakin harbour
The largest employer on the island and its environs is the public sector, which accounts for about a third of the total workforce, principally in administration, education, and health. The second-largest employer in the area is the distribution, hotels, and restaurants sector, highlighting the importance of tourism. Key attractions include Dunvegan Castle, the Clan Donald Visitor Centre, and The Aros Experience arts and exhibition centre in Portree. There are about a dozen large landowners on Skye, the largest being the public sector, with the Scottish Government owning most of the northern part of the island. Glendale is a community-owned estate in Duirinish, and the Sleat Community Trust, the local development trust, is active in various regeneration projects.
Small firms dominate employment in the private sector. The Talisker Distillery, which produces a single malt whisky, is beside Loch Harport on the west coast of the island. Torabhaig distillery located in Teangue opened in 2017 and also produces whisky. Three other whiskies—Mac na Mara ("son of the sea"), Tè Bheag nan Eilean ("wee dram of the isles") and Poit Dhubh ("black pot")—are produced by blender Pràban na Linne ("smugglers den by the Sound of Sleat"), based at Eilean Iarmain. These are marketed using predominantly Gaelic-language labels. The blended whisky branded as "Isle of Skye" is produced not on the island but by the Glengoyne Distillery at Killearn north of Glasgow, though the website of the owners, Ian Macleod Distillers Ltd., boasts a "high proportion of Island malts" and contains advertisements for tourist businesses in the island. There is also an established software presence on Skye, with Portree-based Sitekit having expanded in recent years.
Some of the places important to the economy of Skye
Crofting is still important, but although there are about 2,000 crofts on Skye only 100 or so are large enough to enable a crofter to earn a livelihood entirely from the land. In recent years, families have complained about the increasing prices for land that make it difficult for young people to start their own crofts.
Cod and herring stocks have declined but commercial fishing remains important, especially fish farming of salmon and crustaceans such as scampi. The west coast of Scotland has a considerable renewable energy potential and the Isle of Skye Renewables Co-op has recently bought a stake in the Ben Aketil wind farm near Dunvegan. There is a thriving arts and crafts sector.
The unemployment rate in the area tends to be higher than in the Highlands as a whole, and is seasonal, in part due to the impact of tourism. The population is growing and in common with many other scenic rural areas in Scotland, significant increases are expected in the percentage of the population aged 45 to 64 years.
The restrictions required by the worldwide pandemic increased unemployment in the Highlands and Islands in the summer of 2020 to 5.7%; which was significantly higher than the 2.4 percent in 2019. The rates were said to be highest in "Lochaber, Skye and Wester Ross and Argyll and the Islands". A December 2020 report stated that between March (just before the effects of pandemic were noted) and December, the unemployment rate in the region increased by "more than 97%" and suggested that the outlook was even worse for spring 2021.
A report published in mid-2020 indicated that visitors to Skye added £211 million in 2019 to the island's economy before travel restrictions were imposed because of the COVID-19 pandemic. The report added that "Skye and Raasay attracted 650,000 visitors [in 2018] and supported 2,850 jobs". The government estimated that tourism in Scotland would decline by over 50% as a result of the pandemic. "Skye is highly vulnerable to the downturn in international visitors that will continue for much of 2020 and beyond", Professor John Lennon of Glasgow Caledonian University told a reporter in July 2020.
Tourism in the Highlands and Islands was negatively impacted by the pandemic, the effects of which continued into 2021. A September 2020 report stated that the region "has been disproportionately impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic to date when compared to Scotland and the UK as a whole". The industry required short-term support for "business survival and recovery" and that was expected to continue as the sector was "severely impacted for as long as physical distancing and travel restrictions". A scheme called Island Equivalent was introduced by the Scottish government in early 2021 to financially assist hospitality and retail businesses "affected by Level 3 coronavirus restrictions". Previous schemes in 2020 included the Strategic Framework Business Fund and the Coronavirus Business Support Fund.
Before the pandemic, during the summer of 2017, islanders complained about an excessive number of tourists, which was causing overcrowding in popular locations such as Glen Brittle, the Neist Point lighthouse, the Quiraing, and the Old Man of Storr. "Skye is buckling under the weight of increased tourism this year", said the operator of a self-catering cottage; the problem was most significant at "the key iconic destinations, like the Old Man of Storr and the Quiraing", he added. Chris Taylor of VisitScotland sympathised with the concerns and said that the agency was working on a long-term solution. "But the benefits to Skye of bringing in international visitors and increased spending are huge," he added.
An article published in 2020 confirmed that (before the pandemic), the Talisker Distillery and Dunvegan Castle were still overcrowded in peak periods; other areas where parking was a problem due to large crowds included "the Old Man of Storr, Kilt Rock, the Quiraing, the Fairy Pools, and Neist Point. This source also stated that Portree was "the busiest place on the island" during peak periods and suggested that some tourists might prefer accommodations in quieter areas such as "Dunvegan, Kyleakin and the Broadford and Breakish area".
Skye is linked to the mainland by the Skye Bridge, while ferries sail from Armadale on the island to Mallaig, and from Kylerhea to Glenelg, crossing the Kyle Rhea strait on the MV Glenachulish, the last turntable ferry in the world. Turntable ferries had been common on the west coast of Scotland because they do not require much infrastructure to operate, a boat ramp will suffice. Ferries also run from Uig to Tarbert on Harris and Lochmaddy on North Uist, and from Sconser to Raasay.
The Skye Bridge opened in 1995 under a private finance initiative and the high tolls charged (£5.70 each way for summer visitors) met with widespread opposition, spearheaded by the pressure group SKAT (Skye and Kyle Against Tolls). On 21 December 2004, it was announced that the Scottish Executive had purchased the bridge from its owners and the tolls were immediately removed.
Bus services run to Inverness and Glasgow, and there are local services on the island, mainly starting from Portree or Broadford. Train services run from Kyle of Lochalsh at the mainland end of the Skye Bridge to Inverness, as well as from Glasgow to Mallaig from where the ferry can be caught to Armadale.
The island's airfield at Ashaig, near Broadford, is used by private aircraft and occasionally by NHS Highland and the Scottish Ambulance Service for transferring patients to hospitals on the mainland.
The A87 trunk road traverses the island from the Skye Bridge to Uig, linking most of the major settlements. Many of the island's roads have been widened in the past forty years although there are still substantial sections of single-track road.
A modern 3 story building with a prominent frontage of numerous windows and constructed from a white material curves gently away from a green lawn in the foreground. In the background there is a tall white tower of a similar construction.
Students of Scottish Gaelic travel from all over the world to attend Sabhal Mòr Ostaig, the Scottish Gaelic college based near Kilmore in Sleat. In addition to members of the Church of Scotland and a smaller number of Roman Catholics, many residents of Skye belong to the Free Church of Scotland, known for its strict observance of the Sabbath.
Skye has a strong folk music tradition, although in recent years dance and rock music have been growing in popularity on the island. Gaelic folk rock band Runrig started in Skye and former singer Donnie Munro still works on the island. Runrig's second single and a concert staple is entitled Skye, the lyrics being partly in English and partly in Gaelic and they have released other songs such as "Nightfall on Marsco" that were inspired by the island. Ex-Runrig member Blair Douglas, a highly regarded accordionist, and composer in his own right was born on the island and is still based there to this day. Celtic fusion band the Peatbog Faeries are based on Skye. Jethro Tull singer Ian Anderson owned an estate at Strathaird on Skye at one time. Several Tull songs are written about Skye, including Dun Ringil, Broadford Bazaar, and Acres Wild (which contains the lines "Come with me to the Winged Isle, / Northern father's western child..." about the island itself). The Isle of Skye Music Festival featured sets from The Fun Lovin' Criminals and Sparks, but collapsed in 2007. Electronic musician Mylo was born on Skye.
The poet Sorley MacLean, a native of the Isle of Raasay, which lies off the island's east coast, lived much of his life on Skye. The island has been immortalised in the traditional song "The Skye Boat Song" and is the notional setting for the novel To the Lighthouse by Virginia Woolf, although the Skye of the novel bears little relation to the real island. John Buchan's descriptions of Skye, as featured in his Richard Hannay novel Mr Standfast, are more true to life. I Diari di Rubha Hunis is a 2004 Italian language work of non-fiction by Davide Sapienza [it]. The international bestseller, The Ice Twins, by S K Tremayne, published around the world in 2015–2016, is set in southern Skye, especially around the settlement and islands of Isleornsay.
Skye has been used as a location for several feature films. The Ashaig aerodrome was used for the opening scenes of the 1980 film Flash Gordon. Stardust, released in 2007 and starring Robert De Niro and Michelle Pfeiffer, featured scenes near Uig, Loch Coruisk and the Quiraing. Another 2007 film, Seachd: The Inaccessible Pinnacle, was shot almost entirely in various locations on the island. The Justin Kurzel adaption of Macbeth starring Michael Fassbender was also filmed on the Island. Some of the opening scenes in Ridley Scott's 2012 feature film Prometheus were shot and set at the Old Man of Storr. In 1973 The Highlands and Islands - a Royal Tour, a documentary about Prince Charles's visit to the Highlands and Islands, directed by Oscar Marzaroli, was shot partly on Skye. Scenes from the Scottish Gaelic-language BBC Alba television series Bannan were filmed on the island.
The West Highland Free Press is published at Broadford. This weekly newspaper takes as its motto An Tìr, an Cànan 's na Daoine ("The Land, the Language, and the People"), which reflects its radical, campaigning priorities. The Free Press was founded in 1972 and circulates in Skye, Wester Ross, and the Outer Hebrides. Shinty is a popular sport played throughout the island and Portree-based Skye Camanachd won the Camanachd Cup in 1990. The local radio station Radio Skye is a community based station that broadcast local news and entertainment to the Isle Of Skye and Loch Alsh on 106.2 FM and 102.7 FM.
Whilst Skye had unofficial flags in the past, including the popular "Bratach nan Daoine" (Flag of the People) design which represented the Cuillins in sky blue against a white sky symbolising the Gaelic language, land struggle, and the fairy flag of Dunvegan, the Island received its first official flag "Bratach an Eilein" (The Skye Flag) approved by the Lord Lyon after a public vote in August 2020. The design by Calum Alasdair Munro reflects the Island's Gaelic heritage, the Viking heritage, and the history of Flora MacDonald. The flag has a birlinn in the canton, and there are five oars representing the five areas of Skye, Trotternish, Waternish, Duirinish, Minginish, and Sleat. Yellow represents the MacLeods, and Blue the MacDonalds or the MacKinnons.
The Hebrides generally lack the biodiversity of mainland Britain, but like most of the larger islands, Skye still has a wide variety of species. Observing the abundance of game birds Martin wrote:
There is plenty of land and water fowl in this isle—as hawks, eagles of two kinds (the one grey and of a larger size, the other much less and black, but more destructive to young cattle), black cock, heath-hen, plovers, pigeons, wild geese, ptarmigan, and cranes. Of this latter sort I have seen sixty on the shore in a flock together. The sea fowls are malls of all kinds—coulterneb, guillemot, sea cormorant, &c. The natives observe that the latter, if perfectly black, makes no good broth, nor is its flesh worth eating; but that a cormorant, which hath any white feathers or down, makes good broth, and the flesh of it is good food; and the broth is usually drunk by nurses to increase their milk.
— Martin Martin, A Description of The Western Islands of Scotland.
Similarly, Samuel Johnson noted that:
At the tables where a stranger is received, neither plenty nor delicacy is wanting. A tract of land so thinly inhabited must have much wild-fowl; and I scarcely remember to have seen a dinner without them. The moor-game is every where to be had. That the sea abounds with fish, needs not be told, for it supplies a great part of Europe. The Isle of Sky has stags and roebucks, but no hares. They sell very numerous droves of oxen yearly to England, and therefore cannot be supposed to want beef at home. Sheep and goats are in great numbers, and they have the common domestic fowls."
— Samuel Johnson, A Journey to the Western Islands of Scotland.
A black sea bird with a black beak, red feet and a prominent white flash on its wing sits on a shaped stone. The stone is partially covered with moss and grass and there is an indistinct outline of a grey stone wall and water body in the background.
In the modern era avian life includes the corncrake, red-throated diver, kittiwake, tystie, Atlantic puffin, goldeneye and golden eagle. The eggs of the last breeding pair of white-tailed sea eagle in the UK were taken by an egg collector on Skye in 1916 but the species has recently been re-introduced. The chough last bred on the island in 1900. Mountain hare (apparently absent in the 18th century) and rabbit are now abundant and preyed upon by wild cat and pine marten. The rich fresh water streams contain brown trout, Atlantic salmon and water shrew. Offshore the edible crab and edible oyster are also found, the latter especially in the Sound of Scalpay. There are nationally important horse mussel and brittlestar beds in the sea lochs and in 2012 a bed of 100 million flame shells was found during a survey of Loch Alsh. Grey Seals can be seen off the Southern coast.
Heather moor containing ling, bell heather, cross-leaved heath, bog myrtle and fescues is everywhere abundant. The high Black Cuillins weather too slowly to produce soil that sustains a rich plant life, but each of the main peninsulas has an individual flora. The basalt underpinnings of Trotternish produce a diversity of Arctic and alpine plants including alpine pearlwort and mossy cyphal. The low-lying fields of Waternish contain corn marigold and corn spurry. The sea cliffs of Duirinish boast mountain avens and fir clubmoss. Minginish produces fairy flax, cats-ear, and black bog rush. There is a fine example of Brachypodium-rich ash woodland at Tokavaig in Sleat incorporating silver birch, hazel, bird cherry, and hawthorn.
The local Biodiversity Action Plan recommends land management measures to control the spread of ragwort and bracken and identifies four non-native, invasive species as threatening native biodiversity: Japanese knotweed, rhododendron, New Zealand flatworm and mink. It also identifies problems of over-grazing resulting in the impoverishment of moorland and upland habitats and a loss of native woodland, caused by the large numbers of red deer and sheep.
In 2020 Clan MacLeod chief Hugh MacLeod announced a plan to reintroduce 370,000 native trees along with beaver and red squirrel populations to the clan estates on Skye, to restore a "wet desert" landscape which had depleted from years of overgrazing.
I have just returned from a lovely trip to Gleneagles for Christmas with my son and his family. Hope everyone had a great Christmas and have a super New Year.
This was the best day and I visited this lovely Loch about 20 miles from Gleneagles. Lee .6 soft grad
Their beaks are impressive- The multic-coloured beaks that the puffins sport for the mating seasons have, in some parts of the world, earned them the nickname of sea parrot or even sea clown.
Thank you so much for visiting my stream, whether you comments , favorites or just have a look.
I appreciate it very much, wishing the best of luck and good light.
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this little eider was being fed bread on the beach (not by me i hasten to add)
they were all running about in the seaweed, this little chap looked quite pleased with the crust he bagged
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Amroth is a village, parish and community 7 miles (11 km) northeast of Tenby, Pembrokeshire, Wales. Located on Carmarthen Bay, Amroth is noted for its long sandy beach which stretches the length of the village. It regularly earns a Blue Flag award. and is the south-to-north start of the Pembrokeshire Coast Path. Amroth is within the Pembrokeshire Coast National Park.
The name is Welsh, and probably means "on (the brook called) Rhath".
The beach stretches the whole length of the village and at extreme low tide, the petrified forest, destroyed when sea levels rose 7,000 years ago, can still be seen. Fossilised antlers, nuts and animal bones and Neolithic flints have been discovered.
The parish, which appeared as Amrath on a 1578 parish map of Pembrokeshire, was an important anthracite coal mining area until the end of the 19th century. Slight remains of mines and tramways are still visible. Ruins of Amroth Castle still remain, and one mile inland is the Anglican parish church of St Elidyr, which is a grade II* listed building.
Amroth Castle stands on the north side of the unclassified coast road east of the village of Amroth. It is surrounded by a high wall with an entrance archway at the south-western corner. The present building is a 19th-century country house built in the style of a mock castle which possibly replaced a small stone castle dating from the 12th century. The gatehouse is much restored. The ruinous remains of the house are a grade I listed building.
After passing through several hands the castle was used as a lunatic asylum in the 1850s. Converted back to a private house in the 1880s it was later owned and occupied by Owen Colby Philipps, the shipping magnate who bought the White Star Line and was created Baron Kylsant of Carmarthen and Amroth in 1923. It passed to his daughter Nesta, who had married George Coventry, grandson of the 9th Earl of Coventry. They moved out in 1930 when George inherited the Coventry title and estates.
The Pembrokeshire Coast Path runs west along the coast from its start at Amroth. This national trail has since 2012 also formed a part of the Wales Coast Path which continues eastwards from Amroth over the headland of Telpyn Point towards Pendine. Amroth is also the southern terminus of the Knights' Way, which runs north to St Davids Cathedral. A section of the Cistercian Way also passes through.
Amroth is an electoral ward and a community in Pembrokeshire, which includes Amroth, Crunwere, Summerhill, Stepaside, Pleasant Valley, Wisemans Bridge, Llanteg and Llanteglos. The ward elects a councillor to Pembrokeshire County Council and up to twelve community councillors to Amroth Community Council.
The beach which stretches the length of the village earned a Blue Flag award in 2020 and the eastern end has had a lifeguard for part of the summer. Public toilets are available at either ends of the village. The main car park is managed by Pembrokeshire Coast National Park Authority.
Pembrokeshire is a county in the south-west of Wales. It is bordered by Carmarthenshire to the east, Ceredigion to the northeast, and is otherwise surrounded by the sea. Haverfordwest is the largest town and administrative headquarters of Pembrokeshire County Council.
The county is generally sparsely populated and rural, with an area of 200 square miles (520 km2) and a population of 123,400. After Haverfordwest, the largest settlements are Milford Haven (13,907), Pembroke Dock (9,753), and Pembroke (7,552). St Davids (1,841) is a city, the smallest by population in the UK. Welsh is spoken by 17.2 percent of the population, and for historic reasons is more widely spoken in the north of the county than in the south.
Pembrokeshire's coast is its most dramatic geographic feature, created by the complex geology of the area. It is a varied landscape which includes high sea cliffs, wide sandy beaches, the large natural harbour of Milford Haven, and several offshore islands which are home to seabird colonies. Most of it is protected by Pembrokeshire Coast National Park, and can be hiked on the 190-mile (310 km) Pembrokeshire Coast Path. The interior of Pembrokeshire is relatively flat and gently undulating, with the exception of the Preseli Mountains in the north.
There are many prehistoric sites in Pembrokeshire, particularly in the Preseli Mountains. During the Middle Ages several castles were built by the Normans, such as Pembroke and Cilgerran, and St David's Cathedral became an important pilgrimage site. During the Industrial Revolution the county remained relatively rural, with the exception of Milford Haven, which was developed as a port and Royal Navy dockyard. It is now the UK's third-largest port, primarily because of its two liquefied natural gas terminals. The economy of the county is now focused on agriculture, oil and gas, and tourism.
Human habitation of the region that is now Pembrokeshire extends back to between 125,000 and 70,000 years and there are numerous prehistoric sites such as Pentre Ifan, and neolithic remains (12,000 to 6,500 years ago), more of which were revealed in an aerial survey during the 2018 heatwave; in the same year, a 1st-century Celtic chariot burial was discovered, the first such find in Wales. There may have been dairy farming in Neolithic times.
There is little evidence of Roman occupation in what is now Pembrokeshire. Ptolemy's Geography, written c. 150, mentioned some coastal places, two of which have been identified as the River Teifi and what is now St Davids Head, but most Roman writers did not mention the area; there may have been a Roman settlement near St Davids and a road from Bath, but this comes from a 14th-century writer. Any evidence for villas or Roman building materials reported by mediaeval or later writers has not been verified, though some remains near Dale were tentatively identified as Roman in character by topographer Richard Fenton in his Historical Tour of 1810. Fenton stated that he had "...reason to be of opinion that they had not colonized Pembrokeshire till near the decline of their empire in Britain".
Part of a possible Roman road is noted by CADW near Llanddewi Velfrey, and another near Wiston. Wiston is also the location of the first Roman fort discovered in Pembrokeshire, investigated in 2013.
Some artefacts, including coins and weapons, have been found, but it is not clear whether these belonged to Romans or to a Romanised population. Welsh tradition has it that Magnus Maximus founded Haverfordwest, and took a large force of local men on campaign in Gaul in 383 which, together with the reduction of Roman forces in south Wales, left a defensive vacuum which was filled by incomers from Ireland.
Between 350 and 400, an Irish tribe known as the Déisi settled in the region known to the Romans as Demetae. The Déisi merged with the local Welsh, with the regional name underlying Demetae evolving into Dyfed, which existed as an independent petty kingdom from the 5th century. In 904, Hywel Dda married Elen (died 943), daughter of the king of Dyfed Llywarch ap Hyfaidd, and merged Dyfed with his own maternal inheritance of Seisyllwg, forming the new realm of Deheubarth ("southern district"). Between the Roman and Norman periods, the region was subjected to raids from Vikings, who established settlements and trading posts at Haverfordwest, Fishguard, Caldey Island and elsewhere.
Dyfed remained an integral province of Deheubarth, but this was contested by invading Normans and Flemings who arrived between 1067 and 1111. The region became known as Pembroke (sometimes archaic "Penbroke":), after the Norman castle built in the cantref of Penfro. In 1136, Prince Owain Gwynedd at Crug Mawr near Cardigan met and destroyed a 3,000-strong Norman/Flemish army and incorporated Deheubarth into Gwynedd. Norman/Flemish influence never fully recovered in West Wales. In 1138, the county of Pembrokeshire was named as a county palatine. Rhys ap Gruffydd, the son of Owain Gwynedd's daughter Gwenllian, re-established Welsh control over much of the region and threatened to retake all of Pembrokeshire, but died in 1197. After Deheubarth was split by a dynastic feud, Llywelyn the Great almost succeeded in retaking the region of Pembroke between 1216 and his death in 1240. In 1284 the Statute of Rhuddlan was enacted to introduce the English common law system to Wales, heralding 100 years of peace, but had little effect on those areas already established under the Marcher Lords, such as Cemais in the north of the county.
Henry Tudor, born at Pembroke Castle in 1457, landed an army in Pembrokeshire in 1485 and marched to Cardigan. Rallying support, he continued to Leicestershire and defeated the larger army of Richard III at the Battle of Bosworth Field. As Henry VII, he became the first monarch of the House of Tudor, which ruled England until 1603.
The Laws in Wales Act 1535 effectively abolished the powers of the Marcher Lords and divided the county into seven hundreds, roughly corresponding to the seven pre-Norman cantrefi of Dyfed. The hundreds were (clockwise from the northeast): Cilgerran, Cemais, Dewisland, Roose, Castlemartin, Narberth and Dungleddy and each was divided into civil parishes; a 1578 map in the British Library is the earliest known to show parishes and chapelries in Pembrokeshire. The Elizabethan era brought renewed prosperity to the county through an opening up of rural industries, including agriculture, mining and fishing, with exports to England and Ireland, though the formerly staple woollen industry had all but disappeared.
During the First English Civil War (1642–1646) the county gave strong support to the Roundheads (Parliamentarians), in contrast to the rest of Wales, which was staunchly Royalist. In spite of this, an incident in Pembrokeshire triggered the opening shots of the Second English Civil War when local units of the New Model Army mutinied. Oliver Cromwell defeated the uprising at the Siege of Pembroke in July 1648. On 13 August 1649, the Cromwellian conquest of Ireland began when New Model Army forces sailed from Milford Haven.
In 1720, Emmanuel Bowen described Pembrokeshire as having five market towns, 45 parishes and about 4,329 houses, with an area of 420,000 acres (1,700 km2). In 1791 a petition was presented to the House of Commons concerning the poor state of many of the county's roads, pointing out that repairs could not be made compulsory by the law as it stood. The petition was referred to committee. People applying for poor relief were often put to work mending roads. Workhouses were poorly documented. Under the Poor Laws, costs and provisions were kept to a minimum, but the emphasis was often on helping people to be self-employed. While the Poor Laws provided a significant means of support, there were many charitable and benefit societies. After the Battle of Fishguard, the failed French invasion of 1797, 500 French prisoners were held at Golden Hill Farm, Pembroke. From 1820 to 1878 one of the county's prisons, with a capacity of 86, was in the grounds of Haverfordwest Castle. In 1831, the area of the county was calculated to be 345,600 acres (1,399 km2) with a population of 81,424.
It was not until nearly the end of the 19th century that mains water was provided to rural south Pembrokeshire by means of a reservoir at Rosebush and cast iron water pipes throughout the district.
Throughout much of the 20th century (1911 to 1961) the population density in the county remained stable while it rose in England and Wales as a whole. There was considerable military activity in Pembrokeshire and offshore in the 20th century: a naval base at Milford Haven because German U-boats were active off the coast in World War I and, in World War II, military exercises in the Preseli Mountains and a number of military airfields. The wartime increase in air activity saw a number of aircraft accidents and fatalities, often due to unfamiliarity with the terrain. From 1943 to 1944, 5,000 soldiers from the United States Army's 110th Infantry Regiment were based in the county, preparing for D-Day. Military and industrial targets in the county were subjected to bombing during World War II. After the end of the war, German prisoners of war were accommodated in Pembrokeshire, the largest prison being at Haverfordwest, housing 600. The County of Pembroke War Memorial in Haverfordwest carries the names of 1,200 of those that perished in World War I.
In 1972, a second reservoir for south Pembrokeshire, at Llys y Fran, was completed.
Pembrokeshire's tourism portal is Visit Pembrokeshire, run by Pembrokeshire County Council. In 2015 4.3 million tourists visited the county, staying for an average of 5.24 days, spending £585 million; the tourism industry supported 11,834 jobs. Many of Pembrokeshire's beaches have won awards, including Poppit Sands and Newport Sands. In 2018, Pembrokeshire received the most coast awards in Wales, with 56 Blue Flag, Green Coast or Seaside Awards. In the 2019 Wales Coast Awards, 39 Pembrokeshire beaches were recognised, including 11 awarded Blue Flag status.
The Pembrokeshire coastline is a major draw to tourists; in 2011 National Geographic Traveller magazine voted the Pembrokeshire Coast the second best in the world and in 2015 the Pembrokeshire Coast National Park was listed among the top five parks in the world by a travel writer for the Huffington Post. Countryfile Magazine readers voted the Pembrokeshire Coast the top UK holiday destination in 2018, and in 2019 Consumers' Association members placed Tenby and St Davids in the top three best value beach destinations in Britain. With few large urban areas, Pembrokeshire is a "dark sky" destination. The many wrecks off the Pembrokeshire coast attract divers. The decade from 2012 saw significant, increasing numbers of Atlantic bluefin tuna, not seen since the 1960s, and now seen by some as an opportunity to encourage tourist sport fishing.
The county has a number of theme and animal parks (examples are Folly Farm Adventure Park and Zoo, Manor House Wildlife Park, Blue Lagoon Water Park and Oakwood Theme Park), museums and other visitor attractions including Castell Henllys reconstructed Iron Age fort, Tenby Lifeboat Station and Milford Haven's Torch Theatre. There are 21 marked cycle trails around the county.
Pembrokeshire Destination Management Plan for 2020 to 2025 sets out the scope and priorities to grow tourism in Pembrokeshire by increasing its value by 10 per cent in the five years, and to make Pembrokeshire a top five UK destination.
As the national sport of Wales, rugby union is widely played throughout the county at both town and village level. Haverfordwest RFC, founded in 1875, is a feeder club for Llanelli Scarlets. Village team Crymych RFC in 2014 plays in WRU Division One West. There are numerous football clubs in the county, playing in five leagues with Haverfordwest County A.F.C. competing in the Cymru Premier.
Triathlon event Ironman Wales has been held in Pembrokeshire since 2011, contributing £3.7 million to the local economy, and the county committed in 2017 to host the event for a further five years. Ras Beca, a mixed road, fell and cross country race attracting UK-wide competitors, has been held in the Preselis annually since 1977. The record of 32 minutes 5 seconds has stood since 1995. Pembrokeshire Harriers athletics club was formed in 2001 by the amalgamation of Cleddau Athletic Club (established 1970) and Preseli Harriers (1989) and is based in Haverfordwest.
The annual Tour of Pembrokeshire road-cycling event takes place over routes of optional length. The 4th Tour, in April 2015, attracted 1,600 riders including Olympic gold medallist Chris Boardman and there were 1,500 entrants to the 2016 event. Part of Route 47 of the Celtic Trail cycle route is in Pembrokeshire. The Llys y Fran Hillclimb is an annual event run by Swansea Motor Club, and there are several other county motoring events held each year.
Abereiddy's Blue Lagoon was the venue for a round of the Red Bull Cliff Diving World Series in 2012, 2013, and 2016; the Welsh Surfing Federation has held the Welsh National Surfing Championships at Freshwater West for several years, and Llys y Fran Country Park hosted the Welsh Dragonboat Championships from 2014 to 2017.
While not at major league level, cricket is played throughout the county and many villages such as Lamphey, Creselly, Llangwm, Llechryd and Crymych field teams in minor leagues under the umbrella of the Cricket Board of Wales.
Notable people
From mediaeval times, Rhys ap Gruffydd (c. 1132-1197), ruler of the kingdom of Deheubarth, was buried in St Davids Cathedral. and Gerald of Wales was born c. 1146 at Manorbier Castle. Henry Tudor (later Henry VII) was born in 1457 at Pembroke Castle.
The pirate Bartholomew Roberts (Black Bart) (Welsh: Barti Ddu) was born in Casnewydd Bach, between Fishguard and Haverfordwest in 1682.
In later military history, Jemima Nicholas, heroine of the so-called "last invasion of Britain" in 1797, was from Fishguard, Lieutenant General Sir Thomas Picton GCB, born in Haverfordwest, was killed at the Battle of Waterloo in 1815 and Private Thomas Collins is believed to be the only Pembrokeshire man that fought in the Battle of Rorke's Drift in 1879.
In the arts, siblings Gwen and Augustus John were both born in Pembrokeshire, as was the novelist Sarah Waters; singer Connie Fisher grew up in Pembrokeshire. The actor Christian Bale was born in Haverfordwest.
Stephen Crabb, a former Secretary of State for Work and Pensions and Secretary of State for Wales, was brought up in Pembrokeshire and is one of the county's two Members of Parliament, the other being Simon Hart,[90] who served as Secretary of State for Wales from 2019 to 2022.
The adjourning of the Great Congress of Lenfald brought with it almost as many questions as it did answers. For Abner, it also brought new orders.
Gottfried, Abner's commander, strode over as the delegates began to rise and file out of the chamber.
"Abner," he said, looking directly into his subordinate's face. "Do you know why I chose you to accompany me to such an important occurrence?"
Abner stood and addressed his captain. "I know not, sir."
"It is because I feel you are trustworthy and that you possess great patience," continued Captain Gottfried. "Am I incorrect in my judgments?"
"Nay, sir, I am worthy of your trust and I am a patient man," replied Abner, somewhat confused.
Captain Gottfried's mouth turned up in a rare mischievous smile. "Good, because we have been given the task of escorting his lordship the Grand Duke Meyrick back to Ainesford!"
Abner shook his head in disbelief. "That is just not fair, sir," he replied.
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The small company departed Stonewald the following morning on horseback; Grand Duke Meyrick and his aide, Captain Gottfried, Abner, and a small detachment of rangers from the capital.
The journey was uneventful, and the riders came in view of the Ainesford gates in a few days' time. The city itself, however, was another matter.
Smoke billowed from an old warehouse just inside the perimeter wall and the shouts of men working frantically to douse the flames could be heard even outside the city. Rioters charged through the streets, hurling torches and brandishing various farm implements menacingly. Soldiers stood guard in front of key buildings, clashing occasionally with particularly bold citizens.
Grand Duke Meyrick motioned for the rangers to follow and trotted his horse ahead, leading the party towards the city center. A cry came up from a woman in the street, "Aye, look 'ere! Tis the duke, returnin' to take 'way all our 'ard-earn'd money!"
People began to shout and run after the horsemen, who now galloped towards a large building only a few hundred yards ahead. Abner recognized it as the city hall of Ainesford - an old, worn, but still beautiful building originally constructed as a symbol of the city's economic prosperity. It was surrounded by soldiers, a handful of whom rushed forward to greet their lord and take away the horses.
The group dismounted hastily and the captain of the guard ushered them inside, shutting the heavy oaken doors firmly behind them.
"This is madness," said Gottfried, pointing back towards the chaos. "Utter madness."
The din of the mob could still be heard clearly outside.
"It will subside," replied Sorley Meyrick cooly, taking a seat at the long table in the center of the hall.
"That's your answer?!" cried Gottfried, seating himself across from the duke and his aide, "Ignore the problem and wait for it to solve itself?"
The grand duke glared at the ranger captain. "Don't question me, Captain. Remember that you are a guest in my city and that I was a ranger once as well. I know how hot-headed you types are."
Gottfried rose angrily, knocking over his chair and slamming his sword on the table. "YOU have no power but that which the people grant to you!" he yelled. "And by the sound of it," he said, cupping his hand to his ear dramatically (the rioters could be heard just outside the hall), "they don't seem very supportive right now."
Now the duke rose, and his aide with him. "How DARE you!" screamed Meyrick, "How dare you question a Grand Duke- a lord- a, a, a NOBLEMAN! I will not have this kind of disrespect. I will have your head! You will pay for this- hang for this! You lily-livered, toad-licking-"
"ENOUGH!"
The room fell utterly silent and everyone turned in shock to the man who had just shouted. Abner stepped forward from the shadows into the light of the chandelier.
"What did you just say to me, boy?" growled the duke.
"I said 'enough'," replied Abner calmly. "Now I believe my commander was about to propose a resolution to this issue that you seem incapable of handling on your own." He inclined his head to Gottfried. "Pardon the interruption, sir. Please continue."
Captain Gottfried shook his head, placed his hands on his hips, and let out a hearty laugh. He looked back up at the duke and said, "Now when is the last time you met someone who could make me chuckle?"
Grand Duke Meyrick took a moment to recover, then a thin smile spread across his face as well. "Your man doesn't disappoint in the least, Gottfried. Bring him to the table, let's see what kind of ideas this young man has for solving our rioting problem."
Abner, utterly confused, walked slowly up to the table and took his chair as the other men sat.
"Our apologies for the deception, friend, but we had to know you were willing to risk your own self in these difficult times before we trusted your counsel," said the duke. "Gottfried here has spoken most highly of you- he says you are very wise."
Abner, still completely lost, stammered, "You gentlemen... know each other?"
Grand Duke Meyrick and Captain Gottfried looked at each other for a moment, then broke out into another fit of laughter.
"I'm telling you!" said Gottfried between laughs, "This fellow is hilarious!"
Seeing the bewildered expression still plastered across Abner's face, Grand Duke Meyrick said, "Abner, this is my brother-Gottfried Meyrick."
Unrestricted entry to the LoR GCX - Unrest.
... a busy bee, working hard for us.
As Albert Einstein once said:
"If the bee disappeared off the surface of the globe then man would only have four years of life left"
so enjoy watching them sipping a margarita....
Another Toastmasters manual done!
I’ve earned my Advanced Communicator Bronze designation in Toastmasters. With tonight’s speech, I’ve completed two advanced manuals: Storytelling and The Entertaining Speaker. (Each manual has five speeches.)
My final project in the Toastmasters Entertaining Speaker manual was the toughest. Project #2 (you don’t have to do them in order) requires that the speaker incorporate material from a source other than herself. As I rarely use non-personal experiences in my speaking, this was a challenge, until I remembered how much I enjoyed Pam Flowers’ story on The Moth podcast: Alone Across the Arctic. I’m confident I entertained by sharing the story of Pam Flowers’ sled dog team encounter with a mama polar bear and her cub.
(To be honest, I’m more of a Risk than a Moth story podcast fan, these days. But most of the Risk stories are inappropriate for Toastmasters.)
Jacket, Jessica Simpson (thrifted). Shirt, The Limited. Skirt, Plenty by Tracy Reese. Tights, We Love Colors. Boots, Fergie. Bandana, Mono Lake Visitor Center.