immutable photos on Flickr

"Home sweet home" 2011 Pascale Marthine Tayou, exposition "Les Mondes inversés" BPS22, Charleroi, Hainaut, Belgium by Claude

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Artiste camerounais installé à Gand, Pascale Marthine Tayou réalise, la plupart du temps, ses œuvres dans des matériaux pauvres, recyclés ou ramenés de marchés africains. Ses

vastes installations sont des “partitions sculpturales” à réinterpréter par les organisateurs, à chaque exposition. Il amène ainsi l’œuvre d’art à renoncer à ses privilèges de “grand art” (unicité, immuabilité et autorité démiurgique de l’artiste), pour être rejouée, par d’autres, comme l’est toute fête populaire. Constituée de cages à oiseaux et de “colons” (statuettes filiformes d’Africains habillés en Occidentaux, produites pour le tourisme), l’oeuvre interroge la notion protectrice de “maison” avec son cortège de mythes identitaires : région, pays, langue, culture, etc. Chacune de ces notions s’en trouve retournée, inversée, pour suggérer d’autres possibilités ou manières d’être soi, “chez soi”.

Cameroonian artist based in Ghent, Pascale Marthine Tayou true, most of the time, his works in poor, recycled or returned to African markets. His

extensive facilities are "sculptural partitions" reinterpreted by the organizers, with each exposure. It thus brings the artwork to give up his privileges of "high art" (uniqueness, and immutability demiurgical authority of the artist), to be replayed, by others, as is any festival. Consists of birdcages and "settlers" (thread-like statuettes dressed in Western Africa, produced for tourism), the work questions the protective concept of "house" with its accompanying identity myths region, country, language, culture, etc. Each of these concepts is thereby turned, inverted, to suggest alternatives or ways of being oneself, "at home".

"A Young Lady of Fashion," attributed to Paolo Uccello (1397 - 1475), early 1460s by S Lynn Lee

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The following info was copied from: www.gardnermuseum.org/experience/collection/12396

The portrait has a highly decorative quality in which costume and ornament play a major role. The rather flatly modeled face is placed on an insubstantial bust set against a uniform blue background. The woman is portrayed both according to literary notions of female pulchritude, which called for fair skin and blonde hair, and the dictates of contemporary fashion. Costly brocaded fabrics, pearls, and precious stones serve not only to display the sitter’s familial wealth and status but also to enhance her physical appearance – in art, as in life. In addition to a red and gold brocade sleeve and a sleeveless overdress, the woman wears a head brooch, a pearl choker with jeweled pendant, and a white cap ornamented with pearls.

This fashionable beauty looks impassive, immobile, and immutable, as if she were outside space and time. Her portrait image has a static, stereotyped character, in which the sitter’s individuality is almost entirely suppressed in favor of the social ideals for which she stands.

Bought as a work by Domenico Veneziano, the portrait has also been attributed to Paolo Uccello and the so-called Master of the Castello Nativity.

Source: David Alan Brown, "A Young Lady of Fashion," in Eye of the Beholder, edited by Alan Chong et al. (Boston: ISGM and Beacon Press, 2003): 50.

2017JUN05 SLYNNLEE-13135

Architectures liquides, collection FRAC Fonds régional d'art contemporain du Centre-Val de Loire, Groot Seminarie, "Liquid City" Triennale Bruges 2018, Art contemporain et architecture dans le centre historique de Bruges, Belgium, by Claude

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Les œuvres d'art monumentales illustrent la montée dans les années 90 d'une nouvelle architecture influencée par de nouvelles méthodes de conception et de processus de production numérisés. En permettant la variation de forme, qui est caractérisée par le flux d’informations qui la traverse, ces méthodes ont stimulé la création d’une architecture animée, vivante et dynamique dans laquelle se croisent les processus biologiques et la dynamique des fluides. Cette tendance, dite numérique, arithmétique et numérique, remet en question une architecture qui serait immuable et définitive au profit d'une "architecture liquide" (Marcos Novak), aux formes libres et évolutives, dans laquelle des cercles organiques et des surfaces continues se mélangent. Cela correspond au style de cette autre architecture qui, dans les années 1960 et 1970, est revenue aux styles plus anciens (gothique, baroque, expressionnisme) en évoquant la courbe, l'organique et le mouvement par rapport à la rigidité de l'angle droit.

The monumental works of art illustrate the rise in the 1990s of a new architecture influenced by new methods of digitized design and production processes. By allowing shape variation, which is characterized by the flow of information passing through it, these methods have stimulated the creation of an animated, dynamic and dynamic architecture in which biological processes and fluid dynamics intersect. This trend, known as numerical, arithmetical and numerical, calls into question an architecture that would be immutable and definitive in favor of a "liquid architecture" (Marcos Novak), with free and evolving forms, in which organic circles and continuous surfaces take place. mix. This corresponds to the style of this other architecture which, in the 1960s and 1970s, returned to older styles (Gothic, Baroque, Expressionism) evoking the curve, the organic and the movement in relation to the rigidity of the angle law.

Immutable Law Of The Universe #86 by Jeff Wasson

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If you say something often enough, people will begin to think and believe it's true, regardless of its basis in reality and/or truthfulness.

If you come by my stream at all, or are in any of the groups I participate in, most of you folks know me fairly well as I don't hide myself or my beliefs (even though I probably should sometimes) and from that you've probably gathered that I am a moderately "conservative" dude. Being a moderate, everything requires balance, so I would say that I am moderately "liberal" as well.

I suppose my visceral, pissed off reaction to reading this today falls on my liberal side, but I would like to think that it really falls on my freaking common sense side.

It got me thinking about something that happened to me last week and I didn't think much of it at the time, but this article brought me snapping back to reality and brought a bigger picture into focus...

I went downtown last week to my local, old skool camera shop where I bought my D80, lenses, etc. I paid a little extra to the local guy because I want to support local businesses and having a face to talk to, a person to glean information and experience from is invaluable to me as I try to soak this stuff up.

It's down on 4th Avenue, and it's been around for over 40 Years. (Check out this photo I found from right before the 1964 Good Friday Earthquake! Stewart's is in the background. :-) It even has the same signs today!) Being around so long, it's right next to the Old Federal Building and I had to walk by it (with my camera, natch) to get back to my car. I noticed this great symmetry in the lines created by the front of it and wanted to shoot a photo of it.

I am standing there, on a public sidewalk, trying to figure out how to frame what my eyes see for the lens. I don't have the camera to my face yet, I'm just looking, but I do have it in my hands. This security guard comes out of the doors in his pretty little burgundy blazer there and tells me to move along. "No "pitchers"."

I thought about arguing with the guy, but realized rather quickly that I didn't even know if I had a shot worth arguing over. I'll be honest, though. I wanted to argue. It was a public sidewalk. It's not even a Federal Building any more, it's more of an historic landmark that houses some national parks stuff (I think) and the like. No FBI, no Justice, no IRS, not even the actual Park Service.

I hate (and I don't use that word lightly) what happened to our country in 2001. No need to expound on that. But this link above to a guy who gets charged with a Felony (*!*) for videotaping a traffic stop he was involved in (which the police do EVERY DAY [and imho, should do for their and your safety, btw...]) and me getting harassed for taking a photograph in public, just makes me feel like we have passed through some sort of invisible barrier or something...

We've gone from being blissfully unaware and at ease with ourselves straight to a culture of fear with no shades of gray for anything at all.

Do not pass Go, do not collect $200.

I know I have seen other things that have pushed me into feeling this way, but the liberal half of me is screaming out right now, trying to get me to see that no one can continue in a state of fear without fundamental change to themselves (ergo us as a Nation.).

Change is important. In fact, change is the only thing we can count on in life, short of death. But change to the things that our nation is at the core? Freedom, Democracy, Liberty, Pursuing Happiness? That's a change I think we should try to avoid, actually.

Thanks for hanging around for my rant. I just got a little worked up, but I meant it all. : )

Think for yourselves, people. Just sayin'. : )

This isn't half bad Large and On Black, I guess. : )

Raquel and the Arizona pigeons by McNeney

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I have this theory that... the older you get... the faster time goes by.

Of course it's an illusion. Time - artificial construct that it is - is immutable. But our perceptions are not. And of course we perceive everything, including the passage of time, in relation to our own experience.

So... when you're five years old, a year is 20 per cent of your life. No wonder things like summers seem to last forever.

Once you hit 50, a year's a mere two per cent. So it snaps by like nothing.

Am I really digging up tender plants to take indoors for the winter? Didn't I just do that like... yesterday? Is it really Wednesday again, already? And almost Christmas again, already?

Maybe time will keep speeding up, and soon it'll all go by in a blur. And I'll have to set myself to the fastest possible shutter speed just to get a glimpse of it before it's all gone.

Coastal Inlet Beside Castle Sinclair Girnigoe, Caithness, Highlands, Scotland. by PHOTOGRAPHY by DM & DBM.

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Castle Sinclair Girnigoe is located about 3 miles north of Wick on the east coast of Caithness, Scotland. It is considered to be one of the earliest seats of Clan Sinclair. It comprises the ruins of two castles: the 15th-century Castle Girnigoe; and the early 17th-century Castle Sinclair. They are designated as a scheduled monument.

The earlier Castle Girnigoe was built by William Sinclair, 2nd Earl of Caithness, probably sometime between 1476 and 1496, but certainly before his death at the Battle of Flodden in 1513. There is some evidence to suggest that the castle was built on the foundations of an earlier fortalice.

In 1577, George Sinclair, 4th Earl of Caithness, imprisoned his own son John Sinclair, Master of Caithness, in Castle Girnigoe, on suspicion of rebelling against his rule. He was held there for seven years, after which his father fed him a diet of salted beef, with nothing to drink, so that he eventually died insane from thirst. The rebel Earl of Bothwell was at Girnigoe in December 1594.

Expansion occurred in 1606 when Castle Sinclair was built, comprising a gatehouse and other buildings, along with a curtain wall. These were connected to the earlier castle by a drawbridge over a ravine. The same year George Sinclair, 5th Earl of Caithness, requested the Scottish Parliament to change the name to Castle Sinclair, but because the names Castle Sinclair and Castle Girnigoe were both written down in 1700, both names have been in use since.

Robert Sinclair describes Girnigoe as "an adapted 5-storey L-plan crow-stepped gabled tower house, which sat upon a rocky promontory jutting out into Sinclair Bay. Of interest is the secret chamber in the vaulted ceiling of the kitchen."

In 1672, George Sinclair, 6th Earl of Caithness, was in heavy debt to his fourth cousin, John Campbell of Glenorchy, and transferred the castle to Campbell as payment. When Sinclair died four years later with no heir, Campbell claimed the title Earl of Caithness and married Sinclair's widow. However, Sinclair's first cousin, George Sinclair of Keiss, challenged Campbell's title. This resulted in the Battle of Altimarlach in which Campbell defeated Sinclair in 1680. Glenorchy and some of his troops remained in Caithness for some time and levied rents and taxes on the people, subjecting them to the most grievous oppression. He sent the remainder home immediately after the battle. However, George Sinclair of Keiss continued his opposition and laid siege, with firearms and artillery, to Castle Sinclair Girnigoe which he took after feeble resistance from the garrison. As a result, he and his three friends who had assisted him, Sinclair of Broynach, Sinclair of Thura and Mackay of Strathnaver were declared rebels. The political current having turned in favor of Sinclair of Keiss however, this was quashed. Having failed to regain his inheritance by force, Sinclair of Keiss then turned to the law.[9] Through the influence of the Duke of York and afterwards James II, he took his place as 7th Earl of Caithness on 15 July 1681, and his lands were restored on 23 September. Campbell of Glenorchy was made Earl of Breadalbane by way of compensation.

The Highlands is a historical region of Scotland. Culturally, the Highlands and the Lowlands diverged from the Late Middle Ages into the modern period, when Lowland Scots language replaced Scottish Gaelic throughout most of the Lowlands. The term is also used for the area north and west of the Highland Boundary Fault, although the exact boundaries are not clearly defined, particularly to the east. The Great Glen divides the Grampian Mountains to the southeast from the Northwest Highlands. The Scottish Gaelic name of A' Ghàidhealtachd literally means "the place of the Gaels" and traditionally, from a Gaelic-speaking point of view, includes both the Western Isles and the Highlands.

The area is very sparsely populated, with many mountain ranges dominating the region, and includes the highest mountain in the British Isles, Ben Nevis. During the 18th and early 19th centuries the population of the Highlands rose to around 300,000, but from c. 1841 and for the next 160 years, the natural increase in population was exceeded by emigration (mostly to Canada, the United States, Australia and New Zealand, and migration to the industrial cities of Scotland and England.) and passim The area is now one of the most sparsely populated in Europe. At 9.1/km2 (24/sq mi) in 2012, the population density in the Highlands and Islands is less than one seventh of Scotland's as a whole.

The Highland Council is the administrative body for much of the Highlands, with its administrative centre at Inverness. However, the Highlands also includes parts of the council areas of Aberdeenshire, Angus, Argyll and Bute, Moray, North Ayrshire, Perth and Kinross, Stirling and West Dunbartonshire.

The Scottish Highlands is the only area in the British Isles to have the taiga biome as it features concentrated populations of Scots pine forest: see Caledonian Forest. It is the most mountainous part of the United Kingdom.

Between the 15th century and the mid-20th century, the area differed from most of the Lowlands in terms of language. In Scottish Gaelic, the region is known as the Gàidhealtachd, because it was traditionally the Gaelic-speaking part of Scotland, although the language is now largely confined to The Hebrides. The terms are sometimes used interchangeably but have different meanings in their respective languages. Scottish English (in its Highland form) is the predominant language of the area today, though Highland English has been influenced by Gaelic speech to a significant extent. Historically, the "Highland line" distinguished the two Scottish cultures. While the Highland line broadly followed the geography of the Grampians in the south, it continued in the north, cutting off the north-eastern areas, that is Eastern Caithness, Orkney and Shetland, from the more Gaelic Highlands and Hebrides.

Historically, the major social unit of the Highlands was the clan. Scottish kings, particularly James VI, saw clans as a challenge to their authority; the Highlands was seen by many as a lawless region. The Scots of the Lowlands viewed the Highlanders as backward and more "Irish". The Highlands were seen as the overspill of Gaelic Ireland. They made this distinction by separating Germanic "Scots" English and the Gaelic by renaming it "Erse" a play on Eire. Following the Union of the Crowns, James VI had the military strength to back up any attempts to impose some control. The result was, in 1609, the Statutes of Iona which started the process of integrating clan leaders into Scottish society. The gradual changes continued into the 19th century, as clan chiefs thought of themselves less as patriarchal leaders of their people and more as commercial landlords. The first effect on the clansmen who were their tenants was the change to rents being payable in money rather than in kind. Later, rents were increased as Highland landowners sought to increase their income. This was followed, mostly in the period 1760–1850, by agricultural improvement that often (particularly in the Western Highlands) involved clearance of the population to make way for large scale sheep farms. Displaced tenants were set up in crofting communities in the process. The crofts were intended not to provide all the needs of their occupiers; they were expected to work in other industries such as kelping and fishing. Crofters came to rely substantially on seasonal migrant work, particularly in the Lowlands. This gave impetus to the learning of English, which was seen by many rural Gaelic speakers to be the essential "language of work".

Older historiography attributes the collapse of the clan system to the aftermath of the Jacobite risings. This is now thought less influential by historians. Following the Jacobite rising of 1745 the British government enacted a series of laws to try to suppress the clan system, including bans on the bearing of arms and the wearing of tartan, and limitations on the activities of the Scottish Episcopal Church. Most of this legislation was repealed by the end of the 18th century as the Jacobite threat subsided. There was soon a rehabilitation of Highland culture. Tartan was adopted for Highland regiments in the British Army, which poor Highlanders joined in large numbers in the era of the Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars (1790–1815). Tartan had largely been abandoned by the ordinary people of the region, but in the 1820s, tartan and the kilt were adopted by members of the social elite, not just in Scotland, but across Europe. The international craze for tartan, and for idealising a romanticised Highlands, was set off by the Ossian cycle, and further popularised by the works of Walter Scott. His "staging" of the visit of King George IV to Scotland in 1822 and the king's wearing of tartan resulted in a massive upsurge in demand for kilts and tartans that could not be met by the Scottish woollen industry. Individual clan tartans were largely designated in this period and they became a major symbol of Scottish identity. This "Highlandism", by which all of Scotland was identified with the culture of the Highlands, was cemented by Queen Victoria's interest in the country, her adoption of Balmoral as a major royal retreat, and her interest in "tartenry".

Recurrent famine affected the Highlands for much of its history, with significant instances as late as 1817 in the Eastern Highlands and the early 1850s in the West. Over the 18th century, the region had developed a trade of black cattle into Lowland markets, and this was balanced by imports of meal into the area. There was a critical reliance on this trade to provide sufficient food, and it is seen as an essential prerequisite for the population growth that started in the 18th century. Most of the Highlands, particularly in the North and West was short of the arable land that was essential for the mixed, run rig based, communal farming that existed before agricultural improvement was introduced into the region.[a] Between the 1760s and the 1830s there was a substantial trade in unlicensed whisky that had been distilled in the Highlands. Lowland distillers (who were not able to avoid the heavy taxation of this product) complained that Highland whisky made up more than half the market. The development of the cattle trade is taken as evidence that the pre-improvement Highlands was not an immutable system, but did exploit the economic opportunities that came its way. The illicit whisky trade demonstrates the entrepreneurial ability of the peasant classes.

Agricultural improvement reached the Highlands mostly over the period 1760 to 1850. Agricultural advisors, factors, land surveyors and others educated in the thinking of Adam Smith were keen to put into practice the new ideas taught in Scottish universities. Highland landowners, many of whom were burdened with chronic debts, were generally receptive to the advice they offered and keen to increase the income from their land. In the East and South the resulting change was similar to that in the Lowlands, with the creation of larger farms with single tenants, enclosure of the old run rig fields, introduction of new crops (such as turnips), land drainage and, as a consequence of all this, eviction, as part of the Highland clearances, of many tenants and cottars. Some of those cleared found employment on the new, larger farms, others moved to the accessible towns of the Lowlands.

In the West and North, evicted tenants were usually given tenancies in newly created crofting communities, while their former holdings were converted into large sheep farms. Sheep farmers could pay substantially higher rents than the run rig farmers and were much less prone to falling into arrears. Each croft was limited in size so that the tenants would have to find work elsewhere. The major alternatives were fishing and the kelp industry. Landlords took control of the kelp shores, deducting the wages earned by their tenants from the rent due and retaining the large profits that could be earned at the high prices paid for the processed product during the Napoleonic wars.

When the Napoleonic wars finished in 1815, the Highland industries were affected by the return to a peacetime economy. The price of black cattle fell, nearly halving between 1810 and the 1830s. Kelp prices had peaked in 1810, but reduced from £9 a ton in 1823 to £3 13s 4d a ton in 1828. Wool prices were also badly affected. This worsened the financial problems of debt-encumbered landlords. Then, in 1846, potato blight arrived in the Highlands, wiping out the essential subsistence crop for the overcrowded crofting communities. As the famine struck, the government made clear to landlords that it was their responsibility to provide famine relief for their tenants. The result of the economic downturn had been that a large proportion of Highland estates were sold in the first half of the 19th century. T M Devine points out that in the region most affected by the potato famine, by 1846, 70 per cent of the landowners were new purchasers who had not owned Highland property before 1800. More landlords were obliged to sell due to the cost of famine relief. Those who were protected from the worst of the crisis were those with extensive rental income from sheep farms. Government loans were made available for drainage works, road building and other improvements and many crofters became temporary migrants – taking work in the Lowlands. When the potato famine ceased in 1856, this established a pattern of more extensive working away from the Highlands.

The unequal concentration of land ownership remained an emotional and controversial subject, of enormous importance to the Highland economy, and eventually became a cornerstone of liberal radicalism. The poor crofters were politically powerless, and many of them turned to religion. They embraced the popularly oriented, fervently evangelical Presbyterian revival after 1800. Most joined the breakaway "Free Church" after 1843. This evangelical movement was led by lay preachers who themselves came from the lower strata, and whose preaching was implicitly critical of the established order. The religious change energised the crofters and separated them from the landlords; it helped prepare them for their successful and violent challenge to the landlords in the 1880s through the Highland Land League. Violence erupted, starting on the Isle of Skye, when Highland landlords cleared their lands for sheep and deer parks. It was quietened when the government stepped in, passing the Crofters' Holdings (Scotland) Act, 1886 to reduce rents, guarantee fixity of tenure, and break up large estates to provide crofts for the homeless. This contrasted with the Irish Land War underway at the same time, where the Irish were intensely politicised through roots in Irish nationalism, while political dimensions were limited. In 1885 three Independent Crofter candidates were elected to Parliament, which listened to their pleas. The results included explicit security for the Scottish smallholders in the "crofting counties"; the legal right to bequeath tenancies to descendants; and the creation of a Crofting Commission. The Crofters as a political movement faded away by 1892, and the Liberal Party gained their votes.

Today, the Highlands are the largest of Scotland's whisky producing regions; the relevant area runs from Orkney to the Isle of Arran in the south and includes the northern isles and much of Inner and Outer Hebrides, Argyll, Stirlingshire, Arran, as well as sections of Perthshire and Aberdeenshire. (Other sources treat The Islands, except Islay, as a separate whisky producing region.) This massive area has over 30 distilleries, or 47 when the Islands sub-region is included in the count. According to one source, the top five are The Macallan, Glenfiddich, Aberlour, Glenfarclas and Balvenie. While Speyside is geographically within the Highlands, that region is specified as distinct in terms of whisky productions. Speyside single malt whiskies are produced by about 50 distilleries.

According to Visit Scotland, Highlands whisky is "fruity, sweet, spicy, malty". Another review states that Northern Highlands single malt is "sweet and full-bodied", the Eastern Highlands and Southern Highlands whiskies tend to be "lighter in texture" while the distilleries in the Western Highlands produce single malts with a "much peatier influence".

The Scottish Reformation achieved partial success in the Highlands. Roman Catholicism remained strong in some areas, owing to remote locations and the efforts of Franciscan missionaries from Ireland, who regularly came to celebrate Mass. There remain significant Catholic strongholds within the Highlands and Islands such as Moidart and Morar on the mainland and South Uist and Barra in the southern Outer Hebrides. The remoteness of the region and the lack of a Gaelic-speaking clergy undermined the missionary efforts of the established church. The later 18th century saw somewhat greater success, owing to the efforts of the SSPCK missionaries and to the disruption of traditional society after the Battle of Culloden in 1746. In the 19th century, the evangelical Free Churches, which were more accepting of Gaelic language and culture, grew rapidly, appealing much more strongly than did the established church.

For the most part, however, the Highlands are considered predominantly Protestant, belonging to the Church of Scotland. In contrast to the Catholic southern islands, the northern Outer Hebrides islands (Lewis, Harris and North Uist) have an exceptionally high proportion of their population belonging to the Protestant Free Church of Scotland or the Free Presbyterian Church of Scotland. The Outer Hebrides have been described as the last bastion of Calvinism in Britain and the Sabbath remains widely observed. Inverness and the surrounding area has a majority Protestant population, with most locals belonging to either The Kirk or the Free Church of Scotland. The church maintains a noticeable presence within the area, with church attendance notably higher than in other parts of Scotland. Religion continues to play an important role in Highland culture, with Sabbath observance still widely practised, particularly in the Hebrides.

In traditional Scottish geography, the Highlands refers to that part of Scotland north-west of the Highland Boundary Fault, which crosses mainland Scotland in a near-straight line from Helensburgh to Stonehaven. However the flat coastal lands that occupy parts of the counties of Nairnshire, Morayshire, Banffshire and Aberdeenshire are often excluded as they do not share the distinctive geographical and cultural features of the rest of the Highlands. The north-east of Caithness, as well as Orkney and Shetland, are also often excluded from the Highlands, although the Hebrides are usually included. The Highland area, as so defined, differed from the Lowlands in language and tradition, having preserved Gaelic speech and customs centuries after the anglicisation of the latter; this led to a growing perception of a divide, with the cultural distinction between Highlander and Lowlander first noted towards the end of the 14th century. In Aberdeenshire, the boundary between the Highlands and the Lowlands is not well defined. There is a stone beside the A93 road near the village of Dinnet on Royal Deeside which states 'You are now in the Highlands', although there are areas of Highland character to the east of this point.

A much wider definition of the Highlands is that used by the Scotch whisky industry. Highland single malts are produced at distilleries north of an imaginary line between Dundee and Greenock, thus including all of Aberdeenshire and Angus.

Inverness is regarded as the Capital of the Highlands, although less so in the Highland parts of Aberdeenshire, Angus, Perthshire and Stirlingshire which look more to Aberdeen, Dundee, Perth, and Stirling as their commercial centres.

The Highland Council area, created as one of the local government regions of Scotland, has been a unitary council area since 1996. The council area excludes a large area of the southern and eastern Highlands, and the Western Isles, but includes Caithness. Highlands is sometimes used, however, as a name for the council area, as in the former Highlands and Islands Fire and Rescue Service. Northern is also used to refer to the area, as in the former Northern Constabulary. These former bodies both covered the Highland council area and the island council areas of Orkney, Shetland and the Western Isles.

Much of the Highlands area overlaps the Highlands and Islands area. An electoral region called Highlands and Islands is used in elections to the Scottish Parliament: this area includes Orkney and Shetland, as well as the Highland Council local government area, the Western Isles and most of the Argyll and Bute and Moray local government areas. Highlands and Islands has, however, different meanings in different contexts. It means Highland (the local government area), Orkney, Shetland, and the Western Isles in Highlands and Islands Fire and Rescue Service. Northern, as in Northern Constabulary, refers to the same area as that covered by the fire and rescue service.

There have been trackways from the Lowlands to the Highlands since prehistoric times. Many traverse the Mounth, a spur of mountainous land that extends from the higher inland range to the North Sea slightly north of Stonehaven. The most well-known and historically important trackways are the Causey Mounth, Elsick Mounth, Cryne Corse Mounth and Cairnamounth.

Although most of the Highlands is geographically on the British mainland, it is somewhat less accessible than the rest of Britain; thus most UK couriers categorise it separately, alongside Northern Ireland, the Isle of Man, and other offshore islands. They thus charge additional fees for delivery to the Highlands, or exclude the area entirely. While the physical remoteness from the largest population centres inevitably leads to higher transit cost, there is confusion and consternation over the scale of the fees charged and the effectiveness of their communication, and the use of the word Mainland in their justification. Since the charges are often based on postcode areas, many far less remote areas, including some which are traditionally considered part of the lowlands, are also subject to these charges. Royal Mail is the only delivery network bound by a Universal Service Obligation to charge a uniform tariff across the UK. This, however, applies only to mail items and not larger packages which are dealt with by its Parcelforce division.

The Highlands lie to the north and west of the Highland Boundary Fault, which runs from Arran to Stonehaven. This part of Scotland is largely composed of ancient rocks from the Cambrian and Precambrian periods which were uplifted during the later Caledonian Orogeny. Smaller formations of Lewisian gneiss in the northwest are up to 3 billion years old. The overlying rocks of the Torridon Sandstone form mountains in the Torridon Hills such as Liathach and Beinn Eighe in Wester Ross.

These foundations are interspersed with many igneous intrusions of a more recent age, the remnants of which have formed mountain massifs such as the Cairngorms and the Cuillin of Skye. A significant exception to the above are the fossil-bearing beds of Old Red Sandstone found principally along the Moray Firth coast and partially down the Highland Boundary Fault. The Jurassic beds found in isolated locations on Skye and Applecross reflect the complex underlying geology. They are the original source of much North Sea oil. The Great Glen is formed along a transform fault which divides the Grampian Mountains to the southeast from the Northwest Highlands.

The entire region was covered by ice sheets during the Pleistocene ice ages, save perhaps for a few nunataks. The complex geomorphology includes incised valleys and lochs carved by the action of mountain streams and ice, and a topography of irregularly distributed mountains whose summits have similar heights above sea-level, but whose bases depend upon the amount of denudation to which the plateau has been subjected in various places.

Climate

The region is much warmer than other areas at similar latitudes (such as Kamchatka in Russia, or Labrador in Canada) because of the Gulf Stream making it cool, damp and temperate. The Köppen climate classification is "Cfb" at low altitudes, then becoming "Cfc", "Dfc" and "ET" at higher altitudes.

Places of interest

An Teallach

Aonach Mòr (Nevis Range ski centre)

Arrochar Alps

Balmoral Castle

Balquhidder

Battlefield of Culloden

Beinn Alligin

Beinn Eighe

Ben Cruachan hydro-electric power station

Ben Lomond

Ben Macdui (second highest mountain in Scotland and UK)

Ben Nevis (highest mountain in Scotland and UK)

Cairngorms National Park

Cairngorm Ski centre near Aviemore

Cairngorm Mountains

Caledonian Canal

Cape Wrath

Carrick Castle

Castle Stalker

Castle Tioram

Chanonry Point

Conic Hill

Culloden Moor

Dunadd

Duart Castle

Durness

Eilean Donan

Fingal's Cave (Staffa)

Fort George

Glen Coe

Glen Etive

Glen Kinglas

Glen Lyon

Glen Orchy

Glenshee Ski Centre

Glen Shiel

Glen Spean

Glenfinnan (and its railway station and viaduct)

Grampian Mountains

Hebrides

Highland Folk Museum – The first open-air museum in the UK.

Highland Wildlife Park

Inveraray Castle

Inveraray Jail

Inverness Castle

Inverewe Garden

Iona Abbey

Isle of Staffa

Kilchurn Castle

Kilmartin Glen

Liathach

Lecht Ski Centre

Loch Alsh

Loch Ard

Loch Awe

Loch Assynt

Loch Earn

Loch Etive

Loch Fyne

Loch Goil

Loch Katrine

Loch Leven

Loch Linnhe

Loch Lochy

Loch Lomond

Loch Lomond and the Trossachs National Park

Loch Lubnaig

Loch Maree

Loch Morar

Loch Morlich

Loch Ness

Loch Nevis

Loch Rannoch

Loch Tay

Lochranza

Luss

Meall a' Bhuiridh (Glencoe Ski Centre)

Scottish Sea Life Sanctuary at Loch Creran

Rannoch Moor

Red Cuillin

Rest and Be Thankful stretch of A83

River Carron, Wester Ross

River Spey

River Tay

Ross and Cromarty

Smoo Cave

Stob Coire a' Chàirn

Stac Polly

Strathspey Railway

Sutherland

Tor Castle

Torridon Hills

Urquhart Castle

West Highland Line (scenic railway)

West Highland Way (Long-distance footpath)

Wester Ross

Loch Leven, Glen Coe Mountain Range, Highlands, Scotland. by PHOTOGRAPHY by DM & DBM.

11

Loch Leven is a sea loch located on the west coast of Scotland. It is spelled Loch Lyon in Timothy Pont's map of the area and is pronounced Li' un. The local Gaelic pronunciation is Lee' oon

Loch Leven extends 8+3⁄4 miles (14.1 km), varying in width between 220 yards (200 m) and just over 1 mile (1.6 km). It opens onto Camus a' Chois at North Ballachulish, part of Loch Linnhe at its western end. There are nine small islands, some rocky and covered with heather and some just smooth green grass, near the western end of the loch.

The village of Glencoe (Scottish Gaelic: A' Chàrnaich) lies on its southern shore. The burial place of the MacDonald clan of Glencoe lies on an island - Eilean Munde, St.Munda's or St Munn's or Saint Fintan Munnu's Island, opposite the village. The island burial place was also shared by the Camerons of Callart, on the north shore of the loch, the Stewarts of Ballachulish and Appin and other local families.

The village of Kinlochleven at the head of the loch was established when the aluminium smelter was built there during the first decade of the twentieth century. It was originally the hamlets of Kinlochmore (Inverness-shire) and Kinlochbeg (Argyll) either side of the River Leven. A road connecting the village to Glencoe and the south was not constructed until 1922: until this date the village could only be reached from the south by boat or on foot. The road on the north of the loch continues on to Fort William (Scottish Gaelic: An Gearasdan Inbhir Lochaidh), and was built in 1927.

For many years the Ballachulish Ferry plied the route across the mouth of the loch, providing a key link on the A82 between Glasgow and Fort William. In 1975 the Ballachulish Bridge replaced the ferry. Under the bridge lie the narrows of Caolas Mhic Phàdraig. The settlements either side of this point are North and South Ballachulish - Baile a' Chaolais (the settlement on the narrows). There is a fast tidal stream through the narrows, running at up to seven knots at springs; it is wise, therefore, to time and match any passage through the narrows with the tides. Further up the loch, there are several other narrows - principally Caolas na Con - with significant, but diminishing tidal streams. The Caolas na Con represented a considerable barrier to shipping, restricting the size of vessels that could reach Kinlochleven, however in 1907 the channel was dredged and the silt-bearing Allt Gleann a' Chaolais diverted to allow ships bringing bauxite alumina to reach the smelter at Kinlochleven.