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Rosalind and Donald McIntyre of Fife, Scotland, unearthed a stone carving in their garden earlier this year that bears a striking resemblance to the animated character Homer Simpson. Experts have pegged the sculptured head at about 800 years old.
Mrs McIntyre said: ‘Our sons took it to St Andrews Museum and they were completely amazed by it. They said that they would try and carbon date it.
‘They had it for 11 or 12 weeks, but they couldn’t find out when or where it was from, but they said they thought it was very, very old.
‘They sent it around various places but no one could find out anything about it.
‘When they gave it back to us you could see where they took parts of the stone from behind the ear to try and date it.’
Mrs McIntyre said that the bulbous-eyed sculpture was completely solid, and very heavy, but full of detail.
She added: ‘If you put your finger into his mouth you can feel all the ridges and his teeth.’
Since the head has come into their lives, the intrigue has taken up so much time that the artefact has become part of the family.
‘There is no other word to describe it other than ugly, but we have become quite attached to it,’ Mrs McIntyre said.
The McIntyres speculate that the head may be a gargoyle from a 13th-century church. Link -via HuffPo
(Image credit: Central Scotland News Agency)
These amazingly realistic portraits were rendered in chalk and graphite by Scottish artist Paul Cadden. Apparently, he specializes in faces with lots of wrinkles personality. Shades of gray never looked so good!
Construction workers digging a foundation for a supermarket in Camelon, Scotland, ran into what is now an archaeological site. Around 60 pairs of discarded footwear that once belonged to Roman soldiers was found.
The 2,000-year-old leather footwear was discovered along with Roman jewelry, coins, pottery, and animal bones at the site, which is located at the northern frontier of the Roman Empire.
The cache of Roman shoes and sandals—one of the largest ever found in Scotland—was uncovered recently in a ditch at the gateway to a second century A.D. fort built along the Antonine Wall. The wall is a massive defensive barrier that the Romans built across central Scotland during their brief occupation of the region.
In what will most likely prove to be a garbage dump, archaeologists are finding clues to life in one of the “most important Scottish excavations in the last decade.” Link
(Image credit: Martin Cook)
Roxy is a Staffordshire bull terrier who suffers from diabetes and requires daily insulin shots. The Scottish SPCA wondered if she would ever be adopted into a permanent home. But Catherine and Graham Hendry didn’t consider the shots a burden because their 8-year-old twin daughters, Louise and Katie, also have type 1 diabetes and must take daily shots as well.
The dog and girls now all have their injections together.
The Hendry family had spotted a newspaper appeal about Roxy and decided to visit her at the charity’s animal rescue and rehoming centre at Drumoak, where she had been since July.
Mrs Hendry said: “We originally saw an appeal for Roxy in our local paper about six weeks ago but our staffy, Buzz, had recently passed away and we felt it was too soon.
“Then we saw another appeal a few weeks later and thought it must be fate. We decided to go and see her that day and just fell in love with her.
Beautiful paper sculptures are being left around Scotland’s libraries as a token of appreciation. The artist’s M.O.? Puns, Twitter shout outs, and complete anonymity.
Link -via Boing Boing | Photo Credit chrisdonia
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Teacher David Crichton was holding a physical education class outdoors in Galashiels, Scotland, last week when worms began raining from the sky.
The boys heard a “soft thudding” on the artificial pitch – then looked up to see dozens of worms plummeting from the sky.
David, 26, said he and other teachers at Galashiels Academy were baffled by the incident.
And they later found more worms spread across a school tennis court almost 100 yards from the pitch. He said: “We started hearing this wee thudding noise. There were about 20 worms on the ground.
School staff eventually found about 120 worms. It is believed that a freak weather event lifted the worms along with water from a nearby river. The story was first reported on April first, but there is of yet no indication that it was an April Fool. Link -via Fortean Times
(Image credit: Kingdom News Agency)
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Mosaic artist Katy Galbraith made this wonderful shower stall of hand-cut tiles with some broken ceramics. There are tile books perched on the sink as well! It turns out, you can enjoy this bathroom yourself, as it is part of a rental accommodation called the Galvelmore House Garden Flat in Crieff, Perthshire, Scotland. An artful spot for a private getaway! Link -via TYWKIWDBI
(Image credit: Flickr user Katy Galbraith)
We once featured an Euler diagram that explained the British Isles, the United Kingdom, and Great Britain. This video explains all that clearly but quickly, then goes on to explain the British Empire, the Crown Colonies, Crown Dependencies, and other terms that confuse Americans and others who don’t deal with such geographical concepts every day. If this goes too fast for you, the script is available from C. G. P. Grey. Link -via reddit
The Scottish Tartans Authority, an organization which provides guidance for Scottish traditions, says that it’s time for kilt-wearers to begin wearing underpants:
The Scottish Tartans Authority has decreed that refusing to put on underwear beneath a kilt is “childish and unhygienic”.
It also warned that “going commando” flies in the face of decency.
Tartans Authority director Brian Wilton said kilt wearers should have the “common sense” to realise they should wear underwear beneath their country’s national dress.
Link | Photo by Flickr user ianrob63 used under Creative Commons license
The Croy Brae or Electric Brae is a road in rural Scotland that can disorient drivers. Some people think that it’s due to unusual variations in magnetism that pull cars uphill:
The road appears to slope downward, and drivers assume that the slope will accelerate the vehicle. Yet if they slow down, they are likely to grind to a complete halt. Despite every appearance to the contrary, the road runs uphill, not downhill. Unable to believe what has happened, many motorists stop-only to find that their cars begin to slide backward, a “uphill.”
Consequently, it’s a popular spot for tourists in the area. But mathematician Philip Gibbs says that there’s no paranormal or magnetic phenomenon at work. It’s just an optical illusion:
There are several things that enable us to sense which way is up. The balance mechanism in our inner ears is one system we have, but visual clues are also important and can be overriding. If the horizon cannot be seen or is not level, then we may be fooled by objects that we expect to be vertical but that really are not. False perspective might also play a role. If a line of trees get larger or smaller with distance away, our sense of perspective is thrown off. Objects far away may seem smaller or larger than they really are.
People often overestimate the angle of a slope. If you are standing on a slope of 1 degrees it will seem like a slope of 5 degrees and if you stand on a slope of 5 degrees it may seem like you are on a slope of 30 degrees. Because of this effect the anti-gravity illusion can seem stronger than it should be even when you know the cause
Paranormal explanation and scientific explanation via The Presurfer | Photo: Ayrshire government
The Scottish wildcat, also known as the Highland tiger, is so reclusive that scientists don’t know much about it. Camera traps set in the Cairngorms National Park are now yielding pictures of the cats that may help conservationists protect the animal.
The research is being led by Dr David Hetherington of the Cairngorms National Park Authority.
He told BBC Scotland: “Wildcats are very shy, secretive animals. They are active mainly at night and it’s really difficult for people to get close enough to watch them properly.
“These camera traps are an excellent way of us getting a much better insight into where wildcats live, when they’re active, and what habitat they’re using.
“We can also get an idea of where they don’t live and, of course, that’s also really important information.”
Experts believe the Scottish wildcat population has fallen to about 400, and work is under way to prevent the species becoming extinct.
The biggest threat to the wildcat’s survival as a species is their tendency to interbreed with domestic cats. The Scottish wildcat is the last wild feline predator in Scotland. Link -via ForteanTimes
(image credit: Neil Anderson)
The Garden of Cosmic Speculation was created by Charles Jencks and Maggie Keswick in Dumfries, Scotland in 1989. It contains unusual geometric patterns in order to inspire the mind. The mound pictured above was designed around the Fibonacci sequence. This is a private garden and open to the public only one day a year.
Link via The Presurfer | Video | Official Website | Photo: flickr user Paulus Maximus! used under Creative Commons license.
Pringle of Scotland is an old and established sweater company which has nothing to do with potato chips. They commissioned artist David Shrigley to make a humorous video about the firm. The result is strange and delightful! -via Flotsam
John and Kay Ure live in a former lighthouse keeper’s cottage at the edge of a cliff on the coast of northern Scotland. On December 19th, Kay Ure left to go buy a Christmas turkey in Inverness. Before she could return, a snowstorm blocked the road and she had to stay in the village of Durness, eleven miles from home.
Mr Ure spent Christmas and New Year on his own and celebrated his 58th birthday last Sunday with a tin of baked beans.
Yesterday, for the first time since mid-December, he managed to drive 11 miles to a small jetty and cross the Kyle of Durness by boat to collect his wife and the turkey.
The couple run the country’s “most isolated tearoom” at the end of an ungritted army road and were forced to spend their first festive season apart in 35 years.
John Ure was down to emergency rations before he could drive to town. He said reuniting with his wife was like a “second honeymoon”. Link -via Arbroath
(image credit: Peter Jolly)
One of the most eerie historical mysteries of all time is that of the strange disappearance of the three ligthouse keepers of Eilean Mor. Some even think they might have been abducted by a giant bird or squid… and, of course, by aliens. Others say they have gone mad and murdered each other. And then there is of course the theory of a very local tsunami on the west coast of Scotland…
The Flannan Islands had been marked by superstition from the time they were named for the obscure Saint Flan. It was said that the “Phantoms of the Seven Hunters” so resented the intrusion of the lighthouse that they lured the men over the cliff to their death…
As a matter of fact, Ducat did not want to be stationed at Eilean Mor. He seemed to have had some sort of a premonition and said it was “not the most suitable place for a man with a young family”.
From the Upcoming 
ueue, submitted by Your Favorite Ghostwriter.
A young man, using his metal detector for the first time, walked about seven steps from his car and got a signal.
The four gold Iron Age neck ornaments, or torcs, date from between the 1st and 3rd Century BC and are said to be worth an estimated £1m… The find is the most important hoard of Iron Age gold in Scotland to date.
Neatorama has previously posted stories about a Viking hoard and an Anglo-Saxon hoard found in the British Isles. One factor that favors the discovery and preservation of these archeological treasures is the Treasure Act of 1996, an Act of Parliament that requires treasure hunters to turn in their finds to local authorities, but then guarantees them monetary compensation based on a market value of the treasure. In many countries without such laws, finds such as these would be sold on the black market or melted down for bullion, destroying the remarkable artistry of the pieces. The Treasure Act does not apply in Scotland, where this was found, but indications are that this fellow will be richly compensated in order to encourage others to report their discoveries.
At the BBC link the other pieces can be seen in a brief video.
I’m sure if I asked you what country do you think haggis originated from, you’d say Scotland. Well, that would be wrong. In fact, haggis was invented by the English.
Food historian Catherine Brown has discovered something that would be very hard for the Scots to swallow: that the national dish of Scotland was described in a 1615 recipe book The English Hus-wife by Gervase Markham.
Ms Brown, whose findings feature in a TV documentary broadcast this week, said: “It was originally an English dish. In 1615, Gervase Markham says that it is very popular among all people in England.
“By the middle of the 18th century another English cookery writer, Hannah Glasse, has a recipe that she calls Scotch haggis, the haggis that we know today.”
But reference to haggis in a 1771 novel by Tobias Smollett, The Expedition of Humphry Clinker, showed it was considered a Scottish dish by the late 18th century.
From the Upcoming ueue, submitted by pigjockey.
The people of Falkirk, Scotland needed to connect two waterways, but there was one big problem. The difference in height between the two measures about the same as an eight story building. The solution? A pretty amazing rotating boat lift, the only one of its type in the world:
The Scottish capital city, Edinburgh and its second city, Glasgow, had no water based connection for seventy years. It wasn’t until almost the dawn of the new century that this situation was reconsidered and the idea of the Falkirk Wheel was taken seriously and put in to action.
Now the wheel, as well as a connector between the two cities, is a remarkable and awe-inspiring tourist destination in its own right. However, if it wasn’t for the prodigious gambling habits of the British people this amazing structure would never have been built.
From the Upcoming ueue, submitted by taliesyn30.
There are two remarkable things about this BBC news report from Edinburgh, Scotland. First, a man tried to break into a flat carrying a pitch fork. And second, he was chased away by a man dressed as the Norse god Thor.
"Thor" was actually Torvald Alexander, who was dressed-up for a New Year’s dress party. Link
If you’re curious, Telegraph has a photo of Torvald in his Thor costume.
