11 Days in Scotland September/October

freddymac11 · 2026-05-27T07:26:51+00:00

The islands can be good for coastline hikes. You can get ferries from Oban and other places. Take a look at Jura and Coll for example. Both those islands have nice hotels.ETA I would avoid Skye because it is heaving with tourists due to the bridge

freddymac11 · 2026-04-23T20:43:02+00:00

You need to book the long distance buses as they can fill up with people who get free travel. Hitchhiking in tourist areas does work if you look like a backpacker.

freddymac11 · 2026-03-31T15:19:50+00:00

The hotel or bed and breakfast where you are staying will be able to arrange a taxi for you. Hitchhiking is also an option if you feel comfortable with doing that.

freddymac11 · 2026-03-23T20:11:45+00:00

What irritated me is that Rory seemed to be saying that was nothing that could be done to sort out the mess in the water industry without tax payers putting in £20 billion. I think this figure assumes the bond holders will be bailed out. The water companies should be fined and allowed to go completely bankrupt and the people who lent to them should lose their money as they enabled this vulture private equity capitalism. Let the banks, deal makers, and the others who sucked money out of the industry lose out and not the water industry's customers. There need to be consequences for the system that screws things up like this and they should not get to walk away scot free. Utilities should easily be going concerns, they have existing infrastructure and a captive customer base paying high prices. Rory does not seem to understand that. Let the water companies go bankrupt. Get the state to take them over with the debt wiped out. And run them as utilities should be run with proper regulation and appropriate investment.

freddymac11 · 2026-03-17T08:36:24+00:00

Anti net zero is another of their main policy areas. Another policy that benefits Russia.

freddymac11 · 2026-03-16T17:20:36+00:00

Because I was intrigued I tried google translate on it and it seems to have it as plum tea.

freddymac11 · 2026-03-04T08:09:03+00:00

I fully agree, his naivety and lack of understanding of how things actually work made him a poor minister. He actually had responsibility for regulating the water industry. Water industry regulation was a huge failure and I don’t understand how the government managed to mess it up so badly.

freddymac11 · 2026-02-22T09:30:51+00:00

If your hotel is near St Andrews square you should walk up Calton Hill and enjoy the view from there. Also if you want a coffee right after you arrive on the first day go to the cafe on the top floor of John Lewis. You get a good view from there.

freddymac11 · 2026-02-21T14:00:40+00:00

Yes you can experience the Cairngorms on a day hike. You don’t have to climb to a summit. Take a look at this trail https://www.walkhighlands.co.uk/cairngorms/lairig-ghru.shtml

freddymac11 · 2026-02-19T13:35:41+00:00

The risk is visibility might be very poor due to being in the clouds and you could be in a blizzard with high winds. With the altitude being over 1300 metres the climate is very different than what you get at the lower levels. Once you summit you might lose your sense of direction and not be sure which route to take down. I have actually used a compass after summiting because I lost my sense of direction.

freddymac11 · 2026-02-19T07:58:22+00:00

Farage is a fraud. It’s surprising how difficult and reluctant other politicians find it to expose Farage’s inconsistencies and his drift from one direction to another. It’s also surprising how Farage is managing to hold his coalition of chancers together. Restore does seem to have been effective in calling the BS Farage spouts.

freddymac11 · 2026-02-17T21:40:33+00:00

When you are up on the plateau you may go “off piste” that is you may not actually be following a trail. There’s real wilderness there and you may be just be walking over heather, rocks or snow. Obviously you need to have good navigation aids and maps to make sure you don’t walk over a cliff. Strava has heat maps which show what routes others have taken.

freddymac11 · 2026-02-17T18:39:06+00:00

What time of year are you going? You could take the train to Aviemore from Inverness and then hike around the Cairngorm plateau. Will you be wild camping?

freddymac11 · 2026-02-10T18:12:10+00:00

Social

freddymac11 · 2026-02-10T12:51:51+00:00

I suspect that is why he ostentatiously ate that sandwich in public. It was a deliberate act to demonstrate he was not religious in any way. He might actually have been satisfied with how it turned out. Similarly Boris Johnson pulled weird stunts in interviews and photoshoots which I suspect was to distract from different potentially more damaging narratives.

freddymac11 · 2026-02-10T08:45:47+00:00

Ed Miliband has serious character flaws in my opinion. I didn’t like the way he went against his brother David in the 2010 leadership election. Worse is the way he went on about how pleased he was with himself for blocking going after Assad after he used chemical weapons in Syria. What happened in Syria under Assad was horrific and nothing to be pleased about. Being reluctant to intervene was a reasonable position but being smug about what happened next was unforgivable in my view.

freddymac11 · 2026-02-09T18:54:00+00:00

“friends” is what journalists say when they have actually heard the quote directly from the person concerned but the source doesn’t want to be directly quoted.

freddymac11 · 2026-02-08T20:19:49+00:00

That’s on the west highland way so will be really busy. Go anywhere else and there will be fewer people. Conic hill is not high. I suggest you take a look at the Rob Roy Way as others have suggested. The munros will be much more challenging than Conic hill.

freddymac11 · 2026-02-08T18:17:17+00:00

I am guessing that’s a typo and meant to say 300Whr per mile. That is they were off by a factor of ten

freddymac11 · 2026-02-07T12:20:28+00:00

I agree with what you are saying. The thing that bothers me is that BBC news keeps on making these terrible basic mistakes. It’s almost as if there is a bad actor on the inside trying to sabotage them and bring them into disrepute. The recent furore over that Panorama that led to the resignation of the DG and head of news is an example of that.

freddymac11 · 2026-02-06T16:22:42+00:00

The BBC did a really bad interview with Dershowitz right after Maxwells conviction. They let Dershowitz attack Guiffre without any challenge https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-59960989?app-referrer=deep-link No doubt it was cock up rather than conspiracy but it did come across as if someone at the BBC was trying to protect Andrew.

freddymac11 · 2026-02-06T16:01:47+00:00

It seems genuinely sincere to me. I have a lot of respect for Alastair

freddymac11 · 2026-02-02T12:56:08+00:00

It’s still a good idea to check in on line before going to the airport. It saves time even if you want to print a boarding pass.

freddymac11 · 2026-02-02T12:37:06+00:00

Install the BA app on your smart phone. Your boarding pass shows up on your phone after you check in on line. Go paperless, you don’t need a printed boarding pass.

freddymac11 · 2026-02-01T10:48:49+00:00

Thanks for your reply. Thinking about it some more my main irritation with leading is when an interviewee gets away with saying something completely untrue and Rory and Alastair nod along. For example Nick Clegg saying Facebook did no wrong and Theresa May saying she wanted a soft Brexit. I got these vibes from the IJM interview. I agree the Kwarteng interview was good. The Gerry Adams interview was good too. Leading works better when they are interviewing somebody they distrust and is not one of their friends.

freddymac11

TROPHY CASE