Things To Do

Why is Scottish whisky spelled without an ‘e’ and Irish whiskey with an ‘e’? Marketing! I know that’s probably not what you were expecting! But it was a move by Irish distillers in the 19th century to differentiate their product from Scottish distilleries also producing whisky. They put an ‘e’ in the word so that at a glance you’d know it was an Irish whiskey! Here’s an easy one… Why is it called Scotch? An abbreviation of Scottish Whisky. Strangely though, very few Scottish people ever call it Scotch. I love that the Scottish Gaelic for whisky is uisge-beatha -…

I’m intrigued by standing stone circles, they are fascinating things.  Firstly I’m astounded by how long they’ve survived and that I can place my hand on an object put there by someone thousands of years ago.   The engineering used to create these mysterious places is impressive, as often they are geometrically correct and aligned to astronomical events.  Then there’s the most captivating aspect to stone circles, why do they exist?  What was their purpose?  Are they burial sites, observatories for watching the stars, do they depict solar/lunar cycles, are they places for social rituals or symbolic of a different set…