Dusk at Stranraer

Paparazzi

Jubilee Walkway

A dose of British sense of humour

DANGER

ANTI CLIMBING

DEVICE

Treated with Anthrax

and a dose of British sense of humour

Eton

The leaders of the pack are not Nicholas Nassim Taleb's black swans, but rather ducks :-(

The Little Prince

Did the vandals in Glasgow (The City of Sculptures) copy this idea from us ?

(See Petr's Photo in front of the Tokyo Tower in the blog post "The Journey of the Five Travellers")

Hold your hands up high Jack

Once some captors took some passengers in a vehicle hostage. Now as we all know, Jack is a very common name in the English language. The captors shouted: "Hold your hands up high Jack" (using Jack as a placeholder for a man's name). A newspaper reporting this incident referred to them as "The highJackers". The name stuck, and was later shortened from 'highjacker' to 'hijacker', and the act itself became known as 'hijack'.

When I was in school, a friend (who now conducts quizzes at the national level) told me this convincing piece of logic.

Gullible as I was, and as specious the explanation was, I took it to be true. Until about 2 minutes ago, when I decided to verify the veracity of the fact on the internet. Apparently this is wrong.

The correct order of evolution is:

Jack -> Jacker -> Highway Jacker -> High jacker -> Hijack.

Jack = device for holding a vehicle up for repair.

Jacker = holdup man who uses a jack to hold a vehicle up (for repair or otherwise)

Highway Jacker (= = A bootelgger who holds a vehicle in transit on the highway

U-Tube

Compartmentalized

Apparition

At a haunted underground vault in the city affectionately nicknamed 'Auld Reekie' (Scottish for 'Old Smoky').

The 120 rooms in the underground vault were discarded for use between 1835 to 1875.

And they were simply forgotten, until they were discovered serendipitiously in 1988 !

King of the hill

2nd most safest city worldwide ...

... as voted by tourists in an UN poll !!!

These pictures are taken from the western areas of the city - within 10 minutes walking distance away from the heart of the city. 

One of the two pictures is from a residential area which is closed at night for safety reasons.