In Scotland we’re famous for majestic unspoilt landscapes, and there’s some unusual proof that some of them are really quite empty of people: in the rankings of the least popular Ordnance Survey maps in the UK, Scotland claims all of the top ten. If you watch Landward on BBC Scotland, you’ll have seen a recent episode where the team took on the challenge of visiting the area covered by the map at number 1: OS Explorer 440, covering an area in the Highlands, north of Inverness. As soon as the team arrives, they see an osprey, then a lizard, then a beautiful waterfall: not quite the featureless landscape one might assume from it being so decisively overlooked by the map-buying community. Read More
Strange things are happening in cathedrals down south. In Rochester, they’ve installed crazy golf; and in the nave at Norwich you can slide down an enormous helter skelter. No news of anything like that in Scotland, yet. But if you’re from St Andrews, the news in August has always been about the fun of the fair. The rides might not be inside the churches, but the whole town grinds to a halt every year, as one by one, the main streets are taken over by the Lammas Market. It’s said to be Europe’s oldest surviving medieval street fair, and it’s been running now for over 900 years. Read More
The head-hunter Joanna Moriarty has a wonderful turn of phrase. She says it’s great that men are appointing women to senior roles, but now that women have finally made it into the boardroom, she reckons the men still need to ‘budge up’ to accommodate them. I know quite a few men who struggle with this, because it seems that whatever they do it’s never quite right. It either feels patronising, or it’s not supportive enough. And it’s in everyone’s interests that women perform well, particularly in the boardroom, not just in service of better results but also to be role models for those coming up behind them. So how might men budge up, exactly? Here are 7 golden rules:
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