Wish You Were Here (!/?)

Every so often you see something that you can’t quite explain. This morning at around 8 am I looked to the East from Stornoway and saw what looked like a Tornado over Point!

I have posted a picture here for anyone who cares to suggest what it is they are looking at.

I have discounted a Tornado in the absence of reported damaged from Sandwick to Tiumpan Head.

The blog name “Wish You Were Here (!/?)” can be read two ways depending whether you end with the exclamation mark or the question mark.

When you hear and read of the many quibbles and quarrels (slight understatement) that go on around the communities on Lewis you sometimes do wonder why would anyone want to be here! The community spirit so often mentioned only goes so far and to be honest in some ways I have never come across such divided communities anywhere else. The latest quarrels relating to the time of some fireworks being let off before midnight on New Year’s eve and the outrage by the Free Church continuing at what they have called an “Ecumenical” service demonstrate to me the worst aspect of religion. I am a Christian and it saddens me greatly when I hear the arguments starting again, and ask what would God make of it all? I can’t help but think he wouldn’t be outraged at us mortals once a year having a small celebration at the passing of another year even if it did run into a Sunday a bit. I do think he might be somewhat more than annoyed at the mortals who over history have sought to destroy and divide the Church (that’s his church I’m talking about) or to prevent followers of Christ re-unite in any way whatsoever, be they 16th century “Reformers” or their modern day exponoents.

So it seems we are going to get an Argos store in Stornoway, taking over the premises currently occupied by Furniture World, who themselves are moving premises. It will be very interesting to see the impact the new store will have on both the town centre, which suffered when Woollies closed, as well as the impact on local businesses.

Initially of course the impact will be possitive with a new additional business creating some job opportunities (especially I suspect for the young) but, with the competition it creates, in the medium longer term perhaps cause problems for smaller businesses.

Many on the Island of course already order from Argos via Woody’s so they will be happy to lose the additional carriage costs (Which Woody’s will lose - though I guess they can take that hit) and of course it will give customers a greater variety of products on the door step.

I’d be very interested to hear any other Island experiences of such an occurance and the impact it had. What will the effect be on our local furniture, toy, bikes, jewelry, beds, computers, phones, bedding, gadgets stores …..???

If ever there was something to connect the aforementioned, it would undoubtedly be something extraordinary. Anyone who has been fortunate to visit the Museum nan Eilean will have already made the connection – “The Lewis Chessmen: Unmasked” exhibition has only a few days left before the Island where the chess pieces were found over 200 years ago will have to say farewell to them once more.

I had been meaning to “pop in” to see the exhibition all summer, but left it until last week before I went with the rest of the family.

The exhibition is well arranged and there was a MacTV documentary running (50 odd minutes as the shorter version had broken down), which covered the history of the pieces through various interviews with local persons with “stories passed down” as well as historians and archeologists.

The chess pieces are themselves somewhat larger than I was perhaps expecting and the craftsmanship involved by the carvers would put any self-respecting CNC machine to shame.

Of Norse origin (accepted by most experts!), the pieces found their way by ship to the Westside, where they found their way ashore, perhaps hidden and later found before being sold (most of the pieces) to the British Museum through the intervention of a Minister.

The chessmen were number 5 in the list of British archaeological finds selected by experts at the British Museum, and rightly so in my mind, and their intricacy and charm obviously cast a spell over JK Rowling when she visualized the game of Wizard’s Chess.

For a full explanation of the history of these amazing artifacts - all I can say is if you have half a chance to visit the museum this weekend, then do so. You will not be disappointed.