Greyfriar’s Bobby

One of the fixtures of Edinburgh is Greyfriar’s Bobby. Bobby was a Skye Terrier belonging to a Mr. John Gray, a night watchman, who died in 1858, and was buried in Greyfriars Kirkyard, the cemetery attached to Greyfriars Church. Mr. Gray and Bobby were inseparable in life and in death. For the next 14 years, Bobby kept vigil at Gray’s graveside, leaving only in bad weather, when he was sheltered in nearby homes and fed at the backdoors of local restaurants. Word of Bobby’s devotion spread and the City Council paid for the renewal of Bobby’s license, making him a ward of the city. Bobby died, old and full of honors, in 1872, and was buried just outside the cemetery proper but within the walls. Bobby’s headstone, dedicated by the Duke of Gloucester, bears the inscription “Let his loyalty and devotion be a lesson to us all.” At the base is a pile of sticks and dog toys left by dog lovers for over a century.


A bronze statue of Bobby stands near the cemetery, just outside Greyfriars Pub. Legend has it that the publican turned the statue 180 degrees, so it no longer faces the cemetery, and any photo of Bobby will also have the pub in the background.

Technology and Nationalism

Scots seem to be of two minds when it comes to Britain. On the one hand, Scots have fought and died for King (or Queen) and Country for nearly 250 years, supplying what is arguably the world’s best infantry to the British Army. The “feathered bonnet” worn by Scottish bagpipe bands traces its ancestry to the tall bearskins worn by Napoleon’s Old Guard. Scots picked up the headgear on battlefields across Europe when the original owners no longer needed it. Similarly, the leopard skin tunics on the bass drummers are from the Sudan where Highland regiments defeated an army of radical Islamists on the outskirts of Khartoum in the late 1800’s.


On the other hand, Scots do not really see themselves as British, Tony Blair (an Edinburgh native) not withstanding. They almost never refer to the English by that name, preferring “our neighbors to the south” or some other euphemism. It reminded me of Harry Potter, where the name of Voldemort is never called out. That actually makes a certain amount of sense, since J.K. Rowling, another native Edinburgher, wrote the early drafts of her first book in a coffee shop by George IV Bridge.


This can go to extremes; around downtown Edinburgh, you can see stickers proclaiming “Scottish not British” with the blue and white flag of St. Andrew.


Alec, who spent a semester at the University of Edinburgh, tells the story of a student-organized Scottish nationalism rally. The organizers xeroxed dozens of copies of the flag and slogan and posted them on campus bulletin boards, with the time and place. Some wag, with his or her own sense of history and nationalism, scrawled across the paper: Cornish, not Scottish—get a color printer. It seems the flag of Cornwall (the cross of St. Piran, patron saint of tin miners) has a white X-shaped cross on a black background.

The Sir Walter Scott Memorial—Drunks at Dawn

During our stay in Edinburgh, I would get up at dawn, grab something to eat, and go exploring. One gray and chill spring morning, I hiked across North Bridge, over what used to be North Loch, now the Waverly Train Station, and wandered into Edinburgh’s New Town. I crossed the bridge, skirting the monument in its center, a statue to some Scottish regiment or other, mustachioed helmeted soldiers brandishing flags and weapons for queen and country in some long ago, half-remembered colonial war on the far side of the world. My plan was to see the Sir Walter Scott Memorial, shoot some photos, and in general, take in the ambiance of what has to be one of the ugliest structures I have ever laid eyes on. I had seen the Memorial from a tour bus and noticed it poking above the eastern skyline, but I wanted to see it up close, what may be the finest example of Victorian wretched excess in the whole of the British Isles.

You really can’t miss the Memorial, standing in Princess Gardens, 200 feet tall, and made of locally quarried shale—a bad choice, given that the oil in the shale has migrated to the outside and bonded with decades of coal smoke, making the entire structure soot black. Author Bill Bryson has described it as “looking like a Victorian gothic rocket ship”. He’s right. If the Brits had had a space program in the early 1800’s, Apollo 11 would have gone up in something resembling this, steam-powered and coal-fired.


I think maybe the only thing missing on the space flight would have been the gargoyles. Two in each corner about half way up, they are a bit unexpected. Then again, given Victorian tastes for jim-cracks and jee-jaws, maybe not. I’m sure the Brits would have figured out how to make them retract on re-entry.


I had finished walking around the base and the gleaming white marble statue of Scott himself at the center when two young men came up. They looked a bit rumpled and with the expression drunks have when they are trying to brazen their way along. “I see you’ve got a camera” the dark haired one slurred, “can you take a picture of me and the lad?” “Sure,” I said, “No worries.” The two posed, looking blearily into the camera. I snapped the shutter, they said thanks, and staggered off, holding each other up, zigzagging down the street like a sailboat tacking in a strong head wind. No address, no e-mail, no bloody idea in hell of who they were or what to do with the picture or where to send it. “Oh well,” came a bemused thought dancing around the edges of my brain, “it should make for a good story.” So, my two inebriated gents, if by chance, you happen to see this blog, let me know who and where you are and I’ll be glad to send you a photographic record of our meeting. Lord knows, you won’t remember it yourselves.

Beach Phantoms

You can forgive most people for not noticing the flicker of movement or not seeing them at all. Sand-colored, no bigger than the palm of your hand, and fast as hell, ghost crabs are denizens of sandy Atlantic beaches from Rhode Island to Brazil.

Active at night, ghost crabs spend most of their daylight hours in L-shaped burrows up to four feet deep. At dawn or dusk or on overcast days, small gouts of sand periodically erupt from burrows scattered along the beach above the high tide line. Holes range from dime to silver dollar-size, depending on the size of the resident crab. Digging crabs cradle a spoonful or so of sand in the crook of their claws and fling it out to the surface from the entrance marked with a fan of damp sand that may extend up to a foot out. This is like a person tossing a snow shovel-full across down the block.

Ghost crabs are marine animals who have almost made the transition to land dwellers. On warm June evenings, egg-carrying females rush to the edge of the surf and release their eggs into the water. All ghost crabs scamper to the wave line on occasion to fill special sacks beside the gills with oxygenated water. Specialized muscles circulate the water over the gills keeping them working. In a pinch, specialized leg hairs can wick up moisture from the damp sand at the bottom of a burrow and fill the gill sacks.

Ghost crabs are predators and scavengers. They hunt smaller mole crabs, beach fleas, and tiny burrowing coquina clams right up to the strand line at night. They also investigate and devour anything that may wash up. They can pick a fish to bones before dawn and the day shift of scavengers wakes up. Any greedy crab caught far from its burrow in day light risks becoming gull food. Crabs lack the ability to look up and gulls know this, dropping like hawks on the unlucky.

Ghost crabs segregate by size. The youngest and smallest crabs burrow in the damper sand nearer the surf line, while older and bigger crabs move up the beach to the foot of the dunes. . Crabs guard their burrows fiercely, engaging in ritualized combat with individuals of a like size and plain tossing out smaller contenders. Crabs allow another crab into their burrow only during emergencies or for romance—there seems to be a secret handshake (clawshake?) involved. The biggest crabs, mainly older females, burrow into the face of the dune itself where they remain safe from storm tides. Location, location, location

When your eye does catch the movement, feel free to chase and try to catch the crab. You won’t succeed. Mounted on short stalks like twin periscopes, the crab’s eyes are as good as yours for following movement. Tracking you by your shape against the skyline, the crab slides along sideways effortlessly over the sand at 10 miles per hour, as quick as any Olympic sprinter. Keep following though, and the crab will shift direction at full tilt. Neat trick for someone with five times the legs as you. Keep on it, and the crab will do one of two things. Either it will disappear down another crab’s hole, any port in a storm, or it will stop dead in its tracks. Your eyes, following the movement and your brain anticipating the next move, will loose it in the sand. Score one for the crab.

If you happen to be at any beach on the Atlantic not swept by municipal trash collectors, on a June evening with no moon and a falling tide, you may be lucky enough to see hundreds of ghost crabs scampering down to the water’s edge to release their eggs. Females carry hundreds in a large cluster under their abdomen and walk on stilted legs at full term. Reaching the water, they carefully wade in until the waves lap at their bellies and release their eggs to the currents. Some females may actually turn over on their backs to get the eggs out; a risky move since a wave may wash them out and surprisingly enough, ghost crabs can’t swim and will drown. Eggs soon hatch and the larvae are swept into the longshore current paralleling the coast. Crabs on your beach may well have been spawned on a beach further south, ensuring constant mixing of genes and regular recolonization of storm wrecked sands.

Once you see one, you’ll begin to notice them on nearly any beach you visit. On an exotic beach, like Rio or Jamaica, it’s like seeing a friend from home.

The Very Model of a Modern Pirate King

Last Saturday, we went down the road to Wolf Trap Park for the Performing Arts to catch the New York Gilbert and Sullivan Players (NYGASP) performing The Pirates of Penzance (or, The Slave to Duty). Pat’s sister, Kay, had seen them in St. Louis earlier this season and loved them. She wrote a review for her blog which David Wammen, aka the Managing Director, aka the Pirate King, added to the company’s web site (http://nygasp.org). He said it made his parents cry (a good thing).

We skipped down the hill past the grass-sitters (I know, awfully snobbish of me) to our seats in Row B—just a row back from the orchestra pit, where the conductor, also a member of the company, sat (never heard of one sitting before). We had a great listen to the unmiked instruments as well as an unparalleled view of the cast, complete with facial expressions.

It’s hard to mess up Gilbert and Sullivan, but when it’s really done well, it can rival most anything by Verdi or Wagner, and a lot shorter to boot. The singing is every bit what you would expect from a troupe of pros. The Pirate King’s baritone and chief ward Mabel’s soprano are wonderful. Mabel (Michele McConnell) has got one fabulous set of pipes. I swear I heard glass breaking in downtown Vienna.

One of the great things about Gilbert and Sullivan is the second-echelon characters. In Pirates, Major-General Stanley gets to show off his erudition as the Very Model of a Model Major-General—there must be some sort of informal contest amongst Major-Generals, present and past, as to who can sing the fastest and still be understood by the audience. Steven Quint must be in the top ten. His old creaky Major-General can barely walk (wears bunny slippers in Act II) but sings at light speed and like the energizer bunny, keeps going and going, refusing to wind up his aria.

“I can read a washing bill in Babylonic cuneiform
And tell you all the details of Caractacus's uniform.”

The “ad lib” asides themselves produce a chuckle—“Then I can hum a fugue of which I've heard the music's din afore…I'll never come up with a rhyme for 'din afore,”
To which the Pirate King, responds: "What, never?” the answer: "Well, hardly ever!", followed by “And whistle all the airs from that infernal nonsense Pinafore.”

David Auzier, the dance captain and Sergeant of Police (“When the Foeman Bares His Steel”), is the other secondary character, who also pretty much steals the show, or at least the second act. His hang-dog expression and loose limbed, Monty Python Ministry of Silly Walks physical acting compliments the choreography of his none-too-eager policemen, one of whom dances all his moves, Sufi-like, in complete opposition to the rest of the line. That’s got to be hard to pull off and be funny. He does and it is.

As with most Gilbert and Sullivan, the plot proceeds at break-neck pace until everyone—romantic leads, pirates, policemen, etc., have seemingly been painted into the tightest of corners when, in the (ta-da!) nick of time, all is miraculously resolved with happy endings galore, including a Chorus Line-style kick line of pirates, police, and wards, complete with glittery top hats and spirit fingers. I could have sat through the whole thing again—it was that much fun.

Afterwards we hung around the stage entrance until the conductor let us in; we found the Pirate King and handed him Kay's note in which she asked for a autograph for her and her sister (Pat) since they "were both orpans" something the pirates couldn't resist. “Oh!” he said, “you know Kay! I put her review on our web site.” He signed our programs and wished us and you all the best. He had to cut our conversation short, since he is a local boy (Gonzaga High School) and his grandma was waiting to see him. Made it even better…local boy makes good.

The (Other) British Museum

To a dinosaur geek, the British Museum of Natural History is paradise. Low and hulking, the yellow sandstone building covers an entire city block with terra cotta saber-tooth tigers lined up along the roof like ladies in the windows of an Amsterdam cathouse. Sculptured coelacanths and pterodactyls sport in the window bays promising untold pleasures within.


It starts at the entrance—you walk into the toothy grin of “Dippy”, the 100 foot long skeleton of a Diplodocus (Brontosaurus to the rest of us), stretching all the way back to the foot of the grand staircase. Head cocked to one side, seeming to say “and how are you this fine morning?”


The dinosaur gallery walks you through the history of what were the rulers of the planet for nearly 100 million years, showing what was replaced at either end and by whom. The gallery shows how the dinosaurs jump-started their reign when something big happened at the end of the Permian, about 250 million years ago and how they vanished without a trace when something equally big closed down the Cretaceous.


Subdued lighting casting sharp silhouettes along the walls heightens the sense of a lost world. High ceilings allow the beasts to stand to their full height while an imaginative steel catwalk brings you up to eye level. There is nothing like standing face-to face- with a Tyrannosaurus rex to really appreciate the size and bulk of the thing. It’s one thing to read about a twenty-foot tall creature with teeth like steak knives, and quite another to actually look down into a barrel-sized cuisinart looking back at you.


The museum devotes special attention to Tyrannosaurus rex, everybody’s favorite nightmare. As soon as the scientific world heard about this monster, the Brits sent expedition after expedition to the American west to find, buy, or flat out steal specimens. A hundred years of pouring over the best collection of T. rex skeletons (about 50 total) in the world has provided some astonishing insights and wonderful speculations.


The museum’s curators, using detailed microscopic bone analysis techniques, have shown that Tyrannosaurus life spans were on the order of a human’s. Growth was slow until the animal nearly doubled in size during its teen years. I can just imagine the young T. rex coming home after a hard day on the savannah and clearing out the fridge. The museum has taken advantage of this fact, constructing a life size animated model of a young T. rex, all teen hormones and angst, just hitting its growth spurt and polishing off an after-school snack of Triceratops to the delighted shrieks of school kids.


Not only about fang and claw; the gallery displays fossil and reconstructed eggs and even nests showing dinosaurs to have been attentive and caring parents. They had to be—any number of predators lurked in the Mesozoic brush, eager to convert one species into another. Still, there is an undeniable cuteness in the sight of a clutch of baby parrot beaks just breaking out of the shell as a parent dozes nearby.

The Stone of Destiny

Christmas Day, 1950. Four Scottish college students creep through the early morning murk to Westminster Abbey. In a daring display of subterfuge, worthy of any number of secret agent movies, they break into the Abbey. Keeping to the shadows, they make their way towards the wooden Coronation Chair, seat of British monarchs since 1300. And break the chair. Not the political statement it may seem; the Chair was collateral damage to the real objective. The Chair was built around the Stone of Scone, known to all Scots, including our intrepid students, as the Stone of Destiny.

But of course, as with all stories of theft and skullduggery, more information is required to flesh out the details leading to such a seemingly heinous crime.

I heard the story of the Stone on Destiny on a bus out of Edinburgh, a tour called Highlands, Waterfalls. and Distilleries. Our guide, Mac MacKenzie, kept us regaled between stops with stories of Scottish history and folklore. Outside of Perth, he pointed out Dunsinane Castle of MacBeth fame, near Birnham Wood. And in the midst of hills, glens, and sheep, Mac began to tell us the story of Scotland’s most famous artifact.

Kept on display with the Scottish Crown Jewels deep within the dank walls of Edinburgh Castle, rests the Stone of Destiny. The premier symbol of Scottish nationalism, the Stone, in addition to being called the Stone of Scone (pronounced “Scoon”), is also called the Coronation Stone, and Lial Fail in Scottish Gaelic, has by custom and by tradition been used in the coronations of Scottish kings since Kenneth MacAlpine, the first Scots king in 847. Legend has it the stone was transported through Spain and Ireland from the Holy Land where it was the pillow used by the prophet Jacob when he dreamt of a visitation by God. Jacob awoke and turned the stone to its side as an altar to Jehovah, the first one.

The Stone actually doesn’t look like anything special—an oblong block of chiseled reddish sandstone, a small cross, and iron handles at each end. Two feet long, a foot thick, and one foot wide and weighing about 350 pounds, it’s just a big rock and far more modest than its name might suggest. It was kept for centuries in the abbey of Scone, near Perth.

In 1296, the Stone was captured (stolen, depending on your point of view) by King Edward I of England as part of his never-ending campaign to subdue Scotland. Edward, “the hammer of the Scots”, took Edinburgh and announced he was marching on Perth to capture the Stone. Logic had it that whoever possessed the Stone was the rightful King of Scotland and Edward Plantagenet, every bit the homicidal megalomaniac so aptly portrayed by Patrick McGoohan in Brave Heart, was bound and determined to add Scotland to his collection of conquests.

Edward and his army took a month to march the 50 or so miles from Edinburgh to Perth, fighting every inch of the way. When they arrived, Edward burned the Abbey, slaughtered the monks, and took the Stone to London. He had a special chair constructed, placing the Stone on a low platform below the seat. The chair became the Coronation Chair, used by every British monarch since 1300.

Edward never did complete his conquest of Scotland, dying in Edinburgh and cursing the Scots with his final breath. His son, after a bloody defeat on the battlefield at the hands of Robert the Bruce, thought better of the whole thing and went home.

The official story is that in 1996, after 700 years of political wrangling, the Stone was transported back to Scotland where it remains to this day. “End of story” said Mac. “Or is it?”

Enter our intrepid four led by Ian Hamilton, all students at Oxford and all members of a Scottish Nationalist Society. Having cased the joint, and determining that the best time to enter would be the small hours of Christmas morning when security would be dozing, the four lifted the stone and spirited it away. Not quite. While carrying it out of the Abbey, someone lost their grip on an iron ring and dropped the stone. And broke it. Scotland’s most sacred symbol was lying in two pieces on the marble floor of Westminster Abbey. It had survived centuries of transport in sailing ships and oxcarts, gone through sieges and warfare, only to be broken by four kids in what was essentially a prank. Worse, it had fallen on the foot of one of the would-be hijackers, breaking two toes and making him pretty much useless in helping to move the bits.

Somehow the students got the Stone outside and into a waiting car. They hid the Stone in various places for the next several weeks while a Nation-wide search commenced. They drove it across the border, getting past police roadblocks, with the Stone covered with a blanket and disguised as the back seat of their car.

When they made it to Scotland, they contacted a sympathetic Scottish politician who took the stone to a master mason for repair. The mason repaired the Stone and left it on the remains of the altar stone in the ruins of Arbroath Abbey near Perth. The mason assumed the Church of Scotland would protect the Stone, but police soon retrieved it and the Stone was returned to London and to a presumably fixed Coronation Chair.

Hamilton and his three accomplices turned themselves in and were promptly arrested. Within a week, all charges were dropped and the matter laid to rest. Under British law, the Crown would have had to prove rightful ownership. Since the Stone had been stolen to begin with, the powers that be decided to pretend the whole thing never happened. Ian Hamilton went to law school, become a prosecutor, and his friends went on to distinguished careers of their own. A happy ending to the story…or is it?

Mac had more tidbits to add. He had once worked with James Hamilton, Ian’s son who told him that when the students dropped the Stone, it actually broke into three pieces, not two. The third piece was small enough for Ian to slip into his pocket and forget about. Later, he had the fragment made into a necklace and gave it to his bride as a wedding present. Happy ending number two.

After the Stone was recovered, rumors began to fly that the mason had not only repaired the Stone itself, but had also made an exact copy. The copy he left at Abroath Abbey for the police to find. The real Stone, labeled a replica, is on display at the abbey—the Stone of Destiny is in Scotland. Happy ending number three.

Mac then mentioned that medieval chroniclers described the original stone as round, black, and polished, with symbols inset with silver. It may have been a fragment of meteorite. As best as can be determined, the Stone on display at Edinburgh Castle is common Perthshire sandstone.

“Imagine” said Mac, “that you are the abbot of Scone and learn that the most bloodthirsty ruler in Europe has announced that he is headed your way to steal the very symbol of your people. You have maybe a month to do something. What do you do? You hide it and come up with a substitute.” According to Scottish fable, the stone Edward took to London, the stone that British monarchs have been crowned over for 700 years, is actually the stone cap of the abbey cesspit. British coronations have taken place in pomp and pageantry over what is essentially a toilet seat lid. When all is said and done, it appears that the Stone of Destiny, object of desire, theft, national identity, and fierce pride is a copy of a fake.

Which begs the question: where is the real Stone? Mac ended his story with the tale of two kids, playing on a hillside near Dunsinane Castle after a rainstorm. They slipped down a mudslide into an underground chamber, injuring one of them. Within the chamber they claimed to have seen a smooth rock, round and black with silver symbols, half buried in the dirt. After getting to safety and a doctor, the boys came back with their fathers. They found the chamber but it was empty. The real stone remains hidden from mortal view, which is probably as it should be.