And to Tiny Tim, who did NOT die, and will return in Avengers: Doomsday

Tell me you’re fae Aberdeenshire without telling me you’re fae Aberdeenshire. 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁳󠁣󠁴󠁿 Best niche hometown Christmas tradition? 🎄 I’ll go first. Aberdeenshire tractor run in Scotland! 🚜 Let me know your hometown Christmas traditions ↓

Christmas eve run. I think I need to work on the sleigh. Gawd bless us, every one.

Tonight's musical choice, the very un-Christmassy Clara Rockmore and her theremin.

When I was in Tirana 6 years ago the same group were doing this same thing outside this same building when we arrived. Albanian traditions. (My pics below) www.politico.eu/article/alba...

Ooft. That's a sore one for Zimbabwe. Doesn't seem fair to lose in the last minute after that performance. Booo.

If music is all about timing, he's nailed it. Chris Rea wasn't someone whose music I'd have come across if it wasn't the monthly choice that Britannia Music Club sent me when I hadn't chosen anything else that month. Enjoyed his music, and he just seemed like a nice person.

That’s the woman who said whatever that guy is saying, 5 minutes ago, but got ignored.

"The #1 movie when you were 10 years old is how your 2026 is going to go." Ah well. Alas.

Wee wander up to the ruins of St Peter's Seminary at Cardross, which lends itself to this morning's grey skies, wind and rain.

It's an A listed building, and the organisation NVA (founded by the guy behind the band Test Dept) put forward a proposal 10 years ago to convert it into an arts space. They spent £3mill removing asbestos and making it safe, but since they couldn't secure further funding it's now being left to decay

Wee wander up to the ruins of St Peter's Seminary at Cardross, which lends itself to this morning's grey skies, wind and rain.

Randomly listening to some Serge Gainsbourg tonight when I suddenly remembered seeing Jane Birkin singing some of his songs in Glasgow, in The Arches, about 15 years ago. That was a grand old night's entertainment.

just an fyi for portland ppl, this ursula exhibition is going on until february, it's free, and has a ton of her maps. plan for spending over an hour if you really want to take it all in www.oregoncontemporary.org/a-larger-rea...

Big thanks to @thethistlearchive.bsky.social who dug up some deliciously evocative match reports from 1900 when my great-great uncle was playing in goals for Galston against Patrick Thistle in the Scottish Cup. Fabulous stuff.

My liminal, never real, space has always been Dalgety Bay. Largely due to a 1980s STV advert for a company that pronounced it in a singy-songy accent, which was then used to take the piss out of my pal at school (it's complicated). I went last week. Different from what I'd imagined. I didn't dig.

@thethistlearchive.bsky.social I was looking up a match report on your website, a cup game against Galston in 1900 - held up for a while when a goalpost snapped at Riverside Park. I think it is my great-great uncle playing in goal for Galston, and letting in two Thistle goals.

His behaviour damages the reputation of the FIFA Peace Prize, and it should be rescinded immediately, or it'll lose all the credibility it has established.

Comedy gold from the Old Firm this year.

Great headline

Ralph Steadman's Robert Burns looking alarmed at the reflected Christmas lights on my stairs.

The Forth Rail Bridge in the hazy December sunshine. Opened in 1890 it is a beautiful and iconic structure. Whenever anyone moans about modern Health and Safety rules, remember that at least 73 people died in its construction.

Such an interesting list

That Ayr United goalie top has been designed by a five year old kid in a pizza restaurant given a paper menu to draw on and the random selection of crayons that they've got leftover in the place. #fact

My dad's parents loved Stanley Baxter and loved panto, and took my brother and me along to the King's Theatre each year; Stanley Baxter, Ricky Fulton et al. My grandad would often correct me if I wasn't using standard English, but was happy to sing a chorus of "You Can Parliamo Glasgow".

Back on the Fife Coastal Path today, 18km from North Queensferry to Burntisland.

The feeling that your Christmas tree is watching you.

📣 New GCPH Publication for Glasgow 850! From Provand's Lordship to the Red Road Flats, the provision of clean water to the 1915 rent strikes & this year's Housing (Scotland) Bill, this timeline shines a light on events that shaped Glasgow's health www.gcph.co.uk/latest/publi...

The feeling that your Christmas tree is watching you.

Read the Uplifting Letter That Albert Einstein Sent to Marie Curie During a Time of Personal Crisis (1911)

It's a common trope that Trump accuses others of things he himself is guilty of, as deflection. I'll just leave this headline here.

Accidentally tested whether you can set fire to a mince pie in the microwave by accidentally setting it to two minutes instead of 20 seconds.

Photographer Martin Parr has died. One of his photos was given out to Patrick Thistle fans in 2016.

Passed this wee fellow down in Partick this morning.

First time I've been to a Madness gig with my brother since this riotous evening in Ingliston in 1992, when rival gangs were throwing bottles and flailing chains about the place. A wild night. Tonight at the Hydro in Glasgow was much more fun, skanking alongside my daughter.

First time I've been to a Madness gig with my brother since this riotous evening in Ingliston in 1992, when rival gangs were throwing bottles and flailing chains about the place. A wild night. Tonight at the Hydro in Glasgow was much more fun, skanking alongside my daughter.

There is a complacency in Scotland's self-view that needed and needs combatting, a country that voted Tory until the mid-1960s. If people are left behind in a society, there will always be someone happy to take advantage of that and scapegoat others.

Nothing more, Nothing less, Love is the best..

Not the easiest group, but great to be in amongst it all in the summer, and a few flashbacks to 1998.

Infantino and Trump is a match made in hell. Neither has any self awareness. This draw is unwatchable. I have the fear for this whole World Cup, left in their hands.

Okay. I give in. You can start Christmas stuff now, we're near enough I suppose. Glasgow city centre.

I visited Llanfair­pwllgwyngyll­gogery­chwyrn­drobwll­llan­tysilio­gogo­goch when I was in Wales earlier this week. Thought it'd be bigger.

How much of an absolute imbecile do you have to be that you view multilingualism as anything other than an asset?

I've now visited the highest points in Scotland, England and Wales: Ben Nevis, Scafell Pike and Yr Wyddfa. Some fools try to do it in 24 hours - a Three Peaks Challenge (half of which you spend in a car). I took almost 40 years from my first summit of Ben Nevis to get around to the others.

Say what you like about the National Trust: they look after their members.

He's the gafr. One of Llandudno's Great Orme Kashmiri goats facing off with a paparazzi in a side street of the north Wales seaside town where they live.

Wee change of scene. Last time I came to Yr Wyddfa (fka Snowdon) was on a school trip in primary 7 and we got the train to the top. Walked it today through the wind and rain of a Welsh December.

Wales will soon be able to reintroduce whales if the rain keeps going.

It's nice to try new things, although if I'd had the choice I probably wouldn't have volunteered to get stuck inside the car wash at Morrisons today, when it broke down with me and my car trapped inside.

Perfect Tom Stoppard story from DTel obituary: His response to a letter from Harold Pinter canvassing support for a proposal to have the Comedy Theatre in London rechristened the Pinter Theatre, “Have you thought, instead, of changing your name to Harold Comedy?”