Friday notes

Grey and windy morning, with the odd spot of drizzle. Not particularly nice. As of next Monday, the winter timetables for buses and ferries comes into force here, which means a slight reduction in services. If you bear in mind that we have about 20,000 people in the whole of Lewis and Harris (one third in Stornoway), then I think up to 10 buses a day to outlying districts and an almost hourly service through the town is very good.

Found an interesting article, which demonstrated that elephants can associate colours of garments worn by humans with danger. In Africa, the Masai tribes have a virility ritual, in which a man is required to spear an elephant. The elephants therefore associate red garments with danger. Read more here.

Roads in the Highlands of Scotland continue to show their danger, especially the A9 Inverness to Edinburgh road. Yesterday morning, a van driver was killed at Daviot, just south of Inverness, after a collision involving two lorries. The A9 sees a regular spate of accidents. The 110 miles between Inverness and Perth alternate between single- and dual-carriageway. It also leads through some relatively featureless terrain (open moorland and moorclad mountains), with few centres of population. People are regularly pulled over for speeding - I remember a policeman being stopped by his colleagues for doing 145 mph (twice the legal speedlimit of 70 mph). He avoided prosecution - cannot remember on what grounds.