#Loch Ness Centre

[thepastisalreadywritten]

Researchers and monster hunters are gathering in the United Kingdom's Scottish Highlands this weekend to look for the eternally elusive Loch Ness Monster, the biggest search for the legendary beast in more than 50 years.

Somewhere beneath the shimmering surface of Loch Ness lies Nessie, the legendary sea beast whose reputation spans nearly 1,500 years — at least, that's what monster hunters and Nessie enthusiasts from around the world hope to prove Saturday and Sunday.

The Loch Ness Centre and the research group Loch Ness Exploration are asking all aspiring monster hunters to join in on the biggest search since 1972.

"Our purpose is to observe, record and study the natural behaviour of the Loch and phenomena that may be more challenging to explain," the Loch Ness Exploration Facebook page reads.

"If you believe that the Loch Ness Monster exists then we invite you to join the search, we equally invite you to support the study of the Loch and the natural behaviour of the elements that may be the root cause of these strange reports from Loch Ness."

Investigators are breaking out all sorts of technology, including surveying equipment the Loch Ness Centre says has never been used on the freshwater lake before.

Drones with infrared cameras will fly over the lake and a hydrophone will be used under the surface to detect "Nessie-like calls," the Centre says.

Volunteers will also participate in a large surface watch of the loch, scanning the surface for any irregularities.

However, due to an "overwhelming demand" from enthusiasts, the group is no longer accepting applicants hoping to participate in person.

But the Loch Ness Centre says those still eager to participate can do so virtually through a livestream.

At 22 square miles and with a maximum depth of 788 feet, Loch Ness is Great Britain's largest lake by volume and second-largest by surface area, according to Encyclopedia Britannica.

Though the first written accounts of a monster are attributed to the Irish monk Saint Columba's encounter in 565 A.D., reports of a creature in the lake are depicted in ancient stone carvings found in the area.

But the legend of a monster lurking in the loch didn't garner greater attention until April of 1933, when a couple driving along the newly built road around the lake saw an animal they compared to a "dragon or prehistoric monster," according to the Scottish Maritime Museum.

More sightings soon followed, and big game hunter Marmaduke Wetherell was commissioned to track the monster down in December of 1933.

He said he found large tracks along the shoreline, but zoologists at the Natural History Museum debunked the tracks.

The following year was when English physician Robert Wilson took a photo, now known as the "Surgeon's Photograph," which appeared to show Nessie's head atop a long slender neck poking out of the water.

The picture was printed in the Daily Mail and the Loch Ness Monster was thrust into international stardom.

One of the participants in that search confessed on his deathbed that the picture was staged, according to the Daily Mail.

The Loch Ness Centre says there have been more than 1,140 official Nessie sightings.

Paul Nixon, the Centre's general manager, said he's excited to see what turns up after the waters are searched like never before over weekend.

"We are guardians of this unique story," Nixon said.

"And as well as investing in creating an unforgettable experience for visitors, we are committed to helping continue the search and unveil the mysteries that lie underneath the waters of the famous Loch."

#Loch Ness Monster #Scottish Highlands #Loch Ness #Nessie #Loch Ness Centre #Loch Ness Exploration #Saint Columba #Scottish Maritime Museum #Marmaduke Wetherell #Natural History Museum #Robert Wilson #Surgeon's Photograph #Daily Mail #Paul Nixon

[101flavoursofweird]

Descole battled Loosha with his spectre robot because Loosha stood in his way of finding the Golden Garden and she was defending the town, but Des seems to take so much vicious joy out of attacking her…

You could chalk this up to Des’ hatred of all things Azran (Loosha could have been a creature from Azran times and she was born in the Golden Garden), but what if Des had another hatred— and fear… of the Loch Ness Monster?

What if a certain Scottish butler unintentionally instilled a fear in young Desmond with his bedtime stories— old folk tales of a beast in Loch Ness? Poor Des is so traumatised (though, of course, he never tells Raymond this!) that he almost bails on his plans when he gets to Misthallery and this GIANT LAKE MONSTER IS WAITING FOR HIM. It squares up to Des’ robot with a haunting wailing cry… (“EEEEEEEEEEE!”)

Des barely sleeps. He can still hear the monster in his dreams, long after he has fled from Misthallery. He wakes up on Ambrosia in a cold sweat. He is so relieved when he gets to Monte d’Or because it’s a desert, and there’s no way on Earth another Azran water cow could be here. Right? Right…?

But while he’s in Misthallery, Des steels himself— He needs to find Golden Garden before Targent!—and he goes out to face Nessie, and his childhood demons. Raymond will be so proud of him…

Raymond is, actually, horrified when he finds out what his disaster of a son has done.

“I may have lost the Golden Garden, but at least I vanquished the beast!”

“Well done, Master… but did you really need to put the poor creature through so much pain?”

“You don’t understand, Raymond— it was the Loch Ness Monster! The elusive monster from your stories that has terrified Britain for eons! We’re finally rid of it!”

“…”

“Desmond… You do know the Loch Ness Monster is a just a legend, don’t you?”

#professor layton #desmond sycamore #jean descole #raymond #loosha #misthallery #Apparently there’s been a news update on the Loch Ness Monster #Misthallery is not in Scotland but maybe Loosha has relatives up that way #I’m just imaging Melina and Whistler staring as Des as he builds a gigantic CASTLE in the centre of the island #“We must be DEFENDED from the Loch— I mean from ENEMIES” #Or Randall giving Des weird looks as Des kisses the sand of the Monte d’Or Desert #Des was holding Layton’s hand when they crossed Lake Kodh in AL

[maximumwobblerbanditdonut]

🐮 They say never to work with animals... Sam Heughan and Graham McTavish remember hilarious stories from working on TV commercials early on in their career.

Re-united with Edith Bowman, the boys also discuss the lores and legends of Scotland and New Zealand, including the Loch Ness monster and Scotland's national animal, the unicorn.

Clanlands In New Zealand was broadcast live from the Barbican Centre, London, on Mon 6 Nov 2023.

#Youtube

[salvadorbonaparte]

I'm going to Glasgow for a concert with a friend and then we'll spend some nights in Edinburgh. If the weather plays along we'll also visit Loch Lomond, Loch Ness and the Scottish Seabird Centre but we're keeping all options open. The trip is a little bit above my usual budget but I've wanted to visit Scotland since childhood and it's my one chance to do it with a friend and also see one of my favourite bands live.

[cryptid-quest]

On This Day in Cryptid History

August 24th: In 2011, a Loch Ness captain photographed a sonar image of a 4.9ft unidentified object that seemed to follow his boat. A year later, scientists from the National Oceanography Centre concluded the image showed a bloom of algae and zooplankton.

#cryptids #Cryptid #cryptozoology #cryptid history #loch ness monster #august 23

[maximilian7182]

We will take a short trip through the fabulous Highlands and Loch Ness. We will make our first stop at a place called Callender or rather, Trossachs Visitor Centre. Our next stop is one of the lookouts at Glencoe, West Highlands for a great view of the Three Sisters, three craggy hills next to each other.   Spean Bridge is a village in Kilmonivaig County, Highlands. The village takes its name from Highbridge across the River Spin on General Wade's military road between Fort William and Fort Augustus, not from the 1819 Telford Bridge which carries the A82 over the river at the centre of the village.

the final point of our journey and will now take a boat ride across Loch Ness.

0:00  Trossachs Visitor Centre, Callender 

1:40 Three Sisters, Glencoe 

2:44 Spean Bridge 

3:29 The Commando Memorial 

3:59 Loch Ness boat tour  

#highlands #highlandsscotland #lochness #highlandsview #scotland #scottishhighlands #glencoe #lochnesstour #lochnessview #scotlandwalkingtour #scottishmountains #scottishnature #scottish

[beardedmrbean]

LOCH NESS, Scotland — The legend of the Loch Ness Monster has fascinated generations of curious minds. This weekend, 90 years after its first modern supposed sighting, enthusiasts descended again on this picturesque lake in a quiet corner of the Scottish Highlands in the hopes of turning myth into reality.

Organizers billed the past weekend as the largest organized “Nessie” hunt for 50 years.

And the hunters came armed with high-tech help: sonars for mapping the lake bed, thermal-imaging drones for scanning the surface and hydrophones to hear strange sounds from the depths.

The events were even opened to the global public — hundreds were invited to a live stream of the water’s surface to add more eyes to the search.

But even with all the machines and added manpower, the gathering at Loch Ness was as much about reviving old lore as settling hard science. Organizers said they planned the weekend to excite interest in the legend among a new generation of Nessie hunters.

“It’s about inspiration,” said Alan McKenna, the head of Loch Ness Exploration, an independent research group based on the lake’s shores that planned the event as a kind of call for volunteers. “For very selfish reasons I don’t want the Loch Ness mystery or interest in Loch Ness itself to diminish in any way whatsoever at all.”

Those “selfish” reasons don’t include a commercial motive, said McKenna, who added that he is also an unpaid volunteer. Though the legend could bring in as much 41 million pounds (about $52 million) each year to Scotland’s economy, according to one 2018 study reported by Scotland's Press and Journal newspaper, enthusiasts like McKenna say the search is really just about having fun, keeping faith and exploring the natural world.

Like the surface of a lake, the Loch Ness legend seems to reflect the hopes of those who gaze into it.

“I think she has babies and she’s looking after them right now,” said Alba Sydow, 8, as she surveyed the loch with her parents from the Deepscan, one of the organizers’ search boats. “So that’s why she’s hiding from us.”

Alba’s father Malcolm Begg, 47, a pharmaceutical company employee, had his own remarkably specific ideas about the monster.

“I think it’s like a diplodocus with fins,” he said, referring to a Jurassic-era dinosaur while lamenting that most images of the monster have been too grainy to discern a definitive shape.

The focus of the two-day event was at the Loch Ness Centre, which organized the proceedings in partnership with Loch Ness Exploration, a voluntary research team. The recently renovated center is housed in a former hotel where Aldie Mackay, a hotel employee, sighted a “beast” or “whale-like fish” in 1933, the first modern “sighting” of the monster that set off the global phenomenon.

But the legend dates back to writings from the seventh century in which an Irish monk reported having encountered a “water beast” that had mauled a swimmer.

Nessie has been so popular for so long, her myth can sometimes feed herself (if, like Alba, you imagine the monster as female).

Alistair Matheson, the skipper of the Loch Ness Centre’s Deepscan search boat that trolled the lake with volunteer searchers like Alba, showed how the boat’s sonar technology had recently spotted a perfect outline of a huge Nessie-shaped monster.

But the shape on Matheson’s radar screen turned out to be a sunken Nessie model that had been made for a movie about the monster and then abandoned at the bottom of the lake.

Even the Loch Ness Centre’s logo — the instantly recognizable picture of a sort of humped eel cruising through waves on the lake’s surface — comes from a fuzzy 1934 black-and-white photo that was later proven to be fake.

Still, Matheson describes himself as a “believer,” though he imagines the monster as “something from this earth or something a bit more realistic” than some kind of ancient, alien or supernatural being. Scientists have speculated that the sightings could be huge catfish or giant eels.

But short of emptying the entire lake, Matheson said nothing will ever truly disprove a legend that has become a matter of faith for so many.

“People come here, they’re desperate, they’re looking, they’re searching,” he said. “And they really, really want to be able to hope that there is something that us humans, you know, we think we can know everything, to an extent.”

The weekend in the Scottish Highlands attracted some for whom Nessie is more of a vocation than a hobby.

Ken Gerhard, an American cryptozoologist who researches and writes about “animals” like bigfoot, Chupacabra and Mothman that live on the fringes of our known reality, traveled to Scotland from the states just for the event.

“I’m 90% convinced she exists,” said Gerhard, who also seemed to believe in the monster’s femininity. “I’ve never had a sighting or an observation, but if you immerse yourself in the evidence, you have over a thousand good sightings that are very consistent.”

Beyond the shaky photographic “proof,” believers’ primary argument in favor of Nessie’s existence is that the lake’s immense size and dark, peaty waters make it impossible to rule out the existence of even a large creature. 

Several volunteers mentioned that Loch Ness contains more water than all of the lakes of England and Wales combined.

Indeed, McKenna said they had heard some “fantastic bizarre” sounds on Friday, but unfortunately the recording equipment hadn’t been plugged in. 

“It may well be gas escaping from the bottom of the loch,” he said. “It could be an animal.”

“Of course it could be the elusive Loch Ness Monster,” he added. 

So if any of the attendees were expecting this weekend to yield a revelation, they went home disappointed. 

Nobody found the monster — but maybe that was never the point.

For many, this was a pilgrimage of faith — a kind of rejoinder to the high-tech dictates of hard facts that have left us so little room for magic and mystery.

“I think there’s always going to be a small part of me that wants to believe,” said Craig Whitefield, 29, a medical administrator from Scotland who spent the weekend scanning the lake’s surface with binoculars.

Like other volunteers, Whitefield said that only emptying one of the largest lakes in the world and checking every nook and cranny of the lake bed would satisfy his curiosity.

“It’s the same with every legend out there,” he said. “It just takes one person to believe and it just continues.”

#nunyas news #how fun

[troybeecham]

Today, the Church remembers St. Columba, Abbott of Iona.

Ora pro nobis.

Saint Columba (Irish: Colm Cille, 'church dove'; Scots: Columbkille - 7 December 521 A.D. – 9 June 597 A.D.) was an Irish abbot and missionary credited with spreading Christianity in what is today Scotland at the start of the Hiberno-Scottish mission, which followed the migration of Northeastern Irish colonists to the west coast of Scotland, which had been going on for hundreds of years.

In early Christian Ireland, the druidic tradition collapsed due to the spread of the new Christian faith. The study of Latin learning and Christian theology in monasteries flourished. Columba became a pupil at the monastic school at Clonard Abbey, situated on the River Boyne in modern County Meath. During the sixth century AD, some of the most significant names in the history of Celtic Christianity studied at the Clonard monastery. The average number of scholars under instruction at Clonard was said to be 300. Columba was one of twelve students of St Finnian who became known as the Twelve Apostles of Ireland. He became a monk and eventually was ordained a priest.

In 563, he travelled to Scotland with twelve companions (said to include Odran of Iona) in a wicker currach covered with leather. According to legend he first landed on the Kintyre Peninsula, near Southend. However, being still in sight of his native land, he moved farther north up the west coast of Scotland. The island of Iona was made over to him by his kinsman Conall mac Comgaill King of Dál Riata, who perhaps had invited him to come to Scotland in the first place. However, there is a sense in which he was not leaving his native people, as the Ulster Gaels had been colonising the west coast of Scotland for the previous couple of centuries. Aside from the services he provided guiding the only centre of literacy in the region, his reputation as a holy man led to his role as a diplomat among the tribes.

There are also many stories of miracles which he performed during his work to convert the Picts, the most famous being his encounter with an unidentified animal that some have equated with the Loch Ness Monster in 565. It is said that he banished a ferocious "water beast" to the depths of the River Ness after it had killed a Pict and then tried to attack Columba's disciple named Lugne. He visited the pagan King Bridei, King of Fortriu, at his base in Inverness, winning Bridei's respect, although not his conversion. He subsequently played a major role in the politics of the country. He was also very energetic in his work as a missionary, and, in addition to founding several churches in the Hebrides, he worked to turn his monastery at Iona into a school for missionaries. He was a renowned man of letters, having written several hymns and being credited with having transcribed 300 books. One of the few, if not the only, times he left Scotland was towards the end of his life, when he returned to Ireland to found the monastery at Durrow.

Columba died on Iona and was buried in 597 AD by his monks in the abbey he created. In 794 the Vikings descended on Iona. Columba's relics were finally removed in 849 and divided between Scotland and Ireland. The parts of the relics which went to Ireland are reputed to be buried in Downpatrick, County Down, with Saint Patrick and Brigid of Kildare or at Saul Church neighbouring Downpatrick.

O God, by the preaching of your blessed servant Columba you caused the light of the Gospel to shine in Scotland: Grant, we pray, that, having his life and labors in remembrance, we may show our thankfulness to you by following the example of his zeal and patience; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, forever and ever.

Amen.

#father troy beecham #christianity #jesus #saints #god #salvation #peace #faith

[scotianostra]

On September 26th 1994 Jessie Kesson, the author of Another Time Another Place, died.

Born Jessie Grant Macdonald in an Inverness workhouse in 1916, Jessie Kesson was a novelist and playwright most famous for her first novel, the semi-autobiographical The White Bird Passes. 

Jessie was raised in an orphanage from the age of eight, finally leaving in 1932 to go into service. However, she suffered a nervous breakdown and was sent to recuperate near Loch Ness, where she met her future husband, Johnnie Kesson.

In the 1930s and ’40s Kesson contributed to The Scots Magazine, and wrote over 30 features and plays for the BBC. In 1947 she moved to London to further her writing, supporting herself with a variety of odd jobs. Her heart, however, remained in Morayshire and Aberdeenshire. 

 In the 1980s she was awarded honorary degrees from Dundee and Aberdeen Universities. 

Jessie Kesson died in London in 1994

Her legacy includes an annual award that was founded in 2009 by Moniack Mhor to honour her inspirational life and work.

The successful candidate receives time and space to develop their work, as well as opportunities to expand their practice. This includes delivering creative writing workshops based on or inspired by Jessie Kesson’s life and work in local schools, libraries, or community centres.

A poem by Jessie Kesson, written in March 1973 when she lived in East Linton, East Lothia,  list D. Girl, or boy for that, got the name from where social workers placed a child who was seen to be a problem, getting in trouble with the authorities or possibly fighting at school etc they  would have been causes for them to be placed in these schools, which were residential, another name for them would be Approved Schools, my own brother ended up spending time in one of these, St Josephs in East Lothian.

Moment of Communication with List D. Girl.

F - - - off! she said. Dismissing me and my persuasions with a contemptuous stare that crinkled to a smile of small surprise When I in anger roared F - - - off to Where??

Sincerely, Jessie Kesson

#Scotland #scottish #Author #wrtiter #makar #scriever

[birdofdawning]

Airport

Day 6 (Parenting) - Appreciation Week

(This is set now, many years after our heroes have retired into civilian life.)

“Dad says that you used to have a little girl,” said The Child. “But she died,” it added, conversationally.

“I did. She did,” said Helena.

“He said that you might get sad, and then I have to Give You Space and Listen To Aunty Mykes,” went on The Child, then pointed — “That girl has a backpack like my backpack!”

“So she does,” confirmed Helena, “With a princess on it. I expect her monstrously large eyes are due to some enchantment. She probably said the wrong thing to a very wicked woman.”

“It’s Rapunzel,” explained The Child. “If you get sad you can just go for one of your walks. Like when you come and stay with us.”

“Well then. Perhaps I shall.”

The Child eyed her shrewdly for a moment. “You’re not really mad. You’re just pretending,” it decided.

Helena looked back toward the food court for Myka.

“What was your little girl’s name?” asked The Child, inevitably.

“Christina,” said Helena, facing forward again and fixing her eyes on a taxiing aeroplane.

“How old was she? Was she as old as me?”

“She wasn’t as old as you, no. Not quite”

“What color was her hair? And what did she like to do?”

“Her hair was black, like mine.”

It considered her hair. “You have white in your hair now.”

“I Do.”

“Yes. But lots more black,” it said reassuringly. “it’s mostly black. Aunty Mykes’ hair,” it confided, “goes orange sometimes. In the sun.”

“Aunty Mykes has been dying her hair since she was thirty,” said Helena maliciously.

But The Child had decided the topic of hair had been exhausted. “What did Christina like to do?”

“She liked to do all sorts of things.”

The Child rolled its eyes, “What sorts of things?”

“Well.” Helena thought. “She would come on my walks with me.”

“Really? That’s what she liked?”

“Not always,” admitted Helena. “Sometimes, though.”

“I don’t like to go for walks. Mom makes us. But the baby won’t be able to go for walks will he?”

“He’ll probably sit in a pram. And your mother will push it. Or your father.”

“Sometimes Dad carries me home. But he says I’m getting too big now, even for him.” The Child had twisted right around in its chair and was staring back at the tiny shopping centre. “Can I get a magazine to read?”

“You already have a magazine.”

“I’ve looked at it. Well, most of it. Did Christina read magazines?”

“She did. She was a good reader, like you. She had a subscription to a children’s magazine. And at Christmas she would get annuals and try and save them up. But they’d all be read by the end of January.”

This puzzled The Child. “Annuals like… like in gardening?” it guessed unexpectedly.

“No, they were like bigger versions of the magazines with lots more pages, and hard-covered like a book,” Helena paused. “I have no idea if they still exist. If they do I will buy you one. Possibly”

“Oh.” This seemed to interest The Child and it had a think. Helena looked around for Myka again.

“Did Christina live in Britain with you? In London?”

“Sometimes. We lived in Kent for a long time. And in France.”

“I’ve been to London. We went to the zoo. Look, that baby is trying to eat off the floor.”

Helena obediently looked.

“It’ll get germs,” observed The Child with a superior air.

“Good,” said Helena ruthlessly, “A few germs will probably do it a world of good. You people these days live such sterile—”

“YAHTZEE!” shouted The Child, and laughed. “Dad says we have to shout Yahtzee whenever you say ‘You people these days’ now,” it explained. “He says it’s not rude, we’re helping you.”

“Does he,” said Helena.

“Yes. What else did Christina do? What did she do when she went on holiday?”

Helena thought. “We went to Scotland one summer. Well, I say ‘summer’… Apparently no-one had thought to inform Scotland of the fact. I think it rained every day. We made paper dolls.”

“You can still go swimming in the rain,” The Child informed her gravely. “Well, not if you’re a baby. Did you look for the Loch Ness Monster?”

“We had never heard of the Loch Ness Monster,” said Helena.

This was beyond comprehension. “WHAT?!” spluttered The Child, “HOW CAN YOU HAVE NEVER HEARD OF THE LOCH NESS MONSTER.”

“I think your father was the first person to tell me about the Loch Ness Monster,” remembered Helena. “He was appalled as well. And bigfoot, and… mothman?… I don’t remember the others.”

“YOU DIDN’T EVEN KNOW BIGFOOT?”

“No. I’d heard of the Yeti,” offered Helena. “I had travelled through Thibet, and—”

“The yeti is okay,” said The Child kindly, “Those people have balloons.”

“I think they’re meeting someone.” Helena squinted (perhaps more than she had once needed to?). “They’re meeting ‘Michelle’. They have a sign.”

“It would be funny if someone met us in San Francisco with a sign! And we didn’t know them! And we were the wrong people! But it was still all of our names.”

“So they took us home, and chatted happily about Great Aunt Agnes and Cousin Wendel and an entire pantheon of beloved relatives we didn’t know,” continued Helena, “And when we tried to tell them we were the wrong people they all laughed and said ‘What wonderful jokers Charlie and H.G. and Myka are! (well, perhaps not Myka) The wrong people indeed!’ and they slapped their thighs with mirth, and then went back to discussing Second-Cousin Clarabelle’s operation and What Went Wrong.”

The Child giggled. “What happens to their Charlie and H.G. and Mykes?”

“W—ell,” thought Helena, “I expect that once they realise they aren’t being collected at the airport they run away, intoxicated with the thought of freedom and of never hearing about Second-Cousin Clarabelle’s operation; and become lighthouse keepers. And keep goats. And meanwhile you have to share a bedroom with Great-Aunt Agnes. Who snores.”

The Child thought this over. “Aunty Mykes wouldn’t let any of that happen,” it announced, firmly.

“No, she wouldn’t,” agreed Helena, “but nevertheless, we love her.”

“Okay,” said Myka, appearing balancing several paper bags and a tray of drinks, and making Helena jump, “I got a white-chocolate raspberry muffin for Charlie, a chocolate muffin for H.G, and a bran muffin for Aunty Mykes who cares about nutrition. And hot chocolates.”

“Thank-you-Aunty-Mykes,” recited The Child, reaching for its muffin. “Did Christina like muffins?”

“Uh,” said Myka.

“She did. But not ones like these.”

“Right, we’re doing this apparently, good, okay,” said Myka, and sat down.

Helena examined her chocolate muffin critically. “These are like little cakes. They’re quite tasty. But real muffins are flat and unsweetened and made of thick bread. And we would toast them on a griddle. Or buy them in the street. And Christina would have hers with lots of butter. And honey. Or jam, if we had jam.”

“Could we make some when we get to your house?”

“I suppose we could,” said Helena doubtfully. “Yes, we will,” she decided. “And we’ll have pikelets another day. With jam, because we have jam.”

“And go to the science center. Aunty Mykes said you’d come too,” reminded The Child.

“Possibly we shouldn’t combine the two activities. We’d get the apparatuses all sticky. However, I’m sure your aunt already has the week’s activities planned out for us. And printed neatly on a sheet of A4 paper.”

“I do,” said Myka evenly. “To both statements. I’m going to put it on the fridge, Charlie, so you can see what we’re doing each day.”

“Sometimes you make me feel exhausted, did you know that?” said Helena.

“I make the woman who works thirty-six hour days when ‘the muse has struck darling’ exhausted?”

“Sometimes it will just be you and me though, right Aunty Mykes? When H.G. has to work,” interrupted The Child.

Myka made an affirming noise. “But we’ll drag her out anyway, when we can, and she can follow us around with her hands in her pockets and make Comments.”

“I should enjoy that,” said Helena.

They ate their muffins and watched people.

“That boy has a Charizard,” pointed out Myka, and The Child looked with interest.

“My favourite is Relicanth. And Marshadow. Aunty Mykes’ favourite," it informed Helena with weighty disapproval, "is Magikarp.”

“Magikarp is the best Pokémon,” said Myka cheerfully. “If it works hard it becomes a giant sea serpent.”

“That must be of great comfort to it,” said Helena.

“It turns into Gyarados. The baby won’t have a favourite Pokémon yet,” reflected The Child, “Maybe not for years.”

“We can go through your book when we get home,” suggested Myka. “Make a list of possibilities. And then a short list of the best ones.” She caught and held Helena’s eye. “And we can add pictures," she went on in a slightly defiant tone, "And then we will print it out. Neatly. And your dad can put it up by the baby’s crib, so he has a head start on his Pokémon.”

Helena opened her mouth to say that she feared it was Now All Too Late for The Child’s father to have any sort of real head start in anything and it was cruel to encourage him, but The Child was already saying that it had finished its little-tasty-cake, and could it have its hot chocolate.

Myka passed it over. “Hot!” she warned, then sat back and sipped her own drink. She reached out behind The Child with her left hand, absently brushing it down Helena’s shoulder until it rested on the back of her chair. Helena quietly exhaled and lent back into her. “When we finish we’d better go over to Departures so we can get on our plane,” Myka said as they watched another aeroplane descend.

As they picked up their bags and deposited their rubbish A Second Child, perhaps only five or six, appeared and regarded The Child silently. “Hello,” said The Child.

“I go to school,” revealed The Second Child after a moment of indecision.

“Oh. That’s good. So do I. I’m on holiday now though,” said The Child, and then apparently thinking that more ought to be said, “I’m Charlie. I’m going to San Francisco with my Aunty Mykes and H.G.”

It reached out and held Helena’s hand demonstratively.

As they walked down the corridor towards their flight The Child squeezed Helena’s hand.

“You really will come out with Aunty Mykes and me sometimes, though, right? When you’re not working?” it asked Helena.

Helena gave their joined hands a tentative swing.

“I might,” she said. “Let’s see how I go.”

#bering and wells #beringandwellsappreciationweek #helena wells #myka bering #helena x myka #warehouse 13 #h.g. wells #bering & wells #helena g wells

[caricature-of-a-witch]

have another thing I've written for a creative task at university (had a class on British ghost stories between 1860 and 1920 which was the most fun I've ever had at uni so far), which was basically just to write a ghost story that fit a word count of idk ca. 1500 words or something. I had to give it a title but I don't like the title I gave it so I'm leaving that out.

---

[untitled ghost story]

It was almost too cliché.

Of course the flat that was almost laughably cheap compared to all the others in the old building had something wrong with it. Of course, when she asked about it, people only gave vague answers before quickly changing the topic. Of course the old gentleman in the left-side ground floor flat sadly shook his head at her whenever he saw her climb the stairs, of course he looked at her like he was already mentally planning her funeral, and – when she had finally needled him enough – whispered about a gruesome murder long ago in that very flat, long before he’d lived there himself, and he’d spent almost all his life there.

Of course, the beautiful and beautifully affordable top floor flat near the city centre was haunted. What else?

Andy liked to think of herself as someone whose head was decidedly not-in-the-clouds and whose feet were firmly rooted in reality. Not so much a sceptic or even a non-believer as someone who simply knew there was nothing to believe in. People could believe in Yetis and Loch Ness Monsters, and Arthur Conan Doyle may have been fooled into thinking faeries were real by children with scissors and some book illustrations, and that was anyone’s right, but Andy preferred to keep her connection to reason intact and well.

So—of course—when, after a few exhausting weeks of moving her belongings to her new abode every day after work, she was awoken one night by a hand grabbing her wrist and pulling sharply, her reaction was perfectly rational.

(Screaming, in such a situation, is a rational course of action.)

Less reasonable, when she thought of it later, seemed the gnarly “You fuck off” that she received in response.

Andy was torn from her well-deserved rest by the sensation of someone trying to drag her out of bed by her wrist. With a strangled scream, her consciousness partly still entangled with the last dregs of an incoherent dream, she turned onto her side and brought her free hand down where she expected her attacker's, fingernails clawing at anything she could reach before her eyes were quite open.

The forearm beneath her fingers felt thin, and frail, and wet. There was a furious hiss when she tried to bend the bony bits far enough to maybe break something, and Andy, her eyes now blown wide open and blinking against the murky dark, hissed back with twice as much fury in return.

The hand twitched, and let go of her wrist. She could see it now, and it didn’t look like it should be anywhere near strong enough for the vice grip it had had on her, but she didn’t have time for a more detailed observation because the thing was wet and slippery and slithered right out of her grasp.

Trying to grab it again and reaching after it was still a perfectly reasonably thing to do. So was her breathless yell of “Fuck off!”, which she sent after it with the righteous anger of the unfairly awoken.

In the darkness, Andy froze on her mattress. Nothing else was forthcoming, no matter how she strained to hear anything over her own panting breaths.

“Rude,” she finally got out, because she couldn’t think of anything else to say. The thing had probably already vanished anyway. Or it had never been there in the first place and Andy was simply experiencing a very tangible nightmare.

She might have been convinced, too, if it weren’t for the slowly drying substance still coating her fingers. She wondered what it was, though she did have her suspicions. Slightly horrifying, very disgusting suspicions.

“If you got blood or, or, ectoplasm or something on my sheets I’m going to—do something very unpleasant, just so you know,” she threatened. The undeniable shake in her voice probably didn’t help her sound like someone who ought to be taken seriously, and going by the scoff heard from somewhere much too close to her face, the very much still present thing agreed.

“You seriously think getting poisoned and slashed up makes one bleed ectoplasm?”

The thing’s name, she learned, was Caroline.

It was at this point that Andy gave up on any hopes she might until then still have harboured of getting any more sleep that night. Slowly, she sat up – yeah, in the feeble light of the city below, there was a definite red sheen to the stuff on her hands, and it absolutely had gotten on her sheets – and turned lightly towards the voice.

“Guess not? I’m not sure what ectoplasm actually is, though.”

“...me neither.”

Something shifted beside her. Andy caught a glimpse of—something. Something pallid, sharply thin and distorted, and glistening wetly in a red so deep it looked black in places. Something barely visible, too, because she could see the floorboards through its form. Andy looked back down quickly, but she couldn’t exactly leave it at that. “So, are you… haunting me?”

A shrug, in the edge of her vision. The voice, torn and broken and oh god she had read about the effects of rat poison once and she did not want to think about that – the voice wavered a bit, underneath it all. “I– yes. Fuck off.”

“But why,” said Andy, before the thing could make its mind up to try and continue its previous activities, because she could practically feel it tensing its half-corporeal muscles to grab at her again.

The thing paused.

And told her.

Caroline had been dead for roughly a century. She’d broken into the wrong bastard’s home hoping to find enough money to keep her alive for a few days. When the owner had come back, he had shown understanding, and offered help and supper. Then he had poisoned her stew and when the effects took too long for his tastes, used a kitchen knife to speed up the process.

Andy called in sick to work the next day. Caroline faded away with the night, cursing this fact the entire time, and Andy took the time until her ghostly guest’s reappearance to arrange a number of solid points and arguments regarding Caroline’s plans and life choices. Death choices. Choices in general.

Andy, by this point sitting side by side on ruined sheets with a translucent Caroline, felt a little sick and a lot fascinated. “So now you, what, haunt the place you died in? Do you need to find your… remains? To find peace or something?”

“I know where my bones are,” rasped Caroline. She was still dripping blood, what with her throat and arms being slashed open and her mouth dripping a mess of gore and foam, but apparently she needed to focus in order to be substantial enough to leave actual stains. “That’s not why I’m here.”

“Then why—“

“I’m here to exact my revenge,” hissed the ghost on Andy’s bed and yeah, that was a terrifying sentence from those wrecked vocal cords.

“On me?” Andy, reasonably offended, threw up her arms. “I haven’t done anything to you!”

“Not on you. On his bloodline.”

“I’m… pretty sure he wasn’t my great-grandfather or something. I know my family history pretty well. None of them ever even lived in the city.”

“No!” An angry, squelching sound came from somewhere within Caroline’s torso. “I just need you to leave, so the flat is free, so his grandchildren will move in, so I can get my revenge on them!”

Her murderer’s grandchildren probably hadn’t even inherited the flat, or if they had, they clearly had little interest in living there, since they had sold it to be rented out to whoever could afford the area’s rent. So driving out tenants seemed like a rather pointless endeavour as far as luring the “bloodline” in went. Now, surely the man’s descendants could be found if one set their mind to it, but was it worth it? They hadn’t murdered Caroline either. Blood relation or no, they were undoubtedly innocent in the matter, and Andy wasn’t particularly comfortable with bloody revenge on people that had done nothing to deserve it and probably didn’t even know of their ancestor’s misdeeds. Caroline would have to see reason, and just… move on.

In the end, it took Andy four nights to convince Caroline of the futility of her mission. Ghosts, it appeared, where stubborn, and weirdly obsessive about bloodlines. (“The blood in their veins knows what it has done, Andy!” – “No, no, I really don’t think that’s how it works–“)

It worked. Eventually.

“So you’ve decided then? You’ll move on?”

“Move on where?”

Andy shrugged. “The afterlife? Wherever the dead go.”

“Hm. I don’t know where that is. Do you?”

“... no.”

Moving into the beautiful and beautifully affordable top floor flat near the city centre, Andy had expected a lot of things. Having a semi-permanent (nights only) ghost roommate hadn’t been among them.

But with the real estate market being the way it was, she had little room to complain.

#Ash's ramblings #Ash's writing #ghost story #ghost stories #and they were roommates #bc obviously after this it's a gay ghost love story. obviously. my teacher would probably even approve #uni stuff

[ocombatenterondonia]

NASA é convidada a integrar buscas pelo Monstro do Lago Ness

Reprodução/redes sociais Foto clássica utilizada para representar o suposto monstro O Centro do Lago Ness (Loch Ness Centre), localizado na zona montanhosa da Escócia, divulgou nesta quinta-feira (11) que pediu ajuda à NASA em uma nova caçada à suposta criatura mitológica. Funcionários do centro também estão recrutando voluntários para ajudar na vigilância do lago, enquanto instalam webcams que…

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[shadowsandstarlight]

I have never sympathized more with S1 post-statement Jon Sims than I did walking out of the Loch Ness Visitor’s Centre

[mainegolden]

Biggest Quest to Find the Loch Ness Monster

This weekend cryptozoologists, naturalists, monster hunters, Nessie enthusiasts, and skeptics from around the world are gathering in Scotland for what will be the biggest coordinated search for the Loch Ness Monster in 50 years. Organized by the Loch Ness Centre and Loch Ness Exploration, and using the latest state of the art equipment, their goal is “to observe, record and study the natural…

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#History #maine

[newstfionline]

Wednesday, August 23, 2023

Travel Will Soon Be a $15 Trillion Economy (Bloomberg) The crowds of travelers filling airports in many parts of the world this summer are a telltale sign of what’s ahead for tourism. By 2033, travel is set to become a $15.5 trillion industry—accounting for more than 11.6% of the global economy. This represents a 50% increase over its $10 trillion value in 2019, when travel represented 10.4% of the world’s gross domestic product.

Gun deaths among U.S. children hit a new record high (Axios) Firearm deaths among children in the U.S. hit a new record high in 2021, according to a study published Monday in the journal Pediatrics. There were 4,752 pediatric firearm deaths in 2021, or a rate of 5.8 per 100,000 people—an 8.8% increase from the year before, the study found. The study, based on government data, points to the worsening of an already distressing trend, after guns became the leading cause of death for children for the first time in 2020. “Spikes in firearm purchasing during the pandemic were substantial, resulting in roughly 30 million children living in households with firearms, a known risk factor for pediatric firearm injury,” the researchers wrote.

US car prices (AP) The Mitsubishi Mirage is the last model of automobile in the United States that is still selling on average for less than $20,000, with last month the vehicle averaging $19,205 at sale. Other vehicles are priced at under $20,000, but exceed it on average after factoring in options and shipping. The average vehicle in the U.S. costs around $48,000, particularly as the big three automakers ditch compact and subcompact cars in favor of massive trucks and SUVs, which are considerably more profitable. As it stands, 32 models sell for above $100,000 on average, up from 12 models in 2018.

Two dead, thousands homeless in Chile after heavy rains (Reuters) Two people are dead from flooding in the central-southern region of Chile on Monday, while thousands of others have been evacuated or left homeless from dangerous rains pounding isolated communities. President Gabriel Boric declared a state of catastrophe on Monday while visiting one of the worst affected areas, some 250 kilometers (155 miles) south of the capital Santiago. In late June surrounding areas had experienced some of the heaviest rainfall in three decades, exacerbated by the El Nino weather pattern that has led to rainier winters and springs in the central-southern part of Chile, as well as warmer temperatures. More than 26,000 people remain cut off from basic services and almost 34,000 have been evacuated, according to the Chilean disaster agency Senapred. Some 38,000 are without electricity in the affected area that is home to rural farming communities.

Monster hunting at Loch Ness (NPR) Loch Ness is the largest lake in Great Britain by volume at 22 square miles and up to 788 feet deep, and the long-running claim that there is some sort of cryptid in the lake—the Loch Ness Monster—has gotten a lot of mileage out of that size. Now, the Loch Ness Centre is going to embark on the biggest search of the lake ever, claiming they will be using equipment and technology that had not yet been used on the lake before and recruiting the largest mass of volunteers in decades. While there had been claims of something in the lake going back to the times when people wrote “here there be dragons” on maps, the claims took off in 1933 when a couple claimed they saw a dragon. Since then, there have been 1,140 claimed and reported sightings.

Germany’s far-right party is more popular than ever (Washington Post) Maximilian Krah, the newly elected top candidate of the far-right Alternative for Germany for the European elections, has described Pride Month as “disgusting,” is a proponent of deporting immigrants and peppers his speech with allusions to white-supremacist conspiracy theories. Far-right experts say his recent election as lead candidate to represent the party in the 2024 European Parliament elections was just another sign of the AfD’s increasing radicalization. But the party is attracting a record number of German voters. In recent months, the AfD has surged to become the second strongest political force in the country after the opposition Christian Democrats, polling at around 21 percent, ahead of all members of the country’s liberal governing coalition. The AfD’s record-high position in the polls comes amid brimming dissatisfaction with Germany’s ruling three-party coalition, led by Chancellor Olaf Scholz’s center-left Social Democrats. It also comes on the back of multiple crises, including the pandemic and war in Ukraine that have boosted populists Europe wide. Krah puts the party’s success down to the population’s distain for liberal policies on climate, gender and LGBT issues, immigration and the war in Ukraine, saying established political parties have no answer to real issues German face.

Windows are shattered in a Moscow suburb as Russia says it thwarts latest Ukraine drone attack (AP) Russian air defense systems thwarted four nighttime Ukrainian drone attacks, Russia’s Ministry of Defense said Tuesday, with the falling wreckage of one drone shattering an apartment building’s windows and damaging vehicles in Moscow’s western suburbs. There were no reports of injuries in the latest drone attacks that Russia blamed on Kyiv, as the war approaches its 18-month milestone. Though the drone attacks on Russian soil have occurred almost daily in recent weeks, they have caused little damage. Even so, they have unnerved some Russians and are in line with Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s pledge to take the war into the heart of Russia.

Americans told to leave Belarus (Washington Post) The U.S. Embassy in Belarus urged Americans to leave the country “immediately.” It said Americans should avoid traveling to Belarus because of a buildup of Russian military forces, the “arbitrary enforcement of local laws,” and the risk of detention and civil unrest. Lithuania, Poland and Latvia were considering closing more border crossings, the embassy warned.

Running It Cold: Why Xi Jinping Is Letting China’s Economy Flail (Bloomberg) Xi Jinping’s quest to rewrite the playbook that drove China’s economic miracle for a generation is facing its sternest test yet. The $18 trillion economy is decelerating, consumers are downbeat, exports are struggling, prices are falling and more than one in five young people are out of work. Country Garden Holdings Co., with 3,000 pending property projects up and down the country, is on the cusp of default and protestors have gathered at Zhongzhi Enterprise Group Co., one of the biggest shadow banks, demanding their money as payments are halted. Foreign investors are pulling money out, with the central bank boosting efforts to stanch the yuan’s tumble toward the weakest level since 2007. Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen this month termed China a “risk factor” for the US while her boss President Joe Biden called China’s economy a “ticking time bomb” at a recent campaign event. But where Biden has opted to run his economy hot, spending trillions of dollars on household stimulus and infrastructure to goose the economy, Xi is running his cold in a bid to finally break China’s addiction to fueling growth with speculative apartment construction and low-return projects funded by opaque local borrowing. If China is a “ticking time bomb,” Xi’s aim is to defuse it. It remains to be seen whether it will work.

Japan to release water from Fukushima nuclear plant starting Aug. 24 (Washington Post) Japan will start discharging treated radioactive water from the crippled Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant into the Pacific Ocean as soon as Thursday, despite fierce opposition from neighboring countries and Japan’s fishing industry. Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida said Tuesday that the release of more than 1 million metric tons of wastewater—equivalent to more than 500 Olympic-size swimming pools—will take place in a safe manner. Following a two-year review, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) concluded last month that Japan’s plan meets international safety standards and would have “negligible” radiological impact on people and the environment. The water, filtered to remove radioactive elements and highly diluted to lower the concentration of tritium, will be released into the Pacific Ocean in a process expected to take more than 30 years. The concentration of tritium, a radioactive material that is extremely difficult to separate from water, will drop to background ocean levels after the dilution, Japanese authorities say. For years, the contaminated water has been stored in large metal tanks near the plant, the site of one of the worst nuclear disasters in history. But Japan is running out of space to build more tanks to accommodate the contaminated groundwater and rainwater that are still exiting the site.

Protests rock government-held areas in southern Syria as economy crumbles (AP) Protests spread Monday in two government-held provinces in southern Syria amid widespread anger over the crash of the Syrian pound and the dwindling purchasing power of many people in the war-torn country, opposition activists said. The rare protests are still limited to southern Syria and are far from government strongholds along the Mediterranean coast, the capital Damascus and the largest cities, including Aleppo and Homs. The U.S. dollar has gone from 7,000 Syrian pounds at the beginning of 2023 to 15,000 now. At the onset of Syria’s uprising turned-civil war in 2011, the dollar was trading at 47 pounds. The United Nations estimates that 90% of Syrians in government-held areas live in poverty and that over half of the country’s population of 12 million struggles to put food on the table.

Emmerson Mnangagwa—Zimbabwe’s ‘crocodile’ who wants another bite (BBC) When Robert Mugabe was ousted as Zimbabwe’s president in 2017, his replacement, Emmerson Mnangagwa promised a new start for his country’s people. But as President Mnangagwa seeks re-election at the polls later this month, Zimbabweans are grappling with the same problems—high inflation, poverty and a climate of fear. Known as “the crocodile” because of his political cunning, he came to power after a military takeover and mass demonstrations forced Mr Mugabe, long-time leader and Mr Mnangagwa’s former mentor, to resign. Mr Mnangagwa may have unseated Zimbabwe’s only ruler, but he is also associated with some of the worst atrocities committed under the ruling party since independence in 1980. Some of his former comrades in the liberation struggle used to describe him as a “very cruel man”. But his children see him as a principled, if unemotional, man. His daughter, Farai Mlotshwa—a property developer and the eldest of his nine children by two wives—once described him as a “softie”.

Adopting 8 therapeutic habits can add decades to your life, study says (Washington Post) In a study presented at the annual meeting of the American Society for Nutrition, researchers found that men who had adopted eight healthy lifestyle habits by middle age lived 24 years longer than men whose lifestyle included few or none of the habits. Women’s life expectancy increased by 23 years for those who had adopted the eight habits compared with women who had not. Described by the researchers as “therapeutic lifestyle factors,” the eight key habits were: Not smoking, being physically active, managing stress, eating a healthy diet, having good sleep hygiene, avoiding binge drinking, not being addicted to opioids, and having positive social relationships. Overall, people who adopted all eight were 13 percent less likely to die for any reason during the study period of about eight years, researchers said, and the mortality rate for participants declined as the number of healthy habits they followed increased. The greatest mortality risk was linked to smoking, low physical activity, and opioid use.

#headlines #news

[geezerwench]

The biggest hunt for Nessie ever!

#Loch Ness #Scotland #Loch Ness monster #monster hunt #Loch Ness monster hunt #Nessie #cryptid