Tall Ships Aberdeen: Four-day event making city 'proud'
Deacon Blue kicked off the event on Friday night with a harbourside gig.
The main Tall Ships event then opened to the public on Saturday morning, followed a classical concert in the evening.
Sunday saw the Tall Ships Races crews parade through city streets.
On Monday, local chef Kevin Dalgleish was on board one of the ships, teaching young cadets how to cook. They used local shellfish to put together a lunch at sea. "I'm hugely passionate about nurturing young talent and helping to bring up the next generation of world-class chefs," he said.
"So to be able to teach these young cadets some cooking skills aboard the TS Royalist feels like the perfect fit."He added: "Tall Ships has been a hugely anticipated event for the city and the region, and is really helping to establish Aberdeenshire as a top travel destination."
Rock band Kaiser Chiefs will play a gig on Monday night.Tall Ships Aberdeen is billed as Europe's largest free family event, with almost 50 ships taking part.About 2,000 international crew members are attending from as far afield as Uruguay and Oman.
The races are designed to encourage international friendship and training for young people in the art of sailing.The ships are berthed in Waterloo Quay, Regent Quay, Trinity Quay, Upper Quay, Jamieson's Quay and Blaikies Quay. Full details of where each ship is can be found here. You can keep up to date with the latest BBC weather forecast here.
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The Guardian
3 hours ago
- The Guardian
The Empire of Forgetting by John Burnside review – last words from an essential poet of our age
John Burnside died in May 2024, aged 69. In life, he was almost preternaturally prolific. He started late – his debut, The Hoop, didn't appear until he was in his early 30s – but with that first poetry collection a dam was breached; over the next three and a half decades, he published at the rate of nearly a book a year. His output was eclectic: 17 collections were interspersed with novels (notable among them the ravishing A Summer of Drowning, set in far-north Norway under a luminescent midnight sun) and a trio of bleached and harrowing memoirs that laid bare the catastrophe and disintegration of his early life. But he was a poet first and foremost, a poet in his heart. To read his poetry is to feel, just for a moment, as if the world's edges have been pushed back; as if, by standing beside him, you too can see further and more clearly. The shock of his final collection isn't that it exists; it's no surprise at all to hear him from beyond the grave. Rather, it's the realisation that, after the astonishing generosity of these last decades, what we have in our hands really are his final words. It's our great good fortune, then, that Burnside's closing work is also one of his finest. The poems are few in number – just 19 – but there's no impression, often present in posthumous collections, of a structure hastily assembled out of ill-fitting parts. In fact, The Empire of Forgetting is marked both by its coherence – thematic, imagistic and linguistic – and a sense of its fitness. These are poems that deal directly and almost exclusively with mortality. This isn't, of course, new territory for Burnside: his poetry has always been death-haunted, peopled with ghosts. But here the focus has shifted, from the general (loss, religion, afterlife, decay) to the specific. The whole collection is an anticipation of, a grappling with, his own death: 'the darkness-to-come'. In a handful of the poems, he appears to meet the matter head-on. Last Days, with its mentions of 'hospice' and funereal 'white chrysanthemums', offers a vision of 'starlight at the far end of the ward / where time has stopped, the way it sometimes stops / in theatres, when the actors leave the stage'. A little further on, in As If from the End Times, he picks up the word 'last' (which sounds like a bell throughout the collection) and weaves it through the poem, most plangently in the elegiac central stanza, which describes 'Last day of birdsong; salt rain in the trees; / the echo of someone going about / their business, making good or making hay / – you never know for sure, although you know / that something here is coming to an end'. But for the most part, his impending mortality is considered more obliquely, through the twin lenses, familiar to Burnside-watchers, of nature (damaged, depleted, but still sublime) and memory. It is memory – and its shadow, forgetting – to which Burnside keeps circling back in this collection, the space that it takes up here offering a clear and poignant mirror of the space it takes up in our lives as we move past middle age. His mother and father, both frequent presences in his work, take the stage again: the former a locus of endless longing; the latter a baleful 'trail / of Players No 6 and coal-tar soap'. Burnside's writing, particularly in his memoirs, is dominated by his father's bitter legacy, but as he himself draws nearer to the end, it is his mother to whom he turns. In the heart-catching title poem, he leans into poetry's ability to efface time, locating the pair of them in a soft-lit, sweet-scented version of his childhood. 'What if my mother walked home in the grey of morning, one last day', he writes, going on to imagine a reunion that is almost epiphanic, a 'momentary // halcyon of everyone / together, voices, singsong in the dark'. To Burnside the afterlife isn't a voyaging out, but a voyaging in: a route back into the lost past. And this past, when he conjures it, is marked by its externality: it's not the houses and furniture of memory that he craves, but the seasons, the 'evening dusk', the 'quince, or damson, strafed into the grass', 'the field where, once, / we played Dead Man's Fall'. The purity and clarity of nature in the past is counterpointed by the present: 'a ruined / thicket, sump oil / rotting in the grass, a spill / of Roundup in a rut of mud and dock'. This is the Burnside we know: attentive to the degradation of nature; staring it in the face and obliging us to stare at it, too. But in his final collection, more often than not, it's the beauty that possesses him. These are poems filled with songbirds, orchards, 'birch woods', litanies of flowers ('foxgloves, purple / loosestrife, sprawls / of clematis'). The weather is beneficent: sunlight filters, snow drifts and blankets, frost 'performs its secret ministry', there's the sound of 'small rain in the leaves'. The world we see here, through the eyes of a poet at the end of his life, is almost unbearably beautiful – which makes the leave-taking unbearable too. At the heart of the collection is The Memory Wheel, in which Burnside imagines his way into death, and in doing so comes close to writing an epitaph for himself. The poem concludes on the image of a memory: of 'those mornings / when we shivered from our beds / and lit a fire / to magnify the dark'. If Burnside's poetry – all his writing, but his poetry most powerfully of all – can be summed up, it might be like this: a bright light, an illumination that, in its beauty, reveals the depth of the darkness that surrounds us. It's impossible not to love the world more when reading Burnside, and impossible not to be more scared and saddened while doing so. He was the ideal laureate of our age, painfully alive to the glory of what we're losing. Now we've lost him, our Anthropocene spirit guide. A light has gone out. The Empire of Forgetting by John Burnside is published by Jonathan Cape (£13). To support the Guardian, order your copy at Delivery charges may apply.
Scottish Sun
4 hours ago
- Scottish Sun
Scots EasyJet passengers sleep on airport floor in Bulgaria after ‘eggy smell' forces flight to make emergency landing
Click to share on X/Twitter (Opens in new window) Click to share on Facebook (Opens in new window) SCOTS passengers were forced to sleep on an airport floor after an 'eggy smell' forced the emergency landing of their plane. The flight from Dalaman in Turkey to Edinburgh took off on Tuesday night and was expected in Scotland at 12.45am on Wednesday. Sign up for Scottish Sun newsletter Sign up 2 The Easyjet flight was forced to land due to an 'eggy smell' 2 The holimakers were in Dalaman, Turkey But two hours into the journey, the plane made a U-turn over Serbia and landed in Sofia, Bulgaria due to the foul stench. The crew had already flown their hours for the day so another aircraft had to be sent from London Gatwick to pick up the weary Scots families returning from their sunshine breaks. Some chose to sleep on the sirport floor after hotels took hours to secure - and families were told they would have to pay for the transit costs themselves. At around 5.30am, Scott Duncan and his wife, Emily Powell, were told accommodation had been found for them; however, they'd have to pay for transport to the premises. They told STV News: 'Check out times were between 10am to 11am, along with paying for transport there and back, and needing to be at the airport for 3pm to pass security for a 5pm flight, we decided it was better to stay in the airport overnight. 'After sleeping on the floor for an hour after being refused seating from the Costa staff, eventually they opened the seating at 7am and allowed us chairs to sleep on. 'We have had nowhere to store our luggage and still no word on food or water, as well as airport staff reporting that there has been no word from an EasyJet representative. 'We have barely slept, are extremely dehydrated and provided very weak air conditioning in over 30-degree weather.' Scott's wife, Emily, added: 'We can clearly understand that it is not the cabin crew or the pilot's fault as they were making sure that we were safe, and this is completely on EasyJet.' Vicky Walker, who noticed a 'foul smell' prior to landing, said passengers were assured that accommodation, water and food would all be handled by the UK airline. Drunk offshore worker causes carnage on Scotland-bound easyJet flight after partner dumps him But the 37-year-old from Forfar, Angus, says she spent the night in the Bulgarian airport. She said: 'We were offered a hotel room, but we had to make our own way there, to then be told we would need to check out of the hotel at 10am. 'My friend and I didn't have the money to pay for it, so we ended up in the airport with others. We haven't been offered any water or food and have had no information given to us at all. 'Just a horrendous experience. Needless to say, I won't be travelling with EasyJet again. 'I'm shattered and it just put a total dampener on my holiday.' The flight, EZY3282 is expected to land in Edinburgh around 7pm today. EasyJet has been contacted for comment.
The Sun
5 hours ago
- The Sun
Shortest flights in UK including route that's quicker than making a Pot Noodle
With the kids breaking up for the school summer holidays today, many families will be gearing up to jet off to exotic locations abroad. And while many of us are used to sitting on planes for hours on end to get to our favourite destinations, you can actually take flights from the UK that last just minutes. 3 3 3 Westray to Papa Westray The shortest passenger flight in the entire world is the Loganair flight between Westray and Papa Wrestay, in the Orkney Islands of Scotland. Passengers can travel between the two tiny islands in just one and a half minutes, with the record for the fastest flight just 53 seconds. The distance between the two islands is just 1.7 miles, with flights running every single day. Tickets will set you back just £8, and the flight is much quicker than the alternative option, a 25 minute ferry. Other Orkney Inter-Island Flights Although the Westray to Papa Westray flight is by far the UK's shortest, there are also a number of other short flights connecting the Orkney Islands. These Loganair flights connect the islands to Kirkwall, Orkney's main hub. For example, Kirkwall to Westray takes between 10 and 15 minutes, and Kirkwall to Sanday takes around 15-20 minutes. London to Channel Islands Anyone looking for a holiday close to home this summer can fly from the capital to the Channel Islands, such as Jersey and Guernsey in around 30-40 minutes. Jersey, the largest of the Channel Islands, was named one of the world's best islands in the Conde Nast Travellers' 2024 Readers' Choice Awards. Its beaches are well known for their beauty, with a range of landscapes on offer, from wide, open spaces to secluded coves and lunar-like expanses, making it the perfect destination for anyone who isn't a fan of long haul flights. Travel chaos as TWO flights have mid-air emergencies within A MINUTE at major UK airport UK mainland to Isle of Man Another popular tourist destination within the UK is the Isle of Man. which boasts stunning sandy beaches, seals and Victorian railways. You can access the island by ferry (as influencer Molly-Ma e recently did) or you can take a commercial flight. Regular flights take off from airports such as Manchester and Liverpool, and take between 30-50 minutes. Flights from mainland Scotland to Scottish Islands Loganair also runs short flights connecting people in other remote Scottish Islands to the mainland. For example, a flight from either Glasgow or Edinburgh to the Outer Hebrides takes around 50 minutes, and a flight from one of the main Scottish cities to Shetland takes approximately one hour. None of these islands are far from the mainland, but due to challenging ferry conditions, are often the preferred option for travellers. If you're looking for an adventure a bit more long haul, Qantas has unveiled plans to launch the world's longest flights between Sydney and London and New York. The non-stop flights are expected to take over 19 hours, and are set to launch in 2026. How to get a free upgrade to first class on a plane Travelers often wonder how to secure an upgrade to first class without paying the premium price. According to a flight attendant, there are several strategies passengers can employ to increase their chances. Firstly, loyalty to an airline is crucial; frequent flyers and those with elite status are more likely to receive upgrades. Additionally, booking directly with the airline rather than through third-party sites can improve your odds, as can being flexible with your travel dates and times. Dressing smartly and arriving early can also make a difference. While airlines generally prioritize upgrades based on status and fare class, a well-dressed passenger who checks in early may catch the staff's attention. It's also beneficial to be polite and friendly to the airline staff, as they have the discretion to upgrade passengers at their own judgment. Lastly, if you're celebrating a special occasion, such as a honeymoon or birthday, it doesn't hurt to mention it. While not guaranteed, some flight attendants might consider this when deciding on upgrades. Overall, while there's no surefire way to get a free upgrade, combining these strategies can certainly improve your chances.
