hughraven.bsky.social - Profile | ThreadSky | a Reddit-style client for Bluesky

Tesla shares are down 40% since December, reports the FT, & “Tesla sales are declining rapidly, especially in Europe (maybe) partly due to increased competition but also a consumer backlash against Musk’s aggressive cost-cutting measures for the US government and unnerving political interventions.”

submitted 19 hours ago • 0 comments

Today’s The Times…. #CalmacCrisisContinuing - the casual subheading acknowledging “a third of the fleet is out of action.” Unbelievable - though given recent incompetence, all too believable. Consider yourself lucky if you don’t live in a Clyde or Hebridean community.

submitted 2 days ago • 0 comments

On #CorranFerry - still the #MaidofGlencoul, our second best standby vessel, 50yo this year. The main vessel’s been off nearly six months - so we have this replacement, with no crew facilities, and a fraction of the capacity this route needs. So more strangulation of our economy. #BrokenScotland

submitted 4 days ago • 0 comments

The centenary is this year of the death of Highland #Scotland’s foremost architect, Alexander Ross. We’re holding a symposium at # Ardtornish to mark the occasion, with a panel of distinguished speakers (and me). May 17th. We may publish the proceedings.

submitted 5 days ago • 0 comments

You’ve got to admire our #Hebridean neighbour #CameronMackintosh. His productions cover the full range - menacing, dolorous, joyous and raucous - and feel both contemporary and historic at once. This has them all. Mr Bumble, the Artful Dodger, Fagin all deserve the #Olivier award. #Respect

submitted 7 days ago • 0 comments

Delighted today to attend the well-deserved introduction to the House of Lords of Wendy Alexander – or, as we shall need to learn to call her, Baroness Alexander of Cleveden. Wendy’s experience and exceptional intelligence make her ideal for the upper house. It was an honour to see it happen.

submitted 15 days ago • 0 comments

This is #LochAline. Imagine in this tranquil scene the intermittent splash of jumping fish. The #seatrout are back - amazing brothers & sisters to freshwater Brown Trout that choose to migrate to sea instead. They seem to be recovering here, probably due to the closure of the industrial salmon farm.

submitted 16 days ago • 0 comments

With good light, the regenerating woodlands in #Morvern are a magnificent winter sight. These at L Arienas, managed jointly by @ScotWildlife & #Ardtornish, are entirely natural: not a planted stem among them (at least not for 100+ yrs). The seedbed was prepared by pigs.

submitted 18 days ago • 0 comments

Nature restoration in #Morvern attracts a crowd: over 40 - more than 10% of the local population - turned out on a lovely winter’s day to discuss our community’s hopes & plans for habitats & wildlife here. Thank you to the great speakers, local enthusiasts, & team #Ardtornish: a great evening. Xx

submitted 19 days ago • 0 comments

Our biennial #BurnsSupper at #Ardtornish is a chance to enjoy the huge talent we’re blessed to have in #Morvern, and see old pals and new from near and far. 86 will break bread tonight - and celebrate the millennial gifts of Scotland’s greatest bard. 🎉

submitted 22 days ago • 0 comments

One final shout out for the #Ardtornish public meeting in #Lochaline this Saturday, 4.30, to hear about the ecological restoration plans we’ve developed over the last decade. Great speakers (plus me).

submitted 25 days ago • 0 comments

Please let’s turn the M8 - at least the bit disfiguring central Glasgow - into Scotland’s answer to Manhattan’s HighLine.

submitted 25 days ago • 0 comments

I have several friends, most outside the political mainstream (i.e. r. wing, or v. right wing) who supported Brexit – and who talk about politics often. It’s funny how few of them mention it. They too must know how Britain was bamboozled by the Brexiteer fanatics. So they keep schtum.

submitted 26 days ago • 0 comments

D’you know that #salmon industrially farmed in #Scotland no longer has to use the word ‘farmed’ on consumer labels? What do the industrial growers want to hide? Could it be that the real impacts of salmon farming are increasingly publicly known? Or why the obscurantism ? wildfish.org/latest-news/...

submitted 27 days ago • 0 comments

Edinburgh - the food capital of Britain? So says today’s Times. These eager eaters seem to agree: a 35-yard queue on a freezing morning for the hipster bakery on Henderson Row, Lannan.

submitted 28 days ago • 0 comments

@caledoniansleeper.bsky.social you appear to have increased flexipass (or carnet) costs 19.5% for Club class. Is this true, please, and where can we see the announcement? On the ‘news’ page of your website the only reference to prices I saw was ‘there are no plans to change ticket prices’ (June ‘23)

submitted 38 days ago • 0 comments

Millionaires leave Britain in droves. Who cares? You should, if concerned with public services or #philanthropy. Treasury estimates of a £2.5bn rise in tax revenues cut no ice with accountants, who predict lower tax receipts. Charity giving will fall. That matters. “A monumental act of self-harm.”

submitted 42 days ago • 0 comments

I’m pleased to have been appointed as a Scottish Land Commissioner and looking forward to contributing to Scotland’s land reform agenda in that role.

submitted 43 days ago • 1 comment

We at #Ardtornish are hosting a gathering in #Lochaline Feb 8 to outline plans for ecological improvements, possible species (re)introduction, woodland creation etc. - and, we hope, to get feedback from members of the community. #Morvern now has such huge expertise…. Please come along & share it.

submitted 44 days ago • 0 comments

Ben Goldsmith - a good writer, here in his Substack: Take the moral panic over #lynx, while “the entirely legal annual release of 50 million+ non-native pheasants into the landscape by a different set of people without a shred of paperwork tells you just who is in charge.” #BenRocks

submitted 47 days ago • 0 comments

On the loose in the park: #Lynx. Always seemed likely to happen, given the scaredy-cat authorities had dragged their feet for so long: a license for legal lynx release was submitted several years ago. #GuerillaRewilding

submitted 51 days ago • 0 comments

Scotland to far S Europe by train @seatsixtyone.bsky.social - Step 1: @caledoniansleeper.bsky.social Fort William > London. Comfy, tho’ en suite toilet gave up. No water in sink today. ~90 mins late, so full refund. Cost £230. Price for two unchanged in 15 yrs, as 2 can now travel on 1 ticket.

submitted 52 days ago • 1 comment

Festive decos looking pretty good, no? That tree isnae bad either. #NobleFir. Happy Christmas.

submitted 66 days ago • 0 comments

Orwell Raven (Charles, grandfather) Steinbeck Nicolson (Adam, bro-in-law) Raven (Sarah, sister) #Embarrassing #Nepo-Reader

submitted 70 days ago • 0 comments

More extraordinary news in The Herald on the #Calmac #ferryfiasco: “it is estimated that the subsidy for the running of over 30 lifeline ferry routes over a new ten year period is set to soar to £370m-a-year from just over £120m a year in the last eight-year period.” £370m pa! Unbelievable

submitted 72 days ago • 0 comments

Eating at Knepp’s Wilding Kitchen is outstanding. With the best menu I’ve seen in years - truly impeccable sourcing - and exceptional food preparation, it excels on many levels. Ambience? Lovely, the building beautiful, & the friendliest most helpful staff. It you can, go. #NoRegrets ⭐ ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

submitted 82 days ago • 0 comments

Absolutely delighted to be hosting ⁦‪at Ardtornish‬⁩ a symposium with ⁦‪the AHSS‬⁩ to mark the centenary of the death of great Highland architect Alexander Ross. Ross was much the Highlands’ most prolific designer - #Ardtornish House among his largest domestic commissions.

submitted 83 days ago • 0 comments

A visit to @KneppWilding is always a pleasure and an education, esp. with Charlie Burrell or Isabella Tree or preferably both. Thanks to Charlie for the personal tour, and the remarkable kettling flock of white storks - overwintering here now. Britain’s first. 😀

submitted 83 days ago • 1 comment

The UK’s overseas territories #UKOTs are home to much the most important wildlife & natural resources that we have - inc. ~94% of our endemic species, and all the world’s main habitat types. Huge thanks to John Ellerman Foundation and Environmental Funders Network for their leadership 👏👏

submitted 88 days ago • 0 comments

Very proud that #Ardtornish is sponsoring tonight’s #NatureOfScotland awards, the Very Big Deal event for Scotland’s environment community. Huge thanks to @rspbscotland.bsky.social @naturescot.bsky.social and others…. This is some party! 🎉 😀🎉

submitted 92 days ago • 0 comments

This looks like some properly good news on the #CorranFerry, after the ruinous disaster of the total outage for long periods last year. Thank you to our MSPs and councillors of all parties and none for their advocacy, and to #ScotGov for a good decision on ferries at last.

submitted 92 days ago • 0 comments

Ronnie Scott’s again. Well, when I say ‘again’ I mean after only a 35-year gap. What a place. Might come more often.

submitted 96 days ago • 0 comments

Catch up here on #FoodProgramme (BBC R4) about fish eating & fishing in Britain, with Caroline Bennett of ⁦‪MoshiMoshi and Sole of Discretion. 80% of UK fish consumption is salmon, prawns, tuna, cod or haddock - the first two industrially farmed, the others overfished. www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/...

submitted 96 days ago • 0 comments

Seems there are more wildcats at #Ardtornish than for many years - this recent pic a case in point. I know, I know - they’re unlikely to be purebred; but since ~all domestic moggies in #Morvern have been neutered, over time they’ll breed truer. Then we could consider reinforcement from #Cairngorm.

submitted 96 days ago • 0 comments

London: Farmers protesting today. Last week I asked the NFU ex-President his thought on Reeves’s halving farmers’ APR tax break. “Quite right,” he said. “I really resent these billionaires piling into farmland pretending to be farmers just for the tax privileges.” But he won’t say it publicly.

submitted 102 days ago • 0 comments

Can anyone tell me what this is for, please? I’ve never seen one before and just love its ingenuity. The second photo gives a clue: it’s rolled along the ground.

submitted 104 days ago • 0 comments

What a chart. www.economist.com/interactive/...

submitted 106 days ago • 87 comments

To Thriplow, Cambs, to remember an extraordinary and multi-talented man - Oliver Walston, once Britain’s best-known farmer, who died in the summer. His energy, zest for life and appetite for almost any experience were so compelling…. Farewell, and love and respect to Anne and the family.

submitted 105 days ago • 0 comments