Plenty of Nothing

Blockaders

Haida carvers are preparing to raise the first new totem pole in Gwaii Haanas National Park Reserve in 130 years. Totem poles combine mythology with current events, and this one commemorates the 1985 blockade that saved the forests that provided the cedar log for this pole. Source.

Scott

Orochi (1925)

I wish I'd been to this screening of the classic swordfighting movie Orochi at the East Asian Studies Center of Indiana University, which featured a katsudo benshi, or live narrator. You can watch the complete film with a modern music track here. There are some nice dissolves, including one at 10:05 that superimposes a shot of a guarded gate on the textured paper of an official decree.

Birch Beer

2013-14 Scottish Challenge Cup, Round One

Annan tannoy announcer.

Morton are away to Annan Athletic for the first round of the Scottish Challenge Cup, also known as the Ramsdens Cup for Ramsdens reasons.

Annan Athletic are a black and gold team who play at Galabank stadium in Annan, Dumfries and Galloway, on Solway Firth in the extreme south of Scotland. The club was founded in 1942, joined the South of Scotland League in 1977, moved to the East of Scotland League in 1987, and gained promotion to the SFL Third Division in 2008 to replace Gretna. The club voted against league reconstruction. Galabank is one of the growing number of Scottish grounds with an artificial surface.

Morton and Annan Athletic have only ever met in cup competition once before, in the second round of the 2006-07 Scottish Cup, when Morton won 0 - 3 in Annan. It goes without saying that Morton are the more illustrious club, though, there, I've said it. Morton legend Peter Weatherson will be appearing for Annan today.

What other SPFL clubs wear a black and gold home strip? Livingston, Alloa, Dumbarton (with white), East Fife, Berwick. Morton are currently scheduled to play all of them but Berwick.

Now that Morton have reclaimed the Renfrewshire Cup, there is a feeling that this year's team might be better than last year's and might in fact be as good as Dundee's. The proof of course will be in the standings, but a Challenge Cup would also be a good measure of contemporary illustriousness.

[But Morton lose! Annan win 1 - 0. Guess who scored: Weatherson.]

Elsewhere on Earth, Sapporo host Gainare Tottori. Tottori is the home of the largest sand dune in Japan. Tomorrow European giants Breiðablik and ÍBV struggle for honour in Kópavogur, which means seal pup bay. [Sapporo win 3 - 0.] [ÍBV lose 1 - 3.]

Tomorrow Morton play a friendly against Largs Thistle at Barrfields Stadium in Largs. This year is the 750th anniversary of the Battle of Largs, when the Scots beat the Norwegians. [Morton win 3 - 4.]

Floral Boundary

Gerður Sigurðardóttir's House

Iceland is opening a museum to volcanism at Vestmannaeyjar which will incorporate some of the buildings buried by ash in the 1973 eruption, including Gerðisbraut 10, where Gerður Sigurðardóttir's used to live.

ÍBV's midweek league game against Keflavík has been postponed to make way for the Europa League second qualifying round second leg match against Crvena Zvezda, also known as Red Star Belgrade. The first leg ended 2 - 0 in Red Star's favour, so ÍBV need to outscore the Serbs by three goals today to advance to the third qualiying round next week. [0 - 0. Red Star win 0 - 2 on aggregate. ÍBV are out.]

Other Europa League matches involving Icelandic or Scottish clubs:

Hibs 0 - 7 Malmö. Hibs are out.

Standard Liège 3 - 1 KR. KR are out.

St. Johnstone 1 - 1 Rosenborg. St Johnstone advance to the third round. Their opponent will be Minsk.

Sturm Graz 0 - 1 Breiðablik. Breiðablik advance to meet Kazakh side Aktobe in the third round.

On Tuesday in the Champions League Celtic beat Cliftonville 2 - 0 (5 - 0 on aggregate) to advance to the third qualifying round where they will face Elfsborg of Sweden.

FH, the 2012 Icelandic champions, beat Slovakian side Ekranas to advance. FH will face Austria Wien.

The SFL First Division has been renamed the Scottish Championship, though of course the winner of the Scottish Championship will not be Scottish champion.

A Canadian Settler Hates a Tree

    A Canadian settler hates a tree, regards it as his natural enemy, as something to be destroyed, eradicated, annihilated by all and any means. The idea of useful or ornamental is seldom associated here even with the most magnificent timber trees, such as among the Druids had been consecrated, and among the Greeks would have sheltered oracles and votive temples. The beautiful faith which assigned to every tree of the forest its guardian nymph, to every leafy grove its tutelary divinity, would find no votaries here. Alas! for the Dryads and Hamadryads of Canada!

    There are two principal methods of killing trees in this country, besides the quick, unfailing destruction of the axe; the first by setting fire to them, which sometimes leaves the root uninjured to rot gradually and unseen, or be grubbed up at leisure, or, more generally, there remains a visible fragment of a charred and blackened stump, deformed and painful to look upon; the other method is slower, but even more effectual; a deep gash is cut through the bark into the stem, quite round the bole of the tree. This prevents the circulation of the vital juices, and by degrees the tree droops and dies. This is technically called ringing timber. Is not this like the two ways in which a woman's heart may be killed in this world of ours -- by passion and by sorrow? But better far the swift fiery death than this "ringing," as they call it.

Anna Brownell Jameson, Winter Studies and Summer Rambles in Canada (1838), page 48, NCL edn., 1965.

2 and Leaf

Danse dans le Neige

Danse dans le Neige by Françoise Sullivan and Maurice Perron. See also.