Tuesday
Oct092012
by 
Bishop Hill
Bishop Hill Light blogging
Oct 9, 2012 It's half term here - tattie-lifting holiday in the local parlance. Blogging will therefore be light for a week or so, although there will not be a complete dearth of posts.
Reader Comments (15)
Spud-bashing week where I come from. Does anyone do it anymore? I remember swollen fingers from working in cold, wet soil. But I also remember farm-baked apple pie. I hope you have the latter rather than the former.
It was tatty howkin' in my school days in rural Perthshire. The only way some of the less well-off kids could afford a school uniform.
In 1960 I got 6d per sack. Over the three and a bit days to clear the field, 12/6 in total! Remember earning it but no idea where I spent it: such is life.
That chap from Business Green has responded to "the debate" he started by saying there isn't (or shouldn't be) one.
http://www.businessgreen.com/bg/james-blog/2215524/how-to-argue-with-climate-sceptics-the-response
Classy guy.
Jockdownsouth
Still is up here in Moray - I don't know about school uniforms, though.
Tattie-howkin here in Highland Perthshire also.
Tattie howkin' at Tirinie farm in the Tay Valley between Kenmore and Aberfeldy. Great job. I gave all the money I earned to my Mum to help pay the bills.
In Northumberland it used to be 'blackberry week', also 'potato-picking week' but that would have been in the posh end!
Also a week or two later than this, if I remember. Certainly around Edinburgh more likely next week, though you usually got a decent holiday deal because the English holiday was (is?) the following week when everyone bumps their prices up.
Your weather's not looking that great, I'm afraid.
"Half-term break"?! Hang on ... Eons ago, when I went to primary and grammar school in the U.K. (former in Birmingham, former and latter in Llanelly), I don't remember ever getting a "half-term break" - and we didn't get 'em in "High School" here in Canada either (nor when I went to university, here; although I know this changed some time ago!)
Is this a long-standing Scots tradition, or have times changed, well, more than I thought?! [Edit: Or is it simply the case that my memory is failing me?!]
But that aside, hope that you and your family enjoy the break, Your Grace.
Due to the absence of potato crops in this part of the world the English use half-term as an opportunity to take a quick foreign holiday. Spuds come out of the ground, you say? I thought they came from waitrose.
They also have a "potato holiday" in Germany and Scandinavia. However, I wonder what effect global warming will have on the potato crop? If it has an adverse effect will that mean the end of the "tattie-lifting" holiday?
I can still remember my astonishment at just how much money I earned from the tatties. Way more than you could get a from a milk or a paper round.
Our church Harvest Festival has given way to a Set Aside Festival. The wicker baskets are the same but there's not much room for fruit and veg among the eurocheques.
enjoy yourself, bish.
btw this is the REALBUSINESSgreen:
Aus. issues CO2 trading licences amid huge interest
BEIJING, Oct 8 (Reuters Point Carbon) – Australia has granted four companies licences to trade in or advise firms taking part in the country’s emerging carbon market, while a further 167 applications are pending, huge interest for a market that will launch in 2015 with fewer than 300 companies taking part…
http://www.pointcarbon.com/news/1.2012448?&ref=searchlist
until sceptic sites started excerpting reuters point carbon, you could read entire articles, not any more. and the MSM who subscribe rarely carry the articles either. having failed to find any coverage at all today, i have finally found this just now on some traders' site:
2 Oct: Investors Daily: Kate Kachor: ASIC (Australian Securities & Investments Commission) grants emissions units licence
More than 100 Australian financial services licensees (AFSL) are among a group of individuals and companies now eligible for authorisations to provide financial services in emissions units...
The authorisation of the new licenses follows 173 individuals and companies registering with ASIC to provide financial services in emissions units and related derivatives earlier this year.
http://www.investordaily.com.au/cps/rde/xchg/id/style/15261.htm?rdeCOQ=SID-0A3D9632-FBC363D1
so many carbon cowboys prepared to create a CO2 bubble in the stockmarket and no MSM to warn the public to watch out for their retirement funds because, like all such bubbles, it will surely burst . nice.
Whinberry picking week in Shropshire, and again, it used to pay for the kids school-clothes.