Matthew's Journal

I'm not sure if a "proper" Ardnamurchan post is going to happen any time soon, but meanwhile, I have a few things from the trip that I wanted to review. You can have them all collected here :-)

On the way North, we stopped for lunch at the Kings Arms, a pub in Stainton. It's only 5 minutes from junction 40 of the M6, and did a good pint of Black Sheep, and perfectly respectable pub grub, and a sensible price. This google map roughly shows you where it is.

We'd planned to eat at the Good Beer Guide's suggested pub in Linlithgow, after our Edinburgh meet-up didn't happen. They pointed and laughed when we asked for a table, even relatively early on a Friday evening. We happened to notice Marynka, a couple of doors up at 57 High Street. We had their early-evening menu, which was good value, and the food was great. My starter was Stornoway black pudding (the best black pudding you can get, IMNSHO), with bacon and a limey dressing; I had a fish main course (I can't now remember what fish, but it was tasty, and done just right), and rhubarb panna cotta for pudding. Recommended if you're in the area, but I suspect you'd need to book (01506 840123 ; james.boyd18@btinternet.com according to the card I have) if you don't turn up early.

The Sonachan Hotel is the western-most hotel on the British mainland. We stopped there twice, once for a meal with all the people we'd gone to Ardnamurchan with, and once with atreic's parents. They have the full range of Isle of Mull Brewery beers available in bottle, which was pleasant. Sadly, they cannot cook steak. I asked for mine rare, and it was so well done that I sent it back (I'm generally averse to sending steaks back, unless they're really really not how I ordered them). Their second attempt was no better, at which point I gave up and ate it. The chips + chilli sauce I had the following afternoon were fine, though.

I acquired Slaughterhouse 5 from a bookshop in Tobermory, while waiting for the ferry. It's an odd book - the narrator (sometimes impersonal, sometimes clearly Kurt Vonnegut) is intrusive, and the plot flits around after Billy Pilgrim who is either unstuck in time, or barking mad (or possibly both). In any case, he (and Vonnegut) survive the bombing of Dresden, and are among the first to see the devastation that has resulted. As you might expect, the result is rather dark and very anti-war. The book dwells upon the inevitability or otherwise of war, and on whether free will exists or not; my view is that Vonnegut is pro free will, and that the Tralfamadorians' insistence that there can be no such thing is satirical in the light of their fate, other people take the opposing view. In any case, it's a short book, and well worth reading