Andrew MacLaren-Scott's Blog, page 80

Goodbye to all that

It is the first day of a new year, astronomically speaking, and as far as I am concerned, with the winter solstice having passed yesterday. So goodbye to all that and turn now and face the future.

Green (very)

Identity Crisis

I am getting confused by my multiple identities, which have developed for what seemed like good reasons at the time, and in some cases still do. My real full name is Andrew Robertson Scott, but I have published books and written articles as plain Andrew Scott for many years... and then a few years ago I began writing fiction as Andrew MacLaren-Scott (MacLaren being my somewhat strange grandmother's maiden name) to separate my serious and conventionally published scientific writing from that new and sillier venture... and more recently I have begun writing scientific articles as Andrew R. Scott to help distinguish myself from some other writers called Andrew Scott, not to mention from the fairly well-known significantly young(er than me) actor of that name who some women seem to lust after in a way that most women no longer seem to lust after me... and then there is Don QuiScottie, or The Noble Don QuiScottie de l'Écosse, to give him his full name, who is a character somewhat similar to Don Quixote de La Mancha but more real, and Scottish, being me. But... what to do? It's confusing me. I've tried to retire Don QuiScottie in the past, but he returned, being an insistent fellow, but it's a bit silly having two blogs when one might suffice, and when in any case they don't get visited by many people anyway, partly because I have gone to some lengths to ensure that the many people who know me as the supposedly sober and serious Dr Andrew Scott (or Dr Andrew R. Scott nowadays) are not aware of me as Andrew MacLaren-Scott or as Don QuiScottie. There were, I thought, very good reasons for that, but perhaps they are poor reasons. Anyway... and I know that nobody is probably reading this far, so I may be talking to myself now, or to all of my selves... but anyway... I think I will continue to blog only as Andrew MacLaren-Scott, while acknowledging in my profile that I am really the science writer Andrew Scott (that is, Andrew R. Scott, nowadays). But I'll continue not to actually tell all those sensible people who know me as Andrew Scott (and Andrew R. Scott) that I also write fiction and have a silly little blog as Andrew MacLaren-Scott. But the identities can leak out a bit anyway, as I discovered when a young lady approached me in a serious scientific place one day and slyly said, "I know who else you are," and then quietly held out an Andrew MacLaren-Scott book - Aileen the Alien - for me to endorse with my signature. But she demanded that I sign as both Andrew MacLaren-Scott and Andrew Scott. Confusing... I told her not to tell anyone, and it seems she didn't, though perhaps I should wish that she would... And I suspect Don QuiScottie will emerge again from time to time on this place too, for no matter how hard I try to put myselves all back together, they do have a way of persistently breaking out. Perhaps I should have called this post Strata of the Self, taking my lead from the very fine blog of that name, on which I have appeared, on occasion, as Andrew MacLaren-Scott. So that is that all settled then (or is it?).






Onward...

   

A closer look

Blue, black and blush

Just a glimpse (may have to be enough)

We live in a world of changing seasonwith effects that must each have a causebut within that may lie deeper reasonor things that are just there becauseNot beginning or ending or affectingjust always and always and on...
So is everything just here for everin a world that is endlessly stuckin a cycle of repeated repeatingwhich is possibly just our tough luck?
And it's never the thought that's the problemThe problem is in the beliefThere's nothing silly in wonderingbut's it's silly to think that we knowif knowing just cannot be justifiedas most claims of knowing cannotIt may not be easy not knowingbut that may just be the problem we've got

Old stones of Bute

From the week at the bottom of the year

The sun is still there and the flowers and leaves will be back

Firth of Forth as the sun goes down

Courtesy of my noble brother, Count Colin of QuiScottie, taken from his sailboat