Uri Geller and the Mysterious Isle

 

According to the Wall St Journal, Uri Geller (The world famous ex-mystic and entertainer) has purchased a mysterious Scottish Island and intends to use his magical abilities to discover the secret Egyptian treasure which was buried on the island by a Pharaoh’s daughter 3,500 years ago.

It does beg a question – if it is a secret treasure, how does Mr Geller know this? But we shall come back this later.

According to the article, Geller spent the night on the island and the reporter got a picture of Geller with camping gear posing manfully about to set off.

Strange thing though, this all happened in March according to other reports and even Geller’s own website. so I wonder why the WSJ is suddenly reporting this now?

Geller’s press release about why he bought the island is wonderful to read and for anyone with the slightest sense of normality I encourage them to read it. As a Scots history buff I can state that his ideas about Scottish history must be taken with a large mountain of salt.

 

For example:

"I am fascinated by the connection between the pyramids and these islands," said Geller, 62, who is currently filming in Holland and Germany his reality TV show for mentalists, The Next Uri Geller.
"The connection has been known for centuries — you can read about it in a fifteenth century manuscript called the Scotichronichon, by the Abbot of Inchcolm, Walter Bower.”

The Scotichronicon (Note correct spelling) was indeed a history of Scotland written by Incholm’s Abbot Walter Bower and although it gives a detailed account of the history of country it also runs off into flights of fantasy. It is well understood by historians that Bower must be understood in the context of his time (early 15th c) when Scotland was in a near perpetual state of war with its much larger and more powerful neighbour England.

Just 150 years before, Scotland had arisen from the Wars of Independence thanks to Wallace and Bruce and at that time there was a great need to show that Scotland had legitimate claim to nationhood as had England.

When Bruce had wrested his crown from Edward II after Bannockburn in 1314, he still had the problem of legitimacy. He could not forge a nation and begin to trade without the support of the wider community in Europe, so he turned to the UN equivalent: The Pope.

Bruce had a Treaty drawn up by his lawyers  - the Bishops – and it became known as the Declaration of Arbroath. The document proclaimed that Scotland had always been an independent nation and one of the ways to show that was to have an origins myth.

The Scots had theirs:

[Dear Pope] we know and from the chronicles and books of the ancients we find that among other famous nations our own, the Scots, has been graced with widespread renown. They journeyed from Greater Scythia by way of the Tyrrhenian Sea and the Pillars of Hercules, and dwelt for a long course of time in Spain among the most savage tribes, but nowhere could they be subdued by any race, however barbarous. Thence they came, twelve hundred years after the people of Israel crossed the Red Sea, to their home in the west where they still live today. The Britons they first drove out, the Picts they utterly destroyed, and, even though very often assailed by the Norwegians, the Danes and the English, they took possession of that home with many victories and untold efforts; and, as the historians of old time bear witness, they have held it free of all bondage ever since. In their kingdom there have reigned one hundred and thirteen kings of their own royal stock, the line unbroken a single foreigner. 

There were other additions to this myth. That Scotus, a Princess descendent of Noah, stole the Pillow of Jacob and brought it to Scotland where it was used as a coronation stone by Scots kings. The Stone was to become known as the Stone of Destiny and was taken by Edward I to London in 1290. It was placed in the Coronation Chair in Westminster Abbey and now resides in Edinburgh Castle.

Bower would have had no reason to either doubt this myth and even if he had, politically he would not have dared refute it. 

Geller’s website also contains this gem:

According to research published by a historical investigator named Jeff Nisbet, in the magazine Atlantis Rising, in September 2002, there are three crucial Templar sites in the UK: the village of Temple, Rosslyn Chapel and the Isle of May. This last is believed by some Arthurian scholars to be the real location of Avalon, the island where King Arthur was laid to rest and await his return as the Once and Future King.
Lines drawn between the three points cut through a pair of islands in the Firth of Forth, called Craigleith and Fidra. And lying between these is a third outcrop: Lamb Island.
What Nisbet realised is that the three islands are arranged in precisely the same crooked line that marks the layout of the Pyramids at Giza, built by the Pharoahs 4,500 years ago.
That layout famously matches the three stars known as Orion's Belt, and Nisbet discovered that anyone standing on the battlefield of Bannockburn, where Robert the Bruce defeated the English army in 1314, on the anniversary of the battle on June 24, would see the three stars (Alnitak, Alnilam and Mintaka) rise exactly over the three islands of Craigleith, Lamb and Fidra.

Isle of May the last resting home of King Arthur? Maybe, but so is a million other places in the UK and Ireland.

As you can see, Craigleith and Fidra are not on a line drawn between Temple, Roslin and the isle of May.

As for Bruce seeing Orion’s belt over these island from Bannockburn, I can only say Bollocks. The site of the battle was below Stirling Castle, 35 miles away and completely invisible from the battle site.

Scottish history is fascinating and full of wonderful stories and mysteries. We do not need this so-called ex-psychic making crap up about it.

New iPhone4

Finally managed to get an iPhone4.

The attempt to get one through Apple was getting frustrating, it seems that they have daily deliveries but these are often gone by lunchtime and with no weekend deliveries it effectively ruled out any chance of getting one for me.

Because I work for a certain well known mobile communication company, I was able to contact our shops directly (the website only gives a generic Cust Services No.) and after about 10 calls, finally located one. It meant going to Glasgow - a round trip of 80 miles or so - but I can say it was well worth it.

The phone itself - actually to call it a phone is to do it a supreme injustice - is a remarkable piece of engineering. As Arthur C Clarke said (Clarke's third law) "Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic".

Apple's back-up service through iTunes worked a treat and after about 30 mins loading all my apps, music, photos and ebooks, the thing was good to go.

The issue with the signal has not proived problematic at all and it seems better than the old 3Gs. The battery life is slightly improved over the last one too.

NOOOooooooooo………!!!!

I’ve gone and cracked my iPhone screen.

Bugger.

Testing Windows

Just installed Windows 7 on my PC. It comes with various add-ons you can get from Microsoft, one of them is “Windows Live Writer”.

It allows blog-posts directly from the program which can be formatted in many ways. This is the initial test of this service.

 

This is a picture of the mighty Forth Bridge, with the Road Bridge behind it. I am currently reading a fascinating book on the making of the original bridge. It was opened in 1890 and is still going strong.

The Road Bridge was built in 1964 and is already approaching its end of life.

Oh The Irony.

Oh the Irony...

Taken directly from the Daily Mail this picture was part of a tirade by Melanie Philips whose persecution complex knows few bounds; but what struck me was the caption below the picture which really says it all:

Archbishop of Canterbury Dr Rowan Williams has attacked the Government for treating religious believers as 'oddities'


That's the ticket Rowan, with those glad-rags you could mingle unobtrusively into any town centre in the UK on an average Saturday night.



The next pictures really need no caption.

Take that you sceptical sceptics...

Seems like those Catholics finally have the evidence for miraculous events. In Knock, Ireland at the Marian Shrine - where (it says here)"Our Lady, St. Joseph and St. John the Evangelist appeared at the south gable of Knock Parish Church. The apparition was witnessed by fifteen people, young and old". And where the faithful can now buy their very own My Rosary Rosary Bead Pouch, available in Blue, Green or Brown for only 2 Euro.

Modern day visionary Joe Coleman of Dublin convinced some fellow Catholics that the mother of Jesus had told him previously that she was touring Earth and will be appearing for one night only at the same place she spent her holidays in 1879.

From Friday the 30th October the shrine at Knock was so busy, in the words of one local it was "More like August than October". Thousands turned up hoping to see a repeat of the spectacle of the Sun turning into the Virgin Mary as Joe had claimed he had previously seen. Sure enough at 3:10pm on Saturday the crowd miraculously emptied the church without any instruction and ran around the back of the church to witness the sun suddenly appearing through the clouds.

And lo, a miracle happened.

Now I know Ireland is famous for rain but I'm sure the sun shines occasionally even here. But who am I to question the ways of the almighty, his mum and his prophet Joe Coleman of Dublin.

Now, the previous apparition was witnessed by fifteen people, pretty impressive I'm sure, but it is dwarfed by this one, this was witnessed by thousands and even better, this being the 21st century, it's on youtube!



Now, after watching this are you still not convinced?

You want more?

OK, beat this you sceptic atheists, several local people went to the local hospital in the week after this complaining of blindness. The one thing they all had in common was that they had seen the miracle of Mary in the sun, they had seen the sun dancing in the sky and flashing different colours. They could see but now were blind!

Sweet Mary and Joseph, its a miracle - they managed to shift that stock of Rosary Bead Pouches left over from the summer season.

Why Evolution is True

Here is an interesting talk by Jerry Coyne, Professor in the Department of Ecology and Evolution at the University of Chicago.

He explains just some of the evidences for evolution by natural selection. Might be worth a look to find out why some people think the idea is the most reasonable explanation for the diversity of life we see around us.

The presenter for the first few minutes is not Mic'd but Dr Coyne is and he comes across quite clearly.