Latest news with #Stornoway
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Scotsman
30-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Scotsman
I tried Dublin Street Social and had the best brunch I've had in a long time
Since opening last month, Dublin St Social has proven popular with customers thanks to its brunches and small plates. So we thought we'd pop along and see what all the fuss was about. Sign up to our daily newsletter Sign up Thank you for signing up! Did you know with a Digital Subscription to Edinburgh News, you can get unlimited access to the website including our premium content, as well as benefiting from fewer ads, loyalty rewards and much more. Learn More Sorry, there seem to be some issues. Please try again later. Submitting... The bar-bistro is just a short walk from Princes Street, making it really handy if you want to avoid the super busy areas of the New Town. It has a great outdoor seating area that would be perfect for sitting with a drink and watching the world go by, but instead I headed inside to see how their food fared. Offering both small plates and a brunch menu, there's plenty to choose from. Because it was a solo visit, I picked the Scottish Stack from the brunch menu and I have to say it was one of the best Scottish breakfasts I've had in a long time. Advertisement Hide Ad Advertisement Hide Ad At £14, you are paying a premium for that quality, but it's worth it if you're looking to treat yourself. The stack had a good portion of bacon, black pudding, haggis, a tattie scone and a sausage patty all topped with an egg that's cooked to your liking. Inside Dublin St Social bar and bistro in Edinburgh's New Town. | Dublin St Social I'm generally quite fussy when it comes to black pudding and extremely fussy when it comes to things like a sausage patty, but on both fronts you could tell just how good the quality was. The egg, which I chose to be fried, was also cooked really well and not over done as can often be the case. I washed it down with a Staropramen, which I picked from a long list of lagers - I counted around half a dozen from the list that the waiter offered - with all of them premium lagers, except the old faithful Tennent's. Advertisement Hide Ad Advertisement Hide Ad If I'd have been choosing from the sharing plates, I'd definitely have been struggling to pick just a few. They've got a great selection, including chorizo and manchego croquettes and a cider-braised pork cheek and Stornoway black pudding bon bon. The vibe of the restaurant felt quite laid back, however it was around lunchtime when I visited and it was on the quiet side. It's easy to see how, on an evening that was full that it could have a completely different vibe. The staff inside were super friendly and helpful, which goes a long way. So I'd definitely say Dublin St Social is one to add to your list. Speaking shortly after opening, owner Anna McShane, 23, said that she hoped that the intention was to offer good food at a good price, and if my first visit was anything to go by then I'd say she has achieved that. Advertisement Hide Ad Advertisement Hide Ad She said: 'We offer nice, well-priced small plates with wines to suit the food. It's very good food at very good prices and the location is phenomenal, with outside seating for 14 people also. 'It's a nice offering here, with a great range of beers too, not just wine. All the food is Scottish produce, we try to do as much as possible to support local businesses. We are very Scottish-orientated, apart from the wine of course.' Dublin Street Social 26B Dublin St, Edinburgh EH3 6NN
CBC
15-05-2025
- Politics
- CBC
Why Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre moved out of his office, but not Stornoway
Social Sharing Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre closed his constituency and Parliament Hill offices following his election defeat in Carleton, but is expected to stay in Stornoway — Canada's residence for the leader of the Official Opposition — despite losing that title. While Poilievre remains the leader of the Conservative Party, his caucus selected Andrew Scheer last week as interim leader of the Official Opposition for the spring sitting of Parliament. By law only an MP can hold that title, and Poilievre no longer has a seat in the House of Commons for the first time in 20 years. Scheer says Poilievre's Ottawa offices are now closed but expects Poilievre, his wife and two young children to remain at Stornoway. "Given that Mr. Poilievre hopes to be re-elected as a Member of Parliament in a few months and Prime Minister Carney promised to hold the byelection quickly, it would be more costly to taxpayers to move the family out and then right back into the residence," Scheer said in a statement. "I have no intention to move into the residence and so we expect the family will just remain there through this short transition phase." The House of Commons says MPs who aren't re-elected must vacate their parliamentary and constituency offices within 21 days of losing an election. But it's up to the Conservative Party to manage who lives in Stornoway, the Privy Council Office says. The Conservative Party has faced questions since Poilievre's election loss about if he was allowed to stay in the official residence without serving as an MP. Scheer cited savings to taxpayers as a reason why Poilievre is expected to stay at the government-owned residence. The last time moving costs for an Official Opposition leader were made public was in 2022, when Conservative interim leader Candice Bergen lived in Stornoway for less than a year. The federal government paid close to $20,000 to prepare the official residence for her arrival, the Globe and Mail reported at the time. It's unclear exactly how much it could cost to move Poilievre out and back into Stornoway. CBC News asked the National Capital Commission, which manages official residences, for an average estimated cost, but has not yet received a response. A report released under the Access to Information Act said it cost more than $78,000 in public funds to maintain Stornoway during the 2023-24 fiscal year. That includes the cost of utilities, property management fees and maintenance of Stornoway's grounds. MP Damien Kurek announced he's stepping aside so Poilievre can run in his Alberta riding of Battle River-Crowfoot — a Conservative stronghold. But it could take some time before Poilievre has a chance to return to the House of Commons. Kurek can't resign his seat until 30 days after their election result is published in the federal government's official publication called the Canada Gazette, the Office of the Speaker of the House of Commons says. The average cost to hold a byelection is $1.7 million, according to Elections Canada's latest data from 2024. The costs can vary depending on the electoral district and length of the election period, Elections Canada says.
Daily Mail
14-05-2025
- Daily Mail
JOHN MACLEOD: A mainland excursion by ferry? I'm taking a chance on the antique boat show
I am meant to be in Glasgow next Thursday evening for some glitzy function – all starched shirtfronts and varnished hors d'oeuvres – but between the mainland and I are miles of roiling Hebridean sea. And, as so often these days in the Western Isles, few plans of action survive contact with Caledonian MacBrayne. The lad at their Stornoway booking-office on Monday could not have been nicer. He jabbed at his computer like an industrious woodpecker, pinging back and fore between Tarbert to Uig and Stornoway to Ullapool, as scheduled sailing after scheduled sailing proved to be fully booked. With a pause for some dark murmurs about camper-vans, I was finally squeezed in on the late afternoon crossing to Skye next Wednesday with return, by an early afternoon sailing to Harris, a week later. Neither is ideal. The journey south will probably have to be broken by a night in a hotel – elderly mothers do not care for their firstborn to clatter through the door near midnight – and the journey back by further B&B resort or getting up at oh-gosh o'clock. But you cannot let the perfect be the enemy of the good, so I surrendered on these terms and bought my tickets. Then, on Tuesday afternoon, I spotted something on Facebook and collapsed with a hollow groan. The ship in question, the Hebrides – just scant weeks back from her annual overhaul – has a broken bow-visor. For the next few days, she will be loading stern-only and be forced to turn around on arrival at every port. Big lorries, caravans and that will have to reverse aboard and, accordingly, with all the concomitant delays, her timetable has to be recast. And, though the visor might well be fixed within a few days, it cannot be used again till yellow-vested jobsworths have travelled north - very slowly, at some point in June - to sign off on its safety. We were assured the revised programme would be up on the CalMac website within the hour. I checked after tea. It wasn't. I checked again in the late evening. The website was closed, derelict and dumb for 'routine maintenance.' Then, this morning, a text-message pinged on my mobile. 'Due to an issue with MV Hebrides bow-visor… your sailing from Tarbert to Uig n Wed 21 May will now depart at 17.20. Please check in no later than 16.35…' I all but flung the phone across the room. The inability of Caledonian MacBrayne to describe breakdowns, mechanical failure, collisions with the pier or bits of the boat falling off in pure plain English has long been a signal trial. The Cumbrae ferry, a company spokesman once honked, was temporarily out of action after 'contact with the sea bed.' Or, as we used to put it, had run aground. Not a week now passes when we are spared headlines about Caledonian MacBrayne 'issues.' Ships stuck in dry-dock with intractable problems. A Sound of Harris ferry with dodgy propulsion-units. Passengers having to board at Stornoway by the vehicle-deck because the mechanised gangway has been broken since about 2022. The vast Isle of Mull, allowed to carry no more than 44 fare-paying passengers because her escape-chutes don't work. Reduced vehicle capacity on the Hebrides because her aft mezzanine deck has conked out. And meanwhile, and as if to add insult to injury, it was on Tuesday announced that the new vessel Glen Rosa – meant to be sailing in 2018; still, for now, a static Port Glasgow art-installation – will be delayed by another six months. Oh, and £35 million more from the long-suffering taxpayer, please. Does anything more exemplify 'Broken Britain' than the ongoing travails of Caledonian MacBreakdown? The sad thing is that none of this is, fundamentally, the company's fault and anyone who travels regularly by CalMac – 'issues' permitting – can attest to the courtesy and good humour of her shore-staff and crews. The failure is political; the wilful refusal to grasp that ships age and depreciate and must, in a calm and ongoing programme, be regularly replaced. In the eighteen years of averred Scottish woe under the distant regimes of Thatcher and Major, six major new ships were built for CalMac, and ten smaller double-ended ferries. The numbers so far delivered by the Nationalists, after their eighteen years in devolved power, are three and three. When John Whittle transformed the company, in assorted Gourock roles from 1969 to 1988 and with a protracted public-spending crisis, he nevertheless replaced pleasure-steamers and glorified puffers with an efficient car-ferry network and delivered untold islands from the age of the coracle. Whittle accomplished this because CalMac organisation and the chain of command was far simpler and public accountability very clear. The company was one leg of the Scottish Transport Group stool – the others were the Scottish Bus Group, and MacBrayne Haulage – and answerable to the Secretary of State for Scotland. And, every year, he laid a detailed STG report before Parliament. And John Whittle – though he ingeniously updated assorted routes by adapting and rebuilding quite a few ships – was not in the least sentimental about tired old bangers. On his watch, and with but one exception – and she had recently been reengined – ships were sold off around their 20th or 25th birthdays, for new careers elsewhere (usually in the Piraeus) till finally wrecked. Every five years by law, you see, a passenger ship must have a particularly exhaustive and indeed expensive 'quinquennial survey,' and by their third decade few vessels are worth it. We chatted about this in 2022 and Whittle could not hide his incredulity that, under his successors, Caledonian MacBrayne was still operating glorified rust-buckets in their thirties and forties. Patching up this and that with, one supposes, gaffer-tape, or the odd firm thump on the top of the set, and sourcing spare parts from the British Museum. At ongoing and eyewatering expense. Though I have always damned as vile calumny that, early in her career, the Isle of Cumbrae served at the Battle of Lepanto, or that Vasco da Gama was ever captain of her. There is a deeper cultural problem. Whatever you might think of the Thatcher years, the men of standing at the time (and they were mostly men) in Westminster or Whitehall had a far better feel for the Highlands and Islands. Many were war veterans, alongside doughty Hebrideans; many routinely holidayed in the pursuit of stags, salmon and grouse. As my late grandfather always maintained, the foe of the Gael has never been the Englishman: it is the Lowland Scot. And in the comfortable Edinburgh ranks of the devolved nomenklatura – the school-run to Watson's, murmured luncheons at the New Club - most know nothing about ferries, and care less. Which is why any excursion to the mainland, these days, is to take your chances with the antique boat show – and the stuff of Russian roulette.
CBC
07-05-2025
- Politics
- CBC
Scheer doesn't seem keen to move into Stornoway, but says talks are 'ongoing'
Social Sharing Newly minted interim Opposition leader Andrew Scheer says talks are "ongoing" about the current Stornoway conundrum — but he doesn't sound eager to move into the official residence. The Saskatchewan MP was chosen to temporarily take over Pierre Poilievre's parliamentary duties as the Conservative leader seeks to reclaim a seat in the House of Commons. Poilievre lost his long-held Ontario riding on election night, which has raised questions about whether or not he would have to move out of Stornoway, where he and his family have resided since shortly after he became leader of the Conservative Party in 2022. By law, that state-owned residence is reserved for the leader of the Official Opposition, a position that can only be held by a sitting MP. Scheer, who is acting as the Official Opposition leader, told CBC's Power & Politics that "discussions are still ongoing" about the Stornoway situation — but it doesn't sound like he will be telling Poilievre to pack his bags. "It does cost a lot of taxpayers' money to … move somebody out, move somebody in, just to move them out, just to move somebody in again," Scheer told host David Cochrane. "My own view on this is whatever is most efficient, the most cost-effective for Canadian taxpayers. We don't want this to add … any extra burden." WATCH | Poilievre speaks to reporters for the first time since election loss: Poilievre speaks to reporters for the first time since election seat loss 1 day ago Duration 1:44 The Privy Council Office told CBC News last week that Stornoway is reserved for the Opposition leader, but suggested it is up to the Conservative Party to handle the situation. "Any questions on how the Conservative Party will manage its leadership in the House of Commons in the future, and therefore who will reside at the official residence, should be directed to the Conservative Party," the statement said. Scheer said that he hopes Poilievre can return to the House as soon as possible to make the Stornoway question irrelevant. "We anticipate this is just an eight-to-12-week scenario, and whatever decisions are made around office space and residences and things like that, in the grand scheme of things, will be moot very quickly," he said. Conservative MP Damien Kurek announced he'll step aside so Poilievre can run in his Alberta riding of Battle River-Crowfoot. But the process of kickstarting that byelection could take some time. According to the Office of the Speaker of the House of Commons, Members of Parliament can't resign their seat until 30 days after their election result is published in the Canada Gazette, the federal government's official publication. After the 2019 and 2021 federal elections, it took about a month before the chief electoral officer's validated results were published in the gazette. Once Kurek is in the clear to resign, it's the Speaker who informs the chief electoral officer that a seat is vacant. Then, the Governor General, on the advice of the prime minister and cabinet, can set the date for the byelection — between 11 and 180 days after an MP resigns. Prime Minister Mark Carney said he is committed to ensuring a byelection would take place "as soon as possible." Still, it is possible that Poilievre won't be back in the House until the fall sitting. Presuming that Poilievre wins in Battle River-Crowfoot — considered one of the safest Conservative ridings in the country — it sounds like it will only be a temporary constituency for the Conservative leader. Scheer said the party expects Kurek to run in the riding in the next general election, though it remains to be seen where Poilievre would then seek a seat.
Daily Mail
07-05-2025
- General
- Daily Mail
JOHN MACLEOD: The five key ingredients for a perfect artisan loaf: flour, water, yeast, salt- and, above all, time...
In the late summer of 1988 – I had just graduated – I spent several pleasant weeks with my widowed grandmother, who lived in Laxdale, just outside Stornoway. Laxdale has a salmon-river, a primary school, a Free Church meeting house and a stately single-track Victorian stone bridge. But, in 1988, it still boasted additionally a post office and a bakery. If that business had an official name, I am afraid I cannot remember it. We just called it Craggan's. And it sat on a lethal blind-spot of the main road which we still call Craggan's Corner. It was perfectly safe in the age of the pony and trap, but by Thatcher's second term the authorities had being trying to sequester and demolish Craggan's Bakery for as long as anyone could remember. Popping in for a loaf could not have been more discreet had you been trying to buy drugs. Craggan's always gave the impression it sold baking on sufferance. From the outside, it looked like an ordinary croft-house. There was no signage. There was no window-display. It was only open in the mornings (except, of course, on the Sabbath) and its dark interior had scarcely changed since Edwardian times. Craggan's only sold five things: bread (priced by weight, on venerable scales, and not by loaf) and four types of biscuit. Shortbread, Abernethy, oatcake, and a celebrated sort of hard-tack round you always asked for as 'big biscuits,' but which out in Lewis daylight everyone simply called Craggans. The bread – crusty batch-loaves, out of the venerable brick-lined oven – was superlative. But it was already almost curtains for Craggan's. It was closed and levelled soon afterwards – oh, but the corner is now so safe – and all that marks the spot of this lost Lewis institution is a horrid little bus-shelter. In any event, had Craggan's survived, it would not have made it past 1992, when ferocious new EU regulations – a ban on wooden worksurfaces, the decree of stainless steel and fluorescent lights and so on – slew untold artisanal food businesses all over the land, from Hebridean bakeries to Orcadian cheesemakers. I thought of Craggan's this week when news broke that Hovis and Kingsmill, two of Britain's Big Three baking-empires – their deadly rival is Warburton – are in urgent talks about merger. Neither Hovis nor Kingsmill, of course, have been free-standing enterprises for as long as anyone can remember: they belong, respectively, to conglomerates called Endless and Allied British Foods. But they are in mounting commercial trouble because people are eating less and less sliced bread. In five years, sales have fallen by 15 per cent. 'A very challenging market,' sighs one industry insider.' 'People are not buying as often, and they're not buying as much,' laments another. This has been driven by deeper trends. More and more of us, in the wake of the Atkins Diet fad in the early Noughties, have shifted to a low-carbs regime – these days, regarding bread and pasta and potatoes with profound suspicion – and the current concern about ultra-processed food. Products made with Frankenstein ingredients you wouldn't find in a typical family larder. An own-brand loaf I bought the other day from a famous supermarket chain, for instance, lists three different emulsifiers, spirit-vinegar, calcium propionate and ascorbic acid. In scant decades we have suddenly come a long way from the village-bakery bread of our forebears – made of but flour, water, yeast, salt and, above all, time. Dough has to rise twice. For the finest breads, like high-end dinner rolls, it has to be 'proved' three times. Serious bread also requires enclosed and ferocious ovens, of a kind few of us can match at home. There are two other complications. Wheat simply cannot be grown in much of Scotland – too wet and windy – and our staple grains were barley and oats. Nor does Britain as a whole lend itself to growing high-gluten wheat, essential for the 'strong' flour that makes the most toothsome loaves. There are ways around this – the French have no high-gluten wheat either, but soon devised celebrated breads, like the Parisian baguette, made without fat and to be eaten on the day they are baked. By contrast, we import much of our wheat, from the Canadian prairies and so on, and what one might call the Great British Bread Disaster struck like a thunderclap in the Fifties, when British flour-milling empires bought out our bakery industry. In the cause of making a cheap, wrapped, mass-produced loaf the housewife could pick up at any supermarket or corner-shop. So up the moguls came with the notorious Chorleywood Process, using steam, machinery and epic quantities of yeast to have dough ready for the oven in under an hour. By 1977 80% of all British bread was so concocted. As Which? observed dryly in June 1975, 'If you like wrapped sliced bakery bread you'll find it difficult to make something similar at home.' The inevitable backlash was led by such articulate figures as Elizabeth David and Derek Cooper and Scotland to some degree escaped the worst industrial bread: local bakers were more resilient and we were late to the whole supermarket thing. (The first in Stornoway opened only in 1983.) There are today successful artisan bakers in all our major cities and one of the things I miss most about Edinburgh is tenderly crafted and really good bread, though Stornoway's Stag Bakeries does turn out a toothsome batch-loaf and their water-biscuits are now retailed by I J Mellis and the best delicatessens. But it is still a sorry British tale – a legacy of the Industrial Revolution and the dumbed-down food production of the Second World War – and in contrast to the ferocious pride taken in their indigenous breads by our European neighbours. France in this regard has been particularly assertive. Bread is sold at a dedicated local bakery, a boulangerie, and you are only allowed to call yourself a boulangerie if your baguettes and boules and so on are made on the premises, using only four ingredients (flour, salt, water and yeast) and without additives and preservatives. Since the Revolution, too, there have been strict rules about bakers' holidays. They are only allowed a break in July and August and, in cities like Paris, they are forbidden to go en vacances all at once. Lewis does have a minor stake in arguably Scotland's finest loaves – for Jon Wood, who founded Edinburgh's Andante concern in 2010, shares a pair of great-grandparents with me. There are now branches in Morningside and Leith. He uses no additives. Some loaves are just flour, salt and water. The working day starts at five am; Jon's baguettes take three days to make – and his sourdough starter is now twenty-five years old. Lockdown was tough – you should have seen the queues - but Andante survived when others perished. 'If it's a choice between how it looks and how it tastes,' Jon Wood in 2021 confided, 'I'll always go with how it tastes.'
