He set out from his home in Orkney when he was just nineteen, a newly qualified medical graduate, off to Hudson’s Bay to try a summer, but it was fourteen years before he could return – as a seasoned explorer with the company rank of chief trader; and later he would rise further yet, to [...]
March 20, 2013
Howie Firth
Spring Issue 2013
Warm and human, first and foremost interested in people, a fantastically popular lecturer, a profound thinker, a man who pushed at the margins of ideas, and an indefatigable story teller. These were some of the descriptions of the late Professor Archie Roy that were given at his memorial service in Glasgow University Chapel on 14 [...]
March 19, 2013
Howie Firth
Spring Issue 2013
Two hundred years ago in May a Great Auk was killed at Fowl Craig on Papa Westray. By this stage the Great Auk, a large flightless seabird of the North Atlantic closely related to the Razorbill, had been largely decimated at its main breeding colonies. It only survived in small numbers at sea, and depended [...]
March 15, 2013
Tim Dodman
Spring Issue 2013
Suppose that you’re in Cambodia and want to sell a surplus steam turbine; or in Chile and needing to source a diesel generator. Or you may be in Malaysia and negotiating to buy a power barge from Kenya and you need an independent valuation. The man who can help you is based in an office [...]
March 3, 2013
Howie Firth
Spring Issue 2013
March 25 is the 75th anniversary of one of the most baffling mysteries in science – the disappearance of the Italian physicist Ettore Majorana, at the age of 31. The story is one which has intrigued and mystified quantum scientists for 75 years. In fact it is almost as if Majorana personified a great part [...]
March 1, 2013
Mary Leonard
Spring Issue 2013