John Carlos BaezJul 10

I'm not a "foodie". I like eating as much as the average mammal. But unlike most, I'm not on the brink of starvation, so eating is not a major focus of my life. So I'd never sail to a remote isle in the Inner Hebrides just to eat at a fancy restaurant like Café Canna. But the idea of sailing to a remote island *does* intrigue me - and I like the perverse idea of a restaurant that's really hard to reach.

It's probably enough to just read about it while I stay home and eat a banana for breakfast:

"The next morning we left the shelter of the bay and forged into a far less hospitable ocean – not quite bad tempered, but not far off. “Lumpy,” said Watson, who never seemed to run out of words to describe the sea: pitchy, squally, swirly. Passing the moleskin-grey volcanic peaks of Rum, one of the Small Isles, on our starboard side, the boat lolloped towards another, Canna, where we went ashore and hiked to its eastern tip to watch puffins before looping back to the bay for a beer at Café Canna, a tiny, remote restaurant that draws sailors from across the archipelago."

That's Alexander Barlow from his decadent tale of sailing the Inner Hebrides, eating and drinking:

https://www.cntraveller.com/article/sailing-through-inner-hebrides

Here is Café Canna's website:

https://www.cafecanna.co.uk/

Even better may be the most remote pub in the mainland of Scotland, or for that matter the UK. Read on, my friend....

(1/2)

Show threadJohn Carlos BaezJul 10

The Old Forge Pub is the most remote pub in Scotland. The only ways to get to it are by taking an 11-kilometer trip by sea or a 27-kilometer hike across the Scottish Highlands.

There's a village there, called Inverie, not connected to the rest of the world by roads. The population was 120 when last recorded. The pub was very important in the life of this village. But in the 2010s, the owner started closing it down for 6 months every winter. Bad!

As a local explained, "When it's dark and windy and horrible, you need somewhere you can go and relax, meet up with your friends, celebrate stuff together."

Business kept getting worse. When the Old Forge was finally put on sale in February 2021, someone got the idea that the community could buy it. They raised over £320,000 with the help of crowdfunding, the Scottish Land Fund, and the Community Ownership Fund. The pub now has 90 shareholders - about 75% of the local population!

This is what I like: people with skin in the game who own their own business, not rich investors trying to squeeze money out of something until it dies.

For more read this:

https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2022/mar/29/locals-secure-buyout-mainland-britain-most-remote-pub-old-forge-inverie

By the way, I said most mammals in the world are constantly on the brink of starvation, but that's not true because nowadays most mammals are people and farm animals. I meant most mammals throughout the course of history. But even there I don't know if what I said is true. Sure they had to worry about eating, but maybe for some the food sources were so reliable they could focus attention on other things - reproduction of course, but also social dominance and even just play.

I want to know how hungry, on average, various species of mammals tend to be!

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Show threadElias Mårtenson
@johncarlosbaez I knew spy this pub, since some time ago I stumbled across this video. It's about the hike rather than the pub. https://youtu.be/0WVOSmWKbgw
We tried hiking 3 days to Britain's most remote pub - The Old Forge, Knoydart

YouTube
Jul 10 at 9:59amWeb
Show threadColin the MathmoJul 10

@loke Spotting "spy" ...

I'm guessing you used a Swype-style keyboard to create this comment.

(random drive-by observation)

CC: @johncarlosbaez

Show threadElias MårtensonJul 10
@ColinTheMathmo @johncarlosbaez hah, you are 100% correct. 😀
Show threadColin the MathmoJul 10

@loke Woo Hoo !!

😁

CC: @johncarlosbaez

Show threadJohn Carlos BaezJul 10
@ColinTheMathmo - "Knew spy" looked very weird to me, but I don't know what @loke was trying to see. The mechanism of the failure mode is beyond me.
Show threadElias MårtensonJul 10

@johncarlosbaez @ColinTheMathmo the intended word was 'about'.

The swipe style input in the Samsung keyboard is pretty awful.

Show threadColin the MathmoJul 10

@loke I figured from the sentence that it should have been "about". The Swype-style keyboard has you run your finger from the first letter, through the middle letters, to the final letter.

The "A" and "S" are close on a keyboard;
The "B" was "missing";
The "OU" of "about" are close to the "P";
The "T" and "Y" are close on a keyboard.

Hence in this swype-type keyboard metric, "about" and "spy" are "close", just missing a diversion for the "B".

It's an interesting metric.

CC: @johncarlosbaez

(Edited for clarity)