JULY 2016 was the hottest month recorded globally since records began, according to data published by NASA. Parts of the Middle East had daytime temperatures over 50C, which for those of us from the cool, damp north almost beggars belief. For folk travelling around the NC500 this summer it was…

THE Cromarty Bridge pauses at a couple of lay-bys, always full of visitors’ cars. It’s a popular viewing point for spotting wildlife, especially the seals that bask on the rocks by the shore, and for vistas over the Black Isle and the Ross-shire hills. However, when the tide is completely…

THE North Highlands are old — geologically ancient, with some of the oldest rocks on Earth forming what is now north-west Sutherland. It’s an area that is rich in primeval fossils, with Caithness having been part of a huge lake, teeming with long-extinct armoured fish. Mountains were scoured by glaciers…

ONE of the cleverest marketing concepts I’ve seen in recent years has been distinct in its simplicity, and has been promoted almost exclusively through social media. It’s deceptively straightforward, at its core a rebranding and repackaging of existing features of the north of Scotland. …

Wee bit of deja vue from the opening para of last months post, for obvious reason, sharing some text with last months Calumdavidson.com blog post, However this is last months newspaper column in the Energy North supplement of the North of Scotland newspaper group. About this time last year, I…

About this time last year I was on day trip to Orkney to catch up with the Northern Isles MSP Liam MacArthur, and update him on all sorts of things Energy related, with my local colleague Graeme. The weather forecast was dreadful, extreme gales, wind and rain, but despite the…

Right across the energy world 2015 was, by any account, a pretty tumultuous year. We saw dramatic changes in renewable subsidies; Brent crude slipping under $40; governments struggling to reach agreement in Paris at the UN Climate Change COP21 conference; the Cromarty Firth full of cold stacked rigs; the UK’s…

This was first published in the Energy North Supplement of the North of Scotland Newspapers in December 2015. In the fourth and last of his series of articles marking the 50th anniversary of the Highlands and Islands Development Board (now Highlands and Islands Enterprise), Calum Davidson, director of energy and…

SCOTLAND is big on world firsts: penicillin, pneumatic tyres, television, telephone, steam engines, insulin, all developed in Scotland or by Scots. Indeed HIE’s own John Shepherd-Barron was famous for being one of the inventors of the automated cash machine. Yet cutting-edge innovation is something that folk tend not to associate…