Just a few quick links for a rainy, windy Wednesday evening.

The Storyville series on the BBC is rarely less than excellent and two episodes recently have been particularly good. The Queen of Versaille was remarkable – a rags-to-riches-to-rags story of wealth, greed, delusion, corruption and ultimately family life. The most recent Storyville on was Expedition to the End of the World – a group of scientists and artists travelling into areas of Greenland thought to be unexplored. It, too, was wonderful with interesting musings on the relationship between art and archaeology (a favourite topic of mine). The landscapes were like something from a dream, but shattered often by the reality of the dangers of the area, with polars never far away.

Last year I was pleased to contribute an arctic tern to the Bird Yarns project. I was lucky enough to see them exhibited at the Dovecot studios in Edinburgh (and, by a stroke of luck, actually found my own). Reading more about the project and the flock as it moves across the country I’ve come across Air Falbh Leis na h-Eòin; another fascinating multi-disciplinary arts project in English and Gaelic that I really hope I’ll get a chance to see in person. I love the combination of environment, language, and music. It encapsulates something that I find so important about Gaelic: that it, as a language, evolved as a result and reaction to its surrounding environment and landscape. It’s a topic I’ve been researching for my work recently and it just keeps demonstrating to me how important it is to reconnect language with environment. It’s a project worth a nosey, anyway.

Happy wednesday.