COME tomorrow, the USA will have its new president. It will probably be Barack Obama.

BECAUSE I was always fond of drawing when I was a youngster, some of my relatives said I should be an architect. The only meaningful foray I made in that direction was to make up the plan for the extension to our family crofthouse.

THERE may be no truth in the story that one day two pensioners became ensnared in the labyrinth of shifting fences and walkways in Union Street and had to be led to safety but it does encapsulate the predicament of the city centre at present.

ON a wet Saturday morning I joined a group of people in Borders bookshop to hear a heady account of Scotland's future in space.

A SMALL but meaningful ceremony took place last Wednesday afternoon at Kirkhill Primary School. As it was pouring with rain at the appointed hour, the proceedings began indoors, in the school gym where the headmistress, Cris Ford, paid tribute to everyone who had made the occasion possible.

SOME time during October, Moray Estates will lodge with Highland Council its application for outline planning permission for the new town of Tornagrain. An exhibition of the scheme was held recently in the kirk at Petty.

IT was a blustery day and the Firth was scarred with whitecaps hurrying before the north-west wind. This provided a fine view — all the way from North Kessock round to the Longman landfill — for the people gathered in the conference room in the Tulloch Caledonian Stadium. It was also an appropriate view, because they were there to discuss the sea. The blurb on the programme summed it up: "Scotland's First Marine Bill: have your say!"

THE card was a chilling reminder of the past.

THE population of sheep in the crofting counties is in decline. Reports in the press earlier this year gave figures for the number of breeding ewes in various parts of the country and everywhere they were falling.

THE fuss in the wake of the Duke of Rothesay's most recent pronouncements on modern agriculture seems to have died down in the last few weeks. At the time, however, in the middle of August, it had great play.

IT WAS just a massive, anonymous boulder like thousands of others. Yet this one had a name — Bruce's Stone — and a muddy path leading to it, and a sign showing the way, which is how I came to be standing beside it.

REMEMBERING the back-up of traffic at the entrance to the Moy Field Sports Fair the last time I went, this year I made sure I arrived early. True enough there were no queues and I drove without hindrance into the parking area on a grey morning, with a soft spit of rain now and again.

WHEN I was sitting in the Town House at the beginning of last week waiting for the city committee meeting to start, I began to think about how the building was crammed with history.

EDMUND Burke, a Whig politician in Westminster, said in a speech in 1774 that "To tax and to please, no more than to love and to be wise, is not given to men".

AS the rain streamed down the windows and the wind stayed resolutely in the north on the weekend of the Highland Games, my thoughts turned naturally to pavement cafes, and fond memories of croissants or slices of strawberry tart in sun-baked squares, or even full meals eaten in the open air.

THE other week I cleaned out the shed. I found stuff I had put by in case it might come in handy and had then forgotten. So now I became ruthless and consigned all the useless junk to the recycling centre in the Longman.

IT is not always a good idea to compare one part of the world with another but it is a natural human tendency and I found myself at it on the long bus ride from Keflavik airport to Reykjavik.

SUDDENLY there was a rush to one side of the train as passengers sought a view of the viaduct. We were in Glenfinnan on the Jacobite, the steam train that runs from Fort William to Mallaig, and this was a high point, the Harry Potter moment.

MINORITY languages were in the spotlight at a conference organised by UHI at Eden Court on the same day as the Nos Ur competition for new songs in Scots and the Celtic languages.

IN A booklet with key facts and figures about the EU that I picked up in the library recently, Ireland comes out pretty well. For example, in 2005, it had the second highest gross domestic product per inhabitant, behind only Luxembourg.

"HARBOUR porpoise at one o'clock!" The shout rings out from the high platform above the wheelhouse and everybody rushes to catch a glimpse of the animal before it sounds again. Most of us probably did see the porpoise but none of us for long.

THE Londrangar are impressive. Two great fangs of jagged rock on the edge of a cliff, you can imagine them to be the heads of dragons, or the prows of two longships pointing towards America. They rise from the edge of the moss-covered rocky ground that makes up most of the landscape in this part of Iceland, the coast of the Snæfellsnes peninsula.

THIS is the time of year when we used to do the peats. The end of May and the early days of June saw swaying loads of peat arriving in the village. The loads were dumped in a rush of noise and stoor as close to the back garden as possible, and then everyone got stuck in to build the peat stack before the weather changed.

IT hardly seemed right to let May go by without a nod in the direction of the events of 1968. You may well have noticed quite a lot on this theme in the last few weeks.

AT some time near the end of April a quantity of crude oil was released into the sea off the Caithness coast. In the early days of May it came ashore, in thick, black gobbets, smeared on the curving sands of Sinclair's Bay, between Noss Head and John O'Groats.

WHILE I was waiting for the bus recently, a train happened to glide into view on the north line. It didn't stop, of course, as the station that serves our stretch of the Firth coast closed years ago.

A FEW years ago, while I was wandering around the Baltic city of Lubeck, in a little park near the medieval gateway called the Holstentor, I came across a simple stone pillar with some significant words inscribed on it.

IT was a bright spring day and the mountains were sharp and white on the horizon. Drumossie Moor must be a candidate for the British battlefield with the finest view. The weather and the surroundings were, of course, a lot less congenial on 16th April, 1746, but on the same date in 2008 the National Trust for Scotland could hardly have wished for better for the official opening of the new visitor centre.

CLIMATE change — what climate change? That could have been the question.

TWO weeks ago the Metromix listings guide for New York published a helpful description of haggis.

THE chaos in the new Terminal Five at Heathrow was presented last week in the media as a deeply embarrassing incident, not just for British Airways and the airport people but for the country as a whole. Apparently as a nation we have been humiliated in the eyes of the world.

HERE we are on April Fools' Day and I notice I am writing about Highland Council. This is a coincidence of course and no reflection on the qualities or characters of our elected representatives in Glenurquhart Road.

“WASTE o’ good money.” This plaintive cry was heard from a passer-by at the ceremony in Church Street to mark the completion of the street art representing the Three Virtues.

THE bright green clumps I saw on the roadside on the west coast looked strangely alien even before I found out what they were.

IT is seldom that the summer pedestrian ferry between John o'Groats and Burwick on South Ronaldsay can make a direct passage across the Pentland Firth. Usually the traveller is taken on a wide loop to east or west depending on the direction of the tide.

SATURDAY morning in Academy Street and a man beside the Royal Highland Hotel is handing out a free paper to passers-by. "It's anti-EU," he says, by way of enticement to take a copy.

I GREW up with settled county boundaries. As now, there were only two roads and one railway line from Caithness to the south — and at the point where each of these slender transport arteries crossed the county boundary there was a clear marker to let you know you were now somewhere else.

AT the beginning of last week, I felt sorry for Dr Rowan Williams, the Archbishop of Canterbury. I heard him on Radio 4 when he said aspects of Sharia law could come to have some place in the English legal system.

"I LIKE your costume" said one of the staff when I came into Eden Court through a phalanx of Star Wars stormtroopers. She was joking, of course.

IT'S Super Tuesday, folks, the day when close to half the states in USA decide whom to support as their presidential candidates. Those who emerge from today's ballots as the front runners are likely to be the pair who face off in the final electoral battle in November.

THE row over the money spent on the fireworks to mark the end of Highland 2007 aroused my curiosity about the Common Good Fund. I'm a relative newcomer to Inverness — I've been here only 24 years — and I did not know a great deal about this source of funds.

WELL that's it. How was it for you? I generally thought it a good thing, although to judge from comments around the place not all of us were happy about Highland 2007.

I SAW in 2008 in Caithness. As is the custom in most years, the lads in the village collected wood to build a bonfire and, as midnight approached on 31st December, some 60 people gathered to watch the flames burn out the old and herald the new.

THE best laid plans of mice and most of us gang aft agley — but not, it seems, those of Donald Trump. The flip-flop decisions in Aberdeen last month over his plans to build a world-class golf resort among the sand dunes near Balmedie seem to have fallen in his favour.

IN the run-up to Christmas, the bookshops are enjoying a brisk trade in annuals. It's the time of year when these compilations of favourite characters and formats sell "ridiculously well", in the words of an informant in the book trade.

AT the time of writing, the dreich, damp days of November have given way to the dreich, damp days of December.

IN its publicity material the UHI Millennium Institute is fond of recalling the ambition of Sir Thomas Urquhart of Cromarty away back in 1653 to found a university in his home town.

A THREAT is hanging over the re-introduction of the red kite to the Highlands. We drove this raptor to extinction during Victoria's reign and we could well be losing it again, less than 20 years after bringing it back.

IN 1780 Sir Aeneas Mackintosh, the chief of his clan, wrote in his memoirs that wooden houses in Bridge Street which were reputed to be 500 years old were to be demolished on the order of the magistrates.

AS the world now knows, Eden Court is open again and back in business — the largest arts complex in Scotland, according to Douglas Yule, chairman of the Board of Governors.

GREEN trees and grass, birdsong, and rows of white headstones — that was my first impression of the British war cemetery at Oosterbeek on the outskirts of Arnhem in the Netherlands. It is a bus ride from the centre of the town and through suburbia stretching along the north side of a curve of the Rhine.

HOW do young Highlanders see their world? This is the theme of a modest exhibition that is on display in the foyer of Inverness Museum and Art Gallery until Saturday.

I WELCOME the prospect of direct flights between Inverness and Amsterdam. Although I occasionally feel twinges of guilt about pumping more tons of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere, it will be nice to avoid the hours trundling south to Edinburgh or London to make the connection to mainland Europe.

THE recent call on Radio 4 to eat more mutton instead of lamb suggests that the traditional Scottish diet may be due for a make-over.

BACK in the middle of August Alex Salmond, our first minister, invited us to join in a “national conversation” on independence. After the initial flurry in the media, the buzz of this conversation has not been very loud, or at least I haven’t heard a great many people arguing the pros and cons.

INVERNESS Book Festival kicked off last night and continues for the rest of the week, with most of the events in the Royal Highland Hotel.

HALF past ten on a Sunday morning at the tail end of summer. It was not cold but the wind off the sea, coming unhindered up the English Channel, was brisk enough to blow white dust around and forced us to seek shelter as we settled to our tea and buns.

I DON'T often grace Victoria Park stadium in Dingwall but I recently made the trip to attend a session during this year's annual gathering of the Scottish Crofting Foundation.

ON A train in the Netherlands one Sunday morning this summer I picked up a newspaper left by a passenger and scanned the headlines as we rocked towards the German border.

THE view took my breath away when we clambered up the bank to look across the Firth.

A WET day. The narrow road wound through a valley lined with thick, dark conifers interspersed with beechwoods. The bus driver was becoming impatient as a slow breakdown truck delayed our progress.

THE Edinburgh Festival celebrates its 60th birthday this year. I was not around in 1947, in what I am told were drab years right after the war, when the first festival kicked off.

WE live in the Highlands — the last great wilderness in Europe, according to over-excited writers of tourist brochures. It isn't, it just seems to be one to jaded urban eyes.

COME to the sunrise ceremony in Falcon Square at eight o'clock, said Matt Smith, the publicity convener for the Inverness Area Scout Council. Every scout from every country and territory would be doing likewise. I could hardly say no, even if the sunrise bit had been literal.

SATURDAY at the Bught was thickly overcast, but the rain held off and the field was buzzing with the many and varied activities in the Games.

BACK in November 1968, a man called Jack Holmes wrote in the Courier to warn that if the population of Inverness should rise over 65,000 the character of the town would be destroyed.

TUCKED into a bay on the north side of the island of Walcheren on the Dutch coast, the village of Veere has quiet, winding streets with rows of red-roofed houses and an enormous church.

WE'VE never seen the harbour so busy — that was the common opinion on the quayside in Wick as the Moray Firth Flotilla gathered for their week-long voyage.

TWO weeks ago in this paper, Fiona Hampton, director of Highland 2007, wrote in defence of our year-long arts fest. At the end of May I paid a quick visit to Luxembourg, this year's European Capital of Culture — a prize Inverness and the Highlands sought for 2008, to see what was happening there.

I HAD expected John Knox at around three times life size to be a bit daunting – and he certainly was, as if all the authority figures of one's early life had been rolled into one statue.

THE centre of the old town of Neuchatel in Switzerland could serve as a stage set for a panto. It has all the requirements — narrow lanes running off every which way, a warm orange-brown colour in the local stone, tiers of shuttered windows, sculptured figures on corners and eaves, a sudden spiral staircase in one courtyard, and fountains.

BIG Dougal is impressive. The sign at his foot says he is 62 metres high — 204 feet — and it makes Dougal, or Dughall Mor to give him his Gaelic name, the prime contender for being the tallest tree in Britain.

A COUPLE of months ago I came on the news that a very rare type of reef had been discovered in a sea loch on the west coast of the Morvern peninsula. Loch Teacuis is one of four places in the world where serpulid worms form dense reefs.

ALL change everywhere. That must be the verdict at the end of May, 28 days after the elections for Highland Council and the Scottish Parliament, and the final phases of Tony Blair's long goodbye. Change in Holyrood, Downing Street and Glenurquhart Road, a complete shake-down throughout the body politic.

A YEAR ago, on the bus to Edinburgh, as we were rolling along Princes Street towards the terminus at St Andrew's Square, I heard a man sitting across the aisle say to the driver that the Royal Scots had held their last parade the day before.

"THE Vikings will be fighting at half past two." These words, the first I heard when I arrived at the Pavilion in Strathpeffer, were not as alarming as they might appear. The information was also written in the programme.

“NOSTALGIA,” I said, feeling some explanation was necessary for showing interest in the old book.

SOME 10 days ago I felt that the election campaign was developing an absurd dimension.

A CURIOUS piece of news came my way recently. The Scottish Crofting Foundation plans to appoint a consultant to present to the UN the case for crofters being considered officially an indigenous people. This is a novel venture.

QUITE late one evening I was reading but had half an ear open to "Newsnight".

NOW and again, when I have a transient OFM — an Old Fogey Moment, I think that the invention of the word "teenager" was a bad move.

ON one beautiful morning last week I was in Strathspey peering closely at aspen flowers. Catkins hung from the tree branches, fortunately low enough over the running burn not to make any climbing necessary, and among their mousy fur I could see bright cherry-pink patches.

THE cherry blossom is out and the daffodils are proverbially waving and dancing in the breeze. An annual reminder, if one were needed, of how green is our city.

THIS coming Sunday sees the 50th anniversary of a defining moment in our recent history.

I WAS struck by Andy Munro’s letter to the Courier on 16th February in which he expressed his horror at the changes he observed in Inverness on two occasions, each time after a long absence, over the last 50-odd years.

IN February, a fisherman in Caithness hauled up a huge lobster from the seabed near Lybster — a giant 19 inches long and weighing over 4 kilos.

THURSDAY is World Book Day, the 10th occasion of this annual event, possibly the biggest promotion of reading and books of its kind.

IT came as quite a shock in February 2005 when the first announcement of possible mis-spending of EU funds in the Highlands and Islands was made.

IT was a surprise to see it. After all, we were still in January. But there it was — on the wall. I found a jamjar, caught it and brought it inside for a closer look.

AN e-mail flopped into my inbox last week to announce the search for the ultimate Highlands and Islands Icon. This hunt for the symbol of ourselves and our spot on the globe has stemmed from the ever-fertile brains of the Highland 2007 folk.

WHEN Winnie Ewing sat for the former Highlands and Islands constituency in the European Parliament, she thumped the drum in Scotland’s interest so effectively that the French newspaper Le Monde dubbed her Madame Ecosse, a name she flaunted with pride.

INVERNESS Museum and Art Gallery re-opened on schedule 10 days ago after its six-month makeover. As it happened I joined a throng there two days before that for a press briefing in connection with the launch of Highland 2007.

ON this day 300 years ago, the Scottish Parliament accepted the Treaty of Union by 110 votes to 69.

NINE days into the new year and by now we must have worked off all the extra calories and spirituous liquors of the festive excess, and returned to auld claes and toast, if not cereals. William Kellogg would approve.

THE year designated to celebrate Highland culture is almost upon us. But what exactly is Highland culture?

SAINT Andrew must have been displeased with us. The field of Culloden was being scourged by wind and rain as we, the Highland branch of the Saltire Society, gathered for a flag-raising and genteel knees-up to mark the holy man’s day.

“WHAT a difference a decade makes.” That was the slogan for the annual conference of the Moray Firth Partnership at the council chambers in Glenurquhart Road recently.

IT is the last Tuesday in November and the countdown has begun to Highland 2007.

I BOUGHT a newspaper last week to while away the wait in St Andrew’s Square bus station and came across an item about what Imelda Marcos is up to.

LAST week I learned that 62 per cent of the people who use the council’s archives and family history services are 55 years old or more. This should not be a surprise. Leaving aside the fact that the archive service is open to the public only during weekdays, it seems that the appeal of history of any sort grows as one gets older.

IN June I was in the public gallery of the Highland Council chamber in Glenurquhart Road when the chief executive Arthur McCourt delivered his management review. The council, he said, had to face pay issues, budget efficiencies and savings over the next three years.

WITH the imminent accession to the EU of the Bulgaria and Romania, the government has felt the chill of public opinion around its ankles and this time there will be no “open door” for migrant workers. Migration from these two countries will be managed, at least for a period of time.

"YOU can choose one free chocolate,” said the girl who took my order for an Americano and a four-berries muffin.

DORNOCH Cathedral is a fine place for a lecture. Professor Tom Devine, who gave the UHI Annual Lecture there on 29th September, said as much as he climbed into the pulpit. If we had not suspected it before, we now sensed that the fathers of the old kirk knew a thing or two about theatricality and acoustics.

MANY thanks to the anonymous reader who sent me a note after I speculated a few weeks ago about the story behind the Biblical texts carved on the wall of the old Athenaeum building opposite the Town House.

THE Inverness Book Festival begins today in the Royal Highland Hotel - still the Station Hotel to many of us old-timers - and it seems entirely appropriate to tell you how, a little while ago, I was browsing through back files of local newspapers when I came across the following item.

AS I drove north over the Ord, I was looking forward to my first sight of the latest thing on the Beatrice Field - the first unit of the proposed offshore wind farm.