In that work he appears as the host of a very wizardly dinner party and he is also shown cleaving the Eildon Hills,

[But how similar does she believe the Peter Mullan character – also called Michael Scot – is to the real figure?] Well, the Shoebox Zoo character really thinks he is 'nae small drink' and that he knows it all, ... So in that respect he is probably not unlike the real guy. During Scot's time, if you needed to see off your adversaries you did need to know better answers than anyone else. You needed to really make people believe you have the secrets of wisdom. If you were asked, 'how do rainbows work?' you really needed to know how and why.

[But while his true home looks likely to be the subject of debate for many years to come, what is known about the man is that he spent time abroad making a bit of a name for himself.] He got a reputation as a very learned man, ... He left Scotland for Toledo about 1210 where he learned Arabic and immersed himself in the intellectual currents of what had only recently been Muslim Spain.

If you let imagination run in both towers, you could see why people spin stories about them, ... Aikwood is very impressive to look at. Its dark defensible buildings are very Tolkien in stature. It was really quite intriguing to investigate how the myths got attached to that tower. I looked at the masonry marks on the fireplace and they are a similar shape to the crescent moons on the Scot family coat-of-arms.

I work in a business of extremes, so when you are with someone who is very calm and logical, it's a great kind of balance to have.

Our position is that both the optical-scan and the DRE appear to work equally. We actually have county party officials on both sides. Some want one, some want the other.