Woke up today at 5am, the dropped back off and woke back up again at 1030. However I didn’t get up until 1100. It was chilly in my bedroom and house. I skipped breakfast and immediately went to my local bakery for lunch. I felt irritable. The bakery was packed full of people, staff taking orders and customers trying to find a place to stand to wait for their order. On the way back home a pedestrian walked in front of me and took up the whole pavement adding to my frustration. I ate my lunch (soup and a sandwich) and sent some important dissertation emails. I then jumped in the shower thinking it might improve my mood. I got out and had the idea to visit Inverness gallery and museum in the town centre. Chatgpt said there was a spoon exhibition that a guy I knew had put together. And so I set out in the cool autumn day towards the town museum, walking briskly. However when I got to the gallery reception the receptionist guy told me rather smugly ‘you’ve been lied to by an AI.’ The exhibition had finished a while ago.

Sitting in the museum cafe, afterwards, I checked the website source Chatgpt had pulled the info from and Chatgpt had the right info! The Highlife Highland website wrongly stated the exhibition was open until the 18th of October 2025. The only exhibition showing at present was the Ken Currie exhibition. I walked round the downstairs history of Inverness and got a bit bored. The Jacobite section upstairs was a bit more interesting but obviously as someone who has grown up here and lived here a long time I was familiar with a lot of the information. The Ken Currie exhibition was similarly a bit of a let down. There was a single room of Adams family like pictures, with various black clothed and white faced looking characters in the pictures. 

The Inverness Jacobite section did make the rather interesting observation that Highland culture in 2025 Scotland has successfully become Scottish culture. Towns like Aberdeen, Glasgow and Edinburgh were actually never Gaelic speaking or kilt wearing. They were protestant towns and English speaking and commercial. However in present day Scotland a visitor will often associate the kilt and tartan with Scotland as a whole. Similar with Gaelic and the bagpipes. Chatgpt says people like Queen Victoria and Walter Scott’s enthusiasm for Highland culture helped romanticize it in the 19th century.

From my own observations, in 2025 infrastructure and the economy in the Scottish Highlands isn’t great. Tourism is probably the biggest industry. Whisky doesn’t support a lot of jobs!

Another interesting observation I had at the Inverness Jacobite section was seeing how people from seemingly obscure places like Dingwall were awarded important military medals in WW1 by the British authorities.

After leaving the Inverness museum I decided to walk around town for a bit, checking the noticeboards in various cafes and community centres, a bit bored but with some purpose. I bumped into a few people I knew and my mood gradually lifted. Eventually I went to Eastgate where I met a friend who busks from Ullapool who infected me with his gregariousness and friendliness.