There are few more beautiful places than Scotland's winter mountains. But even when most of the snow has melted, isolated patches can linger well into summer and beyond. In The Vanishing Ice, Iain Cameron chronicles these remarkable and little-seen relics of the Ice Age, describing how they have fascinated travellers and writers for hundreds of years, and reflecting on the impact of climate change. Iain was nine years old when snow patches first captured his imagination, and they have been inextricably bound with his life ever since. He developed his expertise through correspondence (and close friendship) with research ecologist Dr Adam Watson, and is today Britain's foremost authority on this weather phenomenon. Iain takes us on a tour of Britain which includes the Scottish Highlands, the Southern Uplands, the Lake District and Snowdonia, seeking elusive patches of snow in wild and often inaccessible locations. His adventures include a perilous climb in the Cairngorms with comedian Ed Byrne, and glorious days spent out on the hills with Andrew Cotter and his very good dogs, Olive and Mabel. Based on sound scientific evidence and personal observations, accompanied by stunning photography and wrapped in Iain's shining passion for the British landscape, The Vanishing Ice is a eulogy to snow, the mountains and the great outdoors.

The famous "Kadi" cases have generated a wealth of articles dealing with the legal problems involved in EU implementation of UN Security Council sanctions. Less attention has been devoted to the numerous legal problems involved in the EU's own "autonomous" sanctions system. The subject is nevertheless topical since there is a growing use of sanctions and the legal basis for sanctions has been changed with the Lisbon treaty. EU sanctions are used both against regimes and suspected terrorist financing. But these sanctions have developed "organically", without sufficient thought being given to certain basic issues (inter alia concerning procedural fairness). This has resulted in considerable litigation before the Court of Justice (CJEU). The new legal basis and the recent judgments from the CJEU have solved some difficulties, but "taking sanctions seriously" means new problems for national implementation, spanning over a variety of areas: criminal law, constitutional law, international law and European law. The essays in this book, written by distinguished scholars in their respective fields, deal with some of these issues. How should we go about measuring the impact(s) of targeted sanctions? How coherent are these "administrative" measures of blacklisting with other existing and proposed EU measures in justice and home affairs promoting the criminal law model for dealing with the problem of terrorism (investigation, trial, conviction, punishment/confiscation of assets)? How can the problems caused for fair trial by the use of intelligence material be solved? If we can (or must) continue to have sanctions in the area of terrorist financing, can they be made compatible with fundamental principles of national criminal law and criminal policy? How does a system of "composite" decision-making (when the measure is partly national and partly at the EU level) avoid the risk that gaps arise in systems of legal protection? What is the spillover effect of "overbroad" quasi-criminal legislation directed at organizations, in the constitutional/human rights of freedom of expression and association? How do EU sanctions fit into, and compare to national systems for the proscription of terrorist organizations? Should the same legal safeguards be applicable both for "regime" sanctions and anti-terrorist sanctions?

There are few more beautiful places than Scotland's winter mountains. But even when most of the snow has melted, isolated patches can linger well into summer and beyond. In The Vanishing Ice, Iain Cameron chronicles these remarkable and little-seen relics of the Ice Age, describing how they have fascinated travellers and writers for hundreds of years, and reflecting on the impact of climate change. Iain was nine years old when snow patches first captured his imagination, and they have been inextricably bound with his life ever since. He developed his expertise through correspondence (and close friendship) with research ecologist Dr Adam Watson, and is today Britain's foremost authority on this weather phenomenon. Iain takes us on a tour of Britain which includes the Scottish Highlands, the Southern Uplands, the Lake District and Snowdonia, seeking elusive patches of snow in wild and often inaccessible locations. His adventures include a perilous climb in the Cairngorms with comedian Ed Byrne, and glorious days spent out on the hills with Andrew Cotter and his very good dogs, Olive and Mabel. Based on sound scientific evidence and personal observations, accompanied by stunning photography and wrapped in Iain's shining passion for the British landscape, The Vanishing Ice is a eulogy to snow, the mountains and the great outdoors.

Although this is a fictional story it is based on some truth. In 1398 a Knight Templar and Master mason Sir Guillaume de La Croix accompanies Prince Henry St Clair and his Captain of the fleet Antonio Zen together with a flotilla of ships on a journey across the Western Sea in search of new lands. Now in his old age he is given the task carving some of the tracery for the new Roslin Chapel being built by the Prince. Whilst engaged on the project he decides to create a window which he calls 'The Merica Portal' as a memorial to Prince Henry and those who took that epic journey and decides to set down a journal showing his lineage and the part he played in this great venture.