So what is happening in those barely populated areas linked to the North Atlantic ocean?

Interesting points there. Over the Border in northern England local dialects especially rural when using the word 'right' pronounce it 'reet'.

It would be interesting to hear about the Scottish take on the Estonian border spy snatching incident. The most agreeable sources say that FSB suppressed an undercover operation on Russian soil and detained Eston Kohver, an Estonian Kapo officer loaded with pistol Taurus, 5000 euros, covert sound recording gear, and "other materials of spyish nature".

Update: Russian media is quite silent about the incident. Russian major news agencies only contain a single item right now, 12 hours after the event is supposed to have taken place, and they refuse to update. Here it is by ITAR-TASS http://itar-tass.com/proisshestviya/1423990

Estonian border guards say that immediately after the event ("within minutes") they arrived on the spot, invited Russian border guards to investigate too. Both Estonian and Russian border officials drew up and signed a document acknowledging a breach of border from the Russian side. It would help to see the actual document too, of course, but at this point it looks like Russian FSB are contradicting their own border guards.

Estonian government called out Russian ambassador and had a talk. Russian ambassador assured his support in solving the issue. Estonian officials investigate the incident as "a crime without political motivation" in an evident attempt to downplay the seriousness of the incident. I mean, FSB has admitted direct involvement and this self-evidently means everything about this is political.

Update 2: Aha, Lenta.ru says that, according to "a source in Russian special services", Eston Kohver was supposed to meet his snitch where he was arrested. The snitch was a citizen of Russia http://lenta.ru/news/2014/09/05/agent/

Update 3: Eston Kohver has been placed under arrest by Moscow court. He is suspected of spying and has to sit 2 months until his case is investigated. In case of conviction for this crime, Russian law prescribes 10 to 20 years jail http://www.interfax.ru/russia/395367

Estonian authorities are gradually trying to look respectable while getting nothing done. The supposed allies from Nato etc. are pretending that nothing happened.

What's going on in West Lothian?

Moving North by North-East, this travelogue from New York TImes might be retitled What's Hardly Going On Along the West Coast of Norway, but I liked it for the use of web techniques, that also actually matched the drift of the article.

I was amused at that earlier query from ersi about a Scottish reaction. Not being an independent State kind of pointless! 

I was reminded of a good reason to stay away from Norway in late April and good parts of May: Norwegian youth with the "right" to be annoying.

"Norway's Crazy High School Tradition Puts Other Teens Around The World To Shame"

(Speaking of annoying, I'm sorry for the stupid headline fad, the Internet these days...)

Putin has not been away from the news, even though I have:

Russia detains Lithuanian fishing vessel "Juros Vilkas"

Western media is quite silent about this. News of this type are of maximum importance in the Baltic countries. 

Western media is quite silent about this. News of this type are of maximum importance in the Baltic countries.

"Western" media is always quite silent about a lot of things.

Charming picture of "the worst road tunnel in Norway".

Speaking of winter sports, Oslo just followed Lviv, Krakow, Stockholm, and Munich and withdrew from their bid for the Winter Olympics 2022, leaving two cities standing: Almaty, Kazakhstan, and this city (Beijing, with a little help from neighbouring, and more wintery Zhangjiakou).

Oslo Latest City to Drop out of 2022 Olympic Race

The Olympics that no one seems to want is down to just two candidates.

Oslo became the latest city to drop its bid for the 2022 Winter Games after the Norwegian government rejected financial backing for the project on Wednesday amid concerns the games were too costly -- a decision the IOC said was based on "half-truths and factual inaccuracies."

Oslo's exit leaves Beijing and Almaty, Kazakhstan, as the only two contenders.

Oslo is the fourth city to pull out of a race that has been thrown into turmoil in the wake of the 2014 Winter Games in Sochi, where the overall price tag was put at $51 billion, scaring off politicians and taxpayers and leaving the International Olympic Committee with a major image crisis.

Apart from the ballooning cost, combined with a distaste for the IOC (and a dislike for Oslo from the rest of the country) made the bid increasingly unpopular. A published list of the IOC requirements and privileges a couple days ago sunk the bid. In English:
IOC demands smiles, ridiculous perks ahead of 2022 Olympic bid

Aside from the lack of public support (ask Brazil about the World Cup and Olympic projects), the IOC laid out a list of ridiculous demands as part of what would've been Oslo's bid.

First, the IOC wanted to meet the king prior to the opening ceremony. Next it wanted never-ending drinks payable to the royal family or the Norwegian Olympic Committee.

Okay, well yeah, I guess. VG mined the 7,000+ pages of requirements from the IOC, and most pertained to security. The following do not.

Car and drivers for all IOC members.
Diverted and prioritized Olympic traffic
Dedicated Olympic traffic lanes, not to be used by regular people
"IOC members will be received with a smile on arrival at hotel"
Hotel bars must be open "extra late" and can only serve Coca-Cola products
All conference rooms must be kept at exactly 68 degrees
"All furniture should be OL-shaped and have Olympic Appearance"

Finally, the IOC "proposes the closure of schools, and the local people are encouraged to take vacations."

Thus far Stockholm, Sweden, Krakow, Poland, and Lviv, Ukraine, have all pulled their bids. The only bidders left are Almaty, Kazakhstan, and Beijing, China. If all else fails, there's always Sochi, Russia.

Massive military operation at Sweden's Baltic Sea coast right now looking after "suspicious submarine activity" [edit: can also be translated as "suspicious underwater activity" but there's no real difference ]. A foreign (=Russian) submarine is said to have stranded somewhere in Stockholm archipelago and sent out an SOS signal.

Uppgifter: Skadad rysk ubåt utlöste försvarslarmet

This would not be the first time:

What language is that in the video at vimeo?

What language is that in the video at vimeo?

Looks swedish to me.

@Belfrager

The video is about Swedes discovering a stranded Soviet military submarine during the cold war. At one point they say that the Russians claimed that they got lost due to a navigation error, but Swedish investigation showed this was a lie.

Swedish army says they got tired of searching. They are not telling if they found anything. Ordinary civilians meanwhile spotted a bunch of submarines, photographed and tweeted them all over the place.

Edit: The Swedish military gave a press conference too. The funniest sentence in the statement is this: "Det vi med säkerhet kunnat utesluta är en konventionell u-båt." It translates as "What we can exclude with certainty is a conventional submarine ship." So, it certainly wasn't a conventional submarine ship. (Is conventional submarine ship something for civilian use?)

To me the statement more properly means We couldn't find anything, conventional or unconventional. It got away.

Edit: The Swedish military gave a press conference too. The funniest sentence in the statement is this: "Det vi med säkerhet kunnat utesluta är en konventionell u-båt." It translates as "What we can exclude with certainty is a conventional submarine ship." So, it certainly wasn't a conventional submarine ship.

It was Belfrager with his convertible submarine! 

There is a convertible car/sub.

There is a convertible car/sub.

This is not at all similar to what people reported they saw:

But meanwhile it turns out in Sweden you can buy a submarine over internet no problemo.

Is Mark "on the map" yet?

It is already "on the map" in the sense that you will find it if you search for "Mark, Sweden" on Google Map, but I had never heard of it, and that, combined with the overly generic name, made me curious. Oslo has a mark called (by Oslo people) The Mark, but for outsiders it is known as The Oslo Mark.

Mark, no definite article and no prefix, is, as it happens, a landlocked piece of nowhere not too distant from Gothenburg (but still with a Wikipedia entry in 22 languages, including Scots and Swahili). This submarine purchase is no doubt the most exciting thing to happen to the place the last century or so. The county is a new one, from merging eight even smaller counties, and then the story turned into legacy.

Most countries, even Britain, have streamlined and rationalised their administrative structures. Not so much Sweden. Or they have, several times, it is just taking some centuries to sink in, like with the provinces of Sweden. The boundaries between administrative, mustering, legal (courts), church units (parishes) were overlapping, and in some cases are overlapping still. In this case we're talking of a härad or hundred.

Eventually that division was superseded by introducing the härad or Herred, which was the term in the rest of Scandinavia. This word was either derived from Proto-Norse *harja-raiðō (warband) or Proto-Germanic *harja-raiða (war equipment, cf. Wapentake). Similar to skipreide, a part of the coast where the inhabitants were responsible for equipping and manning a war ship.

Once again, a short anatomy about how disinformation works in our "trusted" media.

Disinformation nr.1:

Btw, third piece of news is Russian submarines spotted from passenger ferries between Finland, Estonia, and Sweden
http://www.delfi.ee/news/paevauudised/eesti/ainult-delfis-video-tallinki-laevareisija-jaadvustas-laevast-moodunud-allveelaeva.d?id=69635869

Whatever have been spotted by whomever, there was never an evidence that it was of Russian origin.

Disinformation nr.2:

A foreign (=Russian) submarine is said to have stranded somewhere in Stockholm archipelago and sent out an SOS signal.
Uppgifter: Skadad rysk ubåt utlöste försvarslarmet

Sweden's signal intelligence agency, knows nothing about the alleged SOS signal.

Once again, a short anatomy about how disinformation works in our "trusted" media.

Are you anatomising me rather than "our" media?

Disinformation nr.1:

Btw, third piece of news is Russian submarines spotted from passenger ferries between Finland, Estonia, and Sweden
http://www.delfi.ee/news/paevauudised/eesti/ainult-delfis-video-tallinki-laevareisija-jaadvustas-laevast-moodunud-allveelaeva.d?id=69635869

Whatever have been spotted by whomever, there was never an evidence that it was of Russian origin.

This newsbit was fixed/updated later. Holland admitted it was their submarine on visit to Tallinn http://www.delfi.ee/news/paevauudised/valismaa/laevaga-tallinna-teel-olnud-soomlased-pidasid-hollandi-allveelaeva-vene-omaks?id=69969063

Disinformation nr.2:

A foreign (=Russian) submarine is said to have stranded somewhere in Stockholm archipelago and sent out an SOS signal.
Uppgifter: Skadad rysk ubåt utlöste försvarslarmet

Sweden's signal intelligence agency, knows nothing about the alleged SOS signal.

Sweden's agencies *admit* nothing about the signal. There's a difference. This does not make the signal any more real, but it also does not deligitimise what's called "undisclosed sources" by the media.

By the way, Russian submarines have a base in Kaliningrad. That's Königsberg for you. And they go back and forth between St. Peterburg all the time. Incidents with them used to be suppressed, but now in the midst of greater international tensions (including Nato submarines visiting Tallinn) they are scandalised. Normal media behaviour. Happens even in Russia.

Are you anatomising me rather than "our" media?

I'm rather anatomising "our" media.
As for speaking about you, it doesn't came as a surprise that you were in hurry to bring the misguiding headlines while you didn't bother to mention about the "fixed/updated newsbit".
As for the alleged Russian SOS signal: http://www.dn.se/nyheter/sverige/forsvaret-inget-ryskt-nodsamtal-bakom-ubatsjakt/

Sweden's agencies *admit* nothing about the signal. There's a difference...

"undisclosed sources" by the media you say?
Worthless allegations which can't be verified and aren't worth the paper they are written on.
With other words a simply method to spread disinformations/lies with minimal risk to get caught. It's an often used method by "our" media lately.

Really no need to twist things furthermore and trying to make white looking black - even if you claim to have a diploma for that.

Are you anatomising me rather than "our" media?

I'm rather anatomising "our" media.
As for speaking about you, it doesn't came as a surprise that you were in hurry to bring the misguiding headlines while you didn't bother to mention about the "fixed/updated newsbit".

Right, so you were anatomising me. Had you cared to pay attention how I treat news, you'd know my total skepticism for media.

As for the alleged Russian SOS signal: http://www.dn.se/nyheter/sverige/forsvaret-inget-ryskt-nodsamtal-bakom-ubatsjakt/

Or you can read the BBC summary (with images)
You can read about Russians saying it's a Dutch submarine (Russian source, and a Jewish one too)
You can read about the Dutch denying it's their submarine (Only in BBC's Russian section for some funny reason. BBC doesn't have the same article in English. Go figure.)

Choose your poison.

You don't like it when I point to Western sources? Funny then that you should also point to Western sources to refute me. Which Western sources are better? And I'm sure you noticed I can find Russian sources too - in Russian even. Can you?

"undisclosed sources" by the media you say?
Worthless allegations which can't be verified and aren't worth the paper they are written on.
With other words a simply method to spread disinformations/lies with minimal risk to get caught. It's an often used method by "our" media lately.

You can also read how Svenska Dagbladet, the originator of the SOS alarm story, argues against DN to protect the sources. It's journalism.

Can you tell in what ways is "their" media better? Or is it?

Since the German submarines the corrupt, anti patriotic and German collaborationist govern of my country bought, with the money of my people, don't work anymore the day after delivery, that submarine that was spotted somewhere has to be American.
End of discussion.

And here's Swedish military speaking up about their findings, taking the head out of sand. Defence forces: A small submarine violated Swedish waters

And here are two images that they say prove their case. One where the said submarine is said to have scraped the seafloor:


Another taken by an eye-witness:


Anyway, Krake, I don't really care if the Russian submarine was really there. Or, more precisely, I don't care how solidly it can be proven. And I don't care if it was really Russian. The Swedish military says they can't confirm the nationality of the submarine.

What matters is how threateningly Russia behaves. Again, it doesn't matter if Russia really means to threaten, but it matters when it's perceived this way. It matters when Nordic ministers meet and they discuss the apparent change in Russian doctrine of foreign policies and defence with a sense of urgency. This meeting took place when the search for the submarine had just ended seemingly inconclusively. The ministers met and behaved as if the violation had occurred. This matters. If the violation really occurred matters less, because wars are fought more often over "seems" and "should", not over "is".