This is the press release for Hogmanay.net - which has moved to Drupal from being a static site. Drupal community don't need to create an account :-)
Happy New Year!
PRESS RELEASE: Man? Woman? Polisman? Or Hogman? Who will you kiss this Hogmanay?
The clock’s counting down to the year 2006 and at Hogmanay.net revellers are revving up for the New Year's celebrations.
Hogmanay.net, the Home of Hogmanay, has information about Hogmanay celebrations throughout Scotland, from the torchlight procession that opens the three day Edinburgh Hogmanay festivities on 29th December, through to the traditional Shetland Up Helly Aa on 31st January.
The site, run by Hogman (half hog, half man) and friends from around Scotland, since September 1998, celebrates this ancient annual festival with photos, multimedia, special features and video clips.
Events throughout Scotland
Although Hogmanay has more recently become synonymous with the 100,000 strong street parties in Edinburgh and Glasgow, the ancient festival of Hogmanay dates back to pagan times when folk burned fires in the depth of winter to ward off evil spirits. Hogmanay rituals like the Burning of the Clavie, the Comrie Flambeaux, the fireball swingers of Stonehaven, the Up Helly Aa and even the more recent Biggar bonfire have changed little in recent years.
Hogmanay.net also carries webcam feeds following the Winter Solstice event in the neolithic chambered cairn of Maeshowe in Orkney. Watch crazed Edinburgh and Lothians revellers throwing themselves into the icey Firth of Forth in the Loony Dook video clip and get into the spirit of the festival with the popular six minute Millennium Hogmanay video mix.
In the true spirit of international collaboration, Hogmanay.net found the latter video 's soundtrack, by Russian techno duo Alexander Polyakov and Sergey Pimenov of PPK, through the internet. In what has been a spectacular internet success story, PPK went on, just weeks later, to knock Madonna off number one spot on the MP3 charts and they shot to number 3 in the UK singles charts, becoming the first Russian duo to do so.
As well as details of events around Scotland, with maps and live streaming weather reports for individual cities, there are essential tips for minimising the suffering for the morning after, with Hogman’s Hangover Cures, and there’s consideration too for The Designated Driver.
Hogmanay.net is also the only place in the world where party animals can find the warm, classic Hoghat featuring on its front the one and only Hogman.
Hogmanay.net carries the full lyrics, with meanings of those trickier Scots words, on our Auld Lang Syne page - so no excuse for singing “la! la! la!” at midnight. You can even practice in front of your computer with our Flash karaoke Auld Lang Syne. For those curious about the origins of Hogmanay, Frequently Asked Questions page helps explain the history and background of Scotland's Hogmanays in brief.
Of course, revellers will also just want to get to know everyone else, and our bulletin boards are the most active in Scotland at this time of year.
Put it all together and you can see why Hogmanay.net has earned the reputation for being the Home of Hogmanay.
