January 2006

Podcasting then. The word on everyone’s lips…tick is you’re dedicated…you may not be an old fashioned girl but you’re gonna get….oops! It’s a Costello attack! Switch Elvis off, quick! What was I saying? Oh yes, podcasting. I was astounded to hear that the Daily Telegraph now has a Podcast Editor. There was a discussion on…

Err…That’s Lulu on the left, and Lucy on the right.Mess with them and they will slobber you to within an inch of your laundry. 

There was a time when…well, when Darkness on the Edge of Town and Tunnel of Love seemed to be the only things between me and oblivion. Born in the USA, too, was an extraordinary soundtrack to one of the most difficult periods of my life, though it was harder to love, in its big-time populism.…

Here I am back in grey, misty, cold, wet, blustery and on thewhole rather dreich Shetland, and yesterday saw me driving almost 200 miles in the service of the junior members of the clan.Saturday morning music club in Lerwick as soon as I got in, then the shopping, then lunch, then back home, then Magnus…

So, Stuart Murdoch from Belle and Sebastian came into the Aberdeen studio yesterday for a wee chat, and I must say I was a bit concerned, as B&S are one of those bands I’ve never quite managed to get a handle on. The fact that they come from Glasgow, that Stuart’s lyrics are by turns…

I struggled off the Hrossey at 9.55 this morning, groggy and swaying, almost three hours late in arriving at Aberdeen.As nights on the boat go, this was among the worst I’ve experienced, and easily the roughest aboard a NorthLink ship. Though I shudder to think what it would have been like aboard the St Sunniva…

This picture was taken by my dad during his visit to Shetland at New Year – I think this was 2nd January. We were out for a walk on the glorious Ness of Hillswick, looking over to the red cliffs of Eshaness (not the black vocanic ones near the Lighthouse). Good grief, am I really…

Phew, wind’s getting up again…these gales are getting a bit wearisome.Amazed to hear about the Stornoway lorry driver who saw a sheep flying past his windscreen…I’ve never seen that, but it’s possible that the native Shetland breed is less aerodynamic than the Hebridean equivalent…I have seen one apparently levitating over a fence. Funniest thing from…

Big south westerly gales do this kind of thing in the Shetland Isles. All the power went off in Hillswick in the early hours of Wednesday, thanks to winds gusting up to 11 (Nigel Tufnell would have loved it). Last time this happened, a window blew in at The Radiocroft, and almost next door, this…

This is a Wolseley, and it’s the car that dominates my memories of childhood. Even though my father tells me it gave him “nothing but trouble”, as I suppose you’d kind of expect from a British vehicle this old…cars nowadays may have less character, but my goodness they work.I can remember long overnight journeys from…