March 2006

There was a choice: Hire a car (“£270 including the excess insurance, sir”), which would have been convenient for the impending week in and around Glasgow and its nearby loch, or grit my teeth and embrace bicycles and buses. Thing is, Susan’s already down there with a Toyota Corolla Verso (thanks, Jim), a double bass…

I’ve always been fascinated by band names…but an automatic band name generator? Try it and see what you think. Frankly, The Chia Goldfish doesn’t do it for me… Your Band Name is: The Chia Goldfish Band Name Generator

We’re into true late March Shetland weather now, severe gale nine winds gusting to who knows what, boats cancelled, power flickering off and then, thankfully, back on again. The snow has gone, but so has the stillness and sunshine of Thursday. Last nightit was hard to get to sleep for the perpetual swishing noise that…

What a day! After all that moaning about the snow, what happens but the warmest day of the year, so far, but WITH SNOW! It’s the first time in years I’ve seen the snow glittering. I was out and about earlier this morning, dressed in t-shirt and light pullover (yes, OK, and trousers) and I…

I conducted a little experiment today: using a portable monitor, I measured my blood pressure at 3.00pm and after the show finished at 4.00pm. 202 over 120 and 193 over 128. Which is not good. Normal is…120 over 80. Don’t ask me what those numbers actually mean. Well, actually, I can tell you what they…

"In every Daphne, there's a Maggie straining to get out…" From the planned concept album: The Auchenshuggle Years…and also available on the Tom Morton’s Chatter and Twang podcast – iTunes or the XML link over on the right. Oh, and check out Daphne’s own blog here…

Spring, eh? Well, actually, I’ve experienced colder summer nights in Shetland…but this picture was taken almost three weeks ago, and subsequently we were hit by tonnes of snow and, over the past four days, ferocious winds gusting up to 95 mph. The snow was, of course, sheer delight for the St Bernards. Lulu has a…

…help ma boab, etc. It was Oor Wullie’s 70th birthday yesterday, and I seem to have spent most of the week being interviewed about it. There are/were features in The Scotsman, Daily Record, on Grampian TV, Reporting SCotland (BBC1) and on oor ain BBC Radio Scotland. Everyone’s in a particular lather about the anti-Nazi strips…

One of the problems with blogging is knowing when to post and when to leave the deathless work of artistry you’re so proud of in place for folk to….jeer at/admire/ponder the significance of/wonder if you’ve died. Seeing as I was sitting next to my boss, Mr Jeff Zycinski, today, and he was pointedly pointing out…