November 2006

  • Shetland knitwear – is it a dying craft?

    I have a bit of a thing about traditional Shetland knitwear, particularly the old-fashioned Fair Isle patterns. I have to restrict my visits to Jamieson’s emporium in Lerwick, otherwise I would end up becoming a gansie addict, overwhelmed by that glorious smell of lanolin you get from native Shetland wool. But hand-knitting (with needles) is…

  • These proper pictures just in from Mr Cunningham

    My old pal Stewart Cunningham (Safari won’t let me add links to Blogger Beta, typically….so he’s at http://www.greatscotphotography.com/) was present during the three hour Forsyth/Morton Children in Need extravaganza, and you can find more of his snaps (soon) at the BBC Tom Morton Show page (try the link over to the right). Time for the…

  • Children in Need, Spitfires, and trying to get served in Glasgow restaurants, oh, and Bond, James Bond…

    Back in Aberdeen, momentarily, having thrashed the wee Citroen up the road from Glasgow this morning. Yesterday was Children in Need, and that meant that Janice Forsyth and I co-hosted a three-hour special programme in the afternoon, featuring a veritable cornucopia of live guests. We had The Hazy Janes, Colin Macintyre (formerly the Mull Historical…

  • Annika, Hello Saferide, Bobby Bluebell and a great big huge lump of red sandstone

    Great time last night at the Hello Saferide gig – The Hold, in the basement of the Admiral Bar in Waterloo Street, Glasgow, is a great wee venue. Civilised. Which at my age is important. Though whether or not it was civilised to drink so much Knob Creek whisky is quite another matter. Splendid seafood…

  • My dark secret….and a very brief encounter

    A combination of rough seas (until we were past Orkney) and two wailing children in an adjacent cabin (ah, I remember those days) kept me awake for chunks of last night. Also the occasional twinge of fear, which I don’t normally feel aboard the Zetland ferries. That terrible incident in the Pentland Firth over the…

  • On the high seas again (and I do mean high)

    One of those full-on days when there’s barely time to draw breath, let alone repair to Blogger. However, I am now breathing and repairing. I should say, by the way, to anyone disappointed with the lack of video and audio hereabouts of late, that I stupidly allowed myself to be huckled into using Beta Blogger,…

  • Forfar bridie versus Cornish Pastie

    This burning issue of meat-stuffed pastry will be discussed, probably to destruction, on today’s Tom Morton Show, provoked by the battle between Devon and Cornwall over the origin of Devonian, sorry Cornish pasties. Both pasties and bridies were invented, it seems, so that workers (farm labourers and tin miners)could have handy, portable foodstuffs they could…

  • Puppy at 10 weeks – resistable, just…

    Penny, from the Vikingstar St Bernard kennel in Yell, arrived today with several of Lucy’s pups, fresh from the vet, where they had all been microchipped. Sort of like what happened to Jason Bourne in The Bourne Identity, only without the Swiss bank account. Here’s Martha with Bubbles. No, we’re not keeping one. How many…

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  • Mad dash home

    The run-up to Christmas is set to be hectic, with trips to Glasgow next week, then Belfast and at least one more to Aberdeen before the festivities. Yesterday, with the boat booked for the 14 hour (via Orkney on a Thursday)voyage home, I cracked at the prospect of yet another ‘severe force nine’ gale, and…