April 2007

  • Gimme some kind of sign…

    Hard thing to photograph, the new, shiny and absolutely massive, WELCOME TO NORTHMAVINE sign, at the isthmus called Mavis Grind which marks the start of our little community in the north mainland of Shetland. So hats off to the Shetland News for having a nice one and the full story of its manufacture. I went…

  • In the end

    Audrey, Susan’s mum, died yesterday afternoon. She was 84. It has been a week of waiting, with Susan and her sister Jane by Audrey’s bedside in Brae’s North Haven care centre every day. The funeral will be on Wednesday in Hillswick.

  • Competition – the nature of the beast

    I arrived back in Shetland on Friday morning to discover that Martha (12) was due to compete in the Shetland Young Fiddler of the Year competition that morning. Now she’s quite a good fiddler, is Martha. Last year, she won the Intermediate/Traditional section of the competition, I thought deservedly, though obviously I’m biased. Watching her…

  • Shooter: "The Bourne Identity without Bourne….or an identity.."

    Thus spake erstwhile Guardian editor Peter Preston on BBC Radio Four’s Front Row the other night. I wanted dismiss his comment as a well-worked journalistic cliche, but having seen the movie last night, he has it, err… bang to rights. Mark Wahlberg does that blank-faced automaton Matt Damon thing pretty well, and there are some…

  • Edinburgh by very large four wheel drive vehicle…and back

    A Toyota Tonka Toy Landcrfuiser, to be exact, belonging to my wife and On No Account To Be Scratched Or Dented While In My Keeping On Pain of DREADFUL REPERCUSSIONS! Hmmm…Edinburgh is no place for cars. It’s ancient streets tie the traffic in knots, and this has been compounded by the city centre’s omnipresent building…

  • Port Glasgow? Nope, that’s Paisley

    So I apologise to both communities for that last post. Geography was never my strong point. And I have been to both Aldi and Lidl! That German antipasti is great. I was a bit concerned about the, uh, £12 crash helmet, but it comes with both full German safety accreditation and British Motorsport certificate. A…

  • Easter Sunday in Clydebank

    Susan’s mum was taken very poorly overnight, and that meant that Susan’s long-awaited Easter holiday was cut brutally short. As was poor old Martha’s, who accompanied her on the last-minute flight home this lunchtime. Thank goodness for the Air Discount Scheme. I couldn’t go because…oh, it’s complicated: James is in Tenerife with a pal, he…

  • Back from Glenfarg…

    …but returning there on Monday night for the ‘secret’ John Martyn Band gig. Fine night was had (see Nippy Sweeties) by a roaring log fire, nattering with owner David Mundell about some of the many rock’n’roll characters who have played at this extraordinary howff. Would love to see how Peter Tork of the Monkees shapes…

  • On top of Ben Lomond, not even slightly sponsored by a well-known brand of Italian beer…

    Sunday was beautiful almost beyond belief, and on top of Ben Lomond (me, Stewart and Magnus, five hours from Rowardennan to the top and back down….oh, my knees!)Stewart revealed that he had been lugging three bottles of Peroni the entire way. And a kilo of tsatsumas. And a Swiss Army Knife. Me, I just had…