August 2007

Fantastic week with Sandy and Elaine here for a wee break before they head off to Malawi to work at the Billy Riordan Memorial Clinic for six months. Managed to get (supervised by Elaine) the clay pigeon launcher assembled and then it was an all-male trip to some deserted croftland to shoot those nasty clay…

Three days in a row (seeing as Magnus, in his new post-driving test state of grace, has taken possession of the Berlingo) I have been cycling, which has been both very enjoyable and face-searingly sore. It’s the wind, you see. Even when it’s calm in Shetland, it’s windy. Our neighbour Bruce, no mean racing cyclist…

This was sent to the TM Show by listener DAVID LIVINGSTONE, after I mentioned on air the sudden popularity in dedicated ‘USB turntables’ for recording old vinyl albums onto your computer. This is how to do it for free, (almost) if you already have a record player. Cheers David! Pesonally, I use a SoundLab DLP32S…

….which is a reference to a song, in case you were wondering. Anyway, I am, later on today, by steamer, and touch wood, the forecast is pretty good for the crossing to Shetland via Orkney (not that I’m getting off at Kirkwall, but with a bit of luck it’ll be a nice sunset over Scapa…

It’s a bizarre business, flogging a book you’ve published yourself. The act of paying for your own work to be printed is called, in some circumstances, vanity publishing, but private or self-publishing has a distinguised heritage in the annals of literature. Not that Spirit of Adventure (15th anniversary edition)is exactly literature, or even close. It’s…

In the Beans coffee bar and an interminable wait for a large latte. Still, at least I get my half hour free internet fix, and a means of uploading some pictures from the Big Bannock on Saturday in North Roe. Actually, I’m not making a fuss about the delay in caffeine dealing, as the sole…

Here are a couple of pictures, by my old pal Stewart Cunningham, from last Friday’s Music for Malawi night at the Hilton Grosvenor in Glasgow. The Billy Riordan Clinic on the shores of Lake Malawi is an intensely worthy cause that deserves all our support, and the night was organised by Doctors Sandy and Elaine…

There is something very bracing, especially for a Christian Brethren-raised boy like me, about Richard Dawkins’ rampant rationalism. He has, it must be said, toned down his natural tendency towards contemptuous dismissal for his new Channel Four series Enemies of Reason. If you want to experience vintage, full-on Dawkins, though, there’s always YouTube. I’m not…

Just a reminder that if you happen to be in Glasgow on Friday night, are at a loose end and wish to Do Some Good (while, simultaneously and at the same time, having quite an entertaining time) why not come to this: Music for Malawi Friday 10th August at 8 pm. Entry five quid. Hilton…

I absolutely love this story…it has a kind of desperately naff, but enormously deep emotional resonance… Basically, your current wife flogs the urn in which you’ve been secretly keeping your first wife’s ashes…complete with said ashes. Of course, she didn’t realise…or did she? I can see this as a Tod Solondz movie.