September 2008

Due to my own stupidity in forgetting to bring any books with me (I ended up having to BUY my own book second hand from Charles Leakey’s excellent emporium), folk attending my Inverness Bookfest do last night were unable to buy copies of Spirit of Adventure. THEY ARE STILL AVAILABLE! The books can be obtained…

Malt and Barley Revue went brilliantly in the fab new Eden Court.

It’s now the Royal Highland Hotel, and alas, not what it once was. For years, I would choose to stay the The Station because I loved the fading grandeur of its foyer, which was full of nooks and crannies , ancient paintings, gigantic, untended plants and lumpy sofas. It also provided a truly splendid breakfast,…

The live radio interview with a musician is normally, like much else in the media, a conspiracy of implicit, mutually agreed fakery. The musician has a product to promote (CD, DVD, download, gig that has sold fewer than seven tickets) and the interviewer has a show to promote. The presence of the musician serves to…

Hell’s teeth. This interview with Glasgow’s own Hardeep Singh Kohli almost gave me a panic attack, such is the horrific, beyond-toe-curling embarrassment in listening to Les Ross of BBC West Midlands (Three Sony Awards, MBE for services to broadcasting, won DJ of the Year in 1965, beating Johnnie Walker) channel Alan Partridge while Hardeep maintains…

The Best Western Palace Hotel next to the River Ness in Inverness is bus tour central, a heaving maelstrom of (mostly elderly) travellers. And me. Actually, it’s not a bad hotel, with a new swimming pool and really good service. Great porridge at breakfast time, too. I wasn’t paying, but it’s not cheap. There were…

I’m always amazed at Inverness’s continued evolution, not to say gentrification. The former HIDB/HIE offices, once housed in a sixties monstrosity, have been converted into attractive (and posh) flats. Upmarket pubs and restaurants abound (last night I sampled the Corner Grill, in which I had the best chips I have ever experienced in ‘Sneck) and…

I had a worrying call this morning, wondering if we should withdraw our meagre savings (well, the kids’ meagre savings. I don’t have any. Spent all that cash on camper vans) from the disgracefully-named HBOS. I was a Bank of Scotland customer. To hell with Halifax, I say. But I could never be bothered shifting…

Inverness – for almost an entire winter – and Aberdeen, for one night only. Fourteen years ago, I resided most weeknights in Inverness, in a dreadful Fiat camper. I would sometimes wake up with my cheek frozen to the wall…Aberdeen, just the other week, courtesy of Violetta the VW, in conditions of surprising comfort. No…

…Jimmy Carlyle, local bluesologist, had advised me to check out Al Hughes, singer with the Fife blues and soul band Lights Out By Nine, as he was playing on Friday night at our local howff, the St Magnus Bay Hotel, now restored to full functioning order in the capable hands of Andrea and Paul. So…