January 2009

Back in November, on my way to a journalistic assignment in Stornoway, I stopped for a delicious bacon roll at the Black Mount, above Rannoch Moor. There has been a tame stag haunting the lay-by for a number of years, treasured and protected by locals. I was horrified to be told today by listener Deborah…

Some scenes from Shetland over the past few days. Those seals are just a few yards from the back of the Toll Clock shopping centre in Lerwick. They’re virtually tame. The red sky was at dawn on Saturday (shepherd’s/sailor’s warning, and how). It was a day of brutal weather. That glint of sunshine shows the…

The world’s first collaborative online orchestra…

One of my producers referred to the picture lurking below of a piratically-bearded me as “frightening”. However, that’s not the reason I shaved it off this morning. Nor was I intent on making myself look younger. I don’t. My daughter claims beardlessness makes me look “more serious”, or possibly just less ridiculous. No, it was…

Left the assembled revellers revelling at around 2.00am and hit the hay, which appears to have been a wise move. Up at 10.00 am to find a truly glorious Shetland day – flat calm, very mild, sunny – and so it was a hurried clear-up, high-octane, high-caffeine, high-cholestorol breakfast (guests Lizzie and Dave up early…