April 2009
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I’ve already been out on the water more this April than in the whole of last summer – mainly due to the easiness of using the Bic Ouassou kayak. And the astonishing weather. This morning in Hillswick it’s like summer – genuinely hot in the sunshine. It’s flat calm, too. Bruce (local blacksmith and all…
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This is Hillswick, from the sea. I decided to try out the old Sevylor inflatable kayak, and fortunately chose a calm night. Only the camera escaped getting wet. The big white building (with patches of new wood where it’s being repaired) is the St Magnus Bay Hotel, now going like a train under the ownership…
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I’ve written previously here about the ‘other’ Tom Mortons, but a strange thing happened today at the excellent Brae Sunday Teas (and car boot sale – fundraising for Martha’s school trip to…somewhere). I was speaking to someone who had been reading a book about the Salvesen shipping line. Salvesens of Leith was hugely important to…
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…a wee note about a new blog called Journey’s Blend. This is the first post: It’s all Rob Allanson’s fault. He’s the editor of Whisky Magazine, and this is what he’s got to say… “…so in June myself and BBC Scotland presenter, whisky writer and motorbike nut Tom Morton (let¹s not forget he travelled to…
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This was originaly written as a forum post at All Media Scotland, in response to an article by Professor Brian McNair. Prince’s Lovesexy? Hmm… First CD I ever heard was at a demonstration evening in the old Albany Hotel. Inevitably, it was Love Over Gold by Dire Straits. I still remember the guys from Linn…
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This is a link to one of the most famous pieces of maritime film ever: Irving Johnson’s incredible amateur footage of his 1929 voyage ‘the wrong way’ around Cape Horn, from Hamburg to Chile, aboard the biggest sailing ship afloat at the time, the nitrate carrier barque Peking. No motors of any kind, everything done…
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The man from Northwards Transport was very sceptical. ‘It looks’ he said (unfortunately, to Susan, who didn’t know about the kayak at all) ‘like one of those things bairns play on in the swimming pool.’ Not the carefully designed (from surf-longboards) hydrodynamic marvel I’d been led to believe, then… Today was sunny and relatively calm,…
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This is from the new album. It’s amazingly fresh, and astringent…you’d think nobody had ever done that acoustic guitar/harmonica thing…
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The Nominated Driver A shorter version was written for Shetland Library’s ‘Bards in the Bogs’ scheme, but the site specific nature of the poem probably told against it: it can only be displayed at the Voe toilets, an important, nay crucial staging post on the long road, the A970, between Lerwick and the North Mainland,…
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Strong tea. Mug after mug today (Scottish Blend), consumed with great lip-smacking, soul-quenching relish. Extraordinary piece in The Guardian by Chris Paling, a diary of his 30-odd days in a hospital ward specialising in alcohol-related stomach and liver complaints. Disturbing, especially as I’ve been daydreaming about a moderate return to imbibing come day 31, which…
