March 2010

I was telephoned a couple of weeks ago by professional angler Leon, who,during a fishing trip on the west side of Shetland, had come across otters behaving rather oddly. It was his opinion that the otter population had boomed, and so these secretive and shy creatures were much more in evidence than normal. But to…

It sounds a bit like….it sounds very like…good grief, that reminds me of… In my business, and at my advanced age, shiny, squeaky new pop music inevitably pushes the memory button all too often. Laura Marling’s Devil’s Spoke is a great wee record, but the verses are Bob dylan’s It’s Alright Ma, I’m Only Bleeding,…

Joe West is little known in this country – but he’s in the fine tradition of eccentric, intellectual art-Americana, as pioneered by the likes of Terry Allen. James and I toured with him four years ago and had a fine time, though that was the trip during which James dropped his double bass down a…

It’s four years old…a fabulous wee video that was shamelessly ripped off for a pet food advert.

Here we sit, 180-odd miles from Aberdeen, 180-odd miles from Bergen, preparing for our abandonment by Greater Scotland. That’s what it feels like. Stewart Stevenson, transport minister at the Holyrood Parliament, has announced that, to save money, the part-CaleyGov owned NorthLink Ferries will, from May and without any consultation at all, run its boats on…

Thanks to Lord Jo Grimond, I was once in a car with no floor, trundling unevenly around the single track roads of Yell, the unsilenced exhaust roaring. The late Orkney and Shetland MP accomplished many things, but for generations of drivers in the outer islands of Scotland, his amendment to the Road Traffic Act remains…