July 2021

One: Spaghetti junctions Spaghetti came in tins and was luridly orange, tangy-sweet with a sauce which was supposed to be tomato but looked more like it was made from tangerines. Heinz spaghetti. Before hoops, which didn’t arrive in Britain until 1965. Soft, almost soluble pasta in short, swallowable sections. I loved it. Then one day…

It was a Kirkwall summer night in 1991… It’s 30 years since the band Runrig, then at the very peak of their powers, played an open-air gig outside the Pickaquoy Centre in Kirkwall, Orkney. Thousands attended from throughout the isles, and the concert has become legendary, both for its musical quality and…for the fact that…