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It’s Shetland, Season 9, episode 5. Sort of. The red herrings are coming thick and fast now. So many I’m, uh, floundering. Actually, they’re not so much herrings as a mixture of anchovies, sardines and mildly magenta piltocks. The show has well and truly jumped the spoot, which I believe is a technical term within…

It’s Shetland, season 9, episode 4: Swede it and weep Here come the weepy Swedes! Oh yes, the Ingmar Bergman influence is writ large in this epic concerning the desperate search for dental care in an island community largely deprived thereof. But I’m getting ahead of myself here, and it’s time for yet another flashback,…

Sandy! Get the sassermaet clatch! Well, after a slick, streamlined and genuinely exciting opening, series nine of Death In Shetland has plummeted into complex daftness over the following two episodes like a gormless sheep falling down Calder’s Geo due to over indulgence in magic mushrooms; or a camera drone damaged by too-close a Bonxie encounter.…

…and lived in Scotland Rangers and Celtic meant nothing to him The choice here in Glasgow was stark He pretended to support Patrick Thistle He didn’t know Firhill from Fir Park He had no idea who managed Scotland No notion of the offside rule He thought David Beckham was a TV chef And that heading…

He doesn’t have the key and doesn’t know when to come in… I recently bought a banjo. A five-string, Countryman closed-back affair which for the last fortnight, I have been plunking and flailing on through the long dark night of the sofa, much to the consternation of Dec the dog. Well, I say ‘bought’. What…

Living among vikings, iron age broch-dwellers, witches, naval officers and angry ministers. One wind to rule them all I love these nights, the darkness battering and blustering in a big, not yet overwhelming wind. Deeper into winter and the house will shake, vibrate, thrum; we’ll lose power, struggle even to reach the washhouse where the…

Read or listen to a terrifying tale of Carbisdale Castle, a desperate hiker, a mysterious silver chalice, Rolf Harris and a creature called Finn. What’s the English for ‘Am Fear Liath Mòr’? Listen to the story (about 24 minutes), read by me, here. Or read on… So, great attempts, heroic ventures shall Advance my fortune,…

Given minimum alcohol pricing, can you get a decent white wine for, err…30p? And is it possible to talk meaningfully about alcoholic drinks? Drink…or down the sink? Having spent a  fair chunk of my career as a professional drinker – writing and broadcasting about the stuff (mostly whisky), two Glenfiddich and two Guild of Food…

And The Ballad of the Unfaithful Shepherdess. Not everyone in Shetland loves sheep Chased by rainbows, comforted by Tunnocks (You can read this week’s newsletter or listen to me reading it. I’ve kept The Ballad of the Unfaithful Shepherdess separate and it appears towards the end if you scroll down. ) The whole thing is…

Back home and unwell, pondering the future, and talking all things peaty with Drew Ratter in the new Passing Place podcast The new Passing Place podcast (or, if you will peatcast) with Drew Ratter is here, for those interested in the brown (black and blue) stuff, carbon credits, preserved bodies and crofting. The Spotify link…