Uncategorized

  • …and this is the Barn of Bannocks earlier today, which by the way is absolutely gorgeous. A touch chilly, and getting windier (not so good as I have to get the boat south tonight) but bright in that awesome way you only get in Shetland during spring. I went for a walk along the Eshaness…

  • This is the interior of the Barn of Bannocks, in the garden of my house in Shetland, from where the Tom Morton Show (www.bbc.co.uk/radioscotland) is broadcast nationally, internationally and cybernautically. I’ve just acquired some digital gear which came from a redundant independent TV studio, and the sound quality is now (I think) indistinguishable from ‘proper’…

  • A fine day on the Hillswick Ness, looking north over to Eshaness, with our house looming whitely. The winter darkness is now officially receding. Roll on the ‘simmer dim’! 

  • Guitars

    Perhaps telling my wife that possessing a new guitar was like “having a new woman in your life” wasn’t particularly wise. She took it well, though. And the arrival of my new Moon 0003 ( http://www.moonguitars.co.uk/ )has caused little domestic trauma.But then, I did pay for it by selling (count them) three other guitars on…

  • Stoves

    The oven on our gas cooker stopped functioning recently, necessitating the return to service of the trusty, somewhat rusty peat-fired Rayburn, once the sole means of heating and cooking in the manse, now a fallback option for those times when more modern technologies fail. A recent absence of central heating oil (during which I seriously…

  • Property owning democracy

    Glasgow is for rent, or most of it. That’s how it seems, as the estate agents’ notices mutter forlornly from dozens, no hundreds of windows. That buy-to-rent dream is going horribly wrong, and yet still the riverside flats soar upwards, all pre-stressed concrete and increasingly stressed developers. The housing market is about to go into…

  • Thanks

    Just very briefly, the family have been overwhelmed by the outpouring of love and kindness since the accident involving my wife Susan last week. Our heartfelt sympathies go to the family of the other driver involved. Susan is at home and getting better. She will be fine.

  • Sick

    I have to admit to loving American Chopper. And it was my 13-year-old son James who forced me to watch the series in the first place. We also bonded over Long Way Round (that’s the one where Ewen McGregor and his pal Charley Boorman go round the world on a pair of free BMW R1150Gs…

  • Sniff and the tears…

    …which was, unbelievably, the name of a semi-successful pop group. I’m sniffing, coughing and weeping with the tears of a flu-ridden invalid, and yet it’s on with the show today at two. No weakness must be shown. Anyway, here’s another Nippy Sweetie from the current Shetland Times. It was partly provoked by comments passed at…

  • The dogs on mainstreet howl…

    …’cause they understand… Well, back to Starbucks, doin’ that wi-fi thing, and this could become addictive. Anyway, it’s undoubtedly boring to have me going on about the joys of sitting here with a tall Americano, so to speak, so here’s the new Nippy Sweetie, pre-publication, for those who don’t get the glorious and wonderful Shetland…