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The big Lerwick Up Helly Aa is past, but our own not-so-wee local one happens tonight, with vikings, guizers, the burning of a galley and partying until half past dawn. Or,in my case, bedtime. Time for a few snifters and my annual venture into the abstruse world of the St Bernards Waltz and the Boston…

Come on, it was only a quarter of a century ago…thanks to Stewart Cunningham for digging out the photies. And to Phil Blakeman, David MacLachlan and Alex Smith for the memories.

This video most certainly does not show me abusing the car I’ve had on rental for the past three days. However,I can unreservedly recommend the Skoda Octavia 4×4 Tdi. It was absolutely brilliant in all the snow conditions I encountered, from two-foot deep drifts to packed, icy surfaces. Why has nobody told me about this…

…you phone Bolts car hire. Actually, all the car hire companies in Shetland have always, in my experience, been excellent to deal with. But I have a soft spot for Bolts because they supplied the first car I ever drove in the islands, more than 30 years ago. It was an old-style Mini 1000, I…

So, it’s the Landcruiser or the public pantechnicon for the trip to Lerwick! All will depend on whether Susan has to go in to Lerwick or not. The Citroen ain’t built for these conditions. Radios Ian (SIBC) and BBC Orkney both carried the school closure announcement – a perfect example, as Susan pointed out, of…

A glorious day of bright sunshine and snow, though things are now looking a bit iffy for tomorrow. It’s snowing heavily and tomorrow I’ll either have to cadge a lift to Lerwick with Susan (and her Toyota Landcruiser) or get the bus. Either way, excitement is promised! Today, though, we stayed put, with a couple…

Right, that’s it. No more bohemian hippy trail camper van fantasies. It’s over. Having said that, the venerable VW started instantly this morning and ran faultlessly on the 37-mile trip into Lerwick, through some fairly nasty conditions. But it was with a sense of relief that I handed over the keys to NorthLink’s freight staff.…

This scene was actually much more impressive just before I managed to stop and take the snap. I was talking to someone the other day who has given up on landscape and seascape photography in Shetland as he’s fed up with it…and it’s true that living here, you do risk becoming inured to the spectacular…

A beautiful day in Glasgow, and after too much morning coffee with old mate TC, it was time for a stroll along the river to work. There’s so much work going on (and weird bits of the riverbank which appear to have been privatised) that you end up weaving in and out of bollards, JCBs,…

It was Mic Calder who reminded me of the 1969 Lulu show, in which, inconceivably, the Jimi Hendrix Experience was allowed over nine minutes on peak-time Saturday BBC TV to demonstrate to the entire UK why our lives and our music needed to be entirely different. I remember the blue carpet, Brownie the dog, Stewart…