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One of my producers referred to the picture lurking below of a piratically-bearded me as “frightening”. However, that’s not the reason I shaved it off this morning. Nor was I intent on making myself look younger. I don’t. My daughter claims beardlessness makes me look “more serious”, or possibly just less ridiculous. No, it was…

Left the assembled revellers revelling at around 2.00am and hit the hay, which appears to have been a wise move. Up at 10.00 am to find a truly glorious Shetland day – flat calm, very mild, sunny – and so it was a hurried clear-up, high-octane, high-caffeine, high-cholestorol breakfast (guests Lizzie and Dave up early…

This was the scene at 11.00am this morning, looking from our house to Hillswick. And yes, that IS a seal balancing on the tidal drain. What a long strange year it’s been….and all annotated on this blog, if you can be bothered looking for the highs and the lows. Time to move on, and lots…

An absolutely cracking Shetland Sunday; mild, calm and clear. The urge for end-of-the- year clearing up and general outdoors activity struck deep. I was engaged (with help from Magnus and James) in filling up an unexpectedly empty skip, and Susan barrowed tangle (kelp) from the beach for fertiliser. The daylight stretched longer than we’re used…

I’ve written before about the St Magnus Bay Hotel, which stands in white wooden splendour just a couple of hundred yards (or metres) from our house. Closed for a while until just over a year ago, its revival under the ownership of Andrea and Paul has put a lot of heart back into the village…

Still wading through the runny-nose, coughing, wheezing and spluttering stage of something approximating a cold. My voice has dropped half an octave (at last!) but there’s just today’s show to go before Christmas. No broadcasting from me on Christmas Day or Boxing Day (though BBC Radio Scotland continueth, of course!), and then it’s the weekend.…

Well, it’s been looming for the best part of six months, but on Friday the decision was taken to stop broadcasting from The Radiocroft. The official line is that we’re ‘resting’ it, but after five broadcast-threatening (and in three cases, broadcast-destroying) failures of the ISDN line, enough is enough. My confidence, and the BBC’s, in…

Well, at least Ol’ Lennie won’t have to worry too much about his retirement fund any more(Leonard Cohen, writer of Hallelujah, has infamously been forced to return to performing after losing almost all his lifetime earnings in a management scam). As battle rages between supporters of Ms Alexandra Cowell-Burke and those of the late Jeff…

From the Drinking for Scotland blog: Below is the press release from Bruichladdich, announcing the release of the 63.5 per cent alcohol Octomore (five years old, £79 a bottle). I have (what remains of) a bottle of Bruichladdich”s 3D3 Norrie Campbell Tribute bottling, which is nice enough but peculiar. It’s as if the phenols have…

How good is this?