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Equilux to Equinox, and the race to the simmer dim is on. Some thoughts and an appropriate playlist. Sometimes we prefer the darkness, though… (You can listen to me reading what follows, if you like, by clicking the wee arrow above…the full Spotify ‘Here comes the Light’ playlist is at the end of the text…

It’s five years since the global pandemic was first declared. And dentistry basically stopped. The first Scottish lockdown was declared on 26 March 2020. I was freshly back in Shetland after a trip to the Granite Noir book festival in Aberdeen, and spent the first few days in isolation at our cottage in Heylor, Northmavine.…

For all those in the battle for undisturbed slumber… She said it’s not that I don’t love you any more We’re eternally united at the core I still have romantic feelings But plaster’s falling from the ceiling I don’t find you boring It’s the snoring Your nasal passages are constricted My sleep is terribly restricted…

March enters with some brutally blustery dreichness…but there’s music to rejoice in Shetland has been glowering at me this week, dreich and bleak and blustery, the tides high enough to bring the sea spluttering into the garden, rusting the cars ever more thoroughly, leaving seaweed in the porch and beach stones on bonnets. No smashed…

Never mind the North Coast 500. Try the route from Ayrshire to Aberdeen. In a Dacia Sandero. While feeling…digestively discombobulated (10 minute audio version above for your delectation and delight, or otherwise…) It’s several roads, to be honest. Motorways galore from Auld Ayr to the Granite City – M77, M74, M73, M80, M9, A9, A90.…

Underwear smuggling, whelk piracy and Viking cannibalism. A tall tale in two parts, written 20 years ago. It’s hard to believe these were published in The Shetland Times 20 years ago. Fantasy Zetlandic Viking horror sc-fi! Well, somebody had to have a go at it… Possibly of most interest to those connected to The Old…

Scotland! the White House is beckoning in song…it’s statehood, but not as expected… If you like, you can sing along with this. The tune may be slightly familiar. the guitar is an old and buzzy Takamine EN-30C which I was trying to sell on eBay, but the winning bidder was a chancer who immediately cancelled…

On Fair Isle, nobody notices yet another Russian nuclear attack. The story so far: A hoax which seemed to be the  decapitation of Feargal Birkadale, suave, not to say greasy communications officer for the massive Shetland windfarm known as Archie, short for Archipelagic Renewables, was followed by the actual removal of the real Feargal’s head…

With apologies to those who hate the Swedish behemoth of beat. Oh, and the end of A Passing of Wind is nigh… I know a lot of people hate Spotify with great vituperation (doesn’t pay musicians, or doesn’t pay the right musicians enough) but I’ve always thought this was to misunderstand or abuse the whole…

The tale of Virdablutt. A Shetland fire festival shrouded in mystery…and terror It is once more Up Helly Aa day in Lerwick, and time to revisit a story which has appeared in the international magazine Scotland Correspondent, The Shetland Times and elsewhere. Is this the true origin of Up Helly Aa, Europe’s biggest fire festival?…