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  • Strange dishes served up in restaurants

    On the show today we were talking about odd dishes served up in the name of haute cuisine…I particularly enjoyed this email from Kathleen in Boston: Hi Tom,Love the show!The most bizarre thing I’ve eaten in a restaurant was in Paris…the restaurant on the first floor of the Eiffel Tower. They served a salad there…

  • Look what the cat dragged in…

    Amazing response on the show today to the question: What has your cat dragged in through the catflap? This was provoked by one of our two, Hamish or Neville, depositing the head of a crow in the middle of the kitchen floor this morning. Not, not the head of a cow. That would plainly be…

  • Some nostalgically embarrassing memories of Radio Solway, back to the Travelodge, and Idlewild in Aberdeen

    It was the Pictish Trail (aka Johnny Lynch) and his excellent blog about the King Creosote Bombshell tour that alerted me to something I should have noticed many years ago: that in all Travelodges, when you first enter your bathroom, one little sliver of soap is balanced atop two plastic glasses. Just like home! Sigh!Meanwhile,…

  • Kurosawa and Coppola sell their spirits

    Akira Kurosawa and Francis Ford Coppola advertise Suntory whisky, on the set of Kagemusha….the ad was directed by Kurosawa. Many years afterwards, of course, Coppola’s daughter directs Lost in Translation, the story of an American actor in Japan, advertising Suntory Whisky.

  • Time slips away waiting for the post while St Bernards ruin furniture and another trip south beckons

    Wednesday, and the post is still not back to normal, which means that for bizarre technological reasons I can’t access my BBC email (I need a replacement electronic code-token-thingy, which has to be posted to my home address from London). I really value our local postal service here in Shetland – especially over the past…

  • The perfect bacon roll

    Sent in to the show by listener David (I Presume) Livingstone. Check that domed roll! West of Scotland industrial baking at its best! Don’t know if Hellman’s Mayonnaise is really a proper substitute for brown sauce, though.

  • On the way to Roer Water

    Having been bitten by the mountain bike bug, I decided to see what Northmavine had to offer in the way of MTB potential, starting with a track I’d walked several times, the looping, diving and alarmingly rough access route to the reservoir called Roer (Red) Water. You reach this by driving half way up the…

  • Books, biking and beautiful autumn Scotland

    The Seven Stanes network of Forestry Commission mountain biking sites includes Kirroughtree, right next to where I was staying for the Wigtown book festival. Never having tried off-road biking on one of the purpose built trails, I was keen to have a go. So I hired a bike at the excellent Breakpad shop (just 12…

  • Stranraer-Wigtown-Newton Stewart

    Stayed at a place called the Kirroughtree House Hotel, just outside Newton Stewart, last night, which is dead posh – many thanks to the Wigtown bookfest folk for sorting that out! Wigtown this morning to seek out Fin McCreath, festival supremo, and check out the faxing and email situations before heading off to Stranraer, which…

  • The length and breadth of Scotland

    So, flew down from Shetland on Monday night, then out to Glenfarclas on Tuesday morning, back to Aberdeen for the show and urgent meetings re pizza and biscuit supply, and an overnight out at the airport (The Speedbird Inn may be an accommodation machine, but at least it works: free wireless internet, flat screen tellies,…