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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…

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…

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,…

Stunning early autumn weather today in Aberdeenshire and Morayshire. That amazing low yellow light you get in Scotland at this time of year. And the leaves just turning. I left Aberdeen at about 7.30 am, heading for Glenfarclas Distillery near Balindalloch. It would have been a wonderful drive, had it not been for the tractors,…

When I saw the band play The Garage in Glasgow early in the year I thought they were stupendous – better-than-Springsteen wordplay beefed up through ZZ Top and Lizzy riffing. Then, having moved heaven and earth to catch them at both T in the Park and Connect, they managed to turn up late for both,…

As made by TM Show listener Mark Shiner of Selkie Harps in Orkney. Viking pan pipes, apparently. “An unlimited number of tunes can be stored, as long as a brain is attached” says Mark.

This is the Logik Reciva internet wifi radio. It renders DAB utterly obsolete if you have a wireless internet connection. Basically, using a stunningly simple (just like…tuning a radio) interface, or if you prefer, knob, you can haul in every radio station that has an internet presence, INCLUDING ‘listen again’ wherever it lurks, plus any…

Inveterate TM show listener Hugh Campbell got in touch today to reminisce about the first broadcast from Wunnerful Radio One, exactly 40 years ago….what, he asked, were you doing when Tony Blackburn spun Flowers in the Rain, way back when? On my way to school, I think, gazing out, as we prepared to turn right…

Alex Kapranos and the boys finish their Highlands and Islands tour tonight in Shetland, at the 350-capacity community hall over at Weisdale. Actually, as I write they’re just going on stage, I think, for their second show of the night. I caught the, uh, matinee, put on specially for under 18s (and a suspiciously large…

Saturday’s flight to Sumburgh from Aberdeen was marred by the utter contempt shown to passengers by the despicable Servisair. But really, this is about British Airways’ disdain for its Shetland routes: first they dump the responsibility for operating them onto Loganair, then ground services are hived off to Servisair, whose approach to what is, after…