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…Louise Tickle has just texted me to say that a profile she wrote of me for The Guardian’s Work section is published today. Don’t think it’s available online. Off to T. Weather seems to have improved, he said cautiously.

Under strict instructions from Martha to obtain wellies that were ‘interesting’, ie not green or black, I finally tracked down a pair of purple striped ones in Clydebank this morning. I picked up a golfing umbrella but all attempts to hire a 4X4 (except for an offer of a Volvo XC70, which is too posy…

…leafy beyond belief, at least to someone living in the (mainly) treeless Zetlandics. Great to see the BBC’s Alan Johnston back among us…far be it from me to betray my own obsession with hair and the loss of it, but it was fascinating how concerned he was about getting a haircut. That William Hague post-karate/Trainspotting…

Heading south with Martha (who was 13 yesterday) as she has to attend National Youth Orchestra rehearsal (she’s a cellist. And then on Saturday, by way of contrast, we have tickets for T in the Park. Anyway, the wind’s getting up. Time to search out some Phenergan…

Ghost blogging has arrived! At last a way to make money out of blogging!

Last summer’s 330-mile charity cycle ride for the Shetland CAT scanner appeal seems a distant memory (all that weight piled back on). The scanner has been ordered and the appeal was a success beyond anyone’s wildest dreams, so this summer’s BBC Radio Scotland Tom”s Tour will be somewhat more relaxed… I was tempted to use…

Still no broadband, despite upgrading to unlimited downloads on Saturday. Account has been suspended due to breaching of download limit, the result of having three games-playing weans at home for the summer. See today’s Sunday Post for more. And all this just when it would have been good to surf’n’listen’n’YouTube about what has been going…

A difficult day, so sheer joy to head off to sea for the first time this year in the old and battered boat. The Yamaha outboard started on the third pull, and then it was off into an absolutely stunning, calm evening. Martha perched in the bow, we headed off on the flood tide and,…

Played the new single ‘Guitar’ again today, and it’s a thrilling piece of post-Jehovah’s Witnessing Princepop. Perhaps, as Brian texted in to say, not up to the standard of Batdance (check out that EXTRAORDINARY video on YouTube here) but still jammed with all that inimitable sly humour, stunning rhythm guitar, ripsnorting lead, supressed filth and…

Back to Lerwick on Saturday, and the Johnsmas Foy continuing to pull in the punters. Here we have a scene more familiar from Up Helly Aa, with a couple of guisers, dressed up as…who knows? From what I overheard, they weren’t sure either.And then north, north and north again, to the glory that is Fethaland,…