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  • Aberdeen landfall, caffeine agogo, the wonders of Primark and John Sweeney’s exploding head

    Very smooth trip down on the Hrosseyland last night, featuring for tea my first NorthLink baked tattie, which was…not disastrous. Manage to avoid the bar, the awful beer (no matter what, from bottle or tap, it all tastes foul aboard ship, and I have no idea why)and the worse red wine. Memo to self: remember…

  • Barcelona bound, fish suppers and how to keep Chinese food hot in the car on the way home

    Another great thumping carbon footprint imprinted on the peatscape of Shetland last night, as I had to Berlingo young Martha into Lerwick so she could catch the boat to Barcelona. Not that the NorthLink ferry goes directly to Spain, you understand. The voyage south to Aberdeen is just the first leg on the Brae High…

  • How I forgot about the folk festival…

    Understandable, really, what with funerals, elections and everything else. Still, I am a bit concerned about, well, my lack of concern. It was the Shetland Folk Festival this past weekend, and I forgot about it. I can tell you, come to think of it, some of the names involved: Crooked Still, Sharon Shannon, Mary Black,…

  • Vote for Pedro!

    ….if only life were like the wondrous Napoleon Dynamite! And if you haven’t seen it, rent, buy or download immediately. All will become clear concerning the Scottish Elections. Let me point you in the direction of the most insightful and wittiest commentary I have seen on the debacle so far: My BBC colleague Brian Taylor…

  • Gimme some kind of sign…

    Hard thing to photograph, the new, shiny and absolutely massive, WELCOME TO NORTHMAVINE sign, at the isthmus called Mavis Grind which marks the start of our little community in the north mainland of Shetland. So hats off to the Shetland News for having a nice one and the full story of its manufacture. I went…

  • In the end

    Audrey, Susan’s mum, died yesterday afternoon. She was 84. It has been a week of waiting, with Susan and her sister Jane by Audrey’s bedside in Brae’s North Haven care centre every day. The funeral will be on Wednesday in Hillswick.

  • Competition – the nature of the beast

    I arrived back in Shetland on Friday morning to discover that Martha (12) was due to compete in the Shetland Young Fiddler of the Year competition that morning. Now she’s quite a good fiddler, is Martha. Last year, she won the Intermediate/Traditional section of the competition, I thought deservedly, though obviously I’m biased. Watching her…

  • Shooter: "The Bourne Identity without Bourne….or an identity.."

    Thus spake erstwhile Guardian editor Peter Preston on BBC Radio Four’s Front Row the other night. I wanted dismiss his comment as a well-worked journalistic cliche, but having seen the movie last night, he has it, err… bang to rights. Mark Wahlberg does that blank-faced automaton Matt Damon thing pretty well, and there are some…

  • Edinburgh by very large four wheel drive vehicle…and back

    A Toyota Tonka Toy Landcrfuiser, to be exact, belonging to my wife and On No Account To Be Scratched Or Dented While In My Keeping On Pain of DREADFUL REPERCUSSIONS! Hmmm…Edinburgh is no place for cars. It’s ancient streets tie the traffic in knots, and this has been compounded by the city centre’s omnipresent building…

  • Port Glasgow? Nope, that’s Paisley

    So I apologise to both communities for that last post. Geography was never my strong point. And I have been to both Aldi and Lidl! That German antipasti is great. I was a bit concerned about the, uh, £12 crash helmet, but it comes with both full German safety accreditation and British Motorsport certificate. A…