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Sneak preview of new Shetland Life - out 6 January
Featuring an exclusive, hard-hitting piece by former council chief Dave Clark, a profile of Shetland-born EIS boss Ronnie Smith, a heroic tale of Arctic survival, Lerwick's poisonous pies, and a marvellous photo essay on the late lamented North Star by Chloe Garrick. Who also took this front cover shot of the Market Cross in snow:
Labels: Clark, Garrick, islands, magazine, Morton, Radio Scotland, Shetland
Defacers Of The Thistle strike again!
It's a Shetland thing. Whose oil did you say it was?
Labels: Oil, Radio Scotland, Shetland, thistle
Back garden, Wednesday morning
The view out over Ura Firth and the Ness of Hillswick towards St Magnus' Bay, 8.30am
Labels: Hillswick, island, Scotland, Shetland
...in my humble opinion...
Tom Waits: Bad as Me
Gillian Welch: The Harrow and the Harvest
Frank Turner: England Keep My Bones
Babybird: The Pleasures of Self Destruction
Laura Marling: A Creature I Don't Know
Josh T Pearson: Last of the Country Gentlemen
Ryan Adams: Ashes and Fire
British Sea Power: Valhalla Dancehall
Arcade Fire: The Suburbs
Sweet Inspiration: The Songs of Dan Penn and Spooner Oldham (compilation)
Out on Friday!
Labels: islands, Radio Scotland, Shetland, Shetland Life
Dawn over the wee plastic weather station
That was my Christmas present two years ago, that weather station thingy. There's a wireless connection to a screen inside, but frankly, I'm not sure how it works or what it means. The wind is always worse than the weather station says, because the anemometer is too sheltered. If it weren't, it would be in tiny pieces by now.
Anyway, this morning we had a red sky which had gone pink by the time this picture was taken. Shepherd's warning. And that's about as far as my weather predictions go...
The most influential album in the whole world, ever...came from Bellshill in 1969
If there was one record that set my feet upon the path of rock'n'roll, it was...Prodigal, by The Gospelfolk. Released in 1969, we had one of the first copies to see the light of day, as the lead singer, one John MacCalman, was my mum's wee brother and a hero to me and my sisters. He played the guitar. I got a guitar. He bought me my first LPs (Pisces, Aquarius, Capricorn and Jones Ltd, The Monkees, and the eponymous Taste album). He was a journalist. Eventually, so was I.
But he was in The Gospelfolk (later known as National Debt) who began as a neat and tidy evangelical pop group from Bellshill, Motherwell and Hamilton before morphing into a kind of weird amalgam of psychedelia, heavy rock and singalong Christian hymnology. They made this album in Emblem Records' tiny Strathaven studio, and we thought it was just the business. John wasn't happy with it, and you can hear why, now. It's muffled, distorted, rough as hell and, at a distance of over 40 years, utterly charming.
It's also a major collector's item, worth anything up to £1200 if you can find one in perfect condition. There's a rumour that only 99 were ever pressed, which I think is untrue. Numerous copies were sold through THE Christian outlet in Glasgow, Pickering and Inglis. I've a feeling mum bought loads to give to her friends. The lyrics are standard full-on fundamentalist rhyming, and if you want to hear them in full the whole album is available for download here . The same site features a download of the less valuable album by one Tom Morton and Mr Graeme Duffin. But that's another story. Incidentally, I don't have a copy of Prodigal. I've checked with my sisters and my sons, and neither do they. It was, if I remember correctly, scratched to bits and with a coffee-stained, torn cover the last time I saw it. Being able to view the artwork and hear it again on the web is...disconcerting. Strange. And good.
The Leaning Bottle of Glen Grant
Just back from Pisa (it has a tower that leans) and Lucca, wherein I got lost, in a car, in streets that grew ever narrower, until it was just me and this tiny wee old woman in a red oilskin...or am I thinking about somewhere else?
Anyway, here's a thing: Glen Grant Five Year Old, a delicious if undemanding malt, yours for 10 Eurotokens per bottle here in Italy. A good breakfast dram!
Sold on eBay, my last motorbike. Today was my final powered ride, 35 gruesomely cold, wet and windy miles from Hillswick to Lerwick so I could check the bike in as freight for Aberdeen. Tomorrow, all being well, a man called Gordon will ride away on the old Suzuki GS1000G. It will be out of my life.
I've said this before, of course. But with a new Surly Long Haul Trucker touring pushbike arriving tomorrow, I can't afford any more motorised two wheel indulgences. Big acoustic motorbike tours (cf Luka Bloom) loom next year. And besides, I've had enough.
Enough of the fear, the cramped fingers, the wetness and cold, the discomfort. The fear. Terror compounded by the inability to see anything through that useless condensation-prone AGV helmet, the most expensively hopeless I've ever owned.
I've been lucky. No motorbike-related breakages, no serious harm in the, ah, 40-odd years I've been riding the things. If you count that Vespa I had at 14. But last year's epic 3000-mile plus Ireland, England, Wales and Scotland tour saw my first spill (static in a car park). And the sheer awfulness of high-speed motorway dodgems on the M6 would put anyone off.
2011 was the year of four motorbikes for me: The beautiful Moto Guzzi Bellagio, two old Kawasaki GT550s, and the Suzuki, three years in and out of the shed. but mostly in. And now there are none. All gone through eBay and Shetlink.
Loads of two-wheeled memories remain: Riding a BMW R1150GS through the remains of a bushfire (and much more) in South Africa. Transporting Kaye Adams in vintage BSA combination along Rose Street in Edinburgh (a TV thing). The MZ ETZ250 combo of Spirit of Adventure fame, raced at midnight for money and whisky round a car park in Islay. Honda 50, Troon to Kirkcudbright and back, aged 17, in a single night. Norfolk to Drumnadrochit in one day last year on the Bellagio and a Triumph Street Triple. Morris Dancers welcoming Rob Allanson and me to St George's Distillery last year, again on Street Triples. Caught in blizzard on the Drumochter Pass on a BMW, in April. Dropping a borrowed Ducati 996 (fortunately on soft grass). Riding a Road King at the Perth anniversary Harley rally. Nearly totalling a Harley Sportster on a cattle grid near Tomintoul. And on and on and....
Stop. Time to start pedalling.
Labels: Morton, Moto Guzzi, motorbikes, motorcycles, Suzuki, Triumph
Exercise - on The Treadmill of Doom and the Cycle of Destruction
Overweight and unfit, I bought a treadmill. This wasn't difficult, as there are always second-hand treadmills and exercise bikes for sale. One wee 'wanted' ad on Shetlink snagged a Reebok motorised Thighripper Mk 2, and for the last fortnight I've been using it every morning. Almost.
I've always been heartily opposed to the idea of gyms and indoor exercise equipment. There's something so inherently ridiculous about running to stand still. But then I read REAMDE, the vast new novel by Neal Stephenson (patchy, ill-disciplined, ragged but with brilliant bits) which introduced me to the notion of 'nerd fitness'.
This centres on the fact that you can combine walking/running on a treadmill, climbing on a Stairmaster or spinning on an exercise bike with computer gaming, TV watching or reading. Intellectual and cultural stimulation AND physical exercise. Whatever the weather. I could become a fully rounded human being, albeit lacking in fresh air and UV (unless you get a sunlamp). As opposed to just full. And round.
So far so good. Half an hour in the morning seems to activate me for the day. And I've combined some muscle-straining with, let's see, a few episodes of Spiral, two Andrea Camilleri books, Simon Ings' The Weight of Numbers and a re-read of The Cruiskeen Lawn.
But then today, I went cycling.
Now, I don't just love cycling. I love bikes. In fact, I love bikes more than cycling. Looking at them. Repairing them. Thinking about them. And particularly buying them. I have...let's just say several. With another on the way. And a few weeks ago (see below) I completed the first Shetland Sportive. 40 miles. At my age.
I came last. But at least I finished the course. Well, it was the only way to get a free fish supper.
I thought today's seven-mile jaunt to Ollaberry (to collect a car from the garage there) would be easy. I was treadmilled up! I had been exercising like a proper gymrat! I was wearing a tracksuit and using SPD cleats!
Friends, it nearly killed me. It was a beautiful, calm day for cycling, Yet I huffed and I puffed. My heart palpitated, knocking like an overloaded washing machine with a burnt out motor. With nothing to distract me, no book or video, all I could feel was my own pain and nausea. I wobbled. I wheezed. Last night's pint of Dark Island squelched around my internals
It got better. Then I was there. Then I was home, consuming cheese-and-bacon toasties and home-roasted coffee. And pondering: Exercise, it seems, is non-transferable. Indoor doesn't work outdoors. Reading on a treadmill won't cut it when it comes to real hills on a real bicycle.
But then, that's reality for you. Probably overrated.
Labels: Bicycle, bike, books, exercise, Shetland
Location: Shetland Islands, UK
The end of REM?
And, let's face it, it was about time. It was over for REM a long time ago. It was over when Bill Berry left.
The first interview I ever did for Melody Maker was with Peter Buck and Mike Mills. They were playing at the Caley Paley in Edinburgh, and we met in the George Hotel. At that time, the poshest they'd ever stayed in. They couldn't afford the bar prices and made me help smuggle beer in from the tour van. Not bus. Van.
I said hallo to Michael Stipe backstage after that gig. Even then, with hair, I thought he was one of the strangest people I'd ever met.
Saw them at the Barrowlands. Can't remember when that was. Michael had 'DOG' written on his forehead. "It's GOD backwards."
And then, memorably, met and interviewed Stipe and Mills in Athens, Georgia, while I was hitching a ride with Del Amitri on their 'sleeping on people's floors' tour of the USA. Went to Mike M's house, where Iggy Pop had been partying the night before. Mills took me to his favourite record shop and insisted on buying the REM bootleg 'We're Blinking As Fast As We Can', and the Hindu Love Gods single. We lunched on buffalo chicken wings. First time I'd ever seen frozen beer glasses.
Stipe cycled right into the Rendezvous Lounge that night, and we repaired to the tea shop he owned (this was just before Life's Rich Pageant's release). And that's where this picture was taken. By me. On the Braun Super Paxette camera my dad bought me for my 17th birthday.
Stipe was still strange. But not as strange as his companions, a young man and woman, both dressed as Alice Cooper. I've always wondered, with hindsight, if the guy was River Phoenix.
Labels: Athens, Michael Stipe, remote
Unexpectedly lovely night in Hillswick
The last record shop
Clive Munro's record shop has always been the last in Britain, or at least the northernmost. It has been my favourite, too, for the quarter of a century I've known and used it.
That was mainly due to Clive himself, the same age as me, with similar tastes in music. His recommendations could be trusted. His tendency to stock obscure Nick Lowe box sets, not to mention every jot and tittle of the Costello oeuvre, was wholly admirable. He is one of only two people I know who can talk knowledgeably about the work of Californian singer-songwriter Peter Case.
I helped Clive with his stall at a couple of early Shetland Folk Festivals, watched vinyl vanish from his shelves (the second-hand tapes he once dealt in at two previous, tiny locations, had already disappeared) and was happy to spend cash when he moved to large Commercial Street premises, where computer games and DVDs featured heavily. A branch in Orkney opened and closed quickly. But Clive's in Lerwick would go on forever, surely? On our remote archipelago, we needed, deserved a great record shop. How would we get the good stuff otherwise?
Then came Amazon. Then came iTunes. Play.com. A big new Lerwick branch of Tesco. And now Spotify. For me, deluged with free CDs due to the radio show, and with a Spotify Premium account as well, my CD purchasing fell away to almost zero. Clive announced that the shop would operate using half its floorspace, concentrating on specialised material, local folk, country and with a range of new vinyl too.
But it didn't work. History is against shops like Clive's, and especially in Shetland, the internet has revolutionised shopping. Now we can have DVDs and CDs winging their way from one island (tax-free Jersey, where Play.com is based) to the Greater Zetlandics in a flash, and at prices less than Clive was paying wholesale. Or we can stream and download, listen and forget in less time than it takes to say: "How much diesel will I use getting into town and back?"
So it's nearly over. The shop doors will soon shut forever. There's a closing down sale, but I've been avoiding the place, because I didn't want to look like some kind of scavenger, having spent so little there in recent months. Today, though I went in, bought a DVD, and found Clive in positive mood, looking forward to a new start doing - well, he knows not what, as yet.
He has been a musical mentor and guide, a shaman for hundreds, maybe thousands of Shetland's music fans. He has stocked indie releases by local bands, put up posters, sold tickets and been a crucial force for all that's good in the world of twangy guitars and great lyrics.
The last record shop in Britain will be sorely missed. But not enough, and by not enough people, for it to remain open.
Labels: CDs, Clive's, close, internet, records, Shetland, spotify, Tesco
A wee Sunday cycle in Shetland
At the finish: Last but only slightly embarrassed
James with his free fish supper and milkshake
Almost over
I felt sick. It could have been the over-abundance of granola and porridge (carb loading, on son James's advice) or simply nerves. This morning was Shetland's, and my, first cycle sportive, in aid of the Royal National Mission to Deep Sea fishermen, organised by local (and Britain's most northerly) chip shop, Frankie's.
I wasn't nervous because I was competing to win the thing. At nearly 56 and a lover of bikes and their ability to get you legally to and from pubs, rather than actual cycling, that was never on the cards. It was just that having been sponsored to the tune of £200, I was very uncertain that I had the stamina or fitness to actually cover the required 40 miles. Yes, there were 10 and 20 mile options, but 40 seemed only right.
James, on the other hand, fresh from a term of fixed-wheel endurance cycling and triathlon training, thought he had a good chance. He wasn't far wrong. Only a half-hour puncture repair hiatus (I had the pump; he had to wait for me, and I was last) stopped him (he claims, and I agree) finishing in the first bunch. He hauled back a good swatch of the field and finished in two and a half hours.
It took me an hour more than that. There was a nasty incident with my rear derailleur (jammed chain) which took 10 minutes of oily hands and swearing to fix. But by the time I'd finished the first 20 miles ( we were doing a double loop from Brae to Voe, then up Dales Lees to Firth, over to Sullom Voe then back to Brae via Voxter; 1000 feet of climbing )I knew I could manage 40, and fuelled by sultana cake and Ribena, I kept going through some of the best Shetland Sabbath summer weather this year.
The wind was as friendly as it could be. The long, near-eternal climb up Dales Lees was unbelievably easy, but by the time Scatsta airport arrived for the second time, the windsock was pointing straight at me and it hurt. Bad windsock!
I was last in of the 40-milers (all of us male, which was surprising; there are some great woman cyclists in Shetland). But I claimed my free fish supper and milkshake with some gusto. Pain? A few back twinges but my 20-year old Brooks B17 saddle had done its job supremely well.
Thanks again to all who sponsored me through Just Giving and with real cash. Finally, some of you may wonder about the choice of RNMDSF as a charity to support. Those who live or have lived in fishing communities won't. The 'Mission' does a unique and wonderful job without any kind of proselytising, and as a journalist reporting on fishing tragedies in Shetland and elsewhere I was always gobsmacked by the commitment and service to the survivors and the bereaved shown by Mission staff.
(More) Talk Radio
The move towards 'more speech' on the radio show I present (BBC Radio Scotland, 14.35-16.00 weekdays, except Fridays, when it starts at 14.00) has not meant I simply talk more. It means, basically, that I talk more to other people.
We're booking what are various called 'guests' or 'contributors', mostly musicians, who come on because they have product (gigs, CDs, downloads, their own bountiful personalities, charitable endeavours, chains of boutiques, ranges of wine) to promote. Yeah, I know the Beeb's good and decent and doesn't do product placement. But the truth is, you don't get guests with nothing to sell. Unless you pay them. And we're MOST reluctant to do that, except as a last resort.
So anyway,we're widening things out to include comedians, authors, journalists and indeed anyone who might give good guesthood, on a show which is still basically about music. Speech. We like it.
We review albums, preview gigs, examine people's record collections, talk about golf, cycling, food (always a favourite on the ever-hungry TMS) plumbing, roofing and about Scotland; we sift nostalgically through our pasts. Memory works well on the wireless.
Only very rarely am I face to face with any guest. I work for the most part out of a tiny self-operated studio (basically a microphone and a PC) in Lerwick, Shetland, some 200 miles from my producers in Aberdeen and the Big Huge Box that plays out all the music. The music, by the way, is mostly gleaned from what's called 'The Radio Scotland Daytime Playlist' - it takes a few cues from Radio Two, but there's a distinct Scottish dimension and me, the producers and our various contributors have a hand in what gets played too. In particular, anything I'm passionate about, and that fits into our general, uh, vibe, man, can usually be shoehorned in. No Crass so far, though.
This week, among others, we've had Ryan Adams on, promoting his new album Ashes and Fire, and Joan Wasser, who is/is in Joan As Policewoman. Check them out on iPlayer if you want. I found myself asking Ryan how it felt to perform sober ("It's nice not to feel…sick') after which he became virtually monosyllabic; and horrifying Joan with the tale of the Dave Matthews Band's tour bus driver, who accidentally emptied the tour bus's toilet tank while on the top deck of a road bridge. Pity the guy immediately underneath was driving an open-topped sports car...
American artists, even 'difficult' creatures like Ryan, know how to play the promo game, and are mostly used to the long-distance remote interview, where all the cues have to be auditory. No body language to help. It's ears and brains only.
But then, that's what the wireless is all about. Ears. And voices. Brains. People talking to each other. Telling stories. And playing records.
Labels: Joan As Policewoman, radio, Radio Scotland, Ryan Adams, Tom Morton
Truly incredible: By folding bike and inflatable raft from Sumburgh Head to Muckle Flugga
Kudos to these guys. This was almost unthinkably hard and very, very dangerous. They were lucky with the weather.
Get the Video Plugin
Labels: Bicycle, Brompton, kayak, Shetland
Inverness and the Belladrum Festival, before the deluge
Two days working in Inverness, staying at the eccentrically excellent Anderson in Fortrose, and reacquainting myself with Dolphinsludge, Queen of the Highland Fleshpots.
The quilted shooting jacket, with its bandolier of shotgun cartridges, is for age eight or thereabouts. Hidden corners of Inverness still display aspects of the landed gentryism lurking around the Highlands.
But there are so many glorious aspects to the place...not just the river, the Ness islands, the bouncy bridges, but the substantial and robust cultural scene. The Eden Court complex was absolutely buzzing when we arrived to see the Canadian film Incendies - movies, the imminent book festival, the presence of the Netherlands Youth Orchestra. I met old friend John McNaught, who proudly pointed me in the direction of the revived Highland Print Studio. And then there is Charles Leakey's bookshop.
I love it best in winter, when the massive woodburning stove is throbbing and crackling with heat. But to point my camera at corner of the huge 'Scottish' section and know that I could comfortably and happily buy the whole lot...it's a kind of happiness. I didn't, though.
On to Belladrum, where I was working at the Co-op Verb Garden, the spoken word tent, interviewing the likes of Sharleen Spiteri, Fyfe Dangerfield, Frank Turner and Kassidy, appearing on panels about the press and music, and performing (with Jon Beach) The Malt and Barley Revue (great local whisky tasting from Jon) and the new religion show My Bad Gospel.
Highlights for me elsewhere were Woodenbox And A Fistful of Fivers - stunning live - Admiral Fallow, Teddy Thompson, the superb local food (especially the venison burger and the puddings) the new healing Fields setting in the old walled garden and the presence of Tchai Ovna for tea, and the Piano Ranch, complete with mossy VW.
We stayed at the legendary Caley in beautiful Beauly (next time, a length of tweed for a suit, if I can afford it). A wise move, given the deluge that descended on Saturday night. Then it was a flood-ridden route to Aberdeen.
Congratulations to Joe and team again for Bella and to Stephen, Jim, Chris (sound/light) and everyone else. Thanks to everyone who said hallo. And thanks too to the Campbells at the Caley and to Jon Beach of Fiddlers for the whisky (which I never got to drink). Next time.
Labels: Belladrum, festival, Inverness
The Raleigh
My first bicycle was essentially a toy; its removable stabilisers saw me safely though various wobbly adventures on the streets of Shawlands and Pollokshaws in Glasgow until, at the age of six, I found myself in the leafy seaside suburbia of Troon in Ayrshire.
It was on Ottoline Drive's sleepy tarmac that I learned to balance that old yellow and red Tri-ang, with its white, 12-inch Speedmaster balloon tyres. The stabilisers came off and I pedalled it at furious cadences up and down, often dressed as a cowboy. Finally, at the age of perhaps eight, I was presented by my dad with a second-hand 'proper' bike, a cherry-red Raleigh single speed which seemed vast, enormous, unrideable. Of course, I rode it immediately, my feet dangling inches from the ground with the saddle at its lowest.
The day a police car slid silently alongside as I was perched atop this machine, and a cop said 'you're too wee for that bike, son.' was the day I fell messily and tearfully into a hedge. Delivered home by the policemen, I was banned from riding until my feet could actually touch the earth while sitting on that flappy plastic Wrights saddle. Eventually, they did.
I have had a host of bicycles since then. I deeply regret the loss of my Uncle John's Dawes Dalesman, my first bike to have derailleur gears. But I still have my beloved early 80s Orbit Gold Medal Alivio. I was contemplating restoring its Reynolds 531 frame to original, pristine glory, when I began to check prices. An Argos (top stove enamallers) frame restoration starts at £600.
And then, on eBay, this came up. An Argos-restored early 80s Raleigh 531 Clubman, handbuilt in Nottingham, back in the days when Raleigh made their own frames. An absolute classic, albeit scratched and with some non-standard components. I coveted the Campagnolo derailleur, though.And surely it couldn't go that cheaply? It did.
Today I assembled it. It rides like a dream. It looks...breathtaking. You may have noticed that it's cherry red. Yes, the same cherry red as that long-ago single speed. I adjusted the saddle carefully. My feet touch the ground when I stop, just. If I stand on tip-toe. But when I ride, I ride my dreams back in time, faster and faster and faster.
Labels: Argos, Bicycle, bike, Raleigh, Raleigh Clubman, Tom Morton
A day in the life of a Shetland-based radio broadcaster with a thing about buses
....with many thanks to Richard and Jolene at Precious Productions!
Rebekah, Flame-Haired Temptress Of My Dreams
She's the queen of the quality press
In her little black Balenciaga dress
She's got three gold-plated iPhones
One for James, one for David one for Rupert alone
Divorced her husband - he was too bald
He said he was scared, because she was too tall
Used a Mulberry bag like a baseball bat
No SAS training could deal with that
Oh Rebekah, flame-haired temptress of my dreams
Oh Rebekah, things are not as bad as they may seem
Your people love you so
She and Samantha like their girlie nights in
They watch Sex in the City, they drink Bombay gin
Later they might put on a Coldplay CD
Ask Gwyneth and Chris round for afternoon tea
Rebekah, ignore what those bad papers say
I don't believe that your hair's turning grey
I hope you, James and Rupert will have mercy on me
When NewsCorp take over the BBC..
"News International chief executive Rebekah Brooks received an honorary degree from the University of Arts London (on 20 July 2010) in recognition of her outstanding contribution to journalism and the media..."
- with thanks to journalism.co.uk -
Labels: News International, News of the World, Rebekah Brooks, Rebekah Wade, Rupert Murdoch
Afloat in the simmer dim...
...Just offshore from the house last Sunday night at about 10.45pm. Picture by Stewart Cunningham/Great Scot Photography.
Strange sculptural objects on a hot day in Eshaness
One of those weird Shetland days when the morning starts cold and glowering, changes to mild and then warm, and by the time we got round to Eshaness, was actually, positively hot. I can truthfully say I have never sweated so much on a walk around the UK's most spectacular peninsula (apart from Hillswick Ness).
Here are some Sea Pinks on the edge of Calder's Geo, and, most oddly, a ceramic sculpture of a viking (broken axe and helmet, probably sheep activity) which has appeared on a little outcrop of rock not far from the Hols of Scraada. Who made it? Who put it there? Who knows?
Labels: Eshaness, Scotland, Shetland, viking
Andy Murray's mum gets an apologetic reply from a non-interventionist God
Sorry if you've already seen this, but I did promise to put it up on the blog...
Labels: Andy Murray, Radio Scotland, religion, Tennis, theology, Tom Morton
A mother's prayer for Andy Murray (Non-interventionist God)
Will try and get a video of this being sung up on YouTube - it's part of the live show My Bad Gospel: The Backslider's Songbook Vol 1, due to debut at Belladrum 2011
Hallo Andy I heard from your mum
She's most concerned about what you've not become
The people of Scotland, they've been calling too
I'm not sure there's a lot I can do for you
I suppose I could send some sort of plague
On your opponents, but that seems pretty vague
I could turn Nadal into a pillar of salt
But everyone would guess it was all my fault
And I'm a non-interventionist God
I'm a non-interventionist God
People laugh, and say it's odd
But I'm a non-interventionist God
The thing is Andy, what people don't get
I can't help you get the ball over the net
I'm trying to make it plain, believe me it's true
When it comes to racquets, it's all up to you
Prayers are nice, praise is so rare these days
It's always good to see you on your knees to pray
But my advice is to hone your skill
I'm saying God won't, but maybe you will
Frankly Andy, your hope is quite forlorn
My interventionist days are all but gone
I don't feel at home on a tennis court
I much prefer golf.
I invented that sport.
Labels: Andy Murray, God, Tennis, Tom Morton
All at sea with 2.5 Honda horsepower
I've owned three Honda outboard motors, and this is the third, attached to a diminutive inflatable boat (also made by or rather for Honda). Four-stroke engines, none of that nasty petrol-oil mixing. All have been brilliant starters, even after weeks lying idle at storm-lashed moorings. One saved my (and my venerable Shetland Model's) bacon when the boat broke away from its mooring in a storm, was chased down by me aboard a salmon farm tender, and, amid cartwheeling waves and threatening rocks, started first pull to haul me back to shore and safety.
The inflatable arrived yesterday, was duly inflated and tested, with motor, this evening. You'd hardly go waterskiing using it, but for the odd spot of fishing and picnicking it's just the job. And the outboard works beautifully. Better, I have to say, much, much better, than the character-forming British Seagull I last used. Now, however, that two-strokes have been consigned to history by European environmental regulations, the monstrous Seagull, once the engine of everyboat, will gradually fade from the memories of boatie folk. It is already assuming the aura of legend: stories of Seagull motors left in a hedge for a year, cleaned up and started at the first pull. What they don't mention is that you took all the skin off both set of knuckles doing it. And had a nervous breakdown in the process.
Seagulls were crude. All you needed to fix them was a hammer, it is said. I bought into that fantasy. But after 20 minutes of hitting it with a hammer, it still wouldn't go. All you have to do with a Honda is speak nicely to it occasionally.
Every duck has its day: Glasgow without humans.
Mallard on the banks of the Clyde, right at the walkway/cycle path. It's there every day. This morning, a man on a bike stopped and said to me: 'it's beautiful, isn't it?' Set me up for the whole day.
Weird patch of old cobbles on the lost cycle route between Shields Road Underground and Paisley Road West. Not a place to be after dark.
Architectural model town planning. What exactly was the point of this, with lumps of the Clyde Walkway mysteriously closed to pedestrians?
Shields Road Underground Station at its spookiest.
Up on the roof, checking the bitumen...
View from atop The Old Bookshop holiday cottage
Shetland Times review of download-only EP from young Shetland trio Kollifirbolli
This is my review of the new download-only EP by top Shetland trio Kollifirbolli. if you like fiddle music. you'll love this. Available on iTunes for just £3.95:
Kollifirbolli: The Loveliest New Version of a Favourite Style.
Croft Records – digital download only. Available on iTunes
Topsy-turvy. Upside down and round the wrong way. In a state of pleasantly chaotic discombobulation. That's roughly what 'Kollifirbolli' means. And one might accuse the three lasses who make up the band of that name to have gotten things a little mixed up:
I mean, first of all this is an EP (stands for 'Extended Play' by the way; used to refer to quaint things called 'singles' which had two sides and were pressed on black plastic; there was this vibrating needle thing that...oh, never mind). Who issues EPs these days? Answer: all the seriously cool folks who understand that introducing yourself by way of a long, long CD or 'album' (took its name from sheet music, but that's another story) is too time-consuming in this digitised age.
Speaking of digital, what's going on? The Loveliest New Version of a Favourite Style (great title, wonderful cover concept; knitting is the new Playstation – no hacking) is only available as a digital download via iTunes, streamed on Myspace, or maybe on Spotify sometime soon. If you don't know what any of these things are, ask someone wearing a hoodie. Not a hi-viz one.
There's a good reason for all this. The whole auditory escapade is a final year project for commercial music student Karlyn Grains, and it's a fascinating experiment which should give some very interesting indicators for the marketing of specialist music in the digital environment. Is there a local market for music you can only listen to on your phone, computer, iPad or iPod? Of course you could burn it to a CD. But that would be illegal; at least after the first 100 or so...
My own feeling is that issuing this on CD would open up the - fairly conservative, small 'c' - local market and that digital downloads have to be linked to attractive real-world 'souvenirs' – limited edition vinyl pressings, hand-painted covers, bits of Fair Isle knitting, you name it. But all of that is assuming the music is worth listening to in the first place.
Ah yes, the music. Kollifirbolli – Astryd Jamieson (piano, concertina) Kaela Jamieson and Mary Rutherford (fiddles) are young stars of the local scene, and have been for some time. They are, individually, brilliant players. Together though, they possess a carefree magic that has both the casual, intuitive swing and fastidious attention to detail that hallmarks the best of Shetland music. Astryd's piano playing is both rhythmically rock solid and melodically inventive, while the two fiddles intertwine, soar and whisper in ways that can move both your feet and your soul.
The occasional bass and guitar of John o' da Burns add weight and colour, but apparent simplicity is the key to production, if not arrangements. The girls dig deep into the tunes to find some novel approaches and unexpected twists. Above all, the sprightliness, insight and energy cannot be contained. The final three tunes – Joe the Jigger, Snookered and Mary Rutherford's own Mavis's Farewell to Gletness are classy and powerful, but it's the harnessing of technique to emotion, the telling of tuneful stories that really impresses.
Ronnie Jamieson's classic air Aald Noost is wonderfully interpreted. Kaela and Astryd's dad must be proud. As must their mum, Debbie Scott, when Ronnie's Da Day Dawn – tackled with an intensity of purpose and focus which fair takes the breath away – segues into Debbie's own Medoc.
And suddenly I'm back in the pre-digital days, recording a blue-haired Debbie in Kenny Johnson's old shop in Harrison Square, hearing Medoc for the first time as we tried again and again to get a decent sound on a cheap Tascam Portastudio, recording what would be part of the Shetland Calling cassette compilation (The New Sound of Young Shetland). 1988. Twenty-three years ago. Cassettes? Oh, they were...terrible things that kept breaking.
Back to today, or tomorrow. Kollifirbolli's The Loveliest New Version...was recorded by Marvin Smith using state of the art digital thingummybobs, and is now available for you to pluck pristine from the ether, digitally, using the internet equivalent of money. I heartily commend it to you, because no matter how you hear it – on an iPhone or a phonograph, great music is great music. And that's what this is.
Shetland Times, 6 May 2011
The Hound of Hillswick takes the air on a pleasant if chilly evening
Other hounds are available. Actually, other hounds are available here in Greater Hillswick, and a proper Wolfhound/Great Dane cross at that, bouncy and inquisitive and not best friends with Lulu, the ageing and irritable (with other dogs) St Bernard in the picture.
I beat a hasty retreat if I see neighbour Pete and the Other Hound, as last time we met, cordial human greetings were accompanied by Lulu silently grabbing the OH's lower jaw in her considerable mooth and just...hanging on amid the howling. I understand this genetically-imprinted trick is common among dogs with a background in, well, attacking military horses. And St Bernards are supposed to be descended from the war-dogs that accompanied Hannibal's elephants over the Alps. The idea was that the dogs would leap at the jaws of an approaching pony, grab it in their own teeth and haul the horse to the ground headfirst. After that the rider was elephant-stomped.
And what is a Wolfhound/Great Dane cross but a small equine? Anyway, no long term harm was done, everyone's still on speaking terms. Apart the OH and Lulu, of course. But then, one of them thinks the other's a horse...
Glasgow from a distance.
It's the end of a frenetic week back in Shetland, one full of council and broadcasting business, great weather,a flurry of filming with Jolene and Rich's Precious Productions for BBC Online, preparation of holiday cottages for the season and the climbing, in torrid conditions, of a very small hill.
And of course, after a fortnight in Glasgow, thoughts turn to the weans and grandweans on the mainland or in Northern Ireland. Only Martha at home these days, for another year or so. And then...
Leaving aside the food poisoning (fish pie, chicken salad or Eggs Benedict?) and ripping the back/bottom off the Subaru (potholes and gatepost) we had a splendid time in the Dear Green Place. Lots of friends and family, movies, great coffee,music and the sense of urban connectedness you get from working in Europe's most advanced digital broadcasting centre at Pacific Quay, and hurtling there on a groovy folding bike.
Now we're back on The Rock, missing everyone, working hard, driving and bussing everywhere, soothing the troubled psychology of Lulu the St Bernard, and connected, plugged into the very different network of Shetlandic life.
Looking at Glasgow from our northern outpost, we can take a deep breath and wonder: what would it be like to live in...oh, the west end, Kinning Park, Tradeston, the south side, the east end...why is there no north side in Glasgow? Creating villages of likemindedness again, slipping into the teeming mass where there's both anonymity and familiarity, where finding the stuff, the talent, the people you need is easy, instant. Because people and abilities gather in cities, coelesce, hit the market, buy, sell, live...
A million people in Greater Glasgow. 23,000 in Shetland, a place and a population it's easy to idealise. There are huge disadvantages to living here. The cost of travel, food, fuel and indeed, everything but housing, which is rapidly catching up with the mainland. Being apart from the extended family.
But there are many good things. Shetland's economy is still relatively buoyant. There are jobs, massive industrial projects like the gas plants at the Sullom Voe oil terminal and the impending wind and tidal energy developments. If you love the landscape and the wildness of the weather, there's only the religion-afflicted Western Isles to compare.
And as we gaze at Glasgow this weekend, the absence of a religious culture in Shetland (there are churches, tolerated as ritual providers for deaths, marriages, births and the lke) seems an enormous blessing. There will be Shetland folk at the Old Firm match. I have no idea if they're travelling down in a shared bus, as has happened in the past. Sectarianism here is looked upon as baffling idiocy, occasionally flaring as it does in bars, courtesy of incoming casual workers. Amazingly, people support Rangers or Celtic because they're...football teams.
Glasgow on Easter Sunday. It'd be good to drink some West beer out at Glasgow Green, go to the Barras, listen to some jazz. But do I really want the walk back into town amid whatever the Buckfastian outcome of the match is? Someone's being sending 'viable' nail bombs to Neil Lennon and other Celtic supporters. Easter, eh? Undoubtedly, tomorrow, there will be blood.
So I worry about the kids, mine and other people's. I wonder about the separation of state schools on sectarian grounds. I look at the people who have literally fled west central Scotland for Shetland, come here to escape the brutal divisiveness of cartoon religiosity, found a rough and ready sanctuary.
Like them, on the whole, I'm happy to be here. And for the moment, I can afford to visit Glasgow relatively often. Choosing the dates carefully.
Birth of the mediacrofter, death of the hack
Yesterday, before salmonella laid me low, I had a meeting about a planned media training programme for councillors and council officials back in Shetland.
It went well. The people involved, three of them, have a company which specialises in this sort of thing, and has done effective work for all kinds of major league corporate clients. This doesn't take up all of their time. They have other irons in various fires.
All three were vastly experienced, high-flying journalists. None of them make any money from journalism as such any more. And neither do I.
Instead, it became apparent, we're all mediacrofters. True, I was the only officially registered crofter there, with a smallholding in Shetland on which sheep cavort and subsidies were once claimed. But the essence of crofting as a rural lifestyle has always been multitasking – you can only survive by adaptability, by doing a bit of fishing, growing some veg, keeping some sheep, maybe delivering letters, repairing walls, selling paintings, philosophising or bartending. Self reliance, if not self sufficiency. Because you depend on the community too.
Journalism, certainly freelance journalism, is dead in the water, other than for a privileged few who must all be gazing into a very uncertain future. I am a light entertainer, trading on a life-long passion for music and trivia and a church upbringing that forced me to perform from the age of seven. I do a bit of freelance PR, write online for free. We have a holiday cottage we rent out. I sell second hand books, speculate in bad motorcycles. No pension, no fallback, no contracts. The three men I met with yesterday do PR, training, consultancy work, design, copywriting, wedding photography, videos, online telly, clever little projects to sell words and pictures. And tellingly, they collaborate to survive and thrive. With each other, with small, imaginative companies.
But, and this was telling, they said it was the established media organisations that deny the new digital realities, who refuse collaboration and instead cut payments and staff to the bone. Who see what individuals like them do as threatening.
And yes, we swopped war stories. Terrible, scary, hilarious moments back in the day. The Braer, Lockerbie, BCCI. Big stories. Huge hotel bills. Unlimited expense accounts. Taxis from Glasgow to Braemar and back. Privately chartered aeroplanes, for heaven's sake (and that was me, for The Scotsman).
But that was the past. Now, we're about surviving. Now, we live by our wits. Now, we're crofting.
Labels: crofting, journalism, media, PR
From gravitas to chavitas in a period of Purdah
AS we swing into what I was astonished to find out is still called Purdah (curtained-off women's quarters in traditional Persian household / the six weeks before election during which government must not issue policy which could swing election outcome), the purveyors of gravitas and chavitas furrow their brows and practise their glottal stops.
For this is the time when politicians must illustrate to voters not only their depth and intellectual strength, but also that man/woman of the people ability to kiss babies, head footballs at shell-suited toerags, and generally show how much they know about Lady Gaga, dubstep, Plan B and other such down-with-the-kids cultural touchstones.
And they fail, nearly all of them. I'll mention no names, as the Representation of the People Act probably precludes me, as a BBC presenter and (very part time) paid local government advisor, from picking out my least favourite. But the nauseating sight and sound of suited and booted Holyrood habituees swivelling uneasily between the Tragedy of Japan and the Need For Caution In Libya, The Price of Petrol and The Importance of Take That, Tinchy Strider's iconic status and the state of Sharleen Spiteri's haircut leaves me reeling with irritation.
It's their sound. The way they change their voices to meet different kinds of question from different types of questioner. Their vocal equivocation is caught on camera and microphone ('awright, big man, howzitgawn...ah yes, the tragedy of Afghanistan lies in the global inability to recognise the country's key historical and geo-political role...") one voice for the landowner, one for the serf. One noisy slurp for the mug of council tea, one dainty hissing sip for the Rotary Chardonnay. And is there contempt once the doors are closed, the dram is in hand and they're relaxing with series three of The Thick Of It? Contempt akin to Harry Dean Stanton's when he tells Emilio Estevez in Repo Man: "ordinary people. I f*ckin' hate 'em"?
Names? You want names? Nah, mair as ma joab's worth, pal. There's an election on, doncherknow?
That first ride home
I was, frankly, concerned about riding the old Kawasaki the 35 miles home from Lerwick tonight. It was gusting up to a force seven, sidewinds for the most part. It was getting dark, and my eyesight is increasingly bad at coping with lack o'licht. And this was a £400 bike, old, if well cared for, that I'd never ridden before.
It was great. There were a few problems - the bike hadn't been ridden for a while, it needed to blow some gunge out of its venerable (F-reg) systems and it took a wee while to get used to the controls. But after 10 minutes, in a blowy but dry twilight, the GT550 was a delight to ride.
First rides home. Sometimes they're the best, the quintessence of what biking is about. You're discovering, hopefully, the worth of what you've bought, usually after a period of un-biking. I was especially pleased by the fact that my last motorcycle ride, a horrendous, sleet-and-gale battered journey to the ferry with an eBay-flogged Moto Guzzi, was on a bike worth 10 times the Kawasaki. And the lovely, newish Guzzi was a worse performer - for my needs - in everything but looks.
Because there's a reason the wee GT550 was - still is - the ultimate courier's tool. It's small and light. Very nippy up to 60. It has a huge petrol tank, massive range and the best headlight of any motorcycle I've ever ridden. And best of all, for Shetland conditions, it's rock solid in sidewinds.
Also, I wore my cheap as chips Max flip-up helmet, which unlike my excruciatingly expensive AVG does not steam up and stay opaque. Coupled with powerful headlight, for once I could see where I was going as darkness fell.
So there we go. The bike came complete with a box of spares, manuals, and a newish helmet. Steve, the owner, is giving up biking for good. Or so he says.
That's what I said, just three weeks ago. And now...well, now I have both the old Suzuki GS1000G for high days and holidays, and the Kawasaki for...other occasions. Oh, and did I mention Hugh Kerr's lime green GT550 which I'm picking up in April when I'm on the mainland? No? I was sure I did...
Mumford and Sons gie it laldy at the Whiteness and Weisdale Hall
Marcus Mumford and 'Country' Winston Marshall were on the show today, straight off the plane from Inverness, with the lovely Rachel Sermanni, who supported M&S tonight. Rachel played beautifully (both on the show and tonight, though she had to struggle at W&W with a boisterous crowd), the lads were splendid (I mean, from the Grammies and 19 million viewers to our humble wee show from Lerwick...what a privilege. For them...)
Found out afterwards that Marcus M is not only a biker (Triumph Bonneville T100 - excellent choice) but a lover of malt whisky. A very good sign indeed, as long as they're combined carefully.
Took Martha to the gig and she loved it, oblivious at the front to the considerable rammy of noise and conversation behind. It's an old Shetland problem - a night out is a night out, no matter who's playing, and that means craic with pals and much drink. Nothing wrong with that, but you'd think, having queued in many cases all night for tickets, a bit more attention might have been paid to the band.
Anyway, M&S (unlike Franz Ferdinand, who played the same venue a while ago) were unstinting in their performance. They really, really went for it, and appeared to love what they were doing. Generous. Winning. Gentlemen. New songs very good too.
Friday is pie and print media day
I came into Lerwick on the early bus this morning. Buses, really - the 07.35 from Hillswick to Brae (10 miles) then the main Mossbank commuter run into Lerwick. There's always a degree of weary grumpiness on said vehicle; and who can blame any of us for being irritable at that time of day, especially when you're battling for a seat on an urban low-level pantechnicon that seems somewhat unsuited to a rural, 25-mile run with loads of braking for sheep? A bus where today, several - humans, not sheep - had to stand most of the way?
Actually, while waiting for the Hillswick feeder service I met old friend and neighbour Scott, out walking his dog and waiting for 'da pipper' (the paper) to arrive. Not that Scott has a Shetland accent, being from England via Edinburgh. He likes to watch the traffic queue building up outside our community shop, as people wait for the arrival of The Shetland Times on the post van. In Shetland, despite local radio, an alternative online news service (The Shetland News) and its own regularly updated website, the arrival of the new Shetland Times, in tabloid newsprint form, every Friday, is the media event of the week.
All over the islands you can see vans and cars parked up of a Friday, their drivers hidden behind the full-colour, locally printed paper. First call is always the Births, Marriages and Deaths section, followed by the advertising (which always makes me wonder if the old newspaper habit of putting these on the front page was, in fact, psychologically correct). And then the rest, including one of the biggest sports sections of any weekly, though there are some unusual forms of competition in there ('Laurenson to fore in radio car event'. )
There are around 23,000 people in Shetland, and the Times sells between 11,000 and 12,000 print copies. It's editorial department is well resourced, paid and staffed. It makes loads of money. And it's a good, serious newspaper, independent of tone and, still family owned, very much part of the community that gave birth to and still sustains it.
One of my jobs as communications consultant to Shetland Islands Council is to look at the way we can use the internet and social media to communicate more effectively with the community, and there's no doubt that the likes of Facebook and Twitter, not to mention blogs, RSS feeds and participation in community forums such as Shetlink can provide certain advantages. Yet the ubiquity of the Shetland Times of a Friday morning, in almost every shop you can think of, from bakeries to butchers to ship's chandlers, and its value as an artefact (it's hoarded, re-read, kept, lent) always makes me wonder at those media statistics claiming that local print is on the way out. Not in Shetland. Surely, in an insular but scattered rural community, print will retain its power and value?
Having said that, my bus journey was spent in the company of today's Guardian, unavailable in the islands in print form until late morning. Using software called Calibre, each morning's Guardian is automatically downloaded to my Kindle e-reader, free. It's transformed my day. I no longer buy print dailies, except in dire necessity.
But I still bought a Shetland Times in Malcolmson's bakery this morning, along with a mutton pie and Chelsea bun. Sometimes old forms of sustenance are best.
The 20 best whiskies in the world, and a horrible liqueur
The final flight. These are the 20 best whiskies in the world, according to the panel of 'experts' (the quotes are for me) that has been sniffing, gargling, swallowing and occasionally spitting over the past couple of months.
I can't remember how many I've dealt with. Maybe 60. Scored out of 10 and described ('overtones of diesel and two-stroke, fish barrels, herring and Macaroon bars mixed with Marmite') until finally, we're here. Twenty whiskies (and whiskeys). North American, Irish (controversially slung in with single malts from Scotland and Japan), One grain, a few blends and blended malts. Oh, and a single liqueur, either Glayva or Drambuie. I neither know nor care. Both are beyond horrid in my opinion.
No names. Just genres and numbers. But the best whisky in the world, in my humble opinion, is Single Malt 6. Treacle, tar, lemon zest and that infamous port-Guinness cocktail, plus some dark rum. Chewy.
Time for a cup of tea, methinks...
A glorious day in the Greater Zetlandics
Saturday morning. The sun is shining. Surely some mistake? But no, God has shown some mercy on these pagan isles, and everyone is suddenly in a good mood. To Lerwick so Martha can attend the music club and be interviewed for work as a Red Cross volunteer. Followed by lunch at the excellent and beautifully situated Hay's Dock Cafe at the Lerwick Museum. The fishing boats are the view. Or at least are in the view
Oh, and the Lewis Chessmen exhibition was on at the museum, so we had a look at that. Very good. I've been to the site on Lewis where the chessmen were found. Appropriately, it's very near the excellent Abhainn Dearg (Red Rocks) whisky distillery.
Home then, and no wasting the weather. For Marf it may have been OK to wear a wetsuit, but I was taking no chances in my Fladen flotation suit and wooly bunnet. Kayaks were fine though one had lost its bung, which had to be replaced with a winestopper from a Christmas cracker. Seriously.
Record shops. It's over
This is actually a posting on the Shetlink discussion forum, from a thread inspired by rumours that my favourite record shop, Clive's in Lerwick, might be closing. As I write, Clive Munro hasn't shut yet, but it has to be a matter of time. My shopping there would only be on a social basis, these days.I haven't bought a CD since signing up for Spotify Premium.
I've spent shed loads of cash in Clive's, going right back to the days when he sold second hand stuff from that tiny wee shop opposite the Lodberrie. And Davie's right, his prices were at one point really competitive. Coupled with the tasteful selections of obscurities and the sheer breadth of music on offer, Clive's was one THE great UK record shops.
But the sad fact is that Clive's is now one of the last independent record shops. They've disappeared. If you're committed to music, if you're a serious fan, and especially if you live remotely, you now have Spotify Premium, you have iTunes, you have Bleep, Bandcamp and - for the brief interim period when we're actually still buying hard copies of digital information - Amazon and Indigo and Play.com. And that takes in DVDs and games, too.
For the majority of consumers, music is a whisker away from being a completely online, mobile, almost free phenomenon. Once the fibreoptics are up and running here we won't need Blu-Ray or DVDs. Everything will be coming down that digital pipe. Or to our phones/tablets. And, Davie, I think you'd admit that musicians who depend on CDs are drinking in the last chance saloon, most now accepting that their money in the future will come from live shows and associated merchandise sales.
But. Fans will always want a souvenir. Committed fans will always want the best. They will want cover art and lyric sheets and other goodies. And so there will forever be a market for high-quality, luxurious sonic souvenirs of the band you love. For that, there's nothing better than vinyl. One of my sons is thinking of buying the £33 luxury vinyl package of the new Radiohead album. Even though he doesn't have a record player.
On the other hand, technophobes, late adopters and the elderly are going to want a sound format they can understand. Which is why Tesco is full of all those Sinatra compilations, and £1.99 Kinks/Stranglers/Sinatra/Buzzcocks/Val Doonican Greatest Hits.
I've had this conversation with Clive. I told him I thought there were fantastic online niches available for someone selling rare vinyl, souvenir, limited edition box sets, curated, recommended downloads, and merchandise of every sort. But that, sadly, the days of the record shops we loved and once lived for are over.
Google 'Lefsetz Letter' for the cutting edge music industry thinking on this.
The secret bus and other challenges of the charabanc
I owe Johnson Transport 60p, or 20p, depending on how you view the Lerwick-Hillswick route. It's 60p from Hillswick to Brae. But it's £2.80 from Hillswick Lerwick, (35 miles)and £2.60 from Brae to Lerwick (25). I'm confused. But that's not infrequent.
It's all a misunderstanding. I thought Leask's Buses, who only accept blue digital Shetland Islands council discount pre-pay cards (they're not ALL blue, but they have a blue stripe) would not deal with money owed to Johnson Transport, who operate the feeder route to Hillswick from Brae. When I get the morning buses into town, they won't. You use a green card to get the 07.35 to Brae, which connects with the 08.10 to Lerwick (blue, so I found to my dismay the first time I used it). But I am now fully equipped with charged-up blue and green cards.
I am a novice bus traveller, having foresworn the car (well, three days a week at least) just last week, on cost grounds and because I was having to stop for a snooze half way, my eyelids drooping towards disaster every time I tried to drive home. I knew there was a 10.00am bus to Lerwick, direct (Johnson), and a 17.10 bus back (Johnson). Green cards agogo. But I needed the 07.35 (green/blue) for my consultancy work. And then I discovered the 15.40 to Mossbank...and that's Leask's. Blue card.
I can get off that at Brae, and at first I thought I'd leave the car there, missing out the 07.35 (green) route in the mornings. But then I found out there was (just Tuesday and Thursday) a connecting mini-bus to Hillswick. Today was my first attempt at using that.
But I thought, seeing as that's a Johnson Transport service, that I wouldn't be able to pay for the entire Lerwick-Hillswick trip on a blue (Leask's) card. Wrong. you have to pay your £2.80 on the blue, as the other two minibuses (you have to change at Brae and the Ollaberry Junction) don't have digital card readers. How Leasks and Johnson Transport work out the cash share is beyond me. It's digital. Presumably computers are involved.
Thanks to Martin for explaining this to me, and for taking me the last leg home to Hillswick. He also let me into the secret of the, ahem 'doity' (elderly person's) bus which - every SECOND Tuesday - leaves Lerwick at 15.00, running direct to Hillswick. And even more secret, the Thursday late nighter, the 21.45 to Mossbank from Lerwick, which has a (Johnson) feeder service leaving Brae for Hillswick at 10.30pm.
I wish I'd known about that bus in my newspaper press-day drinking days, as it would have saved me several £40 taxi fares.
And that, folks, is everything I know about buses in Shetland. This information has been hard won. I share it with you as a public service, because not all of it can be gleaned from the Zettrans site.
Oh, and one last point. You may think these fares seem outrageously cheap. They are. But here's a thing, if you have a digital SIC card (free to obtain, from any driver) you get 60p knocked off the price of Hillswick-Lerwick. £2.20. A LOT cheaper than driving.
Today the council voted to hike bus fares by 15 per cent. It's STILL a lot cheaper than driving. And I can sleep the bus-sleep of the just. Once I assuage my guilt by giving Gary Johnson his 60p...or is it 20?
Shetland wool is good for you!
One of my thoughts as part-time communications advisor to Shetland Islands council is that all councillors and officials should, when travelling to the wilds of the Scottish mainland or beyond, have to wear at least one item of Shetland knitwear, preferably in a Fair Isle pattern as it's easily identified.
And this provides just one of the reasons. Though I'd probably draw the line at Shetland wool underwear. Having said that Sir Edmund Hilary and Tenzing Norguy were wearing Shetland wool base layers when they conquered Everest - especially fine wool in an extraordinary tight weave, so I'm told, provided by Adies of Voe.
An 'r' in the month? An ebb tide? Time for Bivalvia Mollusca!
...I'm thinking, white wine, garlic, maybe an onion, cream added at the end of steaming if I can find some...
Shetland goes it alone with £1.4 million superfast broadband project...with a little help from the Faroese
Here's the deal: The Faroese equivalent of BT, Faroese Telecom, has, at vast expense, laid a state of the art, undersea fibre-optic cable between the Faroe islands and the UK. It crosses Shetland, down at Sandwick. BT, however, won't connect the local system to it, preferring to use a hopelessly outmoded, unreliable and deathly slow microwave link between Shetland and Orkney, which is forever breaking down. Oh, and the BT guys who used to know how it all worked have mostly been 'let go', so when it breaks, as it did before Christmas, well...
Fed up with all this, and seeing huge economic advantages in having superfast data speeds in the islands, Shetland Islands Council has funded the Shetland Telecom project, to the tune of £1.4 million. This will wire Shetland to the Faroese cable using fibre-optic links running the length of the central mainland, plus a subsea cable off the west coast.
Small, community broadband projects will link to this, and major data processing and storage companies have already expressed an interest in moving to the isles as a result. Costs are expected to be recouped just from the connection of council, NHS and other public buildings to the new network. Mobile phone coverage, streaming video, broadcast data connections...all will be among the fastest in the country. I think we can expect BT to either jump on the bandwagon pretty damn quick, announce that hey, they're connecting to the Faroese cable after all, or start muttering savagely that Shetland Telecom isnae fair, and that the council should give them the money instead.
Anyway today, the work began in earnest. A £55,000 machine called the Ditch Witch is cutting a micro-trench and laying the cable along one of Shetland's busiest roads, at speeds thought impossible until now. The Ditch Witch has never been used in the UK before and can lay up to 600 metres of cable a day.
I was there. I was impressed. And I'll be even more impressed if, one day soon, I can broadcast once again, reliably, from The Radiocroft, abandoned due to BT's refusal to provide reliable digital connections. Bitter? Me?
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-north-east-orkney-shetland-12225508
Labels: broadband, BT, data, Faroe, fibre optic, Shetland, Telecom
Ayr Harbour with Arran's mini-Alps in the background
Gorgeous day down on the south Ayrshire coast, with Arran looming like something transplanted from the Alps. Ayr Harbour lost its fishing fleet to Troon years ago, but it still has ships coming to and fro, mostly dealing with minerals, salt, scrap iron and wood as far as I can see. Ayr beach has so much scrap timber you could run an entire community of stoves for winter after winter, and never pay a penny. It's all I can do to stop myself gathering in the logs...
Ne'erday
New Year's Day proper, daylight, up and about, and the detritus from Hogmanay/birthday celebrations isn't too bad, thanks to Susan, James and Martha (and, to an extent, me) tackling things before a belated bedtime. Except Quoyle the ancient labrador has been sick and peed everywhere. For sentimental reasons, he was indoors instead of in his incontinence kennel. Ah well, Happy New Year.
Breakfast on tea, coffee, vitamins and cake, and then out with Susan for a drive up to the cliffs at Eshaness and a swift, cobweb-dispelling walk. It's bitterly cold and windy, with clouds of spume being blown up from the depths of the geos. I never fail to get nervous here. The wind's coming in great, disturbing dollops and the cliff edges are slippy. We beat it back to the car and head home in the flickering, watery light.
More clearing up, then Martha and Susan head off to the Busta House Ne'erday lunch. James and Mag are up and remarkably fresh for the season. So am I, actually. I'm horrified to note that my final 'refreshing' beer, after too much whisky, a bottle of McEwen's Champion, was actually a Superlager-strong 7.3 per cent. Maybe the hangover's still on its way.
I'm immersed in Stuart Murdoch's excellent book The Celestial Cafe, which is making me rather homesick for Glasgow. And it's also pointing me back towards Belle and Sebastian's CDs, which, at the advanced age of 55, I'm at last beginning to appreciate. What's going on? It's always been the epitome of arch indiekid ultracool, the B&S thing, and for years I just didn't get it at all. Now it seems warmer and more approachable, somehow, and not just the newer, expansive records like Write About Love. The entire canon. Odd. Wrapped Up in Books still sounds like Cliff Richard's In The Country. But in a good way.
Stuart's book - it's a collection of sometimes quite shockingly intimate, beautifully constructed web-diary (not blog) entries - is part of a run of rawk-oriented reading matter I've been tackling of late. Allan Brown's Blue Nile book, The Stuart Adamson (Big Country) bio, the reissue of Neil Ian Munro's John Martyn tome and just arrived, James Yorkston's tour diaries. All good in their own ways, but the Murdoch and B Nile books are so steeped in Glaswegiana reading them is like walking through Kelvingrove, first in the 80s, then in the late 90s.
Right, time to do some washing and visit last night's leftovers. Looking forward to the first episode of Zen tonight - or is it tomorrow? Loved Michael Dibdin's books.
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Illustrated by Alan Daniel and Lea Daniel.
Published by Scholastic, April 2002.
I first met Aaron when he started going to the University of Guelph Preschool where I worked. He stayed there for 3 years and I got to know him and his family very well. All the time that Aaron was in the preschool, he had very long hair, which was mostly never combed. I made lots of stories up about kids in the school and one of them was a story about Aaron's hair running away because he didn't like it.
It did not become a book for a long time because I forgot about it and didn't tell it. Years later I changed publishers and my editor at Scholastic went through all the stories I had written down (about 120!) and said, "Hey! I like this hair story." We decided to make it into a book.
I tracked down Aaron to tell him about the book and I found him in Toronto, Canada. He had his own rock band and his hair was messier than ever!!!
The photo shows Aaron with his family, and it is the model for the family shown on the first page of the book. The way Aaron dresses in the book is also taken from photographs. He loved to dress differently than everybody else and was the only kid I have ever known who would come to preschool wearing a tie!
The book is set in Guelph. This presented a problem for the editors at Scholastic, because the statue in the square at the center of Guelph is a naked family group. In the original artwork, Alan Daniel had faithfully drawn the statue just at it really is. Scholastic then changed it to a one-color silhouette that lacks all detail. I did not catch this in my final check of the book just before it went to the printer. So look at the dull blue silhouette of the statue in the book and think how much nicer it would be as a real statue.
The statue in question was donated to the city by the Guelph by the Italian-Canadian Club. Guelph had a huge Italian immigration after the Second World War and was more than half Italian for a long time. When the Italians donated the statue, a lot of up tight Presbyterians and Born Again Christians were very unhappy and city council had a long debate on the subject. Finally they decided to accept the statue, which was a good idea because it is a wonderful statue. For a while people kept putting Scotch Kilts on the naked guy [Presbyterian's revenge?], but now everyone agrees that the statue was a wonderful idea.
I would love to give my editor's name, but if I do, lots of unpublished stories come to her at Scholastic, so she has asked me to not give her name.


text:
BESHALLACH | WEEK 16
By Ari Sorko-Ram
Ex 13:17 – 17:18
As we begin our Parashah for this week, we see that God has delivered Israel out of Egypt. What must first take place, however, is the re-educating of the newly freed nation of Israel. Having been in bondage for 430 years, this young nation has never possessed a land. They also have not learned to defend themselves against any aggressors. They have not yet been to battle or war.
So, God led them by the way of the wilderness (Hamidba).
The use of Hebrew words "derech haMidbar" implies "the way of the Word," and also "the way of learning." (Ex. 13:18) "Hence God led the people around by the way of the wilderness to the Red Sea."
Israel would not be ready to enter the Land of Promise until they learned to govern.
They did know that the God of Israel was supernatural, so they could follow the pillar of cloud by day and the pillar of fire by night.
Their first test came when Pharaoh pursued them in order to return them to slavery and bondage.
God had them camp before Pi-Hahiroth (the mouth of freedom) by Migdol and The Sea of Reeds (the Red Sea) and opposite and in front of Baal-Zephon (lord of the north) which was synonymous with Pharaoh who was pursuing them.
Having escaped from bondage, their captor (Pharaoh) was pursuing them to return them to slavery. They had a choice: yield to Pharaoh and his bondage, which they knew, or escape to a new-found freedom, which they had not yet known.
In Chapter 14, verse 13, it says, "But Moses said to the people, 'Do not fear! Stand by and see the salvation of the LORD which He will accomplish for you today.'" Moses, having faith in God, told the people that God would bring salvation for the people. However, God made it clear to Moses that he was to use what God had already given him, his staff and faith. He was to do what he could in the natural, and God would then do the supernatural.
The Israelites had been delivered from judgment by the blood of the lamb over the doorposts of their homes, but were now faced with the choice to go back to Egypt and their known bondage (Baal-Zephon lord of the north), Pharaoh, or towards the Pi-Hahiroth (the mouth of freedom), which was to go through the Red Sea and require a miracle from God through Moses.
Both putting the blood over the doorposts of their homes and going forward into and through the Red Sea were physical acts of faith by both the Israelites and the mixed multitude that went with them. According to their faith, the Lord delivered them from judgment of sin: the Lord passed over the homes that had the blood of the lamb over their doorposts on the evening of Passover, and then delivered them from the hand of the pursuing army of Pharaoh as they passed through the Red Sea on dry land, while Pharaoh and his army were destroyed by the returning waters.
Those who had placed the blood of the lamb over the doorposts were in blood-covenant relationship with God, and, as they passed through the Red Sea, the waters of the Red Sea (a type of immersion) separated them from Pharaoh and his army as they continued in faith to freedom and the Land of Promise.
They were delivered by blood and water as stated in the New Covenant scriptures (John 3:5…unless one is born of water and the Spirit, he cannot enter the kingdom of God.). The new Spirit is, of course, the result of repenting and receiving the atoning blood of the Lamb of God. The waters of immersion separate the born-again believer from the world of spiritual bondage.
Like in Exodus 14:28 – the waters returned and covered the chariots and the horsemen, even Pharaoh's entire army that had gone into the sea after them; not even one of them remained. "29-But the sons of Israel walked on dry land through the midst of the sea, and the waters were like a wall to them on their right and on their left. 30-Thus the… Lord saved Israel that day from the hand of the Egyptians."
As Israel was obedient to God's instructions through Moses, their needs were met. When they did not follow God's instructions through Moses, God's blessings, provisions, and protection were not with them.
Israel was like a young child, testing God and experiencing failure, repenting and again seeing the faithfulness of God.
Whether it was the manna in the wilderness, lack of clean water or water flowing out of the rock, or even the desire to return to the bondage of Egypt from the wilderness, the Israelites saw the hand of God and His faithfulness even delivering them from Amalek, and Moses declaring: "The Lord is my Banner."
This pattern of God's deliverance and provision is still valid in today's world.
And, as we follow God's Word and instructions, we can be confident that we can accomplish our destiny and have a fruitful life.
Click HERE to be directed to our Portions Podcast
A man of varied backgrounds, Ari was a professional rugby player in France playing for the French National Rugby team, then signed as a professional football player in the NFL for the St. Louis Cardinals. He went to undergraduate and graduate school at the University of Southern California, studying psychology.
He worked as a Deputy Sheriff in the Los Angeles Sheriff's Department until he became a film actor. He has appeared in over 100 films and TV shows in Israel and the United States, such as Hawaii 5-0, Entebbe, and The Finest Hour, and was a lead actor in the first TV seasons of Chips and Sweating Bullets. He left Hollywood to return to Israel, the land of his forefathers, and became an Israeli citizen in 1976.
Ari and Shira Sorko-Ram married in 1977, pioneers in the Messianic Jewish movement in Israel, and have been ministering in Israel since then. As Messianic Jews, Ari and Shira direct Maoz Israel Ministries. Together, they have pioneered several Messianic Jewish congregations in Israel and sponsored national conferences for the Israeli believers.
They have translated and published over 170 books on Biblical faith into the Hebrew language. Ari and Shira both have authored various books relating to the importance of Israel and the Biblical Jewish foundations of the faith. They provide immigrants with language and career courses, give university scholarships to Messianic students, support Arab leaders who have a heart for evangelism, and assist in the fight for the civil rights of Jewish believers in Yeshua (Jesus) in the land of Israel. They are passionate about using today's technology of—internet, music, and social media—to reach Israel with the Good News of their Messiah, Yeshua, and to reach the nations with the truth concerning Israel and the Middle East.
In September 2002, they established istandwithisrael.com, a benevolence fund for the poor and needy among Messianic Jewish believers in Israel, and victims of terrorism. Since that time, they have distributed more than $5,000,000 to the hurting of Israel.
Ari is a member of the Israel Empowerment Lobby, registered and approved by the Knesset. He has hosted several Knesset members to the President's Prayer Breakfast in Washington, D.C. and is working through the Israeli Empowerment Lobby to bring international businesses to Israel to invest in Israeli technology.
Tel Aviv, Israel is the home to Maoz' ministry headquarters. The U.S.A. administrative office is located in Grand Prairie, Texas, with other offices in Canada, Great Britain, Germany, Brazil, South America, Ireland, and Hong Kong. Maoz Ministries is endorsed as a Jewish Ministry to Israel by the Union of Messianic Jewish Congregations, the Messianic Jewish Alliance, and many churches and organizations around the world. They are members of ECFA and registered with charitynavigator.org.
Ari and Shira reside in Ramat HaSharon, Israel. They have two sabra (born in Israel) children, and six grandchildren.
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When you hear the word "minimalist," what comes to mind? For many, that word invokes images of people selling everything they own and living off the grid in some remote cabin. However, that's not necessarily the case.
Minimalism and simplicity come in many forms. It certainly can involve downgrading your home and your resources in order to live more simply, but a minimalist approach can have a rather useful place in the world of business as well.
While thinking about your business and its potential, it can be easy to get carried away and compile a laundry list of ideas for expanding, implementing new ideas, conquering new challenges, etc. After all, we all want to be successful and make our own way in this world.
Nobody wants to be unable to provide for themselves and their family. We want to achieve our dreams and soar to new heights. However, as time goes on, some of us come to realize that some of these things only serve to create more stress and make things more difficult than necessary.
Simplifying your business can actually improve your performance and your company's success. Rather than investing all your time and money in countless projects, focus all that effort and energy on only a few products or services. You won't be able to achieve your goals if you spread yourself too thin.
Balancing work, home, and other obligations requires dedication and sacrifice. The question is, which areas of your life are you willing to sacrifice? Are you at a point in your life where being at the office 16 hours a day micro-managing a hundred different projects is top priority, or do you have a family with whom you would rather spend your time?
This is where outsourcing shines of course, but also "limiting" your business to the core essentials should be top priority as well. This simple paradigm shift could potentially eliminate a great deal of stress, decrease the number of people and resources (such as technology, advertisements, investors, patents, etc.) needed to run your business, and will leave you with more time to spend on things that truly matter to you.
You don't have to completely sacrifice one pursuit for the other. It's all about finding the right balance and limiting your workload. It is entirely possible to run a successful business centered around one idea. It is much more important to have a stable business than one which continually grows just for the sake of growth.
Nobody is expected to suddenly go from "riches to rags." The point is to improve your life by removing all the excess and eliminating negative or stressful things that serve no purpose. It's about putting yourself and others above the pursuit of fame and fortune. A minimalist mindset is not about having less; rather, it is about filling your life with the right kinds of things and the right kind of people.
Start small by removing clutter and excess from around your home, or better yet start out by purging yourself and your life of the people and situations that only bring pain and frustration. Eliminating the negative from your life will do a world of good. Then you can slowly move up to more in-depth methods of simplifying your life and your business.
Eliminate unnecessary expenses. Purchasing a billboard on a deserted road would not make much sense, would it? Nobody would see it, and it would just be a waste of time and money. Likewise, spending time, money, and effort on fruitless pursuits and leads that never pan out is equally ridiculous.
Think about your day-to-day life. Think about the things you have, the things you do, the places you go, and the people you see. Do any of these bring you joy? Do they serve a purpose in your life? Do they enhance your life or the lives of others in a way that holds profound sentimental rather than monetary value?
If you answered "yes" to these questions, then they are positive factors in your life. You should treasure them. However, if you hesitated or even answered "no," then they are either negative influences or simply have no purpose in your life. Remove them by any means possible. Life is too short to spend it surrounded by people and things that cause more harm than good.
Eliminating anything that is toxic or unnecessary can provide a sense of freedom. It allows you to continue living your life as you wish without undue stress and anxiety. It leaves more room for things that enhance your life and give you a sense of pride and purpose. It also leaves you with a lot more time to relax so that you are not wound so tightly that you cannot even concentrate on simple tasks.
You may be surprised by how much more successful you and your business will be if you limit your workload and direct your time, effort, and resources where they are truly needed.
Chris Arima is the Co-Founder/Chief Visionary Officer of Influencive. He is also a Serial Entrepreneur, Startup founder, Author, Spoken Word Poet/Rapper & lifelong Martial Artist.
Good and truthful article. But it could have been so much more. Tallking about keeping risk and overheads low, focusing on the sweet spot where your competency meets a market need, drawing on Stephen Covey's quadrant and What Matters Most, Techniques for prioritization, etc. Way too high level to be really helpful as it is.