Tom Morton's Beatcroft

In a minority of (approximately) one on that Transatlantic Sessions gig

2012-02-06T17:34:00.000Z

I don't like - to paraphrase the excellent Santa Fe singer songwriter and art activist Joe West - jam bands.

I dislike sessions, noodling, showing off, and virtuosity in the service of itself. For me music is about the song or the tune first, and it is in the creation of that work and its interpretation, a performance that serves the song, that communication is established with an audience. And communication, connection is what it is all about. That connection need not, necessarily, be safe and easy. Lux and Ivy, John Martyn, early Costello, Steve Earle in vintage form, Townes Van Zandt, the Clash...ah well. Maybe not every week.

I went to last Friday's Lerwick performance of Celtic Connections/the Transatlantic Sessions On Tour with high expectations. This was a stellar lineup of musicians and singers, many of whom I admire greatly. It was beyond a sellout, with much internet clamouring for tickets and, due to the unreserved seating, a queue to get in that stretched from the Clickimin Centre for several hundred metres to the camp site.

When Aly Bain and cohorts came on, the excitement was bubbling in the hall like Old Faithful about to erupt. It was a homecoming from Aly, and he played it very self-effacingly and carefully, knowing all too well that for every local fan, there's an embittered denigrator keen to cut the homeward superstar down to size. So there was no 'showing off' from Aly. Not that he needs to. He's been the most important and influential fiddle player in Europe for four decades, and humility is part of his power and charm. He is a genuinely nice bloke with supernatural gifts and a commitment to perfection that has brought him huge, and richly deserved rewards. I could have done with hearing a lot more of him at this gig.

And John McCusker, for that matter, though later in the second half he did get more exposure. Jerry Douglas, though, with Aly the co-chairman of the Transatlantic board, would not shut up, neither verbally nor on his steel guitar and dobro.

Now, I bow to no-one in my admiration for the bottleneck and those who wield it. I was reared on Leo Kottke and Elmore James, Big Joe Williams and Tony TS McFee. But slathering its slippery sound over everything, every tune, every blessed song, was too much. and the 12-minute solo performance that began the second half left me with severe dobro aversion. It was an ego out of control. The genie was out of the bottleneck.

Elsewhere there was much to love: Ruth Moody was a revelation, Edi Reader a treasure as usual, Karen Matheson beautiful and sweet. Declan O' Rourke told good stories but played and sang his complex songs (for me) unconvincingly. I kept expecting 'Galileo ' to segue into 'Magnifico-oh-oh-oh...I'm just a poor boy, nobody loves me' but alas, this most pretentious of songs never did.

Raoul Malo...a man in love with Roy Orbison's voice, and bereft of really good songs. What he has sounds like the Big O (Only Lonely...? Give us a break!) and the only truly incandescent three minutes in his and the Mavericks' armoury, in my humble and, I admit, possibly deranged opinion, is What A Crying Shame from the second album.

Tim O'Brien, on the other hand, is a flaming genius on about 15 levels and as many instruments, and he has a great voice. He was splendid every time he popped up in an audience-facing direction (loved the Bruce Molsky old-timey quartet he was in too) though his leading of This Land Is your Land went spectacularly awry. How can an American not know the words? How did Raoul Malo manage to come in a chorus early? Why did Edi Reader sound more convincing than anyone else on stage when she sang it, and she's from Irvine? Actually, Edi's a blues and country singer at heart, which always leaves me thinking her Burns stuff sounds slightly unconvincing. But maybe that's just me. She is also, as was proved here and throughout the TV CC coverage, very possibly the best backing singer ever. She can harmonise with anything and anyone.

But too much of this was safe, sweet and full of musical and verbal in-jokes for those on stage. It was, in fact, a session, as it said on the tin, and like most sessions, there was self indulgence and muso flirtatiousness galore. Inward looking on far too many occasions. It was also whiter than white. From an American point of view, it was all Nashville, no Memphis.

I kept wondering about The Great Danny Thompson, rock-like at the back on bass, a man who has lived through more musical madness than everyone else on stage combined. I wondered if his mind wandered to the crazed, manic days with John Martyn, when fights were picked, restaurants trashed, when the vicious Martyn genius could see him switch in a flash from cuddly crooner to violent abuser of audiences and any hapless crosser of his path. I wondered if he craved some of that mercurial, confrontational danger, rather than the safe, essentially MOR celebration of niceness that we saw at the Clickimin on Friday night.

I admit, though, that no-one I've spoken to agrees with me. Everybody else had a wonderful time.

And everybody else is wrong.

Most scenic Tesco location, and new Shetland Life Magazine

2012-02-03T12:52:00.000Z

In the shops now!

Is this the UK's most spectacularly-sited Tesco? Picture taken today at noon...

The new Shetland Life Magazine is out now!

Stoves - the return of solid fuel. Get scranning and casting!

Between Blethers: As yet another pie-in-the-sky movie idea for Shetland (third sequel to The Wicker Man) is floated (if you can float a pie, and of course you can't), Neil Riddell looks at the saga of Between Weathers, and Marsali Taylor reaces the history of Shetland on the big screen.

Zheehpz - debut of the Shetland cartoon written and drawn by one of Spain's top cartoonists, now resident in the isles

The Shetland Marilyns - hillwalking agogo amid the Zetlandic peaks

Cars, gardening, travel, music and more. Just £2.30 from a shop either near or very far from you...

A glorious morning on the White Grunafirth, one of 19 Shetland Marilyns

2012-01-22T16:26:00.000Z

Slightly worried about coronary thrombosis, having consumed a bit of a fry-up for breakfast, but putting my trust in statins, aspirin and beta blockers, I set off on Shetland Life business this morning, camera in hand. First a wee jaunt to Eshaness, and then the half-hour climb to the summit of the White Grunafirth above Heylor, at 173 metres one of Shetland's 19 'Marilyns', or summits with a minimum ascent on every side of at least 150 metres.

No, I don't really understand the whole Marilyn thing (Munros, yes, Corbetts, sort of) either, but Dave Hewitt of Angry Corrie fame has written a great piece for the next Shetland Life explaining all, and we needed some pictures.

I parked the car at our old house, which nestles into the slope down to Ronas Voe, and began climbing. The first 15 minutes is brutal, but after that you reach a boggy plateau and only have to cope with a gradual rise to the trig point at the top. And it was worth it. The sun came out, illuminating the splendid trout lochs up on the hill that barely anyone ever fishes: The Mill Lochs of Stovabreck ( you can still see the ancient mills) Crookna Water, Gluss Water and others. There's an unexcavated tomb, covered in massive slabs, right next to the trig point, and the views over Ronas Voe to that other Marilyn, and Shetland's highest point, Ronas Hill, were spectacular.

From one Marilyn to another: Ronas Hill from the White Grunafirth

Looking towards Eshaness and the Dore Holm

And I didn't meet another soul.

(I Wish I Was) English Now - full lyrics, music and background

2012-01-12T12:20:00.001Z

This song is not entirely straightforward. It's neither nationalist nor anti-nationalist, but it does play with the notion of being 'English' in whatever you count as 'Scotland'. I don't consider Shetland, where I live, as culturally Scottish, for example.

I was born in Carlisle. In England. Within a year of that signal event, my parents had moved back to their native Scotland, and stayed. For the duration of my schooldays, I was slagged off by classmates whenever my birthplace was mentioned. And the subject of my 'essential Englishness' was always coming up with relatives as well.

My initial defence was to take a perverse pleasure in supporting the English football team against Scotland. later, I became infected with that horrible 'anybody but England' form of Little Scotlandism, which, I fear, still resides in many Caledonian hearts. These days, I regard the sentimentalism that surrounds the tatty trappings of Tartanography - haggis, kilt, bagpipes, a deep-seated part of nationalist politics - with suspicion. Scotland's much bigger than that.

Anyway, this is a kind of meditation on being English-born, but Scottish, if you see what I mean. It's both sarcastic and honest in its yearning, satirical and deeply felt. if that makes sense. The sung lyrics are what I could remember. The written ones are definitive:

(I Wish I Was) English Now

Soundcloud link - click here, and player will open in a new window and play song

Robert Burns was good, I agree
But he wasn't as good as Morrissey
I wish I was English now
They've got Shakespeare and that's not all
They've got people who can actually play football
I wish I was English now

The beer's better and you know it's true
They don't lace their vodka with that Irn Bru
I wish I was English now
think of the glories you will see
If you go to St Andrews University, where
Everybody's English now

CHORUS
And I may have the paternity
But I was born in Carlisle Maternity
And I'll be English for eternity
I'm English now

Cider in Devon and that's not all
There's Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall
Everybody's Old Etonian now
The best black pudding in the world, they say,
Comes from Bury (Lancs) you don't have to go to Stornoway
Where they kill and eat the English now

CHORUS

And it's not racial purity
Some say it's insecurity
Some kind of self-induced hysteria
I'll tell you boys
It's just easier
To be English now

Bagpipes and haggis used to make me swoon
Eventually, you become immune
I only listen to the Wurzels now
But when I smell the whisky on the Speyside air, I thank God
I don't have to live there
Because I'm English now.

CHORUS

Copyright Tom Morton 2012/2014

Sneak preview of new Shetland Life - out 6 January

2011-12-31T10:39:00.000Z

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:

Defacers Of The Thistle strike again!

2011-12-30T10:12:00.000Z

It's a Shetland thing. Whose oil did you say it was?

Back garden, Wednesday morning

2011-12-21T08:50:00.001Z

The view out over Ura Firth and the Ness of Hillswick towards St Magnus' Bay, 8.30am

Top 10 albums of 2011

2011-12-18T15:07:00.000Z

...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!

2011-11-29T22:15:00.002Z

Dawn over the wee plastic weather station

2011-11-07T16:29:00.001Z

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

2011-11-03T23:54:00.001Z

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

2011-10-17T22:34:00.002+01:00

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!

Last ride

2011-10-05T20:10:00.002+01:00

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.

Exercise - on The Treadmill of Doom and the Cycle of Destruction

2011-10-02T11:24:00.000+01:00

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.

The end of REM?

2011-09-21T19:54:00.000+01:00

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.

Unexpectedly lovely night in Hillswick

2011-09-18T18:50:00.002+01:00

The last record shop

2011-09-10T16:55:00.004+01:00

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.

A wee Sunday cycle in Shetland

2011-09-04T18:15:00.000+01:00

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

2011-09-02T00:31:00.000+01:00

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.

Truly incredible: By folding bike and inflatable raft from Sumburgh Head to Muckle Flugga

2011-08-08T11:14:00.000+01:00

Kudos to these guys. This was almost unthinkably hard and very, very dangerous. They were lucky with the weather.

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Inverness and the Belladrum Festival, before the deluge

2011-08-08T09:02:00.001+01:00

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.

The Raleigh

2011-07-27T11:56:00.001+01:00

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.

A day in the life of a Shetland-based radio broadcaster with a thing about buses

2011-07-25T16:03:00.000+01:00

....with many thanks to Richard and Jolene at Precious Productions!

Rebekah, Flame-Haired Temptress Of My Dreams

2011-07-15T01:03:00.000+01:00

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

Don't go

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 -

Afloat in the simmer dim...

2011-07-07T22:17:00.000+01:00

...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

2011-07-03T18:35:00.000+01:00

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?

Andy Murray's mum gets an apologetic reply from a non-interventionist God

2011-07-02T15:17:00.000+01:00

Sorry if you've already seen this, but I did promise to put it up on the blog...

A mother's prayer for Andy Murray (Non-interventionist God)

2011-06-27T10:32:00.004+01:00

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

CHORUS

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

CHORUS

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.

CHORUS

All at sea with 2.5 Honda horsepower

2011-06-04T19:59:00.000+01:00

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.

2011-05-27T22:29:00.001+01:00

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...

2011-05-11T23:13:00.000+01:00

View from atop The Old Bookshop holiday cottage

Shetland Times review of download-only EP from young Shetland trio Kollifirbolli

2011-05-10T12:44:00.001+01:00

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

2011-05-03T21:55:00.000+01:00

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.

2011-04-23T11:38:00.000+01:00

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

2011-04-07T11:38:00.001+01:00

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.

From gravitas to chavitas in a period of Purdah

2011-03-30T19:52:00.001+01:00

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

2011-03-23T20:39:00.000Z

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

2011-03-10T00:19:00.000Z

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

2011-03-04T11:02:00.002Z

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

2011-02-28T21:42:00.000Z

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

2011-02-26T15:44:00.000Z

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

2011-02-25T15:01:00.000Z

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

2011-02-10T18:10:00.003Z

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!

2011-02-09T13:30:00.000Z

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!

2011-01-23T16:03:00.000Z

...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

2011-01-19T20:32:00.002Z

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?

More here:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-north-east-orkney-shetland-12225508

Ayr Harbour with Arran's mini-Alps in the background

2011-01-11T15:46:00.001Z

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

2011-01-01T14:57:00.000Z

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.

St Bernard at leisure

2010-12-30T19:44:00.001Z

Published with Blogger-droid v1.6.5

Kayaking Christmas Day!

2010-12-25T12:50:00.000Z

Just couldn't resist taking the Malibu sit-on-top for a wee spin off Hillswick. around noon on Christmas Day

Hillswick, Christmas morning

2010-12-25T11:53:00.001Z

Published with Blogger-droid v1.6.5

Solstice dawn (lunar eclipse the other way)

2010-12-21T08:23:00.000Z

Couldn't get my fumbling fingers to work the old Samsung Pro815 properly, no tripod, so no rust red moon. Just loved the description from a meteorologist on Good Morning Scotland: "It's every sunrise and sunset in the world, reflected off the moon."

In the other direction, though, this was dawn over Ura Firth leading to St Magnus Bay. You'll have to imagine the seven snorting seals. No, not the Bergmanesque ones.

Too good not to share: Ronnie's top list of 'bullshit bingo' words and phrases

2010-12-17T15:19:00.000Z

I hope Ronnie Johnston doesn't mind, but this came in to the show this afternoon. Fantastic!

Hi Tom,

This is one of my pet hates.

I have already a list of words that are overused in the media and have copied them below.

I am sure there are many more.

Perhaps the worst however is the use of the word “literally” when it is clear that it would be impossible.

“ When my dad found out he literally exploded.”

I am sure you are already aware of the “Bullshit Bingo” game where persons attending a meeting are given a list of buzzwords and have to cross out each as it is used.

The winner should then exclaim “Bullshit” when all have been used.

Ronnie Johnston

icon, iconic

shock, in shock, shocked

miracle, miraculous

decimated

under the microscope

gutted

going forward

long fight with cancer

slam, slammed

awesome

don’t get me wrong

to be honest

24/7

at the end of the day

it’s a nonsense [it's nonsense]

shell shocked [shocked]

found battered to death in her own home [her home]

anything with the suffix ‘gate’

devout Catholic [not totally lapsed]

devastated [upset]

closure

residents woke to discover

surreal [incredible]

absolutely essential [essential]

incredulous & credulous [often confused]

credulous [credible], incredulous [incredible]

kick-start [start]

riddled with cancer

almost palpable

binge drinking culture

Babyliss Easycut attack after major surgery

2010-12-13T21:45:00.002Z

The compensation claim goes in shortly...if you haven't seen a Babyliss EasyCut, it's like a wee rotary lawnmower for the head, currently getting big licks on telly advertising. They are instruments of the devil and should be avoided by all.

http://bit.ly/eXMp7Z

36 whiskies and whiskeys, but no uisges

2010-12-11T16:34:00.000Z

World Whisky Awards tasting begins...at some point this week. No, honestly, it's no fun whatsoever...Irish and Rest of the World for me. Just the 36 drams. Probably not a good idea to wash them down with a Tesco Strong Lager chaser. On the other hand...

I'm a PC

2010-12-08T19:51:00.001Z

...Microsoft. The ultimate platform. Great support.

75 years of the Hillswick Hall

2010-11-28T11:50:00.002Z

Last night, in the depths of a blizzard which saw the band cancelling and one guest of honour being forced to send in his speech by email, Laura Manson was there to cut the Hillswick Community Hall's 75th birthday cake in front of a small, but highly select local audience.

And a great time was had by all. An even better time might have been had, perhaps, if the hall's paid-for but mysteriously unerected wind generator had been functioning. Shetland Windpower, you should be ashamed of yourselves. Still, the tireless team of cooks and waiting 'staff' provided a magnificent feed, the drink was the cheapest in the world (even cheaper for me with my secret flask of Longmorn 12) and the display of pictures from the past three-quarters of a century highly entertaining. Peter Sinclair's stint as John Nicolson was impressive. The beautiful art deco vase presented at the opening of the hall did not get broken. And I have to admit, the absence of the band meant I didn't have to dance, which was a good thing for the safety of Hillswick toes.

The extension of the hall should go ahead next year, and the windylight (sitting outside in bits) should be up and running, once the conundrum of what on earth Shetland Windpower is up to has been solved...

Discovering her inner St Bernard

2010-11-27T15:46:00.001Z

It was sunny when Lulu made her decorous entrance to the back garden and decided that yes, she remembered what this white stuff was, deep down in her genetic make-up...but it's dark now (15.40) windy and freezing, as well as much more snowy. Susan didn't make it into Lerwick - she gave up in a white-out at the Ollaberry junction - and since then we've been priming the generator for the inevitable power failure, tending the two stoves that are consuming peat voraciously, and stoking ourselves with caramel KitKats and coffee.

Susan's practice night out has been cancelled, and so we're able to go to the Hillswick Hall 75th anniversary dinner dance. It's a mile along the road. I doubt the Alan Nicholson Band may struggle to get there, and attendance generally may be depleted. But still, it should be fun.

I'm going to be helping out Shetland Islands Council with its communications strategy...

2010-11-24T15:34:00.000Z

...here's the official announcement:

Tom Morton to advise Council on communications

HILLSWICK-based broadcaster and journalist Tom Morton is to advise Shetland Islands Council on its communications, as part of the Council’s ongoing improvement programme.

The former Shetland Times and Scotsman reporter, who now hosts a weekday afternoon show on BBC Radio Scotland, will spend three mornings a week for the next four months providing advice, support and expertise to the council. He will continue to broadcast in the afternoons from BBC Radio Shetland’s Pitt Lane studios.

Chief Executive Alistair Buchan said this morning “I think that it was very important for the council that we got someone with media background to help our team develop our communications function and strategy. Communications in many ways goes to the heart of everything we do as a Council. So, I’m very pleased that we have someone with Tom’s experience on board and look forward to working with him in the next few months”.

“I’m absolutely delighted to be helping the council communicate more effectively,” Mr Morton said. “The SIC’s commitment to openness, transparency and accountability means that everyone in the Shetland community should feel informed and involved in what it decides, and what it does. It’s a privilege to be part of that process.”

Mr Morton began his journalistic career in specialist construction journalism in Glasgow, before moving into music reviewing, freelance writing and TV production. He first moved to Shetland in 1987 as news editor of The Shetland Times, before setting up the islands’ first independent news agency, and subsequently becoming The Scotsman’s Highlands and Islands Reporter. He won a Bank of Scotland Press Award for columns written about the wreck of the tanker Braer.

Since then his career has included two stints at BBC Radio Scotland, two more at The Shetland Times and work throughout the world on various radio and TV programmes, newspapers and magazines.

END

Aboard the mighty vessel Bygga

2010-11-23T20:45:00.001Z

On the way back from ghostly antics at da Windhoose in Yell.

That's it for PQ until next year. Possibly

2010-11-19T17:46:00.002Z

End of a long, strenuous week, then...thanks to Cherry Ghost (playing tonight with The Coral at the Academy, well worth seeing), Kassidy (excellent) Chick Young, Susan Calman, Bill Whiteford, Isabel Fraser, Edith Bowman, the technical team - Ken, Max and Julian - and production from Jenny and Sam. Also the canteen staff for lending all the cooking stuff, and actually baking the bread, which turned out well. Children in Need continues tonight on telly and radio. Buit you knew that.

Booked on the 'plane home tomorrow morning, and no plans to be south now until February. Maybe. By which time NorthLink may have got the boats working again properly.

Sky over Inverness

2010-11-17T16:52:00.002Z

Taken from my 4th floor room at the old Caley hotel in Inverness, looking due west. I was in Inverness to be the after dinner entertainment at the Crofters Commission Assessors Conference. Jokes about Brian Taylor, Inverness food, Fred Macaulay, seasick vikings and Bob Bird, erstwhile News of the World editor and infamous wearer of naught but underpants in the service of Murdoch. Nobody walked out until after I'd finished...

Glasgow: Walking from Queen Margaret Drive to Pacific Quay: Pictures this morning

2010-11-15T17:39:00.000Z

Creamola Foam: The real thing unearthed and an imitation erupts

2010-11-15T09:56:00.001Z

Creamola Foam. It's time has returned. The great lost Scottish drink, its chemical formula apparently mislaid during a slew of company takeovers, tins and cartons of the stuff appearing only rarely and fetching vast sums on eBay, seems to have invaded my life recently.

It has popped up on my radio show once or twice, but I really didn't expect to see a vintage tin (carton, really, in its latter years, as the 'tin' was made of cardboard) ever again. Let alone taste it. But the power of nostalgia is immense. It has become an iconic Scottish retro-brand, like Mother's Pride bread and Irn Bru, to the extent that you can get T-shirts and bags bearing the logo.

Then last week, I received a package from a Robert Kelly in Larkhall. Inside was...my precious...a tin of Creamola Foam. The real deal, albeit the late cardboard version with the plastic top. The contents were, it must be said, a bit lumpy and brownish. But still, chemical analysis would surely be possible. I could recreate Creamola Foam for a new age! It would live again!

But. Yesterday, walking down Byres Road in Glasgow, I passed the sweetshop I Love Candy, and a blackboard outside was advertising...tubs of 'Creamola foam'. Three quid. THREE QUID? Anonymous plastic tubs, they were, marked Krakatoa Fizz. I bought a raspberry version and took it home.

"They analysed the original and it's been phenomenal" said the shop assistant. "People have been buying one and then coming back for more. They're making cocktails with it!"

As it turns out, a company in Dumbarton which specialises in vintage sweets seems to be responsible for gazumping my half-formed business idea. Originally available in Edinburgh as 'Kramola Foam' the Krakatoa version is made from sugar, tartaric acid, extract of quina, citric acid, sodium bicarbonate, stabilisers and natural colour. I missed, somehow, the Scottish Parliament motion from Rob Gibson in January that the 'new' Creamola Foam was going to bring about revolutionary change, independence and a revival of the compulsory full set of dentures for all 16-year-olds...but see this story.

I have to tell you, although it foams in exactly the same way, Krakatoa Fizz...

...tastes horrible.

In today's Sunday Post: me on embarrassing dads

2010-11-14T14:36:00.001Z

That I should live to see Lesley Riddoch writing a column for the Sunday Post...this is my contribution to today's paper, the 'In My View' section.

Sir Michael Jagger - once known as Mick, lead singer with The Rolling Stones, is an ageing, if still thin rock star, originally from the sixties, now heading for his seventies. He is uncool. Seriously, deeply uncool. An utter and complete embarrassment. And we’re not just talking about terrible solo records like She’s The Boss here. No, he has been officially nominated an embarrassing dad. In Australian parlance, he’s a ‘daggy’ daddy. So says his 18-year old daughter Georgia May.
    Georgia’s mum is former supermodel Jerry Hall, who’s even less cool than Sir Mick, apparently, as she’s now “only interested in chicken farming.” But it is the legendary Stones frontman’s dancing that really upsets his daughter.
“It’s pretty funny when dad gets on the dance floor” she says, “ because he has got such a, like, I don’t know how to describe his moves. But let’s just say he doesn’t go unnoticed, you know what I mean?”
    The idea of Mick Jagger on any dancefloor being in even marginally anonymous - imagine him at the Buckie British Legion on a Saturday slosh - is ludicrous. You’d notice those hips, those lips, anywhere. But most would be thrilled at the sight of even an aged Mick strutting his stuff. Not his offspring, though.
    And there’s a tremendous relief in this, for dads everywhere. No father is ever cool to his own family. He may be valued, for his command of transportation logistics, his ready supply of £20 notes, his willingness to have his Mumford and Sons and XX albums ruthlessly appropriated. But he cannot ever be cool. He is and always will be a social liability.
     For example, this week my 16-year-old daughter Martha was off with her friends for the musical event of the year in our remote little community: a concert by dreadlocked one-man-boy-band, consummate guitarist and Peter Gabriel soundalike Newton Faulkner. Doing the job I do, I was keen to go too. After all, we play his records regularly on the radio show and in fact, it was my professional duty to go and nod along groovily to the lad’s tunes. Wasn’t it?
    No. This would be embarrassing for Martha, who wanted to, ahem hang with her homegirls and homeboys in the ultra-fashionable surroundings of an echoing northern sports centre which smelt of liniment and sweaty trainers. I would have to steer clear of the Chinese restaurant, too, as she and her cronies would be dining there. Fair enough. Did she want a lift home? Yes please. A text would summon me.
    Everything I do seems to embarrass Martha. Everything I wear. Especially the rather nice Paul Smith denim jacket I bought from eBay.
    “You can’t go out wearing that! It’s got FADED SHOULDERS!” Fair enough. It does have a slightly...stonewashed vibe going on. “And those are PULL-UPS! You look like a really old CHAV! Why are your trainers red? Put on a pair of sensible shoes and a proper shirt.”
    Hmm. I kind of take the point about the trainers. They are red. But they’re serious running shoes, and I just wear them around the house with track suit bottoms because they’re comfy. I mean, clearly I’m not going to go running in them. That would be ridiculous. I am, these days, built for comfort, not for speed. This offends Martha. And when I try to be fashionable, I get it wrong. This offends her too.
    Poor Sir Mick has always had a slightly dodgy fashion sense. His leather jackets are too fussy, His trousers have too many buttons between them. That infamous wiggle of the hips, especially if they aren’t his own original hips, is just a bit out of time, baby. There’s no aesthetic satisfaction there for the critical offspring.
    But every dad is uncool to his son or daughter. It’s part of the deal. And the more you attempt to show how ‘down’ you are with modern music, clothes, movies or haircuts, the dafter you look, dude. It’s the rule. As for the dancefloor: Don’t look at me. It’s all over now. Wild Horses wouldn’t drag me out there...

Drinking for Scotland - establishment drug dealers and a country's shame

2010-11-09T23:33:00.000Z

I gave up drinking for 31 days, once. Made a radio programme out of it. And then I went back to my Friday night red wine, my couple of whiskies a week, my beer and skittles. Without the skittles..

The occasional binge, too, in the sense of combining beer, wine and whisky in doses calculated to leave me slumped in an armchair, dribbling and snoring while Jools Holland once again elbows his mediocre piano into some hapless, desperate performer's arrangement. Later. And later, and later, and later...

But in Caledonian terms, my binges do disservice to the word. I am, to put it mildly, a lightweight these days when it comes to booze. I hate, always hated being drunk, and now, when I find myself in social gatherings where alcohol is being taken, I usually safeguard my exit route before even beginning to imbibe. I ensure there's a way home, or out, and when the boredom begins to seep through, when dehydration starts to sandpaper the thrapple, I make my excuses and leave. Or switch to Ribena.

I hang out with connoisseurs, sometimes. People who drink professionally, or who, to be more precise, describe whiskies for a living. Indeed, I have done this myself, though I always have to fight back the giggles, as there's something essentially ridiculous about the striving to differentiate single malts, one from Glen t'other. Yes, they are different, but in the way grades of heroin and cocaine are different. The taste is not the point of whisky. It's meant to do a job on you, enliven, inebriate, dull, destroy. Like Keith Richards' obsessive hailing of Merck pharmaceutical 'fluffy' cocaine in his recent autobiography. Push comes to sniff, dirty lumps of Bolivian or Columbian crack or factory-made Swiss snow are drugs that deliver the same message to heart, brain and body. Whisky is a delivery vehicle for alcohol.

They are, for the most part, lovely folk, the dope dealers of the whisky trade. They are more than respectable, occasionally hilarious, often charming. It's an area of Scottish life absolutely awash with money, and the marketing of uisge beatha has always been cutting edge, from the days of Tommy Dewar onwards. Doubtless he would have been happy to be called a brand ambassador. Maybe not an evangelist.

Whisky is now so suffused with lore, mythology tall tales, anal-retentive male compulsions and downright bullshit that you'd think it was some kind of art. It's not. It's a drug, disguised for its many niche and mass markets in the form of a social badge, a collector's trophy, a mind-blowing display of wealth (silver, gold, platinum and diamonds encrusting a bottle? You got it) a signifier of coolness, of belonging.

Expertise has become the latest marketing tool. Whisky clubs and societies have sprung up worldwide, whisky festivals (I admit it. I participate. I talk phenols and oakiness, caramel and esters, washbacks and mash tuns. I judge whisky competitions, for goodness' sake) see wise heads, young and old, slurping and nodding over rarities in hotel function suites. Notes are taken, words are slurred, stairs fallen down. A great deal of fun is had. Money changes hands. Lots and lots of money. Mantras? Excess is good. Greed is good. throw the cork away. Moderation is for sissies.

Elsewhere, the same companies slosh alcopops and factory-made sweet spirits into underage bellies. industrial scale drinking is encouraged at the annual alcofest-with-music that is Pee in the Dark, or T in the Park. Scotland goes out on a Friday and gets rat-arsed, crashes cars, kills pedestrians, freezes to death in a park. Slashes, burns, abuses, fights, smashes, damages. Does the same again on Saturday. Maybe a a few Smirnoff Ices on a Sunday to ease the way back into work on a Monday. Or just miss Monday out, why not? Internationally, countries in Africa, Asia and the Americas are targeted. Drink this, it'll make you...richer, more attractive, it'll make you belong. One glass makes you bigger, one glass make you small...

Hey, let's not forget the weans. Foetal alcohol syndrome, anyone? Och, how can you have sex anyway if you aren't pished? Brain damage. Shrinkage. Fits. The meaningless rubbish that's sold only to mess you up, like Carlsberg Special, originally brewed specifically for Winston Churchill's visit to Denmark after the war, now the tipple of choice for oblivion merchants everywhere.

Tomorrow, the Scottish Parliament will vote on party political lines and eradicate the proposed bill that would set a minimum price for alcohol in Scotland. Spurious arguments will be advanced that raising the price of a unit of rotgut cider will cause terrible damage to the economy, and won't stop folk boozing unwisely anyway. Education is all. have a wee dram. Smell the history, the geography, the culture.

I don't believe that for a moment. I am afraid that the drug dealers have once again flexed their considerable muscle and quashed the first serious attempt to tackle the shame that is Scotland's relationship with alcohol. Gutless, ignorant, hidebound politicians have cowered before them.

So. That's that, then. Might as well go out and get pished, eh? Just remember this salient fact: Two single malts: that's enough to destroy your ability to appreciate their quality. After that, you might as well switch to Old Gumripper or Glen Haemorrhage. Slainte!

View this morning from our new barn conversion/holiday cottage, Seabarns

2010-11-01T08:44:00.002Z

...once the plumbing's finally installed, and there's furniture, it'll be available to rent. And yes, there are windows onto the sea...

It's the seaward side of an 18th century steading (listed? Oh yes, he said heavily) which has one en-suite (!) bedroom, but can sleep four (there's another bathroom). See that guttering? See that CAST IRON guttering? See listed building consent? More pictures when it's finished! Soon, it is sincerely to be hoped.

The ugliest building in the world

2010-10-30T18:07:00.003+01:00

Aberdeen at night. What is this monstrosity, you may well ask, if you're not au fait with shopping in the granite city? A car park? An alien spaceship of the most implacably warlike mien? Perhaps it's one of those nanotech buildings described by William Gibson in the Bridge trilogy, or a nuke-proof governmental bunker?

Wrong on all counts. This is Aberdeen's flagship John Lewis store. A triumph of massive brutalism, it's Thatcherism made concrete, a stamp-on-your-face statement of what capitalism really means to the consumer. That cuddly old John Lewis, with its share options and staff ownership, should be inhabiting this 20th Century Castle Greyskull seems somehow...rather appropriate.

At the source of the River Esk

2010-10-24T18:39:00.000+01:00

I was in Eskdalemuir to see the writer Colin Betts about a possible publishing project. He lives, it's safe it say, in the most isolated house I've ever visited, three miles from the nearest proper road, in the heart of Scottish Welsh Celtdom. To get there, you have to ford the Esk, right at its source. There's no mains services.

Colin has written one of the best memoirs of the 60s, I've ever read. He ran away from home at 15 in the company, no less, of The Rolling Stones. It was with Colin that Nick Drake busked his way through the south of France to Morocco. Later episodes involved seriously nefarious characters, including the Manson Family, jail in LA, and some dangerous adventures in India and Afghanistan. Before Colin actually started a successful band called The Impossible Dreamers...

Anyway, he's written a book - Frozenlight - and a play, specifically about his travels with Nick Drake, called Shininglight. We're hoping they'll be published online before Christmas. Watch this space!

Bike at BBC Ayr

2010-10-19T22:47:00.001+01:00

Best view of any Beeb building.20 year old Orbit Gold Medal 531 ST.

Troon, at the end of a fantastic day

2010-10-16T21:36:00.001+01:00

Amazing day with amazing people. In a great place

Mrs Morton has cake and eats it too

2010-10-13T20:09:00.002+01:00

Mrs Morton's birthday today, so Ms Morton baked a cake. And a very splendid thing it is/was too! Tomorrow, no radio show due to Colonialism Games activity, so much tidying before exciting trip sooth to celebrate my dad's 80th birthday, see four generations in one place at one time, all being well, and fight with my sisters, if enough drink is taken. Planning to commute by bike from Troon to Ayr next week which should be interesting, and a real return to my Ayrshire childhood. Is there still a level crossing between the two bits of the Fullerton golf course? Is there still a railway line?

Meanwhile, to the Glenrothes '92!

Possible cover images for a 60s memoir...

2010-10-11T20:09:00.000+01:00

Long shadows on the peat hill, and a fundamental flaw

2010-10-10T17:51:00.000+01:00

It's late, too late in the year to be on the peat hill at all. If I say that these peats are actually last year's, belatedly bagged and howked home after a 12 month or more weathering on the moor, many will look askance at my right to wield a tushkar at all. As it happens, I didn't. Lornie cut them, Susan and me did the rest. You can learn to live with shame.

And with bright ideas that go wrong. I had the notion of ordering a hundred or so forestry firewood sacks, those pink, net-like things you get logs in at garages. They're made of polypropylene, and I thought they would give our somewhat soggy peats a chance to dry. Better than the traditional recycled fertiliser, salmon feed or sheep sustenance sacks.

Wrong. Wrong, wrong, wrong, wrong, wrong! Those log bags are ultra-violet sensitive, and the endless days of the Shetland summer turned them into brittle, useless plastic straw. That left me with the task of re-bagging what peats had not crumbled (due to being left out too long) into a solidified lumpy gravy of half-carbonised vegetation.

Today (cool, autumnal, sunny) saw the final part of that dirty, tedious process, and the last trailering home of peats before winter sets in. We burn oil at hideous expense for hot water and central heating, but the solid fuel German stove in the kitchen takes the edge off the quarterly fuel bills. We're hoping to install a big peat-fired boiler at some point, and that will probably mean ordering in machine-cut peat (not as anti-green as you may think; Shetland's peat bogs are almost limitless and at least it doesn't have to travel far to get here). We're looking wind turbines. Heat pumps. Micro-hydro. Or we may just wear thicker jumpers.

Anyway, here's to recycling feed and fertiliser sacks, to the coming winter and to the fabulous reek of peat as it burns, reminding me of...jings. Isn't it about time for a dram?

Hillswick skyline: the house with ten chimneys

2010-10-07T22:19:00.000+01:00

Dog with heavy head finds footstool solace

2010-10-03T17:12:00.001+01:00

Bitumen Citroën

2010-10-01T13:00:00.002+01:00

I wish I could show the truly wondrous...texture of this van's paint finish. I'm guessing this has been painted with the bitumen roofing tar used widely in Shetland for felt roofs. Proper underseal would be too expensive.But then, anything to preserve something as glorious as an AX, direct descendent of the 2CV...ah, how I recall journeys from Lerwick to Hillswick, seatless in the back of one of these, perched on a bale of straw...

Undersealed, oversealed...

The red sofa reading list

2010-09-30T08:48:00.003+01:00

Susan is threatening to put my red sofa in the newly-converted-to-holiday-accommodation barn. I am, of course, fighting a rearguard action! Literally, as I have worn a depression in this settee which perfectly suits me. Though it is....rather difficult to extricate myself from...

The red sofa has become my office, my bookshelf, my occasional dining room. From it, I can see through the old kitchen window (positioned in the manse so the minister could see the kirk), and the telly. The stove is comfortably six feet away, there's natural light from the window behind me. Its arms are flat and on one side accommodate phone and charger, cup of coffee and mains extension. On the other is the pile of books I'm currently engaged with.

Le Carre's Our Kind of Traitor is really a novella and in some ways a small masterpiece. Full of rage and wit. Eileen Lupton's Indie Publishing is being dipped into for the sake of an upcoming project. Moral Combat is rumbustiously written in Telegraphese by Michael Burleigh, and is a kind of fallback read. He's got a bit of an AJP Taylor complex. Laurence Hemming's Benedict bio I haven't started, the brilliant Alan Furst's Night Soldiers is, in retrospect ( struggled with it a bit) a magnificent achievement. His NKVD protagonist really haunts the memory.

Elsewhere, there's the owner's manual for my motorbike, the Moto Guzzi Bellagio, currently and reluctantly for sale. The humanist magazine Humanitie, the new edition of Q, and The Diamond Age by Neal Stephenson, one of my favourite writers. I read it at the insistence of my son Magnus, having abandoned it previously as 'too steampunk' in its early pages. Just finished, and I found it quite profoundly affecting, despite its many faults and intrinsic messiness. Cryptonomicon is Stephenson's best book, but the Baroque Cycle is just astounding in its scope (and the fact it was written in longhand).

Then there's Jonathan Franzen's much-vaunted Freedom. The first chapter is wonderful, but it's Anne Tyler in HD, isn't it?

The last unread Alan Furst

2010-09-22T18:02:00.002+01:00

Alan Furst's novels of WW2 and the years preceding are, on the whole, truly excellent. I thought I'd read them all, but for some reason missed Night Soldiers, which is unlike the rest of his books, being much bigger in scale: it covers Bulgarian fascism, Soviet NKVD recruitment and training (in too much detail) the Spanish Civil War (not bad) and on to the author's beloved Paris. For the first time with a Furst, I'm struggling a bit. Spies of the Balkans, his latest, is much better. Indeed, I'd say this is the worst of the Fursts...

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Home to the Caravan of Rock and the greatest sunset window in Scotland

2010-09-20T09:26:00.001+01:00

Home after a flying visit south, courtesy of FlyBe, the airline that charges you an extra ten quid for carrying your guitar. Still, it all worked out rather cheaper than the boat would have been, even including a hire car (assuming I'd booked a cabin on NorthLink) and was much, much less tiring.

The Caravan Of Raaawwwkk!

Back to beautiful weather (which continues this morning, at least for the next five minutes) and to find The Caravan of Rock parked in The Beatcroft's precincts, one tyre flat. It was there for The Booze Cruise on Saturday, an event at the village hall involving an entirely fictitious 'cruise' to several different countries, featuring music, food and, err...dramatic performances from said destinations. all without leaving Hillswick. Australia, it seems, was one of the stops.

Then a splendid dinner at Stacey and Kieran's house, the lounge window of which features this view.

Sometimes the best geography in the world is...quite near at hand.

Ardgour, Strontian, Glasgow, Big Jake and the fastest food in Glasgow

2010-09-18T21:46:00.001+01:00

The ferry across the Corran Narrows to Ardgour must be the most expensive per metre in Scotland: £6.40 for a car and passenger, to travel what seems like the length of two football pitches, if that. On Friday, with Tom Morton Show time approaching rapidly, I arrived off the ferry after a discombobulating trip down the A82 from Inverness, and the Garmin satnav sent me up the road to what it was absolutely certain was Watercolour Studios.

Ben Nevis from Watercolour Studios

Nope. About 17 dogs of all shapes and sizes assured me it wasn't. Eventually, with time rampaging away, I asked at the pub. Four or five miles up the A861 to Stronchreggan, Nick Turner and Mary Anne Kennedy's new residential recording studio complex eventually appeared, in almost unbelievably scenic surroundings. No sign, just a disused dodgem car at the gate. Dead giveaway.

It's state of the art inside, and luxurious too. There's a Belgian Sheepdog, like a coal-black version of Lassie. After a couple of hiccups, the show went well, and it was off down the Ardnamurchan peninsula to Strontian, where the first Three Lochs Festival was happening at the Sunart Centre (part of the local school; there was a bar, presumably not open during classes).

Nick Turner at Watercolour

What can I tell you? I had a great time. The evening kicked off with the results of a Gaelic schools poetry competition, some Gaelic singing from the local choir, poetry recitals and a celebration of the local writers' group launching a new book. then we had Roger Hutchinson talking us through the film Whisky Galore (he wrote the excellent book Polly about the sinking of the real life SS Politician), me doing a version of The Malt and Barley Revue (four whiskies: The Singleton of Dufftown (light'n'nutty but slightly dodgy) Bowmore 12 (delightfully, subtly peaty) Glenmorangie no-age (orangeade and Irn Bru) and Auchentoshan 12 (a really good, underrated lowland whisky, I think), and a showing, in the Sunart Centre's theatre, of Whisky Galore.

What a fantastic experience that was. To see this magical film with about 50 other folk, a few whiskies to the good, people singing along in Gaelic, cheering, identifying known characters among the folk on screen, and applauding at the end. It meant something so much more than it ever could watching on a DVD at home.

And afterwards, the bar was still open..there was local produce, smoked mackerel pate, I sold my entire cache of books...and it didn't stop there. On being given a lift back to my excellent b&b, I was invited into the kitchen for late-night cheese and...(a small) Old Pulteney. Hospitality in Ardnamurchan is fabulous. I went to bed with the window open to the river, and slept like a stone.

A massive and brilliant breakfast this morning, and then, fresh as the proverbial daisy, I headed for the 9.00 am ferry, and the hellish drive down the A82. afflicted with camper vans and cyclists. I love camper vans, but you need fast ones, like Mazda Bongos. I love cycling, but the cussed arrogance of the cycling club that rode, three abreast, for miles down Loch Lomondside, nearly causing an accident every time somebody tried to overtake, frankly beggared belief. No wonder motorists get upset.

Glasgow then, and the sheer delight of seeing Dave, Lucy and their son, my grandson, Jake. He is absolutely gorgeous. Dinner at Nanakusa - excellent Japanese food, served and finished and out in an unbelievable 35 minutes. Now it's bed, up at 7.00 am and off to Inverness for the flight home. A flying visit to the mainland, but lots done and really, really worthwhile.

Stormy night. Sooth boat cancelled. My favourite Shetland weather.

2010-09-16T20:42:00.005+01:00

Huge equinoctial gales hammering Shetland, and the NorthLink ferry to Aberdeen cancelled due to, ahem 10-metre swells in the Fair Isle Channel. I remember being on one of the old boats (P&O's rough ex-Baltic ferries, the St Clair and the St Sunniva, which would have set sail in a typhoon, if we had typhoons) for 36 hours, hove-to in Scapa Flow, aged Saga tourists having been previously hurled about the restaurant like brittle, noisy squash balls.

These days it's a bit more civilised. NorthLink just don't set sail when it's hideously rough. Some Shetlanders moan about this, but frankly, I don't mind. Especially when, as is the case tonight, I'm booked on the early morning flight out of Sumburgh...

Famous last words, but wind doesn't tend to stop the 'plane. Just makes for a shorter take-off and a bumpier landing. Or as I once said, on the 'plane you spend an hour thinking you're going to die. On the boat...it's 14 hours or more, wishing you were dead.

The picture is the Toft inter-island ferry terminal tonight, taken while my daughter was at piano lessons. The notice says that the 8.15pm ferry to Yell WILL sail. God help all aboard, I say...meanwhile, it's a Black Bush (my new favourite blended whisky in the whole wide world) and an evening enjoying the house vibrating in the wind., while the waves crash over the cars, and the new sheds come apart, bit by bit. Weather like this tells the truthful tale: do you really love being in Shetland, or just the idea of it?

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Sheep attack

2010-09-06T09:53:00.002+01:00

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Mysterious arrival of sheep in Shetland - a creature never previously seen in this habitat. Origins believed to relate to knitting activity here.

Moto Guzzi Bellagio: Living with the beautiful beast of Lake Como

2010-09-05T14:19:00.002+01:00

Well, That's six weeks or so since I took possession of the Bellagio down in Norfolk, and almost a month since I arrived home after the 3500-mile excesses of The Barnard Challenge. Susan has reconciled herself to the existence of the Guzzi, and even ordered a special shed for it. Which James put together and into which the Bellagio fits. Just.

This is the weekend I've decided to keep the bike, unless financial crises intervene. Certainly until next year, when any major touring projects may force a rethink. Or an addition to the fleet...

The Bellagio is extravagantly good looking. It's part cruiser, part street-dragster. One of the benefits of that huge lump of V-twin engine is that it stops any thoughts of a feet-forward daft Harley riding position. But it's big and light and responsive enough to (just about) tour on. It managed the full-on motorway thrash from Leicester to Inverness relatively easily, though the lack of a screen left me almost paralysed with cold on a midnight A9. It now has a (very small) screen, which cost £132, and that takes some wind blast off the chest. But it's a stress-free ride in many ways, easy on the knees (unlike the scintillating Triumph Street Triple R I used for most of the Barnard Challenge; it went like a space rocket but was very cramped) but hard on the wrists and thumbs.

The Guzzi makes a very nice noise - that V-twin thump is addictive - but this is a new take on an old design: Four spark plugs, short stroke, 75 bhp in a light chassis. It will leave any Harley Sportster for dead and indeed out handle all Harleys. But is that enough? You have to cane the engine to get the best performance out of it. It's not effortless, and the six gearbox ratios seem weirdly ill-matched. Best for overtaking is fourth. Sixth is virtually an overdrive.

Handling is occasionally lumpy and twitchy, especially on poor surfaces. It's better heavily loaded. The shaft drive is the worst I've ever experienced (compared to a Kawasaki GTR1000, my ancient Suzuki GS and BMWs of all kinds), despite the much vaunted CARC system: backlash at slow speeds is terrible, making traffic a jerky and thumb-savaging business. Vibration is, as you'd expect, severe, but not as a bad as a Harley.

Other problems? The horrendous clattering when you pull in the clutch lever on idle is a Guzzi hallmark, but initially...disturbing. You get used to it. Range is disappointing. 150 miles from what is a deceptively small tank.

But. It will sit at 80-90 mph in absolute stability, and do so very comfortably for the rider (where legally possible!). The engine, which has done 2900 miles, should be good for at least 25 times that. Finish is excellent, with the exception of some badly-chromed screws (Piaggio); brakes are good (Brembo); suspension is high quality (Marzocchi). It came with the comfy twin seat and a rear hugger, and it cost much less than an equivalent 2007 Sportster. It's by far the better bike.

Did I say it was good looking? Actually, I think it's breathtaking. And if I do keep it,there's the matching panniers and tank bag, the Bellagio helmet, the racing exhausts...all possible Christmas presents...

The truth is, I've wanted a Guzzi since I was a wee boy, and saw one, probably an early California, cruising down the main drag in Playa de Aro, Spain, ridden, helmetless, by a guy with a beautiful blonde woman on the pillion.

And in the end, I fear, that's defined motorcycling for me since. I'm shallow that way.

Last of the Stevenson lighthouses

2010-09-04T18:50:00.002+01:00

Eshaness, Shetland. Built by David in 1929. Now owned by Shetland Amenity Trust and available for tourist rentals! How cool is that? The roof is reinforced concrete and can withstand frequent batterings not just by wind but by the stones and indeed large boulders thrown up over the 61-metre cliffs. Seriously. Extreme holidaymaking! In glorious weather today, though. Northern Lighthouse Board info here: http://www.nlb.org.uk/LighthouseLibrary/Lighthouse/Eshaness/

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Misty dawn of what would be a lovely day

2010-09-02T20:50:00.001+01:00

From the front door this morning.

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Lerwick, the Miami of the north

2010-08-28T17:14:00.001+01:00

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Scallops & haddock goujons with creamy Rogan Josh

2010-08-26T19:05:00.001+01:00

...brown rice and rocket. Everyone else had fish suppers.

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My favourite workplace window

2010-08-25T11:03:00.002+01:00

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This is the view from my desk/kitchen table in The Radiocroft/Bookcroft/Beatcroft, which I have decided to reconstitute as my centre of operations. I can't, alas, go back to broadcasting from here, due to continued interference from lightning strikes, but it's still a wonderful place to be. Also, it's just far enough from home to provide a proper walk. Just have to stop the roof leaking...

THE BEATCROFT BLOG MOVED...and then moved back here!

2010-05-25T09:02:00.003+01:00

From May to late August 2010, The Beatcroft was in residence at Wordpress.

No longer.

I'm moving the blog back to its original home, namely Blogger. which is to say, right here.

This summer's posts will essentially be held, with a full archive (until yesterday) of The Beatcroft's past postings, at

http://tommorton.wordpress.com...

but...

all future posts will be here.

Sorry for the confusion. It's a learning process.

Kayaking at sunset, Hillswick

2010-05-19T22:57:00.003+01:00

One of those uncannily still nights when you just have to separate yourself from the land...

Motorcycle sunshine

2010-05-16T20:08:00.003+01:00

You know you're getting old when...you can't face the wind-in-teeth 12-mile pedal cycle run you used to do with James and without breaking sweat (nearly). So James went off for a lightning fast velocipedal sprint around the Ollaberry circuit, and I watched the Grand Prix. And then, as befits a man of my age and girth, I huffed and puffed my way aboard the Glorious Suzuki GS1000G and headed off to Brae to collect barbecue makings.

The old Suzi started, despite being left outside in all weathers, first time. It really is a wonderful machine, an American import dating back to 1979 but carefully restored. That inline air cooled four sounds immense, too, through an aftermarket exhaust.

However...later in the year I'll be riding at least a couple of thousand miles on a borrowed Moto Guzzi (see http://www.fairpley.com/the_barnard_challenge.html) and thoughts of a new motorcycle have been heavily provoked by the news (the last Labour Government did this! Take a bow, Alistair Darling!) that self employed workers can buy brand new motorbikes and claim the entire cost against tax. http://www.guardian.co.uk/money/2010/may/15/tax-deductable-motorbike-scooter-self-employed

A Harley Electroglide as my sole business transport? It might just work...

The Victors...The Passion Singers...at the ABC2

2010-05-12T18:17:00.006+01:00

A DVD arrived today from Mr Stewart Cunningham containing 230 photographs taken on Saturday night at the Victors 30th Anniversary gig. Here's one showing Victors lead singer Brian McGlynn during the encore, with some of The Passion Singers. I feel sure that what Brian's doing with his right hand in the second snap is NOT intended as the heavy metal 'devil's horn' sign!

Victors keyboard player Alan Cameron has posted his thoughts on the gig and some more pictures on his blog here.

Thirty Years After...Duffin, Morton and (a much younger) Morton

2010-05-10T12:34:00.003+01:00

I know, I know. There's been an election and I haven't said a word about it. Partly, that's because I'm not really allowed to make public political pronouncements, on pain of having the BBC whip withdrawn. But also, it's because my mind has been on other things. Namely, Saturday night's 30th Anniversary reunion gig by gospel-rock-reggae band The Victors.

Support acts were the excellent Passion Singers and, also marking a 30th anniversary (the release of the album Out of the Harbour)myself and Graeme Duffin.

Graeme is the man whose production, arrangement and guitar playing skills made Wet Wet Wet the mega success they were. We hadn't played together for, well, 28 years at least until we met for a brief rehearsal (with my son James on bass) last Friday. Although Graeme's daughter Esther (O'Connor)has been a guest several times on the Tom Morton Show and indeed (ain't life complicated?) used to be in the band Ashton Lane with another of my sons.

The excellent Stewart Cunningham took these pictures. There are lots more of The Victors and the Passion Singers which I'll post, with Stewart's permission, in due course. The gig (at the 02 ABC2) in Glasgow was busy, about 200 folk in attendance. It raised £1300 for the upcoming Solas Festival.

It was a difficult gig for me in many ways, and maybe I'll write about the reasons for that in another post. There were many folk there I hadn't seen for 25-odd years during which our various paths had, let's say gone in different directions. Still, the reception was warm, I thought we played pretty well. We played some old songs, some middle-aged ones, and some new stuff too. No lightning bolts fell.

May Bank Holiday, Glasgow.

2010-05-03T09:23:00.003+01:00

A wee walk before breakfast. Beautiful spring morning in the west end. Manfully resisting the blandishments of The North Star, sustenance was acquired from home-made porridge (with raisins and salt). Plus lashings of Canderel.

Interesting psephological fact: On a walk from Hillhead Underground to the shops at Queen Margaret Drive, I saw one Labour window poster and four for the Lib Dems. Nothing Tory or SNP related. Seems a bit paltry. In my young day there would have been a corncucopia of posters, including SWP and RCP stuff, not to mention people (possibly among them Lord George of Galloway) bellowing in the street...

The Gowfcroft - extreme bog-golf at Gateside, Shetland

2010-04-28T20:41:00.004+01:00

Here is a description of and rules for extreme bog-golf at The Gowcroft, Gateside, Shetland:

'Extreme bog-golf' is played on uncultivated 'in-by' croft land at The Gowfcroft, Gateside, Shetland. Please note, this land is very wet and peaty, and is unsuitable for golf carts, golf shoes, tractors or heavy earthmoving equipment. A tractor disappeared here not long ago. No responsibility is taken for your safety or well being should you decide to play here. Golf at your own risk.

Please shut all gates, or at least try to wrestle them into position. If you let Lowrie's sheep in, you will have to round them up and transport them to Sumburgh.

There will be no putting (for the moment) at The Gowfcroft. Putting should (temporarily)be carried out after the consumption of at least one pint of beer, on the close-cropped lawn of the St Magnus Bay Hotel, one mile to the south-west. Please ask permission first.

The Gowfcroft can be played as a three, six or nine-hole course. There are, essentially, six holes, with nine being achieved by playing the first three again. There are three flags, no greens. A hole is deemed completed when the player's ball is within two feet of the flag in any direction.

Basic rules of Extreme Bog-Golf are as per the Royal and Ancient, with certain exceptions:
-Wellington boots are advised, but not compulsory.
-One lost ball per hole is assumed. If you do NOT lose a ball, one stroke is removed from your total for that hole. If you find a ball in the general vicinity of where your ball landed, but it is NOT your own, you may play it as if it IS your own, benefitting from the bonus stroke for lack of loss.
-Preferred lies and penalty-free cleaning of balls at ALL times.
- All fences indicate out of bounds, except the one at the final hole (3, 6 and nine). Do NOT play your ball from beyond the other fences. You will be attacked and eaten by dogs.
-rubber driving range tees are preferred/essential.

Directions

Entering the croft of Gateside, cross a ditch immediately to your left before reaching the house, pass the site of regular Wicker Man burnings (clearly evident) and the blue flag of holes three/six/nine. Cross the fence leading to the open croftland, heading uphill. You will see a piece of astroturf (the tee) and, to the north, in the far corner of the field is a yellow flag. This is the first/seventh hole:

HISTORIC SCOTLAND (175 Yards; par 4)
Beware landing on the ancient monument approximately 80 yards from the tee. Divots may reveal all kinds of things. This is a heel-shaped burial cairn thought to have been used by Picts as an early form of bunker.

Having played 'Historic Scotland', turn west, south wet and look for a red flag.This is the second/eighth hole. There is a piece of astroturf which can be used as a tee, but this is not compulsory.:

DA BRIG (200 yards; par 4). Beware the various drainage ditches.

Turn back towards the house and look for the blue flag. Find a flat piece of turf near the drainage ditch, by the flag. This is the third or ninth:

HAMEABOOT (125 yards; par 3. Any damage to the house fabric must be made good.

Return to the first tee, and aim for the red flag. Proceed to play the three holes you have just played, in reverse. You may, by this time, be suffering from exposure. In which case, abandon the game. If conditions merit, play the three holes in their original order to achieve nine. Which is exactly one half of 18.

BOG FEES:

None. A contribution towards lost flags may be posted through the house letterbox.

Good luck. Coastguard rescue services are available in cases of extreme distress, but should not be called out lightly. Proper waterproof clothing, or possibly diving equipment, should be worn. The landowners take no responsibility. For anything.

Spring may just have suddenly sproinged in Shetland

2010-04-25T13:19:00.003+01:00

I've been examining our 'forest'. No, not the old, mighty and massive trees you can see here, but the woodland planted on the croft three years ago and still at the marginal-might-or-might-not-make-it wee-tiny-stick stage. You can see a wee totie example in the foreground. Hundreds of native species - mostly willow - have gone in, along with some spruce and other planty things I forget. I think they might even grow! Buds have appeared. They are not, despite volcanic ash, hurricanes, ice, snow and the baleful hatred of passing sheep, dead yet.

And the daffodils are out at Gateside, aka The Radiocroft. It's actually warm in the sunshine. Could it be....could it possibly be...spring?

Beyonce as Etta James in Cadillac Records

2010-04-18T15:59:00.002+01:00

Quite surprisingly moved by the emotional clout of Cadillac Records, currently showing on Sky Premiere. Great cast: Jeffery Wright (Felix Leiter in Quantum of Solace) superb as Muddy Waters; Mos Def convinces as Chuck Berry, and as for Beyonce Knowles...eat your heart out, Amy Winehouse! Really good film. Music, as Sam Philips said of Howlin' Wolf, "where the soul of man never dies."

You want volcanic ash? We got volcanic ash...

2010-04-16T08:51:00.003+01:00

Shetland this morning - it's very fine, like the softest, greyest talcum powder. Must remember not to breathe...

The future for magazines and newspapers?

2010-04-14T08:59:00.002+01:00

OK, so Marvel's comic book application for the iPad plays to the simplest strengths of both formats, but surely this is the way ahead for the dead tree industries? I mean, yes, we now expect free content online...but for the convenience of having your daily newspaper/monthly mag downloaded, in full, to your mobile device, complete with video, links, sound...where do I subscribe?