The Beatcroft Social on Radio Vera Ireland, Saturday 3 October 7.00pm, repeated Wednesday 10 October 10.00pm GMT

The show will be on every Saturday at 7.00pm for two hours, with a live chatroom operating at radiovera.ie and will be repeated at 10.00pm on Wednesdays. I'll be doing my best to hang around in the chatroom on Saturdays, not so much on Wednesdays. The show will be archived on Mixcloud every Sunday. Hope you like it.

Radio Vera Ireland - Beatcroft Social, 3 October 2015, repeated 7 October 10.00pm by Tom Morton's Beatcroft Social on Mixcloud

Beatcroft Social Volume 12 on Mixcloud (with talking) and Spotify (without)

Latest Beatcroft Social now available on Mixcloud, and featuring the Everly Brothers, Richard Hawley's new single, The Saints, the terrible obscure (but not terrible) Stewart and Kyle, Pulp, Mike Scott and New Celeste. And if you don't want to listen to me talking, you can stream the entire playlist on Spotify here.

Beatcroft Social Volume 12 - from Honeybus to The Everly brothers, The Saints to Richard Hawley by Tom Morton's Beatcroft Social on Mixcloud

Beatcroft Social to go out on Radio Vera Ireland from 3 October, and new monthly show on BBC Radio Orkney

Just a quick preview of what will be happening in October.

On October 3rd (Saturday night) The Beatcroft Social will go to two hours and be heard first on Limerick-based internet station Radio Vera Ireland. After broadcast it will be available on Mixcloud as usual. The show will be recorded, but I will host a live chatroom during broadcast from 19.00 until 21.00 on the Radio Vera website. Here's a link to a trail for the show.

 Then, Tuesday October 13th at 18.10, BBC Radio Orkney will broadcast a new monthly show - Tom Morton's Orcadian Dalliance. That'll be on 93.7 FM in Orkney and Shetland (and parts of Caithness)as well as via Radio Orkney's Soundcloud page (from where you can actually download the full show) Here's a link to a trail for Tom Morton's Orcadian Dalliance.

The Beatcroft Social Volume 11: Iceland to Wales via Leith and various parts of the USA. Also approximate Spotify playlist

Here's the latest Beatcroft Social show on Mixcloud, featuring The Beat, King Creosote, The Proclaimers, Steely Dan, Wilco and more. The link to an approximate Spotify version (substituting King of the Road for Get Ready by the Proclaimers and Quicksilver Messenger Service for Help Yourself) is here.

The Beatcroft Social Volume 11: Iceland to Wales via Leith and various parts of the USA by Tom Morton's Beatcroft Social on Mixcloud

Dismaland, take two: in the daylight and inside the beast

It's a grey and blustery old Scottish day down here in the deep south west of England. Weston looks like Ayr, feels like Ayr. Hey, it's kind of Celtic. You can see Cardiff.

And Dismaland looks and feels different. The sinister, war-zone garishness has gone, and the lazy steel guitar soundtrack makes the crumbling seaside ambience feel less oppressive than it did last night. Not so sinister.

It takes a lot longer to get in, as there seem to be more people in the 'booked online' queue (and several hundred waiting on the off chance for returns) but once past the histrionic 'security'actors, everything seems more accessible. Or maybe my aged eyesight likes daylight better. I head for the three main inside galleries, and immediately Dismaland stops playing around and gets serious.

The huge Damien Hirst installation is accessible, intellectually impressive and visually appealing. Making the sinister glint and glitter is his speciality, and the (very expensive) knives here have a wicked shine and shimmer. And there are actual paintings, many very impressive and on a huge scale. I absolutely loved the photo-realist Lee Madgwick pictures and the Jimmy Cauty model world is an urban and rural dystopia in OO scale. All it lacks, and as a railroad freak I would have adored this, is a working model railway. Oh well.

The Cinderella/Diana/paparazzi installation is clever and disturbing, but the execution outruns the idea by several furlongs, so that you're ready to leave before your photo with the dead princess is ready. OK, got the notion, let's move on.

Elsewhere, some of last night's impressions are confirmed. Too much message-led conceptual art by numbers, too great a wallowing in smartass sarcasm. The scaffolding horse and the twisted mega-truck could fit in an unironic seaside attraction without difficulty. David Shrigley's knock-down-the-anvil sideshow lacked its essential balls, and too many of the other takes on fairground games were obvious and one-dimensional.

Worth going? Well, really I'm down here to see my sister, but as the major British art event of the year it was definitely worth a detour. Some of the more traditional, exhibited work is breathtaking and it's surely significant (he says, sounding like some kind of raving conservative) that the outstanding moments are the most highly evolved in terms of training and craft. The rest of you? Keep practising...

Live at Troon this Saturday 5 September and The Beatcroft Social Volume 11

I didn't think I was going to get to the Tom Morton's Homecoming Sessions gig in Troon on Saturday night due to that pesky heart business, but recovery has well and truly set in and I'll be toddling along to hear JJ Gilmour, Ashton Lane and Nicky Murray and Chloe Rodgers, at the South Beach Hotel. Full details here. 

JJ, Ashton Lane and Nicky all feature on the latest Beatcroft Social Cloudcast, volume 10, which you can listen to here:

The Beatcroft Social Volume 10: Bruce without Springsteen, or very nearly by Tom Morton's Beatcroft Social on Mixcloud

....and there's also a Spotify playlist here.

The Beatcroft Social Volume Six: non-alcoholic edition

Just because I was in a bit of a rush and didn't get the chance to choose some whisky! I'll make up for that next week, with some really special drams.

Meanwhile, some particularly fine music I think, some of it old, some of it very new, ranging from Dundee and Lochgoilhead to the deepest reaches of the American south. Nick Drake, Pictish Trail, Chiara Berardelli, Sadé, Little Junior Parker, Sam Baker and more.

The Beatcroft Social, Volume Six by Tom Morton's Beatcroft Social on Mixcloud

The Beatcroft Social, Volume Five: Bushmills edition!

Bushmills Distillery will always have a place in my memory as location of my worst motorcycle crash (so far).

A borrowed Triumph Street Triple, a degree of tiredness, restrictive leather trousers and a protruding tailpack on the bike combined with the distillery car park's camber to ensure that getting off the lovely wee thing was a disaster. I caught my foot on the tailpack, fell to the ground and brought the bike down on top of myself.

I was undamaged. But when the bike was taken back to Triumph (it was a press trip, my first and last courtesy of a motorcycle firm) that broken indicator and scarred engine casing, plus a bit of scratched panelling, amounted to £2000 of repairs. The press department were, let's say, not amused.

So by way of penance, I have since then owned not one, but two Triumphs. And occasionally tippled at Old Bushmills.

Music this week from Tom Petty, Creedence Clearwater Revival, Angel Corpus Christi, The Hold Steady and much more. Plus a wee dab o' whiskey of course!

The Beatcroft Social Volume 5: Bushmills edition! by Tom Morton's Beatcroft Social on Mixcloud

From Unst with chocolate and some quite good music

As I write I'm in Unst, northernmost island in Shetland indeed the UK, where I have a contract to do some tourism development work. I have just had lunch at a chocolate manufacturing facility, or at least in the room next door. And very nice it was too! This week's Beatcroft Social on Mixcloud features four Unst-related pieces of music, from spoof power-hair-metal through choral traditionalism to a beautiful piano-led Unst Bridal march. And of course whisky. Or in this case, Whiskey.

Lots of other great stuff too, I think, from Robin Trower to JJ Cale, King Creosote to Tuff Love. I hope you like it.

The Beatcroft Social Volume 4 (Unst tendency) by Tom Morton's Beatcroft Social on Mixcloud

New Beatcroft Social - Volume Three is now live on Mixcloud.

....This week we're tasting Auchentoshan American Oak whisky, and here's the playlist.

Pete Droge: If  You don’t Love Me (I’ll Kill Myself)

Frankie and the Heartstrings: Think Yourself Lucky

The Cardigans: For What It’s Worth

Deke Leonard: What Am I Gonna Do When The Money Runs Out?

Sidney Bechet: Viper Mad

Lola in Slacks: Tramlines

Cocteau Twins: Pearly Dewdrops Drops

The Hold Steady: The Swish

Fairport Convention: Meet on the Ledge

The Lost Soul Band: You Can’t Win them All, Mum

Paolo Nutini: Scream (Funk My Life Up)

Declan Sinnott: It’s Just the Noise It Makes

Flying Burrito Brothers: Farther Along

Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds: Dig! Lazarus,Dig!

Elvis Perkins: Ash Wednesday

Taste: Same Old Story

The Beatcroft Social, Volume 3 by Tom Morton's Beatcroft Social on Mixcloud

The Beatcroft Social Volume Two: Alcohol Special (with whisky tasting!)

The great thing about this making-your-own-radio-programme stuff is the absolute freedom to mess about with things like poetry and, well, drink. So, possibly not on publication (it's 8.25 in the morning here in County Tyrone) here's the second Beatcroft Social, with every song somehow related to ethanol and its effects. As those nice people at Gordon and Macphail recently sent me samples of the two Benromach single malts currently available easily, I've "conducted a comparative tasting" (swigged them and talked nonsense). You can get them relatively easily, though the 15-year-old ispretty expensive. But good value I think, and I'm not being paid to say that. Anyway, the experiment continues. Thanks for all the nice comments about the first Beatcroft Social. Another one next Monday!

The Beatcroft Social, Volume 2: Alcohol Special! by Tom Morton's Beatcroft Social on Mixcloud

The Ballad of Daytime TV

Former polis, all sweaty 

In Vauxhalls and Fords

Fourth cousins twice removed

Answering doors

Warned by researchers

To look sorry and shocked

For dead folk unheard of

Until the hearse-chaser’s knock

An inheritance? How much? Where do I sign?

And I watch. And I wish that the money was mine.

So I could roam car boot sales

Sifting through trash

Searching for treasures

To flog at auction for cash

I know my Royal Doulton, 

My Wemyss Ware and Delft

My Fabergé and Wedgewood

But there’s so little left

In charity shops 

In skips or in attics

Everybody’s an expert 

Everybody’s an addict

Of Bargain Hunt, Put Your Money Where Your Mouth Is

And then there’s the question of investing in houses.

Who are these people

With so much money to spend?

Millions, hundred of thousands

Do banks really lend

To tattooed guys in pull-ups 

With half-shaven heads

Who buy sad repossessions 

Or the homes of the dead?

Tart them up, sell them on

Or just rent them out

It’s all about profit

Not a scintilla of doubt

Ever appears 

On a presenter’s face

As they Escape To The Country

To avoid the disgrace

Of ever being reduced 

To Price Drop TV

The Jewellery Channel

Or - worse - QVC

Botoxed and hair-woven, held in telly detention

Then released to host raffles at double glazing conventions

Copyright Tom Morton 2015. All rights reserved

Buy the collection: Walking the Doggerel by Tom Morton, £5.67 plus postage here

The Ballad of Tunnock & Lees - excerpt from Walking the Doggerel, available now for a fiver!

New collection of song lyrics and poems from The Malt and Barley Revue, The Fairly Good Show, My Bad Gospel and Scar Quilse's Referendum Songbook. A fiver or so in paperback.

Walking the Doggerel by Tom Morton | Make Your Own Book

The Ballad of Mr Tunnock and Mr Lee

I’ve lost faith in beer and wine

No nicotine for quite some time

Facebook and Twitter - just boring me

All I want is Tunnocks and Lees

When life seems hard, when things get squalid

Just give me sugar and cocoa solids

The products I know will scratch that itch

They come from Uddingston, they come from Coatbridge

Mr Tunnock, Mr Lee

The pleasure you have given me

I gave you my molars and my wealth

But I would sacrifice my health

Mr Tunnock, Mr Lee

You will always be in my dreams

Teacakes, Snowballs, Wafer Creams

Some swear by Cadbury, by Frys or Mars

No Quaker could create the Macaroon Bar

Sometimes sugar just will not suffice

There are other passports to paradise

You must taste and try before you die

The products of Mr Whyte and Mr Mackay

But tastes expand, you crave variety

Then Elgin City is the place to be

116 years of whisky for sale

At Mr Gordon’s and Mr Macphail’s

Deafened by the static: Separatists are listening only to their own noise

A slightly different version of this was printed in The Shetland Times published on Friday, in print only.  I tweeted on Friday, when one irate offline reader described it as ‘utter shite’ on social media, that I would not be blogging the piece until after I’d finished my weekend run of Morton Through (To) Midnight radio shows.

So here it is. Three days have passed since the column’s original publication; Sunday saw an old friend resign as writer for the local magazine I edit, Shetland Life, appalled by my ‘rant’. Judge for yourself. Oh, and there’s a piece by Ian Smart which covers similar ground  here: http://ianssmart.blogspot.co.uk/

It’s been interesting, over the past couple of weeks, to see some of the most strident MacMeeja Yessivists cautiously modifying their public stances as  the quiet majority for ‘No’ becomes more and more evident.

Even in the event of  a ‘No’ vote, Scotland has changed, changed utterly, seems to be the emerging line. A new political discourse has been born, and we are in the glorious sunkissed uplands of a country irrevocably bound for alteration. Just...not yet. Because there is the beginnings of an acceptance that on 18 September, Scotland will vote to remain part of a United Kingdom. The cover-up of exposed backsides, and their ‘Yes’ tattoos, has begun.

Still, some established chatterers are convinced that the Great Turnaround achieved by the SNP in 2011  could repeat itself, that the bookies’ odds against ‘Yes’ are a delusion offering potential profits to the daring (currently, we’re looking at 1/5 to 1/9, averaging at 1/7). I’m fairly sure the wishfully-thinking Yessers are confusing a low-turn-out  PR protest vote with a (hopefully) high-turn-out yes/no referendum. Also, remember the way the SNP focussed that 2011 vote on Alex Salmond as an individual? It’s notable that personalised Salmondism has waned drastically and the ‘Yes’ campaign has tried, strenuously, to keep his profile low. It’s surely the contemptuous giggle which offends most. 

But more importantly, I think the trumpeters of a ‘Yes’ victory have been deluded by something else: They have confused debate with the sheer blaring noise generated by their own internal conversations. They want it to be so. They say, loudly and at interminable length that it shall be so. Everyone on their online social media feeds seems to agree with them. Therefore it must happen. But those social media feeds are curated by their owners, with numerous blockings and dismissals. They’re all ‘friends’. And so the separatists have listened to their own chatter, deafened to everything else by their own static.

In the physical, public-hall-world, the so-called ‘debates’ have been packed with disciplined, briefed, crib-sheet armed Yessists. The ‘pre-discussion show of hands’ approach has frequently been traduced by those pretending to be ‘don’t knows’. The people who will vote ‘no’ have not bothered to turn up, are too bored by the whole thing to comment either audibly or online, or have been scared into silence. Either by sheer, unreasoning, bullying shoutiness or - a nod-and-wink official 'Yes' policy, I’m certain - by personal vilification: if in doubt, play the man (or woman), not the ball.

Please, don’t tell me ‘it’s just as bad on the other side’. As recipient of some foul-mouthed gibbering from The Worst of Separatism, and a long-time online observer of both camps, I can tell you it isn’t.

Of course, all the firepower, most of the action, has been in the central belt of Scotland. As one ‘Yes’ campaigner said to me, ‘that’s where the votes are’.  It was predictable that English journalists sent north to witness Scotland’s wasting of energy, resources, time and money on the independence ‘debate’ would be seduced by the Youth-Fellowship-come-and-have-a-caress evangelistic rhetoric. Much of it comes from shiny-cheeked organisations with ill-advised, all-too historically resonant  names such National Collective and Common Weal, Yestival (Smiley Face!) and, God help us, ‘The Third Force’. Does no-one read history books? Or see the parallels with mindless, happy-clappy  fundamentalist religion? If you’re creative and arty, comes the message, hands in the air, sway gently! You MUST support separatism. And if you don’t, better shut up or you could find it tricky getting a gig, especially in Oor New Caledonia. Cuddle and carrot, sanction and stick.

I had a journalist up here recently (one of many, it should be said; everyone’s fascinated by The Shetland Question(s), to which the answer is always, always no, we don’t want a separate Salmondland, and no, we don’t want to be part of £100-a-pint Norway).  He was genuinely appalled at my conviction that there will be a ‘No’ vote, probably near the long-standing Scottish UK/Nat percentage split of 60-40.  That was not his impression from talking to, well, other nationalists. And besides, remember 2011. Freedom!

He’s right in one sense. If those who have all along quietly supported a United Kingdom get complacent, if they fail to turn out on 18 September, there is a risk that the NatMachine’s ruthless ability to mobilise its central belt supporters  could actually bring us close to an irrevocable vote for separation. So it is absolutely crucial that those who hate borders, who stand for equality and justice for everyone, irrespective of creed, race, education or geographical location, comes out and votes ‘No’. And actually, I do not believe that those  Labour supporters who failed to turn out back in 2010, opening the way to Salmond’s appropriation of power, will fail to stand with the party’s policy on social justice for all. Which is, for me, the one moral choice.  

Also: As the likelihood of a ‘No’ vote grows, elements on the lunatic NatFringe have begun muttering about (a) vote rigging and (b) preparing for ‘direct action’. This is (a) the empty posturing of the daft, and (b) threatening behaviour which clearly implies, under Scots Law, a Breach of the Peace.

After the ‘No’ vote, there will doubtless be sackcloth, ashes, rending of garments, petulant screeching. There could be closures of and mergers of newspapers and doubtless, a few flouncings-off to holiday homes in the Dordogne and Algarve by huffy pop stars and pundits alike. The SNP Holyrood administration  will be exposed as a one-issue campaigning sham, and I expect that any ‘completely altered political environment’, will come down to an utter loss of appetite for the dangerous romantic delusion that is nationalism.

Then play on: Looking back at the weekend, the Clutha tragedy, and being on air when it happened

If there was one thing I was looking forward to during the three live, three-hour Morton Through Midnight shows I present (10.00pm to 1.00am, BBC Radio Scotland, Friday through Sunday) it was playing a track called Maybe I'll Come Back Home, by a band calling themselves Fantastic Lights. An old friend was involved, emerging from a musical silence, at least in public, that had lasted almost 25 years, and we would be first to play it anywhere.

We played that track at 10.29pm. By the time the segue of it and the following song, The Rolling Stones' Fool To Cry, was over, Twitter was already flickering with aghast stories that seemed to make no sense: a helicopter had apparently crashed onto a crowded pub in Glasgow. The Clutha Vaults.

I broadcast from my home in the Shetland Islands, but my producer Ravi Sagoo and senior producer Nick Low of Demus Productions, the company that makes Morton Through Midnight for BBC Radio Scotland, were both working from the BBC's Glasgow HQ at Pacific Quay, a couple of miles along the River Clyde from the Clutha. Twitter and Facebook are crucial aspects of the show's identity, allowing listeners throughout the world to participate, argue, suggest songs and generally become involved in the whole process of broadcasting. And the vibrant Scottish music scene is heavily represented in my own and the show's social media. A band, Esperanza, had been playing at the Clutha which is one of the city's most active small music venues. Amazing, shocking iPhone pictures of absolute clarity emerged quickly. Were they too clear? Was this some kind of movie shoot, or a hoax?

We played more music (the show has a particular bias towards Scottish pop, folk and rock, new and old, but plays quality music with a middle-aged bent from all over the world) but it was difficult to concentrate on the usual comedic conversational trivia of a Friday night (one theme was home brewing). More and more pictures and shocked eye-eyewitness accounts were coming in. Nick spoke to Martin Smedley, one of a handful of journalists across BBC radio and TV who were in the building so late, on what is usually one of the week's quietest nights. He was getting the same unconfirmed information. Sky News and BBC News 24 began carrying the Tweeted pictures, but again there was absolutely no official confirmation.

We had a live news bulletin imminent at 11.00 pm and it became apparent that this was no hoax, that something truly dreadful had happened. As Martin mobilised the news team in Glasgow, I pulled the comedy home brewing tales that were coming in and kept the introductions to records short. We began referencing the incident on our own Twitter and Facebook feeds. The 11.00 bulletin ran the story at the top, cautiously and rightly prefacing everything with 'reports are coming in' but brilliantly using the first, shocked telephone interview with Jim Murphy MP.

What to do next? Facebook and Twitter were going into overdrive and it was quickly clear that this was very, very serious. But there was still no official confirmation or anything yet from BBC reporters on the ground. We had a half-hour pre-recorded interview, heavily trailed, with the legendary guitarist and singer Dave Edmunds, which would run from about 11.15pm to 11.45pm. After discussions with news, it was decided to play that out, while the news gathering operation swung fully into action, and there would be an extended bulletin at midnight. I began reTweeting and Facebooking links to confirmed BBC Breaking News reports online.

I was reeling by that time as we were all aware of the Clutha and feared we'd know some of the victims too. After the 11.00pm news I just said I was shocked (“slightly shocked...disturbed...well, more than slightly...”) . That Dave Edmunds interview seemed hours long. Always, in the back of my journalistic mind, I was wondering (a) if we should be playing music at all, (b) how much should a music presenter say during a massive breaking story like this, and (c) how much could we trust the stuff coming in on Twitter?

Before and after the package (which gave our news folk the time to get reporters to the Clutha and to organise what quickly became a massive news gathering operation) I reiterated what we knew for sure and that there would an extended news at midnight. By this time one of the clearest dichotomies between Twitter and official news reports was the nature of the helicopter. Pictures online showed clearly that it was a police aircraft, but news outlets were hesitant. Retweeting the pictures without comment seemed enough, though I found myself referring to 'the crash of a police helicopter' while trailing ahead to the news...

The midnight bulletin had eyewitness reports, BBC reporter Andrew Kerr at the scene, what official confirmation was to be had and the detailed account of the helicopter's descent by The Sun's Gordon Smart . Glasgow-based staff were now covering the story for all BBC outlets in radio, TV and online and the demands on them were enormous. Now what for us? Pull the show from midnight and hand over to rolling news reports?

News settled on an extra bulletin at 12.30. We sifted through the music running order and extracted everything potentially jarring or offensive in tone or lyrical content. We began scheduling in calmer, longer, more instrumental tracks. Otis Redding first, and trailing ahead to the 12.30am news.

By this time we'd had one or two angry texts asking why we were playing music at a time like this, but many more praising the way things were being handled. This probably represented listeners who had tuned in only to try and catch up with what was happening, and those who regularly listen to BBC Radio Scotland at that time of night.

That last hour was very difficult. It seemed right to briefly comment on the seriousness of the situation and to segue tracks together, as well as constantly trailing ahead to news, while keeping the social media feeds up to date and relaying any confirmed information we could. The delay in any official number being made available for emergency information seemed interminable. On reflection, we did the best we could in trying circumstances. 

At 1.00 am there was I think an absolute model of responsible news reporting from BBC Radio Scotland: Proper, thoughtful choice of eyewitness reports, calm reportage, the facts and the right amount of background and colour. At the very least, the fact that there was music being broadcast beforehand provided the time for that to happen.

SATURDAY

By late Saturday afternoon, the scale of the tragedy was clear, official and political responses were in and the awful situation had stabilised enough for us to know that we would be broadcasting three hours of music that night. But what to play? And to talk about? On what was St Andrew's night?

To me, there seemed no choice: Glasgow is my home city and we should pay tribute to it, celebrate it, long for it, recognise its spirit and try and grieve with it. This had been a seven-nights-a-week live music pub, some of our regular listeners knew the place well, knew its owners and the bands who played there. Anything else would be disrespectful. But it was also St Andrew's night and the notion we'd had previously of playing lots of records by people called Andrew might still work, if toned down.

I began looking for songs about Glasgow or from Glasgow musicians. Co-incidentally, my former colleague at The Scotsman, the London-based writer Audrey Gillan, posted a link to her own Glasgow playlist on Spotify and notably the Billy Connolly song I Wish I was in Glasgow, performed by Iain Mackintosh. By the time producer Gregor Reid and I  were preparing the programme down the line between Shetland and Glasgow at 9.00pm, we had a rough running order worked out.

We started with Michael Marra's great anthem Mother Glasgow, performed by Hue and Cry. We ended three hours later with Frankie Miller singing Dougie Maclean's Caledonia. We had many responses and reactions to the tragedy from listeners. By the last hour, people were sharing stories about other St Andrew's nights they had known, and the mood was growing less sombre.

I suppose I've always seen these late night radio shows as the conversations I would have with a bunch of friends if they were all round at my house and I was in charge of the record player. Like any social gathering you respond to circumstances, talk seriously, laugh, cry, fall out and make up. Sometime you even let folk choose the occasional record themselves...

In the end, it's about community, I suppose. We talk, we listen, we love music, we play records. And music, is, of course, eternal.

Links:

Morton Through Midnight, 29^th November

http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b03jfvkx/Morton_Through_Midnight_29_11_2013/

Morton Through Midnight, 30^th November: http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b03jt7cy/Morton_Through_Midnight_30_11_2013/

Morton Through Midnight, 1^st December:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b03jtbqj/Morton_Through_Midnight_01_12_2013/

A wee trip to Peebles, some whisky, music, Ollie Reed's chair and a damn fine breakfast

The Peebles Malt and Barley Revue gig was another chance to visit the rather beautiful town in which I once purchased a breadboard for my wife and was bought a vintage wristwatch in return.

At Villeneuve Wines with Alister and Gregg

It happened like this: Ali Wilson, aka Drumslinger, mastermind and skinbasher behind various eminent east coast bands, was at the launch of A Whisky in Monsterville in Drumnadrochit, and offered to organise an M&BR in his native town. Which he proceeded to do, brilliantly.

In Oliver Reed's chair, Crown Hotel

Thanks to Audrey at the Courthouse, and all the staff there, especially Nicola and whoever made the excellent fish and chips. Also Fay at The Crown, whose breakfasts are deservedly famous. Very nice rooms, too. I do like a high-threadcount-sheet-situation! Great to meet the legendary Evan 'Hard As Nails' Balfour, former Airdrieonian, now singing with the terrific Taylor Brothers. I see you can still buy those 'Hard As Nails' stickers from an Airdrie fan website!

Taylor Brothers: Evan, Ali, Glyn

Peebles really is a lovely and very friendly place, full of splendid pubs, shops and restaurants, including the truly impressive Villeneuve Wines, run by Alister Rae and Kenny Vannan, with help from Gregg Parker. I liked it so much a bought a bottle of Clynelish 14. It's the only small(ish) town in Scotland with an internationally-acclaimed academy for chocolatiers and pastry chefs, as far as I know.

Full Scottish at The Crown

Great crowd at the gig, and thanks too to Ian Rankin for donating a signed bottle of the 'Rebus 20' Highland Park which was auctioned for an eye-watering (but still reasonable, as they're £2500 online) £1500. It will stay in Scotland, and was bought by a Fifer!

Next Malt and Barley Revue is at Ayr Gaiety Theatre on Saturday night. We'll be tasting Some highly unusual whiskies including, dare I say it, something from...let's just say outside of Scotland. And my special guest will be whisky valuer and auction specialst, Angus MacRaild from Whisky Online.

Ali in Ollie's seat

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

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

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:

Last ride

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.

There and back in The Mighty Landcruiser

Tricky old trip into Lerwick - Scandinavian conditions, with hard packed snow on the roads most of the way. But the Toyota did what it undoubtedly says on its tin, thanks to the BF Goodrich All-Terrain tyres (actually, the original ones were rubbish).

Dropped Susan at the hospital, then up to North Eastern Farmers for dog and cat food in bulk. When you have a St Bernard, bulk is the only way. Tesco for basics, and then to BBC Radio Shetland. Good and very busy show, main theme being the nostalgia of smells. Some fantastic tales...you can hear it for seven days here.


Drove home alone, as Susan had to take one of the NHS Subaru Foresters up for her associate to use. Great cars, wish I still had mine. Arrived to find a blizzard and both weans (18 and 14) engaged in a sledge race. More of this tomorrow, but frankly, that's enough snow pictures.

Oh, and that's the Sullom Voe Oil Terminal, way past the frozen loch in the distance. If you really believe it's Scotland's oil, that's where the majority of it is dealt with. In other words, it's arguably not Scotland's oil; it's Shetland's...