The Beatcroft Social, from Glasgow and Shetland, 26 May 2018 - technical details follow (and music!)

This was an experiment, or I should say yet another experiment in the continuing saga of experimentation which is The Beatcroft Social.

We have the shetlandwebcams.com site up and running, and thanks so much to all of those who pledged cash to support the development of our coastal webcams project. Your merchandise is on its way! New hardware has been purchased and camera installation will be underway soon.

This week, though, and for the next few weeks, the audio (ie, me and my choice of music) has to come from Glasgow, where I am engaged in some building work...so with me using some dodgy west end of Glasgow wifi, a Macbook Pro, an AKG D230 microphone, an old Logitech camera, the iRigPre interface and a set of Koss PortaPro headphones, we set to work. I normally use DJ Pro to play out the music (which can come from lots of places - iTunes, Spotify, downloads, Mp3s, CDs, vinyl, cassette, Soundcloud) and using the virtual desktop app Teamviewer I was able to control, with almost no time delay, the Mac Mini with DJ Pro on it in Shetland. To connect my voice, grizzled countenance and occasionally my dog Dexter to our Tricaster system and assorted gubbins so we can vision mix all the webcams and relay them to our various worldwide servers, it was just the simple online web service VMix, accessed through the Chrome browser.  This requires no extra software or hardware.  It's like Skype.

To our astonishment, it all worked. Sometimes not brilliantly well, and there were a few glitches and dropouts. You'll hear all this on the Mixcloud audio. We're working to improve the sound of my voice, but the hospitals are all booked up...different microphone and possible 4G instead of BT wifi next week.

Meanwhile, The live video went out smoothly, for the most part, and Andy went walkabout in Lerwick with his iPhone to see if we could send in remote video and audio. That worked too. Next week we're really stretching the boundaries, but my lips are sealed...

Meanwhile, here is the link to the full video-and-audio show at shetlandwebcams. com, the 60N Radio tab.

And here's the Mixcloud audio:

...Happy New Year, fantastic aurora on Hogmanay, some great music from Shetland...via Shetland...and onwards to the world

It's 1 January 2017, I'm the only one out of bed and the Rancilio has been duly fired up. Coffee (Bean Shop of Perth espresso blend, as used in Lerwick's excellent Peerie Shop Café) has been taken, but the benefit of doing the show last night was a late start to drinking and, due to tiredness, an early finish. Had to get up at 5.00am yesterday to get James from the airport. Now, in the house above, he, Martha, Magnus, Magnus's fiancée Katie, Susan, our pal Lizzie and three dogs (Rug the St Bernard, Cooper the Greyhound, Dexter the Hyperactive Mongrel) are all snoozing.

And it's a beautiful day! Cold northerly blowing, but clear and blue skies. After an amazing night for the aurora, da merrie dancers, the northern lights, which allowed some of our visitors, just three days in Shetland, to see a fireworks display that eclipsed Edinburgh's by a very large degree.

So anyway, here I am, and I hope you're feeling good about the 12 months to come. To cheer you on your way, here's the Mixcloud audio stream of last night's two-hour Beatcroft Social, plus the last 20 minutes or so of video on Facebook - the rest was annoyingly taken down by a Facebook algorithm without explanation. But that last half hour has some of the finest shots of the aurora, mostly from the Cliff Cam at Sumburgh head, looking north.

Back live next week! Happy New Year. Oh, and here's a full playlist too, plus a link to the Spotify playlist which includes some tasty extras (and excludes the vinyl and cassettes). And can anyone spot the ONLY EVER reference in popular song to the glorious Yamaha FS1E 'Fizzy' motorcycle?

a'best

Tom



Beatcroft Social Hogmanay Special - full playlist

Righteous Brothers/Wrecking Crew: Rat Race
The Beat: Tears of a Clown
Frank Wilson: Do I love You? (Indeed I Do)
The Ukrainians: Anarchy in the UK (vinyl)
Ryan Adams: To Be Without you
Beat Farmers: Reason to Believe
Bruce Springsteen: Cadillac Ranch
Paul Brady: Arthur McBride (live recording from 'The Missing Liberty Tapes')
Pete Atkin: Time to Burn (lyrics by Clive James)
Aly Bain, Tom Anderson, Davie Tulloch, Trevor Hunter, Violet Tulloch: Jack Broke Da Prison Door/Donald Blue/Sleep Sound in the Morning/Lasses Trust in Providence/The Bonnie Isle of Whalsay. (Vinyl, from 'The Silver Bow Volume One')
Richard and Linda Thompson: Wall of Death
Scrape the Barrel: Last Chance (cassette, from 'Shetland Calling')
The Bashies: Black Cat
Gloria Jones: Tainted Love
Seasick Steve: Abraham, Martin and John
Status Quo: Over and Done With
Joe Ely: The Road Goes On Forever
Aidan Moffat and Bill Wells: The Copper Top
Tom Robinson Band: Up Against the Wall
Thin Lizzy: The Boys Are Back In town
Ronnie Costley: Hogmanay in Heaven (demo)
Stone Roses: Fool's Gold (vinyl 12-inch single)
Toots and the Maytals: 54-46 - That's My Number
Chuck Wood: Seven Days Too Long
Lorraine Chandler: I Can't Hold On
Free: All Right Now

Playlists for Tuesday's Orcadian Dalliance show and upcoming Beatcroft Social

Hi folks - just to let you know that the BBC Orkney Show 'Tom Morton's Orcadian Dalliance' is downloadable and streamable via Soundcloud here

https://soundcloud.com/radio-orkney/tom-mortons-orcadian-dalliance-tuesday-13th-october-2015

And here's the playlist:

Tom Morton’s Orcadian Dalliance

TX BBC Radio Orkney, 13 October 2015

Frightened Rabbit   -  Holy

Dusty Springfield    -  Son of a Preacher Man

Aidan Moffat, Bill Wells - The Copper Top

Loudon Wainwright III - Down Drinking at the Bar

Drever, McCusker, Woomble - Into the Blue

Idlewild - Everyone Says You’re so Fragile

Lucinda Williams - Something about What Happens When We Talk

MC5 - The American Ruse

Simple Minds - The American

Taste - Same Old Story

Sidney Bechet - Hold Tight (I Want some Seafood, Mama)

James Carr - The Dark End of the Street

On Radio Vera Ireland (http://www.radiovera.ie) Saturday 17 October at 7.00PM, there will be a bit of chattering from me, and this:

Drunk In A Band – Del Amitri

Surrender To The Rhythm – Brinsley Schwarz

Make Me Smile (Come Up And See Me) – Steve Harley, Cockney Rebel

Dirty Work – Steely Dan

Something In The Air – Thunderclap Newman

Heart Of Oak – Richard Hawley

Bad Case Of You – Carol Laula

Mercy Now – Mary Gauthier

Laundromat - Live - Remastered 2011 – Rory Gallagher

Something In The Air – Thunderclap Newman

Heart Of Oak – Richard Hawley

Malt And Barley Blues – McGuinness Flint

Don't Give Up On Me – Solomon Burke

The Weight – The Staple Singers

This Wheel's On Fire - 2000 Digital Remaster – The Band

When I'm Away From You – Cosmic Rough Riders, Joe Walsh

Dance Me to the End of Love – Leonard Cohen

Elvis Presley Blues – Gillian Welch

Good Rockin' Tonight – Elvis Presley

You Make My Heart Beat Too Fast – Buddy & Julie Miller

Please Forgive Me – David Gray

Do Not Go Gentle Into That Good Night – Dylan Thomas

Pure Pleasure Seeker – Moloko

The Girl On the Flying Trapeze – Yvonne Lyon

Black Fang – Cherry Ghost

Blue Monday – New Order

First We Take Manhattan – Jennifer Warnes, Stevie Ray Vaughan

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

Beatcroft Social Volume 8: whisky, Oor Wullie off the rails, crunchy guitars and sweet melancholy piano...

Here's Volume 8 of the weekly Beatcroft Social Cloudcast on Mixcloud. Remember you can listen not only on your computer but on your phone or tablet by installing the excellent Mixcloud app (good buffering!).

And if you want to support the show, why not buy a T-shirt, bag, hoodie or sweatshirt? Only available for the next 10 days or so here at Fabrily. All sizes! Well, most.

This week there's a tasting of the final two releases by Shetland Reel, the Unst gin company now ventuing into whisky bottling. It's Glenglassaugh, by the way, young but aged in very week casks. A poem about the dark future of Oor Wullie and his dissolute chums. And music from Bryan Ferry, Maria Muldaur, The Primevals, The Hives, Clifford T Ward and Sister Sledge. Among others.

Oh, and the opening Bryan Ferry Track, a cover of Dylan's All Along the Watchtower, is not only of the best cover versions ever, it has some truly phenomenal drumming from the great Andy Newmark. And it's a song which, in this current political and economic climate, is still steeped in pertinence and power.

Here we go!

The Beatcroft Social, Volume 8 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

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

Here's a wee experiment - an hour or so of tunes and chat from yours truly...

So anyway, I was looking at the thousands of records, CDs and digital whatnots I've managed to collect over the years, and the pile of radio equipment sitting there glumly, and I thought (after a month of broadcasting silence) I might as well put it to some use.

Here's the Beatcroft Social, then. I've already recorded one for next week (when I'm on holiday), featuring a whisky tasting. Future editions may have more poetry and on-location stuff from around Shetland, as well as new tracks from Scottish artists.) See what you think. It may be self-indulgent nonsense, but hey, it was fun to do. Hope you enjoy it.

Get in touch via Facebook  (facebook.com/tommorton) emailing me (tmaccalmanmortonATgmail.com) or on Twitter @thebeatcroft.

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

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/

(More) Talk Radio

The move towards ‘more speech’ on the radio show I present (BBC Radio Scotland, 14.35-16.00 weekdays, except Fridays, when it starts at 14.00) has not meant I simply talk more. It means, basically, that I talk more to other people.

We’re booking what are various called ‘guests’ or ‘contributors’, mostly musicians, who come on because they have product (gigs, CDs, downloads, their own bountiful personalities, charitable endeavours, chains of boutiques, ranges of wine) to promote. Yeah, I know the Beeb's good and decent and doesn't do product placement. But the truth is, you don't get guests with nothing to sell. Unless you pay them. And we're MOST reluctant to do that, except as a last resort.

So anyway,we’re widening things out to include comedians, authors, journalists and indeed anyone who might give good guesthood, on a show which is still basically about music. Speech. We like it.

We review albums, preview gigs, examine people’s record collections, talk about golf, cycling, food (always a favourite on the ever-hungry TMS) plumbing, roofing and about Scotland; we sift nostalgically through our pasts. Memory works well on the wireless.

Only very rarely am I face to face with any guest. I work for the most part out of a tiny self-operated studio (basically a microphone and a PC) in Lerwick, Shetland, some 200 miles from my producers in Aberdeen and the Big Huge Box that plays out all the music. The music, by the way, is mostly gleaned from what’s called ‘The Radio Scotland Daytime Playlist’ - it takes a few cues from Radio Two, but there’s a distinct Scottish dimension and me, the producers and our various contributors have a hand in what gets played too. In particular, anything I’m passionate about, and that fits into our general, uh, vibe, man, can usually be shoehorned in. No Crass so far, though.

This week, among others, we’ve had Ryan Adams on, promoting his new album Ashes and Fire, and Joan Wasser, who is/is in Joan As Policewoman. Check them out on iPlayer if you want. I found myself asking Ryan how it felt to perform sober (“It’s nice not to feel…sick’) after which he became virtually monosyllabic; and horrifying Joan with the tale of the Dave Matthews Band’s tour bus driver, who accidentally emptied the tour bus’s toilet tank while on the top deck of a road bridge. Pity the guy immediately underneath was driving an open-topped sports car...

American artists, even ‘difficult’ creatures like Ryan, know how to play the promo game, and are mostly used to the long-distance remote interview, where all the cues have to be auditory. No body language to help. It’s ears and brains only.

But then, that’s what the wireless is all about. Ears. And voices. Brains. People talking to each other. Telling stories. And playing records.

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...