Horrific death of a tame stag

Back in November, on my way to a journalistic assignment in Stornoway, I stopped for a delicious bacon roll at the Black Mount, above Rannoch Moor.

There has been a tame stag haunting the lay-by for a number of years, treasured and protected by locals. I was horrified to be told today by listener Deborah Hackett that the animal was attacked by bunch of inexpressibly disgusting excuses for human beings using an air gun. It was so badly injured it had to be put down.

I know that at a time when hundreds of people, including children, are being slaughtered in Gaza (and elsewhere)this may seem like a classic piece of anthropomorphic sentimentalism. But it's a form of casual cruelty-for-fun that always illustrates real evil.

Shetlandic scenes

Some scenes from Shetland over the past few days. Those seals are just a few yards from the back of the Toll Clock shopping centre in Lerwick. They're virtually tame. The red sky was at dawn on Saturday (shepherd's/sailor's warning, and how). It was a day of brutal weather. That glint of sunshine shows the community I live in, Hillswick, and in particular the St Magnus Bay Hotel. It's on a narrow spit of land between two beaches, and our house (some 300 years old) is built on what seems to be reclaimed beach. The other picture of the hotel (from the side) is taken from the West Ayre. The 1960s house directly facing the camera is the doctor's house, where we lived in the late 1980s. And then there's the West Ayre itself, late this afternoon, as the light was fading. Definitely surfable.

As I write, the weather is worsening again. Time for soup!

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Only here for the beard...

One of my producers referred to the picture lurking below of a piratically-bearded me as "frightening". However, that's not the reason I shaved it off this morning. Nor was I intent on making myself look younger. I don't. My daughter claims beardlessness makes me look "more serious", or possibly just less ridiculous.

No, it was done because of the intolerable itchiness and the fact that we had a carry-out curry the other night from the UK's Most Northerly Indian Takeaway (just next door to The UK's Most Northerly Chip Shop). That chicken channa stuck around, literally, far too long.

Of course, having reduced my hirsuteness quotient, I discovered that the beard - or at least, facial hair - is apparently going to be the male fashion accessory of 2009. Sting has a beard (I think that stems for a period moonlighting as a Tantric Santa Claus in the Chippenham Woolworths). Brad Pitt has a dodgy moustache. Prince William is sporting what they call in the Royal Navy a 'full set'.

This matters to me not a jot, a whit or a follicle. Beards and curries do not go together, and that's good enough for me.

Hillswick Ness, first day of 2009

Left the assembled revellers revelling at around 2.00am and hit the hay, which appears to have been a wise move. Up at 10.00 am to find a truly glorious Shetland day - flat calm, very mild, sunny - and so it was a hurried clear-up, high-octane, high-caffeine, high-cholestorol breakfast (guests Lizzie and Dave up early too, to go off and feed kye) and then oot and aboot to savour some of that wonderful and all-too-brief light.

I'd had a note from an unfortunate Geocacher to say that the cache I'm responsible for on the Ness had vanished, so I thought I'd better check. It's a good 40-minute, very rough walk out to the location (it's called Another Fine Ness if you're into this stuff) but with the conditions, it was absolutely brilliant being out there. On one side the Drongs (that's the cathedral-like stack you can see behind me in the picture) and on the other the lighthouse and a view clear to Nibon.

Sure enough, nothing remained of the cache (a Tupperware box). I blame bonxies, black-backs or possibly sheep. It will be replaced within the next few days.

I took the short route back, down the spine of the Ness, meeting neighbours Nick and Fiona and getting some of their 'Happy Hens' eggs, which are available for sale at all times and which I thoroughly recommend.

So, as I write, I'm preparing the Ne'erday dinner, which will be traditional steak pie and tatties. Just baked some soda bread which marks the first resolution of the year: no shop-bought bread. Back to work tomorrow - today's show, which I thought was really good, was a pre-record.