Secrets of late-night broadcasting, and where I live part three

I'm broadcasting Morton Through Midnight (BBC Radio Scotland, 22.00-01.00) from the BBC Radio Shetland studios in Lerwick, 37 miles from my home in Hillswick. So far, despite some snow and ice, I've enjoyed the necessary driving, though I can see it becoming a drag. I've been home and in bed by 02.15 the past two nights.  Best not to wake the dogs when I came in, I've found.

I'd been worried about staying awake for the three hours of the programme, but so far that hasn't been a problem, despite consuming a vast amount of excellent game pie from the Drumquin Guest House coffee shop last night just before going on air. What has been strange is getting up (around 09.00) and having a free day with work at the end of it, feeling discombobulated, slightly confused and, yes, tired. Snoozes in the late afternoon both days so far.

As the picture shows, I am equipped for fighting on-air fatigue: Apples, I have ascertained, do not contain caffeine, but the sharpness, indeed the general nastiness of Granny Smiths certainly adds to wakefulness. Diet Red Bull (other caffeinated drinks are available) is good because coffee, of which I also partake, being hot, tends to make you dozy before the caffeine kicks in. Chocolate, if you haven;t been gorging on game, is good too.

A walk during the day is crucial. They have grown shorter over the weekend, and today I felt it necessary to take the dogs again, as it saves any late-night demands from Lulu so she can pursue her constant search for al fresco sheep shit to add to her diet.

It was very cold again, and we wandered up the middle of the Ness on the farm track. Nice view of Ronas Hill, the highest point in Shetland at about 1200 feet. Some time next week, I hope to climb to the summit.

Meanwhile, tonight's show will be interesting. The weekend's over and the slide into working Monday begins. I'm expecting a different crowd.

Morton Through Midnight...and Where I Live Part Two

Lulu looking pensive. As ever

Well, the first Morton Through Midnight was broadcast on BBC Radio Scotland (live, and from Shetland, oh you disbelievers, with the music played in from Glasgow) last night, and so my new nocturnal weekend life begins. In fact, I was home by 1.45 am (despite snow on the roads, again) and in bed by 2.00 am, so up and about  by 9.00 am.

Feeling a bit discombobulated, I have to admit, spending most of the morning dazedly surfing the net looking at guitars (don't tell) in the wake of one I had sold on eBay being returned as 'damaged'. I suspect  that perennial eBay problem, the time-wasting customer who 'just wants a wee look'. It's going to get worse, as eBay are bringing in a compulsory returns policy for business sellers. Ah well.

Anyway. The first show went well, I think. Lots of great feedback, mostly via Facebook, which seems to suit MTM listeners much more than Twitter. Here are the contact details. The show is back on tonight and Sunday, 10.05 pm to 1.00 am, and you can catch it on iPlayer through the website, or listen online. All the playlists will be on the website on Monday.

email: mortonthroughmidnight@bbc.co.uk
website: http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b01rmd2p
Facebook is Morton Through Midnight
Twitter is @mortonmidnight

So, having shaken off the morning's torpor, I headed out with the dogs for a wee dauner, this time to the other side of the Hilswick Ness from yesterday. It was ferociously cold, so I didn't get far. Just to the magnificent West Ayre and a wee bit further. This is where the now-legendary Socks-the-Pony ad for 3 Mobile was shot.

West Ayre, Hillswick. No Socks

The dogs, Lulu and Rug, seemed to enjoy it, though Rug (fat and unfit, like me) tired quickly. So it was back to the manse for some warming up next to the Rayburn. And perhaps another look at those guitars.

Where I live: to the lighthouse!

We live in a very old house, first built 250-odd years ago on the overgrown shingle strand that connects the Ness of Hillswick to the Shetland Mainland. That makes us vulnerable. The front door is only about 30 feet from the normal high tide mark, and at the same level. In the 1970s, given a combination of tide, wind direction and wave action, the kitchen ended up a Rayburn stove's height in water. The sea for breakfast, as Lillian Beckwith once said.

'Bridge of Two-Headbanging-Buffalo'

Since then, heavy duty rock armouring has been installed along the entire length of Hillswick's Aest Ayre (East Beach) and we have built two-stage flood diversion walls as well, not to mention raising the ground floor power points five feet up the interior walls...

The nearest we've come to disaster in the decade we've lived here was a month or so ago, when the same combination of tide, swell and wind as on that infamous 1970s occasion demolished our peat stack and swept water and debris to within 10 feet of the main door. But we stayed dry.

Looks warm...but it wasn't!

Anyway. Today I decided to take a stroll onto the Ness of Hillswick (Hill-dis-vik: Bay of a man called Hilda, allegedly, not hill of a man called Vic) itself, which basically means hopping over the aforementioned armouring and heading south-east. There's public access and a marked footpath with gates and stiles that will take you right round the Ness coastline in about three hours. It's a slightly hazardous walk on occasions, but in my humble opinion, one of the most stunning coastal rambles in the UK. Living right on its doorstep is worth the risk of submergence. I think.

Only the frost-scoured grass indicates that this isn't the Costa Brava...

So this morning I decided to see how far I could get in half an hour (answer: the old lighthouse jetty, built in the 1890s and now demolished by the sea apart from some slivers of concrete and a set of steps). It being a lovely, if chilly day, I then wandered on to the 'Ikea kit' solar-powered lighthouse itself, which replaces the 1895 mini-Stevenson one I recall climbing 20 years ago. That took an hour. Then 45 minutes swift walking back home.

The ugliest lighthouse in the world. Possibly.

The conditions weren't quite as mediterranean as they appear in these pictures. However, it was a glorious walk, and one I intend to do at least a part of each day from now on.

Shetland Life snippet: the IRA attack at Sullom Voe

The March edition of Shetland Life Magazine can be downloaded in full here for the cover price.

Here's a wee snippet from John Peterson's excellent piece about the only IRA bombing ever to take place on Scottish soil - the attack on the Sullom Voe oil terminal during the opening ceremony by Her Majesty the Queen.

At noon on Saturday 9 May 1981 Queen Elizabeth II, along with her husband Prince Philip, was in Shetland to attend the inauguration ceremony of the new oil terminal at Sullom Voe. The royal couple had recently arrived aboard the Royal Yacht Britannia and were joined at the ceremony by King Olav V of Norway who had sailed in aboard the Royal Yacht Norge.  Various other dignitaries had come to Shetland by a specially chartered P&O ship. 

As the royal triumvirate stood listening to their respective national anthems and the Queen waited to deliver her inauguration speech to the assembled crowd, barely anyone noticed the distant sound of an explosion, just 500 yards away in the new terminal’s main power station. Those that did hear the noise suspected some kind of electrical fault, but it was only in the hours and days that followed that it became clear the blast had been caused by a concealed explosive device, planted with the apparent intention of assassinating the British Head of State.

The explosive device, which contained seven pounds of gelignite connected to a timed detonator, had been hidden high up in the power station building. When it exploded at around 12.05, a nearby boiler was damaged and a large amount of debris was scattered around the vicinity, but fortunately there were no casualties. Around the same time as the explosion the British press began receiving messages from the Provisional IRA, claiming responsibility for a bomb blast at Sullom Voe. Because details of the incident were contained to begin with, the IRA claims were initially dismissed by the media as a hoax. But then news gradually began to trickle through that there had been reports of some kind of unidentified explosion during the inauguration ceremony...

For the full article buy the print edition or download the pdf (for the cover price) here

Why songs matter

Today I clumsily interviewed a band called Of Monsters and Men, from Iceland, who were the soul of politeness and co-operation. They payed two songs live, full band performances, no messing about with  'acoustic' sessions.

They were in Glasgow, I was in Shetland, they were at the start of a sold-out British tour, massive across the world. Yet they came into the BBC's Glasgow studios and performed impeccably, spoke as well as anyone could have expected. Yes, I did ask them if they'd been picketed by fishermen, and it seems they haven't. But are looking forward to it.

I managed to interrupt one of their songs during an seemingly endless pause, but they were great.

There was just one moment. I asked about their first, breakthrough single, Little Talks, which I know is about mental illness and deeply personal to the band. What was it about, I asked. "Anything you want it to be" answered Ragi.

I laughed. But good grief, I despaired at that moment. How often have I heard tosspot musicians say that? Then I thought, they're just youngsters. Let it go.

Because songs, I believe, are not about 'anything you want'. They're specific. They may be enigmatic, obscure, elusive and eccentric. But they're about something. And the writer knows what that is.

An example. This reduces me to a juddering wreck when I hear it. But it's not just honest and very clear, there's a fearlessness about it which may, yes, come from the fact that the writer and performer  is an elderly man who has seen and done almost everything, an intellectual and massively successful formal musician. And if you ask him what it's about, he tells you. It's deeply, deeply personal. But it's a song that matters.

 It's about something.

http://youtu.be/plZTRRaUov4