Aberdeen and the Great Simmer Dim Broadcast!

Thanks to everyone who's been in touch about Lucy (see post below. All your thoughts are really appreciated. Poor old Lulu doesn't know what's going on - her lifetime playmate has disappeared and she keeps trying to persuade anyone or anything she meets to have a bit of rough and tumble high jinks. With a very robust and active St Bernard this can be a bit...intimidating.

Back in Aberdeen after a four and a half hour drive from Kelso last night - well done to producers Jenny and Dawn for everything involving Soundtown. Our next outside broadcast will be, in fact, from Shetland, on 21st June, midsummer, when I will be hosting the entire day of BBC Radio Scotland's broadcasting from the midst of the 'simmer dim'. There will be live music from a host of Shetland acts, input to GMS, Fred Macaulay, the Radio Cafe, Travelling folk and Ricky Ross's Late Lounge, and a special live Tom Morton Show from the Victoria Pier in Lerwick, featuring music from a host of stars.

This will all coincide with annual Johnsmas Fair in Shetland, so it should be brilliant!

Kelso calling

I write from the library in Kelso, where I note they charge fines for overdue books! Ah, the tiny benefits of living in oil-rich Shetland. Computer use is, however, free, and everyone's very friendly.
I'm here to do the show from Kelso High School (great deco main building)as part of BBC Radio Scotland's Soundtown initiative. I've made my escape from the studio for a wee while because our guest band, a kind of Metallica/Incubus-influenced pupil outfit, is rehearsing at ferocious levels and my continuing state of ill-health can't cope. I'm not as young as I used to be. Efforts by the engineers to get them to turn things down seem to be succeeding, but Belle and Sebastian they ain't. Anyway the bronchitis and asthma is responding to treatment and my speaking voice is becoming more Tom Waits than Darth Vader.
I've never been to Kelso. In some ways it's like stepping back in time - it's a big old town with lots of proper old-fashioned shops, rather tweedy and John Buchan-esque on first glance. Though I did have an excellent capuccino in a very plush and modern cafe called Boo. And a pure 1970s bistro experience at a place called Oscar's last night. In a good way. Deep fried stuffed mushrooms and home made chips - you cannae whack it!
Actually, I'm getting a bit peckish now - but I have to save myself as the Home Economics Department is due to ply the team with goodies in a wee while. Cream cakes agogo! Pat Nevin, a huge music fan, is coming down from Peebles to guest on the show...and we'll try not to talk about football. which in my case won't be hard, as I don't know anything about it. Who were Scotland playing last night?

Goodbye to Lucy

Took poor old Lucy on her final journey to the vet yesterday. She was diagnosed with cancer about six weeks ago and has been on a course of steroids since. Her breathing, though, has grown more and more difficult and by yesterday she could barely stand.
Many, many thanks to Juliet, Jim and everyone at the Bixter surgery for being so kind and caring. Her sister Lulu is in a state of high agitation. We're all very sad.

Blind Boy Flugga's current whereabouts

...He may, under a more politically correct pseudonym, be lurking HERE.

Back in the Radiocroft (at least until Wednesday)

I think this is a bit steadier than my last (first) attempt at video blogging...shot on a wee still digital camera, this is The Radiocroft in Hillswick, spiritual (and for the most part, physical) home of the Tom Morton Show. It's a croft called Gateside, about two miles from my house, and last summer we ran it as a second-hand bookshop called The Bookcroft, with the radio studio housed in the stairheid cupboard.
Now the office, recording and radio studio stuff has taken over the whole house, leaving us two spare bedrooms for guests. The house is on a working croft, with sheep at the moment. There used to be pigs and hens, but no longer.
It's all very simple, really. There's an ISDN digital connection thanks to British Telecom, something that used to be called Home Highway but is now almost entirely redundant except for broadcasting purposes, due to the advent of Broadband. There's a mixer and several microphones, and we can do live music, within reasonable limits. It is, I am fairly certain, the BBC's most remote outpost within the UK.