Island Paradise: Stoats Reloaded

Two years ago, I wrote about stoats in Orkney. Well, it appears that there are still stoat concerns. You'd think that with all of those cats, the handful of stoats would have no chance.

Island Paradise: The Great Clapshot Debate of 2015

Each Wednesday, Radio Orkney runs a segment called the Postbag in which letters from members of the Orkney community (and once, just once, from me!) are read over the air. I look forward to it every week - last week, I actually got disappointed on Tuesday morning when I realized that I had to wait another day to listen to it.

A couple of years ago, I wrote about clapshot - here and here. Clapshot is delicious... Or is it? Gray 1 told me that it only qualifies as clapshot if the potatoes and turnips have been through a freeze, and the neeps and tatties I tried had not yet been through a freeze. Anyway, what I had was delicious, and if it wasn't clapshot, it was at least close. Well, that very issue came up over the course of several weeks in some Postbag segments earlier this year:

January 28th 2015

February 4th 2015

February 11th 2015

I'm calling it the Great Clapshot Debate of 2015. And the highlight? On February 11th, Radio Orkney presenter Helen Foulis read a letter. And I quote:

"Once you've got your clapshot on the plate, there are a few dos surrounding ways to eat it. First of all, there has to be butter available on the table - real butter, obviously, especially now that we've heard that real butter is actually good for you. First, dig a hole in the top of your pile of clapshot until it resembles a volcano. Then, place a large knob of butter in the crater of the volcano, and add a generous pinch of salt and some black pepper. Then, replace all the clapshot that you've previously excavated fae the clapshot mountain, and smooth over the top so that the butter is contained within the structure. Wait a few minutes, and then dig out a small hole in the side of your clapshot mountain, and allow the molten butter to cascade out like lava flowing from an erupting volcano. Pure bliss."

Fantastic. I may actually try to make some clapshot for Lady Jaye one of these days - according to one commentator in the Great Clapshot Debate of 2015, you can accomplish the freezing process by putting the potatoes and turnips into the freezer. Watch this space!

Island Paradise: Highland Park Podcast

Lady Jaye got me a Fire TV Stick for my birthday (and an actual TV prior to my birthday, though that one's more for her than for me), and among other things, I've been using it to listen to audio using the TuneIn Radio app. I decided to plug "Orkney" into the search, and stumbled upon a couple of podcasts, including one about Highland Park. You can check it out here.

The Songs That Remind You: Bruck Program 2014/'15

I recently posted about an episode of BBC Radio Orkney's Bruck Program. During the 2014/'15 season, I heard four songs on Bruck that really jumped out at me. The first was Rock - Paper - Scissors by Katzenjammer.


At some point in the year - I forget when - the lads played Red Eyes by The War on Drugs. The lyrics are sort of incomprehensible, but the music is great, and the video is pretty entertaining without being too ostentatious.


In January, there was a bit of a kerfuffle! The folks at Radio Orkney credit themselves with popularizing the Irish country singer Nathan Carter. Dave and Robbie attempted to play his cover of Bob Dylan's Wagon Wheel, but accidentally played Darius Rucker's cover instead!


You can check out Nathan Carter's version of Wagon Wheel here. At any rate, as I alluded to in a recent post, Dave and Andrew played The Flying Burrito Bros.' cover of The Dark End of the Street in February, during the Vesta Chow Mein episode.


Finally, on the final Bruck Program of the 2014/'15 season, the Robbie and Fionn played Push For The Stride by the British country music singing sisters Ward Thomas.


With the last Bruck Program of the season out of the way, we'll have to wait a few more months before the studio on Castle Street resonates with more great music. I look forward to it!

Bull on the Loose in Lerwick!

The lads may have had something to say about the recent loose bull incident in Lerwick...

Island Paradise: The Vesta Chow Mein Shortage of 2015

In February, I was listening to BBC Radio Orkney's Bruck Program.

For the uninitiated, the Bruck Program is a sort of unique Radio Orkney offering that originated as a venue for "swaps and appeals" - e.g., islanders requesting surplus goods, or offering them up for collection or trade. It's the sort of thing that only a remote place like Orkney, which must make the utmost use of its local resources, could come up with. The Bruck Program has grown to include music and interviews about a variety of topics of general interest. I've even been interviewed for it a couple of times! Radio Orkney has a variety of great evening programs during the Winter season (including Whassigo, about which I've written before), and Bruck is their general interest program.

Anyway, on February 9th, BBC Radio Orkney power-hitters Dave and Andrew hosted the program, and Dave began to randomly wax eloquent about Vesta Chow Mein, which he remembered from his younger years and hadn't seen in a great long while. Within minutes, Dave and Andrew received multiple E-mails and phone calls informing them of various vendors throughout Orkney (including William Shearer in Kirkwall!) where Vesta Chow Mein could be obtained. One intrepid listener even showed up with a package of it!

(Dave) Last night's Bruck discussion about Vesta Chow Mein attracted dozens of phonecalls from folk confirming that it was still available and where it was possible to get it. It was something that I remember from when I was peedie and we used to have it as a bit of an exotic treat for tea. The other night I just took a 'gee' to have a Vesta Chow Mein for tea but couldn't find it anywhere so mentioned it on Bruck last night. Lots of Radio Orkney listeners phoned in to point me in the right direction for where it could be found but Neetie Rorie went one better (see pic). Thank you very much to all the folk who phoned in and thanks to Neetie for coming in with my dinner :) Note from BBC lawyer - Other 1970's reconstituted Chinese inspired ready meals may well be available.

I ran a Google Image query for "vesta chow mein", and found some photoshopped goodness: a package of "Vesta Squirrel Curry", pictured above. As I began writing this post, I reached out on Facebook to Gray 1, a fellow BBC Radio Orkney aficionado. I posted the picture to his timeline and asked, "Hungry?", to which he replied: "I prefer Vesta Possum Paella but a free meal is a free meal."

And then, Andrew played a song that will appear in the next edition of The Songs That Remind You!

Island Paradise: Romance Capital of the UK

Orkney has been named "the most romantic place in the United Kingdom" by the romance novel publisher Mills and Boon. That sounds about right to me.

Separated by a Common Language: Competing Heads of State

I was in Aberdeen in December of 2012 when the Sandy Hook shootings took place in Newtown, Connecticut. In fact, I not-so-fondly remember being lectured about Canada's sensible gun control by CN Slapshot after we went as a group to see the first Hobbit film. Anyway, I'll leave politics aside. While I was in Scotland, a lot of political posturing took place in which the White House was pushing for tighter gun control, and Republicans were resisting it. According to the folks at Know Your meme:

During an interview with New Republic on January 27th, 2013, President Obama was asked if he had ever fired a gun, to which he answered that he goes skeet shooting at Camp David frequently. Four days later, the Washington Post’s Fact Checker began investigating these claims and noted that it could not find any proof of Obama having participated in skeet shooting. In response to this criticism, the White House released an official photograph of the President skeet shooting at Camp David via their official Flickr account on February 2nd, 2013, along with a caption requesting that the photograph not be manipulated in any way.

One of my favorites was this image, in which President Obama with a shotgun is juxtaposed against a photo of Queen Elizabeth II firing an SA80 infantry rifle. Many Americans will recognize Her Majesty's comment as a derisive jab at President Obama. Shortly before I left Scotland in late 2013, I was in The Director's office with him and Critical Mass, and for the life of me, I could not convey to either of them what the context of that particular comment. They thought it was meant to deride Queen Elizabeth II by referring to her with an indelicate moniker. Both of them were fairly critical of President Obama - The Director once referred to President Obama as "strategically illiterate" - and I'm confident that, had I been able to get the joke across, they probably would have been fairly amused. As such, it was unfortunate that they were unable to enjoy the joke because we were separated by a common language.