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.

Debacle in Shetland: Accidental and Intentional Panoramas

In early 2012, when Google Street View was still fairly new, I found myself stuck in an office in the Middle East with three months and nothing to do. Since I was already planning on going to Aberdeen, one thing I did to pass the time was to use Google Street View to scout places to visit in Orkney and Shetland. Both of these have obviously gotten a lot of attention on this blog. One place I was eager to visit was Sumburgh Head, the southernmost point in Shetland. I'd taken a screenshot (see above), and one thing I wanted to do was make my own panorama looking north from Sumburgh Head.

Once I got the photos uploaded to Facebook on the 4th of April 2013, I promptly forgot about actually making the panorama. Then, on the morning of the 15th of March 2015, nearly two years later, I was looking back through that Facebook album for this photo, and stumbled upon this:

My intentional photography aimed at producing a panorama became an accidental panorama on Facebook. I've gotten a lot better at using PowerPoint to "Photoshop" images over the last couple of years, so I spent about ten minutes, and voila, the image posted below was the result.

It looks like there's a gap between the left-most image and its neighbor. I guess that's just the risk you run. Under the circumstances, I'm not sure I'll be back to remedy the situation any time soon. It sort of makes me wonder when Shetland is green, because it seemed like Orkney was always Green whenever I was there, but there's obviously a significant difference between Shetland's foliage when the folks from Google visited in June of 2009, and when I visited nearly four years later.

Fun With Whisky: Highland Park's Whisky 101

Is there anything that Highland Park Distillery can't do right? Longtime readers will remember that in late 2013, I toured the distillery. Highland Park - and particularly Highland Park 18 - has become my favorite whisky, and HP12 is a staple of my whisky diet. When I was back home for a few months, a buddy of mine - also a whisky connoisseur - showed me this video, and I wanted to share it with you, the valued readers.


It's really pretty tough to come up with anything about Orkney that's not to like. Highland Park helps.

Island Paradise: Holm of Huip for Sale

One of Orkney's islands, the Holm of Huip, is for sale! I heard about it on Radio Orkney on Thursday morning. The Holm of Huip, which is located here, is being sold by Vladi Private Islands with an asking price of around £350,000. If only Lady Jaye and I had about £700,000 to spend to purchase the island, sort it out with water and electricity, and build our dream cottage...

The Shetland Ponies Discuss Up Helly Aa 2015

Up Helly Aa 2015 is upon us, and Sigurd and Thorfinn are ready.

Ohhhh, good grief, here we go...

Northern Isles Evening Programs

I've been listening to BBC Radio Orkney for years. I've recently started listening to selections from BBC Radio Shetland as well.

Most of Radio Orkney's evening programs focus on various genres of music, but for my money (which is to say, they're free), their flagship program is Whassigo. I've written about Whassigo previously, and I've been enjoying this year's editions of the program. Radio Orkney's evening programs aren't over for the year, but if you want to get caught up on Whassigo, you can listen to their shows from October 8th, November 5th, December 3rd, and January 7th. Even sitting at my desk listening on my headset at work, the show always reminds me of sitting and listening in Helgi's, or in my room at the guest house.

Meanwhile, Radio Shetland's closest corollary is the monthly (sort of?) 'Round Shetland Quiz. It's a bit more competitive than Whassigo, and less collegial, but it's sort of quintessentially Shetlandic... I assume? Anyway, their season isn't over, either, and you can listen to their quiz shows from October 22nd, November 5th, November 26th, and January 7th. Unfortunately, Radio Shetland doesn't enable the download link on any of their programs. (If anyone from Radio Shetland is reading this: please enable the download links on some of your programs.)

Enjoy!

The Shetland Ponies do Up Helly Aa

A few months ago, my cartoons of the Shetland Ponies - inspired in part by the famous Orcadian comic The Giddy Limit - debuted on this blog in the post following the referendum result. The annual Shetlandic festival Up Helly Aa (pronounced "Up Hell-Yaa") takes place in a couple of weeks, and Sigurd and Thorfinn are excited for the festivities.

On one of my trips between Aberdeen and Kirkwall aboard either the Hjaltland or the Hrossey, I met some extremely kind Shetlanders. I told them that I'd visited Shetland, and that it hadn't gone particularly well, and they insisted that I was absolutely going to come up and celebrate Up Helly Aa with them. I feel like that voyage took place in November or maybe early December. I left Scotland in late December having never heard from any of them despite having given them my business card and expressed some interest in coming up to the festival. Oh, well, c'est la vie... Or, as the Orcadians might say, "Ah've jus' gottae get awn wae hid, beuy."

Also, this may not be the first time Sigurd and Thorfinn have discussed Up Helly Aa...

If you're a Shetlander who happens to be seeing these, have fun at the festival, and try to stay safe!