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.

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!