Gug

Is there no end to the dross spouted by ill-informed troublemakers like unlinkedstudent? Here's some simple facts which I'm sure Viking Energy would confirm if you bothered to ask: * the Viking Energy website is owned by Viking and run from its office in Lerwick. * Viking pays for the website to be hosted by Consense, who designed it, although I understand a Shetland company is about to take over and build a new one. * Shetland Aerogenerators are merely the owners of the domain name, having registered it years before Viking existed. It means nothing and everyone knows it's standard practice for domain names to be bought up and sub-licensed to users either for free or a fee. Famously, one of Shetland's busiest websites was badly affected by one of these arrangements when they fell out with the domain owner, who had a stockpile of local domain names. They had to go and relaunch their entire business using a new domain name. Next conspiracy?

I hope you guys have got good lawyers because ShetLink moderators are (yet again) allowing scurrilous and wholly untrue statements to be made in this thread.

Some of the above comments are disgraceful and at least one is actionable. Where the hell are the Shetlink moderators?

Oops, I made a mistake with my links above. No.1 model is here: http://www.next.co.uk/model-competition-2011/vote-for-me-idgek9j984/

Erm . . . has anybody had a shooftie at the "model" who currently occupies top spot? http://www.next.co.uk/model-competition-2011/vote-for-me-idjrmca78p/ Our particular favourite is no.77. http://www.next.co.uk/model-competition-2011/vote-for-me-idjrmca78p/ I might even enter myself!

It's meant for toffs fae sooth.

I think what we have here is a rare glimpse of Shetland's sinister underbelly. Other people have been threatened in the past for daring to question the activities of local "businessmen" and their henchmen.

He seems to have shifted to http://www.freeforvik.com

It was Michael Black, poor soul. He's the most peaceable bouncer you ever came across. There's a wild rumour he was hit with a bottle and possibly stabbed. I hope they catch and crucify those scum.

Please can you clarify: do you guys mean Michael Black or somebody else?

1. Mariza, Glasgow Royal Concert Hall, 2006: an extraordinary Portuguese/Mozambique fado singer I went down to see at Celtic Connections. 2. Alison Krauss & Union Station, Glasgow Concert Hall, 1998: there were a few Shetlanders went down for this and I think we were all moved to tears. 3. Jeff Buckley, Manchester Uni student union, 1995: My girfriend of the time secretly got tickets, organised me a week's hols and blagged free flights - has to be the best surprise birthday present ever. Sadly, I overdid the whooping-up so details of the gig are hazy. 4. Neil Young, SECC, Glasgow, 2001: my all-time hero, I'd seen him before but was a bit disappointed. This time he did more acoustic stuff and made up for it. 5. The Stranglers, Rainbow, London, 1979: scary gig for three 16-year-old Shetland boys who then got mugged afterwards at East Ham tube station. Bubbling under (if you will indulge me a little longer). . . Nirvana, King's Hall, Belfast, 1992. Not a good one for Kurt, rushed to hospital at the end with ye olde stomach pains. Still managed to trash all the gear. The venue was awful. Thin Lizzy, Capitol, Aberdeen 1981-ish: unfortunately it wasn't Scott and Brian on geetars. One of them was there, along with I think Gary Moore. Pop Will Eat Itself, Glasgow Barrowlands, 1991?: a mind-blowing experience with a loada partyin' Whalsa dudes ZZ Top, Glasgow Apollo, 1983, Eliminator tour.

Did anyone have bad experiences with drunken gugs at the otherwise-successful pier bash over the weekend? On Friday evening (when there was still loadsa bairns about) various zombies were bumbling in and out of the beer tent, knocking into folk and falling about. Nobody seemed to be doing anything about them. I saw one falling on a pram with a baby in it. Another tried to fight with me because I had the audacity to tell him he had knocked over my pint of beer and flatched somebody's noodles (box of). Apparently on Saturday a blootered member of one of the country jarl's squads threw a tin of beer at the Masterchef dude. What happens at night in a pub full of drinking adults is one thing but allowing roaring drunk gugs to career around busy public spaces among bairns, folk in wheelchairs, grannies, folk carrying cups of steaming coffee and expensive pints is, to my mind, not acceptable. I know it must be difficult to refuse aggressive male drinkers but some bar staff are still selling stuff to them when they are already totally out of their pea brains. If it was crack or heroin they were running riot on nobody would tolerate it and the cops would be right up 'em. Stewards and bar staff need to wise up. Perhaps a bar/club licence or two should be suspended until the message starts to get through.

A web station for Shetland is an idea of some genius, especially since the way SIBC is run has been such a missed opportunity for local and live music. Also, BBC Radio Shetland is so grossly underfunded it has neither the airtime nor the human resources to do more than a token effort for local music. Contrast that with the wall-to-wall music programmes on Gaelic TV. When someone here brings out a new album you're lucky to hear anything more than a 15 second clip on Radio Shetland's nightly news magazine prog. Would you podcast chaps fancy an acoustic roots DJ, taking in some good (honest) world music along with country n folk n Jordan Ogg? This here gug could be yer man

I reckon the use of "badders" is probably because there is no other handy name for the sport and badminton can be rather a long word to squeeze into a short headline.

Ultra-top sources of the highest order say the SmartLott draw will definitely come to an end next month, although whether there will be a final draw at the end of May is not yet clear. As to why it has failed, well I haven't a scooby.