Tom

The weather!

I use it to jokingly refer to myself sometimes. It really doesn't bother me. I'll admit that people coming up fae sooth are often quite colonial in their attitudes and perhaps local people have a right to feel a bit embittered now and then. Off in the Highlands and Western Isles, people coming in from Glasgow, Edinburgh, or England are often referred to as 'White Settlers' which I find rather amusing, though actually an interesting commentary about how local folk feel. Interestingly, I was at that Energy from the Edge conference last year - and overheard the coach driver refer to the group on the coach as 'fok fae sooth' when the majority of the group were from Greenland, Iceland, and Faroe. Whoops.

I think as a child-raising venue Shetland couldn't be beaten. I wish I'd had all the opportunities to go on sporting trips and trips for other activities and all the leisure centres and whatnot when I was growing up (not in Shetland). There always seems to be masses of stuff going on for the bairns. And once you're outside Lerwick, you can pretty much set them loose to romp around without worrying about them too much.

Yeah, Calum Brown's Up-Helly-Aa book has a bunch about the temperance organisations' efforts to pacify the passive drink-and-fire-fuelled antics of early Up-Helly-Aa, which created the whole Viking theme of the event. (it's also a very well written and interesting book regardless)

^ Ah, local government hard at work.... (*** Mod - unnecessary quoting removed ***)

You meet a fine lass down a' the pub. She hops in your car for the ride back to her house for a bit of naughtiness. One of your wife/girlfriend/mother's friends spies this mysterious character in your car's passenger seat and word gets around (as it does in Yell). Late that night, when you finally get home, you're confronted by the irrate wife/girlfriend/mother. 'No no! It wisna what de thinks! It was the White Wife!!!' (insert dramatic music here)

Yeah, I've heard variants of those stories - one had the Shetlander in Germany being the one whose ram was stolen. In the other, the lad who was accused of stealing the ram met the U-Boat captain. The idea of U-Boats hiding in a voe and stealing sheep to eat sounds entirely plausible. Don't know about the rest.

Of course there are some folk who'll say that if your gran isna fae Shetlan, du isna Shetlan. I've amusingly heard them referred to as 'little Shetlanders,' but it's probably more an excessively-over-ingrained anti-Scottish defensiveness than anything. And heaven forbid an Englishman wash up...

You wouldn't be the first to be prowling about Shetlink looking for tidbits to write about.

And the whole Shetland Hotel - right as you step off the ferry, there it is.

I nominate Sandvein and most of Sound. But then again, most British towns have bits like that from back when people didn't know any better. I like the new houses up on the hill there - the nicely painted ones. I'd be in terror of the winter wind though, if I lived there. It's nice that the big dishes near Bigton are gone. And I'll vote the old power station at the Saxa Vord base the most amusing eyesore - right in the middle of what everyone is trying to market as the great luxurious saviour of Unst.

I've got a Manx friend who is about to finish uni - she often laments that she has no hope of affording her own place. She'll just have to wait for one of her parents to die (though they're divorced, so she's got two opportunities). Roy Grønneberg wrote a good summary (though maybe a bit dated now) of several island autonomy systems in his Island Governments.

OED: Atteal: A species of duck of the Orkney and Shetland Isles, identified by some with the Widgeon. 1600 Act 16 Jas. VI, xxiii, Termigants, wyld-Dukes, Teilles, Atteilles, Goldings..or any sic kynde of fowlles. 1653 URQUHART Rabelais I. xxxvii, River-fowle, teales and awteales. 1809 A. EDMONDSTON Zetland Isl. II. 255 (Jam.) Anas Ferina, A-teal, Pochard, Great-headed Wigeon. 1813 LOW Fauna Orcad. 145 (Jam.) Another bird of the teal-kind here called Atteal..is very small, brown or dusky above, and a yellowish belly. It's actually quite amazing how much dialect is in the Oxford English Dictionary, so long as you can correctly guess the spelling. I assume they copied over one of the dialect dictionaries at some point.

I do always wonder how many tourists Unst can actually attract... But was up at Saxa Vord this past week and the restaurant was fairly good - even if you have to wind around past the grimy old power plant to get to it (which is apparently a massive environmental problem).

Though the Shetland Archives has photocopies (of varying quality) of all of it.