filskadacat

You mean you can afford new duvets every year? Isn't that...erm...a bit wasteful? I give mine to the local launderette; they wash and dry them same day and charge about £10 for a double I think. OK that's in Broughty Ferry - but there must be a launderette that does service washes in Lerwick!

That was 14 years ago!!! A great many things in the world have changed since then and trading practice in every aspect of retailing might just be one of them.

Last year Morrison's was due to open a big new supermarket in the north of Dundee. Big fanfare about opening date - but then it didn't happen because the traffic chaps were not satisfied about the access (from the main road north) and so it was postponed for a few months while they put in more traffic lights or something and it eventually opened not long before Christmas. The point about the vouchers was, for the 4 weeks from the first opening date, Tesco had already sent us (Clubcard holders) vouchers for I think £10 per week if you spent so much; obviously designed to persuade you not to go to the new place for the normal weekly shop. Then when the opening finally did happen, they did it again - this time to a higher value. I think in the end I had almost £100-worth of vouchers from Tesco - and Morrison's had big signs up all over the city saying they would accept them. That's a lot of money - I was more than pleased with the saving and, having gone once to Morrison's for a look and found nothing I wanted to buy, I never went back .

You could always try Travelodge or Premier Travel Inn; OK they're soulless and could be absolutely anywhere - but usually clean, you know exactly what you're getting for your money and if your dates work out you might just get a very cheap night especially with Travelodge. If they claim to be fully booked for the night you want, just put them on a link and keep hitting it; because they have a reasonable cancellation policy it is quite likely that rooms will become available nearer the time if you are persistent. Has worked for me in London and Camberley. Or if you fancy something a bit nicer try Laterooms.com - think it was someone on Shetlink who recommended that in the first place to me and it can be brilliant if you hit lucky!

Now then, the last time the four of us came up on the Clair, with the car, the return fare with cabins was around £700. But... I had been saving up my Clubcard coupons, which, translated into Clubcard vouchers, came to - £540. It was wonderful. I've still got all the paperwork for it stashed somewhere. What happened next? - we got Northlink, who are far too small in comparison with P&O for Tesco to bother contracting an agreement with for random folk south like me. And it costs a bomb and we can't afford to come. But... if there are now lots of folk in Shetland shopping regularly in Tesco's and regularly needing to get to Aberdeen - why not suggest to them that a Clubcard arrangement with Northlink would be viable? Everyone would benefit from that!

Thing with the engine size is it does imply either the young een will have bought their own car – which obviously schoolchildren can’t do – or it implies that their parents will have to buy them their own little car – which many of us simply can’t afford to do. Our two Volvos are aged 11 and 12, and we have two sons aged 20 and 17. I phoned up the insurance company just a fortnight ago when the younger one passed his test – no extra charge as the policy expires at the start of August. Renewal notice arrived yesterday, for all four of us to drive the smaller car (1.8l) – almost £1,300!!! That’s more than the car is worth. Yet last year with our elder son at that point 19, the premium was £400-ish. None of us has had a claim. In effect this means the younger boy may be barred from driving as we clearly can’t pay that premium, we need two biggish cars for work reasons and we can’t afford to buy a third one. Time will require to be spent researching – haven’t done that yet. ???

That's my Tesco’s. I have been following this thread with great interest thinking of all the times I have gone shopping when up staying with the family and had to be very careful not to make rude remarks, especially about the Co-op. I have brought up my two enormous sons shopping at Tesco’s. I have a choice of Sainsbury’s (3 minutes away and far too expensive) Asda (fruit and veg poor quality) and whichever of Safeway, Somerfield or Morrison’s has happened to own the local supermarket; Tesco’s wins hands down on price, choice and freshness, plus, as Frances discovered, the assistants are so helpful you can chat away with them and now the boys are grown up some of the cashiers ask how they’re getting on. I have every respect for other people’s desire to shop according to this that and the other principle, but the fact is Tesco’s can feed my family in one shop once a week, at a price I think gives value for money, and as a busy working mother and the wife of a poorly-paid HGV driver I find that accords with my needs.

My goodness. How amazing. Wonder if he realises what his wife gets up to at her keyboard? Mindful of Fifi's remarks I kept quiet about the fact that I had two more e-mails from the lady in question – one in February and one in March. The March one was simply the Lord's Prayer with some rather odd spelling for Shetland - as follows: O Loard - Wir Father Up Abon Wha med de Airt, Starns, Sun and Mon Blist Be your Nem. If wid do joost whit You say Heevin on Airt is whit we'd hae, Keep wiz wi a scar a maet An led wiz doon dat nairro gaet. Forgie wiz fur de wrangs we do An we'll emm trow life te folow You. Loard - We hae dat mony faats Keep wiz fae de Deevil's clachts. Tae You aa Glory we will gie Fae noo richt trow Eternity. Amen. The previous one in February perplexes me altogether - I think it might be rude but I couldn’t manage to work it out. Any suggestions? I completely ignored both of them. The title of the e-mail which brought this one was NOOTSTOOTS: • W H H O O O A A A RU R R R R RB A A A G • N O O A A R R G G R U G G RUGGE R R R R R • P R R R R M O O O S T T O O O T S

I was wondering when a mention of this was going to come up on Shetlink – I have Shetland Today as my home page on all my computers (2 at work...) and it has been out of action for about a week. First of all it just said you couldn’t access it, then it said it had been that victim of malicious hacking, now there’s an odd-looking makeshift page up with the news which says: “We would like to offer a sincere apology for the loss of services during the past six days. Our website suffered a severe and malicious attack which led to the host having to take the site offline while solutions were sought. This temporary site will serve to provide the viewer with as much as possible of the extensive content the previous site did until long-term solutions for all our services, old and new, are finalised and produced.†I suppose everyone in Shetland is reading the paper anyway and hasn’t noticed? However both Firefox (original) and IE seem happy to load the temporary page for now. I didn’t have time to respond to v helpful suggestions offered earlier re making Shetlink run in Firefox – basically because I didn’t understand most of them and I just want for it to work when I click – so I run IE specially for Shetlink and Firefox for everything else. Now student son is home I will maybe get him to sort it and find out about FF3!

Is dis da sam wird as 'fooshunliss' (spelling???) meaning bland, lacking in colour / character?

Many thanks for this passing reference! I was just about to send off to Amazon for something else so ordered both Raven Black and White Nights. The effect of the latter was to keep me up till 2 am as I just had to find out whodunit! I don't really read crime as a genre but I enjoyed these two hugely; they kept me guessing till the very last page. Plus I ended up getting the map out to work out which bits of geography had been transposed where! Then there was the fun of wondering which if any of the characters were based on real people (better keep my thoughts on that one to myself) and discovering on the author’s website today that I had at least correctly identified Busta and Bonhoga (aka Tony's mill...) as two of the locations. Would be interested to hear if anyone else has read them? According to her website she has just finished the third of the planned quartet and it is set in Whalsay. And then I discovered I wasn't the only one who thought well of White Nights: http://entertainment.timesonline.co.uk/tol/arts_and_entertainment/article3798814.ece

This is word for word the message I get every time I log into my work e-mail from home. Our IT manager says that it's because when we were required to change our url - years ago - by some Government dept it was going to cost a lot to change the name on the certificate so he refused. Doesn't bother us in the slightest - I suppose you would just need to be sure this supplier was genuine.

Maybe it’s just that we live in the middle of a big soft fruit area – but the likes of strawberries, for example, always carry a Tesco label stating Fife or Tayside – sometimes they even have a photo and the name of the grower. Same with a lot of the more expensive meat - if you buy steak it will tell you who raised the animal. I always read these carefully and pick whatever is closest to here (Dundee). Appreciate that offering my opinion from a south perspective will raise hackles with some – but Somerfield is very close to the family home when we are up on holiday and I have always found it to be heart-sinkingly depressing in terms of range available. Perhaps Tesco’s won’t be so awful?

This is what it said in the Times Educational Supplement Scotland: http://www.tes.co.uk/search/story/?story_id=2596506 Obituary Mary Blance Published: 21 March 2008 John J. Graham was a gifted teacher, headteacher, scholar, writer, editor, politician, historian, folklorist and storyteller. His many roles reflect the various ways in which he influenced life in his native Shetland. Born in 1921 and brought up on a croft, John longed to go to sea. So when he passed his 11-plus exam, he refused to go to the Anderson Educational Institute, opting instead for Lerwick Central Public School because he knew he would be able to leave earlier. But a disastrous voyage, during which he was very seasick, caused him to change his mind about joining the Merchant Navy. In 1941, he volunteered for the RAF and got his first taste of teaching as a flying instructor. After being demobbed, he went to Edinburgh University, where he graduated with honours in English and chose teaching over journalism as a career. In 1950, he returned home to the post of principal teacher of English and history at Anderson, the school he had rejected as a boy. A born communicator, he got a genuine thrill from teaching. In 1966, he was appointed headteacher of the Lerwick Central Public School. And when Lerwick's two secondaries merged in 1970, John was delighted to take charge of the new Anderson High School. He also took an interest in the broader education scene as a member of the Scottish Consultative Committee on the Curriculum. Before he retired in 1982, John's contribution to education had been recognised nationally. He was made an OBE and became a fellow of the Educational Institute of Scotland. In 1985, the University of Aberdeen gave him an honorary degree for his contribution to both education and literature. It is largely due to John and his brother Lollie that Shetland has such a lively literary scene. They took over the reins at the political/cultural quarterly New Shetlander in 1956 and remained co-editors until 1997, seeking out, encouraging and promoting new writers. John loved the vitality of the Shetland dialect. Along with T.A. Robertson, he produced Grammar and Usage of the Shetland Dialect in 1952. And in 1979, he published his bestselling Shetland dictionary. He wrote two historical novels set in Shetland and his study of local education led to his 1998 publication A Vehement Thirst After Knowledge: Four Centuries of Education in Shetland. John believed that Shetland's future depended on the islands having much greater control over their own affairs and he pursued that political ideal after he retired. He was elected to the Shetland Islands Council and was a councillor for 12 years, standing for the Shetland Movement, which he had helped found. People remember John with respect and affection - for his generosity of spirit, his lively energy, his ability to inspire others, his passion and his commitment - aware that he really did make a difference to many lives and in many fields.

But there’s a story about it I’m sure – surprised no-one has yet come on with it. It was a doctor who built it for himself and his family and to include a consulting room or indeed maybe consulting suite. But then something went wrong. Did he misprescribe something and a patient died? Or did two of his children die? Or maybe both of these things? You can look up at it from my cousin’s summer house and we had this conversation a few years ago – I have forgotten almost all of it but I’m sure there was some great sadness involved and that accounted for it having fallen into ruin as no-one actually wanted to live there. Someone will now come on and tell the correct version!

Sorry - hadn't worked down as far as this when I posted on other Problems thread. This is exactly what is happening with me.

I don’t understand most of the technical language on here and geeky son is still away at uni. But when I came back home yesterday after 3 days’ absence Shetlink would not load in Firefox at all. I sent a ‘Forgotten password‘ e-mail because it‘s so long since I needed one, as I keep it running all the time, that I thought maybe I had forgotten it. Then I tried IE – and it worked fine, on my original password, which I had not, in fact, forgotten. Still nothing doing tonight in Firefox – every time I put in username and password it just comes back to the login screen. I’m not computer-minded enough to have changed any settings so am unaware of why this should be happening.

That is so weird - I have just always thought you were a guy! Couldn't tell you why - maybe because sassermaet pits me in mind of my cousins - and they're all men. Ooops!

But that would entirely spoil all the fun as we should find out everyone's identity! - to say nothng of their family photographs and their educational achievements and what they choose to advertise as their favourite books / music / films etc etc etc. That's not what Shetlink is about, is it?

But why is all the rest of the stuff on the page in Russian?

Have just come in from the neighbour's house and the other neighbour - i.e. two doors away - informs me he has bought Pottinger's shoe shop. And rechristened it DE. Oh well. At least it wasn’t C & J’s - that would just be a bit too much.

I fail to see what effect either age, gender or number of children produced would have on one’s familiarity or otherwise with the basic concept of full stops and capital letters. Nor do I appreciate what difference sitting on (ouch!) a computer would have on such a deficit. But hey – I’m one of these dreadfully old-fashioned people who also thinks that grown-ups should take responsibility for their own actions or face up to the consequences.

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/europe/article3040094.ece

(cough) .. it was an end-of-course-for-foreign-students-of-Russian concert and we were asked to get up on a stage in front of all nationalities and do 'something representative of our home nation'. I can sing reasonably and someone had a guitar they could lend me … I think it was in the ballroom of that hotel just over the bridge if you went up past the ’wedding cake’ building that used to be the ‘Foreign Office’ ??? ….I haven’t been in Moscow since, and that was 1978! Was at a reception at the Russian consulate in Edinburgh on Monday – blinis and caviar were good! – and understood all of the consul’s speech - to my relief! - but rather dried up at the third sentence in attempting to reply to him. One of the girls who works in our Bursary is Ukrainian and is very cross about this – she says I have to sit down and talk Russian to her to get ‘unrusted’. But I don’t have time! Sorry - that has rather wandered away from Eftir da Humin. I have pm'd Lastpubrunner to ask for a CD!

I didn’t know there was a volume 2! – and I can’t be the only person on here who has Volume 1. It’s a 33 rpm – but a little one - only 10â€. MuckleJoannie is right about the reason for the title – there’s an introduction by John J Graham which tells of how at night when the work was done and the fokk gaddered in aboot dan da fiddle would come doon fae da hook abune da brace – and a foy would be hed consisting of items such as those on the recording. Volume 1 has Tom Anderson and Co playing four reels, Jessie Smith reciting Tirval and Me which I once had by heart, so often had I listened to it, Tom Georgeson singing Stoorbra Hill which I have sung all over the place including once on a stage in Moscow, Ann Gray singing Bressay Lullaby, a selection of Foula reels, Larry Peterson singing Farewell to Yell which I used to do at church concerts when I was a teenager (!) and some more fiddle music. I would love to have this on a CD – I put it on cassette so I could listen to it in the car (our cars are old...) but cassettes degrade. Where are you, Lastpubrunner? I would never part permanently with my copy as it is so much a part of my childhood but if I could loan it to you safely you could make the CD and then we could all have one - and I should very much like to purchase a copy of Volume 2 when you do that, please.