The Musical Interlude...
Another one off Kerrang! (which is turning me into a metalhead - last night the "Just For You" section of iTunes recommended Slipknot and Korn for me, instead of the usual Coldplay!)...
Good Charlotte - "The River"...
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Labels: Good Charlotte, Music Vids, Ocean Colour Scene
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Labels: Green Wing, Julian Rhind-Tutt, Phwoar, Stephen Mangan
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And why do the sheep get shunted on to the shore? Quite simply, North Ronaldsay's not a big island, and good grazing land is at a premium.
The sheep have evolved in several ways to cope with their environment... for instance, instead of eating during the day and ruminating at night, these woolly beasts eat twice a day, at low tide, and digest in between.
Their wool is also highly prized, and lots of products knitted in North Ronaldsay wool are available.
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Labels: Food, Mutton, North Ronaldsay, Orkney, Produce, Sheep
Actor Marc Warren - always plays the bad guy...
Ooo... he's a baddie, but a goodie! Those eyes are incredible...
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Labels: Marc Warren, Phwoar
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Labels: All American Rejects, Music Vids, No Doubt
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Labels: Famous Orcadians, Folklore, Janet Forsyth, Orkney, Storm Witch
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Labels: Phwoar, Rufus Wainwright
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Labels: Bee Gees, Music Vids, Roy Orbison
More information here, courtesy of Orkneyjar: Orkneyjar: Standing Stones O' Stenness
(Credit to www.allfivesenses.com/ for the image - come to Orkney and learn the ancient stone age survival skills of making fires, etc).
Ring O' Brodgar
More complete than the Standing Stones, this consists of a true circle, 104 metres wide, and originally contained 60 megaliths. Today, only around about 30 of these stones remain. The stones vary in height from about 7ft to just over 15ft - imagine trying to put those into place without the assistance of a JCB!
More information from my bible here: Orkneyjar: Ring O' Brodgar
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Labels: Monuments, Orkney, Ring O' Brodgar, Standing Stones O' Stenness
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Labels: Alan Rickman, Phwoar
LOL... every time the sun goes behind a cloud for any length of time, my duck goes purple again - at the moment he's two-tone!
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Labels: Chris Rea, Music Vids, Stone Sour
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Labels: General
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Labels: Cartoon, Giddy Limit, Orkney, The Orcadian
I think Adrian Pasdar's my favourite of the 2 (coz he's playing the "bad" brother) - unless you're talking Fergie's video for "Big Girls Don't Cry", starring Milo Ventimiglia with ponytail and tattoos... I think they add to his charms!
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Labels: Adrian Pasdar, Heroes, Milo Ventimiglia, Nathan Petrelli, Peter Petrelli
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Labels: Candy Dulfer, Dave Stewart, Hazel O'Connor, Music Vids
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Labels: Flunky, Homer Simpson, Simpsons Movie, Spiderpig, The Simpsons
Whew... I feel a flush coming on...
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Labels: Anthony Kiedis, Phwoar, Red Hot Chili Peppers
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Labels: Bishop's Palace, Earl's Palace, History, Kirkwall, Monuments, Orkney
LOL... I didn't actually realise the implications of my subtitle with the "Free Love" mention - I meant the grass that grows in fields and gets eaten by sheep!
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Labels: Music Vids, Red Hot Chili Peppers, The Doors
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Labels: Highland Park, Orkney, Orkney Brewery, Orkney Wine Company
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Labels: Music Vids, The Bloodhound Gang, The Kinks
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Labels: Cats, General, Horror, IT, Steven King, Tim Curry, Weekend, Work
A very shy bird, that likes to hide and nest in long grass, and has been almost wiped out by modern farming... but is slowly regaining in numbers, it would appear...
This story's from a few years ago, but we can only hope the numbers continue to increase: BBC Scotland: Corncrakes Return?
Then, the colourful and clown-like Puffin or "Tammie Norrie", which will be breeding on clifftops in various parts of Orkney right around now.
Birsay is a good place to spot either of these birds, but you're more likely to spot a Puffin than the elusive Corncrake!
And Tim Curry... starting with my first introduction to him, and what started me off thinking he was hot - as Frank-n-Furter (see, I told you "strange") in "The Rocky Horror Picture Show"...
And even as he got older (and ditched the suspenders & make-up), he's still not bad...
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Labels: Eddie Izzard, Frank-N-Furter, Phwoar, Rocky Horror Picture Show, Tim Curry
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Labels: Music Vids, Oasis, The Small Faces
Orkney's quite a flat landscape in bits, and with so much wind, it is relatively treeless. This is reflected in these chairs, because wood forms a relatively small part of the chair, and would normally have used driftwood that washed up on the shore - sometimes from unfortunate shipwrecks in Orkney's strong tides and small rocky islands.
The backs of the chairs are made from oats, and the seats from seagrass, and the chairs are largely handmade. The rows of oat bundles are woven together with rope to form a very warm back, resistant to draughts.
The hooded chair above would have belonged to the man of the house, of course!
There are still traditional Orkney Chair makers working, and if I remember rightly, there are Orkney Chairs in Royal Palaces!
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Labels: Crafts, Orkney, Orkney Chair
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Labels: Art Garfunkel, Music Vids, Paul Simon, The Wonderstuff
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Labels: General, Harry Potter, Health, Julie, Scott
And then Ken Stott, from Edinburgh this time. He plays DCI Red Metcalfe in the "Messiah" series, and took over from John Hannah to play "Rebus" in 2006.
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Labels: David Hayman, Ken Stott, Phwoar
Read more about it here: Orkneyjar: Skara Brae
It's discovery was amazing... basically, a great storm in 1850 stripped the grass off the top of a bank, and the outlines of some of the houses were exposed from where they had been buried by a sandstorm many, many years before. Excavation continued for over a century, on and off, and what's left is what we have now... but it's an on-going work to preserve this ancient site from further erosion and damage - you can see one of the houses in the picture above has been covered over, and you'll find most of the site can only be viewed from above the houses.
Below is one of the dwellings, with the hearth in the centre (and there would have been a roof of sorts, with a chimney), beds to the left and right which would have had animal skins to keep you warm, and in front is the stone dresser - way better than Ikea could do, and built to last!
Skara Brae's well worth a visit, followed by a wander on the beach.
And why not order this? A children's book, but a good read - "The Boy With The Bronze Axe" by Kathleen Fidler... The Orcadian Bookshop: The Boy With The Bronze Axe
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Labels: Bay O' Skaill, Monuments, Orkney, Sandwick, Skara Brae
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Labels: Harry Potter, Music Vids, The Futureheads, The Sundays
Hippo Birdie Two EwesHappy Birthday, Splott - The card's going in the post today, I promise... I hope it'll hit Taunton on Saturday... and the present will come, but I need some time to look around and get something good...
Hippo Birdie Two Ewes
Hippo Birdie Deer Ewe
Hippo Birdie Two Ewes!
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Labels: Birthday, Lord Otterby, Scott
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Labels: Gadgets, General, LG Chocolate, Nokia, Work
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Labels: Dave Grohl, Foo Fighters, Nirvana, Phwoar, Queens Of The Stone Age
See more about the artist, characters, etc. at The Orcadian Newspaper: The Giddy Limit,where you can download wallpapers and see some of the other strips in the archive.
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Labels: Cartoon, Giddy Limit, Orkney, The Orcadian
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Labels: Dave Grohl, Foo Fighters, Kerrang TV, Music Vids, Queens Of The Stone Age, Was (Not Was)
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"I'm actually in quite a good mood all things considered"
Not any more, I'm not... It seems I've caught "Misery" from listening to that Soul Asylum track, coz I seem to have come down with a severe dose of "can't be arsed"...
Mind you, it didn't help that I didn't get to sleep until 5o'clock this morning (that's right... that's when I FIRST got to sleep) and then I slept in... AGAIN... for the second time in less than a week... My boss' text (simply "?") woke me up at 20 past 9 (luckily he was in a good mood). In fact, I've just looked back, and it was 20 past 9 on Friday morning as well!
Work's been not that busy the last few days... which means that I'm pretty much up to date, and killing time doing all the boring jobs that I've been putting off (my filing trays are now virtually empty)... I wish I could take a few days off, but Flunky's on holiday this week, so I can't even do that.
Walked down the road after work, as far as the harbour area and my brother's. There's a replica Viking longboat in at the pier just now... full of Norwegians, having crossed the North Sea on the route that their predecessors would have taken hundreds of years ago. However, it's a fair bet that the ancient Vikings wouldn't have arrived under tow like this lot did! The intention was to sail across, but the winds weren't favourable - I wonder what Thor The Ugly or whatever would have made of that centuries ago...
Thor: Right, we're going over to Orkney for a spot of rape and pillage... who's coming?
Sigurd: Sorry, Thor... I've just seen the forecast, and the wind's no good for Orkney.
Thor: Bugger. Oh, well... who's for a can of Carlsberg and a game of backgammon?
I meant to take my digital camera with me today so that I could take photos, but I kind of forgot in the rush this morning (I went from horizontal to out the door in the space of about 15 minutes - apologies to the cats who got booted out without any breakfast). My brother was planning to take some photos, so hopefully he'll email a couple to me so that you can see it.
Well, it's now 20 to 1... I've pottered about all evening playing spider solitaire, then terrorising a few poor defenceless Chuzzles, and I've done a couple of jigsaws on the computer... as well as dipping in and out of SN - which I'm going to have a last dip into, and then bugger off to bed...
Ta-ra!
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Labels: Orkney
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Labels: Clerks 2, Clerks II, Music Vids, Sophie Ellis-Bextor, Soul Asylum, Theaudience
...doughnut eating contest for the kids, the greasy pole, raft race, fancy dress 3-legged race...
...baby contest (which a certain baby Ally won for my age group in 1974); as well as stalls, fairground rides, and much, much more besides.
There's a lot going on, and a lot of fun to be had for locals and tourists alike - it's just a shame the weather's so rotten so far this week... but that's kind of a tradition of Shopping Week!
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Labels: Occasions, Orkney, Stromness Shopping Week
The pictures each side of me (which I still have... somewhere...) were my prize... not the frisbee I'm clutching!
And it's thanks to my Granny I was entered at all... she disappeared (so I was told), came back and said "There you go... She's in the baby contest"... Thanks, Mum, for the faith in your youngest daughter(!)
:-D
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Labels: Baby Contest, General, Stromness Shopping Week
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Labels: Bucketheads, David Bowie, Heroes, Music Vids
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They're a lovely mauve pink, with golden yellow centre.
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Labels: Bloody Orkney, Flora, Primula Scotica, Scottish Primrose
Cheers!
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Labels: Music Vids, T-Spoon, Tone Loc
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Labels: Clerks 2, Clerks II, Film, Kevin Smith
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Labels: Gwen Stefani, Hairspray, Music Vids, No Doubt
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Labels: General, Luck, Superstition, Work
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Labels: Landmark, Orkney, Stronsay, Vat Of Kirbister
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Labels: De'Lacy, Music Vids, The Beatles
Most of the interior decoration was carried out by Domenico Chiocchetti, making use of materials lying to hand... for instance, some of the ornate fittings round the lights were made from corned beef tins!
Domenico sadly died in 1999, after returning to Italy after the war (but not before helping to finish the chapel), and his widow has passed away within the last few days. They were not forgotten, and he returned a couple of times to assist in the restoration of the chapel. Orkney held them in high regard, and I believe this was returned.
The chapel is well worth a visit if you ever make it to Orkney... it really is beautiful.
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Labels: Churchill Barriers, Italian Chapel, Landmark, Monument, Orkney, Scapa Flow, Wartime
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Labels: Duran Duran, Music Vids, Weird Al Yankovic
Now, the population of Kirkwall is round about 6,000 at the moment - so that's it been nearly doubled today!
And, of course, what do tourists do? They wander about taking photos of anything and everything (I witnessed one American drag his wife so he could get her to link arms with 2 police that were standing outside Woolies while he took her photo!)... they stop in the middle of the street... and generally slow you down while you're trying to get from A to B through the main street - which is not wide!
I was at the office today, with a spell in the shop over dinnertime, and I watched them go by the window in droves (not coming in, I guess pens and pencils aren't high up on a tourist's shopping list of souvenirs)... then came time I had to venture out among them and try to get something for my lunch - and it was like trying to swim against the current! In the end, I went back to the office early, because they were doing my head in.
It's not even been a bonny day for them all... it's been misty and drizzly and grey. Well, I guess you don't come on a cruise by Orkney for the weather!
I don't understand cruising either (not THAT kind of cruising... get your minds out of the gutter - this is a respectable blog)... to me, boats are a necessary evil, to be avoided at all costs... not somewhere where you pay hundreds and thousands of £s or $s to be trapped for 2 weeks or whatever. What about you lot? Would you go cruising? (Look, I've already told you... not that cruising!).
Not a lot else to report today, so I reckon I'll have a game of Spider Solitaire and shuffle off to beddy-byes...
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Labels: Cruise Liners, General, Orkney, Tourists, Work
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