The TV licence detector squad’s recent campaign in Shetland has prompted a sudden rush of work in the main Lerwick post office, with up to 300 applications for new licences.

For the first nine years that I was in Parliament autumn statement and budget days were routinely an excuse for me and my colleagues from different parts of the Highlands and Islands to get to our feet and to demand a lower rate of duty paid on petrol and diesel to take some account of the higher prices that we pay at the pumps compared to people living in towns and cities on the mainland.

Four Shetland men risked their lives by going into a burning building to check if there was anyone inside a blazing television lounge at the Staney Hill Hostel in Lerwick.

Erbil is the capital of Kurdistan and Kurdistan is the new Saudi Arabia with the fourth largest oil reserves on the planet.

When the House of Commons is sitting it has been the practice in recent years to mark the two minutes silence on 11th November by standing in silence in the chamber and I have always been part of that.

In the aftermath of the world’s worst civil helicopter disaster at Sumburgh last Thursday the future of the Chinook aircraft in the North Sea is in doubt.

The Olympic Torch is coming to Shetland next June and will be paraded through Lerwick.

The receiver appointed at Reawick Lamb has held out hope for crofters and farmers who have been left with no realistic market for their lambs following the closure of the slaughterhouse.

One of the best things about being an MP is that after ten-and-a-half years it can still produce fresh chal­lenges.

Do you remember the game of holding your breath in the bath when a child? The one that caused a look of horror on the face of a parent!

Well I tried something similar this week at the Offshore Training facility in Aberdeen, formerly and still known to the industry as RGIT.