It would be nice if there were something else to write about this month – some positive, inspiring story, from which we could all take comfort. But unfortunately it seems impossible to avoid the rather uninspiring tale of David Clark and his expensive exit from the top office of the council.

It seems that many objections raised against a wind farm in Shetland seek to project only a narrow and exaggerated view of things. I despair that the opportunities to benefit Shetland and the world in the face of climate change may be lost through a lack of perspective.

The South Mainland Up Helly A’ began with a group of just four people. One of them was Ross Smith, from Sandwick.

“We just thought, well, everywhere else has one, and it would be a fun,” Ross told me. “There’d been an attempt to get one going about ten years ago, but it didn’t come to anything, so we thought we’d try again. We decided to have a public meeting to see what the interest was – that was on 22 February last year. There was a fair number of folk turned up, so we formed a steering group to see if it was feasible. The original idea was to have just one hall, and four or five squads.”

Recently it was döppeleganger week on Facebook: you replaced your profile picture (some very flattering photograph of yourself in a nice frock at someone’s wedding) with a picture of someone you’ve been told you look like. This could be anything from George Cloony to Alex Salmond depending on who told you and why. Most people went with the self-deprecating and it was all a good laugh.

I dunna ken whit grippit Meenie. She fell mad tae celebrate Chinese New Year. Hiv you heard da laek? I tocht she’d hiv hed enoch hilarity wi wir ain Yule Festivals.
She startit wi an early spring clean. “Chinese traditions irna dat different fae wir ain,” she telt me. “Dey believe in sweepin awa ill luck an makin wye for guid luck.”
Dat took my interest, I niver lippened Chinese traditions tae be onything laek wir ain.

I have begun going through the newspapers here in Cumberland for the period 1812-1912, extracting various materials, including any relating to Orkney and Shetland, especially in the era before local newspapers were established in the Northern Isles.

A school inspector has suggested to Shetland Education Committee that they should consider combining Virkie/Quendale/Boddam schools into one new three-teacher school, sited probably at Virkie.

It was reported last week that close to £200,000 worth of Class A drugs had been seized by police in Shetland during 2008/2009. This was primarily heroin.

There are a number of ways we can think about this figure. For Shetland, it shows a continuing increase in heroin use, which is severely worrying. But for the police it will be seen as something of a success – proof that current methods are having some impact.

Davy Cooper argues that the visual arts should be better recognised in Shetland for their role in driving social and economic progress.

I’ve wandered the edges of the visual arts community in Shetland for many years. I’ve been a journeyman illustrator, photographer and art instructor, in fact a jack of all trades and master of none. I’ve never been a true artist and never desired to be, but I do have an appreciation of the visual arts and the role which they can and, I believe, should play in our society.

My wife and I have just returned from a month in Glasgow accompanied by our beautiful new wee baby, initiating the poor little thing into Shetland life with the full blown Northlink experience at the tender age of two weeks. Well it’s important to get them immune to horrific things while they are young.

We chose to go all the way down there as my wife’s due date was at the beginning of January – right in the middle of the ferry cancelling season – and with us living on Unst we were advised to bide in at the Gilbert Bain in Lerwick throughout the Christmas and New Year period. No disrespect to Lerwegians but we thought that a clinical hospital annex wouldn’t be the cosiest place to relax with the mulled wine and advocat.

WEATHER OUTLOOK FOR SHETLAND

Friday, 12 March 2010 at 10:42

HEADLINES

TODAY: SCATTERED SHOWERS, COOL NW’LY WIND
TONIGHT: LITTLE CHANGE
TOMORROW: SCATTERED SHOWERS, BREEZY
DAYS 2-5: SOME RAIN OR SHOWERS, LIGHTER WINDS
DAYS 6-10: RAIN OR SHOWERS

Firms in Shetland are facing huge rate rises – some by as much as two-thirds – under the Scottish government’s revaluation of business property which will come into force at the beginning of next month.

Already Shetland’s Young Fiddler of the Year, Anderson High School pupil Chapman Cheng added the Young Musician of the Year title to an impressive list of achievements on the penultimate night of the 2010 Schools Music Festival on Wednesday.