Another taste of isles life – this month with new columnist

This month’s edition of Shetland Life, out on Friday, has a seasonal mix of interesting items and launches a new columnist, Unst-based comedian Sandy Nelson.

Plenty of opinion is on offer, starting with editor Malachy Tallack complaining about the “tokenism” of being asked for ID, at the age of nearly 30, when buying alcohol.

Fair Isle man Jimmy Stout regrets Shetland’s missing out on the glorious colours of autumn but recalls the pleasures it had in his father’s day of bagging woodcock. There are fewer of these birds nowadays but more geese – Jimmy has his own idea about how to deal with them.

Columnist Vaila Wishart deplores the “shenanigans” at the Town Hall that makes Shetland looks as if it is run by a “bunch of clowns”.

Neil Riddell questions the council’s attitude to ethical investments, while Ronnie Eunson bemoans the apathy in Shetland’s food industry and asks: “Are we not now a sufficiently mature and confident society that we can both invest for the long term in our local resources and invest in the intelligent promotion of what we have to sell?”

Celebrating food, local and otherwise, is something in which Ann Prior excels, and this month she turns her attention to seasonal apple recipes.

Another timely item is the moving poem Remembrance by Louis Johnson, especially poignant in the light of recent losses in Afghanistan.

History always features strongly in the magazine and the intriguing subject of the K boot painted on the gable of the Market Cross building is explored by Douglas Sinclair. The shop sold footwear, such as handmade boots, sea boots and wellingtons for more than 100 years.

There is more history in articles about Quendale Mill and the Tingwall Parish, with many atmospheric photographs of places very much changed and people long gone.

It is often said there is a Shetland connection wherever you go, and this is evident in street names in New Zealand and Australia, the theme of Eileen Brooke-Freeman’s place names article this week. (Sandy Nelson has something to say about this too.) Staying in the antipodes, Louise Brewer writes about getting to grips with the dialect. She now feels quite at home asking for a “slab of stubbies”, while Mary Blance writes about lauching a (Shetland) dialect CD.

Shetland Life can always be relied on to have interesting nuggets of knowledge. Did you know that the use of IT contributes two per cent of global carbon emissions and two searches on Google are the equivalent of boiling a kettle?

For more fascinating facts, plus bairns’ stories, items and regular puzzles, buy the magazine.