Hej Kids,

Here's my latest article from Shetland Life Magazine:

I recently took the long road from Unst to sample the Flavour of Shetland festival at the pier in Lerwick. It turns out the flavour of Shetland is paella and strawberry waffles (not in the same dish). That and Chinese food seemed to be the most popular dishes on offer. There was a little bit of Shetlandic fare there in the form of a bannock-making exercise and one local butcher, but apart from that not much else of a Nordic hue.

Of course we all know that this festival, like all the others, is just another apparatus for merrymaking. There was no slouching in putting the entertainment tent together and I was there in my capacity as Shetland’s comedian in residence. As I was contracted by Shetland Islands Council that day I didn’t actually tell any jokes, I just promised the delivery of jokes with a guarantee that while some people will be left bemused, the majority of Shetlanders would find the jokes funny. I would then put the reactions to that statement under review and pay for an expensive consultancy to come in and analyse the data to help me work out which particular joke I should tell to the public and in what style. Taxpayers can expect delivery of the gag by March 2012.

As is usual with a Shetland festival the entertainment was of exceptionally high quality. And the paella indeed was mighty fine. In fact in the two years I have lived in Shetland I have never eaten so well. One night my wife and I had an entire meal all of which came from Shetland, most of which came from our own village. The fish was a gift from a neighbour who had caught it that morning. It was dressed in bread crumbs from the Skibhoul bakery’s bread and eggs from another neighbour’s chickens. The veggies came from the Unst Regeneration Project and the rhubarb for the crumble came from our own garden. And as is de rigueur it was all washed down with “Sonny’s Beer.” (That’s Valhalla Brewery beer to you.)

I am quite the amateur gourmet as it happens. As an actor, writer and comedian of some twenty years I have, as you can imagine, worked in a lot of kitchens: it is the staple fall back position of any serious artist interested in eating or paying rent. In my time at the stove of many a hostelry I have learned a few things about how to produce quality dinners cheaply and quickly. As a house husband with a six-month old and a working wife I have never felt that experience to be as valuable as I do now – wife home, dinner out, wean bathed, bed. Well that’s the theory but with the regular power cuts on the all-electric isle of Unst it doesn’t always work that way. Sometimes it’s more like-wife home, camping stove out the cupboard, beans for tea, wean swabbed down with wet wipes, bed.

Being a couple of progressive hippy types my wife and I are hoping to avoid any off-the-shelf processed foods and feed the peerie man the same meal we are having. The new regime is revitalising my interest in creating lovely grub. It took a while to get it right – I don’t know if you have ever tried to puree a sassermaet roll but it’s not too easy or appetising. However my culinary juices are flowing. If we are having chilli con carne he gets mince, tomato juice and baby rice; for haggis, tatties and neeps he gets the tatties, the neeps and a mash up of various greens with baby porridge; pizza for us? Mashed tomato, peppers and mushrooms with pizza crust for baby. And for spaghetti bolognaise, just take a generous spoonful off your own plate and buzz it with some of mother’s milk. Bellisimo!

As well as the nutritional value of such a practice the idea is that as life goes on your offspring will get used to the idea that you all sit around the table eating the same thing and you don’t end up with the whiney wean whinging “Ah don’t like that!” every time anything vaguely natural or healthy gets put under their petulant little noses.

So I have my idea for next year – the Flavour o’ Peerie Shetland. You come to my stall straight from the shops with the bag of ingredients for tonight’s tea and I construct a dish for your little one out of what you already have in the bag. No more overpriced jars of bib-staining mush. And if all the ingredients you give me are from Shetland, all the better. I know we are onto a winner.

It’ll definitely be far more successful than my stand-up routine was this year.

Sandy Nelson

Facelift!

Welcome to my new refurbished Blog.

The first peice of news is that The Bus Stops Bright, The Bustops Orange!

Once again Jane McAuley and family have brightened up the usual miserable experience of waiting in a bus. As you can see the cushions display a little African art footballing motif in honour of the World Cup in South Africa (or more likely they were the only orange cushion covers the McAuleys had kicking around their attic.)

Check out previous years' makeovers:

Think Pink!

Blue Period.
Vincent was 'ear (geddit?)


Disco disco disco disco!

Back In The U.N.S.T.

It's been a while since my last post. My time has been taken up with this guy... ...and lots of trips down south for work. (No paternity leave in showbusiness, folks.) Bloody murder! For his first three months I've been the semi-absentee father, coming back after every other week to find he has developed all these wee routines and quirks that I must automatically understnad and respond too and I now sit panicking and clueless as his mum goes back to work. Time to roll my sleeves up.

So here's my latest Column from Shetland Life to be getting on with. I promise to be more prolific fae noo oan. S.x.

Nelsons Column.

With all the talking points of contemporary Shetland life, whether it be the debates on wind farms, the blue print for education and Dave Clark, or the arrival of Tesco, Mareel and Simon King, the most significant thing to happen to Shetland since Sullom Voe was built has gone unnoticed: Sumburgh Airport now has a cappuccino machine! Yes, I know that’s a typical metrocentric incomer attitude to have but for us ex-city kids the cappuccino is our reestit mutton bannock. We can’t start the day without one. And as a frequent flyer I always felt something missing from my sitting-around-waiting-for-a-boarding-call experience.

And a good cappuccino is hard to come by. No disrespect to the staff at Sumburgh but you’ll find a cappuccino machine is a temperamental, fickle, moody thing that even a Krypton Factor finalist would take a while to learn how to control. And the recipe is often up for debate. As far as I’m concerned it’s double espresso + foamed milk + choccy topping = cappuccino. Too much steamed milk and it becomes a Latte. Blend the foamed milk and steamed milk into a silky texture and it becomes a Flat White.

Sumburgh already has everything else you need (snacks, bar, toilets, newsagent, bairns bit, News 24) so once they have mastered “The Devils Cup” it will become, for my money, the best airport in the world.

Honestly. In my travels I have been through 30 odd airports in Europe, North America and Asia. Sumburgh is the most comfortable and welcoming. In addition to the qualities listed above it is always a quick, easy check in, a simple passage on and off the plane, and the most breath taking scenery on take off and landing. I still get a thrill on every landing. Every single time I find my internal dialogue muttering, “We’re only 20 feet from landing! Why is there still water below us?” Then the runway suddenly appears like magic as if Odin’s mechanic has just slid his trolley beneath us.

Up until the Java generator arrived, the most significant thing that set Sumburgh apart from other UK airport is that no-one is trying to sell you anything. Most UK airports these days look like shopping centres with seats in the middle. In fact, the very same week that ex-first minister Jack McConnell was making his G8 summit-related speech on how Scotland’s youth were being made subject of a wasteful consumer society, Prestwick airport finished it’s refurbishment so that you HAD TO walk through duty free to get to your plane. It turns out they are all like that. Gatwick has a food court upstairs just like any generic glass roofed consumer trap. On the information screens at Nottingham East Midlands the phrase “Wait In Lounge” has been replaced by “Relax and Shop.” No pressure.

We will all remember through the noughties when pairs of salt-of-the-earth women would follow you along the concourse, bullying you with questions about your income and outgoings, persuading you that if you didn’t have a credit card you were some kind of archaic luddite without a clue about modern living. They are still there but they at least bully you into giving to charity these days.

And it’s not just the airports. Go into your bank these days and while you are boringly paying in a cheque and thinking about the rest of your day you are being interrupted by a list of personal questions leading up to selling you a mortgage or loan by an ordinary frontline worker who has been instructed by invisible management to do so. Try buying a magazine and a bottle of water at WH Smith without being told that you’ll get a giant bar of Galaxy and a bag of Haribo half price with your purchase (which would be a bargain if you actually wanted it).

Things got silly just the other day as I sat in the morning holding my cappuccino (homemade) in one hand and rocking my new born baby in his rocker with the other. I received a “courtesy call” from my bank. They weren’t selling me anything they assured me. They just wanted to make sure they had all my updated details and that they were providing me with the best service possible. On hearing of our new bundle of joy they asked if I knew about the new Scottish Governments trust fund scheme. I told them I had and was already looking into it. They then proceeded to punt various deals to me. Now, it’s not my name on the trust fund policy. It’s my son’s. The poor little guy is only nine weeks old and already someone is trying to sell him something. How sinister is that?

The only thing I want someone selling me, or my family, is a decent cup of coffee.

Sandy Nelson

Here's my latest colum from Shetland Life magazine. Just to fill you in on the local context, the cooncil have introduced this thing called "Blue Print For Education" which assesses the viability of schools. It's been quite controversial. Any road up, here.

As I write this in mid December it is around about that time when tabloid newspapers start to bang on about Christmas Scrooges: offices that ban decorations because of health and safety, city councils who won’t put up Christmas lights in case it offends other religions (they mean Muslims) and schools who cancel the nativity for the same reason. I know some people are a little over zealous in their misinterpretation of political correctness, but if you are an inner city school with an equal pupilship of Christians, Jews, Muslims, atheists and whatever else then why should you simply have Christmas when you have Chanukah, Aashura, and winter solstice vying for attention?
We all know, too, that a lot of these management decisions are often personal decisions dressed up. Let’s say Teacher A and Teacher B don’t get on. Teacher A wants a nativity. The more senior Teacher B says no but can’t say “it’s ‘cos I don’t like Teacher A” so she says “it’s offensive to other religions.” Or maybe the head is just a total skinflint, or didn’t get that bike he wanted when he was ten and so is taking it out on the world. And lets’ face it, Christmas is not compulsory. People don’t care what is being observed. They just want to see their kids on stage.

For instance, up here in Unst, Baltasound Junior High is putting on Bugsy Malone as its Christmas show this year. No shepherds, wise men, mangers, gold, frankincense or myrrh in sight. In fact, in this day and age I’d say that a show about a bunch of dolled up wise guys ‘n’ gals swigging gin, dancing and fighting is a far more prescient way to celebrate the holiday season. Every pupil in the school gets involved, whether singing, dancing, acting, set building, stage managing or playing an instrument. And don’t worry, you won’t see “Rotundly Challenged Sam”, it’s Fat Sam, fair and square. The teachers and pupils at BJH are intelligent enough to know there is a difference between referring to a fictional 1920s character as fat and just walking into a class and shouting “Oi fatty!” at the heavily built kid.

As a writer, actor and expectant parent I am over the moon that the local school has such an enthusiasm for the arts. By the time you read this there is a good chance that my first child will have arrived in to this world. He/she will be born in Paisley, where my wife’s family live, but we have promised Sylvia, local registrar, that we will bring the wee thing back in time to be registered in Unst. My wife is the art teacher at BJH and when she arrived for the interview in summer 2008 she fell in love with Unst. But not just Unst. It was the school itself, and the art room with its kiln and plenty of natural light. It was Maggi and Ann and Ruth and the poly tunnels full of fruit and veg grown and attended by the kids. It was Mr McConnell and the way he championed technical for girls and had the pupils build picnic tables for the nursery school.

Pretty soon after we moved into Baltasound we fell in love too with the community. We loved the support we got from all of our neighbours, with their home grown veg, fresh eggs and locally caught fish; the local musicians with their concert nights at the hall; the fundraisers for the youth club, school sailing trips to Norway and nursery school gym equipment.

So much activity revolves around the school. I am currently involved with Unst Audio, a group dedicated to preserving Unst’s musical culture, which operates out of the “Big Jangly Hut”, a building separate from the main school – perfect for drum students – and the best equipped music department I’ve ever seen. My wife runs the jewellery classes on Tuesday nights – one of the most overly subscribed and best attended courses in all of Adult Learning. Every year the pupils design, build and paint the galley shields for the Uyeasound and Norwick Up Helly A’s.

When you add it all up you realise that the school is the community. It is the sole reason we repopulated Unst to the tune of three. When my wife and I saw how confident, open minded and mutually supportive the kids were at BJH and how they grow up into well rounded high achieving adults, we knew we wanted our children to grow up in this particular community and attend that particular school – eco-friendly, community-driven, high-achieving: it’s as perfect a school as you can get.

That’s if it stays open, of course. But what kind of moron would want to close down a school like that?