The last record shop

Clive Munro’s record shop has always been the last in Britain, or at least the northernmost. It has been my favourite, too, for the quarter of a century I’ve known and used it.

That was mainly due to Clive himself, the same age as me, with similar tastes in music. His recommendations could be trusted. His tendency to stock obscure Nick Lowe box sets, not to mention every jot and tittle of the Costello oeuvre, was wholly admirable. He is one of only two people I know who can talk knowledgeably about the work of Californian singer-songwriter Peter Case.

I  helped Clive with his stall at a couple of early Shetland Folk Festivals, watched vinyl vanish from his shelves (the second-hand tapes he once dealt in at two previous,  tiny locations, had already disappeared) and was happy to spend cash when he moved to large Commercial Street premises, where computer games and DVDs featured heavily. A branch in Orkney opened and closed quickly. But Clive’s in Lerwick would go on forever, surely? On our remote archipelago, we needed, deserved a great record shop. How would we get the good stuff otherwise?

Then came Amazon. Then came iTunes. Play.com. A big new Lerwick branch of Tesco. And now Spotify. For me, deluged with free CDs due to the radio show, and with a Spotify Premium account as well, my CD purchasing fell away to almost zero. Clive announced that the shop would operate using half its floorspace, concentrating on specialised material, local folk, country and with a range of new vinyl too.

But it didn’t work. History is against shops like Clive’s, and especially in Shetland, the internet has revolutionised shopping. Now we can have DVDs and CDs winging their way from one island (tax-free Jersey, where Play.com is based) to the Greater Zetlandics in a flash, and at prices less than Clive was paying wholesale. Or we can stream  and download, listen and forget in less time than it takes to say: “How much diesel will I use getting into town and back?”

So it’s nearly over. The shop doors will soon shut forever. There’s a closing down sale, but I’ve been avoiding the place, because I didn’t want to look like some kind of scavenger, having spent so little there in recent months. Today, though I went in, bought a DVD, and found Clive in positive mood, looking forward to a new start doing – well, he knows not what, as yet.

He has been a musical mentor and guide, a shaman for hundreds, maybe thousands of Shetland’s music fans. He has stocked indie releases by local bands, put up posters, sold tickets and been a crucial force for all that’s good in the world of twangy guitars and great lyrics.

The last record shop in Britain will be sorely missed. But not enough, and by not enough people, for it to remain open.

A wee Sunday cycle in Shetland

At the finish: Last but only slightly embarrassed

James with his free fish supper and milkshake

Almost over

I felt sick. It could have been the over-abundance of granola and porridge (carb loading, on son James’s advice) or simply nerves. This morning was Shetland’s, and my, first cycle sportive, in aid of the Royal National Mission to Deep Sea fishermen, organised by local (and Britain’s most northerly) chip shop, Frankie’s.

I wasn’t nervous because I was competing to win the thing. At nearly 56 and a lover of bikes and their ability to get you legally to and from pubs, rather than actual cycling, that was never on the cards. It was just that having been sponsored to the tune of £200, I was very uncertain that I had the stamina or fitness to actually cover the required 40 miles. Yes, there were 10 and 20 mile options, but 40 seemed only right.

James, on the other hand, fresh from a term of fixed-wheel endurance cycling and triathlon training, thought he had a good chance. He wasn’t far wrong. Only a half-hour puncture repair hiatus (I had the pump; he had to wait for me, and I was last) stopped him (he claims, and I agree) finishing in the first bunch. He hauled back a good swatch of the field and finished in two and a half hours.

It took me an hour more than that. There was a nasty incident with my rear derailleur (jammed chain) which took 10 minutes of oily hands and swearing to fix. But by the time I’d finished the first 20 miles ( we were doing a double loop from Brae to Voe, then up Dales Lees to Firth, over to Sullom Voe then back to Brae via Voxter; 1000 feet of climbing )I knew I could manage 40, and fuelled by sultana cake and Ribena, I kept going through some of the best Shetland Sabbath summer weather this year.

The wind was as friendly as it could be. The long, near-eternal climb up Dales Lees was unbelievably easy, but by the time Scatsta airport arrived for the second time, the windsock was pointing straight at me and it hurt. Bad windsock!

I was last in of the 40-milers (all of us male, which was surprising; there are some great woman cyclists in Shetland). But I claimed my free fish supper and milkshake with some gusto. Pain? A few back twinges but my 20-year old Brooks B17 saddle had done its job supremely well.

Thanks again to all who sponsored me through Just Giving and with real cash. Finally, some of you may wonder about the choice of RNMDSF as a charity to support. Those who live or have lived in fishing communities won’t. The ‘Mission’ does a unique and wonderful job without any kind of proselytising, and as a journalist reporting on fishing tragedies in Shetland and elsewhere I was always gobsmacked by the commitment and service to the survivors and the bereaved shown by Mission staff.

Big Boy the cockerel and his girls

He’s a laugh a minute, and will fight off any otter.

Hillswick Ness, geocaching maintenance

Laziness has stopped me responding to the plaintive communiques from Geocachers (it’s treasure hunting/orienteering with GPS satnav, folks; outdoorsy nerdy gadget freakdom. ) that the Another Fine Ness (sorry!) cache had disappeared again.  But today, having finally worked out how the Garmin Etrex functions, I headed out to the Ness of Hillswick to  replace it.

Very, very midgy morning, utterly still. That’s three days in a row – very odd for Shetland. Took the direct route right through the centre of the Ness – the coastal walk is one of the UK’s great cliff routes, but no time today – 40 minutes to The Stone Table. Oddly, though the midges swarmed, they didn’t bite. Either my ingestion of heavy duty multivitamins or my sweaty kangaroo skin hat…

Great walk, straight back in 35 minutes, a record.

Shetland Classic Motor (stationary engines, pushbikes, tractors, steam engines and motorbikes) Show

To the Shetland Classic Motor Show, while Martha was off doing something orchestral. It’s salutary to think that I may have been to all of these bi-annual shows…and normally I’m thrilled by the vast array of machinery  – the steam engines (traction engines and a belching steam-driven lorry this year) the motorbikes and Frank Johnson’s astonishing collection of Hetchins curly-stay pushbikes.

This time, for whatever reason, and despite the prospect of a trip in a vintage double-decker bus, I was left a bit cold by it all. Suddenly it seemed like a whole heap of old stuff that probably didn’t work very well. Nostalgia and obsessive-compulsive, anally retentive maleness write large.

Then I saw the two E-Type Jaguars, and all bets were off. The Type One two-seater has to be the most beautiful motor vehicle that has ever existed.

Why I’ve given up buying printed newspapers.

My problem with newspapers, living where I do, has always been actually getting hold of the things. When I first arrived in Shetland, more than 30 years ago, it would be 2.30pm or so before the blatts made their way to a very limited number of shops. Before the demise of Highland Airways a few months ago, you could sometimes get the dailies at 10.30am, but that was totally dependent on weather. Fog, ridiculous winds, snow, ash, plagues of frogs – all could leave you paperless. Now, with a new contract in place, things have settled down to an irregular 11.00, but with no Guardian in Lerwick – copies aren’t being delivered to the aeroplane in time. It comes from England, you know.

Now, I travel – by bus, car or motorcycle – to Lerwick every weekday, but most of the preparation for the show, most of the day’s computer time, is from 7.00am at home. In our primitive rural redoubt, we have wi-fi. I can access  Guardian Online, the Telegraph, the much improved Herald, the sadly diminished Scotsman, and the fast and furious Daily Record, plus the amazingly competitive Shetland Times and Shetland News presences. Reform Scotland’s fantastic compilation pops into my in-box, as does the Scottish Review’s sarky musings. Caledonian Mercury, though basically an aggregation of (too short) blogs, is always worth a look. Facebook, Twitter and Google News, plus the excellent NewsNow, and of course the glorious BBC, and I’m sorted. Quirky tales for the show? If I’m still short, Ananova Quirky, Yahoo Oddly Enough. There are blogs, of course, galore to choose from, but frequently accessed from Twitterbook. And there’s 38 Minutes for abstruse and often unintentionally hilarious insight into the IT Crowd of Scotland.

This is done on a selection of (mostly old) laptops (Macs and PCs, distributed throughout the house. I don’t have an iPad, and probably – never say never – won’t be buying one. I’m leaning towards Google Android for phones and will wait for the killer Android tablet which is bound to arrive soon, from a reputable manufacturer, and with the stuff that Apple have failed to provide with their giant iPod Touch: USB sockets, Flash etc. This is not about hardware.

It’s simply about access. Admittedly, I’m an extreme case – an inveterate media user who lives at the very edge of traditional distribution networks – but I highlight the simply fact that content is everything,  and that old-fashioned methods of distributing and consuming that content are essentially redundant. Yes, there’s a pleasure to be had in buying a paper and sitting at the Peerie Shop Cafe in Lerwick consuming print and scones. But that’s an indulgence. And an inconvenient one, too, given the sheer stupid unwieldiness of broadsheet newsprint.   If anything displays the stupidity of newspaper management, it’s the insistence on maintaining a tradition of almost unusable  size of  page being linked to ‘quality’. How can we expect them to deal with digitisation if they can’t even understand the limits of  human hand-to-eye co-ordination (especially in a  windy place like Shetland)?

Oh, but we can’t make online pay, comes the whine. Yes you can. Scrap the printing presses, the delivery vans, the chopping down of forests, the whole Victorian infrastructure of newspaper production, and your costs will plummet. And will I pay for a subscription? For some things, yes. Would I pay some kind of central   licensing fee for accessing all of the above outlets?  Here at the Edge of the World, Ultima Thule, with the sea lapping at my door?  So I don’t have to  hassle my way into town to find the plane hasn’t got in? Yes.

Particularly if you give me a free Android tablet to subscribe on…or subsidised, like with Sky boxes and dishes. Come on Rupert, you know it make sense. I’ll even accept that The Times will be hard-wired as home page, until my son hacks it out of there.

At a pinch, I’ll even take a Murdoch iPad…

THE BOOKSHOP AT THE EDGE OF THE WORLD

THE BOOKSHOP AT THE EDGE OF THE WORLD

How to Impersonate Famous People
Christopher Fowler. Prince Paperbacks, 1984. first US edition. 85pp Very good/very good. Some rubbing at corners

Books. 
    That’s what the notice says. Books.
    It doesn’t read ‘Bookshop’. That would contravene planning law, as The Bookshop At The Edge of the World is actually an old, crumbling crofthouse called Da Kirk o’ da Shun, full of forehead-crunching doors, unexpected steps and rickety shelves that sway in the wind. Well, it’s the wooden panelling on the walls that occasionally flutters in a  big gust, sending the shelves into a mild rocking motion which can make you think you’re at sea.
    And in sense, you are. This is the remote north of Shetland’s biggest island, which is called Mainland, because it’s the main bit of land. As opposed to ‘the mainland’, which is Scotland, some 200 miles south. Locally referred to as ‘sooth’. The winds – big, frequently hurricane force – come howling in from the Atlantic or the North Sea, of which Shetland (never ‘The Shetlands’) is the crossroads, the receptacle for all sorts of driftwood, detritus, flotsam and jetsam. Things get washed up here. All sorts of things.
    Me, for instance.
    That notice. Books. Or, I supposed, ‘Books.’ Note the capital ‘B’. It could mean a number of things. It could be a simple proclamation that books exist. A gentle reminder to the passing motorist, cyclist, pedestrian or low-flying helicopter pilot of a form of communication  which involves paper, text, and card. Not some flourish of pixels on a screen. Objects, tactile and physical, organic, soft, prone to damage and rot. Cheap or ferociously expensive. but never worthless. Human outpourings of anguish and joy, learned irrelevance and breathtaking genius.
    And objects of trade. Books to buy, books to sell, books to trade.
    The truth is, the notice means simply that there are books lurking in the squat little crofthouse at the top of the track, that somebody (me) is to be found in said crofthouse, and, for the duration of the notice’s presence, is willing to receive visitors, potential customers, and exchange some of those books for money. I only put the placard (painted by my wife) out when I’m feeling relatively sociable, and few people actually respond to it. Apart from one or two friends and neighbours who take it as an indication that I’m in and willing to provide coffee, tea and the plain chocolate digestive biscuits I like. And the infernal mice absolutely love.
    Some of my local acquaintances will browse the shelves, occasionally borrowing a book that’s taken their fancy, or asking if they can listen to one of the several hundred vinyl LPs and singles that I also…own. ‘Stock’ seems the wrong word. Because selling books and records isn’t really the point,. Being here is the point. Among books. The smell of books. And peat smoke, from the cast iron stove, which if course doesn’t really provide the kind of humidity-controlled environment in which -some rather valuable – volumes should be kept. But then, as I sayd, this is a bookshop designed, first and foremost, for my comfort and pleasure.
     The coffee.. I offer free coffee to everyone who comes in, all my, well, customers. Or potential customers. Sometimes oyu have to take long view, cultivating someone for weeks or even months before they decide to buy that vintage copy of Biggles Goes West for, oh, 50 pence. the coffee is not to everyone’s taste. It’s made from fair trade Ethopian beans, roasted and packed in Lerwick, Shetland’s capital. Which is not generally known as a centre of coffee roasting expertise. That’s all my fault, actually, but I’ll tell you about that later.
     Oh, and there’s music, of course. The giant, 1960s loudspeakers, the ancient Quad valve amplifier, painted eggshell hospital blue, that glows orange and smells of burning pylons. The manual Linn Sondek record deck, made in Glasgow 30 years ago by redundant shipyard workers.  I also have a selection of guitars and other vintage sound equipment, most of it for sale. Probably. At the right price. To people who seem deserving of ownership. I mean, you have to be discriminating in this business. Did I say ‘business?’ My wife, Susan, says it’s a shed.
    “It’s the ultimate shed, Tom,” she anounced during her first visit. She had been before, but I didn’t actually formalised the retail nature, so to speak, of the building until about a year ago. “It’s a male thing. You’ve got your books, your records, your guitars. You’re happy as a pig in shit.”
    “Why do women not have sheds?” I wasn’t issuing any denials. She was right. This is a kind of shed, only with a public aspect. And I can claim the electricity against tax.
    “Women don’t have sheds because they have houses” replied Susan, crisply. “Homes. There’s no need to escpae to secret little worlds where they can..tinker. Play games. Actually” – and she glanced around, at the comfortable old couch, the ample floorspace – “I’m surprised you don’t have a train set in here. Or a Scalextric. There’s room.”
    I folded my arms and thought for a minute.
    “You’re quite right,” I said. “But what I really fancy is an O-gauge system for the garden, you know, like Neil Young has. Neil Young the Canadian singer songwriter, not Neil o’da Flitterwicks.” (Neil o’da (of the) Fliterwicks (his house), also surnamed Young is a well-known local crofter and aggressive drunk with a tendency towards public defaecation. There is general local concern that this habit could be the end of him on a really cold winter’s night).

New bus blarney over at Beeb blog

I’ve written a wee piece over at the BBC Radio Scotland blog about my daily commute by bus. Including the (true) tale of the man last week who sat in front of me with a (live) fish…