Posts By: Nicky Marr

Bravo Scotrail for exemplary communication

Scotrail come in for a lot of criticism, especially here in the north of Scotland. Some of it is justified, some less so. With my ‘Old Lady Railcard’ (I think the official term is Club 50) I get fantastic discounts. Between January and the end of March it has been just £17 for a return… Read more »

Are Petitions ever worth it?

Are petitions ever worth the (ahem) paper they are written on? The rise of online petition companies like Change.org and 38Degrees.org.uk make it easy for us to add our voices to causes we believe in, and to stand up and be counted. A petition is a hammer in our toolbox of democratic options – if… Read more »

Time to call time on boxing

Let’s get straight to it. I am no armchair sports fan. Apart from downhill skiing and speed skating in the Winter Olympics, watching sport on the telly just doesn’t interest me. I might occasionally join friends in the pub on Six Nations match days, but that’s more for the chat than the rugby. It would… Read more »

Celebrating our first Vanniversary.

While the world and their partners were getting loved up and soppy last weekend, Mr Marr and I had celebrations of our own to get busy with. We didn’t ditch St Valentine completely – cards were, after all, exchanged – but far more exciting was that last weekend was our first ‘Vanniversary’ – a whole… Read more »

Ten years on Facebook? Ouch!

I reached a milestone this week and I’m  conflicted about it. It’s not a birthday – that’s not till later in the year, but an anniversary. Ladies and gentlemen (pause for drumroll) it is ten years since I joined Facebook. Roll back a decade and a few weeks, and it just didn’t seem like something… Read more »

Delia lied – one is not fun

A quote on a friend’s Instagram account caught my eye last week. It raised a wry smile, so I liked it and shared it with my Facebook friends. You might have seen it doing the rounds… it reads: “Who knew that the hardest part of being an adult is figuring out what to cook for… Read more »

This week in – and out – of Europe

This week, the last of January 2020, has been book-ended by two emotional dates. On Monday we saw incredibly moving scenes as survivors of the Holocaust gathered in Auschwitz to mark the 75th anniversary of the camp’s liberation. And on Friday at 11pm the UK formally left the EU. We can never know what they… Read more »

Harry is a spare royal – leave them be

I can’t say my life will be any different now that Harry and Meghan have renounced their HRH titles and withdrawn from royal life, pledging to repay the £2.4million of taxpayers’ money for the renovations of Frogmore Cottage. I’m no Royalist – I had to turn to Google to check what they had called their… Read more »

Holy Spokes, I’m a (trike) pilot!

. WThe very first thing I did on my very first day back to work this year was gain a qualification. After a couple of hours’ training in the rain I am now proudly a qualified pilot for Inverness based cycle charity Spokes for Folks. My first outing with real, live passengers is on Friday… Read more »