Sixth Year holidays. I’ve already had a stern word with myself about the subject matter of this week’s column, not because it doesn’t merit being discussed, but because I am in danger of coming across either as supremely po-faced, or mightily hypocritical, or both. Mindful of my own experiences on a Club 18-30 holiday in… Read more »
Posts By: Nicky Marr
Hands off our Highland Trains!
I love travelling by train; I always have. Maybe it comes from growing up with a garden that backed onto a railway embankment and waving at the trains as they passed. Maybe I’ve watched Brief Encounter too often – there’s a certain romance associated with travelling alone; a real ‘what if’ to every chance meeting…. Read more »
Ages and stages of family life…in cars. And Lego!
Is there any better way to measure the ages and stages of family life than by looking at the cars parked outside? Our first car was a Mini. She was beige and desperately unreliable, but she got us out of the city at weekends. In our early 20s that mainly meant we could go skiing… Read more »
End of an Era as MFR’s Tich McCooey hangs up his headphones
When Mr Marr and I left Edinburgh for Inverness 18 years ago, a colleague who had grown up in Elgin uttered two words. ‘Tich McCooey’. I had to ask him to repeat himself, and then I had to ask for an explanation. ‘Furry Mouth Radio’ was all I got. He told me to tune in… Read more »
Drams, Grace & Dignity, and papier-mâché
It’s World Whisky Day as I write this – a day which falls slap bang in the middle of Whisky Month. The temptation was to celebrate by making some of my own whisky because I am now ‘qualified’, having spent a day learning to become an Honorary Distiller at Benromach Distillery in Forres. My day… Read more »
Jobs for Life? Not any more.
It’s a tough time of year for Scottish teenagers with the SQA exams well underway. There is so much pressure – not just to be a teenager and all that that entails, but to study hard, to live up to parental and school expectations, and to get the best results possible. Only then will they… Read more »
A new political force for #GE2020 – yes please!
If you are reading this on Thursday, either the polling stations will be still open, or the count will be underway. If you are reading it on Friday or Saturday, we’ll have the headline results, and the ‘conversations in dark rooms’ will likely be taking place in and around Whitehall to determine the make-up of… Read more »
We have much to be proud of here – cheers!
I was pulling together a list of cultural events this week in preparation for a slot on a new radio show that is being piloted by the BBC. The first thing that struck me is just how much happens in our sparsely populated corner of the world. Anyone who thinks that ‘culture’ only happens in… Read more »
Libyan migrants. It’s time for humanity to kick in
As I write this at the beginning of the week, news reports are coming in of further distress calls from migrant boats in the Mediterranean Sea. At this time of year, people traffickers take advantage of warmer weather and calm seas to extort money from desperate North Africans, and pack them into unseaworthy vessels bound… Read more »
Creamy Chicken, Pancetta and Mango Salad
I’m struggling to tie this in with Scottish Food and Drink, but how about this for justification… for the first time this year it’s warm enough to eat outside in Highlands, this is my favourite ‘family tea’ to serve outside, and I got the main ingredient (the chicken) from the fabulous Cairngorm Butcher in Grantown… Read more »