Orkney: What Do You Do?

MikeachimOrkney7 Comments

What can you actually do in Orkney?

No, forget the sightseeing. Forget the daytrips, the beach walks, the clambering up sea-stacks to watch intrepid archaeologists braving the elements while hugging filthy mugs of tea (more on that topic another time). Forget visiting. We’re talking living up there.

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I know of a number of people who are intending to move up there – and they intend for their jobs to follow them, either via remote working (a slow but steady trend) or self-employment. They’re transplanting their careers, not going in seek of an Orcadian vocation – and they’re moving there because of the place, not the economy. (Everyone falls in love with Orkney. Well, nearly everyone).

So what is the local economy?

Building work is at the start of everything. I chatted to a couple of Scottish guys who had landed a building contract in Kirkwall, arranged elsewhere – and they had enough work to last them until 2011, at least. Not just housing, mind: Orkney is expanding at an impressive lick, thanks to being a renewable energy powerhouse. When I visited Westray – where I worked as an archaeologist for a few summers – plans were afoot to build two new wind turbines, weaning the island off the national grid and presumably allowing it to sell excess electricity to the likes of Scottish Power. (If it follows the model adopted by neighbouring island Sanday, the turbines are paid for by a community fund).

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And that’s just the wind, which is nothing compared with the potential offered by the sea. Take the Oyster project, featured today on Click Green. Every day, two oceans push back and forth across the Pentland Firth, creating some of the most excited water around Britain. Once modern engineers find a way to ward off the Orcadian winter storms – no small feat  – the small abandoned islands around Mainland Orkney (such as Stroma) are going to start filling up.

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Despite all that, Orkney’s is still an agricultural economy. The soil is bursting with fertility. Farming is the most important activity on the islands – if you’re going to get run over while in Orkney, it’ll probably be a tractor. Forget forestry – there aren’t any trees apart from a few timid examples cowering behind wind-breaks or crawling along the ground. There are so few that in the whole of the island chain, there’s only one Tree Preservation Order in place.

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Fish. Beef. Lobster. Fish. Whisky (Highland Park). Cheese. Fish. Seafood, generally. Fish. I should also mention the fish, which is worth repeating because it appears to be uniformly superb quality. All the service-based jobs you’d expect from a gently popular tourist attraction – and if the oft-mentioned Orkney Tunnel gets built, these industries will boom.

(I’m not forgetting the arts and crafts industries here, as impressive as you’d expect from a place with such an extraordinary heritage. But on those, I’ll write another time).

Half a century ago, of course, Orkney had a somewhat different major employer

Images: M. Sowden, 2009.
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Reader’s Digest books: Read and Digest

MikeachimThe Everyday14 Comments

ReadersDigestMags

It’s recently struck me that Reader’s Digest, one of the most popular magazines in the world, is a paper-based blog.

Staunchly populist – and conservative and anti-communist, depending on the era – the magazine has been publishing condensed news stories and adverts in a visually arresting fashion since 1922. It’s uncluttered, breezy and the kind of thing you’d read when you’re waiting to do (or putting off) something important. There are lots of adverts. The reader’s comments are important. It’s distinctly bloggy.

(As a 15 year old budding writer, it made me want to write in. I submitted a few pieces to their Laughter Is The Best Medicine column, hoping to win some pocketmoney. And…nothing. Evidently I’m not funny – or I am funny but wholly useless in conveying it).

But this post isn’t about the magazine – it’s about the books.

ReadersDigestCondensed

My gran had groaning shelves of Reader’s Digest Condensed Reads. While the family caught up on familial gossip downstairs over tea & biscuits, I’d work my way through the bookcases, looking for anything violent or racy. I was entranced. 4 books in one book! It was like something by M. C. Escher.  But then came the terrible, bleak day when I discovered the full meaning of the word “condensed”, and realised that these books had bits taken out (probably the violent and racy bits). It was worse than when I set my wind-up Evel Knieval on fire for the full-bore stunt spectacle – and discovered I couldn’t put him out. It was bad.

But there are the other books.

InSearchSouthPacificI’m reading one right now. It’s part of the People and Places series, and it’s called In Search Of Australia And The South Pacific. And I’m enjoying it immensely. The writing is superb and the photos magnificent. It’s the kind of coffee-table book that has you poring over it for hours, leading to awkward situations when it’s not your coffee table.

The thing is, most Reader’s Digest books are this good. It’s curious. You’d expect them to be plainly-written regurgitations of facts you’re wearily over-familiar with already. In my experience, that’s not the case. (Flaw in this argument: maybe I’m ignorant. Remedy: disregard entire blog post. Kthx). They’re usually high-quality overview reference books, the kind to bring your children up with. The good ones are well worth hunting down – particularly the atlases.

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And the great things is that hunting them down is easy. As anyone knows who has received Reader’s Digest promotional material through their letterbox, or put differently, ‘As everyone knows’ – there are approximately 500 of these books written and published every second. Fact. And this has been going on for decades, so there are at least…oh, you work it out, I’m too busy thinking up my next ludicrous exaggeration for artistic effect.

There are so damn many of these usually damn fine books in circulation that all second-hand bookshops and charity shops in the West are stuffed with them. Amazon has barrowloads.  They’re everywhere. Close your eyes and walk ten paces with your arms outstretched: chances are, you’ll bump into one on the way. Another fact.

And they’re all like reading really good blogs. (The useful kind, not like my kind of blog).

So next time you’re browsing the shelves of your local tome-vendor, pull out the Reader’s Digest books and have a look. You might be pleasantly surprised.

This post was sponsored by….no, not really.

Images: thenoodleator, avern, phalinn.

Train Travel In The New World Order

MikeachimThe Everyday12 Comments

Converge

For some time now, I’ve been working diligently behind the scenes to secretly bring about a brave new global order.

(I haven’t talked about it before now for hopefully obvious reasons).

There will be many sweeping changes, and I look forward to discussing them with you – or, to be more specific, telling you about them in advance. For example, a number of noxious substances will be banned and removed from circulation, including  polyethylene telephthalate (PET), supermarket carrier bags, Marmite and Paul Burrell. I’ll be throwing vast sums of money into the space programme, expanding the United Nations and making it illegal for Bill O’Reilly to speak – which are three deeply humanitarian measures that I think are key to the future success of our species as a whole. Wind turbines will have pipes on them so they’ll play a fun tune, instead of that dull whup-whup sound. All sorts of vital stuff. You’ll love.

If you live in the UK, or have experienced its delightfully eccentric (ie. depressingly ludicrous) rail system, you’ll be happy to hear that I will be running my broom through that as well.

Henceforth:

1. If you are at one end of a train carriage and you can clearly hear the voice of someone talking at the other end when a train is underway, you are perfectly within your legal rights to push them off the train at the next stop, independent of where they are actually going. This applies to staff and passengers alike.

2. Ticket inspectors will be fitted with low-power sirens that emit a woowooBLARRG-like noise similar to that currently used by British ambulances – or possibly using the brand new American Howler. Either way, it will be impossible for an inspector to creep up on you and yell “TICKET!!” in your ear, sending you into a panic and into the depths of your bag whilst momentarily forgetting your ticket is on the seat next to you. When all your possessions are fanned out in an excitingly organic circular pattern over two radial metres, the inspector “suddenly notices” your ticket and stamps it “TLD” (I’ve discovered that this stands for ‘Total Loss of Dignity’). This practice will end forthwith.

3. Passengers who fail to clear away empty food or drink packaging will be recorded on CCTV and have their council tax doubled for the period of 1 year. If the packaging is beer cans, 3 years.

4. Rail tickets will reflect the price of all the cheapest single journeys on a route added together, and these totals will be listed as a series of immediately obvious pricing options. As opposed to the current system.

5. If you discover that someone is sitting in your reserved seat, once you show the evidence to them and it is clear that they are aware of the situation, they have 60 seconds to vacate that seat. Beyond this 1-minute period, you are allowed to pull the Emergency Stop cord and bring the train to an unscheduled halt. The person will then be led off the train, trussed to a fence or tree, and pelted with rancid fruit by all the passengers (note: an extra carriage will be supplied to all train services, amply stocked with over-ripened fruit and hand-towels).

6. It will be illegal for anyone over 30 years old to wear shorts on a train. This will be enforced.

7. Describing anything British as “quaint” in a loud American drawl carries the death penalty.

8. All the seats within 10 metres of the onboard toilets will be removed, and special sealed plastic doors will be fitted across the gap, similar to those seen in movies about biochemical terrorist attacks. The toilets will also be fitted with a an automatic sliding door that opens to the outside air, and every 20 minutes, they will slide back for 30 seconds, letting sweet, fresh air roar in. (Note: as a passenger it will be important to be deeply aware of the timing of your visit to the restroom, or alternately how strong your grip is).

I should make it up to a nice even 10, but nothing springs to mind right now.

Perhaps you could help?

Image: Steve Webel

Journey Home, Interrupted

MikeachimOrkney8 Comments

Oh boy.

I’m sat in an Internet cafe in Kirkwall. The Orkney bus (connecting me with Inverness and all my trains back home) left an hour ago.

I’m a numpty.

Coming back from Greece in ’07, a delayed train screwed me over and forced me to buy new tickets (which I recouped some of the cost of, because it wasn’t my fault). This time, I’ve managed to write down the wrong departure time of the Orkney bus into my oh-so-organised travel notebook, and somehow failed to spot the error when I’ve checked through my notes – even though the right time is on the Orkney bus ticket. I can see exactly how it’s happened, even though it’s truly, gloriously dim of me. It’s most assuredly my fault this time.

So – a nice illustration of these tips in action.

Single rail fare from Inverness to York for tomorrow – £108.

(I may have panicked when I saw this. I may have spat coffee).

Single tickets from Inverness to Perth, Perth to Edinburgh and Edinburgh to York – £68.

Thank god for the extra money I put aside for emergencies, eh?

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Foundations

MikeachimThe Everyday5 Comments

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There’s one rule you should always follow when dining out in York, and it’s this: look up.

My home city is head-scratchingly complicated. Thinking of opening a restaurant within the walls of York? Welcome to a heritage minefield, where you can’t unlatch a window without applying for planning permission first. Everything around you is deeply and highly old, and old to the left and old to the right. You’re stood on the icing of a fabulously stratified cake of Olde Ingredienffe – Roman, Anglo-Saxon, Viking, Medieval, Pre-Industrial, Post-Industrial, ’70s Concrete Abomination, you.

Except it’s never quite that simple.

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6 Ways to Crank the World Back into Shape

MikeachimThe Everyday4 Comments

Fevered Mutterings v3 – October 5th, 2008.

CrankItUp

Cranks will save the world.

Nothing to do with Jason Statham, thankfully. No – I’m actually talking about mechanical power. And it’s something I feel strongly about.

Philosophy.

Labor-saving. Labour-saving. However you spell it, it’s become a curse.

The theory is great. We use technology to make our lives more efficient, allowing us to automate the dull tasks and concentrate on the important ones. However, more often it’s like this: we use technology to make our lives easier. But do we actually need our lives easier?

Human beings are not designed to just sit. We sit in all sorts of places: in cars, at work, in front of the TV. We sit because many technologies bring the world straight to our lap. That’s not a problem if you’re using the time saved to go away and do something else that keeps you in shape and engages your brain. But that’s not usually the case: we usually  spend the time doing more of the same activities that involve sitting down.

This has a lasting effect on our bodies (not helped by the poor nutritional content of many types of prepackaged food – another name for them being convenience food – as in “easier”). And since the mind is a part of the body, this has a profound effect on our brain. Depression, anxiety, mood-swings, bi-polarity disorders, attention deficit problems. All too often these are signs that our bodies and minds aren’t getting what they need.

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So we need exercise. And that’s what many of us do, myself included. After work, we go to the gym, or run on a treadmill at home,  or pad round the block wearing lycra. The main reason isn’t fun – it’s to keep in shape. In perspective, this is bonkers: all day we enjoy labour-saving technologies at work and around the home, and in the evening we force ourselves through ‘artificial’ exercise routines to make up the difference. No wonder we never seem to have enough time. (Of course, on a Corporate level this makes twisted sense: it’s the employee who has to make up this physical shortfall in his or her own time).

The more industrially developed a society is, the more its inhabitants are encouraged to pursue energy-saving practices….without thinking about why they might want to do so.

Fact is, we’re biological machines. We need a certain amount of steady mechanical work throughout our day, or we start rusting, in all sorts of subtle ways.

Suggestions

Every one of these suggestions is not universally applicable. Every one is idealistic and relatively non-pragmatic. Every one needs a lot of work. (For example, if you’re in a wheelchair or if you can walk but your mobility is severely impaired, the last thing you want is more stairs. Not universal).

  • 1. Workplaces that require more effort to get around. Designers: instead of central hubs of elevators – use stairs. If people cannot use the stairs, give them a swipe-card to an elevator that keeps everyone else out. Turn stairwells not into shabby grey liminal places tacked on with an afterthought, but airy, spacious, panoramically windowed places to escape to when you need a break. Make them desirable.
  • 2. …and cities that are built to the same principle. Getting rid of escalators except in special swipe-card cases for those who need to use them. Rethinking walkways and pathways so they’re more fun and energetic. Putting subtle gradients everywhere, invisibly working out calves and ankles. More pedestrian bridges, please. More greenery to encourage us to walk around (and if designers and councils don’t do something, others will).

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  • 3. We Earn Our Electricity. Imagine. Your activities create energy: you store this energy: it’s yours, to expend however you wish – to supplement a set ration of energy you’ve been allotted by your local council. It’s Draconian and distinctly anti-capitalist, but I think in half a century these kinds of desperate proposals will be on the table anyway. It’d be nice if we actually managed it with a bit of foresight. Your every movement has the potential to generate electricity, say, by dynamo (why haven’t whirring bike wheels and car wheels been widely tapped as battery-chargers?) or piezo-electrically (such as sensors under your carpet, converting your footsteps into current). There’s a universal personal battery standard – let’s call it the “PB” – and every small- to medium-sized household appliance has a socket for a PB. You generate electricity by going for a walk to the shop for a pint of milk, then you use that electricity to boil the water for your cup of tea. And so on. Devices like the HyMini (above) are a healthy step in the right direction.
  • 4. Following the last point – if we’re going to keep using gyms, let’s make them power-stations. Going on your treadmill for 45 minutes will generate power- and you have the option of using that generated power to pay off some of your gym bill (they can divert it straight into the energy they expend running the place), or you can “upload” it into your PB and go home. Right now, our energy-collecting technologies probably aren’t efficient enough to make this practical. But knowing our ingenuity, they soon will be. And if we can harvest useful electricity or savings when we go work out, it’s a powerful incentive to get a sweat on.

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  • 5. Question The Easy Way. I don’t want to bring down the Labour government or the Republicans (no, wait) or capitalism or any component of the modern world. I’m about as political as Mr Bean. But if there’s one obvious thing wrong with how the world works, it’s this: trust. Unquestioning, blind trust. In particular, we trust advertisers too much. When we’re told that a product or service is “better”, we assume that it’s going to unquestionably improve our lives – and this makes logical sense, because it’s more efficient or it’s labour-saving or automated or very very clever-looking. However, if somebody is selling something to us, they’re almost certainly going to be focussed on making money – anything else is our problem. Not using their product correctly? Our problem. Fail to adjust our lifestyle accordingly for our own benefit? Our problem. Advertisers will be naturally inclined to try to sell the best-case scenario, how a product could improve a lifestyle, and leave realism out of the picture (as the saying goes, ‘they deal in dreams’). Their motives need to be questioned, all the time.

So it requires a change in attitude. Right now, we’re culturally hardwired to associate the word “saving” with the word “good”, every time……except for one example I can think of – the phrase “corner-cutting”. This negative term, which ostensibly means the same as “time/energy-saving”, suggests a bad job – of work detrimental to the final product. I’d argue there’s a lot of corner-cutting going on in today’s world, hidden but right out in the open. We’re being encouraged to cut corners everywhere.

And so:

  • 6. Neutralise The Hard Way. Turn ‘the hard way’ of doing things into a neutral thing, without a negative value attached, without being undesirable from the get-go. We should assess the benefits of doing things the hard way in exactly the same way we assess the benefits of doing things more easily. We may end up wanting to pick the tougher route. We may not. Just as long as we think about why we make the choices we make.  “Hard” does not equal “bad” (if it did, gyms would be positively Satanic).

Personally, I’m rather a fan of choosing the hard way to do things, by default. (This probably makes me Tiresome To Be Around, so apologies to everyone who knows me personally).

The hard way is where the adventure lies.

Explorers don’t take the easy route.

Images:  DeShark / StuffEyeSee / Jason Gulledge