Another side of Lesley Riddoch

Susan Boyle has lost?

What just happened there?

Such has been the massive hype surrounding Susan Boyle, I decided to watch the final of Britain's Got Talent – and was amazed to see the world's most famous Scotswoman take second place to a tremendous hip-hop dance group called Diversity.

Somehow, I'm still stunned. The vote was public, so it couldn't have been "fixed" by judges anxious about her mental state. There must have been something in Ms B's performance (or lack of it) that turned viewers off. It didn't seem to be her singing– described as the best ever by judge Piers Morgan. But her appearance on stage was very strange. Muted, wooden, monosyllabic – she was hardly able to exchange even the most banal pleasantries with Ant and Dec before she sidled off. Was she mogadonned up? Or maybe on tranquilisers to get through the stress of the big event?

Either would be understandable as the press turned against the star of BGT in the week leading up to tonight's final. Watching Susan Boyle standing beside the seven or eight excited dancers of Diversity, the West Lothian lass had never looked more alone. And when their victory was finally announced, she released a huge, broad smile. The first genuine expression of pleasure on her face all night.

"They were better" was her immediate comment, followed by a final burst of the delightfully inappropriate facial contortions and skirt lifting.

Is she better off out of it? Maybe -- an internet clip of her debut performance is one of the most watched in history, with more than 100 million hits. And she's still likely to sing in West End Musicals and earn more than last year's winner – if that matters.

Now that the big artificial "fight" to be top dog is over, Susan Boyle may finally be left alone to do the messages and star in the occasional show. But one comment does bother me. A writer speculated today that BGT's creators might be unwise to let an emotionally unstable Boyle perform in front of the Queen. If she's capable of saying f—k off to the press, what obscenity might be uttered if Susan Boyle lost it in front of Her Madge.

Are we selecting winners on the basis of what would please the Queen? You'd like to think that wouldn't be a deciding factor for the public. But who knows. Did viewers pick up a collective second thought from the press, judges and even from the strangely muted Susan Boyle herself?

I don't think anyone knows why this unlikely star has struck such a powerful note across the world. Let's hope she now has time to understand the Susan Boyle phenomenon herself – before packing em in wherever she chooses to stand up and let rip.

Humbling and hobbling

Hobbling around after an energetic dance session at the Orkney Folk Festival it appears I have a medial ligament strain. Having not to move is a bit tough – though the prospect of messing up a summer of cycling on Norway's Arctic coast is enough to encourage me to SIT DOWN!

The European Hustings we recorded in Glasgow's Hillhead Library on Thursday night was fascinating. Try as they might the candidates couldn't manage to make Europe sound other than what it is. A collection of wildly differing states who rarely agree on anything with fairly ludicruous practices all seem powerless to change.

A good suggestion came from the audience – why don't all new British Euro MPs combine forces to call for an end to the monthly pointless trek from Brussels to Strasbourg? This is an absolute waste of time and money designed only to salve French fury at the decision to build the EU's HQ in Belgium more than thirty years ago. Anyway, although the BBC cancelled its scheduled broadcast in the Riddoch Questions slot on Friday, the edited hustings is being played several times this weekend by Celtic Music Radio, community radio and hospital radio around Scotland. So to anyone lying with their leg in a sling hearing lively debate over the future of the European Convention of Human Rights instead of S Club 7 – sorry. Check out the whole prog over at lesleyriddoch.com

Talking of French fury, I thought I was about to have my second walkout ever yesterday when Tory blogger Iain Dale warned he'd hang up his Skype headset and leave the programme if he was interrupted any more whilst speaking. It seems an emailer contacted the bold Iain and told him not to be so pompous. Happily, Mr Dale was big enough to share the email contents himself and appeared to relax into the rather more "robust" atmosphere that Scottish contributors and this presenter habitually create!

Meanwhile, thanks to respondents for their kind words about the imminent demise of Riddoch Questions. Maybe folk would like to suggest what we should do for the last one on July 31^st? The first programme started with Alex Salmond two days after his election victory in 2007. Maybe we should ask him back???

 

England not Britain

Dan Snow's TV programme How the Celts Saved Britain is driving me crazy. Peter Snow's boy maintains that St Patrick saved the British (ie English) from wild fiercesome Picts (Scots) and pagan godless chaos after the retreat of the nice orderly Romans .

England -- clearly delineated as England on the BBC4 map -- is so often described as Britain I can hardly watch this otherwise interesting programme. Anyone else having the same problem? Talking about heritage, 20 fellas did indeed turn up this week in Wick to give DNA samples so Dr Jim Wilson can determine if Caithness folk are as strongly descended from Norwegians as people in neighbouring Orkney and Shetland. Here's part of the posse and many thanks to Mackays Hotel. We'll have some results by August, hopefully.

Orkney Folk Festivaling

Reviews of folk music seem to suggest every band is wonderful. All the time. Gigs are always tremendous, performances are universally top banana and the innocent bystander can be forgiven for thinking critical faculties are suspended the minute one becomes a "folkie." And of course one converts to full "folkie" status by travelling all the way up Scotland (and taking a week off air) to get to the Orkney Folk Festival. So you will doubtless take the following with a large pinch of salt.

But I've just seen one of the best sets of music I've ever witnessed in an impromptu collaboration between the Orcadian Saltfishforty and the deeply English Spiers and Boden (apparently the favourite musical act of both the Guardian and David Cameron). S&B are a quirky combination of fiddler, singer and stomp-board thumper and squeezebox player. That's just two people, though at times it sounds like four or five – a feature of a Festival where so many young musicians can talk, play, sing, retune their fiddles, fix sound systems, de-rig and even step dance at the same time. (Well done the degree courses at Plockton and the RSAMD). Anyway from the second S&B struck up with their folk songs from Suffolk, no Southwark – ach what's the difference, you have the same song in Orkney and it probably started life in West Africa -- they grabbed the audience by its collective throat. Their songs are delivered with the upbeat urgency of sea shantys, the rhythm is quite different from Celtic or even Nordic island traditions and the duo have an intense stage presence. It struck me they were like a musical version of The Mighty Boosh (and if you missed that TV and radio comic experience, get the DVDs right away!)

When they stepped onstage again however, with my own musical heroes Saltfishforty, I had that sinking feeling that accompanies someone trying to "join in" with a favourite song. Phrasing, pace and very particular twiddly bits get lost as the newcomer grinds the tune down to its lowest common denominator. Now I got very familiar with Saltfish tracks using big chunks of their Orkney Twister album to accompany my radio series cycling up the Western Isles. And when you know all the nuances of an original song you really done want to hear some else ad lib. But the four lads played together as if they'd been in the same band all their lives. Could this be the start of something big? Meanwhile there were great performances from the Shetlandic Fiddlers Bid, Aberdonian farming contractor Geordie Murison, local wits Hullion, powerful songwriter Karine Polwart and young singing duo Jeana Leslie and Siobhan Miller.

And nearly midnight at the Ring of Brodgar with the talented Mr Smith was pretty special too.

RIDDOCH QUESTIONS OFF AIR

There was a wee piece in the Scotsman today about a cancelled European hustings programme and the fact Riddoch Questions will be off air after July 31^st. Just for the sake of clarity, these two things are not linked.

I've no idea why BBC Scotland decided to drop RQs from the schedule (for the uninitiated it's a live political programme I present on Fridays at 1.15). My production company Feisty has been producing the show from a variety of locations around Dundee and Fife for about two years. The BBC let us know we were off by email in March – the reason given was schedule changes.

We've lost staff since then – after all there has been no prospect of regular work because our other programme New Hands – a business programme highlighting the problems of young companies – has also not been recommissioned.

A week ago Radio Scotland announced there'd be a new slot for independent producers at 9am on Sunday mornings. Our remaining production staff are both part-time young mums, and neither is keen on weekend work. And since we've not managed to do a programme Radio Scotland seems happy with in the five years we've been in existence, the Feisty team has decided not to tender for the new slot and instead to move on and explore new lines of business.

We already do a lot of non-broadcasting work – Feisty is heavily involved in an international marine energy project Equimar (www.equimar.org) I'm very involved in doing a part-time degree in Nordic Studies and writing a book and we are all interested in the possibilities of online radio. So having time to devote to a different sounding alternative speech service would be grand.

I've been really lucky to have had 25 years working with the BBC – mostly Radio Scotland. So perhaps it is time for something new. Thanks to everyone who has listened, thrown things at the radio, and put up with our frequent technical problems. Mind you, if the BBC's Dundee studio was capable of producing live programmes – like their studios in every other Scottish city -- we wouldn't have had to prevail on Abertay and Adam Smith to try and repurpose their student-focussed facilities in the first place!

Regarding next week's European Hustings with the Federation of Small Business and Amnesty International, I do find the BBC's decision to cancel this event bizarre and have told them so. They are worried the public could form a biased audience. We'd given 10 tickets to each of the four main parties for their supporters – the way we've always done to overcome such possible bias in the past. I don't know why that suddenly isn't good enough, and having spent three months arranging the event it's tough to have it cancelled at the last minute. And even tougher to see how the BBC will ever manage to have an election programme involving the public without loads of staff and months of audience vetting. Is that really necessary or massive politically correct overkill?

Anyway, the show will go on. I'll chair the hustings as I promised to do and Feisty staff will be there to record, edit and post the event online. It's primarily an event for FSB and Amnesty members but I think they would be happy if other people wanted to come. See my main website for details of the event. And watch this space!

Finally, I'm trying to be on holiday on Orkney this week – and many thanks to the generous Cecil at Wishart's Ironmongers in Orkney for letting me use the shop's wireless network to post this lot and tolerating all the customers stepping over me to view their extensive selection of pans!

Finding Neverland

Take two grown men, suggest something crazy, sit back and watch it happen. That's what was occurring this weekend in the house where J.M Barrie spent his summers after writing Peter Pan -- Balnaboth in Glen Prosen. Hector and Jeannie MacLean are the current owners – and a better example of grown-up kids you'd be hard pushed to find. Generous, trusting and utterly impish.

Next year is Barrie's 150^th anniversary, and the Kirriemuir Heritage Trust have quite a season of events planned – some of them in Balnaboth where Barrie entertained his close friend Captain Robert Falcon Scott and acquaintance Labour's Ramsay MacDonald. Piling through old newspaper cuttings in Balnaboth, Hector came across a picture of Barrie and MacDonald posing on the White Bridge near the Big House. One raised eyebrow later Hector and my husband Chris were knee deep in tweeds, plaids, homburgs, ties and plus fours to produce their own 2009 version of the 1930s meeting. Clearly a few items of clothing had sort of.... shrunk. But it was great to see these big serious ol boys have such daft fun. Chris is weaving together the little film we made – appearing soon on You Tube.

Is Caithness Nordic?

 

Is Caithness Nordic? Well that's a stupid question according to my mother Helen More from Wick. Her family seems to have come from everywhere but fae sooth. The tiny coastal villages of Olrig, Sarclet and the island of Stroma get mentions – though my grandfather Magnus More used to tell a hilarious tale about the More's supposed descent from a Spanish Armada galleon, shipwrecked off Wick. Agitated locals were asking if there people on board who needed to be saved. The only word of English the Spanish seemed to have was "more, more". Hmmm.

Mum herself is convinced we are Norwegian – and indeed there is a district More and Romsdal whose capital Alesund we visited ten years ago looking for.... something. According to the DNA expert, Jim Wilson – whose families hail from Fair Isle and Orkney -- everyone secretly wants to discover they are descended from somewhere more exotic than home. And a Viking descent seems to be the most popular origin – particularly for the Orcadians and Shetlanders. But what about the Caithnessians?

Me and my big mouth. I met Jim today because I'm writing a book about the Nordic Spirit and its sorry absence from the Scottish outlook and was interested to know what percentage of Scots have Nordic DNA. Jim said he'd have more of an idea if I could help widen his research base.

So here's the deal. I'm heading to Orkney on Wednesday 20^th May and could stop off en route in Wick or Thurso with 20 of the saliva sample bottles shown here. Jim needs twenty unrelated Caithness men (not brothers or cousins!)whose fathers and grandfathers both lived in Caithness. They have to deposit a saliva sample into these wee bottles and return them to Jim in the post with the right form filled in. And he'll be able to see whether they have the distinctive markers in the Y chromosome that suggest Norwegian ancestry. Why just men? Cos life's unfair. No really -- because the Y chromosome is apparently more distinctively marked by changes which are then passed on to every male child than the dna passed on by women. Yes gals – it does sound like a conspiracy to me too. But as far as I can tell the easiest way for women to unravel their own origins DNA-wise is to encourage the men in your family to offer samples.

So are 20 Caithness men interested in helping Jim to see if they are descended from Vikings? If you are contact me at admin@feistyproductions.co.uk and let me know if you (or someone on your behalf) could turn up to collect a form and sample between 10-12am on Weds 20^th May in Wick or Thurso. I won't have time to do both towns, so the first ten replies will decide which town. And watch this space. More info on Jim and his DNA work at http://www.scotsfamily.com/dna-testing.htm and the programme he produced for the BBC Blood of the Vikings at www.orkneyjar.com/history/vikingorkney/genetics.htm

Clunes on islands

Martin Clunes new ITV series on islands (Sundays 8pm) is really rather good. I know that sounds patronising but the combination of Southern star and Scottish island does not usually bode well. I love his wee asides. After stalking at Amhuinnsuidhe for a day, the hunter failed to shoot. Why not? The deer turned around. Is it not done to shoot them up the arse then asks Clunes? Nice one. In fact I bumped into the film crew "casing" Eigg last year. Locals had a bit of fun with the young researcher (singular) sent to figure out locations, accommodation and local luminaries – in two days flat. Sure enough, four months later our boat from Rum to Arisaig was diverted to pick up "a famous actor." Having just watched Clunes on the programme leaving Eigg on the CalMac boat I can't quite figure out how we picked him up on the Sheerwater too. Maybe he returned – a not unusual occurrence on Eigg. Anyway Clunes had clearly been "celebrating" for a couple of days and after spotting a few dolphins and giving some autographs he fell fast asleep. Which is no reflection on his stamina. At least he caught the boat! Strange isn't it how some "sooth-moothers" (as the Shetlanders call mainlanders) catch the island spirit really easily. Griff Rhys Jones' Mountain series seemed very laboured by comparison. And I'm afraid I regularly find myself shouting at the screen during episodes of Coast because of the presenters sheer earnestness. I'll be watching next week.

I am thinking about this for the programme...

This is the funniest thing I have heard for ages. I was thinking about playing this to the politicians and seeing their reaction. What do you think ?