Fame At Last 2

If you have ever read this blog and thought to yourself  "I'm enjoying this, but I feel I would enjoy it more if it were being read out by a left-leaning Swanley-born comedian on a BBC program. It would just flow better.",  then you are in luck. Simply click here: Ideal Scenario to hear the Kirkwall episode of Radio 4's Mark Steel's In Town.

If you listen carefully, then you will hear an excerpt of this post from this very blog being read out to a local audience. More was read out on the night itself, but our amazing comedic zingers caused at least three members of the audience to laugh themselves hernias and one poor woman slipped into a comedy coma. To make up for this, the next three posts will probably not be very amusing at all. With great power comes great responsibility.

In The Papers This Week

People reading this week's Orcadian in 1926 would have seen this article about the end of the General Strike :

Readers in 1932 would have had the opportunity to snip out this 2cm square pattern and make a nice pair of pants, presumably for a mouse:

1947 saw this heartbreaking advert for Andrew's Liver Salts where the terribly polite product tries in vain to catch a woman's attention:

In 1970, a woman fell in love with a ladle and no one thought it was weird:

Two headlines from a May 1985 edition of the Orcadian:

The woman with the 'worst car in Orkney' was driving around in a Fiat that had no tread on the incredibly loose rear wheels, both indicators broken, faulty headlights, faulty brake lights, a broken registration plate, non-functioning window washers, a hand-brake which would not come on, and a leaky petrol tank. The silencer and exhaust pipes were both broken and held on by wire, the fuel pipe was tied on by string and the mileometer had not worked for the last four months. Her road tax had also run out. The paper said that her car was also  'tatty'.

In May 1997, Magnus Magnusson hosted the last ever edition of Mastermind from St Magnus Cathedral. It was the end of an era. Until it came back in 2003.

Another big story in May 1947 was the destruction by fire of the Albert Kinema. This cinema was subsequently rebuilt on Junction Road as the Phoenix, having risen anew from the ashes. The Phoenix Cinema can now be found at the Pickaquoy Centre which, on the 30th of April, was the venue for Mark Steel's In Town.

This Radio 4 series is written and presented by author and comedian Mark Steel and the premise is a tailor made stand-up performance about a particular British town. This second series has seen visits to Dartford, Wilmslow, Dumfries, Penzance, Gateshead and Kirkwall.

Orkney Library helped out with research for the programme and bits of the Orkney Archive Blog were read out on the night! We do not know if  any Library and Archive mentions have made the edit but it was a great show, entirely about Kirkwall's past and present and shall be broadcast at 6.30pm tonight on Radio 4.