We Do Like Biscuits... are You SURE They Like Us?

Some welcome alternative facts on biscuits from the lying advertisers of yore:

Taken from a 1945 edition of The Orcadian.

Maybe living in wartime Britain wasn't as bad as I've always assumed if biscuits were considered a health food.

We've fallen for this nonsense before though...

Murray's Mint!

Faithful readers may have been wondering why we have not mentioned the recent ascension of Andy Murray to the position of No.1 tennis player in the ENTIRE WORLD last week.( Seeing as we love him and everything.)

Well, first we were weeping too much about it to type properly, and then we were weeping too much about the US election results; but we have calmed down a little and would now like to celebrate. Oh Andy! How do we love thee? Let us count the ways..

We love how you get so, so, cross about stuff:

We love your excellent teenage eye rolls:

We love how you said you would fly home from the Australian Open if your baby was born early even if it meant missing the final.






We love how very good at playing tennis you are.








We love how when you lose you cry...



...and we love how when you win you cry even more...


















...but perhaps we love you most of all because, for several years in in the late 1800s, you ran the John Street Grocers for us in Stromness. Truly above and beyond Andy.


 Murray, you're mint!

Time Travelling Fridays 2 (except on Saturday, as we wuz ill.)

Prepare to be amazed once more, as we unveil more time-travelling celebrities as your special advent treat:



Orkney Archive Sc11/5/1831/134

You may have assumed that Patrick Stewart won the role of Jean Luc-Picard because of his actorly skills but it was actually his experience of travelling through time and space to 1830s Orkney where he worked as a painter.

At one point, Patrick was taken to court over an unpaid bill of £19, 14 shillings and 5 pence. But his lawyer said that the charge was 'libellous' and actually due to a clerk writing a bill down twice by mistake. The firm later folded.

Orkney Archive reference SC11/5/1831/134

We also have completely water-tight and not at all nonsensical proof that John Snow also had a bash at the time-travel malarky and ended up being John Balfour's attorney, receiving bossy letters about bonds, notes of hand and various connected instructions.





Orkney Archive Reference D2/6/5





All Aboard The Marge Barge...

Yeah, 1940s woman! If there's anything that really enrages me it is unfounded prejudice against spreads. I overheard my friend's grandmother disparaging Olivio once and I punched her in the face.

All adverts taken from 1939 editions of The Orcadian.

Bovril Is Liquid. Cocoa is Liquid. Both are Brown.

One cannot help but feel that the advertisers of these hot drinks have gotten a little over excited...

All adverts taken from 1909 editions of The Orcadian

'Be A Womanly Woman Under All Circumstances.'

Today, in 1920, the 19th amendment to the United States Constitution was ratified, guaranteeing suffrage for women, hoorah!

6 years later, on the 18th of August 1926, an announcement appeared in the Orkney Herald for  the release of 'Women: An Inquiry', an essay exploring gender differences by Willa Muir, wife of  Orcadian poet Edwin Muir. Hoorah!

Willa Muir in 1967 - negative no. L818/2

On the 18th of August 2012, the archive staff found this terrifying piece in the 1905 Orcadian entitled '2s Every Girl Should Learn'

Thank goodness the female archive staff were not living in 1905, for we can admit to very few of these attributes. We do respect old age, (as an archive we revere it), and we sweep away some of the cobwebs and we of course read only the best of books (Does Games of Thrones count?) and steer away from trashy literature (Does Game of Thrones count?)

But we are not taking active exercise for anyone.