Thursday 20 February

A wet morning here in Stornoway, but not excessively windy. Nothing new in the news either, fighting in Kiev, water leaks at Fukushima - at least there is progress in the refurbishment of Lews Castle. Afternoon improved quite a bit, after a handful of beefy showers. No complaints this end.

Read in the local paper that the island of Barra is thinking of defecting to Argyll & Bute Council (I think it's about 100 miles to the southeast of the island) as Barraich do not feel that the local authority Comhairle nan Eilean Siar (Western Isles Council) serves it properly. This follows the rejection of an application to reinstate the airlink between Barra and Benbecula, which was severed in earlier budget cuts. I somehow do not think it is such a good idea to revert to the old Inverness-shire type set-up that existed until 1975. The southern isles were very poorly served by Inverness-shire, which was only interested in the town of Inverness. Barra has strong connections to the mainland port of Oban (in Argyll & Bute).