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Never Mind 50 Shades of Grey...
Check out this home-grown Orkney filth! The terms of our Disclosure Scotland contract probably forbid us to directly type this vile and sinful poem, so here is a scan taken from David Hubert Balfour's...
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Oh Andy!
We'll remember all our life,rain it came down cold as ice,a shadow of a man,a face through our tvcrying in the courtthe game goes intoadvantage and another set,happy roger makes another playlooking in...
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Don't You Sometimes Wish That Shops Still Looked Like This?
Interior of D. M. Wright, Chemist, Albert Street, Kirkwall.As above.Interior of Flett and Sons, Bridge Street, Kirkwall.But I am glad that they no longer look like this:Eeeewwwwwww... G. Graham's,...
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Hello, You Fool, I Love You!
This morning, a strange yellow light was detected over the town of Kirkwall. The light had a definite warming quality to it and was all-pervading; penetrating every window, cracks around front doors...
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I KNEW it!
"Pure" you say? Increases Muscular Strength? Gives Physical Endurance and Staying Power?Quick friends; to the microfilm readers to search for proof that wine raises IQ levels and makes you a groovier...
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Soap Wars!
Before the National Television Awards began, they looked like this...I love the snippyness of the one above......and the ridiculous pomposity above. This soap is so fancy, it has it's own coat of arms!...
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Orkney Olympics
We have prepared another display! It is, of course, in honour of the Olympics and contains many photos and documents of sporting prowess from rugged and/or lithe Orcadians.The poster includes images of...
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'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...
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Deface This!
I froze, my archivist's standard-issue 2B pencil quivering in my hand, my eyebrows arched with both surprise and shock. A horrified gasp was swiftly followed by a shrieked word:...
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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
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Great Scott
It seems appropriate, while the Paralympics are in full swing, to post about Hettie Scott, a Harray lass who achieved more than most able-bodied people despite having no hands and being unable to...
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You're Just Grandy, Andy!
Look at all these thrilled Orkney tennis players who are as delighted as we are that Andy Murray has won the US Open!" I stayed up with my mum to watch and we high-fived and big-tenned until 6 in the...
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At Least It's Neat...
I was quite shocked to see the casual and seemingly extraneous use of a swastika in an ad for the Orcadian printing office, especially in 1939. "Maybe people were not too bothered by it before the...
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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...
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True Story...
William and Kate were furious. No honestly, they were really, really angry.Kate just phoned a minute ago to book some time onto the library public pcs as William and her are planning an Orkney stop-off...
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Orcrime 2012
Orcrime is nearly here! Orkney's first Crime festival begins on Thursday the 11th of October and details of events can be seen here.The archive are preparing a crime display which includes a recounting...
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George! Mackay! Brown!
It is the anniversary of the wonderful George Mackay Brown's birth today. He would have been 91.We used to feel a little silly as an archive because, until recently, we did not really have many...
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Welcome Alison!
We have been very remiss of late and have failed to post quite as often as we should like. Therefore, better late than never, please let us now introduce Orkney Library and Archive's new Reader in...
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A Classic One-liner!
Here's a spooky picture for Halloween Week that's so clever I just can't believe it!I really hope it wasn't a true likeness, as I would not like to meet this woman (?) on a dark night...This photograph...
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