主播大秀

Great to hear the skies were clear for many of you for Saturday night鈥檚 eclipse. It was a fantastic sight. It鈥檚 so rare, in this corner of Scotland, to get a cloud-free night for such events, so I thought I鈥檇 make the most of it and take a few shots for posterity on my wee digital camera.

Unfortunately, it didn鈥檛 go to plan鈥�


Turns out there鈥檚 a reason why professional photographers use tripods! (They probably don鈥檛 indulge in a couple of small sherries before they begin snapping either.)

Anyway, if you managed to take photos of the lunar eclipse please let us see them. They really can鈥檛 be worse than mine!

There are more (decent!) shots from around Scotland .

Apologies to tws, but while we鈥檙e on the cat theme, I came across this story about how moggies are fighting the good fight against spammers鈥�

鈥淧ictures of homeless cats and dogs could soon be helping users get access to secure websites and services.

By using pictures that humans can easily distinguish, researchers hope to foil computerised efforts to get at valuable web services that perhaps offer e-mail accounts or sell tickets for popular shows.鈥�



So there you go. Cats. Not just useful for the disposal of frogs.

Enjoy your weekend!

Anne :)

It鈥檚 great to see so many new bloggers joining us and it鈥檚 particularly pleasing to greet our new Eday bloggers Transire bene faciendo and Eday School Blog Good to see Eday being well represented at last!

However, there are still a number of islands with no bloggers! So if you鈥檙e a regular user of this site and you live on one of the islands in the list below have a think about signing up and starting your own blog.

The islands still blog-less are:

Baleshare
Benbecula
Bernera
Bressay
Egilsay
Eigg
Foula
Holy Island
Muck
Muckle Roe
North Ronaldsay
Papa Westray
Papa Stour
Rousay
Scalpay
Skerries
Trondra
Wyre

Of course, if your island is already represented you shouldn鈥檛 be put off. You鈥檒l be made very welcome here!



Go on 鈥� we鈥檇 love to hear from you!

An upgrade of our system is being carried out this evening, Thursday 15 March, and as a result you may find that Island Blogging is operating more slowly than normal. It should be back to normal by tomorrow morning.

Unfortunately a technical problem led to delays in getting comments on to the site yesterday afternoon. Hopefully we鈥檝e managed to restore them all by now, but if one of your comments still hasn鈥檛 made it on to the site please email me at islandblogging@bbc.co.uk to let me know.

Anne

Delighted to see more new bloggers joining us over the weekend. If you haven鈥檛 already, make sure you read and from Lewis, from Eday, and from Mainland Shetland.

Good to have you all with us!

Anne :)

Recently we were joined by Transire bene faciendo and a number of us were intrigued by the name and what it could mean.

Unfortunately, Transire bene faciendo has decided not to blog with us in the meantime but they have provided me with the translation.

An old school motto, TBF understands it to mean, 鈥淭o travel through life doing good鈥�.

It鈥檚 good to finally get to the bottom of it, isn鈥檛 it?

And, TBF, if you ever decide you鈥檇 like to blog with us again you鈥檒l be made very welcome!

Anne

* It鈥檚 about the only Latin phrase I know! ;-)

Given that we鈥檝e got so many school blogs these days I thought I鈥檇 draw your attention to this brand new 主播大秀 competition.

Last year 主播大秀 One aired the programme How Do You Solve a Problem Like Maria? which catapulted telesales girl Connie Fisher to stardom in The Sound of Music. This year the 主播大秀 is launching a nationwide talent search to find a male lead for Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat in Any Dream Will Do.

Running alongside this new search is an online only competition. School choirs will compete for the chance to perform live on the final show of Any Dream Will Do and will be invited to appear in the West End for a special Children In Need performance of Joseph and The Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat.

To enter you need to:

Film your choir singing 'Entr'acte' from Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor脗漏 Dreamcoat ().

Upload a 60 second clip of the performance to the website.

The choir should feature between 4 and 20 children aged over 5yrs and under 12yrs.

Why not give it a go?

Just to let you know that moderation will be less frequent on Thursday but please bear with us as your posts and comments will be seen to.

Trusty colleagues will be looking after the site on Friday and Monday so, as ever, if you have any queries or problems email them at the usual address: islandblogging@bbc.co.uk

Finally, we have a system upgrade taking place on Monday night which will lead to a reduced performance for a few hours.

Thanks in advance for your patience.

Anne :)

Came across an article today which suggests that blogging can be bad for your career! It seems potential employers are searching for personal information on candidates' blogs 鈥�



We do advise that you don鈥檛 give too many personal details away on your blog but I think employers would be hard-pushed to find any scurrilous information here! Or would they...?

;-)