Catriona Price (The Orcadian)

The grand final of the BBC Radio Scotland Young Traditional Musician 2012 competition will be held tomorrow, Sunday, February 5, at Celtic Connections in Glasgow.

Orkney violinist, Catriona Price, from Dounby, is in the final line-up of six and is hoping to follow in the footsteps of last year’s winner, Kristan Harvey, from Birsay.

The winner will be announced on the night, and will be awarded a recording session with BBC Scotland, a performance at the Scots Trad Music Awards, one year’s membership of the Musicians’ Union and a springboard on to the thriving Scottish music scene. All finalists get one year’s membership of TMSA plus the opportunity to take part in the TMSA’s annual Young Trad Tour.

Catriona previously made it to the semi-finals of the competition in 2004, and has said she is delighted to get as far as the finals this year.

• Don’t miss Artworks Scotland’s documentary featuring Jack Bruce collaborating with Kris Drever and Lau, this month. The programme, Jack Bruce: The Man Behind the Bass will be shown on BBC Two Scotland, on Monday, February 13, at 9pm. For a sneak preview, log on to www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p00nrdc4.

The Michael Ross appeal case is due to get under way at the Appeal Court in Edinburgh on Tuesday.

The hearing is expected to be heard over four days, until Friday, February 10. Previous hearings into the appeal against his conviction and sentence have been withdrawn three times.

Ross was sentenced to 25 years in prison at the High Court in Glasgow in October, 2008 — more than 14 years after the killing of waiter, Shamsuddin Mahmood.

Ross was also sentenced to a further five years after leaping from the dock and trying to escape, after being found guilty of the crime.

Untitled, by Rik Hammond.

An exhibition of work by artist Rik Hammond opens at the Orkney Museum today, Saturday.

Recent Drawings is a collection of abstract drawings that challenge the viewer to use their own imagination to interpret the images on display.

Originally from Hastings in East Sussex, Rik now lives in St Margaret’s Hope and is currently the Orkney World Heritage Site artist in residence.

The exhibition runs until February 25.

Orkney is part of a new Highlands and Islands “college region”, announced today by the education secretary, Michael Russell.

He believes that the colleges will work more collaboratively within 12 regions.

Orkney will work together with Perth, Lews Castle, Shetland, Inverness, Moray, North Highland, Argyll and West Highland Colleges as Highlands and Islands college region.

Mr Russell also welcomed reports on the governance of higher and further education and gave a commitment to taking the recommendations forward in consultation with the sectors.

Agatha Christie’s murder-mystery, The Body in the Library, will find a new audience this weekend when the story is told – a tiny chunk at a time – through Twitter.

Stewart Bain, library assistant at the Orkney Library and Archive, has adapted the original text so that it can be “tweeted” in 140-character nuggets from Twitter accounts specially set up for Miss Marple and each of the other main protagonists.

The first mini instalment goes today, Friday, at 7.15am – the moment in the book when the body is discovered – with the plot unfolding over the rest of the day, and on Saturday, until a cliffhanger moment is reached.

“At that point followers will have the chance to guess whodunnit – or better still go to their local library and pick up a copy of the book to find out,” he said.

The serialisation is timed as a novel way to celebrate National Libraries Day on Saturday, February 5.

“Social media is an excellent way to highlight what our library has to offer. We now have over 4,500 followers on Twitter, from all parts of the UK, and many different countries worldwide.

“We hope they will be joined by many more as Agatha Christie’s characters interact with each other over the Twittersphere.”

To follow the story sign up as a follower at https://twitter.com/#!/bodyinlibrary/the-body-in-the-library

• As part of National Libraries Day, the Orkney Library, in Kirkwall, will be open until 8pm – the first time it has stayed open late on a Saturday night.

The Orkney Community Planning Partnership has expressed opposition to proposals to give the Royal Mail greater freedom to set prices for postal deliveries.

The partnership is concerned about the potential impact and believes customers in the islands could end up paying more for postal services than those in more urban areas of the UK.

“While we recognise the need to improve the financial performance of the Royal Mail, the Universal Postal Service must be secured to ensure that the less-populated and more remote rural and island areas are not disadvantaged,” said partnership chairman, Councillor Stephen Hagan.

In its response to a consultation on the plans, OCPP states: “The Orkney community has already witnessed the negative discrimination which has resulted from the deregulation of the parcel delivery service. This has led to excessive charges for the supply of goods to the islands with, in many cases, UK businesses refusing to supply goods to addresses in the area.”

The partnership says it is unacceptable for businesses to decline to supply goods (particularly small packages) to addresses in the Highlands and Islands when an accessible, affordable and effective UK-wide service is provided by the Royal Mail – and calls on Ofcom to rectify this.

“Not only would that go some way towards protecting these remote areas from the increased urbanisation of the UK’s courier services, but the Royal Mail could become more competitive and more efficient as a result,” the response adds.

Orkney MSP Liam McArthur has responded to the news that Groundskeeper Willie, from The Simpsons, hails from Kirkwall.

The revelation, which will be made in the episode The Daughter Also Rises, to be broadcast in the US on February 12, will come as quite a shock to many, who had assumed from his accent that the character was Glaswegian. According to The Simpsons writer, Rob Lazebnik, Willie was born of a Doonie father and an Uppie mother, in a family almost torn apart by the rivalry of the Ba’.

Mr McArthur commented: “We know that those with Orkney roots are to be found far and wide across the globe.  It should come as no surprise then that the Orkney diaspora has even reached Springfield USA.  I was concerned to note, however, that Glasgow City Council have made moves to claim Groundskeeper Willie as one of their own by listing him as an ‘alleged’ son of their city.

“In light of recent, incontrovertible evidence, and to avoid any future confusion, I have written to the leader of Glasgow City Council, requesting that they renounce the claim on their website, and in any other relevant materials.  A Parliamentary Motion has also been lodged to this effect.”