The music started on Saturday, at the Cavern Youth Café in Kirkwall and will continue every Saturday night for the next three months.

A grant from OIC's Community Social Services Department means that the Café can stay open until midnight, with free entry for everyone.

Details of the rebranding of the Safeway/Morrisons supermarket in Kirkwall to Somerfield will be revealed early next week.

It is believed that the store will be closed for several days while work is carried out to the premises.

The people of Orkney are making good use of their sports facilities, according to figures from Audit Scotland.

The county's leisure facilities were visited, on average, 12.4 times per head of population in 2003/4, placing Orkney fourth out of the 32 local authorities in Scotland. The Scottish average was 7.3, which shows Orcadians are among the most active in the country.

Orkney also had the third highest average use of swimming pools, with 5.4 visits per head of population, well above the Scottish average of 3.6.

Suggestions included using the oil reserve fund to pay for the proposed 12-bed unit, while others felt a larger care home would be preferential.

Officials from Orkney Islands Council and councillors told the community that a new funding application is to be submitted and a decision made in June or July.

Social work director Harry Garland said: "It was very positive. There is a degree of interest and enthusiasm that can only help the process."

Orkney communities are being encouraged to think about how the way they live impacts on the environment.

National funding of £150,000 each year for the next three years will be granted to national and regional projects of between one and three years duration that address the sustainable use of resources, energy and travel, and environmental justice.

Applications for Sustainable Action Grants are now being invited, with a deadline of Friday, March 11, 2005.

For more information see www.sustainable.scotland.gov.uk

Orkney Islands Council is one of only three local authority libraries in Scotland to have achieved targets for additions to library lending stock for children and teenage books.

In 1995, the Convention of Scottish Local Authorities (Cosla) recommended that every year councils should add 100 new items for children and teenagers for every 1,000 people in their area.

A report published by Audit Scotland on Thursday states: "For children and teenage lending stock, three councils (Clackmannanshire, Orkney Islands and Stirling) achieved in excess of the recommended target for additions."

Full report available at Audit Scotland website

As feared, there will be no local marketing manager for the county, while the Orkney office of VisitScotland will only be staffed by an area director, one business relationship manager and possibly an administrative/finance support worker.

The one business relationship manager post will replace three full-time and one part-time existing jobs in Orkney, according to a confidential VisitScotland document circulating this week.

The BBC Castaway couple, who have taken over the closed-down Taversoe Hotel on Rousay, were granted a permanent transfer of public house licence at Thursday morning's meeting of the OIC licensing committee.

Trevor Kearon and Patricia Prater are hoping to reopen the business at the end of February and have already received several bookings for this year.

The couple became household names in the BBC programme, Castaway, during which they met and fell in love while filming on the isle of Taransay.

They initially moved to South Ronaldsay where they had hoped to become self-sufficient.

Health officials have revealed this week that they would be interested in looking at the site of the current Kirkwall Grammar School as a possible base for a new hospital and health centre.

This would be dependent on whether OIC members eventually decide to build a new school elsewhere in the town.

NHS Orkney chief executive, Steve Conway, said this week that site availability was key to the health board's aspirations for a new hospital, conceding "Any site would be better than the one we have."

A Kirkwall man who pleaded guilty to sending a series of offensive and indecent text messages has been fined £1,000.

Nathan John Watson, 31, of Garden Street, Kirkwall, admitted sending the messages, to another man, in September last year. They included threats of violence and a message stating that the complainer's father had died.

Fining Watson £1,000, Sheriff Graeme Napier warned Watson that he could have been facing imprisonment.

A man responsible for damaging a number of cars on Kirkwall's Cromwell Road, on Christmas Eve, was disqualified from driving for three years at Kirkwall Sheriff Court on Wednesday.

Mark Thomas Liddle, 19, of Papdale Road, Kirkwall, admitted drink-driving and driving dangerously. He also pleaded guilty to losing control of his car, colliding with another vehicle and failing to stop and provide his details.

Liddle was also ordered to complete 200 hours of community service.

Stromness Fire Brigade was called to a property in the town on Wednesday after rising flood water reached a domestic fusebox.

The rising sea-level had flooded a waterside property in Graham Place, and had reached a fusebox causing it to spark. The occupant was evacuated while electrical engineers disconnected the power, allowing the firefighters to enter.

There were no injuries.

Sea water covers Kirkwall's Ayre Road as high tide approached on Wednesday morning.

Following the severe weather on overnight, many areas of the county suffered flooding on Wednesday as a result of an extremely high tide and the ongoing storms.

Areas of St Mary's, in Holm, and Kirkwall were swamped with water as the tide rose. There was storm damage and serious flooding reported in Stromness and St Margaret's Hope, with a number of seafront properties in the towns affected by some of the highest water levels in recent years.

The Churchill Barriers were closed to the public on Tuesday night and remained closed throughout Wednesday.

Click here for a selection of photographs.

From this date, set-aside rules must be obeyed, including that no agricultural activity is undertaken on the land from that date, except for non-food crops.

If the rules are broken, penalties will affect the whole single farm payment, not just the arable segment. In the worst case, if all set-aside was disallowed, the whole single farm payment would be lost.

The sea breaches the walls of the Kirkwall Basin, half an hour before high tide on Wednesday morning.

Tuesday night's storms dominated the news on Wednesday morning, as Orkney was hit by some of the strongest winds in Scotland.

A Met Office spokesman confirmed that hurricane force gusts over 100 mph, possibly as high as 115 mph, battered the county late on Tuesday night and into the early hours of Wednesday morning.

"You are almost off the top of the Beaufort Scale, recording hurricane force 12 winds," he said.

As expected, there were considerable disruption caused by the storms on Tuesday and Wednesday, with all the county's schools closed.

All Orkney Ferries' internal sailings were cancelled on Wednesday, as were all NorthLink's ferries to and from Orkney. Flights at Kirkwall Airport were also hit by the bad weather.

A number of households in Birsay, Eday and Sanday were without power on Wednesday morning following the hurricane force 12 winds. The dangerous conditions were hampering repairs, but engineers worked on to restoring supplies where access was possible.

Changes in Food Safety and Hygiene legislation that come into force on January 1, 2006, means that food businesses must follow Food Safety Management Procedures. These rules are the best way for caterers to ensure customer safety and reduce food-borne disease.

The training will contain an introduction and training session on the use of a food safety management manual called 'CookSafe'. The manual covers all aspects of food safety and is useful for caterers and other food businesses.

NorthLink carries out random drug and alcohol testing on all seafaring staff, with 30 per cent tested during each onboard visit.

A company spokesman said on Tuesday: "NorthLink operates a zero tolerance policy with regard to alcohol and drugs. The safety of our passengers, fellow crew members and vessels is of paramount importance.

"All crew members are aware of the testing procedures and the consequences which follow from a positive result. Failure leads to immediate suspension and the invoking of standard disciplinary and appeal procedures. Dismissal represents the ultimate sanction."

While travelling from Aberdeen to Kirkwall last Tuesday in gales, the vessel's mast broke and fell on to the bridge roof. There were no injuries and damage was confined to navigation lights.

The masts on the Hamnavoe and Hjaltland masts were subsequently checked and temporary repairs carried out. The design flaw will be permanently rectified during the forthcoming dry-dock cycle.

Scottish Hydro-Electric have brought six additional engineers to Orkney in preparation for the severe storms on Tuesday and Wednesday.

A company spokesman said: "We have instigated contingency plans by moving staff to the areas most at risk." He added that planned routine work has been cancelled, with helicopters on standby to check the network once conditions ease.

Meanwhile, the public are reminded that they should not approach power lines brought down by the storms, but should notify Scottish Hydro Electric using the 24-hour emergency number 0800 300 999.

Learners in Orkney are to receive up to £200 a year to pay for courses to help get them back into work, improve their career opportunities and fulfil their potential.

The new Individual Learning Account (ILA) Scotland scheme, which has been funded until at least 2008, will help remove cost as a barrier to adult education for thousands of people across Scotland.

Initially, ILA Scotland is available to people whose income is £15,000 or less, who can use the funds towards a wide range of courses.

Orkney MP, Alistair Carmichael, is encouraging Orkney pensioners to check whether they are missing out on Council Tax help.

Mr Carmichael said: "Nationally 40 per cent of pensioners are missing out on council tax assistance. On average they are losing out on a £426 cut in bills. Many pensioners could be getting a 100 per cent rebate."

For more information, or to claim council tax benefit, pensioners should call the OIC's Housing and Finance department directly on 01856 886312.

Twenty miles an hour speed limits are to be introduced at four schools on the Orkney Mainland in a Scottish Executive-funded pilot scheme.

Kirkwall Grammar School, Glaitness Primary School, Stromness Academy and Stromness Primary will benefit from the reduced speed limits in the £27,000 scheme.

The measure will be part time, applying when children are coming and going to school.

A car was blown off the road by a freak gust of wind on Saturday afternoon.

The car, a Mini, was caught by the wind at Quhomslie farm in Stromness just before 4pm. The vehicle was blown off the road, through a fence and into a field.

There were no injuries.

All of Sanday and North Ronaldsay were without power after a bird strike on Saturday afternoon.

The bird struck power lines at Sanday's Loth pier around 3.30pm. Supplies were restored to the majority of customers by 6pm, with six housholds remaining off overnight.

Power was returned to all customers by midday on Sunday.

Maeshowe, Stenness

Work on the Tormiston Mill car park in Stenness starts today and will mean an altered timetable for visitors to Maeshowe.

For the next four weeks, visitors to the 5,000-year-old chambered cairn will have to congregate at the Ring of Brodgar car park at 11am, where a coach will ferry them to Maeshowe.

For the duration of the work, access to Maeshowe will be limited to one group visit a day, Monday to Saturday..