The Christian Radich tied up at Kirkwall pier on Friday morning

The Royal Norwegian Naval training ship, Christian Radich arrived in Orkney on Friday for a weekend visit.

The ship was last in Orkney in April 1987 when she called as part of the celebrations of her maiden voyage in 1937, that visit Kirkwall coincided with the Octocentenary celebrations of St Magnus Cathedral.

Scottish Ambulance Service executives will face the public this week to talk about the new air ambulance service.

The SAS chief executive, Adrian Lucas, and finance director, Pauline Moore, will be joined by Marwen Khalek, one of the founders of Gama Aviation, and Peter Bond, of Bond Air Services, for the meeting in the Kirkwall Town Hall, at 11.30am on Friday, March 31.

The meeting which has been organised at the suggestion of the OIC convenor, Stephen Hagan, and Orkney’s MSP, Jim Wallace, has been scheduled to allow as many outer isles people as possible to attend.

Loganair, which operated the service for 37 years, had made a joint bid for the contract with Bond Air Services, but lost out to Gama.

Vets inspect chickens at Bon Accord, Sandwick. Picture: 59 Degrees North.

The poultry which died on a Sandwick farm earlier this month have tested negative for both avian influenza and Newcastle disease.

All movement restrictions on and off the farm of Bon Accord have been lifted following a visit by state veterinary staff on Friday morning.

Seerad released the final test results on Friday afternoon.

Tavish Scott, transport minister has announced a new train service for the Highlands.

The additional service will take the number of trains running daily from Wick to Inverness to four a day.

The new service, which will begin operating from December 11, will leave Wick at 8.13am, Thurso at 8.42am, and arrive in Inverness at 12.13pm.

Mr Scott said: “A new service will improve access to leisure and business opportunities for local communities and also increase tourism opportunities. I am also pleased the new service will connect with ferry services from Orkney.”

Due to a production error, one of the clues in our wordsearch competition, which appears in this week’s The Orcadian as part of the garden feature, does not appear, and anyone looking for ‘lily’ will not find it in the grid.

However, the other 14 clues listed below the grid do appear in the wordsearch, and entries can be submitted once these have been found.

Apologies for the mistake.

The Westray and Papa Westray Tourist Association has released a new visitor information DVD.

The 30-minute "A Postcard from Westray" is aimed at holidaymakers considering Westray as a destination and contains a sample of the dialect, sounds and images of the isles.

A new website containing local health information was launched in Kirkwall on Thursday.

The Orkney InfoNet allows people to search for local health services in Orkney, as well as national organisations, on all aspects of health.

The project was spearheaded by Stromness GP, Andrew Trevett, and put together by volunteers Pat Shields and Tim Barthorpe, as a way for people to be able to easily access information about health issues.

All applications to site wind turbines in the county will not come before members of the OIC’s planning committee until a draft policy guidance document is completed.

Committee members agreed on Wednesday that until the draft Renewable Energy Planning Framework can be presented to them, applications will not be considered for the next six months.

Ivor Rendall

An Orcadian fisherman had to endure a 27-hour journey to get to hospital after claims that a doctor at Aberdeen Royal Infirmary refused to sanction a rescue helicopter to airlift him off a fishing boat.

Ivor Rendall, 36, lost part of a finger - something which the boat’s skipper, Tommy Tulloch, believes would have been avoidable had he got to hospital sooner.

Mr Tulloch hit out at what he claims was the decision by a doctor to veto the Coastguard helicopter from Stornoway. But neither doctors at Aberdeen or Stornoway Coastguard would admit to having made the decision.

Both told The Orcadian that ultimate responsibility lay with the other.

An Orkney project is one of 18 across Scotland receiving a share of a £3 million payout by the Big Lottery Fund. The cash aims to tackle poor health and encourage more sporting activity among young people

The Orkney Active Futures Club 24/17, co-ordinated by Orkney Islands Council, picks up £199,284.

The most commonly seen bird in Orkney is the starling, according to the latest Big Garden Birdwatch survey carried out by the RSPB.

More than 250 people in Orkney contributed to the January survey, which saw the house sparrow and blackbird in second and third place.

The OIC has awarded the contract to run Orkney's inter-isles air service for the next three years to Loganair.

The contract was the subject of a tender and Loganair provided the lowest bid.

OIC transportation chairman, Councillor Bob Sclater, said: “The new contract price is considerably higher than the existing contract price, largely because overheads which were previously shared with others now fall entirely on the council.  But these services are vital to the six islands concerned, and the council is showing its commitment to them by accepting the tender, with some considerable financial difficulty. “

An Orkney farmer has taken two prizes in a competition run by the Highlands and Islands Sheep Strategy (HISS).

A group of Jack Cromarty's Cheviot tup hoggs was judged best in the competition and he also took second place in the Cheviot section.

The judges visited Mr Cromarty¹s Toab farm to make a visual assessment of the sheep and performance records were then factored in. About 30 flocks from throughout Scotland took part in the competition.

Planning permission has been granted to convert a property in Victoria Street into a restaurant.

Norman McLennan applied to convert the two-storey building - the former The Orcadian office - into a restaurant.

Councillors at the OIC environment, planning and protective services committee meeting gave the go-ahead on Wednesday, despite concerns from neighbours in the area about noise, litter, parking, vandalism and public disorder.

Despite receiving nearly £21 million public funding last year, ferry company NorthLink has registered a loss of almost £700,000.

According to an article in Wednesday’s Glasgow Herald, the company posted a pre-tax loss of £696,000 in the 12 months to September 30, 2005.

The Pickaquoy Centre looks set to cost the OIC over £1.4 million to run in the coming two years.

At Tuesday’s meeting of the recreation and cultural services committee, councillors recommended increasing 2005/06’s approved allocation of £422,000 to £700,000 for 2006/07 and £714,000 for 2007/08.

Chairman of the Pickaquoy Centre Trust, Mike Drever, said: “It is absolutely essential for all concerned – the council, the trustees the staff and the users – that the Pickaquoy Centre is funded on a realistic basis.”

Over 2,800 Orkney women will be invited for breast screening when the mobile unit returns to the island on April 11.

It will be based at Balfour Hospital for four months.

The breast screening service visits the county every three years. Almost 90 per cent of eligible women came forward in 2003 - one of the highest screening uptakes in the country.

Orkney has been branded a “glittering centrepiece in Scotland's treasure chest of attractions” in the latest edition of the Lonely Planet Guide to Scotland.

Shetland’s annual Up Helly Aa fire festival is also highlighted, but other tourist attractions in Scotland don’t fare so well. For example, the guidebook slams John o’ Groats in Caithness, naming it “Scotland's worst and most embarrassing tourist attraction”.

Pensioners in Orkney are being reminded that they should claim the Winter Fuel Payment by the end of the month.

The Government has already paid out £1.7 billion to over 11 million people in the UK automatically but wants to ensure nobody over 60 misses out on help.

But the £200 cash bonus to help with heating costs must be claimed by march 30.

Forms can be downloaded from the Pension Service website or telephone 0845 915 1515.

The Stromness house, gutted by fire

The owner of a property in Stromness has received treatment for burns after discovering his home ablaze on Monday morning.

Six firefighters in breathing apparatus tackled the fire at Springfield Crescent, Stromness. The fire, which took almost an hour to extinguish, is thought to have been caused by embers from the open coal fire.

Stromness station officer Paul Hounslow said: "The ground floor of the two bedroomed house was completely gutted and there is smoke damage to the rest of the property, including the house next door."

As the first patients cross the threshold of the new Garson Dental Clinic in Stromness, NHS Orkney has announced that more dentists are coming to the county.

The Health Board is participating in the national scheme to help recruit dentists and has recruited two dentists trained in Poland.

Michal Meszka and Bogna Poczekaj-Ryszczuk will be working as salaried dentists for NHS Orkney from the beginning of April.

Due to the current backlog of patients, their first priority will be helping to reduce the time between check-ups and treatment, as many patients are having to wait over six months for treatment.

Police are appealing for information after an attempted break-in at a property in Harray last week.

Sergeant Eddie Graham said: “A window was smashed and it is believed an attempt had been made to enter the property, The Chalet on the Stoneyhill Road, between Monday and Friday last week.”

Orkney MSP, Jim Wallace, has written to the Rural Payments Agency, (RPA), seeking assurances that they will monitor the welfare of cattle sent south for slaughter under the Older Cattle Disposal Scheme (OCDS).

Mr Wallace wrote to the RPA after Rural Development Minister, Ross Finnie, said there was “no need to give support” to the OIC’s cattle cull plant in Kirkwall.

He sought assurances that, as is feared by many in Orkney, the welfare of the cattle will not be compromised.

A wooden shed in Westray was destroyed by fire on Sunday night.

The Westray fire crew attended the fire, in a structure, to the rear of the Cleaton House Hotel. They damped down the fire but a ride-on tractor and garden implements were damaged.

A national television company is looking for accounts of love and relationships in Orkney during World War Two.

Testimony Films is putting together a documentary, Wartime Love, on the subject and would like to hear from anyone with “dramatic stories of love and passion during the war”.

The OIC has approved tenders for the construction of new Healthy Living Centres in Westray and Hoy.

The council's recreation and cultural services committee will hear next week that the firm of R. Clouston Ltd has won the contract for the creation of the Westray centre at Pierowall. This will see the deepening of the swimming pool and an extension to the school, providing a fitness room and changing facilities.

In Hoy, the contract to provide the new facilitiy has been won by R. S. Rendall.

After the critical success of the first, the second novel from Orcadian author Allan Guthrie is due to be released next month

Allan, who is originally from Kirkwall, had his debut novel Two-Way Split published in 2005. This is now followed by Kiss Her Goodbye, which will hit the bookshelves on April 13.

The success of his books prompted the publishers, Polygon, to advance Allan £50,000 for his next trilogy.

Orkney’s new public art strategy looks set to be given the green light by islands councillors next week.

Members of the OIC’s recreation and cultural services committee will view the final draft of the document, which aims to develop and promote the arts in the county, at their meeting on Tuesday.

An exhibition to mark the tenth anniversary of George Mackay Brown's death will open at the Stromness Museum next month.

The exhibition, Just George, records the writer's life through anecdotes, photographs, paintings and memorabilia.

It will run from April to September.

The Ferry Inn can continue to sell alcohol from 9.30am on Sundays, until October at least. That was the decision of the OIC licensing sub-committee on Thursday.

At the meeting, Inspector David Miller said that the police have not had any problems in the area since this licence was granted four years ago.