Talk:E. S. Reid Tait

Shetlopedia - The Shetland Encyclopaedia

The following sentence isn't actually true: "This is the sole occasion a substitute Guizer Jarl has appeared in the Lerwick Up Helly-Aa in its present form." Charlie Simpson had to stand in for Willie Black's daytime duties a few years ago, though Willie recovered enough for the evening. I think that the easiest way to correct the article is just to delete the sentence, but maybe someone thinks it can be corrected in some way?
EM 10:11, 2 March 2008 (MST)

I think it was me that wrote that sentence, so that's probably the first of several mistakes you'll find in my UHA contributions... I was using the up-helly-aa.org site (or something similar to that - whatever one it was that had Brian's write up of the history and hadn't been updated since around 1999), which doesn't seem to be online in the same form any longer, for the list of past Jarls. E.S. Reid Tait was the only name they gave as having substituted for anyone else, hence it seemed appropriate to include the above line, based on their information.

Deleting the line is probably the most sensible, as it's just really a snippet of trivia. The alternative would be to amend it saying it was one occasion of only two where substitutions have taken place, and link to Willie's page which could have a note explaining his partial substitution, but that's getting rather clumsy, for minor points of fact which have only minimal relevance to the bigger picture.

I think it's fair to say you're the UHA 'expert', so please feel free to amend any points of fact as you feel appropriate.

Ghostrider 10:51, 2 March 2008 (MST)

Yep I agree it would be clumsy so I'll delete the sentence, but with respect to "the UHA expert," that is not so, Brian is most certainly THE expert on UHA history.
EM 11:03, 2 March 2008 (MST)