This week’s edition of my what I’ve been reading on the internet is slightly different to last week’s. At times I may have to replace the word “reading” with “viewing” as a lot of it is quite visual. This week’s “This Week In Reading” is a “Volcano Special”.

You will not have escaped the news. A volcano blows its top in Iceland (not a rare occurrence) and as a result all aircraft in the whole of the UK, in fact most of Europe, are grounded (that is a rare occurrence).

Dr. Erik Klemetti is a geologist so he knows a thing or two about volcanoes. His blog titled Eruptions seems to be one of the best sources of information there is on Eyjafjallajökull.

The BBC are good at keeping us in the loop with their live volcano updates online.

The Yahoo Editors picked the best of the volcano images online. There are some truly spectacular photos in that set. But the best image of the week had to come from *ice on Flickr, a very rare photo opportunity captured on camera.

While you could smell the ash in Aberdeen during the week (smelt like blocked drains), you couldn’t see it. It’s too far up and too dispersed. From space however you can, and Nasa have a photo set on Flickr showing you trails of dust.

Sometimes I read stories and see pictures online that bring out a side of me that wishes I was back home in Shetland. Fellow Zetlander Tom Morton managed to achieve this on Friday after he posted a couple of images on his blog of the ash that had fallen from the sky overnight.

With all this fire, explosions, airplanes being grounded and dust clouds, it doesn’t come as a surprise to find that the Top Gear team had an involvement in all this. I predict that when the next series of Top Gear starts, it will turn out all these grounded planes was the biggest stunt the show has ever done (after the Richard Hammond crash stunt that is).

Best find of the week is the RaderVirtuel.com site. It’s a tracking site for planes. Except looking at it when everything is grounded you may as well just look a normal map because there’s not a lot going on.

The most unlikely headline of the week award goes to: “Showaddywaddy gig in Shetland cancelled because of volcano“. That’s the sort of headline you’d see on Mock The Week. Gutting for all concerned I’m sure.

And one final link. While the end to the airspace restriction doesn’t seem to be in sight, it may be worthwhile keeping an eye on every one’s favourite volcano.  My dad e-mailed me this link, a webcam at the base of Eyjafjallajökull. At the time of writing she was still grumbling away. Volcanoes are she’s right?

As someone who was born in Shetland, and lived the first 19 years of my life in the place, I probably don’t see its amazing and unspoilt scenery in quite the same way as Simon King does. I just see it as home. In the same way someone from Glasgow sees Glasgow as home. Or someone from Essex doesn’t particularly get over excited about the south east corner of England.

The first time I properly took Emma on a tour of home, she spent the whole car journey “oohing” and “aaahing” as we turned every corner. At the time I didn’t quite understand, after all I’d seen those views every day for most of my life.

It was only last night that I had a sudden realisation of how lucky I am, and how ultimately spoilt I probably was growing up when Simon King (he’s like a modern David Attenbourgh) announced in the opening sequence of his new series, Simon King’s Shetland Diaries, that out of all the places he’s visited in the world, which included filming lions in Africa and Great White Sharks in the Pacific Ocean, Shetland is by far his favorite destination.

As someone who has also just come back from a weeks holiday in Shetland, and my first visit for over a year, watching the programme on BBC Two last night didn’t do anything for trying to cure the bout of homesickness I’m currently suffering from.

The three part series sees Simon, his wife (who films wildlife as a profession) and their 2 year old daughter Savannah move to Shetland for a year (although their year is split up as it would seem Simon has lots of other committments around the globe).

It was a marvelous hour in which Visit Shetland were most likely rubbing their hands with glee as they realise the potential number of tourists that are now planning their visits this summer.

But as a Shetlander, I must point out a few things.

Simon went house hunting. We saw a selection of houses, some that didn’t have road access, some that only had a fishing net for a bed and some that didn’t even have an indoor toilet.  Shetland does have, although we didn’t see it on the telly, normal houses as well. Our house back home has a front door, windows, a driveway (tarmaced), running water, electricity and even broadband.

Every shot of his land rover driving around Shetland seemed to be on single track roads.  And while we do have a lot of those, we also have normal roads, where cars can pass each other without having to move into the side.  Hey, we even have roundabouts and pellican crossings. And potholes.

And finally, Simon went to Up Helly Aa, the largest fire festival in Europe he announced. Except he went to one of the smaller country Up Helly Aa’s, not the main Lerwick one (which is the largest fire festival in Europe I believe).  So the main Lerwick Up Helly Aa which happens in January is much more spectacular than what was on BBC Two last night.

It was nice to see Shetland on the telly in a mostly non patronising form. A rather rare occurrence. Martin Clunes, take note. And the Sam Wollaston of the Guardian, also take note:

“Anyway, this Shetland place is flipping brilliant. And the most brilliant thing about it is that it’s part of this country. Who even knew that? We’ve got our very own David Attenborough kind of place, right on our doorstep. Well, not quite on the doorstep, it’s right up next to the north pole, but you don’t need a passport to go. People even live there, compatriots of you and me. The only downside is that they don’t have indoor lavs, it’s dark for eight months of the year and the rain comes at you horizontally. Mostly, it’s so windy it’s not safe to get out of the car. “

Simon King’s Shetland Diaries is on BBC Two for the next two Thursdays, 20:00. You can catch this weeks episode on the BBC iPlayer (http://bbc.co.uk/i/qnw1f/).

There’s one company excelling in the current financial climate, and that’s the Coca Cola company. Profits are through the roof and their sales targets for 2009 have already been met. All this thanks to Emma and myself who on average bought a Coca Cola every three minutes during our recent trip to Spain, just to keep hydrated.  Incidentally my dentist’s profits seem to be up too, can’t figure out if there is a connection.

When Emma first announced the idea of a holiday in Spain I was a little unsure. In my head Spain was like a Club 18-30 holiday. Imagine that TV programme, Drunk Britain’s Abroad… well that’s how I pictured Spain. I know lots of people who love Spain, but with the greatest respect to them, those three little words “Drunk Britain’s Abroad” still cropped into my head. Plus anyone who has ever seen me in temperatures above 20 degrees will know how badly I cope.

But what the heck, my mother always told me to try new things. So off we went, Spain for seven days of sun, sea and Drunk Britains Abroad…

… and do you know what, what a beautiful place it was.

Benalmadina was the destination. A small Mediterranean town , designed for couples and families rather then your average Club 18 – 30 clientele. The temperature was high, hitting 34 degrees most days, but by the coast the sea breeze kept you cool, as did the copious amounts of Coca Cola (refer to the first paragraph again if you need to).

Sitting on the front of a catamaran in the sunshine with a beer in my hand having spent the few weeks prior to that moment rushed off my feet trying to complete last minute course work for the final time, I realised Emma may have been right after all. And very rarely do I ever think that.

The temperatures meant it felt like you were in Africa. You were inches away from animals. Seeing Tigers behind a couple of pieces of bamboo, sturdy bamboo I must point out. And all for a price that was well worth paying. I would have paid more, lots more. Edinburgh Zoo, take note.

If you are ever on the Costa Del Sol and are near Fuengirola, I truly recommend a visit.

CHILD: “Mummy, Mummy, I suppose Halloween is a very dangerous time for planes….!”

MOTHER: “Why’s that?”

CHILD: “Well it’s obvious isn’t it….? Egging.”

Now I was thinking he may have confused Halloween for Guy Fawkes night, in which case there would be fireworks in the sky, I could see the sense in that… but egging? A plane? That would be some good aim.

It was the only thing to smile about at Charles De Dull on Friday, as I was put in a very bad mood while I spent a total of 3 hours in it.

The UK use the Great British Pound. The Czech Republic (the location of our weeks holiday) use the Crown. France use the Euro. Seeing as we were only going to be in France for 3 hours in each direction, it didn’t really make any sense to take out any Euros from the Post Office, instead I’d just take some from the cash machine at Charles De Dull.

On the way out we ended up catching our flight from one of the older terminals of De Dull where there were plenty of cash machines but really no where to eat. In fact once you were through security there were no shops, restaurants or even toilets. Not a good plan for the over prepared David who always turns up to airports hours before he needs to.

On the way back (on Friday) we were flying from one of the newer (possibly brand new?) terminal…. great, you’d think. But lessons from Terminal 5 at Heathrow show that a new airport terminal isn’t always a good thing.

Plenty of shops. Plenty of restaurants. Even Playstation 3′s to play while you wait for your flight. But NO cash machines. None what so ever. One incredibly unhelpful French man informed us that once we were past security there were no cash machines and that we’d have to pay for anything with cash (which we didn’t have) or credit card (I’m a student, the last thing I need is a credit card).

One shop accepted British money! Hurray!! We had a £5 note, and £5 in coins. Except they didn’t except coins. Fair enough I suppose, except we didn’t know this till we were at the counter. And thanks to the terrible airport pricing and even worse exchange rate, our bottle of coke, Mars Bar and packet of crisps came to more than £5. But rather than letting us put one of the items back, the snotty French shop assistant refused to serve us.

Grrr… ALL I WANTED TO DO WAS SPEND SOME OF MY MONEY IN THEIR STUPID FRENCH AIRPORT! Is that too much to ask?

Finally we did find 2 Euros on us which was enough for Emma to get a packet of crisps. We didn’t dare go back to the shop that refused to sell us goods, so instead we found another. Yet this shop you were required to show your boarding pass before you bought goods, even for a packet of crips. It wasn’t surprising that there were several boarding passes lying around that people had dropped, how they were going to manage to fly I don’t know. The daft thing is, Emma managed to get through security without showing her boarding pass (I know this, because it was in my pocket), yet had to show her pass to get a packet of crisps. Madness.

People have said for years that the French are rude, ignorant, full of themselves (I could go on), but I didn’t really understand this properly till Friday.

If we’d been travelling Prague to Aberdeen direct, I would have been upset to see the lights of Aberdeen at 9.30 on Friday evening, but instead I was so relieved to see Dyce coming in to view.