Aberdeen Voice - Making your voice heard in the North East.

Garden Of Earthly Delights?
The days remain short and the nights long. It’s usually raw cold. Unwelcoming. The opening months of the year always cause something of a gloom to hang over Mick Miller’s household. Bung in a global recession for good measure and things seem pretty bleak. Then it got worse. What’s up, Mick?

The post arrived on Monday and out of the two-for-one pizza offer junk mail fell a gaudy catalogue.
Only it wasn’t a catalogue – it had “VOTE” written on it. Promotional blurb for the City Gardens Development.

How profoundly depressing. The front ‘cover’ illustration is of some futuristic landscape from another place.
Only on closer inspection it isn’t. It’s Aberdeen, or, more accurately, a version of Aberdeen which can only have be conceived in cloud cuckoo land.
Money’s Too Tight To Mention
Mike Shepherd examines the potential for cost over-run on the City Garden Project and asks …

Where’s the money coming from?

Money’s Too Tight To Mention is the title of a 1980’s Valentine Brothers pop song covered by Simply Red.

It is also thematic of the City Garden Project (CGP), the controversial proposal to develop Union Terrace Gardens.

The nominal costs for the project are £140m, of which it has been proposed that the private sector provides £70m and Aberdeen City Council borrows £70m through a tax scheme to fund the rest.

A commonly-asked question over the last three years has been, “Who pays for any cost over-run if the project runs out of money?”
Winter Punk Art Exhibtion: A Tribute to Poly Styrene
Voice’s Suzanne Kelly weighs in on a unique gallery and a unique collection of British artists.

The music world lost a number of real innovators in 2011 – people who were unlikely success stories in some ways, but whose individuality shaped the history of music. Amy Winehouse died in tragically predictable circumstances. Nate Dogg had many personal problems and came from a world of violence, despite dice being loaded against him from the start, he worked with hip hop greats.

His style was sought after, and at the time of his death from a stroke he’d been working on a new gospel project. Then there was Marianne Joan Elliott-Said – or Poly Styrene to you and me.
Upcoming Events At Peacock
With thanks to Kylie Roux.
YOUR LEANING NECK – SONG AS PORTRAIT – Steven Anderson

Based on an event from November last year at The Scottish National Portrait Gallery, Your Leaning Neck is a performance project that aims to challenge institutional representations of national identity by giving voice to non-institutional values.

A silent video installation showcasing last November’s event from two perspectives will be shown in the Peacock gallery.

Saturday 18 February – Saturday 10 March
An Interview With Maggie Craig – Part 4
In the concluding part of Voice’s interview with author Maggie Craig, she talks of life as a NE inabootcomer who’s only been here for 20 years. By David Innes.

How do you write? A laptop in a particular place? The classic 500 words every day no matter what, which you go back and edit later on?

Not quite. 500 is a paltry number of words. 2000 is a good total for the day. I have a computer upstairs and I go up there and work for the morning until about one or two o’ clock. I write about ten thousand words, six or seven chapters, and then go back and start shaping it. I think of it like how my auntie used to make butter, patting it into shape.

In this weeks issue

Events and Information
Willows Open Day 18.02.12 – Top Musicians Support Charity February 3, 2012 Willows Open Day 18.02.12 – Top Musicians Support Charity Posted by Suzanne at Aberdeen Voice at 15:47 No Responses Aberdeenshire, Articles, Charity, Community, Events, Information, News Tagged with: Abandoned, Aberdeenshire, Abuse, Activities, Animal, Bad Company, Brian May, Care, Charity, Day, Donations, Entertainment, Family, Free, Horses, Live, Lush, Music, Neglect, New Pitsligo, Open, Paul Rodgers, Public, Sanctuary, Sandi Thom, Stalls, Strichen, Welfare, Willows With thanks to Jenny and Kate at Willows Willows Animal Sanctuary invite you to come along to an open day on 18 February from 12 noon to 4.00 pm. Willows Patron Sandi Thom will arrive around 1pm, and autographed photos will be for sale with all profits going to Willows. Lush Aberdeen have generously donated a collection of treats to be raffled off. There will be baked goods, ferrets and many more of the great variety of creatures that live at Willows will be on show – farm, domestic and wild animals are all given a shelter, and no healthy animal is ever put down. In addition, legendary singer Paul Rodgers, founding member and songwriter from Free and Bad Company [...] < Read More.... >	Upcoming Events At Peacock February 3, 2012 Upcoming Events At Peacock Posted by Fred at Aberdeen Voice at 00:59 No Responses Aberdeen City, Articles, Community, Events, Featured, Gigs and Concerts, Information Tagged with: Aberdeen, Arts, Band, Barry Burns, Buildings, Castle, Cathedral, Church, Creosote, De Rosa, Episcopal, Exhibition, Gallery, Gargleblast, Gig, Hybrid, Identity, Installation, John Peel, King, Kylie Roux, Life, Live, Machine, Malcolm Middleton, Man, Martin John Henry, Mogwai, Music, National, One, Peacock Visual Arts, Performance, Portrait, Recording, Robert Johnston, Rock, Scotland, Scottish, Sculpture, Silent, Sound, St Andrews, Steve Lamaq, Steven Anderson, Street, Unit, Video, Visual, Writing With thanks to Kylie Roux. YOUR LEANING NECK – SONG AS PORTRAIT – Steven Anderson Based on an event from November last year at The Scottish National Portrait Gallery, Your Leaning Neck is a performance project that aims to challenge institutional representations of national identity by giving voice to non-institutional values. A silent video installation showcasing last November’s event from two perspectives will be shown in the Peacock gallery. Saturday 18 February – Saturday 10 March < Read More.... >
Steven Severin – Peacock 14.01.12 January 10, 2012 Steven Severin – Peacock 14.01.12 Posted by Fred at Aberdeen Voice at 23:31 No Responses Aberdeen City, Articles, Events, Information Tagged with: Arts, Banshees, Blasphemy, Ecstasy, Kylie Roux, London, Music, One Up, Peacock Visual Arts, Silents, Siouxsie, Steven Severin, Vampire, VAMPYR, Visions, Visual, Voodoo With thanks to Kylie Roux. Following on from a 30 date UK tour in the winter of 2010, Steven Severin returns to give UK audiences a rare opportunity to hear his new score for VAMPYR. This is the third in Severin’s ongoing film accompaniment series – Music For Silents. It’s is an alternative take on the cinematic vampire, creating an intense, nightmarish atmosphere that haunts the mind long after the lights go up. Bassist and founder member of Siouxsie & The Banshees, Steven Severin, all too often erroneously called Steve is fulfilling a long held creative ambition: “It’s something I’ve always wanted to do from way back. From the early days of the Banshees in the late Seventies. It wasn’t until [...] < Read More.... >	Charity Cash For Cans January 7, 2012 Charity Cash For Cans Posted by Fred at Aberdeen Voice at 01:11 No Responses Aberdeen City, Articles, Charity, Community, Featured, Information, News Tagged with: Aluminium, Anne Begg, Cans, Cash, Centre, Charity, Choices, Craft, Dame, David Forbes, Disabled, Future, Future Choices, Lewis MacDonald, Mini-bus, Stephen Davy-Osborne, Stewart By Stephen Davy-Osborne, with thanks to David Forbes. An Aberdeen charity is seeking all of your old aluminium cans to help them raise enough money to buy a much needed mini bus. Future Choices Aberdeen was set up following the closure of the Choices Day Centre, which left a number of members of the community with nowhere to socialise in a safe and friendly environment. The charity offers disabled people and their carers in Aberdeen opportunities to get involved in the community through a number of voluntary projects within the city. < Read More.... >
A Nuclear Incident On The Clyde – 2nd Jan 2012 January 6, 2012 A Nuclear Incident On The Clyde – 2nd Jan 2012 Posted by Fred at Aberdeen Voice at 01:16 No Responses Aberdeen City, Articles, Community, Events, Information Tagged with: Aberdeen, Accident, Alert, Armed, Base, Belmont, Cinema, Clyde, CND, Collision, Dave Watt, Defense, Dr, Forces, Holy, Incident, John Reid, Loch, Material, Meeting, Minister, Nuclear, Picturehouse, Power, Radioactive, Reactor, Soviet, Street, Submarine, US With thanks to Dave Watt. There have been twenty-three acknowledged serious nuclear accidents to befall the worlds U.S. and Soviet nuclear forces. There have been 16 crashes involving British nuclear submarines since 1998. Despite this there appears to be a certain amount of complacency as regards the nuclear submarine base at Holy Loch on the Clyde. The ex-Armed Forces Minister Dr John Reid said in letters to MPs: “It is planned that potassium iodate tablets would be distributed before any release of radioactive material had occurred at a time determined by monitoring the condition of the reactor”. “We will always get advanced warning if something was to go wrong” – Andy Moore MoD “There has never been an accident involving [...] < Read More.... >	City Man In 1000 Mile Charity Cycle ‘Through’ Bon-Accord Centre December 15, 2011 City Man In 1000 Mile Charity Cycle ‘Through’ Bon-Accord Centre Posted by Fred at Aberdeen Voice at 00:45 No Responses Aberdeen City, Articles, Charity, Community, Information, News, Sport Tagged with: Aberdeen, Barnardos, Bon Accord, Centre, Charity, Cycle, Cycling, Greenwich, Inspire, Kyle Hewitt, London, Marathon, Olympic, Park, Pedal, Stephen Davy-Osborne Are you feeling inspired to do something for charity this festive period? Maybe cycling, walking, running – maybe not ? At least you can go along, show your support for an amazing fundraising effort and hand over some of your hard-earned cash for a great cause. Voice’s Stephen Davy Osborne caught up with cyclist Kyle Hewitt. An Aberdeen man is cycling 1000 miles through the Bon-Accord Centre this week to raise funds for charity. Perched atop a stationary bicycle, Kyle Hewitt, 25, is undertaking the marathon mission to help raise funds for local charity Inspire and national children’s charity Barnardos. He began peddling on Monday morning, with much support from friends, family and passersby, and hopes to reach his goal of 1000 [...] < Read More.... >

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