Belmont - Aberdeen Voice

Old Susannah No. 86 – Fun And Olympic Games

Jul 202012

Aberdeen Voice’s Old Susannah can barely contain her excitement over the imminent Olympics, and reviews the week’s past local events. By Suzanne Kelly.

Yet another exciting week in the Granite City has just passed. I had a great weekend with Anthony Baxter, the Milnes, Susan Munro, photographer Alicia Bruce and more at the Belmont on Saturday.

Baxter’s award-winning documentary, You’ve Been Trumped has returned, and at the Saturday evening show Menie residents and director Baxter did a lengthy Q&A session. I enjoyed the additional footage on the windfarm controversy and other updates. The film still makes me angry, it must be said.

Oddly the residents have a completely different take on what is going on at the estate than the Shire’s Clerk of Works – I wonder why?

If you’ve seen the film you will remember shots of trees being buried in a giant excavation. The Clerk wrote to me months back and advised that this hadn’t happened. So there. I sat next to David Milne during the screening; we are both amazed at the unprecedented way this documentary is doing the rounds. Next stops are New York and LA.

Don’t bother looking for any news of You’ve Been Trumped’s return or its many awards in the local press: you will be searching in vain. If however you want a nice picture or two of Ivanka Trump, you’ll be well rewarded. We are all as good as rolling in money and new jobs now, I’m sure.

Sunday was a great day to visit Willows; Sandi Thom performed a lovely acoustic set in a barn packed with peacocks, peahens, cats and people of all ages. I like her voice, I hadn’t appreciated her guitar skills until I saw her play. You can’t fake it unplugged with an acoustic guitar. Even the animals were attentive. The Willows is a wonderful place to visit – and a great place to support.

Later in the week Old Susannah and Aberdeen Voice editor Fred met with some legal consultants. Do watch this space, particularly if you’ve ever had doubts about the legality of some of the previous Aberdeen City administration’s decisions. I even had a nice long chat with a councillor or two about some of the issues of the day. There may be some developments coming in the near future.

Tomorrow there is an event in Union Terrace Gardens. In the words of Dorothy from Common Good Aberdeen:

“There is to be a very interesting and moving event taking place in Union Terrace Gardens this Saturday, 21st July 2012 at 2 p.m. T.A.C.T. Bereavement Support are to hold their service of remembrance for loved ones, with a Book of Remembrance being opened. Quiet observation and reflection would be the order of the day, and what better place to have it. Common Good Aberdeen will be there to support in the form of helping with the afternoon tea.”

Hope to see you there.

Despite all the running around and events, I’m managing to stick to the diet programme I’ve been put on by Temple Aesthetics. It is called the Alizonne diet, it seems to be working a treat, and I do get a variety of flavours in the meals I eat on this plan.

The problem is, my visits to BrewDog are out for now (unless I go there and drink water and coffee – and with the best willpower in the world, I’m not sure I could do that just yet). Still, I’ve lost 5½ pounds in the first week. I hope to be back to normal eating habits soon. And normal drinking habits too.

This week I have to admit that I got a bit jealous of the lucky few who attended the opening of Trump’s golf course at Menie. I’ve had a look at the goody bag they took away.

Wow. Not only did I miss out on the free toothpaste (I think that’s what I saw) and golf goodies – but I have to do without an embroidered baseball cap as well. Shucks. It was clear that this collection of goods was put together by an imaginative billionaire with the highest standards of class and taste.

Even though I didn’t get an invitation or a bag myself (I wonder why?) I will still try and get ‘Trump’ baseball caps for Anthony Baxter and the Menie estate residents; I’m sure that will make everything seem better.

But let’s move on with some definitions.

Miscalculate: (verb, Eng.) to incorrectly estimate a quantity or a situation; to fail to appreciate all relevant variables when making decisions.

For all those Olympic fans out there (I presume there are some, even though there is evidence coming in to the contrary), it seems that a few little errors of judgement may have been made. These involve the demand for tickets, and the all-important security arrangements.

Firstly, despite our Prime Minister pleading with us to agree that the games are great for the UK (he doesn’t want us to call them the ‘soggy’ Olympics, we should think of these as the Great Olympics; do make sure you think accordingly), not all of us seem to be keen on the games. The football matches, which we have all dreamt of for years, are not exactly selling tickets quite as quickly as expected.

This minor miscalculation means that sales have been overestimated by around half a million tickets, depending on who you talk to. The BBC has this to say on its website:-

“Organisers said there had been around one million football tickets left but these have been cut in half by reducing capacity at stadiums. A spokesman for Locog said: “We are planning to reduce capacity across the venues by up to 500,000 tickets across the tournament This will involve possibly not using a tier, or an area of a ground, in some of the venues.”

I hear they might want to hold one of the games in my back garden to cut costs. Old Susannah is no economist of course, but if there are one million football tickets left unsold from an event that was supposed to make tons of money, does that mean we might not make quite as much money as we thought? Even if the tickets were £1 each (they were not), that is one million pounds less than expected.

G4S, has said that it ‘regrets’ taking on this contract. I’m sure they do.

But I don’t want to be negative. I guess people are skipping football tickets in favour of the more important, exciting events, like women’s 10k three legged race or the men’s McDonald’s hamburger eating contest.

I am sure the sponsors won’t mind a little bit that a few million people less than expected will be there to look at their logos and be impressed at sponsorship for the events.

The other wee bit of miscalculation seems to involve how many security personnel would be needed. After all, we have to make sure that no one is allowed to bring in their own food and drink to the stadium village; the sponsors would be up in arms, and sponsorship is what the games are all about.

It seems that the firm that won the security contract have got their sums wrong, and every able-bodied police person in the UK is being told that they must go down to London to help out.

Don’t worry about the crime issues locally or the cost to the taxpayer: Cameron has already explained that the Age of Austerity will last until 2020. If we have to stump up a few million pounds in police overtime, and the rest of the UK is hit with crime waves, it’s a small price to pay for finding out who is the best 50 yard dash runner in the world.

The firm which altruistically won the work for Olympic Security, G4S, has said that it ‘regrets’ taking on this contract. I’m sure they do. Having only secured a contract worth an estimated £57 million or more, depending on who’s doing the calculations, or miscalculations, they can hardly be blamed for small hiccoughs.

They might not have hired enough people, not arranged sufficient training or obtained uniforms, offered salaries below industry standards, but they couldn’t have been cutting any corners for reasons of profit. After all £57 million doesn’t go nearly as far as it used to; it would barely get you half of a Granite Web.

The Home Office, which usually gets everything perfect, has also fallen a bit flat. They had no way of knowing that lots of people from around the world would be coming to compete in London. If the occasional terrorist suspect has got through the Border Agency without a hitch, I guess that’s fair enough. I will try and remember that the next time I see a granny or a little child being body searched at the airport.

Tom Smith says economist Mackay just doesn’t understand economics. Good enough for me.

These little miscalculations demonstrate that this kind of thing can happen to anyone. Except that it will not happen with the Granite Web. We don’t exactly know what’s proposed to go in the gardens. We don’t have any working drawings available to the public showing how the ramps over the gardens will be safe, but they will of course have to be enclosed, barbed wire being a cost-effective solution.

We don’t know what the negative impacts will be on the existing city centre businesses, as the streets are clogged with construction vehicles and construction dust, if the thing is allowed to go ahead. If only there were some other Scottish city that had started an open-ended civic project using many layers of public/private companies, then we could get a handle on the potential problems. But I can’t think of a single example.

Failing that, we must rely on PriceWaterhouseCooper’s projections of 6,000 totally new jobs appearing and £122 million pouring into the city every year until 2023. It all sounds so precise, doesn’t it? Of course there was some economist named Mackay, but Tom Smith says economist Mackay just doesn’t understand economics. Good enough for me.

So, since the economy is in such great shape, this is a great time to take an Olympic-sized leap of faith, get rid of the city’s only lungs, the UTG trees, clog the streets with construction vehicles – and of course borrow £92 million to pay for it. It could all either go vastly over budget like the trams in Edinburgh, or turn out to be not quite as lucrative as £122 million flowing in per year.

The Olympics overstated the financial gain case, but this is Aberdeen: the web will be a profitable, problem free project built to budget and completed without a hitch in no time at all, not like these amateurish cities London and Edinburgh.

Same Sex Marriage: (mod. English phrase) Situation in which two consenting adults of the same sex agree to enter into a marriage contract.

Readers of a sensitive disposition might wish to stop reading. This will be a shock, but there are people out there who apparently are not heterosexual. Some of these people want to have long-term, legally-recognised partnerships or even marriages with their beloveds. Clearly this is wrong.

The SNP were going to consider this issue, but have developed cold feet. And too right. What kind of a society would we have if people who loved each other could get married as they wanted? Let’s stick to what we know works – a society where some six out of ten marriages end in divorce and separation.

Actors are exactly the kind of people who go in for this kind of wild behaviour

On what the kids call ‘social network’ websites, there are a number of protagonists claiming that it should be their right to choose who to be with. Top among these is one Mr George Takei. He may be remembered for his role as ‘Sulu’ in Star Trek television and film appearances.

Actors are exactly the kind of people who go in for this kind of wild behaviour. Elton John too has a ‘same sex’ partner. Just because they are intensively creative, intelligent, witty, generous men who have entertained millions for generations is no reason to think this kind of thing won’t mean the entire breakdown of society, or even the planet.

It is clearly our business what consenting adults get up to, so let’s put paid to any same sex marriage ideas here in Scotland – Scotland, arguably the home of modern philosophy, invention and upholder of the Rights of Man. Next thing you know, we’ll have men going around in skirts. God forbid.

Confidential to a certain councillor

I am very glad to know that you are having doubts about the private companies set up to carve up the Common Good land of Union Terrace Gardens. You have confided that you are not sure the financials stack up, and you wonder if this isn’t either a vanity project, or a ‘jobs for the construction boys’ deal.

As you have those doubts, you will have to err on the side of caution, and reject any plans to start any project over UTG at this time. If you vote to go ahead, you are going against your own better judgment. I am glad you have these doubts – and as long as there is any doubt, the project must not proceed. Don’t listen to me: listen to your own common sense.

Next Week: Old Susannah wants your gift suggestions for Ian Wood’s retirement. What do you give the billionaire who has everything?

Comments enabled – see comments box below. Note, all comments will be moderated.

Aberdeen CND: Talk On India/Pakistan Nuclear Situation

Aberdeen City, News No Responses »

Jul 052012

ABERDEEN AND DISTRICT

CAMPAIGN FOR NUCLEAR DISARMAMENT
.

TALK ON INDIA/PAKISTAN NUCLEAR SITUATION

THIS MONDAY 9^TH JULY AT 7.30pm, TOP FLOOR, BELMONT CINEMA
.

TO BE LED BY MIKE HENNESSY

TALK WILL BE FOLLOWED BY THE MONTHLY BUSINESS MEETING

Great Expectations Of City Dickens Fellowship Group

Aberdeen City, Information No Responses »

Jun 142012

Interested in joining the new Aberdeen branch of the Dickens Fellowship? According to the Fellowship, the Aberdeen branch is their first in Scotland. As highlighted in Voice’s previous article: A Tale of Two Centuries, a successful inaugural meeting was held on Tuesday 12th June in the city’s Belmont Theatre. Aberdeen Voice’s Nicola McNally went along to the event to find out what the local branch were planning.

The first meeting was set up following a successful spring programme of Dickens lectures, film showings and readings at the University’s King’s College campus and the Belmont Cinema.

The branch is being hosted and organised by the renowned Dr Paul Schlicke, Honorary Senior Lecturer at the University of Aberdeen and a Trustee of The Charles Dickens Museum.

The local literati who attended the first meeting included students, academics and assorted curious Aberdeen Voice readers who turned out to support this first meeting dedicated to the works of Charles Dickens, journalist and prolific author.

Future activities planned for the Aberdeen group will include films, lectures, readings, parties and some themed evenings such as: Dickens and Film; Dickens and Money; Dickens and Women and Dickens and Social Reform.

Dr Schlicke recommended:

“The Aberdeen group could wait a year before affiliating with Dickens Fellowship headquarters“.

He asked the group to consider: what the Aberdeen Dickens Fellowship branch should be for: (parties/ social events or more formal lectures and readings), how often they would like to meet; and possible venues for the branch meetings. It was decided that monthly meetings would be held with a variety of activities.

The choice of a Dickens text for the group to discuss at the September meet was not easy! The group’s options ranged from topical novels such as ‘Hard Times’ or ‘Bleak House’ in these times of austerity… or possibly one of the ‘blockbusters’: David Copperfield or Great Expectations? A Tale of Two Cities or Oliver Twist?

The decision was made and the text for summer holiday reading, for those who choose to accept the challenge, is to be the excellent Sketches by Boz.

The group noted that city centre venues are better for some meetings but the University of Aberdeen campus, and in particular, the library, would allow the group to use lecture and film facilities as well as visit the Dickens Special collection in the University library.

The next meeting is being planned for Tuesday 26th June at 7pm in Room 301, MacRobert Building, Aberdeen University. This will feature an introductory lecture on the biography of Dickens by Dr Schlicke, followed by informal discussion. If you’d like to attend, please email Dr Schlicke on p.schlicke@abdn.ac.uk to confirm a place or for further information on the Fellowship.

New members with an interest in Dickens and his work will be made very welcome and membership is provisionally free so it is hoped that the Aberdeen group will go from strength to strength. While new branches of The Dickens Fellowship are appearing all over the globe from Canada to Cambridge, your local branch can be found no further than King Street!

A Tale Of Two Centuries As Local Dickens Fans Gather

Aberdeen City, Information No Responses »

Jun 072012

By David Innes.

2012 is the bicentenary year of the birth of Charles Dickens, arguably the English language’s greatest writer.
It is fitting then, that enthusiasts in Aberdeen are making positive moves towards establishing a local branch of the Dickens Fellowship, led by Dr Paul Schlicke, Honorary Senior Lecturer at the University of Aberdeen and a Trustee of The Charles Dickens Museum.

Dr Schlicke told Voice,

“I’ve proposed that we have a meeting to discuss dates, times, venue and not least what kinds of activities might be attractive to us as a group.

“Since these are early days, I think we’ll hardly need to consider drafting a constitution or affiliating with the international Dickens Fellowship at this stage, but we do need to decide when, where and how often we wish to meet, and to discuss ideas as to what we might do at our meetings.

“We propose to hold perhaps six evening meetings a year, for lectures, discussions, readings and any other activities, as the local membership decides. Provisionally, membership will be free of charge.

“I stress that although I am myself a retired academic, I don’t envisage scholarship as our primary purpose; rather we should be gathering to share our enjoyment of the Inimitable. Indeed, you don’t need ever to have read a word of Dickens to join in the fun.”

This chimes with the ethos of the international Dickens Fellowship which

“was founded in London in 1902 with its stated aim to ‘knit together, in a common bond of friendship, lovers of the great master of humour and pathos, Charles Dickens’, to spread the love of humanity, to campaign against those social evils that most concerned Dickens, and to assist in the preservation and purchase of buildings and objects associated with his name or mentioned in his works”.

The first meeting will be held on Tuesday 12 June at 7pm in the lounge of the Belmont Cinema. Anyone with an interest in Dickens and his work will be made warmly welcome. To help gauge interest, please contact Dr Schlicke at p.schlicke@abdn.ac.uk if you intend coming along or if you want to be kept informed about the Fellowship.

It will be the best of times.

https://sites.google.com/site/aberdeendickensfellowship/
http://www.dickensfellowship.org/

Round And About, May 2012

Community, Information No Responses »

May 312012

Voice’s Alex Mitchell takes readers on a tour of Aberdeen offering a snapshot in time with regard to the appearance, condition and history of some of the city’s streets, features and buildings.

Saturday 19th May 2012:
The first sunny day for ages, so I left the car at Union Square and went for a wander. The handsome Archibald Simpson building (former Employment Exchange) at the north-east corner of the Market Street & Virginia Street crossroads has been stone-cleaned to useful effect. Similarly the Tivoli on Guild Street has benefited from its restoration.

More stone-cleaning is being undertaken on the Carmelite Hotel on Trinity Street. The rectangular enclosures along Carmelite Street are now filling up with shrubs.

The trees planted along both sides of Rennie’s Wynd are taking hold now and doing their bit to enhance this otherwise fairly grim length of streetscape alongside the Trinity Centre car park.

Into the Green.

The shop premises formerly occupied by Coco Violet, just east of the Back Wynd stairs, remain untenanted.

Similarly the former butcher’s shop next to Correction Wynd and the large former sportswear shop on the south side.

Café 52 seems busy, but otherwise few people to be seen at 2.30 pm on a sunny Saturday.

The south side of the Green is already in deep shade. The Green and the surrounding area are characterised by very tall buildings and narrow streets and wynds, the unfortunate effect of which is to shut out the sunlight in the afternoons, even in the summer months.

Along Hadden Street. The trees planted in the rectangular enclosures alongside the Aberdeen Market are now protected by elegant & substantial black wrought-iron tree-guards, which create a welcome impression of regularity and symmetry.

Similarly the Rox Hotel up ahead on Market Street, its 1845 Archibald Simpson premises and frontage elegantly restored.

But the Market Arms pub at the corner of Hadden Street & Stirling Street is looking very shabby these days.

Down Market Street and along Shiprow Lane.

On Shiprow itself, the Ibis Hotel and the huge office development beyond, apparently still unoccupied. The lights are on, but nobody is at home.

Across Union Street and along Broad Street. The restoration and stone-cleaning of Marischal College really show up to good effect on a sunny day and the statue of Robert Bruce is also highly effective.

The restored Marischal College has become the ‘iconic’ backdrop of choice for any TV news item about Aberdeen and it does our town credit.

Along Gallowgate. The BrewDog premises in the former Marischal Bar have become something of an institution, an unusual case of a pub actually being improved by a change of ownership.

Down Littlejohn Street, across King Street and along East North Street to the Castlehill roundabout.

We lost the Timmer Market car park some time ago, to the huge disadvantage of businesses & residents in the Castlegate, and now the East North Street car park is closed down and being redeveloped as part of the new Health & Care Village on Frederick Street.

Nobody much in the Castlegate – a clutch of alkies are disporting themselves between the Sally-Ann and the Portals Bar, not doing anything particularly exceptionable, but hardly conducive to the ambiance of this historic locale or its tourist-related potential.

Down Marischal Street – a spectacularly dilapidated shoppie just up from the bridge over Virginia Street, still with its window display from about 30 years ago. Back to Guild Street, where the forecourt of the Union Square complex seems to have become the favoured place for kids to hang out and drop litter.

Holburn Junction – the premises of the former Beluga café/bar are now occupied by a Sainsbury’s Local, directly across this end of Union Street from a Tesco Metro in the former Bank of Scotland premises.

It seems that conversion of pubs into supermarkets does not require planning permission for change-of-use, and there are a lot of redundant pubs these days.

These new small supermarkets are the one positive development in High Street shopping locales these days, being convenient of access and encouraging people to walk to their local shops and on a regular basis instead of driving to an edge-of-town superstore once a week or so.

Out the Lang Stracht to Dobbie’s Garden Centre on the western outskirts of the city. The Garden Centre incorporates a substantial retail operation including books & magazines, leisure/outerwear – frankly, most of the togs a chap needs – plus a cafė/restaurant, delicatessen, butcher, baker etc.

Garden centres have a fairly banal image, but one can see the attractions of free & accessible parking, a clean, well-maintained environment, decently-behaved customers, clean toilets – it is easy to see the appeal compared with going into town. And it’s somewhere to go in the car, and not too far away.

The danger is that Dobbie’s may be the thin end of a wedge deployed to justify further retail development, followed as surely as night follows day by proposals for residential development and inexorable urban sprawl whilst retail activity continues to drain out of the city centre.

Saturday 26th May 2012:
Brilliantly sunny weather all this week.
Left the motor in the Denburn car park and walked down past His Majesty’s Theatre, under the Denburn Viaduct and into Union Terrace Gardens – full of people, many with small children – this is one of the very few down-town locations where kids can be allowed to run about without fear of traffic.
And not an alkie or smackheid in sight.

The 78 large mature trees are looking wonderful just now. Every aspect pleases, other than that of the Triple Kirks, its crumbling tower & spire now further enhanced by unpainted wooden boarding to shut out the peregrine falcons which were nesting there until recently.

The peregrines are a top predator, indicative of a whole food chain of wildlife species below them.

Belmont Street is full of people, checking out the monthly Country Market. On the brow of Schoolhill, looking towards Marischal College, where the Mitchell Tower is now conspicuously dirty-grey and unrestored.

This view of the College has been obstructed these last 40-odd years by the jumble of concrete rubbish at the Upperkirkgate end of the St Nicholas House complex – the octagonal structure, the long-redundant Post Office and the untenanted shops. Into St Nicholas Kirkyard via Back Wynd. Clumps of bluebells between the gravestones. Lots of people enjoying the tranquillity.

The anti-social element seems to have moved to the Castlegate these days.

To the Oxfam Bookshop, the last second-hand bookshop remaining in Aberdeen, where I obtained Misha Glenny’s magisterial history of the Balkans @ £3.99.

Bookshops and record shops used to be a principal attraction of town centres and High Streets, a reason for going into town, and now they’re almost all gone. What, if anything, will replace them?

Back over Union Bridge and down through the Gardens; again, every aspect pleases – the granite balustrading, originally matching that on both sides of Union Bridge, the Tuscan-style palazzi along Union Terrace, the statues of Edward VII, a.k.a. Edward the Caresser, Rabbie Burns, Prince Albert and William Wallace, and the wonderful and truly iconic vista of His Majesty’s Theatre up there on the Viaduct.

Contributed by Alex Mitchell.

Free Family Information And Advice Day

Aberdeen City, Articles, Community, Information, News No Responses »

Mar 222012

With thanks to Val Sutherland.

Cash In Your Pocket, together with Homestart and the Belmont Cinema, are holding a Free Family Information & Advice Day on Friday 30th March, 9.45-2.30pm, at the Picture House, Belmont Street, Aberdeen.

The day will focus on providing help to families on matters around their finances.

This event is open to everyone with family responsibilities: parents, grandparents, carers and children – there will be something for everyone.

As well as access to advice and information from a wide range of partner organisations taking part on matters such as heating your home, savings options, benefits and keeping healthy…. and more, there will be fun for the family with free bingo, prize draws, soup packs and refreshments, free facepainting, balloons and healthy snacks for children, with the added bonus of cartoons being screened throughout the event.

We would encourage everyone to come along, to join in the fun and pick up tips on how to make the most of your money.

Val Sutherland
Cash In Your Pocket Partnership

Tel: 01224 200221
E- mail: val.sutherland@ciypp.co.uk

Old Susannah No. 70 – A Mixed Bag

Aberdeen City, Aberdeenshire, Articles, Community, Information, Satire and Humour No Responses »

Mar 152012

Voice’s Old Susannah considers the upcoming council elections, the UTG referendum result, the happenings on Tullos Hill, International Womens Day, blogging beasties and generosity. By Suzanne Kelly

Tally Ho! The May elections are coming, and not a second too soon. Some of our tireless (or is that tiresome?) councillors are packing up and preparing to move on. Let’s hope they bring all of their talents to their new areas.

I hear that there is now a shortage of packing crates at the Fortress of Doom (aka The Townhouse) as heroic councillors get ready to head into the sunset. I hope they don’t let the doors hit them on their way out.

As to the UTG Referendum? Well, I guess that’s it – it has been a totally above-board, fair-and-square contest.

The grapevine would have it that some of the rich and powerful secret members of the Vote for the City Gardens Project are less than pleased it’s cost so very much money to have such a small margin of victory, but they still got the result they wanted, if not the landslide they’d prayed for (or is that ‘paid for’).

In the next few days I’ll write about the dozen or so wee problems that some people have with the referendum and how it was run.

Did you know that over 300 votes arrived just a wee bit too late to be counted? Did you know it would be totally illegal for any of the campaigning organisations to see the register as to how the votes went? No, neither did I until recently. I also have it on very good authority who some of the VFTCGP backers are. Old Susannah is toying with the idea of naming them.

They would be free to deny the association – but why should they want to be secret in the first place, after all, they were the heroes behind the scenes helping us poor souls know how to vote. Who could turn down their promise of 6,500 new permanent jobs or their £122,000,000 flowing into the city each year? Think of all the parties and portraits that would buy! Wow!

(You might be interested to know that PriceWaterhouse Coopers were asked by me if they had intended their projections about money and jobs to be used as the VFTCGP did in its propaganda. PwC might have been expected to say they were delighted, and that they stand behind their projections 100%. However, they said that as the projections were made for a ‘private client’ they can make no comment on them to me. Of course the bills I’ve seen for PwC look like you and I paid for this great work out of our taxes, but there you go).

And other great news from Tullos Hill. HoMalone is having her way, backed up by impartial ‘expert’ C Piper (perhaps related to the CJ Piper firm which was already paid £42,000 for the bang-up job delivered on tree planting to date?). Yes, the gorse is gone, and with it all those annoying butterflies, bees, moths, and insects.

The birds that would have eaten these critters and the small and larger mammals which lived in the gorse are homeless. If only I had an environmental degree, then I could say we’ve interrupted the food chain and interfered with existing biodiversity on Tullos. As it is, I’m not allowed to make any such observation, however obvious.

Any small mammals or deer rendered homeless should apply at Marischal College reception to declare their homeless status. Of course these creatures are likely now to wind up as road kill. Surely not even HoMalone or Ranger Bigboy will dare to claim any roadkill we see now will be due to overpopulation? Well, we’ll see.

Women around the world lack rights and comforts we all take for granted

Some of those animal-loving, meadow-loving radicals will be handing flyers out and collecting signatures on petitions this Saturday at 12:30 in front of Marks & Spencer Union Street. The petitions apparently are to protest the use of school children to plant the 89,000 trees on Tullos.

Ms Malone indicates this will be an educational experience for the little mites, and I’m sure it will.

Having seen the state of the hill, they will learn about cuts, tetanus boosters, chemical pollution, industrial waste, and dead deer. Thank you, Aileen. I do hope she will make it to the hill to plant a few trees herself. That would seem only fair to me.

For the paper petition, further info, and a PDF of the new flyer, visit: http://oldsusannahsjournal.yolasite.com/

Finally, Old Susannah attended two events in the last week which celebrated International Women’s Day, a great Oxfam fundraiser held by Bead Crazy on St Andrew Street. A dozen or so guests were treated to cocktails (thanks for the Black Russians), brownies and beads. Everyone made pieces from recycled materials which was right up my street.

I’ve turned an old domino into a necklace that says ‘Keep Calm and Carry On’, and a bottle cap into a brooch with an Oxfam fact. Women around the world lack rights and comforts we all take for granted. Thanks to Alex and everyone at Bead Crazy for the event.

Then at the Belmont last Saturday I ran into a collection of women celebrating Women’s day a bit differently. They were all dressed as fairy godmothers, and were collecting wishes from the public as to what people would like to wish for our young girls’ futures. My wishes didn’t include any granite webs or deer culls. Thank you Merlyn and all the other women.

As well as a definition or two, this week I am pleased to announce that Aberdeen Voice has negotiated two new Celebrity Bloggers! They will be featured in this column for the next several weeks.

And now – the first ever Millie & Cattie joint Blog!

“Hi I’m Millie, the Caterpillar!”

“And I’m Cattie the Millipede! We’ve had a horrible, tragic few days: our meadow home was destroyed and many of our friends with it.”

“Yes, sadly that’s true, Cattie. Bulldozers showed up without warning to our Tullos Hill home, and ruined our wildflower and gorse home. We had our rescue quite by chance.”

“That’s right Millie. We were chewing on a Foxglove plant and suddenly it was ripped up and hurled into the air. Sometime later the plant was found by a kindly passerby, and we were all taken to a safe house where we all now live.”

“We were both reluctant to launch this blog, but Old Susannah showed us the coverage Aberdeen was giving to a talking cactus, Morris the Monkey, and Jake the Ghost. So we thought, ‘Why not try it?’ We know Spike the Cactus is very popular, and if people are willing to take voting advice from a monkey and a ghost (no offence), then people should know our story, too.”

“Yes Millie – we have a responsibility to let people know our beautiful home is gone, and an entire generation of moths, butterflies, bees have been wiped out. What will become of some of our larger friends like the birds, small mammals and especially the kindly roe deer is our huge worry now.”

“Agreed Cattie. We are grateful we were saved – we only hope our friends who haven’t been destroyed yet will be spared. Got any lettuce?”

Cattie and Millie will give us an update next week and for the foreseeable future.

Charity: (adjective) state of being generous, donating time or money to those less fortunate.

While our very own local billionaire works selflessly to ensure his lasting granite memorial will bring his family continued and visible dominance over a certain city, a less savvy multi-millionaire has displayed a woeful lack of commonsense.

When it looked as if there would be some public outcry against his web, he calmly threatened to take his ball and go home.

J K Rowling, creator of the Harry Potter saga read the world over, has donated over £100 million to charity in the past year and a bit. Now I don’t know about you, but I’ve heard hardly anything about her donations. Where were the press cuttings, the headlines, the photos? What did she get in return to show for it?

Ms Rowling has a lot to learn I fear. Not only has she given enough away to nearly pay for the granite web we all long for, she’s dropped way down on the UK’s wealthiest list.

We will remember for quite some time how Sir Ian made his gracious £50 million donation to Aberdeen. As long as we did what he wanted with it, and let unelected entities ‘manage’ our common good land, it was a great gift indeed. When it looked as if there would be some public outcry against his web, he calmly threatened to take his ball and go home. Charity begins at home, and we’re going to take his charity, whatever form it takes, and like it.

Sure, Rowling may have made children all over the world discover the joy of reading, and her books got people to read together in families and groups. Her money may have helped countless people the world over across a wide variety of problems and concerns. She may have made important points about the value of love, courage, kindness and friendship –

But where’s the statue? Alas, if there’s no granite monument and not a ton of press coverage bragging about the money, then the donations might as well never have happened. Shame. Perhaps a great PR firm could help…

One of the more radical points I picked up from these ‘children’s books of Ms Rowling’s ran along the lines of this (I deliberately paraphrase) “One thing the tyrants of this world fear is that one day, one of the people they have oppressed will rise up against them.” Can’t for the life of me think why that particular idea should spring to mind, but there it is.

New Acronyms!

Hooray! We’ve more acronyms in this town than we know what to do with. First it was the ‘Tree for Every Citizen’ scheme or “T’FEC!’ as it is affectionately known in Torry. The tree scheme’s supporters (all 3 of them) are so pleased with their recent successes that they have more plans up their sleeves, or so I hear.

‘Forget Allowing Citizens Anything for Free’ is a brainchild for the coming budget cuts which are in the pipeline, reflecting the service cuts and support staff cuts. It will be called ‘FAC AFF!’ for short.

If this proves successful, phase 2 may be launched. Its working title is Forget Every Citizen Utterly – or ‘FEC U’ for short.

If you want to see these schemes enacted, then don’t rock the boat at the elections, and we will continue on our happy course. See you down at the Granite Web or Monorail station soon!

Next week? – At this rate what our Council will dream up is anyone’s guess…

Ten Reasons To Vote Against The CGP

Aberdeen City, Aberdeenshire, Articles, Community, Environment, Featured, Information, Opinion No Responses »

Feb 242012

Peter Veritas makes the case for voting “Retain”.

1. There is a very real danger that the City Garden Project will bankrupt Aberdeen.

The City Garden Project (CGP) is planned for a greenfield site which would require substantial excavation. It is a five acre, five storey, underground construction that would span both a main road and a railway track

It’s roof would be required to hold approximately ninety thousand tons of topsoil, the same weight as the worlds largest aircraft carrier. It is projected to cost £140M.

Union Square, which is of a similar size, was built on a flat brownfield site with good access. The final cost was £250m.

Marischal College is a much smaller existing building that was recently renovated. No major construction was performed. The final cost came to £65M.

Given that context, how can we be expected the believe the estimate for The City Garden Project is realistic? Should the City Garden Project experience a similar scale of overspend to the Scottish Parliament Building or the Edinburgh trams, then the shortfall could conceivably be of the order of £360M. The city, which is already £560M in debt, would be liable for this overspend.

It could not be rolled up into the existing loan, and would require immediate payment. Failure to cover the overspend would result in us being left with a dirty hole in our city centre. The only options open to the council would be to auction off it’s remaining assets, such as the other parks, to property developers, and to increase council tax massively. Public services which have already suffered severe cuts would be totally decimated.

2. Aberdeen has suffered badly from previous developments.

St Nicholas House, the New Market, The Denburn dual carriageway, the Denburn Health Centre, The St Nicholas Centre, and Virginia Street are all universally acknowledged as failures that now blight our urban landscape. Aberdeen lost many beautiful buildings to clear the way for those developments.

The people who campaigned against those architectural and planning atrocities are also campaigning against The City Garden Project. They’ve been proven right time and time again. Perhaps it’s time we listened to them?

3. We already voted against this Project under a different name.

There is something sinister about the City Garden Project. It was originally conceived as the City Square Project (CSP), and envisioned as a five acre flat concrete piazza. That proposal only emerged after Peacock Visual Arts were given planning permission to embed an unobtrusive arts centre into the hillside of Union Terrace Gardens. Sir Ian Wood pledged £50M to build The City Square, but promised to scrap the Project if the public rejected it.

That was then put out to a flawed public consultation, in which the public voted against by a substantial majority, despite the online survey mysteriously defaulting to a “yes” vote. Sir Ian then reneged on his promise and continued to push the concept, the council ran roughshod over the electorate, and by the casting vote of the Lord Provost, consigned the Peacock plan to the dustbin.

Sir Ian has consistently stated that he will only contribute his £50M to this particular proposal and nothing else, and that if we reject his proposal then he will divert the money to Africa. His behaviour is baffling.

4. There has been an air of deception around The City Garden Project.

The City Square Project was rebranded as The City Garden Project. During the Project’s second coming the public were presented with six designs and invited to vote on them. None Of The Above was not a option.

Aesthetically, the public appeared to favour the Winter Garden design. From a conceptual perspective The Monolith design was arguably the most cohesive.
The appointed panel then refused to release the outcome of this public vote and instead selected The Granite Web, a design for which very few people acknowledge having voted, and which many people considered to have been among the weakest.

CGP propaganda has continually claimed that Union Terrace Gardens are a dangerous place, but Grampian Police crime figures reveal that they are actually among the safest places in the city centre. Neighbouring Belmont Street, which the plans propose to connect to the Granite Web, is statistically the worst area for street crime.

Under the rules of the referendum, registered campaign groups are limited to £8k spending to maintain a level playing field. However a mysterious group of anonymous business people has allegedly ploughed £50K into sending pro-CGP propaganda to every home in Aberdeen City. This is not within the spirit of the referendum and is arguably a breach of the rules.

It has been claimed numerous times that the 250 year old elm trees in Union Terrace Gardens are diseased, but a recent report by a tree surgeon has given them a completely clean bill of heath. These elms are among the last surviving in Europe, and they flourish both due to their isolation from other elms, and because the pollution of the city prevents Dutch Elm disease from spreading to them. These trees are all covered by a preservation order.

5. Those arguing in favour of the City Garden Project are mostly connected to it in some way.

Scotland’s top public relations firm were engaged to promote the Project, which may be why the majority of stories that have appeared in the local press have been fawningly in favour of the CGP.

Those who have argued the merits of the Project, both in the press and on-line, are interconnected people with an as-yet unknown agenda.

In addition to the numerous PR professionals being paid thousands of pounds each day to present the case, there are several property developers, the owners of assorted the premises on Union Street, and various oil company executives.

No fewer than three city councillors, who backed the Project, recently announced that they intend to stand down, and have also revealed that they are planning to leave the city. Virtually all of those involved are members of Acsef, Scottish Enterprise, the Institute of Directors, and The Chamber of Commerce. The same dozen people feature time and time again in the groups which have come out publicly in favour of the Project. The same people wearing different hats.

6. The economics have no basis in fact.

Tax Incremental Funding (TIF) is intended to fund the redevelopment of brownfield sites. Businesses which later setup in and around those sites pay increased business rates which repay the cost of the development in a similar manner to a mortgage. The business case for this Project bends the rules since the increased rates will not be gathered for the site itself, but from two new industrial estates, located several miles away and for which planning permission has already been granted.

The 6,500 jobs and £122M of projected annual revenue are a product of these new industrial estates working at full capacity. This is almost guaranteed to occur anyway without The Granite Web.

Furthermore, the paid author of the reports is PricewaterhouseCoopers (PWC), which has recently been fined £1.4m for audit failure. PWC rates the TIF case at Risk Level 3, where 4 is the highest risk.

7. To save the architecture of the Denburn Valley

None of the Granite Web mockups, artists impressions, or video, have addressed the issue of the rear elevation of Belmont Street.

This is home to some of Aberdeen’s most spectacular architecture, descending right down to the level of Denburn Road. Architecture which will be obliterated when the CGP connects to it, some five storeys further up.

Most of these buildings are either local businesses or publicly owned concerns, and several of them have picturesque balconies below the finished level of The Granite Web.

8. To retain our sheltered park.

Union Terrace Gardens lie in the Denburn Valley which offers shelter from the wind and urban pollution. Raising the area up to street level would turn it into a wind trap.

The wind would howl round the concrete walkways and other architectural features of the granite web, plants would struggle to survive, and people would avoid the area, preferring instead to travel along the relatively sheltered confines of nearby streets. It’s a fallacy to claim that this development would enhance connectivity.

9. Union Terrace Gardens have been cynically starved of funding – in order to ‘pave the way’ for this redevelopment.

Union Terrace Gardens was the centre piece of Aberdeen’s famous successes in the Britain in Bloom contest. Over the course of the past eight years the council has cut funding, with the result that the Gardens are no longer maintained at previous award-winning levels

The beautiful Grade A listed public toilets were closed, the famous giant draught boards were ripped out, the winter skating rink was no longer installed and concerts and other public events were discontinued

A modest investment would both regenerate the Gardens, and improve access to them. There is no need to risk bankrupting the city for what amounts to no additional benefit

10. The curse of Corbie Haugh.

Back in the seventeenth century, the area where the Gardens now stand was a wood called Corbie Haugh. The ancient Scots word for crow is corbie and the wood was named after the crows which gathered in the grassy valley and within the bank of elm trees. The elm trees in the Gardens date back over 250 years to that eighteenth century wood.

An ancient legend, The Curse of Corbie Haugh, holds that when the crows depart, the city will be ruined. If the elms are chopped down, the crows will indeed depart, and if they city ends up burdened by an additional £360m of debt, then it shall indeed be ruined!

SAVE OUR CITY FROM DISASTER BY VOTING TO RETAIN UNION TERRACE GARDENS.

Old Susannah No. 63 – Mystery, Misery, And A Referendum

Aberdeen City, Articles, Community, Creative Writing, Environment, Information, Opinion, Satire and Humour No Responses »

Jan 112012

Old Susannah tries to get to grips with the newspapers, the actual news, and council-speak. By Suzanne Kelly.

Tally Ho! The highlight of this past week was undoubtedly going to the Wildly Unprepared show at the Belmont on Wednesday night.
The atmosphere was terrific, and the place was standing room only.

Adam Leel hosted the show last night and the improv acts were Tom McGinn, Andrew McDonald, Robert Starr, Fraser Taylor, Mark Wilson and Roderick Mackenzie. The stand-up comedians were James Mcintosh and Marc Christie.
They’re doing it all again next Wednesday at 9pm, same venue – the Belmont’s downstairs bar. If you want a seat, then come early.

There was a little audience participation, elements of ‘Whose Line is it Anyway?’, stand up, some great improv, and genuine, topical laughs.

One of the comedians did some whale jokes. I fell for them hook, line and sinker, and thought ‘Cod, this guy’s great’ – and I’m not just saying that for the halibut, as most puns just give me a haddock. Eel go far. So if you thought ACSEF and the Lib Dems had a monopoly on wild, unpredictable humour in this town, think again.

Sadly, I seem to have upset that nice Neil Fletcher again. I sent all of the City’s councillors some questions in anticipation of the May elections (more on these soon).

While he’s most put out at my behaviour (without his spelling out what I did) and has sent me some fascinating emails (which are causing quite a few chuckles with my lawyers and friends), I’ll say nothing about that just now.

Neil’s undoubtedly upset at John Stewart’s taking off for Manchester soon. This of course leaves the coveted post of leader of the Lib Dems open to speculation.

The Press & Journal have named two vibrant and dynamic, forward-thinking, intelligent potential pretenders to the title: Aileen ‘Ho’Malone and Kate Dean. So I understand that Neil’s upset, and if he seems to be a wee bit miserable, this is obviously out of character, and we quite understand.

But anonymous, mysterious men dominate this week’s news. The first mystery which Old Susannah can’t get her head around is this – a headless corpse (the head was nearby) was found at the grounds of a psychiatric hospital in Bristol. And what have the police issued as their statement?

“An Avon and Somerset Police spokesman said the death did not appear to be suspicious.”

I guess it must have been one of those natural causes beheadings, or just your average beheading accident. With police work like that, we can all rest our heads on our pillows at night with complete confidence.

Pseudonym: (noun) an assumed name used to conceal identity.

Old Susannah had originally intended to write under the pseudonym ‘Old Susannah’ – not because I was afraid of people knowing how much I admire the council, but so that people who’d been complaining to me of rights and wrongs up and down Aberdeen could do so without endangering their anonymity. (In fact it was all the info coming to me that started this little column going in the first place).

As it turned out, the first column came out with my name on it by mistake, but it’s all worked out fine – people are still sending me tales of woe from inside the fortress of doom (aka the Townhouse).

But what of those people who hide behind a pseudonym when posting opinions on line or commenting in chatrooms in such a way as to inflame rather than inform or debate like grown-ups? We need level heads, brilliant minds and peacemakers. What we’ve got is… ‘Sasha M.’

For any of you who might visit the Press & Journal’s online presence you’ll note the comments at the end of articles. Whether the subject is Union Terrace Gardens or the use of Common Good money to buy expensive pens for visiting dignitaries, ‘Sasha M - mystery man (or woman) – stands head and shoulders above the rest for informed, intelligent opinions, gently delivered:

His winning ways are earning him swarms of devotees. Here are some samples of his words of wisdom:

On the subject of expensive gifts bought from the common good fund as gifts for dignitaries:

“I’m sure there is more going into the Common Good Fund than is coming out of it, or at the very least it is break even with growth to maintain the cash value in line with inflation. So what is the problem?”

The fact that the Common Good Fund is worth millions less than it was some 10 years ago doesn’t hamper Sasha M’s wit or writing style, nor the fact that the City is keen to lease or give so much of it away. Sadly some wet blanket had this to say on the same thread:-

“Neil (Fletcher) – Civic dignity went out of the window last year with the Lord Provost’s poorly judged casting vote on Union Terrace Gardens. Shameful…..On a lighter note, I wonder if the parties concerned use freebie Cartier pens to sign over the lease? They might as well take the mick to the max, so to speak!” – harvey freshwater

Join in the fun on this old thread at:

http://www.pressandjournal.co.uk/Article.aspx/2471577

A cynic might say that the back-and-forth on these postings is much more entertaining than the Press & Journal, and the worst sceptics think that Sasha M might even be an invention of the press – but you just don’t get writers like him (or her) without years of study of language, logic and the arts.

Other examples of his or her way with words include :-

“..grow up for god’s sake,”

and regarding TIF funding / UTG:

“Well if ever there was an example of why we shouldn’t ask the public about this, Michty Me [another poster] has just shown that the public don’t understand the issues and public opinion is worthless because it is not fully informed.”

Quite right, too! If Sasha is a councillor, then their constituents might like to know Sasha’s views on the public’s opinions. Sasha’s other posts clearly show a great interest in real estate matters, if no knowledge of heritage, democracy and the rights of the electorate.

Some people think Sasha could be Kate Dean, or a higher power from a parallel universe – the jury’s out. Sasha also decided to make some posts telling the world that I got ‘inebriated’ at Brew Dog (never happened, ever) and that when I forgot a poll tax payment I had ‘ broken the law’. The P&J decided there was no substance in these posts, so off they came with an apology.

But like every other person in Aberdeen, I am dying to know who this crusader for truth and justice against all those pesky ‘lefties’ as Sasha calls such riff-raff is. Will the real Sasha M please step forward? We’d like to know. Sasha, if you’re out there, why not come clean on your identity? The fans are waiting.

Referendum: (noun) form of balloting to determine policy or a specific issue.

A referendum is when a government asks the people what it wants, before continuing to proceed with doing what the vast majority of the public don’t want. Hooray! We’re going to have a referendum on Union Terrace Gardens! Of course, it is not totally binding, and as history has shown, where there is a Wood, there is a way.

I’d like to think the referendum’s results will be accepted by the City. I still don’t understand how my original vote on UTG, sent by postcard seems not to have been listed on the (massive) spreadsheets of comments received. I used the word ‘preposterous’ believe it or not to describe the scheme –but this word cannot be found on the list of comments, and it remains unclear whether or not my vote was ever counted.

Then again, at least I wasn’t one of the people who seemingly had their votes against building in UTG changed to a vote in favour – this apparently happened to many online voters – when adding a comment seemed to have made the vote into a favourable one.

I guess we’ll leave it there for now. Concerning FOI requests, the clock’s still ticking on the deadline for Aberdeen to hand over its list of properties sold to Milne – they have another 10 days as of the time of writing. And my request to find out what Common Good Lands are held? It’s past due, and I’ve received this useful comment:

“… once an applicant has requested a review on the basis of lateness, any response provided constitutes the review outcome, and the applicant will have no further opportunities to seek a review of the response at local authority level.”

So if I ask the City to tell me why it’s late (again) answering a FOI request, ‘any response provided constitutes the review outcome.’ Sorry, but it’s going to take someone of Sasha M’s intelligence to tell Old Susannah what that means. ‘Do What Now??’ is the phrase that springs to mind.

Next week: More Freedom of Information capers.

A Nuclear Incident On The Clyde – 2nd Jan 2012

Aberdeen City, Articles, Community, Events, Information No Responses »

Jan 062012

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 a nuclear powered submarine reactor which has led to, or come anywhere near leading to, any release of radioactive contamination to the environment” - Dr John Reid, ex-Armed Forces Minister

Aberdeen CND presents :

A Nuclear Incident on the Clyde – 2nd Jan 2012

At the NEXT ABERDEEN CND MEETING
MONDAY 9th January- 7.30 p.m.

Belmont Picture House, Belmont St, Aberdeen
in MEETING ROOM ON TOP FLOOR.

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