Old Susannah No. 177 – Trust Issues

 Opinion, Satire and Humour  9 Responses »
Jun 052015
 

Voice’s Old Susannah takes a look over the past week’s events in the ‘Deen and beyond. By Suzanne Kelly.

DictionaryTally ho! There are many vibrant, dynamic, connected smart successful goings-on as summertime draws near to the Granite City. I had a tasty affordable dinner at Amarone; it may be a chain, but its mozzarella is second to none.

On Sunday I attended my first BrewDog Home Brewers’ tasting session – a dozen or so home brewers met up to taste a wide range of homemade craft beers of all sorts; some were amazing; some a bit challenging. The BrewDog AGM is this coming Saturday; as is the Taste of Grampian, both of which seem to be bigger and better every year.

A wide variety of events are around the corner; the Gray’s School of Art Degree show opens on the 19th June.  The word is that this year will be particularly impressive.

The Moorings, Tunnels, Drummonds and Lemon Tree have lots of great bands coming up (Gerry Jablonski Band plays the Moorings the 4th; which is the place to head after the BrewDog AGM). Black Grape plays on the 5th of July. Old Susannah remembers the last time she saw this band in London. By the end of the night the entire venue became one big backstage after show party. Bez danced up to me, and I asked him how he was doing. “WIDE” was the reply.

More on Black Grape soon. With all this going on, I hope the city has seen fit to order more crowd barriers and hire a few thousand security guards. Can’t be too careful.

Great news! ‘Tally ho!’ might once again be the cry heard in the countryside if the newly re-elected Conservatives get their way. David Cameron’s got his priorities right, and his head is well screwed on his shoulders as it ever was post-election. Now that our banks are no longer in crisis (financial banks, not food banks that is), and the NHS is safe, it’s time to worry about the issues that really matter to us all. Like chasing and killing foxes.

After all, ripping these vermin to shreds is traditional, and isn’t that what the Conservatives are all about – ripping things to shreds – sorry, I meant to say traditions? I for one am happy we’ve had such a fair and proper election, and I’m happy to trust Westminster to keep giving us the kind of government we deserved and voted in.

Here we are, we’ve never had it so good, and yet there are one or two people out there who seem to want to stir up trouble and find fault. Some people think that some multinationals are happy to poison us all to make a profit. Others aren’t sure the police are always completely fair, believe it or not.

Still other worrywarts have it in their heads that the banks have behaved dishonestly and that we’ll be bailing them out again before long. I say to them, get out into the countryside; go on a good British fox hunt, and soon you’ll forget all these minor paranoid unsubstantiated fears.

For such sceptical souls, perhaps a few definitions may help them become as trusting, uncritical and accepting as I am.

Fact-finding mission: (Modern English noun) – to seek verification or otherwise for data.

Pity the poor misunderstood Metro reader who wrote into the paper’s advice team, which answered him on 28 May. If you read his heart-breaking letter in the feature entitled ‘How can I trust my girlfriend’ you’ll see that some hussy or other has her hooks in this poor trusting man. The poor guy went on a little fact-finding mission in the noble cause of trying to find out whether or not his girlfriend was trustworthy.

He decided to test her honour by snooping into her phone and her emails. ‘Fair enough’ I can practically hear you say. It turns out that the woman in question hadn’t told him she had in the past been married and was now divorced! What a breach of trust! I hope he’s given her the boot.

As ever, clues to the relationship’s doom were in the man’s letter. He described the woman as ‘smart, funny, independent, sexy and extremely successful.’ Smart is never an attractive quality in a woman; funny is best left to blokes, and as to independence – well, that’s simply not done. If she was sexy, then she might well have looked at other men before this prince arrived on the scene, and going through her correspondence seems a reasonable way to check how honest she is.

If she was successful, then she must have had a rich boyfriend or husband along the way, kind of like the way it’s done here in Aberdeen by our prettier faces. If you love someone, set them free. If you really love someone, bug their phone, put a keystroke counter on their laptop, and go through their messages when you can. Relationships are built on trust after all.

Take for instance the trust between the electorate and the government.

The government shows us how much it trusts us, and we should show some respect in return. Sure they may want to impose some random named guardian to interface and interact with your child whether or not you are a good or bad parent. They may be using undercover spies to infiltrate legal protest groups, and even to stir up trouble in those groups which wouldn’t have happened otherwise.

The government may be spying – sorry, I meant to say ‘fact-finding’ on all of our emails, phonecalls and naughty Instagram photos. They may want to train your children from birth to be answerable to a ‘named person’ (more on that in a separate article) who’ll have input into your family life. It’s not that they don’t trust us. It’s certainly not that they want the private sector making huge profits from outsourced spying and other services after making deals with lobbyists.

Why are they treating us like potential if not actual criminals? It’s because they care.

‘Taking the Mickey’/ ‘Taking the Michael’ / ‘Taking the Carmichael’: (Modern English and Scottish slang phrases) To make fun of, to insult someone’s intelligence by tricking them; to mock.

“Whoever is careless with the truth in small matters cannot be trusted with important matters” Albert Einstein said (I got this from the internet, so it’s true). I don’t know who Einstein may have had in mind when he came up with that little gem, but it could well have been newly-re-elected Orkney & Shetland MP Alistair Carmichael.

Some people feel Carmichael may have been taking the mickey at election time. Nothing could be further from the truth.

If you hadn’t heard, there was this little matter of a wee practical joke he played. Carmichael accidently leaked a fake memo purporting to concern Nicola Sturgeon and the French ambassador. Someone told me this was some kind of a French Letter. In this document, it seemed Sturgeon would have preferred Cameron as PM over Milliband (Milliband was apparently someone else running for office.

Like you, I never heard of him before, either). If anything Charm-Michael was doing Sturgeon a favour by trying to make her look even more popular. After all, Cameron was the people’s choice.

Some people have no sense of humour however; and headlines like ‘Alistair Carmichael facing sleaze probe over memo leak’ seem to imply there was something wrong with what he did. http://www.heraldscotland.com/news/home-news/alistair-carmichael-facing-sleaze-probe-over-memo-leak.1433245837.

Thankfully, this august politician has lots of allies. The people who voted him in are happy to stand by him; many of them with pitchforks, torches. If you don’t believe he’s got lots of support left after his beau jest cost the taxpayer some £1,400,000, don’t take my word for it: Alistair Carmichael says so himself, and that’s good enough for me http://www.scotsman.com/news/uk/i-ve-lots-of-support-alistair-carmichael-insists-1-3788374

Sadly there are some people who just won’t take their better’s word, and need a bit of hand holding and reassurance when they feel they’ve been slightly misused, tricked, cheated, conned and defrauded. To allay fears, nothing works quite so well as a testimonial.

Testimonial: (English noun) A statement given in support of a cause or person by someone with gravitas.

Carmichael indeed has his friends, and none perhaps better than Lib Dem Sir Malcolm Bruce.

Rushing to the aid of besieged Carmichael, Sir Malcolm said:-

“Politicians regularly tell lies and Parliament would “empty” if they were punished for it“ a Liberal Democrat politician had admitted.

Sir Malcolm Bruce, who stood down as an MP at the election, was asked on BBC Radio 4 whether lying was widespread in public life.

“No, well, yes. Lots of people have told lies and you know perfectly well that to be true,” he responded.

“If you are suggesting every MP who has never quite told the truth or even told a brazen lie, including cabinet ministers, including prime ministers, [should be removed] we would clear out the House of Commons very fast, I would suggest,” he added.

Sir Malcolm was defending his colleague, Liberal Democrat MP Alistair Carmichael, who admitted that he had ordered the leak of a document after saying he had nothing to do with it. http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/politicians-lie-a-lot-admits-liberal-democrat-politician-10275934.html

I’m sure that should be enough to silence even the staunchest Carmichael critic. To summarise Sir Malcolm’s position, Lots of people lie and that’s perfectly true. Old Susannah started to think about this in light of the shocking revelation that there are liars in the House of Commons. I started to wonder… if Bruce is in the House, and he’s telling me truthfully that the house is full of liars, and that’s the truth, then is he lying about that or telling the truth.

Several bottles of BrewDog’s Vote Sepp later (itself named after the trustworthy fearless FIFA leader Mr Blatter), I found myself no wiser than before.

Bruce’s position that lies shouldn’t be punished (Certainly the Conservatives go along with this longstanding LibDem position too) is something we should all go along with. If MPs who lied were punished, Bruce says the House of Commons would soon be empty. Where on earth would we be then?

I was going to get on to another trust-related definition in reply to a fan’s comment on a recent column. I intended to talk about the Wood Family Trust’s Wood Family Foundation taking £10 million of the £50 million it has sensibly sitting around to build a parking lot.

I was going to explain that by avoiding several million pounds a year, the prudent billionaire out there can save a ton of cash, and then decide how the government that should have had the cash to do with as it saw fit will instead be tugging the collective forelock when given a gift which represents a small portion of the tax avoided, and wax lyrical about the generosity of the gift. But coupled with grappling with Sir Malcolm Bruce’s logic, I started to feel a bit light headed.

Perhaps we’ll go there another time.

On those rare occasions on which I find myself a bit wary of whom or what I should put my trust in, or perplexed by the logic of my betters like Carmichael and Bruce, I like to relax with television shows like Britain’s Got Talent. You can’t beat it or its contestants for good old-fashioned genuine honest talent, can you? If it turns out that the most talented person to be found in the whole of the Kingdom happens to be a dog trainer, fair enough.

What could be more entertaining than watching an animal that’s been trained to walk along a tightrope with strings digging into the pads of its paws?

At least we know we have a real, honest-to goodness, gimmick and trickery free winner. If the dog we thought we were watching refused to do the tightrope trick (I feel sorry for the poor trainer), then it’s fair enough to use a stunt double for the dog, even if that little fact was kept a bit quiet. Nothing dishonest about that, is there? Woof woof.

Remember, that rabbit that was tortured to death on Danish radio (to prove how hypocritical people are who eat meat but don’t like animal cruelty – a great lesson) was a gentle, trusting creature until its last educational minutes.

Next week: an overdue look at the property portfolio of our city council, the council that can’t manage to house everyone, but which has over 1400 properties of various kinds. And definitions to include Paradox, Hoist by their own petard, and libel.

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Tullos Hill Deer Petition: Outcomes

 Aberdeen City, Environment, Featured  2 Responses »
May 012015
 

deer6featBy Suzanne Kelly

On Tuesday 21 April I represented the Save the Tullos Hill Deer group at Aberdeen City Council’s Petitions Committee. The petitioners had several requests; the results were mixed. Here are the results of that meeting.

With the mandate of hundreds of Aberdeen residents, and the backing of people from Aberdeenshire and beyond, a 10 minute presentation was delivered to the City’s Petitions Committee.

The issues that the petition put to the Committee were:

  1. To immediately stop culling (deer numbers may be very low based on the last SNH count)
  2. To explain how having 3-4 deer on Tullos can possibly mean a healthy gene pool
  3. To work with the police to stop further poaching (at least 5 animals were killed on Tullos and Kincorth hills in January 2014 – although Ranger Talboys wrote in an email they were probably killed elsewhere, and the poachers for some reason took the remains up the hills in question – a rather unlikely scenario, one which may show him to be biased and perhaps a bit out of touch)
  4. To erect deer crossing signs – there virtually are none in the city
  5. To disclose all costs associated with the Tree for Every Citizen Scheme and deer culling for the past 8 years

http://committees.aberdeencity.gov.uk/mgEPetitionDisplay.aspx?Id=13

A copy of the presentation made to the city can be found here:  http://suzannekelly.yolasite.com/

Culling to Continue / no clear explanation on deer gene pool

Sadly the culling will go on – at least until a review of deer issues are made in October. But with such strong, well-funded lobbyists in favour of deer culling, unless there is a public outcry, there is little hope but that Aberdeen will stick to the controversial SNH guidelines. Where we had dozens of deer in the gorse and meadow of Tullos, the SNH now want somewhere between 3 and 4 animals while the trees grow (if they do grow – which would take decades) to about 6 animals.

Animal welfare experts, landowners and gamekeepers all disagree with the SNH over culling quantities, as have cities such as Glasgow, which are being lobbied to accept the guidelines and cull. The election run-up is a good time to contact your elected officials and candidates on these issues. The Tree for Every Citizen scheme was a Liberal Democrat election campaign promise; it was meant to be cost neutral, a score on which it has failed.

Signage to increase

Another small victory is that the city seems willing now to erect signs warning where there are likely to be deer crossing.  Shaw said there is no pattern to where the 40 deer accidents he claimed happened last year are. Given that there is so much building taking place in Aberdeen’s former greenbelt, this is not a huge surprise.

However common sense will hopefully prevail, and at appropriate places motorists can be warned deer are in the area where no such warnings exist at present.  There are fewer accidents when drivers are warned of potential risks as opposed to when they are not; this is basic logic. When I last lobbied for this, the city’s astonishing reply was that ‘people don’t pay attention to signs’.

This has hardly stopped the city erecting dozens of signs of every kind all over the roads advertising all manner of events. The number of accidents caused by drunk drivers, speed, speed inappropriate to weather conditions, etc. in our are far, far dwarves the number of deer-related accidents: looking after the safety of motorists and our remaining wildlife should be a priority, the price for which should not be paid by the wildlife.

Poaching

The committee seemed interested in the poaching aspect; hopefully something will be done to protect our deer populations.

Costs to be Revealed

In a considerable victory, the committee agreed with the petitioners that all of the costs associated with the Tree for Every Citizen Scheme will be revealed. Aberdeen Voice uncovered some £169,000 expenses associated with Tullos Hill alone – and yet city officer Peter Leonard promised the Housing & Environment Committee this was to be ‘cost neutral’. Leonard should have also had sight of a letter that puts the plan’s success into question.

Having made my presentation which can be found here, it was over to a city officer to speak.  I had absolutely no right to reply at the meeting.  Here is what the officer said, and what I’d say in response.

Officer Steve Shaw:  The scheme is an award winning success

Rather than ranger Ian Talboys addressing the committee, Steve Shaw did. He spoke of 40 accidents over the past year involving deer – some where drivers apparently merely ‘nicked’ or ‘bumped’ an animal and then reported this to the police. Some were collisions. A humane response might be to erect the signs that I have been calling for, rather to call for killing our deer.

There are also devices that can deter deer from crossing roads. Then again, this is a city council whose ranger considered shooting two young deer who got trapped in a Tullos fence – rather than opening the gate. I would have liked to tell the committee about that.

Weeds surround tree guards where there were once flowers and gorse; at 3 years old, there is no substantial sign of growth. Yet this scheme won awards – as Steve Shaw was proud to announce in his counter to my speech.

Talboys was presented one such award despite the clear visual devastation on the hill from its former state. This award he won was given by the Woodlands Trust.  Does the Woodland trust work closely with the SNH who is pushing its deer cull guidelines and wants powers to make them mandatory on public and private land?

Those behind the scheme

Ranger Ian Talboys was present with city officer Steve Shaw.  Talboys is a name that will be familiar to anyone who’s followed the ‘Tree for Every Citizen’ scheme; he’s a strong advocate of deer culling, and belongs to the Lowlands Deer Network, which lobbies local governments to try and encourage deer culling. It is funded in part by Scottish Natural Heritage, who favoured the scheme to turn Tullos from a meadow environment suitable for deer into the current condition it is in.

Shaw didn’t mention the group by name, and other pro-culling groups may well be involved. Considering SNH found £100,000 to give to such groups in 2014, it is no wonder that the pressure to cull is on.

The fight is still very much on to protect our wildlife, our wild places, and taxpayer money.

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Still No Answers From Lib Dems Over Unpaid Bills

 Aberdeen City, Opinion  1 Response »
Oct 282014
 

With thanks to Gavin Mowat, Constituency Assistant to Christian Allard MSP.

Mr Allard about to deliver policing bill letter to Malcolm Bruce and Alison McInnes

Mr Allard about to deliver policing bill letter to Malcolm Bruce and Alison McInnes

SNP MSP Christian Allard is once again calling on North East Liberal Democrats to pay their overdue £800,000 bill owed to Police Scotland. Local Lib Dem politicians have so far failed to respond to Mr Allard’s letter demanding that the overdue bill is paid.

On Monday 6 October Mr Allard wrote to Lib Dem justice spokesperson, North East MSP Alison McInnes and deputy leader Sir Malcolm Bruce MP calling on the politicians to sort out their unpaid policing bills for last year’s Lib Dem conference in Glasgow.

Mr Allard is yet to receive a response from either Alison McInnes or Sir Malcolm Bruce.

Police Scotland has been left several hundred thousand pounds out of pocket, yet when asked about the £800,000 bill by Andrew Neil on the BBC’s Daily Politics the Lib Dem leader in Scotland Willie Rennie MSP said:

“I don’t know very much about that at all”
http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b04l8pd3/daily-politics-conference-special

Mr Allard expressed his frustration that Alison McInnes failed to even comment on the issue at a Policing debate in the Scottish Parliament.

North East MSP Christian Allard said:

“It is quite unbelievable that the Liberal Democrats remain silent on this issue. Alison McInnes likes to talk a lot about policing but all we hear right now is deafening silence.

“Alison McInnes even had an opportunity to address the issue during a parliamentary debate last week but all she managed to do was criticise our police service.

“Every penny counts in the battle to keep our communities safe and the Lib Dems’ unpaid bill leaves an £800,000 hole in the Scottish police budget. This is deeply irresponsible behaviour.

“Malcolm Bruce and his party are showing contempt for Police Scotland which does a fantastic job protecting our communities. My message to the Lib Dems – pay up.”

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City Deer Cull Policy: A Tailored Response

 Aberdeen City, Environment, Featured, Opinion  5 Responses »
Aug 152014
 

In mid-July Suzanne Kelly wrote to all the City councillors and the new Chief Executive. This was following Evening Express revelations that according to a Scottish Natural Heritage (SNH) count, there may be only nineteen deer left in the entire city, with only three or four left on Tullos Hill. Tullos had a deer population which was stable for decades, until the Liberal Democrats foisted a ‘tree for every citizen’ scheme on the city, and the deer’s days were numbered as the City Council refused even to consider alternatives to shooting.

In response to Kelly’s email, the City Council created a document which it sent to all councillors, but not to Kelly. Kelly has obtained this missive, and in this article seeks to dismiss its points.

baby deer

We may be in danger of losing all of our city deer.

This will be due in no small part to the recent drive to cull dozens of them at a time, on the pretexts that ‘they have no natural predators’ and that for reasons best known to scheme proponents Councillor Aileen Malone and ranger Ian Talboys, we need to ‘plant a tree’ for every citizen.

Having written to all the councillors, a few did respond with sympathetic views, advising that they were against the cull, and that they knew of the 3,000-plus citizens and the community councils which had asked for the tree scheme and the cull to be scrapped. However, many councillors never got back in touch.

Many people have since forwarded an email sent by the City Council’s media division. The media department chose to write to the councillors and the Chief Executive rebutting my email. They left me out of the correspondence.

Perhaps they knew that most of their points could readily be countered. This article is a response to the City Council’s justifications for how it treats its deer population and the low regard in which it clearly holds its voters.

Here is the gist of what the City Council tried to claim, and what I would like to say to the councillors and the City Council by way of rebuttal, a courtesy they decided not to extend to me. There go my hopes for a new Chief Executive who would be open, accountable and transparent in her dealings.

Thanks to the many people who sent me the City Council’s claims which I will deal with point by point.

  • The City Council claims there are errors and inaccuracies in an  Evening Express article of 19th July. The City Council claims the article did not report the real story regarding the roe deer population.

An interesting introduction; but the City Council fails to discount the article in this opening paragraph, or to say specifically what those inaccuracies are. They are going to address these ‘inaccuracies’ with the Evening Express. How very odd then, to remember an  Evening Express article of a few years back. This story advised that ‘two deer were found dead ahead of the planned cull’.

Well, that was true: the deer had died of unknown causes TWO YEARS before the cull. Someone in the City Council contacted the  Evening Express and encouraged this story. The City Council had no interest in correcting that little inaccuracy.

  • The City Council addresses the claim that Tullos Hill is “under threat from deer extinction”, and says this is not true. They say the survey was undertaken by SNH in January 2014 at only four of the city’s new woodland sites, out of 39 woodland sites. The sites looked at were Tullos Hill, Seaton, Danestone and Greenferns.

The SNH want to have only four to six animals on the whole of Tullos Hill, to fit in with their recent guidelines.

Perhaps the deer were hiding from the infrared sensors

These are for guidance and not legally binding, although you would not know that as the City Council repeats the mantra over and over again that deer must be ‘managed’ (ie shot).

The ranger Ian Talboys wrote an email in response to 16 deer limbs being found in a ‘suspected’ poaching incident on Tullos. More on that later. If he ever did express a desire to protect the remaining animals, find the culprits or find a means to discourage wildlife crime, he doesn’t seem to have put it into writing: a Freedom of Information (FOI) request disclosed all relevant correspondence.

Talboys says that he believed the deer must have been shot elsewhere, a rather wild claim some might think, as he thought there were fewer deer than that on Tullos:

“I would be surprised if there were enough deer in the area for anyone to be able to take four in one go so it may be the remains have been taken from somewhere else and dumped on Tullos Hill”

Perhaps it’s just as well that Talboys is not a criminologist. But the bottom line is, how can four to six deer, even if migrating between sites, have a healthy, stable gene pool and survive poaching? At such numbers exactly how will we continue to have deer on the hill?

  • The City Council’s media personnel then go on to offer conjecture, not fact, as to why the count may have been low. The count was aided by the contribution from Ian Burnett of Aberdeen City Council.

Perhaps the deer were hiding from the infrared sensors is one idea they offer. It is interesting how the City Council flits from conjecture to fact when it suits its purposes. What I asked for was a halt to any further culling, until at the very least another count was done to establish the numbers.

The apologists go on to explain in great detail how hard it is for the SNH to get accurate numbers for counting deer: temperature, other animals, weather, all sorts of reasons are given for why counts are inaccurate.

No one in the City Council seemed to have any concerns about inaccurate counting of deer when it put out its ‘Granite City Forest Tree for Every Citizen Programme – Tullos Hill Community Woodland’ document (BRN 165321 Case No 4158709).

It stated categorically that in 2011, 29 deer were counted on the hill. I will put up my hand and admit that at present I can’t find my source for the count of 70 deer in the area. However, if I am inaccurate with numbers, then I have company in the City Council’s paid professionals; only my counting doesn’t form the basis for shooting them.

Fact: the above-referenced report says that in February 2011 there were “seven bucks, ten does, six juveniles and six unclassified animals” (Page 67). The targets set (same page) were the destruction of eight bucks, nine does and seven juveniles in 2012/13 in the first killing, i.e. 24 of the 29 would be killed.

The great scheme was then to destroy four more creatures each season until 2016/17.

one of the complainants coincidentally writes to Aileen Malone with great frequency

No mention seems to appear in this 69-page report, in my opinion a highly biased apology for deer killing, that it’s hard to count the animals, or that there could be a doubt over the number of animals on the hill.

As above, councillors were told there were 29 animals on Tullos in February 2011. The hunter(s) paid to do the shooting that first season killed either 34 or 35 animals: the records are so poorly written that not even the City Council’s FOI request managed to find a figure.

So there you have it: 29 deer counted, of which 24 were going to be destroyed, and 34 or 35 were in fact killed. And now we are told it’s hard to count them.

  • The City Council’s cull apologist goes on to say that The Housing and Environment directorate continues to receive reports of, and complaints about large deer populations and the damage they cause across Aberdeen.

In response to my FOI request I was sent complaints about deer.

Oddly enough, one of the complainants coincidentally writes to Aileen Malone with great frequency, about deer in the Cults area which apparently go into the complainant’s garden. There would also seem to be one other complainer. These people must be amazed that they have moved to a countryside area and found countryside animals on private property.

  • ACC officers monitor the new woodland sites for field signs of the roe deer and evidence of deer browsing on the young and established trees, to establish the likely population of deer in the area and any impact they are having on the sites. The management of these sites ensures that there is a balance between habitats and species through weed control, scrub management, deer management, woodland management operations etc.

The public stated resoundingly that it did not want Tullos to become a woodland site. As it has gone ahead, the City Council has demonstrably left the weeds unchecked while killing the deer. The Forestry Commission clearly stated that the previous failure was related to weeds as well as alleged deer browsing.

The City Council has done nothing to rectify the poor soil matrix on Tullos. The report on the failure of phase 1 states that trees are likely to topple in the wind (wind toss) because of the poor soil matrix. The fact that debris are visible throughout the tree planting area demonstrates this fact. It is probably an insoluble problem, making Tullos an unlikely area for a forest.

  • The Wildlife and Natural Environment (Scotland) Act 2011 and the Code of Practice on Deer Management place a duty on anyone with deer on their land to manage them at sustainable level, whereby the population density is not causing significant damage to property, crops, woodlands, protected areas or creating welfare issues for the deer themselves through lack of food or habitat to rest up in, or causing safety issues for people.

It is voluntary code of practice we are talking about, and a contentious one at that. The above-referenced report says about the code:

“although not mandatory, [the code] incorporates the legal framework for deer management… The Code supports the voluntary approach…”  

The City Council really should stop maintaining that it is following the law, it is following a code. It’s funny, there seems no such zeal to follow codes on our air pollution levels, still failing to meet EU permissible levels for particulates for years and years. There is no such zeal when allowing class sizes to exceed government guidelines.

And yet, the deer cull guidelines are presented to councillors as if they are mandatory legal requirements which must be obeyed.

At Tullos the deer posed no threat of property damage. There were no crops, there was no woodland, only a meadow. There were no deer welfare issues, there were no safety issue for people. Any evidence to the contrary has not yet been presented to the public and a chance to scrutinise any that exists would be welcome.

In the absence of any evidence, and having proved that the Code of Practice is not binding law, and did not apply as there were no crops, no starving deer, etc. at Tullos, this is meaningless jargon and a general statement not relevant to the specifics of the low level of deer now left in the city and the small number on Tullos.

But now the City Council plays a trump card: it gets into deer vehicle collisions. The City Council says that in 2013/14

  • “the Aberdeen City Council Cleansing Teams collected 30 roe deer carcasses from the city’s road network that had been hit by vehicles and died at the roadside. …which will have caused damage to vehicles, distress to drivers and their passengers as well as suffering to the deer.”

There does not seem to be a single sign erected in the city to warn of deer crossing. And yet the City Council is aware of all of these crashes without taking any mitigating action – except to advocate deer shooting. I have campaigned for signs to be erected, as are used in many other areas.

The City Council’s response? They claim people don’t pay attention to signs.

As logic goes, this is quite a fail. If the City Council is aware of risks to Health and Safety, and decides not to use fencing, deer deterrents (there are devices which emit noises which repel deer) or to warn motorists of hazards, then that’s rather a damning indictment of how it handles public safety and how little the protection of animals, and thereby our biodiversity, means to them.

The media pros then get around to my statement that the trees are not thriving.

  • “In ACC’s professional opinion the trees are doing well. The site has been inspected by Forestry Commission Scotland as a part of the grant conditions and they are content with the growth of the trees”.

IMG_1495I suppose a layman’s photograph of tiny tree saplings planted amid rubbish, overshadowed by huge quantities of healthy weeds is a professional’s version of doing well.

A picture is worth a thousand words.

For some reason, no documentation from the City Council or Forestry Commission painting a glowing portrait of a thriving plantation was included with the FOI documents sent to me.

Since we wasted £43,800 of taxpayer money trying to plant trees on Tullos before, which were beset by weeds, no doubt the City Council asked the Forestry Commission for a comfort letter, agreeing that the trees are just fine and we’re in no danger of repeating our past failure.

I have noted that Glasgow at one point refused to cull its deer for this voluntary code. With a grandiose sweep of the pen, the person attempting to shoot down my arguments tells the councillors

  • “It is not Aberdeen City Council’s place to comment on Glasgow City Council deer management policies.”

It might not be necessary to comment on Glasgow, but it is rather useful to note that other Scottish authorities are treating the deer-culling guidelines as guidelines, and not legal requirements.

  • Finally, we get to the reports sent in to me about deer poaching. The City Council has gone on in most of its correspondence and reports to explain that deer need to be shot ‘because they have no natural predators’. .

“Given the number of deer legs found it is highly unlikely that they were taken from this site as they would have come from more deer than were known to be in the area at the time. This is the advice provided by Grampian Police Wildlife Crime Officers following their investigations. In respect of the poaching, there is no proof that the deer legs found on Tullos Hill were from deer taken on Tullos Hill or the surrounding area.”

Well, we might not have wolves in the hills, but we certainly have poachers.

An article on the scale of poaching and the money involved was in The Observer on 10th August, page 9. But the City Council has reverted to wild conjecture. Talboys had written in an email that he doubted anyone could find four deer to poach on Tullos: his theory, and the theory being put to councillors here is that the deer were poached elsewhere.

Let’s imagine the scene. Deer poachers hunt, trap and kill four deer. The poachers decide what to do next: they take the deer carcasses, all four of them, put them in their vehicle, drive somewhere close to Tullos and park. They then carry the dead deer to a spot on Tullos hill, all the while risking detection.

Then they cut the deer up, take the meat, and hide the legs and guts in a bush. Or, having cut the deer up already, apparently to ensure the meat doesn’t get contaminated, they then carry the legs and innards in their car to a parking area close to the hill, grab the sixteen legs and the internal organs, walk along the hill and hide the remains in the bushes.

I wonder what Inspector Morse would say.

We will have to wonder what Police Scotland’s Wildlife Crime Officer has to say as well. There has not been a single press release about deer poaching in our area.

So, dear councillors and readers, if you have made it this far into my comments on the City Council’s attempt to trash my arguments, thanks to those who continue to oppose this senseless slaughter. Thanks to those who have sent me the City Council’s rebuttal when it failed to do so. Would you do me three favours?

The first is to halt any deer culling until we have a better grasp of how many, or how few deer we have.

The second? Protect motorists and deer: let’s just see if putting up signs might help. You might want to ask yourself how thirty deer–related accidents stack up to the drink-related, speed-related fatalities on our roads, and how many hit-and-runs we have.

Thirdly, would someone like to please find out whether ranger Ian Talboys, who is such a staunch supporter of shooting the animals, gets any money or expenses for his role in the deer-culling lobbying entity, the “Lowland Deer Management Group?” This would be rather interesting to know.

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Tullos Hill Litter: Left By Tree Planters?

 Aberdeen City, Environment  5 Responses »
Apr 122013
 

A frequent visitor to Tullos Hill advised Aberdeen Voice that things had got even worse. Suzanne Kelly paid a visit to investigate, and returns with photos – and evidence pointing to littering by… the tree planters.

a-lone-tree-sapling-left-to-die-amid-tree-sapling-waste-who-could-have-left-this-we-wonder
If you were one of the minority who were determined to wipe out the meadow and gorse habitat of Tullos Hill, ruining its insect, bee, butterfly and mammal populations in the process, no doubt you will be pleased at its condition.

It is almost completely denuded of plant and animal life, save for the protruding tree guards and tens of thousands of sapling trees.

On the other hand, if you loved the hill as it was, and expected to soon be in a vast field of dame’s violets and other wild flowers, and enjoy the older, established trees and wildlife, then this is a very black day.

The photos tell the story. 

a-sort-of-biological-ethnic-cleansing-at-tullos
Existing trees, haphazardly knocked over or crudely, fatally damaged.

Gorse was eradicated  from all but a few spots.

Hardly any wildflowers or green plant life is left  in evidence.

Dead plant matter everywhere, and of course the thin layer of topsoil reveals, almost everywhere you look, industrial and/or household rubbish going back decades.

The final contempt shown for the existing wildlife comes in the form of litter.  I discovered what were clearly boxes used to hold tree saplings scattered about a few locations.

obey-the-outdoor-access-and-take-your-waste-home-with-you-unless-you-are-on-this-project
A tree sapling which had been left in one of the boxes was bound at the root inside of a square of black plastic. Loose squares of plastic were under, inside, and scattered near the boxes.

It would have been considerate of whoever would have been the owner of this tree-planting litter to at the least take away their rubbish.

Plastic rubbish of this kind (as anyone with the slightest interest in the environment can tell you) poses a major hazard to wildlife on land and in the sea.

It seems the many awareness campaigns demonstrating how animals/fish/birds eat plastic and end up dying as a result were not part of the curriculum for our tree planters.

a-once-healthy-tree-now-uprooted-dies-inside-a-chicken-wire-enclosure-this-is-progress-to-some
The crude chicken wire enclosure structure still – pretty much illegally – blocks visitors from a huge central swathe of the denuded hill.

Inside, more existing trees are now dead and dying, damaged by those in charge.

This enclosure should of course come down, as it is denying access on public land previously enjoyed historically by visitors, and under the Outdoor Access Code, there is no right for the Council to have closed this off in the first place.

authorities-believe-there-are-no-barriers-to-trees-thriving-on-this-rubbish
Nearby at St Fitticks, the tree guards which have stood for years continue to stand, throwing doubts on the scapegoating of deer for their failure to grow.

Despite these guards being choked by weeds with no sign of progress over the years, Aberdeen City Council’s Freedom of Information office insists these trees are growing – just slowly.

Who precisely says they are growing should come forward.

more-rubbish-inside-the-gate-of-the-unnecessary-enclosure
My photographic evidence is now several years old, and shows veritably no growth at all for the vast majority of the St Fittick’s plantation,

The shocking ruts in the landscape caused by earthmoving equipment and vehicles, the weeds growing around tree guards, the apparent lack of concern for any of the wildflowers or life that depended on the plants and gorse has – won an award for this scheme.

Ian Tallboys, ranger and proponent of what was largely Aileen Malone’s scheme, implemented by £70,000+ consultant Chris Piper, was proud to accept the award. 

If anyone can claim to be proud of this scheme, there is something wrong with their environmental priorities.

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Old Susannah No. 104 – Discovering New Levels

 Aberdeen City, Satire and Humour  1 Response »
Dec 032012
 

Old Susannah casts her beady eye around the ‘Deen – and this week, far beyond! By Suzanne Kelly

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Tally Ho! Apologies for the late-running of this service but Old Susannah has been in New York and Glasgow over the past 10 days or so.

The biggest news of the week is the annual Glenfiddich Spirit of Scotland Top Scot award going to Michael Forbes, Menie resident and nemesis of Donald Trump. Many congratulations on an award well deserved.

It was disheartening to see New York in such a state; there is a huge, under-used park at the very centre of Manhattan.

Because this central park hasn’t been successfully transformed into a vibrant, dynamic, iconic web, New York is closed for business. Retail trade is down, with many small family-owned, non-chain store businesses operating throughout the greater Manhattan area instead of multinationals and pound shops.

This park also has major connectivity problems. Some if it is actually below street level! Yes, really. Other parts have a wall separating the park from the street, and people have to travel a few blocks to get to the next entrance.

To make things even worse, some of the park is even higher than street level. I hear a delegation from New York will travel to Aberdeen soon to look at the web plans, and see if the Granite Web can’t be built over Manhattan.

Until such time, New Yorkers will have to suffer the consequences – little tourism, hardly any business, and not much going on culturally.

If they were to just set up their own version of ACSEF, I’m sure the local taxpayers would be happy to fund an unelected quango that knew better on all issues than elected officials, and do whatever it said without question.

Then it was on to Glasgow.

For some reason, the streets there don’t have much going for them. Well, not in the way of litter, potholes and broken pavements anyway. The public transportation is affordable, clean and frequent – even after 6pm!

One really tough-looking guy on the underground strode purposely near where I was standing – to put a used ticket into a used ticket bin. Must have been something wrong with him.

Returning to BrewDog on Monday evening, I bought the last two bottles of Ghost Deer. This truly delicious beer is the world’s strongest fermented beer (and it has fetching artwork).

I also managed to buy one of the last limited edition Ghost Deer t-shirts, so I am well chuffed at having something to wear when I next see Aileen Malone.

Ghost Deer is marketed as ‘an audacious blend of eccentricity, artistry and rebellion.’ It reminds me of someone, I just can’t figure out who.

 Want a few weeks off work? Stop washing your hands when you use restrooms and stop disinfecting surfaces

The deer theme continued at Aberdeen Art Centre as I attended an opening of work by Nicky Cairney and her mother, Angela Cairney. The show was well attended and the work is very varied, with themes of nature, man’s interference with nature, and environment the overriding themes.

Please do go and see it, especially the silhouette work concerning Tullos Hill and golf. When lit in different ways, these dioramas throw powerful shadows with more than a little hint of political commentary.

Before moving on to some seasonal definitions, something seems to be wrong with the council. When the first icy days hit us, salt and sand were being used on the roads AND pavements. I really don’t know what they’re playing at – you didn’t get this kind of thing happening when Kate Dean was convener. Let’s see if they keep it up.

Cold weather also can mean an increase in viruses. A few unpleasant illnesses are doing the rounds, so try and stay well. Here are some definitions which may help.

MRSA Virus (noun) a strain of the staphylococcus bacterium which can cause serious infections in people, and which is becoming increasingly immune to antibiotics.

Want a few weeks off work? Stop washing your hands when you use restrooms and stop disinfecting surfaces. Also forget all that nonsense about using a tissue once, throwing it away, and then washing your hands. That’s for wimps.

It’s an awfully good thing that Aberdeen Royal Infirmary and Grampian NHS ensure all the wards in our area are spotless. I was told you could eat off the floor in Ward 49, for instance. Bring a knife and fork.

It’s important to remember that if you get an infection that needs antibiotics, the doctor doesn’t really want you to finish the whole course of medicine. Just take a few pills, stop after a day or two, then be totally surprised when you don’t get better. You’re doing a good deed for biodiversity by making bugs stronger and stronger. Result!

However, there is a more serious hospital virus going around. At present, there is only one known case.  This case is, however, in our area – so do be vigilant…

MRCS Virus (noun) new strain of hospital virus causing computers to imply doctors have more qualifications than they do. Pity poor Doctor (???) Muhammad Ishaque.

It’s clear that ARI takes checking references seriously

This trainee doctor worked in Aberdeen Royal Infirmary, where he picked up this curious disease. Unfortunately, the highly-trained professionals at ARI failed to spot this virus before he was hired. Perhaps a better check-up of incoming doctors is called for.

To most people in the medical profession MRCS means Member of the Royal College of Surgeons.  The implication if you got an email from said trainee was that they were a qualified, recognised surgeon. This trainee didn’t exactly have all of the medical qualifications his computer said he had. Instead, he claimed he contracted the MRCS virus on his computer at the hospital.

This rare virus causes a trainee doctor’s outgoing emails to magically contain the letters MRCS after the trainee’s name. Scientists are baffled at the emergence of this new virus, and are closely studying Ishaque, the only known sufferer in the world.

So by all means clean your hands – but clean your hard drives as well.

I guess it’s no big deal – as the ARI seems to insist – that this person examined people. They say he was always working alongside a fully trained doctor. It’s not as if people expect a person examining them would have been fully vetted before allowed anywhere near the public.

I’m thinking of going along for a job as well – guess if I work with a qualified doctor, no one would mind being examined, advised or probed, would they? It’s clear that ARI takes checking references seriously. Otherwise, we might wind up with people being treated badly in hospital, and that simply couldn’t happen here.

Funnily enough, there is a long-running rumour that a form of this virus may be at work in Aberdeen City Council computers, a rumour that says not all officers have all the qualifications they claim to hold. Obviously the city’s HR team check and double-check all references.

Gift Cards (modern English noun) A procurement card with a given amount of credit, which allows the holder to buy goods and services.

Poor former administration of Aberdeen City Council. Despite having teams of accountants, financial experts, staff of all descriptions and black-and-white procurement procedures, they just couldn’t find a way for some essential purchases to be made. Easy to understand, I’m sure.

Instead of being hassled with procurement rules, they bought and dished out tens of thousands of pounds worth of Tesco gift cards. Result! ACC staff obviously bought just what they needed for their jobs, kept receipts, and filed accurate business expense claims.

Maybe instead of going to work as a doctor for ARI, I should just get a job at ACC and some Tesco gift cards

Old Susannah remembers the story of an enterprising social worker who did their best to stimulate the economy by purchasing much-needed goods. Mind you, technically some of these purchases should have successfully made it into the hands of the people the social worker was caring for, rather than being used by said social worker for personal use.

That’s just splitting hairs, though. Some thoughtful social workers have, so I am led to believe, given a wee bit of help to their clients when it is time to vote as well. What a comprehensive service!

Back to the use of Tesco gift cards. According to STV:

“The fact that money seems to have been spent towards the end of the financial year, that some things were bought that were inappropriate expenditure and the fact that a certain area was stockpiling cards in (sic) unacceptable.”

Another little fact of city council budgeting is that departments might lose funds in the following year if they did anything rash – like not spending all of the money they were allocated in the current year. This is how we encourage departments to do all they can to save money. I’m just not exactly sure how that is working out.

Hmmm. I wonder who gets to keep the Tesco Club card points, worth a fair bit of money, air miles and free pizza? I think we should be told. That’s an awful lot of points someone’s got. Who, I wonder, has them?

Clearly the financial records will show that such points are retained and used by the council, as the purchaser of the gift cards. Maybe instead of going to work as a doctor for ARI, I should just get a job at ACC and some Tesco gift cards.

That’s almost it for this week – but to cheer everyone up, Aberdeenshire Council is ‘manning up’ and getting tough on crime. Yes, at this festive time of year, there can be an upsurge in street crime.

But hooray! The shire is going to save us all from the scourge of – too much bunting, banners and festive lights. According to the council, there will be a crackdown on this kind of unwanted, hazardous, illegal activity.

Meanwhile over at the Menie Estate…

Next week:  more festive definitions.

Confidential note to the person with the Saltire posting fetish: great – good for you – keep putting the Saltire up but can you please stop nailing your signs into living trees? You’re not doing the trees any favours.

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Old Susannah No. 102: Culture, Vultures And Liverpool

 Aberdeen City, Satire and Humour  11 Responses »
Nov 092012
 

Voice’s Old Susannah takes a look over the past week’s event’s in the ‘Deen and beyond. By Suzanne Kelly. 

dictionary

Tally Ho!  This past week has been an exciting one on several counts.  The fireworks were amazing – when Nick Clegg tried to handle Question Time in Parliament, the poor man could not open his mouth without the Opposition attacking him.  Sadly, his friend(s) must have been confused, because they jeered him just as much as Labour did.

The speaker tried to calm the explosive situation to little avail.  Alas, going down in history for being heckled by both sides is possibly not what Mr Clegg intended.  (I recall he was helping Kate Dean with her image; that doesn’t seem to have worked out as intended, either).

It’s almost as if breaking one or two election pledges is not doing the LibDems any favours.  If things get any worse for Clegg, he’ll have to ask Kate to give him some popularity pointers.

On Sunday I ran into someone from the Scottish SPCA; there had been reports of an injured seal near Torry Harbour.  The Scottish SPCA couldn’t find the seal, nor could I.

Still, if anyone comes across any animals in distress, do call the Scottish SPCA on 03000 999 999.  (The leaflet to combat dog fighting will be ready for distribution from Saturday, and anyone who wants to help give these out should get in touch with Aberdeen Voice).

There were delicious canapés at Malmaison, lots of delicious eats at Café 52, and BrewDog has some particularly gorgeous craft beers on tap.  Moreover, the Dog has re-released ‘Ghost Deer’ – a strong, amazing beer in brilliant packaging. Perhaps I’m drawn to the Deer-themed artwork for some inexplicable reason.

I’m told a t-shirt will be produced soon; it seems a chief BrewDog artist works in the Aberdeen BrewDog bar – do check out the shirts on offer; they are a good example of locally-created, wearable artwork.

This Friday night I look forward to some pampering at Lush, and then heading to the Masked Ball in Union Terrace Gardens.  It sounds like a very creative and elegant affair, and the Balmoral Group organisers are holding this event in aid of Friends of Anchor.  This charity seeks to buy equipment and improve things at the ARI for cancer patients; a most worthy cause.  Pictures to follow.

tullos-hill-by-nicky-cairney
Also this week artist Nicky Cairney got in touch to share some haunting artwork on the theme of Tullos Hill; she found the Hill’s story very moving and inspired this artwork.  More of her work can be found at www.nickycairney.co.uk.

I am sure that despite the rocky ground, visible waste everywhere, ploughed up gorse, resultant smaller wildlife numbers, dead deer and a fraction of the 89,000 trees planted, this great project alone will help our eventual city of culture bid.

Perhaps the Turners and Constables of the future will flock to the hill to paint pictures of rusty metal and tainted earth.

Limousine Bull is re-grouping.  If you weren’t aware, this art resource was forced to leave its premises in Torry a few months back over a funding crisis – a crisis that any one of our great and good self-proclaimed patrons of the arts or culture-loving former city administration could have stepped in and solved for a four-figure sum.

I guess they had more important things to fund instead of supporting a gallery space, a teaching space, and affordable studios for up-and-coming artists in Aberdeen to work in, which brought people to Torry, and brought artists together.  After all, we have to prove we’re a city of culture.

Closer to home, despite non-stop editorialising in the City Garden Project Press, aka ‘The Aberdeen Press & Journal’, Labour are sticking to their election pledge and aren’t going to build the web.

Never a news organ to let beautiful artwork sit idle, the P&J have trotted out the luridly coloured concept drawings from the doomed CGP several times this week.  (I really must start forcing myself to look at all the old P&Js, and seeing if there has been a single issue over the past 2 years which didn’t have a web story on the first few pages – but I just can’t bear the thought of it).

Granite web supporters (i.e. Scottish Enterprise and its sprog ‘Visit Scotland’, ACSEF, and the construction industry) would have you believe that the web should still be the salvation of Aberdeen and the reason no one wants to lead our city of culture bid is that we didn’t turn our only city centre green space into a granite-clad spaghetti junction and we didn’t mulch our ancient trees.

Perhaps by building the theatre in front of the theatre they were trying to do for performing arts what they did for high street shops by building Union Square Mall?

What kind of youth culture exactly is going on here?

Should we be the City of Culture?  While I did address this with a definition a while ago, it seems timely to do it again.   As people try to make a living in the Arts in Aberdeen with or without government support (such as Limousine Bull), let’s take another look at the great expense – sorry – benefits of becoming a City of Culture..

Youth Culture: (compound noun; English) A given collection of style, behavioural, ideological characteristics shared by a given group of young adults.

Well, we do have youth culture in Aberdeen, and not just the long-running international youth festival.  During Bonfire events, a group of young people in Seaton decided to throw burning pieces of wood at fire-fighters, and shoot fireworks in the firemen’s directions.  A group of young people assaulted two men as well.  What kind of youth culture exactly is going on here?

I think the problem lies in there not being a granite web.  You build your web, create 6,500 jobs, and then there will be no further problems.

Skateboarding, graffiti, hanging around smoking  and underage drinking can all be centralised in the web, perhaps in a ‘youth culture zone’.  This will please everyone who insists Union Terrace Gardens are filled with old drunks and druggies – we’ll get in a better class of sub-culture.  Younger drunks.  This indeed will help our city of culture bid.

Perhaps these violent outbursts are because we have too many affordable, exciting things for young people to do, too many arts and music programmes, too many places for them to socialise and have fun.  I think there is room for further cuts to library opening hours, music tuition, art and craft provision and so on.

City of Culture: (compound noun, English)  A European designation given to a city for one year; the city is meant to then put out a varied programme of performing and visual arts.

Right, we are all agreed (apparently) – we want to bid for and win the coveted (?) City of Culture title.  As described in Old Susannah No. 82, this might mean spending a few million here and there on things like giant spiders (nice fit with the web) which Liverpool spent £2 million on.  It will definitely mean building lots of new structures!  Result!

The unhappy millionaire builders we have locally will get to give us more ground breaking (probably greenbelt breaking) glass box buildings, malls and parking spaces.

Of course we have lots of buildings in the public and private sectors which we could put back into use (via tax incentives, improvement notices, discount rents to arts groups and social projects), but there’s little in it on the building front, and that’s what the City of Culture is all about – building new stuff.

Since the City of Culture bid for Aberdeen is being linked to the web, it is in the news nearly as much as those lovely drawings of the flower-covered, sunny web design.  It is prompting much discussion and speculation.

A friend of mine asked me:

 “why can’t we just have lots of events like we do anyway, and give more support to our local up-and-coming artists without spending money on the City of Culture Bid?”

I guess some people just can’t grasp the concept.

Unexpected: (adjective) An event or result which could not have reasonably been projected or forseen.

Here’s a coincidence for you.  Liverpool spent millions on its 2008 bid to successfully become the City of Culture.  Then there was a little coincidence in 2009, totally unrelated to this wonderful honour.

According to the Liverpool Echo newspaper of 29 December 2009:-

“Row brewing over £11m budget cuts proposal by Liverpool city council

“SCRAPPING school uniform grants for needy children, closing children’s respite homes and swimming baths and slashing culture spending are among cuts proposed by cash-strapped city bosses.

 “They have also put forward the closure of the Park Road swimming baths in Toxteth and cutting culture funding by £400,000.

“The options have been put forward by officers as they try to plug an unexpected £11m gap in next year’s budget.”

http://www.liverpoolecho.co.uk/liverpool-news/local-news/2009/12/29/row-brewing-over-11m-budget-cuts-proposal-by-liverpool-city-council-100252-25484325/

I suppose you couldn’t have expected that spending £2,000,000 on a giant spider, and spending  hundreds of thousands of pounds on the culture bid, and unknown quantities on management companies, events, building projects and so on in 2008 could have led to any financial hardships in 2009.  Who could have seen that coming??

The City of Culture was supposed to make everyone rich after all.  This promise of wealth has a bit of a familiar ring to it; I’m sure I’ve heard about some project somewhere in Aberdeen like that.

Old Susannah must write to Liverpool and ask them if they use the services of PriceWaterhouse Cooper when they make their financial forecasts.

Synthetic: (Adjective) something which has been artificially fabricated, as opposed to something that naturally grows.

Whether or not we get the City of Culture award, we can be glad we’re in a city which nurtures local talent, allows creative movements to grow, and encourages experimentation within the arts to occur organically.

Sure, there may not be any money for school music, arts programmes like Limousine Bull are being allowed to die, and talented fashion designers and video artists (like the unique Fraser Denholm) are leaving the city at an alarming pace to live and work elsewhere (heaven knows why they head to London and Glasgow).

Furthermore, the more cynical are asking whether no one wanted to take on the role of City of Culture director because we don’t retain our talent, because we don’t support the artists we do have enough, because we kicked Peacock in the teeth, because we don’t encourage children to take up art and music in school to a greater degree, and because there is no natural flowering of art in all the unused shops we have – which other cities manage to rent to artists on affordable bases.

No – the reason no one wanted the job is because we didn’t build the web.

But more importantly, we’ve got a couple of city council suits who are helping to sort our culture out.

These people have decided what ‘quarters’ parts of Aberdeen are.  We have the ‘merchant quarter’ on the green.  Sure, half of the shops are closed or closing, crippled by business rates, but we’ve put up signs saying ‘merchant quarter’ – so merchant quarter it is.

We must all rejoice in the arbitrary designating of ‘cultural quarters’, ‘merchant quarters’ ‘civic quarters’ and so on.  You can practically feel the difference when you step from the civic quarter into the merchant quarter can’t you?

In case you doubt Aberdeen City’s and ACSEF’s abilities to create awe-inspiring artwork and prose, here is a little something to keep you going until next week:   http://www.aberdeencity.gov.uk/nmsruntime/saveasdialog.asp?lID=38444&sID=14302

As you can appreciate, if you just let things happen, you wind up with places like Notting Hill Gate, Brick Lane and so on – areas that are a bit edgy and filled with unwashed artist and musician types.  Down with that sort of thing.  Remember to know what quarter of the city you’re in, and be glad someone more creative than you or I thought to slap labels on them.

Next week:  No quarter.

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Old Susannah No. 78: Austerity Special

 Aberdeen City, Satire and Humour  No Responses »
May 242012
 

Voice’s Old Susannah comments on current events and enlightens us with definitions of some tricky terms with a locally topical taste. By Suzanne Kelly.

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Tally Ho!  What was that great seismic shake, that sonic boom that was felt all up and down the coast this week?   The police were flooded with calls, so I’m sure the matter is all in hand and the usual suspects have been rounded up (I have an alibi, by the way).

I suspect it must be something to do either with wind farms, unsold copies of the P&J falling off a container ship, construction at the World’s Greatest Golf course, or a stampede of people leaving the Liberal Democrats.  Your theories are welcome.

And welcome to the Age of Austerity.

We’ve done the Stone Age (Isn’t that right Mr Wood – you might remember it, or am I thinking of the Granite Age?).  We’ve done Bronze, Iron and even a Golden Age (a mythical time when reason and the arts as well as science and exploration flourished).  Most recently we’ve had an Information Age (if not much of a ‘Freedom of Information’ Age as we’d been promised).  But here we are, ‘all of us in this together’, you know – it’s the Age of Austerity.

Our local millionaires are starting to feel the pinch, which is unacceptable.  It’s getting so a man can’t build houses on any greenbelt field he wants or even run a football club without people butting in, looking for tax.  It’s clearly getting harder for the Vodaphones and Oil barons to shelter money offshore in tax havens.

In yet more startling economic developments, Aberdeen Football Fans are threatening a boycott!

This is over whether or not Mr Milne acts a particular way over the fallen Rangers FC.  I would hate to think of the economic consequences of an AFC boycott – the stand might start looking a bit empty during games.  Let’s hope this never happens.  Could the remaining 31 fans keep buying tickets?  Many thanks – the economy depends on you!

But there is even more hope.  We have the talent and skills right here in Aberdeen to weather this storm.  It is just as well we can call on taxpayer-funded, unelected ACSEF and Scottish Enterprise to continue coming up with money-spinning schemes.

It’s taken years for our local business organisations and lobbyists to get Aberdeen to the shape it’s in today – another few years of more of the same is what we all want, I’m sure.  That and a granite web.

If we’re still paying Scottish Enterprise a mere £750 million per year to protect us (with a third of that going on their wages), perhaps we should have a whip-round and get them some more money?  Just a thought.

  I’m going to write to my MEP (whoever that is), and suggest they call in ACSEF

How exactly did we go from having a thriving Scotland to our current dismal position?  Old Susannah takes a look and makes some recommendations.

So  tighten those belts, re-use those tea bags, and settle down for some Austerity definitions.

European Union: (proper noun; English) the economic and social union of several European countries for the purpose of economic security, creation of a politically stable Europe, creation of a powerful economic entity, and for the guarantee of human rights.

You would have thought with the UK paying millions to the EU, (which still hasn’t managed to submit a set of independently audited accounts) we’d be nearly as successful financially as the economies of Greece, Spain and Italy.  I say give it a few more years and we will be.

Sadly, while the EU has given us peace throughout Europe, equality and human rights, it’s possibly not doing as well with the economy of Europe as it might.  In fact, I’m going to write to my MEP (whoever that is), and suggest they call in ACSEF.  ACSEF could no doubt fix whatever’s wrong with Europe.

If we just build a giant granite web linking Greece to Italy to Spain to Aberdeen, just think of the jobs creation and tourism that would mean!

Old Susannah recommends:  staying in the EU, scrapping the pound for the Euro (or maybe bring back the Greek drachma), giving more money to Greece and Italy, who have used their agricultural subsidies so well over the past decade that no one even knows how much they got or where the money went.

Special Kitty: (compound  noun) A fund set up for a certain purpose into which a variety of people or groups contribute.

Well, here comes the City Garden Project to help lift us out of austerity, raise our spirits, and raise the Denburn Valley to shopping mall street level.  Hooray!  The Evening Express tells us that no less a financial supremo than Colin Crosby says a special kitty is to be set up!  Wow!

I have two special kitties; they are Molly and Sasha, which I adopted from Cats Protection.  However Mr Crosby’s special kitty will find at least £15 million of the £140 million needed to bring us all the web of our dreams.

You know, it’s really surprising how easy it is to find some spare cash when you really need it.  If you’re not able to come up with £15 million in a pinch, then you probably deserve any austerity you’re experiencing.  I got about £0.37 from the back of my sofa, and expect there must be a spare million or two round the flat somewhere, perhaps in an old suit jacket.  I’ll keep looking.

In the meantime, Mr Crosby alludes to yet another great financial idea in the Evening Express story we all enjoyed reading.  And that is…

Endowment Fund: (compound noun; mod English) An endowment policy is a life insurance contract which would pay a lump sum after a specified period of time  – when it matures – or on death, or possibly on critical illness.

To make it even simpler, there are (according to Wikipedia) 1 Traditional With Profits Endowments , 2 Unit-linked endowment , 3 Full endowments , 4 Low cost endowment (LCE),  5 Traded endowments 6 Modified endowments (U.S.).

Yes, the latest plan is to set up an endowment.  Clearly this is a great idea, as so many home-buyers who used this great scheme can tell you.  As well as the special kitty, we’re going to somehow take out an endowment.

Exactly how this will help build the granite dream of Mr Wood is abundantly clear, I’m sure. but if the scheme dies a death who gets the money? Who will fund this endowment?  Who will own the fund?  Who will manage it?

  I hear that a PR company exec is considering even more exciting funding schemes

All these are mere trivialities on the way to our economic recovery, so don’t worry about it.  If we needed to know, Colin Crosby would have told us in the Evening Express.

This endowment and special kitty are news and were worthy of a story in the Evening Express.

The City Garden Project plan has been kicking around for years, but this is news after all.  You see, the Wonder Web will cost a minimum of £140 million, and needs a £92 loan taken out by the taxpayer and yet is still short £15 million.  This is in no way related to the £15 million that we’ve been talking about for the past year and a bit – it’s a different, newsworthy £15 million.

But back to the endowment business and the Evening Express piece:

“The cash would be on top of £15 million of private money to be used to help bridge the £140 million project’s funding gap.  Colin Crosby, a director of Aberdeen City Gardens Trust, said: “Early indications reveal that the additional £15m donations will be forthcoming.” By creating an endowment fund, we will be securing the project’s long-term sustainability and ability to develop cultural programmes.”

Well, that’s good enough for me.  I am sure it’s as illuminating a piece of news and financial wizardry as we could have hoped for.

I hear that a PR company exec is considering even more exciting funding schemes..  I can only hope there is an opportunity to donate a few thousand and get your name carved in granite, or have a tree turned into mulch for a ton.  If not, I know a few graffiti artists who would paint your name on the web for a small fee.

Old Susannah recommends:  importing granite for the web from the third world, taking out an insured, index-linked modified endowment with Jennifer Claw as beneficiary, with Bling Crosby as administrator and executor, funding it via an increase in business rates amortised over time offset by a loan taken as an advance on the £122,000,000 which the web will bring to the local economy every year until 2023.

And that, as they say, is that.  Job done.

Next week:  A look at the A to Z of Aberdeen City Council.

PS:  To Dame Anne – I hope you’re on the mend!

PPS: Summer is here:  austerity or not, don’t scrimp on sunscreen, especially for your children.
Always get a nice high protection number for children, and at the start of the season for adults.  Reapply it every few hours – even if you are only going to be outside for quarter of an hour, you can still be damaged.  Old Susannah has already seen two crying toddlers who have been sunburnt, with baffled parents who had no idea why their child was upset.
Children burn far faster than we do and need lots of sunscreen all over, especially their faces (mind the eyes!!!).  The only reason I’m not more of  a wrinkled, grizzled old hag than I am is because of sunscreen.   And probably BrewDog.   To the man I saw in a beer garden who had turned beetroot red – no, you didn’t look tanned, you looked burnt (and I bet it hurt a lot when you were less lubricated).
If you want to look tanned, get there gradually (or get a spray job – it’s safer – but avoid the tango orange colour).  But if you want wrinkles, rashes, and potential skin cancer, then carry on without sunscreen. And another thing – if you are going to drag your dog all over town and/or the pub, please make sure it gets loads of water to drink frequently.  For the one or two dog owners every year who forget – don’t leave your dog alone in a car.  At all.  Ever.  That’s the official word from animal charities. Forget a dog for even a tiny amount of time in a hot, sealed car (because you’ve run into your pal, are trying on clothes in some exciting shopping mall, whatever) – and you’ve killed it. They don’t sweat.  Water won’t help – only cool.  Another reason for not leaving your dog in a car include the massive increase in pet thefts.  Sadly, most people who steal animals are not going to treat them well.  Thanks for paying attention to this stuff – it isn’t as important or as exciting, vibrant or dynamic as ACSEF – but it is important nonetheless.

Tullos Deer Cull: ACC Risked YOUR Life

 Aberdeen City, Articles, Featured, News  No Responses »
May 112012
 

Suzanne Kelly reports on the serious issues raised by the modus operandi of Aberdeen City Council with regard to the recent deer cull.

A roe deer fawn born on Tullos Hill 2011. probably now culled by Aberdeen City Council.
It is nearly two weeks since the general public were dismayed to learn that 22 of 29 deer were destroyed to further the ‘tree for every citizen’ scheme which was so vigorously promoted by the Liberal Democrats and a handful of City Officials.
As an indicator of how extremely unscientific this entire project is, it seems that only one deer count was done before the shooting started, and it failed to identify the sex of half of the deer it counted.

The shooting secretly started around 18 February (an early start which needed Scottish Natural Heritage approval), and seems to have continued until the end of the official season. 

It is only now that the general public realise that a gunman was on the hill shooting a rifle:  and that the City took a lethal risk to people’s lives to kill the deer.

This article looks at the risks we didn’t know were being taken with our safety, and recommends the entire matter be made the subject of a city council investigation, possibly with impartial, outside agency involvement.

A document entitled ‘Granite City Forest Deer Management – Risk Assessment’ was obtained some time ago under Freedom of Information legislation.

It can be found at http://suzannekelly.yolasite.com/

This document alarmingly acknowledged that hazards identified included:

  •  “Injury from firearm discharge (either via blocked barrel or obstructed view) when shooting deer;
  •  “Uncontrolled access to firearm(s) and ammunition; and
  •  “Trajectory of bullets beyond target (ie living roe deer) impacting on non target species” (ie anything from small birds and mammals to people).

This document acknowledges that ‘who might be harmed’ included not only those involved in destroying the deer, but also the general public.

Having identified the hazards listed above, the document goes on to answer ‘who might be harmed’ and ‘what harm might result’, although its treatment of the issues is superficial at best.  The harm that might have occurred included ‘Possibility of fatal injuries from misuse of / damage to firearms’.

The main reason no one believed any culling was going on was the complete absence of any notices to that effect being put up.

For some inexplicable reason – which needs to be scrutinised along with so many features of this whole sorry saga – is the absence from the report of many other possibilities, including the obvious risk of non-fatal injuries of many kinds to the general public and ‘other species’.

The control measures sited as risk mitigation are almost laughable – but the real issue is the ‘who might have been harmed’ aspect:  the shooting was going on while people were still on the hill.  This is wholly unacceptable.

You may wonder why I am only highlighting this Risk Assessment document now – the answers are very simple.  For starters, the police were asked on several occasions if they knew of any shooting for the deer cull taking place, and the answer was always no.  Councillors who had asked to be informed of any shooting seem not to have been kept in the loop, either.

But the main reason no one believed any culling was going on was the complete absence of any notices to that effect being put up.  The very first ‘Contingency arrangements required to reduce risk’ item listed in the Risk Assessment is this:

“Cautionary notices will be placed at all known access points to the sites where deer management is taking place.”

No one I spoke with, nor anyone I know who visited the hill regularly (and many went with the specific aim of watching out for culling activities) ever saw a sign or notice to this effect whatsoever.  I was keen to visit as often as possible after dusk, and made many trips (only seeing a deer close up once in a gorse thicket which has now been bulldozed).

The question must be asked – did City officials decide not to erect any signs to keep this unpopular cull secret?  If the answer is yes, then our lives and safety were recklessly risked for propaganda purposes.

We now have to wait to find out what days shooting took place, who posted the notices, how big they were, and where they were posted.  I can promise you that I never saw any, and I have been using four different entrance points, including the main entrance where the Loirston Park sign is.

The City also relied on the expertise of the shooter – but even the best marksmen make errors.  Think of the high-profile American accidental shooting – allegedly by Cabinet Member Dick Cheney of a Mr Whittington.  In the UK, hunting accidents also happen.  Finding reliable statistics is not quite so easy – internet searches for hunting accidents seem to result in the appearance of pro-hunting lobbyists putting up unrelated (and questionable) statistics about damage done by deer.

The Health and Safety Executive seems to lump hunting, forestry and all agricultural accidents into one category – in which there are hundreds of accidents any year.

 These questions need to be answered, and I will be formally calling on authorities to have a comprehensive investigation.

Whatever the numbers are, the presence of a notice of shooting on the hill would have at least let people make an informed judgement as to whether to be on the hill or not.  But just like the consultation on the trees (which deliberately omitted mention of a cull or the cost of the previous failure – or the sheer scale of trees proposed) – someone, somewhere took the information needed for our decision-making out, and hid it.

A sign would not have been much use at dawn or dusk; how could it have been visible? Any sign should have been put up in several languages (Polish and French visitors frequent the hill and a sign in English might have been of no use to such people at all).  But a sign and the requirement for the shooter to be diligent are hardly sufficient mitigation for potential lethal risk.  The shooter is also meant not to hunt ‘…when public, contractors or other ACC operatives are known to be on site’.

This is almost meaningless:  access was not prohibited, the site is massive, and bullets can travel a long, long way.  How could anyone possibly ascertain no people were in the vicinity?

It is one thing to create a Risk Assessment document.  It is quite another for its robustness and completeness to be agreed and for it to be approved.  Who wrote this document?  Who was involved in agreeing it was fit for purpose?  Whose name ultimately went on a document which acknowledged lethal risk?  Were signs used or not?  These questions need to be answered, and I will be formally calling on authorities to have a comprehensive investigation.

A former ghillie I know tells me how very difficult it is to shoot a deer, and in his experience deer were known to be injured severely if not brought down with the first initial shot.  Some wounded deer can completely evade the hunter, and travel great distances before dying in shock and pain of blood loss and internal injury.

Our man from the Aberdeen City Council with a license has been shooting things for over 20 years, according to the risk assessment document; are we to suppose his eyesight has not deteriorated at all in this time period? Statistically if he shot 22 animals, how likely or otherwise is it that each and every animal died instantly where it stood?

  These deer were nearly tame; people who stay in the nearby caravans advise they had fed the deer by hand

Ironically, the deer shooter referred to in the document is also a point of contact between the Scottish SPCA and the city council:  the Scottish SPCA has been opposed to this cull from the idea’s inception.  It is unclear whether the shooter would have been likely to report any bad shots or injured deer he caused to the Scottish SPCA.

The remains of a deer were pointed out to me in an area which had a great deal of tree and plant life – could this deer have not died of natural causes (starvation seemed unlikely amid the sources of food) – but rather could it have been wounded, run away and died of shock, slowly and painfully?  We will have to wait for a FOI request which asked how many shots were fired, and how many animal carcasses were removed.

These deer were nearly tame; people who stay in the nearby caravans advise they had fed the deer by hand and grown food specifically for them.  This makes it even more galling that the Risk Assessment provides for putting the carcasses of these much-loved animals into the food chain.  But that is exactly what happened.  In an almost sarcastic turn, the risk assessment covers the point that the man preparing the animals for food might be at risk of cutting himself on his sharp knives, or sprain a muscle moving the dead animals.

For the record, the level of fatal injury to you or I was calculated to be at the lowest level.

It is likely that Ranger Ian Tallboys, staunch supporter of the cull (although he seems never to have formally proposed a cull before the tree scheme became a political promise) did the shooting and the preparing of the carcasses for meat.  He is about the longest-serving ranger I am aware of, and part of the ‘control measures’ were to have an ‘experienced and competent operative’ perform the shooting.

Tallboy’s current silence on the matter is matched only by his silence over building the football stadium at Loirston in the Special Areas of Conservation area, and the silence of Aileen Malone post election.  Malone was the main proponent of the scheme, often claiming it was ‘cost neutral’ – a claim now completely debunked.

Another person responsible for the whole scheme is Peter Leonard, city council officer, whose original report to the Housing & Environment Committee was the death knell for the deer.  The contents of his report need some urgent investigation; claims of ‘cost neutral’ planting, advice against tree guards, etc. etc. have been shown to be inaccurate if not misleading.

  Only a proper investigation will get to the bottom of the genesis and management of this unwanted, unprofitable, destructive scheme

There are now the correct size tree guards in place – the City initially bought smaller than recommended guards.

Furthermore, the SNH and the City corresponded saying tree guards were unsuitable as they had ‘visual impact’.

What has changed?

Leonard also seems to have had a hand in the disappearance of  Councillor Cooney’s paper on keeping Tullos as a meadowland; Leonard is on record as saying that the meadow would be more expensive than imposing an 89,000 tree forest and killing the deer:  how exactly he reached this conclusion will be interesting to determine; he should be invited to explain how and when his research reached this conclusion, how he reached conclusions in his original report which now seem incorrect, and whether or not he had a hand in Cooney’s paper disappearing from sight.

The actions of some of our officers and unelected city employees seem to have fallen unfailingly into the plans of the Liberal Democrats.

Only a proper investigation will get to the bottom of the genesis and management of this unwanted, unprofitable, destructive scheme, and find out who did / did not overstep the bound of their job, and whether any political (or other) pressure was used to bring us to where we are now.

If you care about the future of Tullos Hill, all of its (remaining) creatures and meadow; if you care about a small minority of persons dictating to thousands who oppose their plans; if you care that tens of thousands of pounds have been spent which could have been better used elsewhere – then please write to your councillors and ask for an inquiry to be held.

The deer are dead – and you and your families were possibly put at risk.  The issues thrown up must be investigated so that there is never a repeat performance.

Old Susannah No.76: Election Reflection – A Scream

 Aberdeen City, Satire and Humour  No Responses »
May 112012
 

Tally Ho and Long Live the Revolution!  Dong Dong…!  Things genuinely seem a bit more vibrant, dynamic and forward-looking since the elections.  Labour have a majority and the LibDems got the ballot-box cull they had asked for. By Suzanne Kelly.

dictionary
No I didn’t get in – but I couldn’t have been much happier with the results, although we have one more Malone than I’d hoped for.  The candidate list I’d recommended got hundreds of hits in the run-up to polling day, and the results came out pretty much as I’d wanted for the deer, for UTG and for basic transparency in government.

Running was quite an experience and so was the count.  There were tired and emotional councillors and would-be councillors, some of who looked as if they’d been to the BrewDog AGM (held at the arena the Saturday before), and hadn’t been home yet.

Frenzied minions ran from computer screen to computer screen for glimpses of spoilt ballots and early result indicators. The most softly-spoken man I’d ever heard was tasked with whispering the results out to the candidates before the official announcement.

I had as much chance of winning Torry/Ferryhill as I did of winning the Grand National, but I was very very touched to have been the first choice for some 91 people.   Thank you.

A diminutive rabbit-faced woman in an eye-wateringly lurid, mustard-coloured jacket was looking tired/confused/fearful, a bit like the 22 deer which she’d ordered destroyed on Tullos Hill.  (What was with that jacket?  Did she have a job as a theatre usher to go to after the count?  Was she wearing it for a bet?  Was it some new high viz outfit?)

I almost felt sorry for her as the members of her little herd were culled one by one by the voters and each loss was reflected in her doe-like eyes.  But I wasn’t.

Speaking of culls, newspapers accuse the Government and landowners of secretly planning a beaver cull in the Scottish countryside (what’s left of it).   Surely the transparent, non-political, scientific body that is Scottish Natural Heritage would not help secretly destroy wildlife?  Must be a mistake.

In some parts of Tayside beavers were reintroduced, and others escaped into the wild and have bred for generations, and are now wild as well.  Still, some clever clipboard-holder somewhere is thinking about taking some of them back from the wild now or culling them (beavers build dams you see – something the SNH could not have anticipated).  SNH –  Where would nature be without it?

If you are interested in beavers about to be persecuted by some ambitious SNH pencil-pusher, contact Louise Ramsay of the Scottish Wild Beaver Group.

Elsewhere in the news Eduard Munch’s famous painting ‘The Scream’ sold for £120 million.  For only £20 million more you could destroy a Victorian garden and get a granite web, if you’re interested.

I was struck by how closely it resembled some of the ex-councillors at the count, and a few of the hopefuls when they learnt they didn’t get in this time.  It is also quite a futuristic painting – it looks to me like a terrified person running away from a giant granite web.

The Cults, Bieldside, Miltimber online newspaper is a simple, straightforward, informative means by which area residents keep up on the latest news.  It became however, the point of attack for Stewart Milne’s legal rottweilers.  Why you may ask?

This little newsletter had repeated the (widely-circulated) rumour that Stewart Milne and family were going to depart their big house on the hill and have it turned into a hotel.  The ordinary Tom, Dick or Stewart might simply have dropped an email to the editor to say the rumour wasn’t true, but not Stewart Milne.  Nothing short of legal representatives contacting the newsletter would do – it was SERIOUS you see.

Munch’s ‘The Scream’ also resembles the area residents’ faces when they learned Milne wasn’t leaving.  Allegedly.  I’d best not mention the rumours around the ‘heated driveway’ or the destruction of a listed home for Milne’s ‘eco-friendly’ house, or I’ll have the lawyers onto me, too – so I won’t.  And as far as any stories about liquidity problems, well, you won’t hear about them from me.

But at this rate there won’t be time for any definitions, so here we go.

Spoilt Ballot: (noun) Eng.  1.  Voting slip or card which has been defaced or incorrectly marked so as to make it void.  2.  Voting slip or card which has been marked to elect a Liberal Democrat.

Well, possibly one of the best laughs of the count was watching computer screens which displayed the spoilt ballot papers.  The voting system might be less than simple in terms of tactics and strategy, but in the end all you had to do was put a number one for your first choice, a number two for your second choice and so on – for as many or as few candidates as you wanted.  Simples.

The spoilt papers made everyone laugh.  There was someone who’d written their life story on their slip, and another person livened the proceedings up with little smiley faces.    Unbelievably, neither slip could be counted.

Then we had someone who wrote number 12 next to each of the ten candidates in their ward.  Perhaps it was a good attempt at sarcasm; I’ll give them the benefit of the doubt.  Far more sarcastic was the person who chose only one candidate, and gave them a number 26 (out of 14).  Other people had four or five choices to be their second choice.

Others used ancient Egyptian hieroglyphs instead of numbers, and some people just could not keep inside those pesky square boxes.  Just for the record, the referendum voting instructions did not say anything at all about not making stray marks on the voting form, but the election did.  Hmmm.

Fix: (slang, English verb) to alter a genuine election or vote result

I am outraged!  Horrorstruck!  Shocked!  That a blatant fix could have happened in this country, perpetrated by a special interest group to further their own ends.  The BBC confirmed it today, and it is now time to take action.

Yes, Spanish drinks giant Diageo fixed the results of the British Institute of Innkeepers award for the ‘Bar Operator of the Year’.  This award had been voted to go to BrewDog (and quite rightly so) – but Diageo put the frighteners on the competition organisers, threatening to pull future sponsorship.  This is apparently neither a threat nor intimidation nor even sour grapes  according to Diageo, who are calling it a “serious misjudgement” on their part.

If you are out there James, Martin and all of the BrewDog crew, award or no, you are assuredly the Best Operator of the Millennium.

The AGM BrewDog held probably made more money than some football clubs or newspapers made all year.  On the day, sales of rare, premium top quality beer was sold as fast as could be managed to eagerly queuing crowds; hundreds of cases of beer were sold.

The shareholder meeting was refreshing on several levels – the presentations were riveting, and the premium products we tasted during the meeting were some of the best beers I’ll ever have.  It was Beer Heaven on earth.  It was international.  It was emotional.  It was tasty.  It was an AGM, but not as we know it.

As to Diageo, well I’d not forgotten how they decided to slaughter the deer which lived on a site they acquired (wholly unnecessary, but as usual, sanctioned by SNH dogma).  Coupled with trying to wrest an award away from BrewDog, war has been declared as far as I’m concerned.  I’d list all of their products, but that would take ages.  Suffice it to say that Diageo brands are off my shopping list forever.

Loss of Office: (English phrase) – to find oneself without employment.

Pity those who had found suitable employment, only to have it taken from them suddenly, abruptly, and with no guidance on a future job or career, leaving them with financial worry, self esteem issues, loss of social contact and insecurity.  It is not fair to make people suffer like that.

So my heartfelt sympathies to those of you who suffered in the 2008 budget cuts which saw beneficial programmes such as ‘Can Do Aberdeen’ cut and its employees cut off without a lifeline.  (And sympathy also those people who needed and/or worked for many services for the elderly, people with special needs and so on who lost out when a past administration decided to cut you out).

They say that in the end time redresses balance, and what comes around goes around.  Perhaps something like just desserts will be served sometime soon.

But I am out of time and space for now.  Next week:  Summertime special.

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