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Old Susannah’s Journal No. 156 – Porn And Bread

Opinion, Satire and Humour 2 Responses »

Jul 042014

Suzanne Kelly aka Old Susannah gets to grips with the news dominating the headlines this week; she’s having her cake and eating it too.

Another quiet week passes in the Granite City; a baton came to UTG amid light security measures, Anthony Baxter and Richard Phinney premiered their new film, and a former resident’s run off to fight a jihad.

Of the top stories rocking Scotland this week, some seem to be food related: a chef lost his prestigious Trump job because of an offensive shortbread, and a legal ruling has decreed that a snowball is a cake, not a cookie.

The Portsoy Boat Festival was a great weekend out for the hundreds who came; I was serving as a roving interviewer, which was good fun.

The festival gets larger every year – more boats, more races, more music and more visitors. See you next time.

Anthony Baxter’s A Dangerous Game featured at the Edinburgh film festival. This new documentary features Trump at Menie, and other golf developments going on around the world; the Hollywood Reporter rightly says:-

“The film features heavyweight interviewees including Trump himself, making a comically clumsy attempt at damage limitation”

– I’ve no idea what they mean by that; Trump was every bit as shrewd, honest and on-the-ball as you’d expect.

Some Menie residents went to a screening on the 24th, and by all accounts it was an electric, emotional night. I went on the Saturday; the film again played to a full house. Baxter answered questions afterwards, and after that, a few pints were had. The movie should be in Aberdeen in early September.

Sue Edwards, who tirelessly documents the changing face of the Menie area, rightfully got a photo credit. I was humbled to see that I got a mention in the credits as well. After the screening I met a nice man who won an award for his documentary; a film about some chap called Tony Benn. Get to see this when you can; it’s called Will and Testament.

Edinburgh is going to have to buck up its ideas about events – hundreds and hundreds of tourists flocking to the city for the festivals, and there’s hardly any uniformed security or crowd barriers in evidence. They can learn a lot about event hosting from us, but more on that later.

Here are some timely definitions for the week’s news

Shortbread: (Scottish noun) a traditional biscuit made of flour, butter and sugar, traditionally shaped into fingers, fans or rounds. Not to be shaped into willies.

Dough! Chef Scot McMillan was fired this past week; his crimes against humanity take the biscuit. Apparently his misdeeds include allowing a willy-shaped shortbread to be baked in his absence, and having photographic evidence of this crime posted on his Facebook page.

What would poor Sarah have done if faced with such a giant willy in the flesh as it were?

This offensive shortbread gave Donald the rise when it popped up on the chef’s Facebook page (note to TUT, and anyone else, teams of Trump minions just may be poring over social media now, looking for offensive biscuit posts; I think this is what people mean by food porn).

Donald didn’t sugar-coat it, the man was fired.

There is no word yet how our own Flour of Scotland/Face of Aberdeen / Mrs Damian Bates/ Sarah Malone is taking this latest news story.

I’m not laughing, and I’m sure you aren’t either. Imagine the delicate sensibilities of The Donald and poor Sarah Malone Bates when their minions, digging around the facebook pages of Trump’s 6,000 local employees (well, that’s the number we were promised) and coming face to face with a funny looking biscuit.

I can picture the scene now; a shrieking Malone-Bates, a ranting Trump, the Spanish Inquisition and teams of paid Trump internet snoops, all horrified. It would be enough to make Trump’s hair stand on end.

What would poor Sarah have done if faced with such a giant willy in the flesh as it were? Would she have eaten it? What would the poor woman have said about the size of it? The trauma of thinking about the possible permutations is too much for Old Susannah.

Alas! As proven by television chefs such as Gordon Ramsay, a chef must be polite, avoid crudeness, and be above all scandal at all times.

If Trump had kept the chef, then all those hordes of limos and arriving private jets taking golfers to Trump would slow down, destroying our economy. I’m sure there is nothing more to this story than what the papers said. At least they didn’t find photographs of any staff enjoying fish suppers.

Perhaps Trump hires Malone-Bates (who is married to dashing P&J Editor Damian Bates, lest we forget), a handful of cleaners, cooks, chefs and waiting staff, and greens people – and then hires twice as many to spy on the web pages of employees. That would account for the prosperity we’re experiencing, witnessed by Stewart Spence flogging his Marcliffe hotel off for housing.

Yes, Spence did say that business was booming because of ‘The Trump Effect’. Perhaps he’s now made so much from American golfers that he can retire to a private island, but you’d have thought such a gold mine here in golf heaven would have remained a hotel. After all, Spence said his business ‘had increased 93%’ because of Trump.

So friends – keep the city and shire safe for millionaire golfers, and report any suspicious looking food seen on Facebook at once. Old Susannah remembers seeing some photos on Facebook of a famous family; they were holding severed elephant tails, dead big cats, and other big game the family in question had destroyed for pleasure.

Let’s hope we can keep seeing more photos like those, and less photos of misshapen shortbread. It’s all a matter of priorities; let’s hope this blows over before it is blown out of all proportions.

Cake: (Modern Scottish legal term) – something that you eat that’s not a biscuit or a pasty, which the taxman can’t charge VAT on.

Wars rage; people harm others, Vodaphone evades tax, we need foodbanks. But celebratory bells will ring, children will dance in the street, and the lion will lie down with the lamb: Snowballs are cakes.

In a decision taking a mere 20 years to reach, the establishment has declared that bakeries including Tunnocks can call their snowball cakes, er, cakes. I’m as relieved about this as you are; it’s been hard to sleep at night knowing this was going on. According to the Daily Mail:

“In the end, the verdict went in favour of the two bakeries’ claim that their snowballs should be classed as cakes – and so are not subject to VAT.

“It will cost HMRC – who had classed it as a sweet and so VAT-rated – more than £2.8million to refund the taxes paid by the two firms.

“The judgment means Lees can claim back £2,057,497 in VAT from HMRC, while Tunnocks can claim back £805,956. It also means the taxman has lost out on future VAT from snowballs to the tune of millions of pounds.

“It was also revealed in the judgement released yesterday that an informal poll of tax office staff in Dundee found a majority had disagreed with their bosses and thought the teacake was a cake.”
http://www.dailyrecord.co.uk/news/scottish-news/scots-bakers-lees-tunnocks-win-3778835

There is no word yet on the classification of spotted dick.

Alas! there is no time to comment on the discrete, cost-effective security measures that accompanied the baton’s arrival in Union Terrace Gardens, but more on this, and Trump’s reaction to A Dangerous Game next week.

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Old Susannah No. 154 – Foreign Invaders

Opinion, Satire and Humour 6 Responses »

Jun 202014

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

It may seem like a lovely summer here in Aberdeen, but depending on who you believe, we need to be on the lookout for dangerous foreign invaders of all kinds. Our lives, jobs and even our gardens are not safe from alien interlopers of one sort or another. More on that later.

However, along with locals and even some foreigners, I’ll brave the ever-present dangers to go to both the Gray’s School of Arts Degree show (Friday) and BrewDog’s Annual General Meeting (Saturday).

Apparently something is taking place in Brazil; it involves a bunch of foreigners getting together to play football.

This kind of foreign invasion is a good thing; it brings lots of investment apparently, unless you’ve the misfortune to be one of Brazil’s poor who are being turfed out of the makeshift homes that stand in the way of the beautiful game.

Still, FIFA knows what’s best. That nice Mr Blatter does seem to have one or two critics of late; I can’t imagine why.

Let’s look at these foreign threats by way of a definition or two.

Foreign intervention: (Mod English Phrase) – An involvement in a sovereign state’s affairs by another state, body or army.

Back in the day, you may remember how the US and the UK kindly went to help make things better in Iraq. Tony Blair said our little intervention was the right thing to do; he should have known – he wrote most of the dossier supporting the case for us getting in there.

I can’t imagine why, but things don’t seem to have worked out quite like Tony said they would. He wants us to go back in, or rather to bomb a few people. We’ve never gone wrong listening to him in the past perhaps we should do as he says now.

There was a tiny parade of a million or so people in London back in the day, asking him not to go to war, but he bravely stood his ground, and took us to where we are today. Remember, it’s only a foreign invasion if it’s happening in the UK, not if it’s the UK going somewhere else and lending a friendly helping hand.

It’s important to remember there are good foreigners and bad ones.

The good ones want to come over and buy up our land, utilities, newspapers and other media, and of course businesses. The bad ones want to come over and work for us, live in decent rooms without getting ripped off, be treated fairly and other unreasonable demands. It’s very important to remember too that all of the rich ones are not involved in crime, and all of the non-wealthy immigrants are criminals.

We’re open for business – if you’ve got the right connections. Thankfully, we have all sorts of level-headed politicians looking out for our interests.

And UK residents who live abroad? Well, we’re not invading foreigners – we’re expats. That’s different.

But possibly the worst kinds of foreigners are the ones that are set to take over.

Romanians: (Proper noun) People born in, living in, or descended from citizens of Romania.

Nigel Farage, UKIP leader, has seized on yet another group of foreigners that we must be wary of, the wily, dangerous Romanians. Here’s a little clip of Nigel explaining all to Jeremy Paxman https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ynq_KqlmHIY .

Nigel explains that Romanian organised criminals are the most prolific and dangerous in Europe. Paxman then quotes some statistics saying they’re no such thing. Paxman asks more questions; Farage gives brilliant answers that are not at all xenophobic, reactionary or racist. Farage worries that Romanian hordes will come to the UK and we’ll be inundated with their organised crime gangs.

It hasn’t happened yet, but I’m sure it will any day.

Paxman also asks some questions about UKIP members’ homophobic statements; Farage explains this is all down to the fact the members in question are old, and from a time when homosexuality was illegal – so it’s fair enough if they’re anti-gay. I’m sure you’re as happy as I am with UKIP’s recent political gains. I wonder what’s next for this forward-looking, inclusive, tolerant party? In the meantime forget about the politicians taking more than their share of expenses, billionaires avoiding taxes that should support our infrastructure – it’s Romanians we should be thinking about.

Invasive species: (Modern English compound noun) Flora and Fauna not native to the UK but which can be found here.

They’re over here, and they will soon outnumber their British counterparts. We’ve heard about the muntjack deer – dubbed the ‘Asbo’ deer by one of our SNH experts, publicity-shy Jamie.

But now an imminent scientist – who isn’t at all a headline-grabbing empire builder – has identified ‘the biggest threat to our ecology’.

Is it urban sprawl and the loss of green space in favour of tarmac? Is it that Scotland’s roads exceed acceptable levels of pollution for many years? Is it climate change? The decline of bee populations which may hurt pollination and crops? Rising sea levels? Godzilla? Mothra? Obviously not – our biggest threat is the Rhododendron.

‘Destroy All Rhododendrons in Scotland’ is the battle-cry of scientist (so he must be taken seriously and will have no ulterior motives and won’t let any personal feelings interfere with his objective, rational position) James Fenton. What are Rhododendrons to him?

“It is probably the biggest ecological issue for Scotland. If we did nothing and came back in a thousand years, the landscape would be just one dark rhododendron forest.”

Well, he’s a scientist and he says so, so that’s that. He also says this invading foreign threat creates so many seeds that its spread is exponential. Old Susannah might then wonder why we’re not already in his supposed Rhododendron forest.

I guess we’re meant to think that there have never been any plants that naturalised in the UK and that were beneficial. I guess we’re supposed to forget about all the foreign confiers planted up and down the countryside (taking away many meadowlands in the process).

I guess the fact that many of the rhododendrons that are supposed to be destroyed support wildlife that has otherwise been displaced; bees seem rather partial to the flowers for one thing. I’m sure the bee population won’t mind if we take out this source of food immediately. No, Mr Fenton sounds completely calm, rational and logical to me.

Thankfully, he also seems to be something of an economics expert. For funnily enough, there’s money to be had by eradicating the Rhododendron Menace. According to the Herald article:

“The plant has been eradicated from some areas, including Knoydart in the West Highlands, where £250,000 in grants paid for a ten-year programme using local workers. Fenton said an eradication programme would boost the economy of rural areas.”

Funnily enough, the SNH will soon release its Rhododendron strategy.

Funnily enough, every time the SNH comes up with a new animal or plant to demonise, they also want to demand the right to tell private landowners what to do, and there is coincidentally a wee bit of money involved. Their guidelines on the deer population, including the invading threat that is the muntjack deer included a policy of ‘advising’ landowners how many deer should be slaughtered.

The landowners recently have disagreed with the SNH deer population figures, and don’t want to shoot as many deer as the SNH would like. Well, who are you going to believe – the people who are on the land and see the deer, or the guys with science degrees sitting in their offices writing papers, and getting their names into the papers who propose increasing the SNH’s powers?

These same scientists came up with the earth-shattering guideline that if a doe is shot, any fawns should be shot as well or they may starve. This came as a huge revelation to the people on the front lines of deer management; they’d never have guessed it.

Perhaps I’m wrong to see a pattern here, but it seems

1. boffins get together and write a policy.

2. the policy identifies a species of plant or animal that the SNH wants to get rid of or greatly curtail.

3. articles appear in the media, happily going along with what the SNH wants.

4. guidelines tell public and private sectors that they ‘should’ manage the plant/animal in question.

5. grants spring up like mushrooms to help destroy the offending natural life form.

6. guidelines turn into laws wit the SNH demanding control over private lands irrespective of the landowner’s own observations and wishes.

As the asthma and respiratory disease rates increase (and a link between dementia and particulate pollution has just been made), as green spaces disappear (or become nothing more than petri dishes for whatever style of land management is in vogue at the time), as the seas are increasingly polluted, as the bird, fish and bee populations diminish, it’s good to know that the real culprit in our environment’s destruction has been identified: death to all Rhododendrons.

Of course Fenton’s offered no explanation of what will become of the species now depending on the plant, or what will go in place of the destroyed invaders (perhaps we’ll just have holes in the ground). But he can’t be expected to think of everything, can he.

Old Susannah’s out now to look for Romanian crime gangs, Rhododendrons and other invading species. By the time I make it to my front door, I half expect that the ‘exponentially increasing’ Rhododendrons will have covered my street, but I’ll try and hack my way through the foliage, mindful that Romanian thieves may well be hiding in the boughs.

Thank goodness we have Fenton and Farage to look out for our welfare and propose sensible reforms.

Next week: a report on the Rhododendron crisis, and an analysis on how many new plants have sprung up.

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The Old War: By Ben Harley

Creative Writing, Satire and Humour No Responses »

Jun 162014

Old Susannah’s Journal No. 153 – The Stuff Of Memes

Opinion, Satire and Humour 1 Response »

Jun 132014

Old Susannah’s news round up of current events local and larger, online and offline. By Suzanne Kelly.

Now that summer has arrived, things are heating up, at least in Aberdeen Town Hall, and on Facebook. There are a mere 99 days to go before the referendum on Scotland’s future. I for one will be sad to see the end of the friendly debates, good humoured disagreements, and logical discourse.

One or two interesting memes have made the rounds on Facebook (memes are digital posters, usually pictures and text, trying to prove something, to mislead, or just to promote laughter. Hard to tell with some of them what the desired result is).

OS No. 152 Selective Memories

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May 302014

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

The saying runs ‘a week is a long time in politics;’ and it certainly has been a long, eventful week in Scotland. Congratulations to us all; we now have new MEPs, including one UKIP member, a Scottish first.

Meet the new boss – David Coburn. The Torygraph (sorry, Telegraph) quoted Coburn as saying:

“voters disillusioned with the Nationalists had coalesced around Ukip as a result and rejected the First Minister’s claim the BBC was to blame by providing extensive coverage of Nigel Farage to Scottish homes”

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/Scottish-Ukip-MEP-thanks-Alex-Salmond-for-breakthrough.

Old Susannah is trying to work out how you can be gay and a UKIP MEP, when UKIP wants to stop same sex marriage. It’s almost as if there were some inconsistencies in this party’s policies and/or membership.

The new catchphrase on UKIP supporters’ lips is “I’m not racist but…”. For some reason most of us want the freedom to have property abroad, move abroad and work abroad (if not keep our money away from the taxman by stashing it abroad). We just don’t want people from abroad doing that kind of thing here.

So, UKIP has gained ground, largely at the expense of the Lib ‘no tuition fees, we’ve signed a pledge’ Democrats. I guess every very grey cloud has some kind of silver lining. Oh, and that nice man, Mr Inclusive, Nick Griffin has lost the seat the BNP once held.

But first, a quick word before definitions on a serious matter. There is a drug-related problem to be addressed, sorry to say. The P&J and its sister the Evening Express have been desperate for a fix lately, and have been experimenting with drug stories. Unfortunately too many drugs articles can cause reporters great confusion and difficulties in concentrating, thus leading to inaccurate, wild stories. Cocaine in particular can lead to a dangerous feeling over confidence. In a very excited, highly agitated condition, the P&J reported:

“A MAJOR police probe has been launched after a stash of cocaine was found on a North Sea oil platform. Medics have drug-tested 150 workers on the Piper Bravo after a number of wraps containing white powder were discovered.

“The substance will be tested at a laboratory in Aberdeen today and is expected to be confirmed as the Class A drug.” https://www.pressandjournal.co.uk/fp/news/aberdeen/83802/suspected-stash-of-cocaine-found-on-north-sea-platform/

Old Susannah may only be an amateur writer, but I tend to write about things once they have been confirmed. The news professionals at AJL clearly have problems with doing lines. The head line in their story claims it’s cocaine that’s been found. Then the paper does some smaller lines which tell readers that the wraps (whatever that is) are expected to be confirmed as the class a drug.

I’m afraid it was snorts of derision all round other Scottish media when the truth came out, as alas! The wraps of cocaine turned out to be some kind of painkiller (and a legal one at that).

Unfortunately with drugs, there is always a comedown. The papers and their uber editor somehow hallucinated that cocaine was found on an oil rig. When they were forced to sober up a few days later, reality had set in, and they reported:

“An unknown substance discovered in packages on a North Sea platform was common pain relief medicine, tests have confirmed.

“Three small packages containing the substance were recovered from the Piper Bravo platform on Saturday.” http://www.eveningexpress.co.uk/news/scotland/platform-alert-substance-medicine-1.385127

Confused hacks at the papers even have one article talking about unknown substances, but the same article has a photo captioned:

“FIND: An unknown substance found on board the Piper Bravo platform has been confirmed as a common painkiller” – http://www.eveningexpress.co.uk/news/local/three-packages-to-be-tested-after-white-powder-found-on-north-sea-platform-1.380523

So you see, messing around with drugs because you think they may make you or your newspaper look glamorous or interesting can backfire badly, making you embarrassed by your behaviour for a long time to come.

Onwards with definitions as promised last week, although I find it hard to figure out if the governments want to protect our rights or spy on us, and be the only ones allowed to hold data on individuals. It surely can’t be the latter. Here are some definitions focusing on recent developments impacting on your right to privacy, your right to know, and press freedom.

‘Right to be forgotten’ : (Modern English legal phrase)- legal guarantee that in certain circumstances search engines will be forced to remove links from search results if they concern a private person who wants their past stories and deeds to be omitted from search results.

As the BBC reported,

“The Court of Justice of the European Union set a legal precedent on 13 May when it ruled that a user had the right to have links to web pages about him removed from Google’s results because the passage of time had made them ‘irrelevant'”

The Spanish man had complained that Google’s links to an auction notice of his repossessed home infringed his privacy. http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-27499601

Surely this ‘right to be forgotten’ could never be used to protect lawbreakers, people with violent pasts, or UKIP members who eventually realise they don’t want to be associated with UKIP views on homosexuals and immigrants?

Somehow the EU has decided that it is not the responsibility of people who publish information on the web to take it down, it is somehow Google’s responsibility for letting people know what’s out there that should be curtailed. Perhaps we’ll decide that librarians (if there are any left) are responsible for what gets into card catalogues and publishers are off the hook for printing information that someone, somewhere wants forgotten.

What are the implications – cost, practicality, data management for search engines? Is it even possible to enact this law? I guess these minor details will work themselves out with little fuss.

The BBC also reports:-

“Wikipedia founder Jimmy Wales, has attacked the judgement, calling it “wide-sweeping internet censorship”, adding that it would be difficult for search firms to determine what should be removed”

Surely our EU and national governments wouldn’t try and control the flow of information, would they?

At the same time the EU wants to control the circulation of information and retention records, UK / Scottish Authorites are going about things a little differently.

Yet another policeman has been charged with spying on an ex partner via the police database. I’m sure he was just trying to keep a friendly eye on her and her family; she’s probably flattered that she’s being looked after.

Unfortunately, the law says that such records are to be used for professional reasons only. But surely we can trust the police with our private information, especially now that the government is collecting more and more data on us all the time?

School children and younger are being arrested, and their DNA and fingerprints taken. Kind of conveniently, this makes it just that much easier for the police to keep tabs on us all from an early age, whether we’re criminals or not. You’ll also be happy to know that more and more police are carrying guns. I’m sure you feel as safe as I do.

When it comes to sharing info, there is a new scheme afoot to keep records on people with violent pasts, and let potential spouses access these. There may be issues with who controls this data, what’s included or excluded, and who makes the decisions on what to release. But as long a the authorities in charge, then it will all work out fine. I wonder what would happen if the police started looking at the violent, criminal activities of its own members?

Press Reform: (Modern English phrase) – the ConDem attempt at press regulation in the aftermath of the news of the world hacking scandal.

In the old days, the only check on government, politicians and the powerful was a free press. However, one news corporation used some illegal methods to get stories. Coupled with the fact our government is trustworthy and doesn’t need any investigation, the ConDems have decided we don’t really need a free press. As the Telegraph reports:

“Late on Friday, in yet another session from which press representatives were excluded, Mrs Miller and the other parties produced the final version of their charter. There were a few small changes, but crucially nothing to address the newspapers’ central concern, which was that the charter could be amended by politicians, effectively at will. (In theory, a high bar – a two-thirds majority of Parliament – is needed, but in practice this requirement is not entrenched and could be changed by a simple majority of MPs.)

“Any new press regulator would not itself be part of the state, but it would have to conform to the criteria set down by the state in the royal charter. These are fairly prescriptive already – but if they can be changed by MPs in future to make them tighter still, a decisive line has been crossed in political control of the press.”
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/Why-Maria-Millers-plans-for-reform-are-so-dangerous

Oh, and the ‘Mrs Miller’ quoted in the above paragraph is the same woman who was the culture secretary; she had to leave in disgrace after the media exposed a scandal or two she was involved with. It’s almost as if she wanted revenge on the press. Miller also had an aide try and thwart press questions by a Telegraph reporter by intimating Miller was in a position of power over the press.

Private Eye, The Guardian, i, The Independent and The Observer (to name a few) did not dish out money to the police for scoops, did not hack into 150 phonecalls of Kate Middleton’s before she married Prince William, and did not hack into a missing schoolgirl’s phone, possibly compromising crucial evidence.

But you have to be fair when you’re in government – like when many of our major banks broke the rules, lost tens of millions of pounds, and falsified records. They were all soundly punished with measures ranging from taxpayer-funded bailouts, taxpayer-funded million pound bonuses for bosses, and absolutely no punitive regulations were at all. One paper breaks the law (with it should be noted police complicity), and it’s time to cow the entire media.

With the banking sector, it is almost as if the friendships and overlaps between government officials and highly-placed financial executives resulted in the government turning a blind eye. Funnily enough, the government is keen to punish all of its critics in the publishing sector. I wonder why?

So in summary, you won’t be getting information from a free, unhindered press. You probably won’t be getting all the search results you want from Google or Yahoo! You’ll be getting information from the government, or at least the information government will let you have. Seems fair enough to me.

Next week: We’ll see if we’re allowed to publish

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Et Tu Willie

Creative Writing, Satire and Humour No Responses »

May 162014

By Bob Smith.

Puir Barney he’s bin crockett
Fair stabbit in the back
Jist like yon Julius Caesar
Bi fowk fae his ain pack

“Et tu Willie” did Barney gasp?
Yer a worthless cheatin w-nk-r
Nae ony better than
A City o London banker

Seems they plottit his doonfa
Fin the chiel wis in The States
Jist shows fit fowk can dee
E’en tho ye thocht ‘em mates

A new leader o the Cooncil
Her name ‘tis Jenny Laing
Foo lang wull es quine laist
Afore back stabbin stairts again

Bit fa supplied the dagger
Aat in Barney’s back wis stuck?
It cwid hae bin ony Labourite
Fa wi Barney hid nae truck

If ony lessons can be learn’t
So future leaders can safe be
Is nae ti ging on a swanny
In yon “Land O The Free”

©Bob Smith “The Poetry Mannie” 2014
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Old Susannah No. 150 – HoMalone 2: The Sequel

Opinion, Satire and Humour 13 Responses »

May 092014

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

Before I get down to the usual business, at the time of writing, the fire in Crovie is foremost on many people’s minds. The homeowner is still unaccounted for (as is a household pet), but remains have been found.

I’ve personally had a great week of travel and adventure, but that all seems a long time ago. Whoever you are, and whether you like or loathe my 150 political satire columns, I’ll ask you one thing – please get and maintain a smoke detector.

People who know me may think I go overboard in my zeal about fire issues; maybe I do.

However, I’ve had friends and relatives who are fire fighters, and all of them will tell you how very quickly a small fire turns into a room filled with fatally toxic smoke. They’d tell you to have a fire alarm and test it, have a fire blanket and/or extinguisher – and to have a fire plan.

No one cares about these details when they’re at home, comfortable surrounded by friends, family and possessions. Everyone who has lost friends, family and possessions because of a fire will tell you they wish they had cared about these details before a fire struck. I’d beg you to get an alarm if I thought it would make you do it.

A childhood friend of mine might still be around today for that matter. They couldn’t find their way out of a smoke filled room which quickly became toxic. (Mind that chip pan in particular; that’s the regional main cause of house fires).

# # #

On the lighter side of things, The UK Subs came to town, shook things up at the Moorings Bar, and my ears are still ringing (despite wearing earplugs). It was also Aberdeen Voice editor and founder, Fred Wilkinson’s birthday. Happy Birthday Fred.

I’ve been lucky enough this week to be in Nice on the Cote d’Azur and in Monaco. Nice has a large outdoor square – but guess what? The weather is warm and dry enough for it to be used for all manner of things year round. Amazingly, there are beautiful trees, shrubs and flowers everywhere – and no one picks the flowers or uproots the plants to be cool on their way home from a drunken night out.

No one seems to litter at all either, and I don’t think they’ve painted their pavements gray to be cool, either like we just did. Along Nice’s waterfront you won’t find giant, windowless movie theatres, shopping malls, sewerage plants or a massive industrial harbour.

It’s almost as if creating elegant, relaxing, plant-filled open spaces were more important than money. And the money pours in as the tourists can’t get enough of walking up and down the waterfront on the Promenade des Anglais. Aberdeen still has some wildlife tourists, but let’s see how long we can completely industrialise/commercialise our remaining coastline.

do not let your pets drink from the East Tullos Burn

Funnily enough, Nice has far cleaner air than we do as well. Could this be because they’ve set aside green spaces, arranged very frequent and affordable public transport, have a bicycle rental scheme, and encourage pedestrians? Funny people, the French.

One of my flights was delayed due to a minor engine fault. Some of the passengers were very cross about the captain’s decision not to fly (he seemed to think that not risking our lives instead of flying with a small engine leak was a good idea).

Quite rightly the more important passengers started grilling a young stewardess about the engine’s technical problem, demanded to know precisely when the plane would be flying, what the captain was doing to solve the problem, and other things she’d clearly have known all about. I’m surprised the poor girl didn’t put down her drinks tray, whip a spare part out of her pocket, and just fix the engine there and then.

In the end, BA were great at solving the problems and getting us all going. Thanks BA.

Despite my trying to have a proper vacation, some news stories arose in the Deen that caught my imagination. A word of caution: do not let your pets drink from the East Tullos Burn. It may look prettier now than it did – but the water doesn’t seem to have been cleaned at all.

SEPA have insisted in the past that it’s too hard for them to find out where the pollution is coming from. And still, its American counterpart the Environmental Protection Agency manages to find out who pollutes similar little streams – like the Mississippi for instance. If only SEPA were closer to where the problem was in East Tullos. But they’d have to leave their offices and walk for 10 minutes to get to the burn.

Here then are some definitions defining the week’s news.

Pest Control: (mod English compound noun) to manage, contain and destroy vermin.

Alas! All is not well in the Cults/Bieldside/Miltimber area. Pesky vermin are sticking their heads into private gardens, trampling things underfoot, stumbling cluelessly around, and ignorantly destroying anything in their path. While I definitely feel for these poor, dumb creatures, it is clear that there are just too many of them in our area.

I had hoped that measures taken in May 2012 would have lessened this particular problem, but it seems to be creeping back. I am of course for a humane solution. But something must be done about Aberdeen’s Liberal Democrats.

You may not be able to believe it, but none other than Aileen ‘HoMalone’ wants to do something about deer population.

they trampled on their own pledge not to charge for university education

Expect HoMalone 2 in the Cults area soon. Based on the popularity, efficiency and economic success of her destruction of the Tullos Hill deer (to plant trees on a windswept rubbish heap with little soil), I’m sure the residents of her Bieldside/Miltimber ward will be overjoyed.

Well, apparently ‘several’ of them will. Here’s what HoMalone wrote recently:

“Several residents in the Cults area have contacted me about the presence of Roe Deer whose [sic*] numbers are growing across Scotland. Aberdeen is well ahead of most authorities in the careful, sensitive, management of the situation. A Council team is working on a plan for managing the growing deer population. Over-population is a problem for the deer since the natural environment can only feed a certain number of deer. In the meantime please be extra vigilant when driving at dusk in the Inchgarth area.”

In large numbers, the LibDems ate their way through the city council’s funds, forcing other species, such as people in need, with health problems and the elderly to suffer. Then in a symbiotic relationship at the UK level, they trampled on their own pledge not to charge for university education. The 2012 ballot box cull saw only five of them going; the chief doe, known as ‘Kate’ was humanely put down.

A lone stag known as ‘Martin’ looks increasingly uncomfortable, and may be leaving the old deer (‘Aileen’) for a more successful herd soon.

Don’t let this menace grow back to its pre 2012 levels. If you are in Bieldside, Cults and Miltimber, you may want to think about feeding these pests by giving them pound notes, votes or attention, even if they seem relatively harmless and innocent to you. I can assure you, the LibDems are not.

*It’s interesting HoMalone’s written ‘…the presence of Roe Deer whose numbers… ‘ perhaps she is more sensitive than we believe and thinks the animals are people? If you are describing things, you use words such as ‘which’; if you describe people, you use words such as ‘whose’. Perhaps she secretly isn’t an animal destroying poison dwarf ready to have any life form she finds inconvenient snuffed out?

Or is it more likely she’s just a bit ignorant of some language fundamentals?

Propaganda: (Latin origin, noun) – to deliberately spread lies, exaggerations in order to sway opinion, or further a political cause.

Old Susannah is staying out of the referendum debate. I’m not endorsing either side. But a poster purporting to show Labour joining up with those nice BNP lads and others like those winsome UKIP chaps found its way into my news feed.

Somehow, among the tiny trickle of honest, calm, factual referendum information out there, this therefore stuck out as being a little suspicious. It had attracted a few disgusted comments already; after all – if it’s in print or if it’s a picture, it has to be real, doesn’t it?

Some people are looking at it, assuming it is legitimate, and are therefore very angry indeed at Labour.

Alas! A swift email to a Labour politician confirmed that this poster is a complete fabrication.

Labour are not in any deal with the BNP. It is almost as if whoever created this wanted Labour to be discredited; I wondered if this had anything to do with Labour’s ‘no’ stance on independence.

I’ve asked the oldest source of the poster what they could tell me about it, and this is what they wrote:

“I don’t think the poster was used in any poster campaign. It was created as an illustrative means of showing people that all these parties are grouped by a common cause and that is to keep the union.“

Funny though – the person who put the poster on Facebook didn’t let viewers know that it was an ‘illustrative means of showing people that all these parties are grouped by a common cause…’. I wonder how they got permission to use so many logos in their little ‘illustration’ for that matter?

Coincidentally, the person who seems to have first posted the poster on Facebook (as far as I can find) has one or two friends who are SNP councillors. These include Liz MacDonald, Ken Gowans, David Turner, Shab Jaffri , Peter Johnston, Peter Grant (no relation to legendary manager of Led Zeppelin I assume), Graham Ledbitter, and MSP David Torrance. I’m sure these people have had nothing to do with a poster campaign which was just a tad dishonest.

I’m equally sure they will be quick to have it stopped and will come forward to denounce this kind of propaganda.

If only we could keep the healthy, honest, open, respectful level of referendum debate going on for another year, I’m sure we’d all be very well informed indeed.

Botch: (modern English slang; verb) – to make a bad job of something; to fumble a task or operation.

America has so little crime because it has capital punishment; ie. a jury of your peers (well you hope they will be your peers) can convict you on the evidence (which you hope won’t have been tainted or fabricated, like the poster described above), and after a fair trial (hopefully) you can find yourself hung, shot, gassed or given a lethal injection.

Seems fair. If you don’t get a fair trial (say you are of sub normal intelligence, get a bad or disinterested legal representative, get tried by a jury who are all of a different race from you, had the police mess up, lose or ignore evidence – accidentally of course), then you can always either hire an expensive lawyer for an appeal.

America will punish criminals by death, but killing them is not supposed to be ‘cruel or unusual’

If you don’t have lots of money or haven’t really understood what was happening, then then you can hope for a pardon from the state governor (but for those who really do have lots and lots of money, you may never have to get to trial at all).

Of course when George W Bush was governor of Texas, he didn’t pardon a single one of the hundreds of people the state executed. In fact, he mocked one of them (a woman who had finally snapped at her chronically abusive spouse and killed him).

Still, if you were innocent but had no fair trial, no appeal, no governor to save you – you might always luck out and get a posthumous pardon. So that’s all right then.

Unfortunately, sometimes an execution is ‘botched’, as happened this week to one Clayton Lockett in Oklahoma.

America will punish criminals by death, but killing them is not supposed to be ‘cruel or unusual’ – something Old Susannah hasn’t quite got her heard around in all these years. Anyway, you’re supposed to die a nice fast death – with a room full of spectators gawping at your last moments (nothing cruel or unusual there, then). Unfortunately, this man died in agony over the course of several hours.

It became so distasteful to the audience that the curtains had to be drawn so they didn’t see an unpleasant state execution as compared to your socially-acceptable state execution.

Yes, this was a man convicted of a serious capital crime. I guess it was just divine intervention that tortured his last hours, and not the blatant incompetence of those who didn’t know how to find a vein or how to see the lethal cocktail of chemicals was going into his tissues and not into his blood stream. Could have happened to anyone. We all botch things up now and then.

Finally, for some reason European pharmaceutical companies that make the relevant drugs (why make them in the first place some might ask) are now reluctant to sell them to the States to kill people. I guess some companies just don’t want to make money.

Next week: more definitions

# # #

Well, it’s been a long, fun, eventful, educational and somewhat strange 3 years and 150 Old Susannah columns for me and I just want to say thanks for those of you who read it, thanks for those who have sent information (and the occasional kind email) over time, and for those who support Aberdeen Voice. The Voice runs on donations; any amount however small is welcome; here’s a link.

All the best,

Suzanne.

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Old Susannah’s Journal No. 149 – Moral Authorities

Opinion, Satire and Humour No Responses »

May 012014

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

Tally Ho and please excuse the late running of this service. Among other things, I’ve been up to Gardenstown to look into the operations of USAN’s company, Scottish Wild Smoked Salmon.

There is a video of them having an interesting little chat with one man from Sea Shepherd; clearly there are some colourful vocabulary words in that video being used by the men with guns which sadly are not suitable for definition here.

Anyway, USAN’s people want to shoot seals from private land, and the landowner isn’t having it.

For some reason, not all of the locals and the tourists are that pleased to see men in high viz running around with rifles slung over their shoulders cursing at their opponents.

Salmon stocks are considerably down in some rivers; farmed salmon live in incredibly cramped, cruel conditions (with sea lice painfully biting through their skin to the bone), and seals are on a downward population curve as well. Let’s therefore catch all the salmon we can, blast the seals through the head with shotguns, and make money selling smoked salmon to Norway and China.

That’s the entrepreneurial spirit we’re all so proud of. And I wouldn’t worry – we will always have massive fish stocks, and quotas are wholly unnecessary. The only problem is that we also have people who, for whatever reason, want to visit Scotland to look at the seals, birds, fish and cetaceans. These people spend in the region of £65 million pounds ever year.

Many of these people are from the UK. Why they can’t just stay home and watch a wildlife programme on television like everyone else is a mystery. But apparently walking around in non-polluted air, getting exercise and a little sunlight are good for health. Who’d have thought it?

Clearly, few people in Aberdeen City planning think green spaces have any worth; our green spaces are being eroded. New homes are springing up in fields (like the wildflowers and mushrooms that used to); at least they’re all extremely tasteful, unique, and profitable to the builders. Brownfield waste ground is, er, going to waste.

Thankfully we’re going to tear down one of Torry’s remaining granite gems, Victoria Road School. With luck, we’ll get an office building with a glass façade. If you wanted to visit Loirston Loch before all the land around it is built up, get in there quick. How the wildlife, especially migrating birds, will manage is another matter.

And yes, there are tourists who actually come here to Aberdeen to look at wildlife. For now, anyway.

In Tullos, the city has given back the parking area that used to service Tullos Hill. It had been gifted to the city – but we took such bad care of it it’s been clawed back by the public sector.

We were unable to stop travelling people from trashing the area and so we closed the parking off rather than guarding it properly. It fell apart. So rather than having a welcoming visitor parking area for Tullos Hill, we will now have private parking (and we lose one path to the hill as well). I’m sure there were many public consultations widely publicised, but funny, I just didn’t see them.

I’m likely to get an asthma attack now that I’ve suddenly developed asthma

Between new offices and homes by Loirston Loch and new offices in Altens, I predict there may be one or two more cars on Wellington Road. The planners seem to think we’ve little to worry about in terms of pollution – or they’d not have given this the green light. For some reason, Aberdeen has some of the worst air pollution in Scotland.

Could there be a link between air pollution, hundreds of cars and decreasing green spaces?

I wouldn’t worry about it. I can’t actually – or I’m likely to get an asthma attack now that I’ve suddenly developed asthma. UK deaths with a connection to air pollution should not be a consideration when we have offices to build and roads to create. In fact, we’re only talking about 28,000 air pollution-related deaths a year.

But back to more positive stuff. The Palma Violets were amazing in The Tunnels; I wish I could show you my photos, but they’ve disappeared into the either when I tried to transfer them. Then again, when the band started, it was hard enough not to get trampled let alone take good pics; respect to the photographers who manage it. The crowd was wild.

A slightly more restrained crowd greeted The Temperance Movement in The Lemon Tree on the 26th April. This is my favourite up and coming band; the place was packed, and everyone sang along to all the songs (more on this later).

But my real brush with a superstar came this past Monday; I was selected to join a teleconference with…. David Cameron! Well, me and a thousand other people. I may never wash my phone ear again. I’d hate anyone to be jealous; I’d equally hate anyone to think I’m a cynic. However, if it was 100% live, then Cameron did very well indeed.

His opening remarks on this Europe-themed chat were perfectly spoken and very well timed and phrased. The questions when I was still on the call were, would you believe it, all very sympathetic to the Conservatives. It looks like we’re being promised a referendum on whether or not to stay in the EU. But fear not, it’s years away.

One of the questioners asked how we stop benefit scroungers coming from Europe. Perhaps I missed something, but I don’t recall Cameron objecting to the phrase ‘benefit scroungers’.

the news seems dominated by people and organisations in power who know what’s best for us

We can’t have people coming over here and asking for money. This is a capitalist country. You have to first have lots of money, then avoid paying tax on it by sending it offshore. This is good for the banks. Well, the food banks anyway.

While these hoards of Euro benefit scroungers are coming here, the likes of Bernie Ecclestone managed to avoid over one billion pounds in tax according to the BBC. Somehow, they never got round to letting me ask a question. As thrilling as this call was, I was too heartbroken realising I’d not speak to DC myself, so I rang off. That, and it was time for a beer.

This past week (and longer), the news seems dominated by people and organisations in power who know what’s best for us and want to set the collective moral compass to point where they say it should.

Farage and his crew know that god disapproves of gays. Alex Salmond thinks we should admire Putin (also not known for being fond of gays). Alas! Even BrewDog has come under fire for setting a bad example. So who are these bastions of what’s morality? Here are a few definitions to help.

The Portman Group: (Modern English Noun)
Self appointed alcohol regulatory body formed by private drinks companies.

BrewDog are in the doghouse; they’ve had a letter from The Portman Group telling them to be good dogs. BrewDog however did not roll over, and sent a slightly scathing reply, telling Portman to clear off (although BrewDog’s language was a bit more colourful).

So, what is The Portman Group? According to their website, it :-

“…was established in 1989 by the UK’s leading alcohol producers. Its role was to promote responsible drinking; to help prevent alcohol misuse; and to foster a balanced understanding of alcohol-related issues. The name derives from the fact that the early meetings to launch the organisation took place at the Guinness offices in Portman Square, London.

“In 1996, the Portman Group took on the additional role of encouraging responsible marketing when, in response to fierce criticism of ‘alcopops’, it launched its Code of Practice on the Naming, Packaging and Merchandising of Alcoholic Drinks.

“The Code has since been expanded to cover other forms of promotion, including websites, sponsorship, branded merchandise and sampling, and is widely credited with raising standards of marketing responsibility across the industry.”

I do just have one question. If the group exists in part to raise ‘standards of marketing responsibility’ Old Susannah wonders where the Portman Group was when Diageo tried to steal an award from BrewDog at a ceremony by fixing the result? Perhaps they are concerned with raising only some companies’ standards.

Oddly, this private group’s lofty moral goals haven’t really hit its members very much. The Portman Group started in the Guinness offices, but beer was not all that was brewing. How very fitting that concurrent with TPG’s birth, a Guinness-related massive fraud scandal came to light.

Who can doubt the moral authority of the police?

Its details are colourful, and about as clear as a glass of the Liffey water itself. For one thing, Ernest Saunders, one of the defendants, managed to become the only person in history to have managed to recover from Alzheimer’s.

He was given a reduced sentence because of his reduced mental capacity. Once freed, his mind sprang back to sufficient condition to be able to run businesses. Isn’t it amazing what kind of cures money can buy?

I’m sure TPG isn’t remotely worried by the antics of the country’s fastest-growing beverage company, and this current threat by letter to Martin and James is not an attempt to derail an amazingly successful marketing campaign which can’t be helping TPG’s own member companies. It’s just that The Portman Group want everyone to be as moral as their own members are. Cheers.

Stop and Search Powers: (Modern English compound noun) – rights granted to police to stop and search anyone they choose.

Who can doubt the moral authority of the police? Who can question that? (Well perhaps the Guildford 4, the Birmingham 6, the plebgate politician, George Copeland, the Stephen Lawrence family…). The bad news is that the ConDems are going to possibly curtail (to a degree) the rights of the police to stop and search anyone they choose.

Part of the reason we’re so safe now is that the police can detain anyone they like. This is what keeps our streets free of crime.

There may be a tiny discrepancy in the kind of people who get ‘randomly’ searched – most belong to ethnic minorities. It’s almost as if there were institutionalised racism endemic in the police (or so former officer Gurpal Virdi might think – he was accused of sending out racist messages from his computer, usually when he wasn’t even around).

This spurious charge of institutionalised racism is just about one year old, so I’m sure it’s all been cleared up by now.

Teresa May, darling of the front benches, says that about 27% of the police searches made under stop and search laws were potentially illegal. If the figure is really only that low, perhaps we should just let them get on with it. It’s not as if the police are arbitrarily flexing their muscles and intimidating people, is it?

I’m afraid that’s all the morality I can stand at the moment, or I’d have defined some terms on Tony Blair, UKIP, and so on. Let’s all try to remember to learn from our betters, and be moral, upstanding citizens. If you can’t do that, then just try and avoid random stop and searches.

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Late Flight – A Cartoon By Ben Harley

Creative Writing, Satire and Humour No Responses »

Apr 252014

Is This the Day They Find……

Old Susannah No. 148 – Life Expectancy

Opinion, Satire and Humour No Responses »

Apr 182014

Old Susannah gets to grips with letting go of a great local talent, and the latest government wheezes, locally and nationally.

Another eventful week passes in the Granite City, bringing good news and some sad. Children have done arts and crafts in Union Terrace Gardens, organised by Aberdeen Inspired. This is despite the city’s officer Gordon McIntosh insisting the balustrades will fall down any day, and the gardens aren’t safe to use.

Inspired even managed to hold their events without scores of crowd barriers or 7’ tall security guards. Rumours are that Gordon may be about to make some dynamic changes of one sort or another.

The campaign to save Bon Accord Baths is gaining more momentum; some £5 million pounds is needed. However, in a city with our level of wealth we should be able to do this. In fact, Aberdonians apparently have more disposable income than almost anyone else in the UK.

We still need food banks, mind. In the UK, over one million people rely on food banks, but they’re probably just benefit scroungers and immigrants (remind me to look up the amount of this year’s UK defence budget again).

Surprisingly some good news comes from the city council, where funds from outdated, surplus accounts were given to local causes such as the Cyreneans. It’s not a huge amount of money, but after the Kate Dean/Kevin Stewart council’s assault on our charities and good causes, this is quite a turnaround.

I learned how to make pasta at an amazingly fun course at Nick Nairn’s school. You may remember the then city council almost didn’t give Nick Nairn an alcohol license. The licensing board were probably afraid that people would sign up for courses (costing upwards of £40), learn what wines go with what foods, have a glass of red or white, and then go wilding into the night, committing crimes.

Thankfully, it seems no one from the cooking school to date has gone on a crime spree, and clearly the city has the city’s serious drink culture under complete control.

Spring has arrived! Result! The signs are everywhere: the theft of cars and licence plates continues, the gramps are being set alight once more and travellers are moving from public space to public space, leaving debris behind them, presumably as a token of the esteem they hold us in. The council say the police should act; the police seem to be implementing a reverse discrimination favouring the travellers.

And I don’t want to spoil the surprise, but you and I will be paying for the necessary clean-ups. A dead dog and £22,000 worth of waste was left near the beach by the travellers, and history looks set to repeat itself just a little further north.

If you want to live as you please, it would be nice to do so respecting the rights of the rest of us to live as we please – well in some idealised fantasy version of reality anyway. While some of us are trying to preserve and enjoy what’s left of our open spaces, other people seem to think we don’t care about mounds of trash or the very real prospect of stepping in human waste or over dead dogs. Thanks.

The UK’s police were trying to deny there is a quota system

To the people who’ll tell me not all travellers are alike, I agree. However, these past 10 years I’ve not seen a single travellers’ site in Aberdeen left in good condition when travellers travel.

And down the road in Ross-shire, it’s now 20 birds of prey that have been poisoned. So that’s good news for the shooting estates catering to people who like to blast birds from the sky with guns. Fledgling game birds are bred in captivity like ill-used hens, and thrown out without a clue, to be blasted. The sporting life indeed; no wonder billionaires and famous TV stars like Trump are into this kind of pursuit.

So how do our police perform when it comes to saving our wildlife, stopping car thefts and stopping people trashing our green spaces (when they know exactly who’s doing it)?

Aberdeen got a mention in the Sunday papers; its police seem to like arresting children, and are very fond of random spot searches. A child of two was apparently charged with property damage. I’m sure they understood their rights and I’m sure the parents were the police’s first port of call. Police Scotland are also fond of telling people who own cars and houses to hide their goods or it’s their fault if they’re robbed.

The UK’s police were trying to deny there is a quota system in place for arrest and searches. Unfortunately, the truth leaked out, and there are indeed quota systems.

Justice may be blind, but she’s counting. It’s nearly one year since the police blew the budget (or so it looked) raiding the empty flat of George Copeland. Things may have been quiet on this story in the news, but I can promise you, the fight for a rational explanation and disclosure of information are ongoing. Who knows – there may eventually be some justice for George. Watch this space.

Other than that, I’ve had some fun (Malmaison, Temple Aesthetics, BrewDog of course and the Tunnels – Palma Violets were spectacular). But this week David Innes, drummer with the Gerry Jablonski band, passed away. A service is being held the morning of Friday 18 April, and later that night a concert takes place at The Forum.

We were privileged. I’ll remember the last times I saw him, including the Moorings in early March, the Jubilee party in Union Terrace Gardens where they entertained thousands, and the Lemon Tree when the latest Gerry Jablonski & the Electric Band album was launched.

There are performers 20 years younger who don’t have his enthusiasm, energy and stamina. There are performers 20 years older than he was who would have loved to have his talent and range. If Aberdeen is a city of culture (outside of bureaucrat speak), it is because of artists like David Innes. Condolences to his friends and family.

Life Expectancy Letters: (Mod. Eng. ConDem phrase) – letters to be sent to OAPs, telling them when they will likely pass away.

Well there is a new government initiative we can all be happy with; they are going to send everyone a letter, telling them when to expect to die. I can’t see any flaws in this cunning plan.

Then again, with Alzheimer’s setting in early in some cases, and looking set to be an epidemic in the near future, I’m sure all the guardians and children of those afflicted with forms of senile dementia will be very happy to get letters to advise when mother and father are expected to die.

I’m certain too that this is not some ploy to scare the elderly into saving well into later life. After all, you want to live in comfort with as few trips to the food bank as you can manage until you die at precisely 9 September in 2027, don’t you? Letting you know when you’re likely to die will just make you take better care of your health, and your money.

And of course should you fall sick or need residential care, then the government will take your savings off of you to pay for such care.

Of course most of us who work have been paying tax throughout our working life in the belief this would go to giving us good care when we’re older. Just don’t bank on it. I’m glad there’s no chance of another pension mis-selling scheme like we saw a few decades ago. No-one would take advantage of the elderly and sell them financial products they didn’t need, would they?

“Pensions minister Steve Webb said that under new government guidance, experts could assess approximate life expectancy by looking at factors such as smoking, eating habits and socio-economic background.”

As far as socio-economic background is concerned, I wonder if those living on the food banks will have the same life expectancy as those at the merchant banks

I’m sure this scheme to write to everyone with an expected death date is not geared to frighten us into getting into private pension schemes. That would only benefit bankers and financial institutions, and our government wouldn’t show the financial sector any special treatment, would it?

I talked to an older citizens who was still of working age recently; they had decided to skive off work for a few months, and used a slipped disc as their flimsy excuse to get on the dole. I’m happy to say we made it as hard for this scrounger as we could; it was 6 weeks before they got any financial help, despite having worked all their life. Dipping into their savings to pay bills, they eventually bled the taxpayer for £78 per week.

Now if they knew what their death date was, they might have been convinced to save a bit harder, work more hours, and have more savings to burn through at the first sign of illness. This guy was not good at financial planning, either. All of his money was earned and taxed in the UK, and he didn’t shelter any of it offshore. Well, if you don’t save as much as you can, it’s simple. Just don’t fall ill or die.

Old Susannah is interested to see what factors are taken into consideration. I’m sure the ConDems won’t want to upset anyone by letting on that the air is now killing more people than ever before.

Perhaps this is such a good idea we should take it further, and make dying by the projected death date mandatory? I’d be surprised if some ConDem somewhere isn’t contemplating it.

Dune Management: (Modern Eng. compound noun) To preserve a natural area by changing it beyond recognition.

It would seem the Donald Trump school of sand dune management’s principles are taking off a treat.

A Cornwall-based council decided that they would ‘stabilise’ their own sandy beach by planting conifers on the beach. Somehow, this has displeased residents and visitors, who wanted to see beach at the beach, and not dying, dried out half dead trees that were never going to grow in the first place.

Of course the marram grass, gorse and trees Trump has planted has totally stabilised ‘The Great Dunes of Scotland’ as Trump Golf seems to call Balmedie Beach.

The dunes are so great I think travelling spice and silk merchants will be crossing them by camel to stay at the opulent MacLeod House.

Anyway, Trump saved our dunes for us, and that’s why there is no sand blowing around the greens or any other problems there.

My photo above shows just how stable the course is.

Next week: A Trump update and more definitions

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