Caterpillar Archives - Aberdeen Voice

Old Susannah No. 73 – Terrorism Is Over Special!

Articles, Community, Information, Opinion, Satire and Humour No Responses »

Apr 062012

Old Susannah comments on UK Government proposals to access emails between all citizens in the name of preventing Terrorism.

There will be dancing in the streets, celebrations at public squares (as long as they are vibrant, dynamic and have connectivity), and rejoicing all ‘round: the government has found the way to stop terrorism! Result! Yes, the government is getting rid of terrorism. And your basic right to privacy.

Why didn’t we think of it earlier, we are all wondering. Yes, the Government has decided it has the right to record each and every email you receive and send. And that is how terrorism will be stopped once and for all.

I’m happy to give up my private life forever in order for government snoops to be able to catch the bad guys. I’m thrilled to be treated like a new prison inmate every time I want to get on a plane. I’m sure you are as well.

So what if there are the occasional cases of disabled and/or elderly people being strip searched for having mobility aids. If the occasional frightened child is separated from its parents to be frisked, then so be it. It’s the price we pay for having the fantastic safe and secure lifestyles we have.

It was said by an American founding father, Benjamin Franklin that ‘They who can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety, deserve neither liberty nor safety.’ How times have changed.

You could also wonder how secure your business secrets will be when they are intercepted by unknown government spooks. Do people ever mis-use information? Hardly ever. The slightly paranoid J Edgar Hoover kept files on American citizens, and would occasionally blackmail people into doing his bidding. Liberty and Justice for all, except if the FBI wanted you.

That would never happen here. Of course a senior police official was recently found guilty of accessing data on an ex-partner of his right here. I’m sure this was just a one-off, no need to trouble ourselves about it.

It’s also a very good thing that terrorists would never use the Royal Mail. Except for those charming people who sent bombs to Celtic’s manager, that is. No one would ever think of using the post for smuggling, planning terrorist attacks or anything else we should concern ourselves with. Phew!

It would be terrible if there were any civil disobedience over this great move. For instance nothing is stopping you from going to an internet cafe, and creating a free email account under the name of john smith. If enough people did this, and only sent or checked emails at internet cafes, then this little snooping plan of our kind government’s would be toast.

Old Susannah thinks this great scheme might run into a few wee problems anyway. For one thing, I keep getting all sorts of ‘spam’. Multiply all the emails selling you drugs or which try to get your personal details out of you by the country’s population, and you’ll need a bank of computer storage just to keep the spam.

Perhaps we should all go back to sending letters.

If anyone wanted to sign a petition against this great piece of legislation, although I can’t think why they would, the online petition is at http://www.avaaz.org/en/stop_the_big_brother_law_a/?tta

Celebrity Blog from Cattie the Millipede and Milly the Caterpillar

Greetings everyone from our safe house in Torry, where we were airlifted to after our beautiful meadow home on Tullos Hill was destroyed – for a LibDem election pledge. We are surviving the cold snap OK, because we have lots of dead leaves to hide under to keep warm. (gardeners should always leave some dead leaves or other mulch around to keep plants – and creatures like us – warm).

We are even more worried now about our old friends on Tullos Hill. The deer have nowhere near as much gorse to shelter in and it’s cold. The birds lost lots of their shelter too when the gorse was ripped out. We are fine – but we wish our friends were, too.

Election Notes

The Labour Party have announced they would – end the Granite Web in its tracks if elected! Rather than borrowing £140,000,000 to put concrete ramps over our garden, chop down 250 year-old trees to turn into wood chip, they seem to want to spend time and energy on helping people.

Gerry Brough, city employee who has generously volunteered to work on the project is said to be incandescent with rage. So no change there then.

Tullos Hill And St Fitticks: A Photo-essay

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

Apr 062012

Suzanne Kelly with rubbish at the entrance and dangerous industrial waste from the gorse clearance mid March 2012.

By Suzanne Kelly.

By now you probably heard of the environmental carnage on Tullos Hill. It seems likely deer have been killed – despite the public’s wishes, the improbability of trees growing, and the bad science behind the cull. Gorse removal seems to have happened until the last week in March – the cost to insect life, birds and mammals is incalculable.

On my first visit the day after the bulldozers (or whatever trucks were used) cleared a vast swathe of the hill; I was shocked at the quantity of wildflowers, particularly foxgloves which had been ripped apart or thrown aside. I saw several caterpillars dead and dying. I saw a heck of a lot of domestic and industrial debris – and even more rock.

There seemed to be new patches of gorse missing on every visit I made, despite laws meant to protect our dwindling bird population.

I certainly heard far fewer birds than ever before in the years I’d visited the hill – no surprise though, as their gorse habitat was gone. Few deer have been seen since the hunting season opened.

Two men with shotguns were seen in the St Fittick’s area on foot on the night of the 31st March, and one of the hill’s keen observers saw a silver Range Rover several times driving to areas where there were deer.

Sadly, with the help of an acquaintance I made on the hill last week, I was shown this skeleton and nearby fresh deer fur of what would have been a young deer. It reminded me how comparatively small these gentle creatures are.

Trees on tullos hill. The few that have grown are being left to be strangled in their tubes by weeds.

I for one doubt very much this poor thing starved; it was in woodland and could have eaten leaves and plants.

Was it killed by hungry foxes? Not impossible.

The tree scheme supporters will say that ‘deer have no natural predators’ – an environmentalist will tell you that foxes are known to take the young or infirm (the roe deer usually live 6 or 7 years maximum).

I just hope against hope that this fairly fresh skeleton was not from a deer which had been wounded. This happens all the time. Deer are shot, and depending on where they’ve taken the hit, they can run away to slowly, painfully, bleed out and die, trauma and shock making the suffering worse. Deer are by no means always quickly destroyed.

Skull and spine of a young or small roe deer on Tullos Hill. It wasn't there before the season to hunt started

Shooting, we are told, is far more preferable than tranquilising and moving them, because up to 50% might die. (I however imagine it would be far more preferable to be put to sleep than injured and die of pain, shock and blood loss – or while wounded be eaten alive by a fox).

If indeed the law we now has says it is illegal to tranquilise and move the creatures, the law is in need of change.

It begs the question: is this law and the new laws about the number of deer an area can support creations of a pro-hunting mentality?

The answer can only be yes. I remembered that the reason for the cull was it was the cheapest way to protect the trees – at least Aileen Malone, Pete Leonard and Ian Tallboys said so. Cheaper still would have been to stop this scheme or put the trees elsewhere.

Inside a fully intact tube is nothing but grass

The taxpayer is picking up the tab, no one is saying it is ‘cost neutral’ any longer, and the city had to repay £43,800 for the previous failure on Tullos Hill. This state of affairs is unacceptable. There are trees on Tullos remaining from the pathetic first planting. However, the saplings which are there are totally neglected.

Plenty of tree guards are totally intact. I saw an intact tree guard, and carefully rolled it open – the tree inside was choked by weeds. I left it as I found it. No deer was responsible for this and the many similar failures. Just human negligence

I note that the more robust tubes were used at the St Fittick’s site – this undoubtedly because anyone with common sense could tell the salt spray and the powerful winds from the North Sea would stop any trees from growing (could this be why there isn’t already a forest on St Fitticks?).

Virtually all of the tubes at St Fitticks are still standing and are undamaged by deer. Anyone who says differently should show me where there has been any deer browsing at St Fitticks.

Mr Tallboys, the ranger, had put together a presentation which shows a picture of deer standing amid the St Fitticks tubes.

Deer do move in that area. However, there is plenty of evidence for there being vandalism – and for the city and its rangers totally neglecting to protect and care for the trees it did plant.

Well maintained tree planting area at St Fitticks 1st April 2012.

I looked into many of the St Fitticks tree guards, all of which were undamaged. There are quite a number of tiny oak trees which had never even made it one third of the way up the tube. There were some tubes which were completely, utterly empty of any tree.

The entire site is choked by weeds and rocky soil is again an issue (although not as bad as on Tullos). The deer simply did not, could not damage the St Fitticks trees: the evidence suggests that the killer was neglect and ignorance as well as weeds and weather.

There will probably be deer deaths on the road – about a third of the gorse they would have sheltered in on the hill is gone.

It is not too late to bring this thing to a halt, investigate those involved in forcing this scheme on an unwilling local population, and it’s not too late to undo the damage.

Halt the scheme, save taxpayer money, and continue to support the meadowlands scheme.

The trees did not grow before. They are not going to grow now.

Coming soon – an article on the new tree scheme / deer cull developments

Old Susannah No. 70 – A Mixed Bag

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

Mar 152012

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“Hi I’m Millie, the Caterpillar!”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

New Acronyms!

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

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

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

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

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