Feb 112016
 

Old Susannah aka Suzanne Kelly tackles timely topics in the Granite City. From Marischal College to the hallowed halls of the Town House, it’s all one big love-in this Valentine’s Day.

DictionaryTally Ho! It’s Valentine’s Day (almost). Love is in the air! It may be hard to sniff out over the smell of pyromaniacs burning the gramps down, or the smell of marine diesel at the harbour (you know, the thick black stuff that you can taste in your throat, which the Harbour Board says isn’t as bad for you as car exhaust or plutonium).

But love is all around. I feel it in my fingers, I feel it in my toes… it must be love. Or it’s arthritis and the gout.

Before a few love-laden definitions, the Highlands & Islands Press Awards Ball took place on 5 February.

All of the best reporters and public relations press release writers (is there a difference?) were there in their finery.

It must have been a particularly glamorous, vibrant, dynamic evening, as according to the headline it was,

ANOTHER SUCCESSFUL AND LUCID OCCASION AT HIGHLANDS AND ISLANDS PRESS BALL AND MEDIA AWARDS” 

Successful AND Lucid occasion. And I didn’t even know occasions could be lucid, I thought that applied to people. I guess they meant the great and the good were lucid. I’m sure some of them were just as lucid as ever, and as lucid as their prose. It must have been great for the public relations professionals to be able to drink alongside the journalists who print their press releases; that won’t be something they do every day, will it?

Among the literati glitterati in attendance were Damian and Sarah Bates, Aberdeenshire’s own high-flying power couple; our own Kardashian and Kayne.

Alas! Old Susannah’s invitation to the ball didn’t manage to arrive on time. Lots of great journalistic achievements were rewarded. Rightly so the reportage on the increased frequency with which Highland police now carry guns on routine patrols and calls. This was in truth a great bit of work.

I guess no one else is bothered that public relations firms are now on even footing as reporters. These PR gurus slavishly work on the writing element of being a journalist, freeing up a writer’s time for more important pursuits. I did try, but somehow I couldn’t find any categories for campaigning journalist on the awards list; guess that kind of thing doesn’t rate as well as the ability to cut and paste a press release into an article.

The list of sponsors looked more like the collection of institutions on my ‘To Investigate’ list (with the exception of the National Union of Journalists). This night to remember was sponsored by Diageo; Highlands and Islands Enterprise; the National Union of Journalists; Lucid PR, Events and Marketing; Highland Opportunity and Bord na Gaidhlig.

When not trying to turn the Highlands into launching pads for satellites, Highlands and Islands Enterprise wants to make sure area businesses are respecting the environment and adhering to some kind of moral code. Highlands & Islands scrape by on somewhere above £61 million a year to come up with schemes like that; I can well see what they were doing trying to enforce principles at this gathering. H&I might do well to start on its moral crusade by having a word with fellow sponsor, Diageo.

It must have been nice to see Diageo handing out awards to people who won them, instead of trying to doctor the results. BrewDog fans will remember well when Diageo tried to fix the results of a competition so BrewDog would have lost when it actually had won. Alas! Diageo were rumbled. (BrewDog’s revenge is at hand btw).

Having Diageo drinks flow at the Ball must have been a nice touch. Highlands & Islands must be very proud of the big fish in attendance, Aberdeen Journals Ltd. Their unflaggingly independent investigative journalism has turned out very well indeed for Donald Trump, advertiser, and employer of P&J’s editor in chief’s wife, Sarah ‘Face of Aberdeen’ Malone Bates. She too graced the awards I’m told.

Clearly a press awards ceremony is the right place for unelected quangos, publicity firms, and others who are similarly reproach. I guess that falls outside of the H&I accountability; corporate responsibility, corporate sponsorship, and forelock tugging is the new journalism.

You might enviously think this is the award ceremony and the in crowd to be in with; you’d of course be right. But for those that didn’t make the shortlist for a Highlands & Islands Press Award, there are lesser awards out there. The Paul Foot Awards are Private Eye’s celebration of those who actually get their hands dirty and investigate news, not regurgitate press releases. Winners have looked into all forms of bribery and corruption from Fifa to Saudi Arms sales.

Aberdeen Voice editor Fred Wilkinson didn’t take any of my calls on the night of the Highlands and Islands Press Award gala. I can’t help but wonder whether he went there on his own.

Oh well, there’s always next year. Who knows? Old Susannah might stumble on something worthy of notice by her journalistic betters before the next award ceremony.

And now for some lovely definitions.

May to December Romance: (Compound English noun) when a couple have a large age gap but are still in love.

I’m sure some of the high profile May to December couples have wonderful marriages, I guess not all of them can be as romantic as Jerry Hall marrying the Dirty Digger, or Damian and Sarah – or even Donald and Melania. Here’s a cautionary tale of broken hearts and dreams. And no one could possibly have predicted the outcome of this sad tale.

Little Claire met the Mr Darcy of her dreams in Mr Forrester, her teacher. This was ages ago in Torry. And the happy couple (minus the blessings of the girl’s parents who were being real mean, and treating their child like a child) sailed away into the sunset to begin married life. Mind,that was after the police investigated, charities condemned him, and she proved her maturity by running away from home.

A children’s charity called the wedding an ‘aberration’ and said it went against ‘moral codes of not only his profession, but of society’ I guess they just didn’t recognise real true love when they saw it. I’m sure that he always had her best interests at the forefront of his words and deeds. Ah, young love.

Alas! Perhaps Claire’s endearing young charms faded from view. Anyway, they split up, after having a few children. Apparently, she’s not crazy about him any more. No wild weekends with mates in Ibiza for Claire; no fun road trips; no partying. But she was a grown up – so the couple claimed – knowing exactly what she was doing. Sure she did.

If only there had been a Named Person scheme running then! She could have told her appointed teacher that a teacher was her husband to be, and that she was a grown up. Then the school could have thrown them a bash, and hopefully got her parents into trouble for being mean and objecting.

While not-so-little-now Claire puts her life back together, what of the father of her children? Mr Forrester is now happily ensconced at Auchenblae Primary School on the Parent Teacher Association. Will he teach again?  Will he be a Named Person? Why ever not? Wouldn’t you want him questioning your daughter about how happy or otherwise she is? PS – he apparently cheated on his first wife with – a school girl.  He was being supervised after that while teaching in Kincorth – that worked out well.

I’m just as pleased the authorities decided a prosecution wasn’t in anyone’s interest, otherwise Forrester wouldn’t have been free to be a Named Person – and we need as many people experienced with young people in the NP role as we can get. Perhaps soon he will find love again. My guess is she’ll be 16.

As to the school who hired him and the prosecution which decided there was nothing going on in the public interest? Let’s hope that just because history repeated his cheating on his first wife with a young girl, and then marrying and leaving a young girl, there is nothing in the prurient suspicion he has a thing for young girls. Heaven forfend.

Sometimes an unhappy ending is unforeseeable, just like it was for Claire. Such is this next case.

Hippocratic Oath: (from Ancient Greek) A code of ethics governing how ethical medical practitioners interact with patients.

Poor George Osborne; he had it all – beloved Cabinet member, part of the most popular British Government ever, and all-round nice guy. Alas! A patient has tarnished the Osborne silver. A woman mistook his brother Dr Adam Osborne’s professional interest in her for a two-year affair. I’m sure the good doctor was just displaying good bedside manner.

Of his breaking off the affair by text, well, a busy man sometimes has to be a bit firm, even with vulnerable people in their care.

Old Susannah just wonders how long it will take for the poor doctor’s broken heart to mend, and for him to get appointed to a nice cushy government post. This could take days; even weeks. I am sure you are as upset for Adam as I am.

There is a valuable lesson here for those pesky junior doctors who are threatening to strike for decent pay and wages. Don’t go into medicine unless you have a wealthy family and a trust fund to fall back on, just in case you are the victim of an injustice like Adam was. As to dating patients, consider that just one of the perks.

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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.

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.

Oct 212011
 

Last week Chicho Sanchez  spent a few days analysing the data from the recently published report on tax havens by ActionAid UK. Here he shares his findings with Voice readers.

The figures, published in the Guardian, show that 98% of the FTSE100 have subsidiary companies in tax havens.

While this is not illegal and is not directly an admission of tax avoidance, it gives us a glimpse behind the thick curtain of big business and has confirmed to many their suspicions about multi-national corporations.

However, during those few days I began to realise something else…that the claim “Capitalism creates more choice than ever before[1]” is an illusion.

It is an Illusion of Choice.

I began to map out where the FTSE100 were operating in Aberdeen and how often we, as members of the public, come into contact with companies from the index. Parent Companies are in red and in brackets.

Carola is visiting Aberdeen for the weekend.

She arrives on the P&O (Carnival Group) Ferry from the Islands  She is staying at the Premier Inn (Whitbread Plc) on North West Street opposite the Lemon Tree. She had looked at the Holiday Inn (Intercontinental Hotels Group) on Chapel Street but it was full. In the morning, she goes to the centre to via the Bon Accord and St. Nicholas Centres (50% Land Securities Group – 50% British Land plc). She stops in the Bon Accord Centre for a coffee at Costa Coffee (Whitbread Plc) and checks her emails on her (Vodafone) mobile phone using the wi-fi perhaps provided by (BT).

As she strolls through the St. Nicholas centre (50% Land Securities Group – 50% British Land plc) she stops to look at the clothes in the window of Next (Next Group). She leaves and stops in WHSmiths (FTSE250) to buy a Financial Times (Pearson Plc) and a copy of ‘A Tale of Two Cities’ published by Penguin (Pearson Plc) for some bed time reading.

It’s a typical day in Aberdeen. Cold and wet, Carola vows to stay indoors as much as possible. She hears about the new Union Square Shopping Centre (Hammerson Plc) and decides to visit the attraction. There she finds Marks and Spencers (Marks and Spencer Group) selling all manner of goods.  After a while she heads back to Union Street where she withdraws money from the Barclays (Barclays Bank Plc) cash machine on Union Street .

Feeling the beginnings of a head cold coming on she makes her way to Boots where she buys some Nurofen (Reckitt Benckiser), some Strepsils (Reckitt Benckiser), Beechams (Glaxosmithklein) and a bottle of Lucozade (Glaxosmithklein) for energy. She wonders across to Union Terrace Gardens where she meets a group of protesters conducting a tour of the city’s underbelly. She joins the tour and learns of Ian Wood’s (John Wood Group Plc) ‘vision’ for the Gardens. She leaves at the end of the tour and heads back to her warm hotel for a rest. The energy for the hotel might be provided by SSE (formerly Scottish and Southern Energy).

Before bed she has a Grolsch (SabMiller Plc) in the bar and a cigarette containing Golden Virginia Tobacco (Imperial Tobacco) rolled in Rizla papers (Imperial Tobacco). She has a quick shower and washes her hair with the L’Oreal (Bottled by Rexam Plc) shampoo she bought at the Airport and dries herself with a towel perhaps washed in Vanish (Reckitt Benckiser). Feeling clean and happy she hits the hay.

Brenda is a mother who works part time for Tesco (Tesco Plc). She has 4 children and lives in Garthdee. Her Husband George works for (BP) in Dyce. On Tuesday afternoons she goes to Sainsburys (J Sainsburys Plc) next to B&Q (Kingfisher Plc). Her shopping list is as follows –

Food and Drinks

Blue Dragon Stir Fry Sauce (Associated British Foods Plc)
Jordans Cereals (Associated British Foods Plc)
Kingsmill Bread (Associated British Foods Plc)
Ovaltine (Associated British Foods Plc)
Patak’s Curry Sauce (Associated British Foods Plc)
Ryvita (Associated British Foods Plc)
Silver Spoon Sugar (Associated British Foods Plc)
Nambarrie Tea (Associated British Foods Plc)
Guiness (Diageo)
Lagavulin Whisky (Diageo)
Smirnoff Vodka (Diageo)
Blossom Hill Wine (Diageo)
Ben and Jerry’s Ice Cream (Unilever)
Vienetta (Unilever)
Hellman’s Mayonnaise (Unilever)
Flora margarine (Unilever)
Knorr Stock Cubes (Unilever)
Marmite (Unilever)
Pot Noodles (Unilever)
Slim Fast (Unilever)
Peperami (Unilever)

Household Goods

Air Wick (Reckitt Benckiser)
CillitBANG (Reckitt Benckiser)
Clearasil (Reckitt Benckiser)
Dettol (Reckitt Benckiser)
Durex (Reckitt Benckiser)
E45 cream (Reckitt Benckiser)
Finish washing powder (Reckitt Benckiser)
Gaviscon (Reckitt Benckiser)
Nurofen (Reckitt Benckiser)
Brylcreem hair product (Unilever)
Dove Soap (Unilever)
Impulse Deodorant (Unilever)
Lynx Deodorant (Unilever)
Radox Bath Soap (Unilever)
Timotei Shampoo (Unilever)
Vaseline (Unilever)

On leaving Sainsburys she stops at the Kiosk to buy George’s magazines. He likes The Economist(50% owned by Pearson Plc) and the New Scientist (Reed Elsevier). She buys their weekly nicotine ration in the form of Lambert and Butler (Imperial Tobacco) and Windsor Blue (Imperial Tobacco) and drives home.

It’s an Illusion.

Whatever is bought in the mainstream world is bought from the FTSE100, the DAX, the Dow Jones, the Nikkei 225 etc…There is no real choice under the current economic system.

This economic system is based on exploitation of humans, ecocide, and perpetual inequality. It is broken and it is time we looked at building a society without private property and hierarchy (not possessions like houses, tools etc. but estates, reservoirs, intellectual property and the like) based on equality, tolerance, justice and participatory democracy.

Attached is a breakdown of the FTSE100 companies present in Aberdeen and the number of Subsidiaries each maintains in tax havens.
https://aberdeenvoice.com/2010/10/companies-present-in-aberdeen-tax-havens/ 

Source – 1 http://listverse.com/2010/12/24/top-10-greatest-benefits-of-capitalism/

Image Credits:
GEOMETRIC RAINBOW PATTERN BACKGROUND 1 WALLPAPER © Nlizer | Dreamstime.com
GO TOWARDS THE LIGHT! © Kirsty Pargeter | Dreamstime.com 

Apr 082011
 

Chris Gough, of Kennoway in Fife was moved to comment on the recent Aberdeen Voice article about the proposed deer cull on Tullos Hill and the revelation that the cull had been planned in advance of the public consultation regarding Phase 2 of the ‘Tree for every citizen scheme’.

What an excellently presented article by Suzanne Kelly. She has hit the nail on the head so many times and it has sad echoes of our fight to save the deer at the Diageo plant in Fife a year ago.

These deer had been part of the local wildlife scene for more than twenty years and were loved equally by the general public and the staff at the Diageo plant.

Indeed they were fed by members of the staff of DCL (an earlier occupier of the site) for many years and the company had a vet carry out visual checks on the condition of the deer. Photographs of the deer were even displayed on the boardroom wall.

All this came to nothing when the present company, Diageo, decided to extend their plant. The Deer Commission for Scotland ( DCS) was consulted and came up with the “only humane solution” of a cull to remove the deer that had now become an embarrassment.

Untruths about the health and condition of the deer were published through the local media to justify the decision for a cull on “animal welfare” grounds. Advice and assertions that there were alternatives to a cull were rejected, so sadly our beloved Diageo deer were not saved in spite of valiant efforts by so many agencies.

At least the Tullos deer are still with us and so they should remain. The SNH hide their true colours behind their name- Scottish Natural Heritage – which implies to the general public that they CARE for all things natural when in truth they are in league (indeed they are now merged under one flag) with the Deer Commission for Scotland.

They in turn are in league with the land owners who want their land “managed” to suit their own purposes e.g. grouse moors, deer forests etc.

The SNH seem obsessed with the idea that there are far too many deer in Scotland and that for their own good they must be culled. As someone who has holidayed in rural Highland Scotland for the past 35 years I ask one question – Where are all the deer?

the deer should be left to come and go and the trees protected with biodegradable tubing as happens in many places around us in Fife

I regard myself as lucky and privileged if I see more than half a dozen wild deer – Red or Roe in a summer.

The SNH would have us believe that every rural community is over run by deer and heaven forbid they are now invading city centre parks as well.

The very fact that they use behind closed door meetings to discuss their strategies is an indication of how aware they must be that their actions are at odds with the public’s perception of what should be happening. Aberdeen City Council clearly must also be aware of this in their complicity. ACC are now going to take the line that they have taken advice from the ‘experts’ and have made their decisions on the basis of this information.

The easiest, although not an ecologically sound solution, is without doubt a deer cull but this will not be a “one off”, but a repeated exercise over the next three to five years to allow the trees to become established. I also concede that deer are determined creatures of habit and will not be easily kept out of what has become a customary feeding ground. Roe deer are particularly good at lifting fences to gain access, so fencing the area is probably not a viable option. Unless the cull could then be justified on the grounds that the deer are causing damage to the fencing as well as eating the trees!

The truth of the matter is that the deer should be left to come and go and the trees protected with biodegradable tubing as happens in many places around us in Fife.

Biodegradable means no litter problem. The tubes just disintegrate and disappear. As for the damage by vandalism I think this is a very large red herring.

In my experience  vandals have much more entertaining targets than some trees planted on a hillside in Aberdeenshire.

As long as the Tullos Deer are alive there is hope. The one point which ACC would take well to note is the irreparable damage the destruction of these deer will cause to their (apparently) already tarnished reputation.

The public will not easily forget – just ask Diageo!
The world is watching.