By Bob Smith.
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The human race’s in the control The button on the TV remote Buttons on the factory fleer Nae need fer sae mony bunk tellers Press the PC start button The buttonie on a hairst combine |
A wee button ye maan punch The bricht radar screen on a trawler The purveyors o new technology Hid the Luddites the richt idea Thon mannie Albert Einstein said A fyow rows o buttons I div like |
© Bob Smith “The Poetry Mannie”2012
Image credit: © Phil Date | Dreamstime.com
Old Susannah tries to get to grips with the newspapers, the actual news, and council-speak. By Suzanne Kelly.
Dancing in the streets is assured today, for tomorrow we will be dancing on the concrete ramps! (hopefully without falling off of them). Rejoice! Result! The lovely ramp / Teletubbies design has been selected (just in the nick of time for the Referendum, mind) to ‘transform’ Union Terrace Gardens.
Old Susannah has been laid low by a cold/cough, so no outings of late to Brewdog or anywhere really. This has given me plenty of time to catch up on my leisure reading, so I’ve now read tons of minutes, board reports, registers of interest and so on. But I’ll soon celebrate this good news with a brewdog or two.
I was so glad to have bought the Evening Express on the 17th; it had taken its own 50-person poll and guess what? Yes, 59% of people polled want to ‘transform’ the gardens! Fantastic! Perhaps we should just knock the Referendum on the head now and go with those results.
To those few remaining NIMUTGs / NIMBYs / Luddites out there who think the vibrant and dynamic scheme to put concrete ramps over Union Terrace Gardens is nothing but the old boy network flexing its muscles to give some of the more hard-up members work, money and real estate, I say no. There is no conspiracy. There is nothing untoward going on. (Can I have a directorship now?)
If anything looks funny, be it overlapping interests and board memberships, coincidental office block developments in the area, or what have you, here are some useful definitions to allay any fears. Rest assured – in a few short years when you’re looking over your plastic hedge in the Monorail Café as the band plays in the Dr Bochel outdoor auditorium, you’ll look back and be glad that your tax money was well spent in convincing people what’s really important.
The Gardens dominate the news and the definitions this week as well.
City Garden Project Minutes: (compound noun) a series of documents charting the apolitical, beneficial, transparent proceedings of the Project team appointees.
We’ve already seen that there is no overlap between the City, Chamber of Commerce, BiD, a couple of multi-millionaires and some council officials. Here’s a little quote from the September City Gardens Project Implementation Team which shows as much:-
“Agreed that it would be helpful if ACSEF and Aberdeen Grampian Chamber of Commerce could provide supportive letters to the key decision makers within the Scottish Futures Trust. The web link to the submission to be forwarded to ACSEF, the Chamber and BID”.
and now to illustrate the total independence of the Implementation Team, let’s put some names in brackets for the organisations listed above of people connected to the City Gardens Project as well:
“Agreed that it would be helpful if ACSEF(John Michie, Jennifer Craw, Colin Crosby, Tom Smith, Callum McCaig) and Aberdeen Grampian Chamber of Commerce (John Michie, Colin Crosby) could provide supportive letters to the key decision makers within the Scottish Futures Trust. The web link to the submission to be forwarded to ACSEF, the Chamber and BID (Callum McCaig, John Michie – Chair)”.
It’s going to be a hard slog for these people to get themselves on side, don’t you agree? Or perhaps that’s what’s meant by ‘having a word with yourself.’
For a more complete de-bunking of any lingering doubts, have a look at this little link, showing the members of some of our homegrown organisations. http://oldsusannahsjournal.yolasite.com/
Overlap: Adjective – for two or more items to share similar components, area or characteristics.
If you have looked at the spread sheet on the above link, you will see there is just a touch of overlap. Believe it or not, there are people who are involved in a quango here, a committee there – and all of them relating in some way to the desire to improve Union Terrace Gardens.
That nice Mr Michie gets around quite a bit, as do Messrs Collier and Crosby. Never before have so few done so much in so many organisations against the wishes of so many. Referendum or no, I think this lot are unstoppable.
Bad Timing: (Eng Phrase) events which in some way conflict with each other or subvert other events.
This will be a tough one to explain, so here is a wee example. The deadline for registering a group for the Union Terrace Gardens Referendum was 13 January – so far, so good. The deadline for these groups to submit a 300 word statement as to why people should vote for or against Teletubby land – sorry the dynamic ramp system which will turn Aberdeen into Barcelona– is 20th January at 5pm. The Referendum is a month away.
Still so far, so good. Then we come to next week. On 25th January the full council is going to vote on a report about the Gardens project – the report has various clauses which seem to indicate this thing might cost the City money after all – who would have guessed it??? But by then it will be too late for any of the statements going in the Referendum voting pack to be altered.
On 25 January it will also be too early to know what the referendum result will be – but the city is still going to vote on some very crucial items. Why you might ask is this happening now? Why would the city want to do this before the referendum and before the new council is elected in May – only a few months away?
It couldn’t possibly be so that any potential voters see the City voting to go ahead and decide that voting in the referendum (which is not binding of course) is pointless. It is not to discourage, dispirit or mislead – obviously not. I think this haste all just has to do with saving time. I did ask this question of the council – and they’ve told me not to worry my old head about it. Fair enough then.
PS ….
I am currently less than pleased that the City cannot (or will not) provide me with a list of property that the Mortification Board is responsible for – the FOI folk have told me to come down and look through the archives. I still can’t believe Councillor West (leader of the Morticians – sorry Mortification Board) doesn’t have this info.
However – I am happy with him on this one score, and I thought it worth sharing. So, here are some extracts from old minutes from the City Garden Project Monitoring Board – cast your mind back to August – this is what was being said…
“Councillor Yuill asked Mr Brough to confirm whether there would be a ‘no action’ option on the card. Mr Brough replied that there would NOT be a ‘no action’ option at this stage because the feedback was part of a tendering process to select the best of six designs. Once the best design has been selected, other parties, such as the Council, may wish to determine whether the status quo was preferable to the chosen design. However the Project Management Board do not see this as their role. Their job is simply to come up with the best possible design for a proposed City Garden Project.
Councillor West asked that it be noted that every week the councillors of the Monitoring group have asked for the ‘no action’ option to be part of the public display and this has been passed on to the Management Board by Mr Brough. The Councillors stated that they were very disappointed that this was still not an option”.
You might ask yourself who is driving this project. It’s not the citizens. It’s not the councillors. The answer just might lie on my spread sheet.
Next week – A Milne special issue, some Trump gossip, and more.
Old Susannah looks back over a week in Aberdeen which felt like a month whizzing by in a day and wonders how much of it was real, and how much more connectivity she can make sense of.
The past week in the Granite City was as vibrant and dynamic as you could have hoped for. There were walks and photos on Tullos Hill, and photos taken on Belmont Street, to the outrage of security guards.
The opening of the exhibition at the Pier (that’s one of the empty shops at the Academy shopping centre in case you didn’t know) for the six design finalists was of course the pinnacle of everyone’s week if not existence.
On the VIP ONLY opening day, an entire 5 people showed up before 9am to marvel at the designs.
These were our very own Lord Provost, Jennifer Craw, Aileen ‘Ho’Malone, Kate Dean, and a charming blonde woman with clipboard, supposed by many to be Zoe Corsi from the BIG Partnership.
It was as if all my Halloweens had come at once.
She saw me about to take a photo (yes, I fully admit I was going to take a picture, it is a fair cop) and came out of the building to tell me photos weren’t allowed. Laughingly I told her that I was on a public street. To teach me a good lesson I shan’t soon forget, she said ‘OK then’ and obligingly struck a pose. I feel obliged to reproduce it here, along with the picture that Security initially banned.
Look away now if you are of a sensitive disposition. It all becomes clear why they were so keen to stop me.
But there can be only six. Choosing these finalists was very difficult, and a bit of an agonising process as well, I don’t mind admitting. And I put my hand up – there is no way I could do a better job than any of these finalists; and probably could not have done as well as they did either.
All are to be congratulated for getting this far, and I mean that sincerely.
Without further ado here are the six finalists – for the best reviews of the preposterous, ridiculous, unworkable, ugly, childish, regressive, anti-elegant pieces of tripe which were shortlisted to destroy Union Terrace Gardens.
A beautiful and concise summary of the design which looks like a game of Jenga played badly at 3am. Nothing to do with Aberdeen. Even less to do with the garden. Everything to do with’ 2001: A Space Odyssey’. In the words of those on Facebook (which all the young people use for ‘connectivity’ and so on), the Monolith design is something ‘we can worship at the foot of’.
The supporters of Monolith are 30 strong, at the time of writing, the Official City Garden Project Exhibition Facebook site has 68 members. Yes, that’s right: the ‘silent majority’ who want the gardens built on have come out in full force. Please do visit the Monolith Facebook Page https://www.facebook.com/VOTEMONOLITH?sk=wall for a full set of photos, and some colourful prose.
The artwork here is superior to anything you will see in the Pier. The people who created this page understand design principles, scale, colour and aesthetics to a degree our shortlisted official designers can only dream of. There are pterodactyls, sunken Statue of Liberties, giant slides, flying saucers and other elements worthy of your attention. The designs I see on this page are as affordable, attainable and desirable as anything you will find in the Pier. Please register your approval at:
https://www.facebook.com/VOTEMONOLITH?sk=wall#!/pages/Alternative-City-Gardens-Design-Contest/251979328187602 At present this worthy effort has 40 people who like it. Do scroll all the way down, or you might miss the ‘Colossus of Woods’. Beautiful and stirring. And I do like stirring.
I nearly spat out my Tubby ‘ustard and Tubby toast when I came across this entry, immediately shortlisted as one of the six finalists.
Yes, someone has gone back to the set of the Teletubbies and re-created all those walkways. I see no potential problems with concrete walkways ascending and descending some 50 feet or better above the gardens. No one will fall, jump, slip or be pushed; they will be great for bobsled practice in the winter, and police will be able to respond to any crime on the ground in seconds.
I only hope there will be a chance in all of this for me to attend an event where the designer(s) of Teletubbyland have to explain to a room full of grown-ups just what they were thinking.
Oh, and as reminder, for the shortlisted designers, a prize is awarded of somewhere in the region of £135,000. £135,000 for a drawing of the set of a kids’ tv show or a monolith. I must go find a definition of either ‘value for money’ or ‘old rope.’ Dipsy would be proud.
We aren’t supposed to reveal who any of these creative masterminds are, but when you visit this website – which is a must – you will soon realise that No. 4 and No. 5 of my shortlist are both by this design giant. His observation of the glass structure proposed somehow to cover pedestrians, cars and trains may be one of the worthiest submissions yet:
“The worm doesn’t actually devour the humans, It appears to simply wine and dine them. Like a giant larval bad date” – Fraser Denholm
Obviously there won’t be any issues with air quality, safety, cleanliness (or just plain stupidity) if we make a giant glass worm cover people, trains and cars. Will smell lovely inside I’m certain. Birds will persuaded not to deface the beautiful worm by either defecating on it or crashing into it. Likewise vandals would never be tempted to do anything to a giant glass structure covering a road or train track. Why didn’t we think of this sooner?
Hats off to you Mr Denholm. A job at Foster & Partner surely awaits.
The best part of the serious submission is some giant banners in the worm’s body which for no particular reason read ‘science’ on them. These will soon be for sale as tea towels in every city centre souvenir shop which this project will deliver.
http://fraserdenholm.blogspot.com/2011/10/future-is-here.html
Mr Denholm delivers some spectacular laughs, but we do have only six places on the shortlist. His prose is brief on this lovely design, but is incisive.
This design gives us all the underground lifestyle we can only dream of – no sun, no natural light, and not even any air vents of note, for if they were included, they would be very large and visible in the garden. The garden features giant trees which very thoughtfully don’t need to have any roots. Most plants have underground parts that are at least as large as their ‘aerial’ parts. Not these ones.
Four-hundred-year-old trees are so yesterday.
Get rid of those, the things living in them, and get some of these magic, rootless trees. Denholm also correctly identifies the rice paddies (they can’t be anything but) which grace another shortlisted design.
With all this connectivity business, I’m starting to wonder whether all these people pushing the project forward are in some way ‘connected.’ Maybe even well connected.
Feel free to vote for my design, which is also on the Alternative Garden Project site.
I think it nicely captures the place where the garden scheme movers and shakers are heading. And it’s got a space for musical performances, and access at all sides.
When you do visit the Pier, pay attention to all the lovely drawings. See the trees that cannot exist if something is built under them. See the lovely people walking around casually, just like you’ll be doing in February.
See the complete absence of logic. If Star Trek’s Mr Spock were real and went to this show, he’d have a breakdown. Comfort yourself with the fact there are several good pubs nearby. You will need one.
And there you have it. I have sadly taken up so much space with the finalists that there is only room for one definition. For some reason this sprang to mind.
(noun, verb – modern English) to embargo, ban or cease trade or activities with a person, company or entity.
Folks – has someone or some company taken advantage of your good nature for too long? Is, say, a football mogul asking you to ultimately pay (via an ‘uplift’ in retail tax) to turn your Victorian garden into Teletubby land? Has such a person sent letters to the press ‘warning’ that unless we build a monolith or worm, the city is going to fail? Has a certain chemist likewise said that a concrete spider web will save us and we must all stick to it? Has a certain councillor said that you need to support a monolith and monorail? Has a hotelier called you a luddite NIMBY for not wanting a big bunker in er, your backyard?
Whatever can you do about it?
Well, if you wanted, you could boycott these and other like-minded businesses and business people. Don’t shop with them. Don’t use their premises. Don’t for the love of Pete vote for them. Don’t spend your hard-earned money to watch their football team lose, and don’t (for many reasons) buy a house from them.
If everyone were to boycott people who used their power in ways the public did not wish, then things would change. And not into a giant worm either.
Next week: who knows?
Reminders:
1. Please keep your artwork coming for the Union Terrace Gardens art contest, which (because of lots of stuff) has not closed yet. Alternative designs for the garden project most welcome.
2. Anti-deer cull postcards still available – get in touch if you need some; I know where they can be found.