Oct 292010
 

Voice’s Old Susannah presents a Halloween Special Dictionary supplement and gets to grips with a few tricky, spine chilling terms.

There is no denying the creepy, sinister atmosphere at this time of year in Northeast Scotland– there are mindless zombies roaming free, creating new budgets designed to kill off any remaining spirit in Town and Shire.  They are slashing budgets and services, and seem unstoppable.  Be afraid – be very afraid.

Frankenstein Monster

Imagine a horrible creature artificially created from parts of City and Shire Councils as well as a few businessmen, artificially stitched together with failed civil servants and the like.  Such a monster is ASCEF.

ASCEF was so created and brought to life with injections of  taxpayer cash .  Now it runs wild throughout the land, unchecked by government or citizen, threatening to destroy the city, or at least cover all living things in concrete.

It is answerable to no one, even the egotistical madmen who created it.  The monster will inevitably be destroyed by the angry peasants who see it for the horror it is.

Witch

“Are you a good witch or a bad witch?” the good witch of the north asked Dorothy.  No need to ask what kind of witches we are dealing with in Aberdeen City.  A bad witch can be identified by her crone-like appearance and the smell of brew (or special brew) surrounding her.

Bad witches go out of their way to harm their neighbours any way they can, such as allowing lands and burns to be foully polluted, zapping services, magically turning budget surpluses into massive deficits, and closing schools.

They fly about on chauffeur-driven, taxpayer-funded broomsticks all over the world for unholy meetings called Sabbaths or conferences.  When confronted, the witch will deny wrongdoing, and insist they will keep doing the job they were elected to do.  Witches are often found giving orders to their Familiars.

Familiars

A witch’s Familiar is an animal – such as a lapdog, lizard, reptile, toad, snake or rat — which the witch speaks to as it if were actually able to think itself.

These Familiars are often given names like Lucifer, Beelzebub or Kevin, and are the lackeys which carry out the witch’s evil deeds unquestioningly.  These servants of evil are often grotesque in appearance as well as deed, as are the witches they serve.

The Devil

In legends across the world, the Devil or a mysterious stranger appears out of nowhere, making extravagant promises.  The Devil might, for instance, promise economic prosperity and millions of pounds – an offer that sounds too good to be true.

The unsuspecting might for instance take the fortune on offer, and in exchange think they are getting a wonderful future – unaware of the strings attached to such a deal.  What they are likely to get is a bill for millions more than they received in the first place, and usually a terrible price is extracted – like the permanent loss of beautiful lands.  Only a fool would sell their soul (or garden) to the devil.

Trick or Treat

In the old days, children would visit their neighbours at Halloween and cry ‘trick or treat!’ hoping for a sweetie or an apple.  They would be lucky to get anything as generous as that from their neighbours in St Nicholas House, who seem to have a wide range of tricks in store.

Magical Disappearances

Fox batterer Derek Forbes had been the subject of media attention recently when he was quoted as admitting hitting a tame fox with his golf club.   However, when Forbes appeared in Court this week – Presto!  He said he never hit the fox.

Was it an invisible club that injured the fox?  Was it the work of a ghostly apparition? Who knows – but Forbes now says it wasn’t him.  I guess he was too traumatised when the press first said he did club the fox to ask for the story to be corrected at the time.

The admission of guilt may have disappeared – but the story will not do so.  Let’s wish Mr Forbes all the luck he deserves in his next court appearance.

Next week – Budget special.

Oct 292010
 

By Dave Watt.

A young lady in my office, prudently preparing to avoid last year’s skidding-around- on-snow-and-ice-antics phoned up a local tyre company for a set of snow tyres on Monday of last week. Having done so, she was duly given a quote of £76.30p for each tyre and expressed her desire to have them fitted later in the week which was agreed upon.

However, Monday evening and Tuesday morning saw a drop in the temperature around the North-east and the first snow fall of winter and on phoning back to confirm the quote on Wednesday was informed that the tyres now cost £105.13p each.

Querying this massive price hike produced the unlikely fairy story that “the manufacturer decides the price of the tyres and this varies from day to day” and was nothing at all to do with the tyre company turning an opportunistic fast buck at their customers expense and the arrival of the first snow. Oh yeah?

I’m glad to say that the young lady firmly persisted and got the tyres at their original price. I think with the advent of the oil boom the service businesses around Aberdeen came upon the notion that you can get any money from the gullible oil people that you’ve got the nerve to ask for and this has, as they say at BP, ‘spilled out’ into the community. Not so much Granite City as Brass Neck City.

Aug 272010
 

Voice looks at some interesting NE place names and offers possible insights to their origins.

Mosstoddloch: Village with record volumes of oddloch

Durris: TV man Darren Day’s singing great aunt

Elgin: Mother’s ruin distilled for export to Spain

Macduff: Unappetising burger

Fyvie: Small-sided fitba

Aug 272010
 

Alex Mitchell continues his historical account of the Old Burghs of Aberdeen, and of macabre practices and dangerous times.

From the end of the 16th century until 1776 there was a gibbet on Gallows Hill, which overlooked the Links and, from the early 20th century, the Pittodrie Stadium, hence its later description as ‘Miser’s Hillie’ – it afforded a free view of the football matches. Continue reading »

Aug 202010
 

By John Sangster

“POWER TO THE PEOPLE”, what does that mean? It was John Lennon who first brought it to my attention, although I am informed that in a 70’s sitcom the character Wolfie Smith was first to utter it. The reason I say this is that when Jimmy Reid died recently almost every article about Mr. Reid began with Lennon’s song.

So! What does it mean? Do the people not already have power, the power to withdraw their labour or the power to remove politicians from their posts? Continue reading »

Jul 162010
 

By John Sangster.

A new government with new thinking, a new way of looking at things? This is what we were told when an agreement was made between Tweedle Cameron and Tweedle Clegg. We were told that the first thing we must do is save money, make cuts, every single penny we save is good for the country. So taking my role as a model citizen very seriously  I have come up with an alternative budget.

Continue reading »