Nov 142014
 

sky-mountain-1By Bob Smith.

A hiv noo ti confess masel’
A’ve cursed fin it dis rain
Canna git on the gowf course
Greens flooded eence again

Bit hae a wee bit think fowks
If we didna hae the rain
Kwintraside aa leukin gizzent
Baith here an in Dunblane

Nae watter rinnin doon the hills
An inti oor rivers tumblin
The fairmers tryin ti growe craps
Wid fair hae cause fer grumblin

Nae greenery in hills or glens
Trees stuntit in their growth
Nae watter ti the distilleries
Noo aat wid raise an oath

Fin yer plowt’rin throwe the dubs
An aa the rainfa it is measur’t
Jist myn withoot the rain
We’d be like the Gobi desert

Gweed Lord lit the rain doon faa
On golden locks an baldy heids
Ca cannie wi hivvens’s watterin can
Jist aneuch fer aa oor needs.

©Bob Smith “The Poetry Mannie” 2012
 Image Credit: SKY MOUNTAIN 1 © Alexandru Mitrea | Dreamstime.com

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Jan 162014
 

By Bob Smith.

stonehavenflood

Floods they are noo frequent
Efter lots o hivvy rains
Mony say ae problem is
Biggin on flood plains
.
Hooses biggit near rivers
Es canna be jist richt
Mony hooses on flood plains
Is nae an idea maist bricht
.
Watter fa’in fae the sky
It needs tae soak awa
Concrete aa ower the lan
Es is nae eese ava
Mair biggins needit is the cry
Tae hoose oor growein masses
Maybe we jist need less fowk
An keep oor meadows an oor grasses
.
The answer’s nae an easy een
A solution it maan be fun
If climate change means mair rain
Fair sweemin wull be the grun.
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©Bob Smith “The Poetry Mannie” 2014
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Aug 312012
 

With thanks to Dave Macdermid

The weather was the only winner at the Scottish Disability Sport Lawn Bowls Championships at Westburn Park.
Supported by Sport Aberdeen and Aberdeen Disability Sport, the event has been coming to Aberdeen for over 20 years, with all of the 70 entrants having qualified for the National Championships via regional championships over the summer and travelling from all over Scotland to take part.

Although not a Paralympic sport, bowls will be part of the Para Sport programme at the Glasgow 2014 Commonwealth Games and many of the hopefuls for the Scottish team were present to make the most of top class play.

During the first session there were some outstanding matches and the teams from Lothian, Fife and Aberdeen were looking especially strong.  Players were competing in sections for wheelchair users, visually impaired bowlers, ambulant bowlers with a physical disability and bowlers with a learning disability and, as the competition reached the quarter final stages, a long torrential downpour stopped play for the day.

Disappointingly, the rain kept falling and the games could not resume, resulting in the 2011 Championship Winners retaining their titles for another year until the bowlers convene in Aberdeen for the 2013 Scottish Disability Sport National Championships.

Organisers would like to thank the 25 local bowlers who volunteered their time to act as markers and umpires at the Championship.

Image credit:  Wikimedia Commons. Licence info: File:Bowls%26Kitty.JPG

 

Jul 262012
 

By Bob Smith. 

I dinna myn a bittie rain
It fresh’ns aathing up
A haill month’s rain in a day
Fyles noo is bein dumped

Watter rins doon the streets
Drains canna tak the strain
Ony mair sic wachty shooers
Watter’s gurglin back oot again

Flooers are lookin drookit
Heids low wi the wecht
Wi aa the watter fae the sky
The bird bath sees nae fecht

Birdies look a bit bedraiglt
They’re hidin in the trees
Waitin for the sun tae shine
An feathers dry in the breeze

Fin the sun braks throwe again
An stame rises fae the grun
Kids’ll splash throwe the puddles
They’ll be haein lots o fun

Nae doot the morn wull be fine
Birds aa wull tweet and trill
Next wikk o coorse it’ll be pissin doon
O rain maist fowk hiv hid their fill

©Bob Smith “The Poetry Mannie” 2012
 Image Credit: SKY MOUNTAIN 1 © Alexandru Mitrea | Dreamstime.com

Mar 302012
 

By Bob Smith.

On mither earth faar we div bide
Thingies noo are fair on the slide
On iss sphere in the universe
The gweed life noo is in reverse

Flora an fauna are aa in decline
As the human race dis undermine
The basics fer the warld’s survival
Yet maist fowk’s brains are in denial

We build an drill an pull oot trees
The polar regions nae langer freeze
The kwintraside noo aa tar scarred
As motorin groups they lobby hard

Mair an mair hooses biggit near toons
Coverin fertile fields we kent as loons
Rape an winter wheat full fairmer’s parks
Nae placies left fer the peesies or larks

Aathing noo maun be neat an tidy
In winter time things canna be slidie
If sna faas doon at the rate o faist
It’s look’t upon as bein a bliddy pest

Yet sna we need ti fill lochs an rivers
It melts in the hills an rins doon in slivers
So we can aa drink a draught o H20
The watter levels shudna be ower low

We cut doon rainforests so cattle can graze
Or palm ile is socht ti mak soap fer yer face
An fowk faa hiv bade in thae forests fer ‘ears
Throwen oot o their hames bi firms’ owerseers

Mither Earth provides us wi aa wi need
Sustainable? Aye bit nae fin there’s greed
We maun use less of fit Mither Earth dis gie
Some fowk in oor warld iss they canna see

I hiv some hope Mither Earth wull survive
As the younger fowk weel they div strive
Ti gither an protest aboot fit’s aa gyann on
Mither Earth micht yet see a brand new dawn.

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© Bob Smith “The Poetry Mannie”2012

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Image Credits:
GRASSHOPPERS © Steffen Foerster | Dreamstime.com 
PLANET EARTH © Foto_jem | Dreamstime.com

Mark Edwards’ Hard Rain Project – Times Are A Changin’

 Aberdeen City, Articles, Community, Environment, Events, Featured, Information  Comments Off on Mark Edwards’ Hard Rain Project – Times Are A Changin’
Mar 252011
 

By Suzanne Kelly.

Some 100 people of all ages and backgrounds packed an Aberdeen University lecture room on 22nd March; most of us were not entirely sure what to expect.

Mark Edwards – internationally known photographer, writer and witness to 40 years of global problems was there to deliver his ‘Hard Rain’ lecture and still photography presentation.

By the time he had finished it was clear that each person present had taken away food for thought on a host of global issues, however much or little they had known before they arrived.

Mark made a brief introduction explaining the Hard Rain Project’s genesis.  At the time of the first moonwalk in 1969, Mark was traveling in the Sahara desert’s unforgiving landscape, got lost, and was subsequently rescued by a nomadic tribe.  They offered him food, shelter and a fire to sit by, and then they produced a radio.  Bob Dylan’s ‘A Hard Rain’s a Gonna Fall’ came out of it; a track inspired by the Bay of Pigs Cuban Missile Crisis.

Edwards considered his personal situation, the simple nomadic lifestyle, and the moonwalk and out of these events grew his idea of illustrating each line of this moving, evocative song.  Some 40 years on, the Hard Rain project was touring the world.  It features still photography taken from all quarters of our world, and illustrates the issues, which we have to face urgently.  Edwards took his Aberdeen audience:

“…on a journey through the past to a future which is ours to change.”

The photographs are as beautiful and as diverse a collection as you could possibly imagine – Edwards has captured virtually all aspects of humanity and of the earth.   These photographs and Mark both bear witness to the increasingly urgent issues we must solve now:  famine, destruction of habitats, human suffering, war, climate change, waste, disrespect and misuse of people, animals and the planet.  The things Mark has seen in his travels have not led him to despair; he retains faith in human initiative and human spirit, which he sees in the shantytown inhabitants’ resourcefulness.

As to the photographs:  there is a bulldozer in the Amazon cutting a scar through the lush jungle; there is a sea of ghostly, dead tree stumps in an arid wasteland; there are dead and dying women and children from around the world.  I am haunted by a photo of an oil-covered bird taken in Brazil, which is accompanied by the line from Hard Rain ‘I’ve been out in front of a dozen dead oceans’.

This photo presumably was taken years ago, but it could have been the recent Gulf of Mexico oil disaster.   (You have to ask yourself why one oil disaster was not enough to ensure we never let it happen again).
But I am most haunted by (as were several of the students I spoke to including Deepu Augustine and Rita Lwanga) of a poignant image of a newborn baby lying on its side, small hands and feet visible, wrapped in a hooded garment, dead.  It was lying in a shallow, womb-like grave about to be buried.  The number of children who starve to death is legion.

As Mark says when addressing all the various issues:

“Perhaps our greatest mistake is taking our easy lifestyles for granted.”

Edwards explains that “we broke the first law of nature” – for instance how the death of a leaf and its natural decomposition create fertile soil on which new life will grow.  The problem is that we have created a host of chemicals, which do not break down. He does not bombard us with numbers and statistics, but those he does use are unforgettable.  In discussing our chemical dependence and proliferation of chemicals throughout the food chain globally, he says that any pregnant woman anywhere in the world today will have somewhere between 8 to 17 kinds of pesticides in the placenta.

Mark describes himself as a witness; he does not have all the answers.  But he will tell you that we urgently need to increase education around the world, end child labour (which is nothing short of slavery:  buyers of cheap imported goods and clothing please do take note), pay fair prices for crops, encourage family planning, and end extreme poverty.  Another statistic he has hit us with:  the GDP of the world’s 48 poorest countries is equal to the wealth of the world’s three richest people.

A series of photos taken in Haiti show the human impulse to slip away from rational thinking and regress to superstition (a ‘voodoo’ ceremony to pray for long-overdue rain is depicted), and later work shows a flock of brightly-clad Haitian school children.   Edwards then makes interesting comparisons between the 1930s American Dustbowl draught and Ethiopia’s similar situation today.  He compares Industrial age London’s shantytowns to today’s third world shantytowns, they both were born of similar circumstances and had similar problems and potentials.

“The past is not over and the future has happened many times”

– or put another way – those who do not know the lessons of the past are doomed to repeat its mistakes and tragedies.

His bleak, depressing photos of urban sprawl were based in Mexico City; but if we are not careful the same thing can easily happen in Aberdeenshire on a smaller scale.

The difference in the quantity of goods the Americans have is staggering and it does not make them any happier

We are, after all, getting rid of acre upon acre of (supposedly protected) green belt land to build hundreds of identikit houses, a 21,000 seat stadium where we currently have important wildlife and rare plants, and a car park/mall is planned for our only city centre green sink and beauty spot – Union Terrace Gardens.

Rather than increasing public transport, we plan to cut a highway through our countryside with the AWPR.  And we are going to shoot (sorry, cull) the Tullos Hill Roe Deer, as our elected officials have deemed that building fences or protecting saplings with plastic are more expensive options).  Mark makes a remark that some politicians are:

“…defending political positions they know are no longer appropriate…”

I think I do not need to look any further than Aberdeen City Council for an example of Mark’s assertion.  I get the feeling that 99% of Edward’s audience is receptive and probably actively concerned for our environment – I find myself wishing we could get the local Council to see ‘Hard Rain’.

Edwards shows us a family in Bhutan; they are outside their home and have all of their, not very many, possessions spread around them.  Next we switch to an American family of four – again in front of their home with all of their goods.  The difference in the quantity of goods the Americans have is staggering and it does not make them any happier:  Bhutan is, in fact, the country with the highest percentage of happy and satisfied people on earth.

Edward’s talk is part of the Aberdeen University Students’ Association Climate Change Projects.

Jamie Peters is the Climate Change Project Co-ordinator and he advised me that the Climate Change project has been packed full of events this past week including; tree planting, cookery demonstrations, gardening, meetings and discussions.  Reusable bottles and bags were distributed as well as bookmarks with tips on energy saving and recycling.  The Climate Change Project at Aberdeen University:

“aims to improve life around the campus, provide something fun for students to get involved in and at the same time save 1,000 tonnes of CO2.”

Fraser Lovie, a policy adviser at the University, congratulated the Climate Change Project for bringing Mark Edwards and his exhibition to Aberdeen and welcomed Mark’s hints that a new touring exhibition, based on Hard Rain, is in development, that will support the behavior change agenda in Universities and Colleges.

STOP PRESS:  At the time of writing, it is uncertain whether funding will be found to keep the Climate Change Project going:  I certainly hope they will continue their work.

After a glass or two of wine and a few words with Mark Edwards and others (he is affable and keen to talk), I made my way home.  Another Bob Dylan song came into my head – ‘The Times They Are A Changing’;

“… if your time to you is worth saving, you’d better start swimming or you’ll sink like a stone, for the times they are a changing’.”

Change has never happened faster in human history than it is happening now.  But exactly what are we changing our world into?

Regent Walk is the scene of the Hard Rain Project outdoor exhibition, which accompanied this lecture; it will be up for a month.  I urge you –  go and see it.

SOME FOOD FOR THOUGHT:

Quotations from the Hard Rain Project Lecture

*     “In the next 24 hours deforestation will outweigh the carbon footprint of 8 million people”

*     “If forests are the lungs of the world, we have had one lung removed”

*     “All humanity is in trouble; time is the enemy; indifference is the enemy”

*     “We have Stone-Age impulses, Medieval beliefs, and God-like technology”

*     “There is no ‘them and us’

 

Q&A from the Hard Rain Website:

“Mark has been traveling and taking photographs in over 150 countries in the last 40 years. He first decided to illustrate the global environmental crisis in 1969, and Hard Rain really began to take shape as a live presentation in 2000. The DVD has been in development for about a year, since interest in the presentation has exploded.

“How many cities/countries has Hard Rain been seen in?

“The exhibition has been seen in over 50 cities, with a tour of India immediately following Copenhagen. The presentation, on which the DVD is based, has been seen in hundreds of venues on every continent.

“How has Dylan lent his support?

“Dylan and his label, Columbia Records, have been extremely supportive of Hard Rain right from its public launch as an exhibition at the Eden Project in 2006. They have also been very supportive of Hard Rain by allowing us to use the lyrics in the exhibitions.

“This year, the Royal Photographic Society recognized Mark Edwards and Bob Dylan by presenting them with the Terence Donovan Award for their achievement with the Hard Rain Project.”