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Old Susannah No. 147 – Mending Broken Hearts & Legs

Opinion, Satire and Humour 12 Responses »

Apr 082014

Voice’s Old Susannah takes a look over the past week’s events in the ‘Deen and beyond. By Suzanne Kelly.

Tally Ho, Cheerio, etc. It’s genuinely been a great week in the granite city. I had some great new BrewDog single hop beers this week; the Amarillo on draft was heavenly (yes, I still have my 5 BrewDog shares).

I also had a great vegetarian meal in Café 52 (yes, I know them, too – funny that my weeks often involve doing things I like with people I like); congrats to them on being named one of the city’s top 10 restaurants in an article by Kirsty Ellington Langan (whose father I know – but I’d no idea she’d written this review – which also rates Rustico and Yatai, both of which I greatly enjoy – though I don’t know the people behind them).

There are however restaurateurs who review their own places on the Trip Advisor website and even offer incentives for good reviews. Such practices are totally against Trip Advisor rules of course (thankfully I don’t associate with anyone like that).

I’m also busy working on some paintings for a group show at Under The Hammer which will be going up next Saturday; do stop in if you’re around (wine will be had around 3pm).

Aside from that I’m busy getting my garden in shape with help from some friends. Lots of bee and butterfly friendly plants coming soon from the excellent Poyntzfield nursery on the Black Isle (don’t know them, but have used them for years). Best of all, Lord Warner (don’t know him) has a scheme which will save the NHS! Result! And that’s how the spring is starting for me.

The campaign to save and re-open Bon Accord Baths has cross-party support and thousands of supporters throughout the area. Lions and lambs are lying down together, doves are flying around with olive branches, and editorials in different local media all seem to think this great idea is a great idea. (PS I’m happy to be helping the campaign in some small measure).

A gathering place for all citizens in the centre of the city, offering affordable exercise and a social hub? What’s not to like? Could this ‘mend our broken heart’ (copyright P&J)?

It looks as if some £5 million or so will be needed to get the baths running. At present a team of volunteers with all sorts of expertise are working on it; help if you can. No doubt some of the city’s better off multimillionaires who want to see a unifying city centre gathering place that benefits the public will be keen to get involved. Let’s see – £5 million is 4.6% of £92 million, and 7% of £140 million. Just saying.

In case anyone’s wondering, that is. Find out how to help here.

Let’s face it; war is hell

It is understood that the officials who banned the BBC from entering the art deco baths to do a spot of filming are going to soon see sense and let the BBC film there after all.

Dangerous buildings are of course something to be taken seriously; no doubt the city’s Westburn House, a listed property at high risk, will be given some tlc.

On the dangerous structure note, things are very grim in Edinburgh. A 12 year old girl is dead after a wall in Liberton High School’s PE block fell on her. Edinburgh Council had an unfortunate recent history of managing public and private property repairs. A scandal is still unfolding wherein its repairs officials forced private home owners to undertake remedial works at hugely inflated fees – some of the work is thought to have been unnecessary.

As the BBC put it:

“Two reports which reveal how a £40m black hole emerged in Edinburgh City Council’s property repairs department have been published. Auditors from Deloitte were called in two years ago to investigate allegations of fraud and mismanagement. They found serious failings and a lack of accountability in how the department was run. The department’s head, Dave Anderson has since resigned.”
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-edinburgh-east-fife-22314731 . (I hope Anderson got a nice golden goodbye package).

No wonder they didn’t have time to ensure the city’s own properties were well maintained. City Council teams have since “..found nine walls similar to the one which collapsed on Keane in Castlebrae Community High and Leith Academy secondary schools. A number of smaller free-standing walls were also identified in 11 primary schools.” according to Metro 4/4/14). Let’s hope the city will get its act together soon. Perhaps Aberdeen could take some proactive measures and fix its problem properties?

Perhaps it’s time for a few definitions spawned from this week’s news reports.

Trauma training:

Let’s face it; war is hell. Once you’ve signed up to defend your country/king/queen/economy, you may have to kill people. Mostly this can be done these days without anyone but cannon fodder leaving command central. It’s great that we’ve drones that can whiz round to search and destroy; no one’s hands ever need get dirty (well apart from the odd Afghani wedding guest and the like).

Still, if you’re going to send out the infantry now and again (for police actions, obviously not wars), best to make sure you know how to give them proper first aid.

we can’t hurt business, bad for the economy don’t you know

You might get away without giving troopers the right kit for where you fly them, but you’ll need medics; it’s good PR if nothing else. When missile are going off, a medic might well be as useful as a 747 instruction card at 30 thousand feet or ducking and covering in the face of an incoming nuclear weapon. But it makes us look good.

Still, you’ll have to show you’ve got trained medics, and training can only mean one thing: defence contracts. Defence contracts can only mean one thing: money.

How can you possibly train medics and others how to deal with soldiers who’ve been mildly wounded by automatic weaponry, mines, chemical warfare or missiles? Why, by tying up live farm animals, shooting and stabbing them, operating on them as they suffer, and then killing them. Repeat as necessary. Stabbing and amputation is apparently a big seller on the trauma training circuit, though Old Susannah wonders whether there is really that much stabbing happening on our front lines? Not so much I suspect.

Is there a great deal of automatic weaponry created by east and west being used to turn soldiers into Swiss cheese who will be nearly impossible to save? Definitely. Are there plenty of mines out there ripping off the odd human arm and leg? Most definitely.

There are no alternatives to the tiny amount of suffering that the pigs and goats get when their limbs are hacked off by ‘trainers’. You’ve got an industry going now, and we can’t hurt business, bad for the economy don’t you know.

However, according to those pesty people at PETA,

“U.S., Canada, Norway, Denmark, the U.K., and Poland were the only six NATO countries—out of 28—that still stab, shoot, blow up, and kill animals for cruel military training drills.”

What else can we do but make money and make animals suffer? How better to prepare someone for treating a wounded troop than being able to take a bullet out of an enemy piglet? Well, while we’re busy sending troops out to make the world safe (how’s that working out for you by the way?), 36,000 victims of gunshot wounds were treated in United States Emergency rooms in 2010. According to the Los Angeles Times:-

“The medical journal Pediatrics this week reported that, based on the most recent data from 2009, children are hospitalized for gunshot wounds at a rate of 20 a day, or one child every 72 minutes, for a total of 7,391 hospitalizations in 2009. Nine of 10 wounded kids are male, and disproportionately African American, which focuses the problem even more.”
http://articles.latimes.com/2014/jan/28/news/la-ol-kids-guns-hospitals-gun-control-20140128

I don’t know why a Los Angeles paper would be interested in gun crime; perhaps it was a slow news day.

It’s gratifying that people in this kind of training work are so entrepreneurially creative

I think it’s so wonderful we’ve got doctors in the armed forces who want to save lives (doctors who nobly uphold their Hippocratic oaths by being complicit in shooting and killing animals and people). I suppose we could train the forces doctors in emergency rooms where people, not animals, were the ones who were being shot, but that’s probably not much of an income generator.

Then we come to landmines. That would be a good case for blowing live animals up, because there are only 70 landmine injuries a day every day in the world. I’m not suggesting anything ludicrous like sending troops to clean up the landmines of past wars and helping the civilians who get injured by our left behind junk; for one thing, I doubt there’s as much money in cleaning up after military actions as there is in setting them up.

Then we come to the scientific, medical, ethical and logical reasons why we need to stab pigs, sheep and goats to teach people how to treat stab wounds. I’ve no solution to that, as I can’t find any record of knife crime in the US, UK or Europe. Nope, guess we’d best stick it to the animals, literally. As usual.

It’s gratifying that people in this kind of training work are so entrepreneurially creative that they’ve come up with the wheeze of making money by torturing animals for democracy. If that’s not capitalism at its finest, then I don’t know what is.

There is one theory that briefly crossed my mind for a second; I dismissed it promptly. What if the real purpose of getting people to accept the squeals of suffering animals, and to be able to cause that suffering was not to teach how to suture up wounds, but rather to make the trainees immune to suffering, to bond them together in a bloody slaughterhouse, and to weed out anyone who would object to this ‘training’ and say ‘this is wrong’.

I guess my imagination must be in overdrive; surely the military wouldn’t engage in any psychological conditioning. The only stupider idea that came to me was to cut our military spending, and buy more bread than guns, solve conflicts peacefully by building infrastructure, and leave the animals out of trauma training.

To bring it closer to home, an Aberdeen University trained doctor hit a sticky wicket in Afghanistan after he failed to notice that detainee civilian Baha Mousa was beaten to a pulp and then to death by the UK’s peacekeeping forces. A witness reported hearing the murdered widower say:

“I am innocent. Blood! Blood! I am going to die. My children are going to become orphans.”

Did former healer Dr Keilloh act like a doctor should? Well, his pals think so. Dr Jim Rodger, medical adviser at the Medical and Dental Defence Union of Scotland, said:

“Dr Keilloh is extremely disappointed at the decision of this Fitness to Practise Panel and he will need time to consider the implications of this erasure and his future course of action. He would like to say how much he appreciated the wealth of support he has received from his family, patients, colleagues and friends.”

Phil Shiner, of Public Interest Lawyers, said:

“The medical profession is well rid of such a man. All those UK doctors in Iraq who also saw signs of ill-treatment of Iraqi detainees but took no action had best start to instruct lawyers.”
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/former-army-doctor-struck-off-over-death-of-iraq-detainee-baha-mousa-8428695.html

The NHS is saved! Thank you Lord Warner!

It would be good to know if Keilloh had undertaken trauma training. It seems he hadn’t had enough training in the first place, and he was traumatised. How dreadful for him:
Doctor who denied he saw Iraqi detainee’s injuries is struck off BMJ

The panel acknowledged that, at the time, Keilloh was still a junior doctor who had not been given the predeployment training he was supposed to have … accepted that Keilloh’s judgment may have been clouded by the traumatic experience [I dare say Baha Mousa’s experience was probably a bit more traumatic than Keilloh’s; and the torture of the trauma training animals was probably not a great time either]

NHS “membership charge” (Modern English compound noun c. Lord Warner) – a proposed flat £10 per week charge for using the National Health Service.

That nice Mr Nick Tesco of The Members was on Facebook this week, issuing some curious anthropomorphic swear words I hadn’t previously heard. What caused his distress? A think-tank has said we should all chip in £10 per week for the NHS. For some reason, Nick seemed unhappy.

Well, I’m sure like me you’re wondering why we didn’t just think of this sooner. The NHS is saved! Thank you Lord Warner! Warner once worked alongside St. Anthony Blair, who of course had nothing at all to do with sweetening the NHS for privatisation or carving it up for private companies to jump in. (or in engineering wars).

Everyone has a spare ten pounds per week, don’t they? Well, let’s get with Warner’s plan, and pay it, along with our Council tax, to keep the NHS going. Clearly there is no bureaucracy in the NHS, no extraneous middle managers, no ridiculous bean-counting exercises, supply chain mismanagement, fraud, waste or pre-privatisation manoeuvring that could be got rid of.

No, it’s up to you and me to start paying our way for the NHS. Some of you may have been of the naïve opinion your taxes went to the NHS, but that seems to have eluded Warner and his co-author Jack O’Sullivan when they proposed a fair, flat tenner per week tax.

Here’s what my Lord Warner said:

“Many politicians and clinicians are scared to tell people that our much-beloved 65-year-old NHS no longer meets the country’s needs… Frankly, it is often poor value for money. The NHS now represents the greatest public spending challenge after the general election. MPs taking to the streets to preserve clinically unsustainable hospital services only damage their constituents.”

Warner, in a report he has co-authored for the think-tank Reform, says dramatic action is needed as the NHS faces an expected £30bn-a-year gap by 2020 between the demand for healthcare and its ability to respond, and needs several new funding streams to remain viable.

I’m sure we’ll all be queuing up to help the government monitor our bodies

Revenue could also come from higher, hypothecated “sin” taxes on alcohol, tobacco and gambling, and taxes on sugary foods because of rising obesity. Inheritance tax needs to be collected from more than the current 3.5% of the 500,000 people who die each year, and visitors staying overnight in hospital should pay “hotel charges”.

A £10 monthly fee would be used to fund local initiatives to improve prevention of ill-health and an annual “health MoT” for everyone of working age, say Warner and co-author Jack O’Sullivan, an expert in new thinking in health and social care.

I’m sure we’ll all be queuing up to help the government monitor our bodies – and then get even more money for its new wheeze of selling our health data to private companies. We’ll be in great shape soon! Result!

And it gets even better: Warner wants alcohol and cigarette ‘sin taxes’ for those in the herd who won’t be squeaky clean (but surely government officials will be immune). Sin taxes on the way soon? I’ve enough trouble with my syntax as it is. Let’s just get down to privatising the whole system, and setting up weekly blood and urine tests for the poor to boot.

Alas, reading the 191 page report when I should be painting is giving Old Susannah high blood pressure, and I’m not getting any younger. More later, particularly on the interesting Mr Sullivan and Lord Warner. I wonder if either of them have any reason to want privatisation? Surely not.

Nicky Tesco is interested in this stinktank, and so am I.

Next week: More definitions, if I pass the State’s health tests, and more on the police and related arresting new developments.

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Global Gathering For Women Comes To Aberdeen

Aberdeen City, News No Responses »

Feb 142014

With thanks to Kathryn Russell.

One Billion Rising campaign will be marked across the UK.

On Saturday 15th February, women from Aberdeen will be joining a major global campaign to end violence against women by staging a number of activities.

Anyone who wishes to join in with the activities is invited to meet them at 12pm at Aberdeen Community Health and Care Village on Frederick Street. Those attending will then parade to Union Street, wearing red ribbons.

Following the parade, the group will gather in the Bon Accord Centre to dance the signature One Billion Rising dance, Break the Chain, and collect money for local rape crisis charity RAS so, if you are in the area, please come along to join in with the dance or just watch.

From 2pm, everyone is invited to take part in a Zumbathon at Ferryhill Community Centre, Albury Rd, Aberdeen AB11 6TN.

One Billion Rising is a global initiative established last year on the 15th anniversary of the V-Day movement, a campaign launched in 1998 by the activist and writer of The Vagina Monologues, Eve Ensler. The focus of this year’s campaign will be justice and the work to be done around the UK to tackle violence against women.

Speaking about why she decided to take part in organising the event, June McGuire said:

“We need to re-educate and reframe our thinking around rape and abuse. Rising Up, speaking out, and being visible, we take rape and abuse outside the closet, and let those One Billion women and girls, know that they are not alone, they are not victims, and that we care about what has happened to them. We are also saying it is okay to speak out about it – that the shame does not belong to them.”

Chair of RAS, Kathryn Russell said:

“We are delighted that the Zumba instructors organising the day’s activities have chose to support RAS.

“As well as providing support to anyone who has experienced rape, sexual abuse or sexual exploitation at any point in their life, we also work with communities to develop awareness of the issues surrounding rape and One Billion Rising is an important day in highlighting the extent of violence against women internationally.”

Further information about the event is available on Facebook by searching for One Billion Rising Aberdeen. https://www.facebook.com/pages/One-Billion-Rising/273840142734115?fref=ts

Facebook event page – One Billion Rising Aberdeen 15th February 2014 – link: https://www.facebook.com/events/285120108308882/?ref=ts&fref=ts

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Christmas Shoppers Donate Almost £200 to Rape Crisis Charity

Aberdeen City, Information No Responses »

Nov 252013

With thanks to Aberdeen Women’s Alliance.

Members of AWA at their stall in Union Square. L-R Sandra Macdonald, Dianne Drysdale, Norma Grant and Deidre Mitchell.

On Saturday, Aberdeen Women’s Alliance (AWA) marked the United Nation’s International Day for the Elimination of Violence Against Women by collecting donations for local charity, Rape and Abuse Support (RAS) in Union Square.

International Elimination of Violence Against Women Day is marked annually by AWA to raise awareness of the forms of violence that women locally and around the world are subject to.

By highlighting this particular day, AWA aim to draw attention to the scale and true nature of violence against women, most of which is hidden from public view.

Chair of AWA, Sandra Macdonald said:

“Recent figures from Police Scotland show that offences of domestic violence in Aberdeen have increased by 36 per cent and there has been a rise in reported sexual assaults. It is, therefore, vital that we all continue to raise awareness of violence against women and we were delighted that so many people took time out from their Christmas shopping to speak to us about these issues.

“Through the generous donations we received, we raised £189.90 which will support the excellent work that RAS do to inform the public of the nature and extent of sexual violence as well as broadening understanding of how appropriate responses can be developed to prevent it.”

RAS provides support and advocacy to female survivors of sexual violence, whether recent or historical, as well as challenging public attitudes towards rape through outreach work.

International Elimination of Violence Against Women Day

Aberdeen City, Information No Responses »

Nov 212013

Aberdeen Women’s Alliance marks International Elimination of Violence Against Women Day

On Saturday 23rd November from 12pm, Aberdeen Women’s Alliance (AWA) will be marking the United Nation’s International Elimination of Violence Against Women Day by collecting donations for local charity, Rape and Abuse Support (RAS) at the top of the East Mall in Union Square.

International Elimination of Violence Against Women Day is marked annually by AWA to raise awareness that women locally and around the world are subject to a number of forms of violence.

By highlighting this particular day, AWA hope to draw attention to the scale and true nature of violence against women, most of which is hidden from public view.

Chair of AWA, Sandra Macdonald says:

“Recent figures from Police Scotland show that offences of domestic violence in Aberdeen have increased by 36 per cent and that there has been a rise in reported sexual assaults. It is vital that we all continue to raise awareness of violence against women.

“We are delighted to support RAS again this year. The funds we raise will go towards helping the excellent work RAS do to educate the public and professional bodies about the nature and extent of sexual violence as well as broadening understanding of how appropriate responses can be developed to prevent it.”

RAS provides support and advocacy to female survivors of sexual violence, whether recent or historical, as well as challenging public attitudes towards rape through outreach work.

AWA look forward to meeting and speaking with individuals on the day. If anyone has any questions or would like further information about the work being carried out by RAS, please email BoD@rasane.org.uk.

Naughty Boy Receives Coal (At Our Expense)

Articles, Environment, Featured 1 Response »

Oct 042013

Last week, we presented an article by Mel Kelly on the dangers of Unconventional Coal Gasification (UCG), and the possibility of this being practiced in the UK. This week, we are grateful for Mel’s permission to bring you further news of the nature of investment in UCG and of who stands to gain, or lose. This article was recently published on the open democracy site http://www.opendemocracy.net/author/mel-kelly and has not been amended for publication in Voice.

The government is giving away the rights to up to a billion tonnes of coal to a company owned by an ex-Conservative party fundraiser. Rather than filling his pockets, couldn’t this revenue source be used for the public good?

The coalition government is providing a former Conservative Party fundraiser’s new company with licences which secure his company the rights and interests to billions of tons of the nation’s coal for UCG processing.

UCG stands for underground coal gasification – a process to drill wells to set fire to coal underground and extract the gas by-products – both onshore and offshore.

Official reports in 2009, 2011 and 2012 on UCG pilot studies in India, America and Australia resulted in major water contamination with highly toxic carcinogenic chemicals, Benzene and Toluene, (contamination which one private company covered up for 2 months) and the EU trial ending in disaster when they could not control the technology resulting in an explosion and the trial being abandoned.

Just a few weeks ago an independent scientific panel in Queensland advised the state government against the development of a UCG industry until the firms involved can demonstrate the ability to put out the underground coal fires the process creates.

Algy Cluff, the founder of one of the companies recently handed multiple UCG licenses for both onshore and offshore by the Department of Energy & Climate Change, actually stated last week the technology is not proven offshore . Yet, he is about to embark on a UCG offshore test in Scotland. And when we say offshore, this does not mean the North Sea – the test is to be carried out in the Firth of Forth.

UCG licenses are also being issued for the Thames Estuary, SwanseaBay, the Dee Estuary and the Humber Estuary – as well as the North and Irish seas – when the technology still poses risks of major contamination with UCG carcinogenic chemicals as well as explosions and subsidence.

Onshore licences have also been made available for Warwickshire, Dumfries&Galloway, Cumbria and Lincolnshire with Algy Cluff claiming the technology was “proven onshore” – despite the Queensland decision.

The people of Warwickshire and Fife are up in arms as they have only just found out about Algy Cluff’s plans to burn billions of tonnes of coal underground in their area to extract gas. So who exactly is Algy Cluff and what experience does he have in UCG?

David Cameron has opened the windows of this country once again

Algy Cluff made a fortune in North Sea oil in the 1970s and has been involved in Africa since the 60’s, where he had various mining interests including gold and platinum and “during his time in Zimbabwe he became a friend of the now-despised Robert Mugabe, the country’s president.”

He stood as a Conservative candidate in the 1966 General Election and used to own the Spectator magazine where he had former Tory Party Chairman Norman Tebbit and Francis Maude, the current Minister for the Cabinet Office and the Paymaster General, on his board of Directors .

Cluff was the unpaid external director of fundraising for the Conservative Party, securing large donations from prominent Hong Kong businessmen until June 1993 and he also helped fund Kenneth Clarke’s Tory Party leadership campaign in 2005.

Algy Cluff told Country Life magazine “he’s pleased with the Coalition” and of the Labour Party he said ‘I am thrilled that we’ve got rid of those snarling thugs, devoid of humour, manners or judgment. David Cameron has opened the windows of this country once again, and, although there are difficult times ahead, it is possible to hear the sound of laughter.’

After years abroad Algy Cluff returned to set up Cluff Natural Resources in the UK on 21st February 2012, just in time to apply for the new licences to the rights and interests in Britain’s coal for projects which his Board believes could generate significant value for Cluff Natural Resources shareholders – no wonder Algy Cluff predicted the sound of laughter.

The Firth of Forth in Scotland, just one of the coalition government new UCG licensed areas for which Cluff Natural Resources has secured a UCG license, has a target to burn up to 1 billion tonnes of untapped coal.

Despite only being formed in 2012 The Cluff Natural Resources website states: “The Company currently has 100% working interest in five Deep Underground Coal Gasification (‘UCG’) Licences in the UK covering a total of 30,881 hectares of Carmarthenshire and the Dee Estuary, the North Wales/Merseyside border, the Firth of Forth near Kincardine, Scotland, North Cumbria and Largo Bay. Cluff Natural Resources intends to carry out a Scoping Study on the licences and identify an area for test production” using unproven technology which, it has been established, can potentially cause major contamination of groundwater with carcinogenic chemicals, cause explosions and subsidence above and below ground.

fracking is one of the processes used.

Regarding the test site in the Firth of Forth in Scotland, last week Algy Cluff made the claim to a local newspaper, to justify his forthcoming drilling, “There would be no introduction of water or chemicals, unlike fracking”.

According to Science and Technology review’s explanation of the UCG process “In the UCG process, injection wells are drilled into an unmined coal seam, and either air or oxygen is injected into the cavity. Water is also needed and may be pumped from the surface or may come from the surrounding rock.”

The UCG Consulting website the UCG process requires “injecting oxidant and possibly steam or water to support combustion and the carbon gasification reactions”. Additionally, section 14 of Shell’s submission to the British Government regarding UCG states that fracking is one of the processes used.

Why is Algy Cluff so desperate to try to distance UCG from its requirement for water and fracking when everyone else in the industry is open and honest about the requirements? How is he able to claim the onshore UCG process is proven when it has run into so many problems around the world?

And why are the Tory MPs in charge of the Department of Energy and Climate Change so desperate to issue licences now, before the technology is determined to be safe? Could it be they are worried that if they wait, they will have lost the next election and the power to issue licences to private companies of their choice before the nation realises what is going on?

Should private companies be handed the rights to nation’s coal reserves without the government consulting the British people? Bearing in mind that, according to a Department of Trade and Industry report, “The UK resource suitable for deep seam UCG is estimated at 17 billion tonnes, or 300 years’ supply at current consumption, according to a Department of Trade & Industry report.”

The government charges telecoms companies billions of pounds just to use the airwaves of Britain for their profit – so how much is the nation’s 300 years worth of coal reserves worth to a country undergoing tough austerity? Rather than privatising our coal reserves to further enrich the wealthy, perhaps this source of revenue might be better used to bolster our empty public purse.

Images courtesy of Freefoto.com.

Click here for video of Mel Kelly being interviewed by Denis Campbell online – re. UCG

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Is Fracking All We Have To Worry About?

Articles, Environment, Featured No Responses »

Sep 272013

Aberdeen Voice is grateful to citizen journalist Mel Kelly for bringing to our attention the little known, but highly controversial issue of Unconventional Coal Gasification, and for granting permission to use one of her articles recently published on the Open Democracy site.

As demonstrations grow against “fracking” in the UK, another controversial gas extraction method has quietly been licensed.

Underground Coal Gasification, or UCG, is the drilling of wells to set fire to underground coal seams and the channelling of the mixture of gas by-products including hydrogen, carbon monoxide, methane and large volumes of carbon dioxide up to the surface.

Two well heads are required in the UCG process, one to inject air or oxygen down to the coal chamber and another to extract the resulting mix of gases produced by burning the coal underground.

Water taken either from the surface, or from below the ground is also required for the UCG process (over and above the water private companies already want to use for “fracking”). Once the gas runs out in the initial well location, the well heads are moved to follow the coal seam. This process leaves behind underground caverns contaminated with toxic waste, as well as scarring the countryside further as the wellheads creep along.

But scarring the countryside is the least of the environmental risks caused as a direct result of UCG gas extraction methods.

Reports on onshore UCG trials from America in 1993, Australia in 2011 and India in 2012 state UCG onshore trials had to be halted after groundwater was contaminated. Contaminants included benzene – which can cause leukaemia and bone marrow abnormalities in humans and animals – and toluene, which can affect the kidneys, nervous system, liver, brain and heart as well as causing miscarriages.

Friends Of The Earth’s Australian website states:

“The Department of Environment Resource Management recently had to shut down a UCG project in Queensland by Cougar Energy, after the discovery that local bores had become polluted with carcinogenic chemicals such as benzene and toluene. The contamination meant farmers in the area were unable to use the bores.

“The company however, didn’t notify the department until two months after it became aware of the contamination.”

Cougar Energy announced on August 19th that it is trying to change its name to Moreton Resources as:

“its current name is strongly linked to UCG and may be disadvantageous for attracting and retaining the support of investors in the future”

Of course, groundwater contamination is not the only serious consequence of the UCG process to extract gas.

Experts admit UCG also creates major subsidence risks both above and below ground.

The Frack Off website also listing 20 different known environmental risks it believes are associated with UCG gas extraction).

A 2011 American Report states:

“While UCG has a number of advantages, significant technological barriers must still be addressed before UCG can be considered commercially viable. Costly environmental consequences such as aquifer contamination and ground subsidence need consideration before commercial application.”

A few weeks ago, a Queensland Government panel rejected the commercial UCG industry in Queensland “until the companies proved they could halt the combustion process once gas had been extracted”, this is despite the companies using “world-leading technology” according to Mines Minister Andrew Cripps.

Even the European 1999 UCG trial had to be halted, with the Department of Trade Industry stating:

“a blockage that was impossible to clear, caused an underground explosion”

The Department of Energy and Climate Change webpage actually refers to this DTI sponsored trial claiming the trial “has demonstrated the feasibility of UCG at depths typical of European coal” and neglects to mention that the facts of the trial was, in fact, a complete disaster which resulted in an underground explosion out of anyone’s control.

If numerous UCG pilot projects on four different continents were halted as a result of major groundwater contamination or events getting out of control resulting in an explosion what will the impact of an untested large scale industrial project in a country the size of the UK be – such as the one currently proposed in Warwickshire?

A newly formed British company, Cluff Natural Resources, has applied for the first onshore licence in the UK to start UCG gas extraction in Warwickshire, with their founder, Algy Cluff claiming underground coal gasification is “safe and unlike fracking”, despite evidence to the contrary from recent trials worldwide.

He also claims UCG “is a fairly well established practice internationally” – again despite the Queensland government banning UCG, on an industrial scale, just weeks ago because it is still not safe, even when using world leading technology.

If Algy Cluff gets his way, this proposed UCG project in Warwickshire, will result in an area affected about the same size as Coventry which would stretch from Ryton-on-Dunsmore through Bubbenhall, Weston-under-Wetherley, Hunningham, Princethorpe and Marton – just 7 miles from Leamington Spa – ironically once famed for the quality and medicinal properties of the local water.

And that is just the first UCG application for an onshore UCG project.

According to Frack Off, this is only the start of a number of “fracking” projects the coalition government are licensing across England and the rest of the UK.

David Cameron’s government is currently going to court with the aim to ensure private mining companies can shift their liabilities away from covering the full cost of cleaning up their toxic mess.

With “the Advocate General and KMPG arguing UK insolvency law trumps the Scottish environmental regulations, meaning liquidators would have the power to abandon environmental clean-up costs after the company with the responsibility for them has gone bust”, reinforcing Cameron’s demands we should all back his dash for gas “fracking” and UCG processes.

No wonder the people of Warwickshire are furious.

Images courtesy of Freefoto.com.

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Food Hygiene, Hand Washing And Remembering Typhoid

Aberdeen City, Featured, History, Information No Responses »

Sep 082013

2014 will be the 50^th anniversary of the then-terrifying outbreak of typhoid in Aberdeen, once commemorated by the scallywags of Scotland the What, ‘I can mind the typhoid epidemic at its worst, we never washed wir hands unless we did the lavvie first’. Duncan Harley muses on food hygiene then and now.

Sadly, three patients being treated in Aberdeen’s City Hospital died, but it could have been much worse indeed had the authorities been slower to act.

There have been several such public health epidemics since 1964 but the 1996 Lanarkshire E. coli O157 food poisoning outbreak must rank as being among the most devastating, both in terms of deaths and of the failure of those charged with keeping our food supplies safe.

A total of twenty-one people died in the 1996 E. coli outbreak after eating contaminated meat supplied by a butcher’s shop in Wishaw, Lanarkshire. In 1998, Sheriff Principal Graham Cox concluded after a two-month inquiry that the shopkeeper, John Barr, had been ignorant of food hygiene procedures and had also deceived food inspectors.

Sheriff Cox also severely criticised the Environmental Health service as acting too slowly in linking the outbreak to Mr Barr’s shop.

Both the Aberdeen and Lanarkshire E. coli cases were, of course, public relations disasters for the businesses concerned. John Barr’s shop was closed for three months but it did reopen at the end of February 1997 after remedial work had been carried out. However, the shop closed again in April 1998 when the building began to collapse because of old mine workings.

The source of the Aberdeen typhoid epidemic was a Granite City supermarket which unwittingly sold on contaminated supplies of corned beef imported from a cannery in Rosaria in the Argentine. The shop closed for good in the light of the episode and a good few folk breathed a sigh of relief.

Dr Ian MacQueen’s use of the words ‘leper colony’ may have been particularly unfortunate

The economic effects on Wishaw are difficult to calculate. It was not a tourist Mecca nor was it endowed with copious volumes of North Sea oil. On the other hand, over a decade before the oil started coming ashore, Aberdeen suffered great economic hardship in the years following the 1964 epidemic.

Hotels and restaurants were perhaps the worst affected and the area Tourist Board’s attempts to encourage folk back to the Granite City were not helped by the proclamation of the then Medical Officer of Health, Dr MacQueen, “we’re not a leper colony!” His subsequent advice to Aberdonians and holidaymakers alike to avoid swimming or paddling in the sea led to a local paper headlining on ‘Beach Bombshell’ and pretty effectively killed off any short term prospect of the return of the lucrative ‘Glasgow holiday trade’ to the beach seafront area.

Dr Ian MacQueen’s use of the words ‘leper colony’ may have been particularly unfortunate though. Perhaps lacking an in-house spin doctor, he may have imagined that the proclamation would have had a more positive effect. After all, the epidemic had more or less been contained and, from a health perspective, the battle was all but won.

The word leper however, then as now, is closely associated with grotesque suffering and disfiguration leading to the shunning of sufferers and their treatment as outcasts.

Leprosy is an infectious disease causing severe disfiguring skin sores and nerve damage in the arms and legs. The disease has been around since ancient times and is often associated with some quite terrifying negative stigmas. Outbreaks of leprosy have affected and panicked people on every continent.

St Fitticks Church on Nigg Kirk Road reputedly features a leper’s window

The oldest civilisations of China, Egypt and India feared leprosy as an incurable, mutilating and contagious disease. According to recent World Health Organization estimates, around 180000 people worldwide are currently infected with leprosy.

Even today, over 200 people are diagnosed with leprosy in the US every year, mostly in California and Hawaii. There was even a recorded case in Eire a few years ago.

Leprosy died out in Scotland several hundred years ago although there are a few sites in Aberdeen associated closely with the disease. The Grampian Fire and Rescue Service headquarters, for example, was constructed on the site of an old Leper House just off Kings Crescent. Bede House in Old Aberdeen also has associations with leprosy and may be situated on the site of a lepers’ hospital.

St Fitticks Church on Nigg Kirk Road reputedly features a leper’s window although this is now in some dispute since the disease may well have died out in the area well before the small opening in the northern wall was formed.

St Fittick was of Scottish or Irish descent. He may have been a son of the Dalriadan King Eugene IV and might have been brought up on Iona. Equally, he may have been born into a noble Irish family. What is certain though, is that as a young man he lived in France.

Scottish tradition suggests he was sent by the Bishop of Meaux to deliver Christianity to the Picts in the North of Scotland. He was seemingly swept from his ship during a storm and washed ashore at Nigg Bay, where he refreshed himself from a well which took his name and caused the church to be built. Some accounts relate that he was thrown overboard by the crew of the ship who feared that he was unlucky.

The truth may never be known.

What is known is that St Fittick became the patron saint of gardeners, having performed a miracle in instantly clearing a large area of forest for cultivation.

St Fitticks Church, Torry. Credit: Duncan Harley

St Fitticks Church, Torry, Aberdeen.

He is also, seemingly, the patron saint of Parisian taxi drivers, which is hard to explain unless you are a Parisian taxi driver.

St Fittick’s Day is usually celebrated on 30 August in the UK and a day later in Ireland.

As well as having a long and fascinating religious and social history, St Fittick’s Church in Nigg is also where William Wallace, or at least the relic of the man which was sent to this corner of Scotland, is said to be buried.

But, back to the events of 1964.

We frequently hear complaints from restaurateurs and publicans about the strict food hygiene rules and the cost of training staff to adhere to the standards required by Environmental Health Inspectors.

It is most unlikely that food inspection or hygiene courses will cause either E. coli or leprosy, but they may prevent us getting sick. If Dr MacQueen had been more astute in the PR department in 1964, then perhaps Aberdeen would now be the tourist destination of choice for the cognoscenti of Europe instead of the Oil Capital of Europe.

Described by a colleague as ‘a bulldog with the hide of a rhinoceros’ Dr MacQueen’s strategy of innovative traditionalism has been seen by some as an attempt to protect and extend his department’s services. He was deemed to have made excessive use of the media and to have turned the outbreak into an event approaching a national crisis.

Compared to the human cost of the Lanarkshire E. coli outbreak, Aberdeen’s typhoid epidemic pales into insignificance, except that we all remember it.

The legacy of Dr MacQueen lives on, even after fifty years.

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ACF Tackles Council Over Poor Provision For Cyclists

Aberdeen City, Environment No Responses »

Aug 152013

Members of the Aberdeen Cycle Forum have handed a 700-plus signature petition about the Westhill Cycle Path to City Council leader Barney Crockett.
The Forum’s Derek Williams explained the background to Voice.

The petition calls on the Council to improve sections of the Westhill cycle path which serves the new Prime 4 development at Kingswells.

The main concern of Forum members and regular users of the path is a narrow section that runs dangerously close to the A944 Westhill to Aberdeen dual carriageway.

The Forum is also requesting improvements to the barriered Cyclists dismount section near to the Five Mile Garage.

The petition was raised following many frustrating months of failing to convince city planners that the cycle path needs improvement in order to encourage cycle use, and also to go some way towards guaranteeing user safety along this busy commuter corridor.

Derek explained,

“The response we’ve had to the petition has been amazing and shows that people recognise the need for improvements. We know cyclists think the narrow stretch is unsafe and this will undoubtedly put some people off cycling to Prime 4. The result will be more car commuting and congestion. With people moving onto Prime 4 soon, it is vital that the Council gets on and fixes this section of the path.

“We hope that the Council Leader and councillors will see the strength of feeling, and will be motivated by the scale of the response to find a way to make progress.”

The Forum is committed, says Derek, to continuing to work with City councillors and officers to see through improvements to the path, thus improving the wellbeing of local cyclists. It extends its thanks to those who signed the petition and to everyone who made the effort in helping to collect signatures.

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Holyrood Ghost Bikes – NE Cycling Casualties Commemorated

Information, News 7 Responses »

Jul 262013

Shocked and angered by the deaths of two people on bikes in the space of a week, a group of Edinburgh cyclists has taken action on behalf of all cyclists in Scotland in drawing attention to the latest tragedies. With thanks to Sara Dorman.

Two white-painted ghost bikes were left outside the Scottish Parliament on Monday 22 July to commemorate all eight cyclists including two children already killed in Scotland in 2013.

The number of cyclists killed on Scotland’s roads in 2012 rose to nine from 2011’s seven.
This looks set to rise again in 2013.

Almost as if to illustrate, grotesquely, the protest, just forty minutes after the sombre ceremony at the Parliament building, Mary Brook (59) of Drumnadrochit was killed as she cycled on Loch Ness side, the ninth cyclist to die on Scotland’s road this year.

The Scottish Government has rejected calls made by Pedal on Parliament, public health experts and MSPs to increase spending on cycling infrastructure, including safe, separated cycle tracks, to £20 per head. The recent Cycling Action Plan for Scotland also rejected calls for the implementation of strict liability laws in civil cases, claiming that as road casualty figures were falling overall, there was no case to be made for this change.

Ghost bikes have been used around the world to mark locations of fatal cycle accidents, to act both as memorial and warning. Andy Arthur, a cyclist involved in the Holyrood installation, explained the reasoning behind it.

“We feel that the blame for these avoidable deaths must lie as much with the inaction of the Scottish Government as with the drivers concerned. The political leadership in Holyrood have the power and the budgets to do something about the safety of cycling, yet they seem to lack political will.

“By leaving the memorial in full view of Parliament we hope it will stir our elected representatives into action, or else shame them for their inaction. It emerged spontaneously out of the real anger and hurt we felt at the news of yet another death this week, coming on top of the loss of two members of the Edinburgh Triathletes club in separate crashes this year.’”

Sara Dorman, among the organisers of Pedal on Parliament, said:

“Only two months ago 4000 people pedalled on the Scottish Parliament to ask for just £100m a year to make Scotland’s roads safer for everyone, from eight to eighty, to cycle.

“Sadly, this year we’ve seen the death of an eight year old and someone who was almost eighty. Unfortunately, the state of our roads means that deaths are inevitable, as bikes are regularly brought into conflict with fast-moving traffic. Despite the government finding £3bn to dual the A9, supposedly on safety grounds, they’ve told us there’s no money to increase investment in safer cycling and all they’ve suggested is an information campaign urging mutual respect, the sort of campaign which has failed over and over in the past.

“It seems that there’s no sum too large to make the roads safer for driving, but when it comes to the safety of people on bikes, even children, then even the smallest sum is begrudged. We hope that Scotland’s politicians will see these memorials and show real leadership in making cycling safer for everyone.”

A memorial to all cyclists fatally-injured in the last five years was unveiled with the ghost bikes. It reads:

“This Memorial was placed here on July 22nd 2013 by a small group of Edinburgh cyclists; for and on behalf of all cyclists in Scotland. It has been placed here in memory of each cyclist killed on Scotland’s roads in recent years; these were people’s friends and loved ones; husbands and wives, fathers and mothers; sons and daughters; grandparents, aunts and uncles.

“The tally on this memorial shows how deaths amongst cyclists on Scotland’s roads are increasing. In mid-2013, the per-capita death rate for cyclists on Scotland’s roads is 3 times that of London. The Scottish Transport Secretary states that fatalities are down on our roads and that they are safer than ever. This is not the case, and the inaction and denial on the part of the Scottish Government must stop now.

“This Memorial accompanies Ghost Bikes, which have been placed outside the Scottish Parliament so that they are in full view of our elected representatives, who have the power, authority and budgets to do all that it takes to tackle the preventable loss of life on our roads. Ghost Bikes have been used all over the world as a memorial to cyclists who have been killed or severely injured on the road.

“All it takes for people to keep being killed cycling on Scotland’s roads is for our Government to keep doing nothing”

http://pedalonparliament.org/

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Old Susannah’s Journal No. 115 – Self Knowledge

Articles, Opinion, Satire and Humour 7 Responses »

Mar 282013

Voice’s Old Susannah takes a look over the past week’s events in the ‘Deen and beyond. By Suzanne Kelly.

What a week it’s been. Firstly (before the satire sets in), I have been asked to convey thanks to the Formartine councillors who took the logical, courageous, sensible, prudent step of deferring the planning permission Trump had asked for.

Several Aberdeenshire residents asked me to write on their behalf to the councillors in question, asking them not to approve the retrospective permission. These residents, and plenty more, are very pleased with the outcome, and hope to see the bunds down – and Trump Golf International forced to comply with what was approved.

If the councillors visit the Munro’s now-dark kitchen and look out the window at the bund which blocks the light as well as the view, they cannot fail to vote to take the bund down.

Thanks to the residents, those who lobbied, and above all, to the person who found out the shire had changed documents on this application, yet still recommended approval.

I had a delicious meal at Norwood Hall this week, enjoying some fun and games courtesy of Team Challenge.

There was a crazy golf game set up. It cost far less than £200 or so to play, there wasn’t sand and snow blowing at the players, none of the course disintegrated, and coffee and a sandwich didn’t break the bank. No security guards jumped out in front of me as I prepared to putt; I even got a hole in one. Thanks Norwood and Team Challenge.

I made a brief visit or two to BrewDog, which continues to be a great place to enjoy the odd half or two, and talk to interesting, friendly people.

Long may it run.

My photo shows some sensational new wall art by BrewDog’s Fisher; he’s organised it so undergrads from Gray’s can hang work up in the bar, too. Expect the first art in a few days.

There is a fundraiser for Willows down in Chichester this Saturday night; I’m very happy to be going. Patron Paul Rodgers and his wife Cynthia will be there; Paul’s performing, as is…. Deborah Bonham, who has a new album imminent. (If you didn’t know, she is sister to the late, great, unequalled John Henry Bonham of Led Zeppelin).

There will be an auction of memorabilia afterwards as well. (This sounds like my idea of heaven). It is hoped that a concert can take place closer to Willows sometime, but this night is for two charities and the performers are based in that part of the world. Willows own open day is this Sunday; let’s hope the weather improves for their sake and the sake of all animals.

But now it’s time for a few relevant definitions based on this week’s events; this week with an eye on the modern self.

Self-harming: (Modern English compound noun) The act of inflicting deliberate injury on oneself, often involving bloodletting and sharp instruments; an emotional illness.

Perhaps the most bizarre health-related story of this or any other recent week concerns those poor souls who self-harm. Thankfully, this is the 21^st century, and the latest psychological treatments are at hand to help.

Unsted Park School has this unfortunate malaise in hand. Well, actually, one of its teachers hands out sterilised blades to self-harmers.

According to the BBC, a school spokeswoman said:-

“This was a short-term, local procedure introduced by the head teacher and school principal who genuinely believed it was in the best interests of the pupil.

“However, they accept that the procedure should not have been implemented without further approvals having been obtained from key stakeholders and senior management prior to its introduction.”
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-surrey-21941578

This amazing statement has failed to impress school inspection officials, who for some reason find dishing out razor blades to emotionally-disturbed young people ‘deeply worrying.’ You don’t say.

For ‘stakeholders’ read friends and family, who some feel just might want to have a say in whether or not their friend, daughter, son or sibling was given a way to self-harm.

Apparently we are supposed to be happy that this was ‘supervised’ and that the blades were sterilised. We wouldn’t want anyone getting hurt while self-harming, would we? And you thought you’d heard everything.

It would be rather nice to know who this teacher was, what approval they had received and from whom for this great scheme, what psychological training they had, and to know what in the heck they were thinking to actually think this was in anyone’s best interest. Wherever this teacher gets their ideas from needs serious investigation.

Self-justification: (noun) Rationalising one’s own methods and actions.

Looking through a Press & Journal this week, I learnt that the ‘Tree for Every Citizen’ Scheme was a great success! Although this gave me déjà vu to see in print, it’s won an award!

Those behind this huge success story told the P&J that the scheme was opposed by some animal rights activists, but it’s an award-winning, tree-celebrating, all-singing, all-shooting success. I’m so happy to hear it.

Only a pedant would point out that the local community councils wanted to keep the meadowland and the deer they had – a herd which had wandered the hill for over 70 years with no problems or over-population issues.

Only a petty mind would care that Chris Piper, man behind the scheme, made about £70,000 from the City, and over £100,000 was spent to turn our meadow into a defoliated mess. Trees at St Fitticks are growing, says the City Council, so it must be true. Of course they are no taller than they were two years ago (well, the tree protector tubes that aren’t actually hollow anyway).

The area is choked with weeds, but if the city and the P&J say it’s a successful scheme, then who am I, thousands of local residents who signed a petition, the Scottish SPCA, Animal Concern Advice Line, and a host of political figures to disagree?

Couldn't we have left a little gorse for overwintering and early nesting species?

Bulldozing gorse, killing deer, getting rid of the wildlife we had from butterflies and birds to small mammals and deer – these can all be explained away by Tallboys, HoMalone and Piper – they had to kill this wildlife so that they would make a home for wildlife later on.

The trees newly planted on the hill are already surrounded by taller weeds.

The SNH told us to spend time and money ensuring that weeds didn’t hinder the scheme for a second time (it’s already cost us £43,800). For some reason, none of this gets into the Press & Journal. I wonder why.

More tellingly, there is not a single photo in the P&J showing what the hill looks like now.

If you want to see our own war zone, go and visit it for yourself, or see older photos in Aberdeen Voice. But as long as a handful of self-enriching, self-aggrandising people behind this scheme are happy, than what’s the wishes of thousands of others and our previous wildlife haven in comparison?

Self-Deluding: (compound noun) State of convincing one’s self that an untruth is actually true.

Mr Trump says offshore wind farms, which sadly for him were approved this week, will destroy Scotland.

For some years now, I thought it would be acceptable to have an offshore wind farm. Even though someone as astute and as big an environmentalist as Donald Trump said it was a horrible idea, I thought there might be some merit in wind over nuclear energy or some other fracking nonsense.

Well, earlier this week I was nearly convinced that Mr Trump was right all along.

Again I look this week to the Press & Journal for my facts: and what I saw at first terrified me. The paper showed a picture of St Nicholas House, coming in at around 174 feet high, and next to it, towering over it (!) was a wind turbine which could actually be over 600 feet tall! I’m not kidding!

My first reaction was of course complete horror: “Did everyone know that an offshore wind turbine can actually be even taller than St Nicholas House? Why didn’t anyone tell me?” I wondered. I’d never have guessed!

The paper’s position seems to be that wind turbines, or windmills as Donald Trump likes to call them, of this size would of course ruin Scotland not only for tourists – but for golfers as well, and we can’t have that obviously.

Perhaps we should back a call not to put any 600 ft windfarms in town next to St Nicholas House.

It’s an amazing bit of coincidence that the paper and Donald Trump are against windfarms, and keep repeating what a nightmare offshore windfarms would be if near The Donald. They do say great minds think alike. Then again, they also say fools seldom differ, particularly if one really rich fool hires the wife of a fool who wants advertising revenue.

Thinking over this great illustration for a nanosecond or two, I became less alarmed. While I’m sure the P&J meant well, and aren’t trying to cause any panic, I would like to refer whoever wrote this to an old episode of the inimitable Father Ted.

Ted and Dougal are in a caravan on holiday (but obviously not in Scotland because there isn’t enough golf and there are windfarms). Father Ted holds a plastic toy cow, shows it to Dougal, and points out the window to some farm animals in a faraway field. Dougal seems baffled, looking from the plastic cow in his hand to the cows and bulls in the field.

“This looks big,” Ted says to Dougal, “but those are very, very far away.” Ted explains.

Perhaps a wind farm far off shore would not look as big as one next to St Nicholas House? A wild theory, but I’ve enough self-confidence to put it out there. In the meantime, no doubt Trump and the P&J will keep repeating their line that windfarms must go.

Keep repeating it gentlemen; you’ll eventually start to believe it.

Self confidence: (noun) A condition of self-awareness and acceptance; being at ease with one’s self.

In this age, self-confidence is essential to get by. Self confidence is necessary in business and social situations , but remember, girls must not be very self-confident, or they run the risk of being ‘full of themselves’, a sin men are rarely guilty of.

It must be a hard thing to be a man in today’s world and lack self-confidence. Take for a moment (or just take full stop) one Mr Donald Trump.

This retiring wallflower billionaire recluse should really think about getting himself some public relations. He’s rarely mentioned in the press, despite all his good works. His name and winsome photo only appear in the media if he goes somewhere, says something, sneezes, holds a golf club, or gets on or off of an airplane.

He should really stop hiding his light under a bushel. For instance, he stated to a government inquiry that he considers himself to be an environmentalist. Try as I might, I can’t find any news stories to back this up.

Perhaps there is some way he can ingratiate himself further still with the Scottish public. Does he have any Scottish ancestry, I wonder? Perhaps he could get a coat of arms made up; this would impress us all.

Sad to say, but a lack of self-confidence can come from a lack of personal grooming skills. Perhaps he should let his hair down a bit more or something. Perhaps a trip to the dentist might help; on those rare occasions he is seen in the press, the faces he makes suggests wisdom tooth issues or badly fitting dentures. Good luck to you Donald; we’re all behind you (one way or the other).

I think we’d best leave it there for now. A very Happy Easter Weekend to those celebrating it. Whatever you celebrate or don’t celebrate, the National Trust has some great activities for families this weekend (and there is the Willows open day, too). Let’s hope for some continued warmer weather.

Special Easter Egg Hunt Competition: Hidden in this satirical column are one or two grammatical errors! Yes really! If our sub editor doesn’t spot them, not only will they have their salary withheld, but the first reader to point out the grammatical/spelling errors will win the sub editor’s AV salary for the week!

Tally Ho!

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