Your Every Move is Being Watched

We have become used to CCTV cameras everywhere these days, even although we may not be too happy about them.    Our mobile phone logs into the nearest base station every so many minutes, effectively tracking its location.    As we drive along roads, number plate recognition is used to monitor traffic flows, but increasingly to track criminals.    Our supermarket knows exactly what we buy.    How we choose to live our lives is becoming more and more in the public domain.

But now the government in its Communications Data Bill is proposing that ISPs have available all of our e-mails for the past 12 months as well as how much time we spend online and a record of where we go when online.   

This is really a step too far.    It is exactly equivalent to the government asking the Royal Mail to open, photograph and have available for examination, every piece of mail we receive (or send too).    There should be a massive fuss about this.

Our Evil Children; our Useless Police.

We have a community owned woodland walk in our village.    It is a pleasant and much used circular walk with a stream running through it.     Members of our community give up their time freely to maintain and enhance this space.

We had an in-service training day this week - a day where school pupils do not go to school, but their teachers do.     This leaves children with a free day on their hands, and a day where supervision by parents may be stretched due to work commitments.

So a group of these free-ranging kids got hold of some extra strength bleach - the really heavy duty stuff, and went down to the community walk.   They poured this concentrated chemical over bridge handrails, on the ground and over a memorial stone.    This was simple premeditated badness.

Our walk is used by walkers, by children and by dogs.    Imagine a young child holding onto a handrail and then putting their hand to their mouth - as children do.     Imagine dogs walking through concentrated bleach and then trying to clean their paws.    Imagine the bleach falling off the bridges into the stream and killing the fish.

We called the police and tried to keep walkers away meantime.    We gave up waiting for the police after an hour and a half, and it was dark.    A car might have taken a turn round the car park later on - but that is all that it was.     And we have heard nothing more.    The police clearly are not interested, which is appalling.    We obviously have wait until we have a child with blisters down her throat requiring hospital treatment before anything gets done.

As a farmer, I have to monitor and record all my chemical use.   There are very strict rules about the distance between spraying activity and watercourses.    I have to record and have available for inspection the minute detail of all spraying activity.   We are talking about dilute chemical here.     If I pollute a waterway, I will (rightly) be taken to court.    And, yes, I have had a randomised snap inspection by the authorities.

But it seems that if children pollute a waterway with concentrated chemical, then nobody cares, including the police.    The children in question should be found;   the people who are supposed to looking after them should be hanging their heads in shame.    It is similar to the situation where children set fire to a healthy beech tree last summer.

 

 

Carol Hogel - A Note of Thanks.

Carol Hogel is an American who has been living in Scotland for the past 25 years.    She has been a major sponsor of the arts in Scotland and the UK - to the tune of £20 million through the Dunard Fund which she set up.

She has contributed to the RSNO, most UK opera companies, the National Galleries of Scotland, Scottish Chamber Orchestra and lots more.    It is a big list, and adds up to a lot of money.

For Scotland, through her generosity, she has allowed us to be genuinely ambitious with artistic projects, like the building of the Playfair project at the National Gallery, like bringing Peter Stein’s Parsifal to Edinburgh, and so much more.      She helped rescue the Edinburgh International Festival from a financial black hole.   In short, she has made a major contribution to the UK arts, particularly in Scotland.

But now, faced with what she sees as a tax for bringing her wealth to the UK - the Brown/Darling  non dom tax of £30,000 pa, she has announced that she is moving to California, where philanthropists giving to the arts are appreciated.

Shamingly, it was not the tax itself which tipped the balance, but a chippy article written by Robert McNeil in The Scotsman which concluded by saying “The rich are leaving, and good ruddy riddance to them”.   Hogel wrote a letter back accusing McNeil of “taking ethnic cleansing to a whole new level” and calling him “destructive, spiteful and philistine”.    

A civilised country is measured in part by its artistic and cultural status and aspirations.     A vibrant arts sector contributes to the high quality of life we enjoy in Scotland.    It encourages others to visit, and it provides many jobs.

So, this is to say thank you so much to Carol Hogel for her generous contributions.      I am so sad it had to end like this.     NcNeil and The Scotsman should be hanging their heads in shame.

Police Cordon

We had a bit of excitement in our village this week.   A police cordon appeared with cones and tape blocking off the whole pavement on one side and parking on both sides of the street.    A white boxy trailer thing (mobile incident room) appeared, and there were a series of rather chilly looking policemen standing guard in rota.     Then a minibus of the white suited brigade rolled up to get stuck into forensics.    It was the whole works.  

Like everywhere else, we get our share of vandalism, and we had a stabbing in the 1970s, but being good the Taggart watchers that we are (supporting Scottish acting talent of course) it looked all set for the big man himself to roll up, climb out of his car and announce ”there’s been a murder”.

Well, not exactly.    A cannabis factory had been discovered - a whole house growing cannabis plants.    500 plants, according to the local paper.    Apparently these places are springing up all over the place these days, but to be honest, we did not expect it in our busy Main Street.

The Police set up the cordon on Monday night, and it was only lifted late on Thursday afternoon.    To the layman like me, that’s a long time to deal with 500 cannabis plants and get a few fingerprints.    It was very disruptive to the shops round about and casued significant loss of business.

Still, the law must take its course.   Currently not sure if anyone has been arrested for this.

Save the Fish - Royal Museum of Scotland

Anyone who has been to the Royal Museum in Edinburgh in Chambers Street - that’s the old museum, will remember the spectacular building.    If you were taken there as a wee child, you will remember the two floor-level fish tanks immediately in front of you as you enter the building.    You will probably remember the stuffed animals and the push-button working models of various bits of engineering, but the fish you pass on your way in, and on your way out.   You may have even added a penny or two to their pools.

Everyone looks at them.    I actually spent time watching people there last week, and it was amazing how many stopped to look at the fish.   Parents being guided by young children, older children crowding to point at the bigger more active fish, and people simply sitting down and passing the time of day - the fish provide much amusement and a focus to the ground floor.

The museum is closing in the spring for a massive refurbishment, and sadly, the fish are not to be part of the the new look museum when it reopens.

Which is a shame, I think.   

Trump’s Golf Course

Donald Trump wants to build a massive golf course resort north of Aberdeen.    The golf courses would also involve a big hotel and a few hundred houses to pay for it.     The trouble is that the site is environmentally important.   To cut a very very long story short, Aberdeen Council threw out the plans on the casting vote of the Planning Committee Chairman.     Normal procedure from that point would have been for Trump to appeal, and after that for the Government to call it in for determination.    What actually happened was that the Planning Committee Chairman was sacked and the decision has been reversed.   

It is not good.    Elected representatives should be allowed to get on with their job, and the democratic process respected.   The project would have been called in by the Govermment in any case, and Trump should have been more patient instead of throwing his rattle out of the pram and threatening to decamp to Northern Ireland.    There are also accusations of sleaze by MSPs interfering behind the scenes.    And one law for the Trumps of this world and one for the rest of us is not a good way forward.

Having said that, this application should never have got to the point of entrenched positions.    Faults on both sides I think, and Trump appears to have been riding roughshod over some local opinion to get what he wants.    There should have been more allowances made for local views, and planning compromises offered.

Compare the project at St Andrews Bay, where new golf courses and a big hotel have been built.    This did not need to rely on hundreds of houses to make it work, and was a ‘pure investment’ in golf.    So why couldn’t Trump do a similar project at Aberdeen?   

The Trump golf course development is one that Scotland and Aberdeen in particular really needs, although the location is perhaps a bit remote and prone to haar off the North Sea.    It is good news that the project has been called in, and hopefully it will be given the green light, but quite appalling for local democracy.    How the MSPs come out of it remains to be seen.

And of course, there is the scruffy farmer holding out against a Trump takeover from the middle of what will be two golf courses, despite being offered a generous sum to move  - but that’s a whole other story.

Beech Tree Fire

Last weekend a dogwalker phoned to tell me that some local Neds had been up in the woods above our village park having a drinking party, and setting fire to a tree.

I went to look, and the tree was still smouldering.    Called the Fire Brigade, and we had to get a tree surgeon in as well to allow access to the burning bits.    It took about 2 hours to get it out.   That’s four firemen that the taxpayer has to pay, and one tree surgeon I have to pay, for although very much part of the community woodland, when push comes to shove, it is my tree.

So this 150 year old big beautiful beech tree will probably not survive.   And nobody does anything about it.   The police are simply not interested or can’t cope - they are a very thin blue line indeed in rural Perthshire, and have other priorities - like speeding traffic - to deal with.   Clearly environmental damage is not top of the pile.

Apart from losing a beautiful tree that has been there since Queen Victoria came to the throne, it is the inaction and total lack of any collective community responsibility that makes me so angry.     Also, if I were to cut down a healthy tree, the Forestry Commission could take me to court for doing so, as cutting down a healthy tree is an offence (there are exceptions - trees in gardens, dangerous trees etc.)    

But if the local Neds want to kill a big healthy tree, nobody bats an eyelid.  

Access to the countryside is well and good (and I am a farmer in favour of public access) but this comes with responsibilities.   Who is there to police this when it all goes wrong?    Nobody, it seems.

The cost of running a village event

A village committee runs and organises a gala day every year to raise funds for our park, which is owned by the village.   But it is getting progressively harder to run what is a small and low key event.

To allow us to run a family dance in the evening, we had to apply for an entertainments licence from our Council.    We had to produce a Fire Risk Assessment, a Health and Safety Risk Assessment, and were contacted by the Noise police, the Food police, the Loo police and had to attend an interview with the real police.

When the 8 page licence finally arrived - in the post, on the day of the event (Saturday), there was a condition that we contacted the noise police again with a named contact in case of trouble.   Their office was closed.   Numpties.

Nobody wants an unsafe event, but this is complete overkill for a small village dance.

Shabby Edinburgh

A visit to the Capital in the rain yesterday, and it was looking pretty shabby.

Charlotte Square, which includes Bute House, home of the First Minister and possibly one of the most elegant squares in Europe has grey railings with flaking paint along its south side.      Perhaps this is all part of a refurbishment, but it looks really terrible.

Ot the corner of Hope Street and Princes Street there was a wooden staging to advertise the Rugby 7s.   Unfortunately not robust enough for Edinburgh drunks, as someone had smashed a hole in the top.

All this on a day when Prince Charles was paying a visit.

At the other end of George Street, in St Andrew Square, there is bad and good news.    The bad news is that the gardens are full of diggers and contractors and Herris fencing;   the good is that this is part of a refurbishment, with Melville’s Statue being renovated at the same time.   The even better news is that (say it quietly) this garden is to be open to the public - quite shocking for a city more used to locking up its green spaces for residents use only.

Waiting for a bus in the good weather back in April, I wandered looking for a green place to sit, and found one, but with difficulty, as the top of Princess Street Gardens was being re-turfed - once again - following the mess created by the market over Christmas.    I did think about Edinburgh’s closed green spaces then - Queen Street Gardens, Heriot Row Gardens, Doune Gardens, Charlotte Square Gardens, and wondered if it was time to open these up to visitors as well as residents.

Three coffins

On Saturday there was a huge funeral service for the three members of the Melville family who were killed in a car accident.    The Kirk holds 600, and that was full with 20 minutes to go, and there was an overspill outside.    3 coffins in the kirk.

The whole community turned out, and we had visitors from way beyond our village.    The Minister was a complete star, and led the service magnificently - very difficult for him as he was a personal friend.   He even made us smile.    

Our cemetary is on the main A road out of the village, and we followed the three hearses out.   The police had closed the road completely, which made a huge difference.     At the cemetary, in complete silence we watched the undertakers carefully remove one coffin from the first hearse, set the straps underneath, and gently lower.    It took a while.    This was repeated twice more.     Then the committal, Lord’s prayer and it was all over.

As we made our way back to the village in the bright sparkling sunshine, we realised that  it is not all over - not by a long way.    We have merely just started a healing process.