February 24, 2012
Sun, Sand and Seals: Newburgh Beach
Click on any photo to enlarge
This winter Aberdeenshire has had missed the dreadful weather affecting much of the west of the country so days out are blessed with beautiful sunshine.
Today just called for a walk along a beach but which one? The northeast coastline has some of the best beaches anywhere.
Headed east and enjoyed seeing several majestic wind turbines – their propellers turning furiously and- came to a stop Newburgh.
Across from Newburgh lies the Ythan Estuary which is a Site of Special Scientific Interest and a grand place to go to see all sorts of birds – over 200 species apparently – but it wasn’t birds we came on today on the sandy foreshore but a large colony of seals.
Grey seals bask in winter sunshine.
One thing Newburgh isn’t short of is sand. Its dunes are a marvel and are the largest sand dune area in Europe.
The Sands of Forvie is a great place for walking.
Today it was windy. Very windy so that a walk along the sands was invigorating and I benefited from a complimentary exfoliation which I’m still feeling.
The light was stunning. The sun warm. The wind cold.
Newburgh had been bombed during WW2 and war defences are very obvious right along beaches around Newburgh and Balmedie.
Live landmines are thought to still be around this area in the shifting sands but all we discovered was an old glass fishing float which had lain buried in the sands for years.
February 19, 2012
From van Gogh to Vettriano: A wander around an exhibition in Aberdeen Art Gallery
Aberdeen Art Gallery’s exhibition of work from its own and private collections.
Here we have an eclectic display of works by some world-class artists and several lesser names. It is difficult to pin down what links them other than what was available from the Gallery’s own collection and those it was able to borrow from private collectors.
Arguably one link is that the pictures are mainly reflections of the artists’ psychological states rather than any kind of narrative on their worlds. There are suggestions of realism. Clauesen is often described as such, but his gleaners and others in the show are…but I’ll come back to that.
So what to make of this miscellany of art movements and styles?
On the Gallery’s own website it describes the exhibition as including van Gogh, Pissarro, Monet, Matisse, Spencer, Nash, Freud and Kitaj which is interesting for what is omits in view of the show’s title.
Anyway I joined quite a crowd of people one afternoon to take a look for myself.
The exhibition begins with an unusual black chalk and pencil sketch on paper by van Gogh called Homme assis avec fillete. It’s an early work, striking with its formal static poses. No sense of affection only tension between the young girl and the seated old man. Without the label it might have been difficult to pin this one on van Gogh except for the man’s muckle black shoes most definitely from the palette of the Dutch post-Impressionist.
Clausen’s The Gleaners is the first of several similar subjects. His is a romanticised interpretation of impoverished peasants and a world away from Millet’s powerful depiction which sets the standard for the theme. Clausen’s Shepherd’s Boy of 1883 lacks spontaneity and attributed dignity we can expect with this subject which might have something to do with his pieces being reworks of photographs.
Dominating this first room is local artist, Joseph Farquharson’s On a Clear Eve – a typical scene from rural Scotland and which is every bit as iconic, if you’ll excuse the over-worked term, as Vettriano’s pictures. While apparently over-sentimental his scenes are, in fact, pretty realistic representations of our countryside’s continuity with its past.
So while Farquharson appears romanticised and isn’t, Alex Main’s 1889 The Gleaners steers us into the realm of Vettriano’s fantasies with its starkly delineated costumes and figures set against a background of sun bleached corn fields. This work most definitely lacks any of the strengths and and authenticity of Millet’s Gleaners.
The McTaggart sea pictures including children in boats are interesting in that he blends straight figurative with abstract backgrounds. They remind me of Hornel.
Étretat: L’Aiguille and the Porte d’Aval of 1885 – a pastel by Monet is a stunner. A small composition of cliffs and sea. The dark rocks in the foreground stark against the blonde sea under portentous skies is a great demonstration of contrast or perhaps conflict in this little scene. 
There’s a pretty washed out Pissaro, Gelée blanche Éragny of 1895. An oil on canvas. It failed to hold my attention.
From the subtlety of Pissaro to a bold composition of oriental patterns in hot shades of red, ochre, blue and green. This 1894 oil of Japanese Dancing Girls by Hornel is very lively with its impression of constant movement. A very pretty piece with plenty to occupy the eye with its exotic dancers in their kimonos and coloured fans and as with his outdoor scenes the play of light across the canvas invigorates his compositions.
Am I the only person in Scotland who does not like or should that be appreciate Peploe? To me his Peony Roses (oil 1906) – a vase of white paeonies against a black background does nothing for a fine bunch of flowers. As for his Coffee Pot of the same year, well this is a very, very still life which is wholly underwhelming.
Let me get myself off the hook by saying how much I enjoyed Cadell’s Iona (oil). Yes I know this is a familiar enough, tame?Scottish landscape but his bold, assured brushstrokes handle the pastel blues, greens, yellows quite masterly and the pale tones are saved from being boring by vibrant red tops to the chimneys and a stark red roof.
Bernard Meninsky’s pen and ink sketch of 1918 is worth a mention and his Lovers on a Beach of 1947 in pen, ink and guache is demonstrably Picasso-esque with its monumental figures of the lovers reclining across the foreground – all legs, arms and torso leading to tiny heads. It’s quite fun but decidedly derivative.
I like the great tones in Robert Colquhoun’s The Two Sisters of 1944 (oil). Flat abstract, almost Braque-like. The colours too – ochres, burnt Sienna and darker tones. But then there’s his twist. Colquhoun gives rounded form to his faces so radically transforming the picture’s structure.
Talking of Braque, there is a small brown crayon drawing on paper of Les Pommes (1927). It’s a subtle representation of masterly simplicity.
Edward Wadsworth has created a wholly absorbing very decorative scene of translucent blue water and rusty red sailed vessels in The Cattewatter, Plymouth Sound. This tempera on board of 1923 looks as if the steps in the foreground have been cut out of cardboard, as do the pier and arching cliffs. The whole effect is quite beautiful and tranquil. 
I usually like Stanley Spencer’s work but I found being close up and personal with The Baptism (1952) strangely discomfiting. Not sure why. Christ and John the Baptist are given mask-like faces and are surrounded by children in contemporary costume. It’s big and bold and uses traditional compositional ploys to lead the viewer around the picture such as the reeds caught up in the figure of Christ. A child’s hand is painted as a shell.
Spencer’s Daughters of Jerusalem, a scene from the road to Calvary with more contemporary kids is brimmed full of the emotion we associate with this artist.
Further along I was confronted by Duncan Grant’s horrible picture of a coffee pot so kept on walking.
Portrait of Natalie Gray, an oil of 1928 by Mark Gertler is big and luscious and frieze-like and the piece chosen for the cover of the accompanying catalogue (which I didn’t buy as I know it would be relegated to my already overstuffed bookshelves all too soon – okay and I’m tight).
On to Lucien Freud’s Boy on a Sofa is in the third room. A pencil, charcoal, coloured chalk on paper work from 1944 it has a young boy staring straight ahead but not directly into the eyes of the viewer so we can stare back as long as we like and not feel any guilt. It’s cool with steely blues, greys and brown so that the child’s face is deathly pale. It’s very different from the expected images of Freud’s work not just in the subject matter but the precise handling and control he once exercised.
There are several Joan Eardley pictures in this room. Andrew with a Comic c1955 and others. I don’t get Eardley (although I do own another artist’s work based on an Eardley but as it isn’t actually Eardley …) Her Cuddling the Child immediately reminded me of Käthe Kollwitz but I prefer Kollwitz. In fact I love Kollwitz’s work – she was so accomplished and capable of conveying incredible emotion with the sparcest of working. There is a gallery devoted to her work in Cologne which is inside a large block with shops as I recall but well worth searching out. Incredible stuff.
There is a rather nice R. B. Kitaj paste of Marynka Smoking. It really doesn’t much matter whose work I’m looking at, I always find some influence in it so if you get irritated by this then stop reading now because I’m off again. I expect it was Kitaj’s intention to have his model hold a pose straight out of Ingres. Ingres used to be a firm favourite of mine – and could be again but I haven’t looked at any of his pictures in years. This is typical although I have to say that Kitaj is no Ingres and possibly he wouldn’t disagree. Nice yellow cushion.
Howson. Well you either like him or you don’t – I think. Howson grotesque faces are now so familiar, leering out from his oversized canvases. Medieval gargoyles or those character parts from religious pictures of 15thC Italy or do I mean 16thC? But his are kind of fatty, puttyish. It’s certainly a powerful image but I get the feeling it’s there to stop the viewer in her tracks and perhaps shock and after the shock, well what? The face of Jeremy Isaacs is the most pleasing at the centre of the picture. Was that him before he tried to stop wind turbines being erected on whichever Scottish island he had a holiday home?
By this stage my back was aching and I was hungry but Frank Auerbach’s Head of Helen Gillespie (oil 1963/4) caught my eye with its thick impasto which forces the viewer to back off to make out the sculptural form of the head of Helen Gillespie. I liked it for the craftsmanship which went into it. It’s clever. But I was definitely tiring by this point.
As I left the exhibition I notice along the balcony the Vettriano loaned to the Gallery, not the one in this exhibition which didn’t make a mention in the Gallery’s website blurb on the show. The one familiar on mugs .
Bloody hell – woman as meat.
February 17, 2012
The BBC Debate on Union Terrace Gardens V the Granite Web
Union Terrace Gardens debate on 16 February 2012
This BBC debate concerned the proposal to remove Aberdeen’s Union Terrace Gardens and replace them with something called the Granite Web.
As the audience took their seats for the debate concerning the intended destruction of the city’s unique green basin a meeting of minds took place in the shadows of Queen’s Cross church hall between Aberdeen City Councillors, the advocates for the controversial development and BBC staff.
Then it was time to begin. Brothers-in-arms Council Leader, who I had taken for a cub reporter, SNP Councillor Callum McCaig sat next to Ian Wood, the man who stepped in to stop the exciting Peacock development in Union Terrace Gardens with his own scheme and succeeded in changing minds among SNP Councillors and one time supporters of Peacock with his promise of £50million contribution towards his vision. Opposing them were Lewis Macdonald, Labour MSP and Mike Shepherd from Friends of Union Terrace Gardens.
From the start it became clear that while the bulk of the audience was a mix of opinions a couple of rows at the back was packed with a phalanx of Wood cheerleaders. It must have been coincidence they were all together and intent on being the most vocal of elements in the hall. No sooner had proceeding got underway than the packed rows jelled into a veritable beast of astonishing intolerance towards opinions they didn’t share.
The opening point raised from the audience was a silly notion which sprang from original literature on the scheme that the development would be the answer to ‘undesirable elements’ that populate the Gardens. It’s a no-brainer – it won’t. As was countered from the audience, any so-called undesirables will not disappear because Union Terrace Gardens don’t exist, they will be hanging about the Web (granite or more accurately concrete).
There was a snort from the back of the room.
McCaig was asked why he had once supported Peacock’s innovative development then switched support to Wood’s project. He did not answer this. But he underlined his support for the Aberdeen millionaire Wood in his ambition.
From behind came a shake of a Rolex on a hirsute wrist and a black forked tongue dribbled long shards of stringy spit in ecstatic anticipation and released a roar of approval.
Someone asked about the glaring absence of democracy surrounding the project.
The beast heaved with indignation and emitted a belch of sulphur.
Wood ducked the question and mumbled something about preserving heritage: balustrades, statues, Kelly cats, arches but altogether managed to miss the point entirely that the sunken Gardens is the main heritage feature, practically the sole remnant of the medieval town.
The beast shifted: tiny red-infused eyes shiftily sweeping the ranks of dissenting voices from the audience. Its man had spoken.
Wood and his family made its fortune from working out of Aberdeen, in fishing and later in offshore energies. They are not alone. There are many millionaires in Aberdeen. You wouldn’t know it. The money is private money. There is nothing to show in the city for the wealth it helped create for these millionaires. This has been a complaint from the city’s people for decades.
Now money is on offer. With strings attached. No such thing as a free lunch. Not for ordinary citizens of Aberdeen. I’m sure there is for some.
Mike Shepherd talked up the park. He was fed up hearing this unique green basin being denigrated by those determined to get their way to pour in concrete by the hundreds of tons to create shabby walkways above street level.
A glint of Rolex and a shudder of mohair.
Someone in the audience mocked the Gardens. He clearly wasn’t from Aberdeen. He had taken a photograph, he said, so he knew what they looked like. They looked frightful. He gave no sense of realising their significance.
Lewis Macdonald disagreed, saying that this green heart of Aberdeen will be replaced by concrete walkways and that the consultation on the 6 shortlisted designs had not come down in favour of this Web.
A long impatient tail beat out a disturbing rhythm and the head turned on the thick neck sighting someone with the audacity to mention that recent architecture forced on the city had been of poor quality – his inference being this scheme was no different.
It listened as its collaborator McCaig talked up PricewaterhouseCoopers promise of 6500 jobs. He referred Charles Landry who had worked in Bilbao and considered this the best transformation project he’d seen in 20yrs. And still no word of democracy. Andwhat are the views of anyone in Aberdeen compared to those of a man who once worked in Bilbao?
Macdonald countered the jobs claim by revealing that PwC job figures were based on its collective experience and not through looking at Aberdeen as a discrete scheme.
The beast drew back its lips and snarled.
Wood protested that ‘we are going through a democratic process’ – albeit a truncated one Mr Wood, for it was a clique which chose the 6 designs and a clique which short listed and a clique which chose the winning design and you who have said it’s this or nothing – forget the years of the city being run down you’ll get nothing unless you let me get my way. I’m paraphrasing. In all innocence he shrugged, I have only ‘made money available.’
The beast snarled. The tail beat the floor. Again and again. The head pulled back and a cold reptilian stare settled on the little people who dared question the great man and his backers.
This Council is closing schools and cutting services to the disabled and yet there is commitment to spend millions of public money voiced an audience member.
The council leader had nothing to say.
A Prada stiletto scourged deep into the grain on the church hall floor and the beast opened its jaws releasing its sulphurous stench.
McCaig was asked to sell TIF to the audience. TIF is the controversial scheme the council hope will eventually pay back the huge sum of money it will have to borrow to finance Wood’s idea. It will be based on two areas of the city being designated as special areas. Whenever a business sets up it will contribute towards TIF and this money will be ring-fenced to pay back the loans. Of course it is pure speculation that enough money will be raised by TIF. It is a new system of raising funds in Scotland. In fact Aberdeen City Council is not even sure it will get government permission to establish TIF sites. There are many unknowns regarding TIF including a description of it from McCaig. The above is my explanation. It might not be up to much but it was more than we got from McCaig who appeared surprised to be asked to sell this scheme to the people of Aberdeen. Sell it? He couldn’t even describe it. Immediately he jumped to the Ravenscraig example, one of only 2 approved in Scotland. Brownfield site developments which as MacDonald pointed out can only add money, unlike this one being proposed for Aberdeen.
A clearly unsettled McCaig was put out of his misery by the chairman who defined it for him. It’s good to know that Council representatives and the Council leader is so well versed in the detail of the scheme he is happy to put his name to.
The beast shifted uncomfortably on legs of iron and feet of clay.
McCaig did confirm the raising of the funding through TIF would be underwritten by the Council.
Mike Shepherd referred to problems with TIF funding as an untried means of guaranteeing cash. Well so much depends on incoming business that no figure can be guaranteed. Fall back on council funding. Council’s borrowing while in debt and the risks to services if that happened.
Possibly the most stupid question of the evening came from the vicinity of the beast. More a statement than a question that young people wouldn’t come to the city unless there was development in the city. This development.
The Beast roared its approval.
Wood spoke of the need for connections: road and air connections. But it’s bus connections Aberdeen City Council is talking about with this proposal. Connections to the bus station. The bus station so recently erected and so badly designed that there is no room for passengers and no seats provided for them, no dropping off and picking up places for vehicles to drive in, forcing passengers with luggage to walk from several streets away. This bus station where buses have to reverse into the station traffic each time they begin a journey. Would you trust the Council to do any better with such a radical scheme for Union Terrace? The same council which has continued to build shopping malls while Union Street empties. It is empty because of shopping malls. It is empty because the council refuses to reduce rates to keep businesses operating. The council has taken an impressive mile of granite architecture and created a desert.
Mike Shepherd reminded Wood that his company, and every company, would not hesitate to set up anywhere, irrespective of what it looked like if there were profits to be had. He cited Wood’s company in Caracas and Lagos and that he doubted they went there because of how they looked.
Don’t know about them but Wood looked confused.
There was a grunt from the beast, a slash of something golden and an angry sweep of the tail.
McCaig had nothing to say.
Businessman Tom Smith, Chair of ACSEF the anti-democratic body given all the cards in this scheme railed at Macdonald for rejecting this multi-million pound ‘investment’ and yelled at Mike Shepherd to be quiet. He accused Macdonald of trying to stop any development from happening.
The beast peeled back it thick lips and yelped frantically.
Mac Donald insisted the divisions which had emerged over this proposal were because there was only one project, only one ambition and shared arrogance of the people behind this scheme.
The audience breathed in the stench of cashmere soaked in sweat.
The panel was not invited to address where anonymous literature landing through peoples’ letterboxes sprang from. The inference was that city businessmen were behind it. Well only businessmen could afford to do this surely. But why not reveal who you are?
Councillor Kate Dean said Aberdeen was anti development and against attracting young people to come and stay in the city. Well it’s a point of view, fair enough but then she had to spoil it by saying how the city has done very well in the past in attracting people in. Really?? Without a totally transformed city centre? Not following that logic.
When he was asked if Aberdeen City Council would spend any money on improvements to the city centre if this scheme was rejected by the people, McCaig initially said no then suggested there might be something. Then he went back to TIF repeating it was designed to pay for itself. That certainly is the plan Mr McCaig. And the point you are making is? Oh and that ACC is not in a position to splash out. Not a great deal of clarity here.
He was asked about the arrangements for the referendum. What would be the winning line? What had been decided between ACC and the government? A harassed looking McCaig said nothing had been worked out. Hello? Nothing? The papers have gone out. Do you have faith in these people to act in your best interests?
Macdonald interjected with the observation which most of Aberdeen have already made that a major reason for the lack of visits to the Gardens was because the Council had not spent anything on them over the years. Have you seen how the beautiful granite has been allowed to go green for lack of a bit of housekeeping? Why has the Council never even put in a set of swings or a climbing frame to attract children and families into the park? This would cost practically nothing. But they’re not interested.
Mike Shepherd reminded the audience that another city businessman was willing to put money up front to make improvements to the existing Gardens, including better access and a park-keeper but James Milne has not received anything like the same attention in the local media that Wood has enjoyed.
Wood said he regretted the divisions his scheme had created in Aberdeen to which Macdonald replied that it was because people cared so passionately and Wood’s undemocratic way of handling his proposal had resulted in such ill-feeling.
I guess you don’t become rich by consulting with people. Well, maybe that’s not true as some well-known examples from the US suggest. It is clear this is not the Wood nor ACSEF way.
The prospect of Aberdeen borrowing £92 million might be a risk too far for the more prudent Aberdonians but McCaig would have none of it – risk? What risk? He compared it to a household mortgage. Yes, and we’re seeing what’s happening to many of them at the present time. His parting shot was that people should see Aberdeen as others see it. So much for representing the people who vote for you Mr McCaig.
Mike Shepherd urged people to vote against Wood’s backward-looking 1960s style concrete monstrosity in what is the city’s leafy green heart with its 200yr old elms.
The iron legs strained, the stiletto scraped, the nostrils steamed, the beast screeched and cracked its cleft tail.
Wood was given the final word. He emphasised the huge amount of work which had gone into working out the finances of the scheme and that the comments on TIF were ridiculous. Certainly were Mr Wood. He railed at his opponents for what he described as negativism but which they will say is approbation for the most positive development for Aberdeen that which involves retaining the magnificent Union Terrace Gardens.
The beast is a simple animal. It is excited only by profit yields, retail opportunities and exclusive cabals in its determined drive to take the city forward into the past. It roared its approval. It roared and snarled and beat its swarthy chest and licked the fleshy lips in euphoric rapture.
The referendum result will be known on Fri 2nd March if the Council works out how to read the results by then.
TIF info: http://lenathehyena.wordpress.com/2012/01/25/a-parcel-of-rogues-aberdeen-city-council-chamber-and-the-lure-of-rich-mens-gold/
February 10, 2012
Ist die BBC Leiter denke, wir werden das bis zurück gezippt?
In the language any Leiter at the BBC can will
understand
Offener Brief an Leiter der BBC-Nachrichten
Es gab erhebliche Unzufriedenheit über BBC Scotland Entscheidung, das beliebte wöchentliche Politik zeigen, Newsweek Schottland Axt und ersetzen Sie diese Samstagmorgen-Programm mit einer zusätzlichen Auflage von Guten Morgen Schottland.
Die Gründe, die von der BBC gegeben sind:
1. Radio Scotland verfolgt eine Strategie mit Schwerpunkt auf Speech-Programme während des Tages und Musik spät in die Nacht.
An sich sollte dies keine negativen Auswirkungen auf Newsweek wie beim letzten Mal hörte ich hatte es 100% Musik freien Inhalten.
2. Sie sagt, sie ist darauf ausgerichtet, alle seine Anstrengungen in ‘dem derzeitigen Klima “, um seine Ressourcen wo unsere Zielgruppen sind anzusprechen.
Was bedeutet dies zusätzlichen Fokus summieren sich zu? Der Verweis auf die aktuelle Klima sicherlich eine Anspielung auf die Vorfeld des Referendums über die Unabhängigkeit 2014. Genau, also warum ausziehen Newsweek Schottland? Dies ist ein intelligentes Programm mit einem Ruf für seine raffinierte Handhabung der schottische Themen. Ist es vielleicht auch in der Lage für einige Bürokraten bei der BBC? Und was mit “, wo unsere Zielgruppen sind” zu verstehen? Ist es, dass Newsweek Schottland zieht nicht genügend Zuhörer? Wenn ja, dann sollte die BBC kommen und es sagen. Dann wieder die BBC ist für immer sagen uns die Gründe für so viele Programmänderungen sind, um neue Zielgruppen zu gewinnen, damit ich nicht in der Lage, die Logik folgen hier bin.
3. Sie schlägt vor, Nachrichtensendungen und aktuellen Ausgabe am Samstagmorgen zu stärken und wird zur Stärkung des Publikums verpflichtet.
Da haben wir es. Ein weiterer Hinweis, dass Newsweek Schottland zieht nicht genügend Zuhörer. Wie ist das Verhältnis zwischen Qualität und Zuhörer Zahlen? Welchen Wert hat die BBC an Qualität nicht mehr? Und was ist das um die Stärkung Nachrichtensendungen und aktuellen Ausgabe? Was kann es vielleicht sein, der Planung bis zur NS mit verdrängen? Ich komme darauf.
4. Es beabsichtigt Substitution der 1 Stunden-Programm mit einer Dauer von zwei Stunden.
Große das sollte bedeuten, den ernsthaften Studenten der Politik in Schottland könnte zweimal so viel Erleuchtung zu finden aus einer doppelten Dosis des NS als von seinem wöchentlichen Ausgabe 1 Stunde. Aber das ist nicht das, was die Bürokraten hinauswollen.
5. Ziel ist es, Guten Morgen Schottland bis Samstag verlängern mit den besten Elemente der aktuellen Newsweek Programm.
So dort haben Sie es. Die BBC will ersetzen diese wichtige politische Programm mit einem Magazin zeigen. So viel zur Einnahme der wichtigen Business-of Scotland die Zukunft ernst. Und die Show wird genannt Guten Morgen Samstag Schottland werden. Ist das verdient ein Bürokrat das Gehalt? Und was bedeutet die Aussage, dass die besten Elemente der aktuellen Newsweek Programm aufgenommen werden sollen bedeuten? Derek Bateman? Wird er sie in GMS rekrutiert? Er ist der sehr fähigen und kompetenten Stimme des NS und ein willkommenes Gegenmittel zu den oft erstaunlich ungeschickt und oft peinlichen Interviews mit GMS-Moderatoren offenbar überfordert und unzureichend informiert. Die beiden Programme sind Meilen auseinander in Bezug auf Qualität, Zinsen, intellektuelle Strenge und den Umgang mit abwechslungsreichen und interessanten Themen. Eines wird durch eine ordnungsgemäße Journalist, der seinen Stoff auswendig kennt, während die anderen Features Moderatoren unterschiedlicher Fähigkeit fehlt aber gravitas bei der Bewältigung wichtiger politischer Interviews geführt.
Wenn die BBC ist ernst, dass sie ihren Nachrichtensendungen und aktuellen stärken will, dann sollte es bringen GMS aus der Misere mit ihrer inkohärenten Interviews durch übererregt Moderatoren und die konstante Ulkereien mit Kollegen und wie viele sich wiederholende Reisen und Wetter Unterbrechungen kann eine Programm, bevor es total albern wird? Ich würde vorschlagen, dass die GMS ist seit langem Ziel zu treffen.
Ich vermute, es hat schon ein paar Zehen getreten von Newsweek Schottland und das ist der eigentliche Grund für die prospektive Verdummung von der BBC was eine Schande ist, weil wir die Leute, die diese Bürokraten, sorry Führungskräfte, ihre Gehälter zu zahlen sind und wir sind die diejenigen, die sie einfach nicht weniger wichtig sind. Und wann haben Sie zuletzt ein BBC hören Exekutive für jede Entscheidung entschuldigen?
Schottland hat etwas Besseres verdient als eine weitere Auflage des Guten Morgen Scotland, die derzeit auf das Wochenende gebunden zu sein, noch mehr banal als es ohnehin schon ist. Es braucht Newsweek Schottland.
Join the Facebook-Kampagne, um dieses Juwel von einem Programm auf Radio Scotland sparen
February 8, 2012
Emoholly’s Tweets No. 11 (sanitised version, oh, yes) Girl wearing Uggs on my bus #liftyourfuckingfeet
Valentines day.. I say its pointless, but I better get something.
The moon looks like a panda tonight
Anyone that likes @piersmorgan should go get checked out. He makes my skin crawl. Thinking he is gods gift, forgetting you were sacked? TWAT
A cell isn’t a baby you idiot.
I really hope that cat is okay who wandered onto Anfield. 
Golden syrup is the best thing ever.
Girl wearing Uggs on my bus #liftyourfuckingfeet
Someone on my bus is blaring @example usually I would hate people that can’t afford headphones but this I like.
Also, two about 5 year old twin boys at my bus stop fighting. Please let me have girls when I’m older..
Today in work s&m and dirty talk came on, and an easily 9 year old kid was singing along to every word. #disturbingsociety
I’m guessing by the roars from the pub someone just scored?
Aw man, the seagulls sitting in the river must have freezing bums
Ohmygod keren just asked the toilet attendant if she is pregnant, and she isn’t. CRINGE. HOLY F**K
Ohhhhmygod, sea otters hold hands when they sleep so they don’t drift away from each other!
SO CUTE
What this 17 year old is moaning cause she can’t go out for a cigarette cause she’s in labour?
Can anyone tell me what the film is on e4 just now? I’m liking it but can’t be assed getting up to check….
Oh no! Just seen one lonely goose flying alone hope its not lost
Too much pink? twitpic.com/8cxpml
Too much brown? twitpic.com/8cqd09
Too much red maybe? twitpic.com/8cpqrq
In a bitchy mood.. #blamework
Just got an email from Zoosk saying Ross Montgomery has requested I join.. Um, no.
Confused doesn’t even begin to explain.. My phone says its half 9.. But its not?!
All I can hear outside is bagpipes.. One minute it sounds like they are coming from cove rangers, then its the hotel.. Silly noise
Not the bagpipes, but the fact its tricking me..
Dear @firstbus I hate you.
So, Rihanna posted her picture of her new thug life knuckle tattoo whilst wearing a John Lennon tshirt, idiot.
God. That was so emotional. Crying my fricking eyes out
If you’re ever hungry and in town, never feaaaar. Get down to @EatARealLunch in the Belmont cinema cause its amazing. Trust me 
Someone is walking a horse outside this street? Whaaaat
I find nothing creepier than kids beauty contests. #thankgodmymumisntpushy
Oh my days, @chrisbrown has the most amazzzzzing voice. I want to marry him.
Keep your friends close and your enemies closer.
Aw man, got a super slow bus driver
February 5, 2012
Join the Campaign to Save Newsweek Scotland
Join a demo to protest against the
BBC’s axing of Newsweek Scotland
Thursday 9 Feb at mid-day outside the
Scottish Parliament
Photo op with MSPs at 1.45pm
If you want to hold onto real open political debate in the run up to the independence referendum join the campaign to save Newsweek Scotland on BBC Radio Scotland.
February 3, 2012
Looking into the Abyss – the BBC and Newsweek Scotland
Open letter to Head of News BBC
There has been considerable discontent over BBC Scotland’s decision to axe the popular weekly politics show, Newsweek Scotland and replace this Saturday morning programme with an additional edition of Good Morning Scotland.
The reasons given by the BBC are:
1. Radio Scotland is adopting a strategy focusing on speech programmes during the day and music late at night.
In itself this should have no negative impact on Newsweek as last time I listened it had 100% music free content.
2. It says it is focussing all its efforts in ‘the current climate’ to target its resources where our audiences are.
So what does this additional focus add up to? The reference to the current climate surely alludes to the run-up to the 2014 independence referendum. Precisely, so why take off Newsweek Scotland? This is an intelligent programme with a reputation for its nifty handling of Scottish issues. Is it perhaps too capable for some bureaucrats at the BBC? And what is meant by ‘where our audiences are’? Is it that Newsweek Scotland does not attract sufficient listeners? If so then the BBC should come out and say so. Then again the BBC is forever telling us the reasons behind so many programme changes are to attract new audiences so I’m not able to follow the logic here.
3. It proposes to strengthen news and current affairs output on Saturday mornings and is committed to strengthening the audience.
There we have it. Another hint that Newsweek Scotland doesn’t attract sufficient listeners. What is the relationship between quality and listener numbers? What value does the BBC place on quality any more? And what is this about strengthening news and current affairs output? What can it possibly be planning to supplant NS with? I’ll come back to that.
4. It intends substituting the one hour programme with one lasting two hours.
Great that should mean the serious student of politics in Scotland could find twice as much enlightenment from a double dose of NS than from its one hour weekly edition. But this is not what the bureaucrats are getting at.
5. The aim is to extend Good Morning Scotland to Saturday with all the best elements of the current Newsweek programme.
So there you have it. The BBC intends replacing this vital political programme with a magazine show. So much for taking the important business of Scotland’s future seriously. And the show will be called Good Morning Scotland Saturday. Is this worthy of a bureaucrat’s salary? And just what does it mean by saying that all the best elements of the current Newsweek programme will be included? Derek Bateman? Is he being recruited into GMS? He is the very capable and knowledgeable voice of NS and a welcome antidote to the often staggeringly inept and frequently embarrassing interviews on GMS with presenters evidently out of their depth and inadequately briefed. The two programmes are miles apart in terms of quality, interest, intellectual rigour and handling of varied and interesting subjects. One is headed by a proper journalist who knows his subject inside out while the other features presenters of varying ability but lacking gravitas in tackling important political interviews.
If the BBC is serious that it wants to strengthen its news and current affairs then it should put GMS out of its misery with its incoherent interviews by over-excited presenters and its constant joshing with colleagues and just how many repetitive travel and weather interruptions can a programme take before it becomes totally inane? I would suggest GMS has long hit that target.
I suspect there has been a few toes trodden on by Newsweek Scotland and this is the real reason for the prospective dumbing down by the BBC which is a shame because we are the people who pay these bureaucrats, sorry executives, their salaries and we are the ones they just couldn’t care less about. And when did you last hear a BBC executive apologise for any decision?
Scotland deserves better than a further edition of Good Morning Scotland which being at the weekend is bound to be even more trite than it already is. It needs Newsweek Scotland.
Join the Facebook campaign to save this gem of a programme on Radio Scotland
January 31, 2012
Result of the poll on the proposed Granite Web on Union Terrace
The result of my poll on the proposed Granite Webb replacing Union Terrace Gardens is as follows:
I approve of the Granite Web design in place of Union Terrace Gardens 7 votes = 9.33%
I do not approve of the Granite Web replacing Union Terrace Gardens 68 votes = 90.67%
Total votes 75
Some things people have said