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The Grouch - May 06

THE GRAPEVINE tells me that a betting book has been opened on the completion date of the new sewage works in Weem and Boltachan. Scheduled to be operating by April 2006, there is certainly slippage in the finish date and now, there is fierce debate amongst the restless natives as to when waste water and other unmentionables, will actually start to flow through the pipes.

April 2007 has odds of 14 to 1 but the internet bookies report that a huge spread of possible completion dates are forecast, with tighter odds being offered on and around November this year. The race is attracting global interest with some big names reputed to be flashing big money about and William Hill. is rumoured to be planning to open a branch office in Aberfeldy, such is the local interest. Men in suits have been seen in the vicinity of the empty shop to lease, next to the Sweetie Shop in the Square and even around the old Birks Cinema building.

A separate book has been opened by the bookies, regarding the estimated final cost. We hear that the published cost to the public purse, of the sewage system, was £1.472 million, to be paid by our Scottish Executive, in some sort of joint venture with the Alfred McAlpine empire. The details seem to be a bit vague and some of the natives believe the final costs will top £3 million. The fear is that, as the delays and the mistakes and the re-digging up of the roads and the failed pressure tests on the already laid pipes and the re-digging up of the roads (sorry! I have already mentioned that bit) will push the costs up and up.

One punter was heard to say “It’s the blind leading the blind on that project. The office-bound Planning Engineers are obviously blind. First they planned to lay the sewage pipes uphill of several houses before someone told them that water - and even sewage - didn’t run uphill. Then, they couldn’t work out that rocks would be encountered when digging below Weem Rock. The on-site Managers, those poor sods, have to follow orders from Head Office blindly, because it doesn’t do to question your superiors;  and the poor guy driving the digger has to be blind because he keeps digging up the water supply pipes.

So far, he has been getting all the flak but you can’t really blame him for the old pipes are fragile in the extreme having been made of asbestos. The only men with their eyes open will be the accountants. The ones at McAlpine’s that is, not the ones at Holyrood. We all know that there has been fiscal incompetence at Holyrood in the past...(have you heard that a bit of the roof has fallen in just recently?)

The question is, should delays due to poor management by a contractor or, dare I say it, incompetence, be paid for by the tax payer? The betting is that it will!

On a lighter side, a bet has already been laid that the reeds to be planted in the drainage beds below the sewage digester tanks, will turn out to be the wrong type. The wag in question thinks they could possibly end up planting something else by mistake, instead of the special reeds which should filter the finally treated effluent to ensure that all the water released into the Tay will be crystal clear and pure. “A field of golden daffodils”, would be lovely but I doubt that Wordsworth would approve and certainly SEP A wouldn’t.

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BLOOD ON THE SNOW greeted us the other day as the tabloids dug out the photos of the seal pup culls taking place in the Canadian Arctic Territories. It is the annual cull at this time of year which, in the face of animal welfare bodies around the world, still goes ahead with the blessing of the realists in Canadian government.

The pictures make good copy for the purveyors of sensationalism. Bright red smears across the white pages caught the eye and the purple prose of the newsmen in Newfoundland was even more colourful: “A fisherman nonchalantly smashed the pup on the head with a hakapik - a club with a sharp spike attached. A fountain of blood spurted out of the seal’s tiny body and spread across the snow. He will have earned around £30.”

Vivid yes! blood is vivid and death can be gruesome, but it depends which side of the fence you stand on.  How many or you have pulled the neck of a hen, or butchered a rabbit and cleaned it for the table?

We forget that humans use animals to sustain us and always have. Today, we pay others to do the dirty work and legislation dictates that the killing should be done with minimum cruelty. Many would say, “better the wild creature killed by the ‘hakapic’ in one blow to the head.” Ask the abbattoir butcher, he will agree.

Would the fox, which lives by hunting, prefer to be killed by hunting hounds in a swift and sure death, or the inaccurate aim of a gun and a slower death? Did the anti-hunting saboteurs and a weak government do the right thing?

Why kill the seals at all you may ask; those beautiful wide eyed furry seal pups? The fishermen tell us that if the cull is not carried out, fish stocks in the cold northern waters will diminish dramatically and, a large proportion of the catch comes to Britain. Now, what concerns you most? The fate of the seal pups or your regular supply of fish? Makes you think doesn’t it?

Alex Peake

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