Yup, Chernobyl was 20 years ago. Let’s just have a wee pause for a technology that’s still messing us up, yet we’re told it’s the green technology of the future. Yeah, and I bet it’ll be too cheap to meter, too.
There are still farms in Scotland affected by the fallout from Chernobyl. Though, what with all the nuke plants in Scotland, it could be any one of them that’s the real culprit.
Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’ve got a wind farm to survey …
Serendipity: took a wrong turn coming out of the
federal building, and found ourselves in Scottish culinary heaven (which is not an oxymoron, I assure you). At the corner of Ellesmere & McCowan is The But ‘n’ Ben Butchers; they sell all sort of quality Scottish foods. So far, we’ve sampled and can approve their butcher’s pies, plain bread and empire biscuits. They’ve also got a supply of UK Heinz Beans, which knock the gummy North American beans into a cocked hat.
Next door but one is St Andrews Fish & Chips. They’re amazing. I think the chips (hand cut, of course) are deep fried in some unhealthy, but tasty, animal byproduct. And they have Irn Bru, too …
You can’t know how happy it makes me to read about the survey that shows that over 90% of people living closest to the Dun Law site supported their local wind farm. The early planning stages of this project were particularly fraught with opposition.
So there was a stramash that the RSPB published a map showing where the Lewis wind farm would reach if it started in Edinburgh. Oh noes! Looks like it’d go all the way to Methil.
I’ve been working on a couple of medium-sized wind farms in Ontario. For top laughs, I tried overlaying them on Scotland, using streetmap.co.uk for the measurements.
Since I’m a weegie, I started at George Square. One of the farms would stretch all the way west by Wishaw, near Murdostoun Castle (and the comically-named town of Bonkle). The other would run north to somewhere between Fintry and Kippen, in Stirlingshire.
For those of you unlucky enough to be based east of Falkirk, I tried the same starting at Edinburgh Castle. The first wind farm would run west to the hamlet of Gilchriston, which is just north-west of Dun Law Wind Farm, which I worked on in the distant past. (If you run the farm west from Edinburgh, you end up in Bo’ness, which no-one would want to do.) The other design would end up somewhere between Kirkcaldy and Glenrothes, near Thornton — and not that far from Methil, a distance that the RSPB would have us believe is just too far for a wind farm.
So, where’s the news, RSPB? How did your land get somehow more precious than ours?
BBC NEWS | Scotland | Crews face bonfire night attacks:
Firefighters and police faced a series of attacks from gangs as they attended bonfire night call-outs in the Strathclyde area.
When I read this, I’m glad I left the Land of Ned.
Well, that’s CanWEA 2005 fully over. Yes, I’m still sifting through the contacts, brochures and swag I picked up, but it’s back to work for me.
I met a lot of people (including, quite unexpectedly, Stuart Hall of Natural Power in Scotland, whom I hadn’t seen in about 8 years), and the show seemed to be absolutely jumping. Could 2005/2006 be the year that Canada gets wind energy?
According to Gallery’s stats, the above photo is the most popular one I’ve posted. Not sure why.
The Globe and Mail reports:
Monday, August 15, 2005 Page A5
Kingston — More than 11 million litres of liquid manure that spilled into a river in New York state is taking much longer than expected to enter Lake Ontario.
The cow waste flowed into the Black River in northern New York, near the town of Lowville, after the wall of a holding lagoon at a dairy farm blew out late Wednesday or early Thursday.
On Saturday, the manure seeped westward, heading toward Black River Bay, which flows into Lake Ontario. By yesterday, it still had not entered Black River Bay, said Jim Keech of Utilities Kingston. [CP]
Kids, this is neither big nor clever: Vandals target wind farm campaign
Lazy wee sods can’t be bothered with the famous Scottish rhoticism: Glaswegians throw the R away.
Says the Guardian: Edinburgh residents reject c-charge plan.
Och well, their loss. I still think the best thing to come out of Edinburgh is the train to Glasgow …
So it’s Burns Night tonight. Will I partake of haggis? It’s basically made of the bits of an animal that no-one would pay to eat.
I’d just like to point out that, in Scotland, it’s Burns Night. For some inexplicable reason, it’s known as Robbie Burns Day here. Canadians, stop doing it, I beg of you. Burns Day is only celebrated by UK Accident & Emergency ward staff on November 6th.
I’d also like to point out that I’ve never been to a Burns Supper. Scottish celebrations (like tonight, Hogmanay, and St Andrew’s) seem to be an excuse to get thoroughly munted in the dark side of the year.
About this time of year, many Scots will be using Irn Bru to quell a raging hangover. There’s nothing quite like the reddish-orange, sugary, fizzy drink to make the pain go away. It’s the combination of sugar, liquid and caffeine that does it.
Scottish expats in Canada aren’t so lucky. We’re not allowed to have caffeine in anything other than cola, so the ‘bru that’s imported here is caffeine free. It has all the bite and zing of wet cardboard.
I don’t understand why cola can have caffeine, and nothing else can. They allowed Red Bull in on a technicality. Since Irn Bru has been used as a pick-me-up for generations, I feel that Canada’s policy discriminates against my culture.
Where there’s a culture of heavy drinking, there’s also a culture of dealing with it. Canada is placing the wellbeing of Scots at risk by not allowing caffeinated Irn Bru.
[Yesterday’s Globe & Mail had a cartoon by Graham Harrop. Subtitled “Jock Layton“, it showed a character yelling across the legislature floor: “Ye’ll No Talk To Me Like That, Mon! Yer A Wee Haggis An’ Ye’ve Got Yer Troosers On Backwards If Ye Think We’re Passin’ That Load O’ Tripe!“]
Date: Fri, 31 Dec 2004 11:35:14 -0500
To: Arts /at/ GlobeAndMail.ca
Subject: yesterday’s Backbench cartoon
I am offended by Graham Harrop’s cartoon in the 30th December Review section.
I am Scottish, and to me, ‘jock’ is a racial epithet. No-one in Scotland would use any of the expressions used in the cartoon.
Consider the situation if the cartoon had made fun of any other minority speech pattern. The whole ‘Comedy Scotsman’ thing went out with the 1970s, and I’m disappointed to see such a thing in the Globe & Mail.
Stewart Russell
Scarborough, ON.
Krankie hurt in beanstalk tumble
It’s a pretty good headline, but doesn’t compare with the 1993 outcry over Mr Blobby imposters in the Hemel Hempstead free rag: Fête Fumes Over Bogus Blobby
Finnie to outline fishing stance. Aptly named, or what?
I’d almost forgotten about it …
World Scotch Pie champion named. And it wasn’t me, since it’s not about their consumption.
Scotland cruise to ICC Cup glory. Yes, cricket still sucks, but at least Scotland sucks less at it than Canada.
It seems that the Sunday Herald — one of Scotland’s better broadsheet newspapers — has picked up on my Scots tablet recipe. In an article called 100 Things To Do In Scotland Before You Die, they cite http://purl.oclc.org/NET/scruss/scots_tablet
Part of the 100 Things To Do In Scotland … article is online, but omits Aunt Celie’s recipe. Oh well.
Thanks to David Marsh and former Collins colleague Jennifer Baird, who both spotted this.