Monthly Archives: August 2011

A gay student writes.

Posted on August 31, 2011 | 18 Comments

This comment from I Maclean was made a few weeks ago in response to what I wrote about the Uig homophobe. However, many readers with an interest in the subject said they did not see it. So again …
.
Everyone deserves the same rights as everyone else. Fact! Yes everyone can have their opinion, bigoted or otherwise but you cannot deny one individual the right to e.g. marry when others in society can, it is wrong. We all pay the same taxes and unless you break the law all have the same rights until that point. As for religion…the number of church goers has declined 70% in the last 25 years. Not because the devil is reaching into the minds of today’s people but because people are tired of all the hatred and squabbling it breeds. You preach acceptance, forgiveness, charity, eradicate poverty, eradicate war and you can’t even agree with each other to prevent petty squabbling amongst yourselves over something like hymns. Then half of you decide to ignore for example psalm 150 and you expect others to trust you!? Laughable.

If you were born a few hundred years ago you have condemned those who thought the world was round and the universe itself did not revolve around the earth because you blindly follow those who guide you and the inherent bias they allow into their preaching. Nowadays these medieval religious fanatics who imprisoned Galileo are laughed at for their ignorance and soon you too will be laughed at by future christians who accept LGBT individuals for who they are and how they were born. Maybe then numbers of churchgoers will even increase again when a true message of tolerance and love it finally preached.

PS I’m gay and religious and come from lewis. I know god loves me and everyone who chooses to follow him. Do I believe I should be able to marry in a church? Yes. Do I therefore believe that ministers should be forced to do it or be branded ignorant? No, because I know you haven’t caught up with society and do not want to upset you or the church. Do you really believe so many people would “choose” to be gay, especially 30 years ago for example. Choose to be spat on, shouted homophobic abuse at, kicked, beaten up, murdered, just to be different. What would you say to the parents of children in schools who did nothing about homophobic bullying? We’re sorry for your loss, that your son/daughter was murdered/took their own life, but your child shouldn’t have “chosen” to be gay, he/she should have known it was a possibility. Maybe we should replace anti homophobic bullying literature in school with leaflets that warn of the risks? If you “choose” this lifestyle youmay end up “choosing” to kill yourself or may be at risk of being beaten so badly you will enter a persistent vegetative state or have your throat slit. Shame on you.

You cause LGBT individuals so much pain and you can’t acknowledge it. Finally, another example of how you are usually behind society you used to preach that suicide was a sin. Mental illness is NOT preventable and you allowed families to believe their children, husbands, wives had condemned themselves to an eternity in hell until you caught up with the science that proved it was no more preventable than cancer or the cold.

→ 18 Comments

Posted in Barra, Benbecula, homophobia, intolerance, Isle of Harris, Isle of Lewis, Outer Hebrides, politics, religion, Stornoway, Uist, Uncategorized, Western Isles

My shame as I shot RAF warplane on that historic UHI inauguration flypast

Posted on August 29, 2011 | 2 Comments

Published: Press and Journal  29 August 2011

.
Our network of North Scottish colleges waited many years to be awarded a charter to properly call itself a university. Many moons ago they were dubbed the University of the Highlands and Islands. We thought it does what it says on the tin.
Then someone pointed out that it wasn’t a proper uni yet and wouldn’t be until it began handing out proper gongs. Calling it a uni without the ability to award degrees would just be ridiculous. That would be like having a proper local authority in a democratic country which only did things which were approved by a tiny, extremist, religious minority. Absurd. Could never happen here.
So they scratched their learned heads and wondered how they could quietly drop the word university. They needed to demonstrate their emphasis on rural studies and renewable energy. So it became the College of Rural and Alternative Power Studies. Wonder why they dropped that.
Then they said let’s tell them that our new name is just UHI. We’ll use that until we can call ourselves the real thing. Many sneered and said, look, these guys can’t even spell uni. So UHI, or Unconfirmed Hallowed Institution, it has been.
That all changed this year when it was awarded the full status of Uni of the Hi and I. They had a shindig to celebrate with everyone splogged up in their academic robes. Slightly spooky it was – like being on the set of The Wicker Man.
The highlight was the flypast on Thursday. Despite the defence cuts, the RAF found an under-used Tornado GR4 jet at XV Squadron in RAF Lossiemouth to fly slowly over the 13 UHI sites. In Stornoway, it was due at a quarter to one, sorry 12:45 GMT, sir, and hundreds of students and staff trooped outside to witness this magnificent historic event. I had my camera set on rapid shooting.
Supposed to just zoom over from Invershneggie in 10 minutes, that was the problem. Tornado jets don’t do slow. It suddenly appeared and I grabbed the camera to follow it in the viewfinder as it roared high over my head but I overbalanced and ended up flat on my back, camera still clicking away.
Thankfully, the assembled academic masses never witnessed my humiliation. They too were craning their necks following the Tornado as it descended to practice bomb Sulasgeir.
Using acronyms instead of proper words isn’t new. I remember when Great Bernera got rid of its bulls because they were chasing post vans, a man came from town to attend to the forlorn Friesians and the sombre Shorthorns.
I’ll always remember how my parents used to simultaneously furrow their brows when I, an inquisitive nine-year-old, used to ask who was the cove in the big rubber apron going into our byre. “He’s just the AI man, that’s all. Now finish your porridge.”
So what did he do, I kept asking. AI? What did AI stand for? “Nothing. He just goes to talk to the cows, that’s all. And AI doesn’t stand for anything interesting, does it, father? You tell him. You should be the one telling the boy about that sort of thing.”
Why should Dad be the one to tell me the man in the apron in the byre wasn’t there to do anything but talk to the cows and that AI didn’t stand for anything at all? It didn’t stack up. Then I heard Dad saying they would have to pay him to whisper these sweet nothings to Buttercup and Sooty.
OMG, I thought. That must be Dr Dolittle in our byre. Wait till I tell them in school tomorrow. They’ll never believe it. But they did, because Dolittle had also been doing nothing much to speak of in their byres.
Many years later I found out what the letters AI actually stood for. I was shocked even then but at the age of 34 I tried not to let on Dolittle was in our byre and what he was up to. Up to his elbow, by the sound of it.
Acronyms are also a brilliant way to communicate difficult unpalatable facts to people who don’t want to listen. I had a serious problem myself recently after I installed new software on my computer. I read and reread the manual but it still wasn’t working right.
There was obviously something wrong with the computer or the software as I was convinced I had done everything the book said. In desperation, I called a certain computer geek I know. Having been the first person to tell me a spreadsheet was not a duvet for a double bed, I’d maintained a degree of respect for his vast knowledge. He somehow connected his computer many miles away to mine in Stornoway. Then he hummed and hahed a lot before eventually telling me he’d found a serious malfunction. See, I said. I’d told him there was something wrong, didn’t I? Was it hardware or software, I asked.
Neither, he’d decided. He was going to have to come to see me. This was all down to a severe case of PEBKAC. Er, excuse me. We’ll have less of that kind of filthy talk on the phone to my house. I told him straight. Oh, that’s the name of the problem? Sorry, I thought you were just being rude to me.
So what is PEBKAC? Is there a cure? Will it cost much to fix? It was, he told me patiently, an engineering acronym. And it stands for Problem Exists Between Keyboard And Chair.

→ 2 Comments

Posted in Isle of Lewis, Outer Hebrides, schools, Scotland, Stornoway, Western Isles

Danny Macaskill from Dunvegan

Posted on August 27, 2011 | 4 Comments

This is Danny Macaskill from Dunvegan on Skye. I have nothing else to say.

Click here

→ 4 Comments

Posted in Uncategorized

Lads abandon swim across the Minch due to gales

Posted on August 25, 2011 | Leave a comment

UPDATED 2

Although they had to abandon the attempt to swim the Minch both ways, that was a fantastic effort by the boys.

→ Leave a comment

Posted in Appeal, Isle of Harris, Isle of Lewis, Outer Hebrides, Skye, Western Isles

Why the Outer Hebrides is just the place to send those looters and rioters

Posted on August 22, 2011 | 6 Comments

Published Press and Journal 22 August 2011

I love Sally Bercow. There, I’ve said it. What is there not to love about a dame who will take no sugar from nobody? My plan was to stay completely away from Big Brother this time but I know I’m going to rip up the pledge because of the pride of our alley.

She’s the wife of the Speaker of the House of Commons, who is a Tory MP. Not that she lets that wee detail stop her supporting, loudly and publicly, the Labour Party. She wants to be an MP herself too, a Labour one. As if that wasn’t enough to give hubby John a red face, he tried to stop her going in and making an amadan of herself. If you don’t know what that fine Gaelic word means, just think of the MP George Galloway in a catsuit lapping up milk from a bowl. That’s a complete amadan for you.

Did Sally do as her husband, famous for his ferocious tellings-off when MPs misbehave, cave in and do as he and other Tory bigwigs demanded? Did she heck. Which is why I now adore the lady. She doesn’t play by the rules of the rich and powerful. You can see what’s going to happen. Although she’s on the wagon now after admitting she thought nothing of swigging back two bottles of plonk most days, she is always up for telling it as it is. While most of the other housemates will need a few vino collapsos to loosen their tongues, I think Sally will give us some jaw-dropping revelations without benefit of even a wee swally.
Well done to John B for trying to stop her. He never had a chance though.

Well done too to the man of words who got round the 10 Downing Street tosh filter and somehow managed to post a petition on its website calling for English rioters to be shipped to my homeland here in the Hebrides. Deep thinker Richard Miller suggests that for five years, as an alternative to keeping them in clink where they are likely to come in contact with other Little Englanders who will corrupt them even further, they should instead be made to look after our Blackfaces and Cheviots.

Only in the sparkling jewels of the northern seas, where the islanders are on the straight and narrow – the descriptive term for the Pentland Road between Marybank in the east and Callanish and Carloway in the west – looters and common scallywags can be kept safe from the evil influences that have made them what they are. This product of the English education system, the envy of the world but a long time ago, declares that your typical namby-pamby lowlife found in Tottenham, Croydon or Manchester would get such a fright existing without comforts like running water, electricity, decent food, culture and shopping that they would be too petrified to riot or loot ever again.

He’s spot on. How I long for the day when I can make myself a cuppa of Earl Grey without tramping six miles to the well. As for that electricity thingummyjig, I saw on telly that it’s going up in price so we certainly don’t want any of that sort of thing here in our unspoilt islands – unless we generate it ourselves – as the People’s Socialist Republic of Point are going to do out on the Straight and Narrow. Decent food? Oh, for the day we had some of that here. Instead, we have to make do with a bit of locally-caught smoked salmon for breakfast, a rib-tickling rack of Lewis lamb for lunch and perhaps just a slab of Uig-reared venison for dindins – after a starter of a dod of black pudding and several plump, juicy, landed-that-day scallops, of course.

Eeh by gum, life is grim up north and then a bit further north. We make do but we lay awake at nights dreaming of tucking into a squish of jellified, slithery eels for our tea like those lucky Londoners. That’d be fab. The culture vultures of Englandshire may have the West End for the theatres and playhouses where they can watch musicals by various Americans and Lloyd Webber but we get by. We have An Lanntair arts centre and Gaelic singer Iain Mackay. That’ll do us.

Mind you, they would see a difference in petrol prices. These rioters who robbed the filling stations down south could certainly come up and get a taste of their own medicines. Up here, it’s the filling stations that are robbing everybody else. Which reminds me that I noticed something very peculiar when I happened to be at my local Manor filling station the other day having a chinwag. Although the conversation was very interesting, as it always is when bewildered-looking Labour party come and tell me of their woes, it was also a good chance to do some people watching out of the corner of my eye.

Has anyone else noticed how men and women behave differently when they’re getting fuel. It was very obvious to me that there was a particular ritual that men do but which the fairer sex just don’t bother with. It was the same, time after time after time. Maybe it’s because they are too tight to waste a drop of petrol because of the cost or, maybe, it’s because it’s triggered by some other habit.
Look for this yourself next time your at the pumps. When they have finished filling up, gentlemen motorists invariably shake the nozzle.

→ 6 Comments

Posted in Outer Hebrides, P&J column, Popular culture, Stornoway, Western Isles

Funeral of Peggy Macneil of Isles FM

Posted on August 20, 2011 | 1 Comment

The funeral service for the late Peggy Macneil, who was known to so many through her voluntary work as a well-loved presenter on Isles FM, will be held at 2.30pm on Monday, August 22, at Martin’s Memorial Church, Francis Street, Stornoway.

Mourners may give flowers or contribute to a collection at the service for MacMillan and the Bethesda Hospice.  The burial will then be to Sandwick.

→ 1 Comment

Posted in Uncategorized

Remind me to tell you that you should be grateful if you have a good memory

Posted on August 19, 2011 | 5 Comments

Press and Journal column 15 August 2011

:
Now what was I going to tell you? It’s my memory, you see. While I may be remarkably well-preserved in all other departments, I do sometimes have a teeny wee problem in remembering fine details.

It’s the little things. I’m not actually going to write on my hand where I park. Maybe I should. Parking in Stornoway town centre is getting worse and no one cares. I’d driven round the Crowmwell Street-South Beach-Kenneth Street circuit a few times last week and could find nowhere to halt. Even the double-yellows had vehicles on them.

There was nothing else for it. I had to look for a piece of kerb away from the centre. Eventually, I spotted a corner for the Renault Trafic and rushed into my meeting only to find the others were late because they too were still trying to park. This is Stornoway not central London, remember.

Only a short meeting about the rock band Coast which some of us are working for. This week the lads, some of whom were brought up on Uist, can be found at Strathpeffer Pavilion, the Royal Hotel in Portree, the Stornoway British Legion and finishing up on Saturday with an emotional return to Benbecula and the Dark Island Hotel. Did I remember those venues correctly? Gosh.

Quick cuppa and off I went to find my van. Now, where did I put it? Give me a minute. It was … I couldn’t remember. Must be up by the Post Office. Nope. Ah, of course, I always put it on Scotland Street if the centre is chocca. Uh-uh.
It was only 15 minutes before. Why couldn’t I remember?

Must be on the quay. Ah, there it is. I ran up to it, thrust the key in the lock and it was as if I was pitched into a maritime war zone. A screeching like a submarine dive klaxon went off which, when I dared to take my hands off my ears, I realised was the van alarm. It wasn’t my van. Wishing I had a hood to put up, I slunk off and saw the guy from the harbour office running towards me and the blaring van.

“Hi cove, what’s the hurry? What alarm? Oh, so it is. I thought it was HMS Astute aground at Arnish. Me? No, I saw no one. They must have gone that way. Ach, kids today; what are they like, eh? If you catch them let me know and I’ll put it in the paper. Cheers the now.”

By now I was getting desperate. I wondered if I had risked the awful wrath of Miranda, our seemingly-meek and polite traffic warden, and parked on Point Street. No, of course not. Even I’m not that brave.

There was nothing else for it. I was going to have to ask the police for help in finding it. Maybe I should pretend it was stolen? Better not, they have CCTV up at that cop shop on Church Street and they don’t miss much. My old classmate Mairi Graham works on the front desk and she has the eyes of a hawk. It would be rather embarrassing if I reported that some scallies had made off with my van and then Mairi piped up that she had watched me parking it up not half an hour before. No, better tell the truth. My brain has turned to mush and I have forgotten everything, ossifer. They’ll probably lock me up.

Back I traipsed trying to work out a form of words that would avoid the cops coming to the conclusion that I was the doziest twonk they had come across that day. You know how when you have something on your mind, you then see plenty examples of that very thing? That’s how it was as I walked. There were white vans everywhere. Every second vehicle that passed me was the same kind of white van. They are all around us – or they were that day.

As I passed the Free Church, there was even a white van there. I shook my head which by then was hurting. As I reached Church Street, I took a deep breath. Here we go. Hold on. Wait a minute. Did I check the registration number of that one in the Free Church car-park? I’d better go back. Guess what? Yes, it was mine. It’s not a place I usually park although it is open to the public – well, most days of the week it is.

Relieved but kicking myself, I felt like one of the criminal classes because it crossed the mind of this white van man to tell the cops that it wasn’t my fault and that someone had made off with it.

You should be thankful if you have a good memory. I can’t even remember if I told you that the brilliant rock band Coast are on a Highlands and Islands tour this week. Wish I could remember where they’re playing. They’re in Strathpeffer, Portree, Stornoway and somewhere else. Now where is it again? No, it’s gone.

It’s not just me who has felt like a criminal. There’s been awful looting around the UK in the last week. People have just been helping themselves to other people’s property. Thankfully, it hasn’t reached up here. Or has it? On Saturday night, I went for a walk and a guy in a hoodie came up to me and offered me eight legs of venison for £30. Hmm, I thought to myself, is that too dear?

→ 5 Comments

Posted in Outer Hebrides, P&J column, Western Isles

Programme maker seeks 1956 Brittania pics from Barra

Posted on August 16, 2011 | Leave a comment

Dear Iain,

I write on the off chance. I am producing a documentary for the BBC about Queen Elizabeth.
We have a fantastic story of the Royal Yacht Brittania being anchored in Castlebay, Barra in 1956. It was festooned with electric lights, while the island of Barra had no electricity.
Would you or any of your friends have a photograph of the Royal Yacht from this trip, or indeed know of any one who might? Thank you

David Street
[email protected]

→ Leave a comment

Posted in Barra, royals

Miliband

Posted on August 15, 2011 | 24 Comments

Surprisingly good speech by Ed Miliband on the causes of the riots on now.

→ 24 Comments

Posted in politics, Popular culture

The Uig homophobe writes again

Posted on August 14, 2011 | 17 Comments

Thank you to the many people who wrote to let me know the spiteful, hate-filled Uig homophobe has been writing to Hebrides News again – this time to attack Janine Mackenzie, who I recently had the pleasure of meeting. He takes umbrage at her eminently-sensible letter taking him to task for his extreme views.

Predictably, from someone born too late to be Adolf Hitler’s speechwriter, the latest missive is yet another vacuous attempt at self-justification which tries pathetically to paint everyone else in the same dark colours as himself.

Miavaig used to be such a nice place

To try and justify the illegal and continuing anti-gay discrimination practised by certain Lewis bed-and-breakfast operators – with famous support from a certain bigoted political failure who now wants to bring his particular brand of twisted hatred to Western Isles Council – by referring to the untimely death of Freddie Mercury of Queen, is not just laughable but shows there is no depth to which this guy will not plumb.

Did any great heterosexual rock legend ever die because of his or her lifestyle, by any chance? None that the Monster of Miavaig thinks are worthy of mention, apparently.

His is a very sad letter, he is a very sad person and we should all be deeply saddened to know there are unbalanced people with such views living in these islands. He always points out he doesn’t hate alone.

Anyone who calls themselves a real Christian should be praying for him to be released from his delusions and the hammered-in intolerance that permeates his very soul.

http://www.hebrides-news.com/discrimination-13811.html

→ 17 Comments

Posted in Crime, homophobia, intolerance, Isle of Lewis, Outer Hebrides, Police, politics, religion, tourism, Western Isles