BigMouth

Baldrick, where are you?

The last of the big spenders!

FFS, BigMouth, there's more than enough neeps in Shetlund already. I've worked with most of them........ 

Now, now.  You're getting carried away!!  You'll be suggesting that we go and live in the royal family's spare properties next.
 
http://www.shetland.org/plan/areas/fetlar advises that the population of Fetlar is less than 100.  I don't know if that means 10 or 99.  Fetlar would be great if the agricultural possibilites were ramped up somewhat.  Shetland could definitely be self-sufficient in turnips with just a little more effort from Fetlar.  Turnips for all.

Just tinkered with your post a little, BigMouth......... 

Males do not, and never have, enjoed total freedom.
 
What Are Some Common Forms of Sexism That Men Face?

Men are stronger than women? Wrong. Some men are stronger than some women. When a woman needs to summon strength she can, but when there is something to lift at work, a table to move, I notice the women take a step back. As in most things, women choose not to. Most of what we do these days has some level of automation or mechanical assistance. Strength is less of a reason to be a barrier to a woman taking on a physical role, but mostly they choose not to. There is one woman working on the essy kerts in Shetland, the rest are men. It is unlikely that there will be many bags of rubbish that will exceed 25 kilos, judging by what I throw away. Working in this environment needs stamina and a robust spirit more than it needs strength, but with the alternative of working in a nice warm office, rather than being rained on and having the juice of rubbish bags running down your overalls and the risk of broken glass cutting you, and the hideous pong, I can see why women flock in droves to office jobs.
 
Women are better at bringing up kids. Wrong. There is no reason why a man can't bring up children. Boys particularly thrive when they have good male role models. I spoke to a single mum with three boys to look after. She worked full time to support them, but she said that they didn't see a man from one week to the next. They were dropped off at school, where they were solely taught by female staff, were child-minded after school by a woman, and some evenings would do after school activities, including Cubs (or perhaps it was Scouts?), which was completely run by women. There was no boyfriend on the scene. I have no doubt that she was an excellent mum, but her greatest desire was that her boys had some male influence, she didn't necessarily want to be in a relationship, but could see the benefits and balance that men could bring.
 
Only men discriminate. Wrong. I was in a meeting not that long ago where a female department head proudly announced that she had got rid of all the men from her department. This took place in front of a dozen women and two men. If it had been a man saying that about women I am sure that man would have been having an interview without coffee with the personnel department. Different rules depending on your sex.
 
Domestic abuse is always caused by men. Wrong. As someone who has been on the end of domestic violence many years ago from a woman, I know that this is not the case. Women have a well funded support mechanism in Shetland along with places of safety. Guess what men have? Nothing. They go to Aberdeen if they are lucky. It's more likely that the man will say nothing about it, because he will be ashamed. Being a man on the end of domestic violence is not the norm. Society expects men to be strong in the same way that it expects women to be motherly.
 
Men have no say in the life of the unborn child. All too commonly women will decide to have a discretionary abortion, a lifestyle choice. The man has no say. The woman decides to dispose of that child and gets away with it. If a man was to murder that unborn child he would go to prison for it.
 
Women suffer the indignity of breast screening and cervical smears. Men suffer the indignity of prostate cancer. Somehow science can produce reliable screening tests for women, but when it comes to men's prostates - nothing.
 
Men's sperm is a valuable commodity, so much so that men who have donated that sperm to a sperm bank have been taken to court for maintenance for a child brought about by an altruistic act. Men's sperm has been stolen from used condoms by women who wanted to impregnate themselves, when the man was unwilling to have children. This is a good reason why men need more contraceptive choices. Women can have the pill or implants, or a variety of other devices, but for men? Nothing readily but the condom. Society does not want men to have sexual freedom. To which the answer will be that men sleep around. To which the obvious response is that if they are heterosexual, then surely they are sleeping around with women?
 
A man's career, his whole life can be ruined by an accusation of rape. Only recently a man was spared a court case at the final hour when the prosecution released evidence that showed that he was innocent. The accuser had made the rape up. If a woman can destroy a man's life so easily then the legal system should be putting the false accuser in prison. Desperate are the days when men are having to use their smartphones to record asking for permission to engage in sex with a woman.
 
I recently asked a woman if she could explain why for every one hundred patients GP surgeries saw, sixty were women and only forty were men. Her explanation was that women's bodies are more complicated. Could the reality be that services are skewed towards women to the disadvantage of men?
 
Political representation. I noticed that the SNP had officers for certain interest groups including: students, artists, women, disabled, etc., etc. It was odd that about the only group that did not have representation was men. I looked at the other parties and the same was true of them too. No representation for men, roughly 50% of the population are male.
 
Women have long retired at 60, whereas men worked on, usually in less comfortable jobs until they were 65, if they didn't die first of some hideous industrial illness. This was despite women usually living eight years longer on average and usually in better health, and this has been true for many decades. That gap has stayed much the same The retirement age is now somewhere between 65 and 67 for the majority of both sexes, which brings us somewhere closer to equality, but to reach parity in the number of likely years in retirement, men should retire at 67 and women should retire at 75. There is a campaign - WASPI - Women Against State Pension (age) Increase. It's a group of women that have been most affected by the fact that the pension age for the sexes has been aligned. They thought they were going to slope out of their nice warm offices at 60, then swan about at home in retirement for 26 years on average, but equality struck and they are now going to be retiring at 66, and they don't like it one bit. The problem is that when women get real equality they're not so keen on it. If we went back to the days of conscription, (not hard to imagine in the current situation that the military are finding it so hard to recruit, despite being a force that is reducing in size), in a truly equal society they would be calling up young women as well as young men to fight and die in our wars of choice around the world. It won't happen though because society finds the idea of fit young men dying in some god-forsaken hellhole so much more palatable than a young woman having to die in the same situation. Men's lives are worth less.
 
And when it comes to work look at the advantages given to women - one of their favourites is women only shortlists. That just a way of saying, we have men that are better, but the only way that any of you will get this job is by us not interviewing the better candidates. We are willing to accept second best. Men are yet again discriminated against. The trend has become more worrying when the BBC recently advertised a job where only applicants from black and minority ethnic backgrounds can apply. You're discriminated against if you are white.
 
Surely male and female genitals are of equal worth? Nope. If someone takes a scalpel to your genitals where there is no medical need then it's called genital mutilation, but only if you are female. If you are male then not even the World Health Organisation will recognise that your genitals are being mutilated, but if you are a woman they will organise a worldwide campaign - Female Genital Mutilation awareness week. Of course there are those of us that like to ask questions, raise awkward truths, so we contact the WHO and ask when is the Male Genital Mutilation awareness week? Unsurprisingly there was no response.
 
Why do married men die before their wives? Studies record the most common reason is because they wanted to!
 
Guys, women don't want equality. What they want is advantage. They will say that men have had it for long enough. Well girls, if it's not right for us, it's not right for you either is it? If you want the good stuff then take an equal amount of the crap us men have been taking for years. Don't be telling me that your granny was down the mines digging nutty slack with a babe at her breast. Tell me what you are doing now, the suffering of loading that washing machine, tumble dryer, dishwasher, that long drive to the shops or the wait in for that Tesco delivery van. I want to know everything. Tell me about having to walk over to the other side of the living room to get the remote for the TV/Sky box or whatever. Putting the cup under that bean to cup coffee maker or having to ring up for a hair appointment, and they probably won't have the magazine that you like. The cost of lipstick, having to tweezer your eyebrows to death so you look like an escapee from the circus, piercings and tattoos. Highlights, lowlights, botoxed lips, diets, central heating, car boots that close themselves, no quinoa on the shelves, panty liners, tottering around on heels that make you look afflicted, offices that despite being overheated are still not warm enough for you, men in your department (doing the heavy lifting usually). Girls - you've got so it hard. I don't know how you do it!

While I disagree with most of what BigMouth has to say, I applaud him for saying it. For too long an incessant deluge of sanctimonious pseudo-feminist claptrap has been furiously tapped into keyboards, completely unchecked.  I love it when folk like BigMouth retort with equal bluster, refusing to be cowed by the shrill and the self-righteous. 
 
Yes, some of his points are, to my mind, highly subjective. However, I think his eloquent diatribe is a refreshing foil to the shrill babblings from the ranks of the humourless and boring who would have us all be gender-free automatons in a sterile brave new world  - and it makes for entertaining reading!

Men are stronger than women? Wrong. Some men are stronger than some women. When a woman needs to summon strength she can, but when there is something to lift at work, a table to move, I notice the women take a step back. As in most things, women choose not to. Most of what we do these days has some level of automation or mechanical assistance. Strength is less of a reason to be a barrier to a woman taking on a physical role, but mostly they choose not to. There is one woman working on the essy kerts in Shetland, the rest are men. It is unlikely that there will be many bags of rubbish that will exceed 25 kilos, judging by what I throw away. Working in this environment needs stamina and a robust spirit more than it needs strength, but with the alternative of working in a nice warm office, rather than being rained on and having the juice of rubbish bags running down your overalls and the risk of broken glass cutting you, and the hideous pong, I can see why women flock in droves to office jobs.
 
Women are better at bringing up kids. Wrong. There is no reason why a man can't bring up children. Boys particularly thrive when they have good male role models. I spoke to a single mum with three boys to look after. She worked full time to support them, but she said that they didn't see a man from one week to the next. They were dropped off at school, where they were solely taught by female staff, were child-minded after school by a woman, and some evenings would do after school activities, including Cubs (or perhaps it was Scouts?), which was completely run by women. There was no boyfriend on the scene. I have no doubt that she was an excellent mum, but her greatest desire was that her boys had some male influence, she didn't necessarily want to be in a relationship, but could see the benefits and balance that men could bring.
 
Only men discriminate. Wrong. I was in a meeting not that long ago where a female department head proudly announced that she had got rid of all the men from her department. This took place in front of a dozen women and two men. If it had been a man saying that about women I am sure that man would have been having an interview without coffee with the personnel department. Different rules depending on your sex.
 
Domestic abuse is always caused by men. Wrong. As someone who has been on the end of domestic violence many years ago from a woman, I know that this is not the case. Women have a well funded support mechanism in Shetland along with places of safety. Guess what men have? Nothing. They go to Aberdeen if they are lucky. It's more likely that the man will say nothing about it, because he will be ashamed. Being a man on the end of domestic violence is not the norm. Society expects men to be strong in the same way that it expects women to be motherly.
 
Men have no say in the life of the unborn child. All too commonly women will decide to have a discretionary abortion, a lifestyle choice. The man has no say. The woman decides to dispose of that child and gets away with it. If a man was to murder that unborn child he would go to prison for it.
 
Women suffer the indignity of breast screening and cervical smears. Men suffer the indignity of prostate cancer. Somehow science can produce reliable screening tests for women, but when it comes to men's prostates - nothing.
 
Men's sperm is a valuable commodity, so much so that men who have donated that sperm to a sperm bank have been taken to court for maintenance for a child brought about by an altruistic act. Men's sperm has been stolen from used condoms by women who wanted to impregnate themselves, when the man was unwilling to have children. This is a good reason why men need more contraceptive choices. Women can have the pill or implants, or a variety of other devices, but for men? Nothing readily but the condom. Society does not want men to have sexual freedom. To which the answer will be that men sleep around. To which the obvious response is that if they are heterosexual, then surely they are sleeping around with women?
 
A man's career, his whole life can be ruined by an accusation of rape. Only recently a man was spared a court case at the final hour when the prosecution released evidence that showed that he was innocent. The accuser had made the rape up. If a woman can destroy a man's life so easily then the legal system should be putting the false accuser in prison. Desperate are the days when men are having to use their smartphones to record asking for permission to engage in sex with a woman.
 
I recently asked a woman if she could explain why for every one hundred patients GP surgeries saw, sixty were women and only forty were men. Her explanation was that women's bodies are more complicated. Could the reality be that services are skewed towards women to the disadvantage of men?
 
Political representation. I noticed that the SNP had officers for certain interest groups including: students, artists, women, disabled, etc., etc. It was odd that about the only group that did not have representation was men. I looked at the other parties and the same was true of them too. No representation for men, roughly 50% of the population are male.
 
Women have long retired at 60, whereas men worked on, usually in less comfortable jobs until they were 65, if they didn't die first of some hideous industrial illness. This was despite women usually living eight years longer on average and usually in better health, and this has been true for many decades. That gap has stayed much the same The retirement age is now somewhere between 65 and 67 for the majority of both sexes, which brings us somewhere closer to equality, but to reach parity in the number of likely years in retirement, men should retire at 67 and women should retire at 75. There is a campaign - WASPI - Women Against State Pension (age) Increase. It's a group of women that have been most affected by the fact that the pension age for the sexes has been aligned. They thought they were going to slope out of their nice warm offices at 60, then swan about at home in retirement for 26 years on average, but equality struck and they are now going to be retiring at 66, and they don't like it one bit. The problem is that when women get real equality they're not so keen on it. If we went back to the days of conscription, (not hard to imagine in the current situation that the military are finding it so hard to recruit, despite being a force that is reducing in size), in a truly equal society they would be calling up young women as well as young men to fight and die in our wars of choice around the world. It won't happen though because society finds the idea of fit young men dying in some god-forsaken hellhole so much more palatable than a young woman having to die in the same situation. Men's lives are worth less.
 
And when it comes to work look at the advantages given to women - one of their favourites is women only shortlists. That just a way of saying, we have men that are better, but the only way that any of you will get this job is by us not interviewing the better candidates. We are willing to accept second best. Men are yet again discriminated against. The trend has become more worrying when the BBC recently advertised a job where only applicants from black and minority ethnic backgrounds can apply. You're discriminated against if you are white.
 
Surely male and female genitals are of equal worth? Nope. If someone takes a scalpel to your genitals where there is no medical need then it's called genital mutilation, but only if you are female. If you are male then not even the World Health Organisation will recognise that your genitals are being mutilated, but if you are a woman they will organise a worldwide campaign - Female Genital Mutilation awareness week. Of course there are those of us that like to ask questions, raise awkward truths, so we contact the WHO and ask when is the Male Genital Mutilation awareness week? Unsurprisingly there was no response.
 
Why do married men die before their wives? Studies record the most common reason is because they wanted to!
 
Guys, women don't want equality. What they want is advantage. They will say that men have had it for long enough. Well girls, if it's not right for us, it's not right for you either is it? If you want the good stuff then take an equal amount of the crap us men have been taking for years. Don't be telling me that your granny was down the mines digging nutty slack with a babe at her breast. Tell me what you are doing now, the suffering of loading that washing machine, tumble dryer, dishwasher, that long drive to the shops or the wait in for that Tesco delivery van. I want to know everything. Tell me about having to walk over to the other side of the living room to get the remote for the TV/Sky box or whatever. Putting the cup under that bean to cup coffee maker or having to ring up for a hair appointment, and they probably won't have the magazine that you like. The cost of lipstick, having to tweezer your eyebrows to death so you look like an escapee from the circus, piercings and tattoos. Highlights, lowlights, botoxed lips, diets, central heating, car boots that close themselves, no quinoa on the shelves, panty liners, tottering around on heels that make you look afflicted, offices that despite being overheated are still not warm enough for you, men in your department (doing the heavy lifting usually). Girls - you've got so it hard. I don't know how you do it!

Men are stronger than women? Wrong. Some men are stronger than some women. When a woman needs to summon strength she can, but when there is something to lift at work, a table to move, I notice the women take a step back. As in most things, women choose not to. Most of what we do these days has some level of automation or mechanical assistance. Strength is less of a reason to be a barrier to a woman taking on a physical role, but mostly they choose not to. There is one woman working on the essy kerts in Shetland, the rest are men. It is unlikely that there will be many bags of rubbish that will exceed 25 kilos, judging by what I throw away. Working in this environment needs stamina and a robust spirit more than it needs strength, but with the alternative of working in a nice warm office, rather than being rained on and having the juice of rubbish bags running down your overalls and the risk of broken glass cutting you, and the hideous pong, I can see why women flock in droves to office jobs.
 
Women are better at bringing up kids. Wrong. There is no reason why a man can't bring up children. Boys particularly thrive when they have good male role models. I spoke to a single mum with three boys to look after. She worked full time to support them, but she said that they didn't see a man from one week to the next. They were dropped off at school, where they were solely taught by female staff, were child-minded after school by a woman, and some evenings would do after school activities, including Cubs (or perhaps it was Scouts?), which was completely run by women. There was no boyfriend on the scene. I have no doubt that she was an excellent mum, but her greatest desire was that her boys had some male influence, she didn't necessarily want to be in a relationship, but could see the benefits and balance that men could bring.
 
Only men discriminate. Wrong. I was in a meeting not that long ago where a female department head proudly announced that she had got rid of all the men from her department. This took place in front of a dozen women and two men. If it had been a man saying that about women I am sure that man would have been having an interview without coffee with the personnel department. Different rules depending on your sex.
 
Domestic abuse is always caused by men. Wrong. As someone who has been on the end of domestic violence many years ago from a woman, I know that this is not the case. Women have a well funded support mechanism in Shetland along with places of safety. Guess what men have? Nothing. They go to Aberdeen if they are lucky. It's more likely that the man will say nothing about it, because he will be ashamed. Being a man on the end of domestic violence is not the norm. Society expects men to be strong in the same way that it expects women to be motherly.
 
Men have no say in the life of the unborn child. All too commonly women will decide to have a discretionary abortion, a lifestyle choice. The man has no say. The woman decides to dispose of that child and gets away with it. If a man was to murder that unborn child he would go to prison for it.
 
Women suffer the indignity of breast screening and cervical smears. Men suffer the indignity of prostate cancer. Somehow science can produce reliable screening tests for women, but when it comes to men's prostates - nothing.
 
Men's sperm is a valuable commodity, so much so that men who have donated that sperm to a sperm bank have been taken to court for maintenance for a child brought about by an altruistic act. Men's sperm has been stolen from used condoms by women who wanted to impregnate themselves, when the man was unwilling to have children. This is a good reason why men need more contraceptive choices. Women can have the pill or implants, or a variety of other devices, but for men? Nothing readily but the condom. Society does not want men to have sexual freedom. To which the answer will be that men sleep around. To which the obvious response is that if they are heterosexual, then surely they are sleeping around with women?
 
A man's career, his whole life can be ruined by an accusation of rape. Only recently a man was spared a court case at the final hour when the prosecution released evidence that showed that he was innocent. The accuser had made the rape up. If a woman can destroy a man's life so easily then the legal system should be putting the false accuser in prison. Desperate are the days when men are having to use their smartphones to record asking for permission to engage in sex with a woman.
 
I recently asked a woman if she could explain why for every one hundred patients GP surgeries saw, sixty were women and only forty were men. Her explanation was that women's bodies are more complicated. Could the reality be that services are skewed towards women to the disadvantage of men?
 
Political representation. I noticed that the SNP had officers for certain interest groups including: students, artists, women, disabled, etc., etc. It was odd that about the only group that did not have representation was men. I looked at the other parties and the same was true of them too. No representation for men, roughly 50% of the population are male.
 
Women have long retired at 60, whereas men worked on, usually in less comfortable jobs until they were 65, if they didn't die first of some hideous industrial illness. This was despite women usually living eight years longer on average and usually in better health, and this has been true for many decades. That gap has stayed much the same The retirement age is now somewhere between 65 and 67 for the majority of both sexes, which brings us somewhere closer to equality, but to reach parity in the number of likely years in retirement, men should retire at 67 and women should retire at 75. There is a campaign - WASPI - Women Against State Pension (age) Increase. It's a group of women that have been most affected by the fact that the pension age for the sexes has been aligned. They thought they were going to slope out of their nice warm offices at 60, then swan about at home in retirement for 26 years on average, but equality struck and they are now going to be retiring at 66, and they don't like it one bit. The problem is that when women get real equality they're not so keen on it. If we went back to the days of conscription, (not hard to imagine in the current situation that the military are finding it so hard to recruit, despite being a force that is reducing in size), in a truly equal society they would be calling up young women as well as young men to fight and die in our wars of choice around the world. It won't happen though because society finds the idea of fit young men dying in some god-forsaken hellhole so much more palatable than a young woman having to die in the same situation. Men's lives are worth less.
 
And when it comes to work look at the advantages given to women - one of their favourites is women only shortlists. That just a way of saying, we have men that are better, but the only way that any of you will get this job is by us not interviewing the better candidates. We are willing to accept second best. Men are yet again discriminated against. The trend has become more worrying when the BBC recently advertised a job where only applicants from black and minority ethnic backgrounds can apply. You're discriminated against if you are white.
 
Surely male and female genitals are of equal worth? Nope. If someone takes a scalpel to your genitals where there is no medical need then it's called genital mutilation, but only if you are female. If you are male then not even the World Health Organisation will recognise that your genitals are being mutilated, but if you are a woman they will organise a worldwide campaign - Female Genital Mutilation awareness week. Of course there are those of us that like to ask questions, raise awkward truths, so we contact the WHO and ask when is the Male Genital Mutilation awareness week? Unsurprisingly there was no response.
 
Why do married men die before their wives? Studies record the most common reason is because they wanted to!
 
Guys, women don't want equality. What they want is advantage. They will say that men have had it for long enough. Well girls, if it's not right for us, it's not right for you either is it? If you want the good stuff then take an equal amount of the crap us men have been taking for years. Don't be telling me that your granny was down the mines digging nutty slack with a babe at her breast. Tell me what you are doing now, the suffering of loading that washing machine, tumble dryer, dishwasher, that long drive to the shops or the wait in for that Tesco delivery van. I want to know everything. Tell me about having to walk over to the other side of the living room to get the remote for the TV/Sky box or whatever. Putting the cup under that bean to cup coffee maker or having to ring up for a hair appointment, and they probably won't have the magazine that you like. The cost of lipstick, having to tweezer your eyebrows to death so you look like an escapee from the circus, piercings and tattoos. Highlights, lowlights, botoxed lips, diets, central heating, car boots that close themselves, no quinoa on the shelves, panty liners, tottering around on heels that make you look afflicted, offices that despite being overheated are still not warm enough for you, men in your department (doing the heavy lifting usually). Girls - you've got so it hard. I don't know how you do it!

Men are stronger than women? Wrong. Some men are stronger than some women. When a woman needs to summon strength she can, but when there is something to lift at work, a table to move, I notice the women take a step back. As in most things, women choose not to. Most of what we do these days has some level of automation or mechanical assistance. Strength is less of a reason to be a barrier to a woman taking on a physical role, but mostly they choose not to. There is one woman working on the essy kerts in Shetland, the rest are men. It is unlikely that there will be many bags of rubbish that will exceed 25 kilos, judging by what I throw away. Working in this environment needs stamina and a robust spirit more than it needs strength, but with the alternative of working in a nice warm office, rather than being rained on and having the juice of rubbish bags running down your overalls and the risk of broken glass cutting you, and the hideous pong, I can see why women flock in droves to office jobs.
 
Women are better at bringing up kids. Wrong. There is no reason why a man can't bring up children. Boys particularly thrive when they have good male role models. I spoke to a single mum with three boys to look after. She worked full time to support them, but she said that they didn't see a man from one week to the next. They were dropped off at school, where they were solely taught by female staff, were child-minded after school by a woman, and some evenings would do after school activities, including Cubs (or perhaps it was Scouts?), which was completely run by women. There was no boyfriend on the scene. I have no doubt that she was an excellent mum, but her greatest desire was that her boys had some male influence, she didn't necessarily want to be in a relationship, but could see the benefits and balance that men could bring.
 
Only men discriminate. Wrong. I was in a meeting not that long ago where a female department head proudly announced that she had got rid of all the men from her department. This took place in front of a dozen women and two men. If it had been a man saying that about women I am sure that man would have been having an interview without coffee with the personnel department. Different rules depending on your sex.
 
Domestic abuse is always caused by men. Wrong. As someone who has been on the end of domestic violence many years ago from a woman, I know that this is not the case. Women have a well funded support mechanism in Shetland along with places of safety. Guess what men have? Nothing. They go to Aberdeen if they are lucky. It's more likely that the man will say nothing about it, because he will be ashamed. Being a man on the end of domestic violence is not the norm. Society expects men to be strong in the same way that it expects women to be motherly.
 
Men have no say in the life of the unborn child. All too commonly women will decide to have a discretionary abortion, a lifestyle choice. The man has no say. The woman decides to dispose of that child and gets away with it. If a man was to murder that unborn child he would go to prison for it.
 
Women suffer the indignity of breast screening and cervical smears. Men suffer the indignity of prostate cancer. Somehow science can produce reliable screening tests for women, but when it comes to men's prostates - nothing.
 
Men's sperm is a valuable commodity, so much so that men who have donated that sperm to a sperm bank have been taken to court for maintenance for a child brought about by an altruistic act. Men's sperm has been stolen from used condoms by women who wanted to impregnate themselves, when the man was unwilling to have children. This is a good reason why men need more contraceptive choices. Women can have the pill or implants, or a variety of other devices, but for men? Nothing readily but the condom. Society does not want men to have sexual freedom. To which the answer will be that men sleep around. To which the obvious response is that if they are heterosexual, then surely they are sleeping around with women?
 
A man's career, his whole life can be ruined by an accusation of rape. Only recently a man was spared a court case at the final hour when the prosecution released evidence that showed that he was innocent. The accuser had made the rape up. If a woman can destroy a man's life so easily then the legal system should be putting the false accuser in prison. Desperate are the days when men are having to use their smartphones to record asking for permission to engage in sex with a woman.
 
I recently asked a woman if she could explain why for every one hundred patients GP surgeries saw, sixty were women and only forty were men. Her explanation was that women's bodies are more complicated. Could the reality be that services are skewed towards women to the disadvantage of men?
 
Political representation. I noticed that the SNP had officers for certain interest groups including: students, artists, women, disabled, etc., etc. It was odd that about the only group that did not have representation was men. I looked at the other parties and the same was true of them too. No representation for men, roughly 50% of the population are male.
 
Women have long retired at 60, whereas men worked on, usually in less comfortable jobs until they were 65, if they didn't die first of some hideous industrial illness. This was despite women usually living eight years longer on average and usually in better health, and this has been true for many decades. That gap has stayed much the same The retirement age is now somewhere between 65 and 67 for the majority of both sexes, which brings us somewhere closer to equality, but to reach parity in the number of likely years in retirement, men should retire at 67 and women should retire at 75. There is a campaign - WASPI - Women Against State Pension (age) Increase. It's a group of women that have been most affected by the fact that the pension age for the sexes has been aligned. They thought they were going to slope out of their nice warm offices at 60, then swan about at home in retirement for 26 years on average, but equality struck and they are now going to be retiring at 66, and they don't like it one bit. The problem is that when women get real equality they're not so keen on it. If we went back to the days of conscription, (not hard to imagine in the current situation that the military are finding it so hard to recruit, despite being a force that is reducing in size), in a truly equal society they would be calling up young women as well as young men to fight and die in our wars of choice around the world. It won't happen though because society finds the idea of fit young men dying in some god-forsaken hellhole so much more palatable than a young woman having to die in the same situation. Men's lives are worth less.
 
And when it comes to work look at the advantages given to women - one of their favourites is women only shortlists. That just a way of saying, we have men that are better, but the only way that any of you will get this job is by us not interviewing the better candidates. We are willing to accept second best. Men are yet again discriminated against. The trend has become more worrying when the BBC recently advertised a job where only applicants from black and minority ethnic backgrounds can apply. You're discriminated against if you are white.
 
Surely male and female genitals are of equal worth? Nope. If someone takes a scalpel to your genitals where there is no medical need then it's called genital mutilation, but only if you are female. If you are male then not even the World Health Organisation will recognise that your genitals are being mutilated, but if you are a woman they will organise a worldwide campaign - Female Genital Mutilation awareness week. Of course there are those of us that like to ask questions, raise awkward truths, so we contact the WHO and ask when is the Male Genital Mutilation awareness week? Unsurprisingly there was no response.
 
Why do married men die before their wives? Studies record the most common reason is because they wanted to!
 
Guys, women don't want equality. What they want is advantage. They will say that men have had it for long enough. Well girls, if it's not right for us, it's not right for you either is it? If you want the good stuff then take an equal amount of the crap us men have been taking for years. Don't be telling me that your granny was down the mines digging nutty slack with a babe at her breast. Tell me what you are doing now, the suffering of loading that washing machine, tumble dryer, dishwasher, that long drive to the shops or the wait in for that Tesco delivery van. I want to know everything. Tell me about having to walk over to the other side of the living room to get the remote for the TV/Sky box or whatever. Putting the cup under that bean to cup coffee maker or having to ring up for a hair appointment, and they probably won't have the magazine that you like. The cost of lipstick, having to tweezer your eyebrows to death so you look like an escapee from the circus, piercings and tattoos. Highlights, lowlights, botoxed lips, diets, central heating, car boots that close themselves, no quinoa on the shelves, panty liners, tottering around on heels that make you look afflicted, offices that despite being overheated are still not warm enough for you, men in your department (doing the heavy lifting usually). Girls - you've got so it hard. I don't know how you do it!

Men are stronger than women? Wrong. Some men are stronger than some women. When a woman needs to summon strength she can, but when there is something to lift at work, a table to move, I notice the women take a step back. As in most things, women choose not to. Most of what we do these days has some level of automation or mechanical assistance. Strength is less of a reason to be a barrier to a woman taking on a physical role, but mostly they choose not to. There is one woman working on the essy kerts in Shetland, the rest are men. It is unlikely that there will be many bags of rubbish that will exceed 25 kilos, judging by what I throw away. Working in this environment needs stamina and a robust spirit more than it needs strength, but with the alternative of working in a nice warm office, rather than being rained on and having the juice of rubbish bags running down your overalls and the risk of broken glass cutting you, and the hideous pong, I can see why women flock in droves to office jobs.
 
Women are better at bringing up kids. Wrong. There is no reason why a man can't bring up children. Boys particularly thrive when they have good male role models. I spoke to a single mum with three boys to look after. She worked full time to support them, but she said that they didn't see a man from one week to the next. They were dropped off at school, where they were solely taught by female staff, were child-minded after school by a woman, and some evenings would do after school activities, including Cubs (or perhaps it was Scouts?), which was completely run by women. There was no boyfriend on the scene. I have no doubt that she was an excellent mum, but her greatest desire was that her boys had some male influence, she didn't necessarily want to be in a relationship, but could see the benefits and balance that men could bring.
 
Only men discriminate. Wrong. I was in a meeting not that long ago where a female department head proudly announced that she had got rid of all the men from her department. This took place in front of a dozen women and two men. If it had been a man saying that about women I am sure that man would have been having an interview without coffee with the personnel department. Different rules depending on your sex.
 
Domestic abuse is always caused by men. Wrong. As someone who has been on the end of domestic violence many years ago from a woman, I know that this is not the case. Women have a well funded support mechanism in Shetland along with places of safety. Guess what men have? Nothing. They go to Aberdeen if they are lucky. It's more likely that the man will say nothing about it, because he will be ashamed. Being a man on the end of domestic violence is not the norm. Society expects men to be strong in the same way that it expects women to be motherly.
 
Men have no say in the life of the unborn child. All too commonly women will decide to have a discretionary abortion, a lifestyle choice. The man has no say. The woman decides to dispose of that child and gets away with it. If a man was to murder that unborn child he would go to prison for it.
 
Women suffer the indignity of breast screening and cervical smears. Men suffer the indignity of prostate cancer. Somehow science can produce reliable screening tests for women, but when it comes to men's prostates - nothing.
 
Men's sperm is a valuable commodity, so much so that men who have donated that sperm to a sperm bank have been taken to court for maintenance for a child brought about by an altruistic act. Men's sperm has been stolen from used condoms by women who wanted to impregnate themselves, when the man was unwilling to have children. This is a good reason why men need more contraceptive choices. Women can have the pill or implants, or a variety of other devices, but for men? Nothing readily but the condom. Society does not want men to have sexual freedom. To which the answer will be that men sleep around. To which the obvious response is that if they are heterosexual, then surely they are sleeping around with women?
 
A man's career, his whole life can be ruined by an accusation of rape. Only recently a man was spared a court case at the final hour when the prosecution released evidence that showed that he was innocent. The accuser had made the rape up. If a woman can destroy a man's life so easily then the legal system should be putting the false accuser in prison. Desperate are the days when men are having to use their smartphones to record asking for permission to engage in sex with a woman.
 
I recently asked a woman if she could explain why for every one hundred patients GP surgeries saw, sixty were women and only forty were men. Her explanation was that women's bodies are more complicated. Could the reality be that services are skewed towards women to the disadvantage of men?
 
Political representation. I noticed that the SNP had officers for certain interest groups including: students, artists, women, disabled, etc., etc. It was odd that about the only group that did not have representation was men. I looked at the other parties and the same was true of them too. No representation for men, roughly 50% of the population are male.
 
Women have long retired at 60, whereas men worked on, usually in less comfortable jobs until they were 65, if they didn't die first of some hideous industrial illness. This was despite women usually living eight years longer on average and usually in better health, and this has been true for many decades. That gap has stayed much the same The retirement age is now somewhere between 65 and 67 for the majority of both sexes, which brings us somewhere closer to equality, but to reach parity in the number of likely years in retirement, men should retire at 67 and women should retire at 75. There is a campaign - WASPI - Women Against State Pension (age) Increase. It's a group of women that have been most affected by the fact that the pension age for the sexes has been aligned. They thought they were going to slope out of their nice warm offices at 60, then swan about at home in retirement for 26 years on average, but equality struck and they are now going to be retiring at 66, and they don't like it one bit. The problem is that when women get real equality they're not so keen on it. If we went back to the days of conscription, (not hard to imagine in the current situation that the military are finding it so hard to recruit, despite being a force that is reducing in size), in a truly equal society they would be calling up young women as well as young men to fight and die in our wars of choice around the world. It won't happen though because society finds the idea of fit young men dying in some god-forsaken hellhole so much more palatable than a young woman having to die in the same situation. Men's lives are worth less.
 
And when it comes to work look at the advantages given to women - one of their favourites is women only shortlists. That just a way of saying, we have men that are better, but the only way that any of you will get this job is by us not interviewing the better candidates. We are willing to accept second best. Men are yet again discriminated against. The trend has become more worrying when the BBC recently advertised a job where only applicants from black and minority ethnic backgrounds can apply. You're discriminated against if you are white.
 
Surely male and female genitals are of equal worth? Nope. If someone takes a scalpel to your genitals where there is no medical need then it's called genital mutilation, but only if you are female. If you are male then not even the World Health Organisation will recognise that your genitals are being mutilated, but if you are a woman they will organise a worldwide campaign - Female Genital Mutilation awareness week. Of course there are those of us that like to ask questions, raise awkward truths, so we contact the WHO and ask when is the Male Genital Mutilation awareness week? Unsurprisingly there was no response.
 
Why do married men die before their wives? Studies record the most common reason is because they wanted to!
 
Guys, women don't want equality. What they want is advantage. They will say that men have had it for long enough. Well girls, if it's not right for us, it's not right for you either is it? If you want the good stuff then take an equal amount of the crap us men have been taking for years. Don't be telling me that your granny was down the mines digging nutty slack with a babe at her breast. Tell me what you are doing now, the suffering of loading that washing machine, tumble dryer, dishwasher, that long drive to the shops or the wait in for that Tesco delivery van. I want to know everything. Tell me about having to walk over to the other side of the living room to get the remote for the TV/Sky box or whatever. Putting the cup under that bean to cup coffee maker or having to ring up for a hair appointment, and they probably won't have the magazine that you like. The cost of lipstick, having to tweezer your eyebrows to death so you look like an escapee from the circus, piercings and tattoos. Highlights, lowlights, botoxed lips, diets, central heating, car boots that close themselves, no quinoa on the shelves, panty liners, tottering around on heels that make you look afflicted, offices that despite being overheated are still not warm enough for you, men in your department (doing the heavy lifting usually). Girls - you've got so it hard. I don't know how you do it!

No, the Fort Chippy remains ever in my heart as the Ratter pictures are truly wonderful.
 
Just interested for future "dates"!

From being stopped by two young males, guess under 30 who were drunk at weekend and the drunkest one said -  I could put you in a coma and I just had some words to say to him, which in hindsight I probably should not have as it was not on in daylight for him to do this, but see how people unnecessarily get hurt and sometimes with lifetime consequences at anytime, so I would just leave the people of wherever to deal with there own people.  After I said what I had to, the one who said this ran away and his friends went with him running after him, then it realised to me that I should have said nothing as the situation could have been different and we could have had a fight of sorts, but well he maybe realised he should not have said what he did with what I said to him and this is the first time I have confronted someone like this as it was so unnecessary and how peoples lives can change with idiots who do hurt people for no reason at all, but because they are drunken fools, like this young lad was, maybe he came to get a bit of common sense with what I said to him, I can only hope so for himself, his friends and everyone else in this world who he may meet.

This will happen all the time BT use coverage to mean the percentage of people with access, and not the percentage of the land mass covered.
 
BT are the reason we have such turd broadband in this country. They won't do any infrastructure work without government handouts, so we the tax-payer are paying BT to give us crap service.

We have waited a long time for this, and it's finally happening, Wetherspoons is coming to Lerwick, although their choice of venue seems odd according to the rumour - the new Baptist Church up in the Quoys. Steak nights on Wednesdays.

Weather should come as no surprise to any of us, but it is another excuse trotted out by many to avoid walking.  There is no such thing as bad weather, just poor clothing choices.  I put some waterproofs on if I don't want to get wet.  Anyway, we are all waterproof, and our clothes will dry out.  More first world problems.
 
What I want to know is how close is close enough when it comes to parking?  Perhaps we need zoning.  We could introduce a local road tax.  Those willing to walk a bit further pay a bit less.  Blue badges give free parking.  Fines from driving in the restricted zone without a blue badge could help fund it.
 
Sorry to hear about your health condition Mr Brown.

Those of us that do speak out risk offending the sensitivities of others, but where change is needed people are bound to get offended.

I rarely buy fish, and if I do it comes in a tin.  I do eat a fair bit of it when out for a meal.  I have bought items from the artisan shop, but I rarely see anyone, bar the shopkeeper in there, and I pass there every Saturday at least.  I rarely see anyone in what was Bolts Electricals, nor the clothes shop.  The shop at the top of the stairs near the Post Office holds no interest for me.

Ghosty said - "No argument with any of that, but it doesn't stop those who perceive a part of the public road is their own personal carpark from giving the earful - You don't need to have that in your life as well as having to be in the toon...."
 
Just ask them if they forgot their meds!  I know what you mean about being in the town.  Hellish place full of people!  A cattle prod would often be useful!

Afraid to voice their opinion pubically or to living Lerwick members in case it causes trouble or ill feeling, is wrong but they get away with it it happens with other things in council eg planning.
 
It is a big problem within Shetland people too scared to speak out for fear of reprisals.

I bought some in Malakoff. They sold it in 4 litres containers

I spend much time pondering about Lerwick shops.
T'other day, I went into Beberly's and bought piles of wonderful stuff I needed (they have a Wall of Noodles) - and I refuse to go to Tesco even if they have widened their range - and then I tripped lightly over to Home Furnishings to get some Lamp Oil.  Run out.  Price's candles - ditto.
 
So, now what?  Amazon calls.  In my house lamp oil is a basic, especially this time of year.  I don't want scented. I don't want coloured. I just want good old fashioned lamp oil.
 
And candles?  I don't need coloured, scented, wafty, anything - just white bloody candles.  How hard can it be?
 
And now I am looking at Amazon and it isn't hard at all.
I really want to support the street but sometimes it is very difficult because my ponies on teatowels is not what I am looking for.
 
(may have had gin but you get the gist!)

Convert the empty places to accommodation. It's not a place that I would like to live, but I am sure many would, and do.
 
There's no point having a Lipton’s type store. People just wouldn't walk to it and the parking outside couldn’t cater for it. I often hear the refrain that there's is no parking close by, and you only have to see the able bodied park on the double yellow lines or on the pavements at Tesco to know that there are some who are too idle to walk 100 yards across a car park.
 
Cafes seem to do well, and are usually very busy at lunchtimes.
 
What I have noticed is that there seems to be a high number of staff in each shop compared to what I have seen south. Cut the number of staff and your costs will go down.
 
We need to grasp the reality that the internet has consumed a lot of our earnings. The market is no longer as large for the High Street, so either let it die, or put some life into what remains by converting it into accommodation.

At da cross when the chemist finally moves out to kantersed perhaps that property may be big enough for a mini lidl/aldi , not sure how big the store is in there though