Fatal Paper Cut

All the other Heavy Metal Buffet events have been electric.

Seriously? You're trying to tell me I may be in breach of the disability discrimination act for pointing out that your disabilities are largely your problem? (** mod edit - comment removed - watch the language **)

A busy car-park would at least indicate that people are using the building. Unless all those cars are owned by Museum staff/visitors/SIC Employees/Sada staff. In which case, I would have to assume all those people I keep seeing in Mareel who aren't SADA staff are apparitions or figments of my imagination. As it is, we already know that the cinema attendance is much, much higher than was expected, and has been since the beginning. That, coupled with a full car park would be a fairly good indication as any that people are spending money. Unless you're also of the opinion that sandwiches, movie tickets, coffee, popcorn, etc is handed out free. Again, this is entirely your opinion and a subjective one at that. How can you possibly know Mareel wouldn't have received planning permission with it's current parking provision? How do you know that the planning officers didn't take those overspill car parks into account? Nobody's suggesting that the museum car park and SIC car parks will be used all day everyday, but the number of people flooding Mareel during the day is likely to be less than through the evening, when most people go to see films and concerts, or during the weekend, when the SIC offices are most likely shut. So, it's not a problem. It's never been a problem, and it's unlikely to become a problem down the line. Those car parks are well within easy walking distance for most people. Possibly because people were far too busy to answer the ridiculous minutiae of nimbys when frankly, there were more important things at the time. Like getting the building built, and programmed. Stuff like that. It's a little like demanding to know what materials the guy planning a house on the site next to you is going to use, and exactly what sort of roof insulation he's fitting. That is to say, way way down the list of priorities to be dealt with. However, if it's any consolation, when you're building a modern venue where music is likely to be played very loudly, very often, adequate sound proofing must be used. Especially when there's residential buildings opposite. I have yet to see anyone from over the road complain when Heavy Metal Buffet is on. It would seem to work for just about everybody. How do you know? Are you an acoustic expert? Do you regularly design, build and install music venues? Are you a pathological control freak whose going to insist that something hasn't been done on the basis that you weren't there to bare witness? Are you also a music programmer, who can summon AC/DC, Meatloaf and Iron Maiden to play at Mareel? Or are you just complaining an making assumptions you can't possibly make? No, it does have to do with the neighbours. If people living opposite had reason to complain because of inadequate soundproofing, they'd be the first to complain. Personally, I have yet to sit in any part of the building and be able to pick up the soundtrack to whatever blockbuster movie is on thudding through the walls. Or have a movie drowned out by the auditorium. Hasn't happened. Haven't heard anyone else complaining about it either. Can we deduce from the total absence of complaints on this front that it is indeed the case? It's true. Opinions are like arsehøles. Everyone has one. And some of them are full of shît. So we can assume that your particular mobility issues are constant and ongoing and therefore not representative of most other people? Good to know. Thanks. No. It's not too steep. It's just right for the size of the screen, versus the availability of land to build it on, combined with the other functions of the building without making it several stories high and blotting out all light for everyone around. Just because you personally don't like it or find it difficult to navigate doesn't mean it's incorrect. And seeing as most modern cinemas are built with the same sort of rake, and since you're not a specialist architect who designs and cinemas, I think we can safely say your opinion is noted, however gloriously incorrect it may be. Yes, I recall you saying that. And since it's been almost constantly followed up by negativity and complaint, ranging from the trivil to the ridiculous, I'm as disinclined to believe you now as I was then. Errr, like the criticisms I outlined earlier? I prefer my criticisms to be valid, and real, and not spurious and made-up. Ah. You should have said you could predict the future. In which case, why even raise the subject of how well Mareel is doing at all? Surely you know?

At least it's not like your selective memory.... Wouldn't the fact the car park is "frequently full" indicate that the building is a success? Can't say I've yet to not find a parking space at Mareel. But given that there are a couple of overspill car parks less than a minute's walk away, I'm not sure how that's so much "taking the piss", as "adequate provision with a workable backup". But as you've no interest in films, and don't apparently find any interest in the live music that does take place, I'm not sure how you're in a position to offer your opinion. Unless you and Mrs Boyle are still ogling the webcams for an evening's entertainment. Weird I recall several instances of people demanding to know what the soundproofing would be like. I can only assume it works, since nobody in the houses opposite seems to have moved, leaving empty, abandoned dwellings slowly disintegrating under acoustic assault. Still, experts eh? Tch. What do they know? Apart from their respective fields. No, its too steep in your opinion. Though seeing as how you have no interest in films, can we assume you don't use it that often? Perhaps you were just having a bad day, disability-wise? I know I do when it's particularly damp, for example. I've yet to find the cinema rake too steep. And it's accessible from both the bottom and the top, if need be - so it's not really a problem if you don't like steps. And there's Screen 2, which has a much shallower rake as well. For the size of the screen installed in Screen 1, vs the length of the building, it's exactly the right rake. If it were on a shallower rake, than the cinema would end up occupying most of the museum and archive car park. And that'd sausage the completely adequate overspill provision. I realise you're implacably opposed to Mareel just because, but if you're going to find fault, at least find ones that actually exist, like the foyer not having a screen to tell you what's coming up, or times of movies, etc. Or the cafe bar, which still has quite slow service some days (though is miles better than before).

I assume you're using the same cutting-edge deductive processes (i.e. completely made-up bo||ocks) that you and the other half of the gruesome twosome were using when you were informing us that the car park was nowhere near big enough, that the soundproofing wouldn't be up to the job, that disabled people wouldn't be able to use the venue because the seating rake was too high, etc, etc, along with all the other crap that you've spewed forth on the subject?

Yes - unproven. Which would mean no-one has proven a definitive link between windfarms and effects on long term health and we can't definitively say one way or another. But given that we're constantly exposed to sounds beyond the range of human hearing - along with spectrums of light that we cannot see, natural and man made radio waves, etc, etc - and no-one's complaining about those, I'm willing to bet "infrasound" is utter bøllocks. If it and "the flicker effect" were real, than anyone living within sight and sound of a motorway would be in serious danger from constantly passing traffic. I've yet to see anyone in a motorway services convulsing after a string of juggernauts thunders past. It's kind of weird how the people who are pro-windfarm or whatever else never suffer the ill-health effects that some of the anti brigade would like us to believe exist.

From what you were saying, you can live just outside the area where the windfarm would be, have a pro opinion and it barely registers as valid. Yet you can live much, much further away, but so long as your opinion is anti, than that opinion should be respected. It's called double standards.

Do you mean in the same way that Billy Fox, for example lives in the South Mainland? Course, Waas folk only ever stay in Waas and never venture out of it, or have to drive through Weisdale to get to Tescos, or Northlink, or Mareel, or anything...

"And those wind turbines are tiny compared to what is proposed for here. Interesting to note too that they were built in 1992 yet are being replaced now with larger ones, plus press reports stated that whilst villagers aren't being affected at present, they anticipate they will be with the much larger ones - no wonder you're moving." So, they're reducing the number of turbines from 24 twenty-year old turbines, with eight, larger but more efficient and better designed turbines with increased capacity, and you're still able to find something to complain about? You're consistent, I'll give you that.

^ How dare you bring facts, evidence and experience into this debate. Don't you realise it's all about hearsay, half truths and scaremongering?

I'm sorry, you'll have to speak up. I can't hear you over the mass exodus of self-important pontificators. And the party everyone else is having. Which is of course, entirely co-incidental.

Very little. But I do have the party poppers on standby and Kool and the Gang's 'Celebration' lined up on the stereo in anticipation.

When do we break out the champagne, then?

Solomon had 700 wives & over 200 concubines. Must've been knackered.

http://www.shetnews.co.uk/news/7014-wind-farm-plans-receive-a-boost Good to hear some sense coming out of Westminster re. transmission charges.

Cafe bar eh? Obviously we can expect howls of protest/public meetings from the licensed trade association on the basis that Lerwick can't sustain another drinking establishment and it'll lead to the closure of X number of pubs. Y'know, like they did when Mareel was being planned. Which has resulted in the closure of precisely nothing since being built.

How dare you bring reasoning & logic into this Peat - that's not how things work here. It's armchair opinion based upon conjecture and rumour, certainly not facts or historical evidence. The simple fact of the matter is, there's some people who are always going to complain about something they don't like or see as being particularly important, regardless of how well used it is, how successful, popular or beneficial, how much or how little has been spent on it, etc etc. There's ongoing legal action. I would imagine that would prevent parties from speaking openly about the whys and wherefors of Mareel, SADA, the SIC & Do It Three Times. Closures of things like Freefield being used as a stick to bash Mareel are a misnomer. There's no-where else where you'd find a service like Freefield, and the SIC were never under any obligation to provide it. It's not as if it was mobbed with pensioners or that they had no alternatives either. The closure of SYIS is nothing to do with the council - and therefore nothing to do with Mareel - that was provided by funding allocated from the CT and it was the CT that pulled it. The schools are paid for out of revenue services - that's a totally seperate pot of money from Capital Spending, which is where the SIC's investment into Mareel comes from. Incidentally, Capital Spending had been underspent for the three years before consent for Mareel was given the go-ahead. The amount underspent was more than the SIC's initial investment in Mareel. Oh, and it sat waiting to get to the top of the Capital Spending programme for some years - its not like it came out of the blue. However, as the saying goes, you can lead a horse to water, but you can't make it drink. Similarly, you can lay out the facts of who paid for what and how much and why Mareel has nothing to do with the closure of some facilities; but you can't persuade them to stop spouting rubbish.

Because OSCR didn't exist then, so those rules weren't in place. If they were trying to do the same thing today, it wouldn't be allowed.

Which would presumably last about five years, ten at the outside. What an extraordinary waste. This suggestion presumably stems from the myth that nobody goes to the pictures any more, a myth that seems to have grown up in Shetland (it never had much credence elsewhere) in the absence of a cinema. This deal is a good one for us all. We have a first class facility that is clearly bringing pleasure to a great many people and is, by all accounts, at least covering its running costs. Its training and educational provision is a real boost for Shetland students. It's not the deal that would make me think about leaving Shetland, it's the unbelievable level of negativity that infects this thread. But people are voting with their feet, going to Mareel and loving it. I've no connection whatsoever with Shetland Arts, but I do think they've come in for a far harder time over this than many others, in Shetland and beyond, have been given for vastly more serious overspends, or indeed for expenditure that has produced precisely nothing. Exactly. We at least have a building we can use. In the year or so the place has been open, many thousands of people have passed through it's doors to watch movies, see concerts, learn courses, etc. I would call that a success. There's been plenty of other instances in Shetland of money being spent on grand schemes with absolutely nothing to show for it. Where are the howls of protest for those? I suspect it's because that the people who are complaining the most and loudest about Mareel - on this thread and in other media - are people who were opposed to it from the get-go, for no particularly logical reason, despite protests to the contrary and these latest events are now seen as some sort of confirmation of dodgy dealings or complete ineptitude. How tiresomely predictable.

Except that would be illegal. Shetland Arts is a trust. A trust is a charity. Charities cannot dispose of charitable assets unless it's to another charitable body. Which the SIC is not.

No, not intolerant of other people's opinions. Bigotry, yes. Opinions, no. Cheap personal attacks? Then don't bring cheap, laughable stupid comments. Bad language? Like I give a fxxx

Unfortunately, there is just as much hysterical nonsense being spouted by the 'pro' brigade. Seems to me that the issue has become polarised and you are either 'for' or 'against'. There appears to be, no longer, any room for freely expressed opinions. No, plenty of room for freely expressed opinions. Just little time for stupid ones - like you were spouting earlier.

Urabug wasn't expressing a reasonable opinion though. It's clearly expressed in a homophobic & bigoted tone. This infers that Urabug believes we, as a society, should be free to condemn homosexuality and that the homosexual community are in some way unreasonable in wanting equal rights as other sexualities. Urabug then followed that up with this particular gem. Charming. No, it point out that homosexual behaviour isn't uncommon in other species. Some people - I say people, I mean morons - claim homosexual behaviour is a 'lifestyle choice', rather than say, someone's natural state. The fact that there are many recorded incidents of homosexual behaviour in animals other than humans rather destroys that somewhat blinkered premise. For instance, the Bonobo Chimpanzee - one of the primate species most closely related to ours - is a highly social animal, which has been regularly observed in the wild exhibiting homosexual activity, both between males and females. Further, no-one is claiming homosexual behaviour in animals is a 'justification for homosexual acts' and quite honestly, I'm astounded that you would be so jaw-droppingly stupid to suggest as such. You're being a twat. Stop it. You've already achieved that. Spectacularly so. No-one said that. You're inferring something completely different. Basically, you've added two and two and come up with twenty-two there. Homosexuality cannot by definition be normal, as the vast majority of the 7 billion people waling the planet are not homosexual, otherwise our species would die out. I don't know of many homosexuals who would classify their sexual preference as 'normal'. Doesn't make it some sort of immoral activity though, does it? Yes, because gay people go around stealing children to raise as their own. Do you realise how stupid you sound? Where are you statistics to prove that gay parents are unable to raise children to adulthood anyway? We should probably inform the adoption agencies, artificial insemination fertility clinics, or potential surrogate mothers. Don't leave your child with the gays! They get distracted by shopping, singing show-tunes and the like and the next thing you know they're on the news with a dead baby. For the sake of the gene pool you immediately have yourself castrated, in order to limit the amount of stupid you might inflict on future generations. Could you please add to that 'Don't talk offensively moronic, complete & utter darlingîng bullshît'?

What was that about theory & spin with no substance?

WHAT?! A commercial entity being profit-focused? Why didn't anyone highlight this before? Clearly this changes everything.