Nigel Bridgman-Elliot

Having just read the Times i was concerned at  just how close to the burn of Dale the windmills are going to to built plus the large roads needed . I had assumed they would be erected on top of the hills but not in this case . The Dale burn is a very important spawning area for sea trout and some grilse .Now these developments as they are so close to the burn will see massive run off of highly acidic peat water and solids and perhaps even concrete water residue . This would kill the burn right down to the sea as far as trout and salmon goes and clog up the gravel beds where the fish spawn . The burn will be an unspeakable mess after heavy rain no one can deny that Sandwater and the burn of Strom and Kergord burn will be the same . I am surprised the local angling club did not raise this issue but i suppose they realise its a waste of time as they all get rubber stamped anyway . These windmills would be much better situated further south above quarf and cunninsburgh . where they would be well away from watercourses and be in a much higher elevation to benefit from any wind direction .Some of the turbines at Dale are in effect sheltered from east and west winds as they will be in the ''brow'' of the hill . Another thing the peat particularly at the top end of the burn in very very deep i think they will have to remove massive amounts of peat to hit bottom which is another argument for tops of hills where the vegetation is usually sparse .

I have been trying to buy a tin of WD40 White Lithium lubricating oil online,
but neither Royal Mail nor Couriers are permitted to carry aerosols to
"offshore locations".
 
I haven't been in a shop up here for a few years { housebound disabled} so I don't know if
shops here are able to get in and sell any aerosols, like deodorant or furniture polish?
 
Are people allowed to carry aerosols in their luggage on the boat?
 
 
...is there a black market aerosol-smuggling ring that I could try and contact??
 
 
{It's Mogling - having to log in under an old forgotten account because of a disabled old email address}

She was rolling so much it starved the oil pumps of an adequate supply from the sumps, and triggered a computer auto engine shutdown due to low oil pressure, apparently.
 
https://gcaptain.com/norway-low-oil-pressure-caused-viking-sky-engine-blackout/?fbclid=IwAR1ylL-_rRRjtggZXRsppPDvNMce5o6soKeI0tfw5WP-bH-svYq9Wu02-2o
 
Not what MAN want to hear said about their motors I daresay, but then again they are a VeeDubya outfit so what it says on the tin, and what it does etc........

Life's not fair. I should have been born rich rather than good looking!

State pensions are paid for by those in work.  We have some very wealthy pensioners getting state pension.  Perhaps the time has come to pay higher pensions to those that need it and none, or a reduced sum, to those that don't?

Ah! Data from the BBC. Must be true then. No paedophiles at all, cough cough.
 
Women have many advantages, some due to their sex, but many by the choices they make, stay at home and look after the kids or work in a nice warm office mostly. I am a great believer in equality and would like to see more women out there on building sites etc. I think women are on the whole great, but I hate the growing bunch of whingeing feminists who want equality, but only the nice bits, such as retiring 5 years before men.

Only Up Helly Aa seems to draw protests from women who want to join. I haven't seen a protest outside the new Hjaltland properties site, or for any of the other posts. Equality when it suits perhaps?

It's nearer to 2.7 years axtra for women according to the confidence intervals in the NRS data for Shetland.  Lets just round it up to a neat 3 years and ask women to retire 3 years later.  Those years could be reduced by doing some of the nastier work men do, like freezing their gonads off whilst working to build the new Hjaltland flats opposite Islesburgh.  Not a woman in sight.  Cesspit driver and sludge pumper, essy cart crew, roadie teams, street sweeper, pelagic boat crew, lifeboat crew?

The short answer is there's very, very few jobs to be had in agriculture in the first place. To remain viable agriculture has had to go one of two ways, either bigger and more mechanised, or relegated to part-time with the owner/occupier doing everything.
 
Dairy farms would have bit your hand off even as recently as 15 or 20 years ago, but even they now have had to consolidate and minimise labour to survive, and there's only three of them left now anyway.
 
Right now is probably the worst time in the last 20 years to be looking anyway, agriculture has been operating in a manipulated and artificial marketplace since we joined the EEC/EU, that will change with Brexit, but with a useless Government who've given minimal indication of what their agricultural policy will be post Brexit, and done less still on getting our imports/exports post Brexit to work for us, nobody has a clue whether we're heading for boom, bust, or just SSDD, and are playing as safe they can with costs and investments as a result. Including just making do with who they already employ at the moment, and waiting to see how things go before deciding whether they can justify any additional cost committments.
 
If you're in a position to consider part-time casual work, that can be a good way to get a foot in the door, and there are folk who will hire you for a limited period, or for the duration of a certain job, who cannot justify a permanent position. Once you're known to anyone in the industry, and they're happy with your work, the internal networking makes getting further employment much easier as folk in the trade talk with each other and names get passed along.
 
Having your own transport is vital for casual work though, and some level of experience is close behind it. Yes, I know, you can't have experience unless someone gives you some, and without it its difficult to find someone willing to take you on to get it.
 
If you know people who are already involved in agriculture, talk with them periodically to see how things are and if they're aware of anyone looking to maybe hire someone, and try approaching owners of some of the bigger places. Most will have everything covered already, and be prepared to have to try and talk anyone who might have an opening in to hiring an apprentice, as if they've not already decided the apprentice route is the one they want to go with, initially at least they're very liable to dismiss the idea, as just about everyone would rather hire someone who already knows the job than train someone up.
 
Its only when they sit down later and crunch the numbers of what someone who knows the job is going to cost them, and how realistic it is to find and keep such a person, that sometimes taking an apprentice suddenly makes a whole lot of sense.
 
You may well feel you're fighting a losing battle at first, but once you've made contact with a few, your face is out there and you'll be remembered in the future if something does come up.
 
Don't blitz all the bigger places in one go, select a shortlist of a few, see how it goes, then repeat with another shortlist in a few months. Around now is good, as folk have spring work, lambing etc on the go, and may need an extra hand through that, June/July folk often need someone extra for silage, nearer the autumn sometimes assistance is needed with livestock handling and shipping out etc.

Tend to disagree Ghostrider ,not long paid my electricity bill and if everyone's bill is like mine it won't take long to rake in £700 Million.
 
Think i'm paying for "diamond plated electric units"  when ordinary ones would do. 

Part of your electricity bill is to subsidise the speculators who erect wind farms.  The more farms there are, the more you are going to pay..

From https://www.heraldscotland.com/news/17556324.islanders-asked-to-help-shape-first-national-islands-plan/
 
See also
https://stv.tv/news/highlands-islands/1436876-islanders-asked-to-help-shape-first-national-islands-plan/ https://www.shetnews.co.uk/2019/04/07/islands-plan-is-to-put-substance-on-last-years-act/ The consultation documents are available here > https://consult.gov.scot/agriculture-and-rural-communities/national-islands-plan/
 

^ They're as bad as each other in their own different ways. Holyrood cannot control its socialist control freak desires of having everything and everyone on multiple lists and dictating how everything is, Westminster cannot control its capitalist greed to fill their own and their mate's pockets at the expense of everyone and everything else.
 
A genuinely centrist viable alternative option would be good, but it never happens, and we flip flop back and forth from one silly extreme to the other.

'Planning' now involves 'officials' deciding what goes where, nobody else gets a chance unless the local CC.
 
Two ex-Councillors from the last Council are on record online saying they knew no more than anybody else about the white tent at Lochside, it was given consent under 'delegated authority'. Just the other month a neighbour applied for permission to build a new house on a green field site a matter of metres from our mutual boundary, had they not gotten in contact to ascertain who the occupier was our side so that they could put it on the paperwork, I'd not have had the first clue anything was going to go there until the diggers rolled in. In the event I had no particular problem with what they were planning to do, but it would have been all the same if I did. Unless you keep a constant watch on the planning site for new applications being listed (if you can get that far before it crashes) and on CC paperwork, you could end up with anything from a sewage farm to a graveyard popping up next to you without you having the chance to express your opinion or anything else on it.
 
Thanks for that Holyrood - One step closer to communistic 'You will have whatever the states decides you will have, your consent is not required'.

You’ve got my vote Ghostie.

ME!!
 
Okay, now that I've said that, I've by default made myself ineligible to stand....... So, next suggestion......
 
Just as long as no politicians or public 'officials' are ineligible to apply, I'd consider pretty much anyone else.

Mhhhh now. That’s a difficult one, however assuming it’s someone local they would be easier to get rid off, contact or girn about in da Shetland times. (:

Who would be president?

Can’t make up my mind whether to laugh or scream. For me as a voter the process was clear and democratic.
 
Concerning Brexit, we voted as a union. The decision was clear, the UK, which we are are part of voted to leave. Despite voting remain I can’t understand why the will of the people, that these clowns in Westminster are there to represent, hasn’t been carried through.
 
Concerning Scottish Independence, the Scottish people voted to remain part of the union, yet despite this the clowns in the Scottish parliament continue to ignore the will of the people.
 
The only thing that seem to be clear is the Clowns are running the asylum and totally ignoring democracy and the will of the people.
 
Bring on Shetland independence and let’s get clear of the lot of them.

AFTER the PM had already agreed and signed up to an extension; ergo, making it illegal.  The dates were not those previously approved of by the House and it hadn't even got to the Lords.

Just leave at 11pm tonight.  Who gives a flying {'f' it was funny in Father Ted 'eck'} that the extension is valid under international law because if we leave, who precisely is going to do us for breaking international law?  Besides, the SI extending it under UK law might well be illegal, because Gina Miller's Court action set a precedent that parliament has to be consulted first (or words to that effect).
 
11pm.  29 March 2019.  Just get the hell off the gravy train monster.

As we all know, when the North boats are cancelled for a day or two our supermarket shelves empty rapidly, we know better than most what the result of shipping delays can mean. The UK has a huge network of 'just in time" supply chains from the continent where we get a large proportion of our food, medicine and other goods seamlessly, so what do we all think will happen when we turn Kent into the worlds biggest car park?

We got those things equally seamlessly up unit 31st December 1972, and then went through a period where there were shortages of certain goods and others only available at grossly inflated prices for a year or two, because the EEC forced us not to import or export with nations the EEC didn't have a trade deal with, and it took the slow, lumbering, bureaucratic, red tape strangled, bloated beast of Brussels that long to get their finger out and sort it.
 
At least this time, its Westminster who are responsible for the success or otherwise of getting everything put back the way it was, not a bunch of faceless foreign speakers in a foreign country calling all the shots, like it was in '73. Which is cold comfort, given the Europhile fervour of the majority of the 650.
 
Had we had a competent efficient Government in power, the minute the vote count was in they should have swung in to action negotiating the alternative trade deals and supply chains that would become live of March 30th, so that the absolute max possible occured seamlessly. Instead we've had a bunch who have either buried their heads in the sand for 2 1/2 years hoping if they ignored it, it would go away, or have been pissing in the wind, only now in the last under 100 days to have them running around like headless chickens Private Jones stylee achieving nothing but making noise.
 
We have the absolute worst possible scenario outcome about to go down, of that there's virtually no argument, and its all the fault of Westminster. End of!
 
If there is a glimmer of hope, its that unlike the Government, private enterprise isn't so inept and stupid, and have put in place plans and contingencies to ensure supply chains suffer the minimum disruption despite the best efforts of the Government to ensure otherwise, as they are driven by only one thing, their own bottom line. They're not about to lose 1p profit over this, if there's even the slightest chance to can do anything to prevent it, whatever that may be.

Wonder if the rolling stirred up a lot of rubbish in the fuel tanks?
 
Both the Hildasay and Helliar had this trouble when they came from a sheltered route to WNA

They have more than 1 engine.  Chances are it was an issue with the fuel..  Maybe filled up with petrol not deisel or, more likely, possibly got a little water in it