Vik

The theory that says if you don't support us you are against us! If you ask to many questions you are against us & if you don't lie down & beleive what we tell you, you are against us. If you want honesty & a fair hearing you are mad.

Well what can you say to that? I canna disagree but as I am already part of the well established "deluded conspiracy theory brigade" I am at a loss as to what to do. Joining Sustainable Shetland isn't the answer as you just become one part of a one-sided polarised argument and I want truth or facts, a learned & unbiased opinion and a way of finding some way to cut through the propoganda. The one thing that bothers me is that we have no real say in what happens in Shetland & if we did we would get shafted anyway. Anyone for a revolution? Bye the way just to add some clarity to things. I have a wind turbine and its quiet, it makes a bit of electricity and if I stretch myself a bit I can probably get it down & service it but it certainly will never pay for itself, it doesn't cut my carbon footprint & was a total waste of money. If one small turbine which in theory can work better than any big one, canna pay for itself how have these guys persuaded so many folk who haven't a clue about this to support them?

Then Viking Energy know that the turbines will never pay for themselves so what is the real agenda? Can the big shareholders get their hands on loads of our dosh & ride off into the sunset before the castle in the sky falls down? A lot of the major players in the banking crash rode off into the sunset with megga bucks whilst & after the SS Bank hit the rocks. People in the boardroom of any multi million buck venture are almost without exception bent

I couldn't agree more - it certainly isn't Elves that we need counsel from and thus far all we have had is Trow talk, but where do we go for the truth? It certainly isn't Viking Energy or Da Cooncil who are so close you couldn't squeeze an honest politician between - assuming you could find one anyway!

Did you know that when a wind turbine is turning it isn't always making electricity. Even here in Shetland where we are reported to have the world's best wind profile - they often turn whilst making no electricity. When I compared a Proven performance graph with a Beaufort scale graph (Wind speed) it was amazing to see how much of Shetlands wind didn't produce any useful electricity. The small private turbines 2.5 - 15 KW ones here in Shetland can never pay for their purchase, installation & maintenance costs so I wonder what the true performance figures are for the Viking Energy machines? I cannot see how any turbine can be sited without an anemometer being on the exact site for at least 1 year to measure the actual wind profile. My guess is that unless there is a huge handout somewhere Viking Energy is going to cost Shetland dear. (*** Mod - Merged ***)

At the risk of being branded an anorack I have found a supply of replacement brushes for most of the fire iron sets (companion sets) sold by Frank Williamsons, Lerwick Building Centre probably Hays and the former Chriss Hodge meggadeal warehouse I bought a nice black set from the Lerwick Building Centre a year ago & like a twat set fire to the brush - anyway I went seeking a replacement brush head and found out they don't stock em, never did & never will or words to that effect so cough up for a new set @ £30- £50 depending on your fancy - ditto everywhere else. This like a lot of retailing sprootle in Shetland is why so many people buy south so for those of you out there who just refuse to chuck away perfectly good fire irons for the want of a new brush - pop along to the Scrapstore & we will help to source the brush you need for about £4.50 or there about. Cracking good fire Gromet!

Although a few light are turned off the security guard said the bulk of the lights were not allowed to be dimmed for safety reasons and you canna get a car or bike on the plane.

Mebee the Spannish naval architect that had the brief to make a slab sided ferry feel like a cruise ship thought dimmer switches would spoil folk wandering the promanade deck looking at all the fancy marble & bright finnish! Anyway on my last (pain) trip I had to laugh at something that persuaded me I wasn't alone in my absolute & total disatisfaction with Northlink, I was a few seats away from a single mum with her 10 or so year old wee lass. It was about 1 am and an old drunken Peterhead fisherman was pestering them so the lass asked me to speak to her in the hope of putting him off - Ha never been chatted up with that line before! so we spek awaa and he either got the message or became bored and staggered off muttering some classic doric profanaties. The we lass got to sleep & then mum culed up in her sleeping bag & said that she thought the fisherman was employed by Northlink's security mob to make the experience even better. They would never do that , would they - I said?

Ah now that's more like it. Its amazin how much H&S rubbish is going about just because some bloke in a tie with a clipboard from an Insurance Co has put the willies up the managing director or board of trustees. We had storm force H&S gale blow through our place recently, sending everyone in a thousand directions & spending loads of money on new safety gear & lots of new rules. Ha after a closer look most of it was uneccessary and a waist of time & money. Beware - tick boxes give very false information as they rarely carry enough boxes / options to get acurate answers. Funny really but a pal working for the SIC recently told me that the SIC job application form was totally (person spec tick boxy) and they felt that it was responsible for lots of people in the da cooncil who were good at person spec tick boxy applications but not actuall the right people for the job?????

Fair enough but the security situation is completely inconsistent & meaningless, it doesn't check or scan peoples luggage on entering the ship & I have no idea what goes on on the car deck, you could probably bring on a cruise missile down there. The main argument about the boat's security is that if there ever was some misguided nutter on the boat with a bomb and obligingly took their little bag everywhere on the boat until they decide to go bang they would attract no security interest. Whereas a well behaved but tired traveler runs the problem of being harassed if they try to reserve a sleeping place or have to give up their spot for the night if needing the loo or cafe & then have to go look for another spot. Its not about being hard on the security staff as I ken they are doing what they are employed to do, my critisism is leveled at the management but at the end of the day what does the current security regime actually achieve other than annoy people?

The point I was making was that the boat is a diferent senario than an airport and the level of security on the boat hysterical. Bye the way the definition of luggage is anything you carry with you so sleeping bags get lifted as well. As the boats were designed totally inapropriately for what was needed one would have thought that some compassion & thought for all the folk without a bunk whould be useful. Bright lights burning all night, security guards taking you stuff when you go to the loo & loosing your spot hardly makes the long night (especially if you have a long drive or come back on the boat the next evening with the same to look forward to) is hardly good service. The Northlink gestapo even kick you out of the posh restaurant when it closes & that's where the best couches on the boat are. In P&O's days the stewards would even find you a blanket if it was cold & allowed folk to sleep wherever. P&O's battered old ships had couches, bar & lounge area seating designed to sleep on.

Who is surprised that Northlink (Boats & Company) are anything but totally unfit for the needs of the isles. I was on the rotten ship last weekend, no cabin because it was a last minute thing so unable to book last xmas. Got on early to grab a seat in the forward lounge but had the audacity to need the loo, when I came back my bag was gone & rent-a-crowd camping in my seat. Later found another pitch but needed to get food and had heard the tanoy warning against leaving bags blah blah blah. What is a guy or gal supposed to do? take you bag with you & loose your spot or leave it & get it taken away as a suspect bomb and loose your seat whilst you go & get it back. Northlink are not only totally crap but they are stupid beyond comprehension to follow airport security mentality. A person can enter an airport, deposit a bag and go home to watch Big Brother or Coronation St. so understandable. Most people don't have to wander around an airport all night unless there is a dispute or strike somewhere but in Northlink's case once you are on you are stuck (boo hoo bring back the days when you could chuck your bags on the ferry and nip out to the Quarterdeck) So can someone in the security industry tell me what the difference is especially on a ship, between leaving your bag (with or without a bomb in it) in the lounge or bar whilst you go pee or eat - or taking it with you to wherever you are going? Surely a bomb on a ship has the same effect wherever it goes off? For folk who cannot get or cannot afford a cabin the attitude of the security aspect of the ship is nothing to do with security but more to do with making an already miserable trip even more miserable and stressful.

The reason why it would be cheaper is that anything built on the mainland is significantly cheaper than here in Shetland, the larger the project the bigger the differential. Projects involving large amounts of imported goods, materials, equipment inc heavy lift equipment etc can produce project costs almost twice that of a comparable mainland development A recent e-mail I got from a guy working for a grid distribution Co south said you wouldn't need a wind-farm twice the size of Shetland to equal its wind profile advantage, a wind-farm 50% bigger would do it and cost far less.

Thanks for that. As you seem knowledgeable on this can you answer the suggestion that there are too many wind farms, either in the system now & those in the proposal stage, for the national grid to accommodate? Also that the Shetland wind farm would loose its wind profile advantage (which seems to be its main sales pitch) if a larger, cheaper to build and lower connection fees wind farm were to be built somewhere on the mainland. Thanks

Yes up to 8 Meg indeed. If a line can only support 1 or 2 Meg at best and you only get 1.5 most of the time & the ISP know it, shouldn't there be some rationale to see that folk are charged for the service they receive? If this sales philosophy were to creep into other areas we would be in a real mess. As to Ferrari - they don't check the road you want to use before you buy it so the analogy doesn't apply.

Nice to hear that the SIC & Enterprise Co are seeking ways to get better broadband speeds for shetland but what I found hard to grasp a year or so ago when I signed up for the fantastic offer from Virgin broadband was how they are allowed to get away with selling broadband speeds of up to 8 Meg when after testing your line they ken you will only get 1 or 2 meg at best. I took this up with SIC Trading Standards as a fraudulent claim & followed it up with our politicos without any progress. My argument was if Safeway offered a bag of tatties containing up to 16 tatties & there were only 4 in the bag or you bought a secondhand Ford Focus that should have done about 35 mpg but you only got 10 mpg Trading Standards might have had some interest. What's the point of a body charged with overseeing trading standards that picks & chooses what it likes & ignores blatantly incorrect sales hype? (***Mod Edit - Merged with existing thread***)

The Viking Energy debate is now so polarized that its hard to see masts for the blades or any common sense. I believe that if its a good thing for Shetland then bring it on, if its a bad thing for Shetland then drop it pronto and stop wasting more time & money. How do we get an answer to this dilemma? I have no idea but for the moment put aside peat disturbance, carbon footprints, what Stuart Hill or the RSPB may or may not have said & try this: Anything we do as an individual, group, business etc has to have a basic economic principle (banks excluded). So if you go to the Co-op with a fiver and try to get 20 quids worth of stuff past the checkout you will either be stealing or get stopped and have to put things back. If an organization asks for a grant to do something that costs more than the value of its intended service it wont get a bean. If a business spends more than it takes in beyond its overdraft it goes bust (again banks excluded). So the story continues. Given the above there are 2 fundamental spanners in the works facing Viking Energy & the SIC / Charitable Trust. Firstly the SIC / Charitable Trust who are the guardians of Shetlands public / community funds, have a very poor track record on investment and have lost millions in quite small investment ventures compared with the wind-farm. Secondly Viking Energy's profit & loss sheet (or business plan to use the modern term) does not include actual costs associated with delivering the power to the national grid. They are hopeful that the Government might at some point reduce or scrap the grid connection charges and maybe the Crown Estate will also reduce their annual seabed rental fees. The definitive here being maybe. The total maybe could be anything between annual costs of £25 - £50 million. Does it not seem odd that a project involving such huge sums of money with only a maybe on the true costs, has actually got this far? [/b][/i]

Yep that's another problem unique to Viking Energy. Also just had another e-mail on this from a guy who worked on the building of Firth & Toft camps. They came to build on known peat areas & got into real problems when they found peat @ 30 foot deep. Their answer to this was to build the accommodation blocks on stilts that were hammered down into the peat. Somehow can't see this being a suitable solution for a bloody great wind generator.

As a result of my letter to Shetland News & Shetland Times about the Orkney wind farm project being put on hold due to a £7 million per annum grid connection charges, I'v had loads of e-mails. One of them was from a guy down south who works for a sub-contracting firm that does work on the grid. He said that there were 2 really serious hurdles for Viking Energy. Firstly the annual grid connection charges - the further away you are from the grid the more you pay. Secondly - that there are more wind farms either already in existence, being built, already in the planning process, about to enter the planning process or in the pre planning stage than the grid could possibly manage. On top of this Viking Energy will face a potentially huge seabed rental for the sub-sea cable to the Crown Estates. Ask a fish farmer about this little Westminster taxation gem. This guys take on it was that it would be substantially cheaper to build 2 comparable size wind farms on the mainland thereby eliminating the Shetland wind profile advantage and that these 2 mainland wind farms would be more profitable due to minimal grid connection charges & no Crown Estates seabed rental

I am glad I don't have to be part of the decision making process here as the council planners have created a real problem with this one. Firstly the ex No Catch fish factory was built as an industrial unit for the processing of flesh for human consumption. Quite why the SIC allowed an industrial unit there is beyond me but it is an industrial site and should have been seen as such by anyone intending to build houses next to it. I wouldn't want to live next to an abattoir, fish factory, quarry or any other industrial set up and to this end I choose to live nowhere near such and If anyone decided to put one near me I would fight it with all means including petrol & matches if necessary. However you cannot move next to an industrial site (even one that is temporarily closed) then complain about an industrial activity. You shouldn't have moved there in the first place. Reminds me of a couple who built a new house in a rural part of Shetland and come the summer complained about the smell of slurry spreading spoiling their enjoyment of their new house & tried to stop the farmer! How stupid. [/b]

Greetings folks. I havn't finished with Bill Davidson yet as his figures don't add up in relation to the % increase in passenger figures unless as you say there are loads more folk being moved on from various floor locations around the ship or just wandering about all night like zombies. Anyway does anyone know exactly how many passenger cabins the last St Clair had? & can anyone work out the % increase the additional 20 odd cabins have on the equation.