KTL

Ah, Stirrer. Well named.

I seem to remember that the Total gas plan will shift far less peat than Viking Energy. Also, Total plans are for a single single site, Viking Energy will be at least 4 main sites.

There are also a lot of differences between the sites. One has relatively low rainfall and exposure, the other higher rainfall and greater exposure.

Is the Total gas plant being carried out in our name? No. Is the SIC / Charitable Trust running the show? No.

With the windfarm there is a chance of stopping something carried out in our name, a project which the majority of people in Shetland oppose. The other scheme is private, run by a multinational oil company. Folk would be on a hiding to nothing to have much impact on this project.

UK government, industry and Total are determined that this goes ahead. The UK desperately needs gas to provide a cleaner and more secure alternative to coal. If you want wind renewables, you need reliable backup, and a main primary generator of power. Wind cannot provide much more than 20% of grid requirement.

Given the choice between nuclear or gas primary generation, of electricity, I'd reluctantly settle for gas.

And are the council / Charitable Trust fighting hard for a good rent / levy / disturbance pauyment from Total? If not why not? I'm worried they are so blinded by flashy spin from Viking Energy that they have stopped thinking about generating real money from real projects.

Complain to who? Standards Commission are the folks to contact. If you are going to make a complaint, make it very specific. Don't make it a vague "they are all rubbish" something like that will actually let them off the hook.

http://www.standardscommissionscotland.org.uk/how_to_complain.html

Why Orkney and not Shetland? The clue is in the 330km cable.

Orkney is very close to the mainland, Shetland is very far.

There is a fundamental problem of geography here!

Getting power from Shetland to mainland grid will be very expensive, cost of big connection from Orkney to mainland, much cheaper. Sullom Voe terminal was chosen for closeness to oilfields, but for big power generation projects you need closeness to customer.

No amount of huffing, puffing and lobbying behind closed doors will change this basic fact of geography.

BTW, it is Shetland, not "Shetlands".

I hope they don't pay hush, sorry, compensation, money to Dave Clark.

Some councillors have as much to hide as the Cheif. Exec. as to who did what and when, and getting the rest of the councillors to agree to a pay out is a handy way of covering up past shenanigans on all sides.

When Nick Reiter got booted out, a handful of councillors knew the full story, but didn't pass this information on to the rest of the councillors. Decisions were then taken based on incorrect and misleading information.

The Audit Scotland report on the scandal is here. Interesting that some of the same names crop up yet again.

http://www.audit-scotland.gov.uk/docs/local/1999/sr_9907_shetland_chief_executive.pdf

I have a feeling that the Port Arthur "housing" development was actually just an excuse to build a quarry for infill for other road projects. It avoided the need to actually apply for a quarry.

Ask yourself, have you ever seen these "sites" for sale?

As far as utnabreck goes, if Scalloway is to have more houses (and my god it needs it), would folk rather it happened in a planned way with a proper development, or in a Gulberwick way with threes and fours being build at a time in a random and disorganised way?

The application in Gulberwick (near driving range) about 10 years ago was for a big development of about 20 - 30 houses. It was rejected by planners after local objections, "good" agricultural land being one of them. What happened? 20 - 30 houses got built in dribs and drabs over the next 10 years. The result is a mess of roads, shambilic design and no infrastructure.

Presumably the amount of money involved in this "alleged" fraud is huge. Millions rather than thousands. Those accused are skippers and factory bosses, hardly big time gangsters. But the pellagic industry is international, and may well involve folk with more, "diverse" businees interests. Some less savoury than others.

The problem for any fraud, is "how and where do you hide the money so you get some of it back". I think the technical description is money laundering. Who needs to launder money? Mainly big time criminals like drug dealers and arms dealers, and illegal organisations with needs for large amounts of untracable money.

If any fraud took place involving Shetland, perpetuators, and the professionals, friends and aquintences who advised them, would be dealing in pretty murkey waters with some very dodgy characters.

So remove any concept of "local fishermen" from the equation and you have a very serious trial taking place.

Most fraud trials collapse becase they are very difficult, and very expensive to investigate. The bigger the sums involved, the less likely a prosecution will even be attempted.

The Altaire trail took place at High Court. This trial is taking place at the Sherrif court, so is likely to be at the lower end of things.

I make make no coment on the guilt or innocence of those involved.

Thanks all. So parcelforce still strong contender then. Got account setup with DHL as 24 hour (+ 1 extra day!) some prices higher than ParcelForce for smaller boxes, ok for larger 20kg+ sizes. Suppose it saves time and expense of a run to the post office.

Any idea which of the national courier companies will collect from Shetland and deliver South? Need same or next day collection from here, and 24 hour delivery to Englandshire.

How reliable is the collection times shown by courier websites?

Thanks SJ

To quote from the link:

"challenges from moving to a low-carbon electricity system with increased variable wind generation and larger nuclear power stations are manageable"

Are they saying if we want more wind power we have to have bigger nukes? Oh great. Address CO2 problem, but ignore radiation and waste disposal problem for next couple of thousand years... So it's not wind instead of nuclear, its wind AND nuclear, because thats makes for CO2 efficient load balancing "managable".

On the other hand industry, and each of us as individuals, could simply consume less, take less flights, produce less waste? That's manageable as well.

Not necessarily what we want to do, but perfectly possible.

http://www.businessgreen.com/business-green/news/2244492/national-grid-takes-wind-energy

Here's a question i've had rolling around in my head for a while.

What would happen if the windfarm made a whopping great loss, but was great for combatting global warming? Would Viking Energy / Charitable Trust still promote it?

Equally, what if it made loads of money, but the carbon payback did exceed the 48 years worst case and caused a lot of damage to Shetland. Would it still get built because it made lots of money?

Discuss!

Basic message is good personal hygene.

* Washing hands

* Dispose of tissues etc immediately.

* Cover your mouth when coughing

* Clean surfaces, handles etc

If you get flu'

* Stay home

* Do not go to surgery

* Do not spread it!

* Take Paracetamol

Phone NHS 24 on 08454242424

or Swine Flu information line on 08001 513 513

I did find some useful advice here:

Hillswick surgery has some good information

http://hillswicksurgery.moonfruit.com/

And a link to main govt. site

http://www.hps.scot.nhs.uk/resp/swineinfluenza.aspx

In answer to some other posts here;

I can't see any advice to spend hours surfing the web for American conspiracy sites to prove that its's all a scam and a shadowy secret government is behind it all. You could try phoning Torchwood, but I can't find their number in the Shetland directory and directory enquiries deny all knowledge. Spooky!

Songbird ,(very small, brown, crunchy) maybe larks? bones n'all. Had them at a wedding in the mountains of North Italy. Came in a rich cream sauce, Thought they were "nut cutlets" or some other veggi thing... the miming of my hosts "tweet, tweet, flap" eventually gave the game away. Went off them a bit after that.

Does anybody know if the film will be shown again in Shetland?

BTW, what if a wind farm contributed to global warming/ I read in Viking Energys stuff on their web site that the worst case scenario for carbon pay back is 48 years, ie. a wind farm with a lifespan of 25 years will be a net carbon producer! It looks like a re-run of the biofuels from rainforest debate a year or so ago.

>>Because some things just need to be said<<