Colin

Anybody paying attention to what the oilys were up to at the time didn't buy it. OTOH the Nats kept on telling us Scotland could be a prosperous independent nation, without providing anything but soundbites to back it up.
Had they produced, published and pushed an accurately costed and robust business plan to support their otherwise hollow rhetoric, they might just have won the independence they want.  But, in true arrogant 'powers that be' condescending style of 'the little people couldn't possibly understand such complex things' they published and pushed something that was only going to wash with pre-teen intelligence levels, and they got the vote out of it they paid for.
Oh, yeah, and the 'confusion' of pushing for 'independence' while still keeping old Madge as head of state, keeping sterling as the currency and being an EU member didn't help in the slightest either. Selling 'independence' in the shape of what folk saw as 'devolution max' did not help in the slightest.
The Monarchy is symbolic and ceremonial, and only of relevance to Royalists, rather than of any practical impact, and I'm not a Royalist. Sharing a currency though leaves you wholly under the control of whoever controls that currency, and while membership of the EEC by an independent nation could just about wash, remaining independent as an EU member doesn't with a great many people. You become a subservient member state, beholden to and wholly controlled by the collective.
The devil is in the detail, and the detail of the Nats version of independence contained so many red flags and asked more questions than it answered, that it didn't fool enough of the people. So, yes, agreed, disbelieve and distrust all parties and their leadership until and unless proven otherwise, as the official rhetoric regurgitated by them all is never what it appears to be.
The Nats are going to be lucky to hold on to power in May IMHO, if they do it will only be due to there not being any credible and viable left wing alternative to vote for rather than belief in their policies and achievements. They're doing next to nothing positive, and they're steadily imploding due in internal bickering. They're effectively, as they've always been, a one trick pony, if they didn't have the 'independence' card to play, they'd not exist, as they rely on those who rally to the word rather than its reality to be returned to power. They may seem to be striving for Scottish independence, but are they, as achieving it would almost inevitably lead to their demise as a party. Appearing to want it and appearing to be fighting for it keeps them in power, so why would they risk wrecking the gravy train.
So near, but so far, so we'll try again, but only do enough to get so near, but so far, ad infinitum. In return you get a grossly over-inflated salary at the taxpayers expense for a lac-lustre performance and the chance to stand up and talk sh*t so that you can feel important. If you're morally and ethically bankrupt enough to do so convincingly and without throwing up in the process. Sounds like an easy career path to me for anyone that's prepared to live with it.
 
 

I've heard some adventurous people prepare fish and meat dishes in their own homes.

I believe my facts ta be accurate, but if anybody can prove otherwise, I'm willing to accept I may be wrong. VE has now been through so many hands and incarnations in its twenty year journey, its difficult to keep up, and especially as its descended behind a wall of corporate spin and hyperbole in recent years, facts have become increasingly hard to locate.
I have spent very little time in the Facebook groups, I said all I wanted to say on this thread and elsewhere a long time ago, long before the Facebook groups were even started. They hold very little interest to me, as everything I saw in them was preaching to the converted, and there was a sense at times that they were struggling to keep up with the game and trying to bolt a stable door from which the horse was already gone.
The profit from VE will go to the suppliers of the hardware, they're all outwith Shetland, the owners, who are in effect SSE, a non Shetland company, and the contractors who construct it, the main players of whom are non-Shetland companies.
Landowners will profit, but thats only in the low single figures who are Shetland residents, grazings rights holders will get something, what, nobody knows, as thats never been divulged AFAIK, but I'd doubt the p.a. payment per ha. is likely to be able to cover a family meal at Busta. A few local outfits will get smaller contracts and sub contracts within the overall works, but thats temporary and short term. At the end of it all it'll just be seen as another job, a pay packet for a few months, no big deal either way.
The Community Benefit Fund appears to be 'guaranteed' a few 100 k, but its all going to be spent via Community Councils only, so time will tell whether it goes to something needed/useful or vanity projects and follies. After that, who knows, maybe the CBF will get a whole pile more dosh every year, maybe they won't......it all depends on what SSE can sell on the other end of their wire.
SAT may get something in return for their now small shareholding, or they may not. Again it depends on what SSE sells out that wire. The Burradale crew may, or may not get a few quid, *if* they still have their now miniscule share in it, but that again is only a handful of individuals.
Meanwhile, the rest of us, 22,000+ have to put up with the carry on of a several year construction phase followed by decades of an eyesore covering half of Shetland, while at the same time knowing that every time VE production is closed down due to over-provision of windfarm electric in the grid, we're all paying for the subsidy they're receiving via our horrendous electric bills.
So, no. I don't see and never have seen what the 'positive' side of VE is.
Feeding in to the local netword from windmills was one thing, even though we still paid the same price for electric regardless whether Burradale was producing flat out, or everything was coming from diesel. But when you're building a windfarm to feed in to the UK grid, where windfarms are already being paid not to produce from time to time, the investor(s) are relying as much on the value of subsidy during such enforced shutdowns to make the project profitable as they are relying on the price they get for what they do manage to sell out of it.

I wonder how many folk do not post here is case NulVoid decides to crap on everything by responding with the usuan barrage of garbage ?
 
In fairness, there may just be one or two points of interest buried in there somewhere, but fom my own personal position, I prefer to skip his/her/it's entire post.  Once, that is, after I have managed to scroll past a series of awful graphics.
NB;  Pretty pictures do not prove anything.  Try reasoned argument instead. If I wanted to see pictures, I would buy The Beano...
. 

I wonder how many folk do not post here is case NulVoid decides to crap on everything by responding with the usuan barrage of garbage ?
 
In fairness, there may just be one or two points of interest buried in there somewhere, but fom my own personal position, I prefer to skip his/her/it's entire post.  Once, that is, after I have managed to scroll past a series of awful graphics.
NB;  Pretty pictures do not prove anything.  Try reasoned argument instead. If I wanted to see pictures, I would buy The Beano...
. 

I wonder how many folk do not post here is case NulVoid decides to crap on everything by responding with the usuan barrage of garbage ?
 
In fairness, there may just be one or two points of interest buried in there somewhere, but fom my own personal position, I prefer to skip his/her/it's entire post.  Once, that is, after I have managed to scroll past a series of awful graphics.
NB;  Pretty pictures do not prove anything.  Try reasoned argument instead. If I wanted to see pictures, I would buy The Beano...
. 

I wonder how many folk do not post here is case NulVoid decides to crap on everything by responding with the usuan barrage of garbage ?
 
In fairness, there may just be one or two points of interest buried in there somewhere, but fom my own personal position, I prefer to skip his/her/it's entire post.  Once, that is, after I have managed to scroll past a series of awful graphics.
NB;  Pretty pictures do not prove anything.  Try reasoned argument instead. If I wanted to see pictures, I would buy The Beano...
. 

^Corrrrrong again. I've just come to learn that folk like you aren't worth the time.
 
You eased yourself in here and have somehow managed to make a forum that was already a shallow version of itself somewhere even less worthy of folks time. Bravo. But I'm sure you'll take that as some form of affirmation of your set-in-stone and over-inflated "views" somehow being validated. Best of luck with that!

Yes, your copyright seems to have expired, or is out of date... 

The people of Shetland do not appear to matter just to much to either Westminster, or Holyrood.
What seems to matter to them is our resources.
 
IMHO, of course. 

I didn't bother reading to many of the comments though.
 
Kinda stopped at the "lets put it up Krankie" etc. brigade getting a little ahead of themselves.
 
Nobody seems to realise (yet) that Shetland has NOT had the opportunity to vote for anything.
 
Guess it sells newspapers .. ?

George,  I think you had better get an update on your meds... 

Why not just paint a big yellow star on people and be done with it..  ?
 

I hven't seen a self-respecting virus yet that cannot get through a cheap paper mask.
 
Masks help a little, but you get a false sense of security more than any meaningful protection.

"Professor Carl James Heneghan of the University of Oxford's Centre for Evidence-Based Medicine published a study that finds the difference between wearing a mask or not is negligible."
 
Honestly ?  Did we really need a professor to tell us that ultra cheap, everyday(?) masks that we see all over the place were going to work and that they were going to do anything other than add to the pile of litter we see about the place? 
 
A truly effective mask would also involve an awful lot of other PPE as well and, I would bet that, together, the whole lot would be painfully expensive.
 
I would guess that the main reason for the 'masks edict' is to try and show us all that government is trying to do something useful when, in fact, we're stuffed in the long term.

@nullvoid
 
Despite your usual stream of guff, waffle, and YouTube clips that hardly anyone but yourself bothers viewing, and despite the fact that you appear to have set yourself up as an authority on just about everything posted here, you still do not have the right to refer to a large majority of the population as "morons" or "idiots" for not knowing what, apparently, YOU know.

@nullvoid
 
Despite your usual stream of guff, waffle, and YouTube clips that hardly anyone but yourself bothers viewing, and despite the fact that you appear to have set yourself up as an authority on just about everything posted here, you still do not have the right to refer to a large majority of the population as "morons" or "idiots" for not knowing what, apparently, YOU know.

"Unfortunately morons think these devices are used to make broadband faster and the all have bad reviews from idiots,"
 
Sounds like you have an axe to grind.
 
How can you honestly describe people who do not understand what is, essentially, a mix of fairly complicated technologies (and a whole host of "what if's") as "morons" and "idiots"?
 
Are people who do not understand Quantum and String Theory also "morons" and "idiots" or is that OK because (maybe) you don't understand them either?

Funny that NullVoid's map doesn't show Shetland.  OK, it's not HIS map but, just saying.

It has been said that "Conceptual Art" is basically practised by those that can't draw. Maybe that's unfair!
 
I am assuming that the latest eye-opening exhibition by Shetland Arts falls into that category. 
 
One exhibit shows an artist posing in a converted greenhouse wearing what is described as "wearable art."
 
Tracy Emin's "unmade bed" made headlines some years ago and the modern art world has not improved significantly as far as I can see.
 
This latest exhibition by Shetland Arts is presumably funded by us and is intended to make us think about things.
 
I have thought about it and have come to the conclusion that if you want "wearable art," buy a fair isle joopy.
 

That sounds "racist" to me. 
 
I mean, how can you be part of a truly integrated society if you only murder "your own kind" ?

https://www.shetnews.co.uk/2020/09/21/leask-resigns-from-senior-position-over-question-of-self-determination/
Is stating facts and having an opinion not allowed in the council chamber or when talking to us plebs anymore? Do they all have to toe the line and say what they're told to say?
Stephen Leask is my councillor, he got my vote because he was the only candidate willing to put in the legwork and come to my door to try and win it in the run up to the election.
I didn't help vote him in to be a shrinking violet or cajoled into being silent by a council leader I've never even heard of.
Same goes for Ian Scott, I certainly don't agree with everything he says but we need people like him with the balls to speak their mind and ask uncomfortable questions, at the very least it helps spark some healthy debate.

"Westinster comes to mind, whether or not......."
 
Er, I thought that Hollyrood (Krankie & Co) made up the local(?) rules re Lockdown.  ?  Can't quite see how you can blame this on Westminster... unless, of course, you think that Hollyrood slavishly follows Westminsters dictats... ?
 
Just wondering ...
 
BTW;  Just where is "Westinster".  

At the Market Cross
 
https://www.shetnews.co.uk/2020/09/06/police-appeal-to-parents-after-large-group-of-youths-gather-in-centre-of-lerwick/
 
Says it all really but, what kind of parent(?) allows their "kids"(?) to be out drinking on the streets at 2am? 
 
Also, as the article explains, we are still under some kind of rather confusing "lockdown" (aka quarantine/house arrest) rules so, that also asks some questions of the parents.
 
It might have been subjected to a little "over enthusiastic" reporting, but the fact that the local Police decided to disperse them is worth noting. 
 
Maybe they (the Police) couldn't get any doughnuts at that time of the morning and needed to do something to relieve the boredom ? 
 
Just wondering...

https://www.shetnews.co.uk/2020/09/14/councillor-appalled-by-what-he-saw-at-harrison-square/
 
Several questions here.  The main(?) one (for me anyway) is "what business has Councillor Duncan got in travelling 30 miles (or so) at past midnight on a weekend to just to 'observe' events in the town" ?   (Guess that he might be breaking one or more of the 'rules' by doing that.  Hope that he feels 'good' about himself)  We already have a police force that is supposed to do that (observe) and I don't think that we need 'curtain twitchers'...
 
Disappointing though that so many 'young uns' have so much disregard for the health and safety of others.  At Mr Duncan's age, I would have stayed well clear of the lot of them...