Shoogler

Get a grip man, you're clearly engaging in an astonishing level of introspection if you can't understand how a drama is created. Its got nothing to do with the reality of either place or character.   

Heavens above folks, are you unable to differentiate between fictitious drama and reality? Of course its a bit disconcerting, and highly amusing, to see the way the whole thing is edited together but the endless stream of daft comments i've seen on here and other media since it aired is worrying!  

Get a grip man, you're clearly engaging in an astonishing level of introspection if you can't understand how a drama is created. Its got nothing to do with the reality of either place or character.   

ahhw come on, whilst I get pee'd off by lazy shoppers who find it difficult to walk the 10 yards in order to put their trolley away safely, I still feel the coop also has a responsibility to be checking the car park on a regular basis and clear rouge trollies.
 
With the winds at this time of year they tend to get blown into people's cars causing expensive repairs. If I don't feel it's safe to leave my car in their car park, then I would stop shopping there.
 
As for the pot holes, they could have done something with them by now, after all it's been in a poor state of repair for a long while.
 
it may well be private property, but it's hardly enticing customers.

Let's not get caught up in trading insults, and I welcome your attempts to move away from the subject, but I want to get back to it briefly. What I'm putting across to you both is this: If you can't add anything of value to the discussion, then is it worth posting? I'm not trying to insult you, just merely pointing out some rules of conversational engagement in the hope that your contributions can be more meaningful and engaging.
 
Unlinkedstudent (as you're better known by) - your posts tend to be largely egocentric and self-fulfilling without you perhaps realising (i.e. they're not in the interest of others). And Ghosties are largely based on disseminating the testimonials of others or conceived from personal ideas and not direct experience of the subject matter, again seemingly for reasons of self-fulfilment and a need to contribute. This approach does occasionally lead to some useful alternative viewpoints, but for the most part it's not going to earn him the status of "respected critic" any time soon.
 
It's great you know the new manager and I hope that allows you to have meaningful engagement with the venue. I wish you both a great Xmas and New Year, and hope you treat yourself to a visit

First of all thank you for clarifying my previous assumptions were correct.
 
Ok, now lets go with your argument and shop example. No I don't know what it's like to not have transport, but at the same time I wouldn't be spending copious amounts of time commenting negatively about said shop because I have never been and have had no direct experience of it.
 
That is the point I'm trying to put across - neither of you have any experience of the venue to be able to comment on its apparent "crapness" as you put it. If it sells out it's crap, if it undersells it's crap, if it doesn't put on a precise event for you it's crap, if it's parking runs out it's crap - basically everything's crap with you. You're obviously an angry individual who's very negative about everything, and if that's what makes you happy then that's fine. But it becomes other peoples misery when you post on this forum, and I'm sorry to say you come away looking rather foolish.

I hear it was Shetlink that called for the ban so that they could increase the whole Classified car sales section of the site

I once stood in some Daily Mail, fortunately as it was Lerwick, you're never more than 6 feet from one, so I was able to wipe it off with a dog turd!

The idiots that did this are the same type of idiots who would have abused the skip system by putting the wrong stuf in them - fridges should not have gone in skips anyway.
The abuse of the skips by builders, etc and the overfilling by all and sundry was also part of the reason for their demise.

Plenty evidence on this for a prosecution. This is not a 'result' of not having a skip to dump in as it would've been incorrect to put a fridge in a skip anyway - just someone who couldn't give a scoot.

Because Lerwick Up-Helly-Aa is not Shetland wide whereas Christmas is so argument invalid
Also, are you sure it is not an extra holiday? I think you'll find SIC have a generous public holiday entitlement. Even if it is, nowadays it is more approriate to take flexible public holidays along with statutory holiday entitlement
Far more sense to be like all other parts of Shetland and have it on a Friday wi a hop on Saturday, sleep on Sunday and back to work on a Monday
 
Traditions can be changed in the modern world we now live in

I am struck by the lack of perspective. All over the country - all over the western world in fact - we are struggling to maintain the services we have built up to maintain a decent standard for our most vulnerable people. In Shetland we still have enough money to keep decent standards of welfare going, if we spend wisely.
 
All Council departments have made cuts. Most have relatively small budgets compared to education and community care. There is not much more to glean from the other departments. Education and community care are the biggest spenders. The money should go where there is the greatest need. Community care is facing the same cuts as education. They are dealing with the most needy, vulnerable, friendless, lonely, abandoned, ill, senile, poverty-stricken and vulnerable. They need to help people who have a huge need, or to relieve their desperate families. Social work needs to be able to step in and protect the children in danger, the children who have much greater problems than which school they go to. They need to protect also our vulnerable adults, the people who no longer have parents to protect and support them.
 
We are facing a situation already where cuts in care homes and social care could leave dangerous gaps in help for desperately needy adults. In schools, we are looking at a very good education system, being slowly starved of funds, but still very good. We are looking at cuts which could require teenagers to travel longer on a bus each day, or stay in a very good, supportive hostel, and still get a very good education, perhaps a better one. We are looking at children with protective, supportive and responsible parents to look after them, homes to go back to and the health and resilience to help them cope with change and perhaps even benefit from it.
 
We are in very serious danger of keeping schools open due to emotive campaigning, and continuing to strangle our other services, including the ones which make life that little bit better for everyone, for the rest of our lives. And we will all need community care, sooner or later, for ourselves, for our elderly relatives. And so will these children that come after us.
 
Please get a perspective.

I've just had a read through several Facebook discussions about this debacle and the comments section of the Shetland Times and at this moment I genuinely feel a little embarrassed to be a Shetlander.
 
Grown men calling him "Lemon Sissy" and "lemon head" on his Facebook page, numerous racist apologists, a call for the English Defence League to sort him out on the Shetland Times page (thankfully now moderated, but someone allowed it to be published in the first place), people slagging of his work who by their own admission have never read any of it, frothy mouthed attacks of the 'PC Brigade', thinly veiled threats of violence..... Absolutely pathetic. Sad, sad times folks.

I can see both sides of the argument but it seems to me that the level of ignorance displayed by some of those attacking Mr Sissay (and anyone else who may share his opinion on Golliwogs) is only matched by the level restraint shown by those on the other side of the fence.
 
Shetlink is sometimes knocked for anonymity and pointless moaning but this thread seems to be the most reasoned debate on the subject.

As an interesting aside, most folk who I've discussed this with believe that Golliwogs do, at best, have racist connotations. I'd be interested to see the results of a poll on the subject, although the wording of the question would itself be contentious and I have no idea how to start a poll! What do you guys think?

It does not logically follow that this is the only conclusion.  They may not be aware of the dolls, they may have officially complained in confidence and nothing was done, they may have voiced their concerns informally to friends and left it at that, perhaps they didn't want to 'make a fuss' for whatever reason they choose or they may have thought the idea of complaining was a bad one given what they percieve (rightly or wrongly) to be a common prejudiced attitude in Shetland evinced by yourself in this forum when you say things like...
 
"....if those [coloured people] who are in any way of character like this one [Lemn Sissay], we can well do without both them and their extremist opinions."

And your self defined limits on what can be used as evidence to 'prove' that nobody has been offended are getting even smaller.  If you're willing to cite previous 'coloured' visitors to Shetland as unoffended because they, to your knowledge, didn't 'make a fuss' why is it that as soon as a 'coloured' visitor does publically 'make a fuss' you dismiss his opinions with....

"...he was passing through for less than five minutes, so his feelings are rather irrelevant."

You're saying that there is no offence being taken by 'coloured' people because they aren't 'making a fuss' right up until they do 'make a fuss', at which point you attack them in public for doing so.

Always on the move, the " Gerda Saele " rounding Sumburgh Head this morning :-
http://farm4.staticflickr.com/3785/9784389971_01e5efbc4f_c.jpgGerda Saele IMG_9048 by Ronnierob, on Flickr