George.

The irony is that there is a sign on some of the buses advising passengers to use a their seatbelt, yet you can have passengers standing in the aisle.
I don't think that bus passengers are seen as important.  The lack of an indoor waiting area at the Lerwick bus station being a good example.  It gets bloody cold, and often wet, waiting in the open ended bus shelter in all weathers.  A cafe, or the revenue for leasing it (or sale perhaps), was seen as a greater need than passengers being able to stay warm.  This was to be fair, put out to consultation before the cafe was opened.  Like most consultations the decision appeared to be a foregone conclusion.
There are a couple of benches at the bus station to sit on in more agreeable weather, but they are old and the varnish/paint worn away so that they absorb water when it rains.  They stay wet for a long time afterwards, but no-one seems to be responsible for them and their maintenance.  The trouble is that those who could make a difference, those who make the decisions, don't travel on the buses so they have no idea of the discomforts suffered by the travelling public, and apparenlty little care for the passengers either.

Are you going to reply to yourself with a link to whatever you're flogging, or are you really curious as to hear someone's experience from 5 years ago?

I agree entirely DavieP. Whilst there have always been avenues to express negative views publicly it can be done so much easier nowadays and the increasing prevalence of it on social media just seems to validate that it’s ok to do.
The thing that astounds me about it all is the lack of midder wit some folk have before embarking on a keyboard rant. We live in a peerie place and I’m sure I’m not the only one that has formed a less than favourable opinion of some of the most notable local Facebook commentators despite never having met them in person. Do these folk not realise that if I was (say) an employer or a landlord that I might be unlikely to offer them a job or consider renting a house to them purely because of their online conduct? 
I could - but obviously won’t - name an individual who I distinctly remember calling a local female politician a ‘bimbo’ and another - who happens to be a local business owner - calling a group of public sector workers ‘c***s’. They’re not saying this in a private conversation but in a forum viewable by millions of folk. Do they not think that mightn’t be appropriate or, in the case of the local businessman, that it might discourage folk - as it has for me - from wanting to support them?
I’m not sure Shetlanders are necessarily any more negative than folk elsewhere. But I do think there’s an increasing air that we’re always hard done by and we’ve never been treated so badly by politicians and infrastructure/public service providers. I used to think o wis as resilient and accepting that due to wir isolation, geography and weather that things don’t and can’t always work the way they do elsewhere but I do sense that’s starting to slip. 
That all said, there are 20,000 odd adults here and the negativity still just comes from a vocal minority. I’m always heartened that a single post from a brave soul who sticks their head above the parapet and applies some positivity, truth and perspective among a sea of misinformed, negative twaddle very often attracts a much higher number of ‘likes’ than some of the crap spouted by others. 

Interesting, you seem to be talking to yourself JolynnGood, why would you be doing that then? Please tell me that it's not some SEO optimisation spam posting for your fake ID business!

I would think after 14 years they would have got the names sorted.

Can they catch mice.

After 14 years we can finally sleep easy in our beds.

To be clear, I'm very aware of the financial boost the oil industry was and still is to Shetland, I just can't recall the kind of moaning about "all the money going to the oil companies" that we see with Viking Energy being said about Sullom Voe at any time in the last 50 years!
The amount of damage oil and gas have done and still do environmentally is astronomical compared to the windfarm construction, yet that's where people seem to focus. It's quite bizarre.
I think there is a hefty disconnect where people have forgotten how Shetland would be if not for the Oil industry. We are very used to all the benefits it has afforded us, and if that is to continue, it is vital we have other forms of energy to move on to, of which wind energy is the current option. I have no doubt just like we were consulted about the windfarm at school all those years ago, kids today will be being consulted on possibilities for the next big thing 40 years from now.

Some of you might have experienced problems accessing the site over the past few hours while we moved operations over to a new server - hopefully everything is back to normal now, and a couple of page refreshes should sort most issues.
If you have any persistant problems then please do post to this thread.
All the best,
Admin Team

According to a news item on Radio Shetland there was one other local authority not declaring a public holiday for the coronation. I agree with Convenor Andrea Manson's statement on the same programme that it would give the wrong message to pay staff for an extra day off and pay others extra to come in to cover for the ones on holiday when the SIC is cutting services.

Were the SIC stopping those wanting to celebrate a coronation from taking the time off to do so?
Also, scanning the Shetlink local news feed, there appears to have been several coronation related events... none of which looked to have been that well attended. The point being - I'm not convinced there are was any potential to raise £100K off the back of Charles.

The human brain can work out faster than a calculator. Just needs developing !!
 

I don't mind paying tax for services. What I'm not too keen on is having tax dodging, corrupt, multi millionaire Tories telling us we have to tighten our belts while they stash their cash in the Cayman islands and are handsomely rewarded for enabling the same perks  for their elite mates. 

I agree, the Supreme Court can only interperate the law as it stands but those laws were written in a Parliament where Scottish MP's are outnumbered by more than 10:1 and a second unelected House of Lords full of Tory and Labour cronies completely opposed to Scottish independence. 
When the Scotland Act was rewritten after 2014 nearly all the Scottish elected representatives in Westminster were SNP and every single amendment they put forward for the Bill was voted down by MP's from outwith Scotland and then finalised and written into Law by the House of Lords. The amendment you talk of will always go the same way. 
I find nothing divisive about a Nation wanting to run their own affairs, it's completely normal. Ties of family are unaffected by where on the globe they live. Business ties will be affected without a doubt but let's not forget that the Brexit the majority of Scots opposed put unnecessary obstacles in the path of our business ties with 500 million of our European friends and neighbours. 
Right now Scotland is an energy rich country paying through the nose for energy, we have the only two party's with a chance of power, (Conservative and Labour) doubling down on a Brexit Scotland didn't want, a court telling us Scotland is no more than an English county, a Tory government Scotland has rejected at the polls since 1955 and to top it all off we're being told that Scotland is in a "voluntary union" we can't seem to get out of. 

The EU is a poor partner to have for energy security, seeing as they're as much a conduit for Chinese energy, and up until earlier this year, were for Russian energy, as they are a producer. Defence, yeah, well, its an arguable point whether mutterings about an 'EU Army' was the final straw when added to all the Yank military shenanigans in Europe that convinced Putin it was time to do a bit of sabre rattling.
Twice in just over 200 years Russia has been invaded, once by the French and once by the Germans, is it any wonder that when the two get in cahoots and start appearing to be organising an army, that ole Russki gets a bit miffed and puts on an attempted show of strength with a sacrificial neighbour. Unwise, probably, but surprising, no.
The UK lacked labour pre-EU, the so-called hospitality industry was rattling full of Philippinos back in the day, as was the NHS, along with an ever increasing number of Indian Doctors. EU labour just filled a gap that was caused by the EU preventing those nationalities working in the UK any longer. We don't necessarily need to source people from the EU, there are numerous nations worldwide who have crowds of people who'd give their right arm to be able to come here and work, even for half the posted salary, we just need to facilitate capable people to come here, their nationality is irrelevant.

Like African dictators it's one last hurrah for the Tories to bleed the country dry before they're booted out. Time's running out, the country's on the verge of a general strike, wages are way behind rocketing inflation, people can't afford to heat or eat, interest rates are shooting up increasing mortgage costs and other personal borrowing, the £ has plummeted, the national debt is soaring. The markets are so alarmed at the state of our economy and the reckless decisions our government are making the cost of government borrowing has become even more expensive. 
True to form the self serving Tories are emptying the till before the country collapses around them, the latest wheeze is borrowing billions upon billions of £££ to fund a big fat tax cut for themselves and their wealthy cronies. 
Instead of being arrested for stealing our money and starving/freezing/impoverishing the people they're meant to serve they'll get their super wealthy Daily Mail/Sun/Express owners and lobbyists masquerading as independent think tanks to convince the gullible that foreigners are to blame and massive tax cuts for the wealthy will trickle down and make us rich too. 

Copyright is a thorny issue with those pics.....
As George says, where copyright is known, the copyright holder can transfer it to the Museum. Simple. Problems start to arise when the copyright holder isn't known. To get around this, the story I've been told, is that as the image displayed on their site and any copy anyone may obtain from the Museum is from the Museum's scan of an original negative/copy/print, it is their own scan they claim copyright on rather than the original. How kosher it is for that to be done when the original copyright holder isn't known, is open to debate.....but likely something they can get away with without any real risk of challenge.
Actual example. The collection contains two images we have in a family collection of old photos, which were around long before the Museum, let alone the photo collection was ever dreamed off.
Did a long dead family member take them - Don't know. Do we hold the only original copies - Don't know. How did the Museum obtain the prints/negatives they were scanned from - Don't know.
What is known is that back in the 70's a neighbour borrowed a number of photos from our collection to have copies made for their own collection. Which we were fine with. Then years later that same neighbour allowed the Museum take copies of some photos from their collection.
Were the two photos in question ones we loaned to that neighbour to take copies for their own use - Don't know, the family members who loaned them are long gone. If they were, did that neighbour in turn allow the Museum to take copies of their copies - Don't know, that neighbour died before the Museum published their collection online.
Obviously there's every possibility the Museum could have obtained the negatives/prints they scanned from another source and its all very legit, but it just illustrates how sketchy things can get very quickly.

^Copyright can be transferred, free or for payment, to another person or company.

The energy providers:
"We need to up the bills to provide energy to you." 
"We have just made record breaking profits." 
Zombie Tory Government: 
"We can't do anything because we haven't chosen a new leader yet." 
"No we couldn't possibly cut vat on your bills or tax the energy companies."
"What we might do to stop the riots is con you by using your own taxes and/or print more money to 'gift' you a few hundred pounds to help you pay your energy bill thus maintaining the massive profits and share dividends both us and our backers enjoy." 
The whole thing is a massive con, what the companies do (legally) is create subsidiaries that show a loss thus protecting them from paying tax. At the same time the parent company rakes in the profits. 
The doo doo is about to hit the fan this winter so what will probably happen is the government will (yet again) use public money to bail out private companies and package it as a 'gift' to us from the Chancellor so the gullible keep voting for them. 
One thing's for certain, privatisation is very expensive for us and highly profitable for companies, the only thing that stops the whole house of cards from collapsing is a large number of (better off) voters in addition to most of those in government are shareholders in these businesses collecting annual dividends in the biggest sure thing you can possibly get...
'Privatised' companies that get bailed out with public money every time their profit margins don't satisfy the shareholders. 

I use a MacBook, you can install Firefox or chrome, shouldn’t cause a problem

@ Colin Yes absolutely! 
1)The UK voted for a party that stated it was going to have a referendum on EU membership
2)The referendum was arranged in the UK with no interference from the EU on the process, eg  timing, question etc
3)The referendum went ahead, the majority voted to leave and the UK left. 
Now a few years on we're in this situation with Scotland... 
1)Scotland voted for parties that stated they're going to have a referendum on UK membership.... See the similarities? 
(Here's where the hypocrisy about sovereignty, self determination and democracy comes into effect) 
2)UK to Scotland - You can only have a referendum if/when WE allow it. 
That's the UK government's hypocrisy, some of the stuff I've heard from Brexit voters, even on this thread, goes further than this into the realms of the ludicrous. 
Things like.. Insinuating the UK government could ignore the result of any plebiscite and send the troops in. Cheerleading the partition of Scotland. (these are just a couple of examples in the last few posts, can't be bothered to look further but there's loads and loads of this type of stuff. 
The funny thing is this, imagine if the EU had said to the UK something along these lines...
'you can't have a referendum unless we say so and if you have any type of plebiscite without our permission we won't accept it, we'll send our troops in, you can maybe get a vote on the condition that we keep the chunks of your country that voted to remain. etc etc' 
It's absolutely unthinkable! Imagine the front pages of the Daily Mail, I'm sure they had some made up garbage about some EU directive on bananas! They would've had a field day with troop ships crossing the channel! 
 
 

If you go through this quote ^^^ and change "Scotland" to "the UK" ... Then change "Scottish independence" to "Brexit" you get a good example of hypocrisy. It would go something like this...........
 
The UK can do anything they please, on one condition. That, in the event of the UK holding a referendum, and the result is in support of Brexit,  that they then give Shetland and/or Shetland and Orkney the opportunity to hold a referendum to decide whether Shetland and/or Orkney goes with the UK as an independent country, stays with the EU, or something else...
... However, if they're not willing to agree to a referendum for us, then we should be blocking their's at any opportunity on the grounds they're hypocrites...

As a moderator and for the sake of transparency, it would be remiss for me not to mention I'm a candidate for Shetland South. 
(in the interests of impartiality: please note that other candidates are also available)

This is precisely what many have tried to say but it gets totally misunderstood in the name of "being popular" by objecting to it. The irony is that those who do object, are actually in reality promoting buying oil and gas (with all the associated environmental risks and costs involved) from places such as Russia.

He’s a smiling snake, used to think he was a comic, now he appears to be a vindictive character. Almost Trumpesque. Yet the longer he remains as PM the more damage he does to the tories and has probably done more for Scottish Independence than the SNP.