Stop the drownings

So the flights for Rwanda can now take off, and that will deter illegal migrants from attempting the dangerous crossing between France and England. 

I wonder what planet the British government is on. The problem is not the people, who risk (and as shown today, sometimes forfeit) their lives in the crossing. The problem is the people smugglers. That is not something the UK government can do anything about. That is up the French government, who seem to be sitting on their hands. 

Stop the Boats should be a policy for the government of the Republique Française, not for the United Kingdom. And they could call it: Vider les Plages.

Twenty years in social media

On 14th April 2004, I joined AOL for its dial-up service. We all remember the unworldly creaking noises as the 40 kilobyte per second connection was set up. Nowadays, I enjoy 37 megabytes per second, a thousand times fast. And in some places, internet speeds are measured in gigabytes per second, another factor of thousand quicker. 

I found myself embroiled in an internet chatroom of dubious repute, until my circumstances changed. From 2005, I became involved in AOL J-land, a community of bloggers. I became friends with people like the much missed Donna Diggins, then more familiarly known as nightmaremom, and Sugar Lewis, who has now disappeared of the radar, and might well have passed away. More than 60 of our friends have died in those 20 years. 

Who knows what the coming years will bring?

2 April 2024

Spring is slowly arriving here, with the dandelions already out and about. The first cruiseliner came yesterday, also a bit earlier than usual. But it remains a tad on the chilly side. 

The cruiseship Ambition docked at a new quay, dubbed the Deep Water Terminal, built over the last few years at a cost of £59 million. This comes hard on the heels of the Newton Marina, built for £5 million between 2019 and 2021. That seems to be a well-used facility. The DWT will not just play host to the 90-odd cruiseliners we're expecting this year (some will still dock alongside the piers in the town centre), but in time, will also receive bulk carriers (for coal and roadsalt). The preparations for that are not yet complete. The DWT has also prompted the double-tracking of the road to Arnish, but I have not yet been down that way to check on progress.

Cruiseliner Ambition

 

Dandelions

Lewis Chemical Works

If you're ever in Stornoway, swing by St Peter's Episcopal Church on Francis Street. It's at the top of the street coming up from An Lanntair on your right hand side. It has a small churchyard with about two dozen graves. Some of them related to the Lewis Chemical Works, an enterprise dating back to the middle of the 19th century, when they tried to convert peat into paraffin.

Gravestone for Henry Caunter

Fairly successful, except it was badly managed. The site, about two miles southwest of Stornoway, just off the A859 road to Tarbert and near the turn-off to Arnish (and its Deep Water Port), is difficult to locate and requires a bit of bog slogging. I've been there, and there is little to remind us of the plant.



Except for this memorial stone

The electricity transmission company SSEN thought it was a good idea to build a huge electricity transformer and converter station there, required to transmit all the renewables-generated power to the mainland, using a direct-current underwater cable. Well, tout Stornoway was up in arms, and today came the news that the site was no longer earmarked for the converter station. Where then? Well, they were thinking about a site near the Fabrication Yard, two miles to the south. We shall see.

Holocaust Memorial Day 2024

 
Today it is 79 years ago since the infamous Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration camp was liberated by Soviet forces. More than a million people, mainly Jews, were killed there during the Second World War. The process was conducted as an industrial process. To date, some of the goods left behind by the victims of the Holocaust remain on display. These include suitcases with name tags, spectacle frames, hair and shoes. I have never visited Auschwitz and am not likely to.

January 27th is Holocaust Memorial Day, remembering all the victims of the Nazi's policy of extermination of all those they considered to be sub-human.

Holocaust Memorial Day remembers all victims of genocide.

We must never forget.

11 January 2005

Nineteen years ago, 11th January started as your usual winter's day in the Islands. But when darkness fell, the wind rose to a screaming crescendo. Stornoway was battered by 100 mph winds, the old school I was staying in at South Lochs shook under the onslaught. Blue flashing lights across the water in Laxay indicated that police had closed the A859 to Tarbert, after a busdriver reported a sheep flying past his window. Power went off for 48 hours in my location, up to 6 days in nearby Sildenis. We all hunkered down in darkness, waiting for the storm to blow itself out. 

Nine am the next morning. Phew, that was a bad one. Roof off here, trees down in the Lews Castle Grounds, boats wrecked at Newton. You got any damage? 

News began to filter north from South Uist. Five members of the same family missing out of Lionacuidhe, on the South Ford. They had fled towards the causeway in two cars, but never arrived. As the winds abated, a search of the Ford, the channel between South Uist and Benbecula, yielded all the missing. Lost to a storm surge the evening before. 

I can never bear to see the faces of the two wee ones lost that night. Or those if their parents and grandfather. 

I'll just post the link to the news report. 

RIP.

Lockerbie - 35 years on

Repost from 2018

July 1981. On my way north with family for the annual holiday. After a late afternoon break in the long journey in Swaledale, we crossed the Scottish border at 6pm. As we headed north up the A74, an all enveloping horror made me lie down on the back seat. I cannot explain what it was about, or why. But after I had given in to my emotion, I looked up again and asked where we were. "Lockerbie", came the answer, and I saw the sign for the A709 turn-off to Lockerbie and Lochmaben flash by.

The same sign that can be seen in the footage from December 1988. The location where parts of the plane came down. Don't ask me to explain the coincidence. I can't. In 1988, I was a student in Holland, and given to watch rubbish on the television. That evening, the Lockerbie images flashed by - and that road sign. A74 Glasgow, the North - A709 Lockerbie, Lochmaben. The documentaries that were shown these past few days were traumatic to watch. The eye witnesses that spoke were moved to tears, even after all those years. I'm no better. May the innocent victims of Lockerbie, from the plane, or on the ground, all rest in peace.