Deadly fun

I don’t mind admitting to the odd jest, and the couching of some remarks in cynical or sarcastic terms, and, provided they’re not directed at an individual (which they’ll never be) then there’s no harm. I was in a mood to ‘pen’ something  along those lines this morning, but mellowed and lost the will after reading the minutes of a local meeting.

The fun started when I read the Traffic Warden (is that the correct title they used nowadays?) from Dunoon was going to be brought over to the island (provided they can get a ferry able to take the weight of his armoured car), to deal with ‘Parking Problems’. The first thought here was simply: Why? The island’s police drive up and down the streets all day. Are they afraid to get out of their comfy cars and deal with errant drivers on the spot? Better to spend their time educating people, shaming them in public, and (most importantly) making sure that whatever time they thought they might have saved by abandoning their vehicles is lost by being cornered and lectured by a police officer. That’s what you do when you run a Police Service. When you run a Police Force, then you get Enforcement Officers in to issue fines and penalties, and don’t try to educate the offender, just hit their wallet.

The wallet brings me to the reason my mood changed.

Being in the fortunate position of not suffering from diabetes or the need to use the services of a kidney dialysis machine, it was more than a little surprising to learn that in 2008 an island like Bute does not posses a dialysis machine within its medical facilities. I find it an appalling failure on the part of the local Authority, Health Board or whatever that this situation exists, and that people who feel (and are) miserably ill, and suffering the effects of the daily build up of toxins in their bodies then have to get up at a ridiculously early hour in the morning to catch a ferry, travel to to the mainland, spend the day being treated, and then repeat the journey back home at night. And all that depends on the weather, which is not always favourable, and the timing of the ferry (and other transport) to meet their appointments.

There’s little to be said about that state of affairs, there are claims that the situation is being addressed, and that the provision of dialysis on the is being costed and reviewed. Big Deal! As I read it, no-one should hold their breath waiting, since there’s clearly nothing serious in the pipeline if comments that suggest the dialysis unit would be a good thing to have on the island because it could provide a service for holidaymakers and “bring a cash bonus to the town“. Stuff the town’s purse! – what about those in need of dialysis now? Trying to sell the availability of a dialysis machine as tourist attraction and money spinner – is that a covert hint that someone knows there’s plans and no chance of a machine arriving on the island in the foreseeable future?

What I find sad is the juxtaposition of the two items: while what seems to me to be something that is essential is lost in bureaucratic discussions, doomed to be talked to death while those that could benefit are in similar danger, it also seems that it takes little more than an nod to redistribute other resources to maintain some bad policing and traffic management. Although, there is always the fact that that can generate a few pounds, allows the authorities to have yet another kick at their favourite target, and have the little revenue generator in place in time for the arrival of their first unsuspecting tourists, unaware of the ‘Man in Yellow’s’ conscientious approach to his work.

It’s obvious, the unions know best

How stupid we’ve been, allowing the likes of the Scottish Executive, various ferry operators, and even MPs representing the passenger’s constituencies, to specify a brief for the west coast’s lifeline ferry services. They may be judged inept, but at least they’ve some degree of public accountability.

Not like the unions, who’ve now popped their heads above the water, declared the tendering process a shambles, and surprise, surprise, decided that the penalty system that might actually make their members work hard enough to raise a pulse, is Draconian and excessive.

They should go crawl under a stone, or more appropriately, Run Silent, Run Deep, and give us all peace. This has nothing to do with them, and is just preliminary groundwork for establishing wage claims in future, once the tendering process and its result (if there ever is one before we all expire from old age) have settled, and they can begin squealing about all the ‘extra work and responsibilities’ there hard pressed members have forced to accept as a result.

I don’t like unions nowadays, and not because I’ve employed people. That was in an industry that didn’t have unions, and we got on fine without their ‘help’.

I don’t like them because when I started working, they kept popping up and trying to make sure I couldn’t work. Unless, I submitted to their blackmail, and met their ransom demands, cough,cough, er, dues.

I used to do regular work in the shipyards, annual contract work. It amounted to a few weeks in total, and to use their parlance, didn’t take away another man’s livelihood since they was no-one employed in the yards with the required skills. Nonetheless, neither I nor my colleagues could get in the door or touch a thing until we’d met with the local mafia boss, and presented fully paid up membership cards of the appropriate union.

Apart from having our pockets lightened by the annual dues (for which we couldn’t get the unused portion refunded), and having a blessing to allow us to work, we never got any other benefits. I doubt we’d have seen the workers on yards being called out in solidarity had we complained about working 12 hour plus shifts, or not getting overtime, travel mileage or time in lieu while we were working, there, or been threatened with the sack for walking off site having done our hours, and refusing to work the overtime to get the job finished.

Nope, I came to the conclusion that the unions were just a bunch of self-appointed bully-boys long before I ever employed anyone, and was barely being employed myself.

In truth, there’s probably a lot of very good small unions out there, that never make the news headlines, never come up with crazy demands or proposals, and do a pretty fair job for the folk that join them.

The problem comes when they’re allowed to grow too big and too powerful, and don’t really represent the little people that need their help, and think they have a say in affairs that have bugger all to do with them.

Now, I’ve no doubt that there are some folk that love unions, (and some of them might not even be running them too) but I  can never quite work out why, if there’s always a union spokesperson on hand delivering the stock “We have no intention of disrupting or upsetting members of the public as a result of the current action we have been forced to take”, that action always seem to take place just as the holiday rush is about to start, or some other significant event is just around the corner.

Take the last ferry strike, only a few years back, taking place just in nice time to make sure folk were in danger of being trapped on (or off) the island over Christmas and the New Year, and called off just before the most critical sailing days would have been lost.

I think I’ll buy a nice wee rowing boat, and move up the north end.

That’s not amusing

There’s always a killjoy, and they’ve usually got a happy (unhappy?) band of like-minded killjoys in tow as well.

Spotting a news item about the possible return of an amusement arcade into the former home of a similar establishment in the Palace Amusements of many years ago, I thought it would be nice to see a bit of Rothesay’s former 1960s and 1970s appearance that I remembered resurfacing, albeit in a new guise. Of course, that reckons without Mr and Mrs Miserable. From this week’s Buteman, a story of discontent:

Local councillors have granted planning permission for a new amusement arcade in Rothesay – but their decision has been branded “an absolute disgrace” by objectors.

Captain Charles Lunny and his wife Moira, two objectors who attended Tuesday’s meeting, submitted two letters objecting to the plan, one of which was accompanied by a petition with eight signatures.

Said Mr Lunny afterwards: “It was an absolute disgrace – there wasn’t even a debate.

“We don’t feel that our councillors represented us on this issue at all. There’s been no consideration of the surrounding people – it was a foregone conclusion.”

I’n not going to use the ‘I’ word, but the paper might have given us a clue as to how long the good Captain (do you automatically smell a rat when someone uses a title like that?) and fellow petitioners have lived here? Or, are we just sailing in nimby territory?

The flip side

Without saying who (it should be obvious) calls for penalties and constraints on CalMac’s operation in order to satisfy the personal wants and desires (I can’t bring myself to include the terms needs in that phrase) may sound like a quick fix towards getting the operator to comply, but such methods generally come with a downside, and this weeks Buteman carries a story that shows how this can come about.

While someone will no doubt be walking around with a smug grin on their face at their accomplishment, and patting themselves on the back, the picture of life under the ‘performance driven regime’ which Bute’s ferry services will operate from later this year was painted with a more realistic brush in the paper’s article.

Picture the scene. It’s the weekend of the Isle of Bute Jazz Festival in May 2008, and five hundred people are waiting to board MV Bute at Wemyss Bay. With room for 450 passengers, the ship should be able to take almost all the expectant travellers, perhaps leaving five minutes late as a result.Instead she sails on time, with only two hundred people on board and the rest left, angry and frustrated, to wait for the next sailing.

“Harsh, unyielding and inappropriate” was how Mr Timms described the planned performance regime, which will see CalMac fined for every time the ferry sails late for reasons within their control.

There’s a small, but as usual, vociferous minority that likes nothing better to pick on CalMac, find fault, call for the imposition of penalties, and all but claim they (or anyone else for that matter) could run a ferry service better and more economically than the incumbent. Of coure, they get to do that from a position of safety, cosseted in their armchairs, and in no danger of carrying any responsiblity or having to answer for any changes their pressure brings about.

Occasionally, I wish it was actually possible for CalMac, its managers, and its staff to hang up their jackets for a year, and hand the keys over to those who Know Better and let them got on with it.

If they actually did do any better (by any means other than splashing cash) I’d gladly swim between the island and mainland each week, instead of getting the ferry. Oops, and offer made from the safety of my armchair, confident in the knowledge It’ll Never Happen!

Tender dies

First the tendering process floundered, then it drowned, and now it has died.

The net result has been to spend a load of the taxpayer’s wedge on this largely pointless exercise, to satisfy the usual vocal minority, and find out what everyone else already knew without having to spend a penny: nobody wants to run ferry services if they also have satisfy ‘lifeline’ operating criteria. Commercial operator’s aren’t daft, they like to make their money without too much hassle, and have ‘headed for the hills’ leaving the tender to the incumbent CalMac, after seeing how that operator is treated by its customers. Looking at some of the stories, one might be forgiven for thinking the Lord of Darkness was running the company.

Granted, NO ferry operator’s going to be PERFECT, running a service that depends on the weather, sea conditions and ferry uptime is guaranteed to be problematic, but there’s a whole load of tripe reported about the operation of the ferry, which is destructive, as it diverts attention from more critical issues. Most will be familiar with the Bute Ferry User’s Group, formed a few years ago when a select few lost their ‘free’ parking spaces at Wemyss Bay. I’d say more, but have to be able to walk past certain folk daily in the street, and still keep a straight face and talk to them, but the group’s occasional reports do make amusing reading. I wouldn’t necessarily say they were stuck for things to complain about while they work to get their parking spaces back, but last month’s report that required an answer from CalMac’s representative with regard to teabags will give you an idea. In complete ignorance of the changing world between the time the last and the current ferries that carried the name Bute, someone saw fit to have a dig at the new vessel by pointing out it carried less passengers than its predecessor. DUH! How many travellers turned up in cars when the previous vessel was built, and how many turn up on foot today? Yes. Ferry passengers can be sure of competent representation from BFUG. Do visit the BFUG site, as it carries a fully detailed report they carried out analysing CalMac’s perfomance today, and considering whether or not it represents value for money when compared to its past history. The finding of this report was… well, make a guess before going for a look, and try not to be influenced by knowing who prepared it.

Monday, 29 January 2007 V Ships pulls out of ferry tender

Tuesday, 15 November 2005 Strong interest in CalMac routes

Wednesday, 14 September 2005 CalMac tender plans win backing

Tuesday, 13 September 2005 CalMac tender plans to go ahead

Friday, 9 September 2005 Pension concern over ferry tender

Monday, 18 July, 2005 CalMac tendering ‘must go ahead’

Wednesday, 8 December, 2004 Executive loses vote on ferries

Thursday, 2 September, 2004 Further delay over CalMac tender

Paved gardens = flooding!

Looking at Rothesay’s rather damp appearance last week reminded me of an unusual, but probably not very surprising (once you think about it), cause of flooding that has been identified in very recent years.

Paved gardens and driveways.

The popularity of these has grown dramatically as we have become more affluent. More households now have more than one car owner, and the roads are getting busier, making street parking more awkward, especially if the council lends a hand and donates some yellow paint around said streets in an attempt to (supposedly – see Dunoon’s current fiasco) keep them clear for traffic. Add to this most families reluctance to spend their leisure hours toiling away in their gardens, and it’s easy to see why many gardens and drives are being paved over to provide multiple car parking spaces for the owner.

The unforeseen problem that stems from this ‘improvement’ is increased strain on an already sewage/drainage system, built to cope only with run off from the road. Nowadays it is being stressed not only be its age and design, but by a steadily increasing annual rainfall quota, and this significant increase is a matter of Met Office records over the years, not just some environmentalists opinion. The problem has now been found to be significantly aggravated due to the loss of drainage that used to be effected by gardens and unpaved driveways. Instead of soaking away through these routes, excess rainwater is running off these newly paved area, and into the street drainage. It doesn’t take much imagination to realise that these old systems will quickly have whatever excess capacity they once had being taken up by today’s increased rainfall. Add to this the additional input from formerly unaccounted for paved driveway and garden run off, and it’s not too too hard to see how quickly the sewage/drainage system will be overcome, and local flooding will occur.

So, next time you’re walking around the town and its outskirts, make a mental note of how much former greenery has been lost to paving in both public (in the name of ‘improvement’) and private areas, and consider that water that would formerly have made its way away through that route is now being diverted into the drains.

Same old same old

Ambling through this week’s Dunoon Observer, one line caught my eye…
The chairman of the Area Committee, Councillor Brian Chennell, said:
“Dunoon is unique; it’s the only part of Argyll and Bute from where it’s feasible to commute to Glasgow”
I reckon there might be a fair few folk will take issue with that one!

However, the quote continued…
“assuming, of course that we can get a transport system in place where the boats and trains actually connect with each other.”
I reckon there will be a fair few folk agreeing with that one!

Not much point in discussing the real aim of the meeting where…
“They met to discuss a proposal to link Dunoon to the National Park as a ‘gateway’, in an effort to rejuvenate the town.”

Since it came down to the usual…
“The only common factor among those attending the meeting was the need to retain and improve the vehicle/passenger ferry from the railhead into the town centre.”

Billy Twigger’s recovery

There’s been a couple of updates while I’ve been away from the small screen, so I’ll just pass them on for anyone that may be concerned (and, I’m not the “me” referred to):-

Dec 15, 2006: Ewan’s Dad contacted me at the end of November. He is extremely grateful and impressed by the response from the geocaching community.

Ewan is, mercifully, sharp mentally and quite philosophical about his new circumstances. The family will, however, need to move house to accomodate his needs. He is learning how to use a wheelchair and has come on immeasurably since the accident.

Oh – and it’s worth pointing out that the funds raised for Spinal Injuries Scotland stand now at £230, not counting what Mandy has raised through the sale of the geocaching calendar. The Hogmanay Hang Out event in Edinburgh on December 30th will also likely raise a good sum of money which will be donated to the spinal injuries unit where Ewan is currently receiving help.

Dec 24, 2006: Ewan’s family received their geocaching calendar, courtesy of Us 4 and Jess and are very grateful! Ewan knows all about the Hogmanay bash and has asked to thank everybody involved.

There have been ups and downs. He has struggled with terrible pain and most recently a nasty bout of pneumonia. However, he has improved a lot in the last few days, but he still has a long way to go before he can return home.

Ewan hopes that some of his Geocaching pals will be able to visit him next year. His wife wants to thank the Geocaching community for their kind wishes, letters and messages. She and his sons are very touched by everyone’s kindness.

I can sympathise with the above, to an extent, having been a carer for some years, and appreciate the long way the family yet has to go. It truly does give a new insight into the phrase One day at a time.

Tender on, and on…

Spotting the revival (again?) of references to tendering of ferry services, an attempt at a quick read through the related article in the Dunoon Observer doesn’t really ro much to clear the water, or help to separate the emotion from the politic from the reality… everyone seems to have an agenda or issue, and no-one really seems to care about the passengers.

See the 15 December 2006 issue for the background.

Well, that’s my take on it, and I wouldn’t like to be dependent on the outcome, however long it takes to arrive.

It begins to look like one of those scenarios where the only way to get anywhere is to ditch everything ‘over the side’ as it were, and make a fresh start on a clean piece of paper – and that’s not going to happen. So, there’s going to be years of to-ing and fro-ing, argument and counter-argument, point and counterpoint, and the passengers will continue to shuttle back and forth as pawns.

Given that the unsubsidised carrier charges the same as the subsidised carrier, my eye was drawn to one quote in the article, which maybe sums things up “Western Ferries’ profitability is at the level most Scottish companies would kill to achieve. It is very firmly established.”

And another, Captain Sandy Ferguson said that he had been working for Western Ferries as a ship’s master when they operated the Islay route. “They got a lucrative offer from Mexico for the Isle of Jura, which was operating the run at the time, and they sold her and left the people of Islay in the lurch. “Don’t pretend they’re doing it for the community- they’re doing it for the money – that’s why they’re here and not on Islay.”

Kind of reminds me of one of my engineer’s favourite quotes whenever we sat down and tried to work how to make our workshop more efficient, “You know, we’d be able to run this place a lot better if it wasn’t for the customers”.

MV Loch Shira takes to the water

Just to follow up an earlier mention of a new arrival on the Clyde, the launch of the new Largs/Cumbrae took place on Friday, November 8, 2006.

Given the weather condition on the Clyde over the past few days, with nearby services being disrupted and cancelled, the launch was fortunate to have been able to take place in good conditions, allowing guest and photographers to enjoy the event.

A short selection of pictures of the event has been provided by CalMac.