In today’s letters to The Courier editor, discussion focuses on the need for public spending cuts, a peace dance, a heavy dose of scepticism, traffic in Cupar, Scottish Natural Heritage and the Gaza flotilla.
Government must introduce draconian cuts
Sir,-Chancellor George Osborne has pledged a fundamental reassessment of the way government works and has outlined plans to involve the public in making cuts. Passing the buck, not least to the public and a covering of backsides by government is the last thing this country now needs.
All such a plan will do will be to create yet more bureaucracy and a wasting of time. With a requirement for austerity to get this country back on its feet, what is needed is decisive, urgent and draconian government action.
Dither, and the consequences could be even worse. Meanwhile, New Labour, given the debt-ridden mess they have left this country, in should now be doing hard Labour.
Neil McKinnon.Tulchan Garden,Glenalmond.
Embrace of peace banned
Sir,-I am a dancing master and one of the dances I teach could be called the Dance of Peace and Friendliness. It is actually called the Cecelia Almain. It dates from 1600 and involves two circles of people, an inner and an outer, with equal numbers in each circle.
Among the evolutions of the dance is one where you embrace a member of the other circle. As the dance is progressive, given enough time, all members of the other circle would be embraced.
Perhaps the dance should be a used at United Nations conferences. The embrace used is that which the French use in place of shaking hands when meeting someone and is often seen being used by heads of state when greeting each other.
However, whenever I have suggested this dance be used in a school, the teachers have banned it, invariably.
R. A. Lambie.Bountree Hall,Glenfarg.
Wrong type of spirits?
Sir,-So Montrose air station is a spooky haunt of weird radios and paranormal sightings, not to mention the daft ‘anomalous magnetic fields’ conjured up by the Scottish Ghost Club.
Glenn Miller my foot. More like Glenmorangie. The bottled spirits are more likely to be the source of unusual happenings.
As for the old Pye radio, it’s the other kind of pie in the sky we have here, complete with phantom footsteps and ghostly pilots.
Yes, a good attraction for the heritage centre as well as harmless hype but my feet are firmly on the ground and my sceptic’s brain not in the clouds on flights of fancy.
I’m sure those folk who thought they saw, felt and heard these strange things were sincere in retelling them. My instinct is to look for the hard evidence.
Maybe I’ll pay a visit with my hypeometer switched on with its battery fully charged and live.
Terry Martin.Scottish Skeptics Society,Coupar Angus Road,Blairgowrie.
It’s time to bypass Cupar
Sir,-Want proof that you can’t please all of the people all of the time? Then look no further than Cupar.
Recently, the regularly traffic-jammed through road, Bonnygate, was closed because a building was being demolished.
‘Ruination’ claimed the shopkeepers as traffic was reduced to a trickle and takings slumped by up to 80%, it was claimed.
‘Wonderful’ said the mostly old and less than agile pedestrians as, for the first time in living memory, they could actually go slowly across Bonnygate without the certainty of being maimed or killed by a vehicle.
The answer is obviously a bypass of Cupar to end the traffic chaos but that’s been on the cards for years and no-one, it seems, can come to a decision.
Mind you, this could mean a recycling of the recent situation — a concerted chorus of complaints from the shopkeepers and joy from the pedestrians. Like I say, you can’t please all of the people all the time.
Ian Wheeler.Springfield,Cupar.
Threat to our wildlife
Sir,-Irish visitors fishing Loch Leven on Sunday witnessed two sad incidents while passing St Serf’s Island. The first was a brood of some 10 shellducks being attacked by black-backed gulls.
The parent ducks tried in vain to save them but were overwhelmed.
Minutes later, a brood of greylag goslings suffering the same fate.
This sort of carnage occurs on most reserves where either SNH or the RSPB are custodians.
The eider duck colony on the Ythan Estuary is another example, where 10,000 ducklings hatch and fewer than 100 survive.
Surely it is time for a thorough government inquiry into SNH, its purpose and its cost to the taxpayer.
When urban academics pull on their green wellies, Scotland’s wildlife needs to be afraid, very afraid.Michael C. Smith.Threapmuir Farm,Cleish,Kinross.
Don’t back terrorism
Sir,-The Palestinian flag is raised and flies over Dundee (June 14). Am I alone in thinking that the treatment of “humanitarian aid activists” on their way to Gaza reflects the treatment of yobs who cause havoc in quiet streets and, when remonstrated with by an irate householder, provoke him or her to an action that results in the householder being cautioned or, indeed, arrested, as has been recorded many times in recent years?
The fundamentals of the conflict remain. Israel has been attacked by Arabs for more than 60 years. The government of Gaza, Hamas, has the destruction of Israel written into its constitution.
After withdrawing from Gaza to further the moves towards peace, Israel was rewarded by thousands of rockets being fired into Israel from Gaza.
How proportionate would be the reaction of a Dundee citizen if a few rockets landed in his front garden?
Supporters of the terrorists of Hamas are themselves terrorists.Andrew Lawson.9 MacLaren Gardens,Dundee.