Seventy-four years ago, on the 6th August 1945, the United States, with the consent of the United Kingdom, dropped an atomic bomb on the Japanese city of Hiroshima, killing up to 80,000 people with over 70,000 people injured and dying from radiation sickness in the following weeks and months. The city was destroyed and over 100,000 people died from the bomb named “Little Boy”. Three days later the US dropped “Fat Man” atomic bomb on Nagasaki in Southern Japan, killing nearly 100,000 people – the majority of which were civilians. People across the world say never again. Every year, groups across Scotland, and the globe, holdRead More →

We are verily indeed the victim of the old Chinese Curse “May you live in interesting times”, as the political situation gets more and more complicated. However at the end of the day, Scotland can feed itself, has vast amounts of fresh water, a scarce commodity in today’s world, ample producers of alcohol, and enough energy to not only power Scotland but to sell energy to England. We also have a bright and gifted population and a good National Health Service. What we do need is more of that population, and we face a shortage of young people; our moves in that endeavour are frustratedRead More →

I have no idea how the cinemas choose what they show and in which size of cinema room. One presumes it has something to do with film budget and distributors enticement, not to mention ability to put bums on seats and intake in ticket money and over priced eats and drinks. Therefore I was puzzled at so many cinemas initially refusing to show it. If we want to see small interest films like ‘Wind that shakes the barley’ or ‘Black 47’, we tend to take a trip into the Belmont cinema in Aberdeen. They do lots of films the bigger companies don’t touch. Nowhere thisRead More →

I was a week late in submitting this article due to a culmination of events over the course of a week that had left me rather time short so Stephen was kind enough to swap weeks with me. It started with Wick Harbour Day which is the main fundraising source of income for Wick RNLI. My job is to man the ice cream stall – hectic in a heatwave but still busy in a downpour as children always want ice cream regardless of the weather! This year it was misty; as I left my house on the north eastern edge of Wick Bay to walkRead More →