Science centres thrown funding crumbs

We noticed the sad situation where Labour claimed the Glasgow Science Centre was in line for a 40% funding cut. Opposition politicians claimed the centre would see its government funding cut from £1.7 million last year to £1.4 million this year, and that more cuts were planned over the next two years.

Now it seems that Scotland’s four science centres (Edinburgh, Glasgow, Dundee, Aberdeen) are to share £250,000 of extra funding, with the money intended to help primary school teachers improve their skills in physics, engineering and technology. The centres: Edinburgh, Dynamic Earth; Glasgow Science Centre; Dundee, Sensation; Aberdeen, Satrosphere; will each have to apply to the Scottish schools equipment research centre for a share of the funds.

Labour’s culture spokesman Malcolm Chisholm said: “This funding doesn`t cover what Glasgow Science Centre is losing in direct support from the Scottish Government. This is a typical tactic from the SNP – underfunding followed by cash when there’s an outcry.”

Based solely on the numbers, he seems to have a point, and I hate seeing a point that that can be drawn along a political line appearing in here, but I don’t see any way to avoid it – unless we start to get silly and refer to those in power, and those aspiring to be in power.

Norwegian Naval Base Peterhead

We were fortunate to discover the existence of a secret Norwegian Naval Base at Peterhead, operated jointly by the Norwegian Secret Intelligence Service and the Royal Naval Intelligence Service during World War II.

The base was located at the Model Jetty, Port Henry Harbour, Peterhead, and operated fishing cutters, which were used to gather intelligence on shipping, with any information they obtained being forwarded to London.

The base remained classified until 1980.

So far, this is all we have been able to uncover from easily obtained sources, but hope more will come to light, or be offered in future.

Appeal

We received an appeal for additional information from a relative of one of crew members, which we have repeated below:

I am working on a study of the secret intelligence operations carried out by the Norwegian Navy and the British SIS from the Peterhead base in Scotland during WW 2.

The subject of my study is the fate of the Norwegian fishing cutter “MARS” and her crew. They disappeared off the coast of Southern Norway in early April 1942, having just landed two agents who were to set up a secret radio station there.

Specifically, I am interested in any photograps of the base area (ships, personnel, buildings etc) at Model Jetty, Port Henry Harbour, Peterhead. The time from August 1941 to March 1942 is of primary interest.

I have tried (almost) everywhere to find photos of this place, and frankly I think this is my last chance. Therefore, I would be most grateful if any of your readers could help in any way.

PS: My uncle, Olav Hagtvedt, was one of the crew on the “MARS 1″.

Arne O. Hagtvedt

Unfortunately, there is no email or alternative contact information, so any additional information will have to be posted as a comment below.

If you have something you wish to pass on confidentially, you may also use the Contact Form on the Main Site.

Remote and out of touch politicians

When running a business, one of the things that I find extremely irritating is the board of directors that sits in a room remote from the sharp end where the work is done, and issues decrees and opinions which the staff are to follow. While this may be acceptable at the level of setting the strategic aims of the business, it means that the lofty few are not in touch with the detail of the day-to-day operations, or what the little people are doing. This means that most tactical directives they issue sound good, but lack any practical understanding of their implications or feasibility. They do, however, provide ample opportunity for criticism of their minions, and shifting of blame for any failure from the board room to the shop floor.

I was reminded of this when I read a BBC Scotland news item regarding a call by MSPs for “‘urgent’ action to improve ferry services to deliver a modern, efficient network”. That introduction corresponded with the board of directors issuing their “wisdom from on high”, and was expanded with:

Holyrood’s Transport Committee said government-owned operator Caledonian MacBrayne should extend the sailing day to help commuters.

Its report also called for improved co-ordination between ferry arrivals and rail and bus services.

The Scottish Government said the findings were a welcome contribution to its forthcoming review.

The Ferry Services in Scotland report said a long-term strategy was needed.

The report said: “The committee believes that a situation where a train departs as ferry passengers walk down a station platform to get onboard is completely unacceptable.”

It carries on with more of the same, which is detailed in the original item.

I don’t want to quote or analyse the rest, since analysing the detail isn’t really the aim of this post.

What is relevant is the observation that anyone who does not live on one of Scotland’s islands, and is not dependent on the lifeline ferry services connection them to the mainland, will think that that this report is full of wise words and sagacious advice for the ferry operators, passengers, and associated transport providers – and in many ways they would be right.

What they will not realise however, and only those of us that depend on the ferries and follow the endless to-ing and fro-ing of claim and counter-claim by operator and passenger, and the (currently) practical impracticality of integrating the ferry, train, and bus timetables in the real world, is that all the fine proposals made in the report have been bouncing back and forth between the various interested parties for years, and are currently being revived in various forms at the moment. Although it has to be said that the result is little different from past confrontations, and those on each side of the table seem to be doomed to remain hostile to any proposals made by the other, and have already seen one recent meeting end with one of the parties walking out of the meeting.

Unless the Scottish Governement does something more useful to change the operating environment and rules, then this report is little more than a paper exercise, and nothing will change.

I’m not knocking the report, it’s probably full of good ideas. The problem is that anyone who’s watched the ferries for the past few decades will have seen it all before, and nothing’s really changed – same complaints, same solutions, same endless debate.

Justice for some

In a story that has a remotely personal connection regarding its subject, a woman from Alloa who became her school dux at Alva Academy in Clackmannanshire has received her medal for the achievement, and only 65 years after she achieved the position.

The delay was caused by the intervention of the war, when the metal that would have been used to create the medal was needed for munitions manufacture.

Instead of a medal she was given a £5 note and told to buy “something nice”.

The academy later noted the omission, and the the medal was finally presented at a special award ceremony, where she was unaware of the real reason, having been been told the invitation was to see her grandson receive an award.

The personal connection?

One of Muggins few achievements was dux. The only problem was he did it a year too late, and the school had cancelled the title, medal, and award as being ‘elitist’ or some such similar problem that made it unpalatable in the political climate of the time.

While I didn’t get a fiver, the headmaster and teachers didn’t seem too pleased, and I did walk away with a book to mark the occasion – Three Great Adventure Stories.

One thing’s for sure, since it was cancelled, this story doesn’t mean I now have to wonder about any unexpected invitations I receive to other people’s awards

New alert system saves fisherman

We picked up the story of a tourist being saved when using a personal position indicator and alarm system to alert rescuers to his distress.

In a similar sort of situation, a fisherman and his crew owe their lives to a new RNLI designed system which automatically alerts rescuers when its owner enters the water. The device is currently either fitted, or due to be fitted to some eighty Scottish fishing boats, and can be used to kill the vessel’s engine if a lone fisherman falls overboard.

The MOB Guardian unit used satellite technology to give rescuers and up-to-date position of the vessel in distress – and I’m not going past that quote of how the system is reported to work this time, right or wrong, the Beeb’s account is all you get unless you want to study it in depth: the MOB Guardian. Well, keeping away from the satellite side of things, you wear the dongle shown above and, if you fall in the water, the radio link it maintains with the onboard base unit is broken, and the alarm is sent to the rescue services.

Suffice to say that the RNLI found the crew fifty minutes after the device activated, treading water as their boat had gone so quickly they were unable to deploy the life raft.

Yours for as little as £315 + VAT

Veterans Day commemorates Scots

We’ve reported on the forthcoming end of some events that mark significant dates for members of the armed forces, and this is simply because those involved are diminishing in number, and are now far from young, meaning that the journey, which could be across the world from where they now live, is too great a strain.

Veterans Day is is a national event, in part intended to raise public awareness, and acknowledges about half a million veterans still living in Scotland.

Glasgow marks the event for the first time today, and expects to see about 500 ex-servicemen and women attend a rally in the city. Events will also take place in Aberdeen, Inverness and Kelso.

Further information can be found on the Veterans Day web site.

See Rothesay, See Alcatraz

It’s often said that the so-called War Against Terrorism has already been lost because we’re now shooting one another, locking people up without trial, and sleepwalking into a surveillance society marked by CCTV and Identity Cards that mean no-one in Britain is really “free” any longer (unless they’re criminals that ignore the law anyway – they can do as they please). Now we have the insanity of Government legislation on the security of ports and the people and ships that use them.

Time was that you could get up in the morning and amble off to Bute/Rothesay for the day without much pre-planning, then “security” and undisclosed Government security requirements brought us “shore ticketing. Previously you just arrived and drove on to the ferry and bought your tickets from the Purser during the crossing, now you have to turn up early enough to buy your tickets from the ticket office on land, and there’s a whole raft of new rules and regulations that came along with that change too, which the unwary or inexperienced can fall foul of.

Now, it seems that Rothesay pier is to be permanently closed to the public by an eight foot high security fence topped with barbed wire, and it’s due to be installed mid-August, the busiest time of the year as the Bute Highland Games take place then. The fence will stretch from the Albert Pier to the moorings, with gaps for passengers and vehicles.

The fence will be supported by 3-metre tall steel posts, spaced at 3 metre intervals, carrying welded mesh steel sheets 2.5 metres high, and topped of by three strands of barbed wire.

The fence is said to be needed to comply with the Department of Transport’s ‘Transec’ policy on the protection of passengers, ports and shipping.

The question of Planning Permission for the installation was raised, but brought the response that it would probably be classified as “permitted development”.

Councillor Isobel Strong added: “I think this is security gone mad. Do the powers that be think that Rothesay is in the forefront of international terrorism, and that a high fence with barbed wire is necessary?”

Brian Fulton, Caledonian MacBrayne’s regional manager for Bute, said the decisions on the need for the fence and its erection and design had been taken without any involvement from the company.

(Maybe it’s all a horrible mistake, and it’s just a leaked proposal to protect the islanders from the drunken neds that think they can arrive on the island and behave as they please.)

Visit the Buteman web site, where you can read the full Outrage at Rothesay pier fence plan story and register to pass an opinion on this “wisdom”.

Jawbones return to North Berwick Law

I had occasion to visit North Berwick a few years ago, and despite numerous return trips at the time, was never able to make the time to have a wander up to the top of Berwick Law and have a look at the whale’s jawbone arch that I could see there.

The visits ended, but I didn’t realise the opportunity to visit the arch had gone as well. The arch is reported to have been replaced three times since 1709, and the most recent incarnation was removed amid safety fears in 2005, having been there for about 70 years.

It seems that the hike up the hills is back on the agenda again, as the bone items are to be replaced by a wood, fibreglass, and steel replica which will be placed on the hilltop, using a helicopter to transport the new version which weighs in at 560 kg and stands 6.5 metres (21 ft) high.

Unlike its predecessors, which might have been considered to have been “free”, the new arch cost around £20,000 and was donated by an anonymous friend of North Berwick, who has earned the thanks of all those who missed the original, and felt the hilltop to be bare without the established marker.

The site figured as the centre of an April 1 prank in 2007, when the empty arch location was provided with a “new” arch made of plastic pipes held together with duct tape.

Picture from 2000 © Kevin Rae.

Changing face of Oban waterfront

I make no apologies for being referred to as unimaginative in some respects, but there are some things where I think that change for the sake of change, following a trend, modernising, or redevelopment are just not wanted. It’s probably a symptom of suffering from the disease of “If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it!”

I always feel the alarm bells ringing when I see headlines relating to attractions that include words like “redevelopment”, “upgrade”, “rejuvenate”, “transform”, “prestigious”, “first-class”, and “dilapidated”.

All to often these words appear when there’s a plan growing to trash somewhere that has been around too long, and has fine historic features that the everyone knows and likes, but that the developers want to have flattened so they can get some new build crammed into the space, shoehorn in some white uPVC windows, and smother the place in that damned block paving that has come to make every town and village look like as if it has been cloned.

Oban waterfront is the most recent to come in for this treatment, yet it seems like a only a few years ago I was standing on the pier as the building there were coming down around me to be replaced by something new. Then there’s the fairly sad shopping centre centre beside the ferry terminal, not all that old, but looking much like any other low-level version of the same building that came out of the same computer aided design package that was all the rage a few years ago. Thank goodness for the old building and the tower on top of the hill that still give you a clue as to where you are.

The owners of the Columba Hotel have been given approval by the council to carry out upgrading of the hotel to 4 star status, and rejuvenate the north pier. This sounds ok, but I worry when I then read that the plans would see the nearby Museum of War and Peace transformed into a corporate function and dining facility. Well, that’s fine so long as the museum remains the main purpose of the building, and not a charitable “hanger on” that gets in the way of corporate functions, and sees itself thrown out onto the street in a few years. The museum is listed, so approval for the plan will need to be sought from Historic Scotland.

We do need to stop things from becoming dilapidated, but my concern is that I don’t see the front of Oban at that stage yet (there’s plenty of places around the coast I could point to that are absolutely decrepit in spots), but similarly, don’t want to see it go that way either, so early action is to be applauded. I’d rather see it better described though, an still worry that once the prestigious developers move in to improve the public face of the town and enhance and rejuvenate it, all the quaint and historic features might be swept away to make the place “tidy”.

Best laid plans

One of my pet hates in my life as a project manager was the director or boss that insisted on having a project timeline drawn up with major milestones and dates that had to be met “or else”. My gripe is not with the milestones, but with those people who insisted on them being set, then insisted on them being brought forward to make them look good – they had to be seen to be “moving things along”, and keeping the project “on track”. Of course, had they been barred from the whole thing, it would have run more smoothly, met the original milestones, and not have to have been repeatedly rescheduled to compensate for their interference – but then they wouldn’t have been able to stand up and announce how the they had  “fixed things” and kept the plan from being even later than it was now going to be.

We mentioned that the Pentalina catamaran was due to arrive in Scotland at the end of May, or shortly thereafter, now we need to correct that. She’s still at FBMA Marine’s yard at Cebu in the Philippines, awaiting more equipment, and is now expected to leave the yard early next month, and arrive here about 28 days later. Things look good, and she is also reported to have successfully completed her sea trials.

Announcing plans is a necessary evil that can’t be avoided, but I always think it’s something best done in a flexible and non-committal way. That way, no-one can notice your “best laid plans” haven’t quite hit the mark.