OhFio

 I intended to re-write this in a more accessible form by hey ho just didn't get the time and as Scot Gov tend to not publish responses they dont like thought I wouldn't take that chance.  Consultation Submission on the proposals to implement HPMAs in Scottish waters. General Observations and comments on the proposals : Please note that the responses below are to be taken as responses to all questions relating to all parts of the consultation and not confined to policy framework and site selection guidelines questions only. I most strongly and vehemently oppose the proposals for HMPAs in Scottish waters. As a professional fisheries representative having worked with Scottish government and Marine Scotland for over 10 years to build professional, evidenced, transparent processes towards inclusive, consensus driven and stakeholder-invested decision making, I have never seen a worse presentation of a consultation. I was part of the original process, building of the initial...

Bobby Grierson- Fantastic Human 'Oh to be here where no dark stain interrupted our lives, we were unfettered and unleashed... young and free with no cares.' (from one of Bobby's last fb posts) I was aware of Bobby first in 1976. Because always, Bobby stood out in a crowd. It was matriculation day at Edinburgh College of Art 1976. The aquiline nose and chin pushing the world out of its way was followed by  a long mop of (sorry Bobby, mousey) Marc Bolan curls. Skin tight jeans to the knee flared to the floor, and a flowing coat. (Aye yi definitley hid flares - dinnae deny it) Bobby had already had a working life before ECA as a lab technician in Cumnock. But like many of us from the small judgemental Scottish towns there was an exciting city world that beckoned. He went to FE college to get the entry qualifications for ECA and was thrown in with a mix of folk and hangers on that would change the cultural and political life of Scotland forever. Bobby w...

My Utopian dream for the New Scotland is to be liberated from the tyranny of stuff. If you have ever had to crawl around the floor and contort yourself to reach into the gunk-filled areas of your home and investigate murky folding sofa beds to retrieve the item known as the ‘Polly pocket’, then you will begin to know what I mean. I sit amid a claustrophobic accumulation of stuff and wonder how this nylon and fake velvet coup happened. I can just remember the far off days when each room of the house, bought with the innocence of those days as a 20 year home not a financial investment, echoed with uncarpeted emptiness. I am to blame for the second hand kitch that began the clutter, but that came from an obsession with getting bargains and rescuing ‘must have’ flying duck sets from such emporia as the cancer shop in Stockbridge. I confess to losing the plot when I insisted in shipping, like so much emotional baggage, a deadweight of an enormous second hand piano from the Area 7 warehouse ...