To Ayr is Human




Last Tuesday. It was a lovely day to visit the beach and it really should not have been, because it was still February. Some places in Scotland, and one or two in England and Wales, recorded their highest February temperatures since they began to keep such records. Whether this is simply freak weather or an example of global warming is not 100% certain (as we know, the same period last year was very snowy thanks to the Beast from the East) but the seemingly ever-earlier Springs, plus the recent insane heat recorded in Australia and the storms and tornadoes which affect oceanic regions so frequently tell everyone, other than those who wilfully refuse to accept the evidence, that climate change is real.


Now the photos have uploaded you don't just have to take my word that Ayr, Troon and Kilmarnock (above) were warm and sunny on Tuesday 26 February. Ayr & Troon are in South Ayrshire, where, it seems, you can easily park your car all day for nothing but are expected to pay to use a public toilet. That's a strange choice of priorities and sufficient reason to imply that South Ayrshire isn't doing its very best to combat emissions from vehicles. The toilets aren't even personed, and the machines don't give change, so we parked right on the sea front at Troon for nothing but it cost me 40p to have a wee. Up above, every half a minute or so an aeroplane either took off or landed at Prestwick so there was continual noise and a tendency to duck, as also seen at Altrincham, Luton etc. Aeroplane travel is a huge creator of climate-effecting emissions but it would make no difference if 1, 10 or 20 people didn't take a plane from Prestwick or Luton or Manchester. What we need is for thousands & thousands of folk to reduce the number of journeys they make, in order for fewer planes to take off. All the millions of words written about plastic in the ocean might as well be put into the recycler before they are even printed if those oceans have hundreds of aeroplanes flying over them every day.

 This is a story that caused me some dismay. Giving a company that is already profitable a big wad of our money always seems profligate to me, and on this occasion the whole point seems to be to provide 5 jobs in what is a miserable and cruel business. Of all the things I love about Scotland the way animals are treated isn't one of them. Mountain hares are massacred in the Highlands, grouse are shot by the lorry load on the moors and licences are given to shoot wildfowl in what are supposed to be conservation projects, while grey squirrels are so beyond the pale that it will shortly become illegal to rescue an injured one and release it back into the wild.

Our Westminster MP, David Mundell, is a fool and a scoundrel. His name usually has the stress on the second syllable but an SNP councillor I met the other week makes a point of calling him Mundle, as if he doesn't deserve to have his name pronounced properly. Mundle it is, then. Everyone who has watched the News in the past few months will have seen that the SNP has taken the lead in opposing Brexit in the Commons, yet Mundle this week told the press that this was all a plot and that secretly the SNP wants a no-deal Brexit because that would strengthen the case for independence. I don't believe for a second that Mundle himself believes his own propaganda here, unless Ian Blackford is the finest actor ever to make a speech in the House. A no-deal Brexit would reflect so badly on Westminster that I'm sure it would, indeed, make Scottish independence a popular option, but building a new and prosperous Scotland from the rubble left behind would be much more difficult than starting off as a member of the Single Market and Customs Union, and with industries and businesses not fleeing for the hills.

It's a horrible day today. It's windy, it's cold and it's dreich. That doesn't mean that climate change is in reverse or that it doesn't exist. 

Finally. No Scottish news broadcast is complete without the latest gossip dribbling out of Ibrox or Parkhead. The Chuffington Post hereby declares that the names of Team XXXXXX and Team ZZZZZZ will never appear on these pages. This is a Solemn Promise to the People of Scotland. Here, in contrast, is a clip from today's National featuring my local team, Annan Athletic. I've not seen them win yet but then again I've only been twice to Galabank, and it would be a shame to put a curse on them when the team is on such a good run. By the way, Gretna FC (officially Gretna 2008) are back too, a bit sadder and wiser, in the Lowland League, and all the best to them too.


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