Issue 23

Countless Arran people will remember the night when the Russian Rachmaninov String Quartet played their first-ever Scottish concert in the crammed Douglas Hotel. Since then, two of their players have remained in close contact. Lev Atlas, a fabulous violinist, has played here many times, always to everyone’s delight. Sasha Volpov, a consummate master of the cello, is in great demand, but the Arran Music Society has succeeded in booking him for Saturday, December 15th, in Brodick Hall.

The concert is a lunch-time one, beginning at 1.30pm. This is so that people do not have to drive after dark in winter weather.

John Cruikshank

On Friday 14th December at 7.00 pm in Whiting Bay Hall, a Christmas concert will feature two contrasting singing groups, Ain’t Misbehavin’ and Vivace, both of which originate in Whiting Bay. They are joined by local author and poet Alison Prince who, as we all know, was the scriptwriter for the BBC’s Trumpton, and also by James Burge with songs and guitar and Pat Eyres singing with a children’s group.

We are delighted to have retired prison governor, Robbie Glen, as our Compère. As everyone who has heard him will know, Robbie is a very amusing raconteur who has travelled internationally, speaking at dinners and Burns Suppers. He alone is worth coming to hear - and the rest of us are pretty good too! Members of the audience will also be invited to exercise their vocal cords. There’s nothing like singing some festive songs to get you in the Christmas mood.

Entrance is £5 for adults at the door. The seating will be café style and you may bring wine, beer etc. Tea, coffee and mince pies will be served. There will be a raffle and proceeds will go to Yorkhill Children’s Hospital.

On the first weekend of November, there was a lot of dancing going on. Scottish Ballet arrived, complete with conductor, tutors, a brilliant young pianist and of course their own dancers, who staged the wonderful new ballet, First Encounter, on the Friday night. Photos taken at rehearsal the same afternoon catch something of the magic of the occasion.

There was an active take-up of all the workshops offered, and on the Saturday interested listeners joined in a social evening that was enlivened by a splendidly ‘low-down’ talk by Scottish Ballet’s conductor, Richard Hanner. He gave a candid insight into the difficulties that used to arise between the orchestra and the choreographer, specially over the knotty question of the speed of the music. Wen Yang Ho, the company’s brilliant young pianist, gave skilled and witty examples of the difference between a plodding approach to such composers as Bach, compared to a more lively modern tempo. Often very funny, Richard’s talk also laid bare the underlying passion for music and its physical expression, and the intense discipline needed in order to express this. In speaking of Prokofiev’s Romeo and Juliet, he ran out of words - and rightly, for ballet deals directly with its own beauty, and needs no words.

On Sunday afternoon, a big group of people came together in Brambles at Auchrannie, for a 45-minute Ballet Café session in which they found themselves doing a warm-up then performing an outline story involving good and wicked fairies. Again, Wen Yang Ho played for the exercise, then supplied music to go with tea and cakes (thus replacing any ounces lost during the exercise!) Emma Jane McHenry directed the impromptu ballet with immense charm and encouragement, and after tea gave an illustrated talk on ballet costume, showing some fabulously exotic creations. The money involved is staggering - every tutu takes four weeks of skilled hand-work to make, and will cost £800-£1,000.

The following morning, Scottish Ballet were heading out to run Primary school workshops, and were then leaving Arran to continue their tour in other locations. For countless people, they leave behind a fresh interest in dance, and a new understanding of how one’s own body can express creative and exciting movement. A fabulous weekend.

Dear Residents of Arran,

Scottish Ballet would like to thank everyone for the fantastic welcome we received whilst there last weekend with Find Your Feet.

It was such a pleasure to be on the island and we were delighted to see so many people engaging with us through dance. Special thanks must go to Arran dance teachers Fiona Rodriguez and Dawn Ulivi. Not only did their dancers shine at the performance on Friday night but many of them, and their parents, were amongst those who attended Scottish Ballet sessions all over the island. We feel we made a lovely connection with so many.

We worked with 930 people over 34 events (dance workshops and talks) from our parent and toddler classes and school pupils to the ladies and gentlemen at Montrose House and Cooriedoon and participants of all ages in between. Everyone who took part threw themselves into it and made us feel very welcome.

We really hope we can come back again before too long. In the meantime, as Brucie would say, keep dancing!

With fond regards,
Scottish Ballet’s Education team

On Sunday 9th December, a Christmas double bill will be shown at Corrie Hall. It begins at 6.30 pm and includes supper - hence the earlier time. The evening’s programme doubles the short comedy masterpiece, Dinner For One, with the classic Western, One-Eyed Jacks (1961), starring Marlon Brando both as actor and director.

Brando only directed a film once, and people have regarded it as an eyebrow-raising masterpiece ever since. One-Eyed Jacks was based on the 1956 Charles Neider novel, The Authentic Death of Hendry Jones, which in turn was drawn from the legend of Billy the Kid. With a script by Sam Peckinpah, the young Stanley Kubrick was initially signed as director, but he and Brando fell out over character development. Brando, every inch the ‘method’ actor, wanted more of it, while Kubrick was trying to keep things reasonable. But they were not, and would not be, reasonable. With filming set to start in a month, Brando took over the direction himself.

By all accounts, it was chaos. Brando encouraged the cast to improvise, and a weary Paramount described the proceedings as ‘Stanislavsky in the saddle.’ Brando was hugely self-indulgent. Though using the expensive Vista-Vision process, which cost fifty cents a foot, the cameras rolled endlessly. Close to 250,000 feet of film were processed and the film ended up costing $6 million.

The story is a fated one, about a pair of bank robbers on the run. Brando as Rio is betrayed by his partner in crime, ‘Dad’ Longworth, who becomes the sheriff of Monterey while Rio is still serving five years in jail. Full of plans for revenge, Rio is side-tracked when he falls in love with Longworth’s stepdaughter, Louisa, played by Pina Pellicer, who committed suicide at the tragically early age of 24.

One-Eyed Jacks has the power of a Greek tragedy, played out in vast, unrelentingly sand-swept landscapes. The stunning colour cinematography by Charles Lang makes the film a visual feast, and Brando’s brooding, psychologically probing intensity, whether self-indulgent or not, is unforgettable.

All are welcome, and admission is free, though contributions to the running of Corrie Hall are welcomed. Don’t forget the earlier time of 6.30, and bring something to add to supper if you feel so inclined.

This year’s exhibition by Arran’s artists in Brodick Castle was exceptionally interesting. A new policy of mingling work by both amateurs and professionals did away with a demarcation line between the two and led to a fresh view of both, and many of the most regular exhibitors showed work that broke new ground. A beautifully produced catalogue had the slight disadvantage that late entrants were not included, but the time schedule is tight and artists will have to be careful about getting their entry forms in early enough.

Josephine Broekhuizen, who does so much of the work on Arran that supports art activities, showed paintings of exceptional thoughtfulness this year. Her large-scale, detailed studies of natural form called Sticks were dark and impressive, beautifully painted and acutely aware of the wonder that lies in commonly overlooked things. As so often, a new look at the scale of things not usually thought worthy of deep investigation produces extraordinary results.

Judith Baines sends us the last instalment of her beautifully illustrated diaries.

Points of colour stand out sharply on a grey November day and on the third that year I saw a spray of bright gorse flowers and a tiny herb robert flower and decided to celebrate them by putting a photo of the gorse and a machine stitched slip of pink applied to blue velvet onto some sponged papers. I have been able to find the same joyful flowers on Arran this year. Snow fell in November when I wrote my Diary and I tried capturing the pine trees in the first snow, both in silk painting and on discharge fabric with acrylic paint. Discharge fabric is great! It is a black cotton which can be discharged by painting on it with Domestos or Milton. (Use an old brush that can be thrown away afterwards!) The former is most effective but has to be rinsed off as soon as the fabric reaches a state of black, browns and white that pleases you so that the fluid does not rot the material. Milton is the thing to use if children are involved.

December was cold and grey but a few red berries clung to bare twigs. I represented a section of hedge with a kind of stiffened needlelace. The last picture I took that special year was on Christmas Day in the woodland. There was a shaft of sunlight coming through the trees that seemed to me like a promise!

I have now lived on Arran seventeen years and I love it more than ever and mean to celebrate next year with another diary. If I manage it I will share it with you in 2014!

Last month, John McElroy, who runs the car cleaning business, Starwash, in the Auchrannie road where the Burnside Gallery used to be, generously gave a whole Saturday’s takings to the Valdete Trust. Sue Davidson, who initiated this charity, is out in Albania, working hard to provide wheelchairs and walking frames for disabled young people who otherwise would have no mobility assistance. John McElroy is a great supporter.

Our editor’s notably filthy car is seen here receiving its first wash for a very long time. Its owner watched, dodging the foam and taking photos. The speed and thoroughness of the high-pressure jet-wash impressed her, specially the vigorous hand-mopping of wheels and hard-to-get-at bits. Brilliant value for a fiver, she said - and chipped in double for Albania. If a tenner can help a disabled youngster to get around unaided for the first time ever, that’s even better value.

In last month’s report, Sue Davidson wrote about a severely disabled family in the remote Albanian village of Kuç, and left us all wondering what happened next. Here’s the follow-up, which she calls Return to Kuç.

As anyone who read my last letter may remember, we wanted to give a wheelchair to Genti, who is 31 but so disabled that he can only move around by crawling or shuffling on his bottom like a baby. His younger sister, Arta, is not quite so severely disabled, and the physiotherapist, Liljana, agreed with me that the girl would be able to walk if helped by a walking frame with arm supports.

Liljana had been to Italy for training unavailable in Albania, and had seen these ‘pulpit’ walking frames there, but they are not available in Albania. This seemed an insurmountable hurdle - but things have a strange way of working out. A local pastor had received five wheelchairs from us, and when his congregation heard about us and our work, they took an offering to give us, even though I insisted the wheelchairs were a gift. I was amazed to find he’d given us 12,000 Albanian lek (about £70.) This is a large sum of money to village people in this country, so I was very touched by this gesture - and of course knew exactly what to do with the money. It would help to buy Arta’s walking frame. But how and where would we find one?

Liljana and I, together with a translator, headed into Tirana in search of the walking frame. I was very optimistic, but Liljana was not so sure. We trailed around every pharmacy she knew that sold walking sticks and crutches (which is quite a recent development) but had the same response from all of them. We wouldn’t find a walking frame in Albania. After three hours of fruitless searching, Liljana decided to phone a friend who works at one of the big hospitals - and got a surprising response. Just the previous week when walking home from work, she’d spotted a pulpit walking frame in a pharmacy. Because it was so unusual, she remembered the pharmacist’s shop exactly. Unfortunately, it was at the other end of the city, so we needed to take a bus.

Rush hour in Tirana has to be seen to be believed, so our journey was slow, but eventually, we arrived at the shop - and, yes, there in the window was a lovely pulpit walking frame! The only problem was, it was now after six in the evening and the shop was closed. I desperately needed the walking frame as we were going to Kuç the next day. Liljana rang the phone number on the shop door and explained. When the owner appeared, he said the price tag for the frame was 25,000 lek, not 20,000 as he’d said on the phone. Liljana plunged into telling him about our work, and I tried to catch what the shop-keeper was saying, but understood no more than the puzzled look on his face. Then, totally out of character for Albanians, he agreed that we could have the frame for 20,000 lek, the price originally quoted. This was great; we’d purchased a frame for only 8000 lek of our own money, thanks to the generosity of the pastor.

When we left the shop with the precious frame, Liljana and the translator were still shaking their heads over something that had amazed them. They told me the shop owner had acquired the frame by accident, as his assistant had made a mistake in the order for goods from Italy. He’d been angry with her, because he thought he’d never sell the unusual frame - yet here we were just ten days later, so a happy outcome for all concerned!

Early the next morning, eight of us set out on the two and a half hour walk across the hills to Kuç, with the wheelchair and the walking frame. We had to take turns in carrying them, as at times the track is pretty rough, but at least it was only 26 degrees, not too hot. The path twists and winds through the beautiful hill landscape, and we were getting weary, but as we neared the village, the sister-in-law of Genti and Arta, who had helped us with the donkey, came running out to meet us. To say she was delighted would not even begin to describe her reaction. I thought she’d never stop kissing me. She ushered us into the house to show everyone the valuable gifts we’d brought.

When I saw the look on the face of those two young people, Arta and Genti, all the effort was worthwhile. I’d do it all again in an instant. This is why we’re in Albania. There are many more people in need. We just have to find them and do what we can for them.

We are immensely grateful to John McElroy of Starwash in Brodick, who on November 17th offered a ‘benefit’ day, with all car-wash takings donated to the Valdete Fund. Such generosity can bring a whole new life to somebody who has never been able to move around before.

Don Staniford, who ruffled the status quo in Canada by claiming that farmed fish should carry a health warning similar to those on cigarette packets, made a flying visit to Arran early this month. Accompanied by Elena Edwards, who, with Howard Wood of COAST, recorded video interviews with local people, he approached the Lamlash St Molios fish farm as closely as possible via the beach, as its access road is now gated against public access. There, he talked to Ian Cook of Whiting Bay about the increasing quantities of chemical additive needed to keep caged salmon from being eaten alive by sea lice, and by the diseases that have twice wiped out the entire stock at the Lamlash farm.

Don is not against eating fish, but he contends that marine animals should live healthy lives, with the freedom to move about. The argument is very similar to the protest about battery hens, which the cage-owners claimed to be essential for the provision of cheap eggs. When the public realised just how disgusting the process was, it collectively opted for free range eggs, and the battery industry lost its grip on the market. Free-range salmon is the aim of Don Staniford and his many supporters. It is of course tied up with the broader need to restore the health of the oceans and all its living creatures - but meanwhile, those of us who know something about what goes on in the fish cages would not dream of eating farmed salmon.

Don’s blog gives a lively account of his Arran visit, with lots of pictures.

See this link for the video shot by Elena and by Howard Wood of COAST.

The Herald on November 30th 2012 carried a damning admission from the Scottish Salmon Company (SSC) that disease among its caged fish had decimated profits. The company admitted that it could lose 1000 tons of fish, and reported a fall in net earnings in the quarter from £690,000 to £130,000, and said: “The incidence of Amoebic Gill Disease and other biological challenges ... has led to increased mortalities, lower growth and increased production costs.”

Curiously enough, the UK’s seafood processing industry has seen a steady decline since 2010. A census of the UK seafood processing industry carried out by Seafish between March and August 2012 shows a 15% drop in sea fish processing units. The number of associated jobs has fallen by 17%.

Salmon, as you would expect, remains the most plentiful species, but even so, jobs in salmon processing have fallen by 18% since 2010.

To read the report in full visit www.seafish.org.

CMAL, which stands for Caledonian Maritime Assets Ltd, owns the ferries, ports, harbours and general infrastructure used by CalMac in running its ferries. It is the body currently drawing up plans for a complete revamp of the Brodick Terminal, and says it aims to have ‘a draft master plan layout’ for the terminal ready this month. This will be presented to ‘local residents, businesses and other stakeholders’ at the first of a series of public meetings on Monday 3rd December. Our invitation is here. We hope you got yours.

They are not hanging about. The design development phase is expected to be complete early in the New Year, and after a further public meeting to consider the final outline draft, detailed design work will begin.

Please note again that the first meeting is on Monday 3rd December 2012 in Brodick Hall. It is not Tuesday 3rd December as stated in both an article and the editorial in issue number 1885 of the Arran Banner dated 30th November 2012!

CMAL also gives the name of their RO-RO hybrid ferry, the first of its kind to be launched. Its name was chosen in a competition which hundreds of people entered, and of the choices offered, the clear favourite was MV Hallaig.

The name comes from a Sorley Maclean poem about an abandoned township on Raasay. Originally written in Gaelic, it is a reflection on the passing of time and contains vivid imagery of woodlands and deer. It was translated into English by Seamus Heaney.

As a sample, here are a couple of verses:

I will wait for the birches to move,
The wood to come up past the cairn
Until it has veiled the mountain
Down from Beinn na Lice in shade.

If it doesn't, I'll go to Hallaig,
To the sabbath of the dead,
Down to where each departed
Generation has gathered.

North Ayrshire Council is to apply to the Scottish Government’s new £4 million Empty Homes Loan Fund, aiming to bring empty houses into use by people in need of affordable housing. The Council’s Housing Services carried out an empty homes survey in September, and found that North Ayrshire contains an estimated 700 long-term empty homes.

Through the North Ayrshire Empty Homes Recyclable Loan Fund, the Council has agreed to apply for £200,000 to help bring empty homes back into use. The idea is that interest-free loans - capped at £15,000 - should be offered to owners of houses that have to have been empty for more than six months and require work to be carried out to bring them up to a habitable standard.

More than half of respondents said that they would be interested in working with the Council to bring the property back into use, with a quarter saying that a grant or loan would help them to achieve this.

Arran’s MP Katy Clark has tabled an Early Day Motion calling on the Government to look again at its plans to close the Independent Living Fund. At present the Fund provides needs-based financial support to around 19,300 disabled people, and the Government proposal to abolish it will lead to budgets being squeezed and many disabled people going without the support they need.

Katy has already been contacted by disabled constituents worried by the effects the cuts will have, and said, ‘The Government’s consultation on the Independent Living Fund was based on contentious and outdated research.’ She contends that rather than closing the Fund down, the Government should be looking at ways to expend its role so that all disabled people in the United Kingdom can access essential support.

This immensely helpful service continues to provide advice on a vast range of problems. Though it suffered from a reduction in its hours (and loss of its previous premises) it is still available at the Ormidale pavilion every Monday morning and lunchtime, from 9:30am - 1:30pm.

In the present uncertainties resulting from the cuts in public service, the CAB can clarify people's entitlement to benefits and can advise on money management issues. It seeks to help people make sure they are claiming what they are entitled to and where necessary it will talk to the various agencies on their behalf and will represent them at appeals.

You can contact the CAB at any time by phone on 302 710, and the office in Saltcoats can be contacted on 01294 467 848. For e-mail contact, see the NACAS website.

“House exchange in North Island, New Zealand - up to six months” said the advert and so it was that we set off from Arran in early August to begin our journey down-under. Forty hours and 11,000 miles later we arrived, a little dishevelled, in the city of Tauranga. Situated on the Bay of Plenty, it was pleasantly mild even in late winter.

In the first few days, as we recovered from our mild jet-lag, we just toured locally. Te Puna quarry where teams of volunteers have built a conservation garden was a particular favourite. Noticing an advert in the local free paper we went along to a meeting of the Bromeliad Society. The members were very welcoming and the talk was fascinating. A quick look at Google on returning to the house revealed that the speaker's Bromeliad nursery was on the outskirts of Auckland and they had a letting cottage which was vacant the following week. Well, where else could one go!

Totara Waters is at the western end of Auckland's Waitemata Harbour and only a short passenger ferry ride from the city centre. A bus trip through the old part of the city took us to the Auckland Museum with its collection of Māori treasures and an excellent “Māori Cultural Experience”. The natural history of New Zealand is fascinating; there were no mammals at all until humans arrived. The Māori people came from Polynesia between 1250AD and 1300AD and Europeans arrived about 1790AD, before that there were only birds, reptiles and insects. When the Māori first arrived, the land was mostly covered in forest & bush and vast areas were turned into agricultural land. Until the Europeans arrived, the Māori people had no knowledge of either metals or writing, working with stone tools and passing on their legends by word of mouth. The written Māori language (Te Reo) was developed as late as 1820 by professor Samuel Lee of Cambridge University working with the chief Hongi Hika and the chief's young relative Waikato.

Our journey North took us past Kaipara Harbour, one of the largest natural harbours in the world, to the tiny village of Matakohe where we spent a day in the Kauri museum. The Kauri tree is an ancient podocarp and grows to enormous sizes. It also produces a resin known in New Zealand as “Gum”. The Māori people made good use of the Kauri timber for their buildings, however the European settlers really exploited it. Kauri timber was exported all over the world as building material and the gum was exported for many uses including as a vital component of linoleum. The Kauri tree is now protected and the timber is only available from diseased or damaged trees or ancient fallen trees which have been extracted from the bogs. “Bog Kauri” can be many thousands of years old, is used for woodcarving and has particularly attractive colouring and grain patterns. The history of New Zealand's European settlers has largely happened since the invention of photography and the Kauri Museum has a comprehensive photographic record of the timber and gum-digging industries.

After a night in Whangarei, our next stop was in Paihia on the Bay of Islands. The drive to Paihia along the coastal road through Helena Bay, Russell and the Okiato ferry has some wonderful scenery. August is out of season for most New Zealanders and so we found many bargains in accommodation, often staying three nights for the price of two. Our Motel in Paihia offered this bargain so we had two full days there. On the first day we took a boat trip around some of the 150 islands in the bay and on out to the “Hole-in-the-rock” at Cape Brett. We had hoped to be able to swim with the dolphins but the pod had young and the law is very strict so all we could do was watch! On a calm day the boat trip will take you through the hole in the rock, but unfortunately our luck was out there too. The next day was an early start as we took a coach trip from Paihia up to Cape Reinga at the northernmost tip of North Island where the Tasman Sea meets the Pacific Ocean. It's actually rather less of a coach and more a specially converted Hino truck! Comfortable but also robust enough to drive most of the way along Ninety Mile Beach. Before going on to the beach we were taken to the large sand dunes at Te Paki for a spot of sand-boarding. It had been raining earlier in the day and the sand was nice and hard which made for great sport!

On the recommendation of our ninety mile beach truck driver, we travelled about 20km south of Paihia to the glow-worm cave at Waiomio. The glow worm, Arachnocampa luminosa, is only found in Australia and New Zealand and, unlike the European Lampyris noctiluca, is really a worm. Actually it's the larval stage of the fungus gnat, but it looks like a worm! Although this cave is smaller than the very popular Waitomo caves, there were only the two of us and having a personal guide made for a really interesting tour.

The route back to Tauranga took us past the largest surviving Kauri tree in New Zealand, Tāne Mahuta. With parking by the side of the road, there is a board-walk through the bush, but at first we couldn't find the tree. Tāne Mahuta is estimated to have a trunk volume of 245 cubic metres of timber. When you compare that to the average trunk volume of 2.5 cubic metres for a 20 year old Sitka Spruce, you can understand why we couldn't see the tree for the wood!

Richard Attkins, inspired chef at Arran on a Plate, sends us this simple recipe for a truly festive pannetone.

Ingredients
5g Yeast (Dried)
275g Plain flour (Bread flour even better)
50g Castor Sugar
1 Vanilla pod
110g Unsalted butter
1 Large egg & 1 egg yolk
50g Sultanas
30g Dried/Candied citrus fruits
100ml Arran Whisky
Warm water

This is easy...
Put everything in the mixer except the whisky.
Gradually add warm water to form a doughy mixture.
Now set aside for 1 hour in a warm room.
By now the yeast should have doubled your mix; beat down.
Place mix in a tin or mould.
Again place in a warm room for 1 hour.
Brush with melted butter.
Bake at 160°C for 30 minutes.
While still warm, soak the base in the whisky, flip over and rest before serving.

A young man pulled from a sea loch after his kayak capsized On Sunday November 25 three young men kayaking in Loch Fyne got into trouble after one of them capsized. An emergency call brought the lifeboat from Tighnabruach to the scene, where all three of the kayakers were found at the water’s edge. They were rush by ambulance to Mid Argyll Hospital in Lochgilpead, but sadly, one of them died shortly after arrival.

Six days later, the Oban lifeboat launched at nearly 11:00 pm to bring a sick child to hospital in Oban from the Island of Mull. Two ambulance paramedics joined the Oban lifeboat crew and the six-year-old boy and his mother were safely conveyed to the Lorn and Islands General Hospital.

Plastics are so much a part of our modern life. We come across them daily in the packaging of food and drinks, in household items such as combs, toothbrushes and pens and (despite protests from the ecologically minded) in shopping bags. Most forms of plastic are cheap enough to be used once and thrown away. They are so common that we don’t stop to wonder what they actually are, and how they are made.

Plastics are formed as polymers from simple reactive chemical structures linked together. They come out from the factory looking like resin pellets and are known in the trade as ‘nurdles’, a basic commodity that can be moulded into bottles and other containers, cast as shapes such as telephones and car dashboards or rolled into film to make wrapping and bags.

These nurdles are generally over half a centimetre in size, and are classified as macro-plastics. As anyone will know who has walked along a beach after a storm, items such as bottles and bags drift about in the sea and can cause entanglement and suffocation to marine creatures, birds included. In time, wave action and the sun’s rays can break down these discarded objects into pieces so small that they are barely visible - but they are still there, in the form of tiny plastic particles. Since they are oil based, these particles are virtually non-biodegradable, so sea creatures involuntarily eat them. Research at Millport has recently shown that 83% of prawns (Nephrops norvegicus) sampled have plastics in their digestive system. (Murray and Cowie 2011). Many Arran people may remember the film about St Kilda shown in the Community Theatre, proving by post-mortem that countless gannets die from ingested plastic particles that fill their digestive system and cannot be excreted. Sea birds feed their young on regurgitated material they assume to be edible, but much of it consists of plastic particles. A recent study revealed 400 different pieces in the stomach of a dead albatross chick.

All this is bad enough - but there is much more to the story. Manufacturers of cosmetics of many sorts, particularly skin cleansing products, have recently started making them more ‘scrubby’ by incorporating micro-plastic granules with mildly abrasive edges. You can’t see these particles, for they measure only 100 microns. To put that in perspective, a dust mite measures between 100-300 microns. Because plastics break down into such minuscule pieces, they get into the food chain at its basic level. Simple creatures such as lugworms ingest them and in turn are eaten by fish, which may themselves be eaten by mammals such as seals, dolphins and humans. You quite literally cannot know what is in the fish you are eating - or, indeed, in the products you buy.

75% of the new brands of face cleanser tested in New Zealand (Fendall and Sewell, 2009) contained these invisible plastic beads. As Christmas approaches, cosmetics and beauty products are advertised as making ideal Christmas presents men, women and children of all ages. Previously, they used natural ex-foliating materials such as pumice, oatmeal, or the husks of walnut or apricot kernels, but micro-plastics, introduced fairly recently, probably yield a better profit margin.

Can washing your face with facial cleansers contribute to marine pollution? Well, yes - it can and does. The polyethylene micro-particles in the product dries to form a thin coating on the skin, hair or nails, and when you wash your hands or face, these invisible beads of plastic go into the sewage system. The majority of facial cleansers in question list polyethylene as an ingredient, variously describing it as ‘microbeads’, ‘micro exfoliates’ or ‘microbead formula’. These polyethylene beads or granules are incorporated in many makeup products such as eyeliners, mascara, eye shadows, eyebrow pencils, lipsticks, blushers, face powders and foundations, as well as skin cleansers and skin care products. They were first reported in 2007 but public concern is just beginning to arise about the effects that such chemicals may be having in the seas around us. COAST has been campaigning for 15 years for a Marine Protected Area in Lamlash Bay and an extended MPA around south Arran is under consideration by the Scottish Government - but the cosmetics we buy for Christmas may be adding a damaging element to the balance of the sea’s life.

Sally Campbell spent a lot of time in Glasgow shops, reading the labels on cosmetic products. ‘In searching for ingredients,’ she says, ‘one often has to peel back the label underneath and take a magnifying glass to read what is contained in the concoction.’ She found some unexpected villains, and suspects that she will now be recorded on countless security cameras!

The Body Shop opened in Brighton in 1976 by Anita Roddick with its proud slogan of being ‘environmentally friendly, ethically made, and against animal testing’ uses polyethylene particles in its Vitamin C Microdermal Abrasion product. L'Oréal, which now owns the group, says it will continue The Body Shop policy, but after more than a year, the micro-plastics are still being used.

Boots, perceived as an ethical and environmentally friendly, uses micro-plastics in its No 7 Energising Face Scrub for Men. So get out your magnifying glasses when you are buying cosmetic products, particularly cleansers, for your friends and family this Christmas. There are satisfactory alternatives to these risky products and you will be helping to secure a diverse and healthy marine environment.

References:

David Suzuki Foundation. What you need to know about toxics in your cosmetic products. See website: www.davidsuzuki.org
Fendall, L. S., Sewell, M. A. (2009) Contributing to marine pollution by washing your face: Microplastics in facial cleansers. Mar. Poll. Bull.
Murray, F., Cowie, P. R. (2011) Plastic contamination in the decapod crustacean Nephrops norvegicus (Linnaeus, 1758). Mar. Poll. Bull.

While we’re on about corporate baddies, here’s a beauty from Monsanto, the company that enabled armies to use Agent Orange and is now busy pushing genetically engineered foods. For a long time, there has been a move to insist that these foods should be labelled as such, so that people can choose whether or not they want to eat them, which seems fair enough. In California, a recent ballot on the subject won support from more than 65% of residents in the state.

Monsanto was not having that. Backed by other companies in the agrochemical and processed foods fields, it raised $46 million to run an advertising campaign, implying, with no foundation whatever, that the World Health Organisation had endorsed GM (genetically modified) foods as safe. So the demand for labelling faltered and was defeated.

Why, we may ask, was Monsanto so defensive about labelling their foods? We can only assume they feel the less the public knows, the better.

Genetically engineered plants are generated in a laboratory by altering their biological makeup, usually through adding one or more genes to a plant's genome. Plants are altered either through injection by a particle gun, or, more commonly, by introducing Agrobacterium tumefaciens.

This is where it gets interesting. As early as 1907, a report by Smith and Townsend identified this bacterium as ‘the causal agent of crown gall disease’ (the formation of tumours) in over 140 species of dicotyledons - that’s to say, plants whose seedlings develop two leaves. Unlike the nitrogen-fixing bacteria, which are entirely benevolent, this tumour-producing Agrobacterium, the report said, ‘is pathogenic and does not benefit the plant.’ It went on, ‘The wide variety of plants affected by Agrobacterium makes it of great concern to the agriculture industry.’

A century later, this same pathogen is being injected into tomatoes, corn, potatoes and anything else that can be profitably treated. Just three global companies, Monsanto, Syngenta, and Bayer, have control of it. Farmers who use it have to buy fresh seed from these companies every year, because GM seed is sterile. A nice little earner, and let’s not wonder why the stuff it’s treated with is called tumefaciens. Anyone with a smattering of school Latin will spot it at once. Tumour making

How do you know if the tomatoes you buy in the supermarket are GM? You can’t, and if Monsanto has its way, you never will. It’s a strong argument for growing your own.

In 2008, Iceland’s three banks fell apart, with knock-on results that still have Europe in crisis. With only about half a million inhabitants, there was no way the little country could push enough cash into its banks to keep them going, so it abandoned the effort and let them fail - though it concentrated on making sure that Icelandic depositors got their money back. The foreign investors, who had been seduced by the charm of high interest rates, would simply have to wait. The Icelandic stance was one of total default.

It worked like a charm. Alexandra Topping, writing a Guardian piece from Reykjavik on November 24th, said the real shift has been cultural rather than economic. Icelanders realised quickly that basing their lives on constant purchasing was a non-starter. Interest in money as a way of making money melted away like snow in spring, and the financial sector withered to a fifth of its previous size. Conversely, the government put all the funding it could into the creative industries, and there is renewed interest in Icelandic heritage and culture. As a result, tourism rose by 8.3% last year. Across Iceland, unemployment has halved, and the income is far more equally spread than it used to be. They have just completed a magnificent concert hall called the Harpa, and the Icelandic economy is set to grow by 2.7% this year, while most European countries are glumly foreseeing a further contraction of 0.3%. Poor, wretched Greece must be gazing north in wistful envy.

Westminster, of course, is not gazing anywhere except into its own complacent mirror. Iceland broke all the rules but hung on doggedly to its social welfare programme and its arts, but far from being a disaster, the policy has proved a triumphant success. Something to be learned from that, one would think? Nice idea. But don’t hold your breath.