Issue 29

From 6th to the 9th June, Arran will be rejoicing in the annual Folk Festival, which this year looks brighter than ever.

Jon Hollingworth, who organises it, sends us the following notes on the highlights.

Thursday, 6th June, Brodick Hall, 7.30 pm. Opening concert at Brodick Hall

The three talented acts kick off with Jim Hunter and Graham Flett, who played at  our  Friday night concert last year and easily won the crowd over  with their catchy tunes, masterful musicianship and warm personalities. We are excited to welcome them back again and delighted that Jim has agreed to compere our evening concerts during the rest of the festival. The lads will also be sitting in on our afternoon sessions, helping to keep the music flowing throughout the weekend.

Jim and Graham are followed by Alana MacInnes (pipes & whistles) and Caitlin McNeill (guitar/vocal). Born on South Uist and Colonsay respectively, the girls grew up in the Celtic tradition and first met as a pair after being asked to perform in Brittany by Ceolas Uibhist. Despite their youth, they have an array of performances under their belts and a growing catalogue of their own compositions.

To complete a fabulous line-up, we have the Angus Nicolson Trio, one of the freshest and most energetic acts on thefolk scene today. Their music is very Highland-orientated, with Andrew MacPherson on percussion /whistle and Murdo Cameron on guitar/accordion
giving the tunes a contemporary and exciting twist. And with Angus’s skill on Highland pipes, Border pipes, and whistles, they are guaranteed to get your toes tapping!

Friday, 7th June, afternoon and evening

12 mid-day to 5.00 pm, FREE Open session, Douglas Hotel. Bring an instrument or just yourself. Five hours of very good fun.

Concert in Brodick Hall, 7.30 pm

Again, this features three groups. The first is the Linzi Murphy Trio, formed in September last year and already scoring great acclaim. Linzi herself was twice a semi-finalist in BBC Radio Scotland’s Young Traditional Musician of the Year and has a lifelong passion for Scottish
traditional song. Lorne MacDougal, three times a finalist in the same competition is a piper of international renown, and Suzanne Houston is a pianist and singer of Gaelic song who graduated with 1st Class Honours from the Scottish Conservatoire. These three produce a .
rich blend of Scottish and Irish music that is spellbinding.

Ronnie Costley and  Alasdair Kennedy follow. Ronnie’s most recent album, “Souvenirs
and Scotch Miast” tells tales from the streets of his Glasgow childhood, trips
‘doon the watter’ and wild weekends on Arran, but combines them with the world of today,
A lifelong visitor to Arran, Ronnie is looking forward to playing these songs here, and with their catchy melodies and sing-along choruses, they should be a big success. Alasdair
Kennedy is a multi-instrumentalist, moving happily between guitar, mandolin,
fiddle and banjo. As a member of Limited Edition and now The Moonshiners, he is well known to Arran audiences..

Then comes Cera Impala and The New Prohibition. Hold onto your hats - Cera is a ‘wild banjo-wielding mama from Flagstaff, Arizona.’ She now lives in Edinburgh, and we wonder how that douce city can contain her. A multi-instrumentalist singer-singwriter, her songs tell of ‘life wandering the path less travelled’ in a passionate, intimate performance that is hard to forget. Her performance is enhanced by the fiery violinist Dirk Ronneburg, with whom she plays in their band, The New Prohibition.

Saturday 8th June afternoon and evening

12- 5.00 pm, FREE Open Session at the Ormidale Hotel, Brodick.
Again, bring an instrument or your voice and join in, or just enjoy it over a pint.

Brodick Hall Concert, 7.30

Alan Frew and Mark Rafferty kick off in this final concert. Alan is a Troon-based performer and  promoter, working with Mark, whom he met in the Glasgow band, The Kytes. Their most recent collaboration began when Mark asked Alan to take part in the Gerry Rafferty
Remembered concert in memory of his late uncle. Since then, the pair have been writing and recording an album to be released this summer.

The Ross Ainslie Trio are understandably famous, and these highly accomplished musicians are in hot demand. Ross, on whistles and pipes, has played all over the world with a host of bands and artists. He has also received nominations for Best Instrumentalist and Best Live Act at the Scots Trad Music Awards. Ali Hutton of Treacherous Orchestra is on guitar; and James Mackintosh, well known from Capercaillie and the Michael McGoldrick Band is on drums and percussion.

Sunday 9th June Afternoon FREE open session and evening ceilidh/concert 

The open session is at the Douglas Hotel. As before, join in or just nurse a pint and recover your breath.

Brodick Hall 7.30 Ceilidh/Concert

The Kilbride Ceilidh Band has its own publicity slogan. - Nae tapsalteerie. Loosely interpreted, it means No Slacking. As they put it, ‘Stay on your tootsies and kick up dust with the oldest Arran ceilidh band since Noah was a boy.’ They add, ‘Wet pants and sweaty armpits guaranteed. Skinny-malinky lang legs and big banana feet welcome.’ Well, there you go. You have been warned.

To give the Kilbride players a pause for gasping and refreshment, the vibrant band called Tyde take over – and there’s no let-up! Heather Gessey (fiddle), Seth Tinsley (guitar), and Andrew Waite (accordion) play furious and frantic tunes interspersed with suddenly touching,
contemplative songs. Currently promoting their second album, ‘The Hidden Spoon’, this act is definitely one to brag about afterwards. ‘I heard them in Brodick, 2013.’ ‘Go on – did you really? Wow.’

If you are still able to stand after that, cruise – or stagger – up the road to the Ormidale Hotel, where from 9.30-on, a FREE session will be running. 

You can find all prices and details on the Folk Festival website. Tickets are available  online from www.arranevents.com or can be bought at the Brodick Post Office.The direct link is
http://www.arranevents.com/arranfolkfestival2013.php

And next year? Jon Hollingworth explains We are hugely grateful to our sponsors, the Isle of Arran Distillery, The Ormidale Hotel and the Douglas Hotel, and to many individuals on the island – but it looks unlikely that we can cover the costs on ticket prices alone. Government funding for the arts is a thing of the past. If the Arran Folk Festival is to continue, it will need to be through a DIY effort, similar to the self-help that got Arran through its week of no power in the blizzard crisis. ‘Crowd-funding’ does not ask for any money now. What it asks is that anyone who wants to see the Folk Festival continue will pledge a contribution next year. If there is no festival, then nobody pays any money. But the pledges matter. If there are enough of them to make the festival look viable, then next year’s festival will go ahead. Then, and only then, we will ask you to chip in whatever amount you promised. The vital thing is to show we have public support, because this could also attract larger sponsors. We have set a target of what I think our current shortfall will be and so far we have received promises of 31% of that total- so there’s quite a way to go before we find out if we will receive anything at all. We are offering various rewards of T-shirts and DCs  to those who promise donations – which so far have ranged from just £2 up to £50 – but so far, no-one who promised money has wanted any reward at all - they just seem happy to help. Obviously, the bigger the crowd is, the less they need to find. Even a pledge of £2 will do the trick if enough people promise it. We have contacted everyone on our mailing list and have posted it on Facebook and Twitter, and are asking everyone to forward the link to as many contacts as they can. If ten people each tell another ten people who tell a further ten, we will only need a very small amount of money from each of them, so nobody will be seriously out of pocket. The direct link to our crowd-funding project is  http://bloomvc.com/project/Arran-Folk-Festival-2013-1. Let’s hope the scheme works!

This year's logo for the Folk Festival is by the multi-talented Katherine O'Donnelly, who won the High School competition with this immensely lively design. Neatly and with great spirit, it incorporates all the necessary information while also establishing that Arran is a vibrant and sometimes windy island where anything may happen. Brilliant!

Jim Henderson continues his story

Arran knew nothing of golf until the early 19th century, but the early years of the game were no great loss, as golf clubs and balls were still quite primitive. The ‘featherie’ ball came into use from 1618 onwards and lasted for about 200 years, as there was nothing better – but it was not very satisfactory. It had evolvied from the Dutch game of ‘Kaatsen’ (hand tennis) and had a leather skin, usually bull’s hide, stitched at the seams and filled with cows’ hair or feathers – a slow, painstaking process. A single ball took a full bucket of boiled goose feathers, and no matter how tightly it was sewn, it was only roughly spherical and tended to burst. A golfer was fortunate if a ball lasted for two rounds, and often had to use several in a single game – but the featherie could be driven 200 yards, double the length achievable by the old wooden ball, so nobody grumbled much. But in 1848 the Rev. Dr Robert Adam Paterson of St Andrews achieved a break-though.

He used gutta-percha packing material to fill golf balls – which of course were immediately known as ‘gutties’. Gutta-percha is the dried sap of the Malaysian Sapodilla tree – a cheap, easily obtainable form of natural rubber. A guttie cost only a shilling, so for the first time the sport was accessible to people other than the wealthy – and it was far better. Within a few months, it had consigned the featherie to history.

Golf immediately became more popular. A growing interest in the sport coincided with the development of tourism in the west of Scotland. New steamers were being built, and entrepreneurs constructed piers and harbours to service them, together with hotels and boarding houses to accommodate the increasing crowds of holiday-makers setting out from Glasgow’s Broomielaw. Small villages like Helensburgh, Dunoon, Rothesay, Millport and Largs developed into towns. And golf courses were built.

Arran was left out of all this, largely because of the controls exercised by the Dukes of Hamilton. In the early 1880’s Arran was described as the most ‘unspoiled’ part of the Clyde area, but it could equally have been called the most primitive. There were no roads in any modern sense, and even the use of horses and carts was limited to the flatter land by the sea. On the hills, people transported goods on wooden sledges that could be hauled over the heather. The Duke and his trustees discouraged excursion traffic and exercised controls on the number of people permitted to stay for short periods. With a massive population of some 6,000 people, any further visitors were regarded as a burden rather than an asset.

On the mainland, things were very different. The arrival of the guttie established golf as a popular and profitable sport. Manufacturing its equipment turned into a flourishing industry and competitions sprang up, leading to the formation of the British Open.

The Robertson family of St Andrews had been in golf as ball manufacturers and designers of courses since the early 1700’s, passing down from father to son for 3 generations. Allan Robertson (1815-1859) is recognised as the first-ever professional golfer and was certainly the best exponent of his time. He improved the layout of the old St Andrews course by establishing much larger greens, to cater for the ever-increasing popularity of the sport – but he was a traditionalist and frowned upon the introduction of the newfangled gutta-percha ball. This of course led to the failure of his business. In 1858 he became ill with jaundice and died, but he is still remembered as the premier club maker of his time, whose merchandise was exported all over the world. Today any golf equipment or ball carrying his logo ‘Allan’ is much sought after by collectors.

Since 1835 Allan had employed Tom Morris, as an apprentice, then a journeyman, but they parted company in 1848 after a disagreement about the new guttie ball. Tom set up business on his own and in 1851 Colonel Fairlie of Coodham engaged him to be the green keeper of the new golf club at Prestwick. He re-designed and improved the 12-hole layout there, but in 1864returned to St Andrews.

Following Allan Robertson’s death, Tom Morris and a number of other golf professionals organised a golf competition in 1860 to commemorate him. It was held at Prestwick over 36 holes and aimed to identify Britain’s best golfer. That first competition is now recognised as the first year of the British Open. Willie Park of Musselburgh won the inaugural event with a score of 174. Other competing pro players were Tom Morris (Prestwick) Andrew Strath (St Andrews) Robert Andrew (Perth) George Brown (Blackheath) Charles Hunter (Prestwick St Nicholas) Alexander Smith (Bruntsfield) and Willie Steel (Bruntsfield). None of them knew that the competition they had set up would last forever.

On Wednesday 5th June, the Arran Branch of Save the Children is delighted to announce an Open Day at Strabane in Brodick, where visitors will be welcome to view the extensive and exotic Gardens. The Open Gardens day will run from 11am until 4pm. Entry costs £5.00 (including refreshments) and children under 12 are admitted free of charge. For anyone who does not know, to find Strabane, leave Brodick heading north and follow the main road right at the String junction. Strabane is on the left hand bend a few hundred yards further on, entrance on your right

As the death toll from the garment factory disaster climbs above 1000 and continues to rise we have decided to give all proceeds from the sale of Sreepur cards to help the families of those who have suffered in the disaster. Please go to www.sreepurcards.org to order the cards that can make a world of difference. We shall continue to do this until the end of June. Staff from Sreepur have been in constant touch with the rescue workers who are passing on details of women and children who need help. The situation is still chaotic but the team are ready to offer support where needed                                  
This short film shows how our producer group are able to earn a fair wage in a safe environment and not have to leave their children for long shifts in garment factories.

http://tinyurl.com/7478ftw

In a parliamentary debate on 14th May, our hard-working MP, Katy Clark, said the Queens’ Speech was a missed opportunity to take action for jobs and growth. She pointed out that pay has only risen by 1.2% while prices have increased by 2.8%. The cost of food has gone up by 30% in the past five years and Government policies are having a massive effect, not only on the mounting numbers of unemployed but also on those who work.

Katy did not mince her words. ‘The Government says that they want to see people stand on their own two feet,’ she said, ‘but to do that people have to have jobs to go to, with pay that they can live on. If we pursue the policies outlined in the Queen’s Speech, this will not happen. Instead the rich will continue to get richer and the poor will get poorer.’

As if to underline Katy’s statement quoted above, new figures from the Office for National Statistics show a 21% increase in long term unemployment between April 2012 and April 2013. 1875 people in North Ayrshire have now been out of work for over 12 months. Long term youth unemployment rose by 31%.
http://www.nomisweb.co.uk/reports/lmp/ward/1312817549/report.aspx

If you’ve ever fancied running a small business in a close community where you will really matter, here’s your chance. Argyll & Bute Social Enterprise Network are advertising that the Isle of Gigha Heritage Trust needs new tenants for the village shop, post office and petrol pumps.  The shop is a vital service for the local community and tourists alike, and it has living accommodation on the upper floor that has just been renovated to a high standard as part of the Trust’s Housing Improvement Programme. All details, plus a photograph, are on Gigha’s lively website, http://www.gigha.org.uk/   Gigha is a tiny island that belongs to its inhabitants, following a community buy-out in 2002

If your are interested, e-mail  ian@gigha.org.uk or phone 07966 745654

As well as deriving a substantial annual income from its three wind turbines, affectionately known as The Dancing Ladies, Gigha has a shrewd eye on sustainable enterprise of any kind. And it is quick to discard anything that does not work. A salmon farm was wound up when the environmental damage it caused became evident. Its ex-manager, Bob Wilkieson, now works for Gigha Halibut, whose manager is Alastair Barge, one of the original salmon farm entrepreneurs. Alastair was glad to abandon the salmon farm, built with EU cash, and points with pride to the shore farm that can put no contamination into the sea, and has no problems with lice, escapees or predators. They have, he says, a zero veterinary bill, because their fish are given ample space and are fed on off-cuts from a certified sustainable fishery, together with a vegetable component. A Guardian article about it on May 23rd reported that chefs are falling over themselves to obtain cuts of solid, tasty halibut. It tastes incredibly good, and can be eaten with a clear conscience. Bob Wilkieson says, ‘I never eat salmon now.’

For the next two years bee-keepers (and indeed, bees) can breathe a little more easily. Neonicotinoid pesticides are to be suspended across Europe, after a vigorous campaign that included a petition signed by 300,000 of us. Britain’s environment minister, Owen Paterson, voted against the ban but enough representatives of more enlightened administrations voted in favour and the vote was won.

However, it is too soon to be triumphant. Bees have a slow cycle of hive replication, and pesticides are equally slow to be reliably eradicated from crop seed. It will not be easy to ensure that bees are visiting ‘clean’ crops, and unless this can be verified, resulting studies can easily be compromised. Katie Clark MP strongly supports a move towards extending the ban period.

On Tuesday 30th April Arran Civic Trust took a party of 19 by ferry and coach to three venues in Hamilton. All three had an association with the Duke of Hamilton. The first of these, Hamilton Mausoleum, was built by the tenth Duke, known as El Magnifico, in the 1840s as a family burial crypt. It is a massively imposing domed structure built of interlocking sandstone blocks with huge sculpted lions guarding the entrance. There are no coffins in the multiple crypt recesses now, because of a possibility of flooding. Above the crypt is a magnificent chapel with an exotic inlaid marble floor and a towering ceiling capped by a circular window, the only light source in the building. Two bronze doors cast with biblical scenes lie on display inside, having originally been the Mausoleum’s entrance doors. Coal mining caused it to sink by a staggering 18 feet over its lifetime, but the building held together, a tribute to the masons who built it. In one sense it is a monument to outrageous vanity and can be seen as grotesque in its arrogance, opulence and the muscular assertiveness of the stonework but it is certainly fascinating. Everyone was pleased to have seen it and listened to a well constructed talk from the Hamilton Museum guide.

The second venue, Hamilton Old Parish Church is a masterpiece built by William Adam, (father of the more famous Robert) in the 1730s. Inevitably, it has had later alterations, particularly to the interior, but the original fabric still stands. It is in the form of a circular hub within an outlying cruciform structure, classical Italianate in feeling and well preserved and looked after by its congregation. The interior has an imposing circular balcony and a massive organ. A member of the congregation, David Gibbs, led a conducted tour. In the churchyard is a Covenanting memorial and the famous Netherton Cross of early Celtic period. During the visit the local press arrived to photograph the Arran party.

The third venue was Chatelherault, a hunting lodge and stables again built for theDuke by William Adam, notlong after the Old Parish Church. It consists of four joined blocks with a central Italianate gateway and faces a magnificent panorama stretching as far as the Cobbler at Arrochar with the Mausoleum and the now demolished Hamilton Palace in its foreground. The interior has been faithfully and skilfully rebuilt after a fire in the forties, and the decorative classical plasterwork has been a worthwhile job-creation scheme. Nearby in the same High Parks is the deep gorge of the Avon and the old Cadzow (original name for Hamilton) castle, now undergoing restoration. There are ancient oaks over 500 years old and white cattle of a mediaeval breed.

The delight of the whole day was capped by unexpectedly beautiful weather, which enhanced everything. We all returned happy and satisfied with the day out.

346 seals were shot during 2011 and the first four months of 2012.

Data obtained through a Freedom of Information (FOI) from the Global Alliance Against Industrial Aquaculture (GAAIA) reveal that workers on more than half the salmon farms in Scotland kill seals ‘as a last resort'. Only 13 per cent of sites have predator nets installed. 112 different salmon farms had killed at least one seal – which is just over half of the 215 active salmon farms in Scotland.

The Scottish Salmon Producers Association (SSPO) was not happy about being forced to reveal the figures. In December 2012 a representative wrote to the Scottish Government in concern that releasing the names of the seal-killing salmon farms would "have a direct impact on the market success of their products". GAAIA is now writing to retailers and the US Government urging a boycott of 'seal-unfriendly' farmed salmon. It names all 169 salmon farm sites in Scotland without predator nets (of which the St Molios farm in Lamlash is one.) The Scottish Government  admitted in September 2012 that 87%  of Scottish salmon farms do not have predator nets, because installing them ‘costs money and eats into profit margins’. Shooting is cheaper.

Rob Edwards, Environment Editor of the Sunday Herald, wrote on May 5th about the pesticides used by fish farms that are poisoning Scotland's lochs. In Loch Shell on the east of Lewis, a Marine Harvest fish farm was found to be using levels of a pesticide called teflubenzuron at up to 455 times higher than Sepa's environmental quality standards.

John Campbell writes to say, ‘This is a truly shocking indictment on SEPA's approach to continuing contamination and shows that the situation has got to the stage of being beyond their regulatory control. …I personally am of the view that this published finding demands a moratorium on any further expansion until SEPA can satisfy the wider public that it fully understands what is going on and convinces us all that it is really capable of regulating this industry.’

In 2011, fishermen blamed pollution from the farm for killing off a valuable prawn fishery in the loch. Marine Harvest said it was ‘deeply disappointed’ by the pollution detected in Loch Shell. The high levels were ‘very much outside the norm’ according to the company's business support manager, Steve Bracken. Loch Shell had experienced ‘a significant challenge’ with sea lice, he said, and pesticides had been applied ‘legally and in the correct doses.’ But he suspected the sophisticated modelling software used to predict their dispersal had failed.
The cynical might observe that it is easy to blame the software. The truth could be closer to a desperate attempt to stop a massive infestation of sealice from eating the salmon alive.

Sepa is now reviewing the operating licence for the Loch Shell fish farm with a view to imposing restrictions on the volume of pesticides that can be used, and the mass of salmon that can be kept in cages. It has also released the analyses of sediment samples it took from around 24 salmon farms over the past two years. Pesticide residue included teflubenzuron, emamectin and deltamethrin near 19 farms, and almost every Scottish fish farm was using more than the allowed quantities of these chemicals. Five farms in Orkney were the only ones recording no contamination above the detectable limit.

Guy Linley-Adams, a solicitor who works with the Salmon and Trout Association representing anglers, points out that the pesticides are ‘highly toxic’ to lobsters, crabs and prawns, and said the Association is wondering ‘when, if ever, there will be any sort of robust response by Sepa to stop this happening.’

from Sally Campbell

At 3:30 am after a long sitting, Commissioner Maria Damanaki and the European Parliament finally agreed a new Common Fisheries Policy. It will massively reduce unwanted catches, largely ending the wasteful practice of dumping fish back in the sea, and will bring an end to sanctioned over-fishing by 2020. Environmental criteria will in future be considered when allocating fish quotas.

This is a resounding success for Commissioner Maria Damanaki and for all those who have so tenaciously argued for this reform. German MEP Ulrike Rodust played a pivotal role in clinching the deal, as did the Irish Fisheries Minister, Simon Coveney, who did much to shifting the Council from its original support of the status quo. But Ian Campbell, Coordinator of OCEAN2012 UK, rightly pointed out that the change could not have come about without the massive support of thousands of people all over Europe who really wanted to see an end to over-fishing and the waste of precious resources.

The full report can be seen on the following link:

http://ocean2012.eu/press_releases/115-council-and-parliament-secure-political-agreement

Steve Williams, writing on a site called Care2Causes, says new research shows that two or three glasses of champagne a week may help to fend off the memory loss associated with Alzheimer’s disease and dementia. No, this was not an experiment conducted by bibulous scientists among themselves – the test was carried out on rats.

Half of these rats ate a champagne-laced diet for six weeks before the test, and the other half did not. Then each rat ran through a maze in search of food – twice, to see what it remembered of finding food the first time. A-maze-ingly (sorry), the rats on the fizz diet remembered a lot better than the teetotal group. The boffins therefore concluded that a modicum of bubbly boosts spatial memory.

Later, they said a trifle ominously, biopsy tests were carried out on the rats to measure the proteins known to be important to short-term memory. They found a staggering (perhaps literally) 200% increase in these ‘memory proteins’ among the bubbly-drinking rats. Apparently the black grapes used in making champagne have these magic substances in their phenolic acid. Pinot Noir and Pinot Meunier are particularly rich in them.

The researchers now plan to conduct trials with up to 60 pensioners, who will be asked to drink champagne in ‘controlled doses’ for the next three years. It should not be difficult to recruit volunteers, though an unconvinced spokesman for the Alzheimer’s Society said a lot more research was needed.

We at the Voice feel that, whether the magic phenols work or not, you may as well die happy

Many Arran residents have been wondering where our hedgehogs have gone. These obliging wee animals used to be quiet inhabitants of almost every garden, eating slugs and shuffling round to the back door to see if there might be any left-over cat-food. But for five years or more, nobody has seen one. Wild animals and birds are vanishing rapidly from the British countryside, and intensive farming methods are being blamed, but Arran is not a barley belt of the kind seen in the flat fields of England. Its farming is low-key, and virtually non-existent in the north of the island, so there has to be something else. A friend who works as a pest-control officer thinks the hedgehogs caught the same virus that was killing seals about ten years ago and then (rather to our relief) almost wiped out the mink. Did it wipe out hedgehogs as well? And if so, can’t we start a re-stocking programme? Please write to us if you have any ideas. info@voiceforarran.com

We were delighted to receive this long letter from Julian Davidson, who is in Albania with his wife, Sue, working for the Valdete Trust to help disabled people
 
Tirana 2013
9:00 am Tuesday.

The phone rings, starkly announcing the arrival of Sue’s Albanian teacher, Sonila.
Sue is struggling with the complexities of the Albanian language (or Shqip, as it is known to them). Highly inflected, impossible grammar, it remains one of the most difficult languages in Europe to speak, let alone write. Not for the average Englishman! I gave up months ago, preferring to brush up my French. A little guesswork and Latin at school means Italian is not too difficult. It’s widely spoken. Italy is only seventy miles across the Adriatic. It’s amazing how much Italian you can guess when you have a knowledge of music too!
An English speaker is never far away either as it’s compulsory in schools from the age of seven. Kids are great at speaking our mother tongue especially when discussing ‘The Beautiful Game’. I met two little lads the other evening idly kicking a ball in the alley outside our flat.

“Good evening”, one of them said. “How are you?”
“Very well”, I replied. “You like football?”
“I like this……. He kicked the ball hard against the wall. “……Not this……” picking up the ball and running with it, grimacing as he did so. This described American football. Sorry you fanatics, but Rugby has never penetrated the Balkans!

The other little lad piped up, “I like Man U!”
“Ah, yes, a good team” I enthused.
Not to be outdone, the lad with the ball interjects, “I like Millan”.
Millan? Who? And then it dawned. Milan! The little guy must never have heard it spoken. The stress falls on the first syllable in Shqip!

Back to Tuesday morning. Heavy of heart at what shortcomings Sonila will find in Sue’s homework she lets her in via the three locked doors between us and the outside world. This Alcatraz-esque situation is a reminder of how little trust Albanians have in their fellow countrymen.

I’ve been here since the end of January. Not the longest time I’ve stayed in the country: Sue and I spent eight months here in 2007. Enough to get the feel of the place; to establish what is right and what is wrong with society.

Albania has a population of about 3.5 million. A further one million live outside of Albania in Kosova and another one million live as ex-pats in Sweden, Germany, Switzerland and the USA. It’s about the same size as Wales, or Maryland to our transatlantic cousins. Americans form the largest e-xpat community at about 500 souls. There are sixty Dutch, sixty or so Germans: Brits only weigh in at about forty.

Valdete’s Dad, Shani, built us an apartment above his own house, in gratitude for what we did for Valdete in the way of medical treatment. It’s great! We have two bedrooms, a large sitting room cum kitchen and a bathroom. All spanking brand new! We’re in a western suburb of Tirana called Laprake. A reasonably well-off part of town, quite a ‘posh’ part. When people ask where you live they raise their eyebrows. Ah, Laprak-er, po?’ - signifying you must have a bit of dosh behind you.

Tirana is a sprawling, ugly, dusty town with no architectural merit whatsoever: Various governments have seen to that. Until the sixties Tirana had a wonderful Turkish bazaar as its centrepiece, so worthy of renovation. With no regard for beauty or heritage, Enver Hoxha flattened it and replaced it with what we have today - Skenderbeg Square. Tirana lies in a basin with mountains to the east and north-east, and the dust and automotive pollution settles everywhere. You must wash your car nearly every day and goodness knows what this pollution is doing to your lungs. Nearly everyone in Tirana has respiratory troubles of some sort or another. During a recent visit to a pharmacy for some paracetamol (always a protracted task - Albanians are terrible hypochondriacs) I counted four people in the queue before me purchasing salbutamol inhalers for asthma.

I digress. Back to Skenderbeg Square. In 1962 Enver Hoxha was colluding with the USSR. Khruschev sent architects and engineers to refashion the city centre. The result was a massive Soviet style opera house and various national museums complete with Communist realist-art mosaics. South of the square lies the area of government offices, built by Mussolini during the period of  Italian influence between the wars. Painted ochre and maroon their shuttered windows lend an air of authority to the chaos outside.

Close by is the structure known as ‘The Pyramid’. An enormous glass edifice designed and built in 1988 by Hoxha’s daughter Pranvera as an exhibition centre. Today it lies derelict and has been since the troubles of 1997. Death-defying kids use its sloping walls to practice skateboarding.

And then you notice the Lana, the river which until the Mussolini era meandered peacefully through the city centre. It is common practice to culvert waterways when they pose a risk to development. From my own experience Newcastle has two underground feeders to the Tyne, London has innumerable hidden rivers feeding the Thames, but they are covered over, diverted into underground pipes.

Not so King Zog! (Ah, you’ve heard of him, haven’t you?). With Italian finance he built a mile-long concrete trough, dead straight and channelled the river into it. Ideal for Albanians to throw all their rubbish into. Plastic bags by the ton; I’ve even seen dead dogs and cats in it. An unbelievable eyesore and health risk.

I must tell you a little about King Zog, possibly the only Albanian you’ve ever heard of save Mother Teresa who was technically Albanian but born in Kosova. Zog was a tribal chieftain from central Albania. He proclaimed himself king of the nation in 1928 and hoodwinked the people into thinking he was their salvation. Italian influence was increasing, but once Mussolini invaded the country in 1939 Zog took his family and all his valuable assets over the border into Greece, including the scarlet Mercedes given to him as a birthday present from Hitler. He spent the war years living in exile (and some style) at the Ritz Hotel in London. He never returned to Albania, though his wife and son did. Queen Geraldine died in 2002 and Prince Leka in 2011.

A little more about the environment. The city is largely composed of ugly, communist era blocks (palatti). Most are six stories, without lifts and from the outside look awful. They are served by unsurfaced roads that are filled with muddy puddles when it rains, dusty dirt tracks in summer. You would imagine the apartment dwellers to be equally scruffy. Surprisingly they’re not. Millions of decent, educated people, teachers, doctors, engineers, the whole gamut of Albanian society. The apartments themselves are kept scrupulously clean by their owners. The wealthier have air-conditioning, almost essential when the ambient temperature can reach 45C in summer.

From the foregoing you should have gleaned by now how the Albanian mind works. The average Albanian has an utter disregard of what others might think of them. They care not a jot for anyone but themselves and their families. An extreme case of ‘NIMBY’. Littering the streets, causing traffic mayhem by each driver’s determination to be at the head of the queue: all these things show the Albanian’s highly individual lifestyle and point toward why Albania has never found its feet in a modern Europe. Who would invest in people with such obtuse viewpoints? I am told companies are difficult to form because Albanians cannot work together for the benefit of others in the team: impossible for them to take orders from a boss whether he be Albanian or a foreigner.

It goes even further. Albanian men generally find it difficult to bond with other men and friendships are not formed. There is very little strolling down to the pub for a game of snooker or whatever like Western men do. Albanian men in groups are invariably members of their extended families. Difficult people to do business with.

I woke up sweating this morning. By 8 o’clock the sun was clocking up 28C. Not summer yet, but getting close to it. It’s Saturday. I put the PC on and tune to ‘Sounds of the Sixties’. I’ve listened to it for years. The digital revolution has made the world a smaller place, with Skype and Internet TV. We have all British and US TV at the touch of a button as well as streamed radio any time you want. Remarkable. We knew as much about the ‘Great Arran Power Cut’ as you did - except we hadn’t the inconvenience!

Breakfast on the balcony today. I think I’ve covered enough ground for now. Another instalment may follow soon if this is appreciated by ‘Voice’ readers.

Julian Davidson

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selected by David Underdown

Sonnet

by Dante Alighieri (1265 - 1321)

Guido, I wish that you and Lapo and I
Were carried off by magic
And put in a boat, which, every time there was a wind,
Would sail on the ocean exactly where we wanted.

In this way storms and other dangerous weather
Wouldn’t be able to harm us –
And I wish that, since we were all of one mind,
We’d go on wanting more and more to be together.

And I wish that Vanna and Lagia too
And the girl whose name on the list is number thirty
Were put into the boat by the magician too

And that we all did nothing but talk about love
And I wish that they were just as glad to be there
As I believe the three of us would be.

This sonnet by Dante is translated from the Italian by Kenneth Koch. The translator has abandoned the metrical and rhyming schemes of the original (recognising perhaps how much easier it is to rhyme in Italian than English) but has captured instead its playfulness and whimsy. After 700 years it’s as fresh as a salt breeze.

As the weather warms up, my cats are going out more, and sometimes bring back wee presents in the form of ticks. Mindful that I have already been bitten this year and received a course of antibiotics, I find it surprising that so many people don’t realise the potential dangers of ticks, both to us and our pets – but this isn’t to send you off on a frenzy of panic! Rather it’s to be aware of how to prevent those dangers becoming real.
 
Ticks are totally useless creatures as far as I can see, and are simply a nasty pest that poses harm to people, livestock and pets. Farmers are well aware of this and take regular precautions with their livestock throughout the year. But how many of us do the same? Did you know, for instance, what a lot of different ticks there are? We have sheep ticks, dog ticks, hedgehog ticks and deer ticks, to start with. They vary in size and colour and can be black, brown, red or tan. A tick that has been gorging on blood looks a little like a miniature, greyish-coloured broad bean.
Ticks are small relatives of spiders, and are cousins to the huge range of invisible mites that inhabit both dust and water. Together, they form the order Acarina. Many of these tiny creatures are parasites, and can only feed on liquids – preferably blood. 

If you find a tick in your skin it is wise to remove it as soon as possible - but ticks are designed to make removal as tricky as possible. A close-up photograph of a tick's mouth-parts shows that is has hooks which make it very difficult to detach completely. If you use surgical tweezers, grip the tick as close to the skin as you can and pull firmly – but much better is a
special tick removing tool, (not expensive, and I believe Brodick Post Office stocks them) which enables you to grasp the tick under its head and twist, removing it without leaving the head and mouth behind.

Do not try to use alcohol or Vaseline or try to burn the tick out. This causes a risk that the tick will regurgitate its dangerous saliva in your blood. It is this saliva that can infect both your pet and yourself, resulting in a localised infection or in humans, the more serious Lyme’s Disease, carried in your blood-stream in the same way as malaria. Lyme’s Disease can take several months or even years to show its full symptoms, which can be very serious, but fortunately, it does give you a warning. If you develop a red rash after being bitten, it is likely to be an infection and you may need a course of antibiotics. However, if you develop a red ring round the site of the bite, about the size  and colour of a scarlet Polo mint, this most definitely needs treating, as it indicates the presence of threatened Lyme’s disease. You should see your doctor without delay.

Obviously this column is about cats, so I cannot leave without explaining that there are different tick-proofing products for cats and dogs (not for humans, alas!) You can buy these products from your local vet. The brands available in supermarkets or online tend to be less effective. A good product will inhibit and kill ticks, preventing them from sucking blood and regurgitating stomach contents into your pet, and in using them, you are helping to keep your cat healthy and free from disease as well as you and our family. (The same products will also deal with lice and fleas, which I will talk about another time.) 

If you are a cat owner, I must warn you to be careful what you buy over the counter. Tick and flea control products often contain Permethrin, which is acceptable to dogs but extremely harmful to cats. It can cause Feline Permethrin Toxicosis, which is potentially fatal. Cases of poisoning most commonly occur when people mistakenly use a product on their cat that was intended only for dogs. So please make sure you buy the right product for your cat, or to be really safe, get it from your vet. You cannot use a product for a dog on a cat.

A town called Broadview Heights, just south of Cleveland, used to be a privileged, comfortable place to live, with raccoons, deer, and wild turkey peacefully ambling through backyards. But not any more. In 2004, the Ohio legislature passed a law that prevented local authorities from regulating the development of oil and gas wells, and since then more than 70 gas wells have been drilled, in many instances without even notifying the residents living just 600 feet away. Broadway Heights residents are now sharing an experience with the marginalised poor and with the residents of Indian reservations, where people have known for decades what it is like to have no say.

Sleeves are being rolled up. Kari Matsko is the director of a grassroots initiative in Ohio called the People’s Oil and Gas Collaborative, and she is looking for a way to fight back. ‘The more people who are directly affected by fracking, ‘she says, ‘the stronger the resistance becomes.’ But for Broadview Heights, it’s a bit late. Here in Britain, at least we have been warned.

Monsanto’s biggest selling chemical is the glyphosphate weed-killer called RoundUp. And Monsanto’s engineers have produced genetically modified seeds that have to be dosed with higher quantities of RoundUp if they are to succeed. Or indeed, seed. Clever, huh? But Roundup is known to cause cancer, Parkinson's Disease, birth defects and infertility. A 2012 European Report said that studies since the 1980s showed that it caused ‘malformations in experimental animals at high doses’ and stated that the iindustry has known ‘since 1993 that these effects also occur at lower and mid doses.’

Nature, of course, fights back. Farmers started to find ‘super-weeds’ developing that were not killed by Roundup. So they up the dose. Farmers who grow genetically modified crops use about 25 percent more herbicides than farmers using traditional seeds.

The Organic Consumers Association analysed the figures, with a chilling result. The production and processing of Monsanto's GMO crops, including production and distribution of the necessary chemicals, was estimated to produce up to 51% of global greenhouse gas emissions.

Monsanto-produced genes are now found in 40 percent of the crops grown in the United States. The company’s determination to dominate the market sees the continual  buying-up of smaller companies and aggressive treatment of retailers to ensure that they only stock Monsanto products. This has driven up prices, both for farmers and consumers. Since 2001, Monsanto has more than doubled the price of soybean and corn seeds and farmers have been told to expect prices to keep increasing. In India, more than 270,000 farmers who grew Monsanto's Bt Cotton found themselves locked in endless debt, and many of them have committed suicide.

The worst effect, however, is the threat to the future. Loss of biodiversity means that nature’s ability to adapt to shifting conditions is severely compromised. Local knowledge is lost, along with plant breeds that have evolved in a variable way, able to meet a variety of circumstances. Have a think about it before you douse that with RoundUp. It might be damaging you as well as the dandelion, in ways you’d never thought of

Jan Inglis sends us a wonderfully simple recipe for a light summer dish

Turkish almond dip with raw vegetables

Ingredients

25 grms (1 oz.) white bread without crust
50 grms  (2 oz.)  ground almonds
1 clove of garlic, peeled
2 tablespoons white wine vinegar
150 ml ( ¼ pint ) mixture of olive and sunflower oil
2 big tablespoons yoghurt
salt and black pepper

Method

Dip bread into water and squeeze dry 
Put soaked bread, ground almonds, garlic, vinegar, oil and yoghurt Into a liquidiser, whisk until smooth. If too thick add a little single cream or milk.
Season to taste with salt and pepper.
Spoon into bowl or in centre of large serving dish, and surround with the raw vegetables.

Vegetables

Half a bunch of celery and about 225grms (8 oz.) each of small courgettes and young carrots, cut into 5 – 7.5 cms.( 2 – 3 ins.) sticks. Don’t be limited by this, though. Sliced red or green peppers are nice, too, and so is baby sweetcorn.

For the past decade, the chemical giant Monsanto has been pushing its (GM) genetically modified Bt corn, designed to make the plants that grow from it pest-proof. But after a mere seven or eight years, destructive rootworms started to develop immunity to the genetic make-up of the modified seed, and are infesting it as before. So farmers are spraying insecticides again.

Some companies saw it coming. American Vanguard bought up a range of insecticide companies and technologies during the successful GM years, betting that Bt corn would start to lose its effectiveness – which, of course, it has. Vanguard is laughing, and so are the rootworms, for scientists warn that their new-found resistance to Bt corn is likely to make them proof against other GM strains as well.

Austria, Bulgaria, France, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Luxembourg and Poland have all banned GM crop outright, and most others, including Spain, which grows the bulk of Europe’s corn, have declared specific areas of their countries to be GM-free – as has Britain. And 89% of British shoppers want meat from GM-fed animals to be labelled as such, so they can choose whether to buy it or not. 72% said they would pay slightly more to be informed about the GM content of what they're eating. It seems a reasonable request - but in the US, Monsanto recently secured government backing for its genetically engineered products to remain anonymous.

Do we know what we’re eating? No, we do not. The only safe way is to buy food locally, from a known and trusted small source. If, that is, you can find it.

On Saturday June 8th from 10 am to 5 pm, there will be an Art and Craft exhibition in Corrie hall in aid of the YES campaign for Scottish independence – and there’s a preview on the Friday evening, June 7th, with a glass of wine.

It is important to make clear that this is not a fundraising event for the SNP, in just the same way as a vote for independence is not a vote for the SNP. Independence is a means of giving Scotland the right to choose its own leaders, no matter who they may be. The YES campaign is supported by the Green Party and by some sections of the Labour party, as well as many non-affiliated people who want independence.

The exhibition will consist of work by Arran artists, including painting, sculpture and craft-work. One quarter of any sales money will go to the YES campaign and the remainder to the artist. There will be food, drink and music, with a concert in the evening, and the main intention is to have an enjoyable day and provide a venue for the issue of Independence to be discussed. Everyone is welcome, including anyone inclined against Independence who’d like to talk to other people or just enjoy art and food in a sociable atmosphere.  
       
Many people have yet to make up their minds on this vital issue, and it may help to meet others who are confident about Scotland’s future.  Most supporters of the YES campaigners take the more extreme prophecies with a pinch of salt. Warnings of doom and promises of a land flowing with milk and honey are equally unrealistic. Many of the arguments are based on speculative economic predictions rather than community co-operation and the satisfaction at being able to control our own destiny, but there is the possibility that independence may stimulate a new cultural and economic future of Scotland. It might even include the provision of roads, transport and services on Arran!

Please come to the exhibition, any time on Saturday 8th June from 10 am until 5 pm.  Meet friends, look at the work, enjoy the food and drink, listen to the music, buy an artwork if you like it – and exchange views about the big decision that is waiting to be made.

Many thanks to McCallum for sending this astonishing video.

If you have ever rammed handfuls of waste plastic into the bin (and who hasn’t?) you might have wondered why we can’t turn plastic back into oil, since it is made from oil in the first place. Well, a man in Japan has just done exactly that. He has made a video showing how it works, using a machine not much bigger than a food processor, and he is now taking it round schools, where children are fascinated. And, since the machine is small enough to put in an aeroplane like normal luggage, he has been taking it to show people in developing countries where no attempt to deal with the tide of waste materials has yet happened.

Have a look at the video on the folowing link. The inventor speaks Japanese, but there are very clear English sub titles, and it’s perfectly easy to understand what he means – a classic instance of ‘show, not tell’.

http://www.flixxy.com/convert-plastic-to-oil.htm

Bear in mind, too, that you can run your car on oil derived from plastic waste, as it can easily be processed into petrol or diesel. 

Heather Johnston, producer of this year’s Arran High School play, sends us this announcement.
Arran High School presents The Importance of Being Earnest
Oscar Wilde’s theatrical masterpiece is widely acknowledged as one of the greatest comedies in the English language. Wonderful characters, sparkling dialogue, gloriously improbable plot twists, a sprinkling of romance and identity theft – The Importance of Being Earnest has it all.
Jack is in love with Gwendolen. Algernon is in love with Cecily. Gwendolen and Cecily are both in love with Ernest. But who IS Ernest? Does he actually exist? And why the obsession with that handbag??
The crisis spirals out of control when the previously separate worlds of town and country collide and delicious mayhem ensues. Thoughts of marriage and a happy ending must be put on hold until the monstrous Lady Bracknell can be convinced that the young men are worthy suitors.
Performances are from 19th to 21st June and feature many of the wonderful young actors who have appeared in the recent productions of The Wizard of Oz and A Midsummer Night’s Dream. Tickets will be available from Arran High School, Lamlash or The Book & Card, Brodick from 10th June.

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I would like this month to make a plea for the protection of wasps in the garden. They do an immense amount of good work by predating on many insect pests, which they carry back to their nests as food for their broods.

Of course a wasp nest in the wrong place can be a nuisance, but wasps themselves only become mildly troublesome at the end of the season, when summer is giving way to autumn. By then, the female workers have finished raising the season’s brood and are perhaps tired and/or bored, and they tend to get a little intoxicated on fermenting fruit, which can make them a little bad-tempered sometimes.

Please do not destroy the queens or their nests, willy-nillly, because of an occasional sleepy drunk in the autumn. The same applies to hornet, which are apt to be regarded with more alarm. They will not attack you if you leave them alone.

As a jobbing gardener, I am often surprised by the extensive chemical arsenals that can be found in sheds and garages. Studies have long shown the detrimental effects that many, if not all, of these substances have upon the environment – and therefore upon you.

Please try to be organic in your garden. Vegetables grow on what is in the soil. If, as in many parts of the UK agri-industrial complex, the soil is basically a dead substance pumped full of artificial chemicals, then the vegetables that grow on it can have little of real nutritional value for us.

So look after the soil. It is alive and vital – and without it, we won’t be

Andrew Curry, writing on the American site, Truth-out, says solar panels are everywhere in Germany. Rows of them line railway tracks and cover almost every roof. 22% of Germany's power comes from renewables and solar provides close to a quarter of that. Bavaria, in the south of Germany, has more installed solar capacity than the entire United States.

Why such success? Basically, because German law guarantees a slightly above-market payment rate to small hydroelectric power generators. Residents in Conservative Bavaria soon spotted that this was a good long-term investment with a guaranteed future. Paperwork for renewables was made attractively simple. As a result, German companies lead the world in solar research and technology. On a sunny day last May, Germany produced 22 gigawatts of energy from the sun — half of the world's total and the equivalent of 20 nuclear power plants.

The price of solar panels has fallen 66 percent since 2006, partly because of competition from China, which is threatening to push more expensive German producers out of business. Soon, locally owned renewables may undercut the market for coal and nuclear power. But there's a problem. Renewable energy sources like wind and solar generate power intermittently, according to how fast the wind is or how bright the sun. And you can't store electricity like coal or gas. There is always overproduction of power during daylight hours, and this cheap energy surplus has driven prices for traditional coal and nuclear power down. When the power companies try to pass their rising costs on in the form of higher bills, people simply put more solar panels on their roofs.

The renewables boom puts power production into the hands of ordinary people in the same way that the internet gave us an international voice. We may soon be in a position to force power companies to rethink the way they do business. In Scotland, with less sun than Bavaria, that possibility is not quite so close – but something for our Government to think about, all the same.