Time for some Creative thinking?

FOR THE BELEAGUERED bosses of Creative Scotland it must all too often seem you can't win.

Faced with a paring of funds from their paymasters in Holyrood, they announce the imminent closure of their highly popular Open Fund for Individuals.

This produces a torrent of new applications before the announced deadline at the end of last month.

It also triggers a storm of protest from across the board – from the Festival stage, from writers, painters and artists everywhere.

Holyrood relents (familiar?) and promises to restore the missing arts funding and re-commits to the long term promise to back the arts with substantial funds.

Phew! So that's that problem solved. Or is it really? Such stop-start financing plays havoc with any long term planning. Yet it is all too understandable.

When all budgets are under considerable strain is it really acceptable to make the arts such a special case?

This may seem strange coming from a paper devoted to the promotion of rhe arts, but it's worth wondering if there is some alternative strategy to one that has shown itself to be so prone to damage from strong headwinds.

There is an irony, surely, in a situation where the offer of generous support by way of sponsorship is declined from a number of willing donors in favour of a stance of claimed financial purity.

Might there not be some mechanism by which these generous offers of support from finance and industry could be welcomed and put to a more general use for the arts?

Might the Open Fund for Individuals be funded not just by Creative Scotland, but by other, better heeled sponsors? A bit churlish surely to turn down funds from any source?

Stop the Pylons — and think!

THERE IS something slightly terrifying in the sight of the Lesser Spotted Milliband (Millibandus Edwardius) in full flight.

Elevation to the post of Energy Minister in the Starmer Government seems to have provoked in him a surge of almost messianic crusading energy to bring about a net zero Britain.

Towards that goal any stretches of open coastal waters or rolling inland hillscapes will be covered with massive windmills, the intervening countryside will groan under the imposition of mighty electricity pylons – "taller than St Pauls" and every other village in the land will boast a mini nuclear power station.

Okay, maybe not quite as bad as that, but the macho zeal with which he is preaching this new gospel is a tad terrifying.

Might there be a case – and not a NIMBY, climate change denyer one– to question the wisdom of this gung-ho approach?

Some very sane voices can be heard expressing serious doubts as to the wisdom of this crash-bang policy.

A retired engineer with an impressve academic and indusry background – way back in the 70s he founded the University of Strathclyde's Centre for Industrial Innovation – has been preaching some highly challenging views on this and other pressing issues through his website https://www.after-oil.co.uk.

John Busby, for it is he, argues that the future for power generation should – and will be – far more decentralised.

Instead of the government offering subsidies to install air source heat pumps, they should, he argues, fund self generated sources of power such as solar panels on every roof.

This, he argues, apart from removing a very risky dependence on a highly indebted (American owned) National Grid, would be a far more efficient approach – and Busby is not alone in this view.

In an earlier submission to the then Government's energy market policy review, Professor RJ Barry Jones of Reading University argued a similar line – citing the increasingly perilous state of the large centralised United States power providers.

The time for serious second thoughts is now, before the country is covered by mega pylons and the sea is awash with crackpot (rusting) windmills.

Busby's thoughts can be accessed at https://www.after-oil.co.uk/articles.htm – see National Grid Transmision and Electricity Distribution.pdf

Shame on you!

THERE IS SOMETHING profoundly depressing in seeing one of our national newspapers (even one that no one – acceptable that is! – seems to want to buy) taking pot shots at the BBC for their coverage of the dreadful 'war' in Gaza and the Occupied Territories.

Citing 'evidence' obtained by artificial intelligence by an Israeli lawyer, they give credence to a claim that the BBC infringed the impartiaity code "more than 1500 times" in its reporting.

The BBC deserve praise for their courage in attempting to cover a most distressing situation in the face of serious attempts to prevent accurate reporting by journalists on the spot. Shame!