21 December 1988

It is early evening when PanAm flight 103 takes off from London's Heathrow airport, bound for New York. Not an hour into the journey, a homemade bomb, built around a radio-cassette recorder, explodes in the hold of the aircraft. This blows a hole in the fuselage, and the shockwave of the explosion disrupts the integrity of the aircraft. At 37,000 feet up, the Boeing 747 disintegrates, and the wreckage rains down on the small town of Lockerbie. The cockpit lands in a field near the A74 (Carlisle to Glasgow) road, but a large segment of the aircraft crashes into a small housing estate on the outskirts of Lockerbie. Houses are destroyed or set on fire. All passengers and crew on flight 103 are killed, although some were thought to have been alive as fell to the ground. Eleven townspeople were killed as well. Later, the evening became increasingly unreal, as newscrews descended on Lockerbie, reporting events - with the townspeople watching the 9 o'clock news on television to learn what had happened to their small town.

It was later determined that a bomb had been placed on the aircraft by Libyan security agents, acting on behalf of Col Ghadaffi. More than a decade later, Libya yielded two security agents for trial under Scots law, but only agreed to do so if they were tried not on British soil. So, an impromptu court was set up at Camp Zeist in Holland. Abdelbaset Ali Al-Megrahi was convicted of the crime and sentenced to life in jail. He was released in August 2009 on humanitarian grounds as he was terminally ill and only had 3 months to live. Well, it's 16 months later and he's still alive. Not everybody was happy with that decision, as he had treated his victims with inhumanity.

This entry is dedicated to the memory of the 270 victims of Lockerbie. 
The BBC has a separate webpage "On this day"

Tuesday 21 December

Another post from me on Atlantic Lines, for the simple reason that my travel plans fell apart this morning. The plane to Glasgow I was to have taken at 8.30 am was cancelled, along with all other flights before midday. The reason was black ice on the runway. The later departure at 2.30pm would have left me with insufficient time to make my connection at Edinburgh. The two cities are only 45 miles apart, but transferring between the two airports requires two 30 minutes bus journeys, a 45 minute rail trip, and that with a decreased frequency of trains. Leaving to one side the joys of travelling on the M8 in Glasgow and the A8 in Edinburgh, and the weather conditions. So I returned to Stornoway, awaiting tomorrow morning's plane. If things go to pot again, I'm quite prepared to cancel the trip.

The one benefit of this morning's excursion was the lunar eclipse, pics of which I will post separately. Otherwise, the overnight frost combined with a fall of rain had turned roads and pavements into ice rinks.

Monday 20 December

Another quiet day, and as I type this, the sun is sinking towards the southwestern horizon, due to set at 3.34pm. It'll be the shortest day of the year tomorrow, and it'll start in a spectacular fashion: with a lunar eclipse just before sunrise in the UK. The lunar eclipse starts in earnest just after 6 am (UK time), with totality just after 8 am and ending at around 10 am. This means that the moon sets during the eclipse. Here in Stornoway, the moon will set just after 9 am, leaving me with a pretty good display.

There will be a partial solar eclipse at sunrise on 4 January 2011, visible from Europe.

I'll be admiring tomorrow's lunar eclipse from Stornoway Airport, as I'm flying across to Amsterdam. I'm so glad I've changed my booking, as British Airways appears to be in meltdown. Its website is going round in square circles and doesn't do what it's supposed to do. I am positively horrified at the scenes at Heathrow, where people are resigned to sit on the floor until Thursday.

Unless something else crops up, this will be my last posting for 2010 on Atlantic Lines. I expect to resume entries from Stornoway on Thursday 6 January 2011. During my stay in Holland I'll be blogging on the Shell Gallery; updates on my journey tomorrow will be made on Facebook and Twitter.

Sunday 19 December

The disruption on the travel front is showing no signs of abating. Again hardly any flights leaving the main London airports, with thousands of people unable to go on their Christmas breaks. Personally, I am booked to travel to Holland on Tuesday, through Heathrow and Gatwick. That's proving to be a mistake. The situation is so dire, that I have rebooked my outward journey to go straight from Edinburgh to Amsterdam. I count myself lucky that there was still a seat, and I don't mind having to wait for a number of hours. The alternatives were growing thinner and thinner on the ground, with Eurostar no longer accepting new bookings before Christmas and the English rail network subject to delays and cancellations. I am planning to return to Stornoway on Wednesday 5 January 2011.

Saturday 18 December

Complete and utter mayhem, that's what the traffic situation in England can safely be described as today. Up to 10 inches (25 cm) of snow have fallen in various parts of the country, and the major airports around London have ground to a halt. Here in Stornoway, we awoke to a good snow shower, but as day broke, it cleared to a nice sunny day - but a cold one. A lot of events have been called off, and people are advised against all non essential travel. Although the boat with roadsalt did dock, we're still a tad short on the stuff.

No, I'm not going to watch Strictly Come Dancing (which I dub: Strictly Come V*m*t*ng) or the X-factor (better described as X-rated, due to the awfulness of it all). I'm sorry if there is anyone out there that genuinely likes it, that's fine. I just go off this sort of programs to which entire newsitems are devoted on BBC etcetera. Who is Simon Cowell when he's at home? A loudmouth? Who is Bruce Forsyth? Thought he'd been put out to pasture long ago. Mind you, I wish they'd put Terry Wogan out to pasture long before now, he's been known to go on stage drunk or farting.

I am closing with images of two of the family cats, who have long since departed over the Rainbow Bridge. Have a look at the posting on Call for Support, and you'll see what prompted me.

Evening notes

Although the weather has improved, Friday ended early for many people in these islands. Most schools were shut all day, and shops in Stornoway town centre closed early, between 2 and 3pm. Buses to rural areas in the island had their last service between 6 and 8pm; on a Friday, the last service usually leaves at around 11pm, just after the pubs close. Not today. One driver had a bad day, as a lamppost outside the supermarket had been knocked over. There is a layer of snow, 10 cm / 4 inches thick, on the ground, and drifts rising to 40 cm / 16 inches. With the light winds having fallen light, the main problem will be frost. A ship with a supply of road salt is sheltering in the Sound of Mull and will head this way over the weekend. Although there is 1,000 tons of roadsalt left in Lewis and Harris, the supply in the Southern Isles is only 200 tons.

Outside, the mercury has already dipped to -5C.

Friday 17 December

A very wintry scene presented itself, even before daybreak. About 4 inches (10 cm) of snow on the ground, which had accumulated into drifts of more than a foot deep (up to 40 cm). This has caused extensive disruption in the whole of the north of Scotland. The A9 is closed from Brora to Thurso, that's 53 miles of road, including the A99 spur to Wick. Looking at the traffic cameras, the road is almost completely covered in snow. Most schools are shut in the Western Isles, and the situation on the mainland is similarly bad. Here in town, the weekly bin collection has been cancelled for the first time that I've been here - that tends to go ahead, even in stormy weather. There is also no ferry service to the mainland from Stornoway, due to a heavy northerly swell. The alternative route, between Harris and Skye, is running as scheduled, as it's sheltered from the north.

More later.

Picture post - week 12-15 December

The low sun always provides for colourful images in December


We went to the Braighe on Sunday (12th), but the tide was in

Picture post - 16 December

Another wintry blast - at low tide


The birds are having a hard time



This fishing boat, the Buckie-registered Sustain, ran aground on the east coast of Harris, and was escorted to Stornoway for repairs after the Coastguard dropped pumps on board to keep her afloat.

Coast not guarded

The UK government is proposing to axe a number of coastguard stations along the coast of Scotland in order to save money. Under current thinking (if there has been any thinking involved with this plan at all), only the station at Aberdeen would operate 24/7, with either Lerwick or Stornoway kept as a part-time (daylight only) cover. The other stations, at Clyde and Forth, would be shut permanently.

I’ll go so far as to describe that as sheer lunacy. This is typical bureaucratic pen pushing, a scheme dreamt up by someone in an office in central London, who does not have an inkling what goes on north of the proverbial Watford Gap.

Two fifth of the UK coastline covered by only ONE station? The very stretch of coastline that can experience the severest weather in the country? Today has already seen the Coastguard in action off Harris, with the helicopter (also potentially up for sale) dropping off pumps on board a leaking fishing vessel, and the RNLI lifeboat escorting it into Stornoway. Without Coastguard facilities present, things might have been coordinated from Aberdeen, but with all respect to the Coastguards there, they are unfamiliar with the vagaries of the Outer Hebrides coastline. And without a helicopter, the crew of the fishing boat would have been in dire straits, if not in danger of their life.

Thursday 16 December

A sharp downturn in temperatures has seen a rapid succession of snow showers rattling through here all morning. The mercury is now around zero and the strong northerly wind makes it very unpleasant outside.

Down in Benbecula, a plane has overshot the runway on landing, but nobody was hurt. The Benbecula - Stornoway - Inverness service is quoted as delayed on the Stornoway Airport website.

Out at sea, a fishing boat had to call for help when she started taking on water, which her own pumps could not cope with. The Coastguard helicopter flew out to the waters off Stockinish, East Harris, and dropped off an extra pump. Meanwhile, the RNLI's lifeboat Tom Sandersen has set off for Harris to escort the vessel to Stornoway. I am monitoring the horizon for her reappearance, and expect the fishing boat to go up the Goat Island slipway for repairs.

A former government minister has said that all illicit drugs, e.g. cocaine and heroin, should be legalised in a bid to address the problems caused by illicit drug taking. I think that is short-sighted and populist. Substances like cocaine and heroin (diamorphine), as used by drug abusers, are harmful and potentially lethal. The same goes for the group of compounds that come under the amphetamine banner. The major problem for society is caused by the fact that the addicts have to fund their habit, and a sizeable proportion do so by resorting to crime. The illegal drug trade is an international problem, which should not be tackled in this way by one nation on its own.

Wednesday 15 December

We're awaiting another wintry onslaught, which should reach us overnight. As I type, the mercury is reaching the dizzying heights of +8C; within 24 hours, the plus sign will be replaced by a minus sign on the Scottish mainland.

Religion
In Scotland, a ferocious debate is raging in the Free Church over the admission of musical instruments and hymns in the Sabbath service. The Free Church split from the Established Church of Scotland in 1849 in order for the congregation to be able to elect its own preachers, hence the designation of it being "Free". Previously, the Church of Scotland would impose preachers upon the faithful. The Free Church, which has a strong following in the Isle of Lewis, is regarded as fairly strict.

I have not attended a Free Church service, but I am advised that only psalms are sung, and there are no musical instruments present. These are regarded as frolicsome and instruments of the devil, prompting people to behave in an inappropriate fashion. Instead, psalms are sung out one line at a time by a precenter (yes, spelled with a C, not an S), which the congregation follows at its own pitch, pace and volume. The result is an eerie sound, almost like a swell rolling ashore on a beach.

It was recently decided that the Free Church would adopt musical instruments. This is a highly controversial move, and is threatening to split the Free Church even more than it already is. Which brings me to the point of this blogpost. I am a Protestant, but rather a protesting protestant. At the age of 20, a friend invited me along to a meeting of Opus Dei, which was seeking to recruit me (and other students). The explanation of Roman Catholicism very neatly served to persuade me that it was not for me. I cannot accept the basic tenet of RC faith that His Holiness the Pope is infallible. He was born a man, as fallible as the next person. And I can similarly not accept that one interpretation of the Bible is correct and all others are wrong. I apologise for any offense my statement may cause.

As far as Protestantism is concerned, I find it degrading to behold the spectacle, described at the start of my discussion, of grown men and women rolling in the street, fighting over an interpretation of the Bible. Whether this be the use of musical instruments in religious service, the observance of the day of rest or whichever aspect of life: it is enough to put people off religion, and brings down ridicule upon the faithful. And Protestantism to me is almost synonymous with squabbles and strife.

It should be a source of joy that factions of the Christian church seek to reconcile, which was attempted between the Anglican Church and the Roman Catholic Church a year or so ago. I have also seen it happen between fractions of the Protestant Church - it should be encouraged, and people should look for common ground, rather than focus on what divides them. If all those church denominations were to do just that, it would make the world a much better place. However, I only have to glance 250 miles to my south (to Northern Ireland) to see what religious strife can descend into.

Dare I say that there is a lot in common between Christianity and Islam as well?
Don't go there, Guido, don't go there...

Tuesday 14 December

Quite a nice day, with a good amount of brightness about. Hardly any wind, although it was not warm. In the sun, the 6C was quite acceptable. Some light rain wafted by in the afternoon, but no complaints. That will change by Thursday, when a strong northerly wind will bring copious amounts of snow down from the North Pole.

At the moment, the House of Lords is voting on the vexed issue of tuition fees, and it looks as if the government will be having its way. Tuition fees for universities will vary from £6,000 to £9,000 per annum in England and Wales; I seem to remember that students in Scotland don't pay tuition fees. No public order problems are reported from Westminster. I wonder what will happen if they ever catch the hoodlum that poked the Duchess of Cornwall in her Rolls Royce on Thursday of last week.

Monday 13 December

Another quiet day on the weatherfront, after a cold night, with the mercury down to -3C. We have lost the mild weather of the weekend, with afternoon highs only just on 4C. And we'll be even lower before the weekend. Strong winds will blow in another cold spell by Thursday, with snow and freezings temperatures. It won't be very nice here, but the mainland will get worse.

I came across another bad weather event, going back 92 years. A Pacific storm raged along the west coast of Canada and the northwestern USA in October 1918, with winds up to 100 knots (110 mph), making it hurricane force. The hurricane kept going for a week, wrecking several ships. One of them was a Canadian naval vessel, the Galiano. She went down with all hands, after transmitting a final message: "Hold's full of water, for God's sake send help". Help could not come, and the 39 crew were lost. One of them originated from Leurbost, here in Lewis, hence my interest in the disaster.

Bad weather has brought about the demise of at least two communities in the Hebrides in the 20th century. I was following up a tribute to a man from Scarp, Donald Maclennan. He died of the Spanish flu in 1918 at the age of 43. His mother, Catherine, died in November 1896 after suffering a very serious accident. She suffered head injuries, which brought about her death after about 7 weeks. Her death was not certified by a medical practitioner. Scarp, lying just a mile offshore from the northwest coast of Harris, is singularly difficult to reach due to strong tidal currents in the channel separating it from Harris, particularly in bad weather. The community abandoned the island in 1971. Before then, it gained prominence for being the home to a mother of twins which were born in two different counties. One baby came into the world in Inverness-shire (the county that Scarp is in), the other in Ross-shire, the county for Stornoway (until 1974).
The other abandoned island? St Kilda. For 8 months of the year, it did not have a regular steamer service until it was evacuated in 1930.

Sunday 12 December

A quiet day, with hardly a breath of wind. That's the benefit of sitting directly under the centre of an area of high pressure. It will shift west later this week, leaving us with another northerly blast, snow and ice. Astronomically, winter is still nine days away, but weatherwise, it started two weeks ago.

I have been busy this afternoon adding tributes to the WW1 tribute site, and by the end of today the total for today will be close to 30, and the overall total at 200. I have gone through copies of the Stornoway Gazette from January 1917 to November 1918, as far as the edition of 15 November '18, which announced without much ado that war was over. The paper, published weekly, was only 4 pages due to paper shortages, so could not really go to town on the Armistice. And, by then, close on 1000 islanders had lost their lives in the war. Unbeknown to contemporary readers in 1918, another 200 were to be lost as they returned home on board their transport Iolaire, which sank outside Stornoway Harbour on New Year's Day 1919.

You've heard of the Titanic. Unless you have followed my output over the past 4 or 5 years, you are unlikely to have heard of the Iolaire. And even less likely to have heard of the loss of the Norge, in 1904.

Saturday 11 December

A brighter day than yesterday, with some sunny or at least bright intervals. However, it is mid December, so the sun sets not long after 3.30pm. I spent an hour and a half in the library, first half hour doing battle with a magnifying lens on a microfilm reader; when I got it to focus properly, I found nearly 20 tributes from the last couple of weeks from the First World War. I came out of the library at 4.30, meaning it was dark outside.

I returned home to the welcome news that the Scottish transport secretary, Stewart Stevenson, has finally bowed to the inevitable and resigned. Mr Stevenson had planned to throw in the towel on Thursday, but had been persuaded by the First Minister to hang on. I am pleased that the Transport Secretary has quit, as he was ultimately responsible for communication and coordinating the emergency response.

Friday 10 December

A grey, drizzly and mild day. The mercury is at 9C, on a par with most of northern Scotland.

The news is dominated by the events of yesterday, when the House of Commons approved a rise in tuition fees for university and college students in England to between £6000 and £9000 per year. Students demonstrated around Westminster, near the Houses of Parliament, and there were violent clashes with police all day. Several students were injured, one seriously; several police were injured, one seriously as well. A car, carrying Prince Charles and his wife Camilla were attacked in Regent Street as they were headed for an engagement at the Royal Palladium Theatre; a window in the car was smashed and a can of paint thrown over the vehicle.
Today, the violence was roundly condemned, and although Prince Charles nor Camilla were hurt, it is said that the armed police accompanying the vehicle exercised great restraint; if the couple had been in any real danger, they could have discharged their firearms.

Students are angry with the current Conservative / Liberal Democrat coalition government, because the Lib Dems promised not to raise tuition fees before the election. That promise has come back to haunt them. Coalitions are rare in British politics, and the concessions that parties need to make in order to form a viable government not readily understood. On the continent, coalitions are the rule of the day, and nobody would have faulted the Lib Dems in Germany or Holland for abandoning some of their manifesto pledges.

I can understand the students' anger, but I disapprove of violence in any form or under any pretext. If a route for the protest march was agreed, then divergence from that route is likely to result in police action. And seeing some of the damage done to property around Parliament Square on TV this morning, I do think the police were justified in taking the action they have taken.

Higher tuition fees are here to stay now, but other cutbacks, proposed by the coalition government, will result in more street protests. Which are equally likely to get hijacked by the rent-a-mob anarchist elements in society, who hijacked yesterday's protests. Some students felt that anything is justified to highlight their cause, but that's a sentiment I disagree with.

Wikileaks

The Wikileaks saga is moving into new territory. Its founder, Julian Assange, presently in custody, awaiting a court appearance prior to possible extradition to Sweden. Charges have been made against him in relation to alleged sexual offences, which he is said to have committed in Stockholm four months ago. There is concern in certain circles that after any court appearance in Sweden, the USA could apply for his onward extradition; a totally different ballgame.

Objectively speaking, releasing government files marked "confidential" or "secret" is against the law, and certainly placing them on the Internet makes it pretty blatant. However, I do grant that having such poor security in place that allows the leaking of such material is a serious matter in itself. If the USA chooses to prepare a case against Julian Assange, I would imagine that it would have a pretty strong body of evidence. To an independant observer, Mr Assange (and his Wikileaks organisation) would stand on stronger ground if they also leaked government files from other countries. It was put to me over the past week that (e.g.) releasing Russian or Chinese "cables" would probably lead to the discovery of Mr Assange in a lifeless state. Rumours circulate that certain circles in the American government would like that to happen. Very much.

Several companies, e.g. Visa, Mastercard and Paypal, have withdrawn their financial services from Wikileaks. Webhosting companies have also ceased to host the website, and it is presently on a Swiss webserver. These companies have now been subject to a "distributed denial of service" (DDoS) attack, which floods the website with so much traffic that it becomes inaccessible. Malware is being distributed to people, who then become part of a network of computers which carry out the DDoS. DDoS is illegal in most countries. Furthermore, the very word Malware should be a warning to anyone who might be tempted to participate. It causes all sorts alarmbells and red flashing lights to go off with me - you are NOT in control of your own computer.

The whole Wikileaks saga is a shady affair, hovering on the boundary of what is legal and what is not. When the release of American diplomatic cables first began, I was inclined to laugh at a government that did not have its security in order. My favourable inclination towards Wikileaks is beginning to fade fast.
There is a parallel, you see.

Back in 2002, a Dutch politician, Pim Fortuyn, was shot dead outside a radio studio. He was popular for daring to raise the issue of immigrants, up to that time a taboo subject in Dutch society (reason: WW2). I was appalled at the murder, and decided to sign his on-line condolence register. However, when I read the rabid, extreme-rightwing claptrap on said register, I could not be seen to be associated with it. So I did not sign.
Same here. The illegal DDoS attacks, perpetrated on behalf of Wikileaks (even if not overtly condoned by the organisation) are putting me off. Big time.

Thursday 9 December

The cold spell has come to an end here in the Western Isles of Scotland, with the thermometer at the dizzying heights of 6C / 43F this afternoon. There was some drizzle earlier on, but it is now dry. The sun will be setting in the next 20 minutes (it's 3.20pm) and it's getting dark. The ice on the pavements is melting, fortunately, as it was rather a nuisance over the past 10 days. The cold weather will return by Sunday or Monday, but the Met Office is not specific as to what shape it will take.

The Met Office has come in for rather a lot of stick, as it is being given the blame for the travel disruption in central Scotland on Monday and Tuesday. The Scottish Government says the Met Office did not indicate that the amount of snow would fall that did come down; however, the fact that were was going to be a substantial fall of snow (up to 5-10 cm) was forecast on Sunday evening. However, the role of coordinating the response to the severe weather was not taken up adequately by the Scottish Government, which is deplorable. It says enough that the First Minister was more interested in presenting his Christmas Card rather than in dealing with the emergency; by 9pm on Monday, people had been stranded for up to 12 hours in their vehicles already.

Wednesday 8 December

Another winter's day, with a layer of just under an inch of snow this morning in Stornoway. Looked very pretty, until the temperature rose above freezing. The footprints of a cat could be seen trailing through the backyard - but the birds were all still there. Even the blackbird with a broken wing, that's been scurrying around since July.
The Transport Minister, Stewart Stevenson, has made a statement to the Scottish Parliament and apologised for failing to provide the service that a government can be expected to render. At the height of the crisis, on Monday evening, the First Minister was presenting his Christmas card, rather than directing proceedings.
Meanwhile, the road chaos in central Scotland continues. I am typing this whilst listening to the traffic news on Radio Scotland, which does not make for cheerful listening for anyone in the Central Belt. 

A video has now been removed from YouTube, which showed an Irishman expressing his exact feelings on the reasons for the current economic crisis. His language was rather rude, involving the F-, W- and B-words. Reason for the video to be pulled, I assume. But don't think that Ireland is the last Eurozone country to have to be bailed out. Portugal and/or Spain could be next.