6 replies to this topic

[Barry McCrindle]

http://news.bbc.co.u...ral/7697053.stm

Ship grounds above gas pipeline

A cargo ship has run aground off Elcho Castle in the Tay estuary, near Perth, with the bow resting above a natural gas liquids pipeline.
The Bahamian registered Celtica Hav was carrying wheat into Perth Harbour about 0330 GMT when she grounded.
The seven crew on board are uninjured, and Forth coastguard hope to refloat the ship at the next high tide at about 1530 GMT.
Shell has said the pipeline is 2.75m under the river bed.
It carries natural gas liquids between St Fergus, in Aberdeenshire, and Mosmorran, in Fife, and is encased in concrete.
The pipeline operation is unaffected and is not being shutdown.

[young ronnie]

Reading the report it states that the vessel was en route from Germany to Perth with a cargo of wheat. I'm tempted to ask what the feck have we farms and farmland for in this (once great) country of ours when we have to import what we bloody well should be growing ourselves.I seem to remember as a kid in East Lothian there were fields of tatties, vegetables and barley as far as the eye could see. Can we actually produce ANYTHING here??  Wheat from Germany,lambs from New Zealand,anything and everything you care to name from China....Jeeezzzo the mind boggles so it does !!  (that's the "RM rant" for the day lol)

[wbeedie]

A bit the poor fermers widnae get their subsidies to grow these things , they widna be able ti drive aboot in their 4x4s and pickups driving top o the range tractors wi mair hame comforts in their single man cabs that hae as muckle  electronics than a 80ft trawler his a ower it jist widnae dee

[young ronnie]

Silly me...ah jist winae thinking there Willie.....sorry  lol

[restlesswave]

when i lived there it used be loads of coal into the harbour and grain out of the harbour

[young ronnie]

The one that got me Frankie was towing near Hunterston power station in the Fairlie Sound when I worked out of Rothesay in the late 80s. A shipload (about 100 000 odd tons ) of coal came over from chuffin' Australia for them and they had closed the coal mines not 20 or 30 miles down the road !!....to paraphrase your good self....Jesus wept  lol

[restlesswave]

yeah that`s what i could never understand-alright coal in australia may be cheaper to harvest-open cut as opposed to mining seams-don`t know but it has to be shipped round the globe-most of the coal i burn comes from texas!? as far as i know most of the pits that  was closed down were working productive seams-if they weren`t making money-why not subsidise? the government has been subsidising these communitys anyway-as maybe laughing boys only relevant facts stated-shocking unemployment,scandalous drug problems and child neglect-now the country has to pick up the tab for all of this-coupled with all the ancillary industrys assosciated with the pits the country has lost it`s tax revenue from it all-at what price has all this came? destruction of whole dependent communitys -both financially and socially and generations of knowledge down the tubes-you can see the parallels with our own industry. me?- i feel very strongly about what happened to the miners for a few reasons-first being that i am an unapologetic socialist and secondly when things were bleak in this country both my grand fathers worked as miners in scotland. one between n.e. herring seasons. and the other fulltime in the fife mines. all my mothers brothers were all leading miners as was my father albeit out side the coal industry-they were all tunnel men in the hydro schemes. a lot of my friends are tunnel men and my brother in law was also a leading miner. you`ve just pressed the right buttons to put me away clean off on one-am away to start a revolution lol!-well i`ll get my dinner first and see have i calmed down by then!