The Canadians think there might be something unhealthy in Irn Bru. Fair enough, we did used to make it fae girders.

DODDIE ESSLEMONT, Radical Independence Campaigner

So Canada has banned the import of Irn Bru on the basis that one of its additives, Ponceau 4R, is potentially harmful to children.  What nonsense.  I was weaned onto  Irn Bru when I came off my mother’s milk, and it didn’t do me any harm.  Canada’s action is no more than an outrageous slur on the good name of an iconic Scottish product.  The People’s Democratic Republic of 39G Seaton Drive’s manufacturing base is relatively slim – I make new bars of soap by pressing together the little remnants of old ones that have collected in the plug-holes of showers in public swimming pools, and sell the aggregate that collects behind my toe-nails as parmesan cheese shavings.  Scotland, as my nearest neighbour, is a major trading partner, and our relationship with Barrs is perhaps second only to that with the Tunnocks corporation.  As such, I confirm that we of 39G Seaton Drive will stand shoulder to shoulder with our Scottish cousins on this matter.  I hereby announce an immediate import ban on Maple Syrup, Canada Dry Ginger Ale, and Justin Bieber.  Although going by recent reports, I don’t think that he’s going to be in much of a position to visit for some time, anyway.

VIEW FROM THE MIDDEN – Rural affairs with MTV (Meikle Wartle Television) presenter, JOCK ALEXANDER

Fit like?  And a guid New Year tae ab’dy!  Ye may be wondering fit wye it is ye hinna heard fae me for a pucklie months. Well the fact of the matter is that I’ve jist emerged fae my traditional festive hibernation. Fan it gets o’er caul here the only thing tae dae is tae mak a nest oot o’ dry leaves and tattie peelings, draw the curtains and knock back a bucket o’ nettle and neep. Then we waken up with a great big bappit grin in late January. But michty, despite the sub-zero temperatures, it’s been a het wik in the village! I hid tae smile fan I heard that Aiberdeen’s Police and Fire control rooms are set tae close, and the North-East is gan tae end up wi’ emergency services operated fae Dundee, or even Glasgow.

Michty, I laughed for a good five minties fan I heard that een. “They winna like that in Finzean and Foggieloan”, I thocht tae masel.  But on the off-chunce it’s nae a joke, I can reassure ye that it’s nae cause tae worry. Here in Meikle Wartle we hinna had wir ain police or fire control cinter fer donkeys years, and it hisnae daen us ony hairm. We tend tae deal wi’ ony reports of crime here via wir ain vigilante

justice force. Or, as she’s otherwise kent, Feel Moira, efter twelve pints. Michty, she’s ragin’ fan ye call her oot of the pub, fit maks her a very effective crime deterrent.  Fires are nae an issue here either. Nae fan the hale village has burned doon as often as oors has. I wid certainly recommend that ony concerned citizens of onywye north o’ Dundee jist dae fit we dae; let the conflagration get on wi’ it, and gather roond the flames. Efter a’, It’ll be the only heat ye get till that one fine day July we cry ‘Summer’.   Cheerio!

CAVA KENNY CORDINER, The Green Final’s Sports Personality of the Year – 1984

I was listening to the radio in the Jag the other day and I got a right shock when I was hearing that Aberdeen had signed Rooney!  What a signing he would be for the Dons!  It turns out that it wasn’t Manchester United megastore Wayne, but former Inverness player Adam that had become a Dandy.  He scored on his first game too.  I remember my first game at Longside – I scored early in the second half but got sent off for my celebration.  I took out the corner flag and pretended it was a javelin. Everybody was laughing until it incidentally impaled the ref.  The rest, as they say, is geography.

There’s been a whole host of funny on-goings in the world of sport this week and as usual I’ve been keeping my finger on the plus.  Talking of fingers, I was watching Rafael Nadal in the Australian Open playing with terrible blisters all over his hands.  They was weeping all pus and blood all over the place.  It was not bonny, in fact I nearly spat out my Fruit and Fibre.  Of course, as a top-flight footballer in the 1980s I am no strangler to the pain of blisters. New boots was always a nightmare. I remember the time I got my first pair of Copa Mundials – my heels was in a right mess.  The lovely Melody eventually lent me the special blister plasters which she weared when she was breaking in a new pair of stilettos.  Sadly for me I put them on backwards. I couldn’t get my socks off for a week.

“A third bridge over troubled waters” – I’ll believe it when I see it

Tim Bee, The Conscientious Objector

It was with horror no little personal angst that I noted work on the ‘So-called’ third Don Crossing commenced last week. I live in Bridge of Don and whilst I very much object to the utter gridlock that our city faces twice every working day, I also object to the building of this new bridge. I’ve talked before about the inconvenience that the so-called Western Peripheral ‘Route’ is going to cause during the construction phase and I know – For. A. Fact. – that there will be similar mass disruption caused by this new traverse. The first phase work involved tree-felling. I object to that. I love trees. Without trees we’d have no Oxygen, and the atmosphere would be choked with Carbon Dioxide. By cutting down these trees the supporters of this project are saying, in effect, that they want to starve us all of air. Madness. Utter Madness. As always, it’s one rule for the Amazonian rain forest and another for Balgownie Drive. Secondly, there’s the confusion this will cause. I object to the fact this gives Aberdonians three options for direction of travel to work. Three? Are you serious? Existing road policy is such that there is only ever one way to get from A to B. One way from town to the airport, one way from the Haudagain to Altens. Who has the mental capacity to deal with multiple options like that at 7:45 in the morning? I can barely manage the choice betwwen toast and sugar puffs. You mark my words, The Parkway will be brought to a standstill with people simply sitting in their cars, unable to move while they think hard, really hard, about which crossing to take. Thirdly, and finally, I object to the ruling Labour group changing their mind over this particular development. We need consistency from our elected representatives, and this kind of flexibility and compromise completely bucks the trend of party-politicking and petty point scoring that we have come to expect from this administration. If they’re going to start paying attention to the needs of the electorate, the results will be chaos! For that reason alone, I object!

Jimmy Hollywood, Sandilands most Eligible Bachelor

So, according to some of today’s media, Monday 20th of January, is kent as Blue Monday. It is supposed tae be the maist depressing day of the year. Well, I suppose it depends on fit news source ye listen to. If it’s Metro or Sky TV then it’s today. A’by else thinks that Blue Monday fell on the 6th of January. Either way, for a self-confessed man aboot town, local romeo and frequenter of the Soul Casino, January in itself is a pretty rubbishy four wiks. Every quine that I wid like tae see oot is staying in. Efter the festive period, some are de-toxifying, some have blown all their cash on parties, onesies and ‘ironic’ Christmas wooly-pullies and some just scoffed ower mony Quality Street and cannae yet squeeze intae ony of their ga’an oot claes. On any given January Setterday nicht in Aiberdeen, it is pretty much impossible tae get a trap. Aye, for mere mortals it’s impossible. Jimmy will still get lucky. It’s just that in January, pickings is slim, and it’ll most likely be with a lassie that looks a bit like Lionel Blair. There’s nae getting away fae the fact that a’bdy’s skint in January. So, oan a night oot, I too like to economise whilst still making sure I look the business. Nae taxis, I’ll get Ma Hollywood tae drap me aff in town (and she’ll pick me up again at The Dolphin at 3am, assuming I’ve nae managed ony a pick up of my ain, if ye ken fit I’m sayin’). I’ll dust aff the old Miami Vice white suit and I’ll head tae Club Tropicana (far my mate Dykers is the Bouncer). Be warned, though, contrary to popular belief, at Club Tropicana the drinks are NAE free – aye, unless ye get friendly with a gaggle of those Bieldside Cougars fa’re drippin’ in cash and Chanel Number 5. Cheers!

 Tanya Souter, lifestyle guru

Since Hogmanay, the papers his been full of stuff aboot the dangers of overeating. And me wi a pile of selection boxes still to plough hrough – a happy new year to you and a’! The boffins is saying an obesity crisis is rushing towards us. Which I thought wiz funny, cos I didna think fatties really did running. Apparently, reports that 50% of Brits could be obese by 2050 seriously under-estimate the problem and the NHS is nearing collapse as a result. Scary stuff, it’s enough to mak ye start comfort eating! The big problem is that sugar is a right sleekit so and so, and is hidden in a’ sort of places that ye widna expect: in things like fruit, vegetables and even condiments. Obviously there is only so much you can do aboot the last een, because birth control is very important. But we can still tak sensible steps to keep the pounds aff. So I’ve been on a health kick – diet mixers in my vodka (ye dinna notice the difference efter the first 5), saying ‘No’ to satsumas and picking a’ the lettuce aff my kebabs.

The Northern Lights of Aberdeen just mean standing in a freezing garden and a crick in the neck to me

Professor Hector Schlenk, Senior Research Fellow at the Bogton Institute for Public Engagement with Science

As a scientist, I’m always being asked questions such as ‘What will climate change mean for us in the future’, ‘What exactly is a black hole?’ and ‘What are you doing here, have you forgotten about the restraining order?’ But recently, people have been asking me all about the Northern Lights. “Well”, I advise “it was written in 1952 by Mary Webb, from Leamington Spa. Ironically, she’d never even visited Aberdeen’” And then we laugh. Uncomfortably. The Northern lights, or Aurora Borealis, which were allegedly visible last week in the North East of Scotland, are an astrological phenomenon caused by something called the Solar Wind. The Solar Wind blows on an 11 year cycle and is currently at its most celestially flatulent, sending energetic charged particles into the thermosphere above the Earth. The famous light show we can see is the result of these particles colliding with the atmosphere at enormous altitude. They would be harmful to us but thankfully the ozone layer and the ionosphere protect us, a bit like the sun tan lotion we lather upon ourselves during our annual pilgrimage to the Costa Dorada. Here in Aberdeen, where the Northern Lights is sung as something of a city anthem, we can’t see them at all. This is because of the light pollution, caused by street-lamps, neds with laser pens and the lights at the old Twin Spires Creamery. To truly witness the marvel of the Northern Lights one should, as I did, drive South to the Muchalls bend, stop your car in the middle of the A90 and look skyward. The view was magnificent, although the detention, breathalyser and night in the cells were a pest.

Ron Cluny, Official Council Spokesman

Few things in politics really surprise me anymore.  But recent events in New Jersey have taken my breath away.  The economically-named Governor Chris Christie has become embroiled in a scandal.  Leaked emails have established that a senior member of his administration instructed a contact in the Port Authority to close two lanes of a crucial bridge in order to bring traffic chaos to the citizens of Fort Lee as part of a petty political vendetta against the Mayor of that town, who had not supported the Governor’s re-election.  That public officials should collude in order to inflict intentional harm upon a blameless electorate is bad enough.  But that in America – the land of the free, the birthplace of modern political intrigue, the country that gave us Watergate, J Edgar Hoover and McCarthyism – they should be stupid enough to leave an easily discoverable email trail is truly shocking.  Have they no under-utilised city centre parks in which to have whispered, plausibly-deniable conversations? Thank heavens for Union Terrace Gardens.

Cava Kenny Cordiner, The Footballer’s Footballer

I have been keeping my baldy eyes on the sporting world this week and, you could not make it up, believe me you. Back when I was applying my trade as a footballer, you knew you was going to be playing your matches at 3pm on a Saturday. Them days is behind us as was proved by the Dons’ match against Hibs on Friday night. It was a great evening, and I was enjoying drinks with some sponsors in the lounge so I missed half of the whole first half. It was looking like the match was going to end in mate-lock until Willo the Wisp stepped up to the hotplate and scored a peach. Then I got a bit confused, because I could swear the Red Army started singing ‘The Sheep are on Fire’. Maybe I’ll need to go easy on the corpulent hostility in future. David Moyes is having a tough old time at Man United, trying to stimulate Fergie’s proud record. Old Trafford used to be something of a buttress under Sir Alex but poor old Moyes cannot buy a win. Some people in the medium is all saying that Moyes needs to be given his jotters but I stand by my original statement – Rome wasn’t built in 2 days. David will need time to put his stump on the team, but like I says when I was eating Melody’s sherry trifle on Christmas day, cream always rises to the top. Speaking of the lovely Melody, after she spent 5 hours online we got our tickets for the Commonwealth games in Glasgow. Sadly we will not get to see one of Britain’s sporting greats, Jessica Ennis. The Olympian has decided that she will not be managing the games because she has a bun in the family way. I am not wanting to designate Britain’s Golden Girl, but I think that is a poor show. In the 21 years I played football plenty of my team-mates had kids, but I never heard none of the lads use that excuse. But the biggest news of all was the shock announcement from former footballer Thomas Hitzlsperger. I do not know no-one who doesn’t agree that it was real brave of him brave to admit, even after all these years, that he used to play for West Ham.

No matter how awkward your Hogmanay was, just be grateful you didn’t need an ice-breaker

Doddie Esslemont – radical Independence campaigner

It was an eventful Hogmanay in the People’s Democratic Republic of 39g Seaton Drive. Inspired by my near-neighbours in Stonehaven, I decided to see the New Year in with a spectacular fireball display.

What a sight I was, striding manfully up and down my lobby, whirling around my head a home-made fireball composed of lighter fluid-soaked “Better Together” campaign literature, retained specially for just such an occasion. “Freedom!” I declaimed. “Freedom for Scotland!” “And, for 39g Seaton Drive, freedom from Scotland.” I kept it up for a full 20 minutes, and I’m sure I could have gone on for even longer had I not succumbed to smoke inhalation after a stray spark set fire to my pouffe.

So it was that my first foot of 2014 consisted of a squad of burly firemen putting my door in and charging through the blaze to rescue me.

Generally, I will not tolerate any attempt by institutions of the illegitimate pretend state of the so-called UK to exercise authority over any aspect of my life. But on this particular occasion, I’ll let them off.

 

Davinia Smythe-Barratt, ordinary mum

I know that, as an ordinary mum, I’m not particularly well-off or lucky, but a recent Facebook post from a good friend of ours really had me thinking “there, but for the grace of God, go I”.  They ran into a spot of bother on an adventure holiday, a trip that Emmeline, Fidel and I almost took ourselves.  Talk about dodging a bullet!

I’m sure I’ve mentioned before the lengths to which I will go to try and avoid the masses when booking each of 5 precious fortnights of holiday we take every year.  We’ve enjoyed some of the world’s last true undiscovered gems recently; the Atacama Desert, our friend Giles’ private island off the coast of Venezuela and even our darling little riad in Marrakech.  We have to travel during term time, naturally, which means the kids missing school but I’m sure their teachers understand that travel broadens the mind. What is a fortnight in the Maldives if it is not a really intensive Geography field trip?

This winter we had hoped to jet off somewhere truly exclusive.  3 berths on the Akademik Shokalskiy, a Russian research vessel, promised “a secluded cruise to Antarctica with a handful of likeminded individuals keen to experience Earth’s last true wilderness.”  But when I heard that our friends Kitty and Rollo Hawkes-Meade were booked on the same trip I immediately cancelled our tickets.  I mean what’s the point of a holiday like that if you’re not the only person you know who’s been on it?

So imagine my shock when I heard that the ship became trapped in ice on Christmas Eve and passengers only rescued by helicopter on the 2nd of January!  How irresponsible of the tour organisers?  The Hawkes-Meades reported that they had received no warnings at all about the possibility of ice at the South Pole. I know that if I’d been made aware of the risk I would never have booked our tickets in the first place. You would think that the organisers, the Australian Antarctic Expedition, would have the gumption to pack a scraper and some deicer? I mean, it is winter after all! Poor Kitty and Rollo must have had an absolutely horrendous time, stranded like that. Apparently they had to be rescued by an ice-breaker. Well, sometimes on these cruises, making conversation can be very difficult.

 

Struan Metcalfe, Conservative MSP for Aberdeenshire North and Surrounding Nether Regions

Boy oh boy! What news this week in the political stratosphere. Nick Griffin has popped up on my beloved Twitter to announce that he is bankrupt. That’s financially bankrupt and not morally bankrupt, for the avoidance of any doubt. Nicky Baby tweeted that being bankrupt did not prevent him from being a MEP. He is now putting his efforts and experience into producing a booklet on dealing with debt. Pity you didn’t do that before blowing all your money on legal battles, eh Nicholas?However, I do appreciate that insolvency is a very serious business. So I sort of regret responding to him with the following tweet:

“Hahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha. LOL”

In these straightened times, debt is a real concern for a large proportion of the people of this great nation of ours nation, as well as many of my constituents. And when people are struggling then politicians at the extremes of the spectrum can often pick up new followers (much like those of us on twitter). It was once thought that tough economic conditions would push the common man towards support for the far right, but that hasn’t materialised. Fortunately people who like to blame immigrants for all their problems are now perfectly well served by the Conservative PartyBut in all seriousness, I do understand the plight of those facing financial ruin, I truly do. I still haven’t fully recovered from my own horrid personal experience of bankruptcy. It was back in sixth form at Gordonstoun. Its still very painful, but let me just say that Fatty Blenkinsopp was absolutely merciless in collecting his debts and I’ve never played monopoly since.