The Courier’s letters week ends with discussion of wind farms’ performance, television’s treatment of vulnerable people, double standards over geopolitics and the treatment of Perth City Hall.
Electricity security is key to our future Sir,-Our politicians may view Scottish renewables as a magic roundabout of free energy bounty exempt from the laws of physics.
Sadly, the current John Muir Trust report on the actual performance of wind farms demonstrates how very difficult it is to get useful electricity from the wind.
As yet unexploited Scottish tidal generation schemes have a much better prospect of success.
We still need a vast amount of power generated either through fossil fuels with a vague hope of carbon capture, or the dreaded and even more unmentionable nuclear power.
Perhaps the Scottish people would feel more accepting of this if our nuclear power stations were all placed in the remote wilderness of Caithness exploiting modern high-voltage direct current transmission lines down to centres of population in this part of Scotland
A civilised society must have an affordable, reliable electricity supply. If we are in future to use electric transport and electric heating through heat pumps we will need a lot more of it.
Stephen Grieve.60 Nethergate,Crail.
Give athletes time to breathe
Sir,-I have no particular interest in Wayne Rooney and his recent bit of bother.
However, I believe there is a wider issue here €” that of too many over-zealous TV producers, directors, cameramen and so on desperately arranging or actually sticking cameras and microphones into the faces of people when they are at their most vulnerable and most likely to say something out of character.
Whether that applies to Rooney is a matter of opinion but, time and again, we have ordinary folk unaccustomed to being interviewed, coming out of, say, a murder trial full of emotion, bitterness, anger and having a microphone and camera stuck in their face.
Given time to compose themselves they would make a reasoned response to a verdict. As it is, they blurt out something they later wish they had never said. The television people get their story and move on but the effect on the person speaking lasts.
Equally ridiculous, though less serious, is the way an athlete who has, for instance, just run perhaps 5000 or 10,000 metres tries to answer fatuous questions when he or she is desperately trying to get his/her breath back before they pass out.
Surely athletics and other sports’ top brass should insert into any television agreement a section saying that people interviewed should be given reasonable recovery time. Oh, and interviewers should be taught to ask something with real meaning.
Ian Wheeler.Springfield,Cupar.
Double standards on€Arab conflicts
Sir,-The moral bankruptcy of Western leaders has never been more apparent than in their responses to the revolutions in the Middle East and North Africa.
When Israel bombed Gaza in 2008, killing 1300 people and destroying 20,000 buildings, there was no question of a no-fly zone. Rebels in Libya are fighting a dictator. Palestinians are fighting a country occupying their land.
Libyan rebels are lightly armed, as are Palestinians. The Libyan army is armed with heavy artillery, tanks and aircraft and the Israeli army is one of the most heavily armed in the world.
Why do Palestinians not have the same right to fight? Support for the UN Security Council’s authorisation of a no-fly zone over Libya demonstrates the selective nature of UN intervention.
Most people know the UN is not intervening in the Libyan revolution to protect civilians from Gaddafi’s brutality, rather they are protecting their own interests €” oil and gas.
The west is, and always has been, a major source of the problems of the Middle East and North Africa.
Jan Benvie.2 Roods Square,Inverkeithing.
Convert hall to art gallery
Sir,-Is it not ironic that Perth and Kinross Council wish to demolish the city hall in favour of farmers’ markets and other country pursuits whilst lobbying for city status?
Perth City Hall confers a dignity on the centre which would vanish for ever with demolition. Having visited the excellent exhibition of Victorian paintings in Perth museum and art gallery and knowing full well how little space there is to display even a fraction of what is unseen in the storage area below, it would make sense to separate art gallery from museum and refurbish the city hall as an art gallery.
Margaretha Linacre.21 Marshall Place,Perth.
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