BYE BYE

[2little2late]

Absolutely delighted to have left Caithness. It has been the worst years of my life living in such a hell hole. I wouldn't send my worst enemy there.

[jjc]

Yawn!!!

[Gallacher]

Good do not come back ! :Razz

[mike.mckenzie]

Thats you in good company with Robert Louis Stephenson then.

[Mr Sensitive]

Goodnight Deacon!

You were a good man
Deacon
Everyone loves you
Now you're gone

Where are you gone, kid? You must be near because I can hear you sing your final song.

[2little2late]

Good do not come back ! :Razz

No fear of that happening.

[squidge]

Sailed away in a ship called dignity
tra la la tra la la

[Sandra]

Well its not nice to hear that Caithness is bad is especially when I'm moving up in November - I won't let it put me off though..... lol :)

[©Amethyst]

Sandra, I guess it all depends on which area you move to. Like any county, Caithness has its good areas and bad areas. I hope you're happier than deacon was, wherever you move to.

[kwbrown111]

pity he didn't take Lorraine Mann with him, then we would all be happy

[jjc]

Sailed away in a ship called dignity
tra la la tra la laI'm pretty sure that dignity sailed away without him aboard a long time ago - around day two of that daft countdown he had going is my guess [lol]

[gleeber]

I want to wish Deacon Blue and his family the best of luck.
He was obviously struggling in Caithness.
Thats not much fun.
He will always be welcomed back though.
Good luck!

[rich]

I think there are some places where nothing ever seems to go right for you.
COnversely there are other places where one gets lucky and has a marvellous time.
Speaking personally, the city of Dublin is a wonderful place but I spent years of utter wretchedness there. N obody's fault really.
But Toronto Canda has always been lucky city for me - where I've been able to take chances and have them work out.
In theory I love Manhattan because of the jazz clubs and the galleries and the shopping. But every time I go there I get lost and infuriated by their subway system or I manage to time my visit with a smog alert. And yet I am married to a former New Yorker...
On the other hand Chicago is one of my favourite places on the planet and Washington DC is always good - for me at any rate.
Finally, hell on earth - anywhere in Switzerland.

[Anonymous]

What amazes me is, these folk come up here in the first place and rob a local of a good job then do nout but moan, i hope where ever you are going Mr Blue, that the folks there are as good to you as the folks of Caithness have( prat) [lol] :evil :Razz

[2little2late]

What amazes me is, these folk come up here in the first place and rob a local of a good job then do nout but moan, i hope where ever you are going Mr Blue, that the folks there are as good to you as the folks of Caithness have( prat) [lol] :evil :Razz

Fact of the matter is. As hard as I tried, I could not get a decent job in Caithness, so I never robbed anyone of a job. If anything, it was a case of who you know, and as for the folk of Caithness being good to us, far from it. Never thought I would experience racial harrassment as much as we did in Caithness. The last place I worked in Wick my boss made it known to me he is anti english.

[squidge]

Well Deacon Blue sweetie I am english too

I have lived here for six years and have never experienced any racial harrassment. As for anti english.... i dunno whether people are or are not but i find that if you take people as you find them they do the same for you. I know that the children would not say the same as me - they were picked on and teased initially, however that is mainly to do with being different and would have been just the same if their ears stuck out or they wore specs.

I am not sure i like what George wrote about robbing a local of a good job. That is very simplistic and not particularly true. Many people who have jobs here have them because they cant be filled by a local person. The skills and experience is not always available. Take chefs for instance... employers cannot fill vacancis for chefs for love nor money. They have to look outside of caithness.

I think what Rich said about places not being good for you at certain times in your life is quite true. But then a friend of mine once said to me that life is a struggle and fitting in is perhaps part of that. If you dont fit then move on and Deacon Blue is perhaps tdoing that.

[jjc]

Hmmm... I'm English too but I’ve spent more of my life in Caithness than out…

I got a lot of grief at school for being English but in the main that was just ignorance being passed from father to son – the kind of ignorance, George, that allows people to believe that anybody can ‘rob’ a job from anybody else.

Fortunately most people came to realise (as they matured, George) that my being English was just an excuse to tease and bully me. It stopped.

Deacon, I can’t say that I’ve agreed with your constant whining about getting out of Caithness. Personally, I love the place and still think of it as home and it was irksome to hear your constant complaining. The people are among the friendliest I’ve met (with a few exceptions, obviously). True, it doesn’t matter how long you live there, unless you are born in Caithness there will always be some who see you as an ‘incomer’… but I never met anybody who actually held that against me; it was just a label. I suppose you just need to take it as being part of the landscape and learn to accept it.

That said, I do understand where you are coming from. I grew up in the place from around eight years old so it was really all I knew. I got used to the ways of some of the older, steadfast Caithnesians. I learned to accept that, although I would always be considered an ‘incomer’, the majority of people never meant any harm by the phrase. If I had come to Caithness later in life (as, I assume, you did) then I think I too would have struggled to understand that it’s just the way some of the older locals deal with the changes they have seen since Dounreay arrived… unfortunately some of the younger generations have the same attitude, but nobody listens to them anyway.

[Anonymous]

What amazes me is, these folk come up here in the first place and rob a local of a good job then do nout but moan, i hope where ever you are going Mr Blue, that the folks there are as good to you as the folks of Caithness have( prat) [lol] :evil :Razz.

Fact of the matter is. As hard as I tried, I could not get a decent job in Caithness, so I never robbed anyone of a job. If anything, it was a case of who you know, and as for the folk of Caithness being good to us, far from it. Never thought I would experience racial harrassment as much as we did in Caithness. The last place I worked in Wick my boss made it known to me he is anti english..
:( So is that why you like to Threaten folks like you just done to me in a PM some big man you are, YES Folks thats what he has done he told me "its a small world and should think twice about the guy was going to grass" Well for your in formation Mr Blue i have already let it drop, but now you mad me wish i had not. So did you not say some thing or made it public?, I feel sad for you and hope you find what you are looking for in life or in England where we all no there is no racil tention going on at all :D :lol: What a joke i think you should go live on ye own on an island, BYE BYE MR BLUE [evil]

[Mr Sensitive]

I think there are some places where nothing ever seems to go right for you.
Conversely there are other places where one gets lucky and has a marvellous time.

...and you can't predict a priori which will be which.

Deacon Blue was perhaps just unlucky in Caithness. I would like to join Gleeber and wish him the best of luck in his new life.

[Anonymous]

Yes Mr Blue i wish you good luck now i no where you have gone, got a funny feeling you might get the same there behind your back, But if you do then ask your self why? is it because you are from England but what have they done thats so bad over the years? :evil
I know we should all live to gether in pace but try tell the world that, not just here in the UK, but try telling Iraq and all the other places through time that good old England has stick its unwanted nose in.
Try telling all the Highlands who where killed in cold blood by the good old English Boys.
As for the jobs, thats Englands fault again, they deprive our schools of much needed founds to teach our kids the skills of tommrow, This could go on for ever, as for racisem that to will go on for ever till one day we can all live as one.
Once more I george Wish you and your family all the luck in the world where ever you live.
Yours sincerely,
George.
PS If any one is offended by this reply,Then i am sorry, i have not set out to do so in any way what so ever.

[2little2late]

.[/quote].
:( So is that why you like to Threaten folks like you just done to me in a PM some big man you are, YES Folks thats what he has done he told me "its a small world and should think twice about the guy was going to grass" Well for your in formation Mr Blue i have already let it drop, but now you mad me wish i had not. So did you not say some thing or made it public?, I feel sad for you and hope you find what you are looking for in life or in England where we all no there is no racil tention going on at all :D :lol: What a joke i think you should go live on ye own on an island, BYE BYE MR BLUE [evil][/quote]

Hey George, it wasn't meant as a threat. All I was trying to say if you are planning on grassing somebody to the broo do it without telling anyone else. I was grassed up myself while I was up north. I know who did it but,I didn't do anything because I am already paying the consequenses for it. Sorry if you took it the wrong way.

[jjc]

try telling Iraq and all the other places through time that good old England has stick its unwanted nose in.
Try telling all the Highlands who where killed in cold blood by the good old English Boys.
As for the jobs, thats Englands fault again, they deprive our schools of much needed founds to teach our kids the skills of tommrow.
Hmmm. George, you seem to be generalising a little here. I'm not sure you can blame every English person for the budgetary decisions of the government. But hang on a moment, isn't Gordon Brown Scottish? And isn't he the Chancellor of the Exchequer? Doesn't he have a smidgen of input into government spending? Oh, but he does need to clear it with Tony first, doesn't he… ah, but Tony was born in Edinburgh. England indeed???

And, for the love of God, 'try telling all the Highlands [sic] who were killed in cold blood by the good old English Boys.'??? What??? I don't know of a single person alive who was there in the 1700s during the Jacobite rebellion. Those were terrible times, but I had NOTHING to do with it. I promise!

And I think if you check your history you will find that most of the colonisation was done by the British Empire and not the English Empire. All corners were guilty of sticking their noses into unwanted places, not just those from south of the border.


PS If any one is offended by this reply,Then i am sorry, i have not set out to do so in any way what so ever.
Nope, sorry, that won't fly. In order to apologise in your post you must have known whilst typing it that your racism was likely to offend… therefore your apology is neither heart-felt or accepted. If you had really not set out to offend anybody then when you read through your post and realised it might offend you would have edited it so it didn't. You would not have stuck a cursory apology on the end. "No offence, but…" is possibly the most pig-ignorant (and likely to offend) beginning to a sentence I can think of. What made you think putting it at the end of your post was going to be any different?

[Drutt]

is it because you are from England but what have they done thats so bad over the years? :evil
I know we should all live to gether in pace but try tell the world that, not just here in the UK, but try telling Iraq and all the other places through time that good old England has stick its unwanted nose in.
Try telling all the Highlands who where killed in cold blood by the good old English Boys.
As for the jobs, thats Englands fault again, they deprive our schools of much needed founds to teach our kids the skills of tommrow, This could go on for ever, as for racisem that to will go on for ever till one day we can all live as one.
With beliefs like yours polluting the world, we haven't a hope of ever living 'as one'.

As a Scot living in England, I've only ever had positive reactions from people down here. I've never been accused of stealing an English person's job, far from it. I've always found people in England to be welcoming and interested, not insular and mistrusting.

It's a shame my English boyfriend never had the same welcome in Caithness (particularly in high school). I simply don't get the mentality of people who dislike others because of their nationality or accent. :evil

Attitudes like yours (and many others in my home county) make me feel ashamed to be Scottish.

[squidge]

George

MMMMMMMMWWWWWWWWAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA A

english kisses sweetie

[Drutt]

As for the jobs, thats Englands fault again, they deprive our schools of much needed founds to teach our kids the skills of tommrow,
This appallingly wrong belief gets me really angry. The Barnett funding formula means that Scotland gets 23% more funding per head than England. So what exactly are you complaining about? Iif the schools in Scotland are failing, try opening your eyes to the real world a little.

Maybe you could direct some blame towards your free-spending, extravagant MSPs and stop blaming "those English people". Stop being brainwashed by Scottish politicians who use the "English = bad" excuse every time, just to cover up the fact that they're not doing a good job. [disgust]

[Mr Sensitive]

Maybe you could direct some blame towards your free-spending, extravagant MSPs and stop blaming "those English people". Stop being brainwashed by Scottish politicians who use the "English = bad" excuse every time, just to cover up the fact that they're not doing a good job. [disgust]
Careful, Drutt, you are in danger of emulating George in both style and content:

Most Scottish politicians rarely, if ever, use the "English=bad" excuse, in public at least;

Your reference to free-spending, extravagant MSPs was a little gratuitous.

I do agree with your comment about the mostly positive reactions towards Scots living in England. Having said that, I have spent a lot of time in both countries, so I am sometimes taken to be English when I'm in Scotland, as well as Scottish when I'm in England. I have thus experienced "racism" in both directions! I can't honestly say that one "nation" is worse than the other when it comes to "racism". They are just different.

[jjc]

Maybe you could direct some blame towards your free-spending, extravagant MSPs and stop blaming "those English people". Stop being brainwashed by Scottish politicians who use the "English = bad" excuse every time, just to cover up the fact that they're not doing a good job. [disgust]

Your reference to free-spending, extravagant MSPs was a little gratuitous.



BBCi - "UK Politics Row as Parliament Exceeds Budget":
The first year running costs of the new Scottish Parliament are likely to be £3m more than originally estimated.
And the predicted increase is being blamed in part on the decision by MSPs to vote for extra allowances.



The Observer - April 20, 2003:
An investigation into the spiralling cost of the Scottish Parliament building is to be launched to discover how a £40 million project ended up lumbering the taxpayer with a £400m bill.

The project has been overseen by an all-party Corporate Body that had reponsibility to ensure its smooth running on behalf of all MSPs.

The emerging Holyrood building has been described as a 'palace for political paupers'. The clean lines of four giant grey upturned boats dominate the campus, within which Catalan interpretations of the Saltire embossed on concrete ceilings greet visitors. Walls are being clad with Aberdonian and South African granite.

Temporarily home to scaffolding and half-drunk bottles of Irn-Bru, the hulls that will contain the committee rooms and general meeting areas are berthed around the main auditorium, where much work remains to be done. From there the building swoops and curves its way across to the MSPs' office block. Each is lined with opulent oak and sycamore and contains a meditation seat set in a window bay that offers stunning views across Edinburgh's elevated parkland.

Yet with the fishing industry facing meltdown, foreign electronics firms in retreat and the Scottish economy dipping in and out of recession, it is difficult to find Scots who believe their politicians deserve such luxury.

Their frustration has translated into scorn. 'Total waste of money,' exclaimed a dog walker outside the perimeter wall. 'I'm sure it'll be nice, but why should that lot live it up in there?'


I didn't think it was that unwarranted...

[Mr Sensitive]

I didn't think it was that unwarranted...
Nor did I. Hence the "little" qualifier ! :eyes It wasn't so much the content of the comment that I found a little gratuitous; it was that the fact that it was there at all.

I shall now shutup before someone reminds me about my rant on home education.

[jjc]

A rant? On home education? You??? Surely not!! [lol]

[Anonymous]

[quote=george]As for the jobs, thats Englands fault again, they deprive our schools of much needed founds to teach our kids the skills of tommrow,
This appallingly wrong belief gets me really angry. The Barnett funding formula means that Scotland gets 23% more funding per head than England. So what exactly are you complaining about? Iif the schools in Scotland are failing, try opening your eyes to the real world a little.
Would this aply if there where the same number of kids in Scotland as there are in England, some how if its worked out like that then i think the answer would be a lot diffrent?

[Anonymous]

When i started out to write the pice on racsime i think i went about in the wrong way, i am not a racist i used to be up till 1986 the i moved to North Wales and i got a shock, for the first time in my life i felt what it was like to be on the end of some very bad racsiem, Now there is a lot of good welsh folk, but there is a small minoraty hell bent on anti Englishisem, around Cearnarfon and in land from and down to Aberistwyth.
Its that bad or i say it was that bad as i have not been back for some years now, well it was that bad that if you where english and had kids of schooling age, before they are alowed in the schools there they must speack welsh. Thats before they go to school.
Now if you want a job with the concel or hospital or any welsh enployer, you must speck welsh, even to be a street clenser, who pushes a broom around all day, grave diggers must speck welsh. Ok thats find look after the langue, but why do it from October to Easter, when the English specking world are not there, why not do it all the time?.
The best one of all is a housing group called Ti -eiry ( i think thats how its spelt sorry if its wrong), any way if you are English and you want one of there houses, then forget it you have no chance what so ever.
When you go in some shop and theres a little green dargon on the door, it means that this is a welsh specking shop. they even them selfs there are no true welsh people living in England.
Half of you who condem me right or wrong have not got a clue what real living racisem is at all, its only what you see on TV and in the end the TV only show you one half of any story, the half they want you to belive.
I hold my hand up i was wrong to put some of the things i put, yes its right, not all english,welsh, scottish, ireish and all the other nations that make up the UK are bad.
I hope this clears some of it up but some how i do not think it will, there will them who dinhy it saying its a load of rubbish, some will laugh and say nout, some will nod and agree but keep quite so not to rock the boat. But hey thats life. :evil

[squidge]

You never kissed me back though george

[Anonymous]

Sorry squidge here is a few big ones to make up for it

MMMMMMMMWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWW.
XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX
XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX
XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

[jjc]

As for the jobs, thats Englands fault again, they deprive our schools of much needed founds to teach our kids the skills of tommrow,
This appallingly wrong belief gets me really angry. The Barnett funding formula means that Scotland gets 23% more funding per head than England. So what exactly are you complaining about? Iif the schools in Scotland are failing, try opening your eyes to the real world a little.
Would this aply if there where the same number of kids in Scotland as there are in England, some how if its worked out like that then i think the answer would be a lot diffrent?I believe the funding is worked out based on the number of people and not as a lump sum per country.

If there were the same number of kids in Scotland as England (i.e. more kids in Scotland than there are now) then Scotland would get more funding based on the additional populace.
The difference in the funding would still equate to an additional 23% per head.
Oh, and the Scottish education system would still be dictated from Edinburgh and NOT from Westminster…

As for not having a clue what real living racism is – it isn't having to learn the language of your country before going to school or being employed by your local council.
It is going to school and being punched in the face for no other reason than where you were born.
It is having your hair set alight on the school bus home to Dunnet because of your accent.
It is having your art teacher (yes, teacher!) tell your classmates to take you out during the break and beat you up because you are English (Yes, he actually said that and yes, they did).

[Anonymous]

:( Sorry JJC

[jjc]

No need to be sorry, it's not (I assume) like you did it to me... and most of the kids who did it to me (and many others like me) have grown up and realised the errors of their ways.

It just bothers me a lot when I hear people using race, colour, or creed to explain away the woes of society. It's a bad thing to hear in adults, but it is even worse when it filters down to their children.

Kids have no interest in the politics of the education system or the intricacies of the Westminster/Holyrood divide. They don't care why the adults blame someone; they just pick up on the fact that they do. Whilst the adults are sitting at home blaming the English for the rising unemployment and falling education standards, the kids are at school beating several shades out of the English kid.

Worse – through the tacit (and not so tacit) approval of people like my wonderful art teacher – many of them, whilst realising that beating up English kids really isn't a great thing to do, will always have a complete mistrust of anything from south of the border and the cycle will continue when their own kids hear them blaming everything on the English just like their parents did.

[moonlightshadow]

Well just for the record you didn,t have to be English to get bullied there. I was born and brought up in the area and the bullying and harrasement made my life hell at school. I left the school and the area at 16 and moved further South, then several years later I went back due to personal reasons only to discover the area was still the same, only difference was I had changed however when my kids went to school there they got bullied till I put a stop to it.

3 years ago I moved to England and yes I get the normal Jock jokes just like anyone else; however there is no malice in it whatso ever, the only time I encountered any malice I had to just sit there because all the locals came down on this person like a ton of bricks for it.

At the end of the day we are all the same, the only difference is our accents or colour, underneath we are the same as the next person.

You have to move on from the bullying and harrasement otherwise all it will do is make you a bitter and twisted person and life is too short for that , we only have one life so we have to make the most of it.

All the best