Welcome to the February Voice. We have our usual mix of local, national and international news, views and issues, which we hope you will find interesting, informative and enjoyable. We also report on the sad loss of the Nancy Glen in Loch Fyne.
This is my last Voice as editor, and I would like to introduce Elsa Rodeck, who will be taking over as from the March edition. I am sure the Voice will be in capable hands and that Elsa will continue the tradition of committed green and radical reporting that makes the Voice special. If you would like to contribute to the Voice in the coming months, please do get in touch.
They’re back! A year after their hugely successful concert in Brodick last year, the four young players of this charming and talented group are paying another visit to the island. Their concert is in Brodick Village Hall at 7.30 pm on Saturday, 17th February. As before the Quartet consists of Ben Norris and Katrina Lee on violin, Liam Brolly on viola and Alice Allen on cello. All four, three from different parts of Scotland, one from Yorkshire, have studied variously at the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland (Glasgow), Royal Northern College of Music (Manchester) and Royal College of Music (London). All of them also play with distinguished groups such as the Royal Scottish National Orchestra, the BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra and Scottish Opera.
This is an event that we are especially excited about - Arran Recycling.
There has been lots of discussion and questions, relayed in many individual conversations in the Arran Eco Savvy Community, on Arran Community Forum, and other networks about the various aspects of recycling on Arran and wider. We thought it would be a good idea to put together an event where you would have the chance to find out more about the scope of recycling, and hear about the process first hand from a guest speaker that deals with some of the recycling from Arran.
“There is an infinite creative force in nature which I find perfect and beautiful and it inspires me to be creative
myself and use its visual elements for my own story. “
Josephine Broekhuizen’s subjects range widely from still life to landscape-based and figurative paintings, they form a visual diary of her daily life and surroundings. When painting in oils, Josephine is layering colours upon colours to create texture and depth, working towards an imaginary space on the canvas. They are rarely exact representations and sometimes the altered perspectives and gentle surrealism with which she treats them is as much a key to their meaning as the subjects themselves.
I’m Nobody! Who are you?by Emily Dickinson
I’m nobody ! Who are you ?
Are you nobody, too ?
Then there ’s a pair of us — don’t tell !
They ’d banish us, you know.
How dreary to be somebody !
How public, like a frog
To tell your name the livelong day
To an admiring bog !
Emily Dickinson was born in Amherst Massachusetts in 1830 and led a reclusive life in her parental home. Only a dozen of the 1800 or so poems she wrote were published during her lifetime though her reputation now is as one of America’s greatest poets. This poem is one of her earlier ones, characteristically short and with distinctive punctuation, a matter on which those who saw the recent biopic ‘A Quiet Passion’ (see January’s edition of The Voice) will know she was punctilious. Eccentric and often sharp by temperament, her poems often, as here, combine playfulness and bleakness in equal measure. The image of the frog comes as a complete surprise.
On 26 April 1986, reactor number four at the Chernobyl nuclear plant in Ukraine, then part of the Soviet Union, exploded and released 50m curies of radiation into the atmosphere, 70% of it falling on Belarus, but with plenty to spare for other countries not even vaguely adjacent.
Flames lit up the sky and radiation escaped to contaminate the land and poison the people for years to come. While officials tried to hush up the accident, Svetlana Alexievich spent years collecting testimonies from survivors - clean-up workers, residents, firefighters, resettlers, widows, orphans - crafting their voices into a haunting oral history of fear, anger and uncertainty, but also dark humour and love. A chronicle of the past and a warning for our nuclear future, Chernobyl Prayer shows what it is like to bear witness, and remember in a world that wants you to forget.
Cheap renewables undercut nuclear power by Paul Brown of the Climate News Network
The technology advances and plunging costs of cheap renewables make base load nuclear power redundant, and cheap renewables are mounting a serious challenge to nuclear power, which in 2017 has had a difficult year.
Key projects have been abandoned, costs are rising, and politicians in countries which previously championed the industry are withdrawing their support. Renewables, on the other hand, especially wind and solar power, have continued to expand at an enormous rate. Most importantly, they have got significantly cheaper.
Whilst out on a walk one of my dogs raised her head and set off to see what was at the end of the sniff - and there it was. I managed to get 5 pictures in total and the otter slumbered throughout. It did wake up after about 5 minutes and quickly resumed its fishing expedition.
