My thought's on the Union Terrace Gardens...

Below is the main text of a post I made to a Blog after looking at a post on Twitter.

Please note that the comments below are my own and are not intended in any way to be disrespectful of other persons rights.

It's a shame of the stupidity of the councils backing for a project the citizens of Aberdeen did not want.
Doesn't seem to bother the council though, they are used to pleasing themselves and to hang with anyone else's thought.

Am loving the fact that people out there enjoyed a really warm weekend in The Gardens...

The way I see it, Aberdeen has a lot of green spaces around the city, but within the main city centre.. its just Union Terrace Gardens!!! Yes there are small parks along queens road area and other places that I can't mention, cause I cant mind exactly where they are at the moment.. sighhh.

Personally, I moved to Aberdeen back in 1990 to see my father, and I just forgot to leave again...
I liked the fact that Codonna's was the same as when I was growing up, going to Cove bay with my dad, just to sit out and relax was braw!! After a shopping trip to Slater's, we went to UTG!! Where else to sit out and have a sandwich and a cuppa out of the flask. Don't get me wrong, that was back in 1990, so a while back... Last I used the gardens myself was about 3 years past, just wanted a relaxing seat to read a book.

I just love it to hear that "some folks" made up their minds to go have a picnic at UTG, lo and behold, heaps of folks appeared... Just a shame that this so called "Sir Ian Wood" didn't appear, after all, isn't he a citizen of Aberdeen as well, he might even have enjoyed the day and maybe thought to himself... "am I doing the right thing!"

Any-ways, long winded post am afraid, but to sum it all up, we, the citizens of Aberdeen, are going to regret it, if we allow the Council and ACSEF to get their wicked ways, and tear up this historic landmark of Aberdeen. After all, wasn't it the Victorians that gave us this Terraced Gardens??? Sorry, history of Aberdeen isn't my strong point am afraid.

I do hope that common sense will prevail, and to this Ian Wood person, please don't take it as a personal insult, for the citizens to say no to a project that you wished to invest your hard earned money into, it's just that the majority of folks that voted that day realised what a waste of a naturally green area it would be if we just slabbed it over to make some other show piece area in Town Centre.

May I suggest that Ian Wood considers what is to become of the old council buildings on Broad street, all that space once that monstrosity of a building is removed, ample space for your civic square idea, it is even close to the castlegate as well... what more could you ask for?

Peace.

Wayne Leiper

My newest Rant, LLU for the Aberdeen North Exchange.

Hello All.

Having a wee rant here, and thought it deserves to get posted up in here.

As some of you lot know, I tend to use the internet a LOT, and I mean a LOTTTTT!

When I was going to move down the road, I had it planned for going with O2 Broadband up to 20 Meg service as that have that down there.

Now here in Aberdeen, out of the 12 exchanges in the area, only 5 that I know about are now LLU enabled and working.

Now the Aberdeen North is between George Street / Haudigan Roundabout area, quite a big and lucrative area I would think, but after 9 failed attempts to get this LLU enabled, it still isnt done ?? WHY !!!

I find it annoying that it is impossible to get a honest answer out of anyone as no-one knows the truth.

So here is a really silly Idea???

How hard would it be to put pressure on folks to get FibreOptics into the Aberdeen area for residential customers ?

After all, every house is connected to the sewers, some FiberOptic folks use the sewer network for convenience???  Aberdeen Cable!! mind of them from the 90's, I was in their studio learning some stuff and making a hash of it as well, well what happened to their network cables??? are they still there ??? could they be used to pull the FiberOptics thru ??

Now obviously, this would not be cheap at the outset, but am sure if folks pulled together, made a co-operative group to get it started, there would be the golden funding from the EU to help it along the way ??

So to BT and BT Wholesale, please stop lying to the people and tell us the truth, or the People might just say to themselves... "We can do better" and find another way!!!

First Aberdeen 19, Lack of service, Yet again.

At the weekend there, there was a HUGE Headline... in the local paper.

"BUS STRIKE IS CALLED OFF "

Now call me stupid, doesn't that mean that the buses will finally go back to a proper service again ???

OK, so picture this if you will, am gettin ready to go to an appointment, safe in the knowledge that the buses are finally working to their proper timetable..

so, Leave house afore 1pm to get the 1:06 bus leaving Tillydrone... Easy huh ??

YER RIGHT !!!!!!

No Bus, wait a while.. still no bus ... so at 1:15pm I call Busline, to be told they are back on the emergency service yet again, and one was due at 1:10pm ... so emergency service is a "work to rule" at 20 mins apart.. so am waiting .. 20 past, nowt .... 25 past .. still nowt .. 28 Past a wee single decker appears drops off the passengers and lets on some at the terminus, he then gets out to hae a lok at his damned bus ???

As he is doing this, a double decker appears, so of course they hae a damned chat don't they.
Eventually the double deckers comes around and starts to move, but it isn't saying what it should say " Culter " instead it says " Sorry, I am not in Service " ???
All the driver does is point to his watch as he drives past with me giving him the proper signage for this type of pathetic behaviour.. " Wanker " with the hand going up and down .. you know...

So whats the point of me posting this time, well see the last post, thats when this industrial action bull crap started, and its been on going since then, and to be totally blunt, I am so friggin fed up with it.

So I would like to announce I am going to set up a new blog Solely for First Aberdeen, and am going to open it up to all persons with their stories of the Hours of waiting for a bus late at night because they do a pathetic timetable that left an ill and disabled person with no way home in town centre on a cold and rainy night for approximately 1 hour and 20 mins.. This is a service that has sole use for Tillydrone, no other bus goes in there..
The 17 and 21 buses go past it at woodside fountains, but I can assure you, the wee hill is lovely to walk down easily enough, but for me its a sair trek to go up in the morn when you haven't really woke up yet.

Buses to go back on strike..

Why dont First just sack these asswipes and get folks in with a contracted pay deal...
Better still, why doesn't Stagecoach come in and set up a few routes for the Aberdonians and give First Aberdeen a slap in the face.. Bloody Rediculous

First in Aberdeen again ...

It seems our bus drivers have a problem, they are not happy at the wage they recieve, so what do they do, "Industrial Action" ???

What this entails is a work to rule, go slow and dont jump ahead to pick up slack...

What this means for us commuters, the only bus service allowed to operate freely in Aberdeen is in chaos!

We have the most expensive bus fares in Scotland, the worst service for time keeping and now we are being held to ransom by these lazy arsed drivers.

Many times I was told yesterday that busses were missing (late) by on average 40 - 45 mins...
Some folks, elderly and disabled folks were forced to either wait over an hour for a bus or as one bus driver was heard by me the other day to say " If you dont like it, Walk!!"

To be honest, am damned glad I have made up my mind to get out of Aberdeen to head back down the road, one the buses are more frequent, more choice atween the buses as well and lastly we get more distance for the time as well.

40 mins on the bus to get 4.5 miles ( Tillydrone to Holburn junction ) or 28 minutes to get from Glasgow buchannan to Wishaw... thats about 12 miles

First Aberdeen, Tillydrone 19 Service...

or should I say LACK of Service!!!

We finally get a little snow in Aberdeen, and ye would think a Bus Company would be able to handle it??

NO, that would be a dream....

Anyways, my story is the journey to town today, this morning.

Left the house, as am walking down a slushy and slidey path to the bus-stop, I see the bus there already(11:21am)... No Way am I running for it, path was to slippy, so I had to wait for the next bus to appear (11:36am) ... No Biggy!!

So there I am, at the bus stop, waiting, taking pics to kill time, chatting to some gent that I have spoken to afore, and the time drags on... 11:35 no sign of the bus... 11:40 .. not here ... 11:50 .. Still not here... 11:52 a minute after the NEXT bus was due, I phone the company, they said "No Idea where the buses are, traffic is chaos everywhere" THEY SHOULD FRIGGING ANTICIPATE THIS!!!!

So back to waiting, am now getting pissed off Big Time... finally at 12:10pm a bus appears around the corner, takes another 3 mins to get to us.. so in total I have had to wait 37 mins for a bus that was due at 11:36am...

Now the bus that appears, ( new driver, learning the route ) HE is only 7 mins late.. 2 Buses failed to even appear!!! This is Typical!! Always happens!!!

Now, Tillydrone is a wee scheme in Aberdeen, lots of elderly folks there, and for a bus service to not have a bus in the area for over 30 mins when it is meant to be a 15 min service is bloody shocking!!!

Unfortunatly, First Bus have the monopoly on the routes in Aberdeen, no other buses would take on the routes or provide a service that could cover us or give First a run for their money, so we are stuck with an expensive and unreliable service...

Makes me wonder about getting on my bike and slowing down the buses even more by hogging their frigging bus lanes!!!

Inconsiderate Restraunts.....

Ello Folkies, my gripe for today is ....

Well as some of ye know, am a plain speaking soul...
Also, I have a few issues with mental health and other stuff...
So... you can imagine my dismay, when I get a call last week to say that a drop in centre, that I attend, has had to be shut down down to flood damage!

NASTY!!!!!

But... here is the kicker, it wasn't cause of the excessive rainfall, it was due to the main drains being blocked on the outside of the building.

You see, beside this place I go, there is a wee restaurant, and these inconsiderate folks have been a severe pain since after they moved there, what with car parking spaces and other issues.... but this last one is really taking the mickey!!!

Am unsure how the drains all work in the area, but it seems they have been putting stuff down their sink that they shouldn't have, so the end result, the bottom floor of the building we are in gets flooded out badly and cause of the cross contamination ( thanks to the idiots at Health and Safety for this one) WE had to close down till it was sorted....

Meaning the staff had to come in over the weekend and do clean up work, all cause this inconsiderate restaurant cant dispose of their own refuse properly...

So after a few days of clean ups and other stuff, we can now get back into our wee drop in place, almost a week it was closed for... in fact ... it was a week it was closed for.

Imagine that your only source of companionship, speaking to people, getting the gossip, stuff like that was suddenly pulled away for a week!! Tis annoying as hell.

So end result, well the centre needs over £10k in repairs est, not to mention the cost of the staff time, cleaning materials to get the centre re-opened and the repair work on our building!!!

Now, I have been asked nicely to NOT name and shame in this blog, which although I dis-agree with, I will stand by the advice and not name and shame these folks, but if you know me at all, you can easily guess....

Just makes you wonder about these folks that set up restaurant, shops and the other stuff.

Are they really as safe as they make out to be....