h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Trump trumped. May he stay so.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/scotland/north_east/7118105.stm

Y'know, if the plan had gone through, you may very well have ended up with a decently sized piece of Scotland, shaped by the winner of a low rated reality television show.

The thing about Trump is that while other billionaires make their fortunes producing products for normal people and contributing to society in at least some way, and eventually use the fortune to help the needy, Trump seems to want to use his fortune to improve his connections and social life (casinos, golf courses, luxury apartment buildings, etc). Our fault. We'll try to contain him more to this continent.

Contain him? Yes please! Recall his passport. Why on earth does he want to be in Aberdeen?

There were articles about this when I was there the other month. There was one saying he was going to protect the sand dunes - stabilise them.

Stabilise. They're a shifting dune system... fit shifting dunes into a golf course and 1500 houses.

Balmedie's a beautiful place.

"When I saw this piece of land I was overwhelmed by the imposing dunes and rugged Aberdeenshire coastline." D Trump

"I have never seen such an unspoilt and dramatic sea side landscape" D Trump

I knew that I had to a build five-star 450 room Victorian-style hotel, two 18-hole golf courses, a conference centre, a spa and 1500 houses on it.



Fillet of a plus-foured golfer,
In the cauldron boil with sulphur;
Toe of Trump and Eider's feather,
Sandeels tails and root of heather,
Midden mussels, lousewort heart,
Tormentil and archer's dart,
For a charm of powerful trouble,
Like a hell-broth boil and bubble.

With Forvie's sisters three:

"Yf evyr" Donald gets consent
and builds upon this land,
may nought be found upon his 'greens'
"but thystl, bente and sande"

Exquisite you are LLWaz.

Seconded.

I hadn't quite twigged it was Forvie

Not Forvie Sands itself, thank goodness. But much too close. Forvie can't be what it is without the surrounding being what it is.

Balmedie's just south.

My brother's not sure how it stands with the Infrastructure Committee having said no, while the Planning one said yes. My hope's on Trump seeming to have taken the hump at Scotland saying No. Might have to conjure up more than MacBeth's witches and the Forvie sisters.

Hello Waz and others! Because of my 'condition' I often wonder if true evil really exists in the world. Sometimes I think that I'm just being paranoid, but other times I think that the 'mighty' of the world really *are* demons in human form. Sometimes I think, 'nahh, it can't really be that bad' ... and then I come and read something like this! If Donald Trump wants to do *this*, then he is evil, evil, evil to the very core, irredeemably evil! If he would do that to what he himself calls an unspoilt and beautiful piece of coastline ... he is the very spawn of the devil! He is the epitome of all that is wrong with humanity!

Can't he, and people like him, grasp that a true piece of unspoilt, beautiful, rugged coastline is, first of all, *infinitely* precious, infinitely beyond all his billions ... and secondly, not billions, or trillions, of dollars and pounds, could do anything to 'improve' it ... but *everything* to spoil and destroy it!!!

Whoa! Whoa! Calm down dear, it's not good for you to get that excited

Of course I agree with you in part, but I think 'evil' is a bit strong. greedy more like.

Go have a lie down and save your energy for something you can do something about.



Websailor

Hello Websailor! How are you? Don't worry about me - I am *not* that excited! You should see me when I'm really worked up.

In my code of ethics, if that is what Donald Trump wants to do to a piece of unspoilt coastline, then he is no better than a rapist!

Anyways, I have enough energy for despising Donald Trump *and* working at projects that could make a real difference!

Hmmm ... I am somewhat amazed that my posting expressing my opinions about Trump has, so far, not been moderated ... I wonder if they're gonna allow it for much longer, or *this* one for that matter ...

Trump's reasons don't stack up. It's some kind of ignorance, has to be. Business acumen is something different. I think he must only know how to respond to the 'Oh wow!' factor by wanting to possess and dominate it. Or it's pure commerce. Or a wish to Laird it in Scotland.

Don't suppose it'll come to anything, but I wrote the Times' letters. I was actually writing it for but for one the BBC has pretty well castrated h2g2, (hope your postings do survive Willem) and for another, I doubt there's many Aberdonian readers round here. Anyway, whatever, if you don't try...

Someone should tell Donald that if his mother was born in Stornoway, that's way over not just the other side of Scotland but across The Minches and on the northern end of the Outer Hebrides. Where I could wish Mr Trump, except the Islands are too good for him too.

Victorian style hotel . Insult added to injury. If I were a billionaire I'd biuld buildings that were as 'Oh wow!' as the Formatine coast. There was one, all of wood and full of curves on tv yesterday - but I can't remember the architect and find a picture.

Well my postings made it this far! I honestly don't think my comments are going to hurt 'The Donald' where it matters most to him ...

If I were an architect I'd work on buildings that are mostly subterranean, roofed with soil and with plants growing on them.

Willem,

Take a look at this if you like the idea of underground houses as I do

http://www.williamlishman.com/underground.htm

You might like to look for Operation Migration too as Bill Lishman was responsible for that getting off the ground, literally. Training captive bred whooping cranes to migrate. I think you would enjoy it.


Websailor

I wish I could remember the architects name and show you. It was the kind of building that would make you feel good just to be in it.

Roofed with plantlife's pretty good though.

Just experimenting - I think these pictures are way too big.
If it works, it's the dunes at Forvie, but the coastline's very similar just south at Balmedie.
http://www.geocities.com/h2g2waz/Forvie3.html

Hmm, I thought the picture editor would put it all within the screen. But no. Well, it is a very great dune...

I'll try again when I've got broadband. Next Wednesday, with BT's goodwill.

LLWaz, Liked the photo. Beautiful scenery. Good luck with broadband, it's brilliant

Websailor

Looking at it from broadband at work, it's the wrong photo! After all that... that's the estuary, and the little dots all over the sky are not midges but plovers.

If you knock the 3 off the web address, (and wait till tomorrow because my looking at just 4 of the 5 photos I uploaded there has already exceeded today's free data transfer limit), you'll get the actual great dune. It's the only one of the photos that is anywhere near ok at that size.

It's actually the sea edge of the dune looking south. Aberdeen is on the horizon 20 miles across the bay. Balmedie being in between.

There's a sort of sand valley - on the right almost at the far end is a shady patch which isn't shade but gravel. It's one of the terneries. You can (geocities' allowance permitting) just see the posts they put electric fencing on to keep foxes away. Humans aren't allowed anywhere near this area when the terns are there. The whole dune is usually out of bounds April to August.

Waz

There's a photo of a model of the proposed course here

http://shankarwolf.wordpress.com/2007/11/29/trump-defeated/?referer=sphere_related_content

It goes right to the very edge of the dunes.

That's impossible without massive interference in the dune system. Which would have a knock on effect up the coast.

It's like the cliffs down in south east England where a number of properties are going to fall into the sea as they erode. Naturally, they want coast protection. Problem is that cliff erosion feeds the natural gravel/sand bank protection of areas further north. Stop it and far more land and property is at risk.

Regardless of anything else, there's no way a golf course merits taking that sort of risk.

Where's the cauldron, I need it again.

Hello Websailor, Waz, anyone else! Waz, got the pictures, beautiful beach! I really like the huge dune.

Websailor, thanks for the link to the underground houses! I liked it ... I'd like to know of more, similar experiments. I know that in Australia there's an entire village that is pretty much completely subterranean. They excavate new houses out of the ground, room by room. Apparently these houses are great because they are cooler than above-ground houses would be in the often unbearably hot desert climate.