Yup folks. Belief in The Church of The Flying Spaghetti Monster has gone totally official as a Czech court upholds its followers’ religious rights to wear a salad strainer on their heads as an article of faith.
Tag: Scotland
40 mph traffic jams as Highlands main road is attacked
The Scottish Government, never known to be a friend of the Highlands which it regards as a milch cow to be built over by wind turbines and mega pylons is now seeking to make life for residents and visitors even worse.
A 40mph speed limit will see the journey time from Edinburgh to Inverness rise to almost four hours as motorists cannot escape the combination of average speed cameras & rolling convoys of protesting juggernauts and tractors.
Professor Kettle, speaking to us exclusively from his Loch Ness side reasearch project head quarters says, “this is a disaster. We monster hunters need this like a hole in the head”.
You can read more on this shocking story here.
Drumnadrochit Urged to Promote Nessie & Fun Instead of Debunkery & Pseudo Science
It’s rarely that this blog sees much to agree with in Chambers of Commerce and Tourist Associations across the Scotland and the rest of the world but praise should be given where it is due. So, it must be right for Drumnadrochit’s Association to have circulated a letter by one of its long time business members (boat skipper George Edwards) who is evidently very concerned that some local formally unqualified pseudo scientists seem intent on pushing plankton & floating wood on the public rather than looking for the Loch Ness Monster and “bigging up” the mystery.
Let’s be quite clear: People know Loch Ness around the world because of the fame of the Loch Ness Monster, not because some ageing pseudo scientists, many of whom originally came to find Nessie but personally failed to find her, now want to use captive museum audiences to push a message about microbes and worms that many probably don’t want to hear; at least not while on holiday in Nessie’s supposed home village!
Veteran monster hunter and expert George Edwards is a well respected boat skipper who has probably ferried tens of thousands of visitors out onto Loch Ness to learn about the magic of Nessie, her caves and the unknown mysteries in the deep dark loch. He is always talking up the chances of seeing Nessie and maybe one day finding her. What he doesn’t do is ape some of the debunkers by advertising his boat as a Nessie attraction and then feeding negativity about Nessie down his passengers gullets based on the non academic background of hobbyists and others. George’s approach is therefore “Nessie, I believe” rather than “Nessie, she’s not real. Thanks for your money but she’s all just fiction so have some micro worms and a floating fence post instead. Oh and here’s the gift shop on your way out”.
This debate is important for the future of Drumnadrochit and all of the businesses within it. The world is full of cynics, bitter failures and debunkers in all spheres of existence and people visiting Drumnadrochit want to experience something more akin to the magic of Lapland and Father Christmas than a sombre museum monologue on pond life.
So on this occasion well done, Drumnadrochit Chamber of Commerce and Tourist Association for taking a pro Nessie stand. But don’t let it be a flash in the pan. Strive to encourage all the museum owners to considerably up their game, consider dispensing with yesterday’s formally unqualified Nessie naysayers and start fighting for the recovery of the all important pro Nessie tourism for every business in the area.
Loch Ness Exhibition Boss Arrested & Charged by Police
The twilight zone has well and truly moved into this year’s silly season Drumnadrochit, Loch Ness with news breaking in the Scottish Daily Record newspaper and also in the Highlands Press & Journal that local Loch Ness exhibition owner Donald Skinner has been arrested and charged by police for allegedly stealing a rival museum’s advertising sign.
Veteran entrepreneur Mr Skinner, 70, reportedly denies the theft, stating that he wrote repeatedly to his neighbouring museum’s owners to complain that their sign was blocking his own requesting that it be moved. He alleges they they failed to respond and so he warned them that he would “take custody of their sign” if they continued to ignore his requests.
Upon being arrested, Mr. Skinner says he told police that he “hadn’t stolen the sign under Scottish law” – worth, he says, about £30 (35 euro) but “had custody of it”.
Police say the matter will be reported to the Procurator Fiscal, the legal office which determines whether and how to proceed with criminal cases in Scotland.
There seems to be some desperation amongst businesses as, according to official data (and the obviously visible dwindling footfall in the village) tourist numbers have plummeted. Earlier this month the Drumnadrochit Chamber of Commerce and Tourist Association circulated a letter from long established and highly respected boat skipper George Edwards who was highlighting his concerns that the museum that is now accusing Mr Skinner of theft was itself being very negative about Nessie our famous Loch Ness Monster in its exhibits (apart from dumping tourists straight into a Nessie gift shop as they exit).
Perhaps Drumnadrochit needs an outbreak of common sense but there are a lot of apparently bitter old monster debunkers around and Highland feuds aplenty) so it’s unlikely that peace will break out any time soon.
In the meantime the silent majority can only look on in despair as a childish war escalates, which the fragile tourist trade here needs like a hole in the head. Perhaps it would be better for younger hearts and minds to push the bitter looking and seemingly failed and washed up old big beasts and pseudo scientists aside and start actually and actively promoting Nessie, The Loch Ness Monster.
What do you want to see? Debunking info and “facts” from non-academically trained folk about plankton and old wooden fence posts or the mystery and magic of the unknown monster who lives in the enormous dark depths of mysterious Loch Ness?
Monster sized rescue scramble by Loch Ness
They weren’t looking for Nessie but police & Mountain Rescue were called into action on Sunday 16th June to search for a hill walker who was feared missing in the mountains overlooking Loch Ness.
The rural community was stunned when a massive air-sea rescue helicopter suddenly landed in a field to transport members of the rescue service.
It’s great to know that residents and visitors to the area have such a dedicated rescue team in the vicinity.
Monster Geddon Hits Loch Ness Village
You could be forgiven for expecting to hear a PA speaker bellowing out “Good Morning Vietnam” from the village green as the four horsemen of the apocalypse bring Monster Geddon to the normally quiet Loch Ness side village of Drumnadrochit.
A Great Glen sized schism seems to have opened up between believers and naysayers over the existence of our beloved Nessie and the possible impact old museums and other places have on tourism to the area if they down play her existence.
“It’s like Channel 4’s ‘Homeland’ has come to our village. Normally normal sorts of people seem to be issuing fatwas and proclaiming they have the one and only Loch Ness Monster Truth & Orthodoxy viz-a-viz Nessie”, said Professor Kettle. “I seem to see Osama Bin Laden lookalikes all over the place and with past newspaper reports of Nessie wars involving Molatov Cocktails and other shenanigans one has to wonder what on earth is happening”.
“I know the sun has made a rare appearance and people can go silly season daft but it’s a fact that nobody has ever proved the Loch Ness Monster does not exist – certainly not non scientists and Loch Ness hobbyists”.
Dr Pott has seen a theme to the madness: “There are monstrous big beasts afoot and this looks a bit like some Loch Ness sleeper cells have suddenly received an Alien Pod mind signal spurring them to denounce anyone who says Nessie is:
a) a good thing and the monster should be pedalled and promoted as a cryptozoological prehistoric beast to an adoring public, or,
b) Nessie is just a plankton stuck to a floating gate post and she doesn’t really exist.
Unwary passers-by risk getting their heads shot off by either side if they venture onto the “forbidden lawns” (ref. Arthur Daley’s “manor” in “Minder”).
A spokesperson for the silent majority told us, “I know what I’ve seen and it wasn’t a old plank some joker tossed off Urquhart Castle”.
Loch Ness Monster village: Drumnadrochit’s civil war flames on
The truth really can be stranger than fiction. Open warfare seems to have broken out between villagers over the existence or otherwise of Nessie, The Loch Ness Monster. Oliver Cromwell & Rob Roy had nothing on all this!
The Inverness Courier and other newspapers have been reporting on the hostilities. Maybe it’s time for the Blue Berets of The United Nations Peace Keeping Force to move onto the village green!
Do you visit Loch Ness to look for our monster or do you really really want to travel here to see old museums about mud, mini eels and pseudo scientific research into how your eye might “interpret” a floating gate post?
To us it’s a no brainer, so rock on the incomparable “Nessieland” on the Beauly turn off in Drumnadrochit.
US to teach students reality of Loch Ness Monster
In the southern state of Louisiana in the USA, school pupils will be taught that the Loch Ness Monster is real in an attempt to dispute Charles Darwin’s theory of evolution.
Speaking from his Loch Ness side project, Professor Kettle stated, “we are very excited about this development. It shows that people around the world are keen to find out the truth about the prehistoric creature living in this massive murky world”.
Nessie, the Loch Ness Monster, has been seen dozens of times over the years and millions of people have visited the area with the hope of catching a glimpse of the elusive creature. Many cryptozoologists speculate that Nessie is in fact one of a large family of dinosaurs that navigate between the deep oceans and Loch Ness each year.
Hadrian’s Wall Lit By Flaming Torches
by Mikko on Sun 14 Mar 2010 08:08 GMT
Yes, as Scotland drew against England 15-15 in the rugby at Murrayfield and Nessie the Loch Ness Monster stayed submerged due to light rain showers in the Scottish Highlands, Hadrian’s Wall was lit by hundreds of flaming torches carried by volunteers.
Official history says this landmark, visible from space, was built by the English to keep out the barbarians from Scotland but we believe it was actually the other way round.
Read more and see it here: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/8565759.stm