Monthly Archives: January 2012

Comet to support Aberdeen student

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Sports Aid Athlete Jonty Barron gets sponsorship from Comet electrical store, Edinburgh

Aberdeen University student, athlete Jonty (Jonathan) Barron, aged 18, from Lasswade near Edinburgh, received a cheque for £1,000 from the Edinburgh Fort Kinnaird Comet store as part of the electrical specialist’s partnership with sports charity SportsAid – helping the sports stars of tomorrow, today!

Jonty is pictured with Comet’s store manager John Taylor.

Today, Comet presented aspiring shooting star Jonty Barron with a £1,000 cheque to support his training. As part of Comet’s charity partnership with SportsAid, the electrical specialist will back 20 young talented sports people around the UK with training grants, giving them a vital boost during the defining early years of their sporting careers.

Already competing at a national level, Jonty was recently Top Junior performer in the Scottish Squad at the 2011 Scotland vs New Zealand match. Jonty will put the funding towards his training so he can reach a higher performance level and work towards the ultimate goal – representing Great Britain in an international tournament.

Picture from:  Colin Hattersley Photography
www.colinhattersley.com
colinhattersley@btinternet.com
07974 957 388

Film Review – You Say You Want A Revolution? Let’s Gdansk

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Polish Roulette – Sztos 2

Comedy

Polish with English sub-titles.

Cert 15. 105 mins

Together with rationing it is an even colder and slushier Advent in Poland 1981 as the Solidarity movement, simmering in the Gdansk shipyards, provokes the imposition of martial law. But guys still have to make a buck somehow, and dodgy deals in foreign currencies, where the Dollar reigns supreme, is a thriving business – and a very dangerous one – where the Secret Police are involved.

Meanwhile, for rough-diamond conmen/card-sharps, Sonny (Cezary Pazura) and Janek (Borys Szyc) their sleight of hand trickery remains profitable – as long as they remain alive. Conning half your money back from the Militia just after you’ve bribed them certainly compromises that intention.

Roulette -Sztos 2 is a hustle and scam grifter-buddy road movie with a morality-tale denouement sting. There are plenty of engagingly vulgar comedy set-pieces, such as Sonny and Janek entertaining two ladies of profession affection. In the giddy throes of priapic consummation, the ladies’ partner, on seeking purchase on the spinning turntable, inadvertently discovers scratch/mixing years before the bros in d’hood had a clue.

Meanwhile, as ominous tank-tracks rumble outside, Sonny rumbles something very unexpected inside Victoria’s underwear. The later ‘lock-in’ buddy booze-up scene and subsequent karaoke carnage is well-flagged, gauche in its contrivance and all the more entertaining for it.

Whilst allowing for generous slapstick comic license, Roulette/Szetos 2 sustains a pithy, non-self reverential, satirical swipe at totalitarianism’s bungling, but nonetheless, brutal suffocation set against Everyman’s struggle against the odds.

The context of Solidarity remains in the background, although one might do well to keep it in mind at journey’s end. The film’s ethos posits the theory that, more than anything, Solidarity’s eventual overthrow of Communism was not predicated on the struggle to escape the shackles of oppression. More, that eating pickled cabbage, morning, noon and night and wearing those hideous polyester flares and delta-wing rayon shirt collars was the ultimate catalyst for the Velvet (not crushed, one hopes) Revolution.

The plot, such as it is, climaxes with the guys ‘stinging’ the Secret Police out of their shady currency stash, the MO being to get them stoned on a jar of hallucinogenic canapés and hash-cakes; which they do with ambiguous success following a highly diverting Hippy-Kitsch psychedelic freak-out tableau.

Amusingly engaging with a cunning plan. Recommended.

Offshore Wind blowing into Aberdeen

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Scotland’s largest ever Offshore Wind conference will take place in Aberdeen next week bringing together more than 600 of the most influential business leaders in oil & gas and renewable energy from across the UK and Europe.

Organised by Scottish Renewables and Scottish Enterprise, the two-day event is established as a key highlight in the renewables energy calendar attracting a wide range of influential speakers, exhibitors and delegates representing the developing offshore wind sector.

Scotland’s First Minister, Alex Salmond, will give the opening address to hundreds of delegates on Tuesday.

With some of the most stretching renewable energy targets in Europe and ambitions to generate the equivalent of 100 per cent of annual electricity demand renewables by 2020, Scotland is gearing up to maximise economic potential from offshore wind in the next decade and beyond, with potential for as much as £7 billion of investment and 48,000 jobs.

Niall Stuart, chief executive of Scottish Renewables, said: “With more than 600 attendees and 50 exhibitors this has, in just a year, become one of the largest events in the renewables calendar. The offshore wind industry will prove to be a significant economic driver in Scotland and an event like this one is a reflection of that.

“The diversity of those exhibiting tells you this is an international industry making its home in Scotland. Companies such as Gamesa (Spain), Kongsberg (Norway) and Simatex AG (Germany), as well as home-grown businesses such as Xi Engineering and Xodus Group, are all looking to create new jobs in manufacturing, research and development and invest millions in communities across Scotland.

“Where better than Aberdeen to explore how Scotland can strengthen its presence in the offshore wind sector; a city that has built up a huge hub of skills and expertise from oil and gas which can now be transferred to help create a world-leading offshore wind industry.”

Adrian Gillespie, director of energy and low carbon technologies at Scottish Enterprise said: “Building on our long industrial heritage and offshore engineering expertise, Scotland is ideally placed to capitalise on Europe’s growing offshore wind industry right across the supply chain.

“In the last year alone in Scotland we have seen R&D investment, diversification, acquisition and collaboration all help deliver strong and steady progress towards building this exciting new industry.

“We continue to support Scottish and foreign investors who clearly understand our competitive advantage and see the potential in our offshore expertise, supportive business environment, academic excellence, and natural resources. I fully expect that the 2012 Offshore Wind and Supply Chain conference will help attract further investment and provide a forum to highlight what more can be done to accelerate growth.”

The conference and networking exhibition will include a mixture of plenary sessions, workshop style discussions, presentations and quick fire updates. It will also provide exhibiting organisations with the chance to update on their own activities in the exhibition showcase.

The Scottish Offshore Wind Conference and Exhibition will take place at the Aberdeen Exhibition and Conference Centre (AECC) on Tuesday 31 January and Wednesday 1 February 2012.

For full details of the event including conference programme please visit www.scottishoffshorewind.com