Inversnecky

“Credit crunch” means nothing will now happen

The current economic downturn has winded its way up the A9 to give it with both barrels to the Highland Capital.

News has recently reached the town city that the impending removal of the Inverness-Dublin air link and the postponement of the eco-friendly Highland Housing Fair are linked inextricably to the global economic crisis which the world is talking itself into.

This comes on top of calls made by some to scale back or indeed entirely abolish plans for the new towns in the A96 corridor, because nobody will have any money to pay for petrol to move north to the area.

With a heavy heart, Inversnecky reports that further cutbacks are being made in the town city due to the “credit crunch”, including:

• Romanian striker Marius Niculae may leave Inverness Calibration Thimble FC, and will not accept the club’s offer of payment in tent pegs left over from the Highland Games
• The Bang On Boogie Band man is due to sell his guitar and rely on drums and harmonica, temporarily staving the risk of becoming Inverness’s first “no man band”
• The Ness Islands will be reduced in size by 50% to save on de-littering
• There will now only be two Virtues – Prudence and Thrift
• The proposed River Ness flood defences will now be only three inches high, and made of Lego

Worst of all, the cuts have seen a third of Inversnecky‘s own staff laid off, and the proposed celebrations of its first birthday on August 13 will be reduced to a couple of drinks in the Market Bar.

Times are hard, right enough…

Chinese dragons and cheerleaders help Council achieve zero-cringe level

Highland Council has declared the Inverness Highland Games a roaring success, after it achieved a number of notable “firsts”.  It is the first Games to be two days long, the first to be concluded by two spectacled Fifers, and the first to happen in the town city since, would you believe it, last year.

However, officials are keen to point out the greatest achievement of all, and that is the removal of all cringe factor, and indeed any element of Highland culture.

A spokesman explained to Inversnecky shortly before the Games’ opening ceremony: “With a kick-off involving cheerleaders and a Chinese dragon, plus a huge fairground like you’d find anywhere else, we’re delighted that the event doesn’t feel very Scottish at all.  Even the “heavies” are Icelandic.  And we’ve spoken to the Proclaimers and asked them to tone their accents down a bit, which will help.”

Inversnecky doubts they’ll manage, but looks forward to the gig anyway.

Help us spend our six-figure celebration grant from Council and HIE

As the more observant and loyal readers of Inversnecky will note, it is precisely one month until Inverness’s least regular and worst formed news organ (no, not the Inverness Courier) celebrates its very first birthday.

In that time, we’ve seen reporters quit to form rival factions, many of our staff being made redundant before going on to cushy jobs in the cooncil, and all this against a backdrop of news in the town city that has included all sorts of exciting dramas that we’ve endeavoured to bring you through hell and high flood waters.

Thanks to our generous friends at Highlands and Island Enterprise and the Highland Council, we now have hunners of thoosands of quid to spend on a lavish party to celebrate our first year of news-pumping.

However, rather than set lots of sparklers off on the Greig Street Bridge or hijack the Proclaimers gig, we down in the Inversnecky bunker would like to ask our loyal readers (all three of them) to help us wish ourselves “happy birthday” (or “dóbrý wojciech“, as our ever-decreasing Polish community would say) by suggesting an appropriate way of commemorating this historic occasion.

Answers on a postcard.  Or the comment form below…

New crime statistics prove we’re a city now

The multi-agency approach to demonstrate that Inverness really is a city has been declared a success following the conclusion of the Inverness Crime Festival.

After several weeks of murders, break-ins, and action against anti-social behaviour and teenage drinking, the Police have led the declarations that the festival was a resounding success, with crime in the city now firmly up on last year.

A spokesman for Northern Constabulary told us that the scene was set some months ago by the Vue Cinema cash machine theft, giving the Crime Festival a strong base to build on.  “Since then, we’ve been kept busy, and people are now talking about crime in the city a lot, which makes a change from the usual topics of traffic and old town streetscaping.”

The spokesman thanked numerous members of the public for their participation, and said it was great to see so many young people in the city getting involved.  “It’s not just teenagers who’ve played a part in the festival, but thanks to many of the Polish community being reported lately as buying alcohol for kids, plus of course the famous Battle of Academy Street during the Germany-Poland Euro 2008 match, it’s been a truly multicultural event too.”

Festival organisers are now aiming to identify further crimes throughout the city, beginning with the architecture and town planning departments of Highland Council.

Slopping out comes to an end on Far North Line

Highland trains are now entering the twentieth century (eight years after it ended), following news that passengers undertaking the three-week train journey between Inverness and Wick will now be able to avoid the ignominy of “slopping out”.

The introduction of proper flush toilets brings to an end passengers using potties stored underneath their seats and emptying them through gaps between carriages, a practice in operation since the Far North Line began.

Following complaints from frequenters of the barber’s shop on platform 6 about the stench, First ScotRail have announced that the changes in sanitation will be starting in the next few weeks.

A spokesman for the rail company said that extra staff will be available on the line in the first few weeks to help passengers from Caithness who may never have seen a flush toilet before.