Inverness being left behind by Aberdeen, say critics

The artistic community in the Highlands have reacted with fury at the lack of action by the Highland Council following the announcement that Aberdeen who cannot even afford a Hogmanay Party have launched a bid to be named UK City of Culture in 2013.

Local Artist Grant Consumer said ” It is very worrying to note that despite the success of the placement of yards of red wool over gravestones and the recent Nobody’s Coming Home Conference in Eden Court Theatre that the bloody Highland Council is not stepping forward to safeguard the Highland’s position as one of Europe’s most creative producers of requests for money from Quangos . There is absolutely no point whatsoever for every parasite in Scotland who can hold a paintbrush or arrange for vanity publishing relocating their family to the Black Isle if the Highland Council does not concentrate on ensuring that we are given the opportunities that our talents deserve to make a few quid.”

A spokesman at Hi-Arts Corporate Headquarters in Academy Street said ” Naturally the £82m that Liverpool lost when staging the Capital of Culture in 2008 should not prevent the Highland Council from doing its job now that they have finally got the Gum Buster working again and have the time to refocus on what they should be doing. We will send them an email before we settle down for our nap this afternoon”.

Highland Capital’s Hogmanany to be protected from Aberdonians

Inversnecky can reveal that the A96 is to be mined by troops stationed at Fort George at Hogmanay at the request of the organisers of the Inverness Winter Festival.

Older readers may remember that, when Inverness Canny Whistle were promoted to the Scottish Premier League due to a computer, Canny Whistle Stadium was considered to have too few seats facing the pitch for the team to play there and the team was forced to ground share with Aberdeen Oilers.

Earlier this week horrified Highland Council Officials discovered that during the drafting of the contract for that hurriedly arranged deal, those sneaky bastards to the east inserted a ” you will owe us a favour” clause in the small print and this week and this week the chickens came home to roost with a vengeance.

Aberdeen has played the poverty card, cancelled its Hogmanay Party and given Aberdumbians the option of trying to get arrested in Edinburgh, Glasgow or Inverness – or simply doing sod all at the Bells.

A spokesman for the Army said ” They had better be heading south that is all we are going to say. If they come west we are determined to use everything we have stolen from the Americans in Helman’s Mayonnaise Province to stop them from reaching Inverness. The last thing we want is hundreds of sex starved Aberdumbians wandering round Ardersier in the early hours of January 1st looking to abuse our boys. That is why we have officers.”

It Only Takes a Minute, Robbie and co are told

Inversnecky has learned that the recent, and not-very-secret wedding of Take That star Mark Owens at Cawdor Castle was the scene of some frantic lobbying by administrators for struggling Inverness football club Clachnocurrency.

Fighting to keep the Merkinch club solvent, representatives of the club were believed to have gatecrashed the biggest Highland wedding since Madonna’s, appealing for the rich Take That boys to relight Clach’s fire.

A spokesman confirmed that the approach had been made, saying, “I know that it was the greatest day for the happy couple, and once you’ve tasted love it’s just wonderful, but we still wanted to reach out to see if they’d invest.  Everything changes in football so regularly, so we’ll have to wait some time for their response, but we’re keen to work with them so we’d wait for life.  Football administration takes patience, after all, and they’ve not made any promises.  Could it be magic?  Who knows, but perhaps they’ll be back for good negotiations in due course.”

Hmm… fire in old High Street bakery definitely not suspicious.  Absolutely not…

Invernessians across the town have reached for their beards today – including the women and children – at assurances from the police that there appear to be no suspicious circumstances surrounding the fire at the old Baker’s Oven building on the corner of Church Street and High Street.

That the old building, one of the few parts of the High Street and Bridge Street not to be torn down and re-developed in the 1960s, and which is currently being spruced up by a developer, has gone on fire, is a pure accident, say Northern Constambulance.

A spokesman insisted that it’s perfectly normal for listed buildings undergoing substantial renovations to go up in smoke with no explanation, despite the potential goldmine in insurance payouts, new construction contracts, easier planning rules, and lower maintenance costs of new builds.

“Honestly,” said a spokesman for the boys in blue.  “We’re certain the fire was just an accident.  The fact that Craig Dunain and Viewhill House have had fires in exactly the same circumstances is absolute coincidence, and presents no suggestion that there’s anything dodgy going on.”

Eight people Inversnecky spoke to on Church Street all stroked their beards, nodded their heads sarcastically and went, “hmmm…”.

Historic remnant to become new prison

In a surprising decision, Highland Council has recently voted not to demolish a fragile piece of our past, as it has moved to save Cromwell’s Tower on the Longman Industrial Estate.

Threatened by expansion of the BP depot, Cromwell’s Tower was due to be moved to the High Street, providing a scenic backdrop for the one-man band.  However, councillors have instead decided to renovate the monument and offer it to the Scottish Prison Service as a replacement for Porterfield.

“Think about it,” said a councillor after the meeting.  “Towers are great – one way in, one way out.  It’s perfect for security, and in time it could be as famous a prison as the Tower of London.”

Councillors are now seeking suggestions for where to put the barrowloads of bird shit that has filled the tower since time immemorial.  Inversnecky understands that early contenders  include plans for organically-constructed flood defences along the river Ness.

Highland Capital’s loss becomes English resort’s loss

Inverness Geschäft Verbesserung Bezirk’s hopes of winning the Scottish Town City Centre Euthanasia League appear to be in tatters this evening following the shock news that Manager Luft Waffe has been lured away from Inversnecky Stadium by the chance to pit his skills in the English Crumbling Seaside Resort Premiership League with B-Racing Skegness.

Inverness GVB fans dressed as pirates gathered in the telephone box behind Inverness Town House to mount a symbolic “Kessock Bridger” [12 minute protest - Ed] underneath an assortment of authentic German sparklers which had flown in on the last flight from Berlin at a cost of £250,000 before Northern Constabulary sent in riot police to move them on.

The news of the departure of Waffe has led to intense speculation as to who the GVB Board might approach to replace him, but given the early signs of a gradual economic recovery and the end of the Streetscape programme it is highly unlikely that the incoming manager will be able to achieve anything like the destructive success enjoyed by Waffe in his first season when he arranged for GVB Stadium to become the first stadium in Europe to have a plastic pitch at the height of the rainy season.

During his second season, Waffe completely wrong footed every other team in the League by ripping up the plastic pitch at GVB Stadium and replacing it with a cat litter cigarette butt bird shit surface but despite high hopes to the contrary, this only closed Woolworth’s on the High Street much to the disappointment of his Board.

A giant golden Genies Lamp desperately erected during the January transfer window failed to have the desired effect and when a Street Trader selling matches moved into the bottom of Church Street to accommodate the needs of the homeless Eastern Europeans sleeping in the deserted Highland 2007 complex at Abertaff House thus boosting sales of Buckfast in the Old Town, the Re-Imaging the Centre Ultras became restless in the Homecoming Scotland Legacy End of the stadium and the writing as they say was very much on the wall, at least for a weekend when it was painted over again.

A statement on the Inverness Geschäft Verbesserung Bezirk website said:

“The Board of Directors would like to thank Luft for his time at the Club and to wish him every success at B-Racing Skegness. He will be a hard act to follow but if we can find someone in the private sector with the ability of the Highland Council official who decided to lower the Jolly Roger from the Town House we might still have a chance of making the play-offs.  Naturally we know that the Highland Council are paying over £100,000 to folk with the ability to create the kind of town city centre that we are hoping to achieve but we are hoping that the £30,000 we are offering will be enough to attract somebody with the talent to fill at least one street with charity shops by the end of the season.”

Corals the Bookmakers on Academy Street have slashed the odds of B-Racing Skegness being completely fecked up from 9/1 to 4/6 and Betfair have reported Tottenham Manager Harry Rednap to the Police – again.

Complaints rise about frivilous nonsense

Inversnecky has discovered that Victor MacMedldrew, the sour faced serial complainer who complained about the Jolly Roger flying over the Town House has lodged a complaint with the Highland Council stating that the poppies currently being sold by the British Legion bear a remarkable resemblance to the offensive  Japanese flag which was painted on to the wings of the Kamikaze planes that used to attempt to sink his bicycle powered boat as he carried supplies across Whin Park.

MacMedldrew has demanded that Provost Pajamies Grey take immediate action or he will complain to the Highland News.

Inversnecky sources in the Town House have advised us that the postal strike has given the Council the breathing space necessary to avoid having to write their daily letter to MacMedldrew for the first time since the Geat Postal Strike in 1972 and actually think about what they are going to do with him now that stamps look like to become a thing of the past due to budget cuts.

Ignoring frantic knocking on the front door at the Town House, which was conveniently jammed shut to enable the removal of asbestos and bullshit, a short (by Council standards) emergency 18-hour meeting was held attended by every single Council Official earning over £190,000 a year. Sadly none of the Senior Management Team could make it.

We are informed that it was agreed, in a clear breach of Council policy that is bound to lead to complaints in the future, that a copy of the complaint lodged by MacMedldrew would be send to the Committee at the British Legion with a request that somebody would quietly approach the Commander at Fort George with the offer of a signed blank cheque from the Inverness Common Good Fund to enable him to purchase as many helmets as he needs from the American Army to kit out a platoon of his choosing in Helman’s Mayonnaise Province.

In return all he had to provide was the personal details of any soldiers returning from Afghanistan with community re-engagement issues who would like to be housed in the new unmanned Anger Management Centre that the Council had decided to establish in the empty properties on either side of  MacMedldrew’a home.

Properties which the Council have been unable to let since the tenants were forcibly removed following receipt of a record 504 anonymous complaints about criminal activities, marital sex and gardening on days either side of the Sabbath.

For those of you who are interested in watching foul mouthed TV chefs shouting at people who left school with no qualifications and bad teeth en route to a stroke eating your High Fat Tesco Boil in a Bag Surprise TV dinners, Inversnecky has obtained a copy of the new cost-saving snacks served at the Town House during this important meeting.

Our elected officials enjoyed the spartan delights of moules marinieres, pate de foie gras, beluga caviar, eggs benedictine, a leek tart, frogs’ legs amandine and quail’s eggs all mixed together in a bucket with the quali eggs on top and a double helping of pate; after apéritifs of six bottles of Chateau Latour 1945, a double jeroboam of champagne and a half a dozen crates of Brown Ale.

Breaking news

Consultants are being asked to produce a report on the implications of welding the letterbox at the Town House shut and attaching it to the high-powered electricity running down the length of the High Street. A Council spokeswoman said “Feck Streetscape. We cannot afford the stamps to keep up with this maniac when the postal strike ends and apparently the Nobody is Coming Home Conference has ended”

Old Town tells customers to fuck off

First there was the destruction of beautiful, historic buildings, then the closure of unique, family-run businesses, then the Streetscaping.

Now the Old Town has finally told its residents, visitors and citizens to piss the hell out of its patch and out to the retail parks unless they want to visit a charity shop.

The strongly-worded remarks are contained in the proposal to abolish the 20p parking offer on the upper floors of the Rose Street car park, which faces councillors on Monday.

One council source said, in between mouthfuls of lunch, “let’s face it, people in the Old Town just ruin it, hanging around outside MacDonald’s, begging, chugging, busking… sod the lot of them.  If the retail parks want them, they’re welcome to the vermin.  Future plans involve removing every alternate paving stone to make walking that bit harder.  We may also employ snipers to keep people away, too.”

An old man on Church Street told Inversnecky that maybe Tesco wasn’t so bad after all…

Shiver me timbers, it’s a scandal!

Victor MacMedldrew, the sour faced serial complainer who stalks the streets of Inverness, has gone into hiding following the arrival of hundreds of Pirates from Somalia determined to discover the man responsible for the removal of their country’s national flag from the Town House on the eve of their top secret talks to use ailing Clachnacuddin Football Club as a front for their money laundering operations.

Spokesman Machete Mumbai said “The Highland Council promised us that our Captain Blackandbluebeard would be given a welcome fit for a Pirate King and what do we find when we arrive? Mel Gibson’s personal flag hanging limper than the soon to be removed bits of your average 71 year olds former Merchant Seaman from the roof of Chieftain Provost’s Palace. Don’t these people realise that it is, it is, a glorious thing to be a Pirate King and when we say that we expect to arrive to discover folk flying our flag when we sail into your harbor it is not optional if you get our drift. If the Highland Council are serious about wanting our help in establishing Clachnacuddin Football Club as a force in European Football Embezzlement within 5 years, they had better have MacMedldrew hanging from the Town House by the end of the week.”

Meanwhile, Inversnecky can reveal that Highlands and Islands Enterprise have announced that they are in negotiations with a mystery consortium of overseas businessmen who are looking for a port that can be used for quietly repainting and disposing of newly acquired second hand yachts and the melting down of wedding rings into gold teeth.

Bike connection to Inverness’s central belt airports introduced

After months of intense criticism for awarding all of their contracts to their Chairman’s gardener’s Cayman Island Centre Cash and Carry Business, the Board of Highlands and Islands Enterprise today announced the signing of their first major inward bound business contract since they were formed in 1836.

No-frills Ryanair, the world’s most popular low-cost-when-you-start-booking-your-ticket airline will commence flights to not one but two Inverness airports commencing on January 1st 2010.

A delighted HIE spokeswoman said ” The flights to InvernessEdinburgh and InvernessGlasgow are going to make a huge difference to the tourist Highland economy and this is without doubt the best news that we have been able to announce in years. We are especially delighted to have reduced the carbon footprint of the flights to Inverness by making flight times shorter than ever before and we think that our new passenger friendly free bicycle service on arrival will prove a winner and provide sustainable employment throughout the whole of the A9 corridor.

“We are proud to be the first Enterprise Quango to taken the lead in the fight against Global Warming, although the economic potential of the days when we change from being Highlands and Islands to just Highlands when the sea levels rise has already been noted by our fact finding team doing research in Las Vagas”.