Armageddon Saturday 20th August

[Mercy Green]

I have posted this message using an ineffectual anagram of my true name, invented by a journalistic colleague from your town, who has informed me that, after the last Old Firm match in May this year, every bar in your town closed down.

Having visited your music festival up there, that is so much based on the support of the licensees, I wonder will they refuse to show the match live on 20th August or take the consequences that they feared in May by showing it? I hope that your festival passes off without incident but I will be monitoring the situation for my column on 28th August.

[4th gen Suthen']

Very good Gerry good point and well made......very interesting.

Of course you are jeest mischief making and you know fine well C/town is a civilised toon......

I look forward to your column on the 28th! but there will be nothing to report, nothing to see here.........please move along!

[BK]

I bet you the pubs won't shut their doors that day when they have thousands to make from the festival.

Last time it was just a case of one pub doing it (to save their licence) and all the rest followed suit..

[Big Seamus]

Why do Cambeltown people need to get out of their faces to enjoy a football match or a music festival? Went to survivors night once and was sickened by the mess. How do public bodies justify supporting what reflects the worse in Scottish culture? - Cambeltowns alcoholic self-destruct. Some people think Paddie Wivel was wrong to highlight Cambeltown, I think he missed the point, the underlying abuse of alcohol in Cambeltown is much worse than he manipulated with teenagers in his programme. Thankfully he didn't dig any deeper and realise that he didn't need to manipulate anything, teenagers are the tip of the iceberg.

[Wee Seamus]

Why do Cambeltown people need to get out of their faces to enjoy a football match or a music festival? Went to survivors night once and was sickened by the mess. How do public bodies justify supporting what reflects the worse in Scottish culture? - Cambeltowns alcoholic self-destruct. Some people think Paddie Wivel was wrong to highlight Cambeltown, I think he missed the point, the underlying abuse of alcohol in Cambeltown is much worse than he manipulated with teenagers in his programme. Thankfully he didn't dig any deeper and realise that he didn't need to manipulate anything, teenagers are the tip of the iceberg.

Nonsense! Where does your justification come from? Give us your comparison of alcohol abuse to other places?

As for the PW documentary - it only highlighted the same story throughout Scotland and the UK as a whole with regards teenagers and alcohol. Low and behold it does happen and before you get any further up yer ain ar$e it happened in the past.

How do public bodies justify supporting what reflects the worse in Scottish culture?

[Guest]

Why do Cambeltown people need to get out of their faces to enjoy a football match or a music festival? Went to survivors night once and was sickened by the mess. How do public bodies justify supporting what reflects the worse in Scottish culture? - Cambeltowns alcoholic self-destruct. Some people think Paddie Wivel was wrong to highlight Cambeltown, I think he missed the point, the underlying abuse of alcohol in Cambeltown is much worse than he manipulated with teenagers in his programme. Thankfully he didn't dig any deeper and realise that he didn't need to manipulate anything, teenagers are the tip of the iceberg.

For someone who professes to know so much about Campbeltown's underbelly, it is surprising that Big Seamus isn't able to spell the town's name correctly. Has he ever been here? Why pick on Campbeltown when the symptoms he describes could apply to most areas in the West of Scotland from Ayrshire to the West Highlands? The issues surrounding P. Wivell are not that he exposed underage drinking etc in Campbeltown, but that he set out to deceive by pretending to make a completely different film to that which was finally shown. Maybe we were too naive in allowing him to make the film? I understand that he was politely refused in Thurso and Wick as well as both Lochgilphead and Tarbert and that is why he ended up down here.

The particular football match he is referring to arouses a ridiculous amount of passion with or without alcohol, but since the football authorities sold out to Setanta, pubs have become the only cost effective way for many people to see live Scottish football on the TV. In this respect, residents of Campbeltown are no different to anywhere else. I expect that most people take the entirely reasonable view that if the publican is providing the football as a free service, the least they can do is put their hand in their pockets to buy a few pints. So I don't believe that people have to use alcohol to enjoy a football match, it just so happens that they are more likely to see the game of their choice in licenced premises. Of course, depending on the circumstances of the game, this combination of alcohol and football can lead to something more unpleasant, but that is another argument all together from the simplistic one put forward by Big Seamus.

Finally the point about the Music Festival is a cheap shot indeed. While there is no doubt that Survivor's Night is not for the faint-hearted, it is but a single event in what is a major success story for the town. In actual fact most visitors who have been able to attend Survivors Night consider it to be a unique cultural experience and many have voiced the opinion that if the good-natured atmosphere could be bottled it would be a sure-fire winner. While the evening does tend to get wilder towards the end, there is usually no trouble at all and a great deal of civic pride is engendered towards the local artistes which you just don't find anywhere else that I have found. Certainly the underlying air of menace that is all to apparent at events such as Tarbert Fair is conspicuous by its absence at Survivor's Night.

It is naive to assume that alcohol does not play a role in the Survivors Night enjoyment factor, but again that would be apply to any such event in Scotland. For example, The Royal National Mod receives support from public bodies and the social side of it is virtually fuelled by alcohol. Would Big Seamus seriously suggest that such an event should not receive funding from the public purse?

Hard to know if Big Seamus is just trying to be controversial for the sake of it or if he has a genuine point he is trying to get across but in my view he has failed miserably on both counts. I have a feeling he is really trying to promote an attitude of zero tolerance to alcohol but if that is the case why doesn't he come right out and instigate that debate instead of hiding behind a couple of fig leaves?

C'mon Seamus, let's see if you're Big enough?