FOUR hundred years ago the French philosopher Blaise Pascal wrote: “All of humanity’s problems stem from man’s inability to sit quietly in a room alone.” Even Pascal, for all his remarkable prescience, could not possibly have foreseen the frenetic world of noise in which we live today. Most TV and radio programmes are ruined by strident background sound effects. Shops and restaurants pump out gratuitous "music". Worst of all, almost everyone squawks incessantly into their mobile phones. For those who want to sit quietly with their own thoughts the chances are slim.
To make things even worse, we are now to be treated to our very own Government-sponsored racket, in the shape of the UK’s new Emergency Alerts service (“Millions of UK phones to sound alarm in nationwide alert test”, The Herald, April 6). The purpose of this new public alert system, apparently, is to warn us of life-threatening situations such as terror threats, fires or extreme weather. In other words, the very same threats that our news media already report extremely ably.
The test alert of the new system on April 23 will entail 10 seconds of loud siren-like alarm, and vibration, on our mobile phones or tablets. There are an estimated 85 million mobile devices in the UK. Many of those are likely to be in close proximity to each other when the test alert sounds, so that the sound of the siren-like alarm will be massive. I can think of many groups who will be severely affected as a result, such as those with sound or noise sensitivity, patients and staff in hospitals and those who, like myself, wear hearing aids. Against Government advice, I have turned off the emergency alert settings on my mobile phone. I accept full responsibility for my decision.
The Government describes the new system as “another tool in our toolkit to keep the public safe in life-threatening emergencies”. Do we really need another tool? We have just survived the most serious and prolonged life-threatening emergency most of us can remember, in which our existing media played a key role by very successfully disseminating vital information to us all. I can think of no way in which the new Emergency Alerts system would have added to that, or in which it will do so in the future.
No doubt the Government will be proud of this shiny new tool in its toolkit. Over the years I have added many new tools to my own toolkit, only to quickly realise that I didn’t need them at all. At least none of them involved a huge waste of taxpayers’ money.
Iain Stuart, Glasgow.
Read more: Glasgow must make a start on its Metro system
Scrap the Care Service plan
IT is widely reported that the Royal College of Nursing (RCN) Scotland has called for an urgent meeting on the SNP’s National Care Service Bill with Maree Todd, the new Minister for Social Care, Mental Wellbeing and Sport. The nursing union has expressed “serious concerns” about the bill in a letter to Ms Todd, citing “a fundamental lack of detail”. RCN Scotland said that the bill's current form leaves uncertainty as to how social care and health services would be improved in terms of both consistency and quality.
Given the near-£1 million being spent on this in civil service wages every month, the concerns of the RCN, of Integration Joint Boards and even SNP-led councils, it is time to suspend this bill and divert civil servants to addressing the shortage of workers in community health and social services.
More investment and better compensation and improved terms and conditions in the industry must come first if services are to have the appropriate number of employees, with the appropriate capabilities, in the appropriate location. This can be done under existing structures and without the expense of inventing a new one.
Jon Herd, Kilmarnock.
Why can't they get another ferry?
NOW that both Corran ferries are out of service for at least several weeks ("Ministers say they ‘won’t intervene’ over £60m cost to resolve fiasco", The Herald, April 11), is it beyond the wit of Highland Council to charter or purchase a replacement vessel and resell it when no longer required?
A quick two-minute search on the internet reveals 329 ferries for sale on the Apollo Duck website of which 53 are ro-ro or double-ended ferries. At least two or three look very similar in size, capacity and loading ramps to the existing vessels and many are available in Europe.
Alan M Morris, Blanefield.
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Driven to distraction
RECENT articles and letters regarding the blight of power cables (“There’s no time for another fight over crucial power lines”, The Herald, April 6), and Letters, April 7, 10 & 11) and Mark Smith’s article about the scar of the M8 through Glasgow ("They said the scar would not heal. They were proved right", The Herald, April 10) focus on the visual impact of these constructions to the surrounding landscape and how difficult it is to resolve the problems once they are there.
Nonetheless, we in the Rutherglen area have recently been given, with no consultation that I am aware of, an enormous golf practice range in addition to and because of the M74 motorway. The net to contain the balls and stop them from hitting the traffic must be more than 100ft in the air.
At least pylons and motorways, ugly as they are, serve a purpose to many folk, but golf is a minority sport and practice for it can be carried out at ground level surely. Who are the clientele using this facility? Probably not the locals, as many of the golf courses round about here were shut down or built upon.
We can no longer have an interrupted view of the Campsie hills nor people on the other side see Cathkin Braes. It is a blight like all the others but unlike them can be easily removed.
Susan Martin, Glasgow.
A prescient Archive
ON Radio 4 on February 16, 2019 I listened to Archive on 4 where the writer Jake Arnott presented a programme called Bent Coppers. I was quite amazed when I heard it said that "a good police force is one that catches more crooks than it employs". I wrote the details down in my then current commonplace book. Amazement has given way to disappointment (“Met officers moved from crime squads to investigate internal standards”, The Herald, April 6, and Letters, April 7).
The programme Bent Coppers is still available to hear.
Thelma Edwards, Kelso.
House call
I WAS interested to learn that according to a poll for a computer game nearly half the people in Britain have tried contacting the dead ("RIP off", Rab McNeil, Herald Magazine, April 8). My parents as owners of a new bungalow in the 1930s a few years later joined a small group of neighbours at a gathering to which a medium had been invited.
Psychic contact established, the departed was identified as the recently-deceased builder, and his message passed on was a congratulatory “Your hoose is staunin’ up weel”.
R Russell Smith, Largs.
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