No pleasure at all from the helicopters

Published on Thursday 24 April 2008 10:26

ACCIDENT waiting to happen? Never fails to astound and bug peace-loving citizens that pleasure-trip choppers are granted the freedom of Edinburgh's skies to flutter low and often over the city.

You've been there. You're relaxing in your garden and this bloody contraption keeps whirring above you.

The infernal machines haven't been away completely over the winter. Now, with summer supposedly on the way, they're back big style, breaching the weekend peace. Trippers up above seem blissfully unaware of the frequency of helicopter fatalities, civil and military.

Nor, apparently, do they realise that the pilot doesn't call the nearest airport, telling them to clear the runway and have an ambulance ready.

A wonky chopper drops like a stone and it's goodnight Vienna. Besides, over a city like Edinburgh, real tough on the punters below.

So enjoy your trip, suckers! If you crawl out of the wreckage or should a pleasure chopper obliterate your house, make sure your insurers squeeze a fortune out of the CAA or whoever grants these people the right to random romps over the city. Your kin can sue for plenty.

We're not talking colossal 'copters here, understand. Not the pleasure-seeking kind that William flies, the huge Chinook. Should he land in your garden this weekend, be sure to have a few bottles of Cristal in the fridge.

Un-Holy mess

Tracks of your tears. On top of the trams turmoil, Scotia Gas Networks, who are gouging great holes out of raped and pillaged Holyrood Road (leaving them unattended for ages before filling them in), are apologising profusely to pedestrians and traffic for the inconvenience.

You never see an apology for the often grotty workmanship Scotlia Gas Networks leave in their wake. Their apology is rejected. Categorically.

Afterwords . .

. . . courtesy of my bosom body Abi Titmuss (we remember well our snuggle at the back of Murrayfield Stadium): "Like in many other areas of life, men underestimate what women are capable of. Women are not only good liars but they are much better than men at reading body language and that plays such a large part."