Readers' letters: Nasa won't find Nessie because Nessie doesn't exist

Everything has been tried and its hard to see how Nasa could help. It would be a waste of their time. The search is a waste of everyones time.

There have not been “1,156 sighting of the beast” but there have surely been that many reports of something that the observers thought was Nessie. A report is just that until close examination of the circumstances can identify what was seen.

It always it turns out that, except for hoaxes, reporters have mistaken some ordinary object or phenomenon for Nessie. I have examined thousands of them. The commonest stimulus is a wave created by traffic on a calm surface.

Steuart Campbell, Edinburgh

Wasting police time

It should not take up too much time to send out fixed penalty notices to the 97 per cent of the 7,000 people (given most were anonymous) who have wasted the time of Police Scotland with frivolous and politically-motivated complaints under the new Hate Crime Act. Only three per cent were deemed worthy of recording.

It is adequately covered by the Criminal Justice and Police Act 2001.

John V Lloyd, Inverkeithing, Fife

Burning issue

Mandy Cairns (Letters, 13 April) “welcomes” the ban on “polluting” wood burning stoves in new builds. I don’t agree, although I do not have a wood burner.

Modern wood burners marked as Clear Skies Certificated are not harmful to health. Home fires fuelled by wood, a renewable resources, have been used for millennia. They provide not only heat but comfort and a sense of security when the weather is threatening.

During their lives trees absorb CO2 from the atmosphere and when burned (or left to decay) emit the same amount. Wood burning stoves are carbon neutral.

The smell of wood smoke is evocative because it is synonymous with home because of our human ancestry which was built on our control of fire.

And of course wood burners do not require electricity which means that when there is a power cut you can still be warm and comfortable.

This ban is yet the latest in a long line of intrusive green initiatives which fly in the face of common sense.

William Loneskie, Lauder, Scottish Borders

Wishful thinking

With the best will in the world, and with every opinion poll showing support for the SNP melting like “snaw aff a dyke”, it is hard to take Stewart McDonalds article (Scotsman, 13 April) seriously. He lists all the about-turns and drastic changes in SNP policies over the years and is suggesting that the nationalists could do another and work with an incoming Labour government.

The problem for the SNP is that an incoming Labour government is highly unlikely to want to work with them. And that is assuming there are enough nationalist members left to have any meaningful presence in the first place.

Perhaps Mr McDonald is starting to see reality stretched before him and his signal-making indicates a reluctance to return to his former employment as a holiday rep.

Alexander McKay, Edinburgh

Sevens heaven

Alan Massie may be a “Selkirk Craw” and I may be a “Braw Lad” but we are in complete agreement about Melrose Sevens now being a pale shadow of their former selves (Scotsman, 13 April).

Spring meant that we had the Sevens starting with Gala Sevens followed by Melrose, Hawick, Jedforest and ending with Langholm which often took place in May, requiring Langholm having to get the SRU’s permission to extend the season into May.

I remember that one year the pitch at the Greenyards was like Dens Park today, a sea of mud. The little-fancied Melville College FPs reached the final by dribbling the ball rather than passing it. Sadly I don’t remember who won.

One thing we all liked was seeing the star players of the Scotland team playing the abbreviated version.

David ElderHaddington, East Lothain

Frazer was right

One definition of globalisation is “the term used to describe how trade and technology have made the world into a more connected and interdependent place”, which all sounds very well.

But what about the globalisation corollaries of personal and corporate power, greed, fraud, conflict, crime, etc, leading in turn to globalised misinformation, mistrust, protectionism, political polarisation – quite the opposite of globalisation; and, at its worst, global failure of co-operation to both combat and adapt to surviving climate change, the only global phenomenon we can be incontrovertibly certain about.

To quote that great philosopher Private Frazer, “we’re all doomed”.

S R Wild, Edinburgh

Square meal

Here I am, sitting in Adelaide, reading The Scotsman with only one thing on my mind. It is, of course, a roll and a square sausage (Scotsman, 12 April).

Rarely has an editorial had such an impact on me. I can smell it, taste it, dream it, but the tyranny of distance means it is, for now, out of reach. Come August, I will be in Glasgow with roll and square sausage in hand and strawberry tart lined up for dessert. The tyranny of distance conquered.

Stewart Sweeney, Adelaide, Australia