Bagpipes should be licensed
IT was good to have a wee smile and to have my prejudices reinforced by the article on the possible demise of bagpiping (“Pipes and Slippers: is bagpiping in its dotage as skills decline?”, The Herald, December 27.) I loathe and detest the sound of bagpipes, only finding it mildly tolerable if it passes over water – like the Atlantic. I have sweated blood on other people’s behalf (brides) to produce some requested keyboard masterpiece only to have it squashed and tossed aside by some maniac piper warming up a few yards away. Usually, this is followed by the most heinous crime of all – bagpiping indoors – next to people – under a low ceiling.
I know what I’m talking about and can fight science with science. This devil’s incarnation has three permanent drone tones (thus limiting its full, keyscale, musical application) and one forever sees pipers fiddling with their drone tubes. That’s probably because I’m standing nearby, loudly humming a musical note that is a semitone higher (or lower). Agony for them, as they seek stabilisation, but pure joy for me.
Finally, it’s a well-kept secret that all these wee, silly “grace notes” that are the bane of a student piper’s life are only there to disguise a particularly boring lead sound of no musical taste whatsoever. The public appearance and/or use of bagpipes should be licensed for many reasons, but mainly for the protection of music lovers everywhere.
Dr David Sutherland, Troon.
WHY was Jackie Kay CBE missing from your list and celebration of Scottish recipients of New Year Honours (“Scottish honours”, The Herald, December 28)? Not only is she Scottish, she
ONE of the problems in discussing Curriculum for Excellence is being sure that everyone is talking about the same thing. I try to use the term only to refer to the paper produced by the Curriculum Review Group and approved by the then Scottish Executive in November 2004. It is essentially a mission statement for Scottish education, setting out inter alia four purposes for schooling and seven principles for curriculum design. It is very much in line with much contemporary thinking about school education: similar policies have guided developments in many countries, including some that enjoy much greater success than Scotland.
Judith Gillespie (Letters, December 28) clearly identifies Curriculum for Excellence with the strategic guidance issued between 2006 and 2011 and contained in the Building the Curriculum series of booklets. She is perfectly entitled to do this. However, there is little continuity is the Scots Makar, an outstanding poet and a great ambassador for our nation.
Kirsten Stalker, Edinburgh
EH12.
HOW appropriate for the New Year Honours Awards Committee to make the former Chief Executive of the Royal Bank a CBE, confirming his title as Ross Maxwell Mcewan, Closed Branches Everywhere.
George B Mckenzie, Rothesay.
HEARD about the New Year’s Honours? Gok Wan got wan. G L Barrowman, Fairlie.
I’VE just read Lucinda Cameron’s of thought between the 2004 document and those that followed.
She alleges that warning signs of the current problems over subject choice were clearly visible from the start. So long as the “start” is taken to be the publication of Building the Curriculum 3, she is right. It article about the bowel screening test and, in particular, the low uptake rate among women (“‘I’d rather just not know I had bowel cancer and die’”, The Herald, Decmber 28). I was appalled to read her description of the test, which she states involves collecting two samples from each of three separate bowel motions. This is no longer accurate. In November 2017 the test was simplified to require one small sample in a bid to overcome a process barrier for those who found the original test difficult or unhygienic to complete.
Isobel Frize, Glasgow G12.
GOOD to welcome back a new created the problem by extending the curricular arrangements of first and second year into third. None of that, however, is present in the 2004 policy paper. Indeed, the members of the Curriculum Review Group, far from wanting any such thing, saw the first two years of secondary as the weakest stage version of the national treasure that is The Steamie.
In her Issue of the Day article (December 27, Maureen Sugden refers to production made by STV in 1988. She lists the top-notch cast, but omits the name of Sheila Donald, whose performance as Mrs Culfeathers was surely the most memorable of all, unsurpassed to this day.
Robert Love, Glasgow G12.
ANOTHER year draws to a close. and quite a year it’s been with Brexit, Indyref2 and the competence or otherwise of the SNP Government dominating the Letters Pages of The Herald.
Quite naturally there has been a part of the school experience with a curriculum that was not so much broad as fragmented and chaotic.
Other people consider the implementation programme begun in 2010 to be the true Curriculum for Excellence. Many in the secondary sector identify it specifically with the new system of examination introduced from 2014 onwards. Again, these are legitimate positions.
In the 15 years since the original Curriculum for Excellence was published, we have moved from vision to increasingly detailed implementation. There have been some worthwhile achievements along the way but the main story has been one of unimaginative technocratic guidance masquerading as curriculum thinking leading to a flawed programme of implementation. Warning signs were not clear from the start: they became evident as the strategic guidance was unveiled.
Keir Bloomer, Edinburgh EH8. myriad of contrasting opinions, thoughts and observations printed on all manner of subjects and all held I’m sure with a conviction and certainty not to be questioned until on occasion, a response is issued that perhaps at least makes you question your certainty.
Regardless of one’s views on letters published that either agree or challenge your own take on the matter, and perhaps going against the current trend of closed minds and intolerance, I’m sure we can agree that we are all the better for being exposed to different interpretations, especially in this era of fake news.
A good New Year to everyone and I look forward to all the letters to come in 2020.
James Martin, Bearsden.