Notices, Notices

Yesterday's post suggested that major changes are happening at the CalMac pier. As well as the re-painting of the waiting lanes for cars, a bollard has appeared at the land end of the pier itself, preventing vehicles from accessing it. This must be a blow to the creel fishermen, both local and from the outer isles, since the vans which take their shellfish to market used to drive along it to make transferring the crates from the boats easy.

Along with such changes, CalMac is suffering a bad dose of notice fever, even worse than Highland Council at Corran. As well as their helpful notices, they now have around twenty warning and prohibitive notices like this one, which seems to make it clear that creel fishermen's boats are no longer welcome. There is a rumour in the community that gates are going across the top of the slipway, so it will no longer be possible to launch boats from there. And, just to check, CalMac has installed CCTV cameras.

I have some sympathy with CalMac. In these litigious days, owners of any sort of property are nervous about being sued by people using it for the wrong purposes, but it does seem a great shame that a facility like the slipway is no longer available for use, even if a fee has to be paid.

Other notices have appeared, such as this one for the Kilchoan Hotel, which is in good taste and helpful, and will, perhaps, help to draw aside some of the many cars which are driving straight through the village without stopping. However....

....what should be the most important and warmly welcoming notice refers to the slightly confusing concept of the "UK mainland". Surely the UK mainland has always been called Great Britain?