The National, Scotland's youngest daily, carried a report on Flamingoland's plans for Balloch that are currently going through the planning application system. Of course our petition was featured (although without a link to it sadly) and I was able to speak to the newspaper on behalf of the 18,000 of you who have signed and expressed their disapproval of this inappropriate appropriation of sensitive land at Loch Lomond. And of course, as is right, the head of Iconic Leisure, Mr Miller, was given space to air HIS views and the views, presumably, of Flamingoland themselves. I say 'presumably' because I do not know if indeed Flamingoland share his views. If they do, then I am rather afraid perhaps they have a very skewed vision of Balloch through his eyes. Mr Miller is a local gentleman, so therefore his words carry a great deal of weight and for that reason I have to gently advise Flamingoland that they take a look through the eyes of others who perhaps do not share the jaundiced vision of Balloch that he released to the national press. I for one do not recognise his descriptions of the area they are minded to purchase when he says that old sofas and oil drums are discarded there. If that was ever the case, and I'm sure in a land mass of 44 acres with a 'private road' it has happened that someone somewhere has driven there and landed these items at some handy spot, for the loch road itself has seen such instances of fly tipping, then I would say he is not wrong in saying it HAS happened. But where he is wrong is to then use this to infer the place is a tip in general. Should that be logical at all, then we would have to gather all the evidence of fly-tipping, littering and camp abandonment around the whole of Loch Lomond and proclaim to the world that the most famous stretch of water in the western world is, sadly, nothing more than a coup. A midden. But of course we dont, for if we did, we'd then have to apply this to all of Scotland and tell our visitors that despite the evidence of their own eyes, in reality we all live in a pig-bin. For that is exactly what Mr Miller has done. He then goes on to say that the area is blighted by a crude oil pipeline running through it. The horrific image this sends out is of course the catalyst for a natural feeling of revulsion. But then, again, if we are to stretch this logical "politics of disgust" fairly, we have to advise that this line stretches from Finnart, on the otherwise hauntingly beautiful Loch Long, right across Scotland, to the perhaps less picturesque Grangemouth. Indeed the crude oil pipeline runs through Balloch Park. Therefore, I and others must hang our heads in shame and declare that park and the whole of the central belt an industrial wasteland. Shaken no doubt by the sheer release of indignation and self-effacement of his area, Mr Miller then furnishes the world at large with the final shattering of our social mirror by saying that so lost is this area to civilised thought and consideration, that an 'attack' took place there recently. This vision of a dystopian land, with roaming ne'er-do-wells intent on harming us all who enter it's hellish environs, is then complete. But, never mind that the 'attack' took place some time ago and was a localised matter between two souls, we have to now admit that attacks take place in Scotland daily, and we have no recourse now but to announce the entire demolition of the country and the removal of its inhabitants forthwith. Because clearly the entire nation is a tip, peopled with criminals and bad folks and nothing more than a conduit for fossil fuels. You could say here that I have gone a little over the top. The many hundreds and at times thousands who pass through this village and its green corridor to the pier, could look askance at us and say I, and Mr Miller, have rather over-egged our pieces. For it is true, that no-one I have spoken to has ever seen an oil drum or sofa. I have to say though that I once saw a discarded McDonald's meal and a bin bag spewed beside an overflowing bin. So, I am not convinced others are being entirely honest in saying the place has never had a problem of this nature, even if it isn't stuffed with discarded industrial ware and tasteless household junk. It is also true that no-one I have spoken to has yet suffered any form of attack on their person, but I have to say that a mute swan did come up the shore and hiss at me most alarmingly. However said swan was less viscious than one I saw at Duck Bay Marina that destroyed a lovely family's barbecue and had their little children in tears. Maybe Balloch's terrorists are only just in training. I am now alerted to such danger. The crude pipeline...well, others tell me they can see evidence of it. They describe a track through the lovely woods, a clear depression in the ground that gouges its way using a carpet of lush grasses, red campion, edged with bluebells and clumps of yellow-flowering broom to disguise itself as it opens out, again under disguise as a sandy pebbly beach facing its counter-part across the dappled waters of the Leven. Now that I recognise these beautiful haunts of my childhood for what they are, I am minded to share Mr Miller's prejudice a little and never forget that a monster lies beneath taunting our senses from a depth and spoiling our happy days completely. I could of course take the view that Mr Miller is a local who has let the seventies rule his thoughts a little, I am of course old enough to remember the factory (now completely covered in quart million pound homes), the railway (now a pathway and picnic area) and as a young lad paddling in the Leven, ever-minded by an anxious mother not to stray into the channel dug by the excavators in the fifties when they laid the pipeline. But the evidence was so slight, that my mother's warnings coloured my relationship with the Leven and I always minded the channel and never drowned. I say to our visitors then, after all of the alarms of above, to mind that pipelines through through Scotland, that flytippers abound, that sadly, some humans are bad to each other, but, with this all in mind, take Mr Miller's anxieties and toss them in the Loch, and enjoy the scenery, the beaches, the walkways, the woods, the birdsong, the happy fellow travellers around you, the bay and the Maid, the dappled river, the peace and the bustle, the joys and the serenities as much as you damn well please. We moved on. Its a pity Flamingoland want to move us ALL on - and out. ps- Apologies for the shocking picture of an industrial wasteland marred by a crude oil pipeline - we have always got to show you the real picture, I am afraid.