Take this festival off our streets
I AM a big fan of most festivals: T in the Park, Rock Ness, Rewind, the 80s festival at Scone Palace, and so on. A key benefit of these festivals is that they take place in generally remote countryside locations such that if you are not an aficionado, you do not have to buy a ticket and do not have to go.
To be clear, none of them take places in the middle of Glasgow city centre in the way that the annual Orange Order disrupts the city.
If, in a world of free speech, people want to join with like-minded fans and “celebrate” their hatred of the Pope, then surely they should be entitled to organise a festival in a countryside location and fund the associated policing, stewarding, catering, and transport infrastructure issues without disruption to the atheists, humanists, Sikhs, Buddhists, Muslims, Jews and anyone of any faith or none who wish to carry out a normal day without the farcical situation of having to get a train from High Street to Queen Street because you are not allowed to cross a road.
It is time this festival of bigotry was removed from our streets and relegated to the past where it belongs.
Paul McLaughlin,
East Campbell Street, Glasgow.
WHILST in agreement with Marianne Taylor’s attitude to tolerance in political and religious processions (“Why I’ve changed my mind on banning Orange marches”, The Herald, July 3), I would suggest her conviction is based on the adage of “absence makes the heart grow fonder”.
Ms Taylor’s former frustrations appear to have evaporated since she flitted from the east end to the south side. Perhaps a better litmus test would have been a canvas of her former neighbourhood.
Her article correctly concludes that the DUP group, so ardently courted by our Tory Government, should be foremost on our radar. I hope neither the Government nor Ms Taylor will be proven duped on their respective expectations of new-found friends.
Allan C Steele,
22 Forres Avenue, Giffnock.
After a day of rain and mist, clearing skies gave reader Neil MacGregor the opportunity to catch this explosion of light as the sun went down on the west coast of Barra. He used a Fuji X-Pro 1 camera.