THE news that the new Banff marina is filling up with silt after just a year of operation comes as no surprise.

THIS week we note the plans to renovate two old buildings, not in Banff this time, but in Portsoy and Aberchirder.

WHAT is your reaction to the news that Banff's only night club re-opens this weekend?

THE law has a long arm, it is said, and in Banff Sheriff Court last week, it was long enough to reach over a few necks to collar Aberdeenshire Council.

SO, it's Tesco 1 - Asda 0. That's what the council rules say. Tesco ticks all the yes boxes, Asda ticks the no ones. But out in the real world, who ticks the boxes?

SUCCESS stories like the major contract for Sangs, and the completion of a new fishing boat by Macduff Shipyards are positive – if all too rare – indicators of economic progress and stability.

DO you want Banffshire to survive? Then you can and should do something about it. The Boundary Commission for Scotland are re-drawing the MPs map of Scotland to reflect changes in population.

THE sea will seek out any weakness in our defence of harbour or shorefront, and wreak havoc within the shortest time.

ONE thing everyone is used to living with in the past half century is centralisation.

A CHURCH crumbles, a hospital lies closed and vandalised as the builders wait to move in, and two mega-corporations fight over the rights to dominate a town's future.

THERE used to be a time when quotes from Tesco about their store plans for Banff were even rarer than hen's teeth.

BANFF'S Chalmers Hospital saga has seemed to move at snail's pace. It seems ages since the battle began to save it from closure, and the fight has been long and hard.

THEY say we are a nation of animal lovers.Anyone talking to the two local folk devastated by what happened to animals in their care, would certainly recognise the truth of that.

FIRE and flood are the biggest nightmares for those who are at sea.

THE world is shrinking all the time. In this week's paper, a dangerously ill baby is transported to hospital in Edinburgh by plane in an emergency; the Portsoy boat festival plans to bring boat experts from all over the world to the town.

IT IS strange how something which could be solution to a long-standing problem can be right under your nose for years, and nobody notices.

THE POLITICS of fishing came full circle last week. The North-east of Scotland has been the heartland of the SNP since the late 1960s, providing a platform for the careers of leader Alex Salmond and the Ewing dynasty.

PLANNING is always a contentious area for councillors; it is always black and white – white if you are applying and black if you are opposing it.

THE new 'no cold call' zone being piloted in Banff is a sensible and reassuring idea for folk who may intimidated by unexpected callers at their door.

TO THE gentleman who 'liberated' the Christmas lights from the new road on Saturday:

PERHAPS quite a lot of us would be happy if we could get rid of our clothes without having to reveal that we were still wearing that threadbare shirt or had preserved our crushed green velvet flares for an unlikely return to trendiness.

BANFF is in the middle of a massive clean-up.

THERE are two stories in the paper this week, which, on the surface, have little in common.

POLICE in Grampian say that they treat vandalism as a priority crime.

ONE of the biggest blows to the area in years, quietly sneaks up on us at the end of this week.

THE devil, they say, is always in the detail.

ONCE again fire dominates the headlines of the 'Banffshire Journal'.

THE FIRE at the Seafield nightclub may not mean much of a loss to many folk in Banff, but it will be a huge blow to a large section of the population – particularly the younger ones, and presumably the single ones at that.

IT COULD almost be from 'Doctor Who': the mind-controlling ray is switched on, and the evil Cybermen turn with one mind and stomp off.

TESCO'S latest planning application for their new store includes some very 'interesting' statistics.

ONE door shuts, but another door opens. Sad to see the Co-op in Macduff go, and with it, 10 jobs. But on the bright side, only a few yards away, a hotel re-opens soon as an Indian restaurant – Macduff's first.

CREDIT to NHS Grampian, who have fulfilled their promise to restore 24/7 maternity services to Banff.

ANYONE with experience of very young children will be sympathetic about the two three-year-old Macduff pals who tried to run away rather than be split up.

THERE is one mood-altering substance above all others which surely does more damage to our young people than all the others.

WHO owns the sky? Not the government; not the EU, or even God apparently, and sadly not Aberdeenshire Council, in the case of one particular piece of thin air.

YOUNG people in a remote coastal village like Gardenstown are, through no fault of their own, stuck in an unusual predicament.

WELL, it's been a long time coming, but as predicted the closure of the Grampian Country Chicken Factory in Banff is upon us.

A HOTEL in Macduff had its image plastered all over the front page of a North-east daily newspaper at the start of the week.

HAVING to move bus stops in an effort to stop youth disturbance – and racist abuse; a couple attacked in the street, convictions for racist abuse in the court. Not Birmingham, not Barrhead, but Banff, and all last week.

IT LOOKS like another blow to Macduff – just weeks after the bingo hall closed, the Legion is 'downsizing’ as they say nowadays.

SO far, our MP Alex Salmond has swept all before him in his new role as First Minister of Scotland. He has undoubtedly caught political opponents off guard.

A SCHOOLKID falls out with her teacher about the clothes she turns up in for school: no real story there, but it becomes a story when she is wearing an anti-abortion T-shirt – and she has just had a baby.

THREE very contrasting tales of local harbours are in the news just now.

IT isn't as if there weren't plenty of prophets of doom about the building of the new marina.

TWO titled citizens occupy our news pages this week: HRH Prince Edward, the Earl of Wessex, and Iam Hazel Virginia, Lady Whitehouse-Grant-Christ.

BOTH the Banffshire Journal and Banff and Buchan MSP Stewart Stevenson have found themselves thrust into the spotlight at Holyrood.

IT'S the end of an era, with the closure of the area's last bingo hall.

AS the new Scottish government takes shape under the Scottish National Party for the first time, the opportunities begin to dawn in the North-east to take advantage of this unique situation.

BANFF and Macduff have two reasons to be cheerful this week with the Chalmers Hospital upgrade possibly taking a step further, and work starting on the industrial estate extension in Macduff.

BANFF and Buchan has once again become an SNP constituency, with Stewart Stevenson’s re-election. Inhabitants of the area will rely on him once again to fight their corner in the Scottish Parliament.

THURSDAY is election day. Again it is all change in the format. Why the election bodies think that they will actually increase participation by continuing to tinker with the system defies understanding.

JUDGING by the crowds at the opening of Banff harbour marina on Saturday, and the healthy number of yachts bobbing around the pontoon berths, the marina is off to the best possible start.

WE live in a world driven by celebrity, especially from TV, movie and music. Thankfully, some celebs are still famous for being more than just famous – and TV naturalist Sir David Attenborough has earned the title 'legendary' in a half century career of making mould-breaking wildlife television which has transformed our understanding and enthusiasm for the natural world – and by 'our' – I mean the whole world.

TOURISM received a huge boost this week with the news that a project to convert the Portsoy salmon house into a tourist and heritage centre, and as a base for the Scottish Traditional Boat Festival, has been awarded £274,000.

A SELL-OUT concert in Banff starring one of the Sixties' seminal bands; a Banff teenager on national TV talking about getting back to normal after a traumatic car crash injury; and the national media coming itself to Pennan to see a successful world record (come on Guinness, loosen up here).

WE PRIDE ourselves in living in one of the most beautiful parts of Britain, and lots of money and effort is being spent in selling our so-called hidden corner as a tourist attraction.

THIS week we tell the story of how Macduff has been unwittingly sharing the shoreline with that most reclusive and most beautiful animal, the otter.

MACDUFF must sometimes feel it's the 'coo's tail' to Banff, which always seems to get more attention, money and publicity.

THE ink is hardly dry on our story that local mums will definitely be able to continue to give birth in Banff, when we find ourselves reporting that mums will NOT be able to have their babies here from next week on. Confused? I should think so.

THE troubles in the world are actually not caused by Muslims v Christians, Communists v Americans, or Rangers and Celtic.

THEY may only be four buildings in Banff, but little can have done more psychological damage to the morale of the community than the disgraceful eyesores in the heart of the old town at Castlegate, Low Street, Deveronside and Bridge Street.

ROAD accidents are never good news, so when a massive artic smashes into a house in the small hours and half-demolishes the frontage, your heart sinks.

KIDS hanging about our streets can bring out strong reactions; in many cases they are doing nothing wrong, and young folk have always hung around, sometimes in preference to "better" options organised by adults. Even the excellent Friday Night Team saw numbers dip in Banff recently.

IT WAS still not official when the Journal went to press, but all connected with the future of maternity services in Banff or – more accurately – birthing services, were positive that NHS Grampian had finally come up with a plan for North-east maternity services which kept them local, and allowed mums with low-risk pregnancies to have their babies in hospitals like Banff, Fraserburgh and Aboyne.

CHRISTINE and Kenneth Foster have welcomed a change in the road safety laws in this country. Hopefully, the spotlight that the tragic loss of their daughter Emma has put on the issue of road safety will penetrate some young skulls.

IF WE are to continue to have full maternity services based in Banff, then be in no doubt, we will have to fight for them.

DEVERONVALE'S astonishing cup run took another twist on Saturday.

CHRISTMAS may come and New Year may go, but for some the big day of the holidays is yet to come.