A New Era for Me

Craiglochart Campus, Edinburgh Napier University - picture by sparky2000

As you may or may not know, I started my journalism studies at Edinburgh Napier University this year. We had to write four articles to start our new career with and as I never in my life have done anything similar to this, it was quite an experience.

The first one was an interview made in Princes Street Gardens so I grabbed my notebook and my pen and went for my “person hunt”. We had to find two people, elderly or tourists. I decided that the best would be to find an elderly tourist And so I did.

The first few people I asked said that they were not interested, they did not want to buy anything Even the elderly people were not kind and this was a shock for me. Grandma and grandpa are kind… Or at least they should be…

After walking my legs off, I finally found a gorgeous couple from Germany. The interview was exciting as I had no idea what to ask from them. Imagine: I had to write an article about a person’s life story… And I am not so good in preparing in advance, in fact, I do not believe you can prepare in advance for an interview if you do not know who the interviewee is going to be.

Anyway, I knew what I wanted to know I just did not have enough experience (especially in English), to ask the proper questions. After a while I got the angle of the story and I was unstoppable.

The second piece was an easier one for me: a profile of a journalist. I felt very lucky as I happen to know a Hungarian journalist (we went to the same University and had a class together), so I could do the interview in Hungarian and did not even have to struggle too much with the questions. We have known each other for three years now and I knew a lot of things about him.

Thus, I could prepare my questions in advance as I almost knew his answers as well. This happened to be an hour-long interview which I really enjoyed translating into English. I would love to do this all my life. It was also very comfortable as I did the interview through Skype and I could look into my lecture notes to check whether I was doing the right thing.

Our third article was a Parliament report. This was the hardest as I had to cope with the different accents of MSPs and also with words I have never heard before. I did not know the politicians either, so I tried to guess their names from the vowels I heard I was not sure if I could manage but I could even get some quotes.

Our final task was a feature for the BMI‘s in-flight magazine, the Voyager. We were asked to write something in connection with Edinburgh or Glasgow. As I work in a hotel restaurant this was not really difficult; I meet tourists every single day, I talk to them, I know why they choose certain restaurants and destinations so I decided to write about something regarding restaurants. I called the head-chef of the four star hotel, and we had a chat which I recorded. The result was a 1000-word article about the comfort of hotel restaurants.

In the future I would like to make a few changes: I would like to be more prepared as luck will not always accompany me throughout my academic studies. I will also have to get used to the different accents here and this might improve by listening to the radio or going to council meetings…and if I read more newspaper my vocabulary will improve and I will also get to know how certain articles look like, what makes them interesting and what readers want.

Relief from Aberdeen to Inverness

Nairn - Aberdeen & Inverness trains crossing - picture by agcthoms

Mike Rumbles, SLD, opened the debate in the Scottish Parliament on 7 October, regarding Kintore Station and Aberdeen Crossrail.

There are just 11 journeys from Aberdeen to Inverness Monday-Saturday, and only five on Sundays. If a passenger misses his train, there is good chance that he will have to wait two hours for the next one.

In 2003, a decision was made to reduce the more than two hour route between Aberdeen and Inverness to just 50 minutes, and also to open new stations to help improvement.

The reopening of Laurencekirk Station in May this year was a success and a grasp of hope for people in the Highlands, the politician said.

He also stated that the lack of interest in this case is disappointing and that Stewart Stevenson transport minister’s acknowledgement about the importance of the subject would be “a real step-forward.”

Rumbles said that the transport minister has held no discussion on the matter so far, and not even attended significant debates about the issue.

“I do feel that the people  in the North-East deserve a straight answer from our transport minister and I hope we will be able to hear it,” said Rumbles. He would also welcome funding for the project.

The Aberdeen-Inverness railway line is approximately 173km- long (107m) and is a corridor of great strategic importance within the Strategic Transport Projects Review, as it connects Aberdeen and Inverness airports as well as the port of Aberdeen with other cities on the route.

It also supports the continued economic growth of the two cities and links rural communities with industrial cities.

Alison McInnes, SLD, drew attention to the issue of largely growing traffic in the area.

Between 2002 and 2005 the rise in traffic in the region reached 4.5% per annum.

A study, taken in 2005, on behalf of the Scottish Executive, considered possible changes in the railway system between the two cities. The most important points of the survey were improving journey times and introducing an hourly service from one of the cities to the other.

SNP’s Maureen Watt welcomed Rumbles’ standpoint and called for “progress and activity,’”that is, more frequent trains and scheduling changes, after stating that it was sad that under two former transport ministers, the problem could not have been solved.

Stevenson, minister for transport, infrastructure and climate change, agreed that the current model has to be changed.