Edinurgh weekend...BP....

Hi Friends, How are you all this lovely sunny and dare I say it even warm day! over here in Wiltshire. I am glad to say that our trip up north to Edinburgh went well. We all had such a wonderful weekend. I met cousins that I had not seen for many years so it was lovely to catch up on their news. My sister Sarah and John had booked us all into a wonderful restaurant for lunch. It is called "the Kitchin" and has a wonderful young chef called Tom Kitchin. He has been on some of the BBC Food Programmes and in fact it was there that Sarah first saw him and decided it was a place that would serve interesting and exciting food. He did..it did... The area in Edinburgh where we stayed has been redeveloped out of all recognition to us. The area called Leith was always at the heart of the docks and you might guess as to what it was like, also it had long long streets full of Whisky Bonds. The Whisky has long been gone and these same buildings transformed into smart very up market shops, restaurants etc. They have built a lovely new building called Oceanterminal. It is from there one can now go on cruise ships and docked there permanently is the Royal Yacht Brittania where one can tour all the ship (that is the one that the Queen used before it was moth balled) We did not have time to do that but maybe another time we go north we can. we didn't get many photographs taken other than family ones but I will look some out sometime to share.
Now I might be going to be a bit political ! I don't usually say much on internation matters but I have become more and more disturbed about the what has been reported ...on both sides of the atlantic...about BP and the oil situation. So here goes !!.


BP was indeed called British Petroleum but this was when it was
a British company. Some 10 years or so it joined with an
American company called AMOCO and changed its name to BP. This
was because around 40% of the ownership was American. Of the
remaining shares, 40% are British and the remainder from other
countries including Russia. This means that BP is equally as
much American as it is British.

I would also ask you to think on this. The oil rig was owned by
an American company who moved to Switzerland to avoid taxes.
The company who ran the rig was a wholly owned American
company. BP only owns the site, so why is it their fault?

If you consider that the American companies involved in Torrey
Canyon, Amoco Cadiz, Piper Alpha and Exxon Valdez did all they
could to avoid their responsibilities, is it fair to berate a
company that did not actually cause the problem yet is still
committed to clearing up at whatever expense that which was
caused in their name?

I am not even going to think in detail about how the American
bosses behaved when thousands died at the American-owned
facility in Bhopal! You might like to note that the American
company Transocean has been in the Texan courts trying to limit
their liability. However, the Judge refused. BP has not tried to
limit their liability in any way.

I am not a fan of oil companies in general; but as a Christian,
false witness is just not right, and the way people have behaved
in your country is no less than that. Your president seems bent
on trying to destroy BP. Just what would that do?

If BP was to take Chapter 11 then it would be the people of
America who pay for the cleanup. Are the dividends that
important? They are to the hundreds of thousands of pensioners
whose income comes from these shares held by their pension
companies.

There is no doubt this is a disaster but muck slinging is not
the way to solve it. Working together is.

Love Sybil x


Always remember to Love one another.