AUTO GLASS CLEANING

The Ballad of Nessie

In the bonny blue Highlands
Where the bagpipes play
Lives the creature called Nessie
…But it wasn’t always this way.

So begins the story of Nessie, the friendly Loch Ness monster who lives peacefully in a beautiful Scottish moor until one day, a developer named MacFroogle decides to build a mini-golf empire right on top of her home. Nessie roams the countryside in vain for a new place to live, and when she thinks all is lost, she begins to cry. She cries and cries and cries, until she sheds so many tears that she creates a new moor, providing a perfect home for her and her best friend, a duck named MacQuack. This charming jacketed gift book that retells the Disney Animation Studios short, The Ballad of Nessie, is sure to become an instant classic!

She looks a little intimidating but she's not. She's very well behaved. She likes kids to play on her, but nicely, thank you. And she won't harm the ducks and geese, although, they are a bit leery of her, but they'll warm up to her.

And BEWARE anyone trying to deface or vandalize her!!! The bottom of the pond is very mucky and is 8 feet deep in some spots and there is something very MAGICAL about Nessie, and there might be some bad "Harry Potter" type spell applied to her that won't be good for bad people.

Tom Birks, Richard App and Joachim Jensen are "capturing" Nessie alive in the Grand River as part of ArtPrize. They are all at The Winchester on Sunday for a fundraiser to help cover the $17,000 material costs. Get a great t-shirt to support their art endeavor.

This book takes the story of the monster from its early mythological beginnings through to the present day.

Initially it explains how the Highlands were formed and what has changed the scenery. Then it's people and their changing cultures - Mesolithic, Neolithic, Pict, Scot, Viking and modern Highlander.

You learn the heritage and attractions which surround Loch Ness and the villages and glens which are all part of the wider region.

Then the story of Nessie begins. From humble origins of descriptions of big fish in the loch it suddenly burst upon the world as the Loch Ness Monster in 1933.

This heralded a period of farce and hoax when supposed researchers tried to scam the press and even the press themselves tried to outdo their competitors. Inevitably there were fakes and hoaxes almost too numerous to catalogue.

In the 1960s, inspired by Dinsdale's film, a serious organised attempt to get to the bottom of the mystery began. Surface observation, hydrophones, sex lures and sonar were among the methods applied. Why was nothing similar to the Dinsdale film obtained? Joined by Professor Mackal, the Investigation Bureau turned its attention towards increasingly sophisticated technology.

Unfortunately this also ushered in pseudoscience and Mackal's truly scientific approach was shelved for a decade as expeditions mounted by credible, and often famous scientists led to the poor application of resources and resulted in careless experiments being carried out in the loch's murky water. Exaggerated claims for their success, combined with the fame and kudos of the researchers, meant that those who challenged their findings put together such weak and, more importantly, uninformed arguments that faked photographs, pictures of debris and amateurish sonar expeditions managed, until now, to avoid the detailed criticism which they certainly deserved. They continue to confuse the story to this day, but no longer!

British research took an alternative route, working in other lochs with monster traditions in order to build up the support and help of universities who were enabled to conduct work on these deep freshwater environments.

They also began a project to analyse all of the previous evidence which had been collected, but with a sceptical eye. They wanted to eliminate anything which could create false trails. This often made their leader, Adrian Shine, unpopular with the growing band of cryptozoologists who had an interest in the loch. Instead of rejoicing when the Loch Ness Project uncovered another fake or hoax, many reacted as if this were a personal attack on Nessie!

Eventually, ready to tackle Nessie head on, the Loch Ness Project introduced scientific methodology to the their work and came back to Loch Ness where the author part-financed their 24 hour patrols which scanned the deep water with sonar. An in-depth study of the biology of the loch was also begun in earnest.

This culminated in Operation Deepscan which seemed to reveal, despite all the hoaxes and fakes, that something seemed to be lurking in the deep water. The story was reaching its pinnacle.

Understanding the food-chain narrowed down the number of candidates. Gradually their study discovered problems with all classes of Nessie candidates - reptiles, amphibians, invertebrates, mammals and even fish, but one was beginning to stand out from the crowd as being more likely than any other.

This book gives you all of the arguments, explains mistakes, false trails and then leads you inexorably to a logical and probable solution. Some will find that it satisfies their desire for a monster in the loch, but not all, for that is the nature of the subject.

The author has taken on huge questions in this book. Can Nessie be killed by science? Can the myth be exploded? He has put his best efforts into answering these questions and others truthfully and fairly. If you really want to understand the subject, this is essential reading.

This book takes the story of the monster from its early mythological beginnings through to the present day.

Initially it explains how the Highlands were formed and what has changed the scenery. Then it's people and their changing cultures - Mesolithic, Neolithic, Pict, Scot, Viking and modern Highlander.

You learn the heritage and attractions which surround Loch Ness and the villages and glens which are all part of the wider region.

Then the story of Nessie begins. From humble origins of descriptions of big fish in the loch it suddenly burst upon the world as the Loch Ness Monster in 1933.

This heralded a period of farce and hoax when supposed researchers tried to scam the press and even the press themselves tried to outdo their competitors. Inevitably there were fakes and hoaxes almost too numerous to catalogue.

In the 1960s, inspired by Dinsdale's film, a serious organised attempt to get to the bottom of the mystery began. Surface observation, hydrophones, sex lures and sonar were among the methods applied. Why was nothing similar to the Dinsdale film obtained? Joined by Professor Mackal, the Investigation Bureau turned its attention towards increasingly sophisticated technology.

Unfortunately this also ushered in pseudoscience and Mackal's truly scientific approach was shelved for a decade as expeditions mounted by credible, and often famous scientists led to the poor application of resources and resulted in careless experiments being carried out in the loch's murky water. Exaggerated claims for their success, combined with the fame and kudos of the researchers, meant that those who challenged their findings put together such weak and, more importantly, uninformed arguments that faked photographs, pictures of debris and amateurish sonar expeditions managed, until now, to avoid the detailed criticism which they certainly deserved. They continue to confuse the story to this day, but no longer!

British research took an alternative route, working in other lochs with monster traditions in order to build up the support and help of universities who were enabled to conduct work on these deep freshwater environments.

They also began a project to analyse all of the previous evidence which had been collected, but with a sceptical eye. They wanted to eliminate anything which could create false trails. This often made their leader, Adrian Shine, unpopular with the growing band of cryptozoologists who had an interest in the loch. Instead of rejoicing when the Loch Ness Project uncovered another fake or hoax, many reacted as if this were a personal attack on Nessie!

Eventually, ready to tackle Nessie head on, the Loch Ness Project introduced scientific methodology to the their work and came back to Loch Ness where the author part-financed their 24 hour patrols which scanned the deep water with sonar. An in-depth study of the biology of the loch was also begun in earnest.

This culminated in Operation Deepscan which seemed to reveal, despite all the hoaxes and fakes, that something seemed to be lurking in the deep water. The story was reaching its pinnacle.

Understanding the food-chain narrowed down the number of candidates. Gradually their study discovered problems with all classes of Nessie candidates - reptiles, amphibians, invertebrates, mammals and even fish, but one was beginning to stand out from the crowd as being more likely than any other.

This book gives you all of the arguments, explains mistakes, false trails and then leads you inexorably to a logical and probable solution. Some will find that it satisfies their desire for a monster in the loch, but not all, for that is the nature of the subject.

The author has taken on huge questions in this book. Can Nessie be killed by science? Can the myth be exploded? He has put his best efforts into answering these questions and others truthfully and fairly. If you really want to understand the subject, this is essential reading.