Scots rape suspect who allegedly failed to appear for trial after being ‘swept out to sea’ while “on holiday in the United States” loses bail bid in Scotland after he was captured by US Marshals. More in The Sun.

The Officially Original Loch Ness Monster Blog
– by Mikko, probably the world's leading Loch Ness Monster Expert
While the reality of life in Inverness is a shattered town with shops, cafes and restaurants all boarded up, the Highland Council is saying it could spend £zillions it hasn’t got building unicorn bridges, railway stations and transport hubs.
It’s official folks: They are bonkers.
It’s an odd one this but planners have applied to themselves to get their own permission to waste £100,000s of “Common Good” money on a hideous precast concrete Berlin Wall, which is to be built to obscure the shoreline of the natural and beautiful River Ness.
This monstrosity is an apparently much beloved vanity project backed by the likes of local provost Helen Carmichael (rarely to be seen not wearing her “chains of office”) and the die hard anti-art brigade are hell bent on despoiling Inverness and wasting the money even when it is desperately needed for very worthy projects to fight and alleviate Coronoavirus COVID19.
Read here about the latest farce.
Walking into central Inverness in the Scottish Highlands near Loch Ness during what should be a busy lunchtime on a weekday. Coronavirus has turned the Capital of The Highlands of Scotland into a scene resembling a dystopian post apocalyptic nightmare.
Here is a video of the devastation:
In scenes from an apocalyptic movie, Scotland’s Capital of the Highlands, Inverness, is now a ghost city. Hardly any people are to be seen. Shops are boarded up and if a man was pulling a cart up the High Street yelling “bring out your dead” was working, it would be like the Great Plague of the 17th century.
Restaurants, takeaways, pubs, theatres, social venues, public gardens – just about everything is closed and tourists, visitors and locals are being told to stay away and stay at home.
“It’s a disaster for the Loch Ness Research Project for Internet Anomalies“, Professor Kettle told this paper. “We are doing what we can from self-isolation on our carbon fibre floating hub on Loch Ness but we have been told we must stay anchored well away from the land and have supplies sent to us by boat with social distancing maintained at all times. Obviously, if Nessie became infected then this pandemic could become much worse as the interaction of a novel virus with a Jurassic creature could cause unknown mutations”.
In a terrible development, the virus has been confirmed in Drumnadrochit, Loch Ness. A resident working in the hospitality sector unfortunately contracted the virus and has been hospitalised at a high dependency care unit. We wish her and her family a speedy recovery, but it underlines the URGENT APPEAL from Ian Blackford, MP, Kate Forbes MSP, Fergus Ewing MSP and all the main tourism bodies for people NOT TO VISIT THE HIGHALNDS at this unprecedented time. Additional visitors place a huge extra strain on our already very hard pressed National Health Service, which is working tirelessly to protect this fragile community.
Kim Gordon (aka Kim Avis aka Kem) is accused of raping three women and attempting to rape one of them when she was 12.
The 55-year-old is also accused of sexually assaulting a girl when she was 11 and faces breach of the peace and threatening and abusive behaviour charges.
The allegations cover a period between January 1997 and March this year and mainly relate to alleged incidents in the Inverness area.
The trial will commence in Edinburgh High Court on 20 March 2020.
Read more in The Press & Journal.
Locals love Rose Street car park. It has a beautiful entrance slope up to an elevated parking platform with sweeping views of Homebargains, Iceland and the toy superstore plus of course the unique and award winning Hanging Gardens of Inverness. The lower level provides shelter for winos and druggies with quick easy access to the bus station and local pubs.
Now all this will be destroyed by a new tower block hotel. The residents of the hotel will have the views to themselves and normal folk will just have to find a space miles from the High Street or squeeze into the multi-storey, which is already full at peak periods.
We salute Highland Council and its inspired planning department for wrecking another part of the so-called city.
Yes, it may be the 2019 but Highland Council has decided to buck the trend towards modernity and build a hideous new transit road by levelling ancient oak woods and huge swathes of countryside to install a “swing bridge” on a major arterial road.
Not only does Inverness suffer from appalling infrastructure including pothole cratered roads and a single track Victorian railway to the south, its Internet and mobile coverage is so bad in many places that it registers on a scale well below many parts of the 3rd world.
“It’s all just superb” as the lavish freebies and expenses crazed city “leaders” would say, but judge for yourself: It’s a sad sad joke and terrible damage to wildlife and habitat just compounds the folly.
Read more here and the picture gives a view of a small part of the carnage.
The new train’s rolling stock has been beset by problems with reports of brake fails, dodgy plumbing and cold or hot rooms with poor showers and uncomfortable beds. Tickets cost up to £400 (approx $450) for a London – Inverness return ticket (you can fly for as little as £15 each way!!!)
All-in-all I think it sounds dreadful. We’ll see what mess happens next.