Neil Kay's front page

Neil Kay's Website

A personal website intended to help share and exchange information on issues of relevance to my academic work as well as some personal interests, especially ferries and school closures in rural Scotland with special reference to dodgy dossiers and dubious prospectuses of various kinds. I live in Cowal, Argyll, where you also find - >

5 weeks, one of three

May 3rd 2009

Contactable at

Wittgenstein's duck/rabbit	Academic	*NEW IN MAY* *Extras* Snared by a lobby (posted 3rd May 2009) Today walking my dog I found two lambs up a hillside, snared by their necks with separate wire nooses round their necks, the snares laid there deliberately. It was a weekend and a sheltered part of the hillside only accessible by foot, so who knows how long they had been there or how long it would have taken someone else to find them more here Current Topics of Interest Include: Update on a proposal for Gourock Dunoon (*latest update 2nd April,* first posted 28th March 2008 *Some answers:* See Answers from the Commission and the European Court for material and excerpts of relevance to the issues discussed here. *Ferries:* See PowerPoint presentation for summary of the problems and solutions for Scottish Ferries *PSOs (or public service obligations):* this rather obscure EC concept will determine the future of lifeline transport in the Highlands and Islands. See What is a PSO? for information about PSOs, then see PSO Crib Sheet for a summary of the issues, and follow with a Note on the Logic of PSOs. *Lifeline ferries:* the prevous Executive's policy of running Scottish ferries without PSOs may render subsidy to them illegal. See here. Also see here for how cherry picking will eventually lead to the dismantling and ad hoc privatisation of most of the CalMac network under the present tender specifications. *Gourock-Dunoon ferries:* The policies of the past Executive (1999-2007) are likely to create vehicle-carrying monopoly for Western Ferries, a policy of questonable legality especially in light of the "Users Charter" meetings. See Note on PSOs for Gourock-Dunoon *Air subsidies:* the previous Executive (1999-2007) argument that the EC will not let them apply PSOs and discounted fares for island residents on the same route appears to be completely wrong. See Note on Air PSOs here and here *School closures:* the pressure on councils to use a measure of spare capacity as a major criterion for school closures is based on flawed economics. See here
	Some stuff on my research and teaching, with emphasis on my interests in the boundaries of the firm and its determinants
CalMac Oban	Ferries
	Focuses on Scottish lifeline ferry services with five blogs, a general blog, and one each for the Scottish Executive tenders for the CalMac network, Northern Isles, Campbeltown-Ballycastle and Gourock-Dunoon
My son's school when in Australia	Schools
	This is mostly about rural schools in Scotland and the threat of closure faced by many in the light of the failure of public policy in these areas:
What Scottish Water left behind	Water
	Scottish Water have caused considerable and permanent damage to the environment around Scotland. This is just one community's continuing story
Sailing last summer	Extras Bits and pieces, odds and ends, what it says on the tin.
for BabyBoomers click here All links live as of June 26th 2008 Site Background Site launched 19th November 2005 844 unique visits to site in 2005 10,528 unique visits to site in 2006 21,600 unique visits to site in 2007 Popular main pages in 2007 Ferries: 2306 unique visits Schools: 1575 unique visits Academic: 1306 unique visits Extras: 1285 unique visits Scottish Water: 588 unique visits Popular files in 2007 Coase, the nature of the firm ... 576 unique visits Oil Price Watch 523 unique visits YouTube for Babyboomers** 326 unique visits Accounts Commission and indicators* 286 unique visits Game theory as dogma 285 unique visits Short CV 261 unique visits PSO on Gourock Dunoon* 241 unique visits Pages: * Ferries Academic Schools *** Extras