Chimney go BOOOOOOM

Over the past year and then some, there has been ongoing work nearby to demolish the local power station, which was built in the 70s right before the oil prices crapped out globally and made it a financially pointless project. Although the site was completed, it never operated commercially and instead the chimney – the tallest independent structure in Scotland – served as a guide for sailors and pilots and generally creeped out the locals on foggy nights when the lights did things. 

When we moved here, just over five years ago, we kinda thought of the chimney as a bit of a blot on the landscape. It was certainly hard to miss and being so close to it, the towering pile of concrete loomed over us and gave a general indicator of which direction the rain was coming in...But soon it became a familiar sign that we were home. It was a sigh of relief. My nephews, whenever they came to visit, would know they had arrived in Scotland because they could see the chimney (in spite of the fact that we're a couple of hundred miles north of the border or so...), so it was always a big thing to catch sight of.

But while the power station was testament to all that was smooth and shiny in the 70s, it was just taking up space in the 2000s, so it was decided that it had to go boom to make way for housing (naturally). Every now and then bits of the power station would get blown up but initially, when we moved to these parts, they were saying that the chimney couldn't be blown up because of the risk of tidal waves and so forth (it's right on the river side). Naturally someone with a brain and a mathematical head said otherwise, because going boom is exactly what happened in the end.

It was initially set to go at 5am as far as we were told, but for some reason it was changed to 10pm. I can only assume that the authorities figured that the locals being woken up at that time of a Sunday morning might be considered to be a bit anti-social (along with the authorities having to get up at that time too), so instead the evening it was. As such, the photos are a wee bit on the dark side, but it was twilight so there's only so much I can do. Sorry:

And now for the video (hopefully). Yes, those are my kids yelling:

 

Although naturally the Beeb had a better view.