Month: December 2014
2014: From the Personal to the Universal


For many, 2014 will be remembered for little that is astonishing or newsworthy. Instead a year may or may not be recalled based on the standard meat of what is news for most of us. Break-ups, work, routine, choices; the everyday struggles and hopes that inevitably prove definitive over time. …read more
Happy New Year to all Bella Readers & Writers
There’s not much to add by way of a ‘review’ after Robin’s piece yesterday ‘So Far So Good’. This year was emotionally, psychologically and politically both inspiring and – let’s be honest – massively disappointing. But I’d like to thank… Read More › …read more
Cabrach cairn dedicated to the fallen
THE foundation for a cairn in memory of Cabrach men who died in . …read more
That was a year that was
Wings readership stats for 2014: Could have done worse. That traffic more than trebled in referendum year, of course, wasn’t entirely surprising. Nevertheless, to realise that almost two thirds of the entire registered electorate of Scotland paid our wee site a visit this year is still a startling thing. 2015 …read more
So Far So Good. British Unionism’s Review of 2014
In the first part of our review of the year, Robin McAlpine talks of ‘swooning and fainting’ and ‘pooling and sharing’. The shock of 2014 Not much more than a week after the referendum I received a phone call from… Read More › …read more
Missy M’s Sin of Omission
Ambitious SNP Westminster hopeful Gillian Martin seeks to bolster her standing within the party by a peculiarly snide attack on me, in which she continually reiterates how much she likes me but…
Among the buts is this story about the Yes campaign meeting Gillian and I both addressed in Insch:
One …read more
Documenting Yes: Year in Review 2014


2014, or at least the 9 months from January to September, was a busy year for Yes. During these months our core team of photographers did their best to get out when they could to cover the Yes campaign happenings. We didn’t manage to cover everything we wanted to but …read more
A simple plan
Scottish Labour clearly get a pretty good deal from the printers’ shop that makes the giant pound coins, because they’re waving them around again. The North British branch office’s latest wizard jape is to upset all the people who they urged to join for £5 just last month – never …read more
The Depth of Anti-Scottish Racism
An obnoxious D list celebrity seeks publicity by jibes about “sweaty little jocks” bringing ebola to England, in response to the plight of a selfless healthcare worker. Beneath our notice. But what is not only notable but cries out to be most carefully considered is the existence of thousands …read more
Moray Foodbank donations up
KIND-HEARTED people have been thanked for their generosity in the run up to Christmas. …read more
The Slightly Overweight Quiz Of The Year
A traditional brainteaser to test your Alert Reader Quotient for 2014. All the answers can be found somewhere on Wings (though not always in the obvious places). Using the Search facility is cheating. JANUARY The year began with Better Together’s great railway-station leaflet drop. We sent out agents to monitor …read more
‘Complicity’ or Duplicity: a Marxist account of the Gàidhealtachd (Part II)
By Iain MacKinnon This article continues my examination of Ray Burnett’s ambitious attempt, published on Bella Caledonia in August 2014, to portray the history of the 19th century Gàidhealtachd in terms that justify his socialist vision for Scotland’s future. In… Read More › …read more
Complicity’ or Duplicity: a Marxist account of the Gàidhealtachd
By Iain MacKinnon ‘The Highland Clearances’ have been described by Ewen Cameron, William Fraser Professor of History at Edinburgh University, as “one of the most evocative and symbolic but least understood episodes in Scottish History”. (Cameron 2001: 97 – full… Read More › …read more
The Myth of the Last Man


As the UK completes another military and political retreat from Afghanistan, it is time to revisit one of the most potent myths of the British Empire: the arrival at Jalalabad of Surgeon Brydon, wounded and on a shot-up dying nag, as the sole survivor of the Army of the Indus. …read more
The Aldi SNP
There is one particularly worrying mindset among some fellow SNP members which has repeatedly recurred across social media, particularly Facebook, in response to my observations. It is what might be seen as the apotheosis of political corporatism.
I take these comments from my last post to illustrate the …read more