Month: October 2015
Your time is precious
Kezia Dugdale spoke for almost exactly 45 minutes to the Scottish Labour conference in Perth today. But we know you’re busy people who don’t want to sit through all of that, and that you trust us to endure it on your behalf so that we can sift through it and …read more
Place and Space in Scottish Literature and Culture – Gdańsk Connections


Alan Bisset has recently voiced, in an article published by the Guardian, his deep concern with the fate of Scottish literature along the lines of Alan Warner’s pre-indyref forecast (quoted in the same article) that a No vote would “create a profound and strange schism between the voters of Scotland …read more
Championships bring economic boost
ORIENTEERING championships held in Moray and the Highlands this summer brought an estimated £9.4 million to the Scottish economy. …read more
Edinburgh’s world heritage status in peril as developers move in


As inspectors tour the city to reconsider Unesco billing, leading novelist denounces £850m plan
The formal recognition of Edinburgh as one of the world’s most beautiful cities is under threat amid a battle for the soul of its most historic quarter.
The city was inscribed as a Unesco world heritage site in …read more
God save your mad parade
When we watched Kezia Dugdale’s toe-curling moment on this week’s Question Time, we were immediately reminded of a mesmerising passage in Jon Savage’s masterful 1991 history of punk rock “England’s Dreaming”, and in particular its account of the last ever Sex Pistols concert, at Winterland in San Francisco in 1978. …read more
Poached salmon proves a puzzler
THE mysterious ‘case of the poached salmon’ has baffled villagers in a Moray community. …read more
Walking the dog
Order “Welcome To Cairnstoon”, Chris’ compilation of Wings cartoons and more, here. …read more
The sunshine of socialism
We’re big fans of socialism ourselves, so when a number of delegates at the Scottish Labour conference today, including UK leader Jeremy Corbyn, revived an old Keir Hardie line we were quite excited. We just thought it’d be more fun than this. …read more
Let’s clear something up
Asking the question is the easy bit: “If the all-new, super-autonomous Scottish Labour decides to oppose the renewal of Trident, and UK Labour continues to support it, which way do Scottish Labour MPs at Westminster vote on it?” The answer, unsurprisingly, was a lot more difficult to ascertain. The only …read more
Council warns of further service cuts
MORAY Council’s leadership must improve if budget savings of £16 million are to be made. …read more
Take bowel screening test
A TV campaign urging people to join the ‘bowel movement’ aims to boost participation in Scotland’s bowel screening programme. …read more
London’s property bubble a threat to UK’s economic recovery
London’s housing bubble is inflating again and if it explodes so will the UK’s fragile economy. The UK and global economy has still not recovered from the 2007-8 crash. There are promising signs such as reasonably good employment figures and rising wages but there are also worrying signs and …read more
Labour Conference: A party in need of greater division


The Labour party meets in Perth over the weekend in a state of such shambles that its outcome is an impossible act of divination. Just 48 hours before the conference no agenda or list of motions had been distributed or even compiled amidst rumours that those in charge of conference …read more
The missing paragraph
There’s an extraordinary article in the Daily Record today. Here’s a bit of it: Alert readers might feel that a few lines have gone missing somewhere between paragraphs four and five. And the fact that they have has nothing to do with dead football clubs, and everything to do with …read more
Second-hand smoke dangers on show
THE dangers of second-hand smoke will be highlighted as part of national tour, visiting Elgin today (Friday). …read more