Happy Birthday Alasdair Gray
Dear Alasdair Have a great 77th birthday.. And thank you for everything from Lanark (which in 1982 changed my life and showed me what great literature could aspire to be) Continue reading
Dear Alasdair Have a great 77th birthday.. And thank you for everything from Lanark (which in 1982 changed my life and showed me what great literature could aspire to be) Continue reading
“Christmas always seems that most English of festivals – from the cathedrals, to the music, to the food, to the commercialism, to the landscapes. Across the Channel, the feast has Continue reading
Dear Friend I totally agree with you that the Arab Spring was the big story of 2011. Toppling dictators means putting your life on the line. That takes guts and, Continue reading
The Splashback! campaign to Save Leith Waterworld from Edinburgh Council’s cost-cutting axe has moved into a decisive week. The full Council meets on Thursday 22nd to discuss a motion (from Continue reading
By Patrick Small Dear Johann Congratulations on your victory. If you’re to dispel the notion that Scottish Labour leaders have steadily diminished since Donald Dewar, each one seeming progressively less Continue reading
Gaelic as an option among other new world languages such as Mandarin and Portuguese could propel a Scottish generation confidently into the economies of the future.
From Neil Mulholland and Robin Baillie on The Recent Future of Scottish Art reviewing Scottish Art since 1960 Historical Reflections and Contemporary Overviews Craig Richardson (2011) London, Ashgate, 230 pages Continue reading
Jacob Yates and the Pearly Gate Lockpickers Stereo, Glasgow, Sat 5 Nov by Tess Ferguson Early during a too-brief set, the eponymous Jacob Yates proffered Three Pieces of Glass, souvenirs Continue reading
On the mainstream print media columnists who will shape the independence debate.
…we are entering into a period of increasingly massive social dislocations and disorder which harbors within it countless risks, defeats, dangers, false dawns and fake defeats. But…we are all coming Continue reading
Tim Kasser – who spoke at St Andrews University Sustainability Institute on Tuesday night:
‘Love Life’ is Bella’s Agony Aunt column by Jamie Heckert… because the personal is political and the ‘state we’re in’ is complicated. See here for more background. Dear Jamie, Do Continue reading
Disppeling some myths about the new anti-bigotry bill. Extract from a great piece by Humza Yousa (read the full article over at The Glaswegian): Everybody remembers the first football match Continue reading
How do we create ‘Nue-Camp football’ in Scotland?
Should Transition remain above and beneath and beyond politics, or is there a way of fusing the genius of Transition’s focus on the primary importance of place, and the genius of the Occupy movement’s focus on the crude fact that the very few are destroying the planet we all depend on?
By Mike Small It’s unfair I know but the idea that there’s more likelihood of Hearts players getting paid on time than Johann Lamont breathing life energy and the feelgood Continue reading
By Deena Stryker This is a long Overdue Response to “The Reykjavík Grapevine” and all those who have taken exception to my August blog: “Iceland’s On-going Revolution”. This article is Continue reading
This is a terrible decision for Britain but potentially good news for Scottish independence. A reconstituted eurozone could offer a safe haven from the crazies of big business Bullingdon and hedgefunds represented by British Govt PLC.
How we Democratise Scotland’s Future: Challenging the Conceit that ‘There is No Other Way’
By Donald Adamson One of the many interesting features of devolution in Scotland is that turnouts at Holyrood elections have been consistently lower than turnouts at Westminster elections. On the Continue reading
This from the Evening NEWS. A CROSS-PARTY “Keep Scotland in Britain” campaign is expected to be launched in the new year to counter the SNP’s drive for independence. Reports today Continue reading
Huge hearty Bellalicious congratulations to Martin Boyce for winning the Turner Prize 2011 with his wonderful spooky installations. This completes a hat-trick for Scotland, following fellow Scots artists Susan Philipsz Continue reading
By Douglas Strang In ‘The Great Tablecloth’, the Chilean poet Pablo Neruda conjures for us the sensual pleasures of the plate – “In the blue hour of eating, / the Continue reading
Warning, this article contains video footage that will make Alan Rough blush.
Sean Michael Wilson is from Edinburgh but now lives in Japan where he creates comics. You can read his blog here. Bella tracked him down to ask him a few Continue reading
As Gideon Osbourne and the perfidious Liberals announce the most punitive attack on working people that would make even the Milk Snatcher blush crimson, we round-up some of the responses – online and in the real world,
by Kevin Williamson It has come as a shock to the local community that Leith Waterworld is set to close its doors for good on Monday 8th January. This shabby Continue reading
By Michael Greenwell “In regard to propaganda the early advocates of universal literacy and a free press envisaged only two possibilities: the propaganda might be true, or it might be Continue reading
By Jimmy Kerr I come from Paisley, a place steeped in radical history and every year members of my group, various people, mostly from the independence movement, some left republicans Continue reading