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) to Why Scots… Read More
Monthly Archive: December, 2011
7 Comments
Do We Know it’s Christmas?
“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 preserved more of… Read More
A Xmas Letter To A Neoliberal Friend
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, politically, nothing else… Read More
Campaign to Save Leith Waterworld. It’s D-Day this Thursday. Please help.
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 the Greens) to… Read More
Letter to Johann
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 capable and less… Read More
Speaking our Language
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.
Recent Futures
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 ISBN: 978-0-7546-6124-5 in… Read More
Jacob Yates and the Pearly Gate Lockpickers
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 from the roadside… Read More
The Ink Truck
On the mainstream print media columnists who will shape the independence debate.
Infinitely Demanding
…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 to the powerful… Read More
Materialism’s High Price
Tim Kasser – who spoke at St Andrews University Sustainability Institute on Tuesday night:
Love Life – December
‘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 you think that… Read More
Offensive Behaviour
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 they were taken… Read More
Ailing Scottish Football Needs Alchemy
How do we create ‘Nue-Camp football’ in Scotland?
Transition Branching Out? Land Reform: Losing and Recovering the Commons
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?
Labour’s Leader Lamont
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 factor into Scottish… Read More
Iceland’s Revolution Response
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 written at the… Read More
Dave’s Big Adventure
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.
For a New Scottish Democracy
How we Democratise Scotland’s Future: Challenging the Conceit that ‘There is No Other Way’
The Devolution Deficit and the Independence Referendum: Part One
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 surface, the reasons… Read More
