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 →

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 Continue reading →

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, Continue reading →

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 Continue reading →

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 Continue reading →

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 Continue reading →

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 Continue reading →

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 Continue reading →

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 Continue reading →

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 Continue reading →

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 Continue reading →

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 Continue reading →

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 Continue reading →

Keep Scotland in Britain

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 →

Do Words Have Voices?

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 →

Food, Fairness and the Fife Diet

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 →

For Socrates

Warning, this article contains video footage that will make Alan Rough blush.

Manga Scot

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 →

The Invisible Fightback

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,

Save Leith Waterworld – We Have 40 Days To Reverse An Outrage

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 →

No Surprises

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 →

Defiance Budgets?

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 →