The Summer Between and Before
The North On Monday the 27th of July in the morning, I left Kilburn and London for Donny in my Fiesta, and hung tight on the tails of an Audi who knew where the cameras were. And over the next two...
View ArticleWomen and the Scottish past and present – how do we properly pay homage and why?
Rachael Purse and Karen Mailley-Watt are the duo that make up the History Girls, they observe the place of women in Scotland’s history and why and how we should pay respect. There are only three...
View ArticleWhen Harry Met Stalin
Gorbals library, the first public lending library in Glasgow, started life in 1901. The etymology is uncertain; some claim the name Gorbals has its roots in Latin, others Gaelic, and there are several...
View ArticlePorridge at Ballinluig
This the Scottish Enlightenment – an age in which Voltaire wrote, “We look to Scotland for all our ideas of civilisation.” The dead tell a different story. He stood motionless in his grey box, a...
View ArticleThe Past in Bits
Dad slowly lifted the white sheet covering the awkward-looking heap in the corner of the scullery and found us underneath pretending to be chairs. It was my idea to dodge school, and it took some...
View ArticleThe Things That Bind Us
A meteorite about the size of a goose egg, a flint tool excavated from a barrow somewhere west of Stonehenge, a fossilised reindeer antler turned stone age pickaxe, and a few bugs of the extinct or...
View ArticleWhy do the birds go on singing?
The train tweets through the loudspeakers, an announcement of sorts that begins with a feeble chirping sound, steadily growing as it approaches the platform, though sometimes no train appears; hidden...
View ArticleWhat would it take to make you happy?
Paul Tritschler reflects on the brain’s ability to adjust its habits from hate to happiness, but probes its potential within an immoral system based on class exploitation. The science of happiness, the...
View ArticleCool Scots and Banal Unionism
As another Edinburgh Festival season draws to an end (despite the best efforts of the City of Edinburgh Council’s Marketing Team and the Ross Development Trust), it is worth pausing to take stock of...
View ArticleSmall Press Day
By graphic novel creators Metaphrog aka John Chalmers and Sandra Marrs @metaphrog: Small Press Day 2019 this Saturday July 13th will see a celebration of self-publishing, DIY culture, and grassroots...
View ArticleLooping the Thread
One of the most enduring sounds from my childhood was the drone of my grandmother’s Singer sewing machine. As I sat watching the television, I’d be dimly aware of the comfortable hum of the needle...
View ArticleEngland’s Dreaming
Alex Niven [author of New Model Island] has sparked some debate with his excellent extended essay on the nature of English identity and the prospects for the Union (‘Englishness’ was never enough to...
View ArticleAlasdair Gray’s Bella Caledonia
Gray’s world was spectacular, vivid, sexual, magnificent. It was a world where Scotland was something and could be anything. He wrote: “A truly independent Scotland will only ever exist when people in...
View ArticleScottish BAME Writers Network
Ahead of their upcoming showcase at the Edinburgh International Book Festival, Community Development and Events Manager Andrés N. Ordorica speaks to us about the Network’s current mission statement and...
View ArticleCamus’ The Plague: A Tale of Our Times
“Plagues make exiles of people in their own country.” Albert Camus’s 1947 novel The Plague, depicts a “pestilence” sweeping through the Algerian town of Oran. Camus’s Oran is grafted on to a unique...
View ArticleKirstin Innes Interview
In our latest ‘Bella Chat’ Jim Monaghan talks to author Kirstin Innes about her latest novel Scabby Queen and a whole lot of other things from weans to tories. You can find out more about Kirstin at...
View ArticleBook Review – Please Dont Punch the Poets by Robin Cairns
“I ran a poetry night at The Rio Café in Glasgow for a decade… not sure why.” Robin Cairns might not be quite sure why he did what he did but what we can be sure of is that it made a huge difference to...
View ArticleGray Day
There’s a bunch of great content coming out today to launch the inaugural Gray Day (25th February). This is an ambitious and lively attempt to celebrate Scotland’s much-loved, much-missed artist,...
View ArticleA Memorial for Scotland’s Witch Trials
The witch has become a paradoxical symbol of female power, and of female oppression. She is not simply a creation of the patriarchy; women (indeed anyone who identifies with the witch) have invested in...
View ArticleWelcome To The Library
Welcome … To the Citadel of Community, The Bastion of Social Inclusivity, The Great Leveller of Opportunity, Welcome to The Library. Where guardians, dressed like unicorns, Skilled in the intricacies...
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