Culture
Thrift inspires award winning poem
“It’s terrifically rewarding to think a recently written poem by a 71 year old can be a winner.” Cynthia Kitchen digs into the childhood memories which inspired her award winning poem.
Not just a pretty facade: Glasgow heritage has a beating heart
Those derelict buildings? Those fire-razed sites? What’s the city plan? Professor Johnny Rodger and DJ Jim Gellatly have a provocative suggestion for Glasgow.
Four Welsh women poets
Then I’ll do the lights, fill the lamp with oil,Get coal from the shed, water from the well;Pluck and draw pigeon, with crop of green foilThis your good supper from the lime-tree fell. Lynette Roberts…
Scottish food, US-UK trade and GM
‘GM will provide another test of intergovernmental relations within the UK. A key challenge will be how far the UK government is prepared to defend Scotland’s commercial interests through its ban on GM in the…
Best Scottish Poetry offers escape to reality
Claire Askew’s delightful poem, is it escape or reality? Thanks to the noxious ill wind of Brexit, it seems, there’s a new demand for words with meaning, or meaningful ambiguity. Where better to find it…
George Square 1919: no real revolutionary threat?
‘Yet while many continue to play up the revolutionary aspect today, there is no evidence it was anything more than a legitimate demonstration.’
Syrian, Scottish, British
‘I knew I was a citizen when I lost sleep over Brexit, full of regret at not being able to vote. I knew I belonged when I held my baby boy for the first time…
Open up: the emotional museum
What better time could there be to explore what shapes our identities? Fay Young goes in search of the emotional museum
Happy New Year
At the still point of the turning year, Sceptical Scot paused to toast all of you – contributors and readers – the best possible New Year. And a hope that we may all work well…
Edinburgh Makars mak mischief in Poetry Garden
Taking a break from Brexit Fay Young finds subversive mischief in the poetry of Edinburgh Makars, as performed in Edinburgh’s Poetry Garden (aka St Andrew Square)
A vote revisited
‘The status quo that brought us to Brexit will not get us out of it. While that time has gone, it is clear a new way of talking about the future was sorely needed anyway, even…
For love of life on land, sea and sky
Confronting hard facts, authors at the inaugural Tobermory Book Festival raise spirits even as they sound alarm bells. Fay Young finds both comfort and warning in the prose and poetry of Scottish writers gathering on…