Culture
Cut to the bone. Is this what Scotland’s culture is worth?
“At the end of a year of confusing cuts, un-cuts and renewed cuts, the Scottish Government’s latest pledge is to invest £100m in the cultural sector over the next five years. How widely and how…
Remote? The Highlands? Get awa’
“Remote” seems to me to have a useful meaning in the IT sense of performing an activity when you are not there in person – eg a surgeon might operate remotely, or a teacher give…
Back to the National Gallery of Scotland after 30 years
Jackie Kemp revisits a once favourite haunt: ” I felt that what would be better was just to hang Scottish paintings among the European and world artists who influenced them. They should be enjoyed for…
What’s the Orange Order’s future?
“I was at a talk the other week by the Orange Order Historian Dr David Hume. It is a measure of how far we have come as a society that there was a talk about…
Gulliver’s foot and art’s redemptive power
“One by one aspects of what the CFS did were closed down or were taken back under the aegis of the council. The times changed. Austerity, unemployment, and drugs bit hard here. The Festival Society…
Time up for Scotland’s hereditary landowners?
“There are some areas where communities have been helped to buy the land they live on. But Scotland still has the most inequitable land ownership in the developed world. This month, the Scottish Government issued…
Conspiracy theories: no panic!
“What we see here is that rates of agreement haven’t fundamentally changed over time, apart for when it comes to climate change, and in this case views that it is a hoax have in fact…
Scotland’s centres of power need reform: Part 2 (Holyrood)
James Mitchell’s survey of Scotland and its centres of power ends with reflections on the glaring need for reforming Holyrood after two decades of devolution. “The Scottish Parliament is not a delicate flower that needs…
Rolling stone of destiny
Fate of the Stone of Destiny – and the UK. Same old ‘tartan gesture politics’? or meaningful role in Charles III coronation?
The rules of the road in the Highlands
“Sometimes at night, when the rain is coming down like iron spikes and the road is as dark as a werewolf’s armpit I feel that the brown signs directing you to local services are a…
ChatGPT, you’re fired!
“The quotes were generally ideal, exactly what I was looking for, so I searched a little harder. But after fouterin for literary hours, I realised that it just makes the damn things up.”
For future generations from our here and now
Survival, war, poetry. What is it like to fight for your motherland with words and on the streets? Here is a message to transcend time and place.