Falkirk’s finest team up – and Everything’s Getting Older
No one is likening Aidan Moffat and Bill Wells to Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid just yet, but the relationship that the boy with the Arab Strap past has struck up with Bill Wells could...
View ArticleTelling ex-world champion Kramnik to shhhh, and other chess stories
Alex McFarlane is one of three chess arbiters overseeing the candidates tournament in the Russian city of Kazan – the highest honour ever attained by any Scottish chess player or official. The winner...
View ArticleOpinion: Only 34.8 per cent of MSPs are women – it’s not enough
By Karen Dargo Alex Salmond and the SNP may have achieved a historic victory in the 2011 Scottish parliament elections, but the male-dominated political landscape looks suspiciously like "politics as...
View ArticleGrumbles over presiding officer appointment mask deeper problems
To say that Labour MSPs were unhappy with the result of the presiding officer’s election would be a serious understatement. Most were unwilling to go public because they knew it would seem churlish,...
View ArticleWhat does the election result mean for Scotland’s third sector?
Martin Sime is director of the Scottish Council for Voluntary Organisations, and writes a monthly column for The Caledonian Mercury. After the majority government that was supposed to be an electoral...
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The juggernaut of joy: a cognitive theory of How The SNP Won
"Positive campaigns will always beat a negative campaign and I hope that’s a lesson Scottish politics will long remember" – Alex Salmond, the Herald, 6 May 2011. Given the way the SNP's electoral...
View ArticleThe politics and nuances of the new independence
Like a rather sluggish giant, England has just woken up to the prospect of Scottish independence. London’s media and political establishment has roared and hit out at Scottish independence, warning of...
View ArticleWeir’s Week: All hail Seve, waving off Walter and the Lennon assault
By Stewart Weir Saturday IN SPORT, there are those who win, and then there are those who win with a style, a bit of panache, and plenty of passions. It’s the difference between being predictably good,...
View ArticleEurovision: the common agricultural policy with hairstyles
By Stewart Weir The Eurovision Song Contest means something to everyone. No, don’t argue. It does. Oh you can ignore it, dismiss it, even deny all knowledge of it. But somewhere in the deepest recesses...
View ArticleSame old same old, as Old Firm FC take Scottish league title yet again
Scottish football was yesterday plunged into paroxysms of ecstasy and unconfined joy at the news that the same team had won the league for the 26th season in a row. In beating one of the plucky lesser...
View ArticleUseful Scots word: fernietickle
By Betty Kirkpatrick We have had a few days of sunshine recently and many Scots, as is their wont, have stripped off in response to this. They seemed to be impervious to the chilly winds that...
View ArticleThe shifting sands of Scotland’s Sahara
By Elizabeth McQuillan Along the Moray Firth coastline, east of Nairn and west of Forres, a hilly landscape of sand smothers an area seven miles by two miles. Beneath the undulating sand lies the...
View ArticleFive portions of fruit and veg per day? Try living off a fiver a week
By John McKie As anyone who has ever given up something for Lent well knows, you begin to miss it after a while. The challenge of Live Below the Line, a fundraising initiative in solidarity with the...
View ArticleIndependence referendum: 8½ tips for the Yes campaign
Regardless of when the independence referendum is held, the Yes campaign is underway right now. It’s underway on the telly, online and in print. And crucially it’s underway whenever you speak to your...
View ArticleCostumes and chamber pots at Stirling’s Renaissance royal palace
By Matthew Shelley Would a queen wear knickers – and what did a gentleman keep in his codpiece? These are questions school history lessons never touched. More’s the pity, as my only recollection of...
View ArticleEveryone needs a Willie – including, it seems, the Scottish Lib Dems
It didn’t take the Scottish Liberal Democrats long to find a new leader. Less than two weeks have gone by since the resignation of Tavish Scott following the party’s disastrous showing in the Scottish...
View ArticleIreland’s struggle for recovery as state visit ends 100 years of solitude
By John Knox Just as the Queen began the first royal tour of southern Ireland for 100 years, I left. Not out of protest, it was just a curious coincidence. I happened to be at the end of a week’s...
View ArticleDiary: heading south for some detestable ridges and hilltop bingo
Hillwalking trips southward from Scotland to the Lake District always seem worthwhile – although it does help, admittedly, to be a long-term fan of the area with family connections that serve as a base...
View ArticleAlex Salmond’s Holyrood address on being re-elected First Minister
This address was given to the Scottish parliament by Alex Salmond on his re-election to the post of First Minister for Scotland, 18 May 2011. When Donald Dewar addressed this parliament in 1999, he...
View ArticleScotland struggle as top attacking threat is prevented from bowling
Scotland’s cricketers have long harboured ambitions to sit at the top table of world cricket – albeit somewhere down at the bottom end. On the basis of the Saltires’ two games this week, though, they...
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