Living by the Sword
In Rachel Maclean’s new morality tale, “the only way out is up”. And the only way up is… not very pleasant. If there seemed a possibility that the 29 year-old artist, who trained at Edinburgh College of Art...
Living by the Sword
In the opening event of the Ullapool book festival on Friday morning, James Robertson explained why his latest novel was influenced, among other things, by the 1945 Powell and Pressburger film I Know Where I’m Going.
Living by the Sword
It is now more associated with lazy days in the park and student gatherings.But The Meadows in Edinburgh was once a key food production centre after large parts of the open space were ploughed for cultivation during both world wars.READ MORE...
Living by the Sword
It’s 28 years since - in an effort to save money, one hard-pressed season - the then Citizens’ artistic director Giles Havergal quickly conjured up an adaptation of Graham Greene’s great 1969 novel Travels With My Aunt...
Living by the Sword
It had all started so well. Brilliantly, in fact, as young German conductor Clemens Schuldt directed the SCO in a truly exceptional Stravinsky Pulcinella – crisp, driven, richly textured, and giving so many of the orchestra’s musicians the chance to shine as soloists.
Living by the Sword
Ricky Gervais caused a minor media stir recently, when a grieving couple decried his routine about a hypothetical dead baby. Tweeting afterwards about offence, the comic struck me as theoretically correct but insensitive ...
Living by the Sword
There are very few novels indeed of which I might think “this should have been longer”, but this work by Man Booker International longlisted author and Chevalier of the Légion d’Honneur, Alain Mabanckou, is one of them.
Living by the Sword
The day ahead promised to be busy. Domenica had correspondence to deal with and, after that, she had arranged to meet her old friend, Dilly Emslie, for coffee at Glass & Thompson, on Dundas Street.
Living by the Sword
Earlier this week I did something that made absolutely no sense whatsoever – at least, when looked at from a common sense point of view. On a day when, to put it mildly, I had a fair bit on, I walked approximately...
Living by the Sword
Ricky Gervais caused a minor media stir recently, when a grieving couple decried his routine about a hypothetical dead baby. Tweeting afterwards about offence, the comic struck me as theoretically correct but insensitive ...
Living by the Sword
For even the finest choirs, Beethoven’s Missa Solemnis is like scaling the north face of the Eiger. Beethoven spent years mapping out his extensive, heavy-duty setting of the mass, ultimately producing a choral challenge that is mercilessly uncompromising...
Living by the Sword
“I guess my journey started in a place like this,” reminisced Bill Drummond, one of pop music and modern art’s most brilliantly, abrasively unconventional figures of the last four decades. A Scot in his early 60s with a granite-hard voiced carved into delicate...
Living by the Sword
It’s a rare thing, to see a fierce media row sparked by one controversial individual taken straight out of the press, and made into a 50-minute play. That’s what happens, though, in Clara Glynn’s Safe Place, the last of five Play, Pie And Pint shows to transfer to the Traverse this spring.
Living by the Sword
As regular readers of this column will know, there’s a very special place in my heart reserved for the U-shaped ski run in Coire na Ciste, on the quieter eastern side of the CairnGorm Mountain ski resort.
Living by the Sword
There’s no shortage of books about wild swimming out this month and next, to the extent that some larger bookshops may soon need to think about making space for a dedicated wild swimming section. In Floating (Duckworth Overlook...
