Glasgow
From teenage delinquent to man of letters: James Campbell’s remarkable career
The great age of the Scottish autodidact must have ended a century ago, but it had a prodigious impact while…
A bitter sectarian divide: Young Mungo, by Douglas Stuart, reviewed
Douglas Stuart has a rare gift. The Scottish writer, whose debut novel Shuggie Bain deservedly won the 2020 Booker Prize,…
For Glasgow – with love and squalor: The Second Cut, by Louise Welsh, reviewed
Never, never kill the dog. It’s rule one in the crime writer’s manual. Cats are bad enough, as I can…
Some jolly TV artifice and a rare moment of authenticity: C4’s Miriam and Alan – Lost in Scotland reviewed
Thanks to Covid, the days are gone — or at least suspended — when a TV travel programme meant a…
Six of the most melodramatic warnings from COP26
The COP26 summit in Glasgow reaches its climax today, as world leaders try and thrash out a deal to halt…
As COP26 looms, Glasgow is facing a waste crisis
With COP26 weeks away, the city is in the middle of a waste crisis
Glasgow gangsters: 1979, by Val McDermid, reviewed
Like a basking shark, Val McDermid once remarked, a crime series needs to keep moving or die. The same could…
Joan Eardley deserves to be ranked alongside Bacon and de Kooning
Claudia Massie on the unjustly neglected artist Joan Eardley, who deserves to be ranked alongside Auerbach, Bacon and de Kooning
Glasgow's immigration raid stand-off is nothing to celebrate
The rule of law is very simple: it means ‘everyone must obey the law’. Last year, much hay was made…
Makes me nostalgic for an era when music was more than a click away: Teenage Superstars reviewed
In Teenage Superstars, a long and slightly exhausting documentary about the Scottish indie scene of the 1980s and ’90s, there…
Welder, banjo player, comedian, actor, and now artist – Billy Connolly interviewed
William Cook talks to Billy Connolly – welder, banjo player, comedian, actor, and now artist – about growing up in Glasgow, ditching the mike stand and living with Parkinson’s
The story of the River Clyde
It sounds like something out of Dickens or a novel by Thackeray, a classic case of high-minded Victorian philanthropy, but…
Authenticity over artistry: Brushes with War reviewed
The first world war paintings of Paul Nash are so vivid and emotive that they have come to embody, as…
Why dismiss a Catholic priest for being Catholic?
They’re just kids! What’s your problem? This has become the default reaction of a whole raft of clever people to…
Low life
Early on Friday morning I flew from the north of Iceland to Reykjavik, from Reykjavik to Heathrow, then I hopped…
Predictably meh: Scottish Ballet’s new Swan Lake reviewed
Every ballet company wants a box-office earner. But why Scottish Ballet’s leader Christopher Hampson kept on at David Dawson until…
Homage to the Poet Laureate
These Collected Poems, published halfway through Carol Ann Duffy’s time as poet laureate, make clear that she is a true…
The graveyard where old Glasgow lives on
A wet walk in a Glaswegian graveyard might not be your idea of fun, but then you might not have…
Do Scots really die that much younger?
The Scottish way of death Nicola Sturgeon said the SNP would block a rise in the state pension age on…
My plan for Question Time: mug up and fail anyway
I was invited on Question Time this week, which gave me a few sleepless nights. Natalie Bennett’s disastrous interview on…
The long ordeal of Mackintosh’s Glasgow School of Art
I was working on the final edit of my book — a fictionalised account of the year Charles Rennie Mackintosh…
Scots and English are the same people, with different accents. Why pretend otherwise?
The Scots and the English have far more in common than the SNP likes to admit
George Galloway's one-man mission to save the Union
Can George Galloway keep Scotland in Britain?
Kirsty Wark’s diary: On the Caledonian sleeper, the new Donna Tartt, and a week of Edinburgh shows
There isn’t a Scottish politician in living memory who hasn’t been on the Caledonian Sleeper. I always imagined Donald Dewar…
Laidlaw by William McIlvanney - review
Laidlaw was first published in 1977, 36 years back from now, 38 on from The Big Sleep. Like Chandler’s classic…
