Golf Tango Foxtrot

It is Scottish Labour's conference in Perth. Oh what a grand excuse to stuff the Nats.  That is the only thing they do. Q.  How many Scottish Labour Lords does it take to change a light bulb? A. It's all the fault of Alex Salmond..!! The party of Labour?  My arse.  Labour gave up on socialism many years ago.  The impressive thing for me was how they managed to convince otherwise sensible people to keep voting for them and to join them for decades. For years I knew many people who were Labour Party members.  Without exception, every one of them was in Labour in order to change its direction. This leads me to the conclusion that the Labour Party must be the most undemocratic institution in Scottish public life. The Labour Party changed for sure. For the worse. Under the "New Labour" branding they won thirteen years of government where inequality got worse. That means wealth was re-distributed to the rich.  Not the poor.  The rich benefited...

Had a rather nice evening last night at Montrose Folk Club.   The guests were Fiona Hunter on Vocals, Cello and Shruti Box accompanied by Mike Vass on Tenor Guitar, Fiddle and Guitar. They opened the set with the old Robert Tannahill chestnut "The Braes of Gleniffer" and it  was a fine assured version.   They moved on immediately with "The Cruel Mithir". The "Cruel Mithir" is a hard song to get across.  It is lengthy and deals with weighty themes of infanticide and supernatural haunting and damnation.  Many times I have heard it attempted and the effect has been one that trivialises and makes one want to snigger.  Not so this version. The interplay between the Fiddle and the muted Cello between the verses called to mind the strings in the shower scene of Psycho.  The singing was clear and told the story in a way that seemed effortless. The effect was chilling. The mood was lightened by the "Laird O' Drum" his courting described in all...

I first met the artist Angus Neil in Glasgow in the early 1980s.  I was living in Garnethill and married with a family and gainfully unemployed. This was the height of the "Thatcherschina" and times were hard, particularly in Glasgow.  Nonetheless Garnethill was a wonderful community to be poor in. There was a diverse mix of people from a great variety of ethnic groups, The clergy were simply crawling all over the place, with a convent, a buddhist temple, a chapel, a synagogue, a free presbyterian mission and a host of other faiths.  My stepson went to a primary school where thirty three languages were spoken at home. The Glasgow School of Art was the most imposing building in Garnethill, in a close contest with St Aloysius' School.  The Art School ensured a continuing connection with Bohemians from an earlier age.   Bill MacLellan and Hamish MacQueen were prominent in these circles. One very dark and dull day it was a signing on day and as usual the day...

Today (Monday 24th February) the cabinets of not one but two governments are meeting in the vicinity of Aberdeen. The Westminster (UK) Government Cabinet meets in a "secret location" which everyone knows is really the BP headquarters in Dyce, a suburb of Aberdeen.  Immediately after their deliberations they are jetting back south. The Scottish Government Cabinet meets in Portlethen, a dormitory town for Aberdeen just across the municipal boundary in Aberdeenshire.  Immediately after their deliberations, they are having a Q&A session which is open to any member of the public. To what do we owe this embarrassment of riches?  The last time the UK Cabinet met outside of London was 90 years ago.  They met in Inverness in 1922 and the major talking point on their agenda was independence for Ireland. I'll return to the significance of this point later. The major talking point on the UK Cabinet's meeting today is of course independence for Scotland. They pretend ...

September gives us a chance in Scotland to begin a transformation.  A YES vote gives us a chance to begin a change in this country.  A change that can halt the downward spiral into barbarism that characterises this hateful political union. Those of us who are sick to the stomach of the blame for the economic mess being laid at the feet of the poor.  Those of us who blame the unscrupulously wealthy thieves who profit from recession as they profit from boom. Those of us who loathe the attacks on migrants and the disabled Those of us who abhor illegal wars.  Those of us who oppose weapons of mass destruction. Another Scotland is coming... But it won't be because of the contribution to debate made by the State Broadcaster BBC "Scotland". Researchers at the University of the West of Scotland published research casting doubts on the impartiality of the BBC. The study indicated that the BBC (and to be fair other TV Stations) seemed to favour the NO campaign. The B...

GTF Editor writes; Don't normally do much in the way of fiction.  Here's a wee story that's part of a bigger whole. Brad, Brad Washington speaks.... “ My name is Brad, Brad Washington ” is the line. “ I fly helicopters ”. The man warms to his theme. “ Meaning I earn a lot of money and in the eyes of all the women in the Spirit Level I have a glamourous well paid profession. Being Kenny, a turner from Bellshill just isn't the same attraction. Sending money back to keep the wife and kids and family back home just isn't what my life was meant to be. And so I turned myself into a work of art. I became my own creation. My shagging life as performance art. And why not? If loyalist killer Michael Stone can burst into Stormont while armed to the teeth to assassinate politicians and then in mitigation at his trial claim it to be performance art, why can't I? Like every artist I have my creative eras and periods. The “Brad...

Libertadores String Quartet played Aberdeen's Cowdray Hall on the 4 th of November. The Quartet are all members of the Simon Bolivar Symphony Orchestra of Venezuela and are products of "El Sistema" the musical education system developed in Venezuela by Maestro Jose Antonio Abreu. In Venezuela currently 300,000 children are being educated in this manner.  The intention being to produce not just musicians but happy adults with skills of teamwork, confidence, pride and aspiration to help them prosper. The charity Sistema Scotland seeks to   replicate this work through its Big Noise project in the Raploch area of Stirling and also in Govanhill in Glasgow. Interest has been expressed in Dundee and Aberdeen (hence the concert) about being the next location in Scotland for this work. There were many reasons to go to the concert, aside from a simple enjoyment of chamber music, or a general interest in musical education. An interest in the Bolivarian revo...