Twenty-five years on…

Date: 23 February, 1996. Scene: Glasgow Filmhouse. Action: premiere of Trainspotting. Effects: the birth of a cultural and box office fireball. Reactions were mixed: Trainspotting has a shallow, joyless ring… it embraces a new soulless addiction to...

“Independence” indeed!

Well, it’s not every day you get a letter published in The GuardianĀ The very idea that a win on a day, like a cup final or a medieval battle at Bannockburn, resolves complex issues needs to be full-on refuted. Secondly, the very idea that creating more borders...

“We didnae vote for it” is a plaintive cry

It is quite possible that the SNP will be the biggest party in Holyrood after the May elections, and no doubt they will have in their manifesto that that will give them a mandate to call another referendum. Boris Johnson is their best recruiting sergeant, but the SNP...

Living Leith – the only Leith there is

Living Leith – well indeed, I was interviewed recently by a very nice couple of young ladies about my take on Leith. It was almost to the week the 40th anniversary of my arrival here, so I suppose I had a bit to say. After we had finished, off air, one of them...