“I suggest taking a couple of deep breaths, putting your head down and going like hell.”
Many happy returns. I’m opening my blog for the first time this year to find an old story has come back to life. Very nearly two years ago I posted a picture sent to me by my cousin Beryl in Vancouver. To my surprise the image of elk apparently crossing the Trans-Canada Highway generated a debate between people I had never met about whether the photo was a fake or real. Weirder still: people are picking up the story again. (more…)
January 4th, 2009
New media gives schoolchildren the chance to present their own view of the world
And there at last was Crawfordjohn; a ribbon of wet tarmac unwinding to a small place hidden in the South Lanarkshire hills. A village so small the church had to close and there are only 12 children in the primary school. But what a force they are. I was still thinking about them next day when I went to another community event in a very different setting. (more…)
December 12th, 2008
Dressed for Christmas: not all goods are as well wrapped as the amaryllis.
There’s a lot of life on show in Amsterdam shop windows. Claire summed it up with a phrase I wish I had thought of. On her first night she went for a stroll and returned wide eyed at goods on offer in local shops. “Just popped out for a satsuma and a sex toy.” (more…)
December 2nd, 2008
I am closing down the computer and then it’s off to Amsterdam for a few days. Looking forward to it all the more because Roel has sent a link to the galleries and exhibitions this month and a last minute email from Fran directs me to Vertigo Cafe in Vondel Park. It’s near the Film Museum, also in the Park, she says. And don’t work too hard, she says. So I will take the work I have to do with me to cafe in the park, place my papers on the table then sit back and watch the world go by.
November 19th, 2008
This is London, in Edinburgh the living books wore black T shirts
How odd that none of our local press took an interest in this event, Scotland’s first Living Library. In other cities (from the first event in Copenhagen to the latest UK event in Bradford) the place has been crawling with reporters and cameras. If I hadn’t been rushing off to meet my boys and girls for a pre-birthday bonfire party I would probably have rushed home to write about it last Saturday afternoon. Becoming a living book was a really extraordinary experience.
(more…)
November 13th, 2008
Oh dear, what have I left myself in for? I am sitting between two poets, in front of us there’s a war veteran and a man from Alcoholics Anonymous. All around me there are people with amazing stories to tell: people from Africa, China, Poland, Dubai as well as Edinburgh. We are here because we have volunteered to be Living Books – but I am wondering, with these bestsellers on offer, who on earth will want to borrow a blogger? I will soon find out as the Living Library (Scotland’s first) starts in an hour. (more…)
November 8th, 2008
There was a moment of disbelief. We’ve got so used to chasing grey squirrels from the bird table (there is no such thing as a squirrel-proof feeder) that I thought the sun must be playing tricks with the colour. But this squirrel really was red and, we have since discovered, possibly the first sighting of one in our area. (more…)
November 5th, 2008
For the first (and almost certainly the last) time I am moved to post a comment on Have Your Say this morning. To my surprise the BBC website asks me to remove my obscene and offensive language before submitting the comment for approval. I can only think it is because I have mentioned the stage name of Andrew Sachs’ granddaughter.
(more…)
October 30th, 2008
Is Baroness Warsi the Sarah Palin of the Tory Party? I watched last night’s Question Time torn between hilarity and horror. If I am disillusioned by Labour it is always sobering to see how very much worse that other lot could be. Thank goodness for dear old (Lord) Roy Hattersley (and he used to seem so right wing too!). The best line of the show came when the Shadow Minister for Community Cohesion began another divisive rant by accusing the Labour peer of “living in a parallel universe to me”.
“I hope so!” Hattersley replied and brought the house down.
October 24th, 2008
A couple of comments on the blog have got me rummaging about in my dressing up box. Where on earth is that other shoe and whatever did I do with the kaftan I made for the gig of the 60s? The clothes are falling to pieces but the memories are made of stronger stuff. (more…)
October 22nd, 2008
Previous Posts