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An evening at the theatre with Nan Shepherd

Arriving at Pitlochry Theatre with Brad Lewis Cannon and Walter Bruce ON a mild summer evening last week, travelling down from the Highlands by train, I suggested we stop off…

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The BBC is stealing from Scotland

Scotland contributes around £300 million annually to the BBC – a third more than the Scottish Government’s entire culture budget. By law, the BBC is supposed to invest at least…

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Are Scotland’s Ferries Too Cheap?

The Lady of Lismore, the island’s foot ferry Judged against other countries with inhabited islands, Scotland’s ferry service is among the best in the world, something its critics rarely acknowledge….

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Magnus Wolfe Murray on Cox’s Bazar

First published as a Letter from Scotland on Substack, March 18, 2025 The US has made a huge cut in its Overseas Aid budget and the UK has followed suit….

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Cape Town: Remembering a long dance to freedom

First published Feb 26, 2025 I got the chance to visit Cape Town last week, where I met up with an old friend from Scotland. Sonwabo Masepe taught me African…

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A year on – flying the flag for Belarusian dissidents

First published March 21, 2024, updated March 19, 2025 At an Edinburgh freelance branch NUJ meeting this week, Howard Amos discussed his book Russia Starts Here: Real Lives in the…

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Energy privatisation has been a disaster for Scotland, Jan 14 2025

Energy poverty is when you can’t afford to heat your home or cook your food. Almost a third – 31% – of Scots are in this category, That is more…

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Glasgow needs its “Mac” back

Letter from Scotland, published Dec 9, 2024 Paris welcomed world leaders this weekend to celebrate the magnificent rebuild of Notre Dame, completed on a time scale many thought impossible….

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A sketch of Edinburgh as the Queen lay in state, September 13, 2022

Edinburgh for the last couple of days has been at the epicentre of the royal passing – a carefully-planned and tactfully-arranged ceremony. I don’t think I have seen a single…

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25 years on from the referendum of 1997

25 years ago, on September 11, 1997, Scotland voted overwhelmingly for a Scottish Parliament, in a referendum Less than a fortnight before the poll, Princess Diana died in a crash…

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Tragedy on Skye, August 16

ON the western edge of the Sleat peninsula, sometimes called the Isle of Sleat, is Tarskavaig, a scattering of whitewashed cottages looking out across the open sea towards Rum and…

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Obituary of family friend, Brian McCluskey

Director-general of the EU translation service. Born: June 11 1937 in Glasgow. Died: April 2 2022 in Bordeaux, aged 84 Brian McCluskey achieved the highest rank of any Scot ever…

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Refugees and Berliners meet in the Hauptbahnhof, March 5

Berlin’s Hauptbahnhof is at the heart of Europe’s sleek 21st-century rail network. Trains slide through on several levels, connected by long elevators and glassy lifts. It is a monument to…

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A demo in support of Ukraine, Berlin March 6

Thousands of refugees from Ukraine have been arriving in Berlin – 6,000 estimated today. At the city’s vast central station, the Hauptbahnhof, volunteers awaited the new arrivals, carrying cardboard signs…

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Remembering a Herald editor embedded with Fascist troops in the Spanish Civil War

There was just one other couple in the cinema at Eden Court in Inverness on a wintry evening in to see Pedro Almodóvar’s “Parallel Mothers”. A spell-binding story, it touches…

To the Highland Press Ball in Inverness this weekend – celebrating local journalism with people from as far afield as Lewrick, as the UK Government likes to call the Shetland…

- At the Highland Press Ball, Inverness, Feb 6

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100 years from the Anglo-Irish Agreement, the ghost of Irish hero Michael Collins haunts the Brexit negotiations, letter from Scotland Dec 21

On the first of January, 2021, the transition period ended and Britain effectively left the EU – closing a long period where the media was full of discussions about what…

Christmas shopping at the Barras in Glasgow. A letter from Scotland December 13

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