SCOTLAND rugby coach Andy Robinson has made four changes to the side that lost in Wales and opted for a new midfield partnership against France as he seeks a first win in five Tests.

Robinson’s record in the RBS Six Nations Championship stands at just two wins in 12 games and failures by players to finish off the improving attacking work in the side has left him hugely frustrated.

He has dropped Glasgow scrum-half Chris Cusiter and Nick De Luca, the Edinburgh centre, and replaced them with Mike Blair and Sean Lamont respectively, largely due to below-par displays in the opening games. Lamont moves from inside to outside centre, where he played often last season for the Scarlets, which opened the door for the return of Glasgow’s Graeme Morrison to the No 12 jersey for the first time since the World Cup.

Teenager Stuart Hogg, who made an impressive Test debut off the bench in Cardiff, is handed the starting full-back role against the French 40 years after Jim Renwick, also 19, made his Scotland debut in the centre against the same opposition.

With Max Evans out injured Rory Lamont switches from full-back to wing. The only other change to the side is in the pack where John Barclay starts at blindside flanker after replacing Alasdair Strokosch, who suffered a broken hand against Wales. That brings a new mix to the Scotland back row with two recognised openside flankers either side of No 8 David Denton.

Robinson explained: “I have looked at the team and what is going to be best for beating France. I am delighted for Stuart Hogg. He came into the squad for the St Andrews camp and did really well, played in the [Scotland A versus] Saxons game and was exemplary in his performance and then came off the bench in Cardiff and what you saw was a real composed performance.

“He has that ability to handle the pressure of international rugby and it’s great that he’s getting his first start. We’re disappointed with the injuries we got, to Max and Alasdair Strokosch, but we have good players to come in.”

Robinson’s frustration with the opening defeats has been etched on his face but he retains belief that his squad are close to cracking the winning code. He acknowledges that France will be a tougher prospect than England and Wales, arriving in Scotland intent on regaining the title they have won five times in the past decade, the last in 2010. Robinson said: “This is a different challenge. The other two [England and Wales] have the potential to move the ball against you and the French are the best at doing that, but the one area that you get severely tested by the French is the scrum and lineout, and that’s a key battle-ground on Sunday.

“They destroyed us in the scrum last year. They completely dominated us because we scrummaged as individuals. We have to scrummage collectively as an eight-man operation, while the lineout is an area France will go to if they’re not able to get their game going to secure possession, so we’ve got to be able to dominate there. France have got everything. They have the firepower to play in many different ways which is what makes them a very strong side.”

However, Robinson believes he has selected a side with the mix of experience and strength to subdue the French pack and back line, and the blend of ball-carrying ability and attacking nous in the back three, in particular, to cause France real problems.

The Scotland coach accepted that a third defeat on the trot would be difficult to stomach with away matches with Ireland and Italy to come, but insisted that this squad, with youngsters such as Lee Jones, Denton and Hogg pointing to a brighter future, was capable of lifting Scotland from their current world ranking of 12th.

He also paid tribute to the support of the Scottish fans, and the fact that Murrayfield is a 67,144 sell-out for Sunday.

“I want to thank the support that are going to be at the game,” he added. “For us to have a sell-out on a Sunday against France, for the first time since 1994, is testament to the energy that is here in Scotland and the desire for the team to be successful.

“The players and management are absolutely delighted that that’s the case. The messages of support also given to the players heading into this game drives them forward and we want to put in a performance that inspires that crowd to support the team. Unfortunately, the stats [defeats] are there and I have to be able to deal with that, but in terms of my enthusiasm, desire and how I see the team going out and playing.

“I have full confidence in how we’re playing and am looking forward to the game at the weekend.”

Scotland team to play France:

S Hogg (Glasgow Warriors); R Lamont (Glasgow Warriors), S Lamont (Scarlets), G Morrison (Glasgow Warriors), L Jones (Edinburgh); G Laidlaw (Edinburgh), M Blair (Edinburgh); A Jacobsen (Edinburgh), R Ford (capt, Edinburgh), G Cross (Edinburgh), R Gray (Glasgow Warriors), J Hamilton (Gloucester), J Barclay (Glasgow Warriors), R Rennie (Edinburgh), D Denton (Edinburgh).

Replacements: S Lawson (Gloucester), E Kalman (Glasgow Warriors), A Kellock (Glasgow Warriors), R Vernon (Sale Sharks), C Cusiter (Glasgow Warriors), D Weir (Glasgow Warriors), N De Luca (Edinburgh).

In today’s Rumour Mill: Walter Smith linked with Wolves vacancy; Dave King in Rangers talks; Pressley to learn fate over rant; plus the rest of the day’s football news and gossip.

Walter Smith has emerged as a surprise contender to replace Mick McCarthy as Wolves manager, after the Premiership club missed out on two of their preferred targets. The former Rangers boss, 63, quit Ibrox last summer but insisted he was not retiring from football. The odds on Smith taking charge of the Molineaux team tumbled last night after owner Steve Morgan failed to lure Reading boss Brian McDermott and Alan Curbishley. (Sun)

RANGERS IN TURMOIL

Rangers director {http://www.scotsman.com/the-scotsman/sport/football/rangers_administration_dave_king_meets_with_administrators_1_2133117|Dave King arrived at Ibrox yesterday for what were understood to be talks with administrators|full story}, but it was the manner in which he left the stadium that was the most striking aspect of his rare visit to Govan. South Africa-based King, the only survivor from the Sir David Murray era on the board, left Ibrox in the same car as manager Ally McCoist. (Scotsman)

• HMRC last night hit back at Craig Whyte, refuting his claim that he has been unfairly treated in comparison with other businesses. (Mail)

• Former Rangers chairman Alastair Johnston wants administrators Duff and Phelps to examine whether Craig Whyte should lose his “secured creditor” status because he believes the terms of the purchase deal were broken. (Sun)

• Fears are growing that Rangers could struggle to survive because Craig Whyte’s lawyers are not co-operating with administrators Duff and Phelps. (Record)

• {http://www.scotsman.com/the-scotsman/sport/football/saverangers_com_to_explore_fan_funding_1_2133261|The three main Rangers supporters organisations have joined forces to launch a website|full story} where fans can pledge how much money they would be willing to invest in the crisis club. (Various)

• Bosnia boss Safet Susic has revealed that defender Sasa Papac is fearing for his future amid the Rangers crisis. (Record)

• Dunfermline have written to the Scottish Premier League after the Fife outfit were not paid the £80,000 owed to the club for the recent meeting with Rangers. (Various)

Falkirk manager {http://www.scotsman.com/the-scotsman/sport/football/pressley_to_discover_his_fate_for_semi_final_rant_1_2133239|Steven Pressley is set to find out today if he is to face a ban|full story} for his half-time rant at referee Euan Norris during the League Cup semi-final last month.

Transport group Go-Ahead said its rail division will contribute to Treasury coffers from April after seeing growth in its three commuter franchises.

Its London Midland service has been eligible for revenue support from the UK government’s Department for Transport (DfT) since November but Go-Ahead said this has not been required after passenger revenues on the commuter line jumped 13 per cent in the six months to 31 December.

Go-Ahead, whose joint venture with Keolis runs the Southeastern and Southern franchises, said its rail division will be a net contributor to the DfT from April, although Southeastern remains in revenue support.

Across the rail arm, which benefited from average regulated fare rises of 6% at the start of last year, profits were up 25 per cent to £16.5 million when £9m of one-off contracts are excluded from last year’s figure.

Passenger revenues leapt 9.6 per cent to £699.8m, which Go Ahead said reflected the continued shift away from car usage and better marketing. Passenger volumes rose 3 per cent on Southern and Southeastern and by 11.5 per cent on London Midland.

Go-Ahead expects revenues trends to continue into the second half but with January’s latest fare increases causing more modest growth in passenger numbers.

The period will see the start of a busy period for the UK rail market, with many franchises due for renewal and Go-Ahead working with Keolis on bidding for the Thameslink and Essex Thameside services.

Newcastle-based Go-Ahead described the performance of its bus division as robust after revenues increased by 4.7 per cent to £335.7m in the half year, with passenger journeys up 3.6 per cent. Profits were down 2.7 per cent to £18m as a result of implementation costs on a new contract.

The company is one of the UK largest operators with a fleet of around 3,900 buses carrying on average around 1.7 million passengers every day. It is the biggest operator in London and has secured two contracts to provide specific Olympic services this summer.

Across the group, profits were 13.2 per cent lower at £44m, reflecting the one-off contract boost in the rail arm last year and lower bus profits.

HEARTS manager Paulo Sergio faces a critical decision over who should replace the suspended Andy Webster for Saturday’s match against Dundee United. The Portuguese must choose between Adrian Mrowiec, Darren Barr and Ryan McGowan to partner Marius Zaliukas in central defence.

Webster is banned for one game after accumulating six cautions in the SPL this season. He is available for next weekend’s visit to Ibrox but will sit out as his former club United visit Tynecastle.

McGowan is keen to seize an opportunity to play centre-back, one of his favoured positions, after filling in at right-back and left-back this season. Sergio, however, may favour the more experienced Barr or could opt to move Mrowiec from midfield into central defence.

“As long as I’m on the pitch it doesn’t bother me being shunted about in different positions. I’ll play where the manager asks me to,” McGowan told the Evening News. “I’ve played centre- back before so it’s up to the manager who he wants to play there. If he gives me the shout, I’ll try my best for the team.”

Hearts’ back four has changed regularly since the turn of the year due to injuries and suspensions but McGowan doesn’t feel it is a major problem.

“If you’ve got a stable back four it can help but these things happen in football,” he said.

Meanwhile, Hearts today confirmed the signing of striker Craig Beattie on a short-term contract until the end of the season. The Scotland internationalist, 28, was a free agent after his release from Swansea City.

Energy giant Centrica today said mild spring and autumn weather had fuelled a 30 per cent slide in profits at its residential arms – British and Scottish Gas – to £522 million last year.

The UK’s biggest gas supplier, which lost 97,000 customers in 2011, said the unseasonably warm weather in spring and autumn led to a 21 per cent drop in average household gas consumption and a 4 per cent fall in electricity.

The slide in profits for the year to 31 December comes despite the energy supplier hiking gas and electricity bills by an average of 18 per cent and 16 per cent respectively in August. It has since announced a 5 per cent cut in electricity prices in January.

Centrica, however, reported a 1 per cent increase in adjusted operating profits to £2.41 billion as its upstream gas and oil exploration business – which includes the former Venture Production unit – saw profits jump 33 per cent to £1bn.

Some of the fall in profits in supplying gas and electricity to households has been clawed back through residential services such as boiler repairs, where profits were 10 per cent higher at £264m.

The upstream business smashed through the £1bn barrier for the first time, recording a 33 per cent increase in profits to £1.02bn, after benefiting from higher wholesale commodity prices and a good production performance.

The company claims it has invested £1.80 for every £1 it has earned over the past five years. Its dividend for shareholders increased 8 per cent to 15.4p a share.

Chief executive Sam Laidlaw said it had been a tough year, “both for Centrica and our customers”, but that the company was still making the investments “on which Britain’s energy future depends”.

A MAN named by sources as serving Labour MP Eric Joyce has been arrested on suspicion of assault following a disturbance at the Palace of Westminster.

Scotland Yard confirmed officers detained a man in his 50s after being called to reports of an incident at a bar within the House of Commons at around 10.50pm last night.

A Scotland Yard spokesman said: “We were called at approximately 10.50pm last night to reports of a disturbance at a bar within the House of Commons.

“A man aged in his 50s was arrested by officers on suspicion of assault. He remains in custody in a central London police station. Inquiries are continuing.”

Mr Joyce, the MP for Falkirk since December 2000, served in the Army Education Corps before pursuing a career in politics.

In 2010 he resigned as shadow Northern Ireland minister after pleading guilty to failing to provide a breath test.

From 2003 Mr Joyce served as a Parliamentary Private Secretary (PPS) to a number of government ministers.

Mr Joyce quit as the PPS to Bob Ainsworth in 2009 due to his concerns over the war in Afghanistan.

Prior to that he had been a parliamentary aide to John Hutton, including the period when he was defence secretary, Mike O’Brien and Margaret Hodge.

According to his constituency webpage, Mr Joyce has a constituency office in Denny and an office in Portcullis House, Westminster.

During his time in Westminster he has held an interest in defence and military issues due to his army background, the website adds.

According to reports Conservative MP Stuart Andrew was head-butted and punched in the incident which happened in the Strangers Bar, a Commons bar reserved for MPs and their guests.

Labour MP Paul Farrelly was involved in a brawl in a different Commons bar in 2010.

The MP for Newcastle-under-Lyme claimed he “wrestled” a man to the floor in “self defence” following the altercation, which took place during a karaoke party at Parliament’s Sports and Social Club.

TAXPAYER-backed Royal Bank of Scotland remained at the heart of the row over bankers’ pay today as it unveiled total losses of £2 billion for 2011 at the same time as paying £785 million in bonuses to its staff.

RBS, which is 82% state-owned after receiving a £45.5 billion bailout at the height of the financial crisis, said the bonus pool included £390 million for its 17,000 investment bankers.

While the total pot is 43% lower than the previous year, it follows a period in which the bank announced thousands of job cuts as it scales back its investment arm Global Banking and Markets.

• THE housing market has “plateaued” and shows no sign of “vigorous recovery”, according to a report out today.

The Scottish House Price Monitor from Lloyds TSB Scotland shows the quarterly price index for properties rose by 1.4% between November and January.

But over the year property values still fell 4.2%, making the average price of a home £155,528.

Edinburgh saw the biggest fall in average house prices in January 2012, compared with the same month last year, falling 10.8% to £188,892.

Donald MacRae, chief economist at the bank, said the housing market “remains down but not out”.

• A MAN has been taken to hospital after being knocked over at Edinburgh University.

The 24-year-old, believed to be a student, suffered head and facial injuries as a result of the accident at George Square.

The accident is thought to have occurred in the car park area.

The ambulance service said the man was taken to the Edinburgh Royal Infirmary after the accident at 2.35pm.

A spokesman for the service said the extent of the injuries were not immediately clear but were not thought to be life-threatening.

• LANDLORDS who dodge tax on income from their properties in Scotland are to be targeted by HM Revenue and Customs.

The tax department said it has set up a taskforce to chase tax-evading landlords.

Similar groups were set up after the UK Government’s most recent spending review to clamp down tax evasion, avoidance and fraud from 2011 and 2012.

The move aims to raise £7 billion a year by 2014-15.

]]> 1.2133328 Thu, 23 Feb 2012 08:59:16 +0000 http://www.scotsman.com/scottish_business_briefing_thursday_23_february_2012_1_2133327

WELCOME to scotsman.com’s Scottish Business Briefing. Every morning we bring you a comprehensive round-up of all news affecting business in Scotland today.

RETAIL

Edinburgh Woollen Mill rescues Peacocks but 3,100 jobs are lost

Edinburgh Woollen Mill (EWM) yesterday emerged as the saviour of 6,000 jobs after acquiring part of the failed Peacocks discount fashion chain.. In Scotland, 15 stores will remain open while 30 have closed with an estimated loss of around 400 jobs ({http://www.scotsman.com/business/retail/edinburgh_woollen_mill_rescues_peacocks_but_3_100_jobs_are_lost_1_2132481|Scotsman|Scotsman}).

{http://www.scotsman.com/business/retail|Read all today’s retail news from scotsman.com|Read all today’s retail news from scotsman.com}

BANKING

RBS reports £2bn loss in 2011, fourth since bailout

The Royal Bank of Scotland has reported its fourth year of losses since the bank’s bailout in 2008. The bank posted an attributable loss of £2bn in 2011, up from a loss of £1.1bn in 2010 ({http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-17128477|BBC|BBC}).

{http://www.scotsman.com/business/banking|Read all today’s banking news from scotsman.com|Read all today’s banking news from scotsman.com}

ENERGY & UTILITIES

Centrica adds to North Sea assets with Total deal

Scottish Gas parent Centrica added to its growing portfolio of North Sea assets yesterday, buying stakes in seven producing fields from Total for £246 million ({http://www.scotsman.com/business/management/centrica_adds_to_north_sea_assets_with_total_deal_1_2132510

|Scotsman|SDcotsman}).

{http://www.scotsman.com/business/energy-and-utilities|Read all today’s energy and utilities news from scotsman.com|Read all today’s energy and utilities news from scotsman.com}

INDUSTRY

Morrison constructing a positive story as staff grow

MORRISON Construction, the Scottish arm of builder Galliford Try, has boosted staffing by well over 50 per cent in the past year to some 800 as its parent posted higher interim sales, profits and dividends yesterday ({http://www.scotsman.com/business/morrison_constructing_a_positive_story_as_staff_grow_1_2132490|Scotsman|Scotsman})

Jobs to go as Dawn closes general construction arm

SCOTTISH company Dawn Group will implement an “orderly closure” of its general construction division with the loss of about 60 jobs, and focus in future on housebuilding and property development ({http://www.heraldscotland.com/business/company-news/jobs-to-go-as-dawn-closes-general-construction-arm.16830632|Herald|Herald}).

{http://www.scotsman.com/business/industry|Read all today’s industry news from scotsman.com|Read all today’s industry news from scotsman.com}

MANAGEMENT

Boards ‘hampered by non-executives’

Having more non-executive directors on company boards only reduces their effectiveness, according to the findings of research that could undermine a key claim of corporate governance activists ({http://www.heraldscotland.com/business/company-news/boards-hampered-by-non-executives.16745526|Herald|Herald}).

{http://www.scotsman.com/business/management|Read all today’s management news from scotsman.com|Read all today’s management news from scotsman.com}

]]> 1.2133327 Thu, 23 Feb 2012 08:56:38 +0000 http://www.scotsman.com/frank_boyle_cartoon_23_02_2012_1_2133310

Today . . .

Boyling Point

Follow Frank Boyle on Twitter {http://twitter.com/boylecartoon|Twitter.com/boylecartoon|Go to Frank Boyle on Twitter}

• Frank’s new book Boyling Point 2 is available for £8.99 with free postage and packing by ordering online at {http://www.shop.scotsman.com/bp2|www.shop.scotsman.com/bp2} or calling 0131-620 8400

Our cartoonist takes a tongue-in-cheek look at the situation between Michael Moore and Alex Salmond, with Moore claiming the independence referendum should be held in 2013, and not 2014 like Salmond would prefer.

Illustration by Iain Green

Thursday’s puzzle...

Across

1 Putting on the stage about here in Stirling, finally (12)

9 Imagine having to rent out first three departments (7)

10 Gets to grips with the gears in winches (7)

11 Material taken from artificial fibre alone (4)

12 Was thoughtless society found wanting (5)

13 Entertain in a cafe, tea-room or bistro (4)

16 Reds hit out, suffering quaking fits (7)

17 Draw back 10 in search for suspect character (4-3)

18 At one time, forward top-soil to specialists (7)

21 Place to find a pilot in a battleground (7)

23 Mechanism used to take back the spoils of war (4)

24 Opposition candidate in competitive match (5)

25 Sign of holiness in the church, a long time ago (4)

28 To work with one in force could be devastating (7)

29 They often take a chance, like their superiors (7)

30 Would a tycoon run off with Peter and Rene? (12)

Down

2 A gentle arrangement can be quite polished (7)

3 About to take iron back into a chain, in the main (4)

4 Empty vessel getting round burdens (7)

5 Perceived that there was a lack of frost (7)

6 A piece of land in the river in Winchester (4)

7 It’s good everyone took a long time to build an old ship (7)

8 Ian sets out to become flamboyant (12)

9 Get through danger, by chance (12)

14 Tried to have paid attention to press, we hear (5)

15 Design trap-door to allow escape (5)

19 Understanding the potential of a written agreement (7)

20 Inform the French about heavy coarse gravel (7)

21 Can leave some red Burgundy in the room (7)

22 Helping to take a turn at table (7)

26 Clue may be hard to take in, at the end (4)

27 Knock out some of the best units (4)

Wednesday’s solution:

Across: 1 Colossus of, 6 Taxi, 10 Saudi, 11 Eavesdrop, 12 Rhodes, 13 Avocado, 15 Inbred, 16 Feldspar, 19 Cleanser, 21 Chorus, 24 Pub quiz, 26 Sedate, 28 Ingrained, 29 Issue, 30 Erne, 31 Keeping fit.

Down: 1 Cask, 2 Laughable, 3 Swindle, 4 Uneasy, 5 Obviated, 7 Aorta, 8 In progress, 9 Osmond, 14 Discipline, 17 Pirates of, 18 Penzance, 20 Nougat, 23 Hadrian, 23 Used-up, 25 Begin, 27 Jest.

Thursday’s puzzle...

THE Soviet Union’s domination of world chess from the late 1940s to the mid-80s was achieved by a nation whose territory and people were ravaged by war and invasion, with many geopolitical casualties along the way.

One such was the Riga-born master Vladimirs Petrovs (1908-43). He played in seven Olympiads for Latvia from 1928 to 1939, winning individual gold in 1931 and bronze in 1939. He had an outstanding performance playing on top board in Buenos Aires undefeated, drawing with world champion Alekhine, former world champion Capablanca, and rising superstar Keres.

In 1941, when Germany invaded the Soviet Union, Petrovs – who was playing in Moscow at the time – was unable to return to his family in Latvia. He was forced to remain in Moscow but was arrested in 1942 for his outspoken views of the living standards in Latvia after the Soviet annexation of 1940. Petrov was then sentenced to ten years in a gulag and he was never heard of again Only in 1989 did it become officially known that he had died in 1943 from pneumonia.

Last week in Jurmala in Latvia there was a rapidplay tournament held in memory of Petrovs. Russia’s Alexander Morozevich dominated with a score of 5/7 to capture the title half a point clear of Alexei Shirov and Igor Kovalenko.

Final standings: 1 A Morozevich, 5/7; 2-3. A Shirov and I Kovalenko, 4.5; 4. I Khairullin, 3.5; 5-6. D Fridman and V Ivanchuk, 3; 7. S Mamedyarov, 2.5; 8 M Krasenkow, 2.

A Morozevich - D Fridman

Petrovs Memorial Final, (7)

French Defence, Advance variation

1 e4 e6 2 d4 d5 3 Nc3 Nf6 4 e5 Nfd7 5 Nce2 c5 6 c3 Nc6 7 Nf3 Qa5 8 a3 cxd4 9 b4 Qc7 10 cxd4 b5 11 Bd2 Qb6 12 Rb1 Be7 13 Bc3 f6 14 Nf4 fxe5 15 dxe5 Nf8 16 Nd4 Nxd4 17 Bxd4 Qb7 18 Bd3 g6 19 0–0 Bd7 20 Qg4 a5 21 Rfc1 axb4 22 axb4 Ra4 23 Bc5 Bxc5 24 Rxc5 Qb6 25 Rcc1 Qd4 26 Qg5 Rxb4 27 Nxg6! hxg6 28 Bxg6+ Nxg6 29 Qxg6+ Kf8 30 Qf6+ Kg8 31 Qd8+ Kf7 32 Qxd7+ 1–0

Thursday’s puzzle...

This deal comes from the Scottish Womens Teams. West led the ace of spades, looking for an attitude signal from partner. East would encourage with a doubleton, or the queen, but, playing upside down signals, she discouraged with the ten. This card denied possession of the jack, so West knew that if she cashed her second top spade she would establish a trick for declarer – but she feared that if she did not, declarer’s spades might disappear on dummy’s diamonds. After cashing the second spade West switched to a club. East was quite happy at this point, since it appeared that declarer could not reach her hand in time to discard the losing club.

Maida Grant confounded East’s hopes by rising with the ace of clubs and crossing to the ten of diamonds to discard dummy’s second club on the jack of spades. She then played trump, and there was nothing the defenders could do.

West does better to switch to a club at trick two. If declarer finesses, East wins and promptly cashes the second spade trick. So she must rise with the ace and play three rounds of diamonds to discard her two remaining spades. Then she plays a low heart to the queen, which scores. If she now plays a heart to the king East wins and plays her fourth diamond to promote a trick for West’s ten of hearts. The winning play is to duck the second round of hearts in both hands – which looks very silly if East has A10x.

Thursday’s puzzle...

Across

1 Person (coll) (10)

7 Serious loss of cognitive ability (8)

8 Draw (4)

9 Platform (5)

10 Seizes (coll) (7)

12 Established forms of government (13)

15 Unfamiliar (7)

17 Facilitates (5)

20 Criminal band (4)

21 Worried (coll) (8)

22 Couriers (10)

Down

1 Unfit (5)

2 Deepens a river, harbour, etc (7)

3 Ballot (4)

4 Verbal exchange (8)

5 Horrify (5)

6 Old coin (6)

11 Line drawings (8)

13 Bandit (6)

14 List in detail (7)

16 Point of view (5)

18 Push with force (5)

19 Satellite (4)

Wednesday’s solution:

Across: 1 Circular, 5 Crag, 9 Class, 10 Coerced, 11 Christchurch, 13 Ceding, 14 Compel, 17 Arctic Circle, 20 Incline,

21 Tacky, 22 Acid, 23 Beechnut.

Down: 1 Cock, 2 Reached, 3 Unscientific, 4 Alcott, 6 Racer, 7 Godchild, 8 Technocratic, 12 Sciatica, 15 Pelican, 16 Scheme, 18 Cacti, 19 Cyst.

ENGLAND are grappling with how to tweak a winning team after an unexpected one-day international whitewash of Pakistan.

After the world No 1 side’s 3-0 Test series humbling in Dubai, few expected England to return the favour with a 4-0 ODI trouncing of their hosts.

Stuart Broad’s side prepare for three Twenty20 matches, starting today, as the top-ranked side in that format and reigning world champions.

The only certainty in choosing a side is the absence of ODI and Test No 3 Jonathan Trott, who is not picked in Twenty20 squads these days.

The toughest conundrum revolves around whether to accommodate Alastair Cook’s Twenty20 ambitions on the back of the ODI captain’s prolific run of form at the top of the order in the 50-over game.

Cook has already confounded those who insisted he could not transport his Test match skills to ODIs, and has left no one in any doubt about his wish to try his luck at Twenty20 too.

For Broad, in his first match back in charge after three out with injury dating back to last September, it is an awkward choice between one of his fellow England captains and his young county team-mate and Twenty20 incumbent opener Alex Hales.

There were few clues from Broad – or coach Andy Flower – that they were close to making a decision.

“Cooky is keen to play Twenty20 cricket. He’s made that pretty obvious,” said Broad, whose hand is being forced after the opener was added to the squad because of the back injury which ruled Ravi Bopara out of England’s last ODI win.

Bopara, unlike Cook, who took the option of a day’s rest, went through his paces with bat and ball and appeared to move well at practice.

Broad added: “He’s been kept on in the squad because, obviously, we’ve got some injury concerns – and you can’t go into a series with only one spare batsman because, if someone breaks a finger in the nets, you look a bit silly.

“So it was very easy for Cooky to stay on for an extra three or four days to cover the squad, and we can obviously have a look at him in the Twenty20 format.”

The complication, of course, is the challenge – perceived or otherwise – Cook might pose to Broad’s authority, should he become a Twenty20 regular after all.

Unsurprisingly, Broad does not see that as an issue – explaining that he, Cook and Test captain Andrew Strauss dovetail and exchange ideas constantly.

“Straussy, Cooky and I work pretty closely on all formats of the game,” he said. “Just because Straussy doesn’t play in the ODI format doesn’t mean he has no say or opinion on it.

“It’s the same for Cooky in the Twenty20. The three of us work very closely with Andy Flower, and that will continue.”

Broad has referred, confusingly, to a “few injury scares” in the England camp. But it seems the only doubts surround Bopara and Graeme Swann – who also missed Tuesday’s match, with a tight calf – and it is hoped even they will be fit.

Invited to talk up Cook’s potential as a Twenty20 batsman – the left-hander has played just four times, the last in 2009 – Broad stopped short of a ringing endorsement.

“It seems to be whatever you throw on his plate, whatever you challenge him with, he can adapt his game,” he said. “He’s not played a huge amount of Twenty20 cricket for Essex particularly, so it’s obviously hard to gauge whether he’s a good Twenty20 player.

“But you can see from his ODI form that he’s developed scoring areas, shots, and he’s played some fantastic one-day innings.

“A lot of this game is a mental game, we all know that, and he’s obviously a very strong mental character and can adjust his game to any format.”

Broad and Flower need to make another tough call on whether Kevin Pietersen, on the back of successive hundreds in his last two innings after being pushed up to open in ODIs, ought to do likewise in Twenty20. Any two of four batsmen, it seems – Hales and Craig Kieswetter are the men in possession – could open today.

“Obviously KP showed some great form opening the batting in the one-day stuff. Back-to-back hundreds shows that,” said Broad. “He’s a confident batter at the moment, and a confident KP is good for England.”

Despite playing their third match in five days, Earlston High School emerged winners of the Brewin Dolphin under-18 Plate final after producing a polished performance of running rugby to defeat Carrick Academy at Murrayfield last night.

Outstanding for Earlston was centre Connor Spence, whose powerful running caused problems in the Carrick defence. Spence was helped too by the good distribution from stand-off Ben Chalmers. For Carrick, No 8 Blair Jardine gave inspiring leadership that helped his side hit back with two late tries.

Tries by Spence, prop Calum Crookshake and No 8 Michael Rogerson gave Earlston a 21-12 interval lead, Carrick having had touchdowns from prop Robbie McCreath, and Connor Wyllie.

A second try for Spence and then a touchdown from Chalmers put Earlston ahead 33-12 but Carrick hit back with tries by full-back Lewis Clark and scrum-half Grant Ward to emphasise their competitive spirit.

JEDBURGH Grammar confirmed their favourite status by lifting the Brewin Dolphin Scottish Schools under 16 Plate with a comfortable win over Borders rivals Peebles High School at Murrayfield last night.

“We’ve got a great bunch of guys in this group and some exceptionally talented players. This is great for Jed rugby,” said coach, Kevin Barrie.

Jed were helped to victory by a hat-trick of second-half tries by outstanding inside centre Rory Marshall.

Jed Grammar already looked likely winners when centre Cameron Munro finished off a fine run by Marshall. Two further tries in the first half , by prop Ryan Gibson and No 8 Craig Cowan gave Jed a 17-5 lead.

Then came Marshall’s contribution and a second try by Gibson to give Grammar a sumptuous win. For Peebles, wing Kieran Owen and replacement Ross Beveridge claimed their side’s touchdowns.

Peter Houston has hailed the impact of John Rankin after the midfielder played a starring role in Dundee United’s 4-0 victory over Kilmarnock on Tuesday.

Rankin slammed home the third goal of the night after 70 minutes – with Jon Daly, Paul Dixon and Scott Robertson also on target – and Houston has been delighted with the player’s performances since he arrived from Hibernian in the summer.

“I couldn’t believe I got him, he typifies the spirit of the guys like Prince Buaben and Morgaro Gomis who moved elsewhere,” said Houston of Rankin.

“Since I arrived at the club six years ago, the Dundee United midfield has been all about players who get in your face. John is exactly that type of player.

“His attitude is brilliant and he has settled in well, he’s been a great player for us. I wouldn’t be surprised to see him win a lot of the supporters’ awards at the end of the season as he has been consistent throughout.”

Houston was delighted to see his side record their biggest home success of the season and was also impressed at the calibre of the goals.

“We scored some great goals and it was very pleasing to see,” he added. “Those are the type of goals we score, during the match Paul Dixon hit the post and John Rankin forced a few good saves from Cammy Bell.”

Legendary Liverpool defender Tommy Smith last night revealed that he has sold his medals because he was afraid they would be stolen.

The medals, along with other memorabilia from Smith’s 18- year career at the Anfield club, sold for a combined total of £137,272 at Bonhams saleroom in Chester, Cheshire, yesterday.

Speaking during the auction, the 66-year-old former defender explained he had decided to put them on sale after a string of burglaries at other former Liverpool players’ homes.

Smith, who was known during his playing career as the Anfield Iron, said: “They are not doing anything for me, they are in the loft and I am getting fed up of going in the loft and seeing if they were okay.

“I was getting a little bit weary because there were a couple of burglaries in Liverpool on the Speke side of the town and Liverpool players getting their medals and pieces taken away from them.

“In the end I just thought that I am old enough now to recognise that they are worth a few quid.”

After joining Liverpool as a schoolboy in May 1960, Smith went on to make his debut for the club on 8 May, 1963.

Between then and 1978 he put in 638 appearances for the Reds and scored 48 goals.

Renowned for his uncompromising defensive style and hard man image, Liverpool manager Bill Shankly once said of him: “Tommy Smith wasn’t born, he was quarried.”

Smith yesterday said he would particularly miss three of the medals from his glittering career. The first was the FA Cup winners’ medal from the 1965 final against Leeds, which saw Liverpool win 2-1 to achieve their first-ever victory in the world’s oldest club competition.

Punters at the auction certainly appeared to agree with him, as that medal was the biggest earner of the day and sold for an impressive £15,000.

Next on Smith’s list of favourites was the medal he won in 1973 at the UEFA Cup final, which saw him captain Liverpool to a 3-2 win over Germany’s Borussia Moenchengladbach.

Smith also said that he would find it hard being parted from his 1977 European Cup winners’ medal.

The first of Liverpool’s five European Cup triumphs, the 1977 final in Rome saw Liverpool beat Monchengladbach again, with a goal by Smith.

His 1973 UEFA Cup medal was snapped up for £8,750, while the 1977 European Cup memento went for £14,375.

All the figures include buyer’s premium.

Smith’s one full England cap and 20 shirts worn during big games also went under the hammer.

The latest football news from around Britain

McDermott signs new Reading deal

Reading manager Brian McDermott yesterday signed a new three-and-a-half-year contract in a move which looks to have ended Wolverhampton Wanderers’ chances of taking him to Molineux.

The npower Championship club have announced McDermott, who was operating under a 12-month rolling contract, has committed himself to the Madejski Stadium until the summer of 2015.

Wolves had identified McDermott as a potential candidate to replace the sacked Mick McCarthy but those hopes have now been dashed.

Mackay commits to Cardiff until 2016

Cardiff City manager Malky Mackay has signed a three-and-a-half year contract extension with the Carling Cup finalists.

It means the Scot, whose Bluebirds side meet Liverpool at Wembley on Sunday, has committed his future to the club until at least June 2016.

Mackay, whose team are fifth in the npower Championship, said: “It’s with great pride that I have signed a new and long term contract.

“My positive thoughts of Cardiff, as a city, a club and its supporters have only been enhanced further since coming to south Wales last summer.”

Obua announces end to his Uganda career

Hearts utility man David Obua has announced his retirement from international football with immediate effect.

The former Uganda captain has not played for the Cranes since being expelled from the squad before an African Nations Cup qualifier with Kenya last October. That followed a clash with the nation’s Scottish coach, Bobby Williamson, after he substituted the player in a qualifier in June. Obua said: “To the fans, you have been great and to all the coaches I have worked under, thank you for who I am. I have given my all and where it has not been good enough, I’m only human.”

Morton’s Dingwall trip rescheduled

THE Irn-Bru First Division match between league leaders Ross County and Morton that was postponed less than 45 minutes before it was due to start on Tuesday night when Victoria Park became water-logged has been quickly rescheduled by the SFL.

It was announced yesterday that the game will now take place on Tuesday, 13 March with a 7.45pm kick off.

The postponement leaves County with a backlog of fixtures, with Derek Adams’ men having now played three games fewer than second-placed Falkirk and third-placed Dundee.

]]> 1.2133264 Thu, 23 Feb 2012 03:16:39 +0000 http://www.scotsman.com/fenlon_laments_easter_road_team_s_inability_to_stick_to_gameplan_1_2133263

HIBERNIAN manager Pat Fenlon called for his team to “show more balls” in adversity after watching them concede four goals in 28 second half minutes to lose 4-3 at Motherwell. The loss leaves him with only one victory from 12 Scottish Premier League matches in charge of a Leith club who remain joint-bottom of the table with Dunfermline.

Fenlon was left watching a re-run of previous collapses after his keeper Graham Stack clattered Henrik Ojamaa in the 47th minute to gift the home team a penalty. It proved the turning point in an encounter Hibs were then leading through an 18th minute Isaiah Osbourne strike. “We’ve got to have more balls when we concede goals and stick at it, stick to the shape, the game plan,” Fenlon lamented. “The gameplan worked really well in the first half, why go away from that two minutes in to the second half? But that’s what we did, we went away from what we did really well in the first half.

“We killed ourselves tonight. Motherwell played well, but we didn’t clear our lines, didn’t follow the ball on one-twos, and made rash challenges when players should have stayed on their feet.

“When we conceded in the second half we did get a little bit edgy but when you are at the bottom end of the table for so long it tends to be a bit like that. I can’t fault the players for their effort or work-rate but after playing well in the first half, it was about keeping them quiet and giving them nothing to get their teeth into. Then we gave them the incentive of a penalty and got everybody up for it. Then we got back into the game at 2-2 and I thought ‘right, let’s see it out, get a point, it is a good result here’ but we couldn’t do that.”

Motherwell counterpart Staurt McCall admitted he felt sorry for Hibs in them having come away with nothing after putting so much into a “cracking”, “open” match. He hailed hat-trick scorer Michael Higdon, who sandwiched a thunderous overhead kick between two penalty conversions. “Even if he hadn’t scored, I would have said he did everything a centre-forward should. I think the groundsman will still be filling in the hole where he hit the overhead kick. I worried for his back, his neck, his everything when I saw him cranking up for it.”

McCall refused to contemplate overhauling Rangers, who are now only three points above his side, with an assignment at Celtic Park awaiting them this weekend. Instead, he concentrated on the fact that Hearts and St Johnstone are now 12 points behind his Motherwell side. “We’ve lost 4-0 each time we have played at Celtic in my time, I hope with our current form we can give a better account of ourselves. But there is no more difficult game for us,” McCall said.

DUNFERMLINE have written to the Scottish Premier League after the Fife outfit were not paid the £80,000 owed to the club for the recent meeting with Rangers.

The Pars’ grievance is likely to be addressed at an SPL board meeting at Hampden today, along with the claims of any other clubs who are owed money by the ailing Ibrox outfit.

The money due from ticket sales to the Rangers support was scheduled to arrive with the club on Tuesday but, with the Glasgow club in administration, no payment was forthcoming.

Dunfermline have also contacted Rangers’ administrators, Duff and Phelps, regarding the absent payment, but there was no confirmation of when – or if – the money would arrive.

Dunfermline chief executive Bill Hodgins said: “We have spoken to Rangers administrators to ask whether they knew when a payment was likely – they didn’t. I was told a meeting was taking place regarding football debts, but I have heard nothing else since.”

The three main Rangers supporters organisations have joined forces to launch a website where fans can pledge how much money they would be willing to invest in the crisis club.

The Rangers Supporters Association, the Rangers Supporters Assembly and the Rangers Supporters Trust want to know how much cash could be raised if an opportunity for “meaningful fan ownership” occurs in the future.

A statement from the Rangers Supporters Trust read: “Thousands of Rangers fans have been asking what they can do to help save Rangers Football Club. Today the three main supporter organisations are launching www.SaveRangers.com which gives fans the opportunity to pledge their own money to invest and save Rangers Football Club. We invite all Rangers fans to sign up and state how much money they would invest if the opportunity for meaningful fan ownership occurs in future.

“The three groups call on all potential owners to note that we will no longer tolerate the single owner model for Rangers. We also demand transparency in the club’s finances and insist that all money invested in Rangers should stay within the club.

“The administrators’ report is key to this as it will determine the scale of the task ahead. It is difficult to predict how long this process will take so we would ask fans to be patient and be ‘Ready’ when the time comes.

“Let’s all come together as the one Rangers family and show the world that, like our manager, we don’t do walking away.”

President of the Rangers Supporters Assembly Andy Kerr, said: “People are saying, ‘Can we give you money and how would it help?’ We are in the process of trying to clarify that. There’s always a concern if you throw money at something, is it just going to be gobbled up? We have asked whether any could be ringfenced or used for a clear purpose, for example to help pay staff or player wages, or would it just become part of the big pot?”

Expediency of ending sequence of defeats means the creativity fans crave must wait

AT FIRST glance the Scotland team selected to face France does not reveal the new creative midfield that the national coaches and supporters have been desperately seeking, but there are two key reasons behind that and both come back to the simple immediacy of the need to win Sunday’s Test match. The first is the reality of Scotland’s current resources. With a worrying lack of centres with high-quality passing skills, and no John Leslie-type flying in, Andy Robinson and Gregor Townsend are eagerly watching the progress of young centres Matt Scott at Edinburgh and Clermont Auvergne’s Mark Bennett. But Robinson has learned from experience, notably the early debut he handed teenage centre Mathew Tait with England, that timing is crucial to ensuring talent is not ruined through premature exposure to Test intensity, which is one reason why he is not throwing Scott a debut this weekend.

It is debatable when the best time is to expose a young player, and we could argue the point over Scott, but Ruaridh Jackson, Richie Gray, Lee Jones, Dave Denton, Greig Laidlaw and Stuart Hogg have all been brought through from the ‘A’ team to the senior squad, from training involvement to a place in the 22, and their performances would attest to Robinson getting that right so far. Scott has joined the senior squad for training and so is, in essence, two steps behind Hogg.

The head coach and his assistants have also been sensible in allowing Hogg to remain at full-back for his first Test start this weekend. They agree with his coach at Glasgow, Sean Lineen, that the 19-year-old has the potential to excite at outside centre, but he has enjoyed only two runs there at professional level. At full-back he has found his feet and plays with real confidence, and with more time and space than that afforded at centre he will be a crucial figure in attack and defence on Sunday.

Injuries have also deprived Robinson of Max Evans (ankle) and Joe Ansbro (back). There was a hint from Robinson yesterday that he would have restored Evans to the 13 jersey and Sean Lamont to the wing had Evans recovered, while Ansbro could be a contender for the final two championship matches if he features for London Irish in the next two weeks.

Nick De Luca might have been retained at 13 but Robinson has opted instead for Lamont’s physique against 6ft 4in Rougerie. One suspects that De Luca has also paid the price for his rash sin-binning which opened the door to Wales two weeks ago.

The second key point is that as coaches are required to live in the moment while the rest of us can theorise on what may or may not happen were they to gamble with other selections, they are charged with creating a tactical plan around the players at their disposal to win Sunday’s game, and ease the pressure after four successive defeats.

So, looking at the fact that France have the most potent strike-force of any of the tournament’s sides and the best strike-rate over recent championships, having averaged nearly three per game – and three per game against Scotland in that time too (it is 20 years since they failed to touch down against Scotland) – it is understandable why defence is a primary thought.

He has resisted bringing Ruaridh Jackson back into the matchday squad, as the Glasgow fly-half needs more games after a lengthy period out injured, and is sticking with Greig Laidlaw, which chimes with the thoughts of most supporters.

However, as gutsy as he is Laidlaw is just 5ft 9in and so defence is not the strongest part of his game at Test level, as witnessed in Cardiff with one missed tackle letting 6ft 6in Alex Cuthbert in for a try and others contributing to Wales’ momentum. Laidlaw has good running and passing skills, and he is the sharpest rugby brain at Robinson’s disposal, but the idea of introducing youngster Scott alongside in the face of the marauding French back row and physical centres then becomes questionable.

Graeme Morrison’s greatest strength is his defence. He is not the free-running ball-player that Scott could be, and is still working to rediscover his best form, but he is resolute in Test rugby with great experience of nullifying French attacks.

This weekend Scotland will need that against the formidable duo of Wesley Fofana – the Clermont Auvergne youngster only made his debut against Italy but he is a potent mix of skill, pace and strength – and his veteran clubmate Aurelien Rougerie.

“I think that’s a great match-up with Fofana and Rougerie,” said Robinson. “It’s going to be a phenomenal battle in that midfield. Graeme has done well going back to Glasgow, captaining the side and in his performances, after being on the bench for us in the first game of the championship. Matt is still on that progression we have talked about. With the way we’re trying to play the game it’s important that we’re able to keep the ball for many phases. We believe that if we can play multi-phases against France then we can test them, and their fitness.

“Key to that is that the referee [Wayne Barnes] doesn’t allow France to slow the game down, but with Sean Lamont carrying the way he’s carried, and with Richie Gray, Ross Ford, David Denton and Graeme now as well, we will be able to keep the ball for many phases, and then it’s about taking the chances that we create.”

This weekend, creating chances first will be tougher than in the opening two games and this selection does not point to more line-breaks off first-phase. So how do Scotland uncork an attack to threaten the French?

Robinson alluded to his plan when he stated that the route to progress on Sunday lies with his side’s ability to retain possession and test France’s fitness levels. The French coach Philippe Saint-Andre pinpointed that on Tuesday, highlighting how his players were not used to games where the ball was in play for 46 minutes, as when Scotland played Wales. He cited Stade Francais’ match with Toulon in the Top 14 as showing a ball-in-play time of just 26 minutes. Robinson came up with another statistic of time.

“If you watch the Top 14 games the ball is in play around 26 seconds for each phase of play,” he said, “where we’ve been playing for two or three minutes of phases. They have a more stop-start nature to their game, so that’s where we have to try to impose our game, but you can only do that if you keep the ball.

“If we keep the ball and keep going forward then we can ask questions of this team, but if we are turning over ball or dropping passes it will allow France to get into the game.”

With the blend of big ball-carriers through the pack and at centre, and experience in retaining possession, phases will be the key to bringing the back three of Hogg, Rory Lamont and Lee Jones into play, sapping French energy and cracking open holes.

It all starts with an almighty battle in the forwards where Scotland need good set-piece ball, and to uncover real improvement at the breakdown, but with the pack growing with each game and two openside flankers picked in Ross Rennie and John Barclay Scotland are certainly going for it.

]]> 1.2133253 Thu, 23 Feb 2012 03:01:38 +0000 http://www.scotsman.com/golf_desert_double_as_paul_lawrie_and_martin_laird_progress_in_wgc_event_1_2133252

PAUL Lawrie and Martin Laird provided another satisfying day for Scottish golf as they both recorded last-hole wins in the opening round of the WGC-Accenture Match Play Championship in Arizona.

Making his first appearance in the event for nine years, Lawrie produced a polished performance to beat Englishman Justin Rose at Dove Mountain’s Ritz-Carlton Golf Club in Marana.

And he was joined in the last 32 by compatriot Laird after the Arizona-based player produced one of the shots of the day at the last to come out on top against Spaniard Alvaro Quiros in a battle between two of the game’s big-hitters.

After recovering from being one down early on, Lawrie was always in the driving seat as the 43-year-old Aberdonian came out on top against Rose – 22 places above his opponent in the world rankings in 23rd spot – to set up a second-round clash today against Japan’s Ryo Ishikawa.

“I played solid,” said Lawrie, who lost to Tiger Woods, the world No 1 at the time, when he reached the quarter-finals on his first appearance in the event in 2000. “You want to play in these events, but there’s no point playing if you come and get beat.”

The former Open champion, who has been riding on the crest of a wave since chasing home Quiros in the Dubai World Championship and then winning the Qatar Masters for a second time, lost the third to a par before winning three of the next five holes.

He responded to Rose twice reducing the deficit to one hole on the back nine with winning birdies at the 11th and 14th before closing out the match by halving the final three holes with pars.

“It was good fun,” added Lawrie. “I hit a poor shot at the third and took the wrong club at the tenth but, apart from that, I was putting for birdie on every hole. I’m hoping to have a good week so that I can climb up the world rankings – and this is the first step.”

Ishikawa, the 20-year-old world No 56, pulled off a shock as he knocked out FedEx Cup champion Bill Haas. The American, who holed a 40-foot birdie putt in a ply-off to win the Northern Trust Open in Los Angeles on Sunday, bogeyed the last to lose after standing three up with five to go.

Laird, who lost in the first round to Italy’s Edoardo Molinari on his debut in the event 12 months ago, fell behind at the first to a birdie-3 before getting his nose in front for the first time at the 11th only for Quiros to draw level again at the 14th.

Both players missed good birdie chances – the Spaniard saw an effort horse-shoe out at the 15th – before Laird clinched victory when he almost holed a 9-iron with his approach to the last. “I had 160 yards to the pin and, with the ball flying a bit further in the desert, it was the perfect distance and I felt comfortable over it,” said the Scot.

“With four holes to go, I was feeling a bit nervous as it’s almost a case of sudden-death. Every game is a final and I treated it like that. After a good start to the year in Hawaii, I had a bad couple of tournaments recently but my coach came over from South Africa at the weekend and I hit the ball the best I have for a while in practice. I felt excited about getting out there.”

Laird has another all-European clash in the next round against Italian Matteo Manassero, who was never behind as he beat world No 6 Webb Simpson.

There was a feeling of deja vu for Graeme McDowell as the former US Open champion lost to Korean YE Yang for the second year running.

Tiger Woods was one down to Spaniard Gonzalo Fernandez-Castano in a roller-coaster tussle after 11 holes. Fernandez-Castano holed putts from 13 and 22 feet to birdie the first two holes. However, the Spaniard bogeyed the par-four fifth after missing the fairway to the right for his lead to be cut to one up before Woods took control with birdies at the seventh and eighth. One up at the turn, Woods lost the tenth after pulling his drive left into desert scrub and also the par-5 11th, where Fernandez-Castano hit his third shot to three feet.

• The FedExCup play-offs, the PGA Tour’s lucrative four-event season finale, have been extended for a further five years.

PRESSURE and international rugby go hand-in-hand but, as some fear that expectations may grow too great too quickly on the shoulders of 19-year-old Stuart Hogg, the player himself is taking it in his stride.

He spent time yesterday, on the squad’s rest day, with his mentor Jim Renwick at Renwick’s old primary school Drumlanrig in Hawick, as part of a “Year of Sport” celebration in their hometown. Hogg spoke to pupils and told them of his delight at being selected to start for Scotland for the first time at Murrayfield on Sunday. Renwick watched on, impressed at the teenager’s sang-froid.

“It is great to see,” said the old master. “There was a bit of local euphoria last week when he was picked on the bench and there was plenty of us down in Cardiff to see him get on, and I think everybody was impressed by how comfortable he looked.

“The Millennium Stadium was fantastic and the atmosphere was incredible, but he didn’t look nervous or out of place, and that’s been his strength. It’s early days with just one game but a lot of people have been saying it’s been a breath of fresh air seeing someone taking on a man and beating him on the outside, and with a bit of luck he should have scored.

“I have enjoyed being his mentor with the Winning Scotland Foundation and, to be honest, I maybe didn’t expect him to do as well in his first game but Stuart has the basic skills and, when he has that, and pace as well, there’s no reason why he can’t push on.”

With a Borderer’s innate rugby intelligence, and no little humour, Hogg has been quickly taken to the bosom of the Scotland team and his team-mates are hopeful that he can help them find a way to build on the first try in five Tests scored by Greig Laidlaw in Cardiff, after his own score was wrongly disallowed. Intriguingly, Renwick scored a try on his first start for Scotland, against France at Murrayfield in a 20-9 win 40 years ago.

Hogg will not be at centre, where Renwick played, but is likely to be given a licence to pop up in attack and take the ball from half-backs Mike Blair and Laidlaw as often as he does from the centres as Scotland seek to build attacks through phases.

Renwick, who is speaking at a Bill McLaren Foundation dinner in Edinburgh tomorrow night, added: “We need players coming through like Stuart who can offer that threat in attack.

“I’ve seen him play well at centre, on the wing and at stand-off, but I think he likes it at full-back and it would be good for him to settle in there.I think we’ve got a chance on Sunday. We’ve held our own up front and, if we get go-forward ball, we should be confident at Murrayfield. You never know with France but the key word is pressure – we have to keep on their tail and keep working and, if we do that, we can beat them. And, if another Hawick lad can score his first try against them, you could probably say they’ll be dancing in the streets!”

• Supporters are reminded to allow extra time to reach Murrayfield Stadium on Sunday on account of ongoing road and tram works in Edinburgh, while supporters travelling by train from the north, north-east, Tayside and Fife are advised of engineering works being carried out by Network Rail, which will extend journey times.

CELTIC manager Neil Lennon insists his team’s relentless surge clear at the top of the SPL is worthy of the highest praise, regardless of the 10-point deduction imposed on outgoing champions Rangers.

The Ibrox club’s slump into administration effectively ended this season’s title race as a contest but Celtic maintained their own impressive momentum last night with a 2-0 win over bottom-of-the-table Dunfermline at Parkhead, a result which moved them a massive 20 points ahead of their Old Firm rivals.

It was Celtic’s 13th consecutive victory in all competitions, a run last achieved by Martin O’Neill’s side in 2003-04. It was also Celtic’s 16th straight SPL win and their 19th successive domestic victory.

Lennon expressed his pride in his players and his satisfaction that they have heeded his advice to retain their focus in seeking to extend their current sequence of results.

“I just gave them a wee reminder before the game,” said Lennon. “I just said ‘don’t spoil it, don’t let it get away from you’. A run like this maybe only happens once in your career. They could easily have switched off tonight and gone home thinking they had chucked it away.

“I played in Celtic teams which won the league by big margins, but I can’t remember ever being 20 points clear in February. Obviously the 10-point deduction for Rangers has played a part but we would be 10 points clear in any other world and that’s fantastic at this stage of the season in its own right.”

Goals from Charlie Mulgrew and substitute James Forrest in each half secured the three points for Celtic on a night when they were otherwise sloppy in front of goal, most notably the normally prolific front pairing of Gary Hooper and Anthony Stokes.

“I thought we made it hard for ourselves,” reflected Lennon. “But the only criticism I can have of my team tonight is that they were wasteful in front of goal. Apart from that, I’m proud of them and the way they played. They kept the winning run going and have opened up a huge gap in the championship. I couldn’t have asked any more of them. It took a wonder goal from Charlie Mulgrew to get us going and when a team sits in like Dunfermline did tonight, it’s important to have players like him who can hit the ball like that from long range.

“After we went in front, we were always in control but when it’s still just 1-0, the other team has a little bit of encouragement.

“The amount of times we got to the byeline and missed the final pass or missed simple opportunities is incredible. We were so comfortable in possession and were never under any great pressure. There can be a lack of clinical finishing in those circumstances and the two strikers can have an off day now and then. I was still pleased with the all round play of both Gary and Anthony.”

Dunfermline remain bottom of the SPL on goal difference from Hibs, who also have a game in hand, but manager Jim McIntyre continues to believe his team will avoid dropping straight back down into the First Division.

“We didn’t deserve anything from the game tonight, I’m not going to try and say anything different,” said McIntyre.

“But what I see from these players gives me great hope and I’ve got every confidence that we can stay in this league.

“We set up defensively tonight because Celtic are a free flowing side firing on all cylinders at the moment.

“We wanted to try and hit them on the counter attack but we didn’t show enough quality when we did manage to find ourselves in those situations.”

Arbroath last night showed they are in the mood to make a real challenge for the Second Division title by seeing off neighbours Forfar at Gayfield.

Forfar took the lead in 13 minutes when Bradley Coyne converted a cross from Iain Campbell but the hosts responded just seven minutes later when Collin Samuel latched on to a long pass from defender Craig Wedderburn to slot home a leveller.

Then Steven Doris stole the show with a hat-trick. He scored two goals in two minutes just before half-time, firstly capitalising on good work from Samuel and then guiding home a Beau Busch cross from six yards. Substitute Gavin Swankie provided an assist from the left for Doris’s third.

Sacked Huddersfield manager Lee Clark has been shortlisted for the 2012 Football League Award for Outstanding Managerial Achievement.

Clark, who was fired by the npower League One club last week, presided over the longest unbeaten run in the side’s history, seeing them go 43 regular season league matches without a loss to set a new Football League record.

The 39-year-old former Newcastle, Sunderland and Fulham player took over as Huddersfield manager in December 2008 and left with the Terriers fourth in the League One table.

However, Clark’s achievements were not deemed to be enough for Huddersfield chairman Dean Hoyle, who defended his decision to sack him earlier this week by saying he had lost faith in his ability to secure automatic promotion.

Despite this, Clark – who has now been replaced by former Leeds manager Simon Grayson – has been shortlisted alongside Brighton manager Gus Poyet and Crystal Palace’s Dougie Freedman for the award, which is voted for by Football Manager website users.

In a statement, the Football League supported Clark’s inclusion on the shortlist following his success during 2011.

It said: “The Outstanding Managerial Achievement Award recognises exceptional individual achievement over the last calendar year.

“Lee Clark led Huddersfield Town to a run of 43 unbeaten consecutive League games during this period – a new Football League record. For this reason he was voted for by fans, before he left Huddersfield, as a fitting candidate for this award.”

The Football League Awards 2012 will be held in London on 11 March. Clark yesterday insisted speculation linking him with other clubs had nothing to do with his sacking. Although he had to distance himself from rumours linking him with positions at Leicester and Leeds in the past, Clark feels that should not have influenced Hoyle’s decision to sack him.

“I wouldn’t like to think so. Surely it’s a compliment,” he said. “All these clubs that came in for striker Jordan Rhodes. Does that mean because they are linked to our outstanding players, we are going to move them on because we get disappointed by them getting linked?

“It’s the same with the manager. If I was doing a poor job, nobody would have been interested in me.”

Clark expressed his shock at the decision to end his tenure at Huddersfield and has urged Hoyle to carry out his dismissal in the correct manner.

“I would just like it sorted out in the right and proper manner. I worked extremely hard for the football club,” he said.

Daniel Uchechi insists he has plenty more to offer at Aberdeen once fully match-fit.

The Nigerian striker made his debut in the William Hill Scottish Cup replay against Queen of the South, before coming off the bench again in Sunday’s goalless draw against St Johnstone in the Clydesdale Bank Premier League.

He told RedTV: “Personally, there is a challenge for me because I know now what standard and level is expected of me and I am just glad I am getting the minutes to get to the fitness level required.

“My goal is to get back to full fitness and, once I get there, I think the rest will come in terms of getting the ball and doing more with it. When I come on, I’m expected to do as much as I can and to help the team, which I will do whenever I get the chance to play.”

Uchechi signed initially until the end of the season when he arrived at Pittodrie on transfer deadline day, with a further two-year option.

He added: “My aim is to try and get in the team and playing regularly and when I do that, hopefully I will impress. When I am playing I am not thinking about the contract, I just want to get the best out of myself. I know what I can do and I am trying hard to achieve that goal of producing what I am capable of on the football pitch.”

Manchester City captain Vincent Kompany believes he and his team-mates showed that they are in the Europa League to win the competition after they thrashed Porto to reach the last 16.

A first-minute goal from Sergio Aguero set City on their way to seal a 6-1 aggregate triumph, with late strikes from Edin Dzeko, David Silva and David Pizarro inflicting further damage at the Etihad.

Kompany said afterwards: “It was a great victory. I think today showed how serious we are about this competition.

“Four-nil is a great result against the holders of the competition from last season. I didn’t think we were at our best but we did exactly what we needed to.”

Aguero’s early goal effectively killed off the tie, another valuable strike from the Argentinian who joined City last summer.

“This is his first season,” Kompany added. “He is doing so many great things for the team.”

Aguero was played through by Yaya Toure and slipped the ball low past Helton. City put the result beyond doubt by going 4-1 up on aggregate when substitute Dzeko collected a fine ball from Aguero and finished with confidence. It quickly became a double blow for Porto as Rolando, who had been booked early in the game, was shown a second yellow card as City celebrated – perhaps for protesting too much for offside.

City wrapped up the game in style as Silva added a third after 84 minutes after substitutes Pizarro and Dzeko combined to provide a tap-in. Another followed two minutes later as Pizarro again linked up with Dzeko and broke into the box to slam past Helton for his first goal for the club.

Pointing out the threat City possess, and the abundance of scoring opportunities they had tonight, Kompany added: “It just shows we always create chances. The strikers have a lot of fun up front. I don’t think our team has ever been stronger.”

City manager Roberto Mancini added: “We played a good game. Maybe 4-0 was too much but it was important we went into the second stage. Porto had lots of possession and it’s not easy to play against them.”

The Italian was also pleased for Pizarro, adding: “I know him very well, he was with me at Inter. He came on for 20 minutes, played very well and scored a goal. His experience can be very important for us.”

On their future prospects in the competition, Mancini added: “We want to get to the final.It will be difficult but for this reason I will play the best team, although we can make some changes every game.”

Sir Alex Ferguson would love to set up a classic European final with Manchester City.

The Manchester United manager freely accepts he did not expect to be in the Europa League this season. However, he feels exactly the same sentiment about United’s title rivals and current Premier League leaders City, who also finished third in their Champions League group.

City are already through to the last 16 after a 6-1 aggregate thrashing of holders Porto last night.

The competition has been derided by many but, like City, rather than turn his nose up at it, Ferguson has decided to embrace it. And while he is aware that there are plenty of hidden obstacles in the way of a final in Bucharest on 9 May, the Old Trafford manager nows if both Manchester clubs make it, the occasion would be one to savour.

“Ourselves and City didn’t expect to be where we are today,” he said. “Both of us will be trying to win it and it would be a great final that.”

Although their passage into the last 16 is virtually secure already thanks to the 2-0 first-leg defeat of Ajax in Amsterdam last week, confirmation at Old Trafford tonight would merely set up another stiff test. The examination would come in the form of either a draining trip to Moscow to face Lokomotiv, or a nasty one to Bilbao and a meeting with an Athletic outfit that have reached the Spanish Cup final already this term and are chasing a top-four finish in La Liga.

“I expect them to win the tie,” Ferguson said of Atletico’s encounter with Lokomotiv tonight, when they will start 2-1 down. “That would be a difficult task for us. You have to recognise there are a lot of teams at a very good standard.”

Ajax must be disposed of first, of course, and Tom Cleverley looks certain to be handed a central role after making his comeback from major foot and ankle problems in the opening game.

The 22-year-old has a lot to live up to, having been praised so highly by Ferguson in his absence. However, Cleverley is trying to take everything in his stride, including a possible England call-up from Stuart Pearce tomorrow. The youngster, who was twice picked for senior squads by Fabio Capello but is yet to make his full international debut, said: “I don’t really listen to what people are saying.

“I just go out and play my football. If I can find some good form from now until the end of the season, I would be more than happy to be involved in the European Championships.

“I know Stuart Pearce quite well from my time with the under-21s. He is a good manager. Hopefully I will be involved.”

Ferguson is more effusive about Cleverley’s talents. The United manager felt much of his side’s brilliant early season form was due to the injection of pace from Cleverley.

He was happy to praise him then and, even though the pair were sat alongside each other yesterday afternoon, Ferguson did not hold back. “Tom is a very clever footballer,” said the Scot. “He has a quick brain in terms of his appreciation of passing.

“An hour was fantastic for him last week after his long spell out. Hopefully he will play a full game tomorrow. It is good to have him back.”

Ferguson also confirmed striker Michael Owen was back in training after a recent thigh problem but would not be considered for another two weeks.

Wayne Rooney will not be involved against Ajax either. The England striker, who was confined to his bed over the weekend, has been ruled out of the last-32 encounter with the Dutch side after picking up a throat infection.

WHILE many people have said football should just do away with the pre-match handshake ritual in the wake of the recent Suarez-Evra and Ferdinand-Terry sagas, Franz Beckenbauer reckons there should actually be more handshaking at games.

The German, speaking as part of a 2014 World Cup task force, said yesterday that players should be made to shake hands in the centre-circle at full-time.

“You could convene at the halfway line and then go off the pitch together,” explained the former West Germany captain and coach. “That’s what we used to do when I was at school.”

JOSE Mourinho is the subject of a complaint by a gay rights group after he allegedly used a Spanish homophobic insult about match officials.

The Real Madrid manager has been accused by the European Gay and Lesbian Sports Federation (EGLSF) of referring to officials as “maricones”, which translates as “faggots” in English, before the Champions League tie against CSKA Moscow.

Louise Englefield, co-president of the EGLSF, called on Uefa to take action over the comments, which were shown on the Spanish television channel Quatro.

She said: “Homophobia is unacceptable from anyone in football, much less from one of the game’s most senior figures. We are deeply disappointed that Mr Mourinho is casually using homophobic terms of abuse in his workplace.

“It is especially sad that these comments have been made during the International Football v Homophobia campaign week.

“As long-standing partners of the FARE network, we call on Uefa to take action and impose appropriate sanctions.”

Television footage shows Mourinho using the word while inspecting the pitch at the Luzhniki stadium on Monday.

Falkirk manager Steven Pressley is set to find out today if he is to face a ban for his half-time rant at referee Euan Norris during the League Cup semi-final last month.

A judicial panel will hear the case at Hampden this afternoon, as Pressley tries to avoid a verdict which could – in a worst-case scenario – see him banned from the touchline for the rest of the season. The Bairns manager marched onto the pitch at the interval to confront Norris after Celtic were given a penalty in the first period, with Darren Dods adjudged to have impeded Thomas Rogne. Pressley was subsequently sent to the stand for the second half, where he watched his young side succumb to a 3-1 defeat.

The SFA charged the 38-year-old with breaching rule 68, which states that a manager cannot “criticise the performance of any or all match officials in such a way as to indicate bias or incompetence”. Pressley is also accused of breaking rule 203, with the accusation of “adopting aggressive behaviour towards a match official”.

If found guilty of the first charge, the punishment is likely to be between a three and five-game ban, while the second charge could lead to a touchline exile of anything from two matches to 16. Punishments for separate offences can no longer be served simultaneously.

Manchester City manager Roberto Mancini will accept Carlos Tevez’s apology and the Argentine could be back in action in “two or three weeks”.

Tevez said sorry on Tuesday night for his conduct in recent months having returned to Manchester from his unauthorised three-month break in South America last week.

The 28-year-old striker had been in dispute with the club since he refused to warm up during last September’s infamous Champions League defeat at Bayern Munich. Mancini did not respond to the apology until after last night’s Europa League game against Porto but the path would now seem clear for Tevez to rejoin the first-team squad and he could play once match-fit.

Mancini said: “He has apologised, I do not have any problem. Tomorrow I will meet him before training and after he can start to work with us.

“I think he maybe needs two or three weeks to find good form and after, if he is okay, he will play, like the other players.”

Tevez was given his own fitness programme when he reported back to the club’s Carrington training base last Tuesday.

He has not yet met Mancini as the Italian flew to Portugal last Wednesday for the first leg against Porto and then gave the squad time off over an inactive weekend.

Mancini said: “I think Carlos knows the team very well. The team in the last six or seven months have played very well and is top of the Premier League.

“We know Carlos very well, he is a top striker. If he is good, I think he can do a good job in the next two months.”

Swiss side Basel pulled off another huge Champions League upset with a 1-0 victory over Bayern Munich last night to move within sight of the quarter-finals.

But the German giants will be confident of overturning the deficit in the second leg in Bavaria on Tuesday 13 March.

Substitute Valentin Stocker snatched the winner for the Swiss champions in the 86th minute with a shot which went through Bayern keeper Manuel Neuer’s legs.

The Munich side had survived two early let-offs in the first leg of the last 16 tie as Aleksandar Dragovic and Alexander Frei both struck the woodwork for Basel, whose attacking style accounted for Manchester United in the group phase. The result was another blow for Bayern, who have suffered a loss of form in the Bundesliga and dropped four points behind leaders Borussia Dortmund.

Andre Ayew rose to head home a corner deep into injury time as Marseille beat Internazionale 1-0 in the first leg of their Champions League last-16 clash.

Inter, the Champions League winners under Jose Mourinho in 2010, had grown in confidence as the second half wore on, but struggled to carve out clear-cut chances against a well-organized Marseille team which lacked invention and a cutting edge up front.

Claudio Ranieri’s team looked to have done enough to secure a draw, but Ayew timed his run perfectly to head the ball past goalkeeper Julio Cesar’s outstretched hand to condemn the Italian side to their sixth defeat in seven games.

Diego Forlan had Inter’s best opportunity early in the match when he forced the French side’s goalkeeper Steve Mandanda to tip the ball over the crossbar from close range.

Stoke manager Tony Pulis defended his squad selection and insisted he has not given up hope of reaching the last 16 of the Europa League ahead of tonight’s second-leg clash with Valencia at the Mestalla.

Last week’s 1-0 defeat in the first match at the Britannia Stadium left the Potters with a mountain to climb against a team steeped in European tradition.

And the estimated 4,000 fans who have travelled to Spain will surely feel their hopes of victory have not been improved by Pulis’ decision to leave the likes of Ryan Shawcross, Matthew Etherington, Jon Walters and Peter Crouch at home.

The Welshman blamed a combination of injury and fatigue rather than a preference for Sunday’s Barclays Premier League clash against Swansea, where his side will look to arrest a run of four straight league defeats.

Pulis said: “We’ve left a few behind but the team I’ll pick tomorrow is what I think is a very strong team. Every player that will start will be a full international, there are three captains of their countries and we’ll be giving it a go. We think Valencia are the best team we’ve played in Europe so far, no disrespect to [Dynamo] Kiev or Besiktas but we believe they’re a level above them. We know it’s going to be a difficult game against a side full of quality but we’ll do our best and that’s what we always do.”

Pulis expects the atmosphere in the 55,000-capacity Mestalla to be raucous, and sent a message to the Stoke fans to concentrate on supporting their team and enjoying the experience.

“The ground is a fantastic old ground,” added the Stoke manager. “The atmosphere will be brilliant. We just don’t want there to be any trouble, just enjoy the game and enjoy the occasion.”

THREE weeks after making his final appearance for Scotland in the Calcutta Cup match, Dan Parks will return to Murrayfield on Sunday – to present the match ball before kick-off.

Supporters have the chance to acclaim Parks – not always the darling of the home crowd – and Nathan Hines, the 77-times-capped lock and back-row forward.

Parks, the 67-times capped stand-off, proved Scotland’s matchwinner on many occasions in his eight year international career, during which he became Scotland’s record drop-goal holder with some 17 strikes. He retired from international rugby after he was left out of the Scotland squad for the match against Wales a week past Sunday.

]]> 1.2133235 Thu, 23 Feb 2012 02:35:33 +0000 http://www.scotsman.com/saracens_deal_for_farrell_1_2133234

England international Owen Farrell has signed a contract extension with Aviva Premiership champions Saracens.

Farrell broke into the Saracens team last season and, playing fly-half, he guided the club to their first league title with victory over Leicester in the Premiership final.

The 20-year-old made an assured England debut at inside centre in the opening round of the RBS Six Nations against Scotland. Farrell’s perfect kicking display helped England to a 19-15 victory over Italy and he is set to be named in the side to play Wales this weekend, when interim coach Stuart Lancaster confirms the line-up this morning.

Saracens director of rugby Mark McCall said: “Owen obviously has a wonderfully exciting future in the game, and we are delighted he has pledged his future to Saracens.”

Farrell is one of 18 Saracens players to have signed contract extensions, with the club planning to announce the rest over the next three days.

]]> 1.2133234 Thu, 23 Feb 2012 02:34:22 +0000 http://www.scotsman.com/six_nations_tobias_botes_gets_first_start_as_italy_s_no_10_1_2133233

ITALY coach Jacques Brunel has made four changes to face Ireland in Saturday’s RBS Six Nations match at the Aviva Stadium.

Tobias Botes will play at fly-half, thus earning his first Azzurri start, with Kristopher Burton relegated to the bench alongside Gonzalo Canale, whose place at number 12 is taken by Alberto Sgarbi.

Benetton Treviso loosehead prop Michele Rizzo will make his Six Nations debut in Dublin, replacing veteran Andrea Lo Cicero, who drops to the bench.

Lorenzo Cittadini will make his first appearance in this year’s tournament replacing injured Leicester prop Martin Castrogiovanni.

Castrogiovanni will miss the rest of the tournament after sustaining a fractured rib in the defeat by England.

Aironi prop Fabio Staibano has also been included in Brunel’s 24-man squad for the first time since the summer of 2009.

Italy began their Six Nations campaign with a 30-12 loss at France and fell 19-15 to England in Rome in the last round.

South Africa clinched their Twenty20 international series against New Zealand after Marchant de Lange claimed two wickets in an eventful last over to seal a thrilling three-run victory in the third and final match in Auckland yesterday.

Having restricted South Africa to a modest 165 for seven at Eden Park, New Zealand cruised to 65 without loss inside six overs but a middle order collapse eventually left them needing seven runs off the last over with five wickets in hand.

Playing in his second Twenty20 international, 21-year-old de Lang conceded a single off the first delivery of the over but removed Nathan McCullum and Doug Bracewell for ducks with the third and fifth deliveries. Needing six off the last delivery, New Zealand were handed a break as de Lange delivered a front-foot no-ball, which James Franklin scored a single off.

A four off the last ball would have sealed victory for the hosts but Tim Southee could not even make contact with the free-hit delivery which de Lang fired past his off-stump. For New Zealand, Jesse Ryder top scored with 52 but Rob Nicol was the top performer, claiming two wickets, taking as many catches and assisting in a crucial run out before returning to hit a brisk 33.

Earlier, put into bat, South Africa found it tough against the Black Caps’ disciplined bowlers and relied on cameos from JP Duminy (38), Hashim Amla (33) and skipper AB de Villiers (29).

THE MCC believe the rest of the cricket world should follow the England and Wales Cricket Board’s lead and call short-term amnesties to encourage the reporting of corruption.

The recommendation is one of 11 included in a report by the MCC’s world cricket committee for consideration by the International Cricket Council. The committee also recommend life bans for the most serious corruption offences, the use of “mystery shoppers” where players or officials are suspected of foul play and the use of lie detector tests on individuals under suspicion. The ECB announced an amnesty programme last month in a bid to bring information about corruption in the game to light while offering a level of protection to those coming forward. The window for reporting information runs until 30 April. The amnesty was announced after former Essex player Mervyn Westfield admitted a corruption charge. Westfield has since been sentenced to four months in prison and has been issued with an interim suspension order by the ECB pending a disciplinary hearing.

Steve Waugh, who led the committee’s anti-corruption working party, said: “I have for some time advocated the idea of amnesties for players or officials so am particularly pleased to see the ECB’s stance on this issue.

“I now hope that the ICC take on board what our committee are saying.”

Kevin O’Brien top-scored for Ireland as they cruised to a six-wicket win over Kenya in their first Twenty20 international at Mombasa.

Kenya batted first and were bowled out for 107 from their 20 overs with Tanmay Mishra the highest scorer with 34.

George Dockrell was the pick of the Ireland bowlers with figures of three for 15 from his four overs. O’Brien scored 30 not out in reply and was supported by Ed Joyce, who scored 88 in Monday’s second one-day international win over Kenya. Ireland raced past their target to reach 109 for four from just 15.3 overs.

It means they have taken a 1-0 lead in the three-match series with the second match to be played at the same ground today.

The latest news from the world of golf

Asian Tour: James Byrne off to steady start at Dehli event

Banchory’s James Byrne bounced back from his nightmare finish at the Phillipine Open, where he ended up second last, to make a steady start in the Sail-SBI Open at Dehli Golf Club.

The Walker Cup player carded a level-par 72, signing for four birdies and four bogeys to sit in a share of 45th place, seven shots behind leader Anirban Lahiri from India.

Dubai-based Ross Bain, the only other Scot in the field, is tied for 64th after his 73, which included three dropped shots, following back-to-back 6s on the inward half.

EPD Tour: Paul O’Hara slips away in Mogador Open

Scottish duo Paul O’Hara and David Law suffered disappointing closing rounds in the Mogador Open in Morocco.

Tied for ninth at the start of the day, Motherwell man O’Hara slipped to 29th after he signed off with a ten-over-par 82 that included six double-bogey 6s.

Aberdonian Law, who had done well to make the cut after bouncing back from an opening 84 with a second-round 70, had a mixed bag of two double-bogeys, five bogeys and two birdies in a 78 to finish 39th.

American Anthony O’Neal claimed the title with rounds of 70, 76 and 73 for a three-over-par total in Essaouira.

Hi5 Tour: Scott Henderson makes his move in Spain

Former European Tour Rookie of the Year Scott Henderson and fellow Scot Greig Hutcheon both shot sub-par rounds on day two of the Hacienda Riquelme Open in Spain.

Henderson bagged five birdies and an eagle in his 68 for a three-under total of 141 to sit eighth, five shots behind the joint-leaders – England’s Eddie Pepperell and Jens Dantorp of Sweden – heading into the final round.

Hutcheon carded a six-birdie 67 to jump into a tie for 11th on 142 as the two north-east men were the only Scottish players to make the cut.

North-East Alliance: Belly putter helps Ian Bratton to third win

Newburgh club pro Ian Bratton shot a three-under-par 68 to chalk up his third win of the North-east Golfers’ Alliance season at Murcar Links today.

But whereas his early-season successes were achieved with a conventional putter, this was his first since he switched to a belly-putter.

Bratton headed a field of 85 in spring-like temperatures but a bit of a breeze by a single shot from Inchmarlo Golf Centre staff pro Ryan Fitzpatrick, who had an eagle-2 at the 17th, where he holed a 9-iron.

]]> 1.2133228 Thu, 23 Feb 2012 02:25:03 +0000 http://www.scotsman.com/matthew_faces_tough_task_to_stop_formidable_tseng_1_2133227

WORLD No 1 Yani Tseng will seek to win one of the few big tournaments she hasn’t yet conquered in her young career when she tees off today in the $1.4million HSBC Women’s Champions.

The 23-year-old from Taiwan dominated women’s golf last year and is off to a strong start in 2012 with a victory at last week’s LPGA Thailand.

But a win in Singapore has eluded her since the tournament began in 2008 and she faces a field of 63 golfers featuring 18 of the world’s top 20 when play starts at the par-72 Tanah Merah Country Club.

“Every year I have come closer and closer to winning this tournament,” said Tseng. “All the best players are playing here this week and the golf course is really challenging, so I can’t wait to go out there.”

Tseng solidified her hold on the No 1 spot with seven LPGA Tour triumphs last year, including major victories in the LPGA Championship and Women’s British Open at Carnoustie. She had 12 worldwide victories in 2011 and the five-times major champion has 33 career worldwide professional wins.

“Winning five majors at the age of 23 is very impressive,” said world No 3 Suzann Pettersen. “She makes us even work harder.”

Australia’s Karrie Webb, who won last year’s tournament, compared Tseng to some of the greatest players in women’s golf history. “I’ve played my career with Annika (Sorenstam), Se Ri Pak and Lorena (Ochoa) and now Yani,” said Webb, who has 38 career LPGA Tour victories. “I’ve played with the best.”

Twelve months ago, Catriona Matthew was the best European in Singapore, the North Berwick player finishing eighth on three-under to secure a cheque for just over $36,000.

Matthew, who won the Lorena Ochoa Invitational in Mexico towards the end of last year, will be hoping to figure prominently again, having closed with a 68 to secure a top-25 finish behind Tseng in Thailand.

Michelle Wie, who is also in the field, said after she graduates from Stanford University next month she should have more time to focus on golf. “I’m on track to graduate this March, so it’s going to be interesting,” Wie said. “It’s going to be the first time in my golfing career that I won’t have school, or schoolwork to do.”

Jo-Wilfried Tsonga advanced to the quarter-finals of the Open 13 in Marseille by beating Nicolas Mahut 6-3, 6-2 yesterday.

The top-seeded Frenchman did not face any break points, winning 36 of his 41 service points. Tsonga took a 3-0 lead in the first set and broke Mahut twice in the second.

He will next play Edouard Roger-Vasselin, who defeated Flavio Cipolla of Italy 6-3, 6-0. Roger-Vasselin won the last eight games and broke Cipolla three times in each set.

In the first-round matches completed yesterday, Alexandr Dolgopolov rallied to beat Lukas Rosol of the Czech Republic 2-6, 7-6 (1), 6-3. The sixth-seeded Ukrainian broke for a 3-1 lead in the final set and will now face Michael Llodra of France, who defeated Swiss qualifier Marco Chiudinelli 7-6 (2), 7-6 (3). Llodra, a 2010 champion, fired down 12 aces.

On the women’s circuit, meanwhile, US Open champion Sam Stosur advanced to the third round of the Dubai Tennis Championships by defeating Lucie Safarova of the Czech Republic 6-1, 6-7 (5), 6-1. The fourth-seeded Australian broke twice in both the first and third sets, and saved all nine break points she faced in the match.

Caroline Wozniacki also advanced after the third-seeded Danish player opened her title defence by beating Romania’s Simona Halep 6-2, 6-3.

Wozniacki, who was ranked No 1 in the world until Victoria Azarenka unseated her last month by winning the Australian Open in Melbourne, will next face Ana Ivanovic after the Serbian player yesterday defeated Maria Kirilenko of Russia, 6-2, 7-6 (4).

Earlier in the day, top-ranked Azarenka pulled out of the Dubai tournament because of a left ankle injury. The Australian Open champion, who has won 17 straight matches so far this season, says she will rest for two or three days. “Obviously it’s very disappointing, but, I mean, it’s life. It’s sport. I just have to take care of it and that’s it,” Azarenka said. “I take a couple of days off just to see and hopefully it will settle down. ... But it has to be taken care of right away.”

RED-HOT Racing Post Arkle favourite Sprinter Sacre, pictured, will have no more than 14 rivals after Cheltenham published the latest scratching stage for the Festival novice races.

Last year’s Champion Hurdle runner-up Peddlers Cross, who was dismissed by Sprinter Sacre at Kempton over Christmas, heads the opposition along with Al Ferof, Cue Card, Menorah and Bog Warrior. Sanctuaire, who had not been committed for the race by trainer Paul Nicholls, was the lowest-priced horse of the 12 to be withdrawn.

Cherished racehorse and stallion Royal Academy died yesterday at the age of 25.

One of the last links to both English Triple Crown hero Nijinsky and his late trainer Vincent O’Brien, Royal Academy is best remembered for winning the 1990 Breeders’ Cup Mile. He was ridden that day by Lester Piggott, who had only just been released from a stint in prison.

Royal Academy also won the July Cup and died of old age at Coolmore, Australia, where he spent the last part of his life. Coolmore’s Tom Magnier said: “Royal Academy has been a tremendous servant to Coolmore... He has been wonderfully prolific, siring more than 160 Stakes winners and his progeny earnings are the equivalent of more than US$120,000,000.”

THIS week’s decision by the British Horseracing Authority to make changes to the whip rules has drawn an unimpressed reaction from the RSPCA.

Paul Bittar, the new BHA chief executive, proposed and saw approved a batch of amendments at a board meeting, including the length of penalties officials can apply to riders for overusing the whip.

Rather than it being an automatic breach when a rider uses the whip eight times on the Flat and nine times over jumps, the figures become the trigger point for the stewards to review the ride in question, with the new rules set to begin in early March. Stewards will be given more discretion over deciding how the rider has used the whip, and the severity of the penalty itself.

The revised penalty structure, which will take effect today, means one strike over the limit will still warrant a two-day ban, but two more will now incur a four-day suspension, rather than five days as at present and repeat offences will be treated on their own merits, rather than multiplying as they do now.

David Muir the RSPCA’s equine consultant said: “It is absolutely staggering that the BHA has taken such a backward step, less than six months after the whip rules were introduced to react to public concern regarding the use of the whip in racing.

“The BHA has not seen fit to discuss the need for such changes with any other of the review stakeholders, including the RSPCA and other animal welfare groups, yet they have seen it necessary to change the rules and penalty structure.

“This action flies in the face of scientific research which shows that excessive use of the whip actually increases the likelihood of falls, some of which produce injury or fatality, apparently supported by the short-term statistics available. This is a black day for the racing industry but the real losers are the horses.”

Jockeys, though, were in favour of the move and Ruby Walsh said: “It’s good progress anyway. It’s like anything, you’ll try it and you see how it works. I think they’ve gone the right way and I think it takes the bigger person to go and change rules.”

THE idea of Scotland playing a leading role in the space sector may sound to some like the stuff of science fiction, but it’s far from it.

The space sector contributes £5.6 billion to the UK economy, as well as supporting 68,000 high-value jobs. Not only that, it has soared above the recent economic headwinds, growing an average of 9 per cent each year since 1999.

Scotland-based companies are playing a key role in that success story. Clyde Space is leading the design and manufacture of the UKube-1 satellite – the UK’s first satellite commissioned by the UK Space Agency. Other examples include Star-Dundee, which sells its data-handling test products to almost every international space agency, while Selex Galileo is tapping into the market for European satellites.

Commercial success also goes hand in hand with globally recognised academic excellence, with the recent launch of the Space Glasgow research cluster by the UK Science Minister David Willetts. Scotland is also involved with key instruments for the James Webb Space Telescope, which will replace Hubble.

But don’t think that space research is something that can only be applied out in the great beyond. In fact, on 6 March Glasgow will host the second Scottish Space Symposium, exploring the theme of “Bringing space down to earth”. Scottish Enterprise is supporting the event in partnership with University of Strathclyde to showcase the benefits of using space-based information and technologies.

For example, use of space-based data will allow Network Rail to improve safety by monitoring landslides remotely via satellite rather than sending engineers to remote locations. Edinburgh-based Ecometrica is also using satellite data to monitor CO2 levels, putting them at the vanguard of carbon trading and tariffs which the EU is investigating placing on businesses as a means of tackling climate change.

So the Scottish Space Symposium will explore how businesses can benefit from terrestrial applications in such key fields as communications and transport. Science fact, as opposed to science fiction.

• Ross White is part of Scottish Enterprise’s aerospace, marine and defence team

THIS week Alex Salmond made a speech in Scotland. That came as quite a surprise. It was the kind of speech I suspect he rather enjoys giving.

commentary on issues, affairs or matters of state. This one was to the Scottish Council Development and Industry’s gathering about the first 40 years of oil and gas exploration in the North Sea and the potential for another 40.

As Scotland is now in the independence campaign, I had thought the senior audience would be treated to a polemic setting out how a Nationalist administration would tax the oil and gas industry. After all, Mr Salmond says he would cut corporation tax in an independent Scotland. He also says that public-sector pensions would be higher and social security benefit payments more generous than in other parts of the United Kingdom. So someone or some industry is going to have to pay for all this.

Salmond has also set out a plan for a Norwegian-style oil fund, although his speech this week was remarkably lacking in any detail on this. Perhaps that is understandable. To establish an oil fund and to, therefore, detail what it could do would depend on knowing how much would be in it and what rate of tax would be applied.

Mr Salmond never mentioned any of that, but lots of oil company people did over coffee.

They also mentioned their concerns over asking any such question of Mr Salmond’s Nationalists for fear of being branded “anti-Scottish” or worse.

Salmond set out some broad taxation principles that should be followed, not by his government, but by the UK one. A tax system that helps the recovery of oil and gas in the North Sea. Certainty for the industry on tax relief for decommissioning the 900 or so oil rigs to be brought ashore by 2020. And finally, the central approach, as Salmond saw it, to taxation. That there should be consultation with the industry prior to any changes in the tax regime. I agree. Philippe Guys, managing director of the French oil giant Total, explained that the North Sea industry has had three big fiscal changes in nine years. That is more than in some South American or African states. So there is a higher degree of political risk here in Scotland compared to elsewhere in the globe as a result.

But these principles would be all the better if the Nationalists practise what they preach.

The Nationalists introduced new business taxes in Scotland without any consultation whatsoever. So when asked if independence would mean lower oil taxes, the oil executive who manages a successful Scottish headquartered company said all politicians say so before they have to set the rate. Indeed.

It is, therefore, easy to see why no oil business is expecting any detail on a Nationalist tax regime until after the independence referendum. So, until then, Mr Salmond, far from being a player, is just a commentator. And that is exactly what he wants. But to assume such a role underestimates an industry which knows how to play politicians and governments.

]]> 1.2133220 Thu, 23 Feb 2012 02:01:57 +0000 http://www.scotsman.com/analysis_secularists_face_uphill_struggle_to_make_the_ultra_orthodox_serve_1_2133217

Amid the continued stand-offs with Iran and the Palestinians, Israel’s other struggle – that between secular and religious Jews – is heating up as secularists and their backers take a more muscular approach to defining the character of Israeli society.

On Tuesday, responding to petitions by secularists angry at government-sponsored mass draft-dodging by the ultra-orthodox, Israel’s Supreme Court annulled a law that allowed men to engage in religious studies instead of performing mandatory military service. A day earlier, Tel Aviv city council approved an unprecedented resolution calling for the launching of public transport on Saturdays, the Jewish Sabbath.

Both moves can be seen as indications that members of the country’s secular majority are becoming less willing to tolerate having their lifestyles determined by the ultra-orthodox minority, most of whose members are not part of the labour force and do not perform the three years’ military service required of other Israelis.

But religious parties are a main prop to prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s coalition, and every government in recent Israeli history has been wary of alienating them.

Draft waivers for the ultra-orthodox go back nearly to the founding of Israel, when rabbis asked prime minister David Ben-Gurion to exempt religious seminary students from the army so that they could devote themselves to study of sacred texts and become successors to the European luminaries of Jewish learning who were killed during the Nazi Holocaust. He agreed to 400 exemptions.

But in 1977, then prime minister Menachem Begin of the Likud party, under pressure from religious coalition partners, agreed that anyone who studies in a seminary can be exempt. Today the number of ultra-orthodox exempt from service is about 62,000.

The supreme court ruling on Tuesday said that under the now annulled Tal Law, which had been in force for ten years, the government failed to enforce requirements for exemptions, so that the number of ultra-orthodox who did not serve actually increased.

Stoking the secularist sentiment, defence minister Ehud Barak is now proposing that, under new legislation to be drafted to replace the Tal Law, the number of exemptions should be brought down to 2,000. But that result is seen as highly unlikely because of the opposition of Shas, a hardline religious party that gives the government vital support.

The ultra-orthodox have largely shunned the army because they view it as incompatible with maintaining a lifestyle in accordance with strict Jewish law and they fear it would lead their youth to abandon their community.

Analysts say that while the number of ultra-orthodox drafted or performing national service can now be expected to rise, it is questionable whether Mr Netanyahu will be willing to abandon Likud’s long-standing alliance with ultra-orthodox parties, a step required to definitively end the exemptions.

Yossi Verter, a columnist for Haaretz daily, said: “Will the new bills bring tens of thousands of ultra-orthodox to the army induction centres beginning in August? It is highly doubtful.”

THE owners of a five-star hotel that closed suddenly have called in another hotel chain to help out brides let down just weeks before their weddings.

Online travel site TripAdvisor has been inundated with complaints after the Cromlix House Hotel in Dunblane shut without any explanation.

However, it has emerged that owner Ian Grier has drafted in Halo Hotels, which runs two hotels in Bridge of Allan, to try to rearrange weddings booked for the next few months.

Halo managing director Anne Peters said she was doing everything she could to help couples.

A MUSIC teacher faces losing her job after she drove on a motorway when she was more than four times the legal drink drive limit with two girls in the back of the car.

Linsey Aitken, 44, a classically trained cellist and folk musician, “took to a bottle of whisky” at home because she was stressed about her job, Stirling Sheriff Court heard yesterday.

The peripatetic Stirling Council primary school teacher then went for a drive, and was seen swerving between the lanes and straddling the centre lines of the M9. The court heard that motorists became so concerned they contacted police, who later stopped Aitken and found two girls, aged 13 and 15, in the back of her car.

Barbara Hughes, prosecuting, told the court Aitken’s car was first spotted swerving on the M9 between the Keir roundabout and the Craigforth interchange at about 6pm on 13 January.

The depute fiscal said: “Witnesses were of the opinion that the driver was drunk or unwell. A passenger in the car phoned the police.”

After Aitken left the motorway, police caught up with her when she stopped just off Stirling’s Dumbarton Road.

Aitken, of Drip Bridge, Stirling, admitted that on 13 January on the M9 she drove with 156 microgrammes of alcohol in 100 millilitres of breath. The legal limit is 35mcg.

The prosecution accepted a not guilty plea that Aitken exposed the young teenage passengers to danger by carrying them as passengers in a motor vehicle when she was under the influence of alcohol. Graham Walker, representing Aitken, said she had been suffering from a depressive illness at the time of the offence.

He acknowledged, however, that the court would have “very serious concerns”, given that she had been driving with two teenage passengers at the time. He added that Aitken had been dealing with an issue relating to employment and was “particularly stressed” that day.

The court heard that initially Aitken had not been intending to drive at all on the day, but “in the haze of alcohol” and the state of mind she was in, she later decided to do so. Mr Walker added: “To say she deeply regrets that is an understatement.”

The court was also told that Aitken was “presently signed off” from her employment due to stress.

Sheriff William Gilchrist deferred sentence for reports to be prepared, and the matter was then adjourned until next month, with Aitken disqualified from driving in the interim.

The General Teaching Council for Scotland said it would automatically be notified of any criminal offence involving a registered teacher and disciplinary investigation would then follow.

Teachers on the register can be struck off if it is proved that they have put pupils in danger.

A Stirling Council spokeswoman declined to comment on the case.

SCOTTISH researchers are to lead a major UK study into one of the world’s most devastating but least understood killer infections.

Invasive fungal infections are responsible for an estimated 1.5 million deaths a year. It was revealed yesterday that experts at Aberdeen University have been awarded £5.1 million by the Wellcome Trust to lead a major UK collaborative study to tackle the problem from the “laboratory bench to hospital bedside”.Professor Neil Gow, chair in microbiology at the university and director of the research consortium, said that, despite the death toll, fungal infections were poorly understood and had much less public awareness than diseases caused by bacteria, viruses and parasites.

Professor Ian Diamond, principal and vice-chancellor of Aberdeen University, said the award would place the institution at the heart of major research and training.

SCOTLAND’S main train operator is seeking a new supplier to deliver 48 million litres of diesel a year – by road.

The £31 million ScotRail contract, involving some 1,500 tanker movements, comes despite ministers urging further reductions in the environmental impact of railways.

It also contrasts starkly with Prestwick – Scotland’s fourth largest airport – which gets all its 70m litres of fuel a year by rail from the Grangemouth refinery.

Environmental campaigners called on the Scottish Government to stipulate that ScotRail switches its supply route as part of the next franchise from 2014.

ScotRail and other train operators in Scotland have received diesel by road since British Rail abandoned rail deliveries before privatisation in the 1990s.

However, ministers have said rail is one of the greener forms of travel and “there are still many ways that rail can reduce its environmental impact”.

They also aim to make this a “key environmental theme” of the new ScotRail franchise – which is their biggest contract – and they intend to electrify Scotland’s main inter-city routes, powered by renewable energy

ScotRail has some 150 diesel trains – more than half its fleet – which operate almost all routes outside Strathclyde.

The new one-year diesel supply contract, from April, comprises 23 million litres being delivered to three train depots in Glasgow, 10.6m to Haymarket in Edinburgh, 8.4m to Inverness and 6.5m to Perth.

Scottish Green MSP Patrick Harvie said: “The renewal of this contract to deliver fuel for Scotland’s trains by road underlines what we have long argued – we need to get serious about shifting freight from road to rail and need to speed up the timescales for electrifying the rail network.

“The SNP government’s 2014 consultation, widely accepted as a shambles, asks how Scotland’s rail service can reduce its environmental impact. This fuel contract would seem a golden opportunity that ministers should have acted upon before now.”

Paul Tetlaw, for sustainable transport campaigners Transform Scotland, said: “If the national rail operator is getting its fuel by road, road freight is too cheap and it should be encouraged to switch to rail.”

David Spaven, Scottish representative of the Rail Freight Group, said: “Virtually all oil refineries are directly rail-connected so for the longer hauls it’s hard to imagine anything more suited to rail transport.

“For many years there has been a weekly oil train from Grangemouth to Lairg which passes right by the ScotRail fuelling point at Inverness.”

A spokesman for Aberdeen-based FirstGroup, which runs ScotRail, said: “As a result of suppliers’ arguments on grounds of costs and flexibility, British Rail removed the facilities for deliveries within rail locations under a rationalisation programme. ScotRail inherited that position.

“The latest tender for fuel on the open market is designed to get the best price possible.”

A Scottish Government’s Transport Scotland agency spokeswoman said:‬ “ScotRail supplies and contracts, and environmental considerations regarding these, are a matter for ScotRail under the current franchise contract.

“We recognise this could potentially be improved upon and are considering the environmental criteria for the future franchise.”‬

FOOD scientists are to discuss the future of what goes on our plates at a festival in Edinburgh.

Science on a Plate – whose media partner is The Scotsman – aims to create dialogue between research scientists, the food industry and general public on issues relating to food, health and science including food security, sustainability and supply.

Scotland’s super-foods and seasonal vegetables are expected to come under the spotlight during interactive cooking demonstrations involving both chefs and scientists at the Royal Botanic Garden Edinburgh, while experts Miles Irving and John Wright will host a foraging walk and breakfast.

Rural affairs secretary Richard Lochhead said: “Scotland has a well deserved reputation for its first-class natural larder and exceptional research base.

“Science on a Plate offers people the chance to engage with science through food, creating a unique opportunity to learn about both subjects in an exciting atmosphere.”

Neil Forbes, chef director of Edinburgh’s Café St Honoré and the festival’s ambassador, said: “I’m delighted to be involved.”

A SENIOR police officer has warned that staff may bear the brunt of a potential £22 million annual VAT bill through the creation of the new Scottish national force.

Chief Constable Kevin Smith, president of the Association of Chief Police Officers in Scotland, urged politicians to ensure the levy is waived by the UK government when the eight regional forces are merged.

Under current rules, police forces are treated the same as local authorities and are exempt from the charge under the VAT Act 1994.

However, the Scottish Government drew up its worst-case scenario that the HM Revenue & Customs might insist on the payment when the Police and Fire Reform Bill is passed at Holyrood.

Mr Smith said the money equates to about 800 staff. He said: “No one in Scotland wants this. This will be bad for policing and bad for Scotland.”

THE day before her death, Marie Colvin sent a message to a war reporters’ Facebook group, urging colleagues to break her newspaper’s online paywall and repost her remarkable report from inside Homs.

“I don’t often do this but it is sickening what is happening here,” she wrote. “I cannot understand how the world can stand by … Watched a baby die today. Shrapnel, doctors could do nothing. His little tummy just heaved and heaved until he stopped. Feeling helpless. As well as cold! Will keep trying to get out the information.”

Spending time with Marie was a reminder of what journalism is about. Her choice to live so much of her life in the world’s worst conflict zones was born from the belief that what she did mattered; that bearing witness to some of history’s darkest moments and giving a voice to its victims could curtail the perpetrators of such brutality and spur the rest of the world into action.

Marie and her photographer Paul Conroy, who was injured beside her in Homs, spent three months living in the Libyan city of Misrata witnessing the heavy, indiscriminate rocket fire from Colonel Muammar al-Gaddafi’s forces, and the ensuing battle with rebel fighters.

While the rest of us would venture to the front line for a brief look before a quick retreat, Marie would disappear into the haze of battle in a rebel commander’s vehicle. Sometimes she would be gone for days, embedding herself with the rebel troops.

Her tremendous courage was complemented by a great humility and spontaneous wit. She treated those she worked with and wrote about as equals, and refused to source friendship only from the press pack in the area. In Misrata, her Libyan fixer and translator became one of her closest companions.

They sat together in his car one sunny afternoon, the doors open to let in the breeze, giggling about the day before, when they had accidentally driven so far through the front lines that Nato bombs aimed at Gaddafi loyalist targets were falling behind them.

Her work was inspirational in its bravery, thoroughness, compassion and honesty. She cared, and it showed.

• Ruth Sherlock covered the Libyan revolution for The Scotsman

Rich people are more likely than the poor to receive NHS treatment for heart disease, according to the public spending watchdog.

An estimated 182,000 people in Scotland have coronary heart disease (CHD), about 3.3 per cent of the population.

In some more deprived areas, about 25 per cent of men over 75 have CHD, but, according to Audit Scotland, people in deprived communities “are not always getting the same level of treatment as the rest of the population”.

Treatments such as angioplasty, which widens the arteries, or heart bypass surgery are more than 20 per cent fewer than expected in deprived areas. The least deprived areas saw over 60 per cent more than expected.

Audit Scotland said this “implies a lower level of access to these treatments for people in more deprived areas”.

The report states: “The Scottish Government and NHS boards should monitor rates of the main cardiology procedures, compare these by board and by different groups, particularly in more deprived areas and with other countries, and review whether variation is warranted, or if action needs to be taken to ensure patients are receiving the most appropriate treatment.”

It adds that they must also “continue to improve the evidence base on the impact and cost-effectiveness of measures to help prevent heart disease, and use this evidence to identify priorities for spending to help improve outcomes and address inequalities, particularly in deprived areas”.

The report found limited evidence of the effectiveness of the government’s Better Heart Disease and Stroke Care Action Plan which set a national target for cardiovascular health checks.

Rates of heart disease in Scotland remain the highest in western Europe, despite new cases falling by nearly a third in the past ten years. Death rates have reduced by about 40 per cent.

Audit Scotland found NHS cardiology spending had risen from £80 million in 2002-03 to almost £146m last year, a rise of 50 per cent when inflation is factored in.

The report found that the NHS could save at least £4m a year by making cardiology services more efficient.

The Royal College of Nursing has also highlighted pressure on funding for specialist heart nurses, with NHS Orkney no longer employing one and other boards, including NHS Grampian and Borders, facing uncertainty about future funding.

Director Theresa Fyffe said: “Cutting back on specialist heart-failure nurses is counterproductive, not just for patients but for NHS finances as well.

“Indeed, it is symptomatic of the wider approach that health boards are taking to saving money, [such as] cutting posts to reduce their wage bills and therefore storing up potential problems for the future when there won’t be enough nurses to deliver high-quality patient care.”

Labour health spokeswoman Jackie Baillie said: “If people from poorer communities cannot get treatment that would save their lives, ministers should hang their heads in shame.”

A Scottish Government spokeswoman said: “The report shows that people affected by heart disease are getting access to better treatments faster than ever, while service improvements have helped NHS Scotland cut the number of deaths from heart disease by almost 40 per cent over the last ten years.

“We are determined to do all we can to drive further improvements. Encouraging people to eat healthier options, become more physically active, stop smoking and drink less alcohol is key to achieving this, which is why we are taking forward a number of initiatives to create a healthier Scotland.”

SCOTTISH prosecutors have asked the new Libyan government for access to information and documents relating to the Lockerbie bombing.

The Lord Advocate Frank Mulholland QC and Chief Constable Pat Shearer of Dumfries and Galloway Constabulary broke the news to the UK families of victims of the 1988 atrocity, which claimed 270 lives, in London yesterday.

The investigation is being carried out jointly by Scottish and UK investigators. US law enforcement officials were also at the meeting.

A statement from the Crown Office said: “The purpose of the meeting was to update the families on progress in the ongoing criminal investigation.

“The families were advised that a formal request has been drawn up and sent to the new Libyan government requesting access to Libya for police officers and prosecutors to examine information and documents relating to lines of inquiry.”

The Crown Office said a further meeting with other UK families is scheduled to take place in the near future in Glasgow.

Abdelbaset Ali Mohmed al-Megrahi is the only person to have been convicted of the bombing of Pan Am Flight 103 over Lockerbie.

He was freed on compassionate grounds by the Scottish Government in August 2009 after doctors said he had three months to live.

OIL tycoon Sir Ian Wood has made an 11th-hour appeal to the public to back his controversial plans for the transformation of Aberdeen’s Union Terrace Gardens.

Scotland’s second richest man insisted his dream of placing a futuristic City Garden at the heart of a revitalised city centre was not a “vanity project”.

He said: “I greatly regret that this has become such a divisive issue. This is not about big business trying to control Aberdeen’s future. The business supporters genuinely care about Aberdeen’s future. They know that something needs to happen in the city centre to help them attract the talent they need to grow.”

Sir Ian, head of energy giant Wood Group, has pledged £50m to kick-start the £140m plans to make the “Granite Web” design by New York architects Diller, Scofidio and Renfro a reality.

THE SNP had outstanding loans of more than £500,000 at the end of 2011, newly released figures have revealed.

Electoral Commission figures for the final three months of 2011 showed that the Nationalists owed £509,503 to supporters who had lent the party cash for campaigning.

The UK Labour Party had nearly £10 million in outstanding loans. The UK Conservatives’ debt stood at almost £2.7m, and the Liberal Democrats’ debt was just under £400,000.

CHERIE Blair has lodged a claim over alleged hacking of her telephone, her lawyers have revealed.

The wife of former prime minister Tony Blair is understood to be taking action against News Group Newspapers.

A statement released by Graham Atkins, of Atkins Thomson, said: “I can confirm that we have issued a claim on behalf of Cherie Blair in relation to the unlawful interception of her voicemails.”

Tony Blair’s former communications director Alastair Campbell told the Leveson Inquiry into press standards in November that he believed a story the Daily Mirror published about Cherie Blair’s pregnancy in 1999 may have come from hacking.

He admitted he had “no evidence” that journalists intercepted either her voicemails or those of her lifestyle consultant Carole Caplin, but queried the source of articles about Mrs Blair.

“During various periods of the time that we were in government, we were very, very concerned about how many stories about Cherie and Carole Caplin were getting out to different parts of the media,” he said.

“I had no idea how they were getting out.”

]]> 1.2133177 Thu, 23 Feb 2012 00:46:58 +0000 http://www.scotsman.com/sketch_why_salmond_is_a_bone_of_contention_for_young_tom_1_2133176

THE thoughts of Mrs Bone, a matron of a quiet middle England town, may not be familiar to Scottish voters, but for some time now they have been influencing government policy on a range of issues.

David Cameron has on several occasions complained that he seems to be spending too much time “trying to satisfy” the woman who happens to be the wife of the right-wing back-bench Tory MP for Wellingborough, Peter Bone.

And yesterday it was the turn of the referendum and public spending in Scotland for Mr Bone to relay the thoughts of his spouse to MPs in the Commons chamber.

Liberal Democrat Scottish Secretary Michael Moore, fielding Scottish questions yesterday, was not only to be treated to the musings of Mrs Bone, but also young Thomas Bone, their 11-year-old son.

Mr Bone, part of a group of Tory back-benchers who would not mind Scotland and its Labour MPs departing and no longer taking what they believe is an English subsidy, asked: “Last week at the breakfast table, Mrs Bone and I were talking about public expenditure in Scotland and the First Minister, as one does, when suddenly our 11-year-old son Thomas asks ‘Is Alex Salmond a goodie or a baddie?’ What do you think?”

Being a true Borders gentleman, Mr Moore seemed to not be as willing to “give satisfaction” to Mrs Bone or answer her son as Mr Cameron.He answered: “I think as ever the goings-on at the Bone household breakfast table are of national interest and we look forward to further updates in due course. I think when your son gets a chance to meet with the First Minister, he will be delighted by the conversation he has. But one point he should know: he wants to get England separate from Scotland, we don’t.”

However, the family Bone was not to be thwarted. And the Tory MP known not to like his Lib Dem coalition colleagues much was happily – for him – listed for Prime Minister’s Questions as well.

This time it seems that in a strange echo of the previous question, that the Bone family had been also much irked by the way the radical Muslim cleric Abu Qatada, was allowed to stay in the UK and blamed Lib Dem Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg.

He asked: “Last week at the breakfast table, Mrs Bone was saying how she knew the Prime Minister wanted to deport the terrorist Abu Qatada straight away.

But she knew it was being blocked by the Deputy Prime Minister and the Liberal Democrats. Suddenly, our 11-year-old son Thomas asked, ‘Is Nick Clegg a goodie or a baddie?’ What do you think?”

THE SNP has insisted that the 44,341 under-18s already on the electoral register in Scotland would be given the vote in the independence referendum.

Official figures released yesterday revealed the total number of 16- and 17-year-olds who are on the electoral roll. The 44,341 teenagers are classified as “attainers”.

Ordinarily, they register early so that they can vote as soon as they turn 18. The SNP argue that previous Scottish elections to health boards and on crofting legislation, which had seen 16- and 17-year-olds vote, created a precedent for increasing the franchise for the referendum.

They claim the number of 16- 17-year-olds eligible to vote would increase dramatically before a referendum, boosting the numbers to 120,000.

Yesterday’s figures revealed a rise in citizens moving to Scotland from the rest of the EU had resulted in the electorate increasing. According to the National Records of Scotland, the number of EU citizens registered to vote in local government and Scottish Parliament elections is up 17 per cent since 2010.

The number rose by 9,945 to 67,949, of a total electorate of 4.01 million, although this is likely to underestimate the total number of EU citizens living in Scotland, since many may not be registered voters.

WE should hardly be surprised that the UK government should be keen for the independence referendum to be held “sooner rather than later”.

For all the nuances of the opinion polls, one simple fact is clear. No recent poll of Scottish opinion based on an adequately sized sample has found a majority in favour of independence.

That is even true of those polls that have posed Mr Salmond’s referendum question, even though it seems to produce a slightly higher level of support for leaving the UK than other questions included on recent surveys.

So giving Mr Salmond more time simply gives him more opportunity to turn things around. Better to bag victory when success seems more or less guaranteed.

Moreover, Scotland is an unexpected and unwanted problem for the coalition.

When they came to power David Cameron and Nick Clegg knew they had to deal with a broken economy.

What they did not anticipate was that they would have the potential break-up of Britain hanging over them for most of their term too.

The economy’s problems cannot be solved quickly. But all that is required to preserve the integrity of the United Kingdom is a decisive “No” vote in a referendum.

However, on Mr Salmond’s proposed timetable the threat of possible break-up will continue to hang like a dark cloud over the coalition until little more than half a year before its term of office ends.

Nevertheless, Westminster might want to consider whether it would still be better to wait.

At the moment Mr Salmond and his party remain popular, and thus more likely to have some sway over voters in the referendum vote.

The longer the ballot is delayed, the more likely it is that by then the SNP bubble will have already been burst.

• John Curtice is professor of politics, Strathclyde University.

David Cameron has come under pressure to give as much time to dealing with “English grievances” over devolution as he has on the independence referendum.

The intervention by Labour MP Frank Field was met with support from the Tory back-benches as he challenged the Prime Minister on perceived constitutional inequalities caused by devolution. It came as Mr Cameron accused the SNP of running away from a referendum as he was also pressed by Nationalist Western Isles MP Angus MacNeil on what he meant last week on more powers for Scotland.

And earlier in Scottish questions there was pressure on the government to make sure that if Scotland breaks away from the Union that it takes a Barnett Formula share of debt, which is bigger than its population share. The point raised by Tory Vale of Glamorgan MP Alun Cairns was dismissed by Scottish Secretary Michael Moore who said he “did not envisage Scotland voting for independence”.

Mr Field, MP for Birkenhead, asked Mr Cameron at Prime Minister’s Questions: “Will you devote as much time to facing up to the grievances the English feel from the proposals of devolution as you will be giving to considering new proposals of devolution for Scotland?”

But Mr Cameron said: “I want to appeal to my fellow Englishmen to say, ‘This has been a great partnership for Scotland and a great partnership for England too’.”

Western Isles MP Mr MacNeil then told Mr Cameron: “Last week in Edinburgh you said there were more powers on the table for Scotland, but couldn’t name any. Can you name one power you have on your mind in this latest U-turn?”

But Mr Cameron hit back: “I didn’t think the Scottish National Party favoured devolution; I thought you favoured separation. Yet as soon as you’re offered a referendum that gives you the chance to put that in front of the Scottish people, you start running away.”

]]> 1.2133173 Thu, 23 Feb 2012 00:41:30 +0000 http://www.scotsman.com/scottish_independence_let_scotland_vote_on_independence_in_19_months_says_michael_moore_1_2133172

SCOTTISH Secretary Michael Moore has opened up a new front in the referendum power struggle between Westminster and Holyrood by demanding it is held in September next year.

In evidence to the Scottish affairs select committee, Mr Moore dismissed claims by the SNP Scottish Government that the poll cannot be held before autumn 2014 and said it could and should be held 12 months earlier.

The move came the week after Mr Moore and Prime Minister David Cameron held talks with First Minister Alex Salmond over the terms of the referendum, with the UK government looking to temporarily devolve powers to Holyrood to allow it to set it up.

Briefings had suggested that Mr Salmond’s preferred date of autumn 2014 poll would be accepted.

However, yesterday Mr Moore made it clear that the UK government would push for an earlier date with both sides believing that, the timing will be important in the final outcome.

Pro-UK parties have always preferred 2013 because it is a year without another election and follows on from the 2012 Olympics. The SNP preferred a later referendum to follow on from the Glasgow Commonwealth Games and the 700th anniversary of Bannockburn in 2014.

The dispute over the date appears to have opened up as a result of the Scottish Government, which is holding its own referendum consultation, refusing to give ground on having a single question and allowing the Electoral Commission to set the rules of the referendum.

Speaking to the Scottish affairs select committee yesterday Mr Moore said it is feasible to bring forward the vote from the autumn 2014 date proposed by Mr Salmond.

He said: “I believe you can actually deliver this referendum by September 2013 which, give or take a few weeks, is close to the First Minister’s declaration that it would be in the second half of the Scottish Parliament.”

The bill, he said, could be introduced by autumn this year followed by Royal Assent in March next year. The regulated period for the campaign would then begin in June with the question going to the people in September, he said.

Mr Moore claimed all legal and procedural requirements would be met and criticised the SNP’s “go-slow” approach.

He added: “It seems they’re kicking the can down the road on this one for no good reason.”

His view has been backed by business organisations such as the Confederation of British Industry Scotland, which has raised serious concerns over the economic impact of the uncertainty delay will cause.

Labour’s constitutional spokeswoman in Holyrood, Patricia Ferguson, pointed out the referendum on devolution was organised much more quickly.

She said: “Donald Dewar held a referendum within 134 days of being elected. On Alex Salmond’s timescale, it will take him seven and a half years. The longer he delays, the more it fuels suspicion. There is nothing in the SNP manifesto which prevents them hold a referendum now, and the slower they go the more it looks like they fear the verdict of the Scottish people, who overwhelmingly back devolution not separation.”

But last night SNP ministers were dismissive of Mr Moore’s attempt to bring the vote forward. Parliamentary business and government strategy secretary Bruce Crawford said: “This is a silly distraction by the Scotland Office. The more they try to dictate the terms of the referendum from Westminster, the more unpopular the anti-independence parties will become, and the more popular independence will be.

“We have published a detailed timetable to hold the referendum in autumn 2014, and that is when it shall be held. This fully reflects our election commitment for which we received an unanswerable mandate – while the Lib Dems lost every single seat in mainland Scotland.”

He went on: “Autumn 2014 is the correct timetable for the referendum, which reflects the proper procedures of the Scottish Parliament, and the need for the fullest possible public debate on Scotland’s most important decision for 300 years.

“The Scotland Office timetable is flawed and full of holes. We have already secured thousands of responses to our consultation, and these will be analysed in the summer.

“This autumn and winter there needs to be a minimum of ten weeks to test the ballot paper – as required by the Electoral Commission.”

He also pointed out that the Electoral Commission criticised the timetable for the AV referendum on electoral reform last year, which caused problems for those organising the poll and for the voters themselves.

Referendum expert Alan Trench from Devolution Matters claimed that the vote date would not affect the outcome.

He added: “What needs to be done now is for there to be a clear timetable rather than bringing the date forward and enough time for the SNP to spell out details of what an independent Scotland would be like on a range of issues, but also for the pro-UK parties to say what the extra powers promised last week by David Cameron would be. ”

MPs on the Scottish affairs committee, which is boycotted by the SNP, were also critical of UK government tactics in dealing with the referendum.

Labour chairman Ian Davidson said that it was “an error” by the Prime Minister to suggest last week that there would be more powers devolved if Scots did vote “No” to separation without identifying them.

He said it would “allow the SNP to throw dust in people’s eyes” and avoid questions on details of what would happen to an independent Scotland.

ALEX Salmond’s post-independence plan to put Scotland’s oil billions into a massive investment fund for the future would require either a cut in funding for schools, hospitals and roads, or an increase in the country’s debt, a major independent think-tank has declared.

A report by Glasgow University’s Centre of Public Policy and the Regions (CPPR) argues that, while there may be “moral” grounds for putting aside Scotland’s North Sea windfall for future generations, politicians would not have any spare oil money after independence to do so.

Instead, the CPPR says that after independence, a new Scottish Government would need the revenues to pay the bills and keep public services going.

If they did decide to salt some of it away, the choice would be to cut existing spending, raise taxes, or to borrow more cash from the markets, the CPPR concludes.

The report comes a week after Mr Salmond declared that he hoped to put aside £1 billion a year of oil taxes for 20 years after independence, saying that – with interest – Scotland would eventually build up a £30bn cushion.

His plan follows the example of oil-rich Norway, which has built up a huge multi-billion kroner pension fund on the back of its own oil reserves.

In his speech to the London School of Economics, Mr Salmond attacked the UK Treasury for having spent most of its North Sea oil windfall, saying the UK was now one of the few oil-producing nations which had not built up a fund on the back of its natural resources.

SNP ministers argue that there will be a surplus after independence because the new system of government will trigger higher growth in Scotland, giving them more tax revenues to play with.

However, the report by the CPPR says there is “little prospect of any fiscal surplus becoming available” to help set up such a fund. It notes that all the tax revenues from the North Sea will be needed to “help close the budget deficit that emerges from maintaining existing levels of public services”. Therefore, it would be difficult in the period after independence to find the money to set up a new fund “and certainly not in the size being suggested”, the report concludes.

Report author Jo Armstrong said: “With current oil prices and more importantly, with declining North Sea production, such a level of investment will put current service levels at risk or will require adding to Scotland’s debt levels.”

Mr Salmond acknowledged in his LSE lecture that an oil fund could only be set up once “fiscal conditions allowed”.

The CPPR report notes Scotland’s most recent Government Expenditure and Revenues for Scotland (Gers) report says that – including North Sea oil – the country ran a deficit of £8.9bn, or £13.9bn, when capital spending is included.

Unless there is a sudden spike in the oil price or a decrease in Scottish Government costs, the CPPR says it is hard to see from where an oil fund would get its money. Even if there is a surplus, the think-tank says backers need to prove that saving it up would be a better option that spending it in other ways – such as by reducing the national debt, cutting taxes or building better infrastructure.

Scotland’s leading oil economist, Professor Alex Kemp of Aberdeen University’s Business School, said: “Over the next ten years there should be oil revenues of between £5bn and £10bn a year. What they could do with it [if the country was independent] would depend on the public spending they have.”

On the question of an oil fund, finance secretary John Swinney has argued that once independence beds in, a budget surplus would emerge, thus allowing SNP ministers to build up a new kitty.

Scottish ministers would be able to use “the levers of power of independence to create a more dynamic economy”, Mr Swinney said.

He added: “A more dynamic economy will generate higher growth and as a consequence higher revenues.”

A Scottish Government spokesman last night said that compared with the UK, which is also in deficit, Scotland remained in a stronger position.

He said: “The Gers figures show that year-on-year, Scotland is in a stronger financial position than the UK as a whole.

“Taking all spending in Scotland into account and all of our revenues, Scotland has run a current budget surplus in four of the five years to 2009-10 – while the UK hasn’t run a current budget surplus since 2001-2.”

However, Scottish Labour’s finance spokesman, Ken Macintosh, said: “Alex Salmond needs to spell out what further cuts he is proposing, because you can’t spend the same money twice.

“Basing our entire economy on a single commodity that is volatile in price and finite in supply is a risk that we avoid by working in partnership with the other countries of the UK.”

MSPs have backed Edinburgh’s bid to become home to the UK Green Investment Bank.

Speaking in a Holyrood debate yesterday, energy minister Fergus Ewing called on MSPs to unite in their support for the bid, saying Edinburgh’s Green Investment Bank Group had made a “compelling argument”.

He said: “As we await the decision by the UK government, I am asking that this parliament once again shows unanimity in recognising the strength of Edinburgh’s bid, and the considerable benefits to the UK by having the Green Investment Bank located in Edinburgh.”

He added: “I am sure that we are all convinced of the merits of the bid.”

Mr Ewing said: “Edinburgh is the only location in the UK which brings together both finance and the clean-energy industry in a single location. It has an unrivalled concentration of industry skills and experience.”

Edinburgh is one of 32 UK towns and cities to put themselves forward to host the headquarters of the proposed new institution.

The UK government is setting up what it describes as “the world’s first investment bank solely dedicated to greening the economy”.

A decision on where the bank will be based is expected by the end of this month.

Edinburgh Woollen Mill (EWM) yesterday emerged as the saviour of 6,000 jobs after acquiring part of the failed Peacocks discount fashion chain.

EWM has bought 338 stores out of administration but 3,100 staff lost their jobs as 224 stores were closed with immediate effect.

In Scotland, 15 stores will remain open while 30 have closed with an estimated loss of around 400 jobs. The price EWM paid for the stores was undisclosed.

EWM was a surprise bidder for Peacocks, a private equity-backed company which collapsed into administration under its £700m debt mountain in the biggest retail failure since Woolworths, placing 9,000 jobs in jeopardy.

Administrator KPMG had renewed talks with EWM in recent days after a potential £25m deal fell through with Pakistani textile billionaire Alshair Fiyaz, who was thought to be the sole bidder for the chain just last week.

Philip Day, the chairman and chief executive of EWM, held out hope that further jobs could be saved despite the immediate closure of the 224 stores.

He said: “We do hope that there will be scope to save more jobs and stores from those being forced to close now due to performance issues and overhead pressures.

“As you can imagine, there will be a considerable amount of work to undertake over the next few months to stabilise the situation, turn this business around, get the supply chain moving again and excite the customers with great products.”

The acquisition includes 338 stores, 57 concessions, three distribution centres and the head office operations in Cardiff. Around 250 head office staff were previously made redundant when the company entered administration on 19 January.

John Gorle, national officer for the shopworkers’ union Usdaw welcomed the deal but said the loss of 3,000 jobs was “one of the worst redundancy situations of recent years with Scotland being particularly hard hit”.

“Usdaw will be seeking a meeting with Edinburgh Woollen Mill as soon as possible to discuss its plans for the business,” he added.

The Langholm-based EWM has been leading an aggressive expansion, picking up troubled retail assets such as home wares chain Ponden Mill and linen shop Roseby’s, which it merged into Ponden Home in 2010.

In June it bought failed retailer Jane Norman, but later missed out on a deal to buy troubled outdoor wear retailer Blacks.

Barclays, the last of Peacocks’ original trio of lenders, and Santander backed EWM with funding for the acquisition.

Day intends to continue trading the stores under the Peacocks brand.

The administrator said that the retailer had failed due to the “decline in consumer spending due to the tough economic conditions...a surplus of stores and unsustainable capital structure”.

In 2007, Peacocks’ chief executive, Richard Kirk, took the company private in a highly leveraged £405m deal with Goldman Sachs, the investment bank, and Och-Ziff and Perry Capital, two hedge funds.

It is thought that two of its lenders, the Royal Bank of Scotland and Lloyds Banking Group, put the firm into administration after talks to restructure £240m of debt failed.

Last year EWM made a £12.5m pre-tax profit on sales of £196m.

Day staged a £67.5m management buy-out of EWM in 2002 and the group is now owned by him and his family.

COMMENT, PAGE 35

A LANDSLIDE blackspot was closed yesterday for the second time in two months after up to 50 tonnes of debris slid down the hillside towards the road.

Engineers will today assess whether it is safe to re-open the Rest and Be Thankful pass on the A83 – the main route between Glasgow and Kintyre.

Yesterday’s landslip did not reach the road, but it triggered a precautionary closure of the pass for the first time.

The alert was triggered by new “tiltmeters” installed on the slope above the road which detect signs of movement.

Drivers are again being forced to take a 26-mile detour via Tyndrum and Dalmally to the north.

The incident, which followed heavy rain, is the fourth in five years – and comes five days after transport minister Keith Brown visited the site.

The road was closed for two days in December following a 120-tonne landslide and then kept shut overnight for a further 11 days in case of further rockfalls during darkness.

The Scottish Government’s Transport Scotland agency, which is responsible for the trunk road, said yesterday more than 2in of rain had fallen in the area in the past 24 hours.

A spokesman said: “[Road maintenance firm] TranServ engineers have reported a slip has occurred further up the hillside and that approximately 30 to 50 tonnes of material has slipped, but not reached the road.

“The road will remain closed overnight with a further inspection taking place at first light tomorrow to determine if the road can re-open.

“Our absolute priority is the safety of motorists. We appreciate their patience, as this matter is dealt with as a matter of urgency.”

Two weeks ago, Mr Brown announced £1 million for additional measures to mitigate future landslips. A study is under way into long-term options, such as upgrading a forest track to become a diversionary route.

A RANGERS supporters leader was caught drink-driving on the way home from the club’s first game since plunging into administration.

Andy Kerr, president of the Rangers Supporters Assembly, was stopped on the M74 after attending his team’s 1-0 defeat to Kilmarnock on Saturday.

He was breathalysed by police and found to be more than three times the legal limit.

Kerr, 54, spent two nights in police custody before admitting the offence at Lanark Sheriff Court on Monday. He had been travelling back to his home in Harrogate, North Yorkshire, when he was stopped on the motorway near Coalburn in Lanarkshire.

Kerr, a first offender, was banned from driving for two years and fined £670.

EMBATTLED Rangers boss Craig Whyte used borrowed money from the sale of season tickets as proof of funds to convince Sir David Murray to sell him the club, former chairman Alastair Johnston has claimed.

Mr Johnston also said he believed Mr Whyte could face criminal investigation based on evidence he had submitted to the Insolvency Service, Strathclyde Police and the Crown Office.

Mr Whyte finally admitted on Tuesday that he used Ticketus money to “complete the takeover” of the club in May last year, having previously denied it.

The money was paid by Ticketus in return for the rights to sell three years’ worth of season tickets at the club.

However, Mr Johnston says he has seen evidence – and shared it with the authorities – that indicates the money was also used when Mr Whyte offered “proof of funds” to former owner Sir David.

Mr Whyte’s ability to continue to fund the club through his own wealth was a prerequisite to the deal going through.

The claims will cast new doubt over whether Mr Whyte had the necessary money to become owner of Glasgow football club.

Mr Johnston, who is a director of sports and entertainment group International Management Group, said: “I’ve submitted material and requested that the Insolvency Service look into it, specifically, whether there was any contravention of the financial assistance provision of the Companies Act.

“And I’ve asked the Crown Office and Strathclyde Police to do the same thing.

“These are only allegations. If, over a period of time, they prove to be founded, they will be criminal acts.”

In his statement on Tuesday, Mr Whyte said he provided Sir David and Lloyds Banking Group with proof of £33m in funds in November 2010.

However, Mr Johnston says a meeting to establish this took place at a later date.

“The evidence that was presented as proof of funds to Murray International, on 7 April, before the deal was done, was the Ticketus money,” he said.

“The amount that was required to be proved was £27.5m, and that was provided by Mr Whyte’s lawyers, Collyer Bristow.”

He believes that if the terms of the purchase have been breached, the £18m debt the club reportedly owes Mr Whyte could be cancelled, loosening his grip on Rangers.

Mr Johnston said: “[Sir David’s] Murray International (Holdings Limited) has, as part of the sales agreement, certain rights in respect to enforcing compliance of the sales purchase agreement.

“If there was failure to comply, then Murray International could bring an action that the consequence would be a waiving of the debt.”

However, football finance experts questioned whether Mr Whyte has broken the law.

Neil Patey, partner in Ernst & Young, said: “From the outside, there is no evidence that he has broken the law and it could well be possible to do what he has done without breaking the law.

“Fans and the public may feel he has misled people, but that does not mean he has broken the law. As he has described it, he borrowed the Ticketus money pre-takeover and personally guaranteed it from his group assets, which is legal.”

Ken Pattullo, partner with accountants Begbies Traynor, said: “What have Ticketus acquired? They claim to have acquired the next three years’ season tickets, but is that decision bound on the administrators?”

Asked whether he thought Mr Whyte might face criminal action, his spokesman said: “Craig Whyte does not believe that is a likelihood.”

A spokeswoman for Strathclyde Police confirmed it had received information from Mr Johnston, which was being “examined by police officers”.

A Crown Office spokesman added: “Strathclyde Police are considering the information provided, and it would be inappropriate to comment further.”

TWO Rangers supporters have been jailed for a total of eight months and banned from attending any football match involving a senior British team for four years.

Vehicle parts trader Stephen Campbell, 23, from Glasgow, wept in Perth Sheriff Court as he was jailed for four months for carrying out a violent sectarian attack on Celtic supporters after a match.

He and ground worker Kevin Anderson, 33, from Gourock, who was also jailed for four months, were made the subject of a wide ranging football banning order until February 2016.

The pair had clashed with rival Old Firm fans when the two supporters’ buses pulled into the Broxden service station in Perth at the same time.

Sheriff Michael Fletcher banned them from watching not only Rangers, but every senior football team in Scotland, England and Wales, along with those countries’ international teams. The ban exists throughout Europe.

Mary Ann Kennedy offers a culturally informed perspective

THERE was a certain world-weary irony in learning that BBC Radio Scotland, in another of its unfathomable scheduling deliberations, is planning to axe the excellent Mary Ann Kennedy’s Global Gathering. I had, after all, just recently witnessed yet another highly successful Celtic Connections season in Glasgow, bursting at the seams with the kind of culturally diverse music that Global Gathering celebrates.

Mary Ann Kennedy is an accomplished broadcaster, presenting studio shows as well as such live broadcasts as Radio Scotland’s The Young Traditional Musician of Year and the now defunct Radio 3 World Music Awards. She is also a seasoned traditional musician, a Gaelic singer and harpist, and with her husband, Nick Turner, runs a recording studio, Watercolour Music, on the shores of Loch Linnhe. She is therefore able to offer a particularly personal and culturally informed perspective on the material she has broadcast over the past couple of decades on Global Gathering and its predecessor, Celtic Connections, introducing listeners to everything from traditional Gaelic puirt á beul to Balkan wedding music, psychedelic ceilidh grooves to Portuguese fado singing.

In the past, Kennedy has championed such influential Scottish musicians as Martyn Bennett and Shooglenifty, Michael Marra and Salsa Celtica, and just last month broadcast the premieres of four new works by young Scottish folk-based composers, commissioned by Creative Scotland to celebrate 2011’s Year of Scottish islands.

Earlier this month she featured several international acts who appeared in this year’s Celtic Connections – Meschiya Lake and the Little Bighorns and Béla Fleck and the Flecktones, both from the United States, as well as the smouldering-voiced Portuguese singer Ana Moura, recorded during her appearance at Glasgow’s Old Fruitmarket.

According to Radio Scotland, the plan is to replace Global Gathering with a revamped version of the classical music programme Classics Unwrapped, which currently goes out on a Sunday afternoon. I’m also a classical (and contemporary) music listener, but for that I tune in to Radio 3, which makes a proper job of it, as well as managing to schedule some first-class jazz and world music programmes. If Radio Scotland wants to develop its currently rather limited approach to classical music, that’s well and good but it should not be at the expense of a distinctive and widely valued show such as Global Gathering.

The tired old adage that this is somehow “minority music” just no longer wears. If Radio Scotland requires hard proof of popular demand for the material promoted by Kennedy on Global Gathering, it needn’t look further than the bums-on-seats phenomenon that is Celtic Connections, which this year boasted gross ticket sales of over £1.1 million for the fifth year running. Many of these events featured acts from as far afield as Mexico, Serbia and Senegal, demonstrating the popular appetite for what we conveniently lump together under the title of “world music”.

Such heady moments during this year’s Connections included a barnstorming performance by Cuban pianist Omar Sosa and his band and a similarly memorable collaboration between the Pakistani qawwali (Sufi devotional song) exponent Faiz Ali Faiz and French guitarist Thierry Robin. Then there was the exuberant crosscultural ceilidhing at St Andrew in the Square between Donegal fiddle trio Fidil and Senegalese kora player Solo Cissokho, on a bill which also had flautist Michael McGoldrick’s band hosting the hugely personable young Malian singer Fatoumata Diawara. Their audiences were not earnest convocations of ethnomusicological geeks, but demonstratively enthusiastic Glasgow concertgoers (the St Andrews in the Square event had 90 per cent ticket sales).

Global Gathering, in one guise or other, has been priming us for such eclectic delights and broadening our musical horizons immensely for some 20 years, from a distinctively Scottish standpoint. To do away with it gives a hollow ring to Radio Scotland’s catchphrase of “culturally distinctive programming”.

ST JAMES’S Place, the wealth management business majority owned by Lloyds Banking Group, hiked its dividend by a third yesterday as it continues to defy the downturn and attract new business.

The firm said yesterday that the funds it manages grew by £3.3 billion last year, a 10 per cent hike on 2010’s figure, taking its total to £28.5bn despite market conditions that were “far from helpful”.

Chief executive David Bellamy said most of the new business came from existing clients and word-of-mouth recommendations. “We build long-term relations with our distribution channels and our clients. The success of this business will be about the attention we pay to our clients.”

St James’s made pre-tax profits of £109.7 million, up 30 per cent on the year before. The firm proposed a final dividend of 4.8p, up 21 per cent, taking the total to 8p for the year, 33 per cent higher than in 2010.

It also said it was appointing former Sunday Telegraph editor Baroness Wheatcroft as a non-executive director.

AMID all the argument and political jockeying that has now broken out over the date for Scotland’s independence referendum, there is one central and over-riding requirement: this is that it is a fair vote, seen to be a fair vote and one that will stand the test of time.

But already trenches are being dug over the protocols of this referendum and they look to be being dug particularly deep over the question of its timing. First Minister Alex Salmond has made clear he favours the autumn of 2014.

Yesterday, Scottish Secretary Michael Moore told the Commons select committee in Westminster that the vote should be held 12 months earlier, in the autumn of 2013. For the Nationalists this seems more than just perverse but an obstructive move by the Westminster government to dictate the timing against the wishes of Scotland’s First Minister.

In last year’s Holyrood election, which saw the SNP swept to power with an overall majority, Mr Salmond indicated that a referendum on independence would be held towards the latter half of the parliament. He has taken the SNP’s resounding victory as a mandate to hold it on a date he then chose as the autumn of 2014.

What is so difficult or objectionable about this date? There are several reasons why the date of the referendum needs to be determined by a process more inclusive than first ministerial fiat. No detailed set of reasons was given for the timing, which was not in fact in the SNP’s election manifesto. And to many it looks opportunist: holding a referendum on independence for which the polls show still only a third of Scots voters support in a year that will see the Commonwealth Games in Glasgow, the Ryder Cup at Gleneagles and the 700th anniversary of the Battle of Bannockburn.

A nagging concern is the effect that such a long period of uncertainty could have on business and investment decisions. CBI Scotland claims its members could suffer damage from a prolonged political battle that not only saddles business with almost three years of uncertainty but which also could have the effect of driving other issues deserving of attention to the political sidelines.

A second concern is that – if the intensity of debate of recent months is anything to go by – the Scottish public may weary of a battle that seems to bring new twists and interventions by the day. This may not be to the SNP’s advantage. An earlier referendum is favoured by many, and the SNP may be doing itself no favours by dismissing this sentiment as a “silly distraction”.

And third, a set of arguments has to be made for such a long campaign. What is it that will not be fully evident or exhaustively explored by voters in 2013 that requires a further year of argument to 2014? As Patricia Ferguson, Labour’s constitutional spokeswoman in Holyrood, pointed out yesterday, Donald Dewar held a referendum within 134 days of being elected. Why should this referendum take so much longer?

Bonuses show banks still have a long way to go

Finally, it seems, bankers are just starting to get it. Sir Philip Hampton, chairman of taxpayer-owned RBS, said in television interview that the high water mark of bonuses had been reached. Lloyds Banking Group went some way to penalising the senior staff who permitted the disgraceful mis-selling of personal payment protection insurance by clawing back some previous bonuses.

But even with the RBS announcement that 10,000 staff are to have their pay frozen, there is clearly a long way to go. Senior bankers were responsible not just for the trashing of their own institutions, but also for the wrecking of the world economy through their invention and sale of unsustainable derivative products based on the impossibility that house prices will keep on rising. The dogs on the street know this fact. Hard-working people earning (by investment bankers’ distorted standards) pittances, cannot understand why they are still awarding themselves Lotto-style fortunes, and even with a pay freeze top RBS staff will still receive hefty bonus top-ups

Yes, Stephen Hester may be doing a good job restoring RBS to health, but yesterday showed just how far off the job is from completion. When RBS sells the taxpayers’ shareholding, starts to earn profits again as a privately owned company, then might be the time to consider whether big bonuses should be paid.

Even then, bonuses – which were a product of the boom years – should match the context, which will be years of fitful growth and continuing heavy burdens on the taxpayers who have paid an enormous price to ensure that banks did not fail.

Deaths remind us of journalism’s honourable cause

Journalists have been in the news for all the wrong reasons – phone hacking, payments to police officers, and e-mail hacking. Yesterday came sad and tragic news which served as a reminder that there is also honour and bravery in the profession: the deaths of Marie Colvin of the Sunday Times and French photographer Remi Ochlik, both killed by Syrian army shells in the city of Homs. In the murderous confusion of an insurrection by the Syrian people against the dictatorship of President Assad, experienced and independent journalists such as Ms Colvin and Mr Ochlik are the only reliable means for the rest of the world to know what is really happening on the ground in Syria. Ms Colvin’s reports in particular, as she detailed the injuries and agonies being inflicted on civilian adults and children, tore away the pretence of the Syrian regime that only terrorists are responsible for the violence. Pictures by photographers such as Mr Ochlik add even more authority to such reports. In such conflicts, good and honest journalism is a weapon – a weapon of truth which all dictators are unable to tolerate. Journalists in such environments know that they will be targeted because of that and yet Ms Colvin and Mr Ochlik decided that getting the truth out was more important than their own safety. In an honourable cause, they paid the ultimate price.

]]> 1.2132552 Thu, 23 Feb 2012 00:00:00 +0000 http://www.scotsman.com/visual_arts_roundup_luke_fowler_roger_ackling_andrew_miller_barry_mcglashan_alistair_grant_1_2132438

There is a difference between simple and elementary, and while he occasionally lands on the right side, Luke Fowler’s playing with RD Laing’s concept of the divided self more often than not misses the mark, discovers Duncan Macmillan

ONE of the first rules of contemporary art is take yourself very seriously indeed. If you do, others will too, no matter how fatuous your art may actually be. Luke Fowler at Inverleith House helps demonstrate this rule. There’s no doubt he takes himself very seriously. He expects us to do the same and, indeed, some of his show is pretty fatuous. He makes films, and my own second rule of contemporary art is that artists shouldn’t make films. Film is a sophisticated medium and any artist approaching it is bound to be a tyro. Up to a point Fowler is an exception to that rule. He does have some skill and it is not the two- hour film, All Divided Selves, in his show that is really fatuous, but I still mistrust this way of using the medium. .

His film is the third in a trilogy devoted to RD Laing, the psychiatrist who rebelled against psychiatry. Laing was from Glasgow, so is Fowler. Laing had radical views on the causes of schizophrenia and on its treatment. Film by its nature is equipped to cut and rearrange reality and so can replicate, as no other art form, confused states of mind. That is what this one seems to intend to do, but if so that’s an odd sort of compliment to Laing.

The film is a collage of clips of Laing speaking, of his unconventional and sometimes startling methods of therapy and of life generally in the 1960s. These are interspersed with short clips of what seems to be almost anything. Arbitrary is not the same as inspired, however. Laing’s ideas are also contrasted with other psychiatric practices, occasionally to sinister, sometimes to simply comic effect. The stuffed-shirt doctor, for instance, who suggests genially to a pretty girl suffering from depression that she should try sex. A few people are recognisable, but no-one is identified, nothing explained. Laing himself is always impressive, but is so much cut and pasted that it is difficult to follow what he is saying, particularly as the soundtrack and acoustics in the gallery are not good. It is all pitched to identify him with 1960s counterculture, rightly or wrongly, and in doing so resembles one of those random films of the period full of people supposing themselves profound that look as though they were made in a cloud of pot and probably were.

You can glean fragments of Laing’s often remarkable insights and also something of his fiery personality. He clearly did not endear himself to his colleagues when he said, for instance, that psychiatrists are one of the principal causes of madness. He also said that schizophrenia means literally a “broken soul”. He renders this as broken-hearted. It follows that the cure lies in mending the broken heart, not breaking it further, or bashing it with a chemical cosh. He ended up on the side of humanity against the chemists, or indeed worse, the surgeons. Lobotomy was still a respectable practice. He was a remarkable man. This film does give some sense of what he was about, but offers confusion where there should be clarity.

It is in the rest of the show that Fowler does get really fatuous. Ridges on the Horizontal Plane is a collaboration with sound artist Toshiya Tsunoda. Against a gentle musical humming, random slides are projected onto both sides of a sheet flapping gently in the breeze from an electric fan. It is an image of the unstable, insecure divided self, no doubt, but really not an insight, just a ponderous pun.

There is also a series of photographs taken with a half-frame camera. Briefly fashionable in the 1960s, these cameras split a 35mm film to double the number of single exposures. Fowler, however, prints both exposures in one frame to create a series of randomly associated double images, a fatuous metaphor for the divided self, and another laboured pun. Simple and elementary can sometimes be synonymous, but are not the same. Simple can be profound and very beautiful. Elementary never graduates from the bricks on the primary school floor. This is elementary.

The exhibition also includes portraits by John Hayes, not only of Laing himself, but of other cultural figures of the 1960s. If for no other reason, the show is worth the visit just to see Hayes’s photo of Samuel Beckett. Sharp as a pin, Beckett’s face hangs against darkness looking more like some fierce bird from a David Attenborough documentary than a mere human being. It is an extraordinary image.

If it once seemed that madness and genius were akin, now we are quite specific in the mental disorder we most favour. It is obsessive compulsive behaviour. A good example is Roger Ackling at the Ingleby Gallery. He has taken everything from his garden shed, the forks and spades, the rakes and the hammers, even the old tomato boxes, and has apparently used a magnifying glass, following the sun to burn rows and rows of close packed parallel lines along their wooden handles and flat surfaces. Implicitly their sequence measures the cycle of the sun’s annual trajectory in a sort of fiery calendar. He has also pinned a black thread along the wall to suggest the horizon against which that trajectory is measured. But what about the weather? A burning glass needs sunshine. There are never so many sunny days in any British year. That thought casts a doubt on his whole project.

Nevertheless, the garden tools make a charming spectacle arrayed along the pristine white walls of the gallery. The suggestion of the sun’s movement is nicely apposite to gardening too, but such gentle metaphors are really upstaged by the evidence they also offer of his obsessive application to his task.

Showing alongside Ackling is Andrew Miller, an artist who recycles the things we discard and turns them into art. He makes a sculpture out of a tower of lampshades and an abstract picture out of a piece of patterned vinyl, for instance. He does it all with a certain charm, but it is scarcely an original idea. His photographs are more intriguing – a tree trunk with “no future” written on it, or a ramshackle house in Jamaica with an exactly matching chicken house alongside.

Roger Ackling is introduced as a friend and contemporary of Richard Long and Hamish Fulton, both artists who make, or have made art, by taking a walk. At the Open Eye Barry McGlashan is also a walking artist, but he is a painter. For him, the walk is not the art but an opportunity. He takes his backpack and sets off, but the results are not so much about him or even a record of what he has seen, as just an opportunity for inspiration. His pictures like Drifter, for instance, a man and his dog in a desert, are unpretentious and often humorous, but they have the ring of truth. Alistair Grant, in Eye2, was teacher of printmaking at the Royal College for 35 years until he retired in 1990. He was brought up in France and so his etchings made in the 1950s of children playing in the streets or on the beach at Le Touquet are not the usual artist-on-his-foreign-holiday kind of thing, but observations of life as it is lived. They are quite brilliantly alive and informal, but taste changed and he became an abstract artist. The abstract prints he produced in the 1960s now look sadly dated, but his etchings of children are as fresh as the day they were made.

Luke Fowler (With Toshiya Tsunoda and John Haynes)

Inverleith House, Edinburgh

Rating: ***

Roger Ackling

Rating: ***

Andrew Miller

Rating: ***

Ingleby Gallery, Edinburgh

Barry McGlashan; Quiet Please

Rating: ****

Alistair Grant (1925-1997)

Rating: ****

Open Eye, Edinburgh

• Luke Fowler runs until 29 April 2012; Roger Ackling until 21 April; Andrew Miller until 10 March; Alistair Grant until 24 March; Barry McGlashan until 7 March

Bankers head overseas; Call for tax relief on mortgages; Over 20% of Heathrow flights delayed and GM in talks with Peugeot Citroen

Bankers heading for foreign shores

The boss of recruitment firm Hays yesterday said there was still evidence that bankers were heading overseas as hiring in the sector fell around 10 per cent and pushed its UK division to a £3 million loss. Chief executive Alistair Cox said the recruitment squeeze in the banking industry would persist for “some time” and had spread beyond the UK to markets such as Hong Kong. The slowdown was behind a 1 per cent drop in private sector fees, which make up 78 per cent of UK revenues.

Call for mortgage interest tax relief

The head of Travis Perkins, the British builders’ merchant and DIY retailer, has called on Chancellor George Osborne to re-introduce mortgage interest tax relief for first-time buyers to release pent-up demand in the housing market.

“The housing market is so important to the UK economy, it’s operating at such low levels at the moment and there’s huge pent-up demand,” chief executive Geoff Cooper said yesterday. “We have to find a way of releasing that pent-up demand.”

21% of Heathrow flights delayed

More than a fifth of flights departing from Heathrow airport were delayed last year, operator BAA said yesterday, although this was an improvement on snow-hit 2010.

It said 21 per cent of flights left Heathrow 15 minutes or longer after the scheduled departure time in 2011, although this was better than 29 per cent the previous year. The delays came as Heathrow handled 69.4 million passengers in 2011, helping BAA to narrow its losses from Heathrow and Stansted to £255.8 million, from £316.6m.

GM in talks with French carmaker

General Motors and European peer PSA Peugeot Citroen were last night thought to be discussing a manufacturing alliance designed to stem losses in Europe and reduce production costs elsewhere.

Talks between GM, the world’s biggest carmaker, and European No2 Peugeot focused on sharing vehicles and parts rather than swapping stakes, according to sources. Any new shareholdings that emerged are likely to be small. Like Peugeot, GM’s European division already faces heavy restructuring.

]]> 1.2132505 Thu, 23 Feb 2012 00:00:00 +0000 http://www.scotsman.com/scottish_universities_avoid_worst_of_cuts_in_courses_1_2132544

SCOTLAND’S universities have avoided the worst of higher education cuts, which have seen the number of courses slashed by more than a quarter across the UK, a new report has found.

Research by the University and College Union (UCU) found that the number of full-time undergraduate courses at Scottish universities had fallen by just 3 per cent since 2006.

That compared with a figure of 31 per cent for England and 27 per cent for the UK as a whole.

UCU general secretary Sally Hunt said: “Scotland is to be congratulated on not only maintaining free education, but also choice, in contrast to the rest of the UK. However, there are real dangers with introducing markets into education and we really cannot afford to limit choices for students.

“Scotland’s global academic reputation is built on the broad range of subjects available and on the freedom of academics to push at the boundaries and create new areas of study. It is to Scotland’s credit that this has been secured and that academic freedom has been protected and enhanced.

“We will work with the Scottish Government to ensure this continues to be the case.”

The union said the number of students in Scotland had remained steady over the past six years, with an increase in applications leading to most courses being full.

From the start of the next academic year, students from the rest of the UK studying at Scottish universities will be required to pay fees of up to £9,000 a year. Scots and students from the rest of the EU will remain exempt from the fees.

According to the UCU research, the biggest cuts were seen in so-called Stem subjects (science, technology, engineering and maths). While there was a 9 per cent drop in the number of Stem and social science subjects offered at Scottish universities, arts and humanities courses fell by only 2 per cent.

Alastair Sim, director of Universities Scotland, said: “Scotland’s universities are proud to offer a wide breadth of courses that are developed and reviewed in response to student and employer demands.

“A strength of the four-year degree is that it offers students greater opportunities for combined studies to take advantage of that breadth.”

Last month, the Scottish Government claimed its position on tuition fees had been “vindicated” after figures showed the country’s universities had been protected from the worst of a UK-wide downturn in applicant numbers.

Figures published by the Universities and Colleges Admission Service (Ucas) showed a 1.1 per cent fall in the number of Scots hoping to study in their home country, with a 5.6 per cent fall also recorded in the number of English applicants.

The Ucas figures, which compared January applicant numbers with the same period last year, showed that, overall, there was a 0.2 per cent rise in the number of people applying to study in Scotland, compared with an 8.5 per cent fall in England.

A FURTHER bout of money printing to prop up Britain’s ailing economy remains on the cards, analysts said yesterday, as signs of division emerged at the Bank of England.

Minutes of the bank’s latest rate-setting meeting showed that two officials voted for a bigger increase this month in quantitative easing (QE) than was eventually agreed.

Many economists had judged that the momentum for additional stimulus was fading after last week’s cautiously upbeat forecast from the central bank.

Governor Sir Mervyn King said that while he expected the UK economy to “zig-zag” in and out of growth in 2012, the recovery was heading in the right direction.

That optimism, coupled with a string of positive business surveys in recent weeks, had prompted many analysts to call time on further QE.

But news that David Miles had joined long-standing dove Adam Posen in voting for a £75 billion boost, rather than the £50bn increase favoured by the rest of the bank’s monetary policy committee (MPC), reopened the debate over whether policymakers will embark on further emergency support.

The split among the nine MPC members appeared to run deep as some considered doing nothing, worried that inflation may turn out higher than the central bank expects.

David Tinsley, chief UK economist at French bank BNP Paribas, said the minutes to the February meeting revealed “a somewhat surprising voting pattern”.

He said: “In terms of the policy outlook, these minutes are more dovish than we were expecting. But we would not overstate that case.

“Posen is something of a perma-dove, having voted to increase QE in every meeting over 2011 until it actually occurred in October. Miles, on the other hand, has tended on average to vote with the pack.”

In their argument for a greater bout of fiscal stimulus, Posen and Miles noted that there was “a risk of a prolonged period of depressed demand”.

Howard Archer, chief UK and European economist at IHS Global Insight, has forecast QE will rise in £25bn increments in May and August to top £375bn.

By keeping the story and staging simple, the Lyceum allows the power of John Steinbeck’s Great Depression classic to flow freely and resonate with our own time

Of Mice and Men, Royal Lyceum Theatre Edinburgh

Rating: ****

TODAY, a life without fame or celebrity seems like a living death, to many young people; but there was a moment, back there in the mid-20th century, when being an ordinary guy or girl didn’t seem such a bad option. It was partly a reaction to the horrors of war, that made the suburban nine-to-five look like a kind of heaven; it also had to do with the upbeat energy of postwar economic growth.

It was also, though, partly a political response to the 1930s, and to an economic depression so severe that working people often had to stand up and fight for their lives, acquiring a sense of dignity and mutual respect in the process. Aaron Copland’s iconic Fanfare For The Common Man was composed in 1942, as the United States emerged from the deepest recession in its history; and John Steinbeck’s play-novella Of Mice And Men – now revived in a quietly magnificent production by John Dove, at the Royal Lyceum – belongs to the same period, emerging in 1937 from Steinbeck’s bitter experience of the lives of itinerant farm workers in his native California.

Unlike Steinbeck’s The Grapes Of Wrath, though, Of Mice And Men does not deal directly with questions of economy and politics, although they make a powerful backdrop to the story. Instead, it offers what Wordsworth called “the still, sad music of humanity”; a profound and beautiful reminder of why every human being matters, and why our deepest duty is to try to build a world where people are valued and cherished, rather than punished and destroyed for every weakness they show.

George and Lennie, Steinbeck’s two central characters, are two itinerant farmworkers from the same small town, bound together by the simple fact that Lennie – though a giant in physical strength – is more a child than a man, very simple in his understanding, and that George therefore feels responsible for him. In an economic world where male farmworkers have increasingly become lone travellers, unable to support any bonds of family or affection, their very friendship is seen as strange. And because Lennie is not sharp enough to suppress his human needs for comfort and affection as the other men have learned to do, the story is driven from the start by a profound sense of looming tragedy, and of Lennie’s vulnerability to a terrible, scapegoating violence.

John Dove’s production – graced by two fine leading performances from William Ash as George, and Coronation Street actor Stephen Jackson as Lennie – absolutely avoids any flashy interpretation of Steinbeck’s work. Colin Richmond’s farm-shed set is a model of restrained effectiveness, Jeanine Davies’ lighting is quietly beautiful. Like all of John Dove’s Lyceum productions of mid-20th-century classics, though, this Of Mice And Men offers the kind of profound theatrical intelligence and feeling that is often absent from flashier shows. There is never a moment when the positioning of the actors jars against the needs of the story; never a moment when the actors themselves – including a fine range of Scottish-based talent, in supporting roles – seem less than fully aware of the meaning of the story they tell, or of the need to deliver it to the audience with uncluttered clarity and energy.

And the result – without fireworks or self-advertisement – is a theatrical experience that is sometimes almost overwhelming in its sheer storytelling power. We live in a changed world, from the one inhabited by George and Lennie. Yet at the core our dilemmas are the same, and in George’s daily choice between the demands of a ruthless system, and the tug of human love and obligation we see a painful truth about our own lives, addressed with a passionate, straightforward humanity that often puts contemporary writers to shame.

Serov’s People, Glasgow Oran Mor

Rating: ***

There’s no lack of humanity, of course, in Peter Arnott’s new Play, Pie and Pint show Serov’s People, this week’s lunchtime offering at Oran Mor. When it comes to straightforward theatrical energy, though – well, Arnott is never a man to attempt one clever idea when three will do. His latest play is inspired by the work of Valentin Serov, a Russian portraitist of the turn of the 20th century, whose beautiful and eloquent paintings capture the mood of an intelligent, good-looking, highly-cultivated Russian bourgeoisie at the moment when they began to sense that their way of life was doomed to collapse.

Typically, though, Arnott is not content to write a play about Serov’s work, with appropriate contemporary resonances. Instead, he sets up an immensely complex and none-too-dramatic situation in which we meet three figures in adjacent portraits not by Serov, but by a contemporary Scottish artist/curator who has been inspired by his work. The three pictures feature this painter himself – as well as his sister (portrayed sitting on a No 31 Edinburgh bus), and a friend of his called Charlie, who committed suicide in his early thirties.

It’s an understatement to say that all the dimensions of this play are difficult to grasp on first viewing; its structure seems all over the shop, and its preoccupations almost limitless, including the likely demise of the entire planet. In the end, though, there’s something irresistible about its vividness, its ambition, and the quality of the performances it draws from George Docherty as the painter, Jeanette Foggo as his sister, and Robert Jack as Charlie; although if Arnott does not soon find a director who can persuade him to knock his brilliant ideas into a slightly more legible shape, there’s a danger that his entire playwriting career will disappear, down an ingenious plughole of its own devising.

• Of Mice And Men runs until 17 March; Serov’s People until 25 February.

]]> 1.2132418 Thu, 23 Feb 2012 00:00:00 +0000 http://www.scotsman.com/classical_music_baroque_on_a_roll_1_2132441

Bach is a technical challenge even for those schooled in European music traditions, so it’s to Masaaki Suzuki’s credit that the Bach Collegium Japan is such a great success, finds Kenneth Walton

BACK in 1991, the idea of founding an instrumental ensemble and choir that specialised in authentic performance of Baroque music would hardly have been considered a pioneering initiative. After all, the likes of Christopher Hogwood’s Academy of Ancient Music, John Eliot Gardiner’s Monteverdi Choir and English Baroque Soloists, or such illustrious European models as Philippe Herreweghe’s Collegium Vocale Ghent and his Parisian ensemble La Chappelle Royale – all products of the 1960s and 70s – were by then mature period ensembles with progressively global reputations.

The difference was that this new ensemble was being put together in a part of the world where the music of Bach and his mainstream European Baroque contemporaries was about as relevant and familiar as Shomyo Buddhist chant is to us. For this was the group now internationally known as the Bach Collegium Japan, set up 21 years ago by the Japanese organist and harpsichordist Masaaki Suzuki in a country where only 3 per cent of the population is Christian, and where a Bach Cantata would, to the wider Japanese masses, have been about as spiritually relevant as an Irish limerick set to music.

But Suzuki saw a future in the idea, even although the original impetus was a purely practical response to a request to provide music at the opening of a new concert hall in Osaka in 1990. He had just returned from studying in the Netherlands – the hotbed of European early music scholarship – and as well as pursuing a career as a soloist performing mainly Bach, was now teaching in his home town of Kobe.

“I put together several student ensembles for the hall opening and together we developed a full concert programme,” he says. By 1992 the official Bach Collegium Japan (BCJ) was formed and giving regular performances of Bach’s cantatas. In 1995, it was signed up by the Swedish BIS record label, from which a comprehensive series of Bach recordings emerged to massive critical acclaim. The rest, as they say, is history, and the BCJ is now as lauded in Europe and America as it is in Asia, and is a living legend on its Japanese home turf.

Until now, its only Scottish presence has been at the Edinburgh International Festival, where it took part in the 2009 Bach Cantata series at Greyfriars Church, as well as giving a memorable concert performance of Handel’s Rinaldo at the Usher Hall. Next week, however, Suzuki and his musicians make an exclusive UK appearance in Perth, with a three-concert weekend residency featuring music by Bach and his contemporaries, with a single Bach cantata as the focal point each night, sung by the English soprano Joanne Lunn.

The opening programme on Friday 2 March includes Bach’s buoyant Double Violin Concerto and a Handel organ concerto performed by Suzuki’s son Masato. Saturday’s concert, following an afternoon discussion between Suzuki and Glasgow University professor (and fellow Bach Scholar) John Butt, includes a Vivaldi Bassoon Concerto. Suzuki’s own virtuosity as a harpsichordist comes under the spotlight on Sunday 4 March in Bach’s Brandenburg Concerto No 5.

Nowadays, finding players up to par with Baroque performance in Japan is not the problem it once was. And for this particular series of concerts, Suzuki has chosen his players from a pool of largely Japanese musicians now based in Europe. But when he started the BCJ it was never that easy.

The biggest problem was finding singers, he says. “Bach’s name was as famous in Japan as it was elsewhere, but at that time it was not so usual to find professional ensembles willing to take up the Bach repertory, especially the vocal works where the German text was a particular barrier.

“Also, in Japan we had no choir tradition, so it was very difficult to assemble even amateur choirs that might be able to sing a classic like Bach’s B Minor Mass. Even in the conservatories the good young singers wanted to be opera singers; the challenge for me was to catch them young and encourage them to sing Bach, which is technically much more difficult than the operatic repertory.”

Suzuki’s appointment in 1991 as a professor at the national conservatory at Tokyo University was perfect timing, bringing him into direct contact with the right people at the right time in their development. His influence was immediate.

“It took a long time to train them in a style that suited Bach, getting them to sing together with perfect clarity and precision.” As a result of his success, Suzuki found that in the early years of the BCJ he had a steady enough turnover of singers to allow the vocal ensemble to develop and refine the definitive sound it can now call its own.

As for the instrumentalists, it was an equal challenge in the early days to find players skilled enough in such rare antiquities as the oboe d’amore. “When I was studying in Tokyo in the 1970s there were not so many professional ensembles specialising in Baroque excellence.” Suzuki himself eventually set up a department of early music at the University of Tokyo, which has been influential in developing a whole new generation of musicians capable of populating his specialist ensemble.

But what of the other obvious issue – that of developing audience interest in music that was intrinsically anathema, both culturally and spiritually, to Japanese ears? Curiously, that was never a problem for Suzuki. “When we started performing the church cantatas I was amazed that so many people turned out to hear us. It is still generally hard to make it fully understood why Bach’s music was composed, and what it was intended to convey, but we have tried to overcome that from the very earliest days by providing our own Japanese translations of the texts.

“We still do it, and not just for the audiences and singers. Our instrumentalists are keen to know what the singers are singing, so that they can capture the inflexions of the text in their own playing.”

It’s that immaculate attention to detail, combined with a genuinely fresh sense of discovery that gives the BCJ’s performances such a distinctive and distinguished quality. All the more reason to head to Perth Concert Hall next week.

• The Bach Collegium Japan features exclusively at Perth Concert Hall from 2–4 March, www.horsecross.co.uk

The Scotsman’s film critic casts his eye over the latest cinematic offerings

Rampart (15)

Directed by: Oren Moverman

Starring: Woody Harrelson

Rating: ****

SET against the backdrop of the same late 1990s Los Angeles police corruption scandal that inspired TV’s The Shield, Rampart puts a fascinating character-based spin on the dirty cop movie courtesy of an off-the-reservation performance from Woody Harrelson. He plays Dave Brown, an immutably old-school patrolman caught on camera using excessive force to beat a perp. Subsequently thrust into the eye of the bad publicity storm tearing his division apart, Dave’s not the sort of person to go quietly, and, suspecting he’s being made a patsy for an already scandalised department, starts buttressing his external defences. But it’s how he starts falling apart on the inside that becomes the film’s primary focus. As Dave’s complex family life and soul-sickening past deeds start taking their psychological toll, the film gradually changes from another Bad Lieutenant-esque trip into insanity to a more meditative film about the cost of crossing the line to get the job done.

The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel (12A)

Directed by: John Madden

Starring: Judi Dench, Maggie Smith, Bill Nighy, Celia Imrie, Tom Wilkinson, Penelope Wilton

Rating: **

CORRALLING a group of pensioners together for a mission to a foreign land, The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel could almost be regarded as The Expendables for grannies, assembling as it does a big-name cast of veteran actors to do what they do best: provide simple thrills in sunny locations for a specific target audience. In this case that means Dames Judi Dench and Maggie Smith being (mostly) delightful as they front a rag-tag group of impoverished pensioners (Bill Nighy, Tom Wilkinson, Celia Imrie, Ronald Pickup and Penelope Wilton) as they relocate from dreary Britain to colourful India. Gently grappling with the attendant cultural differences, their shenanigans raise smiles mostly via the usual isn’t-the-food-strange? observations while plentiful shots of kids playing cricket bolster the tourist brochure aesthetic. Designed to represent and serve an ignored demographic, the film can’t be faulted in its intentions, just its condescending execution, which spoon-feeds the audience in a way its characters would surely disapprove of.

Red Dog (PG)

Directed by: Kriv Stenders

Starring: Josh Lucas, Noah Taylor, RachAel Taylor, Luke Ford

Rating: **

EVEN for a confirmed pooch lover, this Australian-set dog story is fairly easy to resist. Inspired by a true story that’s been filtered through the twee comedic mindset of Louis De Bernières (the film is based on his novel of the same name), it parses out the story of a red cloud kelpie who loyally searched the Outback for his deceased master in the most egregious manner possible: by focusing on the dog’s final hours and having the townsfolk who adopted him share their memories to a newly arrived stranger. Red Dog’s imminent demise is thus ruthlessly exploited to keep us on the verge of tears, but it’s the De Bernières-inspired human characters – including a cringeworthy Italian immigrant that makes Nic Cage’s Captain Corelli seem like a paradigm of neo-realism – that makes you want to cry. Its noble canine star (six-year-old Koko) deserves better than being the antipodean Greyfriars Bobby.

Black Gold (15)

Directed by: Jean-Jacques Annaud

Starring: Antonio Banderas, Mark Strong, Tahar Rahim, FrEIda Pinto

Rating: *

CLEARLY fancying itself as an old-fashioned riposte to There Will Be Blood, this deathly dull period drama homes in on the birth of the Arabian oil boom of the 1930s and promptly renders a fascinating story rich in historical significance thoroughly mundane. Blame director Jean-Jacques Annaud, whose misplaced sense of grandeur has convinced him that sweeping shots of deserts and vaguely ethnic-looking Euro actors spouting exposition-heavy dialogue makes for compelling drama. It doesn’t, and nor does the screenwriting-101 approach to the themes, which pits the old world against the new in the form of two sheiks – one a ruthless moderniser (Antonio Banderas), the other staunchly devout (Mark Strong) – whose visions for the future of their lands are challenged by an uprising inadvertently led by the bookish Auda (Tahar Rahim) – who just happens to be the latter’s son and the former’s son-in-law. Laughing at the ripe performances is the only thing that relieves the torpor.

First Minister has ensured no Celtic fan will be voting his way after backing crisis-hit club amid Old Firm bigot-fest, writes Michael Kelly

I am a big fan of conspiracy theories. There are many strands to be separated from the continuing Rangers’ saga. One is the establishment conspiracy that Celtic fans see is being organised to save Rangers. They argue that, when Celtic were in trouble, no-one from the banks, the media or politics was preaching how much their club’s demise would harm Scottish football. In fact, one tabloid in the middle of the struggle held a mock funeral complete with coffin outside Celtic Park. And I certainly do not recall any sympathy, never mind support, from the SNP.

Another theme is the depressing re-emergence of the religious intolerance which has surrounded the Old Firm for decades. Last Saturday, Ibrox saw the worst display of sectarian singing for years, with at least half the 50,000 supporters joining in. Yet there was only one arrest inside the ground for an alleged sectarian offence. How come the leniency?

The new anti-football law was one that the police welcomed. Yet they refuse to enforce it. And the First Minister, whose idea it was to restrict freedom of speech at football, has said nothing.

But, of course, sectarian singing was, for him, last year’s issue. The police raised it in the hope of getting more resources. Salmond outmanoeuvred them beautifully by turning it into an issue of new legislation. Now the police either cannot or will not implement it – and not just at Ibrox. Offensive songs were also clearly heard from the Celtic end during the TV coverage of the match from Easter Road.

But prosecutors are dropping sectarianism from charges because of the difficulty of proving it – as we saw last year with the one-man attack on Neil Lennon at Tynecastle. The new law has actually worsened the position. Before, judges were able to take into account any sectarian aggravation if an offence was proved. Now, unless it is there in the charge, they can’t.

This is characteristic of Salmond’s approach to problems. Seek a quick public relations success and move on, ignoring the long-term impact of his actions. Why otherwise would he not be up in arms about the police’s inactivity?

Now after doing nothing on Saturday, the police want to intervene in the timing of the next Old Firm game. The role of the police is to be told what events will take place and when. It is then their job to cover them, not bicker about time and location. We’ve got things the wrong way round.

As the First Minister becomes more and more complacent with his parliamentary majority behind him, we can see this once sure-footed politician beginning to make mistakes.

The first was to alienate both sets of Old Firm’s fans with his attempts to stop them enjoying themselves. Now he’s compounded this by his overt support of Rangers. Why? He surely cannot have misled himself into thinking that by saying a few sympathetic words about their team he will persuade the loyalest, most vigorously Union-Flag-waving section of Scottish society to vote “Yes” in his referendum?

He’s certainly ensured that no Celtic fan – people who might have had some sympathy with him – will now.

But much more fundamentally wrong than making a gesture of understanding towards Rangers was his plea that the tax authorities found some way of going easy on the club. This is a blunder, not of tactics, but of political principle.

The First Minister is the man who wants to have control of all of Scotland’s tax revenue. Yet at the first public challenge to the authority of Her Majesty’s Revenue & Customs – and Craig Whyte has renewed his criticism of the taxmen again this week – he wants Rangers off the hook. His own team, Hearts, have been having their own tax troubles – no intervention call for them. And has he spared a thought for Dunfermline? They are owed £80,000 by Rangers. Obviously given the precarious financing of Scottish football, they are going to need a big chunk of that money to pay their taxes. Are they too to be a special case.

And what about me? I’d rather spend my VAT and PAYE on a skiing holiday, repaying it to the government over five years. Is that OK, Mr Salmond? He says he wants Rangers given time to meet their obligations. He has misunderstood the whole situation. The reason Rangers went into administration was to avoid their obligations. And liquidation could be the next step in that direction. Indeed, one wonders why the administrators seem so desperate to avoid a solution that would eliminate all of Rangers’ debts. For a business in these dire circumstances the focus must be on the creditors and not the customers. However, I would rule out any conspiracy as regards the company being allowed to appoint a “friendly” administrator who had previous business links with it. It seems to me unwise that a large international firm like Duff and Phelps would want to attract even the perception of a conflict of interest. But the statutory obligations on an administrator are so clear and with the penalties so personal that, especially in a high profile case like this with HMRC breathing over their shoulders, it is certain this process will be carried out to the letter of the law.

The tax authorities too will do their duty resisting the influence of the man who likes to think of himself as the UK’s most brilliant politician. Meanwhile, Rangers as a club and a team will carry on while a new owner is sought. Let us hope that the new owners not only run Rangers more prudently than in the past but that they make a commitment to end the sectarianism which hangs heavily around the fringes of the club. There are many people, including many Celtic fans, who want to see Rangers’ financial problems resolved. But they also want to see the bigotry which simmers just below the surface pulled out by the roots. Equally, Celtic must ensure that the triumphalism currently being enjoyed by the fans is not used as an excuse for unacceptable behaviour.

FTSE 100 CLOSE 5916.55 -11.65

Royal Bank of Scotland led the financial sector lower yesterday as traders took a cautious view ahead of today’s results.

The part-nationalised bank was down 3.1 per cent at 27.33p as it prepared to unveil hefty bottom-line losses. That was despite Espirito Santo upping its “fair value” price for the stock to 27p.

Barclays also fell, down 3.5 per cent at 239.2p, albeit as the stock went ex-dividend.

Carnival and Reckitt Benckiser also traded without their payment attractions, down about 2 per cent each at 1,903p and 3,500p respectively.

The FTSE 100 closed down 11.65 points or 0.2 per cent at 5,916.55 as weak economic data from the eurozone added to scepticism over the recent Greek bail-out. Mike McCudden, head of derivatives at Interactive Investor, said that with the Greek debt crisis now shifting to the background, oil was coming to the forefront of traders attention once again.

“Signs of a global recovery mixed with supply issues and increasing tensions with Iran is all the ammunition speculators need to talk oil up as high as $150 a barrel,” he said.

Royal Dutch Shell was up 0.2 per cent to 2,309p after it launched a near-£1 billion offer for Mozambique-focused small cap oil explorer Cove Energy. Cove’s shares jumped 25 per cent to 194p, just shy of the offer price.

And shares in Edinburgh oil and gas explorer Bowleven added 4.5 per cent at 123p amid heavy trading in light of interest in the company from Dubai-based Dragon Oil.

Alan Bonner, the chief executive of Stirlingshire-based Pinnacle Telecom, upped his stake in the firm to 9.6 per cent with a £14,000 share purchase, but it closed 5 per cent lower at 0.37p.

New York: Banks led U.S. markets lower last night as the Standard & Poor’s 500 Index stalled near a ten-month-high after signs of weak European business activity rekindled concerns about a recession overseas.

The Dow Jones industrial average ended the day down 26.72 points, or 0.21 per cent, at 12,938.97 while the S&P 500 closed down 4.57 points, or 0.34 per cent, at 1,357.64. The Nasdaq Composite Index ended down 15.40 points, or 0.52 per cent, at 2,933.17.

DEPUTY Prime Minister Nick Clegg will announce today that an extra £1 billion is to be made available to businesses seeking support to help them grow and create jobs.

The new money will be part of the Regional Growth Fund and takes the total fund to £2.4bn, available to businesses and public/private partnerships to drive local economic growth.

Clegg will make the announcement at the UK government’s national manufacturing summit at the Bristol & Bath Science Park.

He is set to confirm that 48 firms have completed their legal checks and have access to the Regional Growth Fund which leverages private sector investment, with at least £5 of private money for every £1 of public money.

The deputy PM will say the fund “is already having a huge impact across the UK”. Clegg will argue that he wants to see “more businesses that are confident they can create jobs and get Britain building and making things again”.

A key part of government economic strategy is to make manufacturing more important again.

The British Chambers of Commerce welcomed the extra £1bn. Adam Marshall, the BCC’s policy director, said it would “help improve the business environment” in the regions “because it creates jobs and prosperity”.

He added: “We will watch carefully to ensure that strong applications do not get caught up in red tape or unnecessary delays.”

The UK government’s welfare reforms are having a devastating impact on thousands of sick and disabled Scots – according to evidence published today by Citizens Advice Scotland.

The employment and support allowance scheme (ESA) was introduced in 2008 for those who were “new” claimants and is now being applied to those who are currently on incapacity benefit who have previously been deemed to be too sick to work.

The CAS report, From Pillar to Post, details individual cases of people who have been considered healthy by the ESA assessment, but actually suffer from severe health problems.

The report includes the case of a man who was considered fit to work after an ESA assessment, despite having suffered a stroke that continues to affect his right side and speech and which has left him able to only walk a few yards without pain.

CHANGES to the education system will be “worth the effort”, pupils and parents have been told.

Education secretary Michael Russell defended the Curriculum for Excellence. National 4 and 5 qualifications are being brought in to replace Standard Grade and Intermediate qualifications from 2013-14.

Teachers’ leaders have voiced concerns, with Ann Ballinger, general secretary of the Scottish Secondary Teachers Association, saying staff were “in some distress” about the changes.

Ms Ballinger said the union was “concerned that things are not going to be ready in time”.

Visiting St Peter the Apostle High School in Clydebank yesterday, Mr Russell said: “I firmly believe the prize of giving our young people the skills they need for learning, life and work will be delivered and will be worth the effort.”

From the Golden Globes to the Baftas, The Artist has dominated this year’s awards – and could do the same at Sunday’s Oscars. But its success is part of a bigger phenomenon, says Alison Kerr

SILENCE is golden. Or it is for The Artist, at least, which won eight Baftas last week and now looks set to repeat some of that success at the Oscars on Sunday.And yet the film is one of only a small group of silent films made since 1927.

Silent movies didn’t completely die out with the advent of “talkies”. Charlie Chaplin, who understood that part of his screen persona’s universal appeal was the fact that he didn’t talk, continued to make partly silent films well into the 1930s, while the French comedy genius Jacques Tati developed a highly effective and successful system of sounds for such hit comedies as Les Vacances de Monsieur Hulot (1953), in which his characters made noises but didn’t speak as such.

The difference with The Artist is that there is no obvious reason for it to have been made without dialogue, apart from the fact that its story – about a silent screen star’s traumatic transition to talkies – was already familiar to audiences as a sound picture, and not just any sound picture: it bears an uncanny resemblance to the film regarded as the best musical of all time, Singin’ in the Rain.

Making it as a silent film is refreshing, and adds interest and a novelty factor to what is otherwise a pretty slight although undoubtedly beautiful-looking, film. (Kim Novak was spot-on when she said that the use of Bernard Herrmann’s heartbreakingly poignant love theme from Vertigo, at a key point in the film, was entirely responsible for providing emotional depth which would otherwise have eluded it.)

But The Artist isn’t the only silent film to have been released recently. Just three months ago, I attended the premiere, at the London Jazz Festival, of a film entitled Louis, a silent movie celebrating the childhood of a jazz great, Louis Armstrong.

On paper, the idea sounds bonkers. Celebrate a music legend with a soundless film? But seeing that film – or rather experiencing the film which was accompanied by a live band – was an unforgettable treat. As much a loving homage to silent cinema as a tongue-in-cheek evocation of the myths about early jazz, Dan Pritzker’s film may not be a brilliant movie – the characters (like those in The Artist) are pretty one-dimensional, the storyline a little simplistic and some of the scenes a bit self-indulgent. But taken as an experience, rather than as a film or as a concert, it was wonderful. At the end, the audience leapt to its collective feet, all of us aware that we had been part of a unique event.

It’s that uniqueness that has led to a resurgence of interest in silent cinema in recent years, thinks Alison Strauss, director of the Hippodrome Festival of Silent Cinema in Bo’ness, which was a popular and critical success when it launched last year.

“There’s a constant push for people to have new cinema experiences,” says Strauss, “whether it’s innovations like the IMAX screen or Smellovision or 3D or whether it’s one of these immersive experiences like Secret Cinema [a pop-up movie club which has been gaining momentum over the last couple of years] where people dress up; there’s a demand for new cinema experiences.

“Silent cinema for me is like an ultimate cinema experience because you’ve got this relationship between the film that’s on the screen and the audience – which, of course, you always had, but you’ve also got the third element, which is the live music and it really creates the magic. It’s an experience you don’t get if you go to a regular new release that’s been churned out. That gives it the uniqueness that I think people are looking for from the cinema, it elevates it. You know, you can walk into any multiplex and see what’s being released that week and it would be the same if you were in any Cineworld in any part of the country. But when you’ve got live music – particularly if, as is the case at our festival, it’s being played by a musician who has scored it specially – then it’s a completely unique experience.”

Of course, writing new scores for films from the silent era is nothing new. Carl Davis has been doing it for years, and some of the best silent movie experiences I’ve ever had were in the Glasgow Royal Concert Hall in the 1990s, when the RSNO played Davis’s scores while Greta Garbo and John Gilbert steamed up the big screen in Flesh and the Devil, and Douglas Fairbanks Jr buckled his swash in The Thief of Bagdad.

But there is undoubtedly an appetite for silent cinema in the 21st century, as the success of the Hippodrome festival highlights. Strauss reckons that there’s a new awareness – triggered, possibly by the likes of Martin Scorsese, whose recent film Hugo celebrated the pioneer of early cinema, Georges Méliès – of the fact that many of the great film-makers of the 20th century began during the silent era.

“In our festival, we have work by some directors who are best known for their work in the sound era,” says Strauss. “It makes sense for people who are interested in film to look back at all of their work. Why stop at 1929? So, Yasujiro Ozu for example, he’s most famous for a film he made in 1953, Tokyo Story, but he was working during the silent period… I think that this is why some directors, like Scorsese, are looking back to the silent era. They’re interested in the whole of film language and development, and by the end of the silent era, there had been 30 years of development.”

The idea of revisiting films from the silent era and revivifying them with new scores seems to tie in with a broader cultural phenomenon which the writer Simon Reynolds has christened Retromania – a need to return to the past. He reckons 21st-century popular culture is increasingly “chronically addicted to its own past”. But surely this has always been the case? Just as in fashion, where certain trends from earlier decades come round every ten or 20 years, and are given a contemporary twist, so the pop culture of earlier decades floats in and out of vogue and is, often, enriched and expanded each time.

The current mania for The Artist, and reborn fascination with the silent cinema era, seems to me to belong to a 2010s love affair with the Jazz Age, which has so far manifested itself in Martin Scorsese’s TV series Boardwalk Empire, in this season’s vogue for flapper dresses, in the revival of the bob (which, like the flapper dress fad is being fuelled by the images being released of Carey Mulligan as Daisy in Baz Luhrmann’s forthcoming movie of the classic 1920s novel The Great Gatsby) and in the number of speakeasies springing up all over the place.

It’s easy to dismiss “Retromania” as less worthy of attention than new art movements, but had it not been for this sort of phenomenon, many masterpieces would be undiscovered and many great artists would now be forgotten. Such kings of silent cinema as Buster Keaton were languishing in near-obscurity until the 1960s when their work was rediscovered and made fashionable by the first generation of film students.

That resurgence of interest prompted the preservation and restoration of their films, and the first wave of commissions of scores to accompany them. It also ensured that they received the recognition that they deserved; recognition that often eludes great innovators at the time of their most important work.

• The Hippodrome Festival of Silent Cinema runs from March 16-18. For information and tickets, call 01324 506850 or visit www.falkirkcommunitytrust.org/silentcinemafest

Scotland’s Information Commissioner has accused a health board of “perhaps the most serious catalogue of failings” for not handing over more than 50 reports on serious incidents at its hospitals.

Rab Wilson, who worked for Ayrshire and Arran NHS Board, asked it for copies of all “critical incident” reviews and significant “adverse event” reports.

Mr Wilson turned to Information Commissioner Kevin Dunion after the health board told him it did not hold any critical incident review plans, apart from one it had already given to him. But when the commissioner investigated, 56 such plans were found on a computer drive. The NHS board has been ordered to provide Mr Wilson with a copy of the reports.

INVESTORS in oil and gas explorer Cove Energy were rewarded yesterday after Royal Dutch Shell offered nearly £1 billion for the company in order to get its hands on its East African gas assets.

Cove’s main asset is an 8.5 per cent stake in a drilling area off the coast of Mozambique, where operator Anadarko says reserves could top 30 trillion cubic feet of natural gas.

Analysts said Shell would probably approach other parties in the project and offer to buy part of their stakes. Irene Himona, oil analyst at Societe Generale, said: “As the number one liquefied natural gas player, Shell absolutely must be in East Africa.”

Shell said it had a “firm intention” to make a 195p per share cash bid, valuing the firm at £992.4 million, which Cove’s directors said they would recommend to shareholders. The offer is a 70 per cent premium on Cove’s 4 January share price, when the firm put itself on the market, and 25 per cent above Tuesday’s closing price.

For his debut film in English, Daniel Espinosa pulls off a great looking action thriller which is sadly let down by a script that falls apart towards the end, finds Alistair Harkness

APPEARANCES can be deceptive in a spy movie, and so it proves with Safe House: a film that looks much better than it is and boasts performances more intensely realised than the story they’re serving ultimately deserves. Still, better that than being just another lazily thrown-together Bourne rip-off or overblown Mission: Impossible movie. The plot beats may eventually prove wearyingly familiar as this tale of rogue CIA agents unravels over 110 minutes, but for its first two-thirds there’s a visceral intensity and seriousness of purpose to the action that makes it easier to forgive the film’s frustrating inability to build to any kind of true complexity or fully engage on a gut-punching level.

Not that there isn’t plenty of gut punching on display (or shootings, stabbings and neck breakings). As Tobin Frost, a suspected traitor, Denzel Washington is certainly handy with his fists. He may be 57, but Safe House proves Washington is still a very credible action star. Carrying himself with the vigour of a man 20 years his junior (not for nothing do they call him “the black Dorian Gray”), he takes out various nefarious guys in ruthlessly proficient fashion. The film calls on him to do this often, but it also gives him just enough space to unleash his usual acting fireworks after the plot kicks in.

This happens swiftly with an impressively and economically orchestrated opening salvo that sees Frost, a former CIA “wet ops” agent, voluntarily walking into the American embassy in Cape Town and giving himself up after nine years on the run. Nervous about his motives, the higher-ups at the Agency’s HQ in Langley, Virginia (among them Sam Shepherd, Brendan Gleeson and Vera Farmiga) move him for debriefing to a nearby safe house and into the charge of an untested, but desperate-to-prove himself agent called Matt Weston (Ryan Reynolds, raising his game admirably). There we learn that Frost is an expert manipulator of “human assets” and when the security of the safe house is breached, he goes to work on Weston, planting seeds of doubt in his mind about the virtue of his employers as Weston attempts to get Frost to a new, secure location while negotiating tyre-screeching car chases and hails of gunfire.

The film’s up-and-coming Swedish director Daniel Espinosa (making his big-budget English-language debut) handles such action well, delivering coherent chaos that never loses track of the characters amid all the rapid cutting and bleached-out cinematography (the film is certainly something to look at). Despite all of these positives, however, Safe House is neither as memorable nor as satisfying as it should be. Its final act twists are too generic and the drawn-out and naïve coda betrays the high-octane, downbeat mood the film seems to be going for in its earlier stages. They’re functions of a script (and doubtless studio notes) that lacks the sophistication of Spinosa’s clear abilities as a visual storyteller. That’s too bad, but the fact that he’s able to make something out it for so long suggests he’ll be a name to watch in the future.

Safe House (15)

Directed by: Daniel Espinosa

Starring: Denzel Washington, Ryan Reynolds, Vera Farmiga, Brendan Gleeson Rating: ***

An action film that manages to serve up carnage in new and interesting ways, The Raid lives up to all its hype, finds Alistair Harkness in his second report from the Glasgow Film Festival

AS THE Glasgow Film Festival moves into its final weekend, it sees the premiere of its first truly buzz-worthy film. The Raid (****) was among the earliest films to sell out this year. It’s been given a prime late-night slot as the closing film of GFF’s Frightfest strand that’s more befitting its likely cult status than its horror credentials, and it certainly justifies the hype. A relentlessly and inventively violent action film directed by Indonesia-based Welsh film-maker Gareth Evans, it does for knife fighting and martial arts action what Hard-Boiled did for gunplay, serving up a surprising number of new ways to deliver wall-to-wall carnage without boring the viewer.

Set in Jakarta, the streamlined plot revolves around a police assault on a high-rise slum that’s been taken over by a drug lord and transformed into both a factory for producing narcotics and a fortress-like residence for his numerous generals and underlings. Consequently, though heavily armed, this mostly rookie SWAT team soon find themselves under siege within the building’s labyrinthine environs as the dealers fight back and hunt them down. Dropping in just enough well-placed plot twists to keep us involved in the story, Evans promptly proceeds to unleash a dizzying and dazzling array of action set-pieces, mostly revolving around the ruthlessly proficient abilities of his star, Iko Uwais. Heads are cracked, bones are crunched, faces are sliced and jugulars are stabbed with an unparalleled frequency but – thanks to characters who define themselves through tightly choreographed but still raw and edgy action – such things never cease to be gleefully entertaining.

In musical terms, the in-your-face thrills of The Raid could probably be equated with the anti-authoritarian, confrontational stance of punk rock, numerous examples of which can be found in the The Other F Word (***). Playing as part of GFF’s Music and Film Festival, it delves into the somewhat nihilistic Southern Californian punk scene. The film’s intriguing hook, however, is to explore what happens to all that energy and attitude when its proponents get older and are suddenly forced to confront the responsibilities of fatherhood. Following a bunch of semi-famous ageing punk rock dads who now spend their evenings encouraging teenagers to “f*** authority” before going home to tuck their own kids in at night, the film mines this amusing contradiction for all it’s worth with scenes of heavily tattooed men melting in the presence of their daughters (most of them have daughters). That’s not enough to sustain an entire film, but mercifully director Andrea Blaugrund Nevins digs a little deeper and gets her interviewees – including Red Hot Chili Peppers bassist Flea (he started out in the punk band Fear) – to open up about their own neglected childhoods.

Flea turns up again in Bob and the Monster (****), another LA-based redemptive music doc, this time set around the drug-fuelled alternative rock scene of the 1980s that gave rise to the likes of the Chili Peppers, Jane’s Addiction and Courtney Love. Its subject is Bob Forrest, a self-destructive wannabe singer who bought into the romanticised self-destructive myths of the music scene and blew his shot at the big time in a haze of heroin addiction. First time director Keirda Bahruth has access to a lot of good, scuzzy archival footage, but it’s when she gets onto Forrest’s subsequent rehabilitation as an addiction specialist who helped many of his rock star pals through their own battles that the film becomes genuinely compelling.

Helping people is also at the heart of Superheroes (***), a so-so documentary playing as part of the festival’s Kapow! comic-book strand. Exploring the increasing phenomenon of real superheroes in America, it starts off as an interesting look at a bunch of disturbed individuals who come across either as deluded pour souls or garishly costumed Travis Bickles-in-waiting. Alas, the film pulls away from all the nutters desperate to try out their dangerous-looking home-made weapons on actual criminals and ends up focusing on the few who dress up and help out at homeless shelters. That’s certainly a more noble use of their philanthropic instincts, but it feels welded on to a film that’s more interesting when exploring the darker side of the phenomenon.

There are more comic-themed shenanigans in Electric Man (*), a disappointingly feeble Scottish caper about a pair of comic shop workers who become embroiled in a convoluted quest to secure a copy of an ultra-rare and valuable first issue of the titular comic. Shot on a micro-budget in and around Edinburgh, it’s embarrassingly badly acted, flatly directed and boasts a script full of naff jokes and dated pop culture gags, making it more of an East Coast Fast Romance than a Scottish Clerks. It might have been made with love, but aside from the nifty opening credits sequence, I can’t imagine it will be of much interest to anyone other than the people who made it.

The Decoy Bride (**) isn’t much better. This twee, Scottish-set romcom starring David Tennant and Kelly Macdonald received its British premiere at the festival on Tuesday night ahead of its DVD release early next month. It’s certainly not hard to see why it is mostly bypassing cinemas. Tennant is surprisingly charmless as an author who falls for Macdonald just as he’s about to wed a Hollywood movie star (Alice Eve), and Macdonald, despite her best efforts as the unlucky-in-love island girl roped in to throw the press off the scent of the couple’s Hebridean wedding, is fighting a losing battle against some pretty corny dialogue and slack pacing.

Much better is Up There (***), the debut feature from award-winning British short-filmmaker Zam Salim. Shot in Glasgow, it’s a melancholic comedy about the bureaucracy of the afterlife revolving around dead man (Burn Gorman) stuck in limbo doing a dead-end job. The film’s central joke is that the same boring mundane problems we experience in life are repeated in death, and though this gag does wear a little thin, things are held together by an engaging central turn from Gorman and the sense that Salim has created a fully realised world. And it also shows there are at least some interesting films being made in Scotland.

• The Raid is screening at Glasgow Film Theatre on 25 February; The Other F Word, GFT today and CCA tomorrow; Bob and the Monster, CCA tomorrow and GFT on 26 February; Superheroes, GFT today; The Electric Man, CCA today; The Decoy Bride, run ended; Up There, GFT tomorrow

Fence Records started life as a small shop in St Andrews. Now a new festival is taking the Fife label back to its roots - with KT Tunstall as the superstar main attraction. By David Pollock

I DON’T feel at home in the Eye o’ the Dug,” sang the Beta Band’s Steve Mason on his little-remembered 1998 solo EP, King Biscuit Time Sings Nelly Foggits Blues in Me and the Pharaohs. The lyric was a reference to St Andrews’ position on the dog’s head-shaped profile of Fife: “This is the town where we all come from / it’s an animal sanctuary.”

It wasn’t meant as a compliment, as Mason explained to the Fence Collective’s Johnny Lynch when he approached him to use the name for Fence’s new music festival.

“He told me it was odd because the song’s about how much he hates St Andrews,” says Lynch. “I know, I told him, that’s partly why we’re putting on this festival. There are plenty of people there who want to hear good music, who aren’t from that very rich, elitist background.”

Fence, the Anstruther/Cellardyke-based record label and festival promoter which Lynch runs with 2011 Mercury Prize nominee Kenny ‘King Creosote’ Anderson, has a love/hate relationship with St Andrews. It was where the brand started in the late 1990s, with Anderson’s Fence record shop – yet it was the arrival of Prince William to study in the town, and the subsequent influx of old money, that caused the shop to close.

At one point, says Lynch, rents on St Andrews’ main streets were higher than on the Royal Mile in Edinburgh, driving out any opportunity for ventures like Fence to survive.

April’s two-day Eye o’ the Dug is partly an attempt to redress that balance now that the Royal effect has faded. Lynch describes the festival – which announced its line-up a few days ago – as a larger-scale version of Fence’s Anstruther-based Homegame festival. It’s aimed at both the town’s music-savvy students and at homegrown Fifers like Mason and Anderson, as well as people from further afield.

“The main venue at the students’ union is the biggest union venue in Scotland,” says Lynch. “It’s bigger than the QMU (in Glasgow), it holds about 1,200 folk and it looks amazing when it’s done up properly. There are posters of all the bands they’ve booked on the walls there, people like Dexy’s Midnight Runners and The Jam, and even Frank Black when I was there.”

To that list Eye o’ the Dug will add a pared-down set from Alexis and Joe of Hot Chip, as well as Fife-bred Fence friends and alumni KT Tunstall, Django Django and James Yorkston, amongst many others.

Lynch isn’t precise on all the details of the festival yet, although the list of 15 announced bands should rise to around 40, including “some familiar names”, playing to an audience of between 800 and 1000, or more if ticket sales go well: roughly three or four times the capacity of Homegame.

Again, the list of venues being used hasn’t been finalised, but Lynch is excited about hearing King Creosote and Jon Hopkins play their Mercury-nominated album Diamond Mine in full in the Younger Hall.

All of which begs the question, why cancel Homegame this year and decamp to St Andrews instead? “Well now,” laughs Lynch, “that all depends on who you ask and on what day of the week. If you asked Kenny when he was in a bit of a mood, for example, he would say there might be political reasons. We purposely put Homegame on outside the tourist season to help local businesses bring a bit of money in, but then a lot of the holiday lets and so on would start putting their prices up just for that weekend. They were ripping our fans off, basically, and they didn’t need to do that.”

While Lynch and Anderson clearly feel there’s a certain ingratitude in some quarters, Lynch also points out the support they’ve had from other areas of the local community. He names Fife Council and Lindsey Brown of the East Neuk Centre, and says Fence might even return to the village later in the year – the ongoing renovation of regular Homegame venue, the Hew Scott Hall, is another just-as-significant barrier to the festival happening this year.

But will it be back ever again? Lynch is currently living on a static caravan on the Isle of Eigg with his partner, Sarah, recording his next album as the Pictish Trail. This is where July’s second Awaygame event will be held, which he hopes will be a precursor to similar touring Fence festivals within and without Scotland, including an event co-hosted with the independent Moshi Moshi label.

“We just thought it best that Homegame take a few years off,” Lynch says. “But in saying that, who knows, it might be back next year. Or it might never happen again. There you go, there’s a headline!” If his new festival comes together as planned, maybe we won’t even miss it.

• Eye o’ the Dug is at various venues around St Andrews, 14-15 April. www.eotdfestival.com

MORRISON Construction, the Scottish arm of builder Galliford Try, has boosted staffing by well over 50 per cent in the past year to some 800 as its parent posted higher interim sales, profits and dividends yesterday.

The news came as Ken Gillespie, head of the group’s construction division, claimed Holyrood was better than the UK government at green-lighting public-sector building projects “to help get the economy moving again”.

Now in the third year of a turnaround programme, Galliford revealed that pre-tax profits had surged 89 per cent to £32.2 million on sales up 30 per cent to £746.8m in the six months to end-December. Investors benefit from a doubled dividend payment of 9p, up from 4.5p.

While Galliford’s housebuilding profits, skewed to the south of England, leapt to £35m from £9.9m, construction profits were flat at £10.9m in what Gillespie said was a “difficult” climate. The construction division turned over about £500m, of which £100m was in Scotland, with contracts including Morrison’s part in a consortium working on the new Forth road bridge and schools built in Orkney.

Gillespie said Morrison was able to boost its staffing to beyond the peak of 750 in 2009.

He forecast that group profit margins would slip below 2 per cent after falling to 2.2 per cent from 2.5 per cent in the latest period.

“The Scottish Government has managed to keep its capital projects moving while we have seen many shelved elsewhere in the UK,” Gillespie said.

“Holyrood has made the connection quicker than central government that investing in major infrastructure projects in the public sector is the quickest way to get the economy moving again.”

Galliford’s shares closed up nearly 9 per cent, or 44p, at 545p.

He says he hates his own work, didn’t want to be a director and isn’t political – except when he is… Alistair Harkness tries to get to grips with Aki Kaurismäki

IINTERVIEWING Aki Kaurismäki, the Finnish auteur responsible for deadpan arthouse favourites Leningrad Cowboys Go America and the Oscar-nominated The Man Without a Past, is a little like talking to a character from one of his films. Conversation is stilted, questions are met with silence and it’s never clear how seriously anything is supposed to be taken.

This might have something to do with the fact that I’m chatting to Kaurismäki about his new film Le Havre – a poker-faced comedy-drama about an ageing shoeshine who befriends an illegal immigrant boy hiding out in the titular French port. And it doesn’t help that we’re talking over an inexcusably bad phone line (he’s only in London). But I think it might also have something to do with Kaurismäki’s general despondency.

Before I can say anything about Le Havre, for instance, he provides his own assessment: “It’s another piece of shit, as always.”

A sampling of press clippings reveals this is one of his standard self-deprecating refrains. Usually it’s accompanied by protestations to the contrary from the interviewer, but I’m prepared to take him at his word. He can’t genuinely believe he’s made a piece of shit, can he?

“Of course I can, because my references are higher.”

So, he really just thinks it’s a piece of shit in comparison to his inspirations?

“My inspirations are all art,” he replies, letting out a long declamatory sigh. I wait for him to expand on this, but I’m met with silence. A few minutes in and already it’s like wading through quicksand.

I proceed by asking him about his characters. His films tend to focus on those living on the margins of society. Where previous works have been political without being issue-driven, Le Havre seems more didactic in the way it serves up pointed critiques of government policy towards immigration. Does he think it’s more directly political?

“It’s a complicated question because I am political in private…” He trails off. “Eh, what did you ask?”

I rephrase the question another couple of times. “I’ve never been a political director,” he says, finally. “When people go to the cinema, they don’t want a political lesson and, so far, I hide it in the stories very deep because if I’m a worker and going to the cinema after working eight or ten hours a day, I don’t want to see any politics in the film… Of course, all my films have politics, because I don’t see any reason to make a film if you don’t have anything to say. In my case I have something to say. But it’s obviously not something political.”

Perplexed, I ask him, then, if Le Havre started out more simply as a story of an immigrant African boy adrift in a foreign port, rather than, say, an attempt to address immigration. Contrary to the previous answer, though, he says no.

“I always saw news of people who have died trying to get to Europe and this news continued to come and somehow this started to be a story. This tale is a fairytale, but it started to be a political question to me. I couldn’t stand the situation without doing something, and for me, that means a film.” A film he thinks is a piece of shit, I remind myself.

I come at it from another angle. Did he make the lead character, Marcel, a shoeshine for any symbolic reason? Typically, he says no. After some cajoling, however, he says he has a story he can tell me about this.

“I saw a shoe-shiner in the town in Portugal where I live and he had no customers, so I took my shoes for a shine. At the same time I was thinking, ‘Who the hell is the main character?’ And then I looked down and saw the shoe-shiner shining my shoe and I said to myself, ‘OK.’”

Now it’s my turn for stony-faced silence. Nevertheless, I persevere. I bring up the fact that Marcel is played by the actor André Wilms who, 20 years earlier, played a struggling artist called Marcel in Kaurismäki’s only other French language film, The Bohemian Life. Is Le Havre a continuation of that film?

“It’s a joke, more or less,” he says, “but it doesn’t mean anything.”

Sheesh – it’s like pulling teeth. I ask him (twice) about his love of early rock’n’roll and its prominence in his films. He says he uses it so that “I don’t have to write dialogue”. Seeking more detail, I wonder why he features a concert by an ageing French rocker called Little Bob in Le Havre. Is Little Bob a well-known French star?

Kaurismäki: “What?”

Little Bob?

“He was just there. And I’m not blind.”

Huh?

“He’s the Elvis of France,” he says, eventually.

Isn’t that Johnny Hallyday? I ask. Silence.

I change tack. Having made a silent film (Juha) back in 1999, what does he make of the revival of interest in the format since The Artist?

“Yeah, I never understood this silent stuff,” he says. “I think people talk too much anyway.” Evidently.

Since Kaurismäki makes films that he not only thinks are shit but apparently isn’t particularly interested in discussing, I wonder why he got started in film-making in the first place.

“Got started with what?”

Why did he want to become a director?

“I never wanted to become a director. I wanted to be a writer. They didn’t trust me to be a writer, so I became a director. I was not talented enough to be a writer.”

It seems too complicated to take issue with such specious I-accidentally-became-a-director nonsense, so I ask if he means he wanted to be a novelist. “Yeah,” he says.

I look at my watch. I have another few minutes, but decide life’s too short and thank him for his time. He apologises again for the bad line. I tell him not to worry, that these things happen. I still feel like I’m in one of his films, though, and we all know how he feels about those…

• Le Havre is the Glasgow Film Festival Closing Night Gala 26 February and goes on general release on 6 April.