Pick of the Week: Balancing notions of Big Eck's nation

Published on Sunday 13 April 2008 21:48

ALL WEEK ALEX & NICOLA

IT'S game on again for the Scottish Parliament this week as Big Eck gets back to work after a last look at his holiday snaps – "that's me in New York with Smeato"… "there I am with Lawrence Tynes, the American football kicker, you know, from Greenock"… and "that's me and Moira with Linda Fab marching along", etc.

Scotland Week or Tartan Week, call it what you will, was a tricky one for Mr S to pull off. The question of Scotland's identity abroad – and how it is perceived back home – is pretty central to the development of Scotland as a nation. Whether the SNP was right to go for Scotland Week rather than Tartan Week is open to debate, but they were probably right to refuse the alternative suggestion of "Jings, Crivvens, Help Ma Boab Week" proposed by the Greenwich Village Oor Wullie Fan Club.

In truth, Scotland is neither the dynamic, thrusting, pot pourri of contemporary culture and cutting-edge bioscience that the modernisers would have us believe – or the land of tartan, heather and haggis, glens and swirling mists beloved of global Caledonian societies. It is both – and it is necessary for the SNP to promote the former and to accept that the latter is what many ex-pats and potential visitors want. Last week, Mr Salmond walked the tightrope pretty well – indeed, he continues to be an accomplished tightrope-walker in all fields: managing a minority govern-ment, dealing with weekly spats between Holyrood and Westminster, etc.

This week, the SNP has a spring conference in the unllkely venue of Heriot-Watt Uni in Edinburgh, rather than Aviemore or Inverness. A symbol of modern, thrusting Scotland perhaps. Alex speaks on Sunday, wee Nicola warms the crowd up on Saturday. It will probably be a self-congratulatory "one year from history" event but, hey, who can blame them?

TODAY-TOMORROW

TREVOR EVE

HIS slicked-back grey hair is a bit mad, but I quite like Trevor Eve – and although I don't watch it religiously (in a cassock), I find it hard to switch off Waking The Dead if I come across it on telly. It's back on BBC1 tonight and tomorrow, but clashes with five-a-side and picking my daughter up from swimming, so I probably won't see it. I did see Trevor's turn as Hughie Green on BBC4 the other week – it was hard to see him as the oily Hughie, but he pulled it off spectacularly well. I mean that most sincerely, Trevor.

SATURDAY/SUNDAY

KT TUNSTALL

I JUST can't get into KT Tunstall. There are similar bands or singer-songwriters who I can happily listen to and enjoy – not KT. I can't put my finger on it – she seems a very likeable, well-grounded young woman, she's a Scottish success story and a very talented musician and performer. Yet whenever I hear her songs, my teeth grate – I just don't like her music and there's something about her that grates too. Sorry, I'm sure she won't lose sleep and that she cares much more for the fans who will flock to see her at the SECC, Glasgow on Saturday and AECC, Aberdeen, on Sunday.

SATURDAY

COLIN MONTGOMERIE

IT'S a shame the story about Robbie Williams singing at Monty's wedding to Gaynor Knowles was denied. The idea of cheeky Robbie serenading miserable Monty and Mrs amused me, and I was surprised to learn the pair were pals. Imagine if they swapped hairstyles. Monty's three children from his 14-year marriage to ex-wife Eimear and Gaynor's four kids with furniture tycoon George Knowles jnr (he died back in 2003) are delighted by the couple's plan to tie the knot at Cameron House, Loch Lomond, on Saturday. Angels.

WEDNESDAY

BONNIE PRINCE CHARLIE

IN CASE your grip on history is weak, "Bonnie" was applied as an adjective to Charles Edward Stuart. He was not a girl like Bonnie Langford – though he did dress as a girl in times of peril. The new Culloden Battlefield visitor centre/exhibition officially opens (on the 1746 battle anniversary) on Wednesday. It sounds great, but what intrigues me about BPC's life is the idea of him as one of the first celebrities. His bold expedition and romantic escape made him a star, but his life afterwards was a long anticlimax of futile conspiracies and addiction. A bit like Kerry Katona, really.

ALSO THIS WEEK …

Today: The Royal Family blackmail case, featuring a member we can't name with details we can't report, starts.

Tomorrow: The Lithuanians accused of murdering Jolanta Bledaite in Angus are due to appear in court again.

Wednesday: The first birthday of Recommends, the best "best of" eight-page supplement published by a Scottish paper on Wednesdays. Join Spike Milligan, Charlie Chaplin and Dusty Springfield to celebrate. We also find out whether Lanarkshire artist Katie Pope has managed to turn a 79p bottle of Irn-Bru into 10,000. Katie's paintings of her native Motherwell are shortlisted for the Aspect Prize, one of Scotland's biggest arts awards. One work, Buddha and Dogs was based on a tough neighbour, clutching our other national drink and accompanied by snarling hounds.

Thursday: Nicholas Yarris, who spent 23 years (8,057 days to be precise) on death row in the US, before being exonerated, is guest speaker at the Drummond Hunter Memorial Lecture (organised by the Howard League for Penal Reform) at St George's Centre, Garscube Terrace, Edinburgh.

Friday: The South-East Scotland Transport Partnership (known by sexy acronym SEStran) has a meeting. On the agenda is transport in the south-east Scotland area.

Saturday: It's the Scottish Grand National at Ayr.