- Trio set off on charity bike ride
- Photos 'of Bismarck sinking' emerge
- Warning issued about dangerous gas
- Neighbour rescues woman from fire
- Man held over £85,000 drugs find
- Fund for 'climate justice' launched
- Scorching day for marathon runners
- Anti-independence campaign 'soon'
- Saltire Games ban 'ridiculous'
- Park waterfall death man named
Lifestyle
Interview: Harry Belafonte, singer
He fought for civil rights alongside Martin Luther King, Nelson Mandela and Marlon Brando, Barack Obama’s mother reckons he’s the best-looking man on the planet and he has had hit records galore, but Harry Belafonte is suspicious of celebrities who write about their lives. So how come he has written a memoir and documentary about his own?
Get ahead, get a hat
From rock stars to royalty, headwear is enjoying a fashion revival among both men and women, and Scottish milliners are leading the charge
Fuel poverty has prompted a revival of peat-cutting on Lewis video
IT IS early one morning in May, the Hebridean sky huge and blue, and Norman Macleod and Peter Urpeth, two old pals from Lewis, are walking out on to the moor, tools slung over their shoulders, ready for another day at the peats.
We are a mile or so inland from the village of Back, in the north-east of the island.
Travel: Glen Tanar, Aboyne, Aberdeenshire
It says something about the architecture of the 19th century that the outbuildings and servants’ quarters of stately homes can today have as much charm as the grand buildings they were built up around.
Travel: Oman
The donkey caravan emerged where the rocks above us met the deep blue of the sky, plodding down an ancient trade route from the Omani mountain hamlet of Aqabat Al Hamra, which had no road access.
Interview: Jilli Blackwood, designer and artist
TEXTILE designer and artist Jilli Blackwood’s talent was recognised early on. By the legendary fashion icon Jean Muir, no less, when Blackwood was still at Glasgow School of Art and the promising student was able to show her some of her designs. “She was an incredible woman,” says Blackwood.
Ruth Walker: ‘Life is busy and sometimes a person just don’t have time to finish their sentences’
We’ve had weeks of enjoyable schadenfreude at the revelation that David Cameron signed off his texts to Rebekah Brooks with LOL. The poor sap.
Louisa Pearson: ‘Does formal volunteering require wearing a tux or ballgown?’
Do you remember the Berlin Wall? I do. We went on a school trip to see it in the late 1980s, when it was still intact and policed by armed guards. Souvenir Checkpoint Charlie T-shirts were on sale there.
Ruth Walker: Through hell and high water
To complete the latest extreme endurance challenge, you need to be one Tough Mudder
Chitra Ramaswamy: ‘We have some history with this beautiful length of coast. We tried to go once before but the weather was so bad that all we saw was the inside of our tent’
It’s a miserable Wednesday morning in early May on the west coast, where C and I are on holiday. At least that's what we called it before we left home. Now we're after a new name, something more representative. Purgatory, perhaps?
Interview: Morag Macpherson, textile designer
FOR a designer inspired by the world around her – travels to Japan, Cambodia, Morocco, the US – it should be no surprise to discover that Morag Macpherson’s most important commission to date is from Manhattan's newest, chicest destination hotel.
City guide: Annapolis, Maryland, USA
THE CAPITAL of the US state of Maryland, on Chesapeake Bay at the mouth of the Severn River, the city of Annapolis owes its birth to the water and it continues to be its lifeblood.
Travel: Hotel Plaza Athenee, Paris
IN THIS, its centenary year, the Plaza Athenee, with its art deco steel and glass canopy, baskets of tumbling red flowers and scarlet awnings, is as attractive as in its first flush of youth, when Josephine Baker and Rudolph Valentino gayly danced across its polished marble floors.
Walk of the week: Ettrick Water, Selkirk
SELKIRK bannocks are great – Queen Victoria is said to have enjoyed a taste when she visited the Borders town. Despite royal approval, it is the appreciation of our four-year-old daughter that counts.
Travel: Goa, India
Goa’s reputation as a destination for alternative culture is well deserved, but head off the beaten track to discover its true mix of flavours
Interview: Oliver Shute, chef and food entrepreneur
Oliver Shute is putting Bambi and Thumper back on our dining tables, finds Janet Christie
Nil by mouth: Opening up to oral hygiene
ORAL health – or the lack of it – is an indicator of general well-being, so it’s time to sort out your hygiene regime
1 commentWine: ‘North-eastern Italy is open to experimentation’
A FREQUENT complaint, particularly about French and Italian wine producers, used to be their reluctance to learn from the New World. Equally, many have ascribed a similar conservatism to the top levels of the British wine trade.
Ruth Walker: ‘11pm on a Saturday is when a lady is at her most frisky. I’m gutted I slept through it’
SATURDAY night, 11pm. I've checked my diary to be certain on this one, and I can categorically confirm that, for at least the last four Saturdays on the trot, I have been curled up, foetus-like, in bed – my own bed – by this time.
Louisa Pearson: ‘I’ve had alcoholic neighbours who shouted all night instead of sleeping’
When the sheep in the field next to where I live baa, it’s exactly the same note as my mobile phone’s ringtone. As you can imagine, this leads to some confusion
Restaurant review: Café Royal Oyster Bar, West Register St., Edinburgh
IS THERE a more beautiful or atmospheric restaurant in Edinburgh – or Britain – than the Café Royal Oyster Bar? This, as I’ve just explained to my daughter as she took a break from grappling with the hidden meanings of Macbeth, is a rhetorical question: of course there isn’t.
Fiona Leith: Let’s give dancing a birl
BLINK and you would have missed it. Turn your head to check where the latest in a succession of champagne corks had landed and you wouldn’t even have heard it, such was its desire to fall under the radar of conversation and rocket through the atmosphere to my ear alone with a stealthy lack of fuss.
Peter Ross: The ballad of lonely Joe
WHAT happened was he broke down outside our house. A wee car with a wee man in it. The ignition was skittering, stuttering, wouldn’t start.
Interview: Staycation guru, Annabella Forbes
Annabella Forbes knows nothing beats local knowledge and friendly hosts.
Louisa Pearson: ‘I haven’t noticed many boulangeries in Scotland (no, Greggs doesn’t count)’
WHAT makes 2012 significant? Bear in mind there are several wrong answers and one right one to this question.
Ruth Walker: It’s more than skin-deep, cosmetic tattooing changes lives
TATTOOS. It seems that everyone has one these days. Whether it's a tramp stamp à la Christina Aguilera, something a little more esoteric, like Jessica Alba’s (she has the Sanskrit symbol for a lotus flower on her wrist), or a full-on body inking in the David Beckham league, all the celebs are now wearing their art on their sleeves.
1 commentRuth Walker: ‘I’m seriously considering attaching the teenager’s stuff to her with string’
FIRST, there was the mobile phone theft. It was whipped right out of her pocket while she supped a pint of snakebite or Diamond White, or whatever it is the young people drink these days.
Interview: Geoffrey Beattie, author of ‘Chasing Lost Times: A Father and Son Reconciled Through Running’
THERE is a story in Geoffrey Beattie’s new book that makes my blood go cold. It tells of how he and his young family had moved into a house in the middle of nowhere, on the moors outside Sheffield.
Travel: St Ermin’s Hotel, London
YOU want a discreet hideout right in the heart of London? Go where the spies went. Get off the tube at St James Park, turn right into Caxton Place, right again into an elegant courtyard, and there you are – its name above the foyer in the least obtrusive lights you could imagine: St Ermin’s Hotel.
City guide: Abu Dhabi
NOW it may seem that in a country where summer temperatures top 50°C, the opportunities for meaningful sports-related activity are limited.
Travel: Kirkenes Snow Hotel, Arctic Norway
TIME for bed. I wore merino wool base layers, pyjamas, hat, muffler, balaclava and socks enhanced by heating pads. I was snuggled into a sleeping bag capable of withstanding temperatures of –30°C. I was still cold. Understandable, perhaps, as this was the Kirkenes Snow Hotel in Arctic Norway. Ron, my partner, and I flew for about two hours from Oslo to Kirkenes, an ice-free port inside the Arctic Circle, to stay in the Snow Hotel and then view the somewhat elusive, ethereal, mysterious aurora borealis – the northern lights.
Chitra Ramaswamy: Is it just me or has 2012 forgotten its own age?
BASICALLY, if 2012 were an outfit, it would be a babydoll dress with wedges fat enough to prop open a fire door.
Louise Pearson: Earth is being ravaged by titanium mining so we can smear sunblock on our noses
THE décolletage is an area seldom mentioned in this column, but today is the exception. I’m Victorian when it comes to showing flesh – anything above the ankles or below the chin is risky.
Ruth Walker: ‘It sounds like a laugh. In the way having your toenails pulled out is a laugh’
TO BE filed under the ‘it seemed a good idea at the time’ section of the Walker memoirs – alongside that vile pixie crop I sported on holiday in Tunisia in 1986, which I thought made me look like Madonna in the Papa Don't Preach video but, as photographic evidence now proves, turned me into a less attractive version of my twin brother – is this: Tough Mudder.
Travel: The Glencoe Hotel, Glencoe Village
VISITORS to Scotland flock to Glencoe in much the same way that visitors to Paris flock to the Eiffel Tower.
Bosnian war: Twenty years on from the beginning of the war in Bosnia, and the country is still giving up its dead
IT IS 20 years since the war in the former Yugoslavia began and the communities shattered during those three years are still picking up the pieces – with the help of some dedicated Scots who hold the country very close to their hearts
1 commentLouisa Pearson: ‘It’s not easy being antisocial in a world hell-bent on pushing connectivity’
DO YOU play Angry Birds? Have you heard of them? I believe it’s a game people play on their mobile phones. I might be wrong. I have about as much interest in mobile phones as I have in football or Britain’s Got Talent.
Ruth Walker: ‘My first gig? The Wombles in Leith notwithstanding, I think it was Duran Duran’
I WENT to a concert last week. A gig, I think the young people call it. It's fair to say that, much as the Queen Mum (allegedly) didn’t do sex, I don't do concerts.
Interview: Michelle Bowley, vegetable supplier
THE BIRTH of a first child can have different effects on different people. For some, it forces them to put down roots, to seek security; others are determined to achieve something dramatic that will make their children proud; others might revert to childhood themselves in an attempt to regain lost youth.
City guide: St Petersburg for art lovers
S T PETERSBURG was founded by an emperor looking to emulate the cultural modernity of Europe. Today, in many respects, Russia’s ‘northern capital’ eclipses its Western counterparts. The historical significance of the city cannot be overstated, but St Petersburg also offers a veritable smorgasbord of culture for shrewd visitors to enjoy. Finding art is not difficult – the city is home to nearly 50 galleries and one of the largest museums on the planet – but divining what deserves your attention can be tough.
Loganair is like no other airline – where dogs scurry under seats for take-off, geese scatter across runways and the view from the window catches at the heart video
IT IS 16 April, exactly 897 years since the martyrdom of Magnus, Orkney’s patron saint, and the puffins, as if in acknowledgement of the anniversary, have chosen this day to return to their sea stack off Westray after months in the north Atlantic. Meanwhile, Captain Stuart Linklater, a senior pilot with Loganair, lifts the nose of the small plane known as the Islander from the runway at Kirkwall and plunges once more into his own natural environment – the cool blue air above these green islands.
5 comments- Family mourn death of Glasgow ‘fight’ schoolboy
- Rangers takeover: Duff & Phelps threaten legal action against BBC
- Today’s youth not fit to be employed, says car firm Arnold Clark
- Rangers administration: Fans fear Duff & Phelps claims could scare off Green
- Rangers takeover: triple penalty punishment enough, says Johnston
- Alistair Darling leads ‘No to independence’ fight over tea and biscuits
- Scottish independence: SNP flip-flops over Nato
- Scottish Independence: SNP ‘won’t be Yes campaign’s only voice’
- Scottish independence: Alex Salmond’s pledge to sign up 1m voters
- Today’s youth not fit to be employed, says car firm Arnold Clark
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Weather for Edinburgh
Sunday 27 May 2012
Today
Sunny
Temperature: 9 C to 22 C
Wind Speed: 13 mph
Wind direction: North east
Tomorrow
Sunny
Temperature: 9 C to 21 C
Wind Speed: 15 mph
Wind direction: North east
