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Harry Potter first edition a notable read
Only 500 copies of the first edition of the first Harry Potter book were published, and a very special one is up for auction, crammed with notes and drawings by JK Rowling, writes Martyn McLaughlin
Edinburgh Jazz and Blues Festival set for stars video
A SAXOPHONIST who tours the globe with pop star Beyonce is among the highlights of this year’s Edinburgh Jazz and Blues Festival as organisers seek to open up the ten-day event to a younger audience.
Images of Scotland: Liathach and Beinn Eighe
Douglas Hood’s photograph of Liathach and Beinn Eighe was taken from a rowing boat in the middle of Loch Clair
Festival review: Stag & Dagger, Various Venues, Glasgow
In a climate where start-up festivals come and go and multi-venue events seem to be finding it tough to achieve any degree of longevity, it’s pleasing to report that promoter PCL’s annual one-day Stag and Dagger jaunt around Glasgow appears to have reached its fifth anniversary in good health.
Edinburgh Sketcher goes in search of giants in Edinburgh
Look to the trees around Holyrood to see who’s looking back
100 Weeks of Scotland: Gullane|Applecross|Rob Roy video
ACTRESS Shonagh Price is the first image from this week. Taken at Gullane beach on a perfect May morning this photo forms part of a series of images I have been working on entitled ‘Magnetic North’, a project in which I am photographing artists, actors, writers etc.
Cannes: Gatsby takes lead at opulent film festival
BRITAIN is out of the running for the Palme D’Or at Cannes, but there’s a strong showing elsewhere, and the prominence of the opulent Great Gatsby seems somehow apposite, writes Stephen Applebaum
Not Another Happy Ending: On set with Karen Gillan
Former Doctor Who companion Karen Gillan stars in a romcom that will close this year’s Edinburgh International Film Festival. Gaby Soutar was on the set for filming in Glasgow
Climbing Everest for a high chance of survival
Earlier this year a team of medics set off for Mount Everest – in a bid to help intensive care patients. Lisa Salmon reports
Album review: Daft Punk: Random Access Memories
The French Duo’s hotly anticipated new offering puts the soul back into dance music as Daft Punk invite an impressive guest list along to the party
Dance review: Sutra, Edinburgh
AS ONE visually striking moment melts into the next, you start to realise that Sutra is as much a piece of visual art as it is performance. Which, given that the set was designed by British sculptor Antony Gormley, makes perfect sense.
Images of Scotland: North Berwick West Links
Sylvia Beaumont took this photograph of the statute commemorating North Berwick golfer Ben Sayers, who watches over the west links golf course in the town
Stephen McGinty: Going to town on Positano
The Italian ‘dream place’ and its famous hotel popularised by John Steinbeck 60 years ago still casts its spell over celebrity and non-celebrity guests alike, writes Stephen McGinty
Lori Anderson: Chanel exhibition makes scents
Some may claim No 5 ‘perfumed the 20th century’. Lori Anderson looks at the facts and finds this is far from fragrant nonsense
Erikka Askeland: Old donkey of truth still has legs
For the first time, I watched an episode of The Jeremy Kyle Show last week. I’m not proud. Suffice to say I was hungover and alone in a hotel room, with a few leisurely hours to kill before I met a friend for lunch.
Texas’ Sharleen Spiteri on the band’s comeback
PART tomboy, part rock chick, part soul siren and complete Glasgow girl, Sharleen Spiteri and texas are back. And after 25 years in the business, she’s still got plenty to talk about.
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Designer John Rocha on his new range of glasses
CORRECTIVE lenses make it simpler to see a gap in the fashion market, so designer John Rocha was well-placed to create his first collection of glasses.
Geraldine Howard on aromatherapy, her new product
WHEN aromatherapist Geraldine Howard was diagnosed with cancer she turned to the power of essential oils to get her through the darkest days
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Roger Cox: ‘Socialising at Tarbert is legendary – so is the sailing’
AS regattas go, the Scottish Series has it all: a stunning backdrop for the racing courtesy of the dark, densely forested hillsides that surround Loch Fyne; a stretch of water blessed with consistent winds and minimal tides; and a legendary party atmosphere courtesy of the picturesque little port of Tarbert – so busy when the sailing circus comes to town that boats often have to tie up two, three and four abreast beside the pontoons.
Janet Christie: ‘Scouring for moustaches on paintings’
“BY the way,” says Eldest Child as the other two and I step over the threshold for a weekend away, tripping over inflatable mattresses, duvets and plastic bags stuffed with snacks, “I’m having a couple of friends round.”
Cream o’Galloway is a family trip with decadent flavour
I CAN still remember the first time I tasted Cream o’ Galloway ice-cream. It was love at first slurp, so when we found ourselves in the south west of Scotland there was one place on top of my visiting wish list; the farm where this creamy cold nectar is produced.
Interiors: Logie Country House, back from the ashes
LIKE a phoenix, Logie Country House has risen from the ashes to become a five-star retreat – complete with a ghost.
Gardens: Inspiration rife at country’s biggest show
FOR gardeners who have been struggling with the unpredictable weather, expert help will be on hand at Scotland’s biggest horticultural show.
Gardening Scotland, which is being held at The Royal Highland Centre in Edinburgh from 31 May-2 June, provides access to the most experienced professionals from the world of horticulture.
Travel: White Island, New Zealand
DWARVES, elves and orcs, wizards and warrens full of hobbits – New Zealand is Middle-earth these days, Peter Jackson’s films providing a marvellous showcase for the country’s awesome natural landscapes.
Travel: Stobo Castle, Perthshire
AS we tootled along the country roads from Lanark in the general direction of Peebles on our way to Stobo Castle for a day trip, the chat was already high octane.
TV preview: Case Histories | The Last Days of Anne Boleyn
ADAPTING crime novels for TV is a notoriously hit-or-miss business. With a fraction of the space a book can give to fleshing out suspects and setting up false trails, perhaps having to condense several hundred pages into an hour of drama, the results can come across as shallow.
Restaurant review: Lychee Oriental, Glasgow
MORINDA citrifolia (aka the dog dumpling) smells like cheese when ripe, resembles an obese caterpillar, and is especially attractive to ants and fruit bats. Then there’s the durian, which gives off an odour like turpentine and has a custard-textured pulp.
World Whisky Day: Scotland’s global export
The ‘water of life’, especially in single-malt form, is one of Scotland’s most enduring exports. But should it really be mixed with condensed milk? Fiona MacGregor reports
Book review: Dial H: Volume 1, Into You by China Miéville
To my mind, China Miéville is one of the most interesting literary writers currently working in Britain, an accolade undiminished, though perhaps sometimes obscured, by his wholehearted commitment to genre.
William McIlvanney: The father of tartan noir
As Canongate set about reprinting his classics, William McIlvanney tells Susan Mansfield that we may not have heard the last of DI Laidlaw
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Book review: Between Friends by Amos Oz
In 1954, aged 14, Amos Klausner changed his name to Amos Oz, leaving behind him his home and father, exchanging city life for the relative privations of the desert, cutting his teeth (and his new identity) on life in an Israeli kibbutz.
Book review: The Lion Rampant by Robert Low
With The Lion Rampant and its vivid, imaginative and blood-curdling account of Bannockburn, Robert Low, one assumes, has concluded in splendid bravura style, his sequence of novels on the Wars of Independence.
Images of Scotland: Pentland Hills
Eric Tomlinson’s photograph of a walker and dog captures the tranquility of the Threipmuir Reservoir on the Pentland Hills
Stephen Jardine: Put more Scots back in the mix
What do flaming foreigners do for us? When it comes to food and drink, “a lot” is the answer. Apart from supporting exports worth £5.31 billion, foreign workers here play a big role.
Chevy’s making Trax
THE Chevrolet Trax is a compact SUV in the Nissan Juke/Skoda Yeti mould. As well as chunky looks and a tempting price tag, the lil’ Chevy also has heritage on its side – its maker claims to have got the sport-utility vehicle ball rolling in the 1930s, with the Carryall Suburban, an eight-seater car the size of a bread van and built for the North American market in the days before anyone thought of calling SUVs “SUVs”.
The Rev Lorna Hood on the gay ministers debate
‘THERE is not going to be a great schism.” The Rev Lorna Hood is sitting on a sofa in the drawing room of an elegant town house in Rothesay Terrace, the official home of the Moderator of the Church of Scotland in Edinburgh.
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Images of Scotland: Jasper, Scottish farm cat
Tom Steven took this photograph of Jasper, a hard working Scottish farm cat, who catches a lot of mice, rats and rabbits
Iconic London street signs to be auctioned off
THEY have pointed Londoners and tourists in the right direction for generations but their time has now passed.
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A Night at the Museum: What’s the appeal?
THE Museums at Night festival opens today and is expected to attract 120,000 visitors all over Britain this year. But is there really any magic of a museum after dark? Alice Wyllie went along to the National Museum of Scotland in Edinburgh to find out
Opera review: The Pirates of Penzance, Glasgow
IN HIS nimble new production for Scottish Opera of Gilbert and Sullivan’s The Pirates of Penzance, director Martin Lloyd-Evans has delivered exactly what he promised – a fresh and vital slant on an old chestnut that neither settles for hackneyed routine nor corrupts it with needless modernisation.
Gig review: Emmylou Harris and Rodney Crowell, Glasgow
EMMYLOU Harris and Rodney Crowell have been collaborators since he joined her Hot Band in 1975, but it is only with the release of their duets album, Old Yellow Moon, that they have formalised their double act and ostensibly share the billing on this tour.
Film reviews: Fast & Furious 6 | A Hijacking | The Liability
ALISTAIR Harkness reviews the week’s cinema releases.
Art review: Frederic Church, Edinburgh
WE aren’t too familiar with early American painting, and the tradition of touring huge canvases has died out, but this collection brings both together, showing how the emerging nation was learning to describe and define itself
Epic new kids’ film packs big ideas into small tale
AS an online petition objecting to Disney’s misguided revamp of Brave’s Princess Merida picks up signatures by the thousand (if you haven’t seen it, Merida is now slimmer, she’s wearing make-up, her neck-line is lowered and instead of a bow and arrow she has sparkles on her dress), I confess I feel heartened at the first images of the heroine of the new animated feature, Epic.
Bringing Commonwealth Gaelic diaspora home for 2014
SAIL a westbound ferry boldly beyond its habitual port of call, tramp the age-old cattle route of a drove road past its market destination then keep going, and you have emigration.
Pastels making anxious return to Glasgow spotlight
IT has been 16 years since The Pastels last released an album of their own. This seems hard to credit, even for a man who talks as slowly and carefully as frontman Stephen McRobbie, aka Stephen Pastel, aka the benevolent godfather of Glasgow’s still-thriving independent music scene (a title he will certainly not thank me for bestowing).
1 comment‘Tango opera’ brings street style to Edinburgh
THE essence of Argentine culture is distilled in a version of Astor Piazzolla’s ‘tango opera’ presented by Mr McFall’s Chamber
Arts blog: ‘Uhura is not far off being Bridget Jones in space’
SEXISM lets down the new Star Trek movie according to trekkie Andrea Mullaney, while David Pollock previews a Cuillins psychogeography project.
Film review: The Great Gatsby
COMPOSED like a fashion shoot, Baz Luhrmann’s Gatsby is so full of spectacle that it risks missing the point of Fitzgerald’s story.
Images of Scotland: Cleared Coast, Skye
Scotsman reader Douglas Fiddes sent in this photograph of the Cleared Coast on Skye
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Weather for Edinburgh
Tuesday 21 May 2013
Today
Sunny spells
Temperature: 6 C to 17 C
Wind Speed: 12 mph
Wind direction: North east
Tomorrow
Sunny spells
Temperature: 3 C to 13 C
Wind Speed: 23 mph
Wind direction: North west
