Stooshie Issue 6 Published June 28 2014 by D C Thomson & Co Ltd

June 28 issue no.6 ❘ £2.50

W NE NE ZI GA MA

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Murray gets menaced

Stooshie Beano boost for ace Andy

T h e b e s t o f Scott i s h m e d i a – n e w s

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opinion

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28-Jun-14

On the move

T In The Park finds a new home

Will they, won’t they?

Bannockburn remembered

Fury over on/off indy TV debate

Parties, pride and politics

Granite City’s Jihadi Home-grown terror reaches Scotland

Scotland in days www.thestooshie.co.uk

the

Terror threat hits close to home

IPSO facto: All you need to know about new Press watchdog

Around Scotland: What’s hit the headlines where you are

Stooshie of the Week: To holiday here or elsewhere?

Business: West Coast franchise on track

Editor’s Round-up: That was the week that was

Welcome to another packed edition of The Stooshie, the magazine that brings you the big stories from across Scotland. The country’s headline makers have served up plenty more intriguing fare this week and we’ve trawled through newspapers, websites, blogs, social media and TV and radio to deliver the best news, views and comments in one place. This week marked 700 years since the Battle of Bannockburn so, as one might expect, plenty of people have been having their say on what the anniversary means – or should mean – to Scots. But in this, the year of the independence referendum, there have been a few others lining up to play party politics. Elsewhere, logistics – not politics – mean T in the Park organisers have had to find a new home for Scotland’s largest music festival, while the image of a young Scots Muslim in a recruitment video for terror group Isis sent a shiver down the spine. The Fourth Estate itself was also back in the news this week, something our Seven by Seven looks at, while our Stooshie of the Week discusses the merits – or pitfalls – of staying at home this summer holiday season. And with England out of the World Cup, the media’s focus has once again shifted to the shoulders of Andy Murray as he continues his Wimbledon title defence. Read, digest and enjoy!

SCOTTISH WORD OF THE WEEK

braw adj ❘ br : ❘ 1. Fine, splendid, excellent. 2. Dressed in a fine or showy manner. Usage: “It’s a braw, bricht, moonlicht nicht the nicht.” “Tennis is braw.” (see Oor Wullie, page 13)

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Fred Said: Preparing to party until it’s Pimm’s o’clock

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■ Glaswegian Mark McConville was there as Uruguay beat England.

Editor-in-chief: Richard Neville Editor: Steve Bargeton Deputy editor: Catriona MacInnes Art director: Aileen Wilkie Content manager: Rory Weller Editorial: Craig Smith, Stefan Morkis, Alastair Bennett Contributors: Brian Donaldson, Robert McNeil, Jonathan Trew, James Williamson, Graham Huband

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4 l news

MAIN EVENTS

Battle lines drawn over Bannockburn events Clans line up to celebrate Bruce’s famous victory, but clash with nearby Armed Forces Day may have hit ticket sales ■ Scotland marked the 700th anniversary of the Battle of Bannockburn with a series of events leading up to a full-scale re-enactment of the conflict. Commemorations of Robert the Bruce’s famous victory over the forces of Edward II on June 23 and 24, 1314, included the laying of wreaths and torch-lit processions. Bruce’s victory was a key moment in the battle for Scots independence and clansmen from all over the UK will head to the battle site for a weekend of commemorations.

However, there have been reports that ticket sales for the Bannockburn Live event have been sluggish, although organisers have insisted numbers sold have been in line with expectations. Meanwhile, the UK Government has scheduled Armed Forces Day celebrations in Stirling on the same day – raising suggestions party politics are being played. More than 50,000 people are expected to attend that event, with organisers now expecting around 20,000 at Bannockburn.

EDITORIALS SAY

COMMENTATORS SAY

Some of the myths surrounding the battle, need to be swept away argued The Herald in its leader column. “Bannockburn was not, for example, a simple case of Scots versus English; there were many Scots who were hand in glove with the English.” Nor was Scotland necessarily a better place after Bruce’s victory, the paper said. However, it is still a landmark in history well worth celebrating because it “was certainly the beginnings of modern Scotland”. “The independence debate has shown that Scots have different views on where the country goes from here, but everyone can agree on where we have come from – and the central role the Battle of Bannockburn played,” it added. Meanwhile, The Scotsman highlighted the political issue raised by the clash between Bannockburn and Armed Forces Day but stressed that people are free to enjoy both events however they wish. “It may well be the case that Bannockburn inculcates in a voter a renewed sense of Scotland’s ancient destiny as a proudly independent nation,” it noted. “Just as it may leave the next voter with a renewed appreciation of a UK where such ancient hatreds can be put aside in favour of common endeavour.”

Writing in the Mail on Sunday, Hamish Macdonnell said that the proximity of Armed Forces Day has cast a huge shadow over the Bannockburn Live event. Furthermore, he sees the two events as representing polar opposites in the independence debate. “What we have in the heart of Scotland is a symbolic battle between the Union and independence, played out in the most emotional way each side can do it.” Bannockburn, he argued, though important, is perhaps only so in an “ancient historical sense”, while “the Armed Forces celebrations, are current and alive”. He concludes that this preference for the present rather than the pull of the past is why a majority of Scots intend to vote No in September. David Torrance in the Herald said Alex Salmond with his “multi-layered nationalism” has “always perceived Bannockburn as an event with resounding resonance”. However, warning of the danger for any movement, or nation, in expressing its radicalism by immersing itself in the myths of the past, Torrance concludes: “Yes, Bannockburn is important, but it is little more than a distraction when set aside bigger – and seldom addressed – challenges.”

Shock as Scot appears in terror video Islamic militant raised in Aberdeen is one of 500 Britons fighting for Muslim extremist group in Syria ■ Muslim community leaders in Aberdeen were “totally shocked” to discover that a man brought up in the city appeared in a recruiting video for the terror group which has seized much of Iraq. Abdul Raqib Amin appeared in the chilling video for Isis, an extreme Muslim group who have the stooshie ❘ www.thestooshie.co.uk

plunged Iraq into chaos in recent weeks. In the video, Amin appears holding an assault rifle alongside two students from Cardiff believed to be among 500 Britons fighting in Syria. Amin was born in Bangladesh, but attended both primary and secondary schools in the Granite City.

EDITORIALS SAY The Scottish Sun said that the sight of a young Scot appearing in a video calling for war in Syria, brought a far away conflict much closer to home. “Until now, the images of these gun-toting fighters recruiting fellow believers has been distant. “It is shocking to learn that a young man educated in Scotland – and a Dons supporter – has become one of them.” In its leader, The Times said that the growing threat from

MAIN EVENTS

T in the Park forced to find new home turf Oil pipeline threat prompts festival organisers to move away from Balado ■ Next month’s T in the Park festival will be the last one to be held at Balado after organisers were forced to move the popular music festival. The annual event, which celebrated its 20th anniversary last summer, boasts crowds of up to 85,000 people, with the influx of campers effectively creating Scotland’s fifth largest city for a weekend each year. But concerns about the BP Forties oil pipeline, which lies directly underneath the disused airfield on the Kinross site, have prompted those behind the festival, DF Concerts, into a rethink on safety grounds. Health and Safety Executive (HSE) officials advised Perth and Kinross Council that continuing to hold the festival on the site would present a “susbstantial concern”. The annual three-day festival, which started life at Strathclyde Park in 1994, will now move to a site in the grounds of Strathallan Castle near Gleneagles. home-grown Islamic terrorism presents a new challenge to the British security services. “Tracking their movements and communications has become by far the most urgent task of counter-terrorist police and the security services.” And it said that Britain is facing an almost unparalleled threat from extremists, with “the terrorist menace confronting Britain now more complex and volatile than at any time since September 2001”. And it warned: “Terrorists only need to succeed once. Those ranged against them have to succeed every time.”

EDITORIALS SAY

COMMENTATORS SAY

The decision to make the switch from Balado was heavily criticised by The Scottish Sun, whose message was: “If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.” The paper slammed “killjoy ‘elf and safety officials” and questioned why organisers had to move the festival because of a pipeline over which “a million punters have danced, stumbled, crawled and even driven over safely come rain or shine” for almost two decades now. It went on to suggest the “red-tape brigade” were “destroying a magical bond between the local community, music fans, musicians, police and organisers alike”. The Courier said there had been an “increasingly anxious search” for a new site, given the fact the festival is “without rival in its scale”. But it hailed the news it will stay in Perthshire as “terrific”, adding it would have been a “crippling blow” to lose it.

The venue may change, but it is the “people that make T in the Park”, said Jim Gellatly in The Scottish Sun. Relocating to Balado in 1997 felt like the “turning point” for the festival, he suggested, and “suddenly it felt like T belonged to all of us, rather than a west coast thing”. He noted that the festival has come in for past criticism for having a lot of pop acts on the bill, but he said T in the Park has “always catered for a wide range of tastes” and doesn’t set itself up as a “cooler-than-thou event for chin-stroking musos”. “It’s a festival for everyone,” he said. He went on to describe Balado as “almost like a second home” and said the site will be missed. “So many people have grown up with T in the Park at Balado, and it’ll take some getting used to when it moves,” he concluded.

COMMENTATORS SAY

Both Google and Twitter “are happy to comply with the law”, he continued, which would mean taking down such videos and blocking the relevant accounts. However, the problem is the sheer volume of material being posted worldwide on these sites. Arthur quoted a source as saying there is another more surprising reason for allowing these videos to appear. “Most of the time the government intelligence and military want us to keep them up, because that’s how they track them.”

In an analysis piece in The Guardian, Charles Arthur said that the use of videos by extremist groups such as Isis has put Google, its subsidiary YouTube and Twitter in a difficult position. “Both networks have been thrown into the world of geopolitics,” he said. “The fact that Isis fighters and would-be jihadists have grown up with camera phones and internet access means that social networks are the first place they look to spread their message.”

news l 5 on the bright side ■ Reigning Wimbledon champion Andy Murray said he was fulfilling another one of his dreams this week by starring in and guest-editing this week’s issue of The Beano, reported The Courier. Murray features on the front page alongside Dennis the Menace. Dennis and his dog Gnasher give the 27-year-old some coaching in how to be a menace, and how to control his emotions. ■ Police in Aberdeen scored an online hit by introducing a #NeepoftheWeek feature on Twitter. The Scottish Daily Mail revealed how the North Aberdeenshire policing team gained over 1,500 followers by “branding blundering crooks” Neep of the Week. Their first use of the hashtag was a man who allegedly stole 20 packs of football stickers from a shop in Fraserburgh. ■ Inhibitions, not to mention a shirt or skirt or two, will be cast off as British Naturism celebrates its 50th anniversary in Scotland next month. The Courier reported that 80 nudists will take part in a three-hour evening boat trip on the Forth on July 5 to mark the occasion. The boat, according to the paper, has “lots of outside deck space for those hardy enough to bare all”. ■ An eight-week-old kitten has taken up the post of Official Mouser in residence at The Famous Grouse Experience at Glenturret Distillery. Peat (pictured below) is following in the pawprints of one of the world’s most famous Distillery cats, Towser, and will be responsible for greeting over 100,000 visitors who tour the distillery every year.

28 June 2014 ❘ the stooshie

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indy BRIEFS 1. Only a quarter of small companies in Scotland back independence. A poll of 500 forms by Bibby Financial Services found 56% back a No vote, with 24% saying Yes. 2. Shadow Scottish Secretary Margaret Curran pledged new powers to Scotland after a No vote, saying that Labour would make Scotland responsible for 40% of spending. 3. Veteran Scots showbiz legand Stanley Baxter came out in favour of a No vote. Harry Potter star Daniel Radcliffe also followed the character’s creater JK Rowling by urging Scots to stay in the Union. 4. House prices will rise more quickly if Scotland stays in the UK, according to a leaked report by estate agents Savills.

POLITICS

Row over date throws doubt on big televised debate Will they? Won’t they? Now Darling plays hard to get after Salmond’s TV U-turn ■ The prospects of a TV debate between Alex Salmond Alistair Darling was in doubt after a row about dates. The Sunday Herald reported that Salmond was prepared to debate with Mr Darling if David Cameron continued to refuse to come to Scotland to argue for the No camp. Deputy First Minister Nicola Sturgeon told the Sunday Herald’s Tom Gordon that it is now “game on” in the contest for Scotland’s future. “Should the Prime Minister continue to duck this debate, the First Minister is willing to take on Alistair Darling as the Tories’ nominated substitute,” she said. However, later in the week The Scostman reported Mr Darling would not take part because STV had revised plans to stage the debate on July 16, moving it to after the Commonwealth Games at the behest of the SNP. The STV plan is for a live debate in front of a 500-strong audience of Yes, No and Undecided voters.

5. Welsh First Minister Carwyn Jones warned that England could abandon the Union completely if Scots vote for independence. the stooshie ❘ www.thestooshie.co.uk

COMMENTATORS SAY Alistair Darling’s “candour” and willingness to “say it as he sees it” would make him a formidable TV opponent for Alex Salmond, said Colette Douglas Home in The Herald. She wrote that, while David Cameron would have been able to trade sound bites and insults with the First Minister, his “tendency to arrogance combined with his patrician voice” would have been be a gift to Salmond. However, Alistair Darling will provide a much “tougher tactical challenge”. “The First Minister might be tempted to display his verbal acrobatics. But no-one reaches the political heights the former Chancellor has achieved without a sound intelligence and a tactical mind.” This seriousness will mean that Salmond will not be able to resort to his favourite weapon, his use of personal

comments, lest he looks “as though he’s trying to win a serious argument by playing the man instead of debating the issues: as well as which, the insults will bounce off”. This should mean that we now have more of a chance of getting the serious debate that Scotland desperately needs. “A television debate on an issue of such importance is not a contest of champions. It is to inform us properly on a choice of destiny.” She ended by saying that with the referendum approaching “it is essential that someone puts Mr Salmond and the arguments for independence under pressure”. “I think we have a decent chance of getting that now,” she said. The Daily Record said there would be “nowhere to hide” for Salmond and Darling under the glare of the TV lights and that any bluff and bluster would soon be exposed. The Courier said that the ongoing controversy surrounding the debate has made “great political theatre”, but now both sides should concentrate on the issues. “Profound questions on Scotland’s future – whether that is as part of the UK or as an independent country – need to be addressed,” it said.

“It is not crudely about ‘do I believe this paper which says I will be £1,400 better off, or this paper that says I will be £1,000 better off’. It will turn on where people see their best economic prospects.”

“I think the Labour offering (on more powers for Holyrood) was incoherent, unworkable and confused and the product of a horrible compromise with Labour at Westminster.”

John Swinney,

Richard Keen,

Finance Secretary

Scots Tory Chairman

POLITICS Start-up costs £200 million ■ A leading academic has estimated that the startup costs of establishing an independent Scotland would be around £200 million. Professor Patrick Dunleavy of the London School of Economics, has been held up by both sides of the debate as the leading expert on the transition costs an independent Scotland would face. In a special report commissioned by The Sunday Post, Prof Dunleavy concluded that initial setup costs to duplicate core Westminster functions would be £200 million, although hundreds of millions more would be needed to build the government IT systems required to go alone. He also said Scots could be faced by up to a decade of transition costs, though the long-run viability of a Scottish state “looks strong”. First Minister Alex Salmond said the assessment showed the Treasury had been caught “red-faced and red handed” after suggesting start-up costs could reach £2.7 billion. Better Together said the report showed hundreds of millions of pounds would be wasted recreating things that exist as part of the UK.

Murphy urged to bid for Labour leadership ■ Senior figures within Scottish Labour want Jim Murphy to lead the party into the next Holyrood election. The Sunday Herald’s Paul Hutcheon reported that current Scottish Labour leader Johann Lamont does not see herself in the role long-term and that party power brokers believe Murphy, currently shadow international development secretary, is the best man to take on the SNP in 2016. Murphy, said Hutcheon,

has fallen out of favour with Labour leader Ed Miliband, and was demoted in last year’s cabinet reshuffle. However, the former Scottish Secretary and shadow defence minister remains a leading figure in the Better Together campaign. Whatever the outcome of the referendum, the Scottish leader role is likely to be enhanced in future and Hutcheon quoted an anonymous party source as saying “there are many people in the Labour Party and the wider movement who want to see Jim Murphy throw his hat into the ring”.

news l 7

indy BRIEFS 1. Pro-independence engineering investment tycoon Jim McColl would consider moving back to Scotland from Monaco in the event of a Yes vote. 2. Elijah Wood, who plays Frodo in the Lord of the Rings films, told Scots to “F*****g go for it”, at the premiere of his new film in Edinburgh.

Weir Group warning

BBC and lottery on the table

■ A major Scottish employer said that it would stop investing here because of the uncertainty caused by independence. Keith Cochrane, chief Executive of the Weir Group, which employs 15,000 people in Scotland, warned business would be driven away by the complex negotiations that would result from a Yes vote. He added that foreign firms could monitor the economy for years before investing in a separate Scotland and said the costs of a new currency could reach £500 million a year.

■ Danny Alexander conceded that the UK Government would negotiate sharing the BBC and national lottery with an independent Scotland. Speaking to The Guardian, the Chief Secretary to the Treasury said that he was sceptical about SNP plans to keep using the BBC and the lottery, but added: “Clearly if Scotland votes yes and there are negotiations, these are things that they can put forward.” No campaigners had stated the BBC would not broadcast to an independent Scotland.

“It’s now ‘game on’ in the contest for Scotland’s future. We will soon have a head-to-head debate on prime time TV.”

“We can keep all the things that make us unique, and at the same time be part of something bigger in the UK that brings us strength, security and stability.”

“The view that ‘the people are sovereign’ cannot be upheld if we maintain a constitution that describes us as ‘subjects of Her Majesty’.”

Nicola Sturgeon,

Jim Murphy,

Colin Fox,

Deputy First Minister

Former Scots Secretary

Yes Scotland and SSP

3. A poll conducted by Scotland’s leading Asian radio station, Awaz FM, showed 57% backing independence while 37% said No. 4. The SNP claim a Yes vote would result in a 50% increase in the country’s food and drink exports. Exports would double and up to 100,000 jobs be created. 5. More than 100 QCs, university legal professors, advocates and solicitors put their names to a pro-independence declaration as part of the Lawyers for Yes group.

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SEVEN BY SEVEN

news l 9

Good news – or is new press watchdog another poodle?

SEVEN QUESTIONS YOU REALLY WANT TO ASK 1. A new press watchdog? What’s the story? The Independent Press Standards Organisation (IPSO) was set up in the wake of the Leveson Inquiry into press practices and ethics (or lack thereof). IPSO will replace the Press Complaints Commission (PCC), itself frequently the subject of complaints that it wasn’t independent enough and had few powers. Billing itself “the new, tough, independent organisation established to regulate the UK’s newspapers and magazines”, IPSO became operational this month and held the first of a series of public meetings in Scotland, at Edinburgh’s Napier University. After taking these soundings, it will start yer actual regulating in September.

2. Can’t wait. Who sits on this new body? The allegedly great and arguably good. The chairman, on £150k a year, is Sir Alan Moses, a court of appeal judge who, earlier in his career as a high court judge, oversaw the Soham murders trial in 2003 and the David Shayler spy case in 2002. As a QC, he led the prosecution of machine tool firm Matrix Churchill, accused of selling military-related equipment to Saddam Hussein’s Iraq. The Guardian described Sir Alan as “one of the judiciary’s most forthright speakers, a man who relishes taking on the establishment”. Speaking of which, he will chair a board consisting of another six independent directors and five with form in the press.

3. Can you name them or are you too frightened? No problem [looks around nervously]. Here are just a few, in order of shoe size: independent pensions expert Ros Altmann; chair of the General Consumer Council for Northern Ireland and former presbyterian minister Rick Hill; Charles McGhee, former Herald editor and honorary professor in journalism at Glasgow Caledonian University; Sir Tom Phillips, former ambassador to Saudi Arabia; smoothie (as in

press IN NUMBERS

Daily newspapers available in Scotland.

Sunday newspapers available in Scotland.

2.081m

Daily circulation of Britain’s biggest selling paper, The Sun, in May.

30m

Readers of local newspaper print editions in the UK.

79m

Readers of local newspaper online editions in the UK.

54,000

Full-time working journalists in Britain.

37,000

Public relations officers in Britain.

liquid drink, not manner) entrepreneur Richard Reed, and former Times and Herald editor Charles Wilson.

4. All very high and mighty. What powers do they have exactly? You don’t mess with them or they’ll have your eye out. More precisely they can: impose £1 million fines for serious or systematic wrong-doing; insist on up-front corrections and adjudications, whether editors like it or not; call editors to account through a standards and compliance body; offer a whistleblowers’ hotline; issue warnings to the press and broadcasters when a member of the public doesn’t want to be the subject of media attention.

5. Has the new body been met with widespread outbreaks of joyful dancing? In its dreams. The lobby group, Hacked Off, vehemently opposes IPSO. It described the organisation as a “dreadful insult” to victims of press intrusion, pointing out that its regulations can only be changed “with the direct approval of the big newspaper groups themselves”. Cofounder Brian Cathcart added: “It’s the PCC all over again.”

6. Does that mean the industry is still self-regulating? Up to a point. Or put another way: yes. Sir Alan says its “a new era of self-regulation”, but also described it as “independent regulation” with serious powers. Around 90% of the newspaper industry, including most Scottish publications, signed up to be covered by IPSO’s powers.

7. Has First Minister Alex Salmond a view on all this? Yup. According to The Herald, it is that “IPSO will go actually a long way to meeting Lord Justice Leveson’s proposals for independent selfregulation”. 28 June 2014 ❘ the stooshie

10 l news

AROUND SCOTLAND

1 HIGHLANDS & ISLANDS Seaweed plan scrapped An Ayr firm scrapped plans to build a £20 million seaweed processing plant on South Uist. Marine Biopolymers Ltd have shifted attention to an existing, but unused plant at Barcaldine, near Oban. The seaweed will be used in food products and cosmetics.

Queen’s ‘Chuck Wagon’ up for sale for £12,000 The Land Rover used by the Queen and her family on picnics and shoots the Balmoral estate has been put up for sale. The 1990 vehicle, know affectionately by the Royals as ‘the Chuck Wagon’, has been put on the market for £12,000 by its present owner Ken Mitchell, who lives on the Isle of Lewis. It was one of two vehicles specially commissioned for Balmoral, and was used for hanging up deer that had been shot in the hills as well as being used to carry guns. Mr Mitchell said: “It goes very nicely.”

2 GLASGOW & WEST Prestwick’s £10m boost

Deputy First Minister Nicola Sturgeon announced a £10 million redevelopment of Prestwick Airport, which was bought for the nation last year. The cash will go on refurbishing the duty-free shop and on improving the look of the terminal. Around £5.5 million of loans has also been given to the airport, which loses around £7 million a year. Miss Sturgeon said there was “no quick fix” for the airport, and that it would remain lossmaking for several years. The Scottish Conservatives’ Alex Johnstone said Sturgeon must “now produce a more detailed plan to return Prestwick to profitability.”

Twitter watch at Games

Health experts are to trawl Twitter during the Commonwealth Games to check for signs of infectious outbreaks among athletes. The Herald reported that members of the surveillance team at Health Protection Scotland are to search the site every hour, because they believe athletes and ticket holders may use social media to report signs of illness before visiting a doctor. Dr Jim McMenamin of HPS said: “By far the biggest risk is from gastrointestinal illness, whether that is norovirus or food poisoning, followed by respiratory illness, whether that is cold or flu or other symptoms.”

Tatties want protection

The Ayrshire potato is bidding to be the Champagne of the spud world. Producers of the delicacy launched a bid at the Royal Highland Show to get the same protected name status as the luxury drink, as well as other Scots products such as the Arbroath smokie and Stornoway black pudding.

2 3

3 SOUTH SCOTLAND Mansion on sale for £1 A £1 price tag for a stately home might seem like a real bargain, but there is one tiny hitch – it also carries a £1.2 million bill for renovation. Old Whitehall House, in the Berwickshire village of Chirnside. has lain derelict since 2007, is the stooshie ❘ www.thestooshie.co.uk

considered to be in a dangerous state and is on the Buildings at Risk register. Edward Deymour of estate agent Edwin Thomson said: “The house provides a great opportunity for someone to rescue a historic building and create a wonderful home.”

Council calls halt to wind turbines Scottish Borders Council have called a halt to wind turbines, sparking protests from green energy firms. A draft of the council’s new local development plan advocated caution in further wind farm development, fearing “adverse and cumulative impacts on landscape”. It has also asked the Scottish Government not to overrule decisions made by local planners. Wind farm firms have lodged objections to the stance.

news l 11

AROUND SCOTLAND 4 NORTH EAST, ORKNEY & SHETLAND Sex criminal sentenced to 15 years for string of crimes

A former community centre caretaker who raped and abused vulnerable adults and children was jailed for 15 years and four months. David Robertson (56), from Aberdeen, told a social worker who prepared a background report on him he was “more of a monster” than he had thought. Robertson abused 16 people between 1974 and 2011. The offences were committed in Aberdeen, a holiday park in Arbroath, a caravan park at Nairn and in Keith. Robertson had earlier been convicted of a total of 25 charges including indecent behaviour, assault and rape. At the High Court in Edinburgh he was convicted of raping two women and a girl under the age of seven. Two men were also among his victims.

The average weight of men working in the offshore oil industry has rocketed. Oil and Gas UK’s revealed that the average worker’s weight has shot up to over 14 stones, an increase of 19% since 1985. The news has sparked fresh safety fears after regulators recently warned that workers unable to exit aircraft emergency exits while wearing survival suits would not be allowed to board helicopters.

Tay Bridge mystery

5 TAYSIDE & CENTRAL Education convener defend’s city’s failing schools

Weighty issue for riggers

Dundee education convener Stewart Hunter defended the performance of the city’s schools after a damning report by spending watchdog the Accounts Commission. The report revealed that Dundee’s S4 pupils are the worst performing in Scotland, with just 28% sitting level five exams achieving five or more passes. However, Education convener Stewart Hunter said improvement was happening across almost all performance criteria. He said: “From a level of 14% in 2008, with steady year-on-year increases, 22% of all Dundee pupils left school with five Highers or more in 2013. “More Dundee pupils than ever are leaving school to go on to positive destinations.”

Mystery surrounded a bizarre train incident on the Tay Bridge. An East Coast train from Aberdeen to Leeds was stopped on the south side of the bridge after colliding with an object. However, authorities were struggling to explain how the object, described as a “metal grate”, had ended up on the track, having ruled out foul play and saying the object was not part of a train or the bridge structure that had fallen off. The train was stopped for more than an hour after the incident.

6 EDINBURGH, FIFE & EAST 6

Homes doomed

Plans to demolish 64 homes at risk of gas seeping from old mine works were approved by Midlothian Council. The homes, at Gorebridge, Midlothian, were built from 2007 to 2009, but without protective barriers called membranes being placed underneath. In September last year two people ended up in hospital and five homes were evacuated after air quality checks found higher than normal levels of carbon dioxide.

Campaign to reopen station after 50 years

Campaigners are bidding to reopen an Edinburgh railway station that was last used 50 year ago. Portobello station was closed in 1964, and previous bids to reopen it have been stymied by high costs and engineering problems. But campaigners say the Borders Railway Project could remove these obstacles, as Portobello Junction is being remodelled to let more trains pass. Portobello community councillor Max Blinkhorn said: “It’s early days, but the Borders Railway remodelling should lead to costs coming down significantly. There’s a real appetite for it locally. It would be a great thing for the area.”

Assault left baby brain-damaged

A man who claimed he had been “shoogling” a crying baby was convicted of trying to murder the infant. John Dobbie (36) had denied attempting to murder the three-month-old boy at his Kirkcaldy home, but was found guilty at the High Court in Edinburgh. The child, whose skull was fractured, was left blind and brain damaged after Dobbie repeatedly shook him and struck his head against a surface. Sentence on Dobbie was deferred. 28 June 2014 ❘ the stooshie

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AROUND BRITAIN

1 NORTHERN IRELAND

2 NORTH ENGLAND

No guarantee for prison

PSNI complaints

Shock school open

Wily fox outwits wardens

Justice Minister David Ford (below) said he “cannot guarantee” Magilligan Prison in County Londonderry will be rebuilt as planned. A new jail to be built on the current site was announced in March last year.

Complaints against the Police Service of Northern Ireland (PSNI) reached their highest level since the Police Ombudsman’s office opened in 2000. A total of 3,734 complaints and 6,089 allegations were made against the PSNI in 2013/14, an increase of 14% on the previous year. Around 4% related to parades.

A Lancashire school was closed for a number of days after several people suffered serious electric shocks. Five pupils and a teacher at Briercliffe County Primary School in Burnley were taken to hospital after touching live metal items including door handles. The incident happened after a power cut in the local area.

Wardens at a Teesside nature reserve had to install a special feeder after an acrobatic fox kept stealing birds’ food. The vixen regularly jumps up to unhook and carry off seed containers from the feeding stations at RSPB Saltholme.

3 MIDLANDS & EAST MP sorry over throat punch threat

A Conservative minister was forced to apologise after threatening he would punch a journalist if he appeared on a panel show with her. Lichfield MP Michael Fabricant tweeted the remark after watching a TV discussion featuring Yasmin Alibhai-Brown. “I would either end up with a brain haemorrhage or by punching her in the throat,” he said.

4 WALES

Pellet teacher resigns

Anger as honeymoon killer escapes The families of a honeymooning couple shot and killed in Antigua expressed their shock after their murderer escaped from prison. Ben and Catherine Mullany, from Pontardawe, were attacked by Avie Howell and another man, Kaniel Martin, on the holiday island in July 2008. Police in Antigua said Howell managed to break out of prison by scaling a 30 foot wall.

A physics teacher who accidentally shot a pupil with a pellet gun resigned, just three months after a campaign by pupils managed to get him his job back. Richard West was initially sacked after shooting the student by mistake at St Peter’s Collegiate School in Wolverhampton during a science experiment in January. Thousands of students backed a campaign to have him reinstated.

3 4

Reaching for the stars Prototype mirrors from Wales will take pride of place in the world’s largest optical and infrared telescope in Chile. The mirrors, developed at Glyndwr University, will be part of the European Extremely Large Telescope (E-ELT). The top of a 10,000ft mountain in the Atacama Desert was blown up this week to make way for the massive structure.

5 SOUTH WEST ENGLAND Speedboat safety call A woman whose husband and daughter died in a speedboat accident launched a safety campaign. Victoria Milligan urged boat users to wear ‘kill cords’ which cut out an engine when someone goes overboard. Nick (51) and Emily (8) died after being thrown out of their boat off Padstow last May. the stooshie ❘ www.thestooshie.co.uk

6 LONDON & SOUTH EAST Custody death inquiry

Wright vow to burglars

A new inquiry has been launched into the death of a man in custody six years ago. Five officers in the Metropolitan Police were served with notices of investigation by the Independent Police Complaints Commission (IPCC) as it examines events leading up to the death of Sean Rigg at Brixton Police station in August 2008.

Former England striker Ian Wright flew home from the World Cup in Brazil after his wife and children were threatened at knifepoint by burglars. Four armed men forced their way into his north-west London home before making off with personal possessions. The ex-Arsenal star, who was working for ITV in Brazil, tweeted: “You won’t get away with it.”

PEOPLE

news l 13

Clapton apology after Hydro walk-off Fans’ fury after technical issues force guitarist to leave stage ■ Rock guitar legend Eric Clapton apologised to fans after walking off stage at a gig at the SSE Hydro in Glasgow. The walk-off came during Clapton’s penultimate song, Cocaine. He returned to play one final song before leaving again. A spokesman for Clapton blamed technical issues with the PA system for the disruption, saying that the band had battled the problems throughout the show but by “the last song of the set it became unbearable on stage and Eric was unable to complete the number”. Clapton did complete his full set list for the concert, excluding Cocaine. However, The Herald reported that within minutes of the concert ending, angry fans took to websites to vent their anger. Several concert-goers, who had paid around £60 for a ticket, demanded refunds saying that they felt “let down and disappointed”.

If you don’t ask... ■ A Dundee boy was formally thanked by Celtic after he applied to become the club’s new manager. The Courier said Aiden Headridge (6) sent a letter to chief executive Peter Lawwell asking if he could succeed Neil Lennon.

Nurse fired over underwear pics

Taking tips from Primrose, a lassie, made Wullie’s tennis awfy classy.

■ An Aberdeen nurse lost his job after allegations that he posing for pictures wearing the underwear of a dead patient. James John Turner, a nursing auxiliary in an acute geriatric ward at Aberdeen Royal Infirmary, had been suspended over the allegations, but was dismissed by NHS Grampian, who said the police were also looking into the matter. However, a police spokesman said no charges would be brought and that “there is no evidence so far to suggest any form of criminality.”

Sir Jackie on safety ■ Former F1 champion Sir Jackie Stewart is to give expert advice to the Scottish Government’s review of motorsport, set up to examine safety after the Jim Clark Rally. Three spectators died at the Borders event in May.

A-list backing for art school Fire-hit Glasgow School of Art gets Hollywood help from Brad Pitt and Scots actor Peter Capaldi ■ Efforts to restore Glasgow School of Art’s fire-damaged Mackintosh building were given a major boost after Hollywood star Brad Pitt and Doctor Who actor Peter Capaldi lent their support to fundraising efforts. Both agreed to be trustees of The Mackintosh Appeal, which the art school has launched to raise at least £20 million to restore the building following a fierce fire last month. The blaze, which destroyed about 10% of the building,

including the Mackintosh library, meant many students lost their degree shows. But, in a specially recorded message Capaldi – himself an art school graduate – issued a rallying call. “All I can say to you is that you are artists,” he said. “This will only add to your story. You will be reborn, and rise from the ashes even stronger.” Pitt is a well-known fan of Charles Rennie Mackintosh, the Scots architect who designed the iconic building. In addition to the appeal, a Phoenix Fund has also been set up to help students recreate work lost in the fire.

Caught in Crossfire ■ Labour MSP Kezia Dugdale decided against fronting a new political show, said The Scotsman. Ms Dugdale was due to co-present Crossfire on BBC Radio Scotland but withdrew following controversy. 28 June 2014 ❘ the stooshie

14 l news

BEST OF SCOTTISH COMMENT

Why our children are suffering from war fatigue

Parents living in a state of terror

Dani Garavelli

Vicky Allan

Scotland on Sunday

■ A report has shown that the recent glut of TV programmes marking the outbreak of the Great War has resulted in “First World War fatigue” in children. However, Dani Garavelli argued that, although the knee-jerk reaction is to label children as “mollycoddled brats”, there may in fact be perfectly valid reasons for the drop-off in interest. These include the sheer complexity of the conflict and the reasons behind it and the fact that it all seems very long ago, with no remaining direct family links to the war. However, Garavelli said there may be and “even more depressing” reason for the drop-off in interest. “Modern conflicts provide this generation with all the apparently senseless slaughter they can cope with. Faced with rolling news reports and graphic images, they don’t need to read Dulce Est Decorum Est to be convinced of the brutality or futility of war.” She concluded by saying we should cut our children some slack: “It may not be the commemoration of war that wearies them, but war itself.”

Sunday Herald

No need for a white knight for this white elephant

Terry Murden The Scotsman

■ Scottish ministers have agreed to plough a further £10 million into governmentowned Prestwick Airport this week, but The Scotsman’s Terry Murden said taxpayers should demand to know why such a “dud” is being kept on. “Nobody wants to see businesses close down, but there does come a time when some have to admit the game is up,” he commented. Murden suggested that politicians at Holyrood were keen to present themselves as a caring administration with the referendum looming, but said they were doing the opposite by “keeping this pointless airport open”. What effectively amounts to a “subsidy for one airport”,

Murden argued, could be “harming Scotland’s interests” as the investment – in the form of a loan – would see the government spending five times as much “sending Scottish sunseekers to Benidorm and bringing them home again as it spends marketing Scotland”. He went on to add that potential damage to Glasgow Airport means the cash injection to Prestwick looks like “one bad piece of decision making”. He compared Prestwick to Hampden Park, “an outdated facility in the wrong place”, and said “time and technology had overtaken” an airport which was once a fuel-stop for transatlantic flights. Murden noted discussions about renaming it ‘Robert Burns International’ but concluded: “A more appropriate name would be ‘White Elephant’, to acknowledge its increasing irrelevance, or maybe ‘Sturgeon’s Folly’, in honour of the minister who may one day have to explain why she has wasted public money.”

HAUD YER WHEESHT! ■ A Scots mother hit out at the Passport Office after its strict rules on photographs meant it took over five hours to get a useable snap of her newborn son. The Scottish Daily Mail’s Stephanie Linning told how Emma Mitchell probably “wishes she picked a holiday in Scotland” after the passport photo session with a professional photographer turned into “an all-afternoon marathon”. Ms Mitchell was trying to get a picture of her six-week-old child Lucas Thursby, so the stooshie ❘ www.thestooshie.co.uk

the pair could fly out with partner Graeme Thursby to the Costa Del Sol in August. Strict rules on passport pictures mean the subject has to be looking directly at the camera with a straight face, both ears visible and no-one else in the frame. And that meant that what the family hoped would be a 15-minute photo shoot “turned into an endurance test”. If that wasn’t bad enough, the Daily Record noted that Lucas’ application is now caught up in a backlog at the Passport Office.

■ While agreeing with playwright Alan Bennett’s recent comment that private education is “not fair”, Vicky Allan said that the problems with Scottish education go a lot deeper than that. She described the state sector as “not so much a postcode lottery as a postcode auction, in which the highest bidders – those who can afford the mortgages in the right areas – win” and quoted an Audit Scotland report a wide gulf between schools in affluent and poorer areas. She said that parents she speaks to who are considering sending their children to private schools are “terrified by stories about the state of our schools, class sizes, the level of disruption”. Allan believes stark new economic realities mean parents fretting over schools are motived by a “mild terror” rather than “aspirational greed”. “They no longer have the hope that their own children will end up better off than them. Rather, in the snakes and ladders of life they are worried that their child may land on a snake and slide right down to the bottom of the board.”

16 l news Scots Six O’Clock News would sharpen up BBC

Angus Roxburgh New Statesman

■ Former BBC Moscow correspondent Angus Roxburgh suggested First Minister Alex Salmond had been “spot on” when claiming UKIP’s unexpected success in the European elections in Scotland had been partly down to way Nigel Farage had been “beamed” into the country. This, according to Roxburgh, “highlighted a fundamental problem” affecting Scottish television: whether or not there should be a separate Scottish Six O’Clock News. Roxburgh said it was “preposterous” to argue that UKIP and the Greens, who were competing for the sixth European seat, had equal coverage and said he “rarely saw a Green candidate on

BEST OF briTISH comment television, whereas Farage was rarely off it”. That was because the BBC’s priorites “reflected the parties’ position in the UK as a whole (read England)”, so the Scots had to “suffer wall-to-wall Farage”. A lack of a Scottish Six O’Clock News is “a major democratic flaw”, he continued, adding Scottish viewers “have to sit through half-hour bulletins that may have no domestic news that is relevant to their lives”. Commenting on research which noted a 3:2 bias in favour of the No campaign in BBC coverage, Roxburgh pointed out that new rules governing the time dedicated to each side – introduced now the referendum campaigns are officially underway – are irrelevant. In practice, he argued, the referendum will be decided “not about minutes measured with a stopwatch but about attitudes and assumptions”. “Standards of broadcasting are at the heart of democracy,” he concluded. “As Scots search for facts shorn of opinion and bias, the BBC needs to sharpen up.”

Salmond subsidies plan is a huge con

A vital victory for our free press

Dominic Lawson

Chris Deerin

The Sunday Times

The Daily Mail

■ The First Minister’s remarks at the Royal Highland Show that Scotland, if it voted for independence, “would have won the Eurobillions jackpot and amassed a massive sum to develop our rural communities” were telling, said Dominic Lawson. The subtext was that “despite all the claims that a Yes vote stands for a more vibrant and self-reliant national economy, the underlying policies of the nationalists are pointing in a very different direction”. Lawson believes that Salmond’s message that an independent Scotland would be “a more successful supplicant for subsidies” puts the SNP, “in party political terms, to the left of the Labour Party”. The message was backed up by the SNP’s Humza Yousaf, who admitted the party looked to Ireland as a model for extracting more EU cash. However, Lawson concludes that to describe as “vibrant” an economic prospectus based on subsidies is a “monumental con on the public” and that “the path to prosperity can come only through private endeavour, not public subsidy”.

■ In the week that new press watchdog the Independent Press Standards Organisation held its first public meeting in Edinburgh, Chris Deerin looked back on his time at The Daily Telegraph during the MPs’ expenses scandal. He says the journalists who spent months working on the investigation worked with a “moral seriousness” and “complete lack of hubris.” However, the hacking scandal, which eventually resulted in the conviction of ex-News of The World editor Andy Coulson, gave politicians the excuse to strike back. “They saw that imposing the State into the regulation process would allow them to begin reshaping the Press to conform to their tastes.” However, “magnificently”, the industry refused to budge on this point of principle and has ended up mercifully free of state regulation. “There will be a new body, the Independent Press Standards Organisation, to police our newspapers. It will have teeth and will work well. “But, crucially, the Press will remain free from the whims, vanity and pique of passing politicians.”

HAUD YER WHEESHT! ■ Judy Murray has told how she once had a mullet hairstyle inspired by her teenage love of the Bay City Rollers. Appearing on Desert Island Discs, the mother of Wimbledon champion Andy, said the hairdo made her look like a boy and that she begged her mum to get her ears pierced to make her look more feminine after a bus driver repeatedly called her “son”. Judy, who chose the Rollers’ smash hit song Shang-A-Lang to take to her desert island, told the show’s host Kirsty Young: the stooshie ❘ www.thestooshie.co.uk

“The Bay City Rollers just make me think of my school days. I had the wide tartan trousers and the mullet.” She also told how she had turned the sports-mad family’s kitchen, living room and hallway into makeshift tennis courts to hone the skills of Andy and his brother Jamie, but said she was anything but a pushy mum. Other songs she would take to a desert island were Amy Macdonald’s version of Caledonia and the Singing Kettle’s Jeely Piece Song.

18 l news

everybody’s talking about...

A battle for hearts and minds Bannockburn remembered 700 years on 1. Why all the fuss about Bannockburn this week? We all know anniversaries are important – just ask any man who may have forgotten his wedding anniversary – but 700 years since a landmark in Scotland’s history? That’s not just another day. Sixteen years after William Wallace was defeated by Edward Longshanks at Falkirk, King Edward II marched an army north to support the English garrison at Stirling, which was under siege by Scots. The Stirling garrison had agreed to surrender if the English king did not arrive with a relieving force by June 24, 1314, but Edward II rose to that particular challenge. The Scots army, led by Robert the Bruce, was outnumbered almost three to one but, after two days of fighting, Edward II was forced to flee and the English army was routed. It did not bring outright victory in the war, which was ultimately won at the negotiating table years later, but to say Bruce’s victory was symbolic would be an understatement.

2. Sounds like a cause for celebration then. Anything doing? Several events have been taking place all week but the centrepiece – Bannockburn Live – happens this weekend. It will be a two-day festival, organised by Visit Scotland and Unique Events, and is taking place at the National Trust for Scotland’s Battle of Bannockburn heritage site, a couple of miles south of Stirling.

The Scotsman revealed the event will be split into five areas: the Land of Food and Drink, Storyville, the Clan and Family Village, the Music Arena and the 1314 Encampment.

3. Guessing it will be rammed. You would expect so. STV’s website reported that around 6,000 extra train seats will be added to services to and from Stirling over the weekend, while 120 news teams will provide global coverage of the celebrations. Having said that, the BBC said concerns about poor sales and marketing were first raised in March, when organisers cut the festival from three days to two and scaled the number of tickets back to less than half the 45,000 originally planned. And The Scotsman’s Brian Ferguson reported that organisers even had to slash ticket prices after “being faced with the prospect of a halfempty event”. Visit Scotland though has repeatedly insisted sales have been “on target” amid suggestions there will probably be a late flurry of interest. A spokeswoman said they were “on track to deliver an absolutely incredible, memorable event”.

4. Is there a danger all of this might whip up some anti-English sentiment? Very much so. And former Prime Minister John Major reckons the SNP chose this year for the independence referendum for that very reason. Addressing an event in Edinburgh, he said: “We were at war centuries ago which is why I find it rather sad that the SNP chose the anniversary of the Battle of Bannockburn for the vote, presumably to maximise the opportunity for any antiEnglish sentiment that may exist.” Scotland on Sunday’s Dani Garavelli also said there were fears the SNP would exploit the anniversary celebrations to strengthen the Yes vote “in much the same way some claim the D-Day celebrations have been used to boost the No vote”. On the other side of the coin, The Courier reported that Stirling’s SNP councillors criticised the council’s decision to host Armed Forces Day celebrations on the same weekend as the Bannockburn events – hinting at unionist motives behind that particular selection. Thank goodness then for levelheaded clan chiefs. The Daily Telegraph revealed how The Standing Council of Scottish Chiefs – which represents the majority of the country’s clans – has declared its neutrality ahead of September’s vote.

BANNOCKBURN BY NUMBERS

6,000

The size of the Scots army who faced England’s 16,000-strong infantry the stooshie ❘ www.thestooshie.co.uk

20,000

The number of visitors expected at Bannockburn this weekend

news l 19

BOFFINS

Pollution skews babies’ gender More girls than boys born in industrial areas ■ Scientists at Stirling University have found evidence that industrial pollution may explain a drop in the number of boys born in Scotland. BBC News reported that the ratio of boys to girls being born is falling, and that pollution in parts of Scotland could be behind the finding that male babies are more likely to die in the womb. Statistics show the proportion of boys to girls born in Scotland has been going down since 1960, particularly in industrial parts of central Scotland.

Deep knowledge ■ A new visitor attraction just outside Oban aims to shed light on some of the mysteries of the deep, The Press and Journal reported. The Ocean Explorer Centre, based at the Scottish Association for Marine Science (Sams) in Dunbeg, will educate and entertain with a range of hands-on displays and events. At the indoor centre, visitors will be able to watch short films on marine science at the Arctic-themed cinema, discover on a 3-D globe the largest mountain chain on Earth, and explore the seabed landscape of the Firth of Lorn off Oban on a giant touchscreen.

From 1973 to 2010, the industryheavy Forth Valley was in the bottom three places in four out of five years when there was a particularly low ratio of boys to girls. Stirling’s Professor Andrew Watterson said the findings raised significant questions about production processes and reproductive health. “We run faster and faster introducing new products and processes,” he said. “Yet we don’t properly understand how they may affect us.”

Open up and say app ■ Scientists have developed a new app to alleviate anxiety for people with learning or communication difficulties visiting the dentist. The Stories at the Dentist communication system tells patients what to expect and how to become more involved in their care and treatment, The Courier reported. It may also reduce the need for sedation or for treatment to be abandoned when a patient becomes too distressed. The app, which runs on an iPad, is the product of an 18-month project between Dundee and St Andrews Universities, NHS Tayside and Capability Scotland. Senior dental officer with the community dental service Gillian Elliott said: “We have found that the app reduces anxiety as patients are fully prepared about what to expect.”

■ Archaeologists

have discovered that the heartland of early Pictish civilisation was much further north than previously thought, The Press and Journal reported. Working on sites at Portmahomack and Tain, researchers from Aberdeen University now believe that the Moray Firth area and the Tarbat peninsula in particular was a centre of power.

The World Health Organisation estimates the number of obese under-fives worldwide will rise to

70m

by 2025. The figure was 40 million in 2012. WHO has appointed Strathclyde University’s Professor John Reilly to a panel investigating the problem, The Herald reported.

Exhibition wants power to the young people ■ Glasgow Science Centre is seeking investment from the energy sector for a major new exhibition expected to open next October. The £1.5 million Powering the Future exhibition will highlight innovation and engineering in Scotland’s energy sector, The Herald reported, and will feature more than 100 interactive exhibits showcasing different technologies. Dr Stephen Breslin, the science

centre’s chief executive, said: “The exhibition will bring to life the story of energy in a creative and interactive way that will encourage people of all ages to think about its use now and in the future.” He added that, with Scotland experiencing a serious skills shortage in science, technology, engineering and maths, the exhibition would also encourage young people to pursue a career in the energy sector. 28 June 2014 ❘ the stooshie

20 l

LETTERS TO THE EDITORS You’re barred

best of the week

Airport could take-off ■ Prestwick was once the gateway to America before the UK government introduced its open-sky policy. My suggestion is quite simple: adopt the same policy now used in Dublin where you clear American immigration in Ireland, thus eliminating the need to queue in America after a long, tiring flight. The Irish have also abandoned Air Passenger Duty which the government has agreed to do if we win independence in the forthcoming referendum. Could we not employ American immigration officers at Prestwick and, with very little cost, the airlines and passengers would be queuing up to take advantage of a well thought-out initiative?

■ During my long career as a clergyman I often attended the local infirmary’s A&E department when a parishioner was involved in a serious road accident or some other emergency. Forty years ago Friday and Saturday evenings were a nightmare as Scotland’s infamous legion of violent, noisy drunks clogged up the wards and frightened patients and staff. Today, with 24-hour drinking and the pervasive availability of narcotics, paramedics can be seen struggling with some intoxicated hooligan at any hour of the day or night. So I fully support senior nurses calling for “drunk tanks” to be piloted across the country. Rev Dr John Cameron, St Andrews The Independent

Hands off our tuck shops ■ I was outraged to learn about the latest nanny-state interference – the banning of tuck shops in state schools in England. This is disgraceful. For years school tuck shops have been a place where children can start to learn about money and make their own choices on how they spend theirs. Many people will have fond memories

Gordon Phillips, 8 Earls Way, Doonfoot, Ayr The Herald the stooshie ❘ www.thestooshie.co.uk

of tuck shops. I hope this nonsense is not brought to Scotland. Gordon Kennedy, Simpson Square, Perth The Courier

Taking their eye off the ball ■ Perhaps there will be a six-week window before the referendum during which some of the more aggressive online commentators will be busy with football again, turning their aggression onto sporting rather than political rivals. I suspect some – but emphatically not all – aspects of Scottish football culture absorb the less attractive tribal instincts. G Corbett, Glasgow The Scotsman

An alternative view ■ I am enjoying reading letters about the referendum from people who do not live in Scotland. A lot of my English friends and family don’t seem to care. They (naively in my view) don’t seem to think it affects them. It’s good to know that people further afield are giving the matter serious thought. Rosemary Craig, Gamekeeper’s Road, Edinburgh The Scotsman

Grinding through the gears ■ So scientists have created biofuel from ground coffee? Does this mean we’ll soon have thousands of cars dashing about the place and making rash decisions then struggling to change into neutral gear in the evening when they’ve had too much? And as the American chains cash in on the trend, will it take 10 minutes to explain your fuel order to the overqualified garage attendant? Jason Graeme, Edinburgh The Scotsman

Flying the flag the right way ■ In this year of two world war commemorations it is sad to see so many Union flags being flown upside down. If flying the flag correctly is one indication of Britishness, it is rapidly disappearing. David Gooch, Cheam, Surrey The Daily Telegraph

that’s debatable ■ I believe Finance Secretary John Swinney’s proposal to borrow billions of pounds in the first three years after independence will be a positive step to kick-start the economy. It attempts to reverse the effects of Chancellor Osborne’s austerity programme caused by reckless banking operations. First Minister Alex Salmond asked the Westminster government to borrow money for 300 shovel-ready projects and was refused. This is in contrast to Westminster’s decision to borrow billions of pounds for the high-speed rail project supporting infrastructure development in London and the south-east. Efforts to develop the Scottish economy in a different way are stifled by a government invariably hostile to such efforts.

■ Mr Swinney’s announcement Scotland would greatly increase borrowing following independence shows the SNP’s economic policy has left the realms of “project naive” to become “project kamikaze”. As a small, newly independent state with an insecure currency, it is generally accepted by economists and academics Scotland’s credit rating would be signficantly poorer than the current rate for the UK. On that basis alone, Mr Swinney should surely understand the recklessness of such a gung-ho borrowings policy. The Yes campaign insists we are a hugely wealthy country just waiting to happen, once freed from the shackles of Westminster, yet it advocates policies that will trap us in a mire of debt for generations to come.

Maggie Chetty, 36 Woodend Drive, Glasgow The Herald

Derek Miller, Westbank, Torrance The Herald Letters have been edited

l 21

THE WEE PAPERS

A taste of...

SPORT

Fishy drink ■ A Keith brewery is under investigation by Trading Standards after selling what it called the world’s strongest beer at well below the stated alcohol level. The Northern Scot’s Hazel Lawson reported that Brewmeister withdrew its Armageddon beer after tests showed some bottles contained 15.25% alcohol and not the 65% claimed.

Fiddler’s bid

COURTS Broke partner’s nose ■ Repeatedly punching his partner in the face and breaking her nose earned a Moray Man three months in jail. Elgin Sheriff Court heard that alcohol had been consumed before Richard Fraser assaulted his wife following an argument. He received a further four months for smashing car windows on another date.

Rapist jailed ■ A New Elgin man who raped a 13-year-old girl and committed a sex act with a 15-year-old has been sentenced by the High Court in Edinburgh to eight years in jail. The court heard that Vytautas Melinausaks (43), plied the girls with vodka before committing the assaults.

■ A founder member of the Fochaber Fiddlers is leading a campaign to establish a centre for traditional music and culture in Buckie. James Alexander is behind a proposal to see the old Buckie Drifter building in Freuchny Street brought back to life. Highlands and Islands Enterprise is backing the proposal.

Washed away ■ Six million tonnes of gravel have been washed away from the Kingston coastline on the Moray Firth in the last 25 years, a seminar on coastal erosion heard. Jim Mackie, founder of the James A. Mackie Memorial Trust, said the erosion sterilised the seabed and affected the marine food chain.

A good catch

Dreams of umpire

■ Experienced Scottish Premiership goalkeeper Michael Fraser has signed for Elgin City, in a move described by manager Barry Wilson as “a real coup for the club”. Fraser (30), has made around 150 top flight football appearances for Ross County, Motherwell and Inverness Caley, where he played alongside his new manager.

■ Seven Moray schoolgirls from Quasar Hockey Club have earned an umpiring qualification in their sport, Craig Christie reported. The 14-to-16-year-olds, six from Milne’s High and one from Forres Academy, all passed their Youth Umpiring Award with flying colours and have since been umpiring school matches.

the big story Frightening night under canvas for homeless Elgin woman ■ A homeless woman has spoken of her fear and despair at having to sleep in a tent on any well-lit green space she could find. Natasha Wallace (25) told The Northern Scot’s Chris Saunderson how she took the drastic step after being told she could no longer stay in temporary accommodation in Elgin. She said: “The first night I sat up most of the night because I was so frightened. I have never been in this situation before.” A local resident gave her food and refreshment, and friends took her in during the day, but lacked room at night. Moray Council was understood to have considered that Miss Wallace, who has mental health problems, had been given reasonable time to find alternative accommodation to the Cameron Park Brae hostel in Elgin and that she had made herself intentionally homeless. A spokesman advised her to contact the council’s housing options team.

EVENING ALL Edinburgh Evening News

Evening Express

■ Passengers on

■ A careless campfire

Edinburgh’s new trams have complained of sweltering in the heat and drivers have been keeping carriage doors open at each stop to cool travellers down. Air conditioning was rejected in the original spec because the weather generally did not justify it.

barbecue has been blamed for a major grass fire that took hold at the Mar Lodge Estate, near Braemar. Sixty firefighters attended the blaze and an estate spokesman said there was “a very high likelihood” the fire’s cause was carelessness.

Evening Times

Greenock Telegraph

Evening Telegraph

■ A dedicated

■ A 19th century box

■ Campaigners in Angus

crimebusting squad has arrested more than 500 Glasgow gangsters in the past year. More than £11 million was seized under proceeds of crime legislation. The squad’s activities also stopped companies acting as gangster fronts from making another £8 million.

of mysteries has been discovered in St Mary’s Episcopal Church, Port Glasgow. Rector’s warden John Laverty unearthed the box of old coins, stamps, trophies and newspapers from the 1840s and 50s while cleaning a cupboard in the vestry.

have vowed to fight shops selling legal highs. The Arbroath and Montrose shops feature e-cigarette displays in their windows but sell other substances inside. However, a spokesman said they hoped to stop stocking the more controversial powders if the e-cigarettes sold well.

28 June 2014 ❘ the stooshie

22 l

VIEW POINTS: THE BEST OF THE REST

NEWS BLOGS Move the whole shebang to Glasgow By Catherine Butler ❘ The Guardian To save the union, Catherine Butler suggested, David Cameron et al should commit to making Glasgow the new capital of the United Kingdom. “The very idea will strike some as laughable – but that is precisely the problem,” she noted, highlighting that the move would reassure Scots that the UK could ever be “a partnership of equals”. She reckoned the move would be good for England, as the only UK nation that enjoys no devolved power, as well, and said the only folk to “take umbrage” would be the good citizens of Edinburgh.

■ Presiding Officer Tricia Marwick holds a

Buckfast bee honeycomb after the Scottish Parliament installed beehives earlier this year.

■ The final 6 Squadron fly past – Typhoons move from RAF Leuchars to their new base at Lossiemouth.

Scots don’t take themselves too seriously By Karly Kehoe ❘ The Conversation After many Scots were riled by William Hague’s “Team GB” Commonwealth Games gaffe, and Morrisons dropped English World Cup anthems from Scottish stores after complaints, the Conversation asked if Scots take themselves too seriously. Not so, said Karly Kehoe, who believes Scots suffer from an innate lack of self-confidence compared to her fellow Canadians. She believes Scots should, in fact, take themselves more seriously, and their lack of confidence stems from a rigid class system and not being granted equal partner status within the UK.

■ Balmoral’s Highland bull was named Highland Cattle champion at the Royal Highland Show.

Are ministers becoming risk-averse? By Brian Taylor ❘ www.bbc.co.uk/news Alex Salmond appeared discomfited by a question from Gavin Brown, a Conservative MSP with a reputation for wit. Salmond deftly dodged the question about local income tax plans, but Brian Taylor said the exchange summed up a theme of that day – a suggestion that Scottish ministers are averse to anything that might provoke a contrary reaction from voters at the referendum. Labour leader Johann Lamont later accused the Government of watering down an Audit Scotland report on educational standards.

How much did you say? By Mike Small ❘ Bella Caledonia Following reports that an independent Scotland could have to spend between £150m to £200m to replace existing UK bodies, Mike Small said that would be “loose change in the back pocket of an independent nation unshackled from monstrous white elephants” like nuclear power, Trident and the High Speed Rail link. the stooshie ❘ www.thestooshie.co.uk

■ Hundreds of people took part in this year’s Race for Life event at Camperdown Park in Dundee, raising money for Cancer Research.

■ Damone Barnes and Sally Virginia Eastmond carried the Glasgow 2014 Queen’s Baton on their wedding day at Gretna Green.

NEWS TWEETS #England They thought it was all over, it is now. England are out, ending #Scotland’s interest in the World Cup.

#England the new #Scotland at the #World Cup plucky and a smidgen unlucky

Martin Williams @Martin1Williams

London Hearts @TheLondonHearts

#England going out of #WorldCup in group stage? Cheeky sods. That used to be our gig. #Scotland

John Greechan @jonnythegreek

l 23

VIEW POINTS: THE BEST OF THE REST good week Wild mountain thyme A new Scottish Government policy has designated almost a fifth of the nation as wild land. The move aims to protect some of Scotland’s best landscapes and mountain areas from development.

On yer bike, Glasgow A £600,000 initiative to offer 400 bikes for hire at 31 locations across Glasgow has been launched. The Mass Automated Cycle Hire (Mach) scheme will also run at six temporary sites at Commonwealth Games venues.

■ Our word cloud amalgamates all the week’s news from the Scottish papers, with greatest prominence given to the most frequently used words.

GOSSIP OF THE WEEK

bad week

the park with his pals and leave career choices until he was older”. As an adult, he has appeared on TV shows like The Borgias and is now working with the National Theatre of Scotland.

Much ado about nothing Grandad Robert Russell was banned for having wind chimes outside his house in Lanarkshire. Noise nuisance officers ordered him to remove the £2.99 garden ornament after complaints, but Mr Russell branded the move “a waste of time and money”.

Fair game at Murray hotel Andy Murray’s Cromlix Hotel removed hunting facilities for guests after being criticised by animal rights campaigners. The People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) group protested.

Emma evades the spotlight You’ll never take... my freedom! The child who shot to fame as the young William Wallace in ‘Braveheart’ told the Daily Record’s Brian McIver he walked away from acting after the hit movie to concentrate on being a kid. James Robinson, now 30, turned down several lucrative offers to “enjoy his childhood, play football in

Actress Emma Thompson managed to walk around Glasgow’s Barrowland untroubled – thanks to some good prosthetics. The Herald’s Alexander Lerche said the Oscar-winner “fooled bystanders” as she filmed scenes for The Long Midnight of Barney Thomson.

Clyro and some cows’ milk Scots band Biffy Clyro were forced out of their studio after it was flooded by milk,

reported The Scottish Sun’s Chris Sweeney. The paper said the rockers were “left baffled by a foul odour” at the Ayrshire dairy farm where they were working on their new album.

What’s in a name? Dolly Parton revealed she was flattered scientists named Dolly the Sheep after her. The country music icon spoke about her cloned namesake ahead of her performance in Glasgow. “I was told she was called after me because she had big mammary glands,” she said.

Singer out in the cold Midge Ure said it is “crazy” he does not have a say in the independence referendum. The Ultravox singer moved to England for work in 1977, meaning he will be unable to vote on September 18.

Okay England, take the day off tomorrow: National Day of Mourning. Scotland, you’re in charge tomorrow.

I hope #England realise that Sterling is as much Scotland’s as he is theirs. #indyref

#England eliminated from #WorldCup off two results, one by #Uruguay (pop. 3.3m) and #CostaRica (pop. 4.8m). Population means nowt. #Scotland

To the Scots, #England being knocked out of the #WorldCup is the equivalent of Scotland winning it.

Let’s put #England World Cup result in perspective. No lives have been lost. Good luck next time.

HRH Prince William @DukeCambridgeUK

Alasdair Stephen @AlasdairStephen

Stewart Weir @sweirz

Lava Llama @zetta3pt14face

Ian McGowan @McGowanIan 28 June 2014 ❘ the stooshie

24 l

Stooshie of the week

aye or ay ❘ eye ❘

1. means yes. Usage: “Aye, you’re better off going to Burntisland.” ■ Tourism Minister Helen Grant obviously has a lot to learn about public relations. But although she has been publicly skewered for suggesting more people should think about holidaying at home (it didn’t help that she was in Brazil cheering on England at the time), that doesn’t alter the fact that she is right. The fact is that ever increasing numbers of people are rediscovering the joys of holidaying at home, with the Highlands and Edinburgh leading the way as top Scots destinations for UK holidaymakers. And three cheers for that. For too long, Scots have been only too happy to write off their own country as a tourist destination. It’s too expensive, they grumble. It’s always raining: the food is terrible: the service is appalling: the midges are a nightmare. It’s so typically Scottish to focus on the negatives and forget the wonders we have on our own doorstep. Tourists flock from all over the world to gaze at our aweinspiring scenery, to wander our historic towns and cities, to play our world-famous golf courses, to visit our distilleries, to fish in our magnificent rivers, to simply bask in all that

our wonderful little country has to offer. It has become a cliche to say that Scots would never holiday anywhere else if we had the weather, but it is probably true nonetheless. My mind goes back to a family holiday in Wester Ross when our two boys were small. We had rented a house perched on the edge of a sea loch and were blessed with a week of unexpected and unseasonable Easter sunshine. We spent the week watching rapt from our garden as seals played yards away, spending happy hours on the neardeserted unspoiled beach at Redpoint, eating prawns fresh from the local fishing boat in the pub next door to our holiday home. It was paradise, and despite all the foreign holidays we have had since, it is the one break that our boys still recall with the greatest affection. Of course, not all holidays in Scotland are like this and if you want two weeks of nonstop sunshine, then Scotland is not the place for you. But if you want a hassle-free break, without all the stress that comes with a foreign holiday, then why not give Scotland another chance. You won’t be disappointed.

Staycation better than a vacation?

As UK Tourism Minister Helen Grant says holidaying at home could solve the passport crisis, should we forgo the flip-flops and enjoy what Scotland has to offer?

AS ITHERS SEE US!

O wad some Power the giftie gie us To see oursels as ithers see us! To a Louse ❘ Robert Burns economic dangers of breaking The Bangkokthe 307-year union. based Asia News Brown concentrated on Monitor reported on former “pitching the United Kingdom Prime Minister Gordon as the best vehicle to promote Brown’s intervention in the social justice and preserve independence debate. welfare spending” and said It said that Brown adopted that Scotland would win a “more positive tone” than more powers and prosper if it the UK Government, which stayed inside the UK. has “warned Scots of the the stooshie ❘ www.thestooshie.co.uk

The ex-PM also told Scots that voting to stay in the UK would be the best guarantee of keeping “their cherished state-funded welfare system”. The Monitor’s correspondent stated that “polls show Scots are unlikely to vote to break the union, with roughly 40% against independence and

30% in favour. But there are still enough undecided Scots to swing the vote.” And they believe Brown’s decision to enter the debate is significant as he “garners deep respect across Scotland.” However, Brown “steered clear of the main antisecessionist warning put forward by senior British politicians: Scotland’s risk of losing of the pound.” Brown was quoted by one Scottish newspaper as saying that the way the currency argument was put by the government made the issue Scotland versus Britain.

l 25

Stooshie of the week

naw

❘ naw ❘

1. means no or not. Usage: “Naw, it’s absolutely Baltic in Scotland.”

“To outsiders, it must be a strange sight, seeing a group of people dancing Scottish jigs in the middle of Kampala,” reported Lindsey Kukunda of Ugandan newspaper the Observer. “From the inside though, it is as fun as fun can be. My first visit to the Caledonian Society of Kampala was a happy one. ”The first thing I noticed was that the participants were much older than me. The second thing was that they had all the experience for it! I sat with my mouth agape as they hopped and skipped, and twirled and swirled. People always make bagpipes

out to be horrid sounding instruments, but I liked the melodies that I was hearing!” Lindsay was persuaded to take part and discovered that “Scottish dancing is really complicated. There are so many steps, and so many different kinds of dances!” She concluded that it’s the perfect workout for the exercise-averse. “It’s impossible not to end it sweating and exhausted, but happy,” she said. David Sanderson of the Winnipeg Free Press said that more and more Canadians, even non

■ A holiday, in most people’s dictionaries, is defined as “an extended period of leisure and recreation”, something you save your hard-earned pennies and pounds up for each year and is, by extension, something you actively look forward to. A staycation, aside from being a made-up word, is simply a stressful extension of everything you need a break from in the first place. Scotland is a beautiful, diverse, interesting country which has loads to offer: whether you want a quiet break in the countryside or a holiday spent living it up in the big city. Let’s get one thing straight, Scotland is not a bad place to be at all – and curse anyone who says otherwise. You can pretty much get up to anything your heart desires the length and breadth of our great nation, and choice is very much a good thing. But there are a few sayings in the English language that, unlike the very irritating, all too lazy sounding Americanised word “staycation”, have some gravitas and actually mean something. The first one is that absence makes the heart grow fonder. And nothing can be truer for Scots.

I’d defy any Scot who enjoys a Tunnock’s teacake (other teacakes are available) or an Irn-Bru (other fizzy drinks are available) on a regular basis not to start craving the comforts of home after a fortnight in Fuerteventura. Going away makes you appreciate what you have on your doorstep. But the other saying I’d mention, which also holds true, is that travel broadens the mind. Of course, this may be about how you travel rather than where i.e. if you embark on a trip to Egypt but seek out your nearest Scottish pub or scout around for a McDonald’s, then you aren’t really embracing Egyptian culture. But holidaying abroad means you get to interact with a myriad of different cultures and enjoy new experiences – and surely that can only be a good thing? Even if, again, at the very least it makes you appreciate how lucky you are to live in Scotland. Those who bang on about staycationing aren’t doing it through choice, it’s through necessity – and by that, I mean the perception it costs less. But when you consider it often works out dearer to stay at home than holiday abroad, why bother?

Scots, are hiring pipers to play at their weddings. “If you are of Scottish descent, there are a number of quaint rituals you can incorporate into your big day; traditions such as scrubbing the bride’s feet the night before she gets hitched or stripping the groom down to his skivvies and covering him head-to-toe with soot and feathers. Or you can go with a custom more and more couples are following nowadays – getting a bagpiper to walk them down the aisle.” He quoted one piper as saying: “When we finished

you could still hear the notes reverberating around the room for what seemed like a minute. There wasn’t a dry eye in the house. I thought to myself, ‘Whether they are or they aren’t, right now, everybody in this room is Scottish.’”

28 June 2014 ❘ the stooshie

26 l

REVIEW & Preview

STAGE

Conversation Piece TRAWAY, GLASGOW Run ended ■ Australian choreographer/ director Lucy Guerin provided the kick-off to Tramway’s HOT season with this piece about communication, misinformation and our very modern reliance on technology. Starting with three dancers recording a chatty conversation on their iPhones, this effectively became

Annie Get Your Gun SEEN AT PLAYHOUSE, EDINBURGH Theatre Royal, Glasgow, September 2-6 ■ This production of Irving Berlin’s 1940s musical had a starry name in Jason Donovan alongside some new talent in the shape of Emma Williams taking on the titular role. But the critics were left a little nonplussed by this take which didn’t have the adequate spark to truly ignite the relationship between a proto-feminist gunslinger and a charming bad boy. Reviewed in The Herald by, somewhat coincidentally, Marianne Gunn, it was noted that this touring show wasn’t getting the punters out in their droves. “The Jason Donovan ‘carrot’ did not appear to get the bums on seats, a feat he has been achieving for much of his 25-year showbiz career. Since his star turn in Joseph And The Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat, he has had some musical hits (in Priscilla Queen Of The Desert’s London incarnation) and some colossal misses (as a lamentable Captain Von Trapp). He managed to just about get away with it as sharpshooter Frank Butler.” Susan Lowes at the All Edinburgh Theatre website also witnessed the outshining of a celebrity. “Williams brings a real sense of enthusiasm to the role – she plays a strong and feisty character, whose spark is only diminished slightly by the occasional interference from the male characters.”

The Yellow On The Broom PITLOCHRY FESTIVAL THEATRE Until October 15 ■ Pitlochry continues its successful recent run of shows with this piece about a family of travelling people around Perthshire in the 1930s facing prejudice at every turn. But when the young daughter Bessie shows promise at school

EXHIBITIONS Alison Watt: Paintings 1986-2014 PERTH MUSEUM AND ART GALLERY Until September 28 ■ Since graduating from the Glasgow School of Art in 1988, Greenock-born Alison Watt’s career has been frequently punctuated with great success. Duncan the stooshie ❘ www.thestooshie.co.uk

the script for the ensuing hour. The Scotsman’s Kelly Apter was impressed: “Guerin created the structure and moves and asks pertinent unspoken questions about technology’s capacity to connect and isolate in equal measure. But from that starting point, copious praise must be heaped on the six performers who, miraculously, create a brand new show for every performance.” Mary Brennan in The Herald was also taken with the skills on display and the message. “Connecting via mobile technology, it seems, isn’t the whole story when it comes to communicating and Guerin’s Conversation Piece, brilliantly performed by a quick-witted, nimble sextet, is a wry reflection on how these phones allow us to keep other human beings at arm’s length,” she said. and is taken under the wing of a sympathetic teacher, things might be changing for the better. But there will always be some people who can’t see beyond their own hatred for others. Writing for The Stage, Peter Cargill admired the performances, traditional songs and overall production. “The theatre’s artistic director John Durnin takes the helm and, although the piece lacks a bit of light and shade (mostly light) in the first half, it certainly springs to life in the second. Frances Collier’s set consists of rustic proscenium arches of hessian and wicker and the hardworking cast deserve much praise for the smooth alacrity in the multitude of scene changeovers.” Macmillan in The Scotsman was full of high praise for this powerful retrospective housed in Perth. “She has reversed the classic gender cliché of the female body as passive subject of the male gaze to demonstrate instead and with perfect self-confidence the separate and wholly independent perspective of gender viewed from within.”

l 27

REVIEW & Preview FILM

3 Days To Kill (12A) Starring: Kevin Costner, Amber Heard, Connie Nielsen ■ Curiously, this is the second film of the week with a central character having a limited time left on this earth thanks to cancer. Here, Kevin Costner’s elite CIA operative Ethan Renner throws himself towards one more risky mission. Alison Rowat in The Herald found the film suffered from

an identity crisis: “The wilfully bonkers screenplay is by Luc ‘Nikita’ Besson, so expect fantasy femmes fatales and a film that does not know if it wants to be a comedy or a thriller.” The List’s Matthew Turner decried the movie’s lack of focus: “For the most part it’s a confused and poorly written mixture of thriller and sentimental comedy-drama that struggles to find the right tone.” But it was down to Alistair Harkness in The Scotsman to find some positive things to write about, dubbing it “entertaining trash, with Costner hard to resist as he pinballs around Paris juggling paternal responsibilities with his inescapable talent for beating bad guys to a pulp in ruthlessly inventive and pleasingly non-ironic ways”.

Average rating 5/10

The Fault In Our Stars (12A) Starring: Shailene Woodley, Ansel Elgort, Laura Dern ■ Based on a 2012 young adult novel by John Green, The Fault In Our Stars is a surefire summer weepie about a young cancer victim who falls in love with another sufferer (albeit one who seems to be in remission). The pair (played by Divergent stars Shailene Woodley and Ansel Elgort) go on a journey together, both psychologically and also physically when they head to Amsterdam where they meet a drunk and embittered author played by the never-dull Willem Dafoe. In The Herald, Alison Rowat was full of praise for the central pairing: “they make a highly attractive couple. Elgort is a natural born charmer, his wide open face made for the movie screen. Woodley, so impressive playing George Clooney’s daughter in The Descendants, is intensely watchable in other ways, her obvious intelligence plain to see.” Emma Simmonds in The List insisted that the film “lays its joy and tragedy on with a trowel”, while Alistair Harkness in The Scotsman was also less than enamoured but admitted that the film will find an appreciative audience: “Just as Marvel fanboys get plenty of opportunity to revel in the sometimes-excruciating minutiae of their chosen cinematic universe, so fans of four-ormore-hankie weepies will likely revel unapologetically in this.”

Jersey Boys (15) Starring: Freya Tingley, Christopher Walken, Francesca Eastwood ■ He might be edging towards the end of his illustrious directorial career, but Clint Eastwood is desperate to go out with one final bang. Whether his big screen adaptation of the hit stage

Average rating 6/10

Katie Paterson INGLEBY GALLERY, EDINBURGH, Until September 27 ■ The Glasgow-born sculptor makes her contribution to the ongoing Generation series of exhibitions, with a show about people’s relationship to their natural environment (right). In The List, David Pollock

musical about Frankie Valli and the Four Seasons is the one remains to be seen. Alison Rowat, reviewing in The Herald, was entertained albeit with reservations: “At 134 minutes, his picture winds up punishingly long, more like a double album when a string of singles would have been better, but the story of working class kids making it big is one that never grows old, and the songs are superbly rendered.” Matthew Turner in The List feels a lack at the heart of it all. “The film just skims the surface of the story and fails to invest it with any real emotion – there is no sense of danger from their mob connections, for example, while their personal lives are frustratingly thinly sketched.”

Average rating 6/10 insisted that “she creates art which strives to really say something, to make its mark as a definition of humanity’s position in the world”.

Moyna Flannigan: Stare GALLERY OF MODERN ART, GLASGOW, Until November 2 ■ Some archetypes in the

style of Bosch, Hogarth and Goya dominate this GOMA show with Moira Jeffrey in The Scotsman having noted that “there is more than a little of the walking dead in Moyna Flannigan’s marvellous, monstrous women in Stare, a group of new paintings that still smelled delightfully recent at the opening”. 28 June 2014 ❘ the stooshie

28 l THIS WEEK

SCOTS on the box

REVIEW & preview

Worth catching… A celebrity chef investigates foster care, a Scottish historian analyses the devastating effect of a deadly weapon of war and tonight, Matthew, David Tennant IS Sir Walter Scott.

TV: Fostering And Me

BBC Two ❘ available on iPlayer ■ TV chef Lorraine Pascale went through foster care as a new-born baby and again later at the age of eight when the marriage of her adopted parents broke down. In this documentary, she met up with her own foster parents from three decades back as well as such children currently in care. Lesley McDowell in The Herald believed the film was most useful in debunking some myths about such children: “they are not feral or brutal: they can be thoughtful and intelligent and they can jump up and down at the worktop, wanting to lick the spoon; so they’re just like children everywhere, then, except they’ve had terrible luck.” And Damien Love in the Sunday Herald reported: “More than celebrity personal history, this is a sincere, insightful examination of what fostering means, and what it demands, as she meets people at every stage of the process, from social workers and carers, to children currently in care.”

The Machine Gun And Skye’s Band Of Brothers BBC Two Scotland, Friday July 4, 9.30pm ■ It was an American living in London who invented the Maxim Gun, but it’s unlikely he could possibly have envisioned the carnage this weapon would ultimately inflict on British people during the First World War. One burst of machine gun fire (the Maxim unleashed 666 rounds per minute) could hit scores of men on the battlefield and historian Neil Oliver describes the dreadful human cost of this weapon. In The Machine Gun And Skye’s Band of Brothers, the development of this gun is interwoven with the story of a small company of soldiers that would come face to face with it. The journey begins at the rolls of honour in the Scottish National War Memorial in Edinburgh Castle, containing lists of casualties from Scottish regiments, grouped together in clusters of the same places of birth and death. He then follows the stories of soldiers from Skye who went to the Front together as part of the Cameron Highlanders and sees the letters sent home giving a poignant account of how gaping holes were made in tightly-knit communities.

RADIO: The Great Scott

Bryan Burnett GET IT ON

Radio 4 Sunday June 29, 3pm ■ David Tennant stars as Walter Scott in this adaptation of The Bride of Lammermoor which tells the story of a tragic love affair between young Lucy Ashton and her family’s enemy, Edgar Ravenswood. The clans have been enemies for centuries, but will a proposed union bring peace?

RADIO: The Last Wish Of A Prince Radio 4 Friday July 4, 11am ■ Comic and chef Hardeep Singh Kohli follows the campaign to have the remains of Duleep Singh, the last Maharaja of the Sikh Empire, exhumed from Suffolk and returned to India. As Hardeep discovers, the campaign is proving highly controversial as the evidence for his last wishes is not clear cut at all.

the stooshie ❘ www.thestooshie.co.uk

BBC Scotland’s request show played songs about cheats and liars

Del Amitri

Bruce Springsteen

Britney Spears

Always The Last To Know

Brilliant Disguise

Womanizer

ABC

George Michael

Connie Francis

Careless Whisper

Lipstick On Your Collar

Poison Arrow

The O’Jays Back Stabbers

Hank Williams Your Cheatin’ Heart

Ace How Long

■ Get It On ❘ Weekdays at 6.10pm

Louise White morning call The following questions were asked on BBC Scotland’s weekday Morning Call programme ■ What would you do if you discovered an intruder? ■ Is legislation the answer to the issue of forced marriage? ■ Do children need lessons on how to use the NHS?

■ Are people taking ‘staycations’ by choice or neccessity? ■ How do we prevent children from being obsessed with body image?

■ Morning call ❘ Weekdays at 8.50am

l 29

REVIEW & preview

The best of this week’s books

SCOTTISH BESTSELLERS

JK Rowling’s nom de plume fights to the top of the Stooshie reading pile while a Pixie gets graphic and a potential US president delivers a memoir of her recent time in office.

HARD BACK 1. Written In My Own Heart’s blood

RECOMMENDED

by Diana Gabaldon

Silkworm

2. Fighting Spirit

by Robert Galbraith

by Fernando Ricksen with Vincent De Vries

■ As you no doubt know, Robert Galbraith is the pseudonym of one Joanne Kathleen Rowling, she of the boy wizard books. Now, the Edinburgh-based author is carving out a new series of novels featuring crimebuster Cormoran Strike with this murder mystery set, intriguingly, in the world of publishing. Writing in The Herald, Rosemary Goring felt that the author had certainly upped her gore quotient: “The death at the heart of JK Rowling’s second crime novel is worthy of the generation weaned on the savagery of Game Of Thrones.” Meanwhile, fellow crime scribe Val McDermid took to the pages of The Guardian to praise Rowling/Galbraith, insisting that “what Galbraith does so convincingly with the crime novel is, in a sense, what Rowling did so well with the children’s book. She is a magpie, with an unerring eye for elements of the genre that work well.”

3. My Scotland, Our Britain by Gordon Brown

4. The Sex Lives Of Siamese Twins by Irvine Welsh

5. The First Game With My Father by Michael Tierney

6. Bannockburn by Alistair Moffat

7. The Last Refuge by Craig Robertson

8. Kingdom The Good Inn

Hard Choices

by Black Francis & Josh Frank

by Hillary Rodham Clinton

by Alan Furst

■ It’s perhaps unusual for a politician who still has eyes on a rather big prize to be releasing memoirs, but then Hillary Clinton is no ordinary politician. Hard Choices covers her time as Secretary of State in the Obama administration and The Herald’s Mark Smith noted that she does rather seem to be holding back a little: “The language is careful. Whether being careful is what will win her the White House is another matter.”

■ Despite everything that’s been going on in the news, the spy thriller still doesn’t seem to be an especially fashionable genre. Furst is one writer who might change that with this tale of nefarious espionage shenanigans in WW2 particularly revolving around the left/right battle for Spain. Russel McLean in The Herald stated that “the main reason to read Furst is his pitch-perfect period detail. The author evokes time and place with effortless ease.”

■ Black Francis is but one of many names adopted down the years by the man perhaps best known as Frank Black, he of the recently reformed US indie icons, the Pixies. Now he’s dipping his creative toes into the graphic novel form and this co-written tale received a generally warm welcome from Miles Fielder in The List: “It’s packed with plenty of outré ideas that interweave lost history with an alternative universe, but it feels thin and unfinished.”

Midnight In Europe

by Robyn Young

9. Shredded by Ian Fraser

10. More Than Argentina by Ronnie McDevitt

PAPER BACK 1. Extraordinary People by Peter May

2. There Was A Wee Lassie Who Swallowed A Midgie by Rebecca Colby and Kate McLelland

3. Bertie’s Guide To Life And Mothers by Alexander McCall Smith

4. Katie In Scotland by James Mayhew

5. Saints Of The Shadow Bible by Ian Rankin

LOOK OUT FOR...

6. The Blackhouse

■ The autographed manuscript of a Robert Burns song has fetched £35,000 at auction. Written in 1792, ‘Ye Banks And Braes O’Bonnie Doon’ is about the river in Ayrshire which flows past the Bard’s birthplace. The only other manuscript of the song is housed in the British Library.

7. The Quarry

■ Announced at the Borders Book Festival, Robert Harris (right) has won the Walter Scott Prize For Historical Fiction with his novel, An Officer And A Spy. His book is the recreation of a scandal where young Jewish officer Alfred Dreyfus was convicted of treason in 1895 Paris.

by Peter May by Iain Banks

8. Scotland ‘74 by Richard Gordon

9. Road To Referendum by Iain Macwhirter

10. Independence by Alasdair Gray ■ Lists from Waterstones 28 June 2014 ❘ the stooshie

30 l CHEF’S CORNER

HARDEEP SINGH KOHLI Broadcaster, comedian and cook

In his Daily Record column, Hardeep wrote of his love of lamb. In fact, he feels so strongly about lamb that he’s “slightly suspicious” of those who do not share his appreciation of the meat. One of his favourite ways of preparing lamb is in a “fresh and healthy” Moroccan salad. Made with chickpeas and peaches and flavoured with cinnamon, coriander, cumin, salt and pepper, the recipe was picked up by Hardeep when he spent some time in Marrakesh. He is a fan of North African cooking, particularly the subtle use of spice which lets “the meat speak for itself”.

tastiest FOOD & Drink Charwood lights up

Isle ale’s got bottle

■ Tusitala Restaurant and the Pavilion bar in Fairmilehead, Edinburgh, have been bought, refurbished and turned into the new Charwood restaurant and bar. The restaurant specialises in cooking with both a charcoal-burning Josper oven and a wood-burning pizza oven. The menu focuses on dry-rubbed steaks and pizza. Charwood is owned by Omni Taverns who also have the Whiski Bar on the Royal Mile and Whiski Rooms on The Mound in the capital.

■ The Hebridean Brewing Company is expanding into larger premises on Stornoway. According to The Press and Journal, the owners have applied for planning permission to convert their new Shell Street premises into a brewery, visitor centre, pub and shop.

Kestrel flies again ■ The well-known 80s brand Kestrel lager is relaunching with a new advertising campaign focusing on the drink’s journey from “loch to brewery”, according to The Herald. Made in Glasgow, the lager is produced using the “holy brewing method” which means it is fermented for seven days, including the Sabbath, rather than the more conventional five. To promote the relaunch, Kestrel’s owners Brookfield Drinks have tried to persuade golf’s governing body to re-name the holein-one a kestrel. Although golfing terminology already features the birdie, eagle and albatross, The Royal and Ancient Golf Club of St Andrews has yet to agree to the kestrel proposal.

Pizza plan for Dundee ■ The Project Pie pizza chain has lodged a planning application to open on Reform Street in Dundee, reports The Courier. Already established in the USA and the Philippines, the Dundonian Project Pie would be the first European outlet. The chain was founded in Las Vegas two years ago. Built in 1832, the B-listed premises on Reform Street were formerly used as a Santander bank. The new restaurant aims to create 14 full-time and seven parttime posts.

Scotch missed ■ Rare whisky worth £10,000 has been stolen from Glenglassaugh Distillery in Portsoy, Aberdeenshire. Bottles of 37-year-old and 40-year-old whisky, worth £372 and £1,200 respectively, were among the haul. The thieves also made off with four pot stills and a quantity of jumpers with Glenglassaugh Distillery branding.

WHISKY OF THE WEEK Glen Grant 10 Year Old Whisky Easy drinking single malt from Speyside As a barman at the well stocked Pot Still in Glasgow, Sean Murphy presides over a collection of whiskies that runs into the hundreds. Writing in The Scotsman, Sean recommended the “light, zesty” Glen Grant 10 year old. He reckoned the dram was “perfect for the summer weather” and “best enjoyed in the sunshine”. Made in Rothes, Speyside, the whisky is matured in ex-bourbon casks. For Sean, this single malt evokes flavours of “lemon and apples” and is a whisky that he never tires of. the stooshie ❘ www.thestooshie.co.uk

RECIPE of the week

Cullen Skink From Jacqueline O’Donnell, head chef at The Sisters, Kelvingrove Street, Glasgow Fresh from her appearance on the Great British Menu, Jacqueline gives her recipe for this classic Scottish soup. Ingredients (serves four) ■ 450g (1lb) Rooster potatoes, peeled and diced roughly 1cm square ■ 1 tbsp Summer Harvest Rapeseed oil ■ 1 finely chopped onion ■ 450g (1lb) undyed smoked haddock, skinned ■ 300ml (1/2pt) boiling water – you can use chicken or vegetable stock if you prefer, pop the skin into the pot for added flavour. Don’t use fish stock, it will make the soup too fishy! ■ 425ml (3/4pt) full cream milk ■ 3 tbsp double cream (optional) ■ Salt and pepper ■ Fresh chives to garnish Method 1. Gently soften onions in a heavy based pot then add diced potato and stir for a minute or two, season lightly. 2. Add the milk and stock then place the fish on top. Bring to the boil. Simmer for two minutes then lift fish out and set aside. 3. Discard any bones and break fish into chunks. Cover to keep warm while you finish the soup. 4. Return stock mix to the boil, reduce the heat and simmer for 8-10 minutes to fully cook potatoes. 5. Stir in the fish and cream, season to taste and serve immediately garnished with chives. Jacqueline O’Donnell is a 2014 Food and Drink ambassador.

THE BEST RESTAURANT REVIEWS

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The Vintage@Drygate 85 Drygate, Glasgow G4 0UT www.drygate.com ■ Joanna Blythman liked the new Vintage@Drygate in Glasgow’s East End but could see room for improvement, according to her review in the Sunday Herald. The restaurant and bar is part of Drygate, a recently launched brewery collaboration between craft brewers William Bros and C&C, the company that makes Tennent’s. Diners can watch beer being made through a glass wall in the restaurant and Joanna liked the “beaten copper” bar which “warmed” the interior while staying “very much in keeping with the prevailing industrial riff”. However, the food was “exasperatingly patchy”. There were thumbs down for a “bitter-leaved, oily salad”; brisket was “too dry and crumbly” and hand cut chips were “sad and mushy”. On a much more positive note, an Arbroath smokie pâté “stroked the palate like velvet” and a beech smoked ham croque madame “was close to perfection”. The critic noted that The Vintage did some “important things really well” but found that often “some miscalculation wrong foots them”. Write a “sensible” menu and work to achieve consistency was her advice to the fledgling business. Score: 7/10 | Sunday Herald

Giraffe

Marco Pierre White

Boteco do Brasil

Hams Hame Pub & Grill

Union Square, Aberdeen AB11 5RG www.giraffe.net

Bankend Road, Dumfries DG41 4ZZ www.wheelersdumfries.co.uk

62 Trongate, Glasgow G1 5EP www.botecodobrasil.com

21 Golf Place, St Andrews KY16 9JA www.hamiltongrand.co.uk

A half price drinks promotion and “OK” shrimp were almost the only features which Tam Cowan liked about a visit to a branch of Giraffe in Aberdeen. Writing in The Scottish Sun, the pundit described his chips as “appalling” and a quesadilla as “truly honking”. At times, poor Tam felt as though he was “eating a buffet at Kerry Katona’s house”. The only bright spot were the servers who were “pleasant” and “very cheery”. “Cinema style food for unfussy teens” was the critic’s verdict. And even they would be “better off filling their faces with popcorn” he fumed.

Scotland on Sunday’s Richard Bath was unexpectedly pleased by this Dumfries restaurant which operates under the name of celebrity chef Marco Pierre White. Despite arriving “ready to be disappointed”, Richard liked the reasonable pricing and loved a dish which featured “possibly the most tender” lamb he had “ever tasted”. One or two dishes were judged on the meagre side and a soundtrack of “cheesy ballads” was disapproved of. In general, Richard enjoyed a “decent meal” and wrote that while Pierre White’s profile may have shrunk there was still “plenty of life in the old dog”.

Despite tears over Scotland’s failure to qualify, the Daily Record’s Gary Ralston cheered on Boteco do Brasil as “one of the best places” in Glasgow to watch World Cup matches. As well as offering a Brazilian “carnival at Candleriggs”, Boteco served Gary “juicy”, “well cooked” tiger prawns and Atlantic squid which, he noted happily, was not at all rubbery. His only regret about the starters was they stopped him from finishing his main course of feijoada. Brazil’s national dish of black beans, pork ribs, smoked bacon, salt beef and smoked sausage, it was “beautifully presented”.

Having opened last year next to the Royal and Ancient Clubhouse, Hams Hame, part of Hamilton Grand, serves “very good and well presented” food, writes The Courier’s reporter. “Low ceilings, beams and wooden floors” make it look like “a traditional British pub” and it has a “warm and busy” atmosphere. Dressed crab on Melba toast was “moist and full of flavour” and a Black Isle steak had a “wonderful, chargrilled taste”. The only fly in the ointment was “rather bizarre service” even if it was delivered by “smartly turned out and very polite” staff.

Score: 18/30 | The Scottish Sun

Score 7/10 | Scotland on Sunday

Score: 24/30 | Daily Record

Score: 32/50 | The Courier 28 June 2014 ❘ the stooshie

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PROPERTY

INSIDE OUT – our Pick of the Scottish Market

One Royal Circus, Edinburgh Offers Over: £1.995m Knight Frank ❘ www.knightfrank.com n This is a genuinely unique Georgian property combining grand entertaining space with excellent family accommodation and beautifully presented bedroom suites in one of New Town’s best addresses.

The feeling of space and grandeur is immediately apparent upon entering the large entrance hall and the inner hall with its beautiful barrel vaulted ceiling. The main reception rooms are truly stunning and provide exceptional entertaining space. Previously used as a B&B, the Scottish Daily Mail reported how the likes of JK Rowling and actor Ewan McGregor had raved about their stays there.

BIG BUDGET

Teviot Bank, Edinburgh Offers Over: £2.95m

Finnart Lodge, Loch Rannoch Offers Over: £1.35m

Knight Frank ❘ www.knightfrank.com

n Designed by renowned Scottish architect William Burn, the Category B-listed house dates from 1833. Teviot Bank has been improved beyond recognition over the years, providing adaptable family accommodation with well-proportioned reception rooms. the stooshie ❘ www.thestooshie.co.uk

n It is rare to find such excellent loch frontage, particularly where a public road does not run between house and shore. The property has been a wonderful home for the owners for 18 years and it and the surrounding area offers a whole host of pursuits.

PROPERTY

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28 St James Road Forfar

Ballantynes

Thorntons

£POA

Fixed Price: £450,000

Sizeable redevelopment opportunity to the north of the coastal town which includes Ashludie House.

❘ www.thorntons-property.co.uk

Ashludie Hospital Monifieth

Detached family home, constructed around 1900, which still retains many of its original features.

4 Union Terrace Dundee

1 Renmure Farm Cottages Arbroath

Thorntons

Offers over: £385,000 Magnificent, detached residence set within extensive gardens in a prime central location.

❘ www.thorntons-property.co.uk

❘ www.ballantynes.uk.com

TAYSIDE AND ANGUS TERRITORY

Fixed Price: £370,000 This attractive detached offering offers buyers uninterrupted views over the local countryside.

CLIMBING THE LADDER

4 West Forth Street, Cellardyke Offers Over: £155,000

46H Barntongate Avenue, Edinburgh Offers Over: £125,000

Pagan Osborne ❘ www.paganosborne.com

Coulters ❘ www.coultersproperty.co.uk

n A beautiful three-bedroom former fisherman’s home. With rooftop sea views from the attic level, this has been recently renovated with a new en-suite shower room. The dining kitchen leading out to sun deck and walled garden is stunning.

n A very well presented two-bedroom first floor flat which has been refurbished by the current owner. It is considered that, due to its city location, the property would make an ideal down-sizer or rental investment. 28 June 2014 ❘ the stooshie

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the best travel writing

CANADA FROM SCOTLAND

Melanie Harvey Daily Record

Old and new, Toronto

■ Twenty years after her first visit with her mum, Harvey was delighted to return to Toronto. Apparently, the city has more high rise buildings in construction than “in any other North American city”. However, she was glad to see that while Toronto’s “skyline had altered dramatically”, the city had hung on to its “not inconsiderable charms”. These included the “artfully converted” boutiques, cafes and restaurants of the Distillery District – a film location for Russell Crowe’s Cinderella Man. In the Yorkville area, the pair were impressed by the “glamorous One Restaurant”,

particularly as ladies’ handbags were given their own stools to sit on. Sticking with culinary attractions, the St Lawrence Food Market was highly recommended for those seeking Canadian maple syrup. The “amazing” Royal Ontario Museum had an exhibition of China’s Forbidden City. Just as easy on the eye were the cityscape views from the 40th floor of the duo’s Sheraton Centre Hotel on Queen Street West. An added advantage was that their hotel was on the Path network. This “underground walkway links 17 miles of shopping, services and entertainment venues” – especially useful when winter kicks in at this “vibrant, cosmopolitan” city on the banks of Lake Ontario.

TRAVEL BRITAIN

TRAVEL EUROPE

TRAVEL THE WORLD

Northumberland

Ibiza

Montenegro

Susan Flockhart ❘ Sunday Herald

Laura Millar ❘ Scottish Daily Express

David Walsh ❘ Scotland on Sunday

■ A four-storey, stone tower on the Northumbrian coast, the Ducket provided a “luxurious self catering base”. Built around two centuries ago, the original purpose of the tower is a mystery but a 21st century makeover has rendered it comfortable for visitors. Windswept walks on the Holy Island of Lindisfarne, the “pretty market town” of Alnwick and “wonderful beaches including Ross Beach” added up to a packed weekend.

■ The clubbing season is underway but Ibiza also offers an “unspoilt, charming island with hidden bays”. According to Laura Millar, Playa d’en Bossa is “one of the most famous” beaches but Portinatx is a more family-friendly. She also suggested visiting Ibiza Town harbour and getting “lost in its maze” of streets. To the north, Hacienda Na Xamena is “perfect” for “a cool glass of sangria” as the “scarlet sun” dips into the sea.

■ Perhaps the “finest preserved medieval city in the Balkans”, Walsh enjoyed a stop at Kotor on Montenegro’s Dalmatian coast. The old town’s beauty was “arresting” with a “labyrinthine network of streets and alleys” that lead to “piazzas lined with cafes, elegant Venetian palazzos and medieval churches”. From the vantage point of St John’s fortress, 1,350 steps above town, it is easy to realise why Kotor Bay has UNESCO World Heritage status.

TRAVEL NEWS Mini-moons rising

According to research from Post Office Travel Insurance, long honeymoons are out in favour of shorter and less expensive mini-moons. Money appears to be the deciding factor for over half (56%) of mini-mooners, while demanding work and/

or family commitments play a key role for one in five. Minimoons cost an average £648 compared to honeymoons which stand at £2,220. The UK is the most popular destination for minimooners, topping the chart as the choice for two thirds of the people surveyed. Surprisingly, countries with a stronger guarantee of

the stooshie ❘ www.thestooshie.co.uk

sunshine such as Spain, France or Italy, are favoured by only 12% of minimooners.

Queen’s Baton at Game Fair The GWCT Scottish Game Fair takes place over the weekend beginning Friday July 4. Being held for the 26th time, Scotland’s largest game

and outdoor fair will be at Scone Palace. As well as many of Scotland’s top food and drink producers, the event will feature terrier racing, falconry, hill pony demonstrations and Welsh axemen competing in a tree felling simulation. The Queen’s Baton Relay will also pass through the fair at around 5pm on the day.

THE BEST OF the great outdoors the garden experts Penstemon cuttings are bursting with energy ■ At this time of year you can forget about the misery of winter and concentrate on all your successes, wrote the Sunday Mail’s Carol Klein. For example, penstemon cuttings she took last year are now bursting with energy after being planted out. No sooner are they in the ground than a brand new batch can be taken from the plants that have survived happily over the winter. And an added bonus is that the whole family that penstemon belong to – the scrophulariaceae – seem to be averse to slugs.

Orchid extravaganza ■ The Royal Botanic Garden Edinburgh will have a touch of the exotic when it plays host to a four-week Taiwanese Orchid Fair. Agnes Stevenson in the Sunday Post said that the free exhibition in the John Hope Visitor Centre, which runs until July 20, will celebrate the long links that exist between the garden and Taiwan.

Constant battle with bugs and blights ■ There was a time when chemicals could be used get rid of garden bugs and blights, wrote John Stoa in The Courier. But most of these products are now unavailable for health and safety reasons and that, combined with increased travel abroad, global warming and mild winters, has led to a proliferation of pests. For example, our trees are now under constant threat from a variety of diseases, including ash dieback, sudden oak death and serious diseases affecting pines and beech trees.

OOT AND ABOOT! Bid to improve pathways

Scots staycation boom

■ The Courier’s Gayle Ritchie spent a day in Kinloch Rannoch helping volunteers involved in a maintenance project to make paths that have fallen into disrepair more accessible. The workers, for Perth and Kinross Countryside Trust, are trying to increase user numbers by improving paths. Gayle helped tackle the Meall Dubh track in the foothills of Schiehallion.

■ More than four out of five Scots have opted to holiday at home this year, with Edinburgh and the Highland the top staycation hotspots for UK tourists. The Scotsman reported the results of a survey conducted by budget hotel chain Travelodge that said 81% of Scots said they had decided to holiday closer to home this year, up from 57% last year. The report also claimed that 53% of Scots were

taking lots of short breaks throughout the year rather than just one big break. Just over a third of these will take two short breaks, while 29% will enjoy three getaways and 14% will take four. Glasgow has also rocketed in popularity, mainly because of the Commonweatlth Games. Travelodge chief executive Peter Gowers said: “2014 looks like being the year of the staycation.” See pages 24 and 25.

l 35

NATURE’S BEST ■ The beaver population in Scotland has thrived since they were reintroduced into the Highlands. The Scotsman reported that an SNH survey found the 17 beavers living in Knapdale forest in Argyll are healthy and not threatening the otter population. There are now calls for the rodents, which existed throughout Scotland until the 16th century, to be brought back to other parts of the country. Duncan Orr-Ewing of RSPB Scotland said the organisation “would like to play a role in bringing beavers back across Scotland”. ■ A white-tailed eagle chick successfully hatched in Fife for the second year in a row. White-tailed eagles, also known as sea eagles, are the UK’s largest birds of prey and were once a common sight across Scotland untiol they were persecuted to extinction. From 2007-12, 85 of the birds were released in the east of Scotland and last year sea eagles bred successfully in the area for the first time in 200 years, though last year’s chick disappeared in April.

Weather Warmest – Strathallan 26.7C (80.1F)

Sunniest

– Glasgow 15.3hrs

Coldest – Cairngorm Mountains 2.2C (36F)

Wettest – Strathallan 0.57ins

That was the weather that was: After a week which saw temperatures peak around 26C in the warmest spots, there was a timely reminder though that there is still snow on the Scottish mountains thanks to a rather brave – or foolhardy, you decide – tourist. BBC News reported how the tourist had to be stretchered off Aonach Mor near Fort William after hurting his ankle while climbing – in flip-flops no less. A message on the Lochaber Mountain Rescue team’s Facebook page explained: “Well he had never seen snow before so why not give it a go in yer bare feet and sandals?!” Meanwhile, the Scottish weather hit the headlines in Australia as their Commonwealth Games shotgun hopefuls bemoaned the climate they will face next month. “It can be pretty wet and cold, so you need your overtrousers and thermal underwear even though it’s summer,” James Corbett told The West Australian paper. Charming. 28 June 2014 ❘ the stooshie

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CONSUMER

Three of the best...Hi-tech headphones

tried and tested

Ear-buds might be more discreet and portable, but for the ultimate sound delivery, you need to go over, not in. Here’s a round-up of the best over-the-ear headphones on the market.

Tennis themed-

gift ideas Strawberries and Cream Whipped Body Butter £5.99 Mad Beauty

Griffin Woodtones £74.99

Parrot Zik £209.00

Monster Adidas Originals £219.95

Take your pick from three types of wood to create the prettiest casing for your sound delivery technology. Whichever you opt for though – Walnut (used to create fine furniture), Sapele (used in musical instrument manufacture) or Beech (with its light coloured hue) – you’ll not be disappointed by the earwarming sounds they offer.

There can be no doubting the Parrot Zik’s style pedigree, designed by Philippe Starck. When you combine that with the feature set on offer, the ‘buy’ button will loom ever closer. They connect to your device via Bluetooth, meaning no need for cables, while you control the volume and track skipping by tapping on the earpieces.

With the full heritage of the Adidas sporting brand behind them, plus all the might of the Monster tag, this collaboration was always going to produce decent results. There are other earbud sets in this new range worth a look, but these overear numbers deliver a workout inspiring bass level many others can only aspire to.

store.griffintechnology.co.uk

www.amazon.co.uk

store.universal-music.co.uk

Can’t get enough strawberries and cream but want to avoid those horrible extra calories? Try this moisturising body butter instead.

Stella McCartney Tennis Barricade Skort £40.00 Adidas

The skort – a pair of shorts with a fabric panel resembling a skirt – is this summer’s must-have fashion item.

Wimbledon Perfect Match 2014 Charm £55.00 Links of London

This limited edition sterling silver charm is engraved with ‘Perfect Match 2014’, allowing anyone to keep a memento from this year’s tournament.

DRIVE TIME

Skoda Rapid Spaceback Price from £18,440

BMW i3

Jack McKeown ❘ The Courier

Price from £33,380 Stephen Park ❘ The Herald

Taking on some big names in the “ultracompetitive family hatch” market, the Rapid looks like a saloon but is in fact a hatch – or a liftback, as Skoda prefers. Despite its name, it is not actually more spacious than the standard Rapid, and nor is the Rapid “particularly, er, rapid” – 0-62mph takes over 12 seconds. The ride is on the “firm” side and the diesel engine is a “little louder and less refined than the best of its rivals”, but one strength of this car is its interior space. So while the Spaceback can’t match the best of its rivals when it comes to ride comfort and “overall pizazz”, it does give you a lot of practicality for your money.

BMW know that battery-driven cars “need to have a real wow factor”, and the i3 has an “immediate presence on the road”. Perhaps the most surprising thing about the i3 is the drive – “push the accelerator and this rear-wheel-drive baby Beemer catapults forward with whisper quiet vigour”. Despite concerns about fuel economy, this “still stacks up on paper and on the road”, with “quality, design and image” all central to the i3’s development. “Offering charm, exclusivity and a premium ownership experience”, the BMW i3 could be considered by some as the “first genuinely desirable electric car”.

Maserati Ghibli Price from £48,835 Alisdair Suttie ❘ Sunday Post Maserati is “looking to succeed where many before have failed” by taking on the might of Audi, BMW and Mercedes in its sector. Inside it carries on the fine balancing act between “bespoke Italian car couture and sober-suited business express”, while outside it displays “enough Maserati cues” – such as the wide front grille, triple vents on the front wings’ flanks and the trident badge on the rear pillars. In the driving stakes, the Ghibli “is no mach” for a BMW or Jaguar, but these manufacturers “should be concerned as the Ghibli succeeds in meeting them head on in just about every other respect”. 28 June 2014 ❘ the stooshie

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BUSINESS & FINANCE BUSINESS BITES

Virgin express: partnership wins right to run West Coast The tie-up between Perth-based transport firm Stagecoach and tycoon Sir Richard Branson has been successfully shunted into a new short-term franchise extension ■ The new agreement will see Virgin Rail continue to operate rail services on one of the major transport arteries connecting England and Scotland. The directly awarded deal will last two years and nine months, with the option of a further one-year extension. Virgin will pay £430m for the privilege, while the Department for Transport reckons it will also generate £35m of value for passengers, including more seats, station upgrades and new services. Virgin will also return profits to the DfT if they exceed a certain pre-agreed level. And the bottleneck junction at Carstairs is one of a string of areas which will be looked at, alongside Network Rail, in an effort to increase capacity and cut journey times.

The Federation of Small Businesses said confidence was on the rise, with its quarterly Voice of Small Business index showing a reading of

+44

for the second quarter of 2014

COMMENTATORS SAY In his commentary, Alastair Osborne of The Times said the award was a further admission of 2012’s “great cock-up on wheels”, when the West Coast line was handed to First Group before being swiftly cancelled when it was found that the bidding process was far from watertight. He reckons the franchising fiasco has cost public coffers a sum approaching a couple of billion pounds, with operators coughing up much less in order to win the right to run short term extensions. The Guardian said the deal could herald a tripling of profit margins for Virgin, seizing on a note from city analysts as it reported on the “contentious” contract extension. The reading showed small firms in Scotland were more bullish than their counterparts elsewhere in the UK. This time last year, the same measure was just +9. But problems with access to finance persist. Just 13% of those surveyed said credit availability was ‘good’, with 23% agreeing it was ‘affordable’ – despite the best efforts of business secretary Vince Cable.

the stooshie ❘ www.thestooshie.co.uk

The Scotsman city editor Martin Flanagan was glad to see the back of the whole furore. He welcomed the “democracy dividend” which will see first class carriages turned into more standard seating, plus wifi and other bells and whistles, and noted critics’ catcalls over ticket prices and the return of profits to the taxpayer. But he said the outcome looks much better than anyone could have imagined when the vital transport link became stuck in an amateurish mire two years ago. BBC transport correspondent Richard Westcott told how Virgin boss Richard Branson had said he might leave the rail industry, so disillusioned was he with 2012’s franchising fiasco. There was no talk of that this week, however. With his company due to run line until at least 2017, Branson has already staked his claim to keep hold of the West Coast in successive years, with a pledge to take part in the bid for the following franchise.

■ Oil and gas firm Ithaca has upped its stake in the North Sea after increasing its holding in the Cook field and buying into Pierce and Wytch Park. The £100m move will increase exposure in the province and continues a pattern of investment by small and independent producers. ■ Diagnostic and HIV testing outfit Omega remained upbeat on its chances, despite delays and uncertainty in the testing and roll out of its key product. It said it had a “high degree of confidence” in its Visitect CD4 mobile testing device, given an estimated 17 million HIV sufferers in rural locations – but admitted it could not say when orders would come. Shares in the Alva-based company sank almost 20% after its house broker deferred revenue forecasts. ■ Infinis, the renewable energy group chaired by former SSE man Ian Marchant (below), saw profits climb 18% during the 12 months to March. It generates about 7% of the UK’s green energy and counts seven Scottish wind farms amongst its assets.

BUSINESS & finance WEEK IN NUMBERS

10,153

The number of new start-up companies helped by advice service Business Gateway during the 12 months to March. The figure was 5% up on the previous year and reflects a “growing entrepreneurial culture” in Scotland, chief officer Hugh Lightbody said.

$1 trillion

The value of precious metals defence and tech firm Lockheed Martin believes it could mine from below the sea bed, according to The Press and Journal. The group told business editor Ryan Crighton it wanted Aberdeen-based specialists to help it reach valuable copper, nickel and manganese deposits in 22,400 square miles of the Pacific Ocean.

178,800

The estimated number of visitors to this year’s Royal Highland Show at Ingliston. It is expected to account for a £70m boost to the country’s economy – so all those traffic jams must be worth it.

Investors say ‘yes’ TSB back with a bang ■ Edinburgh-headquartered TSB made a triumphant return to the stock market this week, with shares jumping 11% on their first day of trading. Lloyds made 35% of the returning favourite available in the face of demand which outstripped supply tenfold. The Herald welcomed the bank that likes to say yes

Workers fork out as much as

£2,500 a year on coffee, snacks, breakfasts and lunches, a new report has claimed. The research, for Visa, found a third of people did not factor the additional spending into normal daily budgets.

‘substantial’

The pay award promised to the chief executive of the new Oil and Gas Authority, which will be based in Aberdeen. The Press and Journal said the hunt was on for the £200,000 a year oil boss, following the adoption of a string of recommendations made by grandee Sir Ian Wood.

back to the market in its main leader, hailing the step as another milestone on the road to reform of the banking sector. It asked whether TSB could muscle in on the big boys and offer something different from smaller rivals. In The Scotsman, George Kerevan said investors from the US were keen despite no propect of early dividends.

Pie in the sky? ■ A study for London mayor Boris Johnson said his plan to build a new four-runway hub airport in the UK’s south east would create thousands of jobs and boost the Scottish economy by hundreds of millions. Best of all, BoJo’s consultants claim, everyone wins. Or at least would win, by the time the thing has settled in. In 2050. Edinburgh will pick up £451m in gross value added, they said, Glasgow £358m and Aberdeen £346m. New international hub connections for Dundee and Inverness would generate £139m and £66m in turn. In all, Transport for London said the development would create more than 10,000 jobs in Scotland – and have a much bigger impact than expansion at other sites. But Courier business editor Graham Huband wasn’t dazzled by numbers, and warned Boris’s plan may never take off.

COMMENTATORS SAY

£1bn

The size of a new investment fund launched by the Green Investment Bank this week – double the scale of the pot first revealed by Scotland on Sunday business editor Terry Murden. Backed by British and overseas cash, the war chest will be used to fund renewables projects.

l 39

Far from a capital idea ■ London’s booming housing market could be the biggest threat to Scotland’s economy – but not for the reason you might think. Publishing the latest edition of the closely-watched Fraser of Allander Institute’s economic report, author Brian Ashcroft said The Bank of England could damage the recovery in Scotland if it were to raise interest rates to try and calm a price boom in the UK capital.

Herald View allowed itself the luxury of a wee sigh of relief at what Ashcroft termed a “strong recovery” in the Scottish economy. But it warned the professor did not even reach the end of his first sentence of his report before the caveats started coming “thick and fast”. A weak recovery, high debts, falling real-terms wages and booming London house prices are all risks and no-one should underestimate them, it said. But in The Scotsman, Bill Jamieson was much more upbeat – asking how on earth so many forecasters had underestimated growth. However, he did warn on the “critical issue” of interest rates. How could Scotland influence policy if it were to share the pound following a yes vote?

talking heads “We hire in our own image which has resulted in an alarming lack of diversity, we build complex reward structures for ourselves which are often at odds with the value created for shareholders or society, and we stifle innovation...” Alliance Trust CEO Katherine Garrett-Cox (above) tells a ‘Tomorrow’s City’ event in London that the financial sector must do more to be a force for good in society.

“It’s certainly a gamechanger for Grangemouth and it’s potentially a game-changer for Scotland.” Sandy Dobbie, chairman of industry body Chemical Sciences Scotland, praised INEOS’ £300m investment in new ethane docking facilities on the Forth. The refinery was on the brink of closure last year following a clash with unions over conditions.

“...we recognise the concerns raised by the business community that the support landscape is complex and needs to be clearly signposted.” Youth employment and training secretary Angela Constance said the Scottish Government shares the “scale of ambition” of a report which found the education system is failing half of Scotland’s young people. 28 June 2014 ❘ the stooshie

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SPORT

Post-mortem as Three Lions return home after just three World Cup games ■ Like them or loathe them, it has been hard to escape coverage of England’s World Cup trials and tribulations over the last fortnight. But sadly for Roy Hodgson’s men, a fortnight or so was all they got in Brazil as the English exited the competition ahead of schedule, putting in what was effectively their worst World Cup performance since 1958. Defeats against Italy and Uruguay left them needing a miracle and, when Costa Rica stunned Italy the evening after Luis Suarez had broken English hearts, the Three Lions’ fate was sealed. And that ultimately sparked post-mortems from media figures on both sides of the border. Gordon Waddell, in the Sunday Mail, suggested that coverage of England’s demise hinted at “a great national

shame” but stressed that the fact remained they lost to two teams ranked above them. “But that’s the English for you,” he noted. “Their notion of themselves as one of the world’s elite has been misguided for the best part of two decades.” And, like many other Scottishbased journalists, Waddell suggested that until England addresses its “dysfunctional relationship with the Premier League”, the chances are that England will go through the “same routine” every time. Scotland, of course, did not even make it all the way to Sao Paulo, and that fact was highlighted by the Scottish Daily Mail’s John Greechan. He noted that even the teams who finished bottom of their groups had “something that makes them a bit special”, and questioned what impact, if any, Scotland would have made.

If only Scots were there, rues Regan

OTHER NEWS

■ SFA chief executive Stewart Regan admitted feeling green with envy as Croatia kicked off the World Cup earlier this month. Regan was at the opening game between the Croats, who the Scots defeated twice in qualifiers, and the tournament’s hosts, and conceded he was left feeling “if only”. “We could have been there playing Brazil in that opening match and that would have been phenomenal,” he reflected. “When Croatia scored there was a little pocket of fans up in the gods who started celebrating. “I wondered what it would have been like if the Tartan Army had been there. Firstly there would have been a hell of a lot more of them in the stadium, and they would have made a lot of noise. “It makes you realise we are within a whisker.” Regan added that the SFA’s job now is “to get the team playing the right type of football to get to the finals” in 2018.

Tributes paid to David Taylor The worlds of Scottish and European football were saddened to learn of the sudden death of former Scottish Football Association chief executive David Taylor. Mr Taylor, who was only 60, moved from the SFA to European football’s governing body UEFA as general secretary in 2007 and was more recently executive director.

Florence left frustrated David Florence was left disappointed at a canoeing event in Prague after he and Rich Hounslow missed out on gold in the C2 doubles final at the slalom World Cup. A missed gate cost them 50 seconds in penalties and dropped them to ninth spot in the standings. The Scot did manage to scoop silver in the canoe slalom though.

Costa quits her role Former Celtic scout Helena Costa, who made history after being appointed the first female boss in France’s top two football divisions, has quit her post at Clermont before the season has even started.

Superstars set to miss out on Glasgow Games? Jamaican sprinting superstar Yohan Blake will miss Glasgow 2014 to focus on the more lucrative Diamond League. And the Scottish Daily Mail also revealed that reports in the Caribbean suggest an appearance from Usain Bolt is looking “increasingly slim”.

HAUD YER WHEESHT! ■ Many Scots have actively backed England in their efforts over in Brazil over the past fortnight, but any staff supporting the Auld Enemy at Scottish supermarkets were told to tone it down – quite literally. The Scottish Sun told how supermarket giant Morrisons was forced to ban English World Cup tunes from being played out over the PA systems at 63 stores north of the border following complaints from shoppers. Three Lions, by comedians David Baddiel and Frank Skinner (right), was among the

songs axed, along with New Order’s World in Motion. Tartan Army spokesman Hamish Husband was quoted as saying: “I would hope Scottish fans would wish England well this year. “But I think playing their songs in Morrisons is taking it a bit far.” The paper revealed that bosses at Morrisons later claimed the songs had been played in Scottish stores “by mistake” and had only been meant for the ears of English shoppers. 28 June 2014 ❘ the stooshie

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SPORT Spirited Scots continue to build momentum

Pressure? What pressure?

Murray relaxed as Wimbledon defence gets underway ■ Defending Wimbledon champion Andy Murray laughed off the idea this summer’s sporting hopes rest solely on his shoulders after England crashed out of the World Cup prior to Wimbledon getting underway this week. The Scot began this year’s assault on the SW19 crown on Monday and was clearly in relaxed mood, despite the usual weight of expectation being placed on the 27-yearold. Murray ended a 77-year wait for a British male singles Wimbledon champion last

summer thanks to his historic victory over Novak Djokovic, so the Scot was in a very different place as he kicked 2014’s action off on Centre Court. The build-up was different too: he was named guest editor of The Beano (see page five), a story about Murray making £8 million thanks to last year’s win appeared in the Scottish Daily Mail, and The Daily Telegraph told how the nation’s hero saved a labradoodle from being knocked down on the way to practice. There was even a tale in the Daily Record

suggesting a statue could be built in his honour at the All England Club. Back on the court, a semifinal loss to Rafael Nadal in the French Open was not ideal preparation, but Murray feels at home on the grass at Wimbledon – even more so after last year’s triumph. The one other noticeable difference this year is new coach Amelie Mauresmo – a choice former champion Virginia Wade said she initially thought was a joke. But Murray hit back, saying: “I think she will help me.”

COMMENTATORS SAY goal “to win grand slams” ■ Murray’s victory last year remained the same and that meant he started this year’s the “perfectionist inside tournament with confidence, him will not allow him to be and The Scotsman’s Alix satisfied with past glories”. Ramsay suggested the The key for Murray, wrote appointment of new coach renowned tennis coach Amelie Mauresmo was Nick Bollettieri in The unlikely to alter his approach. “There is not a lot Mauresmo Independent, was to “believe he is a Wimbledon champion” can tell Murray about the heading into battle, and cut practicalities of getting out any negativism. through the next two weeks – “The pressure will be there this is his ninth title challenge and the expectation will be in the past 10 years – and, even greater,” he commented. fortunately, there is little she “I would block out all the needs to tell him about his press, not read a single word new role as the all-conquering and I would say to myself hero in SW19,” she said. ‘play one match at a time, Expectations prior to look at who is across that net this year’s tournament from you and take them down were therefore “sky high”, one at a goddamn time’.” according to the Press Bollettieri also said that Association’s Eleanor Crooks, but she added that Murray’s Murray’s second serve, could the stooshie ❘ www.thestooshie.co.uk

be the difference between winning and losing, but added his own words of advice. “He should be a little braver in the second serve even if that costs a few double faults,” he continued. “A man’s gotta do what a man’s gotta do to win Slams.” The Scotsman’s leader column wished the Scot well in his title defence, and pointed out that only four firsttime winners have gone on to retain their crown. The paper also questioned his form going into the tournament and conceded it was “tougher to stay at the top than to get there in the first place”. However, it added that Murray’s “indomitable will and determination to win” could see him through.

■ Scotland continued their recent run of good form under Vern Cotter (below) as they ran out 21-19 winners over Argentina. As The Scotsman’s Lewis Stuart noted, the Scots have been “far from impressed” by their busy summer tour schedule, with a game in South Africa next on the agenda. But the Scottish Daily Mail’s Andy Nicol said the tour so far has shown that “the spirit in the squad is there for all to see”. “There do not seem to be any ‘superstars’ in the squad doing things for their own betterment – and this will have greatly impressed Cotter,” he concluded.

Quick FIRE ■ Olympic 800m champion David Rudisha is to compete at Glasgow’s Diamond League meeting on July 11-12. Scottish Daily Mail

■ Britain’s Olympic rowing champions Helen Glover and Heather Stanning won the women’s pair at a World Cup meet in France. BBC Scotland

■ Eilish McColgan clocked an encouraging time at a meet in Bilbao, Spain. Her time of 9.03.89 in the 3,000m was two seconds inside her previous season’s best. The Courier

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good week

QUOTES

Beth Potter

The Scotsman reported how the 22-year-old from Glasgow was called up as a late replacement for the Great Britain and Northern Ireland team at the European Championships in Germany – and performed well. The paper said that although she faded in the latter stages of her 5,000m run, she will return home “emboldened for the challenges that lie ahead” after a fifth place finish on her senior international debut and a time just outside her personal best.

“You like to try to get behind people’s thinking but I can’t really with this one.” VIRGINIA WADE Ex-champ puzzled by Murray’s coach choice

■ Ruaridh McRitchie and project manager Graeme McLean helped launch The Mountain Bike Centre of Scotland at Glentress.

Katie Archibald

The Scottish cyclist added another win to her tally for the season when she won the Curlew Cup road race, the latest round of the British Cycling Women’s Series in Northumberland.

BAD week

Chris Doak

The Scot made a costly error on the opening day of the Irish Open when he played the wrong ball. Doak had been just three shots off the lead when he hit playing partner Dermot McElroy’s ball instead of his own, incurring a two-shot penalty.

Neil books Open spot ■ Blairgowrie teenager Bradley Neil booked his spot at the Open Championship at Hoylake next month after claiming victory in the Amateur Championship at Royal Portrush. The Courier’s Steve Scott said the 18-year-old spoke about living the dream all week but said “an adventure beyond his wildest dreams begins in earnest for him” after beating South Africa’s

Zander Lombard 2 and 1 in a dramatic 36-hole final. In doing so, Neil became the first Scot to win the biggest title in amateur golf since Forfar’s Stuart Wilson in 2004 and the youngest-ever Scot to win the championship. His win not only saw him qualify for next month’s Open, but also means he will take his place in the field at the Masters in Augusta next April. “You think about what’s on offer for winning here coming into the week and you think about it every day,” he said. Scott revealed that Neil was considered a “big prospect from his early teens”, adding that his rise has become “almost meteoric” since featuring in last year’s Alfred Dunhill Links Championship playing with tour pro Peter Uihlein to finish second in the team section of that event.

ANDY MURRAY The Scot had a one word response for journalists saying he was carrying Britain’s sporting hopes this summer

“I was saying to myself all the way down the back nine: ‘this is your time’.” BRADLEY NEIL The Scot was not going to be denied his Amateur Championship victory

“Like a lot of small boys I was into cars. Now I feel like a kid in a sweet shop.”

David Millar

The cyclist lost prized possessions including a watch gifted to him by Mark Cavendish after his home was ransacked. Millar had been away with his Garmin-Sharp teammates ahead of the Tour de France.

“Wow.”

■ The Scottish Schools Athletics Association Championship took place in the newly-transformed Hampden Park.

SIR CHRIS HOY The cyclist-turned-racing car driver has his sights set on Le Mans 28 June 2014 ❘ the stooshie

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OFF Scottish clubs eye European glory ■ Summer break? What’s that when it’s at home? It only seems like yesterday that Scottish football’s 2013/14 season drew to a close, but clubs across Scotland have already been returning to preseason training ahead of their respective 2014/15 campaigns. Some, of course, have to hit the ground running when the competitive action gets underway, not least the country’s four representatives who will be flying the flag in European competitions. Celtic, who will be determined to reach the lucrative Champions League group stages again this season,

were drawn against Iceland’s KR Reykjavik in qualifying round two, and will play their home leg at Murrayfield – with Parkhead being used for the Commonwealth Games. Most pundits see it as a fairly straight-forward task for new manager Ronny Deila and his men, as Reykjavik have never progressed beyond the second round of Champions League qualifying. Meanwhile, Aberdeen were paired with Daugava Riga of Latvia in the first round of qualifying in the Europa League. They will be the first Scottish club in Europe this summer

and will host the Latvians in the first leg on July 3. If the Dons win that tie they take on FC Groningen of the Netherlands in round two. Motherwell will face a two-legged encounter with Iceland’s Stjarnan or Bangor City of Wales in Europa League qualifying round two, while Scottish Cup winners St Johnstone – who knocked out Norwegian cracks Rosenborg last year – take on FC Luzern of Switzerland. Both Motherwell and Saints have an extra fortnight to prepare, with their first legs on July 17 before the return fixtures on July 24.

COMMENTATORS SAY Any doubts about Deila’s ■ As one might expect, much ability to handle the “quantum of the papers’ focus fell on leap from tiny Stromgodset Celtic’s chances of qualifying to Celtic Park”, noted the for the Champions League Scottish Daily Mail’s John group stages and what is essentially a baptism of fire for McGarry, should be eased by Deila’s first taste of European new boss Ronny Deila. football. The Herald’s Graeme Several papers picked up on MacPherson noted there the fact Stromgodset played would be “no prospect of Atletico Madrid in 2011 – a tie, him easing himself of his McGarry suggested, that had players in gently” as, “given the “whiff of a turkey shoot its significance in Celtic’s about it” – but the Norwegians season”, the Champions only went down 2-1. League will be the club’s McGarry added that while “focal point” between now they would be “more than and the first game. competent”, it’s “hardly MacPherson highlighted a tie to have the Scottish how Icelandic football has champions hiding under the “come on leaps and bounds” in recent years. They came bed”. close to qualifying for the Elsewhere, The Scottish World Cup, but the country’s Sun had a warning from domestic league is “not as former Aberdeen star Brian strong”. Irvine about the Dons’ trip to the stooshie ❘ www.thestooshie.co.uk

THE BALL

■ BBC Radio Scotland’s hit show saw Stuart Cosgrove and Tam Cowan joined by broadcaster Archie MacPherson and T in the Park promoter Geoff Ellis in the studio. ■ Topics discussed this week included World Cup coverage and whether or not pundits were up to the task, listeners’ favourite outdoor events, and people being spotted on TV – in homage to Mark McConville, a Scotland fan spotted among the Uruguay fans in Brazil. ■ Team of the Week was the Buses XI, including Route Guillit, Marcello Clippie and Andrew Driver.

Stubbs for Hibs hotseat Latvia, as Irvine played in the infamous UEFA Cup defeat to Skonto Riga 20 years ago. Irvine admitted it was a “tie they should have strolled” and urged the current crop of Aberdeen players not to endure a similar “massive blow” by losing in the Latvian capital two decades on. The same paper’s Kenny MacDonald noted how Motherwell had “avoided a Europa League headache” by being drawn at home in the first leg, missing a clash with the Commonwealth Games triathlon, while Robert Thomson noted how Tommy Wright’s St Johnstone had “masterminded away wins over Rosenborg and Minsk last year” but had perhaps “lost the element of surprise” they had in 2013.

■ Former Celtic star Alan Stubbs was confirmed as Hibs’ new head coach, replacing Terry Butcher at the helm of the Easter Road club. The 42-year-old suitably impressed the club’s new chief executive Leann Dempster at interview and, as The Scotsman noted, is Hibs’ seventh managerial appointment within the past eight years, “reflecting the high casualty rate in the job since Tony Mowbray called time on his relatively successful two-and-a-half year tenure in 2006”. The paper said that not one of the six men who followed Mowbray has been able to make it to a second anniversary of his appointment.

SPORT

good week

QUOTES

Kane Hemmings

“We don’t have to sell anyone this summer.”

The former Rangers and Cowdenbeath striker earned a move to English League One club Barnsley on a free transfer.

STEPHEN THOMPSON Dundee United chairman after knocking back a bid for Andy Robertson

Neil Alexander

The former Scotland and Rangers goalkeeper signed an agreement to join Hearts once his contract with Crystal Palace ran out. The 36-year-old will become a player-coach for the Championship outfit. “As a boyhood Hearts fan, I am delighted to join a club I have supported for many years,” he told the Tynecastle side’s website.

■ Stephen Simmons looked in good shape ahead of his WBC International Silver Cruiserweight title defence against Wadi Camacho at Glasgow’s Braehead Arena.

HEADLINES

Gary Locke

The former Hearts boss is back in football after his appointment as assistant manager to Allan Johnston at Kilmarnock.