Spouting Cave

In 2015, over one million people journeyed to Europe from the Middle East, central Asia and Africa in one of the greatest mass migrations of modern history. Another 280,000 souls have made the monumental exodus so far this year, trekking hundreds of miles through all seasons, risking their lives on flimsy, jam-packed dinghies across the treacherous Mediterranean, or left stranded to await their fate at gridlocked borders. Thousands remain in limbo in refugee camps, with over sixty such sites in Greece alone. A small camp just outside Filippiada in north western Greece is currently home to 400 of these women, men and children. Given the scale of such a crisis, my vague expectation when I arrived was to find a fairly well-functioning and co-ordinated humanitarian effort, led by international NGOs and supported by volunteers with assigned tasks and roles. I was pretty amazed to discover that untrained volunteers were essentially running the show. The organisation and delivery of the dai...

I wrote this blog for my work's website . The huge queue which stretched down Morrison Street seemed more akin to a sold-out concert than a party political gathering. The buoyancy and confidence was palpable as over 1,400 party members packed out the Edinburgh International Conference Centre for a sleek and tightly-managed event. As the lights dimmed and the room fell silent for a slick audio-visual display on the auditorium’s four-sided screen, it hit home just how far the SNP has come in such a short space of time. John Swinney’s declaration that this was the “largest manifesto launch Scotland has ever seen” was beyond dispute. It was all a little bewildering for one long-time SNP member, who said he could recall an era when the party held these kind of events in somebody’s front room. He might have been exaggerating, but this launch was further confirmation of this party’s metamorphosis from recalcitrant outsiders into a new – and seemingly untouchable – political estab...

Thro ughout the day, multiple renditions of “Irasshaimaseeeeee!” (“welcome”), “sumimasen” (“excuse me”), and especially, “Arigato gozaimaaaaaaasu!” (thank you very much), ring out effusively and as a matter of course by any number of shop-servers, waiters, train conductors, and members of the general public. Leaving a fancy bar, you might be escorted to the lift by a tuxedoed barman, still midway through his head-below-waist bow as the doors close. Weary bus drivers keep passengers constantly informed of the next stops, final destinations and upcoming sharp turns, punctuated with the soft whisper and hush of “mairimaaaas…kudasai…gozaimaaaaaaas”. As the mighty Shinkansen, or “bullet train”, hurtles along at 200mph (and sometimes you do feel the speed), the conductor courteously announces his arrival and gives a dutiful bow upon entering and leaving each carriage. The train scampers through the boxed utility of the endless sprawl; economy of space in seemingly perfect organised chao...

ach well all livin language is sacred fuck thi lohta thim - Tom Leonard, 1984 I’ve long been intrigued by accents and the different ways people speak, particularly within Scotland, which has its own idiosyncrasies and tensions. In early primary school in Kirkcaldy, Fife, I remember at least one of my teachers telling kids off for saying “aye” instead of “yes”, “ken” rather than “know”, “dinnae” in place of “do not”, and so on (incidentally, when wee boys mentioned someone they knew who’d been beaten up, these teachers would utter tropes like “I thought only fish got battered”). This was in the mid-1990s, sixty years on from my Gran getting rows in school for referring to where she lived as her “hoose”. It’s an experience I’m sure resonates with many people who grew up in Scotland. Broughton High School, where I attended. Alumni also include Martyn Bennett and Hugh McDiarmid, two great proponents of Scots. When I was eight we moved to a middle-class area in Edinbu...

Whoever degrades another degrades me And whatever is done or said returns to me at last -           “Song of Myself” (1855), Walt Whitman I know you hate me just as much as you hate yourself -           “The Blacker the Berry” (2015), Kendrick Lamar I’ve been struck by a few recurring themes in some books I’ve read and music I’ve listened to in recent  months. They warrant much more thorough explanation but I thought I’d try to loosely connect the dots. Last year I attended a workshop on Popular Education, which I previously didn't really know anything about. Intrigued to learn more, after the workshop I sought out  Pedagogy of the Oppressed (1968),  written by Brazilian educator Paolo Freire, which is considered one of the foundational texts in the field. Using a Marxist class analysis, Freire’s commentary is based on his own experience helping...