Spouting Cave

Even in a country as blessed with dramatic scenery as Scotland, the Outer Hebrides evoke a special sense of wonder. As well as the varied landscape of these islands, their persistence as a Gaelic stronghold and the Old Norse influences add to their unique intrigue, with place-names such as Frobost, Quidinish, Geocrab, Amhuinnsuidhe, and Tolstachaolais. The bird's-eye shape of the islands evokes something ancient and wild, like dinosaur fossils or the spine of a mountain range. With a week off work, I decided to embark on the much-heralded Hebridean Way cycle route. I arrived at Castlebay, Barra, on a pleasantly bright and warm evening, following a four and a half hour ferry from Oban. Along with a range of other useful advice, my pal Neil had suggested I use the remaining light to cycle to Vatersay. On the winding road out of the village towards the causeway two miles south, I soon reached a very steep hill, passing the mildly-mocking cry of an old man - "You've go...

I wrote this poem for my work's blog . This is an astonishing intervention A spectacular u-turn A staggering humiliation We can exclusively reveal That our bungling opponents Have fallen asleep at the wheel Families up and down the country Will not forget This betrayal of trust And it will be at the polling station Where they express their disgust Let us be clear: The cat is out of the bag The mask has well-and-truly slipped Ministers have dropped the ball It’s no wonder poll ratings have dipped Time and again Working households have been sold down the river No ifs, no buts It’s time to deliver Voters will be deeply concerned At politicians so inept and fickle Who say one thing but then Rollover at the drop of a hat for a tickle Now more than ever It’s time to get back around the negotiating table Put aside the rhetoric And prove who’s strong and stable

On Saturday 3rd December, approaching the midway point of the season, Raith Rovers sat in joint 4th place in the Scottish Championship, 19 points ahead of bottom-placed St Mirren. At the weekend - following a spectacular collapse which saw the club finish below the Buddies on goal difference - Raith were relegated in the most ignominious of circumstances: in a play-off, on penalties, at home to part-timers Brechin City. It was a curious experience, watching the culmination of this most farcical season play out in a desperate but entirely fitting manner. Surrendering a 3-2 extra time lead - having earlier salvaged a lifeline with a stoppage time equaliser - only to go down via spot-kicks was an appropriate end to a year that witnessed the bizarre appointment of Gary Locke, the loaning of one of our best players to a direct rival, a midfielder playing a whole match in goals, and a small-time attempt to court the "Edinburgh media" through the signing of the once excellent but no...

We’ve just arrived in Chennai after a long day’s travel, weary but excited. On the journey to Vellore, Nav’s home town, the raw force and pulsing energy of the street scenes leave me dizzy. Ubiquitous bright yellow auto-rickshaws – three-wheeled mini-taxis – jostle for space with cavalier bikers, brazen cyclists and cars without seatbelts. Commuters are crammed into kicking-can buses, with a dozen more hanging nonchalantly off the outside windows. Women in sarees sit casually sideways on the back of 40mph motorbikes, while rogue cows and bulls plod alongside or simply park themselves in the middle of the frenzied traffic for a nap. The scuttling packs of stray dogs are an unfamiliar species; straggly limbed and vaguely malevolent. Every would-be collision is a near miraculous escape in this zig-zagging, criss-crossing, technicolour chaos. The whole scene has an exhilarating offbeat rhythm, echoed by the Tamil hip-hop that pounds from the car stereo. The Gurusamy family home ...

Also featured on Bella Caledonia . Andorra, Armenia, Azerbaijan, Belarus, Cyprus, Estonia, Finland, Faroe Islands, Georgia, Gibraltar, Israel, Kazakhstan, Liechtenstein, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Macedonia, Malta, Moldova, Montenegro and San Marino. Of the 55 member countries of UEFA, these footballing titans are the only nations not to have qualified for a major tournament since Scotland last did, at the 1998 World Cup in France. I was at Celtic Park as an 8 year old to watch us record a routine 2-0 win over Latvia to effectively clinch our place at that tournament, blissfully unaware that a whole generation would become adults without memory of seeing us back at that stage. After the latest shambles this week, another couple of these teams might soon be crossed off before Scotland. When I was about 15, I chose to write an essay about a "transaction" for a Standard Grade English prelim exam. By that age I really should have known what the word meant, but I got it co...

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...