Spouting Cave

      Taking up my brother's challenge to meet Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (AOC) during my stint in the States, I'm elated to discover she's giving her congressional inaugural address in New York on the Saturday after my arrival. My old pal Paul takes an overnight bus from Savannah to join me for this moment of serendipity. The event is five miles north of Manhattan, deep in eastern Bronx - the Boogie Down, the birthplace of hip hop. Our bus passes clusters of mud-brown high-rise housing projects, common in many corners of New York, stopping next to a freeway, outside the Free NYC WiFi range and far from the tourists. There appear to be few nearby amenities, save for a Dunkin’ Donuts across the street. A couple of inconspicuous A4 sheets of paper sellotaped to the wall state simply ‘Inaugural address this way’, leading us to the Renaissance High School for Musical Theater and the Arts. We’re uncharacteristically early but queues are already forming and we get chatti...

so, well, this is awkward, i’m LITERALLY choosing this hill to die on so hold my beer while I throw serious shade on this cybernat, yoon hun, fenian blairite, millennial  centrist Dad, TERF cause the absolute state of this is peak 2019 tfw I LITERALLY can’t even is EVERYTHING and i’m crying for these clichés, tropes and borrowed jokes avocado snowflakes and gammon-free wokes it's *clap* just *clap* so *clap* SAD!

Also published on Bella Caledonia .  “Maybe, I’ll see you again.” In classic Andy Murray fashion, after the downcast press conference, the worldwide tributes and the schmaltzy retirement video by his fellow pros, he gave us all something to cling onto. This week he’s expected to announce if he’ll go ahead with a hip resurfacing operation, which would, if nothing else, improve his quality of life. It’s an operation no singles player has ever come back from, but it just might give him a shot at competing again. Keeping us in suspense, one more time. But if this is to be the end, his career highlights are worth savouring: US Open champion; two-time Wimbledon winner; twice Olympic gold medalist; Davis Cup victor; World Number One. These are remarkable achievements by any measure and for those who have followed his journey there’s an overriding sense of pride and gratitude. Yet there remains a nagging feeling that he could and maybe should have achieved even more. I...

I wrote this for my work's blog .  One of the most memorable contributions to the Islands Bill consultation was the assertion that  “nobody puts Shetland in a box” . The campaign successfully lobbied for a requirement on public authorities to accurately and proportionately represent the Isles’ geographic location in relation to the rest of Scotland, rather than in a square off the north-west coast of Aberdeenshire. Campaigners argued the distorted maps have tangible implications, as the logistics of getting to and from Shetland are often forgotten, negatively affecting sectors such as oil & gas and seafood, and consequently the islands’ economy. The new mapping requirement is also symbolic of the legislation generally, as it prevents the islands from being treated as an inconvenient afterthought, forced to accommodate themselves to whatever suits the rest of Scotland. It should not be misinterpreted as affording special treatment, but rather about achieving equi...

the economist and I are fae the same lang toun he was shaped by the capital and spending time with Hume inspired patriot rebels and came to influence soon everyone from Marx to Wall Street tycoons I was there in the nineties, before dial-up was obsolete when the fans in the railway stand used to fill all the seats the settled will of the people, for some remained incomplete half-time in Munich and they’ll be dancing in the streets more than 200 years after the philosopher’s death with his statues and institutes and the national debt even a far-off asteroid bears his fabled epithet like a Champagne Supernova from my cousin’s cassette and the fireworks above his theatre which made me upset an explosive debate surrounds his key messages like Jacobite rebellions and yes-voting percentages hearing Brimful of Asha on the Forty-Five carriages of the fairground dodgems recalled in fragmentary images these Links Market memories and a free market idol cited w...

Every Friday afternoon at newsdirect We await in suspense and with bated breath An email as long as it is indeterminable: The European Parliamentary business schedule At this labyrinth legislature, everything’s on the table From the niche and provincial to the global and high-level On each issue an “exchange of views” or a “state of play”; Our team scans the lot and sends it your way From cattle tags in Denmark to Russian propaganda The use of sweeteners in bakeries to fisheries memoranda Whether it’s tackling Jihadism or the licensing of yachts These Brussels bureaucrats consider the lot But that’s not meant as a dig or to sound Eurosceptic The politics of Spanish table olives can get pretty hectic Whatever your view on Brexit, Greece, Juncker or Nigel One things seems clear: these diplomats ain’t idle Sometimes, though, you wish they’d cut the jargon                ...

In early November, Guxim Imerio, a 25 year old man from Albania, absconded from Dungavel Immigration Removal Centre near Strathaven. Reports say Guxim attached himself to the underside of a van, waited until it was out of the compound and had stopped, before fleeing. Even after escaping the centre, he faced several cross-country miles on foot. A search on Google Maps would have told him it is “unable to calculate transit directions” to or from the facility. Tucked in the rural backroads of South Lanarkshire, Dungavel is a remote abstraction, out of sight and out of mind. Housed in this strange outpost are around 250 asylum seekers, many having fled war, persecution, even torture; cast to our geographic and societal periphery while awaiting deportation or a ruling on their claim. Men and women enduring compound displacement, and locked up indefinitely for the crime of seeking residence in this country. Two weeks after Guxim’s escape, around 200 protestors descend on th...