Have your say on TV about the political scene in Scotland

BBC Scotland’s Debate Night TV programme is returning to our TV screens. Scotland’s topical discussion programme is back from February 16 and looking for people to join the socially distanced studio audience. They will be visiting towns and cities across the country and are looking for audiences to join them on the following evenings: Wednesday,…

Read More

Scotland in a post-viral apocalyptic future

In a dystopian UK ravaged by a virus, Scotland has closed its border. The Ardnamurchan peninsula is surrounded by a fence that protects the rest of the country from the wolves and bears that roam the mountains and woods of this rewilded big-game hunting estate. DI Rhona Ballantyne returns to her Scottish roots to investigate…

Read More

New luxury partnership at leading Scots spa

Fairmont St Andrews has announced an exciting new partnership with leading wellbeing brand, ESPA, as part of its extensive spa and wellbeing offering. The five-star venue, perched on the clifftops of St Andrews, has revamped its popular gym facilities, and introduced a brand-new product and treatment list from ESPA. Deemed one of the most prestigious…

Read More

Hearing a voice when there is no-one speaking

The Edinburgh International Book Festival is to presented the first rehearsed reading of a fascinating project. Seven years after the Edinburgh International Book Festival worked on a unique collaboration with Hearing the Voice – an interdisciplinary study of voice-hearing based at Durham University – Dialogues from Babel, a stage play drawn from interviews with voice…

Read More

Get ready to celebrate a braw Chinese New Year

Edinburgh’s Chinese New Year Festival is ready to roar into the Year of the Tiger. Organisers of Edinburgh’s Chinese New Year Festival habe announced a full programme of online and in-person events and activities across the City to celebrate Chinese New Year and the start of The Year of the Tiger. The Year of the…

Read More

Flying the flag in support of Doddie Aid 2022 challenge

Scottish Borders Council is flying the Team South Doddie Aid flag outside the council headquarters. It will be raised between 28 January and 14 February in honour of the thousands of people across the south of Scotland who are taking part in this year’s Doddie Aid fitness challenge, on behalf of the My Name’5 Doddie…

Read More

New accredited training programme for gamekeepers

Two training days for gamekeepers are scheduled for Scotland this spring. In 2021 and in response to the increased importance of best practice and the British Game Assurance (BGA) Scheme, St David’s Game Bird Services devised a new, accredited, Gamekeeper Training Programme to help Gamekeepers, across the country, to maintain standards and become certified under…

Read More

The secret lives of plants in our society

We don’t often consider the impact that plants have had on human history, but this book shows how they have been woven into society for centuries. From medicine, through nutrition to murder and construction, there’s a story to be told for all living and growing things. I particularly enjoyed the tale of how the Scottish…

Read More

A return to form in saving Scotland’s pine martens

Sir John Lister-Kaye has played his part with the slow resurgence of one of Scotland’s natural predators. Increasingly, I hear complaints about there being too many buzzards or other raptors, or that numbers of badgers or pine martens are too high. The first pine marten I ever saw was during my childhood when my parents…

Read More

Sir Harry Lauder – a treasure or an embarrassment?

To many people he was a national icon but for others he was an embarrassment – and even today Sir Harry Lauder splits opinion. It seems apposite that the Sir Harry Lauder Road is the bypass road between Portobello and Edinburgh. On one hand, Portobello was his birthplace; on the other, the Scottish intelligencia have…

Read More