THANKS to the Drumlanrig column, in Scotland on Sunday, for this: “The veteran nationalist, Jim Sillars, showed he has lost none of his leftist politics when he published his new book, In Place of Fear II – A Socialist Programme for an Independent Scotland. In his foreword, Sillars took aim at a traditional enemy – the media – with a dig at journalists and their reading habits.
“He writes rather pointedly: ‘For those, mostly in the media, who have no interest in the ideology of socialism, the appendix sets out the main proposals’.”
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THANKS to Ken Smith and his diary in The Herald for this snippet about Hugh Quinn Farmer, a former editor of the Scottish Catholic Observer, who died at the age of 77: “John Burrowes in his book, Great Glasgow Characters, told of Pope John Paul’s visit to Glasgow when Hugh helped out Father Tom Connelly in the Catholic Press Office in dealing with the deluge of journalist visitors.
“Nuns and clerics who also helped in the office were frequently asked to tell the Press that Tom and Hugh were in ‘The Chapel’ if they wanted to meet them. This was Hugh and Tom’s nickname for the pub beside the press office rather than a spiritual retreat, but they felt it was easier for the nuns to cope with rather than using the pub’s name.”
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INTERESTING take on the visit by Bank of England governor, Mark Cainey, to Edinburgh yesterday…
Says WingsOverScotland.com: “The media is positively jumping with analyses of Mark Carney’s much-anticipated speech about currency unions, with thousands of words being expended to discuss something we’ve already summed up accurately in 11 [Yeah, whatever you guys arrange between yourselves, we’ll make it work]. It’s almost comical to watch the amount of anti- (and very occasionally pro-) independence spin being put on a text which went pathologically out of its way not to make any kind of judgement whatsoever on the subject.”
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THANKS to the Daily Record, for this, from the other day: “He has been pounced on in the street by women wanting to ‘kiss a ginger’ and dumped by a woman he met in a dark nightclub who told him she hadn’t realised he had red hair.
“He has been verbally abused by a stranger undergoing chemotherapy who pointed at him and said: ‘Well, at least I’m not ginger.’
“And he has even been approached by a tipsy mum who told him her children ‘are both ginger – but I still love them’.
“But American filmmaker, Scott P Harris, says one of the things that shocked him most about all these incidents was that they happened while he was living in Scotland – the nation with the highest percentage of redheads in the world.
“After being persuaded by friends, he made a film about what it’s like to be a redhead and the movie Being Ginger, starring Scott himself, is now being shown in cinemas across the US.
“Scott, 33, who moved to Scotland five years ago to study at Edinburgh College of Art, says the aim of the film had initially been a lighthearted attempt to find any woman who would love him for his ginger hair.
“But he admits making the film took him on an emotional journey to help him find self-confidence and he has been overwhelmed by the response the film has had from redheads and non-redheads across the world.”
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ANYTHING tickling your tastebuds? Send in complete confidence to info@allmediascotland.com.
