My wee Mini Cooper navigated the river of brown sludge that is Great Western Road before nine this morning. Drivers needed to be particularly vigilant as they glided along. As well as all the usual hazards -black ice, idiots with skyscrapers of snow atop their cars, there were very young teenagers everywhere. They cavorted on traffic islands and skytted across slippery roads the way kids do in the snow, oblivious to danger. Most Glasgow parents did not hear until 8.30 this morning that all the city's schools were to close. Many kids had already arrived. This included the children of the council's deputy leader who was a guest on Call Kaye and didn't sound too happy that his teenager was still not home. At least his director didn't discriminate. But is this the best planning Glasgow could manage? The schools were open Monday and Tuesday when the weather was even worse. If problems were identified yesterday officials had all night to make and publicise the decision. All the private schools in the city are open, along with hospitals, supermarkets, restaurants and everything else. The buses are running if you cannot drive and the main routes are gritted. When my daughter had a dance exam on Sunday afternoon, there was no way we could get the car out, so we wrapped up, loaded the pointe shoes et al into a baby bath sledge, trekked for nearly an hour till we got to Yorkhill.
But it seems that some folk are made of less stern stuff than us ballet mums. Glasgow's sudden schools closures sounded like a bit of a duvet day to many of the listeners who called Kaye, especially the older people who remembered going to school "even when you had to brush snaw aff the lavvy seats"
Not sure I'd wish that on the kids. But Glasgow's decision exposes the pointlessness of having a large education bureacracy trying to justify its existence.What purpose do they serve? Did the timing and manner of today's decision show the sort of leadership/managerial skills you expect from folk of six figure salaries? Why not leave it to individual head teachers to make decisions about their own schools?
What is unforgiveable is the timing, which left many kids to make their own way home. Yet one of the reasons given for school closures is that the children and staff cannot make safe journeys.
"Our decision to close schools was taken in the interests of the safety of both children and staff," said a council spokesperson.
"We announced the decision as quickly as possible once problems caused by the adverse weather came to light this morning."
They have only just noticed?!?
The spokesperson added: "The safety of children and staff must come first."
Some of the most exciting things happening in Scotland are happening online. That's what I took from the Political Innovation Camp today at The School of Infomatics in Edinburgh. I already knew one of the main speakers, Pat Kane rather well. It was great to put faces to some bloggers I hadn't met in person, such as James MacKenzie of Better Nation, Peter Curran of Moridura, David Farrer from Freedom in Whisky and of course the redoubtable Caron of Carons Musings. Also caught up with an old colleague from the Herald, David Milne, who is now heading STV's hyperlocal service. It was heartening to meet the young women behind mypolice.org, a tool that allows the public to give their feedback to the force in their own area.
I met some new people who impressed me greatly, such as Peter Geoghegan, an Irish writer living in Scotland who edits Political Insight and another Irishman, Mick Fealty of Slugger O'Toole, the Northern Irish politics, community and culture blog who organised the event along with Paul Evans. Slugger O'Toole is a blog that manages to engages all sides of the debate in Northern Ireland, which is quite an achievement - and something we have not managed to replicate in Scotland to date. Much of the discussion was about this - whether we could have a Scottish hashtag that would link disparate online content - like a permanent scotlandspeaks, the twitter campaign that tried to get Scotland's voice heard during the last general election. At the PI Camp, there was a lot of enthusiasm for establishing so-called "aggregated sites" . It seems to me that this desire to create online communities is already happening naturally. Like minded bloggers are grouping together on aggregated sites such Bella Caledonia and Better Nation. Two sites, Scottish Review and newsnetscotland take this further and strive to create online sites that hope to compete with the mainstream. Kenneth Roy at Scottish Review has broken stories. Or these sites highlight news overlooked elsewhere - such as newsnet's campaign on the anti Scottish episode of Any Questions. A couple of weeks later I was invited on the Newsweek on Radio Scotland to discuss the rise of anti-Scottish outbursts.
As I pointed out in the PI Camp plenary session, many bloggers in Scotland have gone online in frustration at the mainstream media failure to engage positively with the independence debate. At least a third of Scots favour full independence and more than half, according to polls, think real economic power for the Holyrood will help Scotland out of recession. Despite this, and the Campaign for Fiscal Responsibility attracting many high profile names, our public discourse continues to frame the debate in UK terms, seldom challenging the block grant system or exploring alternatives.
Bloggers challenge this manufactured consensus. But as a mainstream journalist who now blogs as well, I worry that online activists only reach others with similar views. Established broadcast and print media offer entertainment, fashion, sport, business, breaking news that attracts a wide spectrum of people including, crucially, voters who have yet to make up their minds. And while many of my independista facebook friends would claim that the MSM is completely without merit, it is material generated by these newspapers and broadcasters that they share and comment on. Often this is original material that you need professional journalists to create. The Scotsman, for example, has devoted a lot of resource to exposing the tram debacle in Edinburgh. Newsnight Scotland was the first outlet to think of interviewing Professor Joe Stiglitz and asking specifically about oil in a Scottish context. And Newsweek, the Radio Scotland Saturday morning show, ran a long interview with Professor Andy Hughes Hallett explaining how Scotland was subsiding England. The reason we know about Stephen Purcell et al, and the scandal about Strathclyde Partnership for Transport, is because my previous paper, The Sunday Times Scotland, put a lot of resources into exposing Labour clientism in greater Glasgow.
Now, of course, the Sunday Times Scotland has been effectively closed down. Other newspapers struggle to keep afloat. Circulations continue to shrink with alarming speed. Investigative journalism, in particular, requires resources. Scotland does not have an philanthropic organisation such as the American propublica which funds public interest reporting. When activists complain about newspapers simply "reprinting political press releases", as can happen, it is often a matter of resources as much as prejudice. A hard pressed reporter with an FOI handed to him on a plate, especially if it's "exclusive" and makes for a strong headline, will likely take it to his or her newsdesk. Real, self generated stories take much longer. They require you to speak to lots of people in the first place, really get to know the subject and spend hours on research. They might also require you to ditch the story given to you by a political contact when you realise that the facts just don't stack up...
Bloggers unhappy with the perceived bias of the mainstream media shouldn't crow too loudly about the troubles of print though. We desperately need more quality public discourse in this country. Can we afford to lose the space we do have? Where are the online spaces that attract Scots who are not necessarily political junkies? Some of the self described young geeks I spoke to at the PI camp yesterday confessed they got a lot of their news from the BBC website and The Guardian - but they also complained that they couldn't get coverage for their own digital projects in the shrinking Scottish media...a vicious circle. If we get more news from UK wide sources, do we risk becoming Scotlandshire, North UKania...?
I don't think this will happen, phew! I left the PI Camp today feeling pretty optimistic about the future of blogging and political social media in Scotland. Ideally the rise of aggregated sites would be backed by investment to allow them to break more original stories and attract readers from outwith the politically consumed classes - Huffington Post is a good model. It set out to create an online liberal voice for the US but used entertainment to help drive traffic. Even without this largesse, I predict the blogosphere in Scotland will increase its influence, a view shared by the majority of those at yesterday's event. The thing about all media, old and new, is that it is interdependent. Currently, the agenda of newspapers feeds into radio and television. If the circulation of newspapers continues to decline, bloggers and online aggregated sites will become more powerful influencers. The evidence? A man from the BBC checking out the PI Camp, keen to meet as many bloggers as possible. I already get invited onto the radio occasionally as a result of Go Lassie Go. Social media helps too. The simple act of sharing a story creates a buzz that cannot be ignored. Content producers will take note.
At the PI Camp, Peter Geoghegan was very informative on how independent online commentary already shapes the agenda in Ireland, where economists have taken to the blogosphere to explain the financial crisis. In Scotland, we have a good recent example of blogpower re the Dimbleby debacle. The Question Time from Glasgow which excluded Scottish discussions caused immediate anger that was articulated first through the blogosphere by myself, Gerry Hassan, Scot Goes Pop and Alex Massie among others. I predict that such incidents will become more common. The traditional media are beginning to understand the power of the blogosphere, and cannot ignore what it is telling them.The rise of aggregated sites will accelerate this. If such sites could attract enough investment to fund some original journalism...well who knows where it might go...
In 2004, Finland lifted the prohibition on people bringing cheap alcohol into the country. The results were disastrous and consumption rose by 10%, along with alcohol related illness.
Labour and the other unionist parties are totally disingenuous when they say minumum pricing is untried and untested. Price does matter, as Finland shows. Yes, it would be better if the money went to the state instead of the supermarket. But the UK government refuse to act. Why, then, do these parties oppose calls to give Scotland control over duty on alcohol and other taxes? Might it be because Scotch whisky alone provides £1.6bn a year to the UK exchequer?
Kaye Adams was taken aback when Labour's Doctor Richard Simpson, a guest on her show, lamely responded that his only solution to the problem was to bat it back to the UK government - without even trying a Scottish approach. Some people think he was given too much time by the BBC. Personally, I think he was given enough time to hang himself. Listen again to Call Kaye here. Dr Simpson thinks most of the pensioners in the country are addicted to cheap vodka....he must hope Scotland is too inebriated to notice his inconsistency and opportunisim.
Incidently, the SNP proposal did not come out of thin air. It was based on research by the World Health Organisation . The WHO studied policies aimed at reducing alcohol consumption around the world. It concluded that the most effective methods to reduce consumption were 1. Target at risk groups. 2. Control price. 3 Reduce access.
WHO said woolly approaches such as "improve education" were least effective.
The SNP followed WHO advice by addressing the three different points in these ways 1. Ban under 21s from off sales (eg target as risk groups). 2. Set a minimum unit price. 3. Introduce separate tills for alcohol at supermarkets.
1 and 3 were killed off quickly and 2 was stopped yesterday.
There was a time when the Scottish divisions of London parties included a few folk who sincerely believed they were defending their country inside the UK. They were misguided but genuine. A few devolutionists were motivated by a sense of public service. Now, the plates have shifted. Nobody who watched yesterday's debate could believe those old time, pro-Scotland unionists still exist. The whole debate was an exercise in cynicism.
Archbishop Conti definitely more a unionist than Cardinal O'Brien. Conti reminds the crowd that Christianity arrived "before Scotland and England came into being". O'Brien drapes the Pontiff in a tartan scarf. Every kid in Edinburgh had a saltire.
The biggest cheer of the night came as the Pope left and stopped to bless a little boy with cancer interviewed by Jackie Bird the night before on Reporting Scotland.
Bumped into Professor Tom Devine, Scotland's leading historian, as we both gatecrashed the photographers' platform for a better view. He endorses my Scotsman column asserting that Scotland owes its statehood to the Catholic Church. Most relieved.
Glad I got a plug in for Mary's Meals on Five Live. They feed 400,000 kids in the developing world at school. Often this is the only way they get an education.
The Vat Pack (ok, international journalists) were sustained by complimentary Tunnocks Caramel wafers. The food of life?
The gold Papal Vestments were pure show biz, though I did think of Fellini for a second.
The crowd is not just smaller than 1982, but more varied. Spoke to Poles and Filipinos, lots of African families. Took leaflets from Sri Lankans protesting at the persecution of Catholic Tamils in their homeland.
Mass in the park not so easy for a crowd of 50,000 with about 2000 deckchairs between them. What do you do when ritual demands you kneel or sit? The most devout got muddy knees. I think they were Polish.
James MacMillan's sung Mass was incredibly moving as was all the music. Glad they sang Soul of My Saviour and included so much Gaelic and Latin.
Loved the Father who, descending from the altar after the Pontiff left, pulled out his mobile to photograph the crowd. The priests who distributed Communion were all accompanied by funky teenagers holding gold umbrellas.Quite a sight
The Basque Country has come a long way since being blitzed by Franco. The world's first example of a bombing raid on civilians was so shocking at the time that it inspired Picasso's Guernica, one if the most moving pieces of 20th century art. The Basques suffered particular punishment during the long years of fascist dictatorship, but flourished after Franco's death and the advent of democracy. Today a leading Basque company is making a substantial investment in Scottish renewable energy and the First Minister flew out there today see Ibedrola's release. This autonomous region of Spain has higher growth and a better credit rating than Madrid. Can we learn from them?
I thought it was a good opportunity to reprint The Scotsman column I wrote on the Basques a few months ago. It's been behind a firewall but enough time has elapsed to drag it blinking into the light..
There are many reasons to admire the Basque country.
Its adventurous fishermen were the first to discover the Grand Banks and gave
the world salt cod. Its most famous ex-pat, Simon Bolivar, was the
revolutionary father of Latin America. Today it is notable for Rioja wine, the
best food in Spain and the Guggenheim Bilbao, the world’s most iconic
contemporary building.
But it’s not just foodies, wine buffs and cultural
tourists who are drawn to the fat little region west ofThe Pyrenees. The Basque country, which
enjoys the widest and deepest autonomy of all the Spanish regions, is an
attractive model for Scotland.
Holyrood politicians send all taxes south then
squabble over how to cut up a shrinking cake returned by Westminster. The Basques set, raise and collect all their own taxes, then
negotiate an annual “cupo” with Madrid for central
services, usually around 12%
You might think anyone keen to extend Scotland’s
economic powers should avoid discussions of an Iberian nature. Spain is in
meltdown, with Europe’s third worst deficit after Greece and Ireland. Austerity
measures so far announced are unpopular. Savings banks are collapsing. The federal socialist government want to restructure the labour
market, to end infamous“Spanish
practices”. Red flags will be raised in Bilbao as well, But while the Basque country is not immune to the global crisis, it is
better placed to survive. The area outperforms Spain on nearly every indicator.
Its GDP per capita is 34% higher and it has half the rate of unemployment. The
credit agency Standard and Poor’s gives the Basques a better rating than the
central government – because of its low debt burden, wealthy, diverse economy
and “special system framework granting the region control over most of its tax
revenues”. That’s a recommendation – CBI bosses take note.
The Basque arrangement is similar to the system
devised by the economists Andrew Hughes-Hallett and Drew Scott, which forms the
basis of the Campaign for Fiscal Responsibility. Business leaders like Jim
McColl and Tom Hunter and trade unionists such as Campbell Christie have backed
the campaign, believing that fiscal powers offer Scotland its only option of
growing the economy.The tax
regime would be designed to meet specific, local, needs.The Basques for example, set a lower
corporation tax than the rest of Spain and have borrowed to upgrade their
infrastructure.
But can we really compare the wealthy, entrepreneurial
communities of this sunny little enclave to Scotland? Actually, the more one
looks, the more uncannily similar we appear – right down to the “oceanic”
climate ie it rains a lot. The countries have the same craggy topography that
allowed the indigenous languages to survive the incursion of the Romans.We have famous seafaring communities.
Like Scots, the Basques are over represented in the mother country’s army and
navy. And though our business start-up rates are now worryingly low, it was not
always the case. Scots, like the Basques, once took on the world, exporting
everything from cotton thread to locomotives.
While both countries are known for their natural
beauty, they are each highly urbanised, with populations concentrated in
Scotland’s central belt and Basque’s Bilbao estuary. The latter, with its
shipbuilding and machine tooling, was much like the Clydeside of old.Both regions found wealth through natural
resources, coal and iron ore. Both suffered the same industrial decline,
triggered by the oil crisis of the early 1970s. But somehow, the Basques
managed change better.
The London School of Economics studied eight cities in
need of regeneration across Europe, including Bilbao. Its published paper, in
2007, is quite open about the difference full fiscal autonomy made to the
efforts of the city fathers in turning around their town. “It is widely
accepted among officials, practitioners and scholars that the autonomy of the
Basque region was key to facilitating the recovery process in Bilbao. The
return of democracy and the reinstatement of regional power in the late 1970s
happened just as the industrial crisis was gaining momentum. Local decision
makers gained power to design tailored policies for the first time.”
This translated as building the Guggenheim on the
dilapidated waterfrontand
modernizing the metro system – with stations designed by Sir Norman Foster.
Other suburban rail networks were extended and upgraded and a high speed link
to Madrid, much of ittunneled
through the mountains, is underway.
Instead of sweeping away manufacturing, as happened in
Scotland in the 1980s, the Basques modernized. They are now home to Iberdrola,
the multinational energy company who amalgamated with Scottish Power.Gamesa, one of the world’s largest
manufacturers of wind turbines, is Basque, Aeronautics and machine tool
companies still thrive, guaranteeing export earnings denied to economies which
placed too much trust in the service sector.
Alex Salmondis known to support the Campaign for Fiscal Responsibility. But the SNP
has historically avoided comparisons with the Basque Country because of the
bloody reputation of ETA, the separatist terror movement. The violent
insurgents, whose roots lie in Franco’s fascist state, are a small and
marginalized force these days. The publicity generated by their campaign
diverted attention from a real success story. In Scotland, we worry about the
“distraction” of constitutional questions. The Basques became Spain’s most
successful region despite the real distraction of bombings and assassinations.
Perhaps a greater difficulty for the Scottish
Nationalists is the failure of the Basque Country to make the transition from
full fiscal autonomy to independence. The moderate and business friendly Basque
nationalists governed for three decades but lost the presidency last year when
the socialists did a deal with the conservatives. Still, the financial crisis
may put the relationship with Madrid into sharper focus. The Basques make up
2.2% of the Spanish population but contribute 6.2% to its GDP. Will Spain go to
the Basque’s, cupo in hand, asking for more?
Things could get lively.
The Iberian disagreement is more dignified than
Scotland’s block grant dilemma or Calman’s flawed proposal. We will constantly
be arguing for more. But we have no idea how much we put into the UK pot and no
method of increasingit. The
Basque solution offers clarity, equality and self-respect.
Perhaps the last word should go to Bolivar, whose surname
is taken from the Basque village where his family originated and who believed
large, overly complex states were doomed to fail. “The distinguishing characteristic of small republics
is stability,” he wrote. “The character of large republics is mutability.”
Pie suppers no more: Basque country has the best food in Spain
Was rather flattered - and a little perplexed - to find Jimmy Wales following me on Twitter the other day. The founder of Wikipedia is one of Time magazine's most influential people in the world, but not know for taking a close interest in Scottish politics. Until now. Wiki has entered the row over anti-Scottish comments on the BBC's Any Questions programme on Radio Four. Someone tried to include Baroness Deech's broadcast comments about Scots in her wiki entry. Wales objected because he argued that it unbalanced her short entry and that this one incident did not justify that. (The discussion provides a fascinating insight into how wiki checks material ) Wales, and some other wiki editors, also questioned whether this really was a row since nothing had appeared in the mainstream media. This struck me as fascinating given that wiki itself has had to fight for recognition. Certainly the web is jumping with conspiracy theorists and unbalanced commentary so must be treated with caution - especially when it comes to serious allegations. However in Scotland the internet is increasingly used as an outlet by a significant section of the population who feel the media does not represent their point of view. It was also disappointing that the wiki editors took the audience response to the comments by Deech and her fellow guest Douglas Murray to be evidence of approval - and confirmation that they were uncontroversial. Wiki editors clearly do not understand that the approval of an English audience in Sutton Coldfield, a leafy suburb of Birmingham does not reflect Scottish opinion - something even the BBC seems to acknowledge in its standard reply to complaints here.
I was caught up in the wiki discussion as the only MSM journalist to comment on the story - in The Scotsman - and am cited as a reliable source confirming that some folk are not too happy with Deech, Murray and the BBC. Alas, because I do not (yet) have a wiki entry, there is some debate over the significance of my intervention. I felt obliged to correct details of my CV, on the wiki discussion page, but resisted the temptation to get really petty and point out I have 870 Twitter followers compared to Baroness Deech's paltry 104. Jimmy Wales has 18,655 so is unlikely to be impressed...
If you still don't know what all the fuss is about, here is an abridged version of my Scotsman column. I should, however, point out that the story was first highlighted by Newsnet Scotland and then shared extensively around the web.
Greg Dyke once described the BBC as “the glue that binds the nation together” But can that really be the case? For the last ten days or so, a protest has been building on the internet, and social networks like facebook and twitter, as a result of an extraordinary outburst of intolerance on Any Questions, the flagship Radio Four current affairs show. One of the panelists who caused the most offence was Baroness Ruth Deech, a former governor of the corporation. The other was Douglas Murray a polemicist whose precocity is matched only by his talent for self-promotion. They were discussing the release of the man convicted of the Lockerbie bombing when Deech launched into what can only be described as an rant. She is an academic and lawyer best known for chairing the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority. Yet her language was intemperate in the extreme, like a Jeremy Clarkson column without the jokes: “It’s been very embarrassing for the rest of us. And it started me thinking along these lines, if Scotland wants to be independent, OK, be my guest, go ahead.....go off on your own, because actually, we're all subsidising them I think, by way of benefits and all sorts of reasons."
Murray a young neocon who is expected to shock, went further: “There is not very much to do if you are the Scottish Justice Secretary in a devolved Scottish Assembly. You can at least read the one important bit of news that comes across your desk in the last five years. The problem that I think the most galling thing about this whole thing is this pretend, horrible, charade building in Edinburgh called the Scottish Parliament and the horrible charade politicians who inhabit it and who occasionally crawl out of the darkness and explain something to the rest of us, as if we’ve never thought of moral questions before." He went on to describe Kenny MacAskill and Alex Salmond as “horrible grandstanding, Mickey Mouse politicians,” and mocked suggestions that the Scots were a compassionate people.
If Britain really was one nation under the flag, it didn’t seem that way in the Birmingham suburb from where the show was broadcast. These were not the comments of maverick oddballs. The audience cheered, applauded and laughed with Deech and Murray. It was the aural terrain more often inhabited by shock jocks and went further than attacking Salmond, MacAskill or the devolved settlement. It was Scotophobia writ large. Can you imagine a serious Radio Four Show getting away with similar comments about the Irish Dail? Would it be acceptable to describe the Major of London as “crawling out of the darkness”? It would be unthinkable because, from a metropolitan perspective, Boris presides over the centre of the universe. Edinburgh and Scotland are on the dark side. Compare the silence over this incident to the blanket coverage, in England and Scotland, of any anglophobic incident during the World Cup Finals, where the word racist is often bandied about. Where are the phone in shows devoted to Scotophobia?
Given that 90% of the population of the UK resides in England, it is, perhaps understandable that the views (prejudices?) of the majority will be indulged, even on Radio Four. Two YouGov polls, one in 2007 another earlier this year, showed that around two thirds of English people think Scotland is subsidised by the rest of the UK. Only 12% of Scots agree. There is an alternative version of Scottish English power relations that is very seldom heard on "national" talk shows, even north of the border. It would include the fact that Scotland is entitled to 95% of the oil revenues that have made Britain rich these last 30 years – a fact pointed out most recently by the Nobel Prizewinning World Bank Economist Joseph Stiglitz. There is the 1970s government-commissioned McCrone Report which predicted an independent Scotland could become fabulously wealthy. It was classified and kept secret for 30 years. There is the fact that the official government statistics GERS, published earlier this year show Scotland in surplus by £1.3billion in 2008-2009.We can argue the details, or course. But we seldom get the chance because a consensus appears to have been manufactured suggesting that Scotland is the poor, ignorant sponger up north. It is strange, isn't it, that neocon and anti-Scottish views like those expressed by Deech and Murray seem terribly familiar. The alternative, Scottish nationalist view, seems radical and unusual because it is so seldom given a platform. It is kept outside the mainstream, separate from the manufactured consenus. Note the decision to exclude the SNP from the leaders debates with dominated the General Election. It’s difficult to see how the BBC, so heavily weighted towards the centre of population, can tell two opposing stories at once. As a national glue, it's getting a bit tacky.
We said goodbye to my lovely cousin and friend Cal (Campbell) Williams yesterday. It seems unfair that only famous people get obituaries. Cal deserved that treatment. He was witty, kind, charismatic, clever, talented and totally unique. Our coming-of-age friends shape the way we turn out in life and Cal had a huge influence on the adult I became. We were very close through our childhood, teens and twenties. We shared a desire to break away from the rather limiting life path that might have been our fate. Neither of us became artists, as we had planned, but we have both lead lives more creative than we thought possible. As is often the way, we hadn't seen much of each other these last few years - kept apart by geography and the distractions of work and family. Complacency too, because you just assume you can pick up where you left off. But Cal was taken by a cancer so virulent he had no chance to fight it and died less than three months after the diagnosis. If you care about someone take this advice - keep them close. I did get to see Cal while he was ill, and I did tell him I loved him. But how I regret not spending more time with one of the most important people in my life. After the funeral service at his home in Essex, I was chatting to a woman who used to commute with him every day when they both worked on the same Channel Four show. "He often talked of you," she said. "He was so proud of you." I was proud of him too and wish I could have told him in different circumstances. One last joke she recounted about him. Cal was an audio engineer known for his quick wit on the studio floor. Once the star presenter of a show was looking for a mike and shouted "Sound! Sound!" Cal shouted back "Presenter! Presenter!" To the credit of that star presenter she and her husband wrote Cal's partner the most lovely message of sympathy. I will never hear an unkind word about Richard Madley and Judy Finnegan again...Here is the tribune to Cal I read at his funeral
My last memory of Cal was sitting with him in this garden. It was a scorching day in
late June and he had just returned from another horrible spell in hospital.
But that afternoon he felt bit better and he asked us to take him down that lovely
avenue of trees to see the roses and a shrub he had planted.
Then we sat in the sun and reminisced. He worried about me getting burned.
It was wonderful to see him relaxed and relatively pain free for a short time.
Cal adored all three acres of this place and spent a great deal of time here.
He produced a beautifully bound book using his Apple Mac featuring photographs of
the garden through the seasons. One of John’s happiest memories of him
is sitting on the tractor-mower, full of smiles, cutting a swathe through the
meadow grasses
He was gradually remodelling the spaces you see here, to enhance the experience
visitors had walking through the different rooms of the garden. That was typical
of Cal. He loved to create beautiful experiences for the enjoyment of people
around him. All his life, Cal loved to give pleasure to his family and friends.
It might be a carefully chosen gift, a CD or tape of music he mixed, a piece of art
or just the memory of a perfect day. Cal had a talent for making perfect days.
Not everyone here will know all about his early life. He was born
in 1960, the son of Bridie and Bill Williams, a Scottish mother and
English father who met at a skating rink in wartime Aberdeen. He grew up
in Gourock, a seaside town on the River Clyde, along with his brothersWalter and
Barry. Gourock is a close and caring community, full of great people.
But like any small town, it can be a wee bit stifling for an imaginative teenager,
and Cal was always keen to stretch his wings, explore new places and possibilities.
His dad remembers him having a sense of adventure and wanderlust early on.
The mountains of the Scottish highlands lie across the Clyde estuary from
Gourock. Cal would often go there with a friend to build fires and explore the
woods. He’d get so wrapped up in his Boys Own adventure he would miss the
last boat home, much to his father's frustration. Later in life he loved to travel to
new places with John and their friends. He took his parents Bridie and Bill to
America on several occasions, arranging everything so that it was just right for
them. He reunited Bridie with her best friend friend, who had moved to
New Jersey. Bridie is no longer here, but Bill remembers those times with great
fondness and gratitude to Cal for his generosity. Everybody has a story to tell
about how Cal touched them in ways they often did not realise. His niece Frances
and nephew Derek spent their early years in a cot he had decorated. Now Frances's
babies sleep in the same cot when visting their grandparents and, like her, spend
hours staring at the Sgt Pepper style interpretation of the nursey rhyme, Three
Men in a Boat...
Cal’s artistic talent was inherited from his dad. When he was 14,
he was invited to Saturday drawing and painting classes at the
Glasgow School of Art. Some of the friends he made then went on
to gain international reputations as painters. Cal was equal to them.
He could see beauty in all sorts of places. There was a disused quarry behind his
housein Gourock that fascinated him. He spent hours there as a child,
photographing it, painting it, making observations. He was the first person I
knew who raked through skips and found treasure. NOBODY did objets trouve in
the 1970s. We used to spend hours in the Briggait, a Glasgow flea market where
you could find 1940s clothes. He adored Film Noir then. He could spot an art
deco piece from a mile away. He loved chrome, Bakelite, old gramophones and
quirky miniatures. The homes in which he lived with John, and his previous
partner John Wood,were defined by Cal’s amazing eye and the way he put all
these objects together. He was an artist in the true sense of the word because his
imagination shone through every aspect of his life.
It came out in his music. There are many people who fell in love to the sound
of Cal’s music back in the 1980s. Cal would compile tapes for our many parties
when we were students. His arrival was the high point of the evening. He
had incredibly broad taste and incorporated everything from Prince
to Kraftwerk to Ella Fitzgerald. He was ahead of the curve here too. Hip hop
had only just emerged in America, but in Cal we already had our
own mix master. If he had be born a couple of decades later he
would have been a superstar DJ like Calvin Harris or Fatboy Slim. But it seems
his fame has spread around the world anyway. John says Cal continued mixing and
regularly got requests for his recordings. They are sitting in CD racks from
Cambridge to Boise Idaho. And I am sure people are still falling in love to them.
Cal was a professional sound engineer. This was a childhood
passion too. I do not know how he got hold of them, but
he would play vinyl samples of BBC sound effects in his
As David Cameron lined up with Barak Obama to condemn Scotland over Lockerbie, his ministers were having a cosy meeting with the senior Libyan politician Abdel-Fatah Yunis al-Obeidi, Gaddafi's secretary general for public security. Obeidi respresents the same Libyan government, remember, who must have instructed Megrahi to put the bomb on PanAm Flight 103
Prince Andrew charms Libya for British business
Ian Black the Guardian's Middle East editor writes: "Obeidi's busy UK schedule underlines the warmth and intensity of bilateral relations since Tony Blair met Gaddafi in 2004. Obeidi has been to the Farnborough air show, met the Scotland Yard counter-terrorism command and Gerald Howarth, the minister for international security strategy, held talks in the Lords, and paid a courtesy call on Prince Andrew, who promotes British business in Libya. Illegal immigration is an area of growing cooperation."
You can read Black's full story here in The Guardian
1 Cameron's position is untenable and hypocritical. If he truly deplores the release of a man he believes is guilty of mass murder, why is his government still on good terms with Col Gaddafi, who instructed that same man to kill? Megrahi was a tool, a Libyan agent. He didn't get up one morning and take a notion to bomb the airliner. That means Gaddafi is a murderer too. He denies involvement but paid compensation to victims. So will David Cameron cut off all relations with Tripoli and prevent British business raking in the cash? Don't hold your breath. Blair may have done the deal in the desert, Cameron will do nothing to damage it.
2. That White House press conference demonstrates why Scotland needs independence Since foreign affairs are not devolved to Edinburgh, David Cameron officially speaks for us. On this occasion he trashed us in front of the world. Where were we? We should have had a right to reply at least. After all, Scottish troops are fighting and dying in Afghanistan, as they did in Iraq, to support America. Would Obama and Cameron have condemned a friendly, independent sovereign nation like this?
3. Whisperings about oil deals...all lead back to the British government, not Scotland. We don't even have a say on our OWN oil reserves never mind Libya's. The UK government was desperate for Megrahi to be released. Blair wanted to bring Gaddafi back into the fold for geo-political reasons and boost business at the same time. That is why Westminster tried to put pressure on Scotland to agree to a prisoner transfer. We resisted that. The hypocrisy of David Miliband, who now condemns the Scots when he was pushing for release at the time when he was Foreign Secretary, is breath-taking.
4. For the record I said at the time I didn't think Kenny MacAskill should have released Megrahi because I anticipated that the UK government would use it to damage the SNP. I feared Scotland would take the flak from a totally duplicitous opposition. However, that is political thinking. MacAskill was trying to do the right thing as justice minister after a request for compassionate release. It would have been wrong for him, as a government minister, to allow party interests to play a part in his decision making. It should be noted that his decision was supported by much of Scottish civic society including the Church of Scotland and the Roman Catholic Church. It was certainly a humane decision and that's why it was supported by Nelson Mandela as well.
Add: If you want to listen to Jeremy Vine, our Lockerbie discussion is first on the show after the Bob Marley record, which I must say is well worth hearing again.
This is a stunning picture of Edinburgh Castle but can you spot the deliberate mistake? Yes, there is something not quite right about the flag. That's why I was delighted to sign the e-petition to the Scottish Parliament demanding that the Saltire fly above the most imposing landmark in our capital city. The puzzling thing is why it has gone on so long. For more about the saltire see my previous Sunday Times column on Gerard Burns's Christmas card here.
If you like the photograph, apart from the flag, you can see more of the photographer's work on the flickr photo-sharing site
Precious Mhango, the 10 year old who has spent most of her life in Glasgow has been served deportation orders along with her mother Florence. The pair, who have gathered unprecedented support across Scottish society, have been asked to board a plane to Malawi voluntarily on Saturday. If they do so the mother and child will be separated when they get to Malawi, as her estranged father's family have first claim to Precious even though they are strangers to her. Anne McLaughlin MSP has drafted a new letter to Theresa May, the Home Secretary. She urges as many people as possible to send it - or their own letter - immediately, preferably by email. She asks if you could let her know when you do this.
