Go Lassie Go

Goodbye to all that

 
The Sunday Times Scotland, as we know it, is gone. The section I edited, Ecosse, was launched in 1995. I wrote the cover of the first edition. It was a re-imagining of Scotland had the Jacobites won the Battle of Culloden.  As I recall, Sean Connery was President because we were independent and - for reasons no longer clear - Michael Forsyth had ended up Prime Minister.

Ecosse gave all its staff the opportunity to write at length on matters close to home. In those early days I conducted a cover interview with the late Donald Dewar in which he confessed to never having owned a coat. We went to an Indian restaurant called the Killermount Polo Club which I imagined was his local but he said he found  "a bit too expensive".  He kindly offered a lift into town afterwards in his very modest car.  Donald died within a few years and his will showed him to be wealthy man. He was not so much "canny" as completely lacking in materialism.

I will always be grateful to The Sunday Times for giving me space to write columns that were pro-independence. I could cast a critical eye on the country, but always with the presumption that we'd be better off outside The Union. My work has covered everything from the cultural ubiquity of the Playboy bunny to the merits of education in the great outdoors. The Sunday Times style demands clear, direct writing. It loves wit and despites waffle. Self indulgent digressions and purple patches just wouldn't make the paper. The discipline of these restrictions helped me me develop as a writer from the day I joined in 1995. That's why I was happy to return in 2006 after spending five years as deputy editor of The Herald. The team of writers at Ecosse - Gillian Harris, Gillian Bowditch, Allan Brown, Anna Burnside and Rachel Devine made the job of editing a pleasure. So did working with photographers like Stuart Wallace whose picture features here.

Finding out you are about to lose your job - on the first day of the Conservative Liberal government - has a black humour about it. The "continuing economic uncertainty" was quoted as the reason. Given that we were market leader in Scotland, that gives you an idea of how bad things are. But nobody working in the newspaper industry expects a job for life and such events bring opportunities we might have considered too risky with the safety net of an annual salary.

The last few weeks were pressured - hence the sporadic nature of this blog. That will change, and Go Lassie Go will soon go even further. I have not abandoned the paper media either and you will see my by-line again very soon. 

PS If you want the LAST EVER Sunday Times Scotland featuring Ecosse you will need to BUY it. The online version has not been put up today. I would recommend highly that you do. There's a great piece by Stuart Cosgrove on why it's okay not to support England, an interview with Louise Welsh by Gillian Bowditch, Rachel Devine on the new album by McFall's Chamber, Anna Burnside on the launch of Glitterball to help Cancer Research and me on the Alcohol Bill. 

Scottish firm gives Ava Gardner her bloom back

One of Ava Gardner's most alluring performances can be viewed in cinemas again from this week thanks to the Glasgow company Park Circus Films. Pandora and The Flying Dutchman has been restored by the company and is in UK cinemas from today. Much of the beauty of the Albert Lewin film is down to the skill of Jack Cardiff, who died last year aged 94, and was considered one of the greatest Technicolor cinematographers of his day. Writing in The Observer,  Philip French says the film, in which Gardner falls fatally for James Mason: "Draws on Dutch and Spanish painters as well as Giorgio de Chirico, and looks as if the colours were mixed on the screen".

Sounds amazing, though I cannot imagine anyone falling fatally for James Mason, let alone someone as stunning as Ava.  Look forward to having my mind changed at The Filmhouse in Edinburgh

Park Circus  have restored more than 12,000 classic movies, including Casablanca, It's a Wonderful Life and From Russia With Love. Their managing director's ambition is to make going to the movies as special as going to the theatre. You can read my colleague Allan Brown's  feature on the company here in The Sunday Times Ecosse.

 

So do the Lib Cons have a mandate in Scotland?

 

Alastair Allan MSP on Newsnicht refused to budge on the assertion that the coalition has no legitimacy here, and the Lib Dems are just propping up a Tory government with one seat, which was opposed by 85% of Scots who voted. But the Liberal Democrats and the Conservatives last week scrapped slightly more than the SNPs share of the Scottish vote in the 2007 election. So is AA trying to defend the indefensible?

There is a key difference - and not just the one advanced by Allan, that the SNP actually won, whereas in Scotland this is a government of losers.  The SNP tried and failed to form a coalition with the Liberal Democrats in 2007  - the latter now find the Conservatives more acceptable bed fellows. Only after being rebuked by the Lib Dems did Salmond chose to govern as a minority, accepting that he would need to bring others on board policy by policy. The nationalist Holyrood government does not dictate to Scotland - the arithmetic doesn't allow it.

The Con Lib Alliance does. They will decide what's good for us then force it through parliament with English MPs. There was lots of talk tonight that the Lib Dems had a mandate due to their healthy number of Scottish MPs. But perhaps a better way of judging their "right to rule" would be to consider the parts of their manifesto relating to Scotland. How much of these made it into the partnership deal announced today? 

Trident - of particular interest to Scotland since these weapons of mass destruction are currently squatting on the Clyde. Total Lib Dem cave in- they misleadingly gave the impression during the campaign that they were against renewing the missile system.

Accelerated budget cuts: Lib Dems said they were against the Tory plan to start cutting deeply this year. Total cave in again. Unemployment in Scotland is now higher than in England and we are more vulnerable to a double dip recession as a result of this decision.

Abolish the Scotland Office: I'll believe it when I see it. Young Danny looked VERY pleased with his new job.

No tax on incomes below £10k. This is a concession from Cons to Libs which could benefit poor Scots but no timetable when it will happen.

Funding: Libs are making a big deal of how their plans for health and education will have consequences for Scotland. This just means what happens at the moment. Spending decisions are made about English health, education, police  etc based on English needs and priorities. The rise or fall is passed proportionately to Scotland through the Barnett formula. We have to make the best of it, even though our needs were not considered when determining the funding.

So do the Lib Cons have a mandate? I think we all know the answer.

The man who thinks a £6bn deficit cut is chickenfeed

As the coalition talks chunter on, we keep getting told that the markets demand strong government to hasten deficit reduction. Translate the markets into the money men who caused the problem in the first placed - and who will not be suffering as a result of any austerity programme. (Why did they get off so lightly in the election campaign anyway?) Still, it was refreshing to hear one of the money men break ranks this weekend and tell my colleague Gillian Bowditch that we are over-reacting to the financial crisis. Martin Gilbert of Aberdeen Asset Management - the biggest independent fund manager in Europe, said:

" As for the deficit, it suits them all to say how bad it is.” He believes that the situation is not as bad as has been painted. Suggestions that we may turn into another Greece if the new chancellor does not get to grips with the economy quickly are overblown, he says. In fact, compared with most businessmen, he is positively optimistic. “Our debt as a percentage of GDP is less than Germany’s,” he says. “The problem is the deficit, not the level of debt. As long as we cut the deficit, we’re okay. As for fears over the £6 billion that the Conservatives intend to cut from the budget this year, Gilbert is sanguine.“All three parties would have been constrained on public expenditure. They are all going to have to cut. The only difference between them is that the Conservatives want to cut £6 billion straight away. It’s such a small amount of money in terms of the deficit, in terms of where we are, it’s tiny — a rounding error — but everyone is making a meal of it.”

For the full article go to The Gillian Bowditch profile in Sunday Times Ecosse

As a post-script, I keep reading the Clegg and Cameron are making deficit reduction the priority in their talks. Wonder if that means Clegg is insisting that the Tories postpone the worst cuts till next year to let the economy recover? Both he and Vince Cable were adamant about this during the campaign. Then, again, there is talk of six cabinet seats...maybe that's the price of a double dip recession for the Lib Dems. As well as selling out on electoral reform of course.

Going Underground

Depending on the outcome of the election next week, some of you may feel the need to hide away. If so I can recommend going underground on the island of South Uist. If you still have a job that offers paid holidays...

Nurturing a problem in our schools

 Glasgow City Council education department is very proud of defying the Scottish government's target for reducing class sizes in primary one to three - something the electorate backed in 2007. Instead Glasgow wants to spend any money it has on nuture classes. These have won international acclaim for giving specialised help to very young children who, for one reasons or another, cannot cope with normal school by the age of five. The city, on account of its poverty and related drug and alcohol problems, has quite a lot of children like this. It is not spelled out for fear of causing offence. But basically we are referring to kids who cannot hold either a pencil or a conversation - because nobody's ever paid them enough attention.

Now this is a commendable initiative. It's not really the job of schools to patch up the damage caused by hopeless parenting - but, if they don't, who will? It does, however, pose something of a problem for the majority of families who have aspirations for their kids, who do take the time to love them, nurture them and, yes, talk to them too.

So it seems to me that this is another example of priorities in Glasgow being set to meet the needs of the most marginalised. How does that help the very many children, often from families with average or below average income - who are not disruptive or deprived enough to merit this extra input. How is their education improved? Another example of these priorities is our obsession with NEETS - young people who leave school with no qualifications and fail to go into either work or to college. We are tailoring school towards these young people, focussing on practical skills etc. But teenagers who do want to go on to a decent university will find it difficult to sit an advanced higher in their chosen subjects. Many schools don't offer the courses.

Often, Glasgow parents vote with their feet and send their kids to schools in neighbouring education authorities. One of them is East Renfrewshire, often described as a leafy suburb, but which contains places like Barrhead, where BMWs and monkey puzzle trees are pretty thin on the ground. Regular readers of The Herald newspaper will know that some Glasgow parents have even gone to court to preserve an anomaly that allowed them to send their kids to East Renfrewshire's very popular schools.

These are run by John Wilson, a physics graduate from a Fife mining village who is totally committed to improving the attainment of all kids, no matter what their family background. Read Gillian Bowditch's interview with Wilson in The Sunday Times Ecosse

Why are his schools so successful? Here is a taster of Gillian's piece

At the heart of Wilson’s policy is the system of regular testing. National testing has been abandoned in Scotland and Ed Balls, the education secretary, is considering phasing it out in England, but Wilson is adamant that testing pupils is essential for their success. “I’m only a fan of testing because it gives us useful information,” he says. “The more information you have about a young person, the more you can help them progress.”

East Renfrewshire tests all children in literacy and numeracy at reception, primaries three, five and seven, and secondary 2.

All pupils are expected to take eight courses in fourth year and five in fifth year. Wilson has established the Education Management Information Service, which monitors pupils’ progress throughout the authority and allows staff to compare their departments’ achievements with other schools’.

It always struck me that there is a lot of hypocrisy around the public discourse about Scotland's schools.We publicly tag along behind the orthodoxy which suggests that exams and academic rigour are somehow a bad thing, or that attainment is not compatible with the development of social skills, creativity or job preparedness. This is the philosophy the lies behind The Curriculum for Excellence.  Yet when it comes to making private decisions for their own children, many well informed parents quietly choose to send their offspring to more traditional schools like those run by Mr Wilson.

Another education story that touches on these concerns was by Gemma Mackenzie in Scotland on Sunday. It quoted a study that found most secondary pupils were disillusioned with their education within six months. Loads of research shows that pupils fall behind in the first years of secondary school. No wonder - they are bored stiff. Typically, the educational "experts" quoted in the piece say this will all change under the new curriculum. Head of the EIS teaching union Ronnie Smith blamed the poor performance in S1 annd S2 on us being "obsessed with qualifications".

This is untrue. Children in S1 and S2 are thrown into mixed ability classes. They are not tested. In fact, the education inspector HMIE has found that they are not monitored closely enough. How is the government intending to solve this? Well the new curriculum as far as I can see puts no emphasis on attainment, and actually extends the years of drift to S3 as well. The opposite of what is needed, in other words.

 

Referendum held in Scotland - for Tamils

The Tamil people are one of the world's largest group of refugees. They recently suffered defeat in a long civil war that ended in a bloody massacre. But that didn't stop them organising a global referendum this weekend, and vote in their millions for national autonomy within Sri Lanka. Stuart Cosgrove was one of those eligible to vote, and he did so in the unlikely setting of the Woodside Halls in Glasgow's Maryhill. Not content with running Channel 4 outside London, devising the future strategy of Scotland's creative industries, entertaining the nation with Tam Cowan on Off the Ball, being a leading cultural critic and spreading the gospel that is Soul Music....in addition to all this Stuart played his small part in changing the course of history for one of South Asia's ancient civilisations. You can read how and why in the piece he wrote for this week's Sunday Times Ecosse here. 

 The Tamils of Sri Lanka have a rich history, culture and language. They were self governing before colonial rule. But the British Empire - once again the culprit - decided to lump them in with the Sinhalese majority of the island "for administrative purposes" in 1833. They have struggled to assert their civil rights ever since. The massacre of trapped Tamil civilians by the Sri Lankan army last year was probably the most under reported war crime of recent history. And I was disgusted to learn that millions of dollars donated to Tamil victims of the Tsunami never actually reached them. You can read more about that story, and the wider crisis facing these persecuted people at Tamil National here. Stuart comments regularly on Tamil issues in his blog  at 38minutes, the social network for digital media professionals in Scotland and Northern Ireland.

The Tamil diaspora voted 99% in favour of self-determination. Wonder if Scots would do the same.....or if they will ever get the chance...

Digital Inspiration: Stuart Cosgrove's big idea for Scotland

"If you do not innovate, you evaporate"  these are Stuart Cosgrove's opening words in his Sunday Times article today in which he argues for more ambition to grow Scotland's already impressive digital media industries. 

Stuart's own considerable capacity for innovation was recently used to great effect by the economic development agency Scottish Enterprise, which asked him to chair a committee to devise a strategy for the sector. The end result, a highly readable report called Digital Inspiration, was published last week.  

Digital Inspiration is very different from the typical wafflesome official document you need several cans of Red Bull to get through. It has lots of witty illustrations and makes concrete recommendations on how to grow an industry that already employs 42,000 people in high quality jobs and generates  £3.16bn for the Scottish economy. Digital Inspirations sets out a series of measures to double the sector's value to £6.3bn by 2012.

 One of the most striking pieces of research in "Digital Inspiration" is a graph illustrating Scotland's strengths and weakness. Scotland is brilliant at innovation and creativity.  But we need a better commercial environment to build more companies and, as Stuart says: "Shorten their journey to market and increase the value they retain." 

Alistair Darling failed to offer the games industry tax breaks similar to that for film in the Pre budget report this month. Stuart Cosgrove and Scottish Enterprise are urging the Scottish government to use the powers it already has under devolution to give tax breaks to firms in Dundee, which he calls "The Harvard of games consoles". 

Politicians and the media in Scotland regularly pontificate on how public discourse should "concentrate on getting Scotland out of recession".  Yet when talented, busy people offer tangible solutions such as Digital Inspiration, it doesn't get as much attention as it should. Instead we carp on about whether the First Minister was snubbed by Arnie Schwarzenegger and invent unhelpful divisions between Glasgow and Edinburgh.

So let's stop being doom sayers and become doers. It's time Scotland made, marketed and profited from our innovations - as we did in the great industrial age of shipbuilding and engineering. We should emulate the energetic Mr C who, as Channel Four's Director of Nations and Regions, won Scotland a generous share of his channel's 4iP fund to develop new media.  4iP already runs a lively on-line social network for Scottish new media professionals, 38 Minutes. You can read Stuart's own blog on 38 minutes here. As you might expect from the co-host of our funniest radio show, it is highly entertaining as well as intellectually stimulating. 

NOTE: The cute illustration (the blonde girlie in tartan shorts, not Stuart silly!) is made by WeeWorld a Scottish company founded by Mike Kinsella who have now designed 30 million online avatars for kids all over the world

Scottish illustrator Johanna Basford makes great art using Twitter

The artist Johanna Basford has produced the world's first Twitter Picture by asking followers to suggest ideas which she then incorporated into a highly detailed pen and ink illustration over an intense 48 hour session last week. For some reasons, Meercats were a frequently requested subject. More about the project and how to buy the limited edition prints can be found on 38 Minutes.

Always quick to spot great young Scottish talent, The Sunday Times Ecosse has already profiled Johannna, a former WH Smith Saturday girl who grew up on a fish farm and now teaches at The Duncan of Jordanstone College of Art and Design in Dundee, though she is just 25. 

You can see more of Johanna's stunning illustrations on her own site here

HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO HIP HOP

Thirty years ago this week Rapper's Delight by the Sugarhill Gang became the first Hip Hop chart hit. Some will quibble and say the plaudit belongs to the Fatback Band and Hip hop itself is older. Everybody on the scene in the late seventies expected Grandmaster Flash to have the first hit. But let's celebrate by enjoying the video anyway. The BBC have run a good anniversary piece. And there is also a hip hop point and click atlas showing the genre's influence around the world .

Rapper's Delight samples the song Good Times by Chic whose Nile Rodgers I recently interviewed for The Sunday Times.  As well as being a brilliant and influential musician (he produced Sister Sledge, David Bowie, Diana Ross aand Duran Duran) he is a thoughtful and politically astute person. Or as another writer tweeted after reading my piece: "Boy Scout, Black Panther and God-like Genuis". 

Rodgers has used his wealth to set up the We Are Family Foundation .   It brings young people from different cultural backgrounds together in the wake of 9/11, builds schools in the developing world and runs an inspirational teen leadership programme.