Scotland should follow New Zealand – and democratise distilling

IT'S BEEN OVER TEN YEARS now since ol' Popcorn Sutton (pictured) ran his last run of moonshine in the Appalachians and over twenty since New Zealand took the hillbilly out of home distillation in a ...

The Mummy Diaries: Two babies - Week 4

THE HELP IS GONE! I am now responsible for washing, ironing, dinners, dishes, bottles, hoovering, washing floors, cleaning bathrooms, washing floors and oh yeah - keeping two human beings alive as well. I used to ...

Our media needs training to avoid Brexit fake news

FOLLOWING the Chequers meeting and publication of the Brexit White Paper we have seen gymnastic somersaults across the body politic. The responses of the chatterati remind me of a group of children trying to find ...

Nationalist Eurotrash undoes the indyscot narrative – that isn't necessarily good

IT IS PAINFUL to read some of the nonsense the nationalists tweet at times. I should really think of Ross Greer as an incomplete Owen Jones, not quite as bombastic yet just as capable of ...

The McNanny State: it’s time to challenge it

SINCE the Scottish Parliamentcame into being in 1999 it has passed over 300 bills that have been given royal assent and are now the law of the land. Notably they include a bill to ban ...

The Mummy Diaries: Two babies - Week 3

THE REALITY of having two babies is now starting to sink in! Jamie is now starting to realise that baby Lily is here to stay. This means that whenever his Daddy or I lift or ...

The Mummy Diaries: Two babies - Week 2

HELP, help, help!! Thank God for Grandparents is all I’ll say. How on earth anyone manages a newborn baby and a toddler after a C-section is beyond me. 

The newborn is a ...

Aargh! Why the joys of travelling have left me

I HAD TO go to Bristol the other day. Well, not had to go, wanted to go. My elder daughter works there and needs to buy a car for commuting in the next month or so.  She had ...

The Mummy Diaries: Two babies - Week 1

SHE'S HERE at last! What a week it has been. A planned C-Section? There’s no such thing. So much for the relaxing and calm experience it was to be. All I can say is it ...

Book Review – Flight of Evil: A North British Intrigue

THE SCOTTISH academic Professor Tom Gallagher has written an entertaining novel that nevertheless contains a serious message, warning of the dangers of political extremism. 

Set in the near future Flight of Evil describes a ...

Brexit betrayal – a week we shall never forget

A personal view from Ivor Tiefenbrun MBE

The Mummy Diaries: pregnancy week 38

WELL IT'S nearly D Day! I’ve spent the week trying to keep myself relaxed and chilled as much as possible for the fear of going into labour early. Jamie’s Granny and Gramps don’t arrive until ...