Make Mine a Double: Scots Whay Hae! Turns Two Today...

Raise your glasses and let the sky be black with hats, it's Scots Whay Hae's birthday. Two years ago I started this blog for a couple of reasons. The first was pure pragmatism as I sought to find a way of keeping myself sane while I wrote my PhD thesis which had come to a grinding halt. However, the main reason was to write about those things I cared for with a passion. I'll admit that there may at times be a lack of objective critical analysis, but that was never really the point. I wanted to say 'I love this, and I think you will too'.

So with that in mind, and before I blow out the candles, I want to say a hearty 'Cheers!' to those who have supported me along the way, and continue to do so. People such as Andrew Collins who gave me some invaluable advice and who helped raise the profile of the site by allowing me to interview him. Other interviewees to thank include Richard Herring, Doug Johnstone, Alan Bissett, Kevin MacNeill, Ewan Morrison and, particularly, Mark Buckland and Rodge Glass, both of whom have been constant flag wavers for Scots Whay Hae! and what it attempts to do. Thanks also to those involved with the literary journal Valve, the fine folk who make up the team at Cargo Publishing and those lovely people at Birlinn and Polygon Books, especially Sarah Morrison and Vickki Reilly; all of whom have reassured me that the future of Scottish literature is in the hands of people who love it as much as I do. I also have to tip my hat to those bands and musicians (or those who represent them) who send me their music to listen to, much of which makes my life immeasurably more pleasant. Keep it coming.

Special thanks to the new additions to the Scots Whay Hae! family; Ian Gregson, Chris Ward, Kirsty Neary and, just signed on the dotted line, Ronnie Young, all of whom are involved in the new Scots Whay Hae! podcasts. We love recording them and I hope that you enjoy listening to them. If they take off as we hope then expect interviews and special guests and all sorts of other exciting hoopla to come your way soon. I also appreciate the support from The List, particularly Nicola Meighan who always exhibits exquisite taste and who shares my obsession with Restless Natives.

Then there are those who were early adopters, my fellow bloggers Aye Tunes, Peenko and, most of all, The Dear from over at Dear Scotland who gave me an ongoing monthly column on his site, known as Indelible Ink, where I could write at length about modern Scottish Literature without any constraints. Finding out that there were other single-minded obsessives out there made me realise I wasn't just shouting into a void, and their support gave me the confidence to believe that maybe my writing wasn't so bad after all. Dear Scotland also published my first article for a website that wasn't my own. It was basically a paper I had written on Gregory's Girl while at Uni, so I can admit it is a little dry, but to have someone else want to post my work meant a great deal. It also inspired my first piece of online criticism from the ubiquitous 'anonymous', who simply commented "What a prick". This remains my favourite reaction to anything I've written and is a pithy reminder that you can't please everyone, so first off try and please yourself.

And, of course, thanks to everyone who visits, reads and comments on Scots Whay Hae! I appreciate your support more than you can possibly know and I hope you keep on coming over, even if it's just for a chat. If I have forgotten to thank anyone who should have had a mention then please forgive me, absolutely pull me up on it, and my guilt will guarantee you a drink. Talking of which I'm off for a large one.

Slainte!

Alistair

For the first time on Scots Whay Hae! here is that Gregory's Girl piece. It's interesting to revisit and compare it with what appears on the site today. Have a read and you can see if old anonymous was right after all:

Modern Girls, Modern Boys: How Gregory’s Girl Promised a New Scotland

the nicest part is just before you taste it but that can’t go on forever! (1)

The post-punk era of the late seventies and early eighties in Scotland was a time of artistic confidence and success. In fiction Alasdair Gray had his magnus-opus Lanark published, while James Kelman was working on the short stories of Not, Not While the Giro that would bring him great acclaim and put him on the road to notoriety. Their fiction allowed Scotland to be seen as exhibiting a new imagination as they reported on their surroundings in a fresh and extremely individual way. But it was in music and film that this new Scotland was brought to the attention of a wider populace. 'The Sound of Young Scotland' was the name given to a vibrant music scene that it could be argued has never been matched. It was exemplified by Postcard Records whose rosta included bands such as Glasgow's Orange Juice, East Kilbride's Aztec Camera and from Edinburgh, Josef K and The Fire Engines. They continue to be an inspiration not only to contemporary musicians from Scotland, such as Belle and Sebastian, Franz Ferdinand and Popup, but bands worldwide. It was not only their music that was new. Here were musicians who wore there art-school roots and fey haircuts with pride and who were not afraid to let audiences know that they had read Kafka, Mailer and Nietzsche. Among those making waves were Altered Images and their singer, Claire Grogan, or C.P. Grogan as she was billed in her film and television work. She became the poster girl for 'Young Scotland' and Altered Images quickly became indie-darlings, with the single Dead Pop Stars featuring in John Peel's end of year Festive Fifty round up. They then went on to have considerable chart success with songs such as Happy Birthday, See Those Eyes and Dont Talk to Me About Love. But, for many people Claire Grogan will always be Susan, the winsome schoolgirl who uses her scheming friends to eventually become Gregory's Girl (1981).
…
Bill Forsyth's films showed the same confidence and disregard for previous stereotypes as the new music scene. Questions of gender and class were to the fore. In his first feature film That Sinking Feeling (1979) Forsyth showed a Glasgow gang who were not interested in casual violence, drink and sectarianism, but who were involved in a plan to get rid of knock-off sinks, part of which involved one-character dressing as a cleaning-lady. The film comments on unemployment and poverty, but also displayed a comedic lightness of touch that had been missing from previous Scottish dramas that had dealt with such topics. Gregory's Girl took the sensibility of Forsyth's first feature and bused it up the road to the then new town of Cumbernauld. By showing a part of Scotland that had never previously existed, Forsyth could present his characters without them being saddled with the cultural baggage that would have occurred had Gregory s Girl been set in other areas of the country. Forsyth's Cumbernauld is clean, new, desirable and safe. A place where teenagers could walk, and dance, in the park and the only worry was bumping into a lecherous school photographer and his mini-me assistant. These were images of a Scotland that would be unrecognisable to an outside audience, who were used to contrasting images of No Mean City and Brigadoon, but to those living in Scotland this was an area and time they could place, and here were characters who were recognisable, but not stereotypical.
…
The obvious way that Forsyth plays with traditional images of Scotland is in terms of gender. In Gregory s Girl the best footballer is Dorothy and the best cook is Steve. Traditionally football was men-only, and for a boy to take Home-Economics over Woodwork or Technical Drawing was at the time was almost unheard of. Times were changing, and it is to Forsyth's credit that he was aware of this change, but in the film there are other, more subtle, subversions of society's expectations. In his book British Cinema in the 1980s John Hill acknowledges this subversion:
…
“Adults behave like children, children behave like adults, boys behave like girls and girls behave like boys. While this has a certain link with the theme of escape characteristic of British social realism, it is also the case that the desire to escape is not, in this case, motivated by poverty or hardship but by a wish to break free of the fixities of conventional social roles and identities (and especially those of gender)”. (2)
….
Hill is right about such role reversals, and there are other stereotypes which are burst; stereotypes which highlight the preconceived social roles and identities that Forsyth wished to avoid. A film set in the West of Scotland that contains football footage, but never mentions religion or the Old Firm (Gregory has a Partick Thistle scarf on his wall), and which portrays teenagers who actually go to school, sober, and never mention drugs. While it would be foolish to pretend that such things are not a part of Scottish culture, or any European country's culture, to look at most representations of Scottish teenagers in the latter part of the 20th century you would think their lives were about nothing less. The storyline, one that deliberately echoes Shakespeare's A Midsummer Nights Dream, is really about the manipulation of the naïve boys by the smarter girls. But such manipulation is not as a result of Lolita-esque teasing or promises of sex. This is a more innocent picture of romance, one where confused boys are willing participants in the girls charming and amorous games. From Gregory's little sister Madeleine, to the Italian teacher who Gregory turns to in an afternoon of need, it is the women who are in control while letting the males believe the opposite. As Gregory states to disposed goalkeeper Andy while watching Dorothy play football: “Modern Girls, Modern Boys, it's tremendous”. (3)

Bill Forsyth went on to make Local Hero (1983) and Comfort and Joy (1984), both of which continued to present new visions of Scotland to their audience. Both are great films, but neither of them quite had the innocence and charm of Gregory's Girl. Innocence and charm are not words that usually spring to mind when talking about Scottish cinema but Forsyth proved that you dont need brutality, depravity or overt tartanry to make an impact. Gregory is right, it is terrific. What's really terrific is that Bill Forsyth had made a film for a new Scotland, one whose hope was to be destroyed as the unemployment of the 1980s began to kick in. But for a while it seemed so near, we could almost taste it.

Footnotes:
(1) Madeline to Gregory in a café talking about lime and ginger beer, Gregory's Girl (1981)
(2) John Hill, British Cinema in the 1980s (London: BFI, 1999) p 243
(3) Gregory speaks to Andy as he is supposed to be keeping goal for the school team, Gregory's Girl (1981)

Talking Malls: An Interview with Ewan Morrison...

When you mention the name Ewan Morrison to some people you can almost see the cynicism and even ire rising to the surface. He has been categorised, often by those who will admit they have never actually read his work, as a professional controversialist who writes primarily about sex. This lazy thinking reflects a widely held view that, when it comes to Scottish culture, it is still the case that sex and all that goes with it should neither be seen, heard, read or, most of all, acknowledged artistically unless dealt with in either a sensational or sea-side postcard manner. Heaven forfend that we have a writer who takes such matters seriously. No one said this about John Updike, Henry Miller or Norman Mailer. Or perhaps they did, but they were wrong as well.

Despite such preconceptions Morrison is concerned with relationships rather than with any desire to titillate. He writes with an honesty about human communication and psychology that many of his male contemporaries find hard to manage. Just think how many modern Scottish novels there are which concern protagonists who are either isolated individuals or same sex ensembles, usually male, unless you are Alan Warner. Many of those are among my favourite novels, but there is a sense that boys stay in one corner while the girls are in the other. If there is sex in these novels it is often there to laugh at, or to belittle or humiliate, at least one of the characters involved. Often in Scottish fiction sex is used as a weapon, and a violent, destructive one at that, but for Morrison it is just one aspect, if an important and fascinating one, of what binds individuals who come together. This is not exploitation it's exploration.

Morrison's latest project is Tales from the Mall, which comes out next year with Cargo Publishing in every form available, and what I had read of it intrigued me so I asked him if he would answer a few questions. What follows is one of the most interesting interviews about the future of the writer and publishing that I have read in years:

                                                                               *

SWH: Could you tell us about your project Tales from the Mall?

EM: Tales from the Mall, will, next year, be released as an interactive enhanced ebook and app. It has nine short stories by myself (all named after retail outlets – Gap, Borders etc), and about twenty anecdotes and confessions, told to me by mall staff in the many malls I visited in Scotland and retold by myself. It also has factual history sections on the growth and demise of shopping malls globally and about how they work. Tales from the Mall also includes short films made by myself, colour collage images and audio. It’s a book of fragments and is an attempt to do something a bit like Walter Benjamin’s study of The Parisien Arcades – the foreparents of the mall - in his incomplete opus The Arcades Project. Of course Benjamin wasn’t a writer of fiction, but a sociologist and a philosopher, but what he advocated in his writings was an abandonment of ‘the novel’ and a return to the ‘folk tale’. Tales from the Mall is an attempt to tell the folk tales of the malls in my country ( what might seem an ironic proposition as many believe that malls are destroying our indigenous culture). As such the way I write had to change, I’ve become more of a listener, than a maker. This shift feels important to me, the times we live in don’t need any more makers; there’s already too much a clamour of the me, me me -  listening and recording feels more urgent. The stories I authored myself, were more about listening to reality than imposing a style that I could call ‘me’.

Previously, I’d been increasingly including factual elements in my novels – Menage had around thirty-five pages of ‘historical analysis’ and I was developing a dissatisfaction with the limits of ‘the novel - its ability to comment politically on the present. As a recent example of this I think Jonathan Franzen’s Freedom is a terrible failure that really shows up the limits of the novel, a lot of which stem from its history, its model. All of the political points Franzen tries to make in the novel, have had to be filtered through the characters, so they become rants or preachy speeches, mere dialogue; at best they are structural problems that characters have to deal with, but the novel does not sustain this. Freedom is ultimately a study of some American characters who did some interesting things in their otherwise generic American lives. We are asked to either like or dislike them and we filter the politics and sociology through our empathy with them and the minutiae of their limited choices- they seem blind to their own times and the author cannot fill in the gaps to tell us why, because the characters keep getting in the way. It is a hugely ambitious novel that is also the end of that kind of novel in its towering failure. The contemporary novel just cannot achieve what non-fiction can achieve in giving us analysis and insight into our time. I site here, Dave Eggers abandonment of the novel in terms of the documentary books Zeitoun and What is the What. And Also David Foster Wallace’s challenge to the novel in his essay E Unibus Plurum, urging for a more insightful and honest depiction of our present day and its politics. Foster Wallace and Franzen were buddies and I see Foster Wallace’s suicide and Franzen’s failure in Freedom, as testament to the abandonment of the challenge that they set themselves.

            
The above were all texts and ideas that I was worrying over as I wrote Tales from the Mall. I had, at the time, been more thrilled by the essays of Malcolm Gladwell and Alain de Botton and wanted to do a really in depth research into what had previously for me been only a vague abstract background to my writing – namely consumerism. I was also frustrated that so few writers were willing to tackle consumerism head on. There being a notion that it was the terrain of the vulgar masses and not the subject for ‘high’ literature. I grew up among the vulgar masses and was also troubled that the city I live in Glasgow, has passed from being a post industrial city, towards having the seventh biggest retail avenue in the world – Buchanan Street. And this seemed also to have gone undocumented, perhaps because writers did not like that turn of historical events, the ideological conquest that it represents.

            
So I set off to find out about how consumerism worked in Glasgow (as a microcosm of the new Global economy), by doing interviews with shop workers, mall workers and consumers. In the back of my mind was this troubling and quite fatalistic quotation by Jeanette Winterston: 'How many exciting novels could be written about the sort of lives that most of us lead these days, anyway?’ In a way, she was right, novels are about epic journeys, the fight between good and evil over decades, the struggle within an individual -  and consumerism in this light is just banal; as consumers we are barley even given the tools we require to be individuals. Consumerism doesn’t give us the material for novels or the material, hopes and long term goals to lead lives that are worthy of writing novels about.

            
But still, consumerism must be the most important subject in the world.  After 9/11, George Bush said ‘Do your duty as American’s – go out and shop.’ I thought, well to hell with the novel then, lets see how life is really lived in the mall and if there are any wee stories worth telling within it. To my joy I found that there were many short stories of short struggles between individuals and the corporations that increasingly govern us. As one of the characters says in one of the stories ‘That’s my day at work, it’s no fuckin’ War and Peace, but that’s that.’

SWH: Tales from the Mall sees you return to the short story form. What are your thoughts on the merits of that as a form of writing and how it is received?

EM: I started out my life as a writer of short stories with The Last Book You Read and Other Stories back in 2004, and the form was a really joyous discovery for me after struggling for years to get feature films and TV projects off the ground - always coming up against the same barrier with commissioning editors – that my writing was too dark or sociological or sexual or sceptical or not mainstream enough - could I just not lighten up and maybe adapt my self to the needs of a mass audience? Those kinds of comments. I really dropped out at that point and religiously studied every story by Raymond Carver, and also the collection Black Tickets by Jayne Anne Phillips. These books were revelatory and beautiful, and simple. The ethos of the short story, with Carver and Philips, as I saw it, was that you could have a flash of a moment, of true feeling and true expression, without worrying about fitting it into a larger narrative, whether this be the proscribed structural needs of the novel, or the much greater narrative that surrounds us all - of having a life story, a life project – to be a novelist, or a baker or a dentist or a CEO. I could write without worrying where it would lead ‘career wise’. And that was very freeing for me. As a result that first collection of stories is something I go back to again and again. I can’t bear the way that much of it is written in many of the stories, but I look at it and say ‘how free I was then’. It also hit a nerve with people and when I get an email out of the blue or someone comes up to me and asks me about a story I have to apologise and say ‘I’m sorry that was then, uhhm, I really don’t know what to say about those stories now.’ But I am glad that they touched people.

It really annoys me though - the lowly status of the short story in the minds of publishers – they don’t sell as much as novels etc, etc. Can’t you write a novel on the same themes instead? etc, etc. I’ve been asked this a few times. But I would say that many of the most powerful writers in the 20^th century have created their best work in the form of the short story and the novella. I sometime pick up Heart of Darkness or The Outsider  or The Fall and think - Christ, only a hundred pages but what an impact that had on the world. The case of Camus is crucial. I picked up The Rebel last year and was stunned to find that, within it, there was a prediction of, and a justification for, suicide bombing. Little more than a hundred pages, written in 1951.

I’ve really studied the short stories of Lorrie Moore over the last three years and You are Not a Stranger Here, by Adam Haslett (Pulitzer Prize Finalist) was also a revelation. It’s embarrassing but I keep having revelations with short stories and the same cannot be said for novels. In the long run, with the changes in digital publishing, I think things will swing in favour of the short story, over the novel.

SWH: The interactive aspect of Tales from the Mall is striking, with links to videos on your own YouTube channel, instructions how to use, and indeed abuse, a mall and, as part of the (G)host City series of audio recordings in Edinburgh during the Festival, you can download your story ‘Gravity Guy’. Do you see such interaction as important in the future of publishing, or is just something that you are interested in?

EM: I see interaction as the promise of dialogue and debate and not as virtual gadget waving. A lot of digital technology empties the content of what we take in, it just becomes the thrill of connection. Increasingly superficial. Jean Baudrillard was right twenty years ago – ‘Communication for communications sake becomes the empty form with which technology seduces itself.’

             
Having said that I have these skills from working a decade in Arts TV, making TV programmes on Alasdair Gray, James Kelman, AL Kennedy – sometimes making dramatic adaptations of their readings for the TV, and it came to me that I could do the same for my own writing, give it a go at least.  So I stared making short films, and this tied in very nicely with the stories I was hearing in my mall research. Rena the Cleaner is one that people seem to like and it was true story from a mall in Glasgow. I’ve ended up with about ten short films now, and some animations, and I still have more to do. I thought that including the films and the research in the ebook would make it feel more alive, like you were reading and watching my thinking and learning over a period of time.

           
I’m bringing Tales from the Mall out in late Spring 2012 with Glasgow based publisher Cargo. I’ve been impressed by their ability to combine digital ebook innovation with promoting the work of indigenous Scottish writers. From early this year till the end of next year Cargo will have brought out two major texts which other publishers may have not have seen the value in the groundbreaking Moira Monologues by Alan Bissett (from his play) and the collected essays of Tom Leonard. This is an important, perhaps the most important thing that a Scottish publisher can do just now - to connect the generations and create dialogue between them. This is ‘interaction’. I feel there is a tendency among the older generation of Scottish writers, Kelman, Galloway, Gray to view the emerging generation as depoliticised, as a kind of threat to what they have achieved – indeed we have grown up under Thatcherism, privatisation and the legacy of every-man-for-himself and sometimes us younger writers do look like little entrepreneurs with nothing to join us other than personal ambition – but I hope and believe that connections, such as Cargo have made with Leonard will pave the way for a real debate about the politics of Scottish literature and actually get the generations talking to each other. We are ultimately in the same boat and I’m happy to say that the new generation is becoming increasingly politicised and drawing connections with the past. There are other moves afoot that are furthering this end, like Neu Reekie and the work of Kevin Williamson and Bella Caledonia and also Gutter Magazine in Glasgow. Interaction in Scottish literature would be for all of us writers to talk and fight and write damning and offensive letters to each other like we used to in Chapman and Edinburgh Review, rather than all sitting at our solitary screens, clicking away.

SWH: Following on from this, you appeared at the Edinburgh Book Festival on the 20^th of August as part of The Guardian Debate entitled 'The End of Books' . Can you give a brief recap for those of us who couldn’t be there as to your thoughts on the matter? It’s a fascinating and evocative debate.

EM: In short I think that what we have known so far as publishing has around twenty-five years to continue it’s existence and epublishing and digital ‘interaction’ will bring this about and to and end.  Mainstream publishing will die out when the baby boomers do, taking the paper book and probably the novel with it, at least the literary novel. I didn’t realise this until I was asked to do the Guardian speech – on a subject no writer would want to believe in, let alone be the person chosen to represent the negative side of the argument. The facts though, after a month of research piled up and the future trajectory of the book became clear to me. In a simple sense it will take a superhuman inter-generational effort to stop books going the same way as MP3s, and Quicktime movies. i.e in the future all these things will become free digital ‘content’. And writers need to be paid. The future of publishing is already here, the old mainstream is quickly shrinking; bestsellers include an novelisation of the computer game Assassin’s Creed and the works of James Paterson, written by committee. Just check your local Asda. Writers in the future will have to work in the garret, we’ll return to the 19^th century. In fact, I would advocate that writers go even further back to before the printing press and make handcrafted editions of a 100 and sell them to the art market for prices like that commanded by Damien Hirst. Either that or try to get a tie-in with a computer game.

SWH: Your novels, Swung, Distance and Ménage, seem to me to be books which are ripe for big screen adaptation. They remind me of some of my favourite ‘romantic’ films which are often about unconventional relationships that turn out to be heartbreakingly poignant. I’m thinking Harold and Maude, Secretary or Sex, Lies and Videotape. Have you been approached to have anyone adapt one or more of your novels? And do you think that these are legitimate comparisons?

EM: I’m flattered to hear that as all three of these films have a big influence on me. In fact Menage is really Sex Lies and Videotape revisited. I remember weeping my head off when I saw that film. It looks really staged now and self consciously postmodern. That’s something I’ve had to struggle against in my own writing. But yeah, oddball characters who try to make something of themselves in a world of prescribed values that they pretty much despise and which they have to ultimately accommodate themselves to - pretty much sums up all that I’m about – both in terms of the themes of my books and my own goddamn life. Thanks a bunch for exposing that!

            
The good news is that I’m working with Scottish director David Mackenzie (Young Adam, Hallam Foe, Perfect Sense, You Instead) and we’re close to the final draft on Swung- the movie with his company Sigma films. We had a go at the script three years ago and it floundered but I’ve learned a lot about script writing since then and judging by the recent response we seem to be on the right track. We’re close to the point where the project has a life of it’s own, beyond me, and I really look forward to that.  It will be really strange and wonderful to see this story about dysfunctional Scottish slackers trying to find themselves through swinging amongst the canon of Gregory’s Girl and Whisky Galore, but in a way they explore similar themes. Swung is really just a comedy of manners about life in Glasgow in the age of the internet.

SWH: Finally, what are you up to next?

EM: Right now I’m polishing up my next novel, which will be out with Jonathan Cape in July 2012. It took many years to write and I’m not sure if the industry will still be there to support me (or anyone else for that matter) writing something like this again. Close Your Eyes is about a woman who, as a child, grew up in a hippy commune in the highlands in the 70s. I was the child of hippies but the book is based on three years of research that I did (on and off) by living in and visiting communes in the UK and Europe. The history of the highland commune is intercut with the story, in the present, about the protagonist’s search for her mother who vanished in 1982, and her inability to be a mother in the here and now. Like Tales from the Mall, it mixes fiction with social history, but the edges are completely blurred in a dream-like way. I’m indebted to Janice Galloway’s The Trick is To Keep Breathing, Kelman’s How Late it was How Late  and Ron Butlin’s The Sound of My Voice, for teaching me how to write in a subjective voice that still has some sociological insight imprinted within it. I think there’s something in that which is particularly Scottish. And indeed, I rarely read an English novel written after Dickens, preferring the Scottish, the Russian and the French (perhaps it is something to do with the Auld Alliance and the revolutionary spirit). The new novel might surprise folk who know my other books as there’s nothing psycho-sexual about it and very little to laugh about. But maybe I am becoming more serious and melancholy as I grow older, maybe, at last, I’m becoming more Scottish, and actually quite proud of it.
  
                                                                      Scots Whay Hae! and Ewan Morrison 22/08/2011

Here's a Tale from the Mall for you to satisfy your curiosity:

You can find out more about Tales from the Mall and all things Ewan Morrison by going to ewanmorrison.com
 
His début collection of short stories Last Book You Read and Other Stories, a terrific collection, can now be purchased as an ebook from here LAST-BOOK-YOU-READ-ebook

Here is a short version of his argument from the Guardian debate at the Edinburgh Festival with lots of interesting links are-books-dead-ewan-morrison

All things Cargo can be found at cargopublishing.com 

Edinburgh Preview No2...

A little later than expected, this is the second Scots Whay Hae! Edinburgh preview and it concentrates on the comedy that increasingly dominates the Edinburgh Fringe. 

I know that every year I say 'go and see Richard Herring' but the truth is that he is still one of the best stand-ups around and continues to be the first ticket I buy for Edinburgh. This year's show is What is Love, Anyway? takes the question asked in the early 1980s by electro pop poet Howard Jones and attempts to answer it. Herring is at the Udderbelly until the 28th of August, and also has a daily podcast recorded in front of an audience at The Stand. Although I miss his banter with Andrew Collins these are still worth a visit. If you can't make it along you can listen to them here Richard Herring's Daily Podcast. I was going to put up a video clip from What is Love, Anyway? but can't find anything of decent enough quality. So instead here is the aforementioned Mr Jones posing that very question which Herring seeks to examine:

Next up is The Boy with Tape on his Face, otherwise known as Sam Wills, and his comedy is in the fine tradition of Chaplin and Tatti in that it is silent, slapstick and simply funny. If Edinburgh is beginning to overload your senses there is something attractive about seeing a silent comedian, although be warned; there is a fair chance you'll be asked to get on stage, so if that is a fear then get there early and sit at the back. He is on at The Gilded Balloon until the 29th. Here's a clip:

Comedy is difficult to get right, but musical comedy is almost impossible. Think of how many good sketch shows were spoiled in the 80s and 90s because the cast thought that they had to have a musical number as if one of their influences was Richard Stillgoe. Exceptions to this rule were French and Saunders, although ther songs were normally pastiche,  and Reeves and Mortimer. Now you can add duo Frisky and Mannish. They seem to have been everywhere this year, but that's no reason to ignore them here. They know their pop inside out and this immersion in the music and those who make it is the key to their show Pop Centre Plus which takes the piss while blowing an affectionate kiss. Here they are asking Questions:

Rich Fulcher is a face you'll probably know even if you can't quite place the name. He's best known for playing many characters in The Mighty Boosh including Bob Fossil and the lovely Eleanor, but he was also part of the short lived sketch show Snuff Box alongside Matt Berry. He's on at the Gilded Balloon Cheviot with his new show Tiny Acts of Rebellion until the 28th. Here's a collection of clips that will give you a taste of his work:

Finally the end of August sees Adam Buxton, Count Buckulize himself, arrive in Edinburgh for five nights of BUG at the Pleasance Courtyard. BUG is Buxton's regular night at the BFI in London where he plays his favourite songs, videos and anything else that tickles his fancy. Armed only with his trusty MacBook and a big screen he takes the audience on a tour through the weird and wonderful which  Buxton obsesses over so we don't have to. Here he is de-constructing Grace Jones' Pull Up to the Bumper:

That's my personal recommendations, but I could have added Josie Long, Steve Hall (I should have added Steve Hall), Jerry Sadowitz, Henning Wehn,  Rich Hall, Tim Key, The Fitzrovia Radio Hour and on, and on. There is never a shortage of good comedy at the Fringe. Something for every taste. But always remember, there's an awful lot of mince out there as well. I might take a punt on a band or a film, but never on comedy. I've learnt my lesson there.

Reel to Real Cacophony: It's the Second Scots Whay Hae! Podcast...

The second Scots Whay Hae! podcast is now available for your listening pleasure. As promised it sees writer and expert in all things film Kirsty Neary join regulars Chris Ward and Ali Braidwood as they argue, fight, cry and eventually agree what the top five Scottish films of all time are, at least at 6pm on that particular Saturday afternoon. 

The premise was simple. The three came armed with their lists of ten Scottish movies which they thought had a fighting chance of making it to the top. To find out which did, and if your own favourites feature, then go to Scots Whay Hae! podcast at itunes or Scots Whay Hae! podcast by RSS and listen to almost an hour of, mostly, good hearted banter. And if you strongly disagree with the choices then please let us know here at Scots Whay Hae!. Your choices may feature in a future podcast to see if anyone has changed their minds, or if you have changed them. 

The next podcast will do the same for Scottish novels featuring yet another resident expert/close friend to help Chris and Ali come to their final decision. Feel free to get your choices and heckles in early, and again they may get a mention.

In the meantime, hope you enjoy our pod.

This Island Earth: A Review of These Islands, We Sing...

"She turned into an island song

And died. They sing her ballad yet,

But all the simple verses tell

Is, Love and grief became her well."

                                        An Island Tale, Edwin Muir.

The highlight of this year's Aye Write was hearing Kevin MacNeil read from the, as then yet to be published, anthology of Scottish Islands poetry These Islands, We Sing. The poems, and MacNeil's gentle delivery, worked beautifully to remind those attending that there are few things as compelling as great poetry.

The anthology has since been published by Polygon, and although it coincides with 'The Year of Scottish Island Culture', this is a collection for the ages and one which is long overdue. Many will be familiar with some of the names included, such as Sorley Maclean, Edwin Muir, Ian Crichton Smith and George Mackay Brown, all of whom have appeared in many previous collections of Scots' poetry as well as being well read and received in their own right. They are the heavyweights who made it, but many of them did so only after heading to the mainland before respect was duly given. What makes this anthology stand apart is that it is, as with the best literary collections, about inclusion rather than exclusion. As MacNeil, who has also edited the book, says in his introduction they wanted; 'a remit wide enough to bring in writing from any Scottish Island, but distinct enough not to include Highland or other mainland work.' Many may have thought that these islands alone could not justify a collection such as this. Think again. The title is a nod of the head to George Mackay Brown's autobiography For the Islands I Sing, and the press release has a quote from the poet which is worth repeating here:

"No man is an island, and all that we ever say or think or do
- however seemingly unremarkable - may yet set the whole

web of existence trembling and affect the living and the dead

and the unborn" - George Mackay Brown.

There are also contemporary voices who will be new to many, and who more than deserve their place on these pages. These include Edward Cummins, Angus Peter Campbell, Alison Flett, Barbara McGregor, Meg Bateman and Alex Cluness. If you are reading this assuming you know what sort of work and themes are waiting to greet you then place them to the side and be prepared to be challenged and surprised. Of course there are depictions of landscape, leaving, love and life apart, but there are also references to Iraq, the death of Music Hall, flea ridden hedgehogs and a shrinking Scotland. This is a literature and culture that not only has a past, but a vibrant present and healthy future.

If anyone needed convincing that poetry is superior in its mother tongue then compare the Shetland/Scots of Mark Ryan Smith's Unsindered with the English translation. Don't mistake me, the latter is a fine poem, however the original is so rich in language and imagery that you can taste and touch it. Other highlights include the magnificent Hamnavoe from the aforementioned George Mackay Brown, Sorley Maclean's The Island, Derick Thompson's At Callnish Stones, everything by Jen Hadfield and Aonghas MacNeacail's a proper schooling whose final lines:

history in my memories,

history in my memories.

poignantly sum up many of the poems contained within. And if there is a more concise summary of the passing of time than Roseanne Watt's Haiku then it has not reached me as yet. But there is so, so, much more to contemplate and consider. Even if you are familiar with the canons of those poets who once supped in the 'Poets Pub' there is a whole new world to discover and take to your hearts.

Kevin MacNeil states his belief that 'Scotland's island literature is ever evolving'. On this evidence, and when you consider the recent novels from the likes of Karin Altenberg, Robert Alan Jamieson, Richard Neath and not least MacNeil himself, this seems evidently true. I would suggest that this is yet further proof that Scottish literature is similarly in a state of evolution, and this celebration of the poetry from one of Scotland's most misunderstood and under-represented cultures adds further fuel to that apparently unstoppable fire.

"this island

breathing

in and out

in and out

like this"

Island Song, Alison Flett.

The Islands, We Sing can be bought from only the best bookstores and can be found at The Scots Whay Hae! Local Shop. I honestly can't recommend it enough.

Edinburgh Preview No1...

It's time for the first of this year's Scots Whay Hae! Edinburgh Fringe previews. As usual Edinburgh is awash with big name comics, famous authors and actors off the telly, so I though that this preview should concentrate on some of those events which you could miss amongst all the celebrity spotting, general hoopla and incessant juggling.

First off we go to Charlotte Square to flag up a must attend for anyone serious about their comic books. Pat Mills and Rodge Glass meet up to talk War and Comics. Mills has been called 'the godfather of British comics', having worked on 2000AD, Judge Dredd, Nemesis the Warlock and Charley's War. Rodge Glass (see Dougie's War...) is best known for his novels and his biography of Alasdair Gray, but his first visit into the world of comic books has proven to be thought provoking and timely. Dougie's War tells the tale of Dougie Campbell, a young veteran of the war in Afghanistan who finds his return home nightmarish, and who can't leave the battle field behind. It will be fascinating to see what conclusions the two come up with about the role comic books and graphic novels have in dealing with the most serious of subjects. You can hear those conclusions at 12.30pm on the 28th August as part of the Book Festival.

You may have heard the name Withered Hand when it looked as though he would be barred from visiting the US for this year's South by South West, something which would have been Texas's loss. Whether on  his own or with a full band he simply plays beautiful music simply, and sometimes you need nothing more. He is undoubtedly a man who is well thought of by his peers, the reaction to his Visa problems prove this, so if you can make it along to Queen's Hall on the 25th at 8pm you can find out why. Here he is performing Religious Songs:

You don't get much for free these days, at least not much that you'd actually want to view, but if you fancy something quiet yet subversive I would suggest you visit the National Library of Scotland's Banned Books exhibition (see Banned Book at the NLS). Books featured are as diverse as Harry Potter, Lady Chatterley's Lover, Spycatcher, Ulysses and the scripts from Father Ted. There is also the promise of 'What the butler saw' - a peepshow-type display of 'censored' images from 'Fanny Hill'. So if you fancy a little filth with your festival experience this is without doubt the classiest way to go about it.

Some of the best theatre the Fringe has to offer has often proved itself elsewhere already. This is certainly true of Casablanca: The Gin Joint Cut which has already been hailed as a triumph for its run at Glasgow's Tron theatre and which you can catch in Edinburgh at The Pleasant Courtyard at 4.30pm until the 29th August. It has TV's Gavin Mitchell as Bogie as Rick, and has Jimmy Chisolm and Clare Waugh playing multiple roles. I love the original Casablanca but missed this when it was in Glasgow. This is something which I am going to rectify. In fact if I could only see one thing this year I suspect it would be Casablanca: The Gin Joint Cut . Here's the trailer:

If the thought of visiting Edinburgh during the Fringe brings you out in hives, here's something that you will be able to visit when the city becomes quiet once more. It's David Mach's Precious Light exhibition, a celebration of the 400th anniversary of the first King James Bible, and which is on at the City Art Centre, Market Street until the 16th October. I find Mach's work to be unpretentious, witty, thought provoking and entertaining and what more can you ask from an artist. He hasn't worked in Scotland for some time so it's exciting to have him back. For me he is as important as Peter Howson, Stephen Campbell and Jenny Saville, which is as good as it gets. Here is the man talking about The Devil, part of the exhibition:

And finally for something a wee bit different. Alma Mater is the name of Fish and Game's interactive film for one which you can partake in during the festival. You will find it at Venue 157, St George's West  but you can read more about this fascinating project here Fish and Game's 'Alma Mater'. In the meantime here's a clip of Eilidh MacAskill explaining the concept to an apparently baffled David Sillito:

That's all for now. The next preview will appear later in the week and will concentrate on the laughs to be had at the Fringe this year.

You Have Been Watching...New Town Killers

I've written previously about Richard Jobson with reference to his films Sixteen Years of Alcohol (see You Have Been Watching...16 Years of Alcohol) and A Woman in Winter (see You Have Been Watching...A Woman in Winter ). The former is an autobiographical tale of drink, violence and the redemptive powers of music and love, and the latter is one of the most interesting and stylish Scottish films of the last 10 years. But Jobson is not a man to limit himself to to one genre of film, or who is a slave to the art-house. Sometimes he simply wants to entertain. This is true of his rarely seen 2004 martial arts movie The Purifiers, but never more so than with his 2009 thriller New Town Killers.

You could call New Town Killers a cross between The Running Man (the Bachman/King novella rather than the Arnie movie) and Michael Haneke's 1997 film Funny Games, but put simply it is a chase movie through the streets of Edinburgh, as James Anthony Pearson, recently seen in Lip Service, is offered a life changing amount of money if he can survive 12 hours being hunted by twisted bankers Alastair MacKenzie and Dougray Scott. Jobson uses the city brilliantly as Pearson seeks out Edinburgh's darkest nooks and crannies to avoid his pursuers. There are some good performances here, in a movie which stays the right side of over the top. Pearson plays the desperate Sean, a young man who becomes the perfect target for the thrill seeking psychos Jamie and Alistair (MacKenzie and Scott respectively). I've mentioned before that I'm surprised that Alastair MacKenzie is not a bigger name, and there are also some nice supporting performances from Liz White and Charles Mnene. For you Whovian completists there is also a blink and you'll miss it appearance from Karen Gillan as 'Young Girl in the Bus Stop'.

Then there is the dilemma of Dougray Scott. I'm trying to think of a film where Scott really acts. Maybe I've never forgiven him for his terrible turn in Gregory's Two Girls (see You Have Been Watching...Gregory's Two Girls), although it would be beyond churlish to put the blame for that disaster solely on his shoulders, but it seems to me that his acting style consists almost wholly of squinting into the middle distance, with just the hint of a slight cast, and...then...talks...in...this...slow...drawl...that is...supposed...to denote..menace..., but sounds to me like he's being played at the wrong speed. Don't get me wrong, I can see the appeal of a dark, handsome, brooding presence, and when interviewed he seems like a lovely bloke, but it would be nice to see him branch out. Although having carved out a successful Hollywood career I'm sure he's bothered.

New Town Killers takes a little time to get going, but when it does it rattles along at a fair old lick, and is genuinely thrilling. It would have been easy for Jobson to follow the then popular torture porn genre, but although there are scenes which are not for the squeamish, he focuses on jumps and scares rather than an over reliance on claret. This is someone who understands the genre, and that is what you must remember about Jobson. This is a film fanatic. In that sense he is Scotland's Tarantino.

Here's the trailer followed by the video for the title track which Jobson co-wrote with Isa and the Filthy Tongues. He just can't give up control:

Next up for Jobbers is Helter Skelter, a thriller set in the Grampians, followed by The Somnambulists, a film which focuses on 15 real life testimonies of service men and women who were involved in the Iraq conflict. This pair of films sums the director up. He doesn't see the division between high and low culture that others seem to hold as important, he just wants to make films. And I, for one, am glad that he does.

Haud Yer Weesht: It's the First Scots Whay Hae! Podcast...

They say good things come to those who wait, but so does the Scots Whay Hae! podcast. The first edition is now available for your listening pleasure, and you can subscribe at itunes or by RSS by clicking the links to the right of this post or even these ones right here:

Subscribe to Scots Whay Hae! at itunes

Subscribe to Scots Whay Hae! with RSS

What it's all about? Well it is going to be a collection of chats about the kind of things that Scots Whay Hae! has dealt with over the last two years. Forthcoming attractions include rammies about the top five Scottish films of all time, the top five Scottish novels of all time and, in an exciting and unexpected twist, the top five Scottish albums of all time.

Looking further ahead podcasts will have interviews with only the most special of guests, all of whom say they are willing to talk Scottish cultural gubbins for 40 minutes or more for a half a lager and some magic beans. The inaugral episode has Chris Ward and Alistair Braidwood picking their favourite films, books, TV programmes and music of the last 12 months and arguing the toss about it. Put simply, it's two men talking about the stuff they always talk about when they meet up, but this time with sound guru Ian Gregson recording it. I hope you'll like what we've done. If so come back in a few weeks time to see just how many Bill Forsyth films I've managed to sneek into the top five Scottish films.