Tak tent!

Now the post election stoor has settled and the Scots Parliament is about to get under way again, it’s maybe time to reflect and look forward. It’s been a strange three weeks or so since the unexpected majority was won by the SNP. Ardent Unionists, who spent the whole of the last parliament blocking an

Move along now

So. As a Republican, in both Scottish and Irish settings, what do I make of the Queen’s visit to Ireland in the past week? Was it game changing, irrelevant, or somewhere between those two extremes? As a Republican – with a small r and a big R – I’m tempted to say that a state

And bowling from the Harrod Drive end is Brian Statham.

It all started in the summer of 1961, with an old fashioned billboard tied to a tree by Birkdale station in Southport. The brightly coloured printing announced that there would be a Cricket Festival at Southport and Birkdale CC’s Trafalgar Rd ground. The following Sunday was to feature a benefit game for Brian Statham: Lancashire

Emotional, Moi?

Around 3pm on Friday, when an overall SNP majority was confirmed by the result from Kirkcaldy, I sat on the couch, a wee bit tearful, and realised I was sitting in an SNP constituency in an SNP country – at least in electoral terms. It was a huge, if slightly surreal moment, and I wondered

The X Factor

As I get older, I find that many events that enthralled me as a youngster have become steadily less attractive. Sports set pieces, like The World Cup, the Olympics, Wimbledon, Cup Finals – all seem to have been dimmed by tawdry commercialism or just by the lack of intimate knowledge that comes with having to