Scotsman.com - Features Feed

Images of Scotland: River Tay, Fife

Sat, 25 May 2013 05:33:04 GMT

Reader Ian Gordon photographed these nesting mute swans at Tayport, on the River Tay in Fife, on a chill but bright day. Swans mate for life and return to the same nest year after year

Raised by dissent: Forging the Industrial Revolution

Fri, 24 May 2013 17:34:54 GMT

The roots of everything lie much further in the past than we think.

Book review: Scotland’s Future, edited by Andrew Goudie

Fri, 24 May 2013 17:29:35 GMT

BILL Clinton’s first Presidential campaign used the phrase “It’s the economy, stupid” to remind his staff of what really mattered to voters.

Book review: A Wolf in Hindelheim by Jenny Mayhew

Fri, 24 May 2013 17:27:26 GMT

HISTORICAL crime fiction is enjoying something of a golden moment, and with her often ingenious and unusual debut novel, Jenny Mayhew adds significantly to the genre.

Book review: Life & Letters: The Spectator Columns by Allan Massie

Fri, 24 May 2013 17:25:34 GMT

ALLAN Massie, this paper’s chief fiction reviewer for more than 30 years, is a member of an endangered species.

Book review: Everest: The First Ascent by Harriet Tuckey

Fri, 24 May 2013 17:23:19 GMT

IN EARLY June 1953, two exhausted, scruffy-looking men – the filmmaker Tom Stobart and the physiologist Griffith Pugh – were making their way slowly back to Kathmandu together after taking part in the monumental team effort that had led to the successful first ascent of Everest.

Book review: Constance by Patrick McGrath

Fri, 24 May 2013 17:20:09 GMT

PATRICK McGrath, notoriously, grew up in Berkshire in the grounds of a mental hospital.

Book reviews: Algerian Chronicles | Why Can’t a Woman Be More Like a Man?

Fri, 24 May 2013 17:17:26 GMT

WHERE Albert Camus has been concerned, silence has been anything but golden: he’s been much castigated for the voiceless Arab characters of L’Étranger and La Peste.

Poem of the week: The Dead Queen of Bohemia by Jenni Fagan

Fri, 24 May 2013 17:15:21 GMT

WHEN Granta recently placed Jenni Fagan on their Best of Young British Novelists list, the magazine was confirming what many already knew: she is one of the bright young stars of the Scottish literary scene.

Gill Hornby on her new novel The Hive

Fri, 24 May 2013 17:13:31 GMT

SOMETIMES the skill of being a writer lies in realising your material is right in front of your eyes.

Book review: All That Is by James Salter

Fri, 24 May 2013 17:07:33 GMT

JAMES Salter is known as one of America’s best short story writers, but in his long life – he is now in his eighties – he has written only some half-dozen novels.

TV preview: Up the Women | David Bowie | Psychobitches

Fri, 24 May 2013 16:07:40 GMT

From Monty Python and The Holy Grail to Blackadder, it’s long been established that one of the underlying rules of historical comedy is to subvert the period setting with knowingly incongruous nods to the present day. Which is all well and good when employed as part of a wider comic arsenal, but cheap and wearying when overdone.

Welcome predator: Red squirrels have an ally – the once scarce pine marten

Fri, 24 May 2013 16:07:39 GMT

A few years ago a forestry conservation worker showed me a nest box erected for barn owls on the edge of pinewood in the Trossachs that had instead been taken over by a pine marten to raise her own kits.

Travel: We’ll take Berlin

Fri, 24 May 2013 16:07:36 GMT

Come see the new Waldorf Astoria in Berlin, the invitation read. How new? I asked, stepping into the soaring lobby one sunny March morning. Oh, we opened last week. You’d never know it.

Travel: Roman fort of Vindolanda in Northumberland

Fri, 24 May 2013 16:06:18 GMT

The word “holiday” has certain implications: a beach, a blue sea, a hammock, rum-based cocktails with umbrellas in… And a sense of doing very little for a week or two.

Restaurant review: Angel’s Share, Edinburgh

Fri, 24 May 2013 16:06:15 GMT

You’ve sugar-soaped the walls, slicked your living room in Farrow & Ball’s Pigeon, put three coats on the ceiling by balancing on high-heels, two copies of the Yellow Pages and a chair, then brushed 24ct gold leaf on to your cornice.

Gardening: The plants that make health remedies and beauty balms

Fri, 24 May 2013 16:06:12 GMT

Dandelions, nettles and chickweed are the bane of most gardeners’ lives, cropping up where they are least wanted, between paving stones and in lawns and cultivated flower beds.

Interview: Ruthie Henshall’s show must go on

Fri, 24 May 2013 16:06:06 GMT

She’s been an all singing, all dancing musical theatre star for 27 years, but Ruthie Henshall has always spoken honestly about the tough times. The key, she says, is finding a balance

It’s all fright now at The Edinburgh Dungeon

Fri, 24 May 2013 16:06:04 GMT

Heart-stopping moments and a spot of gore are guaranteed on a visit to The Edinburgh Dungeon

Roger Cox talks to poet Mandy Haggith

Fri, 24 May 2013 16:05:56 GMT

John Muir is Scotland’s greatest ever naturalist, right? Well that depends on who you talk to