When Carrie Fisher goes missing right before an interview, you have good reason to worry. This, after all, is the woman who stopped taking her lithium during a holiday in Australia, had a psychotic episode, and took an impulsive trip to China because it was only six inches away on the map. Her press officer… Read more »
The Broons
First published September 13th, 2016 in The Guardian
Jings, these actors look familiar. Eleven of them, conga-lining their way across the floor of a theatre studio in Glasgow, not yet in costume, but imagine them in silhouette; imagine them in pen and ink. The little woman at the back, holding the teddy, is in her mid-fifties and not quite five feet tall. The… Read more »
In Govanhill
First published May 29th, 2016 in The Sunday Times
When Amir Butt goes to bed at night in the Govanhill flat he shares with his wife and five young children he finds, too often, that he cannot sleep for the smell of urine and excrement rising up from the close. The 45 year old taxi driver moved to this part of south-east Glasgow from… Read more »
Duglas T Stewart
First published January 26, 2016 in The Guardian
ON the evening before we were due to meet and talk about the 30th anniversary of his group BMX Bandits, Duglas T Stewart got in touch with a warning: over the last couple of years he has been wrestling with serious mental health issues which manifest themselves, now and again, in self-harming behaviour. “Last night,”… Read more »
William McIlvanney
First published August 15, 2010 in Scotland On Sunday
GOING by the books he has written over 45 years, you would expect to see William McIlvanney in particular places and situations. Football grounds and dog tracks. High flats and low company. Certain pubs in which anecdote and incident come as chasers with each drawn pint. So persistently has he hymned the nobility, authenticity, laughter… Read more »