Edinburgh Book festival EIBF 2016!

I am looking forward in August to the place for contemplations, introspection, literary collaborations, thought-provoking conversation, famous faces, - the imaginative landscape that represent creative liberty at EDINBURGH INTERNATIONAL BOOK FESTIVAL 2016! Scotland has always been an outward looking, inclusive, open to new ideas, country. This years theme is IMAGINE BETTER! 


From stories of migration, shifting power and the shaping of our society and cities, through to music and the future of the Middle East,  this year's program themes lead you on a journey of discovery through fact, fiction, poetry, personal stories and world affairs.

The 2016 program is now launched! Once again this August at the Edinburgh International Book Festival will be transforming Charlotte Square Gardens into a magical tented village and bring together more than 800 writers to celebrate the possibilities offered by books. 

This year's program is inspired by Churchill: We shape our environment and then that place shapes us. 

Share stories and interpretations; to create meaning through conversations; and to envision a better world.”

This year, the Book Festival is truly international with over 800 participants from 55 different countries coming together to share their books, ideas and stories.   

https://www.edbookfest.co.uk

TICKETS GO ON SALE Tuesday 21^st June

Writers appearing at this year’s Festival include:

Han Kang, Hisham Matar, Mervyn King, Malcolm Rifkind, Val McDermid, Eimear McBride, Chris Packham, Liz Lochhead, Kim Leine, Chimwemwe Undi, Sjón, A L Kennedy, Howard Jacobson, Gordon Brown, Alan Cumming, Can Xue, Robin Yassin-Kassab, Simon Callow, Shappi Khorsandi, Nina Stibbe, Wolfgang Bauer, Frank Gardner, Stuart MacBride, Irvine Welsh, Laura Bates, Janet Ellis, Lionel Shriver, Sarah Ardizzone, Gregor Fisher, Philippe Sands, Gillian Slovo, Kenny MacAskill, Sumayya Usmani, Sue Perkins, Tom Devine, Jessie Burton, Jem Lester, Kit de Waal, Arkady Ostrovsky, Ian Rankin, John Boyne, Ali Smith and many more…  https://www.edbookfest.co.uk

 

Rab Noakes performs a home gig!

This was a relaxed and informal gathering for Rab to perform in and it was fun to have a chat.  The conservatory was set with chairs for the 30 or so people invited for this special evening.

We had time to chat with Rab before his set and he clearly enjoyed the more social setting. He said he sang song interpretations , rather than cover version.. I asked him about his musical influences and how he mixes both a Scottish and American sound. He said, like Dylan he grew up listening to the radio and to musicians such as Buddy Holly, Billy Fury and to 20^th century skiffle.

He said his SONGWRITING was an organic process and that no two songs came in the same way. He said sometimes the melody and idea came first, or playing a guitar riff.

*For his first set he sang songs from his new album and some of his most popular songs.

 SONGS: Moving On, out of Sight, I’m Walking here. No More Time, Moonlight and Gold, When one dog barks at the shadow, Most dogs bark at the sound, Branch, It happened All the Same, Mississippi.

*For the second half Rab performed some Americana songs

 SONGS: Don’t say money doesn’t matter, Roll on Saturday, Lonely by Twilight, Jackson Greyhound, Where Dead Voices Gather, Waters my Friend, One More Shavin Haircut, Travelling Light, Slippin Away

One song spoke of the opportunities come your way – grab them.

Rab’s partner told me about his submitting songs for the project ‘SCOTLAND SINGS’.

Hollywood Seller of Dreams

We’d all like to dance off into the sunset where there is a bed of Roses!

Unfortunately life simply isn’t like this. It is more like a Grey European film, with small ups and downs.

Hollywood fills our heads with unrealistic dreams of escapist fantasies.

 *     *     *     *     *     *

Some people leave behind a great and memorable foot print on the world. Their words, images, inventions or music resonate and move others and improve peoples lives.

Sometimes luck matters with photography! After we enjoyed our chilled beer at Valle Gran Rey on the Canary island of La Gomera - oddly unknown to us we were running on hour ahead on holiday having set our phones to Spanish time by mistake - we left the restaurant and after walking along the front captured the sun just as its last hello sunk behind the sea's calm horizon. Many couples were sitting waiting and watching too for those last glows... perfect.

Cultural Revolutions: To forge a future for Scotland

Hugh MacDiarmid

To forge a future for Scotland

In the 20^th century Scottish culture was fast disappearing –

After WW1 theatres, variety and musical hall were hugely popular – a peoples theatre. The shows though were a dumbing down and a caricature, unreal version of Scotland – with figures of fun such as Tommy Lorne and comic Harry Lauder .

This marginalization of Scottish culture was part of an Anglicisation of Scotland. Scottish literature of the time was parochial and presented a sentimental and religious country - such as the author Ian MacLaren.

Significantly before the war Home Rule Bills were passed for both Ireland and Scotland but were put aside during the war – what was Home Rule anyway – and why has it been ignored for 100 years?

Up in Montrose, Kinross, was a young reporter called Christopher Grieve, who later chose a Celtic name to write under - Hugh MacDiarmid  - along with his wife Peggy.

Hugh wrote of the gulf between this sentimental Scotland and the reality of its economic suppression. Hugh wanted to write of an authentic Scottish voice.

The writers in Montrose were inspired by a new cultural confidence and by Irish voices of the time such as Joyce and Yeats. At this time in 1918 the Irish over threw English imperial rule. It was sad they had to fight so hard and many civilians died.

(Meanwhile the BBCs John Reith aspired to have everyone speaking correct English and English elocution lessons were popular at that time.

MacDiarmid found a friend and neighbour in Violet Jacob, who became a socialist and also wrote in Scots and English and she was deeply affected by her 20 year old sons death in the war.

Celtic warrior Hugh MacDiarmid understood that the Scots language would help build an Independent Scotland and to forge a true and real future identity for Scotland – a Scottish Renaissance , a blueprint for a modern Scotland.

Later he went away to seclusion to write his most famous poem – The Drunk man Looks at a Thistle – he wrote about his definition of what is Scotland; Russian poetry and scarps of songs.

The aim was to structure the world to suit the people who live there and not a culture imposed from elsewhere.

There has to be a social and cultural revolution too.  Hugh retreated to the very edge of Scotland, to the Shetlands from Orkney it is a 8 hour crossing …..and his ideas spread….

(Scotland: The Promised Land)

Lewis Grassic Gibbon

** Montrose artists and writers movement inspired each other.

1920 Montrose was the cultural capital of Scotland. MacDiarmid Total confidence that independent Scotland can work for the advantage of the people that live here.

Violet Jacob – lost her son at WW1 at 20. She became a socialist and also wrote poems in bot Scottish and English.

William Lamb sculptor.

Wiila Muir – Radical, novelist and translator. Women: An Inquiry is a book-length  feminist essay.

Edwin Muir – Poet,

Edward Baird; 
Tom McDonald.

Helen Cruikshanks – The movement spread to St Andrews and to Costorphine Edinburgh, , where writers and artists now gathered. Helen rekindled the Scottish cultural scene.

Hamish Henderson, Poet and songwriter, who wrote the song Freedom Come All Ye.

James Leslie Mitchell – 1932 Sunset Song (Lewis Grassic Gibbon) partly written in Scots of crafting community of Angus and the Mearns – the breakthrough novel of the Renaissance. and the New York Times book of the week.

Mitchell became great friends with Hugh, and they published an anthology together. – Scottish scene.

MacDiarmid’s aim was to have confidence in a modern Scotland – who are we? He stood on the shoulders of those who fought for Scotland’s voice.