Issue 566

Simon Brodkin

19 Dec 2006

CHARACTER COMEDY There are few things which will elicit ashamed giggling or an audible intake of breath with a comedy audience these days quite like racial humour. Ashamed giggles and breath intakes can change in an instant to all-out hostility and…

Holla!

Liquid Room, Edinburgh, Sat 13 Jan

19 Dec 2006

R&B/HIP HOP While the need for another R&B club in Edinburgh is debatable, perhaps it takes just one of sufficient quality to raise the tone of the whole scene. Although they’ve often been caricatured - and not always unfairly - as the natural…

* Hitlist

Hitlist

19 Dec 2006

John McGahern The sad passing of this fine Irish writer earlier this year is made more bearable for his readers with the re-issued Creatures of the Earth, a moving and insightful short story collection. Faber. Read review

Ryan Knighton

Cockeyed (Atlantic)

19 Dec 2006

MEMOIR Maybe it has ever been thus, but the cult of an individual neither you nor I have ever heard of telling us all about their unfortunate life seems to be spreading. We may wish to blame Frank McCourt for it all, but the misery market is flooded…

Burn

The Buff Club, Glasgow, weekly, Mondays

19 Dec 2006

DISCO/FUNK/ELECTRO/HOUSE If you were to walk into Burn at the Buff Club, the first thing you may notice is that it doesn’t seem like you are at a Monday night club and the second thing is the freshness of the night after 12 years of partying. Burn…

Aaron Barshak

19 Dec 2006

5 THINGS YOU MIGHT NOT KNOW ABOUT... 1 Most famous for donning a peach dress and a Bin Laden beard to gatecrash Prince William’s 21st birthday party and plant a smacker on the future King’s horsey lips, the self-styled Comedy Terrorist has also…

* Hitlist

Hitlist

19 Dec 2006

Fred MacAulay The man off the radio gets up on stage to make a whole room dizzy with his mirthful ways. All of which sounds sarcastic, but it’s really not meant to be. Our Fred is one of the most reliably hilarious stand-ups on the circuit. The Stand…

Garon Tsuchiya & Nobuaki Minegishi - comic review

Garon Tsuchiya & Nobuaki Minegishi

19 Dec 2006

MANGA/CRIME This is the crime manga that inspired South Korean director Chan-wook Park’s acclaimed Cannes Grand Jury prize-winning film of the same name. Translated into English for the first time since it was published in 1997, Dark Horse have…

EC Segar - comic review

EC Segar

19 Dec 2006

CLASSIC COMIC STRIPS Mainly remembered for his eating habits rather than his comic prowess, Popeye has been about since 1929, as a character in the cast of Thimble Theatre, EC Segar’s farcical, vaudevillian comic saga that was initially published in…

New Year's Resolutions

19 Dec 2006

Eat well Not only is the organic food on sale at Scotland’s farmers markets very, very good for you, it’s locally produced, which means less of an effect on the environment. So you get to be doubly pleased with yourself. Farmers markets, Edinburgh and…

Christopher Rush

Hellfire and Herring (Profile)

19 Dec 2006

CHILDHOOD MEMOIR Christopher Rush’s previous work has been widely acclaimed with his travelogue-memoir To Travel Hopefully being lauded on publication last year, and his novel, A Twelvemonth and a Day, making it into this publication’s 100 Best…

Warren Ellis & JH Willliams III - comic review

Warren Ellis & JH Willliams III

19 Dec 2006

SCI-FI This is just what Warren Ellis revels in, dark sci-fi with a nasty twist. And while Desolation Jones isn’t up to the standards of the blackly comic Transmetropolitan, it starts with a bang and is far bleaker than most of Ellis’ output. Used as…

Simon Parke

The Beautiful Life (Bloomsbury)

19 Dec 2006

LIFE GUIDE It’s been a fair few years since Moses scribbled down the Ten Commandments and for many of us, they’re a little outmoded. Stepping into the breach, with a whole new set of ideas to live your life by, is former priest Simon Parke. Subtitled…

Lynsey Hanley

Estates: An Intimate History (Granta)

19 Dec 2006

SOCIAL HISTORY Through a blend of anthropological musing and booksmart social history, Lynsey Hanley offers a comprehensive account of the hows, whys and wherefores of council housing in Britain with her examination of ‘the one great failure of the…

Batman: Gotham County Line

(DC/Titan)

19 Dec 2006

Location. Location. Location. Or how to bring a neat twist to Batman by sending him to the ‘burbs. Asked to investigate a spate of mysterious killings in Gotham City’s suburbs by a retired Commissioner Gordon, the story shifts from Manhunter-esque…

Benjamin Markovits

Imposture (Faber)

19 Dec 2006

LITERARY DRAMA John Polidori (Byron’s travelling companion and doctor) and governess Eliza Esmond embark upon a secretive love affair, under the guises of Byron himself and Eliza’s more glamorous sister. In language stretched and manipulated to…

Health books

19 Dec 2006

Jo Wood Naturally Gorgeous By the wife of Rolling Stone Ronnie, this is subtitled ‘How to Look and Feel Healthy, Energetic and Radiant the Organic Way.’ You’ll need a sit-down after reading the title alone. Sidgwick & Jackson.

Junko Mizuno - comic review

Junko Mizuno

19 Dec 2006

MANGA/SCI-FI This is the debut graphic novel from Japanese illustrator Junko Mizuno, best known for her garish hyper cute art with twisted dark edges, as wide-eyed, sexy Japanese girls are wrapped in the trappings of fetishism, drugs and death (the…

Ricky Gervais

19 Dec 2006

Is there no limit to this man’s energy? Creating epoch-making sitcoms, knocking up record-breaking comedic downloads and jetting across the waters to meet his laughter heroes such as Larry David and Garry Shandling. And getting paid for it. And he even…

Dress to Dye For, A

Coats of Many Colours

19 Dec 2006

Three inventions - the sewing machine, synthetic dyes and the cage-crinoline - had a huge impact on fashion and society. Find out how these changed life (and in some instances brought death) in Victorian Britain, and how the colour mauve had an…

Really Wild Show, The

The Really Wild Show

19 Dec 2006

A last chance to see the work of one of the world’s leading conservation photographers. Scottish-born Colin Prior has travelled from the parched Atacama Desert to the icy spires of Pakistan’s Karakoram Mountains, creating a record of the last remaining…