Issue 570

Shop - Clothes Swap

MULTICOLOURED SWAP SHOP

28 Feb 2007

Photography: Kate V Robertson Additional research: Diana Kiernander I hate this dress. I bought it in a sweaty panic in the tenth shop I’d run into, after discovering that a boyfriend’s sister’s birthday party was going to be more formal than…

News Extra

FESTIVAL FRENZY

28 Feb 2007

Words: Mark Robertson and Allan Radcliffe Just when you thought it was safe to go back to your local ticket outlet, several festivals unveil their wares at once. Triptych celebrates a triumphant seventh year of esoteric eclecticism with 79 reasons to…

DVD Round-up

28 Feb 2007

Highlights this fortnight include, of course, the very quick turnaround release of Borat: Cultural Learnings of America for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan (Fox, 4 stars). As you may have noticed we try not to focus on the really big releases…

Eagles of Death Metal - interview

Ladies men

28 Feb 2007

When I first met Jesse ‘The Devil’ Hughes he did not strike me as a man at whom frilly black panties are routinely tossed. Hair slicked back with sweat, eyes shielded by aviator shades and lips shrouded by a long dropping moustache that more closely…

Eat - Masala Jak's

EAST MEETS WILD WEST

28 Feb 2007

Back in the great American goldrush of 1849, as thousands of prospectors flocked west in search of their fortune, one man stood out among them, albeit for panhandling skills of a different kind. His name was Jagir Singh - aka ‘Masala Jak’ - a man who…

Hollywood's Four Biggest Lies

HOLLYWOOD’S FOUR BIGGEST LIES

28 Feb 2007

The film industry is pretty simple to break into if you first understand some basic concepts. However, there is some nonsense that surrounds the industry that keeps first-timers away from writing, directing, producing or starring in a movie.

Dito Montiel

INTERVIEW

28 Feb 2007

‘The book is so different to the film, it’s more about people that I knew. I put my name to one of the characters in the movie, but it is not like an autobiography or a memoir. Of course, there are things that are personal, but I mixed up the people. I…

Singles & Downloads

28 Feb 2007

The road to musical hell is paved with good intentions. This year’s Comic Relief charity single sees two of our most treasured girl groups unite for a cover version of Aerosmith’s ‘Walk This Way’ (Fascination/Island - 2 stars). Unfortunately, while the…

10 Great Films

From the Berlin Film Festival 2007

28 Feb 2007

Away From Her (pictured) Atom Egoyan’s favourite actress Sarah Polley’s debut feature delivers a powerhouse drama concerning the effects of Alzheimer’s on a 50-year-old marriage. Julie Christie stars; no doubt she’ll be up for an Oscar nomination come…

Rory MacDonald

RORY MACDONALD AND THE ORCHESTRA OF SCOTTISH OPERA

28 Feb 2007

DEBUTANTE Although it is inevitable - and indeed right - that young Scottish musicians don’t always continue their education and develop their careers on home ground, it is nonetheless satisfying when the raw talent that left returns with a highly…

After the Wedding

28 Feb 2007

There is a Polish proverb which states that ‘the woman cries before her wedding and the man after’. One man who is certainly crying after a wedding (even though it is not his own) is Jacob (Mads Mikkelsen). A strange series of events have brought him…

Tsyjo with Joe Locke - preview

Tsyjo with Joe Locke

28 Feb 2007

JAZZ Tommy Smith launched his Youth Jazz Orchestra as a means of developing the most promising young talents in Scotland, and a number of players from the band have already graduated to the senior Scottish National Jazz Orchestra. TSYJO gig regularly…

Mastodon - preview

Mastodon

28 Feb 2007

METAL While metal continues to splinter and cross pollinate into a million different subgenres, each more wilfully obscure and self-conscious than the last, it takes a band like this quartet of Atlantans to reunite these individual pieces under the…

Zeus

Mariners, Edinburgh, Sat 10 Mar

28 Feb 2007

CLUB NIGHT While some clubs wind down due to changing tastes, and others change venue in an attempt to rejuvenate, one Edinburgh club is expanding its remit, with a new night aimed at the boys. Velvet, based at Mariners (a classy banqueting…

News - Fair Trade Experience

PLAYING FAIR

28 Feb 2007

Words: Allan Radcliffe Over the past few years, politicians and retailers have been working hard to cement Scotland’s reputation as a fair trade nation. It’s not often, however, that the country’s consumers get the chance to see the effects of their…

Azymuth - preview

Azymuth

28 Feb 2007

JAZZ Seventies Brazilian jazz legends Azymuth return to Edinburgh’s Departure Lounge club night to promote the international release of sublime debut album Azimuth (previously only available in Brazil) by London’s pioneering Far Out label. On its…

LCD Soundsystem - preview

LCD Soundsystem

28 Feb 2007

ELECTRO-ROCK Not many people have created as distinct a sound as James Murphy. As half of production duo DFA, Murphy launched The Rapture, The Juan Maclean and Black Dice, then remixed the hell out of the likes of Gorillaz, Justin Timberlake and Nine…

Comedy Academy 4 Kids

Bongo Club, Edinburgh, Sat 17 Mar

28 Feb 2007

WORKSHOP It’s a well-worn sentiment that kids say the funniest things, but James Campbell has taken that to a whole new level. Campbell is known for his child-friendly humour and has now brought his Comedy Academy to Edinburgh, with the successful…

* Hitlist

HITLIST

28 Feb 2007

LCD Soundsystem Wee James Murphy might not look like a rock’n’roll star but when his jackhammer electronica hits the live stage he could out do the Kaiser Chiefs for sheer civil disobedience. See preview. Barrowland. Glasgow, Fri 9 Mar. (Rock…

Also Released

28 Feb 2007

Ghost Rider (12A) 109min (2 stars) Wild man Nicolas Cage and wonder woman Eva Mendes go almost completely over the top in this spirited, special effects heavy and somewhat throwaway adaptation of the Marvel Comics supernatural superhero who’s a…

Bat for Lashes - Exposure

Bat For Lashes

28 Feb 2007

Tomorrow’s music today. Brighton singer-songwriter Natasha Khan’s debut album, Fur and Gold, is a dreamy, fairytale world of wolves, wizards and facial glitter. Thom Yorke and Devendra Banhart are fans of her melancholy, mystical sound and her…

Air - 5 Reasons to see them

AIR

28 Feb 2007

1 Ils sont un groupe francais plus bon OK, we’re not going to keep that up, not with our school-level French. Anyway, for the last ten years, French duo Air (Nicolas Godin and Jean-Benoit Dunckel) have, along with Daft Punk, been at the vanguard of…

Freedom Writers

28 Feb 2007

A touching performance from Hilary Swank ensures that Freedom Writers is not just another tripe genre movie about a teacher coming into class room to save savages à la Dangerous Minds, Stand and Deliver and Lean on Me. Set in the aftermath of the 1992…

* Hitlist (Classical)

CLASSICAL HITLIST

28 Feb 2007

The International Classical Season: Viktoria Mullova and Ottavio Dantone To experience Moscow-trained Mullova’s (pictured) Bach is something that no one should miss, especially with harpsichordist Dantone who shares her expertise and reverence for…

News in Brief

28 Feb 2007

Dundee Contemporary Arts show off the burgeoning Dundee music scene on Thursday 1 March with a day of screenings and live music. Simon Poon Tip of PTE Media discusses his music videos for Dundee rapscallions The View (singer Kyle Falconer, pictured) and…

Also released

28 Feb 2007

Fulborn Teversham Count Herbert II (Pickled Egg) The ever inventive sticksmith behind Polar Bear and Acoustic Ladyland Seb Rochford tries on some new musical undergarments, while his punk junk jazz gets strewn with earthy, eccentric electronics. It all…

Jarvis - live review

Jarvis

28 Feb 2007

INDIE POP ‘Did we pass the audition?’ enquired Jarvis Cocker (for it is he) towards the end of this well-received debut Scottish solo show. He gets to paraphrase John Lennon, to be fair, because over an hour-and-a-bit he proved just how flaccid most…

Pigeon Detectives and Ripchord - live review

The Pigeon Detectives and Ripchord

28 Feb 2007

INDIE You can be sure that music’s changing when a frontman manages to raise a euphoric howl with such classic rock’n’roll banter as ‘right, does everyone here have a computer?’ - a phrase that sums up how the likes of this pair of bands manage to…

View, The - live review

The View

28 Feb 2007

INDIE A mere year ago The View were playing pub gigs to 50 people in their home town of Dundee. A few months later and a T-Mobile Street Gig in Edinburgh Castle for 100 lucky winners from their newly expanded fanbase is deemed incredibly…

Gayharhar

28 Feb 2007

In this fortnight’s hamper of homo-friendly delicacies at the Glasgow Comedy Festival (Thu 8 Mar - Sat 24 Mar) sit such shrink-wrapped Scottish favourites as Craig Hill and Karen Dunbar, alongside extra-matured, expensive import Joan Rivers, and new…

Ballads of the Book

WORDS & MUSIC

27 Feb 2007

Projects like Ballads of the Book don’t come along very often. And, looking at the roll call of writers and musicians involved, it is easy to see why. It must have been a logistical nightmare getting 54 of Scotland’s finest writers and musicians…

Glasgow Comedy Festival - Chris Addison

MISSION CONTROL

27 Feb 2007

When you look back across the shows Chris Addison has brought to the Edinburgh Fringe over the past decade it’s hard to imagine there might be a unifying idea. What link could there possibly be between Atomicity, a show about the fabric of the universe…

Lily Allen

BACK TO EARTH

27 Feb 2007

Five years ago, when Lily Allen was 16, she was not far from being a teenage waster with the in-built tendencies of a 50-year-old bum down the bookies.

Remote Control

Brian Donaldson finds some new dramas verging on t

27 Feb 2007

It’s never been an easy task to translate the work of Harold Pinter onto the small screen. Some wags might suggest it’s difficult enough trying to make sense of it on stage. As part of More4’s mini-Pinter extravaganza, Celebration (More4, Sat 3 Mar, 9pm…

Glasgow Comedy Festival - Limmy

CAST OF 1000s

27 Feb 2007

Isn’t the internet a remarkable thing? Where else could you find a global car boot sale, an opportunity to hunt down former schoolmates and a place to swap obscure specialist pornography in one untidy portal? And while there are men dressed in rags who…

London calling - David Greig interview

London calling

27 Feb 2007

In many professions, inhabitants of London seem to feel that to live or work in any other city shows a remarkable lack of ability or taste. It’s a shame, really, since the rest of us might find it equally incomprehensible that someone would want to live…

Pixar

MOVING PICTURES

27 Feb 2007

In Toy Story, which reached our screens an astonishing 12 years ago, the only things on the screen which look animated are the humans. Woody the toy cowboy, despite his name, is human, endearing, attractive. Buzz has the chin and charm of a Hollywood…

Mark Watson

VIVA HATE

27 Feb 2007

Just like the term ‘genius’, the phrase ‘hardest working person in showbusiness’ is wildly overused and massively abused. But when you think about the career of Mark Watson, both of these descriptions can be applied with little fear of contradiction. By…

Eva Mendes

STUCK ON HER

27 Feb 2007

Aside from wanting to work with wild man Nicolas Cage and being a self-confessed freak, Eva Mendes’ motivation for playing a cartoon damsel-in-distress in the camp comic book adaptation Ghost Rider is seeing Latino women being fairly represented on the…

Glasgow Comedy Festival - Josie Long

ONE OF A KIND

27 Feb 2007

Whatever happened to good clean family entertainment? The oldies are right when they complain that comedy just isn’t nice anymore. That Jimmy Carr off the telly’s always bitching, and the mouth on some of the young ‘uns is frankly disgusting. You…

Alison Watt - The dark fold

The dark fold

27 Feb 2007

If the substance of all painting is light, then artist Alison Watt has got a dark sense of humour. Perhaps best known for her luminous oil paintings of shapely white calico fabrics and creamy brocade drapes, Watt has quietly spent two years creating her…

Bollywood Round-up

27 Feb 2007

Historically Bollywood has reflected an innate ‘Indian’ morality. Themes may be modernised and customs challenged, but the basics are stagnant and laughable. This month’s releases are therefore a refreshing change, atypical of the highly moralistic…

The Unconquered

North Edinburgh Arts Centre, Wed 7 Mar, then touri

27 Feb 2007

NEW WORK Sometimes, as one leaves a theatre, one can already sense the divide within an audience over the play just watched. Torben Betts’ new piece for Stellar Quines is such a case. The bone of contention? In technique, this piece resembles nothing…

Jurergen Teller – Awailable

Jurergen Teller - Awailable

27 Feb 2007

PHOTOGRAPHY Being held up as a revolutionary is too often a bittersweet plaudit, as for every voice championing your revolutionary zeal there are others queuing up to stake their claim first or rubbish the argument. Such praise has cast no shadow on…

The Bevellers

Citizens‚ Theatre, Glasgow, until Sat 3 Mar

27 Feb 2007

REVIVAL There is something direct and compelling about a good play from another era, that cuts through our nostalgia, or simple desire to remake history in our own time’s image. In Roddy McMillan’s 1973 drama of Glasgow working class life, we meet a…

Inland Empire

(15) 180min

27 Feb 2007

Going into any David Lynch film there is an expectation that you’ll leave the cinema a little confused. As he’s demonstrated with Blue Velvet, Mulholland Drive and Lost Highway, he loves a mystery, especially if it involves doppelgangers, strange…

Glasgow Comedy Festival - Laugh A Minute

LAUGH A MINUTE

27 Feb 2007

Stewart Lee Quite probably the most intelligent stand-up on the comedy circuit which means he often leaves people behind with his erudite musings. For those in tune with such convolutions, the effort is worth it. The Stand, Fri 9 Mar.

Glasgow Comedy Festival - Comedy Connection

27 Feb 2007

What made you decide to do the Glasgow Comedy Festival?

Profile - Edward Norton

PROFILE

27 Feb 2007

Name Edward Norton. Born 18 August 1969, Boston, US. Background Interested in acting from the age of five, by eight Norton was asking his drama teacher about his character’s ‘motivation’. He attended drama schools, but didn’t get serious about…

Mrs Warren's Profession

Royal Lyceum Theatre, Edinburgh, until Sat 10 Mar

27 Feb 2007

REVIVAL Easy truisms about the corruption that comes with money come as readily to the lips of those in authority today as they did in 1893, when Shaw’s classic first appeared, only to banned for for 30 years. That money should be roundly condemned…

The Good German

27 Feb 2007

Steven Soderbergh said he decided to direct this adaptation of Joseph Kanon’s murder mystery novel set in Berlin at the end of WWII because he wanted to make a movie in the classic film noir style. Soderbergh, who also produced, photographed, and edited…

Theatre - Hitlist

27 Feb 2007

The Unconquered Torben Betts’ new play, here given an outing by Stellar Quines, is a passionate and visceral political satire with a bleak demeanour. In it a revolution overtakes a western country, and its consequences bring tragedy to a dysfunctional…

Nick Crowe – Commemorative Glass

CCA, Glasgow, until Sat 31 Mar

27 Feb 2007

SCULPTURE AND DRAWING It’s difficult to figure out what Crowe hopes to achieve by his exhibition at the CCA in Glasgow. There is no conceptual cohesion, no base (however shifting and rolling) that can be perceived to be unifying such disparate work.

Becoming Jane

27 Feb 2007

As the occasionally inspired Boston Globe film critic Mark Feeney pointed out: ‘Once the implicit aim of biography was to uplift now it is to unveil.’ And so it is that we reach the point where it seems OK to release a film about the secret love life of…

*Hitlist

HITLIST

27 Feb 2007

Stewart Lee A brand new show from Mr Clever Trousers with more sacred cows being put to his savagely satirical and pleasingly postmodern sword. The Stand, Glasgow, Fri 9 Mar.

Outlaw

27 Feb 2007

The appalling British writer/director Nick Love (The Football Factory, The Business) continues to commit the most heinous of crimes against the art of cinema with this vigilante thriller. Iraq war veteran Bryant (Sean Bean) finds himself the leader of…

Venue Closure: The Riverside Club

THE RIVERSIDE CLUB

27 Feb 2007

VENUE CLOSURE The Riverside Club may be a big old ceilidh hall on the south of the Clyde that has doubled as a club venue for the past decade. But it has become one of the best leftfield venues in Glasgow, home for many years to nights like Goodfoot…

* Hitlist

27 Feb 2007

Juergen Teller - Awailable The first exhibition in Scotland by the celebrated German-born photographer who helped to change the face of fashion photography in the 90s through work for magazines such as iD and The Face. Awailable features new and…

The Illusionist

(PG) 110min

27 Feb 2007

The thing about the relationship between history and magic is that one man’s magic is another man’s engineering. This is the second film in as many months about the developments made in the dark arts of magic in Europe at the turn of the 20th century.

Occult Week TV

OCCULT WEEK

27 Feb 2007

SPOOKY DOCUMENTARIES It’s long been believed that with the death of mass popular religion in Britain the paranormal plays a much larger part in people’s belief systems. But if the double-bill opener to this short season is anything to go by…

Never Still

CCA, Glasgow, Fri 16 Feb

27 Feb 2007

FILM Never Still marked the first public art event sponsored by Map magazine, and brought together work by a host of respected international artists who primarily use film (video or digital) as their medium. The event highlighted some of the problems…

Life of Pi

Citizen’s Theatre, Glasgow, Tue 13-"Sat 17 Mar

27 Feb 2007

We’re fascinated by shipwreck, or, more recently, plane crashes, stories that leave people stranded, fending for themselves. Outwith recognisable societal confines, who defines right and wrong? What would you do?

We Are Klang

Tron Theatre, Glasgow, Thu 15 Mar

27 Feb 2007

SKETCH SHOW We Are Klang, proud owners of the most obscure name in a genre of obscure names, are doing rather well. Winner of countless awards, it seems that people are really getting their ridiculous humour, so childish it’s bloomin’ intelligent.

A Guide to Recognizing Your Saints

(15) 98min

27 Feb 2007

First time filmmaker and writer Dito Montiel’s vivid, inventive and energetic adaptation of his own allegedly true biographic novel may be the most self-indulgent and wilfully engaging US film of the year. The film is based around two narratives…

Hughie

Arches, Glasgow, Fri 2-Sat 17 Mar

27 Feb 2007

SCOTTISH PREMIERE With his triple bill of Tennessee Williams shorts and Pinter’s Moonlight to his credit over the last couple of years, Andy Arnold has more than demonstrated his credentials with marginal texts by acclaimed authors. The latest such…

The Three Musketeers

Festival Theatre, Edinburgh, Wed 7-Sat 10 Mar

27 Feb 2007

SWASHBUCKLING BALLET Northern Ballet Theatre have long been renowned for their atypical productions and for injecting realism and contemporary movement into ballet. In his six years as artistic director, however, David Nixon has refocused NBT’s…

Introducing. . .

INTRODUCING . . .

27 Feb 2007

The best new nights in town, this month Purple Sneaker Residents Mehdi & Anima and Jamie Young Guests Saturday 3 March marks their official launch party with Brendan Long (Bugged Out!, pictured) and live sets from Baby Bones and Electric…

Stooges, The - album review

The Stooges

27 Feb 2007

ROCK (Virgin) Come on! What did you expect? How could the first album in 35 years from the band who inspired everything from The Ramones to Mogwai and Guns ‘n Roses not be anything other than an anti-climax? A good album is a good album though…

Amon Tobin - album review

AMON TOBIN

27 Feb 2007

ELECTRONICA (Ninja Tune) Everything’s going organic these days, from shoes to hats to yoghurt, so it is truly apposite that someone should compose a soundtrack which might reflect such a movement without having to resort to some kind of ugly, if…

Tubby Hayes - album review

Tubby Hayes

27 Feb 2007

JAZZ (Art of Life) This would go down as an important release on historic grounds alone, but it also happens to be a classy slice of mid-60s British jazz. Although long known about, and available in part in bootleg versions, this is the first…

5 Things

5 THINGS YOU MIGHT NOT KNOW ABOUT . . .

27 Feb 2007

1 Back in her native Oz, a young Kendall first worked her comedy routine for fellow students at Sydney University while majoring in modern history. She fought for a while against stage fright insisting that stand-up was ‘a good way to get into vomiting.’

Barry Green - album review

Barry Green

27 Feb 2007

JAZZ (TenToTen) Back in the 50s and 60s, jazz label bosses often unveiled a new talent to the public via an album under the ‘Introducing’ title. Clark Tracey has re-established the practice with this debut album from a young English pianist, and…

Christ. - album review

Christ.

27 Feb 2007

ELECTRONICA (Benbecula) Christ.’s real skill is in his lightness of touch. Deft strokes, swathes, echoes, and pulses give this, his second long playing offering, a playful warmth which of late has been driven from so much electronic music in…

Arcade Fire - album review

Arcade Fire

27 Feb 2007

ROCK (Rough Trade) A million albums later, Arcade Fire show up dazed, dusty, but acutely aware that their magic is currently more potent than almost any band on the planet, and this, their second album, is what will propel them to global…

Jesu - album review

Jesu

27 Feb 2007

POST ROCK (Hydra Head) Not everyone gets to be centre stage, and it takes people like Justin K Broadrick, methodically exploring their own themes, ideas and textures on the fringes so that the likes of Razorlight have room under the spotlight to…

Malcolm Middleton - album review

Malcolm Middleton

27 Feb 2007

INDIE (Full Time Hobby) Ex-Arab Strapper Malcolm Middleton posted his intent with the glorious 2005 album Into the Woods, and this remarkable follow-up cements his place as one of the best songwriters in the country. There is an anthemic pop…

North Cregg - album review

North Cregg

27 Feb 2007

FOLK (Greentrax) The Irish band’s second release on Greentrax offers a characteristic mix of lively, infectious tunes and wistful songs, the latter courtesy of another new young singer and fiddle player off the Irish production line, Claire-Anne…

Air - album review

Air

27 Feb 2007

POP (Virgin) It is easy to forget that Air started off as a truly saucy electropop band; ‘Sexy Boy’ and ‘Kelly Watch the Stars’ making hearts flutter and feet twitch in a beautiful geek love kind of way. After spending several albums trying really…

End, The - album review

The End

27 Feb 2007

METAL (Relapse) 2006 wasn’t the most exciting for metal. So it’s a relief that The End have come out of nowhere (well, Canada) to restore the faith and push the genre into new forms. Gone are the tonsil-tearing screams and mathcore chaos of…

Sly & Robbie - album review

Sly & Robbie

27 Feb 2007

REGGAE (Trojan) Needless to say this is one loose and laid back journey across the Jamaican rhythm section’s catalytic influence, from crafting winners for the Channel One label through the rise of the rockers and rub-a-dub sounds. This chapter…

Grinderman - album review

Grinderman

27 Feb 2007

ROCK (Mute) Grinderman sounds like Nick Cave and three of his fellow Bad Seeds locked themselves in a dank basement for a week and beat into shape 11 songs in a series of dirty blues jam sessions. Actually, that’s pretty much what happened when…

Sub-Opt - record review

Sub-Opt

27 Feb 2007

FUNK-ROCK (www.sub-opt.com) With an overt sense of fun and adventure these ascending Edinburgers possess all the attitude and contrary sweetness of the likes of the Red Hot Chilli Peppers and come out sounding not unlike Californicators. Musically…

Luvely

27 Feb 2007

We all love Luvely and now the bangin’ house night reaches the grand age of 11 years young, which is the best excuse for a party we’ve heard in years. As famed for their theme nights as their dirty, funky house, it’s time to dig deep in the dressing up…

Salon Boris

27 Feb 2007

Hailing from Russia by way of Glasgow, icy electro types Salon Boris are resident at this night of electronica Expect cutting edge sounds, new wave electro with a raw punk heart and throbbing dancefloor beats (check out their album I am the Drug for…

Ghost Rider

As the new movie roars onto the big screen,

26 Feb 2007

COMICS IIt’s 1972. Evel Knievel was the most famous man in America; films like Blacula, Deep Throat and Deliverance were topping the box-office; events like Watergate and Vietnam meant there was a darker edge in the air. Marvel were running stories…

ACME Workers Club

THE SOCIAL ALTERNATIVE

26 Feb 2007

When ‘social directors’ Auntie Joan and Uncle David decided to create a regular event that put fun to the fore and would be easy on the pocket they eventually settled on an after work happening that reflected the humble appeal of the long forgotten…

Iain Banks

Family Affairs

26 Feb 2007

Is it possible, I wonder, to detect a softening of attitude as the years advance for Iain Banks, the one-time enfant terrible of the Scottish literary establishment? Perhaps, but only in the ways which don’t quite seem to matter so much as you get…

Coco’s Chocolate School

School of choc

26 Feb 2007

Members of the public aren’t usually allowed inside Rebecca Knights-Kerswell’s chocolate kitchen, although they occasionally press their noses up against the windows to watch her at work. Everyone is interested in the process of making chocolate, which…

Edinburgh Moonwalk

26 Feb 2007

Anyone out for a quiet stroll across the Meadows in Edinburgh might be in for a surprise, as 8000 women (and a few men) from all over Scotland descend on them, wearing decorated bras and pink baseball caps. This is the Edinburgh MoonWalk - not a genteel…

Goldie

Classic Grand, Glasgow, Fri 2 Mar; Studio 24, Edin

26 Feb 2007

DRUM & BASS Just maybe, if Goldie keeps his head down for long enough, we’ll come to forget that he was binned early on from a series of Celebrity Big Brother and no doubt coined it in as ‘gangster of the moment’ in EastEnders for a while. Perhaps…

Laura & June Hird

Dear Laura (Canongate)

26 Feb 2007

COLLECTED LETTERS Not a writer who has been known for her schmaltz, Laura Hird might have shaken up a few of her fans for a second when they heard that a book of letters penned by June, her late mum, was the next publication after last year’s raw…

*Hitlist

Hitlist

26 Feb 2007

Christopher Brookmyre & Denise Mina Two of our finest crime scribes go head to head at the latest Bridge Readings with the author of A Tale Etched in Blood and Hard Pencil and All Fun and Games Until Somebody Loses an Eye chewing the felonious fat with…

*Hitlist

Hitlist

26 Feb 2007

Acid Prolapse Monox and Numbers team up for a full-on acid assault.

Andy Martin

Stealing The Wave (Bloomsbury)

26 Feb 2007

SPORT HISTORY For a surfer, life’s major battle is mainly between board and wave, body and gravity. But often it’s one surfer against another. In the 1980s the biggest surfing battle was between two men: Mark Foo and Ken Bradshaw. Foo was young…

Hitlist - The best events, talk and sport

26 Feb 2007

Pixar: 20 Years of Animation Hugely detailed exhibition of over 300 artworks and life-size moving installations, charting the way the Toy Story makers revolutionised modern animation. Museum of Scotland, Edinburgh, until Mon 28 May. See feature

Stewart/Wiseman/Brigg

Cathy’s Book (Bloomsbury)

26 Feb 2007

TEEN DRAMA It’s not enough to just write a book these days, it would seem. With this quirky little multimedia project, a melange of peripheral paraphernalia is wielded to keep our involvement levels unusually high in this identity saga/crime mystery…

Michael Muhammad Knight

The Taqwacores (Telegram)

26 Feb 2007

RELIGIOUS DRAMA Originally printed on a photocopier and distributed from the back of Michael Muhammad Knight’s car in mosque parking lots, The Taqwacores charts the attempts by Yusef, a punk and convert to Islam at 16, to live entirely by Muslim…

Mohsin Hamid

The Reluctant Fundamentalist (Hamish Hamilton)

26 Feb 2007

SOCIAL DRAMA Mohsin Hamid’s spare, haunting second novel takes the form of a one-sided conversation struck up between a bearded Pakistani man and an American tourist in a restaurant in Lahore. Changez was once top of his graduating class at Princeton…