This afternoon myself and one other walked into the Cafe Royal at 5.15 and straight into an emptying booth. And the Cullen Skink was still on. Now looking at lottery numbers.

For 56 minutes Sky News and BBC News interrupted everything else and carried a Reform UK feed live, uninterrupted, unchallenged. The stream spluttered, froze, pixelated - dozens of times - still they stuck with it. FOR ONE HOUR. This is an editorial choice. No other party gets this coverage. ~AA

A few days ago I drove the switchback Cock Bridge/Tomintoul road so high & so empty, to a Laggan graveyard.Then General Wade's Military Road by Trinafour to Tummel Bridge. An extraordinary feat of engineering - a corkscrew of a road. No other traffic and no phone signal. Just the road and the sky.

Take Four Books @jdcrawf.bsky.social on R4 Sundays 4pm, always worth listening to. Sunday 14th Sept on Ian McEwan with @damedenisemina.bsky.social on Sounds particularly so.

We need to be very clear about this. Rising Christian nationalism is a threat to us all. humanists.uk/2025/09/17/r...

Thank you @bloodyscotland.bsky.social

@landxseafest.bsky.social environmental film festival in Montrose was an utter joy. Excellent, moving films on the Playhouse big screen.Congratulations and thanks to everyone who made it such a pleasure.

Across Scotland, in cities, towns, and small villages; people are coming together to welcome refugees and asylum seekers www.heraldscotland.com/news... @joshpizpom.bsky.social

Visitor being shooed out of à High St shop. Montrose is well-nigh surrounded by water

@landxseafest.bsky.social I took a wander round Montrose. Intricate stonework on Trinity's steeple

Yesterday at the marvellous @landxseafest.bsky.social to a lovely appreciative audience.

The media making out like the Robinson Rally was huge. 150,000 is tiny! Compare it to the 'Free Palestine' march (up to 800,000), the anti-Brexit march (650,000) or the Iraq war demo (1.5 Million) Disproportionate attention given to the gammon, as always.

I could not agree more.

I've just been prodded to post about a wee bit of writing I did for the EIBF's Words from the Wards programme last year, efi.ed.ac.uk/creative-wor...

@landxseafest.bsky.social on Saturday we will show our latest film, Thomas Riedelsheimer's Tracing Light. To explore the magic of light, we brought together physics and art. Fascinating. And it looks beautiful. sonjahenrici.com/films/tracin...

Tomorrow @bloodyscotland.bsky.social, wonderful @linanderson.bsky.social - 12.30 in the Albert Halls and just before that - " This event will feature a Crime in the Spotlight reading from Frances Mckendrick (Words Fail Me)."

My man, David Kedie Whytt of 10 Scotland Street, buried three of his babies and his mother and father in South Leith Churchyard "in the old ground" in the early 19th century but the whereabouts of the stone and lair were lost in the subsequent repairs and rebuilding. 10scotlandstreet.com

I am giving a Zoom talk tonight about the UK's 'Hidden Figures' - women in our aerospace history you may not have heard about. For the Reading & District Amateur Radio Club. Contact them for details. radarc.org/calendar/eve...

Opening Night after 7+ years

Led By Donkeys have got Fartrage's number.

👇

This is the coolest man in the UK. It's not even close.

At the Scottish parliament

Outside the Scottish Parliament now

Excellent reception tonight on the German Sail Training Ship, Gorch Foch.

Hey Mail, Telegraph, Sun, and Express!

🔥🔥🔥 Here's Emily Maitlis crucifying Farage for both breaking the UK and stabbing it in the back. #FascistFarage

The thing that really bugs me is that every single one used the photo of Rayner welling up with tears, as if to congratulate themselves. "Look lads, we distressed a woman about her child. Hurrah for us." Utterly siociopathic.

@asls.org.uk Here's a great new poem for ye by A.L. Kennedy:

@severincarrell.bsky.social @edinburghminute.bsky.social

There's a wee paddle steamer going past my window...

If you’d like to catch up with Jimmy Perez before following his new adventure in Orkney, Wild Fire, the last Shetland book, will be £1.99 on Kindle for the whole of September.

"We did a review of all of the studies globally, which included half a million road traffic injuries, and that found that if you are hit by an SUV compared to being hit by a passenger car you are 44% more likely to be killed. Among kids it's higher - it's 82%” www.bbc.com/news/article...

Keys found on Granton Road - they look like they belong to a cyclist. Please retweet and let's see if we can find the owner. #lostkey #Edinburgh #cycling #Edinburghcycling

The UK Government will test its Emergency Alert System on Sunday, 7th September at 3:00 PM. If you have a concealed phone for safety, this alert could reveal its presence. You can opt out of these alerts. Find out how here: www.gov.uk/alerts/optin... Please help share to help keep others safe.

Read here- www.thenational.scot/news/2542174...

Late to twigging that they've renamed this gorgeous painting, now known as Gertrude Vernon, Lady Agnew of Lochnaw. Restoring her first name gives her agency, no longer 'merely' someone's wife. I'm talking to Christopher Baker about the picture, and Sargent, at Wigtown!

💥LAUNCHED TODAY💥 'Investing in Women, Transforming Communities': Engender's Manifesto for Holyrood 2026. Read it here: www.engender.org.uk/holyrood-2026/

This morning thick cloud cover and lashing rain. Now..

What on earth is this?

Always reluctant to join in BBC bashing but really…hours of fawning coverage for proposals from a party of 4 MPs, no mention of Farage’s role in Brexit which helped cause the small boats issue he now bemoans, and this headline that reads like a press release. Something has gone seriously wrong there

🚃 Trams!! 🚃 The council consults on LOADS of things but this one is up there as one of our most important. Please do take a bit of time to feed in your views. It’ll mean that when councillors take decisions on the route, we will be taking into account everything that is important to you.

In the corner of Gallery 13 of the NGS Portrait Gallery there is a wee delight.

RIP Giles Havergal. Only Philip Prowse left of that triumphant Citizen's triumverate.

Listen to my chat with Sarah Hall on #TakeFourBooks on BBC Radio4 discussing new @faberbooks.bsky.social novel HELM (the first book to have a wind as its main character?) & 3 influences incl George Saunders & Angela Carter. With Alan McMunnigall of @thiwurd.bsky.social! www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m...

Belated image from the final evening of this year's EIFF. Some great films and an excellent industry programme.