How fucking magnificent is Patti Smith here. “Build the peaceable kingdom”. Yes sister youtu.be/SUlNixgSQIA?...

Alternative Weekly newsletter out now! Editorial on the two Zeds (Mamdani & Polanski); Grand Theft Autonomy (gamers on strike); Scots land reform; the frontier of coordination is in the East; & much more. Posts from spring.site. Share, enjoy! mailchi.mp/3900e2d98515...

There’s a new @NTSonline play coming of Muriel Spark’s The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie, with the promise of “knives sharpened”. In these dark times, I hope the adaptation highlights its deep anti-fascism, with many lessons for today. My @ScotNational column www.thenational.scot/culture/2560...

Latest Alternative Weekly is out now. Editorial on how culture will remove nukes; the rise of cooperative AI; let women do the peace talks; the music video of the year; democratic tech (including karaoke)—and much more. Enjoy, share, support! mailchi.mp/dc7f81f5b17f...

Happy interview on STV news, celebrating our (@hueandcry) Outstanding Achievement awards at the SMAs this Saturday. Also: big full-band tour in 2026! With @roachfordmusic & @JHJ_Official! Tickets here: hueandcry.co.uk/hue-and-cry-...

Happy interview on STV news, celebrating our (@hueandcry) Outstanding Achievement awards at the SMAs this Saturday. Also: big full-band tour in 2026! With @roachfordmusic & @JHJ_Official! Tickets here: hueandcry.co.uk/hue-and-cry-...

Monday mood

Watching the magnificent Catherine Connolly, and considering her radical predecessors as Irish Presidents, makes you dream fondly of a Scottish President in a Scottish republic. But can we unplug from the Windsors as Head of State? My @ScotNational col www.thenational.scot/politics/255...

No doubt SNP happy(ish) about this poll. But as for the overall health of the Scottish polity… *that* many Scots embracing an anti-immigration, anti-net-zero politics? Despite its gurning leader? We need to ask deeper questions about disempowerment… archive.is/oveK4 archive.is/oveK4

Couch-bingeing on deep state tv thrillers like #thediplomat and #slowhorses is its own kind of citizens’ passivity. But the geopolitics of Indy are at the heart of the former—& it certainly focuses the mind on our maritime defence. My @ScotNational col www.thenational.scot/politics/255...

New edition of @AlterGlobal21’s Alternative Weekly out mailchi.mp/9589dff6bf23... - editorial on a vision for our current wave of protest; “groupcore” for creatives; energy from Heaven; bringing offshore wind home to Scotland; events and more. News also from spring.site

So many China-related stories this week—their Scottish locus pretty prominent. But the rough beast that stalks the discourse of security chiefs & challenged competitors—is that the whole story? Some different voices heard, in my @ScotNational column today www.thenational.scot/politics/255...

Radiation leaks in Scotland—from collapsing old reactors, decrepit nuclear sub bases…We need Indy, just 2 clean up the place. But can we also make a virtue out of decentralised renewable power, as a positive alternative energy system? My @ScotNational col www.thenational.scot/politics/255...

New Alternative Weekly out from @AlterGlobal21 mailchi.mp/93f31dc80583.... Editorial on how to beat hopelessness—posts on @audreyt, @KateRaworth, Tim Jackson, Jane Goodall, engaging w/ Reform, the digital “Eurostack”. As well as stories from spring.site. Enjoy, support!

Modernity is a dark joke. A 112 min movie that examines the 20 mins response time to a rogue nuke fired from Asian landmass. “Nice interview, Ms Bigelow! Next, the Booker Prize!”🤯Remains basis of my support 4 Indy: it’s 1 small step away from annihilation www.metacritic.com/movie/a-hous...

As one myself, I enjoyed #TheHack’s story of heroic journalists revealing their own profession’s phone hacking. But what of the widespread resentment & powerlessness that produces the appetite/demand for these star-toppling stories? My @ScotNational col www.thenational.scot/comment/2551...

Super upload of my open-access @ScotNational Saturday columns. Richard Holloway’s Last Words, handling the Nomad Century, technology both motherly & surveillant, Indy strategy, & cosmology for the soul… Enjoy, support! patkane.substack.com/s/pk-in-the-...

New edition of Alternative Weekly out mailchi.mp/4818b7814af8... - crossing a 7th planetary boundary, drones and the sky, soul-enhancing video, the mirrorball of Glasgow’s poets—& an editorial on the clash of youth uprisings. See www.spring.site also. Enjoy, share, support!

“Papers, please!” It’s the opening line from Casablanca—& it captures the fears that an national iD system is a tool for coming tyranny (and/or Starmer’s anti-immigration pandering). Can Indy be an opp to build systems a lot better? My @ScotNational col www.thenational.scot/politics/254...

Latest @AlterGlobal21 newsletter - Editorial gets clear on techno-futures, 16-17 year olds curious about new parties (political ones…), renewable energy’s Scottish power plays, hard imagination & new biology, and more. See also www.spring.site mailchi.mp/b6e90dd98158...

The US-UK Tech Prosperity deal—and its scores of billions—is an intimidating display. But there’s an Indy-minded version of these investments in data-centres. We can use nation-state sovereignty to model a “healthy computation”. My @scotnational column www.thenational.scot/politics/254...

This week’s @AlterGlobal21 newsletter features an Editorial on the “woke right”, and blogs on: grief as THE political emotion; using citizens media to save the Amazon; a new map of the regenerative paradigm; & more. & latest spring.site news mailchi.mp/11620970432e...

It was the grimmest newsday—Charlie Kirk, Gaza, Mandelson, Putin in Poland…& then, possible life on Mars! Even the slightest move in that cosmic direction generates headlines. Can we turn this yearning into a politics? I think so. My @ScotNational column www.thenational.scot/politics/254...

Some front page. If Mars shows the ubiquity of organic life in the universe, then Fermi’s Paradox sharpens. Where *are* all these alien civilisations? Or do they blow themselves up/tear themselves apart b4 they get off-planet? & Do we *look* like we’ll get past The Great Filter?

My column this week dwells on the @ScotNational’s series, “Refugees Welcome”. Even the UN acknowledges how deeply Scotland has prepared for the age of mass migration, & the good stories that generates. How do “climate refugees” fit into this picture? www.thenational.scot/politics/254...

Been engaging with Richard Holloway’s tumultuous work for 30 years, so I don’t quite believe these are his “Last Words”. It’s a beautiful working-class memoir—& he’s still wrestling with the God-idea, in a world “saturated with pain”. My @ScotNational col www.thenational.scot/culture/2541...

There’s been much dumping on the newest ChatGPT-5 chatbot from @OpenAI. A “PhD level assistant” that counts 6 fingers on a hand? But use it as a thought-starter or prototyping tool, & it’s amazingly powerful and generative. My @ScotNational column www.thenational.scot/comment/2539...

Here’s a month of my @ScotNational columns, open access and fully research-linked patkane.substack.com/s/pk-in-the-... Voters at 8, not just 16; what the Brewdogs in the street know; preserve modernist Scotland; plasticles in your testicles… Enough to satisfy. Share, support, thanks!

There’s plasticles in your testicles… & micro- and nano-plastics everywhere else in your body. Huge Plastics Treaty currently being forged—but the Qs are deep. How to resist pollution when it’s already (& ineradicably) inside you? My @ScotNational col www.thenational.scot/comment/2537...

Good news that Bernat Klein’s textile studio has been saved from ruin. It’s a modernist classic—& Scotland is full of them. But they’re rendered as “eyesores”, rather than hopeful & ambitious. Can we tap into that spirit again? My @ScotNational column www.thenational.scot/culture/2536...

Return of The Constitute—my omnipedia of links and indicators, forging pathways through the current craziness… patkane.substack.com/p/the-consti... Clip below on why a left party may be needed to harness sci-tech’s extraordinary power, in computation & chemistry

New Alternative Weekly out @AlterGlobal21 mailchi.mp/778e5c1b5dc1... Editorial says plurality is better than singularity. Also: fungi beats carbon, improve yr economic stories, universities reckon with slavery, note the “Free Festival” in Edinburgh—& much more. Support, share!

Even the BrewDogs in the street can see the Scottish hipster beer makers are in trouble, closing 10 pubs this week. But their whole shock-tactic, “punk” business model cuts against our anxious, demanding times. My @ScotNational column www.thenational.scot/business/253...

Today’s Alternative Weekly from @AlterGlobal21 has an Editorial on reverse mentoring (young to old), Cynthia Erivo queering Christianity, local solar solving South African probs, Edinburgh festivals of Repair, DJs vs climate change. & more! Share, support! mailchi.mp/6330d4fe48e3...

Good to see #VotesAt16 projected for next WM elections. But it raises Q’s about what political voice and influence our kids should have, on a future which concerns them most of all. Even lower voting age? Some new digital forum? What? My @ScotNational col www.thenational.scot/politics/253...

Here’s 8 of my @scotnational columns—fully reference-linked, free-to-access… Spider-Man, poetic power, the genius myth, Adam Curtis, doomscrolling, humanoid robots, the joys of radio, & new drama for renewables in Scotland… Enjoy, subscribe, support! patkane.substack.com/s/pk-in-the-...

As the Highlands & Islands roil about renewable energy—power to communities, or heedless corporatisation?—it feels like we need a cultural event as powerful as 7:84’s The Cheviot. But in the age of memes, games & beats… what form? My @ScotNational col www.thenational.scot/culture/2530...

New edition of @AlterGlobal21’s Alternative Weekly newsletter out now - solar & wind driving strong communities (& cities) in UK/EU, awe-inspiring short films, an Editorial on how AI can deepen democracy… and much more. Enjoy, subscribe, support! mailchi.mp/2b499a81cfe0...

Adam Curtis’s new series, Shifty, shows how Thatcher’s ideologies—of self-interested individualism & financial deregulation—changed our consciousnesses. But he has a blind spot for the countervailing force of Scots self-determination… My @ScotNational col www.thenational.scot/culture/2529...

Latest edition of @AlterGlobal21’s Alternative Weekly newsletter - “sacred medicine” & Israel/Gaza, using AI to restore the wonder, 2 Scots’ takes on economics in service of planet & wellbeing, & the alt-power of festivals. Enjoy, subscribe, support! mailchi.mp/769987abce2d...

I’M not doomscrolling - YOU are. Or, to what extent am I addicted to bad news on my devices? Or am I a realist, able to face the worst squarely? Maybe we should be devising a “hopescroll” in Scotland, as a pathway to a better future? My @ScotNational col www.thenational.scot/politics/252...

Here’s this week Alternative Weekly newsletter from @AlterGlobal21 mailchi.mp/ec78e62e0e9c... After Left-Right, is it Up-Down? The social club as incubator. Storytelling & jamming keeps London human. Two Scottish www.spring.site stories…& much more. Enjoy, share, support!

A great new book by @helenlewis takes down the “genius myth” (isolated, male, badly behaved, etc). But does that mean we can inculcate the conditions for genius, or “scenius”? And having done that before, can Scotland do it again? My @ScotNational column www.thenational.scot/culture/2525...

Episode three of my new vlog The Constitute—dots joined, out of the daily torrent… this week, thinking about energy futures—via Norway’s State Of Happiness tv drama, and Becky Chambers’ solarpunk ‘Monk & Robot’ novels. Comment, support, enjoy open.substack.com/pub/patkane/...

Episode three of my new vlog The Constitute—dots joined, out of the daily torrent… this week, thinking about energy futures—via Norway’s State Of Happiness tv drama, and Becky Chambers’ solarpunk ‘Monk & Robot’ novels. Comment, support, enjoy open.substack.com/pub/patkane/...

New edition of @AlterGlobal21’s Alternative Weekly newsletter out now. Many futures on show this week - indigenous, sustainable, democratic, solarpunk (oh, and space gardens also). Come join us at www.spring.site too! mailchi.mp/b3d4d64e2afa...

The 3 new poets whose lines are carved into the Holyrood Parliament’s Canongate Wall show how integral poetry is to Scottish national power—Ascherson’s “stone voices”, indeed. But does the poetic imply something much more radical? My @ScotNational column www.thenational.scot/culture/2523...

New edition of @AlterGlobal21 Newsletter mailchi.mp/185ad64e063b... Solnit on LA riots, intentional communities open up (& Scots communities power up), an art museum for migration, & much more. Sign-up for newsletter and www.spring.site!

Ep.2 of my new short vlog, The Constitute, out now. This one is on AI—how it’s a natural outcrop of human evolution. & how it has a smaller “ick” factor than biological modification. Which may help us when to say “enough” to transforming tech… Your thots pls! patkane.substack.com/p/the-consti...

Ep.2 of my new short vlog, The Constitute, out now. This one is on AI—how it’s a natural outcrop of human evolution. & how it has a smaller “ick” factor than biological modification. Which may help us when to say “enough” to transforming tech… Your thots pls! patkane.substack.com/p/the-consti...