Be part of the #PowerShift at Celtic Connections. Come & imagine better stories of a clean energy future for Scots communities. The crew’s gathering… & now with Scotland’s Makar, Peter Mackay. 3pm, Sunday 18th Jan, Green Room, Royal Concert Hall, Glasgow spring.site/blog/power-s...

Be part of the #PowerShift at Celtic Connections. Come & imagine better stories of a clean energy future for Scots communities. The crew’s gathering… & now with Scotland’s Makar, Peter Mackay. 3pm, Sunday 18th Jan, Green Room, Royal Concert Hall, Glasgow spring.site/blog/power-s...

My usual 2026 preview of events & anniversaries & culture, for @ScotNational. America on its 250th—so is Adam Smith’s The Wealth of Nations. China’s next 5 year plan commences—but will Grand Theft Auto VI finally be out in Sept? & much, much more www.thenational.scot/politics/257...

#PowerShift—The Real Energy Question. Sunday at @ccfest Jan 18th, 3.00-4.30pm. Communities all over Scotland are being buffeted—and energised—by the renewables revolution. Come join us to free the power of imagination for Scotland’s future! spring.site/blog/power-s...

New Alternative Weekly out now mailchi.mp/0ac9c2d03e87... Editorial on new paradigm artivism. Also: what cheap clothes cost the planet; how AI can turn against capitalism; the calming power of the polyvagal nerve—& much more. Details too of our @ccfest event, Jan 18th, 3pm. Come!

#PowerShift—The Real Energy Question. Sunday at @ccfest Jan 18th, 3.00-4.30pm. Communities all over Scotland are being buffeted—and energised—by the renewables revolution. Come join us to free the power of imagination for Scotland’s future! spring.site/blog/power-s...

We’re in a podcast moment—immersed in conversations and personalities, with some even wanting to start their own. It’s rich, thick, blethery—and may be a better medium than social media for Indy activism and persuasion. My @ScotNational column www.thenational.scot/politics/256...

New Alternative Weekly out! Editorial on young men vs. war itself. Also: Integral politics is “deeper, wider, longer”; we need weird stories 4 a warming world; u-lab cultivating planetary coherence—& much more. + spring.site stories. Sign up! mailchi.mp/8df79378f4d0...

The Chihuahua-In-Chief’s attempt to start a culture war in Glasgow, over beautiful & smart bi- or multi-lingual kids, is doomed—not least because we already accept the condition for Gaelic (& Scots). & AI just translates everything…My @ScotNational column www.thenational.scot/politics/256...

My beloved songbird wean @E_M_KANE’s new single is out now, ‘Hold Your Hand”. Listen, share! open.spotify.com/album/0ctKFL...

New Alternative Weekly (@AlterGlobal21) - Editorial on what @ZackPolanski could learn from🇩🇰’s @alternativet_. Hybrid working has a viable future; religion can step up to climate crisis; escape from capitalism—& much more. Spring.site too! mailchi.mp/73701d03fbe8...

Here’s 9 open-access posts of my Indy-minded Sat column for @scotnational [https://patkane.substack.com/s/pk-in-the-national] - on “The Hack”, “The Diplomat” & Miss Jean Brodie; on China, & Ireland’s President; on the Picts, the nukes & Faragism. [Subscribe to paper: www.thenational.scot/subscribe/]

This new report from @Moreincommon_, on “Disillusioned Men”, explains how Reform can exploit men’s sense that they lack agency & meaning. But that may be exactly why Scots Indy politics is a powerful antidote to right-wing populism. My @ScotNational column www.thenational.scot/politics/256...

New Alternative Weekly mailchi.mp/eb6604f2155a... Editorial on power of locality. Also: scientists declare a national 🌱emergency; how pop can stop eating itself; ‘disillusioned men’ are a worry; what trees can remember; & more. Scots Posts from spring.site too. Enjoy!

Shabana Mahmood’s draconian immigration measures will make integration harder—in an era where climate disruption will inevitably bring the South to the North. At least Scotland’s civic nationalism has prepped us for greater diversity. My @scotnational col www.thenational.scot/politics/256...

Alternative Weekly out now mailchi.mp/33fe551c5145... Editorial on an ecocivilization rising. Also: not copying Danes on immigration, chastening ad-men on fossil-fuels, thots on cooperative AI, solarpunk for real in Africa—& more. spring.site notes from Scotland. Enjoy!

Struggling with quite strong emotions this morning. That an entity called “Scotland” doesn’t blow it, at the last minute, “you know our sense of timing”, etc… hmm. Deep stirrings. Found this in five minutes from the house 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁳󠁣󠁴󠁿🚀

An insight into Pictish society reported from Orkney this week - they weren’t just violently obliterated by the Vikings, but adapted to their presence, innovating with their new context. Some lessons for the indy-minded today. My @scotnational column www.thenational.scot/politics/256...

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!