Monthly Archives: March 2012
Braveheart’s Bomb
IT’S 7.30am in the tiny hamlet of Garelochhead, all 1,200 residents and no traffic lights of it. We’re well north of Glasgow, into the breathtaking foothills of Scotland’s remote loch-lined Highlands. The locals are friendly, the air is clean and sharp like the waters of Gare Loch; Scotland at its … read more >>
What’s Rupert’s Game in Scotland?
IT WAS a humble tweet, just 52 characters, one of around 300 million made on February 20 — initially little noticed in London but resonating across the bonny Caledonian highlands. “Let Scotland go and compete. Everyone would win,” tweeted one Rupert Murdoch last month. While that’s not how London … read more >>
Which Way Paradise?
TO MANY Glaswegians, particularly those of an independent, Catholic and Republican persuasion, Paradise is a football stadium in this tough city’s East End, where urban blight in Britain seems at its bleakest. Their idea of heaven is a drizzly winter’s Saturday, a gutful of lager and fish and chips, with … read more >>
Irish Eyes Are on Australia
IN Kilkee, a sleepy retreat from the stormy Atlantic on Ireland’s remote far west coast, they still talk about the day the West Clare Gaels Ladies Football Club won the 2010 All-Ireland Ladies Intermediate Final. It was, by all accounts, an incredible victory, a bright moment of glory that briefly … read more >>
Free The Billionaire! Would That Help President Putin?
IT’S unlikely that Forbes Magazine has too many subscribers in Segezha, a grim town of 35,000 in Russia’s wintry northwest at the edges of the Arctic Circle. But if by chance it did, the magazine would take some time to get there. Segezha is a train station that became a … read more >>
Viva O’Chevolución!
IN history’s pantheon of legendary revolutionaries, there’s Cromwell and Washington, there’s Lenin, Mao and Ho, there’s Gaddafi if you’re so inclined, and Mandela, too. And then there’s Ernie Lynch. Ernie Lynch? Now, there’s a name one doesn’t hear so much in such radical company. If the name doesn’t ring a … read more >>