New Ten(n)ant Required For Best Role on TV

It was inevitable really but it doesn’t make it any easier to bear. David Tennant is to leave Doctor Who after the last of 2009’s four special editions of the programme. The versatile Scots actor, who has played the tenth incarnation of The Doctor since 2005, has decided enough is enough, saying, “I think it’s […]

Orange Juice Back Together!

Christmas has come early to I Have Grave News. The original line-up of the best Scottish group ever are to regroup to receive an award. Orange Juice, whose later line-up split up following a benefit gig for the miners at London’s Brixton Academy in January 1985, are set to be honoured by Nordoff-Robbins Scotland, after frontman Edwyn Collins’ astonishing […]

Make Irony History

Brian Cowen calling for a global response to the “scandal” of world hunger; Bono to write a column about poverty in the New York Times; what’s next, I wonder? Morrissey to give a lecture on sex addiction? Gordon Ramsay to publish a book of his favourite vegetarian recipes? Robert Mugabe to write and present a […]

Book Review: The Complete Book of Mothers-In-Law – A Celebration by Luisa Dillner

The Sunday Business Post, October 26, 2008 A witty and overdue celebration of the uncelebrated ‘There was a knock at the door; I knew it was the wife’s mother, because the mice were throwing themselves on the traps.” So said the late, great Les Dawson, a man whose name was practically synonymous with the mother-in-law […]

Something Global in Glasgow

Cherry-picking Irish fans of top UK football teams would no doubt have been in a glory-seeking lather last night as Man Yah-Noy-Reh took on Celtic at Ye Olde Trafforde, in what they probably weren’t calling ‘The Battle of Britain’. I’m sure there was much coin-flipping as to which way around the reversible jersey would be […]

Harry Hill’s TV Burp is back…

Finally, the funniest man in the world is back on a Saturday night. I love Harry Hill, so I’m posting my favourite Harry Hill gags here just so that I can log on and laugh at them all over again… “I knew I was going bald when it was taking longer and longer to wash […]

My 91-year-old Granny…

…in her recliner armchair, mid-sup of a cup of tea, while watching Loose Women on STV could still have poked this in. Hail Caledonia! A 0-0 draw with Norway, grasped from the very jaws of victory. World Cup 2014, here we come.

The Sound of Santa Coming

I freely admit that I’m a sad Smiths anorak. Sorry, aficionado. I always get those confused. Anyway, every book, magazine, not to mention record, that I could find and afford bearing their name which was released during the 1980s, I own. Up to six different versions of the same single, 7″, 12″, different sleeve images, tints, […]

Tutti per Stefano Borgonovo

Former Fiorentina and Milan striker, Stefano Borgonovo, was awarded a benefit match between his two former clubs at Stadio Artemio Franchi in Florence this week. The 44-year-old has been diagnosed with the motor neuron disease amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, the illness which claimed the life of former Genoa player Gianluca Signorini in 2002. By way of […]

Honestly, I’m Fine With It…

Originally published in U Magazine, August 2007 My good friend, the self-elected font of all knowledge on the subject of women, has surpassed himself again. You can tell what an expert he is by how sweet he seems when he and his beloved are together – followed by how vitriolic he is about her as […]