The Herald

In Brief

BMW Motorrad's first superbike - the K1200 S - is now in all of its 36 UK and Southern Ireland dealerships. Priced from (pounds) 9750, the light and agile sports bike develops 167bhp, and has a class-leading anti-lock braking system. Tom Wheatcroft is the UK Car Enthusiast of the Year. Tom, 82, founder of the world-renowned Donington Grand Prix Collection, received the inaugural Meguiar's Award in London last weekend to mark his achievement.

The Diary

Beane on toast TV presenter Colin McAllister, of Justin and Colin fame, was recalling the time he was on Glasgow's Byres Road with international model Jibby Beane, pictured, the inspiration for Vivienne Westwood's creations. Suddenly Jibby, wearing a stole and carrying a parasol, spotted Greggs the bakers and marched in asking for four plain loaves.

Aspiring to Higher Things; the Scottish Tv Drama High Times has Been a Huge Hit. Abigail Wild Samples the Highs and Lows of Tower- Block Life

Basing the comedy drama on life in a high rise, so suggests its producer, wasn't a way of delivering voyeuristic grit to the middle- class masses. They chose the multi-storey location for its symbolic potential. While Rab of the fictional Glasgow housing scheme of Fairmyle does want to get high in the drugs sense, most of the characters in High Times just want to achieve a little something or other, whether it be level one French or a job in a video shop. The theme tune is about looking to th...

I Don't Want to Depress You but . . .

EXHAUSTED. Bone-tired. Spent. The will to live all but gone. And all because the lady spent yesterday trying to be good, rather than just loving Milk Tray and caring about the wider plight of mankind. To explain. It all began with a story on the news wires announcing that September 30, 2004, had been designated "We Are What We Do Day". Inspired by the Community Links charity and supported by, among others, Business in the Community (president: the Prince of Wales), WAWWD is a movement that ai...

First-Hand View of a Health Service at Breaking Point

Ispent part of Tuesday in Paisley's Royal Alexandra Hospital. I was there to take my 83-year-old mother home to Greenock. She had suffered a significant nose bleed the previous Friday. It had been treated at the local Inverclyde Royal Hospital. However, because the doctor wanted to keep her in overnight for observation and because IRH has no ENT (ear, nose and throat) ward, she was dispatched to the RAH, 20 miles away. A minor recurrence of the bleeding over the weekend meant she was still th...

Briefing: Ponderosa

September was the cruellest month for fans of the popular television show, Bonanza. Q: Why?

Identity Cards

TREVOR Mendham writes in support of Iain Macwhirter's stance against the introduction of identity cards, and cites as backing for his argument that "support for the introduction of ID cards in Scotland is barely over 50%" (Letters, September 30). Forgive me for being awkward here, but is that figure not representative of a majority, and are we not living in a democracy? Or does a narrow majority of public opinion only allow the overriding of the genuine feelings of a substantial minority when...

Give Community Schools a Chance

YOUR report, Inspectors fail community schools (September 29), needs a little clarification in the cause of accuracy. As someone who was involved, with others, in bringing the American "full service school" concept to the attention of HMI in the 1990s, it comes as no surprise that the laudable initiative which we call new community schools has been seen to fail. Indeed, I would argue that, from the outset, the odds were stacked against it. Michael Fullan, the Canadian writer on the management...

Explain the Objection

Would it be possible for the Christian objectors to the use of cell-cloning research techniques in the pursuit of a cure for the horrific motor neurone disease to explain the basis of their objection? Is it their view that this disease - as every other disease - is part of the price the whole human species has to endure for Eve's curiosity and Adam's stupidity, and that to search for a cure is to flout God's will? If so, surely all medical research and intervention is wrong, and the Church of...

Rsa Grants

Labour's Stage-Managed Debate On Iraq

A FEW weeks ago I spent some time visiting the National War Museum at Salford. It was a most moving and emotional experience being surrounded by hundreds of photographs of fresh-faced young men and women who had given their lives in the cause of freedom and democracy in two world wars, and listening to sombre recordings of the voices of some who had survived the carnage but with severely blighted lives. It is against this backdrop that the museum presents the powerful message that all armies ...

Limits of Rail

Rebuild the People's Pride Paisley Deserves a New and Impressive Civic Centre

Architecture is being used to promote civic and national pride more consciously now than at any time since the nineteenth century. In Victorian times, local worthies and wealthy industrialists sought to wow the masses and instil this sense of pride through the elegance, scale and grandeur of public buildings. Paisley, Scotland's largest town, has more than its fair share of fine structures, many gifted by local mill owners, such as the Clark Town Hall and the Thomas Coats Memorial Church, per...

Beware Prattle About Modernity and Progress

It has often been argued (most recently and brazenly by Arthur Herman) that Scottish Enlightenment ideas are fundamental to understanding modernity. Central to these is the concept of stadial history - the idea that all societies pass through the same sequence of stages, from hunter-gatherer to commercial society, but at different times and different speeds. It may be possible to interpret this idea in purely descriptive terms, as a theory about change and historical causation. But it is more...

The Protest Delivers; Ministers Must Learn From Queen Mother's Campaign

The timing of the decision was questionable. The decision was right. Malcolm Chisholm might have saved his ministerial career yesterday when he announced, hours before a Scottish parliamentary debate on a Conservative party motion of no-confidence in his performance as health minister, that he had reprieved the Queen Mother's maternity hospital in Glasgow. It had been recommended for closure by Greater Glasgow Health Board (GGHB). When it came to the debate, an amendment in Mr Chisholm's name...

Shortsighted Snp

A smart, successful, sustainable Scotland needs people with vision able to take this country forward to a sustainable future based on a clear understanding of what that future holds for us. Unfortunately, the SNP just does not seem to grasp that a future funded by oil was last century's vision, when North Sea oil was plentiful and we had no idea of the urgency of controlling our CO2 emissions to prevent rapid onset of climate change. Our climate has changed before but what is so worrying now ...

Has Anything Changed After Blair's Speech?

HAS anything actually changed after Tony Blair's speech? He made no apology for taking unilateral action against another nation state. He invokes UN resolutions that Saddam was in breach of to justify the invasion, when the leader of the UN, Kofi Annan, has specifically said that this "material breach" was no justification. On Radio 4's Today programme, he arrogantly casts this aside with: "That is his view; it is not my view." How convenient to be able to pick and choose when to agree or dis...

Pesticide 'Threat' Must Be Put Into Perspectivepesticide 'Threat' Must Be Put Into Perspective

It is extremely disappointing that attempts have been made to raise food safety fears based on a report that actually confirmed the safety, and indeed the importance, of eating fruit and vegetables as part of balanced diet (Revealed: the pesticide threat in 24% of food, September 27). During the study, fewer than 1% of samples tested higher than the maximum pesticide residue levels. Even so, this level is set at least one hundred and often up to one thousand times higher than the recommended ...

Izora Rhodes

Izora Rhodes Armstead, who as one half of the Weather Girls hit the charts with the disco classic, It's Raining Men, has died. Although secretive about her age, she was believed to be 62. Izora Rhodes was born in Texas but brought up in San Francisco and in 1974 she joined the gospel group News of the World (Now).

George Russell; Prominent Businessman and Dedicated Evangelist Who Was a Profound Influence in the Community

IF the word "visionary" is used rather indiscriminately in today's society, it was the perfect description for George Russell, whose sudden death leaves a considerable void both in the Scottish business community and the Christian Church. Born in Edinburgh in 1935, and brought up in the West Lothian village of Stonehaven, he moved with his family to Glasgow at eight years of age. After school he joined the Anchor Line Shipping Company, before moving to the meat industry, where he became a dir...