The Herald

Billboard

Bluegrass treats FOR members of the Scottish Bluegrass Association there is only one festival in August and it is the Guildtown Bluegrass Festival in Perthshire, "six miles north of Perth on the A93". This year's weekend, from Friday the 13th, features The Musselwhite Family from the US and the Rolls Boys from the Czech Republic.

The Voice of the People; Soweto Gospel Choir Is Bringing the Sound of Africa to Scotland. All They Ask in Return Is a Little Support for the Sufferers of Hiv in Their Homeland. By Beth Pearson

A few minutes ago, David Mulovhedzi was leading the Soweto Gospel Choir in a short performance at Sizanani Community Project in Soweto, South Africa. He's now directing his 26-strong choir, which will headline at Edinburgh Festival, in the distribution of food parcels. Bags of onions, packets of spaghetti, loose fruit, boxes of stock cubes, cartons of eggs and heaving bags of maize have been unpacked into neat mounds, while a young member of the choir tops each with a cauliflower. The parcels...

The Diary

All Greek to them NEW Raith Rovers manager Claude Anelka's plan of introducing a host of foreign players may well change the face of first division football. Former DR Congo internationalist Jules Tchimbakala (pictured), for example, has brought new meaning to the phrase "cultured midfielder".

Agreement Thwarted

ONCE again a settlement of the firefighters' dispute is grabbed from everyone's hands by the petty interventions of New Labour and its local government stooges. Agreement had been reached between the FBU and its opposite number in talks brokered by the TUC, and voted on by the employers' side (10-6 for acceptance) allowing payment in full to be released after nearly year's delaying tactics. Then, as if by some miracle, seven extra "negotiators" appear to vote on the agreement (13-6 reject); s...

Briefing: Phelophepa

The world's first healthcare train is celebrating its tenth year in operation. Q: Where?

Charge Not Just the 'Miscarriage' Victims

I THINK charging "miscarriage of justice" victims for bed and board is a grand idea. I am surprised that the authorities do not add a service charge to these freeloaders' bill, as I can't imagine the ungrateful sods leaving a tip on their departure. I look forward to the idea catching on. I can imagine kidnappers adding a bill for board and lodgings to the ransom note. What about blood donors lolling about enjoying a free cuppa and a biscuit? Charge the blighters. The list is endless. Holiday...

Falling Birthrate

NO, I did not ignore the effects of contraception and abortion on our population (Letters, August 2). As a former obstetrician in the then Territory of Papua New Guinea, I had first-hand experience of the personal sorrow associated with obstetrical problems, large families and poverty and, as a result, I am not ashamed to say that I believe in the right of the female over the age of 16 to take oral contraceptives and in very specific cases to choose an abortion after careful consideration and...

Violent Games

THE recent campaign against video games which contain excessive violence and acts of depravity within them, serves only to highlight once again the irrepressible desire on the behalf of certain sections of the media to instigate a public witch-hunt. When will the reactionaries in the media, and the public, realise that violent video games, movies and books are not the reason that people commit acts of atrocity? I personally own a number of violent video games, have read numerous graphic novel...

Growth and Happiness

I AM genuinely grateful for Alf Young's article on Friday: motivated, as I always am, by Tom Peter's useful mantra, "Love your sceptics". Alf raised a number of interesting points that demand clarification from me. First, he challenged the assertion that there is a link between low growth and lower happiness and on the face of it that is an entirely reasonable challenge. But when growth is materially and consistently lower in one place compared to elsewhere then I believe that lower incomes e...

Now Do Holyrood Justice Can Msps Match the Quality of Their New Home?

The big flit began yesterday when the first staff moved into their new workplace in the Scottish Parliament building at Holyrood. Over the next two months some 1000 people will transfer to the site. There is nothing underhand about the process, unlike flittings of old which, in the original meaning of the word, typically took place secretly under moonlight so that those moving could avoid creditors or obligations. In Holyrood's case, there is no escaping the final bill. The cost of the projec...

Army Required to Do Too Much with Too Little

Setting aside all sentiment and emotion in relation to our Scottish regiments, and looking at the hard facts which are no whit different from those contemplated by the Ministry of Defence and that painfully inadequate Geoff Hoon, we are left with the knowledge that the Army is being required to do too much with too little. It does not require a military expert to understand this. If one sets the number of ground troops available at any one time against the onerous and never-ending tasks given...

Independent Scotland Should Stay in Nato

I welcome the commitment by SNP leadership contender Mike Russell to reviewing policies, especially the existing SNP Nato policy, which proposes that independent Scotland pull out of the Nato command structure and join the former Soviet nations and the historic neutrals in Nato's Partnership for Peace. This is a residue of the SNP's 1980s policy of total neutrality, which was born out of the Cold War and the realisation that the Clyde, with its US and UK bases, would be a prime target. But th...

Why the Snp Is a Failed Party

Professor James Mitchell misses the point, when he says that "authority is more important than charisma for an SNP leader" (August 2). The real point is that the SNP is a failed party: it has virtually no members, huge debts and only one policy, "independence", which has been consistently rejected by the Scottish people. Now it thinks to rescue its prospects by choosing a leader from among some frankly second-rate candidates, even to the extent of resurrecting the candidacy of Alex Salmond, w...

No Risk of Prison

We Need Many Additional Infantry Soldiers

IN his letter published on July 26, Bill Ramsay argues that the strength of the regular Army is not a key issue, but the point I was making is that whatever the foreign policy of any British government, it will find itself powerless to act unless it has the ability to put sufficient troops on the ground. If the British infantry are to be further reduced and emasculated, then it will become such an ineffective force that it will only be able to play a reducing and ineffective part in helping t...

Trading Knowledge; Scotland Must Raise Its Game to Keep Finest Minds

No-one is irreplaceable in their work, but the loss of some people is more difficult to bear than the departure of others. Into the elite camp of the virtually indispensable falls Sir David Lane, professor of oncology at Dundee University. He is recognised the world over for his pioneering work on the p53 cancer gene. It is implicated in almost half of all cancers. Sir David's research work, for which he was knighted in 2000, has been dedicated to finding ways to use the gene to develop treat...

Fred Larue

Fred LaRue, a high-ranking Nixon administration official who served a prison term for his role in the Watergate scandal and was among those rumoured to be Deep Throat, has died. He was 75. His body was discovered by a maid in a hotel room in Biloxi, Mississippi, Coroner Gary Hargrove said. The coroner said he believes LaRue died on Saturday of natural causes.

From the Herald Archives

25 YEARS AGO DOCTORS have accused the police of trying to use them and the National Health Service to track down criminals. The British Medical Association said yesterday the practice could be the start of a pooling of information about citizens held by government departments.

Roddy Mckerracher; Self-Taught, Dedicated and Highly Respected Restorer

Roddy McKerracher took up metalwork at age of 19. Hailing from Bearsden, he set up in business in Strathblane. He was one of an early generation who practised falconry in the 1960s, and was a skilful fisherman and observer of the natural world. Born in 1943, Roddy was the youngest member of a family with a wide-ranging interest in Scots history and folklore, which he shared. He was educated at Kelvinside Academy and determined that he would become a blacksmith. As a metal-worker he was largel...

There's More to a Fruitful History Than Melon-Chucking Madness; Review

Lost Buildings of Britain Channel 4, 8.00pm Pagans Channel 4, 9.00pm Something always bothered me about the Robin Hood story, and it wasn't just the thought of men in tights. Why Nottingham? It is an inoffensive place, verily, but it never struck me as the most glamorous venue available for an epochal struggle between good and evil. Why would Prince John and his sheriff worry about some yokels running around in the woods all those miles from London? Simon Thurley answered the question. In doi...