The Herald

An Affectionate Recollection of a Trade That Still Finds Echoes... [Derived Headline]

AN affectionate recollection of a trade that still finds echoes in the shoe-repair shops of the modern high street. It comes from Kenneth Steven's Island: Collected Poems (Saint Andrew Press, 2009). SHOES

While Sitting in the Rush-Hour Traffic On the Balmore Road... [Derived Headline]

Back On the Road

Veteran guitarist Duane Eddy's tour stops off tonight in Glasgow, says Jonathan Geddes Conversations with Elvis, experimenting with the Art of Noise and admiring the Black Keys: chatting to Duane Eddy is a musical history tour, with one of the original guitar heroes as your guide.

If Europe Loses Greece, We Will Be Doomed Too

WHEN Italy was faking its way into the euro, one favourite trick was to encourage arms of the Italian Government to trade gold among themselves. Economically, this was absurd, insane, or at best supremely irrelevant to reality. Within the fiction of the national accounts, however, it looked sensationally clever. That's the Italians for you, you might say: naughty but creative. You wouldn't catch the Bank of England, whose word is its bond, engaging in such hocus pocus. It would not, for examp...

Getting Sniffy

JUDE MacLaverty was buying a muffin in a Glasgow coffee shop when the assistant took a deep sniff of the cake before putting it in a bag. After savouring her sniff she proudly announced to a startled Jude: "Ah've had a gastric band fitted - that's the closest Ah get tae cakes these days."

In Praise of ... The Transit of Venus.

LET me first clear up a possible misconception. I'm not talking about an extraterrestrial van. The transit of Venus is not a vehicle. It is, er, a transit, which is to say a journey, in this case by the planet Venus across the face of yon Sun. Next month - June 6 to be precise - will be the chance for people living today to witness the phenomenon.

Prime Minister Crass to Question a Man's Failure to Die

David Cameron's scathing reference to the 1000th-day anniversary of Abdelbaset Ali Mohmed al-Megrahi's release from Greenock Prison is another example of distasteful and unnecessary political bickering ("Megrahi survival is insult to families", says Cameron", The Herald, May 14, and Letters, May 15). In the aftermath of the Libyan uprising and the surprising exposure of Colonel Gadaffi as a bad egg, surely our perspectives on who held responsibility for the bombing of Pan-Am flight 107 should...

Action Needed to Stop the Decline in Our Retail Sector

IT says something about the state of the Scottish retail sector when the only bright spot on the horizon is the creation of a new Poundland store in Airdrie, bringing 40 jobs to North Lanarkshire. Yesterday's Scottish retail figures were awful, the worst fall since the survey started in 1999. Year on year sales in April were down 4.1 (the equivalent figure for the UK was only 1% down. The recently announced shop closures at Clinton Cards, Thorntons, Jane Norman and others will not be the last...

We Need Fundamental Reform of the Global Banking System

AS the Greek currency tragedy unfolds we will be hearing more about the Wolfson Prize: pound(s)250,000 for the best solution for an orderly withdrawal from the euro. It attracted worldwide interest, from leading economists to gold cranks, and the winner is to be announced on July 5. In the meantime five finalists have been announced and published online, all excellent and all offering solutions in conventional terms - that is, debt forgiveness and a return to the drachma. Unfortunately, they ...

Cash Canines

BRITAIN'S dog owners are seeing their pets in a new light. No longer canine companions but cash cows. It's Pudsey who did it and has not run away. Pudsey, the border collie, bichon frise and Chinese crested cross, who won Britain's Got Talent. Yes, after an exhaustive search for entertainment excellence in the UK, the winner was a dog who can stand on his hind legs and dance a bit.

Campaigning for the U-Word

WHAT is in a name? Plenty, it seems. The pieces of the jigsaw that will make up the cross-party campaign to keep Scotland in the UK are beginning to come together, providing some intriguing glimpses into the future shape of the independence debate. As yet this campaign has no name. However, as The Herald reveals today, we know what it is not. The word "Union" will not feature. Nor, presumably, "Unionist". At first sight this seems strange. After all, commentators frequently use the term as sh...

Food Waste Can Be a Powerful Asset

EVERY day hundreds of tonnes of food are wasted in Scotland. From leftover vegetables to out-of-date ready meals, a huge amount of foodstuffs is dumped in household bins and destined for landfill. It's estimated that Scottish households alone produce more than 560,000 tonnes of food waste every year. When we check our own bins at the end of the day I sometimes find yoghurts which are way past their use-by date, plus rotten produce that has seen better days. But these items may now hold the ke...

Local Government and Regeneration Will Take Evidence On the The... [Derived Headline]

Only Heterosexual Relationships Are Encouraged in Old and New Testaments

STUART Mitchell states with confidence that "those in same-sex relationships can be sure of God's acceptance" (Letters , May 15), and Jaye Richards-Hill (Letters, May 14) would appear to agree. But, if one carefully reads the whole Bible, the clear message from both Old and New Testaments is that the only sexual relationship to be encouraged is the heterosexual one within the marriage-bond. All other sexual relationships are discouraged as not being God's way, whether accompanied by "love" or...

White Gloves Often Do More Harm Than Good in Handling Rare Artefacts

YoUR correspondent John Birkett (Letters, May 14) queries the BBC for showing a presenter handling a 16th- century copy of Machiavelli's The Prince without white gloves. White gloves are a generally a pretentious affection when handing such historical artefacts.

It Would Be Harder for Scotland to Join the Euro Than to Keep Out of It

THE anti-independence voices continue to argue that Scotland would be forced to join the single currency upon independence, but they are blind to recent electoral developments in continental Europe. The comeback of the French socialists and the struggle of the Greek pro-austerity parties to form a coalition are already sending chills down spines in Brussels. If the euro is to survive, Europe will need to have an honest rethink about euro membership, entry processes and deficit regulation. Cou...

Sleeping Beauty Insomnia, Oran Mor, Glasgow

The penultimate offering in the National Theatre of Scotland/A Play, A Pie and A Pint mini-season of work looking at the Arab world is a black comedy by Lebanese playwright Abdelrahim Alawji. Set during an Israeli bombing raid on Beirut, two strangers - a young unemployed graduate, played by David Walshe, and a gruff, older ex-army sniper (Stewart Porter) - take shelter in an underground theatre, only to find themselves trapped, and stuck with each other. The young man is a Muslim, the older ...

Arts News

Flower power Jupiter Artland, a sculpture garden at Bonnington House, near Edinburgh, has opened its new season installations, including work by Anya Gallaccio, the Paisley-born Turner prize nominee. Red on Green is an installation of 10,000 red roses laid in a field upon the gallery floor, which will decay and wither throughout the summer.

Shanghi, Theatre Royal, Glasgow

In the fantasy realms of today's animal-free circus, the thrills of traditional skills - aerial flying, acrobatics, juggling - come dressed up with a hint of a storyline, a slinky cling of much- sequinned Lycra and tightly choreographed routines that add their own dramatic flourish to impressive feats of strength and split- second brinkmanship. ShangHi, the new Cirque du Ciel spectacular, has all this and more: there's a live on-stage percussionist who bangs a mighty, driving heartbeat throug...

The Temper Trap, 02 Abc, Glasgow

There's a nifty video for the Temper Trap's last single, Need This Love, which pays loving homage to the Karate Kid. Watching the Australian band live truly brings home just how fitting this tribute is: this is a band that writes songs custom-made to play during montage sequences showing the hero transforming himself or overcoming the odds. These were big fist-pumping tunes all right, just in a moderately sized venue. That isn't meant as a slight, for the Temper Trap are good at what they do,...