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Dumfries and Galloway
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Author Archives: Stephen Shellard
This is Robert Rutherford Speaking. What can I do for you?
I was lucky enough to be in attendance at a book launch in Dumfries’s Coach and Horses to celebrate the publication of Pete Fortune’s two books of short stories, Waving at Strangers in Passing Cars and A Pauper from Irishgait … Continue reading
Posted in Books, Comment, Dumfries and Galloway, Environmental
Tagged environment, poem, poems, poet, Poetry, situationalism, writing
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Time for a Detox
Toxic culture sparks school strike threats! This headline, referring to a fairly newly built Dumfries multi school complex, was recently drawn to my attention. Toxic culture seems a rather vague term and in discussion of the topic I suggested that … Continue reading
Nate’s Forge
Thornhill was busy today, and my usual parking spot near the Drumlanrig Cafe was unavailable. By chance, I found a space at the Old School, located behind Nate’s forge. Frequent visitors to Thornhill will likely know of the giant fork … Continue reading
Posted in Comment, Dumfries and Galloway
Tagged Art, Blacksmith, Books, Cats, Dinosaurs, Dumfries and Galloway, food, photography, Sculpture, thornhill, writing
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In the Eyrie
What a pleasure it was to participate in the Wigtown Book Festival Southlight Launch which took place in the eyrie of the Nature Room, perched on the top floor of the County Buildings. It’s definitely the best Southlight Event I’ve been … Continue reading
The Open Book!
The subject of wind farms came up. Memorably Tom quipped: “They don’t really take up a lot of space, unless you include the visual impact!” He’s clear: we need major investment in the electricity grid and will just have to accept more pylons. Continue reading
Posted in Comment, Environmental
Tagged agriculture, How AI Thinks, Landsmart, Nigel Toon, Regenerative Agriculture, soil-health, sustainable-farming, Tom Heap, Wigtown
1 Comment
Will Hutton at the Fringe…
John Curtis: His framing of a possible future Scottish independence referendum was not one I had previously heard: a choice between one union, in which Scotland is currently a very significant if somewhat discontented fraction, and another, in which Scotland would be a very small part. Continue reading
Posted in Brexit, Comment, Economics, Electoral Reform
Tagged "Labour Party", Economics, electoral reform, john-crace, john-curtis, keir-starmer, Politics, uk-politics, will-hutton
2 Comments
A Day of Protests
Migrant communities are always the object of suspicion and mistrust and that is to be expected, but here in Scotland this should be tempered with an awareness of the recent history of emigration. Continue reading
Football – Man and Boy
Football — soccer that is — occupied a unique position in the culture of Newry and District for it was not an official game in any of the schools, whether Catholic, where Gaelic football and hurling were played, or state schools, such as Newry High School, where the official sports were rugby and hockey. I’d played both of these in my first year and opted for hockey, which I enjoyed; but my first love was “the beautiful game”. Continue reading
Posted in Comment, Misc
Tagged "Carnbane League", "George Best", "John Giles", "Newry Town", "Pat Jennings", "World Cup", soccer
1 Comment
Open Letter to John Cooper, MP for Dumfries and Galloway Constituency
The Reform Party which Nigel Farage leads, spell out a number of proposed constitutional changes … they say, there should be a referendum on constitutional reform. I doubt very much their enthusiasm for this will last beyond the point at which they win a majority of seats in the House of Commons. Nigel Farage is very happy to ally himself with Donald Trump, the most duplicitous individual ever to emerge in the politics of the modern era and thus his commitment to genuine democratic reform lacks credibility. Continue reading
Posted in Comment, Electoral Reform
Tagged "Labour Party", electoral reform, nigel-farage, Politics, PR, SNP
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Carruchan 
The Role of Schooling in the Rise and Rise Again of Donald Trump
This gallery contains 3 photos.
Anthony Scaramucci tells many amusing stories arising from his brief period as White House Director of Communications in the first Trump administration. For me the most striking of these relate to Trump’s difficulties with the written word, his reluctance, for example, to … Continue reading →