Shona MacLean

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I'm very pleased.

School Christmas concert. One night maybe I wont have tears in my eyes when the pipe band join with the school orchestra, singers and BSL choir in Auld Lang Sine, but not tonight. Wish the sheer joy of it could just spread out into the world.

All good, David. Nice to see you. Will eventuallywork out how to do DMs on here! Hope all is good with you, too.

Good grief - what is wrong with him? Doesn't he know any real people, just bursting at the seams with unsolicited advice? Poor bairn.

I think it would be great if they got so scared of the Greens they started pandering to Green voters instead of Reform. That would be really good. Keep at it.

There's a house in Aberdeen for sale, on Burnieboozle Crescent. I'd forgotten about this part of town, but imagine if you lived there, and you just didn't fancy doing whatever you were being asked to do, you could say, 'Sorry, I can't today, I'm just Burnieboozled.' And no-one could argue with you.

My new memoir ‘Phone Charger: My Life Walking to the Bedroom to Fetch Something But Forgetting What It Was By the Time I Get There, Then Walking Back To See If Anything in the Front Room Jogs My Memory, Then Repeating It to Myself While I Walk Back to the Bedroom’ is out next year.

Advert from 1923 saying, "The Wonders of Ancient Egypt are not yet fully known, but ... none will be more astounding than the marvellous value that Kenneth Mackenzie, Evanton, has to offer in Cycles. Image of woman on bike and the legend, 'Buy a bike for your shopping.'

Ross-Shire Journal, 1923. Kenneth Mackenzie of Evanton was not one to miss an advertising opportunity: never mind the wonders of Ancient Egypt; buy a bike.

😅

I raise you whatever this is.

I loved that book. And 'This Bright Light' , and the Stone one. Looking forward to whatever comes next.

Great 😁

Well, I've got one. The Cromarty Library Circle, set in 1830s Cromarty. Coming out 26th Feb. Just since you're asking.

Me too.

"When are we going to have a cost of living special?"

Zack Polanski on #BBCQT

join.greenparty.org.uk

Bizarre mix-up at draw as winner of World Cup accidentally revealed seven months in advance

My father -Gilleasbuig MacLean was his name - went to school in Glasgow. English was not his first language either - he wasn't allowed to speak it in the house. Glasgow was built on 'culture-smashing'. I hope Farage was chased away and told not to come back.

I'm sorry, but I have to speak up for Wham's virtually unbearable, 'Last Christmas '.

Reading in Kate Ashton's dual biography of Kierkegaard and Hans Christian Andersen that Kierkegaard had, "failed repeatedly to meet the basic criteria for social adaptation or cope in any way with 'normal' life", and today, Matthew, I am going to be Kierkegaard.

The Wolfson History Prize - Celebrating Outstanding History The Wolfson History Prize is awarded annually to promote and recognise outstanding history written for a general audience.

Graduate of the American Studies programme that the University of Nottingham wishes to close wins 2025 Wolfson History Prize for Survivors: The Lost Stories of the Last Captives of the Atlantic Slave Trade.

History, it's a long game. Divest in haste, repent for the longue durée.

I love it! It's so cheerful.

My best tree memories are of the disasters, the terrible decorations that became things of legend, the times the whole thing fell over ...

Good to clear the head.

Every writng day: wake up slightly anxious re. book. Clean house, walk dog, much better - remind self there is a plan. Sit down with coffee at laptop. Plan shoots into air in thousands of particles before disappearing like a transient firework. Panic. Have lunch. Sit back down and get on with it

Novelist. "Will I have heard of anything you've written?" Or "Do they sell your books in shops?" I do realise the latter question is getting more reasonable as things evolve, but still...

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Your annual reminder that the most revealing difference between Irish and Scottish Gaelic is definitely in the words for December: Mí na Nollag (Month of Christmas) in Ireland, and An Dubhlachd (the Blackness) in Scotland. So once again may I wish you all a lovely Blackness.

That's the only one I've tried so far. I may give another a go sometime, but too many books, too little time.