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Some rare common sense: Changes to create greater freedom to use copyright works such as computer games, paintings, photographs, films, books, and music, while protecting the interests of authors and right owners, were announced today by Business Secretary Vince Cable. These form part of the Government’s response to creating a modern, robust and flexible copyright… [more]
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A great post on tech changes by Anil Dash: The tech industry and its press have treated the rise of billion-scale social networks and ubiquitous smartphone apps as an unadulterated win for regular people, a triumph of usability and empowerment. They seldom talk about what we’ve lost along the way in this transition, and I… [more]
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Easy joke, I know. Me on Techradar: Google Maps is back on iOS, and it’s great. There’s a famous bit in the classic film Crocodile Dundee when a mugger pulls a knife on him. “That’s not a knife,” he chuckles, and pulls out an enormous Bowie knife. “THAT’s a knife.” Today Google is Crocodile Dundee… [more]
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I’m a big fan of The Week, a weekly digest of the world’s key news stories, and I’ve always thought a similar publication for technology would be a really good idea. Other people clearly think the same, and here it is: Tech., a weekly iPad magazine from the nice people at Techradar. I haven’t seen… [more]
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I’m writing this while my daughter explores Disneyland – not the real one, the one that resembles Hell with cartoon characters, but the Kinect one. Kinect Disneyland Adventures is really rather good if your child is the right age for it. I bought the Kinect motion controller a long time ago, partly out of curiosity… [more]
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I wrote a wee thing about tablets for Techradar, in which I suggest that for most people, buying a full-sized tablet is an unnecessary expense. You may be thinking that I’m having a Damascene conversion: when Apple didn’t make seven-inch tablets I said small tablets were rubbish, and now Apple does make a seven-ish-inch tablet… [more]
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There’s been a big scandal in the world of videogames writing, and the short version goes something like this: comedian Robert Florence wrote a column about writers and PRs being a wee bit too close together, legal threats were made, the column was edited and Florence quit. Then it all exploded. Stuart Campbell has a… [more]
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Update, 2013: I decided not do to any more of these, for anybody, because I realised I was being a silly arse. Reviewers should be paid for their reviews, not allowed to keep the things they review: otherwise you’re in the Scoring Free Stuff business, not the Telling The Truth business. For what it’s worth… [more]
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The supposed Jimmy Saville / Paul Merton TV show transcript is doing the rounds again. Here’s some news from 2000: Paul Merton is always a man to push the televisual boundaries of libel laws as far as they will stretch but the transcript went a lot further than anything you would have seen on the… [more]
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I went to see Richard Hawley play Glasgow’s Barrowland last night. I’m not a huge fan – I like a lot of what I’ve heard, but I haven’t heard a lot – but last night’s performance of Don’t Stare At The Sun was one of those rare goosebumps-on-goosebumps moments. Beautiful. Here’s the same song on… [more]
Read me in books
My debut memoir, Carrie Kills A Man, was a Scotsman book of the year and Damian Barr’s Literary Salon book of the week, and it was shortlisted for the 2023 British Book Awards book of the year in the Discover category.
My latest book, Small Town Joy, is a celebration of queer influences on and queer artists in Scots music and is out now.
I’m also a contributor to the excellent anthology Fierce Salvage, which is also out now.
