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This powerful photo is from Poland, where women and LGBT+ people are protesting truly awful anti-abortion legislation. The government was elected partly because of its anti-LGBT+, “family values” stance; as is always the case, “family values” also means restricting women’s rights in order to keep them barefoot and pregnant. Here’s another family values politician, the… [more]
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Jonn Elledge has just re-shared this excellent piece he wrote in April about lockdown and those of us who live in cities. He argues that it isn’t country folks who live outdoors; it’s city ones. it’s actually the urban residents who live their lives outside, for the obvious reason that their homes are so small… [more]
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Like many people I’ve been struggling this year. Lockdown and COVID restrictions have been hellish for many people’s mental health. The promise of lockdown was that it was a necessary evil: we did it to save the NHS and to buy time to create an effective contact tracing system. That time was squandered, and England… [more]
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I live in Glasgow, which is currently in Level 3 coronavirus restrictions. I don’t think we’re likely to move to level 0, near-normality, this side of Spring. And that’s me being optimistic. Until then, we have to live under restrictions. And those restrictions often seem contradictory or based on very dubious assumptions. I’m going to… [more]
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Yesterday, multiple newspapers reported the return of Woolworths, a retail chain that no longer operates in the UK. The story was in the Metro.It was in the Daily Star. It was in the Mirror. It was in the Brighton Argus, and Birmingham Live, and the rest of the UK’s local press. It was everywhere. It… [more]
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I think Pet Shop Boys are one of the greatest singles bands of all time, and I’ve long been drawn to their mix of melancholy and euphoria. Their 1987 chart-topper It’s A Sin remains one of the strangest, most rewarding pop songs ever to reach number one in the UK chart. It’s also a hell… [more]
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TIME magazine: Twenty-eight U.S. Christian right groups have spent millions of dollars pursuing conservative agendas that threaten LGBTQ and women’s rights in Europe, a new investigation by British news website openDemocracy found Tuesday. [more]
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The UK appears to be having one of its periodic outbreaks of idiocy when affluent people claim that they could absolutely feed a family of 12 on 23p a week and have money left over. So Twitter is currently full of people claiming you can buy a chicken in Aldi for £2 (this, clearly, is… [more]
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Stephen Paton writes in The National about the abuse currently being thrown online at Mridul Wadhwa, who is a potential SNP candidate. You’d think that Wadhwa would be exactly the kind of person a supposedly progressive, forward-thinking country would want: she’s an advocate for Black and minority ethnic voices and has spent fifteen years working… [more]
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Because I live in the central belt of scotland, I’m not going out anywhere right now. The pubs and venues are all closed, so there are no gigs to go to, no open mics to play, no comedy shows to cackle at. I can’t meet my friends in restaurants and I can’t cook for them… [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.
