Virtual Methodist

OK... You've probably worked out by now that I love Karine Polwart's new album "Traces" . I'm with others who believe that she is one of Britain's finest songwriters , and in this album she has produced some of her very best work... It has taken a number of years gestation so I'm glad the wait was worth it. She weaves personal memories with political protest through powerful poetic lyrics delivered in her unashamedly Stirlingshire accent. The album begins with evocations of childhood games on the coastal dunes of Aberdeenshire, in "Cover Your Eyes", a protest against Donald Trump's redevelopment of the Aberdeenshire dunes of the Menie Estate to produce his International Golf Links . This has current local echoes in the controversy around the proposed Runkerry Golf Course on the Causeway coast, as does the poignant last song, "Half a Mile" that I referred to yesterday . It reflects on the abduction and murder in 1982 of Susan Maxwe...

It is time to confess to a guilty pleasure... Currently I don't watch much TV, but one programme I really do try to see at one time or other during the week (and no I can't record it, because I've forgotten how to work the DVD recorder I use it so infrequently, and for some reason it isn't on BBC i-Player) is BBC's The Apprentice... And its little sister "You're Fired" with the ubiquitous Adrian Chiles. I feel a little bit uneasy about this, because it is really only a version of Big Brother for people with MBAs... but for some reason it has captured my attention in a way that none of the other unreality shows ever have... And I am no "Johnny-come-lately"... I became addicted to it from its first incarnation in the USA with Donald Trump as the Apprentice-Meister... But hardly a week goes by when I am not left foaming at the mouth with the various contestants... It is hard to believe that such a bunch of arrogant, incompetent, unpleasant indiv...