ONE 3 • Putting Yourself in the Picture
When director Michel Gondry wrote his latest feature, Be Kind Rewind, it seems likely that he worked out the solution to his plot before coming up with the problem it subsequently resolved…
Category: ONE-3 • Feb 2008 • Beyond Us & Them
ONE 3 • A Swedish Reality Show since 1891
Reality vs fiction—what do we really mean when we make such a distinction? In this age when almost anything can be replicated and mass-produced, many of us long for something we perceive to be truly authentic. On television there is such a variety of programmes with documentary-like content, it is …
ONE 3 • Mean City to Big Apple III: Heading South
Christmas in New York means doing some really touristy activities. First I took a train up to mid-town to see the ice-skating and the huge tree in Rockefeller Center, then trotted along to Radio City Music Hall to see the legendary Rockettes—which was the most spectacular show I have ever …
ONE 3 • Prisons, Cemeteries and Concentration Camps: them & us
Last spring, I began to teach creative writing at Polmont Young Offenders Institution, a prison for young men in Scotland. Society would like to believe prisons are liminal: prisoners go in, spend some time, are rehabilitated, come out reformed. At the end of my first visit, when I walked out, …
ONE 3 • Beyond the Troubles
These photographs, taken in February 2004, document the Northern Irish city of Derry-Londonderry, which, after decades of sectarian violence (known as “the Troubles”), has achieved peace.
ONE 3 • The Music of Chance: A Conversation with Sheila Colvin
“It’s been a mess and yet it hasn’t been a mess.” Sheila Colvin has had an extraordinary international career in the arts—including playing an vital role in the Edinburgh International Festival. JANE McKIE talks to her about the adventure of a “completely unstructured life” that took her to London, New …
ONE 3 • Culture Shock: an interview with Iain M. Banks
Almost quarter of a century after he made his explosive debut with The Wasp Factory, Iain Banks is still shaking up the literary world. ANDREW J. WILSON discusses space, time and middle initials with one of our greatest contemporary authors.
ONE 3 • Poetspace 3: Mary Palmer, Steve Plummer and Kevin Cadwallender
WORLD OF WORDS ~in memory of Players Edwin Booth & Samuel Clemens~ “Words are nets through which all truth escapes” – Paula Fox
ONE 3 • Under the Rising Sun: Some Impressions of Japan
Science-fiction author CHARLES STROSS really has seen the future, but he didn’t need a crystal ball or a time machine to do it. All it took was a long-haul flight to the other side of the world…
ONE 3 • Orwell’s Sound of Silence
As Niels Bohr said, “Prediction is very difficult, especially about the future.” George Orwell never claimed to be a prophet, but as ANDREW B. SMITH shows, his thoughts about the trends of his time still resonate today.
ONE 3 • Orwell and the Scots
Orwell’s early attitude to the Scots and Scotland could best be described as frosty. In his excellent biography, Bernard Crick refers to the period during 1934 when Orwell had a girlfriend in Hampstead, a member of the Labour League of Youth, who remembered that he talked little about politics, “except …
ONE 3 • Happy Hour: New Fiction from Edinburgh’s Makar
She called her pack of pills her very own Advent calendar—her chemical countdown to a good day or to a very good day. The choice was hers…
ONE 3 • Paris Notes: Plus Ça Change Plus c’est la Même Chose, However…
PLUS ÇA CHANGE PLUS C’EST LA MÊME CHOSE: HOWEVER… (The more things change the more they remain the same, however…) “Je t’aime, ô capitale infâme!” —Charles Baudelaire (“Le Spleen de Paris”)
ONE 3 • American Baseball in Black and White
“Whoever wants to know the heart and mind of America had better learn baseball, the rules and realities of the game—and do it by watching first some high school or small-town teams.” —Jacques Barzun
ONE 3 • Tasting Notes: Vinyl Solution
A desire to dim my presence in the eye-watering constellation of celebrity explains my preference for the Balmoral Palm Court Bar. A location where such Appellations de Hollywood Contrôlée as Tom Hanks and Jack Burns sojourn is the ideal spot for Vins de Pays such as myself to pass unobserved. …