“A week is a long time in politics,” said Harold Wilson, and equally often quoted is Harold MacMillan’s reply to being asked why carefully planned policies so often go wrong: “Events, dear boy, events!” Well, recent weeks have proved both statements not only relevant, but significant, in that a revolution …
I decided to become a writer after reading Love In The Time Of Cholera by Gabriel Garcia Marquez. The year was 1990, and I was in rehab trying to kick my addiction to cocaine. It was the first novel I had read since leaving school, bought on the recommendation of …
Scotland Notes: Homecoming, Burns an’ a’ that ONE Magazine welcomes its newest contributor, First Minister Alex Salmond The year 2009 is already shaping up to be an exceptional year for Scotland. Inspired by the 250th anniversary of the birth of our national cultural icon Robert Burns, our Homecoming Year is …
Glasgow Notes: From the Heart (By Way of Toronto) Leaving Glasgow for good was never my intention. Moving on was akin to boiling a frog; if I had left with the sole purpose of settling elsewhere the pain may have been too great for me to bear. As it was, …
New York Notes: Baseball’s Edifice Complex Major league baseball in the USA has been on a binge of new stadium construction. Baltimore’s Oriole Park at Camden Yards started the craze in 1992 with a deservedly hailed ‘retro’ park that combined the intimacy and sightlines of a baseball-only ballpark with the …
Belfast Notes: Breaking New Ground Belfast is getting better. My perspective of Belfast is informed by a small graffiti I saw in a toilet stall in Europa Train Station. Nestled among crudely drawn penises and acronyms such as ‘IRA’, ‘UDA’, ‘INLA’, and ‘UVF’, were the words “I F*cking Hate Belfast” …
Hollywood Notes: Black Lists in Beverly Hills Every year Hollywood managers, agents and executives put together an inventory known in the business as ‘The Black List.’ Unlike the McCarthy witch hunts of the 1950s, the current Black List is a desirable and enviable place to be — the list of …
StAnza, Scotland’s International Poetry Festival kicked off last night with a inaugural address from First Minister Alex Salmond, and the immolation of sculpter David Mach’s Robert Burns match stick head – Rabbie burns… Rabbie burning… Rabbie burnt. Now,the 12th annual festival is well under way…
Berlin(ale) Notes: Views on Potsdamer Platz ‘Oh, East is East, and West is West, and never the twain shall meet.’ Transpose Kipling’s Asian Ballad to Mitteleuropa and imagine the climate in Berlin before 1989. But, in November of that year, with one swell foop (Berlin said IamONE?), the wall came …
Woodstock Notes: 1969 to 2009 Talking ’bout my Generation This August will mark the fortieth anniversary of Woodstock, the historic festival at Bethel, New York where some of the greatest musicians of my generation performed; Joan Baez, Janis Joplin, The Who, Crosby Stills Nash and Young, the Grateful Dead and …
In the beginning was the Word, somebody added an I and all hell broke loose. —Peter Porter, from Cross Stitch enjoy, link, but no copying. ©2009 Photography of Andy Warhol, Michael Wisenhunt, John Sex, Javier, International Crisis, Rebecca Field, The Warhol Skull, Leigh Bowery, John Kelley, Betsy Johnson, Marcus Leatherdale, …
Black Down in Britain From an Obama victory back to 1970s Britain: Stephen Thompson, popular author of Toy Soliders and Meet Me Under the Westway reflects and arrives with some new takes on politics from both sides of the pond.
Art and Matter Art and Matter: the idea came to me recently in Paris, at an exhibition of manuscripts. Near a letter written by an anguished Paul Verlaine, not far from one in the actual hand of Marie Antoinette, was a page from Albert Einstein. Although I could read little …
No Thoughts on Art On the tenth anniversary of his passing, ONE Magazine presents the first published peek at his final manuscript The Dusty Answers. If, according to The Naked Civil Servant, ‘an exhibitionist has no friends,’ then what happens to the exhibitions?
Shooting Warhol by Gerard DeGroot The author of the controversial book The Sixties Unplugged (2008) revisits a pivotal event for he infamous Pop Artist.
Welcome to Generation Free What does every good techno-revolution need? A great mutiny. While the self-proclaimed keeps of pop culture join the ranks of the chicken-little licensing naysayers, a new generation has emerged that is savvy and immediate, with a clear message: the jig is up. Smells like punk.
A Matter of Art Can art matter in the age of the internet now that noone pays for anything anymore?
The Death Predictor Horace screwed the final bolt into place before standing back to admire his creation. How long it had taken him to perfect his machine! It was unreal. For years Horace had been cooped up in his house. He wouldn’t leave for weeks on end, working in every …
Dreams, Lessons, Friendship, Hope. Each year The Moth invites one brave teenager to share a personal story on our main stage in New York City. They share the stage with celebrated writers and performers, which would be intimidating for someone twice their age. Last year, that teen was Tavar McKenzie. …
She’s My Dream Come True As part of ONE Magazine’s prison writing programme we hosted a creative writing competition throughout the young offenders institution. Entires came in from throughout the gaol, in all genres, and this piece of fictionalised autobiography emerged the winner. PJ Thompson’s delicate piece demonstrates that not …
Genesis of the Grumpy Chef Step aside Gordon Ramsey, your nemesis has arrived… and his vocabulary extends beyond ‘f*ck’.
By way of a springtime gift, I can’t offer readers of ONE anything better than to direct them to this piece by Philip Blond, a Director of Demos, the London-based research institute: http://www.prospect-magazine.co.uk/article_details.php?id=10608 In it, Blond describes with laser accuracy the nature of the current crisis – and what needs …
As the media we’ve been used to collapses around us and politicians are proving to be more corrupt than at any time since the English Civil War, it’s worth looking backwards to get a taste for how things might be in the future. Three hundred years ago, before the advent …
Great Britain has always been a country in love with the amateur and only during the last two-thirds of the twentieth century has that in practice, if not altogether in theory, diminished. Sport, for instance, whether in field sports, boxing or equestrian, was an activity for amateurs, usually gentlemanly ones, …
Just yesterday, I was attending a meeting at the local burgh hall. Very rainy, steamy, humid Saturday afternoon with a weak cup of coffee kind of affair.
The recent entry by my ONE colleague Stephen Thompson on science and mysticism came at a time when, coincidentally, I’d just delivered a talk at the University of Wales on how scientists should communicate with the public.
“It’s a pandemic, my aunt has it!” “You get it from eating pigs.” “It’s more deadly that real flu, I read that somewhere!” “Just hack off the infected limb and watch for further signs of zombification.” “Is it the end of the world, like?” “I hear licking at autistic child …
Not so long ago someone in Edinburgh called me a ‘fucking coon’. The particulars of the incident I won’t dwell on: suffice it to say that there was a mild difference of opinion, a trifle when I really think about it, which resulted in the abovementioned insult. I was speechless. …
For all that science has transformed our lives, it seems that scientists are still regarded as a uniformly dull breed. Surely this has to be a mis-perception, for even if the stereotype were true of your average lab technician – and I don’t suppose for one moment that it is …
The absence of any confidence or even belief in the probity or competence of those who have been elected to govern, either on a national or regional level, is now so universal that the question must be asked: Why are so few people standing up to challenge those in power, …
editors’ note: If you know anything about John Calder, one of the UK’s most notorious publishers — who has brought us Alleg, Beckett, Duras, Hiss and Selby, you’ll note that even he jokes that anything electronic, from the TV to computer, tends to malfunction in his presence. This is his …
However much one might disagree with Jonah Goldberg, the New Review columnist, there can be no doubting the importance of his #1 US best-seller, “Liberal Fascism”, recently published in Britain and every bit as relevant to this country as it is to Goldberg’s native United States.
The BNP or British National Party. To some, a symbol of national pride. To others, a rabble of racist thugs and a real threat. For anyone who hasn’t heard of these so-called “political activists”, read on… What this blog post isn’t about is the BNP’s racism and highly offensive policies. …
Hey guys and girls, how we all doing today? Just a quick post to remind you all that the Open Mic Night at Circle Bar will be held tonight at the Circle Cafe Bar, from 20:00 til late. Be you a writer, poet, stand up comedian, we want you! If …
As the subject has already been put forth by the astute fellow that is Mr. John Calder, I thought it important to put across my view on the art of protest. You see, when we speak of rebellion, the images conjured in our minds are that of stroppy teens, punk …
These days, it’s a commonplace to say that idealism in politics has been replaced by gross materialism. And it’s even more common – in Britain at least — to lay the blame for that gross materialism at the feet of the Conservative party and Margaret Thatcher’s government. But whatever one …
Two lettres in one day. It’s a thin line, between love and hate.
Once, when I was younger, back around 1979, I was sitting in Mrs Bland’s classroom beside my friend at the time Jay Hull. Jay and I’d been spending our morning lying about all the girls we’d done and were gonna do and had been told we could do (there was …
No one is learning much of anything in the retail and banking sectors in this economy. Shops are still chock-full of overpriced goods produced by Third-World fingerless children, Afghanistani Heroin floods the streets at a hometown near you; and then there’s the altars of capitalism…
In high sun or fall To snow drifts melting into spring In seasons numbered in all Under cloud, stars, moon or sun Be it bitter with wind or cool with dusken breeze Till night dies, and morning does come
Nick Davies, a former investigative reporter with The Guardian, has just published “Flat Earth News” (Vintage, www.flatearthnews.net), probably the most important book about hackery for decades.
So, my dear lady and I picked up some DVDs to watch recently, and amongst the lower priced ones stood Sweeney Todd- The Demon Barber of Fleet Street. Having a mixed opinion of musicals (out of the two I’ve seen, I liked one and hated the other), I thought …
While I wait for my iPod nano to charge its music batteries before my sojourn into town, I thought I would write my first blog, having had it set up for me by that enigmatic figure whom goes by the name of Martin B. So, with reserved doubts and the …
Main Street in Park City is crammed with people for the first time during the 2009 Sundance Film Festival. People are running down to giant screens at the bottom of the street where Aretha Franklin is singing “I vow to thee my country”: the image of a black woman born …
A lot has happened since my first article for the first ONE…over three months since my arrival on American shores and what an adventure it is!
Let’s get it straight from the start. I have a few personal issues, which are triggered by Charley Boorman’s latest book By Any Means, so please allow me to put my cards on the table.
Science fiction is a time machine for the imagination, with a remarkable way of transporting us from the here-and-now to the distant past or the far-flung future. The problem is, according to author Neil Gaiman, “You can tell the date of an old science fiction novel by every word on …
“There’s no question that in the next thirty or forty years, a Negro can also achieve the same position that my brother has as President of the United States, certainly within that period of time.“ — Robert F. Kennedy, 1968
Like most liberal Americans, I have awakened every morning since Election Day rubbing my eyes with disbelief about the outcome. Yet the more I hear the phrase “President- elect Barack Obama” the more I get used to it, and somewhere in the great beyond Wesley Branch Rickey and Jack …
Coming from a place where sunny weather, palm trees and the “Hollywood” sign is the welcome mat for visitors — I never thought I’d move to cold weather, and a neighborhood of graffiti-covered brick buildings in Harlem, the capital of black America. Harlem is not only a community, it’s a …
Pennsylvania. October 19, 2008. Twenty-one electoral votes were up for grabs in the battleground state of Pennsylvania (PA) and pollsters were showing a tightening race between the two presidential candidates: Democrat Barack Obama and Republican John McCain. With this in mind, my friends Stephanie and Anne and I decided to …
After spending last year studying in New York, I am more interested in US politics than ever before. I watched debates and interviews, particularly with Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama fighting it out. From the start I felt a strong affiliation with Obama. As a white British male in my …
1. Confusion As a 6 year old kid growing up in Glasgow, in Scotland, I was moved from one area to another, getting passed around my family like some piece of used clothing. My father was not around. I quickly learned to hide my emotions, pretend to be someone else, …
Life can be heaven Or life can be hell It depends where you’re borne It depends where you dwell
the realities of what can happen inside… Before prison I was a cheeky, arrogant little bastard who didn’t care about anyone other than myself. Add the consumption of alcohol and I turned into a complete animal. It’s not the question of who I was, it’s what I was.
What is it to give? The dictionary states that the meaning of the word ‘give’ is: “to grant something to somebody or to allow somebody to have something — such as power or right.” When I think back, only one thing sticks out that was given to me. When I …
My Wee Sister
I am twenty-two years old and standing in a cold, bland church, looking at one of my best friends, lying in a dark, oak box. The sanctuary is pale with death. I think of my old days. There was drink, drugs, women, girls, some good banter and of course, plenty …
Paris is the city of light and romance year-round. In spring, it teems with visitors and there is a certain kind of kinetic energy pulsing along its narrow winding streets that entices some women to walk home alone even in the dead of night. I must admit, as a Native …
Thoughts on the Present Crisis John Calder Although my university training was in Political Economy, I have never practised economics, but I well remember what I learned, and my only surprise about the great financial bubble that has burst is that it took so long. I have been expecting it …
The day after Diwali was always the quietest in Amrur. Street dogs, which spent most mornings howling after cyclists, crouched fearfully in garbage shelters. Three-legged autorickshaws that hooted and tooted while ferrying passengers from Amrur to other parts of Bangalore were silent, having been abandoned on street corners. Vendors with …
Shall the Geek Inherit the Earth? In his recent book, Point to Point Navigation, Gore Vidal asserts: “Today, where literature was, movies are… there can be no other reality for us since reality does not begin to mean until it is made art of. For the Agora, Art is now …
Hitting the Wall Like a present-day Don Quixote, I had the windmill firmly in my sights. It was clear that timing would be crucial.
Safe as House: Questioning a media myth Chinese Puzzle: According to recent reports, one and half million Chinese citizens were forcibly evacuated from their homes to make way for the Olympics in Beijing. David Ferguson digs a little deeper…
I was naïve kid, raised in a very conservative family. Thoughts of being anything but straight was never up for consideration.
Black Rock City Notes The Burning Man festival takes place every year in late August, in Nevada’s Black Rock Desert — an expanse of crackled, alkaline desert ringed by mountains. This year, I arrived on a Saturday, two days before the event officially opened, when the playa was still noticeably …
“Do you feel that your imagination is different than the imagination of those generations that succeeded us?” – Petr Kral at Prague Writers’ Festival ‘08 How does a young artist find inspiration in a society where “everything has been done”?
Does prize culture in the arts spells disaster? In an era where “Everyone’s a Winner”, the bar continues a downward decent, and children are given “diplomas” for completing nursery — James W. Wood argues that creators, artists and audiences should have only one interest: pleasure.
The International Olympic Committee says “no”, but the Scottish Parliament says “yes”. Is the Saltire a national emblem or flag of convenience? Andrew J. Wilson unravels what the most important symbol of Scotland means today.
In his incisive introduction to The Road to Independence? Scotland Since the Sixties, Murray Pittock defines an ongoing problem: “Separate histories of Scotland are fine for Scots. That is the general consensus… But across the UK in general, Scottish history occupies a rather strange no-man’s land between the local and …
In the Thigh of Evening for H.C. We sit here in the thigh of evening you in my memory and I– black treetops are moving music scored on sky
Entropy Rising 1968, the world boiled: riots in Mexico City, a military coup in Iraq, the Pope condemned birth control, France ground to a three-week halt, US Marines made a massacre of Mai Lai. The Beatles released the White Album, Andy Warhol painted cans of soup, Kubrik made a monkey …
Edward Louis Bernays: Doctor Freud’s PR whiz nephew Have you heard of this man? If, not, read on . . .
original fiction by Brian Whittingham illustration by Oliver Paterson My weekly routine was always the same, up until last Saturday. I’ve had ticker problems that I won’t bore you with, but it means I can no longer hold down a regular job, and I rattle like a maraca from the …
Bon Appétit: Healthy Cooking for the Immune System Food writer and broadcaster Nell Nelson is a practicing nutritional therapist based in Edinburgh. In this issue Nell begins a regular look at the world of food and offers ONE readers her own perspective on healthy eating and better living.
Tasting Notes: Children of the Grape Until recently, my life seemed like a tiresomely enthusiastic New World wine — so stuffed full of flavours that it resembled nothing less than Piccadilly Circus in a bottle. On top of the day job, I’d been burdened with a troublesome trio of additional …
The Wheel Deal What does it take to stand back outside the pack and see the world from a different angle? Individualism and commitment. But to make that initial step in the first place takes something more… Is it courage, bravery or could it be described more accurately as a …
Orpheus in the old town Angus Calder (1942-2008) Words meant everything to Angus Calder, they were his life, and when I knew him, words sometimes seemed to be all that he had left. Now that he’s gone, it’s only right that there should be a few more to commemorate him.
The Making of a Makar: A Conversation with Ron Butlin No sooner had Ron Butlin been made Edinburgh Makar than the UNESCO City of Literature allowed its new poet laureate to be auctioned off. Makar is a Scots word that stresses the importance of craft and skill involved in poetry, …
How I Survived my French TV Talkshow Debut Elliot Murphy and son on stage with Bruce Springsteen What me politics? Although I have been living in the land of la gauche et la droite for over 18 years, strangely enough I am rarely asked my opinion on politics. Actually, this …
Prague Notes July, 2008 “Where is Czechoslovakia? … You say it Scheckoslovakia.It’s a country made out of bits and bobs that used to be Austria.” —Janet Hitchman, The King of the Barbareens The alchemists who thronged to Prague in the time of Rudolph II would no doubt, with their belief …
Spring Edits, Velvet Living: Atwood, Kral and Gorbanevsky How could I possibly join the convention of writers in Prague for a festival, focused on the Soviet/Warsaw Pact invasion of Czechoslovakia, without getting stirred up, and in my Southern-American speak, all a twitter? Quite frankly, I’ve tired of the 60s, primarily …
Atwood à la Carte Margaret Atwood’s career spans six decades—earning her a reputation as a powerful writer and a challenging interviewee. Undaunted, Geraldine Sweeney engaged her in conversation and discussion for an in-depth interview with the author, conducted in Prague.
Face to face with a writer who has lived, worked, survived and chronicled decades of sweeping changes in Europe, GERALDINE SWEENEY takes a trip through time with Slavenka Drakulic and examines what her experiences reveal about our future.
ONE Magazine presents verbal snapshots of that landmark year and its aftermath, as witnessed by internationally authors Homero Aridjis, Günter Kunert and Dimitris Nollas. Three interviews conducted by STEFAN PEARSON at the Prague Writers’ Festival and woven together by ANDREW J WILSON.
Faster Walking was not fast enough, so we ran. Running was not fast enough, so we galloped. Galloping was not fast enough, so we sailed. Sailing was not fast enough, so we rolled merrily along on the long metal tracks. Long metal tracks were not fast enough, so …
A voyage along Turkey’s Turquoise Coast seemed a well-deserved reward for the trials of spring until I discovered it had been arranged by Asquith Royal, our inventively opportunistic accountant. This promotion of his new Wine Cruise venture was a prospect that left me longing to stay in my Balmoral Palm …
The Second Annual New Europe Film Festival launches in Edinburgh with a dual mission… The 2008 New Europe Film Festival presents cutting-edge work from Eastern Europe within the UK, while simultaneously promoting a dialog between autochthonous citizens of Scotland and new immigrant communities. The bulk of the film work is …
While firmly rooted in Scotland, ONE Magazine has strong international ties. Issue 2 featured an excerpt from Martin Belk’s upcoming nonfiction chronicle, Pretty Broken People: lipstick, leather jeans, a death of New York — which includes his account of 8 years as a producer for the NYC Gen-X answer to …
Scottish Parliament made a difference – or is it just an expensive irrelevance? KEITH STUART CAMERON examines the delicate manœuvring between Holyrood and Westminster over ship-to-ship oil transfers and comes to some surprising conclusions.
Today the New York sky reminds me of a famous Rothko painting I saw in the Metropolitan Museum, ‘The Met’ to us locals. Rich blues contrasting with a deep Manhattan skyline. In a week or so, my horizons will once again change as I return to Scotland. Let the reminiscing …
Since When Mortgages Buy the Farm was published in the second issue of ONE Magazine, the global credit crunch has begun to look more like a full-blown crash. The UK’s Northern Rock has now been nationalized to prevent it going south, and Bear Stearns has fallen victim to a bear …
If you look up ‘burlesque’, you’ll find that it means ‘in an upside down style’. Now this popular blend of satire, performance and strip-tease is being reinvented across Scotland and around the world. PAUL F COCKBURN talks to Missy Malone, Chaz Royal and Dan Bear to find out why an …
ROCK DRILL: A Conversation with Doug Johnstone Doug Johnstone is a musician, a journalist and a doctor of experimental nuclear physics – what’s more, he’s just published his second novel. ANDREW J WILSON talks to a renaissance man about success, failure and the Scottish condition.
Summer ‘66 and the world destroyed Dylan. Not on some rocky road/highway 61. Neck broken by harmonica holder cycling through village. Somewhere back in ‘65, maybe at Forest Hills, the crowd devoured his image while masturbating itself. But Dylan still exists hidden in Woodstock, New York with wealth, wife, and …
Listening to the Language of the Birds (Li Bai) The sky creeps along the city walls: clouds and crows alight from branches, telephone poles, narrow lanes. In a canal-side flat a girl is knitting clothes for fog, mist, drizzle. She hears the birds’ black refrain and waits: her hands are …
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…
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 …
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 …
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, …