News, views and opinions from a Gàidheal
Over the last few years I’ve become a big fan of music festivals. Belladrum, a local and folksy festival, has become a staple of my summers and the Rockness I attended 2 years ago was easily one of the best weekends of a great year. With Rockness increasingly likely to be canned for this year, and Belladrum likely to bring in only mediocre acts, I decided to take a punt and go for the big one in 2014: T in the Park. It is easily — Read more →
Browsing the BBC’s magazine offerings last weekend, as I often do; I came across a piece by writer and philosopher Roger Scruton discussing whether the English should have a say on whether Scotland should be independent. It is an interesting piece, coming from an Englishman looking on the referendum with a nationalist frame of mind of his own – but it makes many failings that I’d like to address (to be considered alongside a rebuttal today from Murray Pittock). I’m not committed to either side — Read more →
To argue is natural; to debate is human. Debating is the art of structuring an argument in a way to ensure that the audience will agree with you, and therefore that you will win. I learned when I had a brief experience with debating in secondary school that there are three specific forms of argument that can be used when debating, known as modes of persuasion. The first is ethos. Ethos is the Greek for character, and this part of debating is an appeal to — Read more →
The curtain has fallen on the 2014 Sochi Winter Olympic games after two weeks of competition. From a British perspective, it has been a successful one; equalling our greatest ever medal total – even though it was just four. Admittedly I’ve found myself watching a few events, like the snowboarding half-pipe, the ski jumping and the curling, generally only because they are on and I feel that given the rarity of Winter Olympics that I should make an effort to watch some of the sports. — Read more →
Today the nations of Europe learned exactly who they will be up against in trying to qualify for Euro 2016. This time around things are slightly different in many ways. First off, the final tournament in France will feature 24 teams instead of just 16, meaning that many more teams have a chance of qualifying. Also, UEFA’s “Week of Football” initiative will see matches take place on every day between Thursday & Tuesday during the international break – meaning you will have more opportunities than — Read more →
