Scotland on Sunday back issues from June 2001:
She's only pint-sized, but I still struggled for a half
Jun 03, 2001; ... MY palms were sweaty and there was a familiar dryness in thethroat. First-tee nerves are the golfer's lot, but when youropponent is an eight-year-old girl you are on a hiding to nothing. Carly, however, didn't seem concerned as she approached the 242-yard par four first of our ...
Ajax faithful cowed by loss of spirit
Jun 03, 2001; ... STRICKEN by plummeting crowds and struggling to rear talent withthe regularity that earned the club global admiration, anothertrophyless season for Ajax - Celtic's potential Champions Leagueopponents - ended last Sunday. The downcast mood in the AmsterdamArenA was lightened by a ...
Specialism is proper kind of medicine
Jun 03, 2001; ... AT THE back of my parents' former house was the playground of aprimary school. One day I overheard a group of boys playing what Iassumed was another juvenile re-enactment of the Second World War,until I heard one say: "OK, we'll be the army and you be theCommunist guerrillas." ...
Austrian-Swiss bid goes like clockwork thanks to Kaiser's Alpine hand
Jun 03, 2001; ... WHILE First Minister Henry McLeish and SFA chief executive DavidTaylor were at Hampden on Wednesday announcing Scotland's intentionto bid for Euro 2008, another prospective candidate, calmlyconfident of winning the right to host football's second mostprestigious prize, held a meeting at ...
AWG could sell back Morrison
Jun 03, 2001; ... EMBATTLED AWG chief executive Chris Mellor is prepared to sellthe Morrison Construction building and property operations back toSir Fraser Morrison, who netted pounds 57m from the sale of theconstruction and asset management group that bore his name lastAugust. But Sir Fraser ...
Chocs away as Belgium displace Scots
Jun 03, 2001; ... Belgium 3 Latvia 1 IT will all come out in the wash. Short of Latvia producing atale of the unexpected to put a stain on Belgium hopes of qualifyingfor next summer's World Cup finals in the King Baudouin stadium lastnight, Scotland's prospects of progressing from Group 6 to ...
Youthful exuberance proves our land is perfect for new bid
Jun 03, 2001; ... I CAN'T believe there are some folk on the home front lacking inenthusiasm or support for Scotland's bid to stage Euro 2008. Thesepeople are just being tired cynics, and maybe they should rememberwhat cynicism gave way to the last time a major football finals washeld in our country ....
Gibson returns for murderous Highland hike
Jun 03, 2001; ... BRAVEHEART is back. Mel Gibson, the Australian actor whose lastforay in Scotland left him hung, drawn and quartered, is set toreturn with a blockbusting thriller set in the Highlands. Gibson's production company Icon Films is close to securing adeal with the producers of The ...
Election 2001: The phoney election campaign has lost its grip on reality - except in Ulster
Jun 03, 2001; ... MONDAY: The beginning of week four. After three weeks of sloggingpoliticians and journalists are punch drunk, communicating in theirown slurred language: campaignese. A promise to cut an insignificantspecific tax becomes "we will cut taxes", the opponents' timidproposal to put a coffee ...
Artful Anderson aiming to crown growing reputation with world title
Jun 03, 2001; ... SHOULD Scotland's Kevin Anderson make it to the final bout in thelight-welterweight category at the world amateur championships,which start in Belfast today, at least his friends will be able toget into the arena. In the past, the 18-year-old, who is being tipped as the ...
The diverse route to an easier retirement
Jun 03, 2001 ... THE ability to build up sufficient funds for a comfortableretirement via pensions alone is becoming unrealistic for anincreasing number of people. Greater job mobility, career breaks and less generous defined-contribution schemes have put paid to that. The days when your ...
Unfazed Brown insists his men can sprout in Brussels if push finally comes to shove
Jun 03, 2001 ... CRAIG BROWN may not be able to cackle about the Belgians the wayStuart Hall made famous, but the Scotland coach's remained sanguineafter the Low Countries side moved to the front in the It's AKnockout contest for a place in next year's World Cup finals. Brown was among the ...
Brown in battle to avoid loss of power
Jun 03, 2001; ... GORDON Brown is fighting a last-minute battle to prevent thecreation of an economic 'super-ministry' to balance the Treasury ina post-election Whitehall shake-up planned by Tony Blair. The Chancellor is furious that his Cabinet rival Stephen Byers isset to be given extra power as ...
Conscience makes heroes of us all
Jun 03, 2001; ... MY WORDS came back from the past in the obituaries column lastweek. Originating in the mouth of another, I claim them nonethelesssince I brought them into the public domain. "It was absolutely plain to me that these children were sufferinga grave injustice and to do nothing would ...
Connery in call for film tax breaks
Jun 03, 2001; ... SIR Sean Connery today calls for members of the ScottishParliament to be given the power to grant tax breaks to the filmindustry so Holyrood blockbusters about Scotland are made inScotland. Writing exclusively for Scotland on Sunday, the actor says betterincentives in this ...
Latest polls see mixed results
Jun 03, 2001; ... LABOUR enters the final few days of the election campaignapparently well placed to achieve its goal of winning a securesecond term for the first time ever in its history. But whether TonyBlair will find himself with more MPs than at present, or withfewer, remains far from clear from the ...
Rifkind deja-vu as Tories head for poll oblivion
Jun 03, 2001; ... SCOTLAND'S two most senior Conservative politicians face theprospect of remaining in the wilderness after the votes are countedon Thursday. Polls in the Eastwood and Edinburgh Pentlands constituenciesconducted exclusively by ICM for Scotland on Sunday suggest RaymondRobertson, ...
Abandon health all who enter here
Jun 03, 2001; ... AS THE local schoolchildren stream out on to the litter-strewnstreets of Drumchapel, a battered burger van appears against abackdrop of boarded-up tenement blocks and dilapidated high-riseflats. The van grinds to a halt and the poverty-stricken community'syoungsters tuck into ...
Health divide grows between rich and poor
Jun 03, 2001; ... THE health gap between rich and poor in Scotland has widened overthe past 20 years despite the billions that have been poured intothe National Health Service and the welfare state, a new study hasrevealed. The death rates of those in poverty have risen substantiallycompared with ...
WILLIAM HARE DIARY: Five with a nose for news get into pickle
Jun 03, 2001; ... THE new Scotsman Hotel, standing proud above Waverley Station onEdinburgh's North Bridge, is in the final throes of conversionbefore welcoming its first guests later this summer. No one has yet laid his head where reporters and sub-editors oncedozed over their typewriters, but the ...
Election 2001: The Secret Diary of Douglas Alexander aged 33 3/4
Jun 03, 2001 ... DOUGLAS Alexander MP is the baby brother of Wendy, ScottishLabour's enterprise minister. Seated in Millbank, from whereLabour's general election campaign is being run, he is one of thekey players with the grand title of UK campaign co-ordinator. So close to Gordon Brown that he is ...
Reviews: Childish Things
Jun 03, 2001; ... Childish Things Robin Jenkins Canongate, pounds 9.99 CHILDISH Things is the first-person narrative of septuagenarianex-primary school headmaster Gregor McLeod, and opens with thefuneral of his beloved wife, Kate. Unsurprisingly, considering RobinJenkins is in his 80th year, an ...
FESTIVAL PREVIEW
Jun 03, 2001; ... A CHARACTER in David Greig's play The Architect memorablydescribes Glasgow as "friendly and violent". This wonderfullyperverse description may hold a certain truth for many parts of thecity, but it is unlikely to be applied to the West End. As many aGlasgow wag will tell you, the common ...
MUSIC: Belle and Sebastian
Jun 03, 2001; ... EVER since their inception in 1995 as part of a Stow Collegemusic course, the most common question to crop up at Belle andSebastian interviews has always been: "Why don't you do interviews?"The reason for this rather Zen-like query is rooted in the Glasgowseptet's notoriously reticent ...
THE BIG INTERVIEW: James Lance
Jun 03, 2001; ... ANYONE lamenting the current state of British cinema will takeheart from Late Night Shopping. A laidback, low-budget slacker moviefilmed in Glasgow, it has an abundance of the promise and freshnessthat have been all too absent from our national screens of late. Setin a twilight zone of ...
Reviews: PAPERBACKS
Jun 03, 2001; ... HIEROGLYPHICS AND OTHER STORIES by Anne Donovan Canongate, pounds 8.99 Donovan won the Macallan/Scotland on Sunday short storycompetition in 1997 and the Canongate Prize two years later. Now sheoffers a wide-ranging debut collection that juxtaposes Glasgowvernacular ...
Interview: Karen Dunbar
Jun 03, 2001; ... WE ARE sitting in the smoking room next to the BBC canteen andKaren Dunbar is the subject of lengthy stares and significant head-scratching from a cleaning lady behind the window. Eventually,plucking up her courage, the woman, whose name we eventuallydiscover is Deirdre, inches towards ...
Reviews: CHILDREN'S BOOKS
Jun 03, 2001 ... Eat Your Peas by Kes Gray and Nick Sharratt Random House, pounds 4.99 One of the best kids' books of the moment, filled withaccessible, bright and brilliant illustrations. No pram is completewithout one. Look out for Ball Pool and Baby On Board, both to ...
CITY GUIDE: Dublin
Jun 03, 2001; ... The essentials Ireland's capital and its most cosmopolitan city, Dublin isreaping the rewards of a resurgent economy and is expanding at afurious pace. This boom is exemplified in the atmospheric Temple Bararea, which is filled with some of the city's best bars andrestaurants ....
Reviews: ALBUM REVIEWS
Jun 03, 2001 ... TRAVIS The Invisible Band (Independiente) That Travis's shameless slavery to the song inspires such anegative reaction among the critical classes probably says moreabout their detractors' hang-ups than anything relating to the band.Like its predecessor, The Man ...
Reviews: Books
Jun 03, 2001; ... Translated Accounts James Kelman Secker & Warburg, pounds 15.99 ONCE came across a booklet by a Spanish madman claiming he couldcalculate the number of angels in Heaven. Not only that, but using adictionary, he had translated his Spanish text word for word ...
ROCK DJ: Slam
Jun 03, 2001; ... Wherever you drink, wherever you work, wherever you dance; almostevery teenager to thirtysomething and more has raved with Slam atthe Arches. They are the 'dirty disco duo' who form part of thecultural fabric of Glasgow's clubbing society. It is their soundthat permeates every creative ...
REVIEWS: Hardbacks
Jun 03, 2001; ... THE HEALING LAND by Rupert Isaacson Fourth Estate, pounds 16.99 Written by travel writer and journalist Rupert Isaacson, TheHealing Land is a loving portrayal of the bushmen who populate theKalahari region of central and southern Africa. Inspired by familytales of ...
Reviews: Books
Jun 03, 2001; ... The Siege Helen Dunmore Penguin, pounds 16.99 Back When We Were Grownups Anne Tyler Chatto & Windus, pounds 15.99 FOR Leningrad in 1941, the threat of German invasion becomesreality. Anna, the central character of Helen Dunmore's powerfulnovel, The Siege, is ...
TRAVEL HOTSPOT: Chiva-Som in Thailand
Jun 03, 2001; ... I'M EXPECTING a serious celebrity presence as I approach Chiva-Som, the luxury Thai spa resort three hours south of Bangkok. Thisis, after all, where Naomi Campbell, Donna Karan, Carol Vorderman,Liz Hurley and Hugh Grant have come to be pampered. It is becausethe A-list might be in town ...
Reviews: White Male Heart
Jun 03, 2001; ... White Male Heart by Ruaridh Nicoll Doubleday, pounds 12.99 THE opening scene of Ruaridh Nicoll's White Male Heart is not forthe faint-hearted. In a fitting tone-setter for this startling firstnovel, he describes in uncompromisingly bloodlusty detail thelardering of a stag ....
Reviews: ESSENTIAL FILMS
Jun 03, 2001; ... 101 Reykjavik (18) A playful slacker comedy with a deadpan Icelandic sensibility,101 Reykjavik is a pretty entertaining affair that only unravelswhen it starts to beg sympathy for a petulant central character whohas done nothing to deserve it. Before then it is a cool ...
Reviews: JOBSON'S CHOICE
Jun 03, 2001; ... THERE are movies which make you feel so uncomfortable you feel asif you've suffered an attack of haemorrhoids. No matter how much yousquirm, the annoying pain will just not go away. This can happenwhile watching a horror movie or a thriller, or even social realismthat is a bit too close ...
Reviews: 1984
Jun 03, 2001; ... MacRobert Arts Centre, Stirling If Room 101 is little more than a comedy show on which AnneRobinson insults the Welsh, and Big Brother is merely a piece ofpostmodern televisual navel-gazing, does George Orwell's oncefuturistic novel have anything to say to our times? The ...
Preview: TELEVISION
Jun 03, 2001; ... Allies at War, BBC2, Tuesday Of all the trends in contemporary television, by the far the mostgratifying spectacle has been the proliferation of historyprogrammes on mainstream, terrestrial channels. David Starkey'sfascinating series on Queen Elizabeth I began this trend, and ...
Reviews: TELEVISION
Jun 03, 2001; ... Love or Money, BBC1, Saturday IN recent months, one could be forgiven for supposing thatbroadcasting schedulers have been suffering from the programmingequivalent of cold turkey. Cast your eye over most televisiondramas, and they invariably seemed to revolve around ...
SHELF LIFE: Richard Briers
Jun 03, 2001; ... RICHARD Briers is one of Britain's most famous actors. Until thelate Eighties he was best known for his roles in The Good Life andEver Decreasing Circles but working with Kenneth Branagh'sRenaissance Theatre Company brought him acclaim on stage and screen. Originally a clerk, ...
Reviews: CRITIC'S CHOICE
Jun 03, 2001; ... 2001: A Space Odyssey THIRTY-THREE years after it was made and in the year it was set,the greatest sci-fi film of all time returns to the big screen.Adapting Arthur C Clark's short story 'The Sentinel', Kubrick wantedto make "a visual experience, one that bypasses ...
Reviews: The Handsome Family
Jun 03, 2001; ... The Tron, Glasgow THERE is a very old and hoary joke that details what happens whenyou play a country song backwards. Apparently, your wife walks backthrough the door, your dog miraculously returns to life and the roofstops leaking. Listening to Americans Brett and Rennie Sparks, ...
Election 2001 Diary
Jun 03, 2001 ... Widdecombe poll shocker TORY tops opinion poll shock! Ann Widdecombe is way out on herown with a 40% score as Britain's most homophobic MP, according to apoll of gay and lesbian voters. DUP leader Ian Paisley, instigatorof the Save Ulster from Sodomy campaign, received 30%, while ...
Strike a fair deal on endowment compensation
Jun 03, 2001; ... IF YOU are one of the thousands of people mis-sold an endowmentyet to lodge a complaint, now could be the time to act. TheFinancial Services Authority (FSA), the City's watchdog, has justpublished guidance to ensure you will now get a "fair andconsistent" compensation deal. The ...
The Sunday Essay: Care of the elderly
Jun 03, 2001; ... WE live in an ageing society. That much is uncontentious. Overthe next decade or two, the age profile of society will change inunprecedented ways. Government statisticians predict the overallpopulation of Scotland will decline, the most marked decline amongstpeople below retirement age, ...
Scotland must rise and be a nation to win European vote
Jun 03, 2001; ... THOSE entrusted with laying the foundations of Scotland's bid tostage the 2008 European Championship finals have before them awretched period. Even the Scottish Football Association's chiefexecutive, David Taylor, admits that a few good men will be neededto issue home truths, bang heads ...
Lament for a generation that defied calamity
Jun 03, 2001; ... DURING the time of the First World War, there was a policeman whostood at the Cross in Kilmarnock pretty well every Sunday. He mayhave been relieved occasionally but it was usually the same man.Maybe he just liked that duty. It must have been a quiet one. The Scottish Sabbath at ...
Why the first past the post system isn't best
Jun 03, 2001; ... IT'S that time. The agony of waiting is nearly over. We'll soonsee who the winners and losers are. There will be moist self-congratulation, some tears, some sulking and brave faces hidingbitter resentment. Those who don't win won't derive muchsatisfaction from the fact that the defining ...
Election 2001 Focus group: Hague unable to buoy up floating voters
Jun 03, 2001; ... FLOATING voters regard William Hague as a weak leader who hasnever measured up to Margaret Thatcher and must quit quickly if hisparty crashes to defeat in Thursday's general election. Members of this week's Scotland on Sunday/ICM focus group,carefully drawn from Edinburgh ...
Surface trouble hides hope for Davis Cup bid
Jun 03, 2001; ... YET another French Open reaches the round of the last 16 withoutBritish involvement - only this year there are mild grounds foroptimism. Despite good performances early on, neither Tim Henman norGreg Rusedski has made it to the second week. In fact, only once haseither of them reached ...
Arafat pulls back from the brink
Jun 03, 2001; ... PALESTINIAN security chiefs ordered their forces to implement aceasefire promised by president Yasser Arafat last night followingthe suicide bombing of an Israeli night club that killed 17 people. In an attempt to defuse escalating violence and avert all-outwar, a senior ...
Golan bred to reach Derby heights
Jun 03, 2001; ... MIDNIGHT had come and gone at the Ballymacoll Stud, but, as isher wont, Mother Nature was not being rushed by such a comparativeupstart as a clock. Peter Reynolds was not taking much notice of histimepiece, either. As the stud manager, he was more interested inthe mare giving birth to ...
Woods has Scottish Tigress on his tail
Jun 03, 2001; ... WATCH out, Tiger Woods - she's behind you. A Perthshireschoolgirl has emerged as Scotland's answer to the American golfingphenomenon after being awarded an official handicap at the tenderage of eight. Carly Booth, who at 4ft 5in is only fractionally taller thanTiger's golf bag, ...
Scotland must rise and be a nation to win European vote (2)
Jun 03, 2001; ... CO-HOSTING has become the vogue for international sports eventsin recent years, with Japan and Korea set to stage the 2002 WorldCup finals and barely a week going by without another odd coupleannouncing a bid for a big tournament. In this glut of sporting diplomacy, a bid from ...
Election 2001: They shoot candidates, don't they?
Jun 03, 2001; ... SOME of them thar towns just ain't big enough for all them tharcandidates. Greenock and Inverclyde has just been dubbed the Wild West ofScottish politics. There they take their Labour majorities like theytakes their Scotch out west - large. And any candidate who can'tcope with a ...
Why Euro bid has my vote
Jun 03, 2001; ... IT IS easy to be negative, to cling to parochialism and dulymaintain that Scotland shouldn't harbour ideas above its station.But where does that take us in the modern world? Do we want to stayforever in the backwater or dare we aspire to pooling our resourcesand working together to bring ...
Teachers threaten fresh exams chaos with vote on Higher Still boycott
Jun 03, 2001; ... TEACHERS are threatening to throw the embattled exams system intofurther chaos next year by boycotting key elements of the new HigherStill qualifications. The largest teaching union, the Educational Institute of Scotland, will vote this week on motions to withdraw all ...
Ryder Cup saga of the big bucks refuses to drop
Jun 03, 2001; ... AFTER last week's outpouring of vitriol from both sides of the2009 Ryder Cup argument, things have been relatively quiet. And theywill remain so, at least in the short term. Much behind-the-scenestalking remains to be done - the aim of European Tour executivedirector Ken Schofield all ...
TV calls the tune again but football faces graver crises than kick- off times
Jun 03, 2001; ... CELEBRATING the switch of Sky's televised Scottish games from aSunday night to Saturday evenings is a bit like toasting a 5-1defeat compared to a 6-0 thrashing. In reality, neither is worthgetting the party-poppers out for, but in this day and age, when Skyseem to rule our game and the ...
Screen test to cut cost of police ID parades
Jun 03, 2001; ... THE time-honoured police line-up may be heading for oblivion asforces around Scotland examine a video alternative to identityparades, which cost hundreds of thousands of pounds a year and oftenleave victims feeling intimidated. The parades take place on an almost daily basis in ...
EMPLOYING THE LAW: Old and bold for right to work
Jun 03, 2001; ... A MAJOR test of how the Human Rights Act could affect employmentlaw is set to take place in the Scottish courts. For 65-year-oldMichael Cassidy will use the Act to fight the whole concept ofcompulsory retirement. He had worked at the Hamilton site of gas and ...
A human zoo full of primitive life forms
Jun 03, 2001; ... THIS column is, by request, an election-free zone. I havetherefore opted for the greater intellectual challenge of BigBrother and want to begin by congratulating Channel 4. Havingthought they had found the dimmest 10 people in Britain for the lastseries, it transpires that the new ...
Election 2001: Landslide poses risk for Brown
Jun 03, 2001; ... "YOU know TB," fretted one Cabinet minister's aide last week, "helikes to leave it to the very last moment." Tony Blair's tendency toput off key political decisions is, indeed, well-known. It's goodpolitics to keep your opponents guessing while waiting to see whichway the wind turns ....