Lawrence Freedman
A Choice of Enemies: America Confronts the Middle East
2009
Concise and largely objective overview of 30 years of American foreign policy in the Middle East, by London King College's professor of war studies. Tellingly, for a concise overview, it still runs to around 600 pages of dense text, but it would be impossible to do justice to the book's remit in any less.
Freedman focuses his thesis on the crucial year 1979 - the year of the Iranian Islamic revolution, Saddam's rise to power in Iraq and the Russian invasion of Afghanistan - and lets the history unfold from there.
The book is a damning indictment of America's wavering policies in the Middle East, where allies swiftly become enemies. Much is said about the instability of Middle East politics, but as Freedman's book shows Mideast leaders are equally adept at exploiting the inherent instabilities in America's political system.
Witness how Khomenei waited until Carter left the White House, almost to the second, before he released the Iranian Embassy hostages, or how successive Israeli governments maintain their occupation of the West Bank and Golan by mobilising the powerful US Jewish-lobby and confounding successive Presidents with empty "accords" and aimless "road maps" to peace.
Thursday, 29 October 2009
NEWS: Anyone ever heard of 'Blackfriars Bobby'...?!
By MARK McLAUGHLIN
Edinburgh Evening News
29 October 2009
IT is one of Edinburgh's most famous tales, but the story of Greyfriars Bobby has just got a little darker.
A free city map distributed in the city's hotels, train stations and visitor attractions has accidentally branded the statue of the famous terrier "Blackfriar's Bobby".
A total of 600,000 maps with Bobby's new name have been distributed around the Capital and the Lothians, leading to dozens of complaints - including one from Greyfriars Kirk.
As well as renaming the legendary loyal dog, the map mistakenly labels the churchyard where he watched over his master's grave as the site of "Blackfriar's Kirk".
The map's creator today held up his hands to the mistakes - which also include showing Broughton Street and Union Street in the wrong place - and said they would be corrected when it is reprinted.
Peter Todhunter, who holds the licence to distribute the maps in the UK on behalf of Canadian company Skycorp Maps Ltd, said: "Greyfriars Kirk did call to complain about the error on the map, which was due to a mix-up during the production stage. I actually produce two maps, one for Edinburgh and one for St Andrews.
"The St Andrews map has a guide to Blackfriars Tours, which does guided walks around the town offering 'twisted tales of St Andrews'. When it came to producing the Edinburgh map I mixed up Greyfriars Bobby and Kirk with Blackfriars tours.
"I also accept there are a few spelling mistakes, and that Broughton Street and Union Street are in the wrong place.
"I've been aware of these errors for quite some time and I do tell people that there are a few mistakes in there when I'm distributing the maps. I'd like to assure everyone that all of these errors will be corrected in the next edition of the map, in April."
Other mistakes include King's Stables Road appearing alternately with and without an apostrophe at the east and west end of the street, a missing apostrophe on Queen's Drive and Spittal Street with a missing "t".
The Evening News found the map in several prominent city hotels and tourists spots, including the Sheraton Hotel in Festival Square, the Carlton Hotel on North Bridge and the bureau de change on the High Street.
The lastminute.com hotel kiosk in Waverley Station also distributed copies - despite the adjacent Waverley Bridge being spelled without an "e" in the map.
The Radisson Hotel on High Street and the Balmoral on Princes Street also admitted stocking the maps, but only provided them as alternatives when stocks of their more authoritative maps ran out.
The Scotsman Hotel on North Bridge said it had received several copies, but put them straight in the recycling bin.
Edinburgh Evening News
29 October 2009
IT is one of Edinburgh's most famous tales, but the story of Greyfriars Bobby has just got a little darker.
A free city map distributed in the city's hotels, train stations and visitor attractions has accidentally branded the statue of the famous terrier "Blackfriar's Bobby".
A total of 600,000 maps with Bobby's new name have been distributed around the Capital and the Lothians, leading to dozens of complaints - including one from Greyfriars Kirk.
As well as renaming the legendary loyal dog, the map mistakenly labels the churchyard where he watched over his master's grave as the site of "Blackfriar's Kirk".
The map's creator today held up his hands to the mistakes - which also include showing Broughton Street and Union Street in the wrong place - and said they would be corrected when it is reprinted.
Peter Todhunter, who holds the licence to distribute the maps in the UK on behalf of Canadian company Skycorp Maps Ltd, said: "Greyfriars Kirk did call to complain about the error on the map, which was due to a mix-up during the production stage. I actually produce two maps, one for Edinburgh and one for St Andrews.
"The St Andrews map has a guide to Blackfriars Tours, which does guided walks around the town offering 'twisted tales of St Andrews'. When it came to producing the Edinburgh map I mixed up Greyfriars Bobby and Kirk with Blackfriars tours.
"I also accept there are a few spelling mistakes, and that Broughton Street and Union Street are in the wrong place.
"I've been aware of these errors for quite some time and I do tell people that there are a few mistakes in there when I'm distributing the maps. I'd like to assure everyone that all of these errors will be corrected in the next edition of the map, in April."
Other mistakes include King's Stables Road appearing alternately with and without an apostrophe at the east and west end of the street, a missing apostrophe on Queen's Drive and Spittal Street with a missing "t".
The Evening News found the map in several prominent city hotels and tourists spots, including the Sheraton Hotel in Festival Square, the Carlton Hotel on North Bridge and the bureau de change on the High Street.
The lastminute.com hotel kiosk in Waverley Station also distributed copies - despite the adjacent Waverley Bridge being spelled without an "e" in the map.
The Radisson Hotel on High Street and the Balmoral on Princes Street also admitted stocking the maps, but only provided them as alternatives when stocks of their more authoritative maps ran out.
The Scotsman Hotel on North Bridge said it had received several copies, but put them straight in the recycling bin.
READING: Hider, The Spiders of Allah
James HiderThe Spiders of Allah: Travels of an Unbeliever on the Frontline of Holy War
2009
The first Gulf II non-fiction page turner I've read, by The Times' Middle East bureau chief. The action is relentless, and Hider's visual style of writing unfolds like an action movie.
Unlike Simpson and Bowen, Gulf II was Hider's first war so he comes unburdened by the weight of history and experience to describe many of the war's atrocities with fresh eyes.
His central thesis that Islam is a brutal, backward and superstitious religion (the book's title alludes to the Iraqis' belief that an army of huge shrieking spiders had been sent by Allah to cut down the invading troops) is inflammatory and has a ring of old Colonialism about it - but Hider offsets this by describing plenty more atrocities conducted in the name of secular/Christian warfare.
Low points include an army senior commander ordering a sniper to cut down an old man collecting sticks in case his bundle contained an RPG, and American troops storming Basra with Team America's 'America: Fuck Yeah!' blaring from tank speakers without a hint of irony.
Gulf II has yet to be given the full Apocalypse Now or Jarhead Hollywood treatment, but when they do the producers could do worse than tear through Hider's book for source material.
Where Coppola's fictional Vietnamese villagers died to the haunting sound of Wagner, Iraqis lost their lives with "lick my butt, and suck on my balls" still ringing in their ears.
SPORT: Slam dunk for "Scooby"
By MARK McLAUGHLIN
Edinburgh Evening News
26 October 2009
FORMER basketball teammates of fallen fireman Ewan Williamson have unveiled a new strip in his honour – featuring cartoon dog Scooby Doo.
Mr Williamson, 35, who lost his life fighting a blaze in the Balmoral bar in Dalry Road in July, was nicknamed Scooby by his WHEC Phoenix Basketball Club teammates for the outlandish moves he would pull on the court.
Teammate Cammy King, 39, a newspaper distribution manager from Wester Hailes, described the awful moment when he heard his friend and teammate had been killed.
He said: "I had been working nightshift the night before so I arrived bleary-eyed at the breakfast table on the Sunday morning to a telephone call from one of the other players.
"He said: 'Have you heard the news?' I didn't know what he was talking about at first, but then he told me that the fireman that had been killed the night before was Ewan.
"That whole Sunday, and the days leading up to the funeral, were all a bit of a haze.
"All the guys from the basketball team turned out in force at his funeral.
"A few of the guys that had decided to call it a day changed their minds after the funeral and decided to play on for Ewan."
WHEC Phoenix played their first Lothian League game without Ewan at Fettes College's Westwood Sports Centre against Boroughmuir Blaze on Friday night, kitted-out in their new Ewan inspired Scooby strips.
Mr King added: "He was a legend on and off the court. We called him Scooby because of the heroic moves he pulled, and the way he would run around the court just like the cartoon dog Scooby Doo.
"He could throw a ball through his legs and it would still end up in the hoop somehow.
"Off the court he was just a really nice, genial guy.
"We all used to joke with him about the cushy life he had as a fireman, as though all he did all day was play table tennis in the station.
"He never expressed any fears that his job had the potential to lead to a fatality.
"He loved being a fireman, and he loved playing basketball for WHEC Phoenix.
"He has been sadly missed by us all."
The navy-blue strip turned out to be a lucky charm for the team on the night, coming from behind at half time to win the game 37-33.
Mr King added: "We missed Ewan a lot, but we all pulled together to do the job."
WHEC Phoenix have given their undivided support to the Evening News campaign to secure the Queen's Gallantry Medal for Mr Williamson.
Thousands of Evening News readers, along with politicians and colleagues of Mr Williamson, have backed our call to secure the honour.
Edinburgh Evening News
26 October 2009
FORMER basketball teammates of fallen fireman Ewan Williamson have unveiled a new strip in his honour – featuring cartoon dog Scooby Doo.
Mr Williamson, 35, who lost his life fighting a blaze in the Balmoral bar in Dalry Road in July, was nicknamed Scooby by his WHEC Phoenix Basketball Club teammates for the outlandish moves he would pull on the court.
Teammate Cammy King, 39, a newspaper distribution manager from Wester Hailes, described the awful moment when he heard his friend and teammate had been killed.
He said: "I had been working nightshift the night before so I arrived bleary-eyed at the breakfast table on the Sunday morning to a telephone call from one of the other players.
"He said: 'Have you heard the news?' I didn't know what he was talking about at first, but then he told me that the fireman that had been killed the night before was Ewan.
"That whole Sunday, and the days leading up to the funeral, were all a bit of a haze.
"All the guys from the basketball team turned out in force at his funeral.
"A few of the guys that had decided to call it a day changed their minds after the funeral and decided to play on for Ewan."
WHEC Phoenix played their first Lothian League game without Ewan at Fettes College's Westwood Sports Centre against Boroughmuir Blaze on Friday night, kitted-out in their new Ewan inspired Scooby strips.
Mr King added: "He was a legend on and off the court. We called him Scooby because of the heroic moves he pulled, and the way he would run around the court just like the cartoon dog Scooby Doo.
"He could throw a ball through his legs and it would still end up in the hoop somehow.
"Off the court he was just a really nice, genial guy.
"We all used to joke with him about the cushy life he had as a fireman, as though all he did all day was play table tennis in the station.
"He never expressed any fears that his job had the potential to lead to a fatality.
"He loved being a fireman, and he loved playing basketball for WHEC Phoenix.
"He has been sadly missed by us all."
The navy-blue strip turned out to be a lucky charm for the team on the night, coming from behind at half time to win the game 37-33.
Mr King added: "We missed Ewan a lot, but we all pulled together to do the job."
WHEC Phoenix have given their undivided support to the Evening News campaign to secure the Queen's Gallantry Medal for Mr Williamson.
Thousands of Evening News readers, along with politicians and colleagues of Mr Williamson, have backed our call to secure the honour.
Wednesday, 28 October 2009
READING: Woodward & Bernstein, The Final Days
Bob Woodward & Carl Bernstein
The Final Days
1976
Day by day account of the last days of the Nixon regime, brought down in part by the authors' Washington Post reports.
Less breathless and immediate than All The President's Men, which was written in the white hot heat of Watergate, this is more of a dry historical account.
The reversal of writing credits from its predecessor (ATPM was credited to Bernstein & Woodward) suggests Woodward did most of the legwork while cultivating the Washington contacts that would keep him in print for the next three decades, while the more impetuous Bernstein was busy eating out on his new found fame.
This book is less Nixon: My Part In His Downfall and more The History of the Decline and Fall of the Nixon Empire.
The Final Days
1976
Day by day account of the last days of the Nixon regime, brought down in part by the authors' Washington Post reports.
Less breathless and immediate than All The President's Men, which was written in the white hot heat of Watergate, this is more of a dry historical account.
The reversal of writing credits from its predecessor (ATPM was credited to Bernstein & Woodward) suggests Woodward did most of the legwork while cultivating the Washington contacts that would keep him in print for the next three decades, while the more impetuous Bernstein was busy eating out on his new found fame.
This book is less Nixon: My Part In His Downfall and more The History of the Decline and Fall of the Nixon Empire.
NEWS: Intercontinental Inspector
By MARK McLAUGHLIN
Edinburgh Evening News
26 October 2009
THE long arm of the law turned out to be very long indeed for a retired police inspector who successfully circumnavigated the globe thanks to the hospitality of dozens of international police forces.
Tom McInally, 49, who recently retired from Lothian and Borders Police, is on the last stretch of his bid to take "the long way round" the world in aid of disability charity Capability Scotland.
Inspired by the television series of the same name charting Trainspotting star Ewan McGregor and his friend Charly Boorman's travels around the world by motorcycle, Tom revved up his BMW GS1200 and set off with two friends from the Capability HQ in Ellersly Road to the ferryport at Hull on 9 May.
After a quick jaunt through Zebrugge, they set up camp in France.
It was an experience of a lifetime for fellow rider David Burdus, from the Newcastle area, who lost the use of his legs in a motorcycle accident 20 years ago and made it as far as France on a specially adapted Martin Conquest three-wheeler.
From there Tom, who lives in Corstorphine, and fellow retired Inspector Gordon Thyne, 52, from North Queensferry, set off through Germany, Poland, Slovakia, Hungary, and Ukraine before running into a bit of trouble with the law in Russia.
Tom said: "The Russian police have a habit of pulling you over and asking for bribes to overlook so-called 'traffic offences'.
"We got stopped eight times and each time we had to spend half an hour telling them they weren't getting anything from us, which mostly consisted of us saying 'nyet!' over-and-over again from a Lonely Planet phrasebook.
"Once we made it clear we were retired policemen they stopped asking us for money and started asking us about policing in Scotland."
In most countries Tom visited he was treated like a king by foreign police officers through his contacts in the International Police Association (IPA), a network of serving and retired officers that spans the world.
After enduring the treacherous roads of Kazakhstan and Siberian Russia, Gordon split off at Vladivostok to find his own way home through Korea, while Tom headed on to Japan.
Tom added: "I visited Hiroshima and it was so moving to see the devastation caused there with my own eyes. I spent some time with the Yokohama Harbour patrols before heading on to Tokyo.
"The Japanese chapter of the IPA laid on a reception for me at every town I visited, and took me on tours of castles and sights.
"From there I flew the bike to Los Angeles and rode through the southern states of America, where I was treated to some real southern hospitality. I spent five days trying to get out because they had a party for me every night. They wouldn't let me leave.
"I eventually made it to New York where I got a tour of the 26th Precinct and the Police Museum before flying back to Heathrow."
Tom is now set to embark on the final stretch of his 'Transglobomoto' expedition through Wales and Ireland, before returning to Scotland. He has raised over £24,000 for Capability Scotland so far, and further donations can be made at www.justgiving.com/transglobemoto
Edinburgh Evening News
26 October 2009
THE long arm of the law turned out to be very long indeed for a retired police inspector who successfully circumnavigated the globe thanks to the hospitality of dozens of international police forces.
Tom McInally, 49, who recently retired from Lothian and Borders Police, is on the last stretch of his bid to take "the long way round" the world in aid of disability charity Capability Scotland.
Inspired by the television series of the same name charting Trainspotting star Ewan McGregor and his friend Charly Boorman's travels around the world by motorcycle, Tom revved up his BMW GS1200 and set off with two friends from the Capability HQ in Ellersly Road to the ferryport at Hull on 9 May.
After a quick jaunt through Zebrugge, they set up camp in France.
It was an experience of a lifetime for fellow rider David Burdus, from the Newcastle area, who lost the use of his legs in a motorcycle accident 20 years ago and made it as far as France on a specially adapted Martin Conquest three-wheeler.
From there Tom, who lives in Corstorphine, and fellow retired Inspector Gordon Thyne, 52, from North Queensferry, set off through Germany, Poland, Slovakia, Hungary, and Ukraine before running into a bit of trouble with the law in Russia.
Tom said: "The Russian police have a habit of pulling you over and asking for bribes to overlook so-called 'traffic offences'.
"We got stopped eight times and each time we had to spend half an hour telling them they weren't getting anything from us, which mostly consisted of us saying 'nyet!' over-and-over again from a Lonely Planet phrasebook.
"Once we made it clear we were retired policemen they stopped asking us for money and started asking us about policing in Scotland."
In most countries Tom visited he was treated like a king by foreign police officers through his contacts in the International Police Association (IPA), a network of serving and retired officers that spans the world.
After enduring the treacherous roads of Kazakhstan and Siberian Russia, Gordon split off at Vladivostok to find his own way home through Korea, while Tom headed on to Japan.
Tom added: "I visited Hiroshima and it was so moving to see the devastation caused there with my own eyes. I spent some time with the Yokohama Harbour patrols before heading on to Tokyo.
"The Japanese chapter of the IPA laid on a reception for me at every town I visited, and took me on tours of castles and sights.
"From there I flew the bike to Los Angeles and rode through the southern states of America, where I was treated to some real southern hospitality. I spent five days trying to get out because they had a party for me every night. They wouldn't let me leave.
"I eventually made it to New York where I got a tour of the 26th Precinct and the Police Museum before flying back to Heathrow."
Tom is now set to embark on the final stretch of his 'Transglobomoto' expedition through Wales and Ireland, before returning to Scotland. He has raised over £24,000 for Capability Scotland so far, and further donations can be made at www.justgiving.com/transglobemoto
Saturday, 24 October 2009
READING: Bowen, Six Days
Jermey Bowen
Six Days: How the 1967 War Shaped the Middle East
2004
Hour-by-hour account of the 1967 Six Day War. Much less readable than Bowen's follow up War Stories. Not for the uninitiated.
Six Days: How the 1967 War Shaped the Middle East
2004
Hour-by-hour account of the 1967 Six Day War. Much less readable than Bowen's follow up War Stories. Not for the uninitiated.
NEWS: Wattage of Leith
By MARK McLAUGHLIN
Edinburgh Evening News
22 October 2009
IT once powered dozens of mills stretching the length and breadth of Edinburgh.
Now the Water of Leith may be set to become a power generator once more with plans to site five turbines along the waterway.
Renewables group Community Energy Scotland has awarded more than £30,000 to the city council and four community groups to assess the feasibility of installing "micro-hydro" generators at five points on the waterway.
The aim is to install turbines similar to the hydro-dynamic screw, a coil-shaped turbine in River Dart Country Park in Devon, which produces enough energy to power 100 homes for a year and saves the park £40,000 in electricity costs.
None of the five locations – at Harperrig Reservoir in Kirknewton, Harlaw Reservoir in Balerno, Mossy Mill in Juniper Green, and two weirs at Dean Village and Redbraes in Leith – are thought to be big enough to sustain a turbine the size of the screw but the study will ascertain whether smaller turbines will be cost effective.
Community Energy Scotland has given each group £6000 from the Scottish Government's Community and Renewable Energy Scheme (CARES), which helps community and voluntary groups fit green energy in their buildings and investigate renewable energy development using local resources.
Eric Dodd, CARES manager, said: "This is an exciting project.
"The weirs on the Water of Leith were originally built to power mills. It seems fitting to try to bring these weirs back into use, providing potential income for local communities using clean renewable energy technology.
"Projects like this can transform communities and help Scotland achieve its world leading climate change targets."
The work builds on a previous study commissioned by the city council sustainable development unit which highlighted the resource potential along several sections of the Water of Leith.
Go Balerno! – formerly the Balerno Village Conservation and Development Trust – will oversee the Harlaw Reservoir study.
Chair Simon Dormer said: "It's not clear whether all five of these projects will come together, but we've been preparing for the Balerno turbine for quite some time now so I'm confident that our project will fly."
Greener Leith will oversee the Redbraes Weir study. Chair Alastair Tibbitt said: "Obviously this turbine won't be big enough to power every home in Leith but we hope to use it as a community education project to demonstrate what can be achieved by a community committed to renewable energy."
The city council will take control of the Mossy Mill project.
Environment leader Robert Aldridge said: "One of our key priorities is for Edinburgh to become even more clean and green, and exploring the potential of sustainable micro energy sources, such as hydro power, will help us move towards this."
Kirknewton Community Development Trust will oversee the Harperrig Reservoir study, while the Dean Weir study will be handled by the Dean Village Association.
Edinburgh Evening News
22 October 2009
IT once powered dozens of mills stretching the length and breadth of Edinburgh.
Now the Water of Leith may be set to become a power generator once more with plans to site five turbines along the waterway.
Renewables group Community Energy Scotland has awarded more than £30,000 to the city council and four community groups to assess the feasibility of installing "micro-hydro" generators at five points on the waterway.
The aim is to install turbines similar to the hydro-dynamic screw, a coil-shaped turbine in River Dart Country Park in Devon, which produces enough energy to power 100 homes for a year and saves the park £40,000 in electricity costs.
None of the five locations – at Harperrig Reservoir in Kirknewton, Harlaw Reservoir in Balerno, Mossy Mill in Juniper Green, and two weirs at Dean Village and Redbraes in Leith – are thought to be big enough to sustain a turbine the size of the screw but the study will ascertain whether smaller turbines will be cost effective.
Community Energy Scotland has given each group £6000 from the Scottish Government's Community and Renewable Energy Scheme (CARES), which helps community and voluntary groups fit green energy in their buildings and investigate renewable energy development using local resources.
Eric Dodd, CARES manager, said: "This is an exciting project.
"The weirs on the Water of Leith were originally built to power mills. It seems fitting to try to bring these weirs back into use, providing potential income for local communities using clean renewable energy technology.
"Projects like this can transform communities and help Scotland achieve its world leading climate change targets."
The work builds on a previous study commissioned by the city council sustainable development unit which highlighted the resource potential along several sections of the Water of Leith.
Go Balerno! – formerly the Balerno Village Conservation and Development Trust – will oversee the Harlaw Reservoir study.
Chair Simon Dormer said: "It's not clear whether all five of these projects will come together, but we've been preparing for the Balerno turbine for quite some time now so I'm confident that our project will fly."
Greener Leith will oversee the Redbraes Weir study. Chair Alastair Tibbitt said: "Obviously this turbine won't be big enough to power every home in Leith but we hope to use it as a community education project to demonstrate what can be achieved by a community committed to renewable energy."
The city council will take control of the Mossy Mill project.
Environment leader Robert Aldridge said: "One of our key priorities is for Edinburgh to become even more clean and green, and exploring the potential of sustainable micro energy sources, such as hydro power, will help us move towards this."
Kirknewton Community Development Trust will oversee the Harperrig Reservoir study, while the Dean Weir study will be handled by the Dean Village Association.
READING: Simpson, The Wars Against Saddam
John Simpson
The Wars Against Saddam: Taking the Hard Road to Baghdad
2003
Refreshingly less self indulgant than some of Simpson's other work. Contains the best description of Saddam I've encountered to date - a brutal gangster rather than a head of state.
Simpson portrays Saddam as an unpleasant Don Corleone figure, with his brutal son Uday and his quieter but no less unpleasant son Qusay as his own Sonny and Michael. Son-in-law Hussein Kamel is the family's Fredo, defecting to Jordan in 1995 only to be lured back and killed for his treachery.
The Wars Against Saddam: Taking the Hard Road to Baghdad
2003
Refreshingly less self indulgant than some of Simpson's other work. Contains the best description of Saddam I've encountered to date - a brutal gangster rather than a head of state.
Simpson portrays Saddam as an unpleasant Don Corleone figure, with his brutal son Uday and his quieter but no less unpleasant son Qusay as his own Sonny and Michael. Son-in-law Hussein Kamel is the family's Fredo, defecting to Jordan in 1995 only to be lured back and killed for his treachery.
Wednesday, 21 October 2009
FEATURE: From Cannabis to Chaos
Anyone who thinks cannabis use isn't harmful should read this and take note. Whether you believe it causes psychological damage or not, you're bound to run into some dodgy and often desperate people who are selling it at some point along the chain, just like Nicole.
By MARK McLAUGHLIN
Edinburgh Evening News
21 October 2009
A SUNNY day during the summer holidays and a group of giggly teenagers squash together on a park bench. As they chat – about boys, teachers, fashion – one produces a cannabis joint and lights it, before offering it around.
Laughing, they all take turns having a puff. Just another rebellious rite of passage, like that first sip of alcohol or drag on a cigarette, given a slightly more delicious edge because it is illegal.
But for Nicole Carter, then 14 in the summer of 1989 and one of the teenagers in that park in West Linton, that first smoke was the beginning of a 20-year mental health nightmare from which she is only just emerging. Later diagnosed with bipolar disorder, characterised by violent mood swings and deep depression, she is in no doubt that cannabis is to blame.
"I can't emphasise enough the damaging effect that cannabis had on my life," says the 34-year-old, originally from Penicuik. "It was just so easily available when I was growing up.
"That first time when I tried it made me feel quite sick at first, but I persevered because being bad was an extreme sport for me. My dad was a policeman and my mum never touched anything like that."
Up until then, she'd had a happy childhood. Her father Harry served in The Royal Scots Greys under soldier and adventurer Sir Ranulph Fiennes, before becoming a policeman. Her mother Rosina was a playground assistant at Mauricewood Primary, her first school, and a community centre volunteer.
"She was always around in the playground playing games like dodgeball and hockey, and after school she'd take me and my younger brothers, twins Iain and David, to the community centre so we always had loads of friends," she says.
But relations with her family went rapidly downhill after that first puff of cannabis. Nicole, by then a pupil at Beeslack High School, began smoking the drug every weekend. "I started to become aggressive and paranoid. I remember one time in third year when I thought there were sharks in the school swimming pool. I eventually managed to rationalise but I'll never forget the feeling of imminent fear I had in the pool.
"I started losing interest in school and when my mum found out she wasn't pleased to say the least.
"Things weren't going well at home and then my dad left, which didn't help matters but it wasn't the source of my problems. By that time I just didn't care any more."
She began to enter a murky world. "The cannabis also brought me into contact with a drug dealer. He was about 21 and he had a bit of a reputation as the kind of guy you don't mess around with. I passed him in the street one day and he asked if he could walk me home.
"I should have wondered why a 21-year-old guy wanted to walk a 15-year-old home, but I was flattered that he noticed me. He knew exactly what he was doing – and we kissed on the way home.
"About a week later I was at a party and there was only me and another girl and whole group of guys. He took me up to the bedroom and I have to admit I was a bit curious about sex because of all the things we had been taught about.
"I was a virgin at the time and while I was curious I didn't want to have sex, but when he got his hands on me he started ordering me around. He was very dictatorial and I was scared of him so I just did everything he told me to do."
At the time she didn't tell anyone what had happened. "I had to go to rape counselling and get pregnancy and HIV tests by myself, which is a lot to handle when you're 15. I stopped smoking cannabis after that."
Within a couple of years her mother remarried and her new stepfather, Bill Cargill, began to reintroduce some stability in her life. She retook some of her highers at college and got a steady job at Standard Life. However, life soon began to unravel again.
"I had already started smoking cannabis again in an effort to get my life into some kind of perspective. I began to feel angry at all of the things that happened in my teens, almost like delayed post-traumatic stress, so I quit my job and ran away to Amsterdam.
"Ironically, I smoked less in Amsterdam than I did in Scotland because I was holding down two jobs as a kitchen porter in an Irish bar and a cleaner at a hostel.
"I came back in 1997 but rather than return home to my parents I decided to become homeless. I checked into the Cranston Street hostel, which was . . . interesting.
"Most of the women in there had drug and alcohol problems, and had been abused or raped.
"It sickened me how prevalent rape seemed to be and how many men seemed to get away with it, so I finally reported my own rape, but the police said too much time had passed. They questioned the dealer but he denied it, so that was that."
Nicole got a job as a silver service waitress and ended up working as a waitress at the Queen's garden party at Holyrood House.
"I still laugh at the irony of this homeless waif handing out hors d'oeuvre to the guests."
By now she was using cannabis again. "I've rarely ever paid for cannabis because it's always been so readily available. There were always guys offering me joints and most of the time it was their way of making girls easy.
"I started getting paranoid again and I used to think people were either angels or demons, and that I was able to see it in their eyes.
"I got a job at the Edinburgh Rock cafe around this time too and I had to be restrained from throwing myself off the roof. I was just standing on the edge and I decided I would just let myself fall, but someone pulled me back. It was a suicide attempt and I put the blame solely on cannabis.
"I wasn't eating and I became seriously malnourished, so on top of my bipolar disorder I was suffering from hallucinations and I was admitted to hospital.
"When I got out I started a university degree in applied bio-sciences and I starting seeing a guy called Steven. We weren't really right for each other and shortly after we split up he died of complications related to his diabetes. He was only 21.
"Even though I'd only been seeing him for a week I began to get terrible feelings of guilt.
"I dropped out of the course and . . . " She stops mid-sentence and her face suddenly drops. She puts her hand to her face. What she's trying to say is that at the age of 23 she was sexually assaulted again and spent the rest of her 20s going from hospital to hostel.
She adds: "One thing I've noticed about every psychiatric hospital I've ever been to is that they seem to put the predatory men in the same ward as the vulnerable women, and the horrible women in with the vulnerable men.
"I've raised it with the staff and they all give me the same excuse – there's not enough beds. I just want to break out of this vicious cycle."
Now, though, she's hoping she's done just that. She's staying at the city council's Colinton Mains House, supported temporary accommodation.
"Some of my worst periods in life were brought by my desire to have children. One of the side-effects of my medication is the risk that it will give my child spina-bifida if I was ever to become pregnant, so I kept taking myself off the medication and then end up at square one.
"The staff at Colinton Mains House have been amazing. They've helped me realise that my medication is necessary and helped me cope with the side effects."
She is also writing poetry, with the inspiration drawn from some of her most troubled times and has just had some work published.
"Now I'm looking forward to the future. But anyone that says cannabis doesn't cause mental illness doesn't have a clue what they're talking about."
Poems By Nicole Carter: Volume One is available from Colinton Mains House on 0131 441 2719.
BAD INFLUENCE
CANNABIS – also known as dope, grass, marijuana, hash or pot – is the most widely used illegal Class-B drug in Britain, either as parts of the herb, or as the resin, hashish. It is harvested from the plant cannabis sativa, and the main active compound is tetrahydrocannabinol (THC).
Researchers estimate there were about 321,352 recreational drug users smoking or ingesting cannabis in Scotland in 2006, and the number continues to rise. In recent years drugs hauls worth millions have been discovered in the Capital. About 100 cannabis farms have been closed across the country in the past 12 months.
Some of those who use the drug, which has a strong and distinctive smell, can become anxious, panicky, suspicious or paranoid.
It also affects coordination, which is one of the reasons why driving under its influence is just as illegal as drink driving.
As it is usually smoked, often mixed with unfiltered tobacco– and is frequently adulterated with other chemicals – it can cause lung disease, and cancer in the case of long-term or heavy use.
Cannabis itself affects many different systems in the body. It increases the heart rate and can affect blood pressure.
Those with a history of mental health problems are especially advised not to smoke cannabis. It can cause paranoia in the short term and spark a relapse for those with psychotic illnesses such as schizophrenia.
It is also thought that frequent use of cannabis can cut a man's sperm count, reduce sperm motility, and can suppress ovulation in women.
By MARK McLAUGHLIN
Edinburgh Evening News
21 October 2009
A SUNNY day during the summer holidays and a group of giggly teenagers squash together on a park bench. As they chat – about boys, teachers, fashion – one produces a cannabis joint and lights it, before offering it around.
Laughing, they all take turns having a puff. Just another rebellious rite of passage, like that first sip of alcohol or drag on a cigarette, given a slightly more delicious edge because it is illegal.
But for Nicole Carter, then 14 in the summer of 1989 and one of the teenagers in that park in West Linton, that first smoke was the beginning of a 20-year mental health nightmare from which she is only just emerging. Later diagnosed with bipolar disorder, characterised by violent mood swings and deep depression, she is in no doubt that cannabis is to blame.
"I can't emphasise enough the damaging effect that cannabis had on my life," says the 34-year-old, originally from Penicuik. "It was just so easily available when I was growing up.
"That first time when I tried it made me feel quite sick at first, but I persevered because being bad was an extreme sport for me. My dad was a policeman and my mum never touched anything like that."
Up until then, she'd had a happy childhood. Her father Harry served in The Royal Scots Greys under soldier and adventurer Sir Ranulph Fiennes, before becoming a policeman. Her mother Rosina was a playground assistant at Mauricewood Primary, her first school, and a community centre volunteer.
"She was always around in the playground playing games like dodgeball and hockey, and after school she'd take me and my younger brothers, twins Iain and David, to the community centre so we always had loads of friends," she says.
But relations with her family went rapidly downhill after that first puff of cannabis. Nicole, by then a pupil at Beeslack High School, began smoking the drug every weekend. "I started to become aggressive and paranoid. I remember one time in third year when I thought there were sharks in the school swimming pool. I eventually managed to rationalise but I'll never forget the feeling of imminent fear I had in the pool.
"I started losing interest in school and when my mum found out she wasn't pleased to say the least.
"Things weren't going well at home and then my dad left, which didn't help matters but it wasn't the source of my problems. By that time I just didn't care any more."
She began to enter a murky world. "The cannabis also brought me into contact with a drug dealer. He was about 21 and he had a bit of a reputation as the kind of guy you don't mess around with. I passed him in the street one day and he asked if he could walk me home.
"I should have wondered why a 21-year-old guy wanted to walk a 15-year-old home, but I was flattered that he noticed me. He knew exactly what he was doing – and we kissed on the way home.
"About a week later I was at a party and there was only me and another girl and whole group of guys. He took me up to the bedroom and I have to admit I was a bit curious about sex because of all the things we had been taught about.
"I was a virgin at the time and while I was curious I didn't want to have sex, but when he got his hands on me he started ordering me around. He was very dictatorial and I was scared of him so I just did everything he told me to do."
At the time she didn't tell anyone what had happened. "I had to go to rape counselling and get pregnancy and HIV tests by myself, which is a lot to handle when you're 15. I stopped smoking cannabis after that."
Within a couple of years her mother remarried and her new stepfather, Bill Cargill, began to reintroduce some stability in her life. She retook some of her highers at college and got a steady job at Standard Life. However, life soon began to unravel again.
"I had already started smoking cannabis again in an effort to get my life into some kind of perspective. I began to feel angry at all of the things that happened in my teens, almost like delayed post-traumatic stress, so I quit my job and ran away to Amsterdam.
"Ironically, I smoked less in Amsterdam than I did in Scotland because I was holding down two jobs as a kitchen porter in an Irish bar and a cleaner at a hostel.
"I came back in 1997 but rather than return home to my parents I decided to become homeless. I checked into the Cranston Street hostel, which was . . . interesting.
"Most of the women in there had drug and alcohol problems, and had been abused or raped.
"It sickened me how prevalent rape seemed to be and how many men seemed to get away with it, so I finally reported my own rape, but the police said too much time had passed. They questioned the dealer but he denied it, so that was that."
Nicole got a job as a silver service waitress and ended up working as a waitress at the Queen's garden party at Holyrood House.
"I still laugh at the irony of this homeless waif handing out hors d'oeuvre to the guests."
By now she was using cannabis again. "I've rarely ever paid for cannabis because it's always been so readily available. There were always guys offering me joints and most of the time it was their way of making girls easy.
"I started getting paranoid again and I used to think people were either angels or demons, and that I was able to see it in their eyes.
"I got a job at the Edinburgh Rock cafe around this time too and I had to be restrained from throwing myself off the roof. I was just standing on the edge and I decided I would just let myself fall, but someone pulled me back. It was a suicide attempt and I put the blame solely on cannabis.
"I wasn't eating and I became seriously malnourished, so on top of my bipolar disorder I was suffering from hallucinations and I was admitted to hospital.
"When I got out I started a university degree in applied bio-sciences and I starting seeing a guy called Steven. We weren't really right for each other and shortly after we split up he died of complications related to his diabetes. He was only 21.
"Even though I'd only been seeing him for a week I began to get terrible feelings of guilt.
"I dropped out of the course and . . . " She stops mid-sentence and her face suddenly drops. She puts her hand to her face. What she's trying to say is that at the age of 23 she was sexually assaulted again and spent the rest of her 20s going from hospital to hostel.
She adds: "One thing I've noticed about every psychiatric hospital I've ever been to is that they seem to put the predatory men in the same ward as the vulnerable women, and the horrible women in with the vulnerable men.
"I've raised it with the staff and they all give me the same excuse – there's not enough beds. I just want to break out of this vicious cycle."
Now, though, she's hoping she's done just that. She's staying at the city council's Colinton Mains House, supported temporary accommodation.
"Some of my worst periods in life were brought by my desire to have children. One of the side-effects of my medication is the risk that it will give my child spina-bifida if I was ever to become pregnant, so I kept taking myself off the medication and then end up at square one.
"The staff at Colinton Mains House have been amazing. They've helped me realise that my medication is necessary and helped me cope with the side effects."
She is also writing poetry, with the inspiration drawn from some of her most troubled times and has just had some work published.
"Now I'm looking forward to the future. But anyone that says cannabis doesn't cause mental illness doesn't have a clue what they're talking about."
Poems By Nicole Carter: Volume One is available from Colinton Mains House on 0131 441 2719.
BAD INFLUENCE
CANNABIS – also known as dope, grass, marijuana, hash or pot – is the most widely used illegal Class-B drug in Britain, either as parts of the herb, or as the resin, hashish. It is harvested from the plant cannabis sativa, and the main active compound is tetrahydrocannabinol (THC).
Researchers estimate there were about 321,352 recreational drug users smoking or ingesting cannabis in Scotland in 2006, and the number continues to rise. In recent years drugs hauls worth millions have been discovered in the Capital. About 100 cannabis farms have been closed across the country in the past 12 months.
Some of those who use the drug, which has a strong and distinctive smell, can become anxious, panicky, suspicious or paranoid.
It also affects coordination, which is one of the reasons why driving under its influence is just as illegal as drink driving.
As it is usually smoked, often mixed with unfiltered tobacco– and is frequently adulterated with other chemicals – it can cause lung disease, and cancer in the case of long-term or heavy use.
Cannabis itself affects many different systems in the body. It increases the heart rate and can affect blood pressure.
Those with a history of mental health problems are especially advised not to smoke cannabis. It can cause paranoia in the short term and spark a relapse for those with psychotic illnesses such as schizophrenia.
It is also thought that frequent use of cannabis can cut a man's sperm count, reduce sperm motility, and can suppress ovulation in women.
Tuesday, 20 October 2009
READING: Bernstein & Woodward, All The President's Men
Carl Bernstein & Bob Woodward
All The President's Men
1974
Required reading for all journalists. Every page has a new trick on how to speak the truth to power, and how to afflict the comfortably crooked. Must be read at least once a year.
All The President's Men
1974
Required reading for all journalists. Every page has a new trick on how to speak the truth to power, and how to afflict the comfortably crooked. Must be read at least once a year.
READING: Bowen, War Stories
Jeremy Bowen
War Stories
2009
Eyewitness account of 20 years of war. Bowen has one eye on the big picture, and one eye on the human costs of war. His narrative always comes back to the individuals affected by war with dozens of tragic case-studies that bring the action home.
War Stories
2009
Eyewitness account of 20 years of war. Bowen has one eye on the big picture, and one eye on the human costs of war. His narrative always comes back to the individuals affected by war with dozens of tragic case-studies that bring the action home.
READING: Zola, Germinal
Emile Zola
Germinal
1885
Fantastic docu-drama on life in a 19th Century French coal mine. Drawn from Zola's own research in the mines, as well as his own fertile imagination, the book draws to a tragic conclusion of classical Greek proportions (with a few nods to Greek mythology along the way).
Germinal
1885
Fantastic docu-drama on life in a 19th Century French coal mine. Drawn from Zola's own research in the mines, as well as his own fertile imagination, the book draws to a tragic conclusion of classical Greek proportions (with a few nods to Greek mythology along the way).
NEWS: Stolen terriers
By Mark McLaughlin
Edinburgh Evening News
20 October 2009
FOUR Staffordshire bull terrier puppies were stolen by "extremely callous" thieves during a break-in at a flat in Leith.
The eight-weeks-old puppies, of which two are black and two have brindle markings, were taken from a flat in Albert Street on Friday.
The Staffordshire bull terrier pups, which can be worth hundreds of pounds each, were taken when the flat was broken into sometime between 11.30am and 1.45pm.
Police have not disclosed whether anything else was taken in the raid.
A police spokesperson said: "The owner is very upset at the loss of the puppies.
"We are appealing for anyone who might have seen people acting suspiciously in the area at the time, or from anyone who has heard of this kind of puppy being offered for sale, to contact police."
It is unknown whether the dogs were stolen to order, or were the victim of an opportunist thief.
However, Leith Walk Councillor Angela Blacklock said it was possible the dogs were stolen to order as they would be likely to fetch a high price if sold on.
She said: "This is a terrible theft. I've never heard of anything like it in the area before.
"Someone must have known that the puppies were in the flat as these breeds carry quite a high value.
"A breeder would make sure that the dogs would go to a good home but now that they've been stolen who knows what will happen to them.
"If it is someone that's broken into the property and stolen them to order or for sale the could be a real problem because we don't know what kind of home they'll go to.
"It just seems extremely callous, and it's a shame if this person was a dog breeder whose gone to the expense of raising four Staffordshire bull terrier pups only to have them snatched away.
"I will be speaking to the local police inspector to find out what happened here."
Some Staffordshire bull terrier pups are currently being sold on line for up to £400.
The theft comes almost a year to the day after four pedigree Cavalier King Charles Spaniels were snatched from their kennel outside a cottage near Linlithgow in a night-time raid.
Owner Margaret Ferguson, 48, said the thieves used a crowbar to break in to the locked kennel and would have needed a car to transport the valuable pets away.
An in February 2008 a pedigree Shi Tzu was stolen from a house in Whitburn, before being killed and dumped in a bin bag near Murraysgate Industrial Estate.
Edinburgh Evening News
20 October 2009
FOUR Staffordshire bull terrier puppies were stolen by "extremely callous" thieves during a break-in at a flat in Leith.
The eight-weeks-old puppies, of which two are black and two have brindle markings, were taken from a flat in Albert Street on Friday.
The Staffordshire bull terrier pups, which can be worth hundreds of pounds each, were taken when the flat was broken into sometime between 11.30am and 1.45pm.
Police have not disclosed whether anything else was taken in the raid.
A police spokesperson said: "The owner is very upset at the loss of the puppies.
"We are appealing for anyone who might have seen people acting suspiciously in the area at the time, or from anyone who has heard of this kind of puppy being offered for sale, to contact police."
It is unknown whether the dogs were stolen to order, or were the victim of an opportunist thief.
However, Leith Walk Councillor Angela Blacklock said it was possible the dogs were stolen to order as they would be likely to fetch a high price if sold on.
She said: "This is a terrible theft. I've never heard of anything like it in the area before.
"Someone must have known that the puppies were in the flat as these breeds carry quite a high value.
"A breeder would make sure that the dogs would go to a good home but now that they've been stolen who knows what will happen to them.
"If it is someone that's broken into the property and stolen them to order or for sale the could be a real problem because we don't know what kind of home they'll go to.
"It just seems extremely callous, and it's a shame if this person was a dog breeder whose gone to the expense of raising four Staffordshire bull terrier pups only to have them snatched away.
"I will be speaking to the local police inspector to find out what happened here."
Some Staffordshire bull terrier pups are currently being sold on line for up to £400.
The theft comes almost a year to the day after four pedigree Cavalier King Charles Spaniels were snatched from their kennel outside a cottage near Linlithgow in a night-time raid.
Owner Margaret Ferguson, 48, said the thieves used a crowbar to break in to the locked kennel and would have needed a car to transport the valuable pets away.
An in February 2008 a pedigree Shi Tzu was stolen from a house in Whitburn, before being killed and dumped in a bin bag near Murraysgate Industrial Estate.
Monday, 19 October 2009
ANALYSIS: Have you heard of this Internet thingy perchance...?
Mark McLaughlin
Edinburgh Evening News
October 19, 2009
IT WAS once regarded as the refuge of those looking for alien conspiracies and somewhere to share their thoughts on the latest Star Wars movie, but today the internet – and social networking sites in particular – have truly broken over into the mainstream.
We are logging on in our millions, with age and gender no barrier.
So-called "silver surfers" are the latest to smash through the digital divide, with a new Ofcom report showing one in four in the 45-54 age group now belong to a social networking site – more than double the number of two years ago.
These figures come on the back of a looming postal strike, but with the population e-mailing in their droves, it has to be asked whether the Post Office is history anyway, destined to be sidelined in the on-going march of technology.
Post Office figures show that the size of its average daily mailbag has decreased by around 10 per cent in the last year, to just over 75 million items a day.
Meanwhile, it is estimated that the UK is currently sending around three billion e-mails every single day.
Dr Alistair Duff, a reader in information and journalism at Edinburgh Napier University and a leading expert on how information systems shape our society, thinks the figures showing the rise of the silver surfers are "significant but not surprising".
He said: "One of the main fears about the rise of the information age was the generation gap, and if that is dissolving it shows that we're moving forward.
"The fact that we now have 45-54-year-olds using the internet more often is not that surprising to me.
"First of all, late 40s to early 50s is not that old, and it has to be remembered that this is the generation that invented the internet. I'd be more interested to find out how many over-70s have social networking sites."
Internet uptake has continued beyond middle age, with figures showing that 8 per cent of over-55s now have a social network page.
While this is great news for social inclusion, it has been welcomed with less enthusiasm in the traditional communication industries, such as the Post Office.
The Communication Workers Union claims that the Royal Mail has rejected its proposals for modernising its workload while maintaining the staff.
The Royal Mail claims that it is the CWU that is resistant to change, and it is driving customers such as Amazon away with its continuing strike action. However, Royal Mail may be right to hold off on buying huge banks of parcel-sorting machines for the moment, as the items currently sent by companies like Amazon, such as music, movies and books, are being increasingly digitised and traded online, without the bulky media of CDs, DVDs and bound volumes.
In the Information Society, the information itself is fast becoming the key tradable commodity.
Some have argued that we are on the verge of an information revolution, a 21st-century communist dream where all information – the new currency – will be equally distributed amongst the masses.
Dr Duff added: "Some have speculated that if Karl Marx were around today, he would be writing "Das Information", rather than Das Kapital.
"Information is a new currency.
Every new technology has been met with resistance from the beginning of history, and has brought a great deal of strife as well as benefits, so you will see strikes of this kind.
"However, I am sympathetic to some of this resistance, because change has to be managed sensitively. It is still possible to have full employment in a high-tech society.
"The future of the Royal Mail has got to be multimedia. New media does not always displace old media. They can co-exist in the same way that radio has continued to co-exist with television.
"As the philosopher Marshall McLuhan said, 'the medium is the message'. A handwritten, hand-delivered letter will always say much more than an e-mail, text or tweet ever could."
Nowhere is this co-existence more in evidence than the humble telephone. The use of phones for texting has rocketed from 22 billion texts in 2003 to over 85 billion texts last year.
Latest Ofcom figures show that, despite this breakthrough in telephone technology, it's still good to talk. UK land-line calls have dropped 17 per cent in the last five years, but they have been replaced by a near doubling of mobile calls, which means that the overall number of calls made in the UK, on both land-line and mobile, has risen by 10 per cent.
Dr Duff added: "It's too early to say where all of these developments are leading. As for the ability of the Information Society to spark a revolution, I'm going to go for the academic cop out – sit on the fence and wait and see which way the wind is blowing. Many Old Testament prophets who were proved false were stoned to death, and I wouldn't want that to happen to me."
Edinburgh Evening News
October 19, 2009
IT WAS once regarded as the refuge of those looking for alien conspiracies and somewhere to share their thoughts on the latest Star Wars movie, but today the internet – and social networking sites in particular – have truly broken over into the mainstream.
We are logging on in our millions, with age and gender no barrier.
So-called "silver surfers" are the latest to smash through the digital divide, with a new Ofcom report showing one in four in the 45-54 age group now belong to a social networking site – more than double the number of two years ago.
These figures come on the back of a looming postal strike, but with the population e-mailing in their droves, it has to be asked whether the Post Office is history anyway, destined to be sidelined in the on-going march of technology.
Post Office figures show that the size of its average daily mailbag has decreased by around 10 per cent in the last year, to just over 75 million items a day.
Meanwhile, it is estimated that the UK is currently sending around three billion e-mails every single day.
Dr Alistair Duff, a reader in information and journalism at Edinburgh Napier University and a leading expert on how information systems shape our society, thinks the figures showing the rise of the silver surfers are "significant but not surprising".
He said: "One of the main fears about the rise of the information age was the generation gap, and if that is dissolving it shows that we're moving forward.
"The fact that we now have 45-54-year-olds using the internet more often is not that surprising to me.
"First of all, late 40s to early 50s is not that old, and it has to be remembered that this is the generation that invented the internet. I'd be more interested to find out how many over-70s have social networking sites."
Internet uptake has continued beyond middle age, with figures showing that 8 per cent of over-55s now have a social network page.
While this is great news for social inclusion, it has been welcomed with less enthusiasm in the traditional communication industries, such as the Post Office.
The Communication Workers Union claims that the Royal Mail has rejected its proposals for modernising its workload while maintaining the staff.
The Royal Mail claims that it is the CWU that is resistant to change, and it is driving customers such as Amazon away with its continuing strike action. However, Royal Mail may be right to hold off on buying huge banks of parcel-sorting machines for the moment, as the items currently sent by companies like Amazon, such as music, movies and books, are being increasingly digitised and traded online, without the bulky media of CDs, DVDs and bound volumes.
In the Information Society, the information itself is fast becoming the key tradable commodity.
Some have argued that we are on the verge of an information revolution, a 21st-century communist dream where all information – the new currency – will be equally distributed amongst the masses.
Dr Duff added: "Some have speculated that if Karl Marx were around today, he would be writing "Das Information", rather than Das Kapital.
"Information is a new currency.
Every new technology has been met with resistance from the beginning of history, and has brought a great deal of strife as well as benefits, so you will see strikes of this kind.
"However, I am sympathetic to some of this resistance, because change has to be managed sensitively. It is still possible to have full employment in a high-tech society.
"The future of the Royal Mail has got to be multimedia. New media does not always displace old media. They can co-exist in the same way that radio has continued to co-exist with television.
"As the philosopher Marshall McLuhan said, 'the medium is the message'. A handwritten, hand-delivered letter will always say much more than an e-mail, text or tweet ever could."
Nowhere is this co-existence more in evidence than the humble telephone. The use of phones for texting has rocketed from 22 billion texts in 2003 to over 85 billion texts last year.
Latest Ofcom figures show that, despite this breakthrough in telephone technology, it's still good to talk. UK land-line calls have dropped 17 per cent in the last five years, but they have been replaced by a near doubling of mobile calls, which means that the overall number of calls made in the UK, on both land-line and mobile, has risen by 10 per cent.
Dr Duff added: "It's too early to say where all of these developments are leading. As for the ability of the Information Society to spark a revolution, I'm going to go for the academic cop out – sit on the fence and wait and see which way the wind is blowing. Many Old Testament prophets who were proved false were stoned to death, and I wouldn't want that to happen to me."
NEWS: That's a lot of deid chickens!!
Mark McLaughlin
Edinburgh Evening News
October 16, 2009
POLICE are investigating after 136,000 chickens were killed in a mystery break-in at a poultry farm on the outskirts of Edinburgh.
The birds are thought to have suffocated after the air supply to the sheds at the huge facility was shut down.
The motive for the attack on Beechgrove Farm, around two miles west of Balerno, is not known.
The farm's owner, meat-producing giant Vion Food Group, would not say what type of chickens were killed, how they were housed inside the sheds or exactly how much the break-in cost. However, experts have estimated the bill could run up to GBP 400,000.
A police spokesman confirmed an investigation was under way.
"A total of 12 sheds containing live chickens were broken into, and the environmental controls tampered with, causing the deaths of approximately 136,000 chickens.
"Police are appealing for anyone who has any information that can assist their inquiries to come forward."
It is unclear whether the break-in was the work of pranksters, but it is thought unlikely to be connected to animal rights groups.
Ross Minett, campaigns director with Advocates for Animals, said he was not aware of any targeted action against local farms or Vion Food Group as a whole.
Mr Minett said: "This is a dreadful incident and the scale of suffering is simply immense.
"It's hard to imagine why anyone would deliberately cause tens of thousands of birds to die an awful death from overheating and asphyxiation.
"Unfortunately, intensively-grown chickens crowded together in huge factories are terribly vulnerable to any interference with environmental controls, whether deliberately or by accident."
Farming experts said that the size and population of the sheds indicated that they were likely to be broiling chickens - normally packaged for consumption as roast chicken - meaning, depending on their age, they were worth up to GBP 400,000.
Rob Smith, group communications officer at Vion Food Group, said: "I can confirm that on the night of 17-18 August there was a break-in at Beechgrove Farm.
"Nothing was stolen, but the action of the culprits resulted in a high number of bird fatalities.
"A police investigation is presently under way and we are co-operating with their inquiries."
Scottish SPCA chief superintendent Mike Flynn added: "This was either an extremely callous or thoughtless act that has resulted in thousands of animals suffering what must have been a very uncomfortable and slow death filled with pain and fear.
"Whoever is responsible for this clearly showed no consideration for the welfare of the birds.
"Anyone with any information should contact the police."
Edinburgh Evening News
October 16, 2009
POLICE are investigating after 136,000 chickens were killed in a mystery break-in at a poultry farm on the outskirts of Edinburgh.
The birds are thought to have suffocated after the air supply to the sheds at the huge facility was shut down.
The motive for the attack on Beechgrove Farm, around two miles west of Balerno, is not known.
The farm's owner, meat-producing giant Vion Food Group, would not say what type of chickens were killed, how they were housed inside the sheds or exactly how much the break-in cost. However, experts have estimated the bill could run up to GBP 400,000.
A police spokesman confirmed an investigation was under way.
"A total of 12 sheds containing live chickens were broken into, and the environmental controls tampered with, causing the deaths of approximately 136,000 chickens.
"Police are appealing for anyone who has any information that can assist their inquiries to come forward."
It is unclear whether the break-in was the work of pranksters, but it is thought unlikely to be connected to animal rights groups.
Ross Minett, campaigns director with Advocates for Animals, said he was not aware of any targeted action against local farms or Vion Food Group as a whole.
Mr Minett said: "This is a dreadful incident and the scale of suffering is simply immense.
"It's hard to imagine why anyone would deliberately cause tens of thousands of birds to die an awful death from overheating and asphyxiation.
"Unfortunately, intensively-grown chickens crowded together in huge factories are terribly vulnerable to any interference with environmental controls, whether deliberately or by accident."
Farming experts said that the size and population of the sheds indicated that they were likely to be broiling chickens - normally packaged for consumption as roast chicken - meaning, depending on their age, they were worth up to GBP 400,000.
Rob Smith, group communications officer at Vion Food Group, said: "I can confirm that on the night of 17-18 August there was a break-in at Beechgrove Farm.
"Nothing was stolen, but the action of the culprits resulted in a high number of bird fatalities.
"A police investigation is presently under way and we are co-operating with their inquiries."
Scottish SPCA chief superintendent Mike Flynn added: "This was either an extremely callous or thoughtless act that has resulted in thousands of animals suffering what must have been a very uncomfortable and slow death filled with pain and fear.
"Whoever is responsible for this clearly showed no consideration for the welfare of the birds.
"Anyone with any information should contact the police."
FEATURE: An American director in Edinburgh
Mark McLaughlin
Edinburgh Evening News
October 15, 2009
THE chance to entertain a mysterious American guest turned out to be a thriller for two Old Town tour guides.
Stuart Nicoll and John Baxter were intrigued when the famous Ealing Studios asked to book "a client" on one of their Burke and Hare murder tours.
But they could hardly believe their eyes when film great John Landis - the director of Michael Jackson's Thriller video and a string of hit films including An American Werewolf in London - turned up.
The celebrated director was visiting the Capital to scout for locations for his forthcoming comic-horror take on the famous West Port murderers.
Mr Nicoll, 28, of Abbeyhill, co-owner of The West Port Tours, said: "I clocked him right away because I'm a big fan of Trading Places and Coming to America.
"He said he was only there for the night and he had to fly out to America the following day.
"Obviously the subject matter of the tour is dark and scary, so it was great to show him around.
"John took him up to Greyfriars Kirkyard to set the scene. He explained about the demand for bodies at the medical school that led some to go grave-robbing and ultimately led Burke and Hare to commit their murders.
"He loved the atmosphere of the place.
"We made it clear that Burke and Hare weren't actually grave-robbers, a common mistake that we wouldn't want to see repeated on film.
"Then we took him to the Grassmarket and up to the West Port to show him the site of the old Tanner's Close, where they carried out their murders."
Mr Baxter, 23, of Musselburgh, was a bit less fazed by Landis' arrival - as he wasn't really sure who he was.
He said: "I'd heard the name but the only film I could place him on was Beverly Hills Cop III, and it was only when I Googled him that I released how big he is.
"The tour lasted about an hour-and-a-half longer than usual because the location scouts wanted to take their time, and they couldn't agree on anything.
"Landis was particularly interested in Burke's hanging site on Parliament Square, but there was some talk of them moving it to the Grassmarket in the film."
The tour guides were approached before they had even launched their new Burke and Hare Murder Tours, which are due to start on 26 October, after Ealing Studios found their website.
They arranged a private tour which ended up lasting three hours.
Both men are now angling for a cameo in the film, with Mr Nicoll hoping to portray murder witness Hugh Alston, and Mr Baxter eyeing the role of the Rymer's Bar landlord who unwittingly plied the murderers' victims with drink.
An Ealing Studios spokesman said that pre-production shooting on the film will begin in November, with Shaun of the Dead star Simon Pegg lined up for one of the roles.
But he dismissed suggestions that Bathgate-born Doctor Who star David Tennant would play Hare to Pegg's Burke as "a rumour".
He added: "John Landis found the recce with West Port Tours really useful and inspiring."
Edinburgh Evening News
October 15, 2009
THE chance to entertain a mysterious American guest turned out to be a thriller for two Old Town tour guides.
Stuart Nicoll and John Baxter were intrigued when the famous Ealing Studios asked to book "a client" on one of their Burke and Hare murder tours.
But they could hardly believe their eyes when film great John Landis - the director of Michael Jackson's Thriller video and a string of hit films including An American Werewolf in London - turned up.
The celebrated director was visiting the Capital to scout for locations for his forthcoming comic-horror take on the famous West Port murderers.
Mr Nicoll, 28, of Abbeyhill, co-owner of The West Port Tours, said: "I clocked him right away because I'm a big fan of Trading Places and Coming to America.
"He said he was only there for the night and he had to fly out to America the following day.
"Obviously the subject matter of the tour is dark and scary, so it was great to show him around.
"John took him up to Greyfriars Kirkyard to set the scene. He explained about the demand for bodies at the medical school that led some to go grave-robbing and ultimately led Burke and Hare to commit their murders.
"He loved the atmosphere of the place.
"We made it clear that Burke and Hare weren't actually grave-robbers, a common mistake that we wouldn't want to see repeated on film.
"Then we took him to the Grassmarket and up to the West Port to show him the site of the old Tanner's Close, where they carried out their murders."
Mr Baxter, 23, of Musselburgh, was a bit less fazed by Landis' arrival - as he wasn't really sure who he was.
He said: "I'd heard the name but the only film I could place him on was Beverly Hills Cop III, and it was only when I Googled him that I released how big he is.
"The tour lasted about an hour-and-a-half longer than usual because the location scouts wanted to take their time, and they couldn't agree on anything.
"Landis was particularly interested in Burke's hanging site on Parliament Square, but there was some talk of them moving it to the Grassmarket in the film."
The tour guides were approached before they had even launched their new Burke and Hare Murder Tours, which are due to start on 26 October, after Ealing Studios found their website.
They arranged a private tour which ended up lasting three hours.
Both men are now angling for a cameo in the film, with Mr Nicoll hoping to portray murder witness Hugh Alston, and Mr Baxter eyeing the role of the Rymer's Bar landlord who unwittingly plied the murderers' victims with drink.
An Ealing Studios spokesman said that pre-production shooting on the film will begin in November, with Shaun of the Dead star Simon Pegg lined up for one of the roles.
But he dismissed suggestions that Bathgate-born Doctor Who star David Tennant would play Hare to Pegg's Burke as "a rumour".
He added: "John Landis found the recce with West Port Tours really useful and inspiring."
NEWS: Samantha Wright: sadly no longer missing
Mark McLaughlin
Edinburgh Evening News
October 13, 2009
A 57-YEAR-OLD man was charged today following the discovery of human remains buried in the garden of a house in the Duddingston area of the city.
Police investigating the disappearance of Samantha Wright, 25, spent yesterday searching the property in Magdalene Drive.
Miss Wright was last seen alive as she made her way home from the Jobcentre at High Riggs in Edinburgh on 12 June last year.
But she was not reported missing until February this year, after her family raised the alarm when she failed to contact them at Christmas or on her birthday on 5 January.
She left behind all her belongings at her rented home in Stevenson Drive, Saughton. And since she went missing, no cash has been withdrawn from her bank account and she has not used her mobile phone.
Earlier this year, police discovered CCTV footage showing Miss Wright in Hanover Street and an older man walking with her.
Originally from Stevenage, Hertfordshire, Miss Wright moved to the Capital about four years ago after falling in love with the city on a family holiday.
She worked as a waitress in the city, but later lived a "haphazard" lifestyle, with few friends or established places to visit.
Her mother, Catherine Gibson, had previously spoken of her fears her daughter would not be traced alive and knowing she was missing was "like a headache that won't go away".
"We don't know what to think, some of the thoughts that go through my mind are horrible," Ms Gibson said earlier this year.
Residents of Magdalene Drive awoke yesterday morning to find the ground-floor property cordoned off by police tape. Throughout the day, special operations officers and forensics teams arrived to carry out a thorough search of the house and its front and back gardens.
Police confirmed late last night they had found what they believed to be human remains.
A spokesman said: "Inquiries at Magdalene Drive are at an early stage and a full forensic recovery has to be undertaken to determine identity traits, including gender, age and origin.
"Lothian and Borders Police currently have a number of missing persons inquiries and it is too soon to speculate as to the possible identity of these remains."
Early today, police said that a man had been charged in connection with the discovery.
A statement said: "A 57-year-old man has been arrested and charged in connection with the discovery of human remains at a domestic property in Magdalene Drive, Edinburgh.
"A full forensic examination to identify the remains is being undertaken."
The man is due to appear at Edinburgh Sheriff Court tomorrow.
Edinburgh Evening News
October 13, 2009
A 57-YEAR-OLD man was charged today following the discovery of human remains buried in the garden of a house in the Duddingston area of the city.
Police investigating the disappearance of Samantha Wright, 25, spent yesterday searching the property in Magdalene Drive.
Miss Wright was last seen alive as she made her way home from the Jobcentre at High Riggs in Edinburgh on 12 June last year.
But she was not reported missing until February this year, after her family raised the alarm when she failed to contact them at Christmas or on her birthday on 5 January.
She left behind all her belongings at her rented home in Stevenson Drive, Saughton. And since she went missing, no cash has been withdrawn from her bank account and she has not used her mobile phone.
Earlier this year, police discovered CCTV footage showing Miss Wright in Hanover Street and an older man walking with her.
Originally from Stevenage, Hertfordshire, Miss Wright moved to the Capital about four years ago after falling in love with the city on a family holiday.
She worked as a waitress in the city, but later lived a "haphazard" lifestyle, with few friends or established places to visit.
Her mother, Catherine Gibson, had previously spoken of her fears her daughter would not be traced alive and knowing she was missing was "like a headache that won't go away".
"We don't know what to think, some of the thoughts that go through my mind are horrible," Ms Gibson said earlier this year.
Residents of Magdalene Drive awoke yesterday morning to find the ground-floor property cordoned off by police tape. Throughout the day, special operations officers and forensics teams arrived to carry out a thorough search of the house and its front and back gardens.
Police confirmed late last night they had found what they believed to be human remains.
A spokesman said: "Inquiries at Magdalene Drive are at an early stage and a full forensic recovery has to be undertaken to determine identity traits, including gender, age and origin.
"Lothian and Borders Police currently have a number of missing persons inquiries and it is too soon to speculate as to the possible identity of these remains."
Early today, police said that a man had been charged in connection with the discovery.
A statement said: "A 57-year-old man has been arrested and charged in connection with the discovery of human remains at a domestic property in Magdalene Drive, Edinburgh.
"A full forensic examination to identify the remains is being undertaken."
The man is due to appear at Edinburgh Sheriff Court tomorrow.
NEWS: The truth is out there?
Mark McLaughlin
Edinburgh Evening News
October 9, 2009
IT HAS already become Lothian's most famous X-File - and now it's set to feature on the big screen.
The claims by two Edinburgh friends that they were abducted by aliens while driving in 1992 have become the stuff of legend and fierce debate.
In what has become known as the "A70 Abduction Case" Garry Wood and Colin Wright have stood by their incredible story ever since.
The pair are now working with a London production company which is finalising a script to turn their close encounter into a film.
"It's such a fantastic story and I was attracted to it from the first time I heard it," said film producer Dionne Rose, who is financing the film through her company DBR Entertainment.
"I had seen the film Fire in the Sky [based on the experiences of American logger Travis Walton who was purportedly abducted in 1975] which has similarities but Colin and Garry's experience did have unique elements to it."
The two friends have told over the years how they encountered the flying saucer on the A70 near the Harperrig Reservoir, a few miles west of Balerno. The pair drove beneath it in an attempt to get away, and were enveloped in a shimmering energy beam.
When they arrived at their destination in Tarbrax village, about five miles from Harperrig, they were an hour and a half late and could not account for the time.
Medical checks failed to find a cause for the memory lapse, or the severe headaches both men had developed, but hypnotherapy sessions brought forth memories of alien experiments conducted by a translucent-grey, skeletal creature.
Gilmerton mechanic and car-enthusiast Garry, whose workmates took to calling him "Starman", went on to pass a televised lie detector test, and the men's experiences pre-date the spate of alien abduction claims which were sparked by the X-Files television series in the mid-90s.
Shortly after their experience the pair visited paranormal investigator Malcolm Robinson, who was based in Alloa at the time but now lives in London, and he convinced them to go through hypnotic regression.
"These guys were desperate for anything to explain what happened to them," said Mr Robinson, who is also working on the film.
"Under hypnosis they described tall grey creatures quite unique from standard abductee descriptions of five-foot childlike aliens.
"Garry, who's from quite a tough part of Edinburgh, told me that he was strapped to a table with these things prodding him and he desperately wanted to take a swing at one of them.
"It's such a great premise for a film and we're currently going through script negotiations with Colin and Garry to make sure they're happy with everything. I hope they don't add too much salt and pepper to it and make it another Braveheart, based on fact but 80 per cent inaccurate.
"People have asked me who I would like and I usually say Ewan McGregor, although I had a moustache in those days so he'd have to grow one. Colin and Garry are such down-to-earth guys it's hard to imagine any famous actors playing them."
Neither Colin nor Garry wanted to comment on the film plans.
Edinburgh Evening News
October 9, 2009
IT HAS already become Lothian's most famous X-File - and now it's set to feature on the big screen.
The claims by two Edinburgh friends that they were abducted by aliens while driving in 1992 have become the stuff of legend and fierce debate.
In what has become known as the "A70 Abduction Case" Garry Wood and Colin Wright have stood by their incredible story ever since.
The pair are now working with a London production company which is finalising a script to turn their close encounter into a film.
"It's such a fantastic story and I was attracted to it from the first time I heard it," said film producer Dionne Rose, who is financing the film through her company DBR Entertainment.
"I had seen the film Fire in the Sky [based on the experiences of American logger Travis Walton who was purportedly abducted in 1975] which has similarities but Colin and Garry's experience did have unique elements to it."
The two friends have told over the years how they encountered the flying saucer on the A70 near the Harperrig Reservoir, a few miles west of Balerno. The pair drove beneath it in an attempt to get away, and were enveloped in a shimmering energy beam.
When they arrived at their destination in Tarbrax village, about five miles from Harperrig, they were an hour and a half late and could not account for the time.
Medical checks failed to find a cause for the memory lapse, or the severe headaches both men had developed, but hypnotherapy sessions brought forth memories of alien experiments conducted by a translucent-grey, skeletal creature.
Gilmerton mechanic and car-enthusiast Garry, whose workmates took to calling him "Starman", went on to pass a televised lie detector test, and the men's experiences pre-date the spate of alien abduction claims which were sparked by the X-Files television series in the mid-90s.
Shortly after their experience the pair visited paranormal investigator Malcolm Robinson, who was based in Alloa at the time but now lives in London, and he convinced them to go through hypnotic regression.
"These guys were desperate for anything to explain what happened to them," said Mr Robinson, who is also working on the film.
"Under hypnosis they described tall grey creatures quite unique from standard abductee descriptions of five-foot childlike aliens.
"Garry, who's from quite a tough part of Edinburgh, told me that he was strapped to a table with these things prodding him and he desperately wanted to take a swing at one of them.
"It's such a great premise for a film and we're currently going through script negotiations with Colin and Garry to make sure they're happy with everything. I hope they don't add too much salt and pepper to it and make it another Braveheart, based on fact but 80 per cent inaccurate.
"People have asked me who I would like and I usually say Ewan McGregor, although I had a moustache in those days so he'd have to grow one. Colin and Garry are such down-to-earth guys it's hard to imagine any famous actors playing them."
Neither Colin nor Garry wanted to comment on the film plans.
FEATURE: Angels of Sumatra
Mark McLaughlin
Edinburgh Evening News
October 8, 2009
WORKERS from an Edinburgh-based disaster-relief charity have been credited with saving hundreds of lives in last week's Indonesian earthquake.
Mercy Corps aid worker Dr Jim Jarvie, who arrived in the stricken Sumatran capital Padang this week, said the body count would have been far higher had it not been for special disaster risk reduction courses which the charity has run in the area.
Mercy Corps, which set up its headquarters in Sciennes earlier this year, is one of the few international aid agencies that has a constant presence in Sumatra.
Dr Jarvie, 50, who is currently based in Italy but frequently returns to visit his family in North Berwick, said the villages that received Mercy Corps training suffered only one fatality.
Speaking from the heart of the disaster zone, Dr Jarvie told the Evening News: "I arrived to find that 90 per cent of the houses in one village had been destroyed, but remarkably only one person had been killed out of a population of between 450 to 500 families. It was an elderly man in his 70s.
"The people living in Indonesia know they're living on a major fault line so they're aware that an earthquake could hit at any time.
"My colleagues who were working in these villages said that nobody panicked, because they all knew what to do thanks to the Mercy Corps DRR courses.
"Everybody was given disaster assembly points for regrouping, and they worked very effectively."
Dr Jarvie, a biologist with more than a decade of experience in south-east Asia, was sent to contribute his language skills and his wealth of local knowledge to the disaster relief efforts.
He first visited Indonesia 14 years ago on a Voluntary Service Overseas (VSO) programme to help find a solution to a plant disease that was devastating the region's spice industry.
He said: "There was a disease that was killing off the region's cloves, the local spice that's commonly used to make mulled wine in Britain.
"It's a vital part of Indonesia's economy so the UK government sent over a task force to scour the region for unaffected clove relatives to use as grafts."
He joined Mercy Corps immediately after the 2004 Indian Ocean Tsunami in Sri Lanka, where he was based at the time.
After two years of working on tsunami response, he took on a role as the agency's director of climate change, environment and natural resource management.
He added: "Through my experience in Indonesia I was able to learn the language, which is a great skill to have at a time like this because it allows me to walk into the villages and communicate directly with the people there to find out what they need.
"There are several other NGOs [non-governmental organisations] out here at the moment and there's a United Nations coordination team working to bring it all together.
"The earthquake was very selective in the areas it affected, so some parts have been totally wiped out while others are still standing. It's like patchwork destruction.
"The confirmed death toll is currently around 700, but there are many more missing and in the end it could reach into the thousands."
Edinburgh Evening News
October 8, 2009
WORKERS from an Edinburgh-based disaster-relief charity have been credited with saving hundreds of lives in last week's Indonesian earthquake.
Mercy Corps aid worker Dr Jim Jarvie, who arrived in the stricken Sumatran capital Padang this week, said the body count would have been far higher had it not been for special disaster risk reduction courses which the charity has run in the area.
Mercy Corps, which set up its headquarters in Sciennes earlier this year, is one of the few international aid agencies that has a constant presence in Sumatra.
Dr Jarvie, 50, who is currently based in Italy but frequently returns to visit his family in North Berwick, said the villages that received Mercy Corps training suffered only one fatality.
Speaking from the heart of the disaster zone, Dr Jarvie told the Evening News: "I arrived to find that 90 per cent of the houses in one village had been destroyed, but remarkably only one person had been killed out of a population of between 450 to 500 families. It was an elderly man in his 70s.
"The people living in Indonesia know they're living on a major fault line so they're aware that an earthquake could hit at any time.
"My colleagues who were working in these villages said that nobody panicked, because they all knew what to do thanks to the Mercy Corps DRR courses.
"Everybody was given disaster assembly points for regrouping, and they worked very effectively."
Dr Jarvie, a biologist with more than a decade of experience in south-east Asia, was sent to contribute his language skills and his wealth of local knowledge to the disaster relief efforts.
He first visited Indonesia 14 years ago on a Voluntary Service Overseas (VSO) programme to help find a solution to a plant disease that was devastating the region's spice industry.
He said: "There was a disease that was killing off the region's cloves, the local spice that's commonly used to make mulled wine in Britain.
"It's a vital part of Indonesia's economy so the UK government sent over a task force to scour the region for unaffected clove relatives to use as grafts."
He joined Mercy Corps immediately after the 2004 Indian Ocean Tsunami in Sri Lanka, where he was based at the time.
After two years of working on tsunami response, he took on a role as the agency's director of climate change, environment and natural resource management.
He added: "Through my experience in Indonesia I was able to learn the language, which is a great skill to have at a time like this because it allows me to walk into the villages and communicate directly with the people there to find out what they need.
"There are several other NGOs [non-governmental organisations] out here at the moment and there's a United Nations coordination team working to bring it all together.
"The earthquake was very selective in the areas it affected, so some parts have been totally wiped out while others are still standing. It's like patchwork destruction.
"The confirmed death toll is currently around 700, but there are many more missing and in the end it could reach into the thousands."
FEATURE: Guitars V Violins in a Deep Purple haze
Mark McLaughlin
Edinburgh Evening News
October 3, 2009
IT was devised as a huge rock-orchestra fusion in the days when terms like "progressive rock" were a statement of intent rather than a buzzword for indulgent muso introspection.
In 1969 a fledgling British rock band called Deep Purple approached the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra to accompany them on their grandly named new composition Concerto for Group and Orchestra.
Buoyed by the success of their breakthrough single Hush, Deep Purple's classically trained keyboard player Jon Lord composed an hour-long work that fused classical instruments and electric guitars and led his five-strong band of young musicians - complete with eccentric guitar virtuoso Richie Blackmore and their new falsetto singer Ian Gillan - out in front of a 100-piece orchestra at the Royal Albert Hall.
Now, four decades on, Lord, below, is set to do the same again with a new band of young musicians from Stevenson College, who will be joining him onstage for a revival of his magnum opus at the Usher Hall on Monday .
"I see echoes of myself in a lot of young musicians I meet and these guys are no exception," says Lord, 58, who was set to arrive in Edinburgh for the final rehearsals this morning.
"I admire the enthusiasm that these guys have shown for the project. They have that clear-eyed belief that what they're doing is right and exciting and I hope these guys go on to have some kind of success from this."
Performing at The Usher Hall with a rock legend and a 100-piece orchestra from Glasgow's Royal Scottish Academy of Music and Drama is definitely an ideal place to be for these seven young men hoping to make their name.
The core of the band comprises teenage prog-rockers Grant Kilpatrick, 19, a guitarist from Mid-Calder, saxophonist Christopher Hartles, 19, from Corstorphine, and Bo'ness bassist Ryan Anderson, 18, who are set to release their debut EP Barriers under the name A Torn Mind later this year.
They will be joined by Bruntsfield singer Grant Barclay, 18, a hard-rock fanatic with a voice - and an ego - big enough to fill Ian Gillan's mighty shoes.
"We let Jon Lord join our band for the day," says Barclay, who's also working to get his own band Backlash off the ground.
"Ian Gillan is widely regarded as one of the greatest singers in rock, and after the Concerto we'll be performing Deep Purple classic Child in Time."
While A Torn Mind are influenced by prog-rock bands such as Pink Floyd, Rush and Mars Volta, Barclay is an all out rocker in the mould of Ian Gillan, Led Zeppelin's Robert Plant and AC/DC's Brian Johnson.
With a combination like that - joined by keyboard player Fraser Mitchell, 18, of Livingston, and second guitarist Thomas Temple, 18, of West Calder - it's going to take a strong backbone to hold it all together.
Luckily, they will be backed by bearded Sardinian drummer Oscar Mannoni, 24, who also pounds the skins for an eclectic mix of city bands.
The band was brought together by Stevenson College head of music and drama Ken Thomson, who came up with the idea of reviving Deep Purple's Concerto as an educational project to introduce rock musicians to classical music.
Lord's Concerto still has a questionable place in rock history as the precursor of the 70s Pomp perfected by acts such as Queen and Led Zep, but which would also spawn a hoard of overblown also-rans that were satirised in 80s mockumentary Spinal Tap.
"I did recognise elements of Deep Purple in Spinal Tap but that was true of most bands of my time," laughs Lord. "The problem with putting young men in the spotlight is that people start to become interested in what you say, and they ask your opinion on things you don't necessarily know enough about to form a coherent sentence on the spot so it usually comes out as pretentious twaddle."
* Jon Lord in Concert, Usher Hall, Monday, 7:30pm, call the box office on 0131 228 1155 0131 228 1155
'Pompous' piece that became timeless
"I HAD no conception that what I had written could be viewed as pompous in 1969," says Lord, who was only 26 when he created Concerto for Group and Orchestra. "I was brought up listening to orchestras as a classically trained pianist, and while rock 'n' roll came along later I never lost that love of orchestral music.
"I mentioned it to the guys on the road and I think they just said yes to shut me up. Three months later we had the Albert Hall booked but Ian Gillan still didn't have any lyrics, so he scribbled them up on the afternoon of the performance.
"Reception to the Concerto was split. Most of the rock generation loved it, but the older classical musicians despised it. It's 40 years old this year and I can't believe how well it's aged. Deep Purple brought it back in 1999 and it was so successful we took on the road.
"People can't seem to get enough of it."
Edinburgh Evening News
October 3, 2009
IT was devised as a huge rock-orchestra fusion in the days when terms like "progressive rock" were a statement of intent rather than a buzzword for indulgent muso introspection.
In 1969 a fledgling British rock band called Deep Purple approached the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra to accompany them on their grandly named new composition Concerto for Group and Orchestra.
Buoyed by the success of their breakthrough single Hush, Deep Purple's classically trained keyboard player Jon Lord composed an hour-long work that fused classical instruments and electric guitars and led his five-strong band of young musicians - complete with eccentric guitar virtuoso Richie Blackmore and their new falsetto singer Ian Gillan - out in front of a 100-piece orchestra at the Royal Albert Hall.
Now, four decades on, Lord, below, is set to do the same again with a new band of young musicians from Stevenson College, who will be joining him onstage for a revival of his magnum opus at the Usher Hall on Monday .
"I see echoes of myself in a lot of young musicians I meet and these guys are no exception," says Lord, 58, who was set to arrive in Edinburgh for the final rehearsals this morning.
"I admire the enthusiasm that these guys have shown for the project. They have that clear-eyed belief that what they're doing is right and exciting and I hope these guys go on to have some kind of success from this."
Performing at The Usher Hall with a rock legend and a 100-piece orchestra from Glasgow's Royal Scottish Academy of Music and Drama is definitely an ideal place to be for these seven young men hoping to make their name.
The core of the band comprises teenage prog-rockers Grant Kilpatrick, 19, a guitarist from Mid-Calder, saxophonist Christopher Hartles, 19, from Corstorphine, and Bo'ness bassist Ryan Anderson, 18, who are set to release their debut EP Barriers under the name A Torn Mind later this year.
They will be joined by Bruntsfield singer Grant Barclay, 18, a hard-rock fanatic with a voice - and an ego - big enough to fill Ian Gillan's mighty shoes.
"We let Jon Lord join our band for the day," says Barclay, who's also working to get his own band Backlash off the ground.
"Ian Gillan is widely regarded as one of the greatest singers in rock, and after the Concerto we'll be performing Deep Purple classic Child in Time."
While A Torn Mind are influenced by prog-rock bands such as Pink Floyd, Rush and Mars Volta, Barclay is an all out rocker in the mould of Ian Gillan, Led Zeppelin's Robert Plant and AC/DC's Brian Johnson.
With a combination like that - joined by keyboard player Fraser Mitchell, 18, of Livingston, and second guitarist Thomas Temple, 18, of West Calder - it's going to take a strong backbone to hold it all together.
Luckily, they will be backed by bearded Sardinian drummer Oscar Mannoni, 24, who also pounds the skins for an eclectic mix of city bands.
The band was brought together by Stevenson College head of music and drama Ken Thomson, who came up with the idea of reviving Deep Purple's Concerto as an educational project to introduce rock musicians to classical music.
Lord's Concerto still has a questionable place in rock history as the precursor of the 70s Pomp perfected by acts such as Queen and Led Zep, but which would also spawn a hoard of overblown also-rans that were satirised in 80s mockumentary Spinal Tap.
"I did recognise elements of Deep Purple in Spinal Tap but that was true of most bands of my time," laughs Lord. "The problem with putting young men in the spotlight is that people start to become interested in what you say, and they ask your opinion on things you don't necessarily know enough about to form a coherent sentence on the spot so it usually comes out as pretentious twaddle."
* Jon Lord in Concert, Usher Hall, Monday, 7:30pm, call the box office on 0131 228 1155 0131 228 1155
'Pompous' piece that became timeless
"I HAD no conception that what I had written could be viewed as pompous in 1969," says Lord, who was only 26 when he created Concerto for Group and Orchestra. "I was brought up listening to orchestras as a classically trained pianist, and while rock 'n' roll came along later I never lost that love of orchestral music.
"I mentioned it to the guys on the road and I think they just said yes to shut me up. Three months later we had the Albert Hall booked but Ian Gillan still didn't have any lyrics, so he scribbled them up on the afternoon of the performance.
"Reception to the Concerto was split. Most of the rock generation loved it, but the older classical musicians despised it. It's 40 years old this year and I can't believe how well it's aged. Deep Purple brought it back in 1999 and it was so successful we took on the road.
"People can't seem to get enough of it."
FEATURE: "Though I walk through the shadow of the valley of death..."
Mark McLaughlin
Edinburgh Evening News
October 1, 2009
TEARS fell on the parade ground of Dreghorn Barracks yesterday as the young men from The Royal Scots Borderers were deployed to Afghanistan to join one of the most perilous missions Britain has undertaken in recent times.
1SCOT's Bravo Company was yesterday sent out six months ahead of the rest of their regiment to assist 3rd Battalion The Rifles in Sangin, at the heart of the war-torn Helmand Province.
On the noticeboard of Bravo Company Sgt Shaun Jardine's office, nestled amongst training schedules and maps of southern Afghanistan, a pocket-sized laminate of Psalm 23 recounts one of the most recognisable passages from the Bible: "Though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil."
The valley of the Helmand River is fast becoming Britain's own "valley of death", having already taken 218 British lives since operations began in 2002, and the deaths are rising exponentially.
This year to date there have been 81 British troops killed, nearly double the death toll in 2007, while the number of wounded is also rising at an alarming rate.
And as the soldiers were sent off by their families yesterday it was clear that the men - and their wives and girlfriends - were scared.
"We've spent time apart before but never when he was off to a warzone," said Laura Carberry, from Bathgate, her eyes filling with tears as she waved off 22-year-old boyfriend Private Stuart Cunningham.
"We got together when he was just back from Iraq so I knew what I was letting myself in for, but I was still shocked when he said he was going to Afghanistan.
"I know I'm going to be apprehensive every time I hear news of casualties, but if I spend every moment thinking, 'oh my God - it's Stuart' I'll never get through the next six months."
For many members of Bravo Company this will be their third tour of duty, having previously been posted to Iraq. Their experience means they know something about what awaits them in Sangin - roadside bombs, improvised explosive devices (IEDs), suicide bombers - but their resolve remains strong.
After holding Laura in his arms and wiping away the tears, Pte Cunningham fixed his mind on the task ahead. He said: "I'm looking forward to it. It gets us away from barrack life, but I'm nervous and anxious about what I'll find there and I'm already looking forward to coming home again.
"I've been to Iraq once, where I was engaged in a few contacts involving IEDs and roadside bombs. I think it's good what we're doing in Afghanistan. We're helping Afghanistan by training their soldiers to be better, and to look after their own country but I can see it going on for a while."
The children running through the parade ground is a heartbreaking reminder of everything these young men are risking to help the children of another country have a better future.
"When you see the Afghan children struggling under the Taleban it makes you think, 'what if that was my daughter?', said Pte Carl Fisher, 20, from Livingston clutching his three-year-old daughter Chloe to his chest.
"I went to Iraq in 2007 when Chloe was very small but she's older now and she knows the script. She's been trying to cling on to me as much as she can. We just try to tell her that daddy's got to work and he'll see you when he's finished work and he gets home. She keeps saying, 'No, daddy's not going to work. He's not going'."
Each soldier boards the bus in desert combats, with a beret bearing the 1SCOT crest with the Latin insignia "Nemo me impune lacessit" - "No-one provokes me with impunity".
It's a poignant message carried by soldiers heading to a war that began with the most dramatic of provocations, with the terrorist attack on New York's Twin Towers on 11 September, 2001.
The attack, ordered by Afghan-based al-Qaeda leaders, led to Britain joining the US in striking back at al-Qaeda, and the conflict has been further heightened by continued drug deaths in Britain caused by the Taleban-sanctioned heroin trade.
And yet it was these multiple fronts in this theatre of war - national security, anti-terrorism, anti-narcotics - that led the head of the army in Scotland, Major General Andrew Mackay , to complain, in 2008, that "we were making it up as we go along" before finally quitting last week amid reports he was dissatisfied with the resources being made available to do the job.
However, one of the longest serving privates boarding the buses yesterday, Christopher Wight, 28, from Bonnyrigg, said he's never gone short during his eight years in the Royal Scots Borderers.
"I've always had plenty of kit and vehicles," he said.
"I think a lot of people compare our kit to the Americans but the British army do things differently.
"I'm feeling confident. I've completed two tours of Iraq and during the second tour took part in Operation Charge of the Knights to take back Basra, which we won very successfully.
"Afghanistan will be different because we're already holding the ground so a lot of our resources will be devoted to keeping the locals safe.
I think they will be very welcoming when we get there because they want the Taleban out."
The Royal Scots Borderers' commanding officer, Lieutenant Colonel Charlie Herbert - who has served in Iraq, Northern Ireland, the Balkans, and Afghanistan - said the present regiment is the most well trained force he's seen in 24 years of service. He added:
"When I was last in Afghanistan, in 2007, it was clear that the intensity of the conflict is greater than anything I've ever seen in my army experience. It's been well recorded that casualties as the result of IEDs are rising but things are being done to defend against that threat.
"The Afghans are desperate for peace and they want to get on with their lives, and they will support the side that will provide that, namely the Afghan government and the coalition partners that are there to support them."
Edinburgh Evening News
October 1, 2009
TEARS fell on the parade ground of Dreghorn Barracks yesterday as the young men from The Royal Scots Borderers were deployed to Afghanistan to join one of the most perilous missions Britain has undertaken in recent times.
1SCOT's Bravo Company was yesterday sent out six months ahead of the rest of their regiment to assist 3rd Battalion The Rifles in Sangin, at the heart of the war-torn Helmand Province.
On the noticeboard of Bravo Company Sgt Shaun Jardine's office, nestled amongst training schedules and maps of southern Afghanistan, a pocket-sized laminate of Psalm 23 recounts one of the most recognisable passages from the Bible: "Though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil."
The valley of the Helmand River is fast becoming Britain's own "valley of death", having already taken 218 British lives since operations began in 2002, and the deaths are rising exponentially.
This year to date there have been 81 British troops killed, nearly double the death toll in 2007, while the number of wounded is also rising at an alarming rate.
And as the soldiers were sent off by their families yesterday it was clear that the men - and their wives and girlfriends - were scared.
"We've spent time apart before but never when he was off to a warzone," said Laura Carberry, from Bathgate, her eyes filling with tears as she waved off 22-year-old boyfriend Private Stuart Cunningham.
"We got together when he was just back from Iraq so I knew what I was letting myself in for, but I was still shocked when he said he was going to Afghanistan.
"I know I'm going to be apprehensive every time I hear news of casualties, but if I spend every moment thinking, 'oh my God - it's Stuart' I'll never get through the next six months."
For many members of Bravo Company this will be their third tour of duty, having previously been posted to Iraq. Their experience means they know something about what awaits them in Sangin - roadside bombs, improvised explosive devices (IEDs), suicide bombers - but their resolve remains strong.
After holding Laura in his arms and wiping away the tears, Pte Cunningham fixed his mind on the task ahead. He said: "I'm looking forward to it. It gets us away from barrack life, but I'm nervous and anxious about what I'll find there and I'm already looking forward to coming home again.
"I've been to Iraq once, where I was engaged in a few contacts involving IEDs and roadside bombs. I think it's good what we're doing in Afghanistan. We're helping Afghanistan by training their soldiers to be better, and to look after their own country but I can see it going on for a while."
The children running through the parade ground is a heartbreaking reminder of everything these young men are risking to help the children of another country have a better future.
"When you see the Afghan children struggling under the Taleban it makes you think, 'what if that was my daughter?', said Pte Carl Fisher, 20, from Livingston clutching his three-year-old daughter Chloe to his chest.
"I went to Iraq in 2007 when Chloe was very small but she's older now and she knows the script. She's been trying to cling on to me as much as she can. We just try to tell her that daddy's got to work and he'll see you when he's finished work and he gets home. She keeps saying, 'No, daddy's not going to work. He's not going'."
Each soldier boards the bus in desert combats, with a beret bearing the 1SCOT crest with the Latin insignia "Nemo me impune lacessit" - "No-one provokes me with impunity".
It's a poignant message carried by soldiers heading to a war that began with the most dramatic of provocations, with the terrorist attack on New York's Twin Towers on 11 September, 2001.
The attack, ordered by Afghan-based al-Qaeda leaders, led to Britain joining the US in striking back at al-Qaeda, and the conflict has been further heightened by continued drug deaths in Britain caused by the Taleban-sanctioned heroin trade.
And yet it was these multiple fronts in this theatre of war - national security, anti-terrorism, anti-narcotics - that led the head of the army in Scotland, Major General Andrew Mackay , to complain, in 2008, that "we were making it up as we go along" before finally quitting last week amid reports he was dissatisfied with the resources being made available to do the job.
However, one of the longest serving privates boarding the buses yesterday, Christopher Wight, 28, from Bonnyrigg, said he's never gone short during his eight years in the Royal Scots Borderers.
"I've always had plenty of kit and vehicles," he said.
"I think a lot of people compare our kit to the Americans but the British army do things differently.
"I'm feeling confident. I've completed two tours of Iraq and during the second tour took part in Operation Charge of the Knights to take back Basra, which we won very successfully.
"Afghanistan will be different because we're already holding the ground so a lot of our resources will be devoted to keeping the locals safe.
I think they will be very welcoming when we get there because they want the Taleban out."
The Royal Scots Borderers' commanding officer, Lieutenant Colonel Charlie Herbert - who has served in Iraq, Northern Ireland, the Balkans, and Afghanistan - said the present regiment is the most well trained force he's seen in 24 years of service. He added:
"When I was last in Afghanistan, in 2007, it was clear that the intensity of the conflict is greater than anything I've ever seen in my army experience. It's been well recorded that casualties as the result of IEDs are rising but things are being done to defend against that threat.
"The Afghans are desperate for peace and they want to get on with their lives, and they will support the side that will provide that, namely the Afghan government and the coalition partners that are there to support them."
FEATURE: Different Strokes
Mark McLaughlin
Edinburgh Evening News
September 23, 2009
IT seemed like any other Saturday morning to Angie MacLeod as she lived out her dream of working in Australia.
The 29-year-old PR executive was looking forward to meeting a friend for syrup and pancakes on Sydney's harbour front.
She was surprised to find she felt quite queasy. She had not drunk that much wine the night before as she watched football in a bar with friends. But that was not going to stop her getting up and launching herself into the day. Only no sooner had she stepped out of bed in her shared flat than she collapsed.
"I got out of bed and fell over, hitting my head on the table on the way down.
"I remember lying on the floor thinking how strange it was that I couldn't move my left side, so I managed to reach my phone with my good arm and phone my boyfriend for help," she recalls.
"He could barely understand me because I was slurring my speech so much, but he figured out what was going on and phoned my flatmate, who obviously hadn't heard me falling out of bed.
"I could hear my flatmate's phone ringing, and ringing away in the next room for what seemed like a very long time.
"Eventually my flatmate came running through and managed to get me back into bed, with a great deal of effort because it's not easy to lift an adult with half a dead weight down one side. I fell out of bed again and my flatmate called the ambulance."
The former Mary Erskine's pupil had recently moved out to Australia, having switched her London PR job for one in Sydney.
She was an active and sporty 29-year-old - who had just started learning to surf - and neither she nor her parents, Calum and Beth, back home in Edinburgh, had any worries about her health.
No-one - least of all Angie - thought for a second she might have suffered a stroke.
"I was only 29, the thought just didn't enter our heads," she says.
"When we found out what happened my flatmate felt really guilty for not phoning the ambulance sooner, because I now know that every second is vital in the diagnosis and treatment of stroke, but at the time we didn't know what was going on so she had no reason to feel guilty."
As she was being taken to hospital, Angie remembers asking for her contraceptive pill. "It's strange the things that go through your mind.
"Ironically, the pill may have had something to do with the stroke. Every woman knows that the pill has the potential to cause deep vein thrombosis, but the risk of stroke is so minute that they don't even put it on the side-effects. However, combined with my congenital condition that narrowed my arteries I ended up getting a thrombosis in my brain and that's what caused the stroke."
At hospital, Angie was surprised to be asked by the doctor whether she had seen her face that day - one side had drooped dramatically, a telltale sign of a stroke.
Even then, thinking strokes only happened to older people, she didn't guess she may have had one.
After being treated with morphine for the pain, doctors broke the news to her that not only had she suffered a stroke, but she might never walk again.
Angie, who is able to smile now as she looks back, adds: "The doctors also thought the stroke had affected my eyesight until they realised that I didn't have my glasses on, which I thought was quite funny at the time."
Her parents flew out to Sydney to be with her until she was transferred back to the Astley Ainslie hospital. The physios in Australia had started some work, but the real slog began when she returned home to Edinburgh.
She had to face it without her boyfriend, as the couple split shortly after her stroke, unable to cope with their changed circumstances.
"Despite being told I would never walk again I managed to get back on my feet.
"The trouble with strokes is you just never know how it will affect you, and being on my feet for the first time after a stroke was just a bizarre experience.
"Once I regained some of my mobility I was taken to the adapted ski slopes in Aviemore, which was tremendous, but also strange because of the complete contrast with the experience with the life I had before staring at the ceiling or sitting in a wheelchair.
"Standing at the top of a mountain after such a huge injury was so emotional."
Angie is now able to walk again, although with a pronounced limp, and without the use of her left arm she has difficulty with everyday tasks such as getting dressed.
It has not stopped her attacking life with the same relish she once did.
Confounding doctors' predictions, she has returned to her old work in communications, this time with the Stroke Association.
She has completed a one-mile swim, ploughing through the water with the use of her one good arm, raising GBP 1,100 for disability charity L'Arche, in the process.
"Cheers from onlookers helped to keep up my motivation.
"I felt a huge sense of achievement touching the finishing line especially as my money raised could go towards such a wonderful charity.
"The Tannoy made many special announcements for me and it was great to feel such tremendous support.
"I'm really glad now to have done it. It was a huge personal achievement and absolutely worthwhile."
To donate money to L'Arche through Angie's fundraising page visit http://www.justgiving. com/Angela-Macleod
STRUCK DOWN
AROUND 600 Scots suffer a stroke in the prime of their life every year.
This number includes former Aberdeen and Scotland midfielder Eoin Jess, who is currently recovering from a stroke he suffered in April aged just 38.
Oscar-nominated British actress Samantha Morton also suffered a stroke at the age of 29, and spent six months learning how to walk again in 2006. Hip-hop star Nate Dogg and The Long Blondes' guitarist Dorian Cox also suffered strokes in their 20s.
Around 6,000 Scots under the age of 44 have suffered strokes over the last decade, more than 800 of them in the Lothians. In around a fifth of these cases, the stroke has been fatal.
Strokes are "cerebrovascular accidents" that occur when a part of the brain is deprived of oxygen.
There are two kinds of stroke: an ischaemic stroke is caused by a blockage of the blood supply to the brain, usually by a clot, while a haemorrhagic stroke is caused by bleeding in or around the brain.
The length of time it takes to treat a stroke victim is vital - a few minutes can mean the difference between a full recovery and paralysis.
Edinburgh Evening News
September 23, 2009
IT seemed like any other Saturday morning to Angie MacLeod as she lived out her dream of working in Australia.
The 29-year-old PR executive was looking forward to meeting a friend for syrup and pancakes on Sydney's harbour front.
She was surprised to find she felt quite queasy. She had not drunk that much wine the night before as she watched football in a bar with friends. But that was not going to stop her getting up and launching herself into the day. Only no sooner had she stepped out of bed in her shared flat than she collapsed.
"I got out of bed and fell over, hitting my head on the table on the way down.
"I remember lying on the floor thinking how strange it was that I couldn't move my left side, so I managed to reach my phone with my good arm and phone my boyfriend for help," she recalls.
"He could barely understand me because I was slurring my speech so much, but he figured out what was going on and phoned my flatmate, who obviously hadn't heard me falling out of bed.
"I could hear my flatmate's phone ringing, and ringing away in the next room for what seemed like a very long time.
"Eventually my flatmate came running through and managed to get me back into bed, with a great deal of effort because it's not easy to lift an adult with half a dead weight down one side. I fell out of bed again and my flatmate called the ambulance."
The former Mary Erskine's pupil had recently moved out to Australia, having switched her London PR job for one in Sydney.
She was an active and sporty 29-year-old - who had just started learning to surf - and neither she nor her parents, Calum and Beth, back home in Edinburgh, had any worries about her health.
No-one - least of all Angie - thought for a second she might have suffered a stroke.
"I was only 29, the thought just didn't enter our heads," she says.
"When we found out what happened my flatmate felt really guilty for not phoning the ambulance sooner, because I now know that every second is vital in the diagnosis and treatment of stroke, but at the time we didn't know what was going on so she had no reason to feel guilty."
As she was being taken to hospital, Angie remembers asking for her contraceptive pill. "It's strange the things that go through your mind.
"Ironically, the pill may have had something to do with the stroke. Every woman knows that the pill has the potential to cause deep vein thrombosis, but the risk of stroke is so minute that they don't even put it on the side-effects. However, combined with my congenital condition that narrowed my arteries I ended up getting a thrombosis in my brain and that's what caused the stroke."
At hospital, Angie was surprised to be asked by the doctor whether she had seen her face that day - one side had drooped dramatically, a telltale sign of a stroke.
Even then, thinking strokes only happened to older people, she didn't guess she may have had one.
After being treated with morphine for the pain, doctors broke the news to her that not only had she suffered a stroke, but she might never walk again.
Angie, who is able to smile now as she looks back, adds: "The doctors also thought the stroke had affected my eyesight until they realised that I didn't have my glasses on, which I thought was quite funny at the time."
Her parents flew out to Sydney to be with her until she was transferred back to the Astley Ainslie hospital. The physios in Australia had started some work, but the real slog began when she returned home to Edinburgh.
She had to face it without her boyfriend, as the couple split shortly after her stroke, unable to cope with their changed circumstances.
"Despite being told I would never walk again I managed to get back on my feet.
"The trouble with strokes is you just never know how it will affect you, and being on my feet for the first time after a stroke was just a bizarre experience.
"Once I regained some of my mobility I was taken to the adapted ski slopes in Aviemore, which was tremendous, but also strange because of the complete contrast with the experience with the life I had before staring at the ceiling or sitting in a wheelchair.
"Standing at the top of a mountain after such a huge injury was so emotional."
Angie is now able to walk again, although with a pronounced limp, and without the use of her left arm she has difficulty with everyday tasks such as getting dressed.
It has not stopped her attacking life with the same relish she once did.
Confounding doctors' predictions, she has returned to her old work in communications, this time with the Stroke Association.
She has completed a one-mile swim, ploughing through the water with the use of her one good arm, raising GBP 1,100 for disability charity L'Arche, in the process.
"Cheers from onlookers helped to keep up my motivation.
"I felt a huge sense of achievement touching the finishing line especially as my money raised could go towards such a wonderful charity.
"The Tannoy made many special announcements for me and it was great to feel such tremendous support.
"I'm really glad now to have done it. It was a huge personal achievement and absolutely worthwhile."
To donate money to L'Arche through Angie's fundraising page visit http://www.justgiving. com/Angela-Macleod
STRUCK DOWN
AROUND 600 Scots suffer a stroke in the prime of their life every year.
This number includes former Aberdeen and Scotland midfielder Eoin Jess, who is currently recovering from a stroke he suffered in April aged just 38.
Oscar-nominated British actress Samantha Morton also suffered a stroke at the age of 29, and spent six months learning how to walk again in 2006. Hip-hop star Nate Dogg and The Long Blondes' guitarist Dorian Cox also suffered strokes in their 20s.
Around 6,000 Scots under the age of 44 have suffered strokes over the last decade, more than 800 of them in the Lothians. In around a fifth of these cases, the stroke has been fatal.
Strokes are "cerebrovascular accidents" that occur when a part of the brain is deprived of oxygen.
There are two kinds of stroke: an ischaemic stroke is caused by a blockage of the blood supply to the brain, usually by a clot, while a haemorrhagic stroke is caused by bleeding in or around the brain.
The length of time it takes to treat a stroke victim is vital - a few minutes can mean the difference between a full recovery and paralysis.
NEWS: NATO Vs The Anti-Militarist Network: The sides face off
Mark McLaughlin
Edinburgh Evening News
September 22, 2009
PROTESTERS have announced plans to "shut down" a major meeting of Nato leaders in Edinburgh later this year, sparking renewed fears of disorder on the streets.
The Evening News first reported in March that the Nato Parliamentary Assembly was likely to be targeted when 300 politicians fly in to the city in November.
Now a group called the Anti-Militarist Network (AMN) is offering accommodation and medical and legal help to those willing to come to take to the streets of Edinburgh to protest.
Its newly launched website, under the banner of the "Nato Welcoming Committee", labels the Edinburgh International Conference Centre as "The Target" and provides a link to the venue's floor plans.
More worryingly, it also features information on how to organise a military-style blockade, how to make shields from bin-lids or perspex, how to abseil down buildings and a link to a "sabotage handbook".
A statement of intent on the website reads: "We are calling for a mass demo to try and shut down Nato on Friday 13 November.
"The Nato Welcoming Committee will provide a convergence space for activists to converge and stay in throughout the Assembly, as well as providing food, medical services in terms of street medics and a well-stocked medics space, legal support through the Scottish Activist Legal Project, trauma support and other forms of support to activists."
The website advises protesters to bring "warm clothes, noise, banners and whatever else you hope to find", alongside pictures of a wrench, a megaphone, a hard hat and bolt cutters.
However, AMN member Ross Jones, 27, an Edinburgh University student, insisted these symbols were not intended to be inflammatory, but were "common imagery from past and recent protest movements".
He said: "The bolt cutters, for example, represent a non-violent action as they are used to cut through fences.
"The floor-plans are nothing more than a link to information that's already publicly available on the EICC website. The hard hat represents protection against police violence, experienced during past protests."
Mr Jones added that it was presently unclear how AMN intended to "shut down" the Nato assembly, but said co-ordinated planning was under way.
The Nato meeting will be the first international political event in Scotland since the G8 summit in 2005, which saw violent clashes and more than 350 arrests.
Chief Superintendant Phil O'Kane, in charge of policing the event, said there was no indication the AMN was anything other than a peaceful protest movement. He said: "We will be drawing parallels with the policing of major sporting events such as the Old Firm games in Glasgow."
Edinburgh Evening News
September 22, 2009
PROTESTERS have announced plans to "shut down" a major meeting of Nato leaders in Edinburgh later this year, sparking renewed fears of disorder on the streets.
The Evening News first reported in March that the Nato Parliamentary Assembly was likely to be targeted when 300 politicians fly in to the city in November.
Now a group called the Anti-Militarist Network (AMN) is offering accommodation and medical and legal help to those willing to come to take to the streets of Edinburgh to protest.
Its newly launched website, under the banner of the "Nato Welcoming Committee", labels the Edinburgh International Conference Centre as "The Target" and provides a link to the venue's floor plans.
More worryingly, it also features information on how to organise a military-style blockade, how to make shields from bin-lids or perspex, how to abseil down buildings and a link to a "sabotage handbook".
A statement of intent on the website reads: "We are calling for a mass demo to try and shut down Nato on Friday 13 November.
"The Nato Welcoming Committee will provide a convergence space for activists to converge and stay in throughout the Assembly, as well as providing food, medical services in terms of street medics and a well-stocked medics space, legal support through the Scottish Activist Legal Project, trauma support and other forms of support to activists."
The website advises protesters to bring "warm clothes, noise, banners and whatever else you hope to find", alongside pictures of a wrench, a megaphone, a hard hat and bolt cutters.
However, AMN member Ross Jones, 27, an Edinburgh University student, insisted these symbols were not intended to be inflammatory, but were "common imagery from past and recent protest movements".
He said: "The bolt cutters, for example, represent a non-violent action as they are used to cut through fences.
"The floor-plans are nothing more than a link to information that's already publicly available on the EICC website. The hard hat represents protection against police violence, experienced during past protests."
Mr Jones added that it was presently unclear how AMN intended to "shut down" the Nato assembly, but said co-ordinated planning was under way.
The Nato meeting will be the first international political event in Scotland since the G8 summit in 2005, which saw violent clashes and more than 350 arrests.
Chief Superintendant Phil O'Kane, in charge of policing the event, said there was no indication the AMN was anything other than a peaceful protest movement. He said: "We will be drawing parallels with the policing of major sporting events such as the Old Firm games in Glasgow."
ANALYSIS: Lifestyles of the rich, poor and infamous...14th century style
Mark McLaughlin
Edinburgh Evening News
September 15, 2009
Scotland's People Centre situated in the centre of the Capital offers a user-friendly facility for archive hunters Shirley Manson's are Viking, Gavin Esler's are German and Scot-baiting Jeremy Paxman's were famously found north of the Border. Finding your family roots has become a 21st century obsession - and not just among celebrities. In the first of a four-part series on genealogy, MARK McLAUGHLIN finds out about the city's earliest inhabitants and how to trace your own ancestors at the new Scotland's People Centre
THE locked gate swings open and the climb begins up the vast iron staircase to the top of New Register House to visit some of the oldest prisoners in Edinburgh.
With its spiralling, cylindrical cages and layer-upon-layer of locked chambers, the West Register Street rotunda resembles the gaols designed by 19th century sociologists to keep a close eye on their subjects.
But these "prisoners" are not living people. They are the records of every person whose lives have left a paper-trail over the last five centuries, and the cages aren't there to keep the prisoners in but to keep the public out.
But now the guardians of some of Edinburgh's most precious records have staged their own jailbreak, setting loose millions of previously inaccessible records into cyberspace.
The new GBP 7.5 million Scotland's People Centre, which opened earlier this year at the General Register Office and National Archives of Scotland complex near the east end of Princes Street, has given visiting rights to the relatives of anyone whose lives made their mark anywhere in Scotland.
Millions of documents have been digitised and indexed, and are ready to be scrolled through and pored over endless times without damaging the fragile documents themselves.
Dee Williams, head of the new Scotland's People Centre, grabs a set of keys and a pair of white gloves, and heads up to the highest part of the "prison" to take a look at some of the aging documents that have now been digitally preserved for posterity.
Like any valuable prisoner, these documents are kept under tight security.
"The oldest paper record we have of a person living in Edinburgh can be found in the old parish rolls of the Canongate from 1564," Dee explains as she pulls out a nondescript folio from the shelves.
She opens out the folio to reveal dozens of loose-leaf slips of paper, more than five centuries old and in written in an apparently impenetrable scrawl.
"The first name that appears is for a man named Thomas," she says over the rims of her reading spectacles. "Unfortunately the paper is torn so his surname has been lost, but if we move down a line we can see that this document is a record of births from that year.
"The first full record we have is for the birth of a child on 2 September 1564. It reads, 'William Bour: ane [one] child callit [called] Johne. His witness: Lard [Laird] of Brownstoun'.
"The record also contains the oldest remaining death certificate issued in Edinburgh for one Thomas Scot of Saint Johnston on 2 April 1566 - 'hangit at the corse of Edinburgh under ain callar [charge] of treason for the religious cause' - six years after the Scottish Reformation which severed Scotland's links with the Catholic Church.
"The oldest surviving marriage certificate can also be found in the old parish rolls of the City of Edinburgh, where a Robert Murheid married Janet Muir on 13 April 1595."
Other early Edinburgh surnames that can be found in these files include, amongst millions of others, Lawchlane, Adameson, Halyday, Ballentyne, Cambell, Richardson, Ray, Todd, Smyth, Spottiswod and Mowbray.
All of these names are still around today in one form or another, but you won't need a set of keys, a pair of white gloves, the patience of a saint and the research skills of historian to discover if you're related to any of these early Edinburgh-dwellers.
All of these names and more have been digitised and indexed, and a virtual record can now by called up at the touch of a button.
As well as the existing digital searches of statutory registers of births, death and marriages dating back to 1855, which have been available at General Register House for a number of years, the new Scotland's People Centre includes raft of new resources, including a search facility for wills and testaments stretching back to 1513, old parish registers dating back to 1553, and full census records from 1841-1901.
But it's not just those interested in their own family history who find the information useful, explains Dee.
"The police can use the information to search for birth records of current criminals or to research cold cases," she says. "We also have a pair of researchers from NHS Lothian who are down here almost on a daily basis searching through the family records of current patients.
"They see their work as essential to saving lives, as family history can tell you a lot about the current state of health of living people. For example, my mother died of breast cancer and two of my aunts have been diagnosed with it, and I've been told I have a 50-50 chance of developing it myself based on the medical history of my closest relatives.
"But if you were to search further into the past into older death certificates, I might discover that some of my older relatives also died from it which could maybe push the chances up to 80 per cent.
"This kind of information is vital for someone considering early screening and preventative treatment."
The ground floor of General Register House contains three fully refurbished rooms - the Adam Dome, the Reid Room and the Matheson Dome.
The Adam Dome has been set aside for two hour "taster sessions" in the mornings and afternoons, where people can come in and search their family history for free.
If they want to do more in-depth searches they can book a daily session, which costs GBP 10, or even purchase quarterly (GBP 440) or annual (GBP 1,250) passes to do some hardcore family history hunting.
"It can become something of an obsession," explains Alison Lindsay, head of the archives' historical research section. "However, you'll have a better chance of discovering a detailed picture of someone's life if they were very rich or very poor.
"If they had a lot of money there will be records of rents, taxes and wills, while the very poor would maybe show up in hospital or poor-house records, and may have fallen foul of the law and ended up hanged or imprisoned.
"For this reason, the 'respectable poor' - who only earned enough to scrape by and kept their noses clean - are rubbish ancestors to have!"
The Scotland's People Centre is open on weekdays from 9am-4.30pm. Taster sessions in the Adam Dome are available on a first-come-first-served basis from 10am-12pm and again at 2-4pm.
For more information visit www.scotlandspeople.gov.uk.
19th CENTURY RECORDS ARE BACK ON LINE
THE opening of the Scotland's People Centre has also plugged a major digital gap that's been bothering family historians for years.
Problems with the digitisation of the 1881 census meant its contents were virtually inaccessible, but earlier this year the Scotland's People technicians ironed out the glitches and revealed a wealth of information about some of Edinburgh's most notable citizens.
It's now possible to see the census record of Peter Pan Author J M Barrie, who was a 20-year-old student at the time living in lodgings on Great King Street with his landlady and a retired Army Officer.
The record also shows a 21-year-old Arthur Conan Doyle, who at the time was listed as a student of medicine, but went on to create the fictional detective Sherlock Holmes, living with his mother and four of his ten siblings at 15 Lonsdale Terrace.
At 42 Palmerston Place there lived a 19-year-old Oxford University undergraduate called Douglas Haig, who later went on to become Field Marshall Haig, the 1st Earl Haig, left, and leader of the British Expeditionary Force during World War I.
Edinburgh Evening News
September 15, 2009
Scotland's People Centre situated in the centre of the Capital offers a user-friendly facility for archive hunters Shirley Manson's are Viking, Gavin Esler's are German and Scot-baiting Jeremy Paxman's were famously found north of the Border. Finding your family roots has become a 21st century obsession - and not just among celebrities. In the first of a four-part series on genealogy, MARK McLAUGHLIN finds out about the city's earliest inhabitants and how to trace your own ancestors at the new Scotland's People Centre
THE locked gate swings open and the climb begins up the vast iron staircase to the top of New Register House to visit some of the oldest prisoners in Edinburgh.
With its spiralling, cylindrical cages and layer-upon-layer of locked chambers, the West Register Street rotunda resembles the gaols designed by 19th century sociologists to keep a close eye on their subjects.
But these "prisoners" are not living people. They are the records of every person whose lives have left a paper-trail over the last five centuries, and the cages aren't there to keep the prisoners in but to keep the public out.
But now the guardians of some of Edinburgh's most precious records have staged their own jailbreak, setting loose millions of previously inaccessible records into cyberspace.
The new GBP 7.5 million Scotland's People Centre, which opened earlier this year at the General Register Office and National Archives of Scotland complex near the east end of Princes Street, has given visiting rights to the relatives of anyone whose lives made their mark anywhere in Scotland.
Millions of documents have been digitised and indexed, and are ready to be scrolled through and pored over endless times without damaging the fragile documents themselves.
Dee Williams, head of the new Scotland's People Centre, grabs a set of keys and a pair of white gloves, and heads up to the highest part of the "prison" to take a look at some of the aging documents that have now been digitally preserved for posterity.
Like any valuable prisoner, these documents are kept under tight security.
"The oldest paper record we have of a person living in Edinburgh can be found in the old parish rolls of the Canongate from 1564," Dee explains as she pulls out a nondescript folio from the shelves.
She opens out the folio to reveal dozens of loose-leaf slips of paper, more than five centuries old and in written in an apparently impenetrable scrawl.
"The first name that appears is for a man named Thomas," she says over the rims of her reading spectacles. "Unfortunately the paper is torn so his surname has been lost, but if we move down a line we can see that this document is a record of births from that year.
"The first full record we have is for the birth of a child on 2 September 1564. It reads, 'William Bour: ane [one] child callit [called] Johne. His witness: Lard [Laird] of Brownstoun'.
"The record also contains the oldest remaining death certificate issued in Edinburgh for one Thomas Scot of Saint Johnston on 2 April 1566 - 'hangit at the corse of Edinburgh under ain callar [charge] of treason for the religious cause' - six years after the Scottish Reformation which severed Scotland's links with the Catholic Church.
"The oldest surviving marriage certificate can also be found in the old parish rolls of the City of Edinburgh, where a Robert Murheid married Janet Muir on 13 April 1595."
Other early Edinburgh surnames that can be found in these files include, amongst millions of others, Lawchlane, Adameson, Halyday, Ballentyne, Cambell, Richardson, Ray, Todd, Smyth, Spottiswod and Mowbray.
All of these names are still around today in one form or another, but you won't need a set of keys, a pair of white gloves, the patience of a saint and the research skills of historian to discover if you're related to any of these early Edinburgh-dwellers.
All of these names and more have been digitised and indexed, and a virtual record can now by called up at the touch of a button.
As well as the existing digital searches of statutory registers of births, death and marriages dating back to 1855, which have been available at General Register House for a number of years, the new Scotland's People Centre includes raft of new resources, including a search facility for wills and testaments stretching back to 1513, old parish registers dating back to 1553, and full census records from 1841-1901.
But it's not just those interested in their own family history who find the information useful, explains Dee.
"The police can use the information to search for birth records of current criminals or to research cold cases," she says. "We also have a pair of researchers from NHS Lothian who are down here almost on a daily basis searching through the family records of current patients.
"They see their work as essential to saving lives, as family history can tell you a lot about the current state of health of living people. For example, my mother died of breast cancer and two of my aunts have been diagnosed with it, and I've been told I have a 50-50 chance of developing it myself based on the medical history of my closest relatives.
"But if you were to search further into the past into older death certificates, I might discover that some of my older relatives also died from it which could maybe push the chances up to 80 per cent.
"This kind of information is vital for someone considering early screening and preventative treatment."
The ground floor of General Register House contains three fully refurbished rooms - the Adam Dome, the Reid Room and the Matheson Dome.
The Adam Dome has been set aside for two hour "taster sessions" in the mornings and afternoons, where people can come in and search their family history for free.
If they want to do more in-depth searches they can book a daily session, which costs GBP 10, or even purchase quarterly (GBP 440) or annual (GBP 1,250) passes to do some hardcore family history hunting.
"It can become something of an obsession," explains Alison Lindsay, head of the archives' historical research section. "However, you'll have a better chance of discovering a detailed picture of someone's life if they were very rich or very poor.
"If they had a lot of money there will be records of rents, taxes and wills, while the very poor would maybe show up in hospital or poor-house records, and may have fallen foul of the law and ended up hanged or imprisoned.
"For this reason, the 'respectable poor' - who only earned enough to scrape by and kept their noses clean - are rubbish ancestors to have!"
The Scotland's People Centre is open on weekdays from 9am-4.30pm. Taster sessions in the Adam Dome are available on a first-come-first-served basis from 10am-12pm and again at 2-4pm.
For more information visit www.scotlandspeople.gov.uk.
19th CENTURY RECORDS ARE BACK ON LINE
THE opening of the Scotland's People Centre has also plugged a major digital gap that's been bothering family historians for years.
Problems with the digitisation of the 1881 census meant its contents were virtually inaccessible, but earlier this year the Scotland's People technicians ironed out the glitches and revealed a wealth of information about some of Edinburgh's most notable citizens.
It's now possible to see the census record of Peter Pan Author J M Barrie, who was a 20-year-old student at the time living in lodgings on Great King Street with his landlady and a retired Army Officer.
The record also shows a 21-year-old Arthur Conan Doyle, who at the time was listed as a student of medicine, but went on to create the fictional detective Sherlock Holmes, living with his mother and four of his ten siblings at 15 Lonsdale Terrace.
At 42 Palmerston Place there lived a 19-year-old Oxford University undergraduate called Douglas Haig, who later went on to become Field Marshall Haig, the 1st Earl Haig, left, and leader of the British Expeditionary Force during World War I.
FEATURE: The dark side of fashion
Mark McLaughlin
Edinburgh Evening News
September 14, 2009
A TOP city model today warned of the downside of the industry, revealing she was the victim of a stalker as a teenager.
Lauren Tempany, 26, who was first spotted at a Clothes Show roadshow in 1997 and had three top modelling agencies fighting over her at the age of just 14, has revealed she also attracted some less welcome attention.
The model, originally from Linlithgow, admitted to being too candid in press coverage that accompanied some of her early model shoots and her comments came back to haunt her.
She said: "Some of the early interviews I did revealed a bit too much about my home and family life, and someone was able to trace where I lived and began making loads of dodgy phone calls. We had to change all of our phone numbers.
"I've always tended to just blurt things out when I'm talking to people without realising some of it might make it into the papers, but I've now learned to be a bit more careful."
Miss Tempany's revelation comes just days after Indian-born celebrity fashion designer Anand Jon Alexander - who dressed a number of celebrities including Paris Hilton and Mary J Blige - was sentenced to a minimum of 59 years in US prison for sexually assaulting aspiring models as young as 14.
Several former models have since stepped out to criticise the industry, including seventies star Robyn Peterson
and model-turned-filmmaker Zara Ziff.
Miss Tempany got her first modelling job at 14 for So...? perfume, a fragrance aimed at the teenage market, but she's since gone on to model for Alexander McQueen and Giles Deacon, featured in Vogue and Harpers, and shared a catwalk with Kate Moss.
However, she insists that there is nothing endemically wrong with the model industry, and that becoming a model at 14 does not automatically make you a target for obsessives.
She added: "When I was first approached at the age of 14 my family were a bit dubious, but they did their research and discovered they were all legitimate agencies.
"However, I would advise aspiring young models to only sign for big modelling agencies because it's tough getting jobs.
"The smaller agencies don't get a look in and there are some people who are out to exploit you, but get nasty people in all professions though, not just modelling.
"The industry comes in for a lot of unfair criticism but I've met some fantastic people while modelling, and my experience over the last 12 years has been overwhelmingly positive."
Edinburgh Evening News
September 14, 2009
A TOP city model today warned of the downside of the industry, revealing she was the victim of a stalker as a teenager.
Lauren Tempany, 26, who was first spotted at a Clothes Show roadshow in 1997 and had three top modelling agencies fighting over her at the age of just 14, has revealed she also attracted some less welcome attention.
The model, originally from Linlithgow, admitted to being too candid in press coverage that accompanied some of her early model shoots and her comments came back to haunt her.
She said: "Some of the early interviews I did revealed a bit too much about my home and family life, and someone was able to trace where I lived and began making loads of dodgy phone calls. We had to change all of our phone numbers.
"I've always tended to just blurt things out when I'm talking to people without realising some of it might make it into the papers, but I've now learned to be a bit more careful."
Miss Tempany's revelation comes just days after Indian-born celebrity fashion designer Anand Jon Alexander - who dressed a number of celebrities including Paris Hilton and Mary J Blige - was sentenced to a minimum of 59 years in US prison for sexually assaulting aspiring models as young as 14.
Several former models have since stepped out to criticise the industry, including seventies star Robyn Peterson
and model-turned-filmmaker Zara Ziff.
Miss Tempany got her first modelling job at 14 for So...? perfume, a fragrance aimed at the teenage market, but she's since gone on to model for Alexander McQueen and Giles Deacon, featured in Vogue and Harpers, and shared a catwalk with Kate Moss.
However, she insists that there is nothing endemically wrong with the model industry, and that becoming a model at 14 does not automatically make you a target for obsessives.
She added: "When I was first approached at the age of 14 my family were a bit dubious, but they did their research and discovered they were all legitimate agencies.
"However, I would advise aspiring young models to only sign for big modelling agencies because it's tough getting jobs.
"The smaller agencies don't get a look in and there are some people who are out to exploit you, but get nasty people in all professions though, not just modelling.
"The industry comes in for a lot of unfair criticism but I've met some fantastic people while modelling, and my experience over the last 12 years has been overwhelmingly positive."
NEWS: Vigilante Mob
Mark McLaughlin
Edinburgh Evening News
September 12, 2009
A SEX offender has been hounded out of his Edinburgh home by a vigilante group of locals.
Ex-soldier Douglas McNaught, 61, had to be rushed out of Prestonfield Avenue under police protection and has now been re-homed.
It is thought trouble started when unfounded allegations were made against McNaught, who was jailed in 1993 for sex offences against a young girl.
Last week, his car was vandalised and he was harassed by a baying mob. He was taken away by the police only to be returned a few days later.
Trouble started again and the decision was taken to re-home him elsewhere in the city.
A local source said: "We heard about his history and that he'd recently been kicked out of Wester Hailes.
"Some of the neighbours decided to take action and the police were called to remove McNaught from the house.
"He was brought back to the house by plain-clothes police officers from the sex offenders' unit a few days later, but on Thursday the neighbours came back and started banging on his windows.
"They must have been monitoring him because as soon as the disturbance started, two plain-clothes police officers stepped out of an unmarked car and identified themselves.
"The neighbours continued shouting and the disturbance got so bad that they had call for uniformed back-up.
"The neighbours aren't happy about a sex offender living amongst them.
"Because of what happened on Thursday, he'll definitely not be back at that house."
McNaught was jailed in Aberdeen in 1993 after admitting using lewd, indecent and libidinous practices and behaviour towards a young girl.
The court heard the victim had been distressed and initially too frightened to tell anyone.
Upon his release from a six-year sentence, McNaught moved to Wester Hailes, where he reportedly began living with a teenage girl.
Police then placed him under a sexual offences prevention order to prevent him having any further contact with under-age girls.
A Lothian and Borders Police spokeswoman confirmed that McNaught was currently the subject of a prevention order.
He has been re-housed and his current whereabouts have not been disclosed.
She said: "Following concerns for the safety of an individual living in the Prestonfield area, and damage to a vehicle, police assisted in re-housing a member of the public.
"Inquiries are ongoing to trace the person responsible for the vandalism.
"Police do not discuss the security arrangements of any individual.
"Because this man is a registered sex offender, he is protected by law and we are not allowed to discuss his circumstances any further."
Edinburgh Evening News
September 12, 2009
A SEX offender has been hounded out of his Edinburgh home by a vigilante group of locals.
Ex-soldier Douglas McNaught, 61, had to be rushed out of Prestonfield Avenue under police protection and has now been re-homed.
It is thought trouble started when unfounded allegations were made against McNaught, who was jailed in 1993 for sex offences against a young girl.
Last week, his car was vandalised and he was harassed by a baying mob. He was taken away by the police only to be returned a few days later.
Trouble started again and the decision was taken to re-home him elsewhere in the city.
A local source said: "We heard about his history and that he'd recently been kicked out of Wester Hailes.
"Some of the neighbours decided to take action and the police were called to remove McNaught from the house.
"He was brought back to the house by plain-clothes police officers from the sex offenders' unit a few days later, but on Thursday the neighbours came back and started banging on his windows.
"They must have been monitoring him because as soon as the disturbance started, two plain-clothes police officers stepped out of an unmarked car and identified themselves.
"The neighbours continued shouting and the disturbance got so bad that they had call for uniformed back-up.
"The neighbours aren't happy about a sex offender living amongst them.
"Because of what happened on Thursday, he'll definitely not be back at that house."
McNaught was jailed in Aberdeen in 1993 after admitting using lewd, indecent and libidinous practices and behaviour towards a young girl.
The court heard the victim had been distressed and initially too frightened to tell anyone.
Upon his release from a six-year sentence, McNaught moved to Wester Hailes, where he reportedly began living with a teenage girl.
Police then placed him under a sexual offences prevention order to prevent him having any further contact with under-age girls.
A Lothian and Borders Police spokeswoman confirmed that McNaught was currently the subject of a prevention order.
He has been re-housed and his current whereabouts have not been disclosed.
She said: "Following concerns for the safety of an individual living in the Prestonfield area, and damage to a vehicle, police assisted in re-housing a member of the public.
"Inquiries are ongoing to trace the person responsible for the vandalism.
"Police do not discuss the security arrangements of any individual.
"Because this man is a registered sex offender, he is protected by law and we are not allowed to discuss his circumstances any further."
ANALYSIS: Pirates of Finance
Mark McLaughlin
Edinburgh Evening News
September 9, 2009
As the Royal Bank of Scotland breaks from the pack to slash charges for customers who go overdrawn, Mark McLaughlin looks at the possible long-term effects, especially as the banking sector faces the final stage of a court challenge by the Office of Fair Trading over the validity of the fees
IT IS the great consumer rebellion, to use the words of the customers' rights champion Which?.A mass uprising of more than a million banking customers to reclaim billions of pounds' worth of unfair bank charges.
The Royal Bank of Scotland announced this week that it was slashing its charges for customers who go overdrawn.
Although it is not the first British bank to react to mounting pressure ahead of a UK Supreme Court ruling on punitive overdraft charges, its jump has been the biggest to date.
The good news is that experts believe other banks will be already weighing up the need to trim their charges in order to stay competitive.
As well as an attempt to preempt the upcoming court ruling, RBS's move has widely been seen as a direct response to Which? research that placed it at the top of a league of shame for overdraft charges earlier this summer. In other words, it's that customer revolution - and the threat of millions of us taking our money elsewhere - that has prompted action.
"We see this move as just another twist in the consumer rebellion that started around 2006, when well over a million people submitted challenges to reclaim their bank charges," says Which? personal finance campaigner Phil Jones.
"Bank charges are worth GBP 25 billion to the banks every year, so there's a lot of money at stake and the banks are taking this to the highest court in the land because they don't want to pay back the money."
In the two years since the Office of Fair Trading (OFT) launched its test case to prove that charging exorbitant amounts of cash for going over pre-agreed overdraft limits, often by little more than a few pennies, it has cut a swathe through the courts. The OFT won the first two rounds - at the High Court and the Court of Appeal, which both decided in its favour - but the banks then took it to the final court of appeal in the House of Lords.
This responsibility has now been passed on to the new UK Supreme Court and there is an expectation that it may too rule in the OFT's favour.
But regardless of the outcome of that crucial case, the consumer champions are insistent that the only way of making sure you get the most from your money is to be ready to shop around.
"Statistically, you're more likely to change your marriage partner than change your bank," says Phil Jones.
"People sign up to a bank in their youth and never change, often through fears that their standing orders or direct debits will go astray, but this is how people end up getting a raw deal.
"Changing is easier than many people think and most banks will offer to bring your direct debits over without any hassle, and if any do go astray the bank really should be reimbursing you."
While consumer groups have lauded RBS's decision as a step in the right direction, they point out it still only gives the bank a mid-table ranking in the Which? league of shame.
Other banks that appear to be offering a good deal on unauthorised overdrafts, they warn, may be clawing it back from other charges.
Halifax Bank of Scotland, for example, gets a glowing report in the unauthorised overdraft table, with charges of just GBP 15, but were found to be charging huge authorised overdraft charges of GBP 108 a year. HBOS defends its charges, pointing out it has an easy to follow structure.
"The account is based on a simple daily charging structure for using an overdraft -GBP 1 a day for using an arranged overdraft up to GBP 2,500 and GBP 2 a day for arranged overdraft balances above this," said an HBOS spokesman.
The advice for anyone who is unhappy with their bank is simply to shop around, but don't just look at unauthorised overdraft charges, warns price comparison website moneysupermarket.com. These charges are not the only way the banks make their money at your expense.
Some banks pile payment charges - where customers have paid for an item when there wasn't enough money in the account - on top of the unauthorised overdraft charge and they can often be more expensive.
Nationwide, for example, charges GBP 20 for the unauthorised overdraft, and GBP 30 for the unpaid item.
Ian Williams, director of communications at moneysupermarket.com, says: "Some banks have already made a move to reduce their bank charges, so RBS isn't the first. It's a competitive market so other banks will follow suit if appropriate.
"The banks have always argued that their charges reflect the costs associated with managing unauthorised borrowing. If this is the case, I would question how they have been able to reduce their costs so significantly."
UNAUTHORISED overdraft charges (GBP )
You pay heavily for going overdrawn without arranging it with the bank first
HSBC [a] 0
Halifax/Bank of Scotland [b] 15
Barclays [c] 22
Northern Rock 28
Cahoot 30
Nationwide 41.5
Lloyds TSB 42
Natwest/RBS 70
Abbey 65
First Direct 75
Smile/Co-operative Bank [d] 80
Norwich & Peterborough BS 88
Alliance & Leicester 90
Table shows what banks in Britain charge for an unauthorised overdraft of GBP 30 for three days, including charges for a GBP 10 cheque on day one, a GBP 10 direct debit on day two and a GBP 10 standing order on day three that the bank pays. Figures don't include interest. [a] Assumes customer has had an overdraft review in the last six months. HSBC doesn't charge for paid items of GBP 10 or less, but charges would be applied for paid items of more than GBP 10. [b] If account funded with GBP 1000 a month, customer gets GBP 5 credit monthly regardless of unauthorised borrowing. [c] GBP 22 reserve usage fee (one fee per five consecutive working days). [d] Assumes this is not the first informal overdraft during the year, so therefore the service charge of GBP 20 has been included.
AUTHORISED overdraft charges (GBP )
The charges that you pay per month for an arranged overdraft vary widely
First Direct 17
Cahoot 21
Norwich & Peterborough BS 21(Gold Account)
Abbey 28 (Preferred Overdraft current account)
NatWest/RBS 33
Smile 34
Nationwide 40
Lloyds TSB 40
Barclays 41
Co-operative Bank 54
Alliance & Leicester 60(Overdraft cost after 1 yr)
HSBC 67
Halifax/Bank of Scotland 108
Northern Rock 110
Table shows annual cost of a GBP 500 authorised overdraft for 2 weeks a month with British banks, assuming you pay in GBP 1000 a month.
Edinburgh Evening News
September 9, 2009
As the Royal Bank of Scotland breaks from the pack to slash charges for customers who go overdrawn, Mark McLaughlin looks at the possible long-term effects, especially as the banking sector faces the final stage of a court challenge by the Office of Fair Trading over the validity of the fees
IT IS the great consumer rebellion, to use the words of the customers' rights champion Which?.A mass uprising of more than a million banking customers to reclaim billions of pounds' worth of unfair bank charges.
The Royal Bank of Scotland announced this week that it was slashing its charges for customers who go overdrawn.
Although it is not the first British bank to react to mounting pressure ahead of a UK Supreme Court ruling on punitive overdraft charges, its jump has been the biggest to date.
The good news is that experts believe other banks will be already weighing up the need to trim their charges in order to stay competitive.
As well as an attempt to preempt the upcoming court ruling, RBS's move has widely been seen as a direct response to Which? research that placed it at the top of a league of shame for overdraft charges earlier this summer. In other words, it's that customer revolution - and the threat of millions of us taking our money elsewhere - that has prompted action.
"We see this move as just another twist in the consumer rebellion that started around 2006, when well over a million people submitted challenges to reclaim their bank charges," says Which? personal finance campaigner Phil Jones.
"Bank charges are worth GBP 25 billion to the banks every year, so there's a lot of money at stake and the banks are taking this to the highest court in the land because they don't want to pay back the money."
In the two years since the Office of Fair Trading (OFT) launched its test case to prove that charging exorbitant amounts of cash for going over pre-agreed overdraft limits, often by little more than a few pennies, it has cut a swathe through the courts. The OFT won the first two rounds - at the High Court and the Court of Appeal, which both decided in its favour - but the banks then took it to the final court of appeal in the House of Lords.
This responsibility has now been passed on to the new UK Supreme Court and there is an expectation that it may too rule in the OFT's favour.
But regardless of the outcome of that crucial case, the consumer champions are insistent that the only way of making sure you get the most from your money is to be ready to shop around.
"Statistically, you're more likely to change your marriage partner than change your bank," says Phil Jones.
"People sign up to a bank in their youth and never change, often through fears that their standing orders or direct debits will go astray, but this is how people end up getting a raw deal.
"Changing is easier than many people think and most banks will offer to bring your direct debits over without any hassle, and if any do go astray the bank really should be reimbursing you."
While consumer groups have lauded RBS's decision as a step in the right direction, they point out it still only gives the bank a mid-table ranking in the Which? league of shame.
Other banks that appear to be offering a good deal on unauthorised overdrafts, they warn, may be clawing it back from other charges.
Halifax Bank of Scotland, for example, gets a glowing report in the unauthorised overdraft table, with charges of just GBP 15, but were found to be charging huge authorised overdraft charges of GBP 108 a year. HBOS defends its charges, pointing out it has an easy to follow structure.
"The account is based on a simple daily charging structure for using an overdraft -GBP 1 a day for using an arranged overdraft up to GBP 2,500 and GBP 2 a day for arranged overdraft balances above this," said an HBOS spokesman.
The advice for anyone who is unhappy with their bank is simply to shop around, but don't just look at unauthorised overdraft charges, warns price comparison website moneysupermarket.com. These charges are not the only way the banks make their money at your expense.
Some banks pile payment charges - where customers have paid for an item when there wasn't enough money in the account - on top of the unauthorised overdraft charge and they can often be more expensive.
Nationwide, for example, charges GBP 20 for the unauthorised overdraft, and GBP 30 for the unpaid item.
Ian Williams, director of communications at moneysupermarket.com, says: "Some banks have already made a move to reduce their bank charges, so RBS isn't the first. It's a competitive market so other banks will follow suit if appropriate.
"The banks have always argued that their charges reflect the costs associated with managing unauthorised borrowing. If this is the case, I would question how they have been able to reduce their costs so significantly."
UNAUTHORISED overdraft charges (GBP )
You pay heavily for going overdrawn without arranging it with the bank first
HSBC [a] 0
Halifax/Bank of Scotland [b] 15
Barclays [c] 22
Northern Rock 28
Cahoot 30
Nationwide 41.5
Lloyds TSB 42
Natwest/RBS 70
Abbey 65
First Direct 75
Smile/Co-operative Bank [d] 80
Norwich & Peterborough BS 88
Alliance & Leicester 90
Table shows what banks in Britain charge for an unauthorised overdraft of GBP 30 for three days, including charges for a GBP 10 cheque on day one, a GBP 10 direct debit on day two and a GBP 10 standing order on day three that the bank pays. Figures don't include interest. [a] Assumes customer has had an overdraft review in the last six months. HSBC doesn't charge for paid items of GBP 10 or less, but charges would be applied for paid items of more than GBP 10. [b] If account funded with GBP 1000 a month, customer gets GBP 5 credit monthly regardless of unauthorised borrowing. [c] GBP 22 reserve usage fee (one fee per five consecutive working days). [d] Assumes this is not the first informal overdraft during the year, so therefore the service charge of GBP 20 has been included.
AUTHORISED overdraft charges (GBP )
The charges that you pay per month for an arranged overdraft vary widely
First Direct 17
Cahoot 21
Norwich & Peterborough BS 21(Gold Account)
Abbey 28 (Preferred Overdraft current account)
NatWest/RBS 33
Smile 34
Nationwide 40
Lloyds TSB 40
Barclays 41
Co-operative Bank 54
Alliance & Leicester 60(Overdraft cost after 1 yr)
HSBC 67
Halifax/Bank of Scotland 108
Northern Rock 110
Table shows annual cost of a GBP 500 authorised overdraft for 2 weeks a month with British banks, assuming you pay in GBP 1000 a month.
SPORT: Thugs on tour
Mark McLaughlin
Edinburgh Evening News
September 8, 2009
HIBS fans have been accused of singing racist chants, hurling abuse at rail staff and urinating in a train corridor as police reveal a league table of the worst behaved travelling supporters in Scotland.
The British Transport Police highlighted the recent incidents involving supporters of the Easter Road side as they expressed fears that football-related disorder was becoming more serious on the railways.
While the incidents involving Hibs fans were at the minor end of the scale, supporters of other teams have been involved in more serious hooligan-related violence while travelling to pre-season and early-season games.
Incidents included Aberdeen fans making Nazi salutes, a man hit by a bottle thrown by unidentified football fans, and a fight between St Mirren and Morton supporters.
Scottish area commander Chief Superintendent Martyn Ripley said it was the nature, rather than the number, of incidents that was cause for concern.
He said: "Some of these incidents have been for breach of the peace, or disorderly behaviour, but we are seeing an increase in sectarian breaches and the resurgence of mob violence.
"For example, we recently had to deal with a large fight that broke out amongst a number of fans in Stonehaven, in Aberdeenshire.
"The level of offence we are recording is now increasing. They are far more serious than a few years ago, to the point where we are starting to see more assaults and violence."
No Hearts fans have so far been involved in incidents on the railways this season.
The most recent British Transport Police figures show that there were 62 football-related arrests last season, up from 61 in 2007-8. Five Hibs fans were arrested for breach of the peace, resisting arrest and drinking offences - the largest number of arrests outside the Old Firm.
Two Hearts fans were arrested, one for a common assault at Haymarket Station and the other for breach of the peace.
These numbers pale in comparison with the Glasgow clubs, which accounted for nearly two-thirds of the arrests on the rail network in Scotland - with 22 Rangers and 14 Celtic fans arrested last year.
Ch Supt Ripley said that while the Edinburgh clubs were "pretty well behaved", Edinburgh's train stations could still be the flashpoint for incidents involving visiting fans or supporters passing through.
Last year, Waverley Station was the site of five arrests for breach of the peace involving fans from both Edinburgh clubs, as well as a Rangers fan and a Falkirk fan who assaulted a police officer.
He added: "The biggest problem in Edinburgh isn't with the Hibs and Hearts fans, it's the fans that come to Edinburgh via Waverley Station.
"It's an interchange point for fans heading down from the north of Scotland, fans coming up from south of the Border, and fans heading west into Glasgow.
A spokeswoman for Hibs said: "The club condemns any offensive or threatening behaviour or violence related to football."
Hearts declined to comment.
Edinburgh Evening News
September 8, 2009
HIBS fans have been accused of singing racist chants, hurling abuse at rail staff and urinating in a train corridor as police reveal a league table of the worst behaved travelling supporters in Scotland.
The British Transport Police highlighted the recent incidents involving supporters of the Easter Road side as they expressed fears that football-related disorder was becoming more serious on the railways.
While the incidents involving Hibs fans were at the minor end of the scale, supporters of other teams have been involved in more serious hooligan-related violence while travelling to pre-season and early-season games.
Incidents included Aberdeen fans making Nazi salutes, a man hit by a bottle thrown by unidentified football fans, and a fight between St Mirren and Morton supporters.
Scottish area commander Chief Superintendent Martyn Ripley said it was the nature, rather than the number, of incidents that was cause for concern.
He said: "Some of these incidents have been for breach of the peace, or disorderly behaviour, but we are seeing an increase in sectarian breaches and the resurgence of mob violence.
"For example, we recently had to deal with a large fight that broke out amongst a number of fans in Stonehaven, in Aberdeenshire.
"The level of offence we are recording is now increasing. They are far more serious than a few years ago, to the point where we are starting to see more assaults and violence."
No Hearts fans have so far been involved in incidents on the railways this season.
The most recent British Transport Police figures show that there were 62 football-related arrests last season, up from 61 in 2007-8. Five Hibs fans were arrested for breach of the peace, resisting arrest and drinking offences - the largest number of arrests outside the Old Firm.
Two Hearts fans were arrested, one for a common assault at Haymarket Station and the other for breach of the peace.
These numbers pale in comparison with the Glasgow clubs, which accounted for nearly two-thirds of the arrests on the rail network in Scotland - with 22 Rangers and 14 Celtic fans arrested last year.
Ch Supt Ripley said that while the Edinburgh clubs were "pretty well behaved", Edinburgh's train stations could still be the flashpoint for incidents involving visiting fans or supporters passing through.
Last year, Waverley Station was the site of five arrests for breach of the peace involving fans from both Edinburgh clubs, as well as a Rangers fan and a Falkirk fan who assaulted a police officer.
He added: "The biggest problem in Edinburgh isn't with the Hibs and Hearts fans, it's the fans that come to Edinburgh via Waverley Station.
"It's an interchange point for fans heading down from the north of Scotland, fans coming up from south of the Border, and fans heading west into Glasgow.
A spokeswoman for Hibs said: "The club condemns any offensive or threatening behaviour or violence related to football."
Hearts declined to comment.
FEATURE: Life after death
Mark McLaughlin
Edinburgh Evening News
September 8, 2009
TODAY, Dionne McMillan looks healthy and happy as she wanders through the park in her bright purple dress and matching slip-ons, her hair in cascades of ringlets and a cautious but genuine smile on her face.
Back at home, close to the Royal Mile, her two-year-old son Callum plays merrily at her feet, as she fusses over him with pride. "It's just sad that his dad will never get to hold him," she says, stoically. "I'm determined to make his life as happy and as free of the problems that I've had to face as I can."
For, at 23, Dionne has lived through more misery than most experience in a lifetime.
Her partner took his own life while she was pregnant with their son and she herself has attempted suicide 11 times. She was sectioned in the Royal Edinburgh Hospital at the age of 20, following years in care and a history of self-harm.
Today, though, that is all behind her, and she is talking about International Suicide Prevention Awareness Week and its challenge to face the subject head-on.
"Nobody ever came out and asked me if I was feeling suicidal, and in some ways I was desperate to open up to someone," she recalls.
"If someone just came out and asked me how I was feeling, it may have made it easier to cope with these feelings."
Bullied at school, Dionne made her first attempt to take her life at ten years old. "I'd already been in and out of care before that.
"I just wasn't in a good place in my life, even at that age," she says.
"The more the bullying went on, the more depressed and desperate I became."
After surviving that first attempt, she continued to battle feelings of desperation throughout the rest of her childhood and teenage years.
She came close to death on a number of times, and was taken into care when she was 14.
Her life began to turn around after she was sectioned for her own protection in August 2006.
While a patient in the Royal Edinburgh, she met a kindred spirit, who was struggling with obsessive compulsive disorder (OCD) and alcoholism. The pair hit it off straight away.
Three months later, both were discharged, and they began a whirlwind romance that resulted in Dionne quickly becoming pregnant - but within weeks her new partner would be dead, taking his own life at the age of 32.
"The last time I saw him we were talking about the future and how we were going to bring up the baby," says Dionne.
"That was the middle of December and then a few days later he broke off contact with everyone.
"He was prone to disappearing, but he would always turn up in the end.
"He was found on 1 January - but we don't how long he had been there before that.
"It's anyone's guess what caused him to do it, but we do know that he received a malicious text message from someone who claimed that our baby wasn't his, and that he would never get to see him after he was born.
"That person will never be forgiven. I just wish I'd had the chance to explain to him that it was all lies."
Losing the man she thought would be a life partner was inevitably a turning point in Dionne's life.
Thankfully, with her still-to-be-born child to think of, it spurred her to look forward and upwards.
She vowed never to return to the suicidal thoughts that had plagued half her life up to that point.
Dionne was brought up in south-east Edinburgh by her grandparents, who adopted her.
Her mother was struggling with depression, and her father had left at an early age.
As a youngster, Dionne struggled to make friends and spent a lot of time at home, helping care for her severely disabled cousin.
"By the time I left school, I was already in homeless accommodation, having been kicked out of a children's home, and I had by that point fallen out with my family," she says.
"There was no one around that I could trust and again I just didn't see much point in going on. In the back of my mind there was always something holding me back.
"Whenever I woke up and realised that I hadn't died, I felt a bit disappointed that my suicide attempts had been unsuccessful, but in another way it seemed like it was the right thing.
"It's hard to explain how you were feeling at times like that.
"Since I had my son, it's made life seem worthwhile. He makes life worth living.
"When I was alone in life, there were always support workers around, but their attitude was always 'gently, gently', like they didn't want to upset anyone.
"If they'd just come out and asked me if I was feeling suicidal, it might have helped me.
"If you ask the question outright, there are only two answers - either yes or no.
"Some people may deny it, but others may realise they have someone there to talk to that is there to help."
BEST TO BE BLUNT
THE best thing to do if you are worried that someone close to you is suicidal may be to tackle the issue head-on.
Sandra de Munoz, Choose Life co-ordinator for Edinburgh, says: "An average of two people die by suicide in Scotland every day.
"Approaching someone to ask if they are feeling suicidal is not easy, and sometimes people will be afraid that the question itself will put ideas the person's head.
"This is rarely the case and often the question itself can be a relief, and it will allow them to talk about their feelings before they have a chance to act on them.
"Most people who are suicidal don't want to end their life, they only want to end the pain and often talking about it can be the best way to do that."
CASE STUDY
'There's always someone you can turn to'
MUM-OF-TWO Emma* didn't realise anxiety could lead to suicide until her husband's first attempt in 1993.
"I thought it was only depressed people that attempted suicide," says the 47-year-old, who lives in south Edinburgh and whose husband succeeded in taking his own life in 2006.
She adds: "He was a complete perfectionist and he was always convinced that he was a failure, even though nothing could have been further from the truth.
"At the time of his death he was a manager in a software engineering firm, but no matter how much he achieved nothing was ever good enough.
"He used to worry about everything - his work, the house, me, our children - and I used to joke that if he didn't have anything to worry about, he'd worry about that. That used to make him laugh, and he usually agreed with me."
Emma met her husband when the two of them were students, and she recalls glancing over at the shy young man peering over a hand of cards at the poker table. She says the most difficult aspect of his problems was his unpredictability.
She adds: "After his first suicide attempt in 1993 he didn't want anyone to know about it. He said, 'It's my illness, and no-one else's business'.
"When he made his second attempt later that year I convinced him to tell his family and his employer, and to attend a course of cognitive behavioural therapy [CBT]."
CBT is a branch of psychotherapy that aims to get to the developmental causes of mental illnesses such as anxiety and depression, and change the way the person perceives these feelings.
Emma adds: "He was always resistant to CBT because he was convinced that no-one could change the way people thought, which I now know isn't true.
Your brain isn't hard-wired. It is possible to change the way that you see things, and all you need to do is get it out in the open and talk about it.
"No-one is ever alone - and there's always someone you can turn to for help."
*Not her real name
Edinburgh Evening News
September 8, 2009
TODAY, Dionne McMillan looks healthy and happy as she wanders through the park in her bright purple dress and matching slip-ons, her hair in cascades of ringlets and a cautious but genuine smile on her face.
Back at home, close to the Royal Mile, her two-year-old son Callum plays merrily at her feet, as she fusses over him with pride. "It's just sad that his dad will never get to hold him," she says, stoically. "I'm determined to make his life as happy and as free of the problems that I've had to face as I can."
For, at 23, Dionne has lived through more misery than most experience in a lifetime.
Her partner took his own life while she was pregnant with their son and she herself has attempted suicide 11 times. She was sectioned in the Royal Edinburgh Hospital at the age of 20, following years in care and a history of self-harm.
Today, though, that is all behind her, and she is talking about International Suicide Prevention Awareness Week and its challenge to face the subject head-on.
"Nobody ever came out and asked me if I was feeling suicidal, and in some ways I was desperate to open up to someone," she recalls.
"If someone just came out and asked me how I was feeling, it may have made it easier to cope with these feelings."
Bullied at school, Dionne made her first attempt to take her life at ten years old. "I'd already been in and out of care before that.
"I just wasn't in a good place in my life, even at that age," she says.
"The more the bullying went on, the more depressed and desperate I became."
After surviving that first attempt, she continued to battle feelings of desperation throughout the rest of her childhood and teenage years.
She came close to death on a number of times, and was taken into care when she was 14.
Her life began to turn around after she was sectioned for her own protection in August 2006.
While a patient in the Royal Edinburgh, she met a kindred spirit, who was struggling with obsessive compulsive disorder (OCD) and alcoholism. The pair hit it off straight away.
Three months later, both were discharged, and they began a whirlwind romance that resulted in Dionne quickly becoming pregnant - but within weeks her new partner would be dead, taking his own life at the age of 32.
"The last time I saw him we were talking about the future and how we were going to bring up the baby," says Dionne.
"That was the middle of December and then a few days later he broke off contact with everyone.
"He was prone to disappearing, but he would always turn up in the end.
"He was found on 1 January - but we don't how long he had been there before that.
"It's anyone's guess what caused him to do it, but we do know that he received a malicious text message from someone who claimed that our baby wasn't his, and that he would never get to see him after he was born.
"That person will never be forgiven. I just wish I'd had the chance to explain to him that it was all lies."
Losing the man she thought would be a life partner was inevitably a turning point in Dionne's life.
Thankfully, with her still-to-be-born child to think of, it spurred her to look forward and upwards.
She vowed never to return to the suicidal thoughts that had plagued half her life up to that point.
Dionne was brought up in south-east Edinburgh by her grandparents, who adopted her.
Her mother was struggling with depression, and her father had left at an early age.
As a youngster, Dionne struggled to make friends and spent a lot of time at home, helping care for her severely disabled cousin.
"By the time I left school, I was already in homeless accommodation, having been kicked out of a children's home, and I had by that point fallen out with my family," she says.
"There was no one around that I could trust and again I just didn't see much point in going on. In the back of my mind there was always something holding me back.
"Whenever I woke up and realised that I hadn't died, I felt a bit disappointed that my suicide attempts had been unsuccessful, but in another way it seemed like it was the right thing.
"It's hard to explain how you were feeling at times like that.
"Since I had my son, it's made life seem worthwhile. He makes life worth living.
"When I was alone in life, there were always support workers around, but their attitude was always 'gently, gently', like they didn't want to upset anyone.
"If they'd just come out and asked me if I was feeling suicidal, it might have helped me.
"If you ask the question outright, there are only two answers - either yes or no.
"Some people may deny it, but others may realise they have someone there to talk to that is there to help."
BEST TO BE BLUNT
THE best thing to do if you are worried that someone close to you is suicidal may be to tackle the issue head-on.
Sandra de Munoz, Choose Life co-ordinator for Edinburgh, says: "An average of two people die by suicide in Scotland every day.
"Approaching someone to ask if they are feeling suicidal is not easy, and sometimes people will be afraid that the question itself will put ideas the person's head.
"This is rarely the case and often the question itself can be a relief, and it will allow them to talk about their feelings before they have a chance to act on them.
"Most people who are suicidal don't want to end their life, they only want to end the pain and often talking about it can be the best way to do that."
CASE STUDY
'There's always someone you can turn to'
MUM-OF-TWO Emma* didn't realise anxiety could lead to suicide until her husband's first attempt in 1993.
"I thought it was only depressed people that attempted suicide," says the 47-year-old, who lives in south Edinburgh and whose husband succeeded in taking his own life in 2006.
She adds: "He was a complete perfectionist and he was always convinced that he was a failure, even though nothing could have been further from the truth.
"At the time of his death he was a manager in a software engineering firm, but no matter how much he achieved nothing was ever good enough.
"He used to worry about everything - his work, the house, me, our children - and I used to joke that if he didn't have anything to worry about, he'd worry about that. That used to make him laugh, and he usually agreed with me."
Emma met her husband when the two of them were students, and she recalls glancing over at the shy young man peering over a hand of cards at the poker table. She says the most difficult aspect of his problems was his unpredictability.
She adds: "After his first suicide attempt in 1993 he didn't want anyone to know about it. He said, 'It's my illness, and no-one else's business'.
"When he made his second attempt later that year I convinced him to tell his family and his employer, and to attend a course of cognitive behavioural therapy [CBT]."
CBT is a branch of psychotherapy that aims to get to the developmental causes of mental illnesses such as anxiety and depression, and change the way the person perceives these feelings.
Emma adds: "He was always resistant to CBT because he was convinced that no-one could change the way people thought, which I now know isn't true.
Your brain isn't hard-wired. It is possible to change the way that you see things, and all you need to do is get it out in the open and talk about it.
"No-one is ever alone - and there's always someone you can turn to for help."
*Not her real name
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