I wrote a thing about caves and our recent #ScotLit trip to the Isle of Arran. Sign up to the link here if you’d like to read it. Also, The Blether is very good, so you’d be doing yourself a favour anyhow… 👍🏻
Absolutely agree. I’ve been waiting 4 months to get approval to record an interview with a fully consenting author about the influence of another author on their work. Very frustrating
Please no 🤦🏼♂️ Make it stop.
I wrote my masters thesis with one of the most interesting and helpful people I’ve ever met. Yes, it was on Zoom, but what does that matter? If you want to learn, you learn. If you want to to grift…
This really pisses me off. There was, and still is, a pandemic. Having been a student during this time but also living with someone actually who had to do the work to make sure degrees continued to happen, it’s an ignorant and hurtful attack on people who were trying their hardest. Solidarity ✊
Fantastic 👏👏👏
Episode 4 is out: Scottish Folk and European Music with Kirsteen McCue, Professor of Scottish Literature and Song Culture at @glasgow.ac.uk We discuss the history of Scottish folk music and particularly its influence on the birth of modern music — from Beethoven to Bob Dylan. 🎼🏴
Link⬇️
Rainy photo of the North Sea from a train on the Scottish East Coast mainline
Photo of 100 year celebratory decorations to the staircase of the National Library of Scotland
Front cover of the book, The International Companion to the Scottish Novel ed. Cairns Craig
Photo of iconic staircase in the National Library of Scotland which leads to the Special Collections Reading Rooms
Bit of a dreich journey getting there, but I’ve had a wonderful couple of days @natlibscot.bsky.social looking through Muriel Spark’s archive and the latest Companion to The Scottish Novel. Great stuff 👌
Limited-edition Gray Day merch! All proceeds support our 2026 programme. 'Lanark' notebook (lined/plain) + 'Words, Wards, Wurds' pen. £5 bundle w/code till 25.02.26. Thanks @canongate.co.uk, The Estate of Alasdair Gray & Abby Carter. Head to online shop to buy!
God’s own consolation prize 🫡
Ettrick and Yarrow is a very special place. The land o’ the faeries. It’s worth a trip to Tibbie Shiel’s inn and the Hogg exhibition in Yarrow if you’re up that way 👍🏻
Ah, I know his work! They did lots of incredible research up in Stirling. Also kind of local to where my mum is from in Auchterarder 👍🏻
Was that Peter Garside?
I have to confess I was born in the Simpsons, mainly due to there being no maternity ward in the Borders, so I can’t possibly comment
Can confirm the Greggs opposite the entrance to Central Station still proudly present the Scotch pie. Less so on the macaroni, unfortunately.
Great stuff
We kick off our Daily Burns Blether emails with our By the Way! @katekane1542.bsky.social brings to our attention the Bard’s connection to Mary, Queen of Scots. Focusing on Burns’s 1790 Marian lament and its cultural contexts and afterlife.
DM us to sign up for our once a month Daily Blethers.
It’s a particularly good issue 👍🏻
Very niche, but I find it interesting that to become a shepherd rather than a cattle hand was considered by Hogg and his contemporaries as a more ‘noble’ profession. My grandfather herded sheep but my dad had to leave to get a job with cows as that was the only way to make a living. Different times
A copy of the book Scottish Literary Review 2025 Winter Edition
A photo of an article in a book by Angus Sutherland
Very much enjoyed the latest Literary Review @asls.org.uk Particularly fascinated by Angus Sutherland’s chapter. As a son of someone in, ‘the worst and lowest’ of farming employment, it was an enlightening history of our region and its socio/political context. Great stuff.
Braw tae catch up wi Paul an record this interview - a young Frenchman wha speaks Scots an scrieves poetry in the leid.
I reckon the last 2 tracks might be up your strasse 😉
Thank you mate 🙏🏻 Very much appreciated. Lots of good stuff on there. Hope you’re all well. Happy New Year x
We’re blown away with all the support for our community compilation album. We’ve raised almost £1k so far that will go directly towards buying equipment and instruments for our reopening in the New Year. Still available to download here: lancastermusiccoop.bandcamp.com/album/co-opi...
🙏🏻 It’s been a huge effort but we’re really getting close now and the music community have been really supportive of the project. Onwards 😟
Thank you 🙏🏻
If you want to hear some incredible new music and support our community cause, check out our new Lancaster Music Coop compilation. Thanks to all involved. Preorder here: lancastermusiccoop.bandcamp.com/album/co-opi...
www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...
Please feel free to share! We want to understand how to better support autistic and or ADHD undergraduate students at UK universities. The entire study team is neurodivergent (as you can imagine we had some excellent meetings!)
Winston lives in the hearts of all who witnessed his legendary pumps.
Apologies. That wasn’t necessarily meant for public airing 🤣 Congratulations nonetheless
