ScotFail

This isn't a blog. This is therapy.

Hall Of Fame: Viva La Woman by Cibo Matto

Hall Of Fame is the strand of this blog where I discuss my favourite things. It might be a book, an album, a movie or a video game. Can you imagine being the A&R man (or woman) responsible for signing Cibo Matto? Here's the concept: two Japanese artists, one rapper and a multi-instrumentalist, in a…

Book Week Scotland 2018

Book Week Scotland is to authors what Christmas is to Santa Claus. We love it. If we're lucky, we get work during this week in November. For Book Week Scotland 2018 I ended up in Grangemouth Library, which isn't too far away from me - except the bus made it feel like a far-flung world.…

Riot Grrrls. Diet Grrrls. Who Really Gives A F**k?

It started with Shampoo, a band whose bratty attitude and shouty vocals made me want to stay out too late and hitch a lift home on a milk truck. Except the local dairy farm went bankrupt and I wasn't allowed out too late in case I accidentally walked into a fight between The Greenfaulds Stab…

Social Media Stuff

This is my obligatory social media shit post. I Tweet. I Instagram. I Face a Book. Follow me on Twitter. Follow me on Instagram. Follow me on Facebook. Don't follow me home. Thank you.

The Shirley Jackson Fan Club (Sign Me Up!)

Some books fade fast, their effect fleeting. Other books remain, powerful and potent. Shirley Jackson wrote those sorts of books. They haunt the reader for a long time after the last page. I've long been a fan of Shirley Jackson; well, that's not quite accurate. I was a fan of The Haunting of Hill House,…

Divine, Kurt, and Ricki Walk Into A Bar…

  Divine, a larger than life drag queen, was more bombed blondshell than blond bombshell. But it didn't matter to me. From the moment I saw her during a late-night broadcast of Female Trouble, I knew she was something different. I mean, we all knew. You couldn't deny the punk weirdness of a fat drag…