In search of peanuts for the birds, I stumbled across an agricultural shop in a nearby village. From the outside it was unspectacular, but opening the door was like stepping into an episode of The Archers. They did indeed have peanuts, in sacks the size of whisky barrels. I wouldn’t have been able to drag one as far as the till, and I wondered if other weaklings had ever secretly slashed them open and let nuts pour into their pockets, gloves and wellie boots, before staggering out like overstu

There is little to like about the present predicament, but one thing I don’t miss is checking my diary every evening for a reminder of what tomorrow will bring. Our social life is not what you’d call a whirl, so usually memory can be relied on for the occasional gatherings. Here in Hoolet, socialising is often impromptu, a random encounter leading to a casual evening drink a few hours later, or a last-minute supper in a kitchen, so soon after the invite that nobody could possibly forget.

Sunday, April 19, 2020.

KIRSTY WILSON, BEECHGROVE PRESENTER

Koem Vannak, joining Logos Hope this month with his family, is the second OMer sent out from Cambodia since the work started there in 2006.

OM MTI shares the love of Jesus and empowers children and families in Cambodia through English classes that prepare students for future employment.

Abuse, alcohol, drugs, gangs and poverty are the daily realities for many in the slums. Many arrive at OM MTI looking for food, safety, conversation, advise and help.

Maltese Premier League club Tarxien Rainbows FC is enriching the lives of a group of youngsters through football with a groundbreaking training scheme for children with special needs.

A GROUP of Glasgow-based students are working on an international project to design the building blocks of a Moon base.

AN ENERGY-HARNESSING wave machine is set to begin sea trials later this year.

Someone is mortally wounded, shot to bits by a stormtrooper, hacked to pieces by a zombie, legs crushed by a Sergio Ramos tackle, or crippled when their go-kart careered into a cartoon tree.

THIS time last year the Scottish Government, Police Scotland and the Crown Office were united in great fanfare about groundbreaking new legislation designed to tackle domestic abuse.

GUTTING news for great swathes of the Great British public - eating chips is not exercise.

PRISON governors have been handed the power to veto prisoners they have concerns over being released early - as plans are pushed forward for up to 450 prisoners to be freed to allow inmates to socially distance in cells.

It was 3pm on May 8 1945 when Prime Minister Sir Winston Churchill addressed the nation from the Cabinet Room announcing that “we may allow ourselves a brief period of rejoicing,” but that message instead led to three days of partying in Glasgow’s George Square, children were given time off school and families were looking forward to being reunited again.

THE SRU would be “very happy” to host the Scottish Cup semi-final between Heart of Midlothian and Hibernian at BT Murrayfield, the governing body’s Chief Operating Officer revealed yesterday.

Global carbon emissions from energy are expected to fall by almost 8% in 2020 in the biggest drop in history as a result of the pandemic, experts said.

Scotland needs to plant up to one billion trees to achieve the country’s ambitious climate change goals and help the economy recover from the coronavirus crisis, a group of environmental consultants have said.

It is a tiny spit of land that lies in the Firth of Clyde two miles off the coast of Troon where colonies of seabirds have made their homes for centuries.

IT is one of he most important seabird observatories in the world, but its very future was called into question when fire ravaged through it and left it no more than a pile of rubble.

IT is less than two months since Shelley Kerr and her backroom staff, along with the domestic players in Scotland’s squad, flew back from Alicante to Glasgow. On the very same day – March 11 – the World Health Organisation accorded Covid-19 pandemic status.

WOULD you still celebrate a cup final win for your team if you knew for absolute certain the game had been rigged?

SO, is it a smoking gun after all? Or is it just a damp water pistol?

IT’S been an up and down sort of day for Imran Akhtar. And in a much too literal sense, as far as he’s concerned. First, he had to clamber on top of the roof of the Ottoman Coffee House on Glasgow’s Berkeley Street, to make sure the temporary tarpaulin was still in place and keeping out the wind, rain, hail and snow. (It’s been one of those typical Scottish afternoons, with the weather behaving like a plump maiden aunt’s two-layered chocolate box. In other words, way too many delights

Thyme: Lebanese Street Sajeria

WELL that didn’t take long. Scotland’s latest experiment in direct democracy was all but killed off this week, barely two months after Nicola Sturgeon announced it.

In “Painting Nationalism Red?”, an engaging new pamphlet published by Democratic Left Scotland, the journalist Neal Ascherson pays tribute to Tom Nairn as Scotland’s “pre-eminent political intellectual”.

The sight of Scottish ministers boarding flights to far-flung destinations in order to “sell Scotland to the world” has been a familiar one for more than half a century.

A couple of weeks ago, I attended an “in conversation” event with the American sociologist Arlie Russell Hochschild at Harvard University.

Scotland’s golf courses have been urged to close in the wake of the Government’s latest measures to combat the coronavirus.

THERE will be many of us who embrace technology with all the ham-fisted ineptitude of a fumbling, muttering old colonel trying to unravel the stubborn, sticky wrapping of a barley sugar.

Scottish Golf today revealed that no date has been set for the sport in this country to restart and stressed that lockdown restrictions will remain in place for the foreseeable future.

IT only seems like yesterday that we were in the season to be jolly and, all of a sudden, romance is in the air. Before we know it, we’ll all be rolling eggs down a hill but, in the meantime, I guess we should take a look at rose, the wines of love.

ONE of the trying things about being a drinks columnist is the number of wines I have to taste in order to write this Shakespearian text for you guys. Products have to be really special to stand out from the crowd and, thankfully, they occasionally still do.

SNP MP Steven Bonnar has apologised after a heated altercation with a neighbour.

Readers have been quick to voice their opinion after it was reported that Nicola Sturgeon missed six emergency coronavirus Cobra meetings.

HEALTH boards across Scotland have spent almost £17 million on sending scans to other parts of the country and across the world by private companies amid a staffing crisis.

Dumbarton police station has temporarily closed after a member of staff showed symptoms of Covid-19.

THE Scottish Government has been formally approached by Swedish architects proposing that a bridge to Northern Ireland can be built ... and combined with 140 wind turbines to power hundreds of thousands of homes.

People arriving in the UK could be forced to quarantine for two weeks to halt the spread of coronavirus under plans for the "second phase" of the Government's response.

Eurostar says all its passengers must wear face masks as a safeguard against Covid-19, effective from Monday.

SCOTLAND’S towns and cities have seen a “stark decrease” in toxic traffic fumes since the coronavirus lockdown came into force.

THE 2000 film Almost Famous told the love story of a schoolboy writer tracking a rock band and falling for a teenage girl – who happens to be a groupie. Or was she?

A FEW weeks ago, Wendy James was trending on Twitter. It’s been happening quite often over the last few months, a result of BBC Four’s repeats of Top of the Pops reaching 1988 and 1989, the years in which a pink-lipsticked, bra-flaunting James launched herself on the public consciousness as the brash, blonde frontwoman of Transvision Vamp.

WE start at the low point. “It’s hard doing music,” Jill O’Sullivan admits. “I love it. I feel compelled to sing and play and write. But I was thinking of quitting.”

DRAKE - DARK LANE DEMO TAPES

At first glance, it could seem that teenagers just really, really hate high school. But Yale researchers found deeper student engagement issues.

Sharing moments of levity and hope from the education world amid the mass disruption of schooling and life from the coronavirus.

I’m not sure it was wise for Nicola Sturgeon to invoke Nelson Mandela in her speech on the next steps (sic) to independence. He was a revolutionary who pursued a campaign of non-violent direct action, including strikes, boycotts and other acts of civil disobedience. That’s what many ardent Yessers were hoping against hope she might authorise.

Mardi Gras in New Orleans has always had a gothic element. The voodoo culture dates from the African American diaspora, though it’s now mostly for tourists. But this year there was an authentically macabre dimension to Fat Tuesday.