Category Archives: Uncategorized

The stories we tell

In the past month I’ve spent a week in Spain with a group of eight people on a The Stories We Tell course, and a week in the Northwest Highlands with a friend I’ve known for 45 years. At the … Continue reading

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What love requires

Last time I mentioned the Night For Angus concert, a tribute to the life and music of fiddler Angus Grant, which takes place tomorrow at Glasgow’s Royal Concert Hall.  Yesterday, in preparation, I listened to a live recording of a … Continue reading

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Pause for breath

After nearly seven years of continuous weekly posting, A Few Kind Words is taking a short sabbatical. I’ll be back  in the autumn – by which time the United Kingdom might be slightly less of a madhouse …

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The Gutenbergs

No one would deny that Gutenberg is a name with which to conjure. Johannes Gutenberg transformed society with his invention of mechanical printing in the 1440s. Half a millenium later, in 1971, Michael Hart, an American student, wangled himself time … Continue reading

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Poetry path

In the hills a few miles outside our village of Birnam is a Camphill community. Here, on the Corbenic estate, 27 adults with learning difficulties live with their carers and a number of volunteers in 50 acres of agricultural land, … Continue reading

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Webster’s Day

When I was a student I lived with four friends on a farm about seven miles out of Aberdeen. Our landlord, who was the uncle of one of the friends, lived on another farm, a few miles away, and we … Continue reading

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Wee Dougie

The light has returned at last, brought back to us by a cold north wind that has also brought with it hard frost and snow. Gone are the seemingly endless days of twilight and the interminable rain we’ve endured this … Continue reading

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Dark matter

I’ve been doing some pre-Christmas stock-taking. It’s not an inventory of goods, though the stock in question is certainly good, but of assets of a less tangible kind: the writing generated on Dark Angels courses throughout the year, which I … Continue reading

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Getting tribal

Gutted. This is not a word I often use. As a boy growing up in the country it’s what I did to rabbits and pigeons and occasionally trout. As a young bookworm it’s what I read, in morbid fascination, about … Continue reading

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Temple of Learning

Today I’m en route for Aracena, an hour north of Seville, and our tenth successive year running the Dark Angels advanced course. We’ve grown to love the sprawling red-roofed finca in the mountains, the early sun burning off the mist … Continue reading

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