Dark matter

Posted on December 11, 2015 by Jamie Jauncey

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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Big magic

Posted on December 4, 2015 by Jamie Jauncey

There’s an extraordinary free newsletter that I have been following for a year or so, called Brain Pickings. I would describe it, somewhat inadequately, as a weekly compendium of excerpts from the best writing by the best thinkers, in the … Continue reading →

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The Weight

Posted on November 27, 2015 by Jamie Jauncey

Sometimes you just have to start writing. I’m sorry if there’s a sense of déjà vu about those seven words, but this is another of those increasingly frequent days when as the (self-inflicted) deadline approaches I realise I have not … Continue reading →

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Leaderology

Posted on November 20, 2015 by Jamie Jauncey

Leadership. It’s a topic that exercises people in airless seminar rooms without number, up and down the country, every day of the week. Yet in its elevation to the status of a ‘-ship’ it becomes so far removed from the … Continue reading →

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Altchroskie

Posted on November 13, 2015 by Jamie Jauncey

I first met my friend Pete Clark almost 25 years ago, shortly after we had moved into our house in Strathardle, one of Perthshire’s least known and prettiest glens. The house was called Altchroskie (‘alt’ means stream or burn in … Continue reading →

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Lost in the fog

Posted on November 6, 2015 by Jamie Jauncey

From to time fighter planes come roaring over our village on their way to Lossiemouth, or heading off to do whatever they do over the emptiness of the Highlands. Dunkeld sits in the cleft of the Tay valley, at the … Continue reading →

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Off balance

Posted on October 30, 2015 by Jamie Jauncey

Vestibular neuritis might sound like rot in the front porch. It’s not. It’s a viral infection that causes inflammation in the inner ear and makes one feel dizzy. It’s the little sibling of labyrinthitis, a truly horrible condition which at … Continue reading →

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Getting tribal

Posted on October 23, 2015 by Jamie Jauncey

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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Shuffling in backwards

Posted on October 16, 2015 by Jamie Jauncey

Several years ago, 26, the writers’ collective I’ve often mentioned here, ran its first big public creative project. 26 Letters, as it was called – appropriately, since the title of the collective is a reference to the DNA of the … Continue reading →

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The stories we tell

Posted on October 9, 2015 by Jamie Jauncey

Here is a story. Fifteen years ago, Catherine Lockerbie, then the literary editor of The Scotsman, was appointed director of the Edinburgh International Book Festival. For several years I had regularly written book reviews for her. We had also sat … Continue reading →

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