Imagine better

Posted on June 17, 2016 by Jamie Jauncey

Last week I went to the launch of this year’s Edinburgh International Book Festival programme. It was the first official book festival event I’d been to since coming off the board last October, after 14 years. I felt oddly anxious … Continue reading →

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The Gutenbergs

Posted on June 10, 2016 by Jamie Jauncey

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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Spanish tales

Posted on June 3, 2016 by Jamie Jauncey

I watch my 88-year-old mother’s gradual decline and see her reaching for memories sometimes as if they’re a glimmer on some distant horizon. My mother has Alzheimer’s, although it has been kinder to her than to many. She exists mainly … Continue reading →

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Fair wabbit

Posted on May 13, 2016 by Jamie Jauncey

Had I posted last week it would have been the 301st post since I started writing this blog, nearly seven years ago. As it was I was undone by a trip south, via a monastery in Yorkshire, to run a … Continue reading →

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Tread softly

Posted on April 29, 2016 by Jamie Jauncey

This story is just one of a trillion reasons why Tim Berners-Lee deserves to stand alongside William Caxton and James Watt in the history of human connectivity. A little over five years ago, on 9 March 2011, an email arrived … Continue reading →

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In concert

Posted on April 22, 2016 by Jamie Jauncey

On Easter Monday I took part in a concert in Dunkeld Cathedral to raise money for Syrian refugees. If that sounds grand, it wasn’t. It was very much a community event, conceived by the cathedral organist, Michael Anderson, and local … Continue reading →

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Poetry path

Posted on April 15, 2016 by Jamie Jauncey

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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Feet of clay

Posted on April 8, 2016 by Jamie Jauncey

Last night I finished reading H is for Hawk, Helen MacDonald’s extraordinary and much-fêted memoir about how she worked through her grief at her father’s death by training a goshawk. I loved the book for the luminosity of the writing, … Continue reading →

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Untold stories

Posted on March 31, 2016 by Jamie Jauncey

If one is asked the same question often enough, no matter how difficult, one sooner or later comes up with an answer that can be given without too much further thought. It may not be precisely the right one, but … Continue reading →

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Established

Posted on March 18, 2016 by Jamie Jauncey

Two years ago, against all the odds, 15 Dark Angels wrote and published a collective novel. Keeping Mum was a project that could very easily have come unstuck, but it didn’t and we were rightly proud of what might even … Continue reading →

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