Scotland
I write about marketing and fundraising in my day job and anything that takes my interest outside of it.
Facebook has recently made a suite of game-changing tools available to fundraisers in the UK and 15 other European countries. These include a donation button which enables users to send money directly to charities, in three taps or less, without leaving the platform.
Find out what it's like to experience 3 full days at the D&AD Festival, according to two lucky members of our creative team.
Looking back on an eventful year for marketers.
Opinion/Personal Essays
With all the doom and gloom around the trams and budget cutbacks, it's easy to forget just how fortunate we are to live in a city like Edinburgh, especially for those who are creatively inclined.
On Sunday the Edinburgh International Science Festival event 'Journalism in the Digital Age: Trends, Tools and Technologies' posed the question: Can journalism survive in the digital era? There to address the issue were a panel of speakers from the worlds of journalism, academia and public relations, each of whom gave a five minute presentation followed by a brief Q&A.
What I had to do instead was pick up one of my tortoises and run with it, all the way across the finish line. The others would still be there when I went back, and it would mean I could get the others there much quicker too as any challenges along the way were likely to be similar.
Arts & Culture
Advances in technology have long played their part in pushing music forward as an art form, from Kraftwerk’s devotion to drum machines and synths to Grandmaster Flash’s canny knack with a crossfader.
What is the Edinburgh Mela? The Edinburgh Mela is an annual multi-cultural festival of "world music, dance, fashion, food and fun" that regularly attracts more than 20,000 people. The Mela takes place at the end of August/beginning of September, making it a great way to see out the Edinburgh Festival season.
Published by Nick Mitchell With the Fringe in full swing, it can be tricky to choose between everything that's on offer, especially if you have limited time to enjoy the festivities.
Interviews
Published by Milo McLaughlin Anne Donovan, author of the award-winning Buddha Da, returns with her new novel Gone Are The Leaves this month. Ahead of the Canongate Books launch event in Edinburgh tonight (8 May), she spoke to Milo McLaughlin about her career so far, and what advice she would impart to aspiring writers Hi Anne.
Feature by Milo McLaughlin. With 17 albums recorded over 15 years under various pseudonyms, Kentucky-born Will Oldham has established himself as one of the most prolific and talented songwriters in alternative music today. That's despite starting out as an actor - at the age of 17 he starred in John Sayles' 1987 film Matewan, but found the accompanying pressures unmanageable and instead drifted into making music.
To mark the 50th issue of The Skinny, music columnists Milo McLaughlin and Sean Michaels got on the blower (well, Skype) for a transatlantic chinwag about the Scottish music scene and how it's all changed since the magazine began in 2005. Feature by Milo McLaughlin.
Music Reviews
Feature by Milo McLaughlin. Published 05 January 2010 Kraftwerk's Ralf Hütter, known for his perfectionism and ruthless revisionism, would no doubt consider The Catalogue to be the ultimate upgrade, with each track 'reconstructed' from scratch using the latest musical technology. But some fans and reviewers are already complaining that subtleties have been lost from the original recordings.
Once Radiohead begin playing, even being soaked to the skin ceases to be of importance Event review by Milo McLaughlin. "Nice day for it. You should all move down south..." Perhaps goading the drenched Glasgow Green crowd who paid £40 each for the privilege to see his band isn't the best way for Thom Yorke to kick off proceedings, and some react with the inevitable boos.
Words like slowly twisting knives Album review by Milo McLaughlin. The numerous musicians, authors and poets who have contributed to this record evidently share a love of Scotland's rich folk and literary traditions, and the resulting collaborations are as fascinating as you'd expect.