Duncan Harley

Alongside the usual kettles, teabags, coffee filters and coffee makers my George Square kitchen is littered with pictures. On the upper left resides an image from Lake Garda alongside a redundant flat-screen TV which hides a hole in the wall made by a previous incumbent of the property. We are talking lath and plaster here, not plaster-board, and the fragile lath option is less than forgiving. On the far bottom right is an illustration an artist- son Ben penned for some long-forgotten illustrator who had, at one time worked as a cover- artist for a latter-day Pink-Floyd. Above the redundant flat-screen, is an illustration for a 2017 Leopard article. Oldmeldrum was the theme as I recall and for some unknown reason the line-drawn graphic, in all its magnificence, failed to make it into print. But, it did make my kitchen wall. As for Bob, well, he was a fictional character in a short story competition. I don’t often enter such things, after all most entrants are pretty much bo...

The blogosphere, and indeed the mainstream media, are all over the royal wedding this weekend and why on earth not. I mean, this is the media event of the decade and, if the pundits are to be taken seriously, then around 86% of the British public are lauding it for the royals. The other 14% are no doubt secretly sneaking a wee look at the endless re-runs and I know I was one of them. That is, until Janice made an appearance at which point we watched until the very end taking only a few well spent hours out to attend the BA Vintage Country Fair over at Dunecht. Then it was back for chips and a few feet up on the settee for more of the royal highlights. That’s the beauty of this digital age really. You can miss the footie or indeed the wedding of the year then do a seamless catch-up later in the day. We saw that royal kiss, or was it a pair of kisses, endless times and spotted Charles leading his future daughter-in-law down the aisle on at least a hundred news clips. Then there w...