Duncan Harley

The four-star Maryculter House Hotel was today the venue for the Scottish Samurai Awards. Scotland and Japan have long enjoyed both trade and cultural links – well for just around 150 years in truth. Japan sent many students to the UK between the late Edo period (1603-1867) and the early Meiji period (1868-1912) in order to explore and import Western technology and the various international trade exhibitions of the 19 th and early 20 th Century provided useful platforms for the sharing of both scientific and aesthetic ideas. Cities such as Glasgow and Aberdeen provided ripe-pickings for the aspiring technologists and alongside acquisition of new skill-sets the two nations exchanged cultural and artistic aesthetics which continue to create broad-ripples to this day. Japan, of course, had participated in the second Glasgow International Exhibition in 1901. The Japan Pavilion was located near the main exhibition hall at Kelvingrove and there is a likelihood that Renni...

The weekend papers were full of Aretha Franklin. Now, and only now, we learn that she was both the queen of soul AND the singer who provided black American women with ‘anthems which still ring out and ring true’ – that according to The Observer. The air-waves are full of the same, as are the splendidly observant tabloids. It’s a bit like when a famous footie player dies. Headlines scream the loss and news-weary tabloids predict the death of sport as we know it. Twill never be the same. Sport is now officially dead. He/she will never be replaced. Gad! 13 January 1889 – William Cropper dies of a ruptured bowel during a match against the away team, Grimsby Town. 8 April 1907 – Scottish defender Tommy Blackstock collapsed after heading a ball in a game against St. Helens FC and died. 19 February 1916 – Bob Benson of Arsenal dies of a burst blood vessel following a wartime game against Reading. 20 February 2002 - Cristian Neamțu, pronounced dead after suffering a massive brai...