August 2009

This picture was sneakily snapped by my pal Stewart Cunningham at the Edinburgh Book Festival yesterday, during my reading/Q&A with fellow Mainstream author Alan Clements. The bookfest is massive these days, much grown and gentrified since my last visit there, when I was asked to ‘hot bed’ (share a bedroom, though at, ahem, different times)…

Says it in the Socialist Worker – so it must be true! Click on this link for the article the excerpt below comes from. ACCORDING TO Tom Morton, the practice of mass detention must continue, “but it needs to be done thoughtfully and humanely.” If this sounds like a comment about alleged “enemy combatants” held…

A trip I’ve been dreaming of and sort of planning for years: into the most remote and, allegedly, spectacular coastal section of Shetland, camp overnight in the middle of what is a 20 miles walk over very rough and indeed dangerous ground, and nail once and for all the ‘best-beach-in-Scotland’ controversy. I’ll be writing this…

…not that anyone was actually going there in order to hear me belt out a few songs about alcohol and cycling. Still, I was annoyed at having to pull out of what is a great wee festival, organised by Roy and Samantha Thain and with lots of help from my old colleague and friend Angela…

Canadian regional TV news seems so much more fun than our own dear Rep Scot…

It’s funny how things work out. I was in Wick working on a documentary about prohibition (Wick was ‘dry’ from 1923 to 1947) and coincidentally it was the gala weekend. Playing in the main square was a teenage band called The Harlands. Girl singer, platinum blond, three nerdy guys. They started with cover versions of…

This from Jeff Zycinski’s blog, AKA JZ’s Diary. As some of you will know, Jeff is the boss of BBC Radio Scotland (although I think technically his position is Head of Radio, BBC Scotland). He was senior producer in Inverness when the original Tom Morton Show was being broadcast, 15 years ago. When, for one…

…thanks again to Margaret Chrystal: Serpentine THERE’S a real thrill about seeing your own city turned into the setting for a violent life or death struggle. It’s not an experience Invernessians have enjoyed too much to date. But as the first of a planned series, Tom Morton’s thriller SERPENTINE (Mainstream, £9.99) sets the heart racing…

Inverness sunset The camper van made it to Inverness from Aberdeen without any untoward excitement, and after raiding Tescos for tea (that Cumberland sausage is always a motorhome winner)teabags, milk and coffee, I discovered there was no gas. Ah well. Not that I had any matches to light the cooker anyway. I was parked up,…