And this week’s Beatcroft Social, streaming with playlist

Scroll down to get the playlist for the latest Beatcroft Social from 60 North Radio. Listen to it after 9.00pm on Friday 7 June at the 60 North archive page or on Mixcloud.

Full disclosure: Part of my meagre pension as a Shetland Islands Councillor will be less meagre (I hope) due to the fund management activities of super evil Edinburgh firm Baillie Gifford, who look after a chunk of the Council’s investments. In fact, the Council had a report from Baillie Gifford last week, and the funds they manage are doing pretty well. The SIC has been involved with Baillie Gifford for decades. They’ve always been trustworthy, reliable and successful in investing our cash. They think long term, they do so ethically, and scrutiny from generations of councillors and officials has helped ensure that.

Even fuller disclosure: I’ve appeared as an author at the Wigtown and  Edinburgh Book Festivals, three times at each. So cash strapped was Embra on one occasion that I was asked to share a hotel room on a ‘hot bed’ basis with another (female) writer; (I was to use it during the day, she at night. Or vice versa, I can’t remember which). In the end I went home to Glasgow having sold exactly no books following my appearance. With an incredibly rude pre-laureate Simon Armitage. Or was that another year? That time Ian Bell and I ill-advisedly went for a pub crawl before my Amnesty International reading?

Anyway, the truth is I don’t much like book festivals, and I’ve done my time at too many of the things, as well as Edinburgh and Wigtown. Some authors emerge blinking into the festival light after months, years scrabbling at the lonely wordface and enjoy drinking with and occasionally talking  to other writers, as well as meeting their readers. But the performative and competitive aspects, sometimes the sheer vanity on display, have always put me off. Not to mention the fact that I’m an essentially unsociable person. Also, books are books, not excuses for their progenitors to talk interminably and often boringly about them (because most writers are bad talkers; it’s why they write). The book, not the writer has a relationship with the reader. The reader may want to think of the author as friend, companion, psychotherapist, sexual or drinking partner, but that impulse is not necessarily going to be reciprocated. Not by me, anyway. Not unless you’re buying the Chateau Musar.

For some writers, though, festival appearances mean money. Book sales (particularly if you’re able to flog your own product), appearance cash, free food and booze (legendary lobster at Wigtown, now probably tinned crab). That can make all the difference in these dangerous days.

Alas, due to General Election ‘purdah’ rules, no Shetland Islands councillor was able to ask any questions of the Baillie Gifford representatives (aka powers of fiscal darkness) regarding the current controversy involving the firm. Or state my support for the beleaguered firm. This has seen the severing of sponsorship ties between Baillie Gifford and the Edinburgh, Wigtown and Borders book festivals in Scotland, as well as Hay, Henley, Wimbledon  and Cheltenham south of the border. This came after a small group of activist authors threatened to withdraw from the festivals should Baillie Gifford continue to be involved.

Why? Well, Baillie Gifford have been accused of investing in companies operating in two areas considered questionable: Fossil fuels and companies with links to Israel, notably the Government, the defence forces and the occupied West Bank. Companies like Nividia, Amazon, AirBnB and Meta (Facebook). In fact they have very little exposure in fossil fuels and are heavily invested in companies driving towards net zero and battling climate change. Their involvement in Israel comes via firms with global reach that many of those protesting use all the time. It seems ironic that much of the bellowing against BG has been from people posting on Facebook, who no doubt use AirBnB.

And the protesting authors who type their masterpieces usingMicrosoft Word have been strangely silent about that company’s involvement in Israel. Authors who use Google for research and sell their books through Barnes and Noble. 

Much of the protesting has come from celebrity authors such as Charlotte Church (I always thought she was that terrible thing, the hybrid pop-classical singer) and one-trick-pony activists such as envirohack George Monbiot. Like footballers, celebrity authors, particularly those firing out memoir text based on fading fame in other fields, tend to overestimate their ability and right to comment on world affairs and politics. Unless of course they’re specialists in world affairs and politics. Such as…well. Can’t actually think of any at the moment who hate Baillie Gifford with the passion of a Nish Kumar, who may or may not be a comedian.

Leaving aside my own feelings about attending book festivals, the effect on not just literary events, but arts funding generally in the UK is set to be catastrophic. Baillie Gifford now seem to be pulling out of arts funding completely. So it might not just be Charlotte Church’s books, but her warbling of both bad pop and popular tunes by Mantovani that will be affected.

If I’d been able to speak about the situation at our council meeting last week, I’d have asked the Baillie Gifford representatives – who at that point had not made it clear they were pulling out of arts funding – what their intentions were, and asked them to take into account the artists and ordinary, non-celebrity authors for whom their money may be crucial for fiscal security. 

Alas, it’s too late. A few virtue-signalling activists have all but destroyed the future of book festivals and a lot of arts activity in Scotland and beyond. My tiny council pension may be be safe, but I take no comfort from that. It’s a mess, sheriff, ain’t it? Well, if it ain’t, it’ll do till the mess gets here…

Hallo, is that Don Winslow? We’d like you for Edinburgh next year but we only have one hotel room per three writers so you get eight hours each, you, Dan Brown and Stephen King. Or you could all crash out at Ian Rankin’s…no, JK Rowling’s is full…

This week’s Beatcroft Social, as heard on 60 North Radio, 7-9pm Fridays, is available to stream at the 60 North archive or on Mixcloud here

Rolling Stones — Worried About You

Fleetwood Mac — Rattlesnake Shake

The Dahlmanns — Blue Letter

William tyler — I’m Gonna Live Forever (If It Kills Me)

Gerry Rafferty — Don’t Give Up on Me

Nils Lofgren — Black Books

Graham Parker — Protection

Crazy Horse — Downtown

B Bonnie Parker — Close to Me 1968

James Carr — A Man Needs a Woman

Gloria Jones — Tainted Love

PP Arnold — Medicated Goo

Jimmy Cliff — Sitting in Limbo

Emma Franklin — Piece of My Heart

Martha Reeves and the Vandellas — Nowhere to Run

Joe South — Hush

Brinsley Schwarz — Surrender to the Rhythm

Bees Make Honey — My Funny Valentine

Robert Wyatt — Shipbuilding

Elvis costello — Pills and Soap

Vivien Scotson — Broken Love

Yvonne Lyon — Shipwrecked

Yvonne Lyon, Gareth Davies-Jones, David Lyon

Kate Rusby — The Lark

James King and the Lone Wolves — Parting Time

T-Bone Burnett — Diamonds are a Girl’s Best Friend

Dan Penn, Spooner Oldham — I’m You’re Puppet

Alan Price — O Lucky Man

Lindisfarne — Together Forever

Frankie Miller — I Can’t Change It

Rab Noakes — Branch

Medicine Head — (And the) Pictures in the Sky