Tammas Clark Hou it aw ends. In 7th century Egypt, wi Caliph Abd al-Malik taxin the Coptic language intae oblivion. In modren Sri Lanka, wi a hunner an fifty fowk killed in riots sparked bi anti-Tamil language legislation. An in Russia an Ukraine an Cameroon, an ony place whaur there are tongues tae speak an…

Four years ago I was in the Cairngorms blissfully incommunicado with the world when a text appeared from a London friend asking ‘what’s happening with the Mackintosh?’. I was totally unaware of the fire which had caused enormous damage to a building that has been such a part of my life, as a student in…

Scotland is a witch-ridden country. James VI knew this, when he wrote Daemonologie, his treatise on witchcraft and its evils in 1597. Six years prior, they had burned the North Berwick witches, who were tortured into confessing their part in a plot to drown King James and his Danish bride, Princess Anne, at sea. These…