Recipes: A sea trout summer special

Head chef at the Dalmore Inn, Iain Naysmith, shares his summer special – fillet of sea trout, crushed new potatoes, endive, seared scallop, piquillo and pepper coulis. Iain, who is from Edinburgh originally but currently lives in Inchture, has been working in a kitchen since he was 17. Having started his training at Prestonfield House…

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Highland Echoes: Scottish heritage celebrated in America

Scotland’s history and heritage has been celebrated in America through music and dance production Highland Echoes. The two-hour show took place at the Appalachian Theatre in Boone, North Carolina, in July, and tried to capture the “essence of Scotland” through dance and music.  The music of Highland Echoes tells a tale that stretches across continents,…

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Scotland’s thriving rum scene

Peter Holland, co-host of The Scottish Rum Festival masterclasses, tells us about Scotland’s thriving rum scene ahead of this year’s festival.    Ever since Dark Matter hit the news in 2015 for being the first Scottish Rum-producing distillery to open in the modern era, the Scottish Rum scene has been growing year on year. Fast…

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Fringe review: Tending

Jeremy Welch reviews Tending at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe. Normally when the NHS is mentioned it is conjoined to those that want it restructured, those that want more funding and those that think nurses are saints or not.   All this narrative is usually underpinned by entrenched political views. So it was with some nervousness that…

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Fringe reviews: The Greatest Show Songs

Jeremy Welch reviews The Greatest Show Songs at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe. On arrival I was expecting a wide age range of attendees but it would seem that this show has a large groupie following of silver haired West End aficionados.   It felt slightly like arriving on a SAGA cruise holiday, which was a shame…

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Fringe review: My Neighbours Are Kind Of Weird

When entering a venue for an hour-long self-proclaimed witty and wry look at millennial culture, with a side salad of hypocrisy and narcissism, one arrives with a heavy heart. One was wrong though. This was a thoroughly enjoyable comedic excursion that fused universally good performances from all five young actors, and some admirably taut script-writing…

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Fringe review: Salty Irina

Jeremy Welch reviews Salty Irina at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe. The play is set in some non-defined Northern European city where there have been a series of murders, all the murdered are foreigners, all recent immigrants.   Irina, played by Yasemin Ozdemir, arrives at her apartment and the steps are steeped in blood, obviously the result…

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Wee beasties: Incredible macro photographs of Scots insects

IT WAS in an unassuming park in Glasgow during lockdown that David Hamilton tried out macro photography for the first time.  The photographs are typically close-ups of bugs and flowers, and David found Ruchill Park was the perfect place to snap some tiny, colourful creepy-crawlies. David was blown away by what he found in this…

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Fringe review: Maki Me Laugh

This is one of the more eccentric ideas I’ve encountered at the Fringe (which is a high bar). The idea is that while diners eat at Yo! sushi restaurant opposite the Mound on Princes Street, stand-up comedian Maddy Lucy Dann does her set. There are microphones hidden around every table which measure the level of mirth…

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