I could see Pitbull was proving a smash success. Reviewers showing their enthusiasm with long paragraphs, exclamations and five-star ratings. A long run at the Exeter Odeon. Yes this police- action- drama-comedy-lovestory was pulling in the Poles from far and wide. Subtitles too... It's brilliant. If I had to choose between this and Trainspotting T2 I can only say see both! Different stories, same hard punchy reality humour, bish, bash bosh the...

http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b08dww6z/the-scottish-bounty-hunter?suggid=b08dww6z Here’s the tagline Christian Matlock, aged 28, is a professional bounty hunter in Virginia. He used to be Scottish and now he’s an all-American action hero, spending days and nights hunting prisoners that have skipped bail. This is a three-act piece with a photogenic star, rock and roll music, guns, drugs, outlaws and shiny fast cars. ACT 1. Meet Christian...

Fiona Macdonald (2011) Robert Burns. A Very Peculiar History . This is a children’s book or a primer. ‘With the Bards own rhymes’. That suits me. I was once a child, and I’m always ready to be primed. Ignorance is a great motivation. I once shared a desk with the august figure of Professor Gerry Carruthers, Director of the Robert Burns Centre, University of Glasgow. I don’t remember him as being particularly smart, or brainy, as we used to call...

There is a moment at the end of the 1960s when race war is engulfing and burning America and the ‘chickens have come to roost’ in prisons, when Bunker is taking from his cell block in San Quentin to visit a parole officer. The parole officer laughs. Bunker’s file is the biggest he’s ever seen, the size of a phone book. He stops laughing when he reads the note attached, see File 2. This is File 1 and 2, not written by the state, not written by...

I have a friend who’s an accomplished musician. He’s passionate, talented, but hasn’t uploaded any piece, or performed his songs live. His music is sitting in a folder on his computer, gathering binary dust. Which led me to my own novel, Hollow Point , sitting in a folder on my desk top. January 20 th is the date when all the new year resolutions fall by the wayside and, eschewing diets, gym membership, smoking, drinking resolutions, mine was...

Spoilt for choice this week! A very big special mention to celticman whose novel-in-the-making I caught up with this morning. If you haven't read it yet, I thoroughly recommend that you do - it's called Grimms and it's turning into something very spectacular. Anyway, big congratulations to Ewan for 'The Man on the Other End of the Phone' and to Noo for 'But I have promises to keep..' which was (very rightly) talent spotted by another editor:...

Episode 1, Series 1, BBC 2 http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b08f00s0/sas-rogue-warriors-series-1-episode-1 epistemology noun PHILOSOPHY the theory of knowledge, especially with regard to its methods, validity, and scope, and the distinction between justified belief and opinion. I recently reviewed a Channel 5 series, Secrets of the SAS: In Their Own Words . Other programmes have SAS tags in their title, or synonyms such as Special Forces...

I want my money back. Where's all the trains? T2 is a harder film than Trainspotting. It's violent, it's the violence Renton, Sick Boy, Spud and Begbie have done to themselves in the past 20 years. Still funny, still new in places but hard. All alive, life is their sentence. Not being fathers in any real sense of the word is their worst punishment for being clueless, stupid,and sometimes cruel and selfish for 20 years. 20 years of learning who...

Thank you to Catherine Poarch for her brief on Creation last month. Seeing as it's February I feel drawn towards expressing my die-hard romantic nature in lyrical form. Don't assume I'm after Valentine's Day couplets and a table at that rustic Italian on the High Street. There's nothing more cringeworthy than a bloke with a rose threaded between his teeth. I trust there won't be a love heart or a teddy bear or gasp: an unsigned card in sight. (...

This was a terrific game with Celtic players scoring all seven goals. Dedryck Boyata scoring a terrific headed own-goal for St Johnstone after Celtic had opened them up several times, with a goal from Liam Henderson in the first five minutes. This continues a recent trend in which Celitc’s so called fringe players come in and not only do they do a job, they frequently end up man on the match. Stuart Armstrong was first to pick up the baton and...