What have you got left over in your fridge? No, we’re not just being nosey, this is a creative question for the Lets Eat This ‘food waste extravaganza’ challenge, a really imaginative and generous event organised by the Himalayan Centre for Arts and Culture with our equally enterprising colleagues at the World Kitchen in Leith. Continue reading “Lets Eat This: a tasty ‘foodwaste’ challenge”
Hot potatoes and cool science in the Scottish Parliament
We promised surprises at our food and science event in the Festival of Politics but we weren’t expecting to be quite so surprised ourselves. Who knew China is the biggest producer of potatoes in the world? Continue reading “Hot potatoes and cool science in the Scottish Parliament”
The great potato story: food for thought at the Festival of Politics
Make room in your diary for our Festival of Politics event. History of the Potato on Sunday 16 August is not just a highly topical talk by a cutting-edge scientist, but also a multicultural mash-up of potato dishes from around the world. Come hungry and be prepared for surprises as we conjure up sweet, savoury and spicy foods, all made with potatoes. You’ll have had your chips! Continue reading “The great potato story: food for thought at the Festival of Politics”
Out of the shadows into the political arena
We are delighted that Marion Donaldson has become our first ‘shadow’ to stand for election. Marion is the Labour candidate for the Leith Walk by-election on 10 September, and it promises to be an unusually energetic campaign with not just one but two seats to fill. Continue reading “Out of the shadows into the political arena”
Opening Doors to civic engagement in Edinburgh
Who is Leith Open Space? What is a shadow scheme? Can you get arrested for that? Is it a mentoring programme? Similar to an internship? Do you get paid? Some of the diverse and rather amusing questions I was asked during my time shadowing on Opening Doors to Democracy, facilitated by Leith Open Space. Continue reading “Opening Doors to civic engagement in Edinburgh”
Who holds the Scottish government to account?
In theory, elections are the voters’ chance to decide who runs the country. But once the dust has settled who holds the government to account for the next four or five years? No matter who represents Scotland in Westminster after 7 May, Tricia Marwick, presiding officer of the Scottish Parliament, makes a strong case for reforming the way we do things in Holyrood. Continue reading “Who holds the Scottish government to account?”
One Last Push: the final battle of WW1?
What passing-bells for these who die as cattle? Wilfred Owen
A copy of Wilfred Owen’s discharge letter is among many treasures in the Memory Box. It’s not exactly poetry but that letter brought the poet from a medical centre in Wales to Craiglockhart Hospital in Edinburgh where he met Siegfried Sassoon in 1917. With such tangible stuff is history told – and retold through the extraordinary work of Disability History Scotland. Continue reading “One Last Push: the final battle of WW1?”
Scotland’s ethical stimulus: John Byrne Award 2014
The play’s the thing. This year’s winner of the John Byrne Award, surely Scotland’s most imaginative and challenging competition, is Edinburgh sixth form student, Andrew MacDonald with his play The Treatment about an unethical pharmaceutical company producing a life-saving drug for the exclusive use of the rich. Continue reading “Scotland’s ethical stimulus: John Byrne Award 2014”
HenPower stirs a melting pot of memories
On a drizzly, grey day in South Queensferry there’s a sudden beam of childhood sunshine in the sheltered housing common room. Over coffee and biscuits we’re flicking through ideas for a new recipe book of old family favourites and it stirs a powerful pot of memories: scrumping for apples in the gardens of big houses, clambering over dykes in search of brambles, fishing for watercress in cold, clear streams, pulling turnips from a farmer’s field on the way home for tea. Continue reading “HenPower stirs a melting pot of memories”
The Last Post: memorial service at Leith Victoria Primary School
In honour of Scottish and German lives lost in the First World War, a service of remembrance with a difference takes place in Victoria Primary on Tuesday 11 November. The Last Post will sound for two former pupils who died at sea in 1914 and then the choir will lead singing of Silent Night in both English and German in memory of German sailors cared for in Edinburgh hospitals or buried in local cemeteries after the Battle of Dogger Bank in 1915. Thank you to Duncan Bremner, for this story. Continue reading “The Last Post: memorial service at Leith Victoria Primary School”