How the Berlin Wall fell - the hack's tale

There has been a mountain of stuff to read about the anniversary of the Berlin Wall coming down but if you read only one piece... this one by journalist Ewald Koenig, one who was there and saw, tops just about every other account I've seen.

http://www.euractiv.com/en/enlargement/journalist-question-fractured-wall/article-187177

The Rolf Harris spelling challenge

I challenge anyone to top Tomos Livingstone's four degrees of separation between the war over Gordon Brown's spelling and Rolf Harris. Read it yourselves on 07.25 to Paddington

Brown, The Sun and the war over spelling

No politician comes off the better from an encounter with the raw rage of a grieving mother but I think Gordon Brown did his level best to express his sincere apologies for messing up his letter to Jacqui Janes at his press conference this morning.

You’d think that the whole row, stoked by the Sun newspaper, could have been over much earlier if Mr Brown or his official spokesman could have admitted at the outset, to Mrs Janes and the press, that he had made a mistake.

But in the world of jackal journalism it is impossible for Number 10 to admit the Prime Minister is fallible - he’d be strung up for not being the Pope if they said that.

The whole episode has given us all a taste of the cynicism and the ferocity of the tabloid onslaught against Mr Brown from here to a general election in which the rest of the media is swept along.

So the war over the letter continues for another day and it dominated the Prime Minister’s press conference although it’s hard to see where it goes from here. Having said sorry in person, having apologised to everyone for his handwriting (which is much the same as having to apologise for being blind in one eye) and having said that he has experienced a parent’s sense of bereavement through the death of his own daughter there is not much more the Prime Minister can do.

The Sun is unlikely to call a truce until it detects that its attacks on Mr Brown on this front are actually engendering some sympathy for him. It’s clear from the recorded telephone conversation between Jacqui Janes and the Prime Minister that her anger is about a lot more than a mis-spelt word. Some people think the Sun is manipulating her grief (it is) but she is nobody’s fool. She is steeped in military culture and seems to know all the issues when she is discussing equipment or lack of medivac helicopters.

Meanwhile the war trundles on. The coffins of another six soldiers - including the five killed by a rogue Afghan policeman - have been flown into RAF Lyneham and the MoD have named a British soldier who died in hospital after an explosion in Afghanistan as Rifleman Samuel John Bassett, 1 Platoon, 4th Battalion The Rifles, serving as part of the 3 Rifles Battle Group.

Rifleman Bassett was injured by a bomb near Sangin, in northern Helmand province on 1 November. He died on Sunday, aged 20

Eilbheas left the building - empty handed

Crichton and Kidd - I think we scrub up nicely for writers

That's me in the penguin suit with Mairi Kidd, my glamorous co-writer, at the Scottish Baftas last night. Eilbheas, a Gaelic script we wrote for BBC Alba last year didn't win a Bafta in the TV drama category. Never mind, it was nice to be nominated and to finally meet Sean Macleod, my cousin, who played the part of Tonaidh in the film and many other old friends. We danced like crazy and caught the red eye shuttle back to work this morning.

There were lots of stars out at the Baftas but the best hand I grasped on the weekend was that of Malcolm Jones, the Runrig guitarist, who was playing a set in the Park Bar on Argyle Street when I pulled in for a pitstop pint with Capt. Bob on Saturday night. Slainte leat, Malcolm.

Gaffe-gate II - PM makes statement

Dowing Street, realising what a hash the morning lobby was, has rushed out a statement from the Prime Minister clarifying his apology to Mrs Jaqui Janes.

"Commenting on the letter he wrote to bereaved mother Jacqui Janes, Prime Minister Gordon Brown said:

“I take very seriously my responsibility to the bereaved. Every time I write a letter to mothers and fathers and partners who have suffered bereavement to express my sincere condolences, it is a moment of personal sadness to me. And I am in awe of the bravery and sacrifice of the men and women of our armed forces.

“I send a handwritten letter to every family and I often write to more than one member of the family.

“I have telephoned Jacqui Janes to apologise for any unintended mistake in the letter.
“To all other families whom I have written to, I can only apologise if my handwriting is difficult to read.

“I have at all times acted in good faith seeking to do the right thing. I do not think anyone will believe that I write letters with any intent to cause offence.”

Gaffe-gate and a car crash lobby briefing

The issue of the Prime Minister's gaffe-strewn letter to the mother of a young soldier killed in Afghanistan dominated a very lengthy lobby briefing this morning.

It all turned into a slow motion crash with questions over whether the Prime Minister had actually apologised to Mrs Janes (not Mrs James as he wrote) for making a mistake or simply said he was sorry that she had been upset.

It culminated, as you knew it would, in questions about the Prime Minister's eyesight and if he can accept that, like every other human being, he does make mistakes sometimes. The Prime Minister's Official Spokesman appeared reluctant to accept that his boss was capable of the latter.

Not a great start to the week for Downing Street, but there have been few of these of late. A wee glimmer of hope for Mr Brown in this morning's Herald poll showing Labour dominating in the Westminster vote ahead of this Thursday's by-election in Glasgow North East.

New book from Norman Campbell

My old mucker Norman Campbell, of Radio nan Gaidheal fame, has written another book, this one a biography of the Rev Archie Cook, the 19th century Free Church crusader.

"One of Heaven's Jewels" tells the story of the life and times of Cook and the 19th century Highland church. His preaching was preserved on many Highland bookshelves into the 20th century in copies of "Cook's Gaelic Sermons". This is the story behind the legend.

The pulpit and the congregation were driving forces of politics in the 1800s and the radical land reform movement helped tear the Presbyterian church apart. Cook was bang in the middle of that upheaval and this book gives you a flavour of the spiritualism and the politics of the age. You can buy it through the click-through below.

Cue drum roll, here's the plug:

A fearless minister who influenced wide areas of the Highlands and islands is the subject of a new book -- One of Heaven's Jewels -- published in aid of Bethesda Care Home and Hospice on Lewis.

Vast numbers of west coast fishermen and herring women heard him preach at the Gaelic services he set up in Wick in the 1820s and this helped bolster the new wave of evangelical ideas in places like Lewis and Skye. His brother Finlay was the first evangelical minister in the Church of Scotland in Cross in Lewis. People can still recall hearing anecdotes of preaching by Rev Archie Cook of Daviot or reading his Gaelic sermons. The original Free North church in Inverness was built for this Arran-born preacher who attracted thousands of hearers at communion seasons.

Cook would challenge landlords face to face about plans to evict individuals he knew and Cook fearlessly criticised the competitive tenancy where people were forced to bid against each other for the right to pay rent on crofts or farms. The losers in the process often had to leave the Highlands and author Norman Campbell suggests the clearances in Arran during Cook's childhood may have radicalised him.

One of Heaven's Jewels tells how Archie Cook's generation lived and worshiped. A warm-hearted mixture of community, social and church history, it describes a man of deep spiritual discernment who was loved for his ability to detect and encourage the least sign of genuine spiritual life, while also exposing hypocrisy. A man of action, he would tramp through deep snow to keep preaching .

It also tells of a time when preachers were the celebrities of their day and when the Scottish Gaelic culture was dominant from western and southern Caithness to the south of Arran in the Clyde estuary. Campbell also places the stirring events of these days in Scottish and British political and historical context. Some of the issues such as Patronage (where the landlords and councils and crown chose ministers up until the late nineteenth-century) went right to the heart of debates about freedom and state recognition of religions.

The first six chapters describe the revival-era atmosphere in Arran where Archie Cook grew up, as well as his three pastorates and the famous struggle by the Daviot people during the Ten Years' Conflict to call him as their minister. Several further chapters describe urban grass-roots evangelism in Inverness, the 1857-1861 revival movement in the Highlands, the Union controversy, the early Inverness career of the Rev Duncan Macbeth (now better known for his later Ness ministry), Cook's friendship with Rev Jonathan Ranken Anderson, communion seasons and the Separatist movement. The last two chapters discuss the possible influences that his mentor, the godly Dr John Love of Anderston, Glasgow, had on Cook's thought, and Cook's own emphases.

The paper-back sells at £19.99 pounds and all profits will go to the Bethesda Care Home and Hospice in Stornoway. One of Heaven's Jewels has 27 colour photos, several black and white pictures, 278 pages and reflects many year's worth of research by Norman Campbell. It is available in Borders Inverness, Roddy Smith's (Stornoway), the Blythswood book-shops in Dingwall and Stornoway, Harris Christian Bookshop (Tarbert) and on-line at the Bethesda Care Home web-site shop:

http://shop.bethesdahospice.co.uk/daviot/index.jsp