Mr Snax and the Cheese Man

Mr Snax talks to dairy farmer Callum Clark and samples some fine Scottish cheeses at this years Royal Highland Show in Edinburgh.

Video: Mr Snax meets Wendy Barrie

Mr Snax meets Scottish Food guide director, Wendy Barrie, to discuss Scottish local produce at at this years Royal Highland show.

Caledonian Mercury team up with Scotland on Facebook

The Caledonian Mercury has teamed up with the creators of Scotland’s largest Facebook page, called simply Scotland.
As a result selected Caley Merc headlines will appear on their wall.
The page was created to bring together Scots everywhere and those interested in Scotland. The team also created scotlandspub.com as a place to publicise community events.
We are delighted [...]

Video: Mister Snax at the Royal Highland Show

Mr Snax talks to BBC Radio Scotland’s Janice Forsyth at this year’s Royal Highland Show at Ingliston in Edinburgh.

Alan Ruddock: an appreciation

Alan Ruddock, editor of the Scotsman between 1998 and 2000, died yesterday. He was 49, with a wife and three children.
It seems somehow appropriate that Alan Ruddock left this life while playing cricket. It is a game that reflects much of his gentlemanly character. In a profession crammed with fevered egos and knee-jerk judgments, [...]

Election update: a tale of two countries

4am
On a night when little is clear, it is stark how very different Scotland is politically from our southern neighbour.
We seem to be heading for a hung parliament. Despite a 6.5% swing from Labour to the Tories in England, David Cameron does not appear to be winning the target seats he needs.
In Scotland, no seats [...]

Bloggers panel: verdict on the campaign

We asked our panel of political bloggers to give their verdict on the election campaign. Here’s what they had to say.
Yapping Yousuf
Every campaign is run on two levels. On the one hand there is the battle of the airwaves that we all know about and see on television and in newspapers and truth be told [...]

Online focus group: TV debates affect how one in eight vote

ur first online focus group suggested a trend from Labour voters to SNP. (Although, as our survey was filled in by a self-selecting group, there is a large health warning on that.)
As with the first survey, the second, filled in by 497 people since the weekend, showed a considerable preference for the SNP. Again, within [...]

Take part in our pre-election focus group

Following on from our last online focus group, which showed a shift from Labour to the SNP among some voters, we are carrying out a second survey in advance of the election. We want to see how attitudes have changed over the course of the campaign. (Click here to take the survey).
This is not an [...]

Bloggers panel: verdict on the leaders’ debate

The Caledonian Mercuy asked some of Scotland’s leading political bloggers to give their verdict on last night’s televised election debate. Here’s what they had to say.
Two Doctors
The debate ahead of the debates covered two issues: who should they include, and would they even happen? The SNP and Plaid argued hard to be on, and it [...]

Online focus group shows shift from Labour to SNP

ore than 730 people have taken part in the Caledonian Mercury’s online focus group. As we move closer to polling day we’ll come back and ask how opinions have changed.
A word of warning, this is not an opinion poll as it is a self-selecting group. The real value in these focus groups lies in seeing [...]

The Caledonian Mercury/Jura ‘comment of the week’ prize

I am proud to announce this week’s winner of the Caledonian Mercury “comment of the week” award. This week it goes to Sean Allan for this nostalgic view of record shops:

Record Shops, real record shops, are possibly the only thing I love visiting more than football stadia (and yes, that includes pubs and Indian restaurants.)
In [...]

The Caledonian Mercury/Jura ‘comment of the week’ prize

I am proud to announce this week’s winner of the Caledonian Mercury “comment of the week” award. Last weekend’s Useful Scots word, perjink,  brought this response from Anither Rab, who obviously enjoys our regular column and who receives the bottle of Jura…
Hou can we imagine the thochts that wis gaun throu the heids o oor [...]

When time finally ran out for Jack Bauer

If you concede that every TV drama, as with every football manager, has a shelf-life (with Manchester’s Coronation Street and London’s EastEnders representing Sir Alex Ferguson and Arsene Wenger as being the exceptions that prove the rule), then eight years of 24 isn’t a bad run.
The number is quite apt really. Even the best [...]

The Caledonian Mercury/Jura ‘comment of the week’ prize

I am proud to announce this week’s winner of the Caledonian Mercury “comment of the week” award. It’s not often someone tells Dave Hewitt something he didn’t not know about Scotland’s hills, so the bottle of Jura goes to Neil R for this:
Took a while, but here you go: SMT guide to rock and ice [...]

The Caledonian Mercury/Jura ‘comment of the week’ prize

I am proud to announce this week’s winner of the Caledonian Mercury “comment of the week” award. The bottle of Jura goes to Linda for her contribution on how the Scots word “minging” entered English usage:

Linda
Both ‘mingin’ and ‘manky’ were in common usage in Manchester some 30 (ouch!) years ago. ‘Mingin’ then still carried the notion [...]

The Caledonian Mercury/Jura ‘comment of the week’ prize

I am proud to announce this week’s winner of the Caledonian Mercury “comment of the week” award. The bottle of Jura goes to Wee Willie Bee for making us laugh with his comment on a piece about why men forget things:

Wee Willie Bee
“Men performed significantly more poorly in the verbal memory tests, particularly on the [...]

Microsoft smartphone aims squarely at Apple

Not since William Tell put away his crossbow has anybody taken such careful aim at an Apple. In Las Vegas Microsoft revealed a smartphone strategy to developers which will see its “Windows Phone 7 Series” compete head on with the iPhone.
The change needed to happen. Unlike Apple which developed the iPhone almost from scratch, Microsoft’s [...]

This week’s winner of the Caledonian Mercury ‘comment of the week’

I am proud to announce this week’s winner of the Caledonian Mercury “comment of the week” award. The bottle of Jura goes to Soosider for this thoughtful response to Gordon Brown’s evidence to the Chilcot Inquiry:
Soosider
It is interesting how perceptions change. I was at the time undecided about the rights or wrongs about going to [...]

This week’s winner of the Caledonian Mercury ‘comment of the week’

I am proud to announce this week’s winner of the Caledonian Mercury “comment of the week” award. It goes to Diabloandco for this insight into how opinion polling works. Or doesn’t…
Diabloandco
I registered with yougov last year and have never been asked anything other than what electrical equipment/mobile phone/computer I had .
I de registered myself last [...]

Join the Caledonian Mercury online focus group

oday we launch The Caledonian Mercury’s online focus group – an ambitious attempt to discern the shifts in Scottish public opinion as the UK General Election nears.
The focus group will work by readers completing a number of short surveys during the election campaign, starting with this one to provide a benchmark.
This is not an opinion [...]

This week’s winner of the Caledonian Mercury/Jura ‘Comment of the Week’ award

I am proud to announce this week’s winner of the Caledonian Mercury “comment of the week” award. Very hard to judge this week. We had an enoyably lively stramash on the politics pages which led to some worthy contenders. However, Keith Roberts’s reverie about the splendour of Iona damn near had us on the next [...]

Winner of the Caledonian Mercury/Jura ‘Comment of the Week’ award

I am proud to announce this week’s winner of the Caledonian Mercury “comment of the week” award.
We were impressed with Disillusioned’s trenchant attack on some aspects of Scottish politics in response to Robert McNeil’s latest sketch.
disillusioned:
While these pygmies play politics with people’s lives for their own political gain.
We the public can only look on in [...]

Utterly Biased View: A warm welcome to Jim Jefferies

Introducing the Utterly Biased View, a column by Stewart Kirkpatrick writing as an individual – not as Editor of the Caledonian Mercury. Any opinions expressed here are not those of the paper – and probably not his either.
(A Hearts fan has written a response to this piece, which you can read here.)
Break open the bubbly [...]

Diary: Boyack looking for a move too?

Nigel Griffiths is going from Edinburgh South. It is potentially a good Labour seat. Might it attract someone like Edinburgh Central MSP Sarah Boyack to stand in his place?
Ms Boyack has been a loyal servant of Labour in the Scottish Parliament but, like Wendy Alexander, she is going to find her constituency a tough one [...]

Welcome to the Caledonian Mercury

Ne quid false dicere audeas, ne quid veri non
We are proud to welcome you to the Caledonian Mercury, Scotland’s first truly online newspaper. The Mercurius Caledonius was Scotland’s first print newspaper, founded in 1660 by Thomas Sydserf. We have revived its historic title because we lay claim to the great Scottish tradition of journalistic innovation.
We [...]

Diary: Labour spinner’s FoI blushes

There was one particular red face over at Labour headquarters in the Scottish Parliament yesterday. Something in the past of Andrew McFadyen, a keen young press officer, came back to haunt him.
Jack Straw, the UK Justice Secretary, has been getting pelters for knocking back a freedom of information demand that he release sensitive Cabinet papers [...]