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For the latest news from Scotland see our ScotNews feed at:
https://electricscotland.com/scotnews.htm
Electric Scotland News
I see the Brexit Party have now got over 100,000 members so they continue to gain momentum. Some concern now being shown by Labour voters so at this time both major parties are going down hill. Possible ramifications for the next general election both in Scotland and the UK seeing that a third of Scots voted to leave the EU.
-------
You can view a video introduction to this newsletter at:
Scottish News from this weeks newspapers
Note that this is a selection and more can be read in our ScotNews feed on our index page where we list news from the past 1-2 weeks. I am partly doing this to build an archive of modern news from and about Scotland as all the newsletters are archived and also indexed on Google and other search engines. I might also add that in newspapers such as the Guardian, Scotsman, Courier, etc. you will find many comments which can be just as interesting as the news story itself and of course you can also add your own comments if you wish.
The battle to save Scotland's forests from disease
When I first saw the impact this disease was having, it really almost reduced me to tears.
Read more at:
https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-scotland...tland-48205905
We need new broom to sweep away parliamentary elite
A new broom will need to sweep clean and that includes a clear-out of the senior civil servants and officials who have treated Brexit as a damage limitation exercise and sought to keep change to a minimum.
Read more at:
https://www.scotsman.com/news/opinio...eson-1-4923587
Brexit: Behind Closed Doors
Found the 2 part video on YouTube but you might need to view it soon as it may be taken down.
View this at:
http://www.electricscotland.org/show...8985#post18985
The dig uncovering Glencoe's dark secrets
Archaeology and history enthusiasts are being encouraged to dig deep into the massacre of Glencoe.
Read more at:
https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-scotland...lands-48230218
BBC is now the enemy, declares furious Farage after TV grilling
Nigel Farage has angrily accused the BBC of outrageous bias after he was repeatedly challenged in an interview about his past political views.
Read more at:
https://www.thetimes.co.uk/edition/n...ling-zrmf0bdv5
The case for true independence requires Scotland must vote for Brexit
The truth is the Scottish National Party likes to perpetuate the myth that it is the soul champion of the cause and when we as Brexiters start talking about independence for Britain they get nervous.
Read more at:
http://www.thinkscotland.org/thinkpo...ead_full=13921
10 of the best places to get fish and chips in Scotland
Golden batter, perfectly cooked cod, crispy chips and plenty of salt and vinegar - or sauce if you’re an east coaster - who doesn’t love a fish supper?
Read more at;
https://www.scotsman.com/lifestyle/1...land-1-4927118
Hundreds of concerns raised about Scottish charities
Scotland's charities have reported hundreds of serious concerns about their own organisations to regulators since 2016, it has emerged.
Read more at:
https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-scotland-48146943
Farage sets sight on European election and beyond
Brexit campaigner Nigel Farage is one of the few politicians in Britain enjoying this month’s elections to the European parliament. In fact, he’s relishing it.
Read more at;
https://uk.reuters.com/article/uk-eu...-idUKKCN1SM1F2
Electric Canadian
The Canadian Horticulturist
Volume 26 (1903) can be read at: https://www.electriccanadian.com/tra...culturirst.htm
Indian, Metis and Eskimo Leaders in Contemporary Canada
This collection of 15 biographies was prepared to illustrate, for classroom purposes, some of the well-known contemporary Indian, Eskimo, and Metis people in Canada today. (pdf)
You can read this at: https://www.electriccanadian.com/his...nicleaders.pdf
Toronto: A World in a City Ethnic Diversity of Toronto
Watch this video at; https://archive.org/details/youtube-qOmc_o4C4wM
Ethnic Canada
The 1986 Census of Canada provided, as did all the previous censuses, a rich source of information on individual, family and household characteristics of Canadian (pdf)
You can read this at: https://www.electriccanadian.com/his...hniccanada.pdf
The Doukhobors
Their History in Russia and Their Migration to Canada by Joseph Elkintons (1903) (pdf)
You can read this at: https://www.electriccanadian.com/his...nsincanada.pdf
The Hon. Alexander Mackenzie
His Life and Times by William Buckingham, Private Secretary and Hon. Geo. W. Ross, LL.D., Minister of Education, Ontario (Fifth Edition) (1892) (pdf). I got mixed up between MacKenzie the Prime Minister and MacKenzie the Explorer so have fixed the pages as well as adding this book about Mackenzie the Prime Minister which you can read at:
https://www.electriccanadian.com/mak...rmackenzie.pdf
Eskimos of Canada as a Minority Group
Social and Cultural Perspectives (1969) (pdf)
You can read this at: https://www.electriccanadian.com/his...st/eskimos.pdf
Delaware First Nations in Ontario near Chatham
Added an article from the Chatham Voice newspaper which you can read at:
https://www.electriccanadian.com/his...ware/index.htm
Transition from Italian:
The First Year by Mary Purbhoo & Stan Shapson (1974) (pdf) which can be read at:
https://www.electriccanadian.com/his...romItalian.pdf
Conrad Black
On Mark Norman case, heads should roll ... and not the junior ones
http://www.conradmblack.com/1477/on-...d-roll-and-not
The President of the United States called. I was being pardoned, at last
http://www.conradmblack.com/1478/the...s-called-i-was
Electric Scotland
Fallbrook Oral History
Done an update on this old project by getting up some more oral history videos. You can see them at;
https://electricscotland.com/history/canada/fallbrook_oral.htm
The Lake of Menteith
Its Islands and Vicinity with Historical Accounts of the Priory of Inchmahome and the Earkdom of Menteith by A. E. Hutchison, M.A. (pdf)
You can read this at: https://www.electricscotland.com/his...ofmenteith.pdf
The Life of a Regiment
The History of the Gordon Highlanders From its Formation in 1794 to 1816 by Lt.-Col. C. Greenhill Gardyne (1901) in 2 volumes up to 1900. Added links to the two volumes to the foot of our Gordon Highlanders page at:https://electricscotland.com/history...dons/index.htm
Beth's Newfangled Family Tree
Got in section 2 of the June 2019 issue which you can read at: https://electricscotland.com/bnft/index.htm
Brexit & IndyRef2
I did a video about my take on Brexit and IndyRef2 at the request of a reader that added a comment to my last newsletter.
You can view this at: http://www.electricscotland.org/show...e-Brexit-Party
History of the Camerons
With Genealogies of the Principal Families by Alexander Mackenzie and you can read this at:
https://electricscotland.com/webclan...heCamerons.pdf
Reminiscences of Childhood at Inverkeithing
Or Life of a Lazabetto by James Simson (1882) (pdf) which you can read at:
https://electricscotland.com/books/inverkeithing01.pdf
Memorial to the Late Dr. James Thomson
Assistant Surgeon to the Forty-Fourth Regiment (1857) (pdf) which you can read at;
https://electricscotland.com/history...mesThomson.pdf
The Autobiography and Diary of Mr James Melvill
Minister of Kilkenny, in Fife, and Professor of Theology in the University of St Andrews with a continuation of the Diary edited from Manuscipts in the libraries of the Faculty of Advocates and University of Edinburgh by Robert Pitcairn FSA Scot (1647) (pdf)
You can read this at: https://electricscotland.com/history/jamesmelville.pdf
The Last Baird Laird of Auchmedden and Strichen
The Case of Mr. Abington by John Malcolm Bulloch (1934) (pdf) which you can read at:
https://electricscotland.com/webclan...bairdlaird.pdf
The Story
This is a story from CapX which I fully endorse.
Is more gotcha journalism really what people want?
Two recent interviews demonstrated the differences between new and old media
Imagine that you happened to find yourself standing next to a famous politician, journalist or cultural commentator. What sort of question might you put to them?
Perhaps you’d ask them to elaborate on something that they’d said? Or if you were feeling particularly bold, you might even ask them to justify themselves?
Of course, few of us ever find ourselves in that situation. And if you did, you may well be too polite to put them on the spot.
This is why we have political interviewers to do the job for us; Andrew Marr or Sophie Ridge on Sunday mornings. Andrew Neil and others almost every other day of the week. The job of those that put questions of politicians for a living is to hold them to account on our behalf. The trouble is that the kind of questions political interviewers often put to public figures are all about trying to catch them out, rather than enlighten the rest of us as to what they believe and why.
Two programmes over the past few days have brought this problems of “gotcha” journalism to the fore. On Sunday, Andrew Marr had Nigel Farage in the hot seat. A few days before, Andrew Neil got to question American cultural commentator, Ben Shapiro.
Instead of asking questions that might enable viewers to come to a considered view about either person, Marr and Neil proceeded to fire a series of prepared questions at them clearly designed to try to wrong foot and embarrass.
“And a good thing too,” you might say. “The job of interviewers should be to put public figures on the spot”.
Absolutely. But the spot on which Marr and Neil tried to put their interviewees on was well wide of the mark.
If most ordinary people had a chance to put a question to Farage, I reckon it might be to do with the government’s handling of the Brexit negotiations or the state of our democracy. What did Marr decide to challenge Farage on instead? Things he might or might not believe about president Putin or gun control.
UK audiences might be unfamiliar with Shapiro, so one might have expected a series of questions that would enable him to inform the viewers a little about his world view – with follow up questions to challenge it. Instead, he was confronted with a tweet he had sent out in 2011.
Yes, Shapiro was guilty of losing his temper. But what does it say about his interlocutor that he set out to goad him?
Perhaps Marr and Neil thought that they were being clever and cunning by not asking the obvious. But what they did lead with sounded to me like one long effort to insinuate and smear.
That either man might have some opinions that aren’t mainstream among UK media circles is hardly interesting or surprising. It requires extraordinary self-absorption on the part of the BBC production team to imagine otherwise.
Each interview managed to say more about the outlook and preconceptions of those that work at the BBC than they did about those that they were supposed to be interviewing. This is just one of the reasons why audiences are increasingly tuning out of BBC current affairs output.
This matters because it’s about much more than poor interview technique or intellectually lazy journalism. What we witnessed is part of wider failure of the established media to come to terms with the process of digital disruption underway.
Both Farage and Shapiro are, in their different ways, part of a digital reformation that is transforming the way politics is done and opinions are formed. Farage appears to be on the verge of breaking open this country’s two-party cartel in politics. Shaprio and others are starting to redefine current affairs broadcasting in America.
Yet when they had these two extraordinary figures in their studios, what did the BBC try to do? They set out to try to make them look ridiculous.
I suspect that it is the disruptors that will have the last laugh.
Digital has democratised broadcast distribution, and allows ordinary people to own the means of media production. The priesthood of pundits working for the BBC and other broadcasters are losing their ability to decide what opinions get hear and what is and is not an acceptable point of view.
In America, a new wave of YouTube-based commentators like Shapiro are starting to attract weekly audiences that run into the millions. Young listeners are tuning out of radio and into podcasts. Perhaps most surprising of all given what we are often told about the short attention span of the young, programmes like the Ben Shapiro show are often long-form – allowing lengthy, in depth, and remarkably erudite discussions.
Unlike Marr or Neil, with their quick fire questions, full of innuendo and designed to wrong foot, these new online broadcasters sit in their studios have clearly made an effort to understand the person they are cross questioning. There’s an earnestness in the exchanges, and a clear appreciation of the fact that the audience wants to be enlightened, not been virtue signalled to.
It’s not only politics that’s in the process of being upended. Political punditry, too, is about to undergo a radical change for the better. Like all cartels, the established broadcasters don’t yet realise it. Like MPs, one day soon they will wake up to it.
And that's it for this week and hope you all have a great weekend.
Alastair
https://electricscotland.com/scotnews.htm
Electric Scotland News
I see the Brexit Party have now got over 100,000 members so they continue to gain momentum. Some concern now being shown by Labour voters so at this time both major parties are going down hill. Possible ramifications for the next general election both in Scotland and the UK seeing that a third of Scots voted to leave the EU.
-------
You can view a video introduction to this newsletter at:
Note that this is a selection and more can be read in our ScotNews feed on our index page where we list news from the past 1-2 weeks. I am partly doing this to build an archive of modern news from and about Scotland as all the newsletters are archived and also indexed on Google and other search engines. I might also add that in newspapers such as the Guardian, Scotsman, Courier, etc. you will find many comments which can be just as interesting as the news story itself and of course you can also add your own comments if you wish.
The battle to save Scotland's forests from disease
When I first saw the impact this disease was having, it really almost reduced me to tears.
Read more at:
https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-scotland...tland-48205905
We need new broom to sweep away parliamentary elite
A new broom will need to sweep clean and that includes a clear-out of the senior civil servants and officials who have treated Brexit as a damage limitation exercise and sought to keep change to a minimum.
Read more at:
https://www.scotsman.com/news/opinio...eson-1-4923587
Brexit: Behind Closed Doors
Found the 2 part video on YouTube but you might need to view it soon as it may be taken down.
View this at:
http://www.electricscotland.org/show...8985#post18985
The dig uncovering Glencoe's dark secrets
Archaeology and history enthusiasts are being encouraged to dig deep into the massacre of Glencoe.
Read more at:
https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-scotland...lands-48230218
BBC is now the enemy, declares furious Farage after TV grilling
Nigel Farage has angrily accused the BBC of outrageous bias after he was repeatedly challenged in an interview about his past political views.
Read more at:
https://www.thetimes.co.uk/edition/n...ling-zrmf0bdv5
The case for true independence requires Scotland must vote for Brexit
The truth is the Scottish National Party likes to perpetuate the myth that it is the soul champion of the cause and when we as Brexiters start talking about independence for Britain they get nervous.
Read more at:
http://www.thinkscotland.org/thinkpo...ead_full=13921
10 of the best places to get fish and chips in Scotland
Golden batter, perfectly cooked cod, crispy chips and plenty of salt and vinegar - or sauce if you’re an east coaster - who doesn’t love a fish supper?
Read more at;
https://www.scotsman.com/lifestyle/1...land-1-4927118
Hundreds of concerns raised about Scottish charities
Scotland's charities have reported hundreds of serious concerns about their own organisations to regulators since 2016, it has emerged.
Read more at:
https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-scotland-48146943
Farage sets sight on European election and beyond
Brexit campaigner Nigel Farage is one of the few politicians in Britain enjoying this month’s elections to the European parliament. In fact, he’s relishing it.
Read more at;
https://uk.reuters.com/article/uk-eu...-idUKKCN1SM1F2
Electric Canadian
The Canadian Horticulturist
Volume 26 (1903) can be read at: https://www.electriccanadian.com/tra...culturirst.htm
Indian, Metis and Eskimo Leaders in Contemporary Canada
This collection of 15 biographies was prepared to illustrate, for classroom purposes, some of the well-known contemporary Indian, Eskimo, and Metis people in Canada today. (pdf)
You can read this at: https://www.electriccanadian.com/his...nicleaders.pdf
Toronto: A World in a City Ethnic Diversity of Toronto
Watch this video at; https://archive.org/details/youtube-qOmc_o4C4wM
Ethnic Canada
The 1986 Census of Canada provided, as did all the previous censuses, a rich source of information on individual, family and household characteristics of Canadian (pdf)
You can read this at: https://www.electriccanadian.com/his...hniccanada.pdf
The Doukhobors
Their History in Russia and Their Migration to Canada by Joseph Elkintons (1903) (pdf)
You can read this at: https://www.electriccanadian.com/his...nsincanada.pdf
The Hon. Alexander Mackenzie
His Life and Times by William Buckingham, Private Secretary and Hon. Geo. W. Ross, LL.D., Minister of Education, Ontario (Fifth Edition) (1892) (pdf). I got mixed up between MacKenzie the Prime Minister and MacKenzie the Explorer so have fixed the pages as well as adding this book about Mackenzie the Prime Minister which you can read at:
https://www.electriccanadian.com/mak...rmackenzie.pdf
Eskimos of Canada as a Minority Group
Social and Cultural Perspectives (1969) (pdf)
You can read this at: https://www.electriccanadian.com/his...st/eskimos.pdf
Delaware First Nations in Ontario near Chatham
Added an article from the Chatham Voice newspaper which you can read at:
https://www.electriccanadian.com/his...ware/index.htm
Transition from Italian:
The First Year by Mary Purbhoo & Stan Shapson (1974) (pdf) which can be read at:
https://www.electriccanadian.com/his...romItalian.pdf
Conrad Black
On Mark Norman case, heads should roll ... and not the junior ones
http://www.conradmblack.com/1477/on-...d-roll-and-not
The President of the United States called. I was being pardoned, at last
http://www.conradmblack.com/1478/the...s-called-i-was
Electric Scotland
Fallbrook Oral History
Done an update on this old project by getting up some more oral history videos. You can see them at;
https://electricscotland.com/history/canada/fallbrook_oral.htm
The Lake of Menteith
Its Islands and Vicinity with Historical Accounts of the Priory of Inchmahome and the Earkdom of Menteith by A. E. Hutchison, M.A. (pdf)
You can read this at: https://www.electricscotland.com/his...ofmenteith.pdf
The Life of a Regiment
The History of the Gordon Highlanders From its Formation in 1794 to 1816 by Lt.-Col. C. Greenhill Gardyne (1901) in 2 volumes up to 1900. Added links to the two volumes to the foot of our Gordon Highlanders page at:https://electricscotland.com/history...dons/index.htm
Beth's Newfangled Family Tree
Got in section 2 of the June 2019 issue which you can read at: https://electricscotland.com/bnft/index.htm
Brexit & IndyRef2
I did a video about my take on Brexit and IndyRef2 at the request of a reader that added a comment to my last newsletter.
You can view this at: http://www.electricscotland.org/show...e-Brexit-Party
History of the Camerons
With Genealogies of the Principal Families by Alexander Mackenzie and you can read this at:
https://electricscotland.com/webclan...heCamerons.pdf
Reminiscences of Childhood at Inverkeithing
Or Life of a Lazabetto by James Simson (1882) (pdf) which you can read at:
https://electricscotland.com/books/inverkeithing01.pdf
Memorial to the Late Dr. James Thomson
Assistant Surgeon to the Forty-Fourth Regiment (1857) (pdf) which you can read at;
https://electricscotland.com/history...mesThomson.pdf
The Autobiography and Diary of Mr James Melvill
Minister of Kilkenny, in Fife, and Professor of Theology in the University of St Andrews with a continuation of the Diary edited from Manuscipts in the libraries of the Faculty of Advocates and University of Edinburgh by Robert Pitcairn FSA Scot (1647) (pdf)
You can read this at: https://electricscotland.com/history/jamesmelville.pdf
The Last Baird Laird of Auchmedden and Strichen
The Case of Mr. Abington by John Malcolm Bulloch (1934) (pdf) which you can read at:
https://electricscotland.com/webclan...bairdlaird.pdf
The Story
This is a story from CapX which I fully endorse.
Is more gotcha journalism really what people want?
Two recent interviews demonstrated the differences between new and old media
Imagine that you happened to find yourself standing next to a famous politician, journalist or cultural commentator. What sort of question might you put to them?
Perhaps you’d ask them to elaborate on something that they’d said? Or if you were feeling particularly bold, you might even ask them to justify themselves?
Of course, few of us ever find ourselves in that situation. And if you did, you may well be too polite to put them on the spot.
This is why we have political interviewers to do the job for us; Andrew Marr or Sophie Ridge on Sunday mornings. Andrew Neil and others almost every other day of the week. The job of those that put questions of politicians for a living is to hold them to account on our behalf. The trouble is that the kind of questions political interviewers often put to public figures are all about trying to catch them out, rather than enlighten the rest of us as to what they believe and why.
Two programmes over the past few days have brought this problems of “gotcha” journalism to the fore. On Sunday, Andrew Marr had Nigel Farage in the hot seat. A few days before, Andrew Neil got to question American cultural commentator, Ben Shapiro.
Instead of asking questions that might enable viewers to come to a considered view about either person, Marr and Neil proceeded to fire a series of prepared questions at them clearly designed to try to wrong foot and embarrass.
“And a good thing too,” you might say. “The job of interviewers should be to put public figures on the spot”.
Absolutely. But the spot on which Marr and Neil tried to put their interviewees on was well wide of the mark.
If most ordinary people had a chance to put a question to Farage, I reckon it might be to do with the government’s handling of the Brexit negotiations or the state of our democracy. What did Marr decide to challenge Farage on instead? Things he might or might not believe about president Putin or gun control.
UK audiences might be unfamiliar with Shapiro, so one might have expected a series of questions that would enable him to inform the viewers a little about his world view – with follow up questions to challenge it. Instead, he was confronted with a tweet he had sent out in 2011.
Yes, Shapiro was guilty of losing his temper. But what does it say about his interlocutor that he set out to goad him?
Perhaps Marr and Neil thought that they were being clever and cunning by not asking the obvious. But what they did lead with sounded to me like one long effort to insinuate and smear.
That either man might have some opinions that aren’t mainstream among UK media circles is hardly interesting or surprising. It requires extraordinary self-absorption on the part of the BBC production team to imagine otherwise.
Each interview managed to say more about the outlook and preconceptions of those that work at the BBC than they did about those that they were supposed to be interviewing. This is just one of the reasons why audiences are increasingly tuning out of BBC current affairs output.
This matters because it’s about much more than poor interview technique or intellectually lazy journalism. What we witnessed is part of wider failure of the established media to come to terms with the process of digital disruption underway.
Both Farage and Shapiro are, in their different ways, part of a digital reformation that is transforming the way politics is done and opinions are formed. Farage appears to be on the verge of breaking open this country’s two-party cartel in politics. Shaprio and others are starting to redefine current affairs broadcasting in America.
Yet when they had these two extraordinary figures in their studios, what did the BBC try to do? They set out to try to make them look ridiculous.
I suspect that it is the disruptors that will have the last laugh.
Digital has democratised broadcast distribution, and allows ordinary people to own the means of media production. The priesthood of pundits working for the BBC and other broadcasters are losing their ability to decide what opinions get hear and what is and is not an acceptable point of view.
In America, a new wave of YouTube-based commentators like Shapiro are starting to attract weekly audiences that run into the millions. Young listeners are tuning out of radio and into podcasts. Perhaps most surprising of all given what we are often told about the short attention span of the young, programmes like the Ben Shapiro show are often long-form – allowing lengthy, in depth, and remarkably erudite discussions.
Unlike Marr or Neil, with their quick fire questions, full of innuendo and designed to wrong foot, these new online broadcasters sit in their studios have clearly made an effort to understand the person they are cross questioning. There’s an earnestness in the exchanges, and a clear appreciation of the fact that the audience wants to be enlightened, not been virtue signalled to.
It’s not only politics that’s in the process of being upended. Political punditry, too, is about to undergo a radical change for the better. Like all cartels, the established broadcasters don’t yet realise it. Like MPs, one day soon they will wake up to it.
And that's it for this week and hope you all have a great weekend.
Alastair