Talking migration, foreigners, racism

I’m a migrant. I left my native Scotland at 18 and haven’t lived there since. Having moved between a few different countries for study and work I now live in rural southwest France. I’ve been here for 12 years and counting. The experiences of all that moving has both exposed me to many foreigners and […]

Book reading benefits

Fraudcast News has been out and about for three years now, making its way into the world without the benefits of a conventional publishing push behind. Without me exactly knowing how – the free PDF has been downloaded more than 10,000 times now and I’ve managed to sell a few hundred paperback copies both online […]

Media bias against Scottish independence laid bare

Yet another example of why Twitter is a hugely useful source of information. @DrDavidPatrick turns up as a follower of my @PatrickChalmers account – so I take a look at his profile. Up pops his excellent short film cataloguing and analysing the media coverage – sorry bias – of a year’s worth of newspaper coverage […]

Farage: good in parts, awful in others

Good comment piece in today’s Guardian newspaper. Couldn’t help wading into the comments section as per the following: A more positive interpretation would be that the ineffectual attempts to destroy Ukip show the growing fragility of the carefully crafted management of what is sometimes called “the national conversation”. It suggests that in the future, there […]

Comment faire face au fascisme?

Yannis Youlountas parle de son film “Ne vivons plus comme des esclaves” – un documentaire qui fait le tour des actions, des journaux alternatifs, des radios rebelles et lieux d’occupation et d’autogestion qui se multiplient dans une Grèce en crise. Pourquoi une mise en ligne gratuite? Youlountas souhaite que l’accès gratuit au film participera à […]

Résistances – not your average documentary film festival

Frenchman François Manceaux, director of a documentary on the financial crisis in Portugal, explains what makes the annual Résistances film festival unique among its peers. By placing questions of money and marketing behind overall content and coherence, the organisers produce an event that makes people think deeply about the realities of modern-day politics. Manceaux’s film […]

Ireland Yes, Ireland No – is that really the only option?

(Photo by the Blue-haired lawyer) Irish voters have a chance to vote between paying more or less for their public debt today, according to their Prime Minister Enda Kenny. Put that way, I can imagine the temptation to vote “yes”. It’s a pretty rubbish choice. That Irish citizens have a formal right to express their […]