1964 Edinburgh Settlement’s Bold Social Service Plans

Two ambitious and challenging proposals, involving large-scale community development at home and abroad, are now being considered by Edinburgh University Settlement. They could revolutionise the whole scope of social service in the Scottish Universities.

The first proposal is to set up a settlement for social service along Edinburgh lines at Baroda, in the state of Gujarat in India.  There the university is already taking part in a unique experiment by exporting a medical faculty to establish the same teaching techniques in medical education as are offered in Edinburgh with its illustrious tradition.

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Ragged Music: Edinburgh Fringe Festival August 2011

In July of 2011 Gary Boast and I were approached by Alex Dunedin from Ragged University to request help in coordinating a programme for the month of August at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival. Dunedin had procured two venues for the entire month and wanted someone with a musical background to help him in providing an organisational approach that gave the artists not just a platform to perform, but the assurance of support throughout the process.   The philosophical ideal of Ragged Music was very simple; inclusive approach, self-led development, and sharing knowledge within the music community.
Boast and I were based in Manchester and were not familiar with the venues we were working with in Edinburgh, nor had either of us attended the Edinburgh Fringe Festival before. Dunedin educated us on how the festival operated and expressed the importance of a stress-free experience for the artists as one of our primary goals. Boast’s role in the initial programming of the festival was invaluable – his methodical and practical experience as a drummer and sound engineer shaped the approach with which we planned the event. Read more…

The Manipulation and Distortion of The Stockmarket

What I look at in this article is how equitable the market place is for Futures and stock trading in commodities raising the question of how equal are the opportunities ?  The idea of protection feature strongly in economic discussions and can cover a multitude of sin from obstruction of data resulting in imperfect information to insider trading, to barriers created around the market place and red tape.  Understanding what manipulation and distortion happens in the marketplace is a critical issue if we are to understand the existing influences on the food prices. Read more…

Scholarly Politics and Human Foibles

This digest of Andrew Robinson’s work brings into view some vignettes which helpfully illustrate some aspects of scholarly politics and human foibles which are encountered in relation to discovery, knowledge and knowledge claims.  In addition to fanatical perseverance and devotion to detail and wide linguistic and cultural knowledge, the successful archaeological decipher has required a high order of intellectual power of analysis, the courage to follow his or her intuition rather than the conventional wisdom, and the luck to come along at the right moment, which generally was when sufficient examples of the script to be deciphered had become available and accessible.

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