Broadcaster Jon Snow to give lecture at Scots university

By Cara Sulieman

BROADCASTER Jon Snow is coming to Scotland as part of a series of lectures at a top Scots university.

The Channel 4 news presenter will talk to his audience about the changing face of journalism.

It is part of a programme of free talks run by the University of Edinburgh focusing on the way the world is changing.

Our Changing World will see a broad range of topics covered by some of the world’s top experts.

Continue reading

Reality TV comes to quiet Fife village

By Cara Sulieman

A QUIET coastal village has been shortlisted as the setting for a new reality TV show, leaving residents worried that they will be manipulated to make good television.

Aberdour has been earmarked as the potential location for a new Channel 4 programme following four couples who are fighting to win a house in the picturesque village.

The 2,000 current residents would vote for the winning couple after they’ve lived there for eight weeks.

But villagers now say that they were initially told it the production company wanted to film a documentary – and that they knew nothing about the reality aspect.

Continue reading

Group petition for law to stop future Brandon Muir cases

By Cara Sulieman

A GROUP set up in memory of Brandon Muir are to have their child protection petition heard before a committee of the Scottish Parliament.

Calling on the government to set up a Safe Guardian scheme, they hope that children who are suffering from suspected abuse can stay with a safe family member while social services investigate.

RealJustice4Brandon claim that Brandon’s life might have been saved if he had been able to stay with his grandparents instead of returning to his mother’s house.

The tragic tot from Dundee died from a ruptured intestine just hours after his mother’s boyfriend, Robert Cunningham, assaulted him.

Allan Petrie from the campaign group hopes that the petition – which will be heard by the Public Petitions Committee on December 1 – will bring in a law to help protect Scotland’s children.

Continue reading

BAFTA winning director looking for actors

film4

 

By Cara Sulieman

BAFTA award winning director Kevin MacDonald has started filming his next Holywood epic in the north of Scotland – and are searching for locals to help star as extras.

The Eagle of the Ninth is based on a children’s book about the defeat of the Roman army in Scotland in 140 AD.

Big names such as Jamie Bell and Donald Sutherland star in the movie, which will also be filmed in Hungary.

MacDonald is teaming up with scriptwriter Jeremy Brock for the project after their success with the 2006 hit The Last King of Scotland which saw Forest Whitaker win best actor at the Oscars.

Continue reading

Rhona Cameron watched as friend tried to kill themselves

By Cara Sulieman

TOP Scots comic Rhona Cameron has admitted she once sank methadone after befriending a drug addict and watched in a hazy stupor as fire-fighters stopped her pal throwing herself off a window ledge.

And she told that after making it big on the UK comedy circuit she now often wonders what became of her heroin addict ex flat-mate or if she has even survived.

As an aspiring young entertainer Cameron moved to London in 1990 and after weeks spent sleeping on floors of friends, finally moved into a bedsit in the city’s trendy Notting Hill.

Methadone stupor

It was there that she made friends with the drug addict, identified by Cameron only as Laura, and watched through a methadone stupor as the fire brigade carried out their rescue.

She confessed: “Shortly after moving in, I befriended the resident heroin addict, Laura. This was a bad idea.

“I used to hang out with her and her boyfriend. I remember on one evening after we’d been drinking an enormous amount of rum, I had a taste of her methadone.

“Things went a little hazy after that.

“Suddenly, we were in my room and the fire brigade has been called. They had to break down the door because Laura was threatening to jump off the window ledge.

“I often think of Laura and wonder if she’s still alive. It seems unlikely.”

“Not the way to live”

However Cameron said it still took another five years for her to move out, long after she was successful enough to afford a better home.

She said: “It’s all very well to live that way for a while, but it’s not the way to live for ever.

“There was nothing normal about my life back then – it was disturbing and it was amusing, but there was no in between.”

Cameron’s big break came in 1992 when she won the covered ‘So You Think You’re Funny Award’ from Channel 4.

Have I Got News for You

A decade of sell-out shows at the Edinburgh fringe, UK tours and frequent TV appearances on the likes of Have I Got News For You and Never Mind the Buzzcocks followed.

She even landed her on shows hosting four series of the BBC’s Gaytime TV and her first BBC sitcome, Rhona, in 2000 and had her first book, Naked Drinking Club, published in 2007.

Cameron is currently touring Scotland with her stand up show.