Annie Lennox to give talk at Holyrood

By Cara Sulieman

SCOTS rocker Annie Lennox will visit Holyrood this summer as part of the Festival of Politics – a year later than planned.

Lennox was due to give a talk at last year’s festival about her fight against HIV/Aids in Africa, but had to pull out because she had injured her back.

So she’s come back again this year to try again – speaking on the opening day about her work through her SING project and Nelson Mandela’s 46664 Foundation.

She joins other such as Australian-writer Germaine Greer, former MSP Dennis Canavan and one time Labour minister Clare Short MP on the line-up for the event, which runs from 18 August to 22 August.

Burke to get honorary degree from uni that banned him

By Cara Sulieman

SCOTTISH playwright Gregory Burke is to receive an honorary degree from his old university – despite being banned from the campus for battering another student.

The author of Black Watch was only allowed to visit Stirling University for lectures and to go to the library after attacking a man who looked at him “the wrong way.”

At the time, the fight caused outrage and led to calls for him to be expelled from the university all together.

But Burke left after two years of his politics and economics course and ended up working in a series of low-paid jobs before he started his writing career.