Irvine Welsh hosts special screening for charity

By Amanda MacMillan

BEST-selling author Irvine Welsh is hosting a special screening of his famous first novel to help raise funds for a Scottish charity and to get people in the mood for his new book.

The showing of Trainspotting is taking place tonight (Wednesday) at the Dominion Cinema in Edinburgh in aid of charity Scottish Love in Action (SLA).

The audience will also have the opportunity to pose questions to the Edinburgh-born author as well as the chance to be named in his new book, Skagboys, the prequel to Trainspotting which will be released in April 2012.

All proceeds from the competition and screening will go to SLA.

Irvine Welsh says UK stage full of “pansies and nutjobs”

By Rory Reynolds

IRVINE Welsh has revealed he has turned his back on British theatre because it is dominated by “pansies and nutjobs”.

The author and playwright said he is fed up of the UK stage being dominated by “crap” and “full of tortured ponces”.

The Edinburgh-born writer, best known for his novel Trainspotting and the film version that followed, is believed to have been unhappy with criticism of his plays when he made the comments to ABC Australia.

He said: “It’s one of these horrible frustrations in life, I really love theatre, to me it’s like watching a live band playing as opposed to listening to a record.”

“The horrible thing is that in Britain theatre is just crap, it’s full of pansies and nutjobs.

Irvine Welsh success means he can buy home for mum

By Rory Reynolds

TOP Scots author Irvine Welsh has revealed that his dream of being able to buy a home for his mum came true after the success of Trainspotting.

The 51-year-old offered his beloved mum Jean a house anywhere she wanted, to be paid for by the multi-million pound fortune that came after the success of his gritty Scots novels.

But his mum, a former waitress, insisted on staying in the home where she and her late husband Peter lived in Edinburgh.

So the best-selling author forked out £19,000 to purchase the modest house from Edinburgh City Council for his hard-working mum.

His mum and dad had moved there after bringing Irvine up in Muirhouse, West Pilton and, most famously, Leith – the setting for most of his novels.

Infamous Scots casual claims violence is good for game

By Rory Reynolds

ONE of Scotland’s most violent football casuals has claimed that his thuggish behaviour has been good for the game.

Andy Blance – who has served jail time for a horrific axe attack – reckons that the streets are safer on match-days because hooligans’ violence attracted more attention from cops.

The 42-year-old, a former leader of the infamous Capital City Service gang, claims police should spend more time hunting other offenders than dealing with hooligans.

And, he said, officers ENJOY the running battles they have to police because they see it as a game.

Last night the Association of Chief Police Officers Scotland (ACPOS) reacted angrily to the claims, slamming Blance’s comments as “ludicrous”.

Rise in Scottish drug deaths blamed on Trainspotting generation

By Cara Sulieman

A MASSIVE hike in the number of drugs related deaths across Scotland is being blamed on the nation’s Trainspotting generation – addicts who began shooting up in the 80’s.

Shock new figures showed a rise of people in their late 30s to early 40s – mostly men – dying from the effects of years of drug use and a lack of support services for their age group.

In all drug deaths rose 26 per cent to 576.

As with previous years, the vast majority of drug users dying are men – an overwhelming 80 per cent.

Celebs back new Leith campaign

By ALEXANDER LAWRIE

SCOTTISH celebrities including The Proclaimers, award-winning author Irvine Welsh and former-world champion boxer Ken Buchanan have joined a campaign to boost trade hit by Edinburgh’s controversial tram works.

Famous Leither, and millionaire businessman, Sir Tom Farmer has also joined the battle to help beleagured shopkeepers as the tram works threatens to destroy their livelihoods.

The stars have all agreed to help out the businesses on the capital’s Leith Walk by appearing on huge ‘I Love Leith’ banners.

Images of Hibernian’s ‘Famous Five’ forward line and the Royal Yacht Britannia have also been put up along the historic port’s main shopping street.

Ewan McGregor takes on the Twits

By Alexander Lawrie

FURIOUS Ewan McGregor is threatening to “take action” over an imposter conning thousands of internet users on a popular social networking site.

A cyber faker using Twitter has been passing himself off as the Trainspotting star and nearly 20,000 fans have been duped by the online chats.

Updates about the ‘actor’s personal life’ have appeared regularly on the site over the last few weeks.

But the Scots hunk has failed to see the funny side of the prank and is now threatening legal action against the site.

McGregor’s doppelganger has amassed an amazing 17,323 fans since becoming active on the site last year.

And the banal postings include messages claiming the Star Wars hunk is “about to enjoy banana pancakes” and is having “a lazy day”.

The site also includes a link to another fake McGregor site on MySpace, which contains personal photographs of the Crieff-born stars friends and family.

The movie star is famous for being steadfastly protective of his personal life.

Lorna Robertson, a Stirling University student, admitted she was “very disappointed” at finding out the Twitter account is a fake.

She said: “I received what I genuinely believed to be an email from Ewan McGregor. It wasn’t long – he just thanked me for complimenting his acting skills.

“It was very uplifting to think he could have been bothered to send me a reply. Itv really cheered me up but to find out it was a hoax is very disappointing.”

The new Twitter website allows users to post messages of up to only 140 characters.

Celebs such as John Cleese, Jonathan Ross and Stephen Fry are keen fans of the site.

Yesterday, a spokesperson for the Star Wars actor admitted the McGregor site was a fake.

He said: “Ewan does not have a Twitter site – they have just made it up. People monitor his movements and then copy them down and put on their own comment as well.

“He has never had a MySpace site either. At the moment, we are looking into taking action with Twitter to have this removed.”

‘Trainspotting’ creator wants sequel

By Michael MacLeod,

A SEQUEL to Trainspotting WILL happen, according to the man who wrote the original film.

Irvine Welsh has revealed he’s itching to resurrect the lives of Scotland’s favourite rave-loving junkie pals Renton, Sick Boy and Begbie.

The writer plans to turn his novel ‘Porno’ into a follow-up of the iconic 1996 Scottish when he meets up with its producer and script-writer in spring.

There were worries Ewan McGregor, who played junkie Renton in the original, wouldn’t take part unless the storyline made him the star, while director Danny Boyle said he thought the actors had become too clean-cut.

But Welsh insisted in a weekend interview that he will make it happen by writing “the killer script.”

He’s meeting Trainspotting’s producer Andrew Macdonald and scriptwriter John Hodge to work on part-two.

He said: “Andrew, John and myself are going to make Trainspotting 2 happen.

“We’ve agreed to go away in the spring and sit down for a couple of days to knock out a screenplay.

“The idea is we’ll get a good screenplay and pass that onto Trainspotting director Danny Boyle, and if he likes it we’ll look at ways to raise money to get the actors on board.”

The original film followed the lives of a group of Edinburgh heroin addicts and became an instant hit when it was released in 1996.

Many of the stellar cast, which included Jonny Lee Miller, Robert Carlyle and Kelly Macdonald, went on to carve out a successful film careers.

After the film’s surprise success, Macdonald and Boyle went on to produce a string of films together, including The Beach and 28 Days Later, while McGregor became a superstar even before his central role in Star Wars.

But McGregor will take some convincing to agree to act as Renton again, after slating the Porno novel in an outburst in 2007.

He said: “I would be loath to do anything that would damage Trainspotting.

“I love it too much to make a poor sequel and I didn’t think the follow-up to the book was that good.”

Further doubt was cast on a sequel in November when film maker Danny Boyle said the actors had become too dapper in their millionaire lifestyles to play drug addicts.

He’s worried the original actors won’t look convincing as rave-loving junkies anymore.

He said: “They’re in the sauna on the weekend, they’re moisturising and they do look very well kept, so it wouldn’t work at the moment.

“You’d have to do so much make up and stuff to change them enough.”

But Welsh is refusing to give up hope, saying he’s willing to rise to McGregor’s diva-demands and give him a bigger role.

He said: “I was surprised Ewan had a bit of a go.

“The problem for him is that there is no real role for Renton in it; that was something he expressed to me.

“If it was going to appeal to Ewan we’d have to rectify that in the screenplay and give Renton a more substantial role – and I don’t think we’d want to do a film sequel without Ewan.

“If we get a killer script then the actors will like it. If we don’t, then they won’t.”