Aidan Smith

Aug 12, 2024 | scotsman.com | Aidan Smith

This is supposed to be a country where nothing works any more, where remedies and solutions are platitudinously promised but always take too long to come into effect, indeed often never do. Well, tell that to those who laid siege to asylum seekers’ hotels or lobbed bricks at police or looted sausage rolls from shops – and especially the culprits banged up at breathtaking speed. But one of Starmer’s predecessors doesn’t agree. Can you guess which? That’s right, Boris Johnson.

Aug 5, 2024 | scotsman.com | Aidan Smith

‘Kemi means drama,’ says one Conservative insiderJust about every stand-up comedian in Edinburgh right now must be cursing the Conservative government for that surprise election call – with the inevitable thrashing at the polls rendering some of their best gags out of date. But hang on. Funsters, all hope may not be lost. The Tories, even in these dark days of opposition, are still the party which keeps on giving.

Aug 3, 2024 | scotsman.com | Aidan Smith

Tennis, it’s obvious, has lost more than simply a wonderful champion. It was, looking back, the beginning of the end for Andy Murray. At the peak of his powers in 2017, here suddenly was the first intimation of mortality, beaten not so much by his opponent but by injury. Bent double in pain and forced to use his racket as a crutch, he resembled a sad, hunched figure from a Lowry painting. It made for an unforgettable - and crushing - image.

Jul 24, 2024 | scotsman.com | Aidan Smith

Apple TV+’s reboot of Terry Gilliam’s Time Bandits is a delight, while Covid-inspired The Decameron has fun at the expense of the entitlement and inanities of rich folkTime Bandits Apple TV+ ****The Decameron Netflix ***McDonald and Dodds (ITV1) ***Piglets (ITV1) ***There’s a brilliant moment at the start of Time Bandits which seems to encapsulate family life and how it’s lived now. An 11-year-old boy is being mildly reprimanded by his father who says: “What good’s history to anyone?

Jul 15, 2024 | scotsman.com | Aidan Smith

Police are getting younger, at least in this crime drama There she is in The Jetty, in bed, but unable to sleep. Now, when you and I suffer from insomnia we end up looking a right mess. But the locks are still lustrous and perfectly arranged on the pillow, suggesting its owner never suffers from a bad hair day or indeed night. Jenna Coleman is the star of this new policer. Nothing wrong with her acting, but is she too youthfully attractive for the role? She’s 38 but, with girlish dimples intact.