Barry Didcock

1 week ago | heraldscotland.com | Barry Didcock

Author Hazel McBride (Image: free) ‘Hic sunt dracones’ or ‘Here be dragons’ may have been a warning as far as medieval map-makers were concerned, but in the world of 21st century publishing it’s more like a USP – particularly if the novel in question fits into the romantasy genre, the book world’s hottest new hybrid creation. Of course fantasy, romance and dragons have long been happy bedfellows.

2 weeks ago | heraldscotland.com | Barry Didcock

You can almost taste the sweat from this Glasgow crowd at the Apollo at a Status Quo gig in 1986 (Image: BILL FLEMING) Mosh? Gosh no! Everyone thinks Glasgow audiences are the best in the world – but could they be wrong? Once upon a time it’s a question you would never have thought to ask. Not if you were even halfway versed in the city’s rock and roll lore.

3 weeks ago | heraldscotland.com | Barry Didcock

April is the cruellest month, at least as far as poet TS Eliot was concerned, but the one which follows in the calendar is just dandy for gardens and gardeners – which makes it the perfect time for an exhibition honouring both. But Garden Futures, opening at V&A Dundee this weekend, is far more than just a horticultural show in gallery form. The idea of the garden as idyll or sanctuary has deep roots in myriad human belief systems so that’s explored.

3 weeks ago | heraldscotland.com | Barry Didcock

There is a serious intent, though. His is a body of work whose aim is to challenge the idea that queerness is unnatural, and is inspired in part by the story of ‘gay’ penguins at Edinburgh Zoo. Those penguins aren’t alone in forming single sex bonds. Crabs do it. Giraffes do it. Even elephants do it.

3 weeks ago | heraldscotland.com | Barry Didcock

Colin Wilson in his studio (Image: free) The good things in life and the objects which symbolise and celebrate them are the subject of a new exhibition opening at The Lemond Gallery in Glasgow this weekend – though in terms of how they represent those good things, the two artists featured could not be more different. The art genre known as hyperrealism is the style preferred by Linlithgow-based painter Colin Wilson, a graduate of Duncan of Jordanstone’s Fine Art course.