Kenny Farquharson

Edinburgh

Columnist with @thetimes in Scotland. Editor of The Jaggy Thistle substack. Orwell Fellow. I've been a puppet, a pauper, a pirate, a poet, a pawn and a king.

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Articles

Notebook #13: Photo North, The Hepworth, Scotland Forever

4 days ago | thejaggythistle.substack.com | Kenny Farquharson

To Yorkshire, for a couple of days of cultural wandering in a part of England of which I know very little. I intend to go exploring far and wide with my Jaggy Thistle notebook in hand over the coming months and years. The Jaggy Thistle on the road. First stop on my Yorkshire tour was Photo North, a photography festival in Leeds now in its sixth year. Held over three days with 15 exhibitions and a dozen events, it puts Scotland’s arts world to shame. Where is our version of Photo North?
Promoting Scotland at Tartan Week needed a united front

2 weeks ago | thetimes.com | Kenny Farquharson
Willie McRae: A conspiracy laid to rest

2 weeks ago | thejaggythistle.substack.com | Kenny Farquharson

Last month I was driving from Edinburgh to the Isle of Skye for a family holiday. As the road snaked around a bend on a particularly bleak stretch of the A87 I pointed out to my travelling companions a memorial cairn set back from the road. A small saltire on a stick fluttered above it. The cairn commemorates the death in 1985 of a Scottish National Party politician called Willie McRae. A chiselled plaque spells his name wrong.
Scotland's teachers are blocking an AI revolution in the classroom

3 weeks ago | thetimes.com | Kenny Farquharson
Jaggy Thistle shortlisted in 46th annual Scottish Press Awards

3 weeks ago | thejaggythistle.substack.com | Kenny Farquharson

Today the shortlists were announced for the 46th annual Scottish Press Awards, our nation’s pre-eminent celebration of great journalism. And what do you know, The Jaggy Thistle was one of the nominees. Well, you could have knocked me down with a feather. My journalism for The Jaggy Thistle was shortlisted in the Arts & Entertainment Writer of the Year category. The full list of nominees is here.
Police can settle Sheku Bayoh case but not our fears of racism

1 month ago | thetimes.com | Kenny Farquharson
Covid: An overdue reckoning

1 month ago | thejaggythistle.substack.com | Kenny Farquharson

Five years ago today the United Kingdom entered its first Covid lockdown. Five years? It feels like a lifetime ago. Yesterday, as I wandered down George Street in the heart of Edinburgh it seemed surreal to imagine the roads empty of cars and people, the shops shuttered, as they were that fateful spring. To remind myself what it felt like, I revisited my columns in The Times and checked an old diary. That month I was due to chair a big event in the ballroom of a luxury hotel.
I bought a self-help book, and it helped

1 month ago | thejaggythistle.substack.com | Kenny Farquharson

I used to be sniffy about self-help books. My view was simple: all you needed to know about life was already available in fiction, poetry, memoir and biography. The wisdom of the ages was already at your fingertips. What challenged this was two books. The first was a recommendation a few years ago from the elder of my two sons.
Reform UK's wolf is at the door

1 month ago | thetimes.com | Kenny Farquharson
Death to Strathclyde Regional Council!

1 month ago | thejaggythistle.substack.com | Kenny Farquharson

Regular readers of The Jaggy Thistle will be aware of my soft spot for Ian Hamilton Finlay, the poet, sculptor, gardener and iconoclast. In 2023 I wrote about Little Sparta, his artwork-spotted garden on a lonely Scottish hillside. That piece, which you can treat as a concise introduction to the man and his work, can be read here. A visit to Little Sparta should be on any art lover’s bucket list. But you no longer have to travel to the wilds of rural Lanarkshire to see Finlay’s best work.