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1 month ago | 
glasgowbell.co.uk | Moya Lothian- McLean |Moya Lothian-McLean
Dear readers — a story from over the pond that you might have missed: two weeks ago, staff at venerated newspaper The Washington Post, woke up to an email from their owner, Amazon billionaire Jeff Bezos. “I’m writing to let you know about a change coming to our opinion pages,” the note began. That change, Bezos outlined, was about the topics he would allow to be published in the viewpoints section of the outlet, whose official slogan since 2017 has been ‘democracy dies in darkness’.
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2 months ago | 
glasgowbell.co.uk | Moya Lothian- McLean |Moya Lothian-McLean
A progress update. 4 min read | This post is for subscribers only Subscribe now Already have an account? Sign in This post is for subscribers only Subscribe Already have an account? Sign In Comments How to comment: If you are already a member, click here to sign in and leave a comment. If you aren't a member, sign up here to be able to leave a comment. To add your photo, click here to create a profile on Gravatar. A progress update.
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2 months ago | 
glasgowbell.co.uk | Moya Lothian- McLean |Moya Lothian-McLean
Dear readers — welcome to your Thursday edition of The Bell. We've got a profile for you today: Moya is off to a Shettleston cafe for a frank coffee date with Thomas Kerr, whose recent defection from the Conservatives makes him Reform UK's first politician to sit on Glasgow City Council. Reform's increasing foothold in Glasgow is one born out of rising wave of right-wing sentiment. We don't think that's controversial to say.
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Dec 10, 2024 | 
thechaff.substack.com | Moya Lothian- McLean
I watched Black Doves, Netflix’s splashy Christmas spy thriller, the other day. At the moment, neurons fried from end of year burn out, my cultural consumption habits tend towards the simplest of things. I’m lapping up slop the September version of me would be horrified by. Last week, I sat through a festive Lifetime movie about a woman who falls in love with a hot ghost haunting an inn she’s trying to sell. Thanks for reading The Chaff ! Subscribe for free to receive new posts and support my work.
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Nov 24, 2024 | 
glasgowbell.co.uk | Moya Lothian- McLean |Moya Lothian-McLean
“People don’t like information, they like stories”. This is a favoured refrain of our editor, Joshi. And it’s just as well. Because Glasgow loves stories. You’ve got your founding myths, like Saint Mungo and Saint Enoch, or the more recent urban legends like the Gorbals Vampire where Glasgow’s weans fought fog in the Southern Necropolis. There are stories which make us proud, like the Battle of Kenmure Street.
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Nov 23, 2024 | 
glasgowbell.co.uk | Moya Lothian- McLean |Moya Lothian-McLean
'The West End gets the money and the Southside gets the publicity' 12 min read | It’s 12.30am on a Friday morning, and instead of being tucked up warm in my double bed, I’m jockeying for a chair nearest the heaters in the City Chamber’s Banqueting Hall. Tonight, the grand space is a hive of activity. “Can all candidates and agents please gather by the screen closest to the mural side of the hall?” directs an official.
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Nov 22, 2024 | 
thechaff.substack.com | Moya Lothian- McLean
Sometimes, I wonder if I will ever fuck again. The majority of the time, this thought is submerged in the chilly waters of my deep subconscious. But when I have a snatched twenty minutes to lie flat on my back and remember myself as a sexual being, it’s right there, in flashing neon letters: ‘WHEN WILL I KNOW THE TOUCH OF ANOTHER?’A running joke my best friend and I have is the agony of being reminded what sex is like.
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Nov 13, 2024 | 
glasgowbell.co.uk | Moya Lothian- McLean |Moya Lothian-McLean
When Samantha Cooper first opened her shop on Glasgow’s ancient High Street, an old man stood in the doorway and shook his walking stick at her. “It’ll never work,” he said, disapprovingly. Nearly 30 years on, Samantha is still making it work – just about. She and her store, 23 Enigma, claim to be the city’s (and Scotland’s) oldest retail trader in the occult, although Samantha prefers the term ‘esoteric’. But she’s on the brink.
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Nov 6, 2024 | 
glasgowbell.co.uk | Moya Lothian- McLean |Moya Lothian-McLean
Two reputational details precede Govanhill bakery two eight seven: the queue and the review. Let’s start with the queue. It forms at weekends, as early as 8.40am. Hungry punters mill on the corner of Langside Road in suspense. “Nowhere else deals with queues quite like that, rain or shine,” says Kate, a curator and Southside bakery regular. At 9am, the blue sign hanging in the bakery’s steamed-up window flips from ‘closed’ to ‘open’.
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Nov 2, 2024 | 
thechaff.substack.com | Moya Lothian- McLean
One of my last dates in London – although I didn’t know that yet – I had a sudden moment of clarity as to just how jaded I’d become. It happened in the cramped bathroom of a South London pub, which I’d retired to moments earlier. I didn’t need the toilet; the move was a ruse that would allow me to return to my date – on whom I’d exhausted 50 minutes worth of conversation starters, to no avail – in a standing position.
