SNAPSHOTS 01: Can you kayak? • Rolling stones • Remote control • No country • Injuns

Open Access Paddling • Kayaking has been growing dramatically in Scotland over the past 20 years. Unlike the rest of the UK, we benefit from generous open-access laws allowing us to paddle down a river or surf on a river wave. What’s more, it’s a sport that offers unrivalled views of the countryside, some of which—like gorges—can only be seen from a boat.

Yes, there are risks, but these can be minimized by careful participation in well-organized groups. With proper instruction, assessment of the hazards and use of the correct equipment, kayaking is a great way to do a lot of exercise—and the adrenalin rush means it’s
never boring!

There are suitable rivers all over the country, but some of the best include the Orchy, Tay, Leny, Spey, Etive, Tummel, Findhorn and Spean. You’ll never look at them in the same way again once you’ve gone down them
in a kayak!

For further information visit the Scottish Canoe Association website - Thomas Haywood

Rolling Stones • There are only 8 weeks left to see the Ronald Rae Sculpture Exhibition before it moves on from Edinburgh’s Holyrood Park. Catch these granite carvings of animals and people while you can! If you’ve already taken a look, why not go back and actually touch the pieces as well? This rare public display allows the kind of tactile interaction you’ll never get inside a gallery.

The centrepiece of this 18-month-long exhibition of extraordinary work is the “Lion of Scotland”, the artist’s largest-ever sculpture. It relates to Scotland and its future, and has already been adopted by many residents. All 36 schoolchildren from the village of Temple have even managed to climb on top of the Lion at the same time…

Rae’s smiling beast was carved from 20 tonnes of granite over the course of more than a year, and came Number 4 in a list of the “Best Public Artwork” published by The Scotsman. Holyrood has never hosted an exhibition of sculpture before, but the success of the show led to the appointment of an artist in residence.

Despite lucrative offers to buy the gigantic work, Rae wants to leave his work where it is. “It’s a magical site,” he says, “and people have taken this piece to their hearts. I feel that the ‘Lion of Scotland’ belongs to Edinburgh—to the people—not to me.”

The exhibition will move west to the Falkirk Wheel after 23 November, but many people, including Edinburgh Central MP Nigel Griffiths, want the “Lion of Scotland” to stay put, in the shadow of that other Scottish lion, Arthur’s Seat.

There has been cross-party political support for the cause. Margaret Smith, MSP for Edinburgh West, is running an online petition to find the Lion a permanent home at Holyrood.

One way or another, the sculpture that has captured the imaginations of young and old, public and politician alike is here to stay. The “Lion of Scotland” was carved from 460-million-year-old Corrennie granite, which is older than the rocks of the Salisbury Crags that loom over it. As Rae says about the Lion: “It’ll still be on this planet when the sun’s going out!”

For more details, go to www.ronaldrae.co.uk and www.margaretsmithmsp.com/campaigns/lion-of-scotland.php -Andrew J Wilson

Honest, Injuns • There’s nothing complicated about Injuns. For all the eclectic instrumentation and intricate arrangements on Lionel, It’s a Complicated World, the title belies the fact that this is an album dedicated to the art of whole-
hearted songwriting.

The sextet formed in Skye in 2003 before moving to Glasgow, bringing with them a refreshingly unfettered attitude to their music. Oblivious to zeitgeist and unbent by trends, Injuns have plundered the world’s songbook and crafted a simply wonderful collection of songs.

There’s only one word for that: honest. From the indie-rock chant of “IYO” to the lingering piano of “Caroline”—a song that sits easily beside Randy Newman’s tenderest ballads—the songs are allowed to be themselves. The spooky “Is Sheila Invited?” resembles the unacknowledged twin of Supertramp’s “Rudy” and the funk-stomp of “King Kong” joyously blends Herbie Hancock with the Red Hot Chili Peppers.
And like all the best albums, by the time you’ve heard it once, it no longer sounds like all the things you thought it did. It just sounds like Injuns. Honest.

Injuns play Blackfriars, Glasgow, as part of the Oxjam charity season on 18 October, and Hootananny, Inverness, on 26 October. For more information, go to www.injuns.co.uk -Neil J Williamson

No country for old men? • If you didn’t know better, the first question you’d ask on hearing about a novel called Old Men in Love is, “What happens on page 2?” But this is the new novel from Alasdair Gray, who’s not just the author of modern Scottish classic Lanark, but the sexually edgy 1982, Janine and Something Leather.

Old Men in Love is his first full-length novel since Poor Things, which won both the Guardian Fiction Prize and the Whitbread Novel Award in 1992, and as usual, Gray has illustrated and designed the book himself. The story is told using the posthumous papers of a retired Glaswegian schoolmaster called Tunnock, which were supposedly collated by the novelist himself. The teacher’s historical meditations and fictions are juxtaposed with stories of his sexual misadventures: expect literary fireworks.

In Ninety-Nine Novels: The Best in English since 1939—A Personal Choice, Anthony Burgess described Gray as “the greatest Scottish novelist since Sir Walter Scott”. Sadly, being dead, Sir Walter Scott is unavailable for comment, but it would provide a certain symmetry if he could have called Gray “the greatest British novelist since Anthony Burgess”. We’ll have to make do with something from Will Self’s introduction to Old Men in Love: “He’s the very best Alasdair Gray that we have, and we should cherish his works accordingly.” -AJW

Remote control • More than a quarter of a century after his death, the troubled ghost of Ian Curtis still haunts the British music scene. Now the story of Joy Division’s epileptic lead singer has been filmed as Control. Based on Touching from a Distance, a memoir by his widow, the film made a major impact at Cannes earlier this year.

The Independent may have called it “the coolest British movie of 2007”, but Control is directed by a Dutchman. Anton Corbijn, now one of the world’s leading photographers, rose to prominence when he left Holland in 1979 to shoot Joy Division on their home ground in Manchester. Corbijn maintained his association with the band by shooting a posthumous video for the re-release of their single “Atmosphere” in 1988. When the time came, he not only seized the chance to direct a feature about a subject that has always fascinated him, but came up with half the budget.

Corbijn has said that this is “a personal film, not a music film”, and Sam Riley’s performance has already been recognized as an uncanny embodiment of the suicidal Curtis. Shot in panoramic widescreen and black and white, Control captures the imagery and feelings Joy Division evoked with their bleak music.

Is this A Hard Day’s Night for the post-punk generation? - AJW