Kenneth Roy
Scotland’s
man for
all seasons
The Cafe
Caring for the old
Alison Prince
Despite Ian Hamilton,
the English language
still works
Arthur Bell
In praise of Ian Hamilton
R D Kernohan
Let’s just get on
with (that coalition)
government
The Cafe 2
John McDonald
Christopher Harvie
Routes to
freedom:
2. The politics
Alan Fisher
The tourists desert Egypt
Jill Stephenson
I don’t know who
he is, but Ryan Giggs
deserved his privacy
Rear Window
Arnold Kemp on John Knox
26.05.11
No. 409
Rear Window
An exhibition of John Bellany’s works in Cork Street, Mayfair. The artist and Helen, his wife, are surrounded by friends and admirers. The work is mainstream Bellany, full of disturbing and powerful symbolism, but I suspect the artist’s own personal development is taking him in the direction of less complicated, though no less accomplished, townscapes and landscapes.
The previous week, while preparing an article for the Observer, I had an interesting conversation with Bellany about John Knox. The brooding figure of the great reformer has had a powerful influence on Bellany and his work. As a youth, in Eyemouth and Port Seton, he was thoroughly peppered with hellfire preaching, and Knox continues to haunt him.
Knox has become topical because the Scottish Parliament’s temporary home will be the Assembly Hall: its entrance is dominated by his statue. I am canvassing opinion on the question of whether Knox, marginalised by secular Scotland these last 20 years or so, and vilified for expunging the artistic and bohemian impulses from Scottish life, should be rehabilitated.
Bellany agrees that he should, though there are parts of Knox that remain rebarbative, for example his dogmatism and his prohibition of graven images. But his belief in universal education and the welfare of the poor still have much force and relevance. Like me, Bellany believes Knox has been traduced by history, which has hung round his shoulders the attitudes of later Protestant extremists who outlawed theatre and music. And Mary Queen of Scots was always the heroine, Knox the glowering villain.
The Auld Alliance is to some extent a romantic dream. With the help of the English and a scheming native aristocracy, Knox helped Scotland get rid of Mary’s Frenchified court which it had come to revile. Even the historian Tom Devine, descended from the Irish Catholic tradition, believes that Knox, in his more positive aspects at least, should take his place in the pantheon of New Scotland.
Arnold Kemp
From SR 1998
SR is publishing a selection of portraits by Joyce Gunn Cairns
Today: George MacLeod
I don’t know who
he is, but Ryan Giggs
deserved his privacy
Jill Stephenson
Who cares? People close to Ryan Giggs, no doubt, care. Tabloid journalists apparently care, but then tawdry dross is their stock in trade. But for the rest of us – for heaven’s sake, he’s a footballer who apparently has played away. So what? Don’t a lot of them?
When my curiosity (about what all the fuss was about) led me to look up the Sunday Herald’s great scoop of a front page, I learned that we would all now know, from a picture, the identity of the footballer who had taken out a superinjunction to prevent discussion in the popular press of his ‘private life’, which apparently has involved a sexual relationship with a ‘Big Brother’ so-called ‘star’.
Looking at his face, I was none the wiser. Even if the eyes had not been blacked out, I would not have known who he was. Am I in a small minority, or is this another example of our all being expected to know who’s who and who’s done what (and to whom) in the world of football, soap operas, ‘reality’ TV shows? Talk about the tyranny of the majority (assuming it is a majority).
Is this really news? I suppose the superinjunction issue is news, particularly given that it seems not to be applicable either in Scotland or to the electronic media. But one can hardly be surprised that those ‘in the public eye’ are trying to find new ways of protecting their privacy.
In the last few decades, press and paparazzi intrusiveness has plumbed ever greater depths. What right have these people to camp outside their chosen targets’ homes and throw themselves and/or their cameras in the faces of private citizens going about their legal business, simply to try to get ‘a story’? Isn’t that what we would, under any other circumstances, call harassment? What right have these journalists to demand answers to their questions from these citizens? I’d like a privacy law that prevented journalists from getting within 10 yards of a private citizen unless they were invited to come closer.
Naturally, those in the news for real reasons – politicians, businessmen, criminals – could not expect the same consideration. One can see that a restrictive privacy law, such as that in force in France, might be used to conceal dodgy conduct on the part of public figures or people who have a genuine case to answer – and not just in the matter of juicy tittle-tattle.
We hear an awful lot about the threat to press freedom. Of course no-one of goodwill would wish to see the principle of freedom of the press constrained. But where we are now is in a situation where, for some sections of the print media, there is an abuse of press licence. I would like to see this issue considered under the same heading as the phone-hacking scandal, because they are all part of the abuse of press freedom and they tend to affect the same disreputable newspapers that have deliberately confused the issues of what is the public interest and what the public – or sections of it – is interested in.
It surely isn’t beyond the wit of all these extremely highly paid lawyers that we have to sort this business out in a rational and humane way.
Jill Stephenson is former professor of modern German history at the University of Edinburgh
26.05.11
No. 409
Rear WindowThe previous week, while preparing an article for the Observer, I had an interesting conversation with Bellany about John Knox. The brooding figure of the great reformer has had a powerful influence on Bellany and his work. As a youth, in Eyemouth and Port Seton, he was thoroughly peppered with hellfire preaching, and Knox continues to haunt him.
Knox has become topical because the Scottish Parliament’s temporary home will be the Assembly Hall: its entrance is dominated by his statue. I am canvassing opinion on the question of whether Knox, marginalised by secular Scotland these last 20 years or so, and vilified for expunging the artistic and bohemian impulses from Scottish life, should be rehabilitated.
Bellany agrees that he should, though there are parts of Knox that remain rebarbative, for example his dogmatism and his prohibition of graven images. But his belief in universal education and the welfare of the poor still have much force and relevance. Like me, Bellany believes Knox has been traduced by history, which has hung round his shoulders the attitudes of later Protestant extremists who outlawed theatre and music. And Mary Queen of Scots was always the heroine, Knox the glowering villain.
The Auld Alliance is to some extent a romantic dream. With the help of the English and a scheming native aristocracy, Knox helped Scotland get rid of Mary’s Frenchified court which it had come to revile. Even the historian Tom Devine, descended from the Irish Catholic tradition, believes that Knox, in his more positive aspects at least, should take his place in the pantheon of New Scotland.
From SR 1998
Jill Stephenson
When my curiosity (about what all the fuss was about) led me to look up the Sunday Herald’s great scoop of a front page, I learned that we would all now know, from a picture, the identity of the footballer who had taken out a superinjunction to prevent discussion in the popular press of his ‘private life’, which apparently has involved a sexual relationship with a ‘Big Brother’ so-called ‘star’.
Looking at his face, I was none the wiser. Even if the eyes had not been blacked out, I would not have known who he was. Am I in a small minority, or is this another example of our all being expected to know who’s who and who’s done what (and to whom) in the world of football, soap operas, ‘reality’ TV shows? Talk about the tyranny of the majority (assuming it is a majority).
Is this really news? I suppose the superinjunction issue is news, particularly given that it seems not to be applicable either in Scotland or to the electronic media. But one can hardly be surprised that those ‘in the public eye’ are trying to find new ways of protecting their privacy.
In the last few decades, press and paparazzi intrusiveness has plumbed ever greater depths. What right have these people to camp outside their chosen targets’ homes and throw themselves and/or their cameras in the faces of private citizens going about their legal business, simply to try to get ‘a story’? Isn’t that what we would, under any other circumstances, call harassment? What right have these journalists to demand answers to their questions from these citizens? I’d like a privacy law that prevented journalists from getting within 10 yards of a private citizen unless they were invited to come closer.
Naturally, those in the news for real reasons – politicians, businessmen, criminals – could not expect the same consideration. One can see that a restrictive privacy law, such as that in force in France, might be used to conceal dodgy conduct on the part of public figures or people who have a genuine case to answer – and not just in the matter of juicy tittle-tattle.
We hear an awful lot about the threat to press freedom. Of course no-one of goodwill would wish to see the principle of freedom of the press constrained. But where we are now is in a situation where, for some sections of the print media, there is an abuse of press licence. I would like to see this issue considered under the same heading as the phone-hacking scandal, because they are all part of the abuse of press freedom and they tend to affect the same disreputable newspapers that have deliberately confused the issues of what is the public interest and what the public – or sections of it – is interested in.
It surely isn’t beyond the wit of all these extremely highly paid lawyers that we have to sort this business out in a rational and humane way.
