SNP could back 'British Union' as part of alternative independence plan, says top economist

The SNP may propose an “alternative form of independence” in a second referendum campaign to offset public fears surrounding the Brexit turmoil, a leading academic has said.

Matthew had always found it difficult to cope with tears. Others might be able to endure the visible dissolution that tears involved – the misting over of the eyes, the quivering of the lips, the display of weakness and vulnerability that was our real human lot, no matter how we covered ourselves with the clothing of certainty and conviction. We were, when all was said and done, children lost in the wood, and to break into tears was the most understandable of reactions, the most quintessentially human one too.

Scotsman film critic Alistair Harkness picks his highlights from this year’s Glasgow Film Festival programme

For her latest role, Patricia Clarkson plays a tough cop in a big screen adaptation of Martin Amis’s Night Train. The House of Cards actor talks to Alistair Harkness ahead of its Glasgow Film Festival screening

Ricky Monahan Brown’s memoir is certainly not for the squeamish: it describes the author’s massive haemorrhagic stroke which occurred out of the blue in 2012, and his subsequent recovery. The 38-year-old Scot was living in New York and divorced with a young daughter, but in the early stages of a new relationship. Working in the high-pressure environment of Manhattan financial law, he was sacked a day before the stroke but still spent a relaxed afternoon taking his daughter to a museum, eating out with his girlfriend, Beth, in the evening and having sex, before feeling distinctly unwell.