The Printed Word

T he final moments of the 2019-20 ice hockey season came , not on the ice pad, but in a conference call of league owners. With coronavirus prompting a premature halt to the EIHL season, the matter of who should be named champions - if only for the record books - was discussed, and dismissed. The stats will simply show an asterix and the the words along the lines of *no champions due to coronovirus" Picking a team  when there were a cluster of potential candidates was never going to work, and would simply drag the sport into a never-ending debate from which there was no escape s. The 'whataboutery' on social media would have been as painful as it would have been pointless. A bit like a dog chasing its own tail ... Just four points separated the four four, from Cardiff Devils in top spot to Coventry Blaze - a possible wild card, and a team in red hot form - in fourth. The decision  came from the most recent update from the league. There wasn't much else of su...

Playhouse Theatre, Edinburgh, 1981.  Whitesnake were at the top of their game, and rolled into the city to play two nights. First night found myself and my mate front row of the stalls where we still found ourselves three rows back within seconds of the band hitting the stage. A fair bit of jostling and elbowing later, we were back, pinned against the stage with my head in Bernie Marsden's speaker bin. Couldn't hear right for days. Couldn't get rid of the stench of other people's BO either.  My first experience of what they now call 'the mosh pit' was of being squashed by dozens of large, lardy men in denim who punched the air and headbanged for two hours. Only when we emerged blinking into the night air did we realise that we stank. Urgh! As for the gig, it was so good I went back the night night. Aged 16, for the first time n my life,  I bought a ticket off a tout. Looking down from the balcony, I saw the same gig from a different perspective, and...

The list of cancelled events is growing by the hour as the UK moves into wholly unchartered waters in its bid to contain the coronavirus - and sport is in the frontline. A host of championship events and major competitions have been scrapped, and the cull is far from complete. Some have simply cancelled completely, while others have significantly curtailed operations. Formula One's opening race of the new season in Australia is off, while Euro 2020 football championships could become Euro 2021. The NBA is suspended, rugby union's Pro14 has been scrapped, and the NHL is on hold. Major League Soccer has hit the pause button for 30 days to take stock, and even darts competitions have been pulled. Across Europe, ice hockey leagues have said the season is officially over. And all of that - and more - came in a 48 hour window. The decision of the EIHL is to carry on in the absence of an official directive, but it is difficult to see the sport surviving as others all c...

Val McDermid has certainly put her characters, Tony Hill and Carol Jordan, through the proverbial wringer. She brought them close together a few novels ago, but any hint of a happy ending was promptly detonated by the destruction which followed. Her last Jordan/Hill book came with a plea not to reveal the ending, and that message rather carries over into this novel as they pick up the pieces of their personal and professional lives. In short, this is a Hill/Jordan novel in which neither character is at the heart of the plot. To find out why, you need to start reading the back catalogue. So, having set herself that challenge, McDermid has still come up with another multi-layered plot which wraps an on-going investigation - which neither have any significant say in - around the debris of their lives. Bodies have been found in a convent, and when a second row of unmarked graves is discovered, it sparks a major investigation for the tam now led by the newly promoted Paula McIntyr...