LAUREN LAVERNE ON BBC RADIO 6 MUSIC FESTIVAL IN GLASGOW

LAUREN Laverne can't wait to host the BBC Radio 6 Music Festival in Glasgow - and get back to her Scottish roots.
The Dj and presenter who this morning hosted her own show from The Glasgow School of Art revealed that her father was born in Dingwall and that she was brought up on a diet of Scottish folk music.
She enthused: "I am really excited we are in Glasgow. I spent so much time here over the years. Last time I was here I was covering the Turner Prize last year.
I've loved this city since I was a teenager and had nights out here with my pals in the nineties - hazy nights at Optimo and I loved it. You couldn't get a more vibrant misic scene to plug into and art and music are beautifully integrated in this festival.
She added: "Dad was brought up in Dingwall and so I'm half Scottish and proud of it. His name is Les. He is a bit musical actually - he does play guitar and is an academic these days but the house was full of music so that's the reason I'm here.
We listened to lots of folk music which was a big passion of his and a lot of Scottish folk music like Davey Graham and Burt Jansch. I knew the difference between Scottish then Glaswegian music when I was growing up and being a nineties child Primal Scream was an incredibly important band and I thought 'Who did the cover art for Screamedelica?' and everything intertwined into everything else and being a musician myself in the nineties I made friends with Mogwai and Arab Strap and going to Arches and discovering music there was fabulous and I went to Barrowlands this morning. I'm pretty sure last time I was there was watching Underworld and there's a fantastic bill at the festival and obviously we are broadcasting live today."
Lauren can't wait to get stuck into the bill at the festival and even do some of the after parties.
She said: "We did an episode of the show in the art school before and it's great to be back. We have something like thirty six acts across four venues and it's quite complicated. I'm not sure I can simplify the weekend. It's full of music by day and there's a portion of festival talks and interviews and some elements of music and film. We are screening Lost in France by day and then there's the evening portion of live gigs and some late night sessions.
I used to go to Optimo when it was still at the Sub Club and it was the first place I heard Zombie Nation."
6 Music Festival takes place Fri 24–Sun 26 Mar 2017.



- Posted with love from Scotland by theShowbizLion.com

WHAT DID AMY MACDONALD COOK UP FOR VALENTINES DAY?

AMY Macdonald managed to cook up the perfect treat for loved ones on Valentines Day - a deep fried Mars Bar!
The Scots singer who is about to release her fourth album Under Stars this week, was in Germany appearing on a telly show there when they asked her if she'd make the 'traditional' Scots dish.
Although she was more than a tad amused, she obliged by cutting the bar into tiny pieces before putting it in a deep fat frier they supplied.
She then garnished it with some cocktail umbrellas.
She said: "On German TV this morning they had me deep frying a mars bar for Valentine's Day. I love Germany."
After some fans accused the dish as being stereotypical, she added: "Ha! I did tell them that in my 30 years in Scotland I had yet to meet anyone that had ever tried it."
Amy, who appeared in Hamburg to perform a gig, travelled to Berlin for her cook off on Fruhstuckfernsehen which means Breakfast TV on Germany's SAT 1 channel.
She is returning to Glasgow this Friday for an appearance at HMV Argyle Street and Edinburgh's Ocean Terminal the following day


- Posted with love from Scotland by theShowbizLion.com

LOUIS WALSH JUDGES FASHION NOT MUSIC AT JUNK KOUTURE SCOTLAND

LOUIS Walsh admitted he was doing his first bit of work this year as he joined Saturdays' singer Una Healy as judge at the live final of Junk Kouture in Scotland.
And although he claimed he was anything but fashionable, Louis was in fine fettle as secondary kids from across Scotland battled it out with some weird and wonderful creations made from everyday junk.


TheShowbizlion.com was massively impressed by the intricacy of the designs on offer and we saw an array of outfits that could easily grace events like the Oscars or Emmys.
Lady Gaga would have had a field day.


Telly gal Cat Cubie presented the awards while X Factor runners-up Reggie ‘n Bollie entertained crowds at the final, at the SEC Armadillo. Winners included Hillhead Academy who won the performance award for their Highland Cow based dress which included pigs’ trotters.


Una handed over the trophy to the Junk Kouture Scotland overall winner which went to St Paul’s RC Academy with a dress made from old maps.


Louis said: “I've been resting since Christmas and I'm ready to get back to work now. This has been great. The standard this year has been really high and I think we’ve seen some great people for the future of the fashion industry.”
Una who has just released her Nashville inspired solo album added: “We were scrapping backstage to pick the top three. And we were blown away by everybody.”




- Posted with love from Scotland by theShowbizLion.com

DOCTOR WHO REVISITS GLASGOW UNIVERSITY FOR TIME TRAVEL COURSE

DOCTOR Who fans can now examine his time travel theories and experiences during a new Glasgow University course.
The short course entitled Dr Who and Philosophy: Time Travel And the Nature of Reality will see tutors examine if time travel is possible, and if it is, what it tells us about the nature of reality.
Students who attend on Monday June 5 or Saturday July 1 are promised a tour of philosophy's deep mystical questions using characters and episodes from the series during the course which will take place in June and July this year.
The uni which has previously offered a Game of Thrones Philosophy course as well as one inspired by The Simpsons says the £30 course is already proving a hit with Doctor Who fans who want to explore the possibilities of having a tardis of their own.
Tutor Dr John Donaldson said: "This is a course offered by a part of the University Centre for Open Studies to give people a taster of the courses we offer. They are open to the general public."
Following the success of our Simpson's Introduction to Philosophy we looked at other figures in popular culture and Doctor Who has quite an obvious connection with Philosophy and Metaphysical questions of Time Travel.
There will be twenty five students in the class from 10am until 4pm and I'm still working on what clips from the show we will use, but there are two main issues in the philosophy of time; first the nature of time and what time is and the second issue is of time travel itself.
The nature of time brings up some big metaphysical and philosophical issues and there are different views we will examine from the Block Universe View which says the universe is an unchanging four dimensional block where time exists equally in the past present and future.
We will also look at the Growing Block view where only Past and Present exist, not the Future and and thirdly we will examine Presentism where the Past and the Future don't exist.
It is most obvious how time travel can occur if the Block Universe View is used but there are theories about the other models too, each with their own strengths and weaknesses.
"With regards to Doctor Who and his Tardis, travel into the future is in theory easier than into the past. Relativity theory says the faster you travel as a proportion of the speed of light the slower time goes for you relative to someone else, so time for them will go much faster than it will for you.
"Even today we can build a spaceship to travel ten to twenty percent to the speed of light and even when we got on a plane and off a plane we become a few milliseconds younger than when we got on.
Travelling into the past however, like the Doctor also does, is a lot harder because to travel into the past, if you accept what physics says, you need to build a wormhole and use it to travel back to the time when you first built it."
Dr Johnson is planning to illustrate his course with some episodes which see the Doctor Who travelling back and forth in his tardis.
For example, in one story called Father's Day the Doctor and his companion Rose travelled back into the past to save Rose's father from dying but the result was a paradox in which monsters known as Reapers destroyed almost all life on Earth until the time stream was set back on track.
Dr John Donaldson explained: " To the question, 'Can I visit myself?' You build a wormhole and wait while you travel back to meet yourself just after you built it. We run into serious issues with the grandfather paradox though because if time travel into the past is possible then it's possible to travel back into the past to kill your grandfather before your grandfather meets your grandmother, or even directly kill yourself. It means you'd never come into existence."
"Doctor Who approaches time travel differently from Back To The Future and we will examine the complex debates surrounding his method. We won't be looking so much at the technology but more about the issues surrounding it.
Dr Donaldson is unsure at the moment if the actual Doctor Who who is said to have studied at the university, will use his tardis to attend his particular course, but he laughed: "If anyone wants to wear a long scarf I'd be more than happy to have some Doctor Who's in thr audience. We all time travel to a point when we fly on a plane but I haven't had the opportunity to go inside a time machine. I would be severely tempted if I had the opportunity. I'm not sure if our physics department are working on that.


- Posted with love from Scotland by theShowbizLion.com

SCOTTISH LADY GAGA FANS WAIT FOR HOT DATE AS SHE ANNOUNCES 2017 TOUR

LADY Gaga has just announced the first dates of a world tour following her epic Super Bowl performance.
The brilliant star who is a favourite of TheShowbizlion.com since we met her years ago when she supported (yes supported!) The Pussycat Dolls in Glasgow, announced the Joanne tour just hours after her stellar show Stateside.
This is Lady Gaga’s first solo tour since her 2014 Monster Ball extravaganza, and is in conjunction with her fifth album Joanne.
It starts Off in Vancourver, Canada, on August 1 – before Gaga heads across the United States and into South America.
Gags will then play her first Europe date, in Barcelona, Spain on September 22 and also has scheduled in three UK dates so far.
She'll play the 02 London on Monday October 9 then the Birmingham Barclaycard Arena on Sunday October 15 and Manchester Arena on Tuesday October 17.
A Scottish date has not yet been announced but we know Gaga loves her Caledonian fans so we're sure it's only a matter of time...


The Super Bowl performance last night showed off the stars singing, dancing, piano playing, jumping and ball catching skills against a backdrop of illuminated drones and has already notched up millions of views online. Her set list consisted of the tracks below and we're sure she'll include these and more kn her next tour.
Presale Tickets are available this Thursday at 9am.

This Land Is Your Land
Just Dance (excerpt)
Edge Of Glory (excerpt)
Poker Face
Born This Way
Telephone
Just Dance
Million Reasons
Bad Romance



- Posted with love from Scotland by theShowbizLion.com

FORD AND GREG WANT NEW STILL GAME STAGE SHOW TO BE MORE THEATRICAL

Ford Kiernan and Greg Hemphill decided not to record their new stage show because they claim the last one felt 'a bit flat' when they watched it back on a screen.

The Still Game: Live 2 show is on at Glasgows SSE Hydro from February 4-16 and Ford said: "We wanted it to be a theatrical experience and we felt when we saw the DVD played back from our last show that there was a third hand feel to it. It was all there but there was a flatness about it we were not entirely comfortable with when we saw it back.

Greg added: "This show is kind of unique in that it's the first time we've done Still Game where it hasn't been been recorded. All the TV episodes we've recorded are obviously on DVD and the original stage show we did at the festival in 1997 is also on DVD but this is uniquely theatrical and by the fifteenth of February it will be gone forever. It kind of feels good. That's how theatre should be. I know you can go to the GFT and watch a big production because people can't go to London and whatnot but I think theatre has to be experienced live.

"You can watch Kevin Bridges or Frankie Boyle on a DVD because you are used to seeing them live. It's them and a mike so it's not that much of leap to watch a DVD of them live but to watch a theatre show with lots of actors, you've got to be here."

The two actors who play Craiglang pensioners Jack and Victor in the comedy admitted there was a huge pressure on them to fulfil the expectations of their audience.

Ford said: "There is a huge pressure because everybody raved or passed comment on the last one and said they had a terrific time and a big part of the audience is repeat business who have been before so we've got to keep them entertained and surpass what we've done before."

Greg added: "It feels like a very different animal from the TV show but that has its own pressure and it feels like we are used to that. When the show was on, people loved it and there was the pressure to continue it at the level we were at and there was the pressure to bring it back after seven years and now we are doing the stage show again, it's got to be fresh and different and are kind of used to it and thrive on it .

The duo also suggested a new series of Still Game may soon be on its way.







- Posted with love from Scotland by theShowbizLion.com

DONNA MILLER'S BROTHER BRAVES ARCTIC FOR LATE SISTER'S FUNDRAISER

THE brother of tragic brain tumour mum Donna Miller has returned from a gruelling Arctic Trek to raise funds for charity.
Beautiful Donna, wife of former Scotland international footballer Lee Miller, and mother to two of his children, died in April 2012 after battling a brain tumour for more than four years.
Her brother Sean Gilhoolie, 24, is just home after embarking on a three day trek into minus forty temperatures in the arctic circle to help Glasgow Children's Hospital Charity.
Sean headed to Rovaniemi in Finland for the Trek.
Having already helped to raise £100,000 in the four and a half years since she passed away, he said: "The Arctic Trek idea was put forward to me by Glasgow Children's Hospital Charity and what an experience I have had over the past week. Mentally and physically it was one of the hardest things I have ever done. I never want to see a hill, snow or a tents again. I have met some great people and there were high and low moments but I couldn't have felt prouder standing on the finish line with the Donna Miller foundation across my chest. I just want to thank everyone for their support.


Sean added: "I was pushing myself and although my family were not too keen and my mum was worried sick I'm wasn't doing it half heartedly. I'm not a massive fitness person and my biggest worry was how I'd deal with a lack of sleep and walking all those hours every day.
Donna wouldn't have wanted me to go as she was so protective but her kids were behind me and it was a great experience - and I didn't come back with just five toes."
Sean only realised how serious his trek was after picking up some of the equipment he needs for it. He said: "We were training on The West Highland Way and I had to buy a nine hundred pound sleeping bag for nighttime and a special jacket to walk in. Luckily my friends had given me a whole load of vouchers for my birthday so I got my equipment with that."
Sean took a picture of Donna with him as well as a lucky charm from his mum.
He said: "Donna's oldest child Lennon was so excited for me and made a personal donation. I don't think her youngest Bobby understood at first but I was showing him photos and he understood how cold it was going to be."
"The kids even sent me a video message congratulating me on the trek."

- Posted with love from Scotland by theShowbizLion.com