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Buying a book used to be easy. Now there is just so much choice. In
the old days you would quite possibly drop into your local Waterstones.
Now what is perhaps the most prominent off-line book retailer in Scotland
allows you buy online, and pick up at the shop later. Or buy online
and have it shipped. Decisions.
Edinburgh-based Canongate Books,
publishers of stylish cult fiction and many Scottish works, also entered
the fray this year, with the launch of a dynamic new web site. As well
as including extracts of books and literary competitions, they also
sell their own books.
Then there's that old Scottish stalwart, James
Thin. Thin by name; thin by nature? After visiting the Amazonian
behemoth, you might be forgiven for thinking that this particular clicks
'n' mortar book retailer is wasting away online. But don't judge a book
by its cover. What it lacks in design slickness, it makes up for with
stock, particularly in its traditional areas of strength: academic and
Scottish literature. Decisions. Decisions.
Scottish radio stations have been slow to put their programmes online
(the
BBC excepted), but the youngest commercial station to hit the airwaves
is showing others the way.
Beat 106 broadcasts out of Glasgow, but covers Edinburgh,
Stirling and other towns along the Central Belt. With its emphasis on
dance and youth music, the site is out to impress with a Flash-heavy
design. Unfortunately, it toils under slower connections, but if you
are travelling at speed you can listen to livecasts by RealAudio, as
well as find information about DJs, music festivals, future schedules
and the like.
Still with tunes: what do you get when you cross traditional Scottish
music with punk? Answer: The
Real McKenzies, a kilt-wearing, guitar-thrashing, tattoo-baring
punk combo from Vancouver, Canada. The site, which is trussed up in
the clan tartan, offers gig news, photographs of the band in action,
and MP3 tunes, including Scots Wha Hey, My Bonnie, and Auld Lang Syne.
Their sound is almost melodic at times (nice harmonies there, boys!),
but takes any opportunity to let rip pogo-style.
Alternative sounds are sure to be on the menu at the Edinburgh
Festival Fringe. One of five major arts festivals that
takes place in the Scottish capital in August, it alone remains "the
largest festival in the world". The Fringe, so-called because it
sprung up around the official Edinburgh Festival, takes in the whole
spectrum of live performance - from high brow to trash. The new Fringe
site, which this year includes online ticket sales, should have them
all. It is live from June 8th.
While the emphasis of the Fringe is on the new, the final pick is concerned
with preserving links with the past. The National
Trust of Scotland, manages more than 100 heritage buildings
including stately homes, historic buildings, castles and around 185,000
acres of countryside, like the Mar Lodge estate in the Cairngorm Mountains.
And if you need to get away from it all, it also offers holidays in
some of its properties.
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