6 h. ago Hidden Scottish speakeasy with Vincent Van Gogh theme named among best bars in the world

The hidden cocktail bar in Glasgow has made the 2025 Top 500 Bars list for its creative cocktails and quirky vibe

Politics

36 h. ago Four under the radar Scottish Open stars to watch as hidden British gem and unheard Hojgaard ally get ready to rock

Here are four Genesis Scottish Open lurkers who can shine in East Lothian when it gets started this week

Politics

38 h. ago Ed Sheeran’s Pollock homage has energy but no feeling or truth

Abstract art like this gives all abstract art a bad name, just meaningless concoctions that avoid proper scrutinyOne thing is obvious about Ed Sheeran the painter: he doesn’t want to ruin his clothes. He paints in a white protective suit, photos reveal, as if paint was radioactive material or sewage. It’s a telling contrast with a real artist like Jenny Saville, who gets completely covered with paint like a naughty three-year-old, let alone Van Gogh, who ate the stuff.Sheeran isn’t claiming to be one of those artists – is he? He’s in it for fun and charity. And his paintings have more energy than you’d think from the prissy hazmat suit. He must have moved about a bit, flicking and pouring the fizzy greenish blues, hot orange, lime, mixing them as if making cocktails. Continue reading...

Politics

40 h. ago The Scottish hidden gem beach on NC500 that was named among 'best in UK'

One visitor called the bay "absolutely stunning".

Politics

56 h. ago The hidden art themed Scottish cocktail bar that has been named as one of the best in the world

A Scottish cocktail bar has made it on to the list of the best in the world.

Politics

9 d. ago The little known Scottish beach that is an 'absolute hidden treasure'

It is not unusual to find yourself the only one on the bay.

Politics

1 week ago Can I tame my 4am terrors? Arifa Akbar on a lifetime of insomnia – and a possible cure

From Van Gogh’s starry skies to the nocturnal workings of Louise Bourgeois and Patricia Highsmith, sleepless nights have long inspired heightened creativity. Could those artistic impulses actually help us to sleep?I can’t remember when I first stopped sleeping soundly. Maybe as a child, in the bedroom I initially shared with my brother, Tariq. I would wait for his breathing to quieten, then strain to listen beyond our room in the hope of being the last one awake, and feel myself expanding into the liberating space and solitude. By my early 20s, that childhood game of holding on to wakefulness while others slept began playing out against my will. Sound seemed to be the trigger. It was as if the silence I had tuned into as a child was now a requirement for sleep. Any sound was noise: the burr of the TV from next door, the ticking of a clock in another room. When one layer of sound reduced its volume, another rose from beneath it, each intrusive and underscored by my own unending thoug...

Events

2 w. ago Kiefer/Van Gogh at Royal Academy: 'lust for life in the face of death'

Anselm Kiefer is the German painting of powerful intensity who was hugely inspired by van Gogh, as this fine exhibition intensely demonstrates

Events

2 w. ago Kiefer/Van Gogh review – Anselm puts the nightmare into Vincent’s sunflower visions

Royal Academy, LondonThe Dutch artist looks like a prophet of the Holocaust when viewed through the 80-year-old German painter’s dark lens in this startling show, which makes you see how Van Gogh might have painted modern horrorsVincent van Gogh was born in 1853, in the middle of the comparatively peaceful 19th century. If he hadn’t shot himself in a cornfield at the age of 37, and had made it to his 60s, he could have witnessed all that end in the 1914-18 war. If he’d lived to 80, he would have read in his newspaper, at an Arles cafe table, of the election of Adolf Hitler as German chancellor, and in 1945, at 92, watched newsreel footage of the emaciated survivors of Belsen.Odd thoughts, but they are stoked by the Royal Academy’s strange and startling exhibition. This is an intimate encounter between the great living German history painter, to mark his 80th year, and his hero Van Gogh. It juxtaposes his responses to the latter, from teenage drawings to recent gold-spattered wheatfi...

Politics

2 w. ago 'World's best theme park' is just hours away from UK but has no rides

A travel enthusiast shared a clip from her trip to a theme park which has twice been named the best in the world, and it's all down to one surprising difference

Politics

3 w. ago The 'hidden' Scottish distillery featured in BBC drama with stunning mountain views that has closed down

A Scottish distillery has closed its doors for good with no plans to restart making whisky in Scotland’s most prolific area.

Events

3 w. ago Tourist flees after shattering 'priceless' Van Gogh chair in museum 'nightmare'

A valuable artwork was shattered when a tourist accidentally lost their balance and plonked their full weight down on top of it - and the museum that displays the Van Gogh chair called it a 'nightmare'

Society