One of the most striking aspects of being back in Pennsylvania from Scotland is the distinct lack of propaganda. Maybe I’m just lucky and have missed the ‘high propaganda’ zones but thus far (two weeks in) I have yet to see a Pride or a Palestine flag. Here’s the thing about propaganda such as seen in Glasgow - the constancy of it keeps you in high alert. You may not realise it if you are there - so accustomed to the designed response which you either rise to (as a supporter of said ideology) or filter out (because you just want to get on with your day). Either way psychologically it puts a person in a constant political push and pull, creating a stress response.
That this also ropes in children is more the shame as kids are denied the basic joys of their short and precious childhood. Instead these (adult) charlatans mine the lives of children in order to support the industries that pay them. Scotland has a whole pantheon of ‘childhood rights’ industries who utilise the vulnerability and lack of experience of children in order to maintain problems that only they can solve. Here in Pennsylvania there is not a ‘rights’ agenda to be seen and yet children (and teens!) seem happy as recreation spaces are provided for and maintained to a very high standard.
Below is a mural near my former home in Pollokshields with the slogan ‘Dissolve Your Boundaries’ imprinted. This art work was commissioned care of LJ Findlay-Walsh, Tramway Arts Centre Programmer and Artistic Director of the Take Me Somewhere Organisation. (We will come to her shortly.) Queer theory on display. No boundaries. Anything goes.
Note: this mural exists outside the Scottish Ballet headquarters. With three security doors for entry. And no ballet classes for local kids. One has to wonder if boundaries are so problematic why lock the venue doors AT ALL?
As you will see the boundaries of all things are being eroded. This mural is a calling card. A reminder that there are abusers in our midst. Abusers determined that there will be no boundaries and no protections… for children.
This is not popular sentiment however. It is a reflection of the political hierarchy that has been entrenched that tells itself it is on the ‘right side of history’ for ‘letting children choose’ whilst not providing them with what is needed to thrive. That those in power are squandering the very resources they have been entrusted with is beyond frustrating. I cannot help but think what we are witness to in Scotland is not a democracy but a country under occupation. What you will see is that those who ‘survive’ (let alone thrive) in this occupation adopt/accept/celebrate the caste systems that are being embedded into public life therefore entrenching them further.
Writer Jenny Lindsay notes in her article for the Daily Mail whilst discrimination cases can be built (and won) in court -as Sandie Peggie or Maya Forstater - ‘you can’t sue a cultural atmosphere’. Lindsay is one of several artists who have not been offered a platform at this year’s Edinburgh International Book Festival. The artists who have been denied a platform are not pro-establishment. (in other words all those platformed are ‘on message’ with the political elite. In other words mono-message. In other words: dull).
Jenny was one of the artists who was ruthlessly hounded by trans rights activists, which has had devastating impacts on her livelihood. Still she picked herself back up and wrote (what she and many thought) was a balanced book on the subject, ‘Hounded’. Yet in the purity spiral of political culture her sin is absolute and the public sector (one of the main employers for people like her) will have nothing to do with her. What does this say for Scotland’s ‘cultural scene’?
The Edinburgh Book Festival is one of the spokes of the Edinburgh Festival Season wheel. It has not given Lindsay a platform to promote her book but it has given one of her hounders Harry Josephine Giles a space. Here he is chanting ‘Give us wombs and give us titties’ in Edinburgh earlier this year.
This ‘paragon of virtue’ has been offered up as a positive role model for Scotland’s bairns having been in residency in Primary schools via Scottish Book Trust….
Shall we guess what the theme of Mr. ‘Give-Us-Wombs-and-Give-Us-Titties’ Edinburgh Festival presentation is?
Queer! What a ruddy surprise! (not at all)
I recently highlighted the Porn performance by Dan Daw at the Edinburgh International Festival (EIF). Dan uses his disability as a very effective shield for his porn addled brain to get off on people watching him expunge his kink fantasies on stage. The program states “… it sees the Australian dancer turn the spotlight inward, to find his own truth through a subject that holds the power to both challenge and liberate: kink".
His.own.truth.
“Lived experience” innit?
He presents his show in production skills masterfully produced, dramatic visually appealing lighting, all so presentable and sanitised. His ‘radical self acceptance’ like is permitted because it’s on message. A disabled gay man who promotes… the erosion of boundaries. Because it’s ‘liberating’ woo hoo! In this instance it is appropriate - indeed celebrated to laud ‘one’s own truth’ when a male artist chooses to live his extremist sexual fantasies with public funds artists such as Lindsay - for stating that biological sex is a fact - are denied theirs.
No boundaries.
The fact is that Dan Daw- far far far from being revolutionary or radical or interesting- is exactly and particularly on message for what the Scottish political class demands- for us to transgress our sexual boundaries.
(Let’s keep in mind that the AIM of the Scottish Comprehensive Sex Ed lessons -from 3 years old - RSHP (Relationships Sexual Health Parenthood) is to embed the notion of ‘sexual rights’ into our children’s lives and that it’s architect Colin Morrison’s PhD was exploring the ‘sexual rights’ of disabled children. Yes. It all links up.)
It is worth noting that Dan Daw’s show is being staged at the Lyceum- the self same (publicly funded) theatre which produced “Love and Machinery” with their youth theatre. Which directed the children involved in the production to make sex toys for the *adult* audience. Love and Machinery was directed by Leonnie Rae Gasson.
This Leonnie Rae Gasson - producer of Rein.
“Come see the Daddies lurking in the woods; a muddy wresting-cum-fucking bog; princesses playfully trying to drown each other in a loch; bare arsed lovers frolicking in long grass. Your climax: a secret cave sex party featuring a feast of fisting, squirting, wet work and mess, exploding onto the screens”
There was (very understandable) outrage when the project came to the public attention and its funding was rescinded. You’d think that our public bodies would have taken note but no….
“I perform acts that some people would see as shocking: full nudity, live tattooing, peeing, kissing worms. But they’re not intended to shock. I see these acts as a euphoric embrace of the absurdity of living in a human body: an acknowledgement that we all feel strange and vulnerable inside. I’m just externalising those feelings and allowing them to generate laughter, connection, and community.”
The performer calls up the familiar ‘get out of jail free cards’, ‘connection’ and ‘community’ in order to obfuscate her show is validation of perversion and fetish. But what’s more both Dan Daw and Rosa Garland show a deep sense of self importance and narcissism which could only be embraced by those who have the privilege to do so. I doubt very much people who have actual responsibilities in their lives would ever deign to think this is worthwhile or interesting.
It reminds me of a party *one* might go to on a country estate somewhere with people who have no worries, concerns, responsibilities or faith and are seeking to fill their utterly vacuous lives. They drink too much, do too many drugs, and continue to push their sexual boundaries because they are empty. That our art world has embraced this shows the calibre of people who are in charge.
Rosa was one of a list of artists who received funding from the ‘Keep it Fringe’ Awards an initiative bankrolled by the Department for Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS).
We don’t live in a ‘sex negative’ society - if anything we need to bring back privacy and modesty as virtues. Kids in particular are bombarded with sexual messaging through pop music, to clothing brands, to their video game content. Or, most recently, have their class teacher given national media attention for having an Only Fans Account.
Kirsty Buchan was a secondary school teacher at Bannerman High School in the East End of Glasgow. Located in an economically and socially challenged area, Bannerman High School has had quite a lot of press in recent years. This attention was not for being academically excellent, or providing stellar opportunities for its children but for its violence. For its corridors stinking of weed. And now for it’s teachers having Only Fans Accounts.
Right now the UK Government is tabling the ‘Online Safety Act’ with the premise that it will ‘protect children from porn’. I find a sort of perverse schizophrenia in this crusade because it exposes their faux concern for children being exposed to mature and extreme content. At the same time (as noted by Dr Diane Rasmussen McAdie for UK Column) UK libraries have been found to have pornographic books introducing children to bestiality, polyamory, and BDSM. When parents try to remove this content they are called ‘bigots’ or ‘acting in opposition to free speech’.
Let’s not forget that the Scottish comprehensive sexual health materials also pursue a ‘pleasure first’ principle under the mantle of ‘rights’ from 3 years old. Teachers introduce the concept of masturbation to early primary children normalising adults speaking to children about intimate things. As the children get more used to being ‘open minded’ and being in receipt of intervention by strange adults there is the backdrop of ‘sex work is work’. And the teacher above.
Sexual exploitation is presented as a valid ‘career choice’. This teachers ‘choice’ (and the £60,000 which she earned in one month) will be embedded into the mind of every child in that area. The many media outlets who interviewed her all but handed out job applications to children in the area as they tendered sympathetic interviews. Was this a recruitment drive? Why work, why study, why aspire to anything else when you can set up a ring cam in your bedroom and earn £60k?
Quoted in every press story was the following, “The physics teacher, who claimed to have made £60,000 in one month on the site, admitted she “knew the risks” but joined the site as her “son and bills come first”.
And what comes from this is a very sanitised (false) picture of what ‘sex work’ looks like. Absent is the abuse. The dissociation necessary in order to ‘make a buck’. The trafficking of women and children it is associated with. And the very unhealthy relationships it breeds.
Note that no judgement or shame was ascribed to her choices, or the impact it might have on her young charges. It was spun as a ‘teachers don’t get paid enough’ and ‘she did it to support her family’ but it was not condemned. She was only struck off the register for two years. Her ‘choice’ which she ‘consented to’ was discussed intellectually, ‘reasonably’, ‘understandably’. It was - in fact - a reflection of our ‘sex positive’ society’ Where sex work is work and teachers don’t get paid enough so why not open an Only Fans account?
Where this is foolhardy (at best) in the context of those who have adequate security structures (financially, socially et al) there is little risk as they can ‘leave at will’. But for those who are in areas of deprivation a ‘prostitution industry’ is not one that thrives. We can look to areas like Holbeck in Leeds where a ‘managed sex work zone’ was trialled and subsequently closed down due to increased criminality and harassment for residents. Like the ‘safe consumption room’ as mindfully critiqued by Annemarie Ward - also newly established in the East End of Glasgow - these monuments (cultural included) send a message out to the residents - ‘You can do no better. You are no more than this.’
Hyper sexualised extreme content is being normalised for the poor… in encouraging Only Fans as a career choice. Not so for the luxury classes… for that we have the Take Me Somewhere Organisation brain child of National Theatre of Scotland’s Jackie Wylie and now run by LJ Findlay Walsh. And heavily funded by Scottish Government.
Take Me Somewhere is one of the producers of Dan Daw (disabled gay artist using theatre as a shield to promote his fetish above) and Rein (the Leonnie Rae Gasson extreme porn film also noted above). They have just received three years regular funding from Creative Scotland to the tune of £1 million.
You may recall this reflection on the takeover of the Arches between Andy Arnold and Jackie Wylie and LJ Findlay Walsh in 2008
“The arts program and theatre program certainly shifted to a more European, international sort of thing, I would say when Jackie took over… I did start to see a lot of urination on stage! And you know LJ has taken the baton and it’s still happening at Take Me Somewhere (the annual international festival that Jackie built out of The Arches, of which LJ is now director). Yeah, a lot of blood, a lot of piss, a lot of swearing a lot of drag, a lot of glitter”
-Niall Walker quoted from Brickwork: A Biography of the Arches
‘European’ = Good. ‘Scottish’= only good when it’s queer. ‘British’=colonialist and therefore always bad. ‘Beyond Europe’=always good (not least because those of means who produce work in other countries will come from an immensely privileged environment)
I was scrolling through their October 2025 Festival offering and cannot help but note that the (limited) UK artists given a platform seem to share a ‘queer’ theme. For the international artists colonialism is a common mantra alongside a call for the preservation of culture and identity. There is something to be explored in the irony of it all. British cultural identity being promoted must project a sexualised (and ‘queer’) ideology (queer ideology moves us into synthetic sex identities and synthetic reproduction as explored by Jennifer Bilek - which is a kind of adopted eugenics ironically). Cultures in other places can set boundaries and retell their histories as they wish.
Also consider the juxtaposition for the East End teacher and her £60k per month as ‘needs must’. Within in our cultural elite such as seen in TMS which seems blind to trafficking and exploitation it’s ‘self care’ and ‘radical self acceptance’ is propped up by the public purse. There is no actual risk for these charlatans who can preach to their hearts content and never face any of the real world consequences. Service? Ha.
It states in its mission that it ‘is the place to experience and create radical performance’ when in fact it seems radically on message and establishment to me. (note Edinburgh Book Festival above)
Its 2023 accounts (listed on OSCR) profile states it reached 33,586 attendees in 2023. One has to wonder if that number has been radically (ah there’s the radical!) overstated by the installation of their trans queer pillow in the Princes Square shopping district. My observation (which was backed up by a venue manager) is that it is the same 300-ish people who circulate to all the performances (and can be counted as a separate person for each attendance). If a good analysis of attendance was to be taken (which has not to my knowledge) one might gather postcodes of those attending. For example. Which has not been done.
They also claim that 75% of their 33,356 member audience had ‘protected characteristics’.
Firstly that’s an utterly absurd and stupid statement. ‘Protected characteristics’ in the Equality Act are there to prevent discrimination. Every single human being on this earth has protected characteristics as ‘sex’ and ‘age’ are included. Protected characteristics are there as a leverage if someone is discriminated against. That includes white straight men. Who we KNOW they have no interest in. So what are they actually trying to say?
And yet no one pushes to understand how this organisation has come to arrive at that figure or what the hell they are talking about.
They go on to make some other astounding claims that further prop up their virtue mantel whilst producing utter and absolute waffle.
‘61% state they are working class’. Surviving on an artist wage does not make one working class. Working class insinuates actual work, graft and labour. It is laughable to place these artists alongside the actual workers of this world who keep things going - there is no moment of connection between the bin men and those who populate Tramway stages. Not least because people in the ‘trades’ act in service to a client not to themselves. There is no ‘radical self care’ for a plumber or a joiner. That TMS is trying to give itself kudos in such a way is evident. Here we have artist Eve Stainton who works with ‘trans and non-binary welders’ in order to explore ‘welding as queer practice’ for previous TMS productions.
This is not the trades folks.
And yet TMS has received £1 million in public funds for three years regular funding. Let’s also remind ourselves that each of these international bookings is the result of LJ Findlay Walsh flying to an international festival/venue in order to ‘scope out’ the talent. On the Scottish tax dime.
Again, looking at their programming I cannot help but think it’s becoming an absolute parody of itself…. Here are some highlights but my goodness y’all are just RIDICULOUS. I mean if we didn’t laugh we’d cry.
“Self Insert Outside Fan Spiral (On Ice)”
‘Heaving wet totally real… made up of lots of bits of slippery, pleasurable neurodivergent overhwhelm’? A bit of ice skating and saliva. Nice.
Then we have the required ‘only bigots can be so closed minded to not see that trans identities have been around and celebrated by more *enlightened* cultures for millennia’ crap.
“Requiem for an Alcaraván”
“a performative dance rooted in the figure of the muxhe, or man-woman, a term that carries specific cultural meaning within Zapotec tradition”
And lastly a queer retelling of the Scottish fable of the Selkie….
“Selkie the Wet and Wild Show”
“a provocative spectacle that brings animal rights, queerness and bodily autonomy into a whole new arena.”
And on and on. The whole program is a superficial rendering of art, a gilded trap - vacuous and reeking of narcissism and privilege. Not unlike the Emperors New Clothes it tells us that it’s something magnificent and radical and unique offering us nothing nutritive or interesting, or curious to discover. It is a religious revival reinforcing the cultural hierarchy as set by the elite political class. And it will never revive or invigorate the country in which it is based. And that is the biggest tragedy of them all.
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Bloodletting: When Scottish Arts Embraced Deviance
June 10, 2025
This is part three of my dive into the capture of the Scottish Arts Scene into platforms for propaganda for the Scottish Government. Part One (The Transvestite Who Helped Stage the Ideological Takeover of Scotland) can be read here and Part Two (The Racism of Scottish Theatre: Did Jackie Wylie know what she was getting into?)
Brave New World Part 2
·
September 27, 2024
Scottish parents now find themselves in the midst of ‘RSHP season’ where they have the ‘opportunity’ to review materials and decide whether and how much they want their children to be exposed to. My opinion: none. The whole program -by accident or design- is harmful.
Book Trust
·
September 21, 2024
I have been enjoying re-reading Ray Bradbury’s iconic works these past few weeks - Fahrenheit 451, the Martian Chronicles, Dark Carnival. I find his writing utterly riveting. I share no identifiable characteristics with the protagonists or settings (which would be crazy as he is largely a science fiction writer) and yet there is something so satisfying…
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