Donate

Edinburgh

The rocky road to the Edinburgh Fringe Festival

Arts, Culture & Media

The Edinburgh Fringe Festival is the biggest performing arts festival in the world, and it has catapulted the work of some artists to the West End, Broadway and television. But the road to the festival is also littered with stories of career-ending performances, mental health distress and financial ruin.

Some Ukrainian students were evacuated from Ukraine thanks to a Czech circus company, Cirk La Putyka. “Boom," a performance they took to Edinburgh, was rewritten to reflect the students’ perspectives of war and displacement.

A bittersweet experience for Ukrainian artists at Edinburgh Festival

Ukraine
The World

How this filmmaker went from dealing heroin to working on ‘T2 Trainspotting’

Arts
The “Journal of Visualized Experiments,” or JOVE, is used to ensure that experiments are able to be reproduced by other scientists.

This new scientific journal is kind of like YouTube, but without the cats

Science
A car drives near a flag belonging to Islamic State militants at the end of a bridge in southern Kirkuk.

Muslim leaders in Scotland say ISIS has ‘no right to call itself Islamic’

Conflict
Kevin, Anna, Dante and James Kane at home in Taynuilt.

A Scottish teen gets serious about his chance to vote in Scotland’s bid for independence from Britain

Global Politics

A referendum on Scottish independence is now just days away. And for the first time ever, 16- and 17-year-olds have been given the vote. One Scottish family has dived into this debate with the help of an enthusiastic teenage son — but they still can’t decide.

A marquee put up in honor of comedian Joan Rivers at The Laugh Factory comedy club in Los Angeles, California. Rivers, the pioneering comedian known for her acerbic wit, classic put-downs and for asking "Can we talk?," died on Thursday at the age of 81.

A Scottish comedian remembers the joy of being insulted by Joan Rivers

Culture

Janey Godley was all excited to meet Joan Rivers for the first time at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival. And when it happened, the first words out of Rivers’ mouth were an insult. For Godley, it was perfect.

"Smells of Auld Reekie on a very breezy day in 2011" -- Kate McLean's smell map of Edinburgh.

This graphic designer makes ‘smell maps’ of cities around the world

Arts, Culture & Media

Kate McLean pays close attention to what we smell and where we smell it. And she’s been mapping those smells in cities around the world.

"Smells of Auld Reekie on a very breezy day in 2011" -- Kate McLean's smell map of Edinburgh.

This graphic designer makes ‘smell maps’ of cities around the world

Arts, Culture & Media

Kate McLean pays close attention to what we smell and where we smell it. And she’s been mapping those smells in cities around the world.

Olaf Meier

How a German banker tasted his way into an ambassadorship — for Scotch whisky

Lifestyle & Belief

Olaf Meier is a full-time ambassador for the Scotch Malt Whisky Society, but he is German – not Scottish. He explains how he came to be an ambassador of Scotch.