Generally happy to engage in civilised conversations but if you send me abusive messages, you get blocked and if you come onto my timeline to post argumentative stuff you get blocked too. Use your own timeline to make whatever points you want.

@sophiemolly.co.uk Hi - looking to talk to you for a report on the event next week in Aberdeen. Could you message me? Thanks.

Yesterday I was shouted at by several people here for posting my reporting for the splash for The Sunday Post.
It was a dispiriting experience.
So here’s a picture from a crafting session at the community woodland I run in the Scottish Borders.
It’s a gnome. I hope this is acceptable.

Soaring alcohol prices drive Scots over the border in search of bargains Soaring alcohol prices in Scotland are driving shoppers online and over the border into England in search of bargains.

Compulsory minimum prices for alcohol in Scotland are now so high that Scots are heading over the border to English supermarkets or buying online at English prices. My report for the Sunday Post is now online.
www.sundaypost.com/fp/scotland-...

Would also point you to this article from the English edition of
Le Monde detailing the full horror of this trial.
If you read one other piece on it, read this. Needs a content warning.
"After eight weeks of wading through the swamp, our notebooks are full of mud."
www.lemonde.fr/en/france/ar...

‘Gisèle is waiting for explanations’: the dark questions at the heart of the Pelicot trial The evidence heard in court has horrified the world. But as the trial comes to an end, the questions it has raised about ‘ordinary’ men, French society, and rape culture have still not been answered

‘Gisèle is waiting for explanations’: the dark questions at the heart of the Pelicot trial’.

www.theguardian.com/world/2024/d...

I have better things to do on a Sunday morning than argue with people who haven’t read a story or who are angry about the subject of a story or dislike newspapers in general and just want to shout at a journalist. Go and do something productive.

Righto

Righto

Go read the story.

The minimum unit price was raised from 50p to 65p in September. That’s created a much larger gap between Scottish and English prices. The 2023 review of the impact of the previous price was produced by Scottish Government-funded Public Health Scotland. It’s worth a read to understand the methodology

Sigh. And they said this was the nice place… Apart from the reporting from the English supermarkets, the easily checked price disparities and retailers large and small confirming it, is there anything else you dislike about the story?

A bottle of gin now costs £7.38 more in Scotland - and beer and cider is up to twice as expensive. So people are stocking up in Berwick and Carlisle or shopping online for delivery at English prices. Shoplifting is also up and small Scottish retailers are feeling the pinch.

Turns out that if you make something much more expensive on one side of an open border, people will vote with their feet. How minimum unit pricing for alcohol in Scotland backfired and boosted sales in England - my story for the Sunday Post.

Save The Observer: keep the free press free.

Copper mining, Bor, Serbia

How green was my EV? The average electric vehicle uses 60kg of copper: around 190 new copper mines are needed by 2050 to meet demand. My investigation for The Independent into what that means for workers and the environment as China ramps up production.
archive.ph/KkT88

Thanks for all the new follows.
Away from journalism for a while: back now, writing and pitching labour rights stuff. Just back from Serbia if you’re interested in China’s Belt and Road Initiative.
If you want to work with me, I’m easy to find online.
Meanwhile, something from the archives.

Working on an investigation into the production of EV batteries. But getting distracted by editing pictures from first return to India for 10 years. Kingfisher, fruit bat, brahminy kite, palm squirrel.

Working on a story about Scottish wildcats. Would love to talk to anyone involved in the breeding programme. The pic? Highlands, mine, couple of weeks ago.

Sixteen years since the first picture, we took our son back to India so he could see where he grew up.

Thank you

Home - Go Wild Scotland Go Wild Scotland is a community interest company aiming to make life a little bit better through wildlife and nature experiences in southern Scotland. Nature-based tourism.

Would love to be part of this. I’ve been running a nature community interest company - link below - as a Covid-enforced career break. But returning to journalism next month and open to commissions for words and pictures.

Helping son prepare to head off to university next month turns out to be rather more emotional than expected. It goes quickly.

Journalism: the Foreign Desk translation guide:
“Bob’s looking at it” - it’s being rewritten
“The intro’s not quite right “ - the intro is wrong
“We’re holding it for Monday” - it is boring
“Looks all right to me” - effusive praise

(from Michael Holman, former FT Africa Editor)

His name was Ahmed Hameed. A wrong turn in Baghdad cost him his life. - Gethin Chamberlain Gethin Chamberlain, in Baghdad, for The Scotsman, 17 September 2004. HIS name was Ahmed Hameed and he was 36 years old. He had taken the wrong turning up to the checkpoint on the July 14 Bridge which ...

And if you want a moment that encapsulates the stupidity of the whole exercise, try this. It’s a verbatim account of the aftermath of the killing of a young man at a Baghdad checkpoint. US soldiers were assigned to the same location for their full tour: scared and bored.
gethinchamberlain.com?p=1585

'We are tired of firing at people – get us out of here’ - Gethin Chamberlain Gethin Chamberlain in Basra for The Sunday Telegraph, 28 October 2007 It was as astonishing an admission as any that has emerged from the lips of a British officer in the four and a half years since t...

Another piece for the Sunday Telegraph infuriated the MoD and brought my time as an embedded war correspondent with UK forces to a close. The story was true though.

Iraq and ruin - Gethin Chamberlain Gethin Chamberlain, for The Scotsman, 18 March 2006 IT IS 9 APRIL, 2003. Muhannad Hussam is at home in Baghdad, watching television as the 20ft statue of Saddam in Ferdoos Square is hauled down by ord...

It’s almost impossible. Hindsight blurs everything. It’s maybe better to look at a series of snapshots as perceptions changed. This is one of a number of pieces I wrote over four years covering the invasion and withdrawal.

You can’t have too many owls. And today was mainly owls. Barn, pygmy and tawny, since you ask. This is what happens when you find yourself accidentally running a community nature reserve.

Here’s a UK version.

This is a thing of beauty. River catchment map: it’s been around a while, but still remarkable.