The Sunday Times, February 15, 2004 — The relationship between Scotland and France is not quite as special as politicians in Paris this week will try to have us believe, writes Kenny Farquharson Something is not quite right in the French town of Aubigny-sur-Nere. Tartan wallpaper adorns the local tabac. Tubs of purple heather can be had…

Nutmeg magazine, September 2020 — By Kenny Farquharson Home is where the heart is, especially when you are a football fan. A home fixture has an almost religious significance. For a lapsed Catholic like myself it has a sacramental quality. Match day is a holy day of obligation. Or sometimes a sorrowful mystery. I left…

The Times, May 8, 2020 By Kenny Farquharson Halfway down the Royal Mile above the entrance to a narrow close is the sculpted head of a young boy and the chiselled words: “Heave awa’, chaps, I’m no’ dead yet.” It is a memento of a November night in 1861 when…

Scotland on Sunday, October 29, 1995 As the odds in Canada’s biggest political gamble approach evens, KENNY FARQUHARSON in Montreal discovers the struggle of Quebec’s francophones for independence is not too close to home The croupier with the broken nose waves his hand over the green baize of the roulette table. “Rien ne va plus,” he says; no more bets. The thin man smoking Gauloises ignores him and continues scattering chips on numbers, like a gardener sowing seed…

The New King Scotland on Sunday, November 9, 2008 Kenny Farquharson spent US election day — from dawn until well after dusk — with Washington’s black community as they hoped, waited, prayed and then celebrated the momentous event that changed the course of history It is dawn in America, but at the Lincoln…

Stripped Bare The Sunday Times, February 26, 2006 He’’s just finished directing himself in an art-house horror, soon to star on Broadway and happy in love.— Alan Cumming is feeling comfortable in his own skin as never before, writes Kenny Farquharson Alan Cumming drops his fork in his pecorino and scallion omelette…

1. Tiny Ruins: Olympic Girls Kiwis do beguiling pastoral hippy-dippy shit. 2. Callum Easter: Here or Nowhere Woozy, immersive, disorientating. Best Scottish album of the year. 3. Better Oblivion Community Center: Better Oblivion Community Center Unlikely duo with year’s sharpest songwriting. 4. Julia Jacklin: Crushing Storytelling raw and true. 5. Hot Chip: A Bathful of Ecstacy Retro 90s dance for greying groovesters.

The Times, January 22, 2019 Time to say goodbye to a wee girl who loved life Notebook, by Kenny Farquharson We said goodbye to my great-niece last week. Bronwyn Farquharson was seven years old and died on Hogmanay. She had spent the year fighting multiple myeloma, a form of cancer very rare in children. You would think that the funeral of…

Charles Watson: Now That I’m A River “I’d only be lying if I said you hadn’t left your mark.” https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7sG25FHzhms&frags=pl%2Cwn 2. Noname: Room 25 Yo, flow. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CVB27WfkTeM&frags=pl%2Cwn 3. Sunflower Bean: Twentytwo in Blue Damn, that’s catchy. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rMXvr6uIynY&frags=pl%2Cwn 4. Hookworms: Microshift Shouty in a good way.