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BBC News
23-07-2025
- Business
- BBC News
Does Edinburgh's Royal Mile need 72 tourist gift shops?
BBC The Royal Mile is the ancient spine of Edinburgh, visited by five million tourists each year. The collective name for four streets that thread through the city's Old Town, it is home to a 900-year-old castle, a palace and a parliament. But the people who live there claim they are now seeing the overtourism problems being experienced across Europe. With tourists comes tourist shops, and BBC Scotland News walked the length of the Royal Mile to count up a total of 72 stores, selling everything from kilts to Highland cow fridge magnets. They are part of an industry that supports more than 40,000 jobs in Edinburgh. But locals say having so many similar shops in one place is symptomatic of the challenges that mass tourism brings. The gift shops - most of which are run by three main operators - sell every imaginable Scotland or Edinburgh-themed item, from postcards and soft toys to clothing. Included are two shops which only sell Christmas-related gifts. The Royal Mile is also home to 42 cafes or restaurants, 13 bars, eight jewellers and three kilt retailers. That's in addition to the museums, cathedral, court, primary school and homes located along the steep and narrow pavements. 'I'm not against tourism, I just think it has gone too far' One man who is almost uniquely qualified to understand the impact of tourism on the Royal Mile is 77-year-old Jimmy Robertson. He has lived on the Canongate, at the bottom of the Royal Mile, since birth and proudly refers to himself as a Canongotian. Jimmy, who has lived in five different homes, can list the "useful shops" that used to be a stone's throw away. They include hairdressers, butchers, grocers and a doctors' surgery - which is now a whisky shop. He said it used to be "a normal area" where people would live and work. "It was probably in the 1980s you saw a lot of people moving out and the street beginning to change," he explained. Jimmy used to work at the brewery which is now the site of the Scottish Parliament. He has long enjoyed sitting outside the 17th Century Canongate Kirk, where one of the benches has an inscription to his late mother. Jimmy added: "I would sit on that bench and you'd watch the world go by, saying hello to folk you knew coming by. "Now I sit there and it feels like it is just tourists that pass me by. "I'm not against tourism, I just think it has gone far in how it affects people who live here." Jimmy said he now had to go out of the area to get his food shopping, or rely on relatives to bring it to him. He said the council was to blame for allowing too many tourist shops to open in one area. It is a point that some critics argue is borne out by data published by the City of Edinburgh Council last year which shows it owns and rents out 35 shops along the Royal Mile, many of which are leased to tourism businesses. Hanna Wesemann lives just off the Royal Mile and both her children attended Royal Mile Primary School. In 2004, this Victorian-era built school had 165 pupils but now the roll is down to 118 pupils – well below its 210 capacity. The 29% fall in pupils does not surprise Hanna, who says the Old Town increasingly "does not feel like a good area to bring up a family". Hanna puts this down to the pressures of tourism and the blight of anti-social behaviour by problem drug and alcohol users outside her flat, which requires regular calls to the police. She said: "It feels like all that's left here is shops for tourists, tourists, and people who have multiple and complex needs. "It [the Royal Mile] is on our doorstep but we never go there because there's nothing for us. "There used to be some useful shops, even charity shops, but now they are all gone and all I can see is gift shops which all seem to sell the same stuff." Increase in international visitors to Edinburgh Only London beats Edinburgh in terms of the most popular places to visit in the UK. Domestic visitors account for the bulk of the city's tourists staying for at least one night - a total of 2.6m in 2023, up from 2.47m in 2015. But it is overseas visitors who are driving Edinburgh's increasing popularity. After a dramatic fall in the Covid years, Edinburgh now attracts one million more international visitors every year than it did a decade ago. Combined with domestic visitors, that is 4.98m total overnight trips by all visitors in 2023. Where to accommodate these tourists, especially in peak periods like the Edinburgh festivals, has been a topic of hot discussion in the city for years. Edinburgh saw a well documented surge in residential properties being turned over to holiday lets in the previous decade. The number of listings by Airbnb in the city jumped from 1,900 in 2014 to 9,000 three years later. New laws requiring operators of short-term lets to have a licence has reduced this tally but data from Inside Airbnb - an independent website which gathers data on Airbnb's operations - suggests there are still just under 6,000 listings for Edinburgh properties today. BBC Scotland News counted 96 key boxes of the type typically used for holiday lets on, or just off, the Royal Mile earlier this month. The impact of holiday lets on people living in the most popular tourist areas is very familiar to Hanna and her family. She explained: "They're not bad people but they don't consider this as an area where people live as normal residents. "You can't build a relationship with someone for three days and I'm really tired of going upstairs every few days and saying 'Can you please be quiet, we have to go to work in the morning'." While much of the focus on where tourists stay has been on the controversy around holiday lets, there are now 181 hotels in Edinburgh - more than twice as many as there were in 2005. What tourism does for Edinburgh's economy There is little doubt that tourism plays a key role in the city's economy. Hosting the world's largest arts festival every August is a big part of that but tourism is now an all-year round industry. It is estimated the average overnight visitor spent £435 in 2023. That filters down to a range of businesses, from coffee shops to taxi firms, supporting thousands of jobs. A spokesman for the Gold Brothers Group - which owns 16 shops on the Royal Mile and employs 340 people in peak season - said claims about too many tourists were nothing new. But he added that there was still capacity for more visitors outwith the festivals in August. The spokesman said: "Our view is that a number of priority issues are being overlooked due to a fixation on tourist numbers. "The urgent priorities for residents, business owners and visitors to the Old Town are cleanliness as the place is filthy; anti-social behaviour; and criminality including violence and a serious 'theftdemic'. "Maybe Edinburgh's local population could come and visit and reflect on what the Royal Mile looked like years ago with its poorly maintained shops with little or no investment and then, without prejudice, consider the quality of outlets now." The spokesman called on the City of Edinburgh Council to "stride to its A game" by cleaning the Old Town more often and ensuring it is "safe and a joy to behold". Edinburgh 'a great place to live and visit' Council leader Jane Meagher said the local authority was determined ensure the Royal Mile was "clean and well-maintained". She also told BBC Scotland News the Old Town High Street was thriving. Meagher added: "Shopfronts are open, supporting local jobs and our economy, with a great mix of businesses in the area from independent kiltmakers to homemade crafts. "As one of the biggest landlords in the area we encourage this mix and work to make sure properties are occupied." The council leader acknowledged anti-social behaviour remained a concern but said the local authority was working with Police Scotland to address problems. Additional CCTV has also been installed around the Tron and Hunter Square. Meagher said: "We're also making the Royal Mile a safer place for pedestrians and cyclists, while making sure it is clean and well-maintained. "Our refurbishment of North Bridge is a visible commitment of our plans to ensure the area remains at the beating heart of the city, as is the extra £1m we're investing this year to tackle litter and graffiti in our communities." The funding includes additional resources for washing pavements and closes in the Old Town. Meagher said: "Once Edinburgh's visitor levy has launched, we hope to invest even more money to manage the impact tourism has, to ensure our city remains a great place to live and to visit." The future of tourism in Edinburgh Getty Images The latest Scottish census suggests just under 9,000 people live in the areas in and around the Royal Mile. This covers the tall blocks of flats that flank either side of the Royal Mile and the nearby council-built estate of Dumbiedykes, which has about 600 homes but no shop, GP surgery, pharmacy or post office. All of these residents feel the direct pressure tourism can bring but there are wider pressures on the city too. A 8.4% jump in the city's population in the 10 years to 2023 has contributed to a deepening housing and homelessness crisis. Next year Edinburgh will introduce the kind of tourist tax that is common around Europe and city leaders have pledged to invest the £50m it is expected to raise every year on infrastructure improvements. This has been mostly welcomed but some fear it might not be enough to help Edinburgh adapt to the growing demands of tourism. Edinburgh becomes first 'tourist tax' city in Scotland 'I was homeless - now I show tourists my city's hidden side' Record number of overseas tourists visit Scotland in 2023 Tourism Scotland Edinburgh Impacts of tourism Airbnb
Times
22-07-2025
- Entertainment
- Times
How the A-List fell in love with snail mail – and you can too
If you are one of the 120,000 audience members who've attended a Letters Live show, you have Shaun Blanco-Usher's awkwardly timed budding relationship with the woman who is now his wife to thank. 'After we met in 2002 she moved away to Spain for a year as part of a university course. And we decided to stay in touch by letter — this was before we started using emails and before Facebook and all that. So we wrote to each other, handwritten letters. We fell in love by letter, and I also fell in love with letter writing.' Years later, stuck in a job he 'hated', he started a website. Letters of Note was where Blanco-Usher published what he called 'correspondence deserving of a wider audience', written by figures as diverse as Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart and Iggy Pop. The site gained a cult social following, which in turn spawned a book. For its 2013 launch, the publishing house Canongate's chief executive, Jamie Byng, gathered some of London's cultural lights — Benedict Cumberbatch and Gillian Anderson among them — to read from the book. It was a hit. Benedict Cumberbatch launches our Dear London competition London has always been part of me. It's in my bones, it's the background noise of my life — the hum, the sirens, the buses exhaling as they pull away. I've seen it from stages and street corners, in its chaos and its calm. It's the city that shaped me. It's where I trained. Where I stumbled, steadied myself, and tried again. I've danced through its puddles and trudged through them too. I've watched it change, and I've changed with it. Like so many others, I carry my own London, stitched together from small, private moments. That's why I love this idea. Dear London is a competition inviting anyone, anywhere, to write a letter to this city. Or to something or somebody within it. Maybe it's to the barista who never forgets your order, the bridge you always cross, the friend you lost, the version of you who lived here once. Letters ask us to pause. Putting words to paper is an act of connection: slow, deliberate and often more revealing than we expect. I've written my own letter to London. Now we'd love you to do the same. Pick up a pen, or dust off the old typewriter, or open a new document, and begin. Perfection not required; just honesty. Keep it under 500 words and say what you need to say. Your letter will be published in The Times and read aloud at Letters Live at the Royal Albert Hall this November. But once it's written, it lives, and London will be larger for it. For full competition details see below 'I thought my parents, my wife and I would read the website. I literally did, because it sounds like such a dry subject, and then [the readings] went so well and the feedback was universally positive and we just decided to continue doing these events,' Blanco-Usher says. The concept is disarmingly simple: notable letters, read aloud by the right person, each performer lending a touch of their personality and theatricality to bring the text vividly to life. Now co-produced by Blanco-Usher in partnership with Cumberbatch and Adam Ackland, Letters Live has captivated audiences in New York, Los Angeles and a sold-out Royal Albert Hall with readers including Cynthia Erivo, Carey Mulligan, Idris Elba, Florence Welch and Woody Harrelson. There have also been special editions broadcast live from Brixton prison and the Calais Jungle. Those who love Letters Live really, really love Letters Live; shows sell out almost instantly and most are partnered with a charity — this year's show, announced last week, supports Arts Emergency, a group working to open up careers in the arts for those from less privileged backgrounds. Cynthia Erivo is one of dozens of Hollywood stars to have read at Letters Live GETTY IMAGES Looking back at recordings of those early events, including a lengthy run at London's Freemasons' Hall and literary events like Hay, proves Blanco-Usher's point that there is something deeply personal about these moments of private correspondence. The actress Louise Brealey's reading of Virginia Woolf's suicide note to her husband, Leonard — 'If anybody could have saved me, it would have been you. Everything has gone from me but the certainty of your goodness' — is extraordinarily affecting, the author's pain evident in every word. In 2024 the singer Patti Smith read to an audience a 'goodbye' letter she wrote to her friend the photographer Robert Mapplethorpe — a victim of the Aids epidemic who never lived to read it. Another highlight is a letter to the RNLI from a 71-year-old man whose life was saved by the charity half a century earlier in an incident off the Scottish coast. GETTY IMAGES Some are less personal but no less historic. One came from the White House speechwriter to Nixon's inner circle containing the address the president would have given had the moon landings ended in tragedy: 'In ancient days, men looked at stars and saw their heroes in the constellations. In modern times, we do much the same, but our heroes are epic men of flesh and blood.' Its reading was accompanied by a climactic moment from the score for Christopher Nolan's film Interstellar — a pairing that, Blanco-Usher says, still gives him goosebumps. Others are at times poignant, comic, even flippant. Olivia Colman's reading of the novelist Lydia Davis's letter to an undertaker — in which she objects to the use of the word 'cremains' to refer to her late father — has been viewed hundreds of thousands of times on YouTube, and brought a sold-out room to tears of both laughter and sadness. A spectacularly crude letter from the Irish novelist James Joyce to his future wife, Nora Barnacle — in which the Ulysses author describes the many different ways in which he is looking forward to being intimately reacquainted with her — was read by the actor Ferdinand Kingsley at a Wilderness Festival event last year. 'F*** me dressed in your full outdoor costume with your hat and veil on, your face flushed with the cold and wind and rain and your boots muddy' was, by most accounts, the most printable line, and earned the imaginative British Sign Language interpreter a standing ovation. Many of the letters that Blanco-Usher and his co-producers select are, unsurprisingly, from a bygone era, when sitting down with pen and paper was more commonplace. His study is a library of collected works and letters from authors, musicians, socialites, artists and war generals. Today, he acknowledges that so much of our communication is fragmented and 'pixelised' that it is unlikely ever to be archived. 'But in our own small way we're trying to keep it alive. I think there will always be people, a small percentage of people perhaps, that write letters because there's always a small percentage of the population who reminisce about that kind of thing. I do have faith it's not dying out.' Letters Live returns to the Royal Albert Hall on November 28. Remaining tickets are available at Dear London competition The Times's and Letters Live 'Dear London' encourages you to write a letter to London — its people, its places or the city itself. The winning letter writer will be invited to the Letters Live show at the Royal Albert Hall in November and their letter will be read on stage on the evening. To enter your letter, email it to dearlondon@ or send a physical copy to Dear London, PO Box 81900, London, WC1A 9RH, with contact details. Letters will be read by an independent editor appointed by Letters Live and the winner will be selected from a shortlist by an independent judging panel. Entries must be received by midnight on September 19, 2025, and must be no more than 500 words. Entrants must be 18 or over.
Times
22-07-2025
- Entertainment
- Times
Benedict Cumberbatch wants you to write him a letter
If you are one of the 120,000 audience members who've attended a Letters Live show, you have Shaun Blanco-Usher's awkwardly timed budding relationship with the woman who is now his wife to thank. 'After we met in 2002 she moved away to Spain for a year as part of a university course. And we decided to stay in touch by letter — this was before we started using emails and before Facebook and all that. So we wrote to each other, handwritten letters. We fell in love by letter, and I also fell in love with letter writing.' Years later, stuck in a job he 'hated', he started a website. Letters of Note was where Blanco-Usher published what he called 'correspondence deserving of a wider audience', written by figures as diverse as Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart and Iggy Pop. The site gained a cult social following, which in turn spawned a book. For its 2013 launch, the publishing house Canongate's chief executive, Jamie Byng, gathered some of London's cultural lights — Benedict Cumberbatch and Gillian Anderson among them — to read from the book. It was a hit. 'I thought my parents, my wife and I would read the website. I literally did, because it sounds like such a dry subject, and then [the readings] went so well and the feedback was universally positive and we just decided to continue doing these events,' Blanco-Usher says. The concept is disarmingly simple: notable letters, read aloud by the right person, each performer lending a touch of their personality and theatricality to bring the text vividly to life. Now co-produced by Blanco-Usher in partnership with Cumberbatch and Adam Ackland, Letters Live has captivated audiences in New York, Los Angeles and a sold-out Royal Albert Hall with readers including Cynthia Erivo, Carey Mulligan, Idris Elba, Florence Welch and Woody Harrelson. There have also been special editions broadcast live from Brixton prison and the Calais Jungle. Those who love Letters Live really, really love Letters Live; shows sell out almost instantly and most are partnered with a charity — this year's show, announced last week, supports Arts Emergency, a group working to open up careers in the arts for those from less privileged backgrounds. Looking back at recordings of those early events, including a lengthy run at London's Freemasons' Hall and literary events like Hay, proves Blanco-Usher's point that there is something deeply personal about these moments of private correspondence. The actress Louise Brealey's reading of Virginia Woolf's suicide note to her husband, Leonard — 'If anybody could have saved me, it would have been you. Everything has gone from me but the certainty of your goodness' — is extraordinarily affecting, the author's pain evident in every word. In 2024 the singer Patti Smith read to an audience a 'goodbye' letter she wrote to her friend the photographer Robert Mapplethorpe — a victim of the Aids epidemic who never lived to read it. Another highlight is a letter to the RNLI from a 71-year-old man whose life was saved by the charity half a century earlier in an incident off the Scottish coast. Some are less personal but no less historic. One came from the White House speechwriter to Nixon's inner circle containing the address the president would have given had the moon landings ended in tragedy: 'In ancient days, men looked at stars and saw their heroes in the constellations. In modern times, we do much the same, but our heroes are epic men of flesh and blood.' Its reading was accompanied by a climactic moment from the score for Christopher Nolan's film Interstellar — a pairing that, Blanco-Usher says, still gives him goosebumps. Others are at times poignant, comic, even flippant. Olivia Colman's reading of the novelist Lydia Davis's letter to an undertaker — in which she objects to the use of the word 'cremains' to refer to her late father — has been viewed hundreds of thousands of times on YouTube, and brought a sold-out room to tears of both laughter and sadness. A spectacularly crude letter from the Irish novelist James Joyce to his future wife, Nora Barnacle — in which the Ulysses author describes the many different ways in which he is looking forward to being intimately reacquainted with her — was read by the actor Ferdinand Kingsley at a Wilderness Festival event last year. 'F*** me dressed in your full outdoor costume with your hat and veil on, your face flushed with the cold and wind and rain and your boots muddy' was, by most accounts, the most printable line, and earned the imaginative British Sign Language interpreter a standing ovation. Many of the letters that Blanco-Usher and his co-producers select are, unsurprisingly, from a bygone era, when sitting down with pen and paper was more commonplace. His study is a library of collected works and letters from authors, musicians, socialites, artists and war generals. Today, he acknowledges that so much of our communication is fragmented and 'pixelised' that it is unlikely ever to be archived. 'But in our own small way we're trying to keep it alive. I think there will always be people, a small percentage of people perhaps, that write letters because there's always a small percentage of the population who reminisce about that kind of thing. I do have faith it's not dying out.'Letters Live returns to the Royal Albert Hall on November 28. Remaining tickets are available at The Times's and Letters Live 'Dear London' encourages you to write a letter to London — its people, its places or the city itself. The winning letter writer will be invited to the Letters Live show at the Royal Albert Hall in November and their letter will be read on stage on the evening. To enter your letter, email it to dearlondon@ or send a physical copy to Dear London, PO Box 81900, London, WC1A 9RH, with contact details. Letters will be read by an independent editor appointed by Letters Live and the winner will be selected from a shortlist by an independent judging panel. Entries must be received by midnight on September 19, 2025, and must be no more than 500 words. Entrants must be 18 or over.
Scottish Sun
17-07-2025
- Business
- Scottish Sun
Scots kiltmaker that produced designs for Celtic and Scotland national football team goes bust
But administrators were appointed to take over the company's affairs on June 30 JOBS BLOW Scots kiltmaker that produced designs for Celtic and Scotland national football team goes bust Click to share on X/Twitter (Opens in new window) Click to share on Facebook (Opens in new window) A POPULAR Edinburgh kiltmaker has gone into administration amid financial struggles. Gordon Nicolson operated from the Canongate on the iconic Royal Mile and the capital's St Mary's Street. Sign up for Scottish Sun newsletter Sign up 1 Popular Edinburgh kiltmaker Gordon Nicolson has entered administration Credit: Getty But administrators were appointed to take over the company's affairs on June 30. The family-run firm had been selling and hiring out Highland wear since 2009. The independent kiltmakers employed around 10 people, according to the company's LinkedIn profile. The popular outlet designed tartan for the University of Edinburgh. It also created patterns for Scotland's national football team and Celtic for the club's 130th anniversary. Documents show that Andrew Ryder from JT Maxwell has been appointed as administrator. Gordon Nicolson Kiltmakers and JT Maxwell have been contacted for comment. Earlier this week, we told how a leading tech company had also gone to the wall. Cybersecurity firm Adarma, headquartered in the capital, specialised in threat detection and engineering support for organisations in "high-risk sectors". It employed 176 people from its hubs in Edinburgh and London. Former star of The Scheme caught on CCTV raiding shop for money and cigarettes But amid financial difficulties, bosses filed a notice of intent and afterwards declared that the business had gone under. Will Wright and Alistair McAlinden from Interpath were appointed as joint administrators on Monday.
Irish Times
08-07-2025
- Entertainment
- Irish Times
Oddbody by Rose Keating: Superbly crafted horror stories about having a body and being a woman
Oddbody Author : Rose Keating ISBN-13 : 978-1837261864 Publisher : Canongate Guideline Price : £14.99 A clue – and more than a clue – to the nature of Rose Keating's aesthetic can be found in the title of the fourth story included in Oddbody, her debut collection: Bela Lugosi Isn't Dead. If you know your subcultural history, you will be aware that Bela Lugosi's Dead is the title of the 1979 Bauhaus song that originated Goth Rock. The lyric '[F]lowers/bereft in deathly bloom' gives a fair sample of the foundational Goth vibe. A certain quality of deadpan camp; a theatrical morbidity; flowers, graveyards, bats at twilight, love lies bleeding; a sonic landscape of skeletal post-punk rattle and boom. The Goths – late descendants of the 19th-century decadent movement – are still with us: street romantics of lace, leather and eyeliner, here to remind us that life and death are, if they're anything, aesthetic phenomena. Bela Lugosi , in full Dracula drag, duly appears, undead, in Bela Lugosi Isn't Dead. Bela, or his cinematic ghost, is the intimate companion or pet of a 14-year-old girl, Saoirse. 'We're sick,' Bela tells Saoirse, in the story's opening lines, as they wake up in her bedroom. Mam bustles in: 'Up.' Bela disports himself, bursts, stinks, transforms into a bat. Mam doesn't bat an eyelid (sorry) until, halfway through the story, she finally says, 'I think this needs to stop […] I remember what this was like, at your age […] But Saoirse, I'm sorry. It's not healthy. He is bad for you.' A stricken teenage girl haunted by the ghost of Bela Lugosi-as-Dracula; the whole thing treated, by every character, with imperturbable matter-of-factness, as if it's an accepted part of life, of growing up. The suggestion – via mention of the 'overexposed' photo of Dad that 'Mum keeps on the mantlepiece' – that Bela is the externalisation of unmanageable feelings: grief, adolescent malaise, adolescent morbidity. The story is deadpan, even as more death (in this case of Saoirse's cat, Ginger) obtrudes, even as Bela guides Saoirse towards fantasies of resurrection and repair. Or are they, in fact, realities? READ MORE Bela Lugosi Isn't Dead is a neat example of Keating's deadpan expressionism. The title story, Oddbody, works similarly. A second-person protagonist is followed around, haunted, hectored, entertained, by a ghost; in the world of this story, having a ghost is normal, if socially fraught, like being depressed, or – another possible metaphor here – being on your period. 'Did you bring your ghost to my flat?' asks the protagonist's unpleasant boyfriend, Ben. 'Do you have any idea how inappropriate that is?' The ghost urges 'you' to consider suicide; viciously criticises 'your' body ('Look at the bulging waves of cellulite rippling across the inner thighs'); is, nonetheless, familiar, even beloved. The tightness of its embrace 'feels so very much like being held'. It should by now be obvious that Keating isn't just a prose Goth. Her stories draw on another powerful tributary – specifically, feminist arguments about the fates of the female body under patriarchy. The ghost, in Oddbody, sounds like depression – and the story works beautifully as a dark and funny account of that state. But equally, the ghost sounds like the messages that patriarchy whispers and shouts to women. 'It's not a bad ghost,' the protagonist insists to Ben, 'I'm fine, really.' At one point, 'the ghost has given in to diffusion'. It's everywhere – like depression; like a ruling ideology. Expressionism – see Kafka – works by literalising emotional states or political ideas. The 10 stories in Oddbody are all expressionist in this sense. In the funniest story, Squirm, a young woman named Laura is taking care of her father; her father, formerly human, is now a large segmented worm who lives in a soil-filled bath. Nobody in the story thinks this is strange. 'Is there something wrong with him?' asks Liam, a man Laura meets on a fetish website. 'He's a worm,' Laura replies. Liam, driving them through the countryside, says, 'Look, sheep.' In Kafka's Metamorphosis, Gregor Samsa's family suffers social embarrassment at the fact that Gregor is now an insect; Keating riffs on this surrealist insight to tell startling, funny, alarming stories about what happens to our feelings when they collide with the social world, and about how that social world can mould our feelings, especially if we are women. # [ Short stories from Kafka to the Kafkaesque: making strange again Opens in new window ] In Next to Cleanliness, a young woman undergoes a 'cleanse' supervised by a charismatic doctor; it strips her down to her skeleton. In Eggshells, women lay literal eggs; it is a social faux pas to lay one at work. The stories in Oddbody are superbly crafted – though they might perhaps best be read one at a time (a certain sameness is detectable if you read them one after the other). The prose is confident, witty and perceptive. These are sharp and memorable horror stories about the most ordinary horrors: having a body; having a heart; being a woman in the 21st-century West. Kevin Power is assistant professor of English at Trinity College Dublin
