Latest news with #TheWomenWhoWouldn'tWheesht
Time of India
11 hours ago
- Entertainment
- Time of India
JK Rowling praises upcoming Harry Potter series, says she worked "closely" with writers
Author JK Rowling, who penned the best-selling 'Harry Potter' books, said she has read some of the scripts for the upcoming adaptation and has given them her stamp of approval, reported People. Author JK Rowling , who penned the best-selling 'Harry Potter' books, said she has read some of the scripts for the upcoming adaptation and has given them her stamp of approval, reported People. "I read the first two episodes of the forthcoming HBO Harry Potter series and they are SO, SO, SO GOOD!" Rowling, 59, said in an X post. When a fan asked whether she is "doing the writing" for the series -- which is set to film this year and air in 2026, -- she clarified the nature of her involvement in a reply, reported People. "No," Rowling wrote, "but I've worked closely with the extremely talented writers." Since the author's involvement was announced, the series has faced continued backlash over her anti-transgender comments. In April, the head of HBO weighed in, stating that the network's choice to work with Rowling "is not new," reported People. In 2024, JK Rowling, the renowned author of the beloved Harry Potter series, has lashed out at the double standards exhibited by colleagues who publicly criticized her views on transgender rights while privately seeking to maintain their friendship. The acclaimed writer shared her sentiments in an extract from the forthcoming book, 'The Women Who Wouldn't Wheesht,' published by The Times of London. by Taboola by Taboola Sponsored Links Sponsored Links Promoted Links Promoted Links You May Like Cervecería Nacional CFD: Calcula cuánto podrías ganar invirtiendo solo $100 Empieza a invertir hoy Inscríbete ahora Undo While the author did not divulge specific names, her disagreements with some individuals involved in the Harry Potter film franchise have been well-documented in recent years. Notably, her remarks reignited a public exchange with former co-stars Daniel Radcliffe and Emma Watson following a significant UK review on gender identity services. Several stars in the original Harry Potter franchise -- including Daniel Radcliffe, Rupert Grint and Emma Watson -- have spoken out in support of transgender rights, making it clear they had different views from Rowling, as per the outlet. HBO announced last month that the roles of Harry Potter, Hermione Granger and Ron Weasley had been cast in the forthcoming series, with Dominic McLaughlin playing Harry, Arabella Stanton portraying Hermione and Alastair Stout starring as Ron. (All three actors are newcomers, per the streamer.) Gardiner and Mylod said in a press release that they were "delighted to announce we have found our Harry, Hermione, and Ron" following an "extraordinary search" for the iconic roles, reported People. "The talent of these three unique actors is wonderful to behold, and we cannot wait for the world to witness their magic together onscreen," the duo continued of McLaughlin, Stanton and Stout. "We would like to thank all the tens of thousands of children who auditioned. It's been a real pleasure to discover the plethora of young talent out there." An official release date for HBO's Harry Potter series has yet to be announced, reported People.
Scotsman
2 days ago
- Entertainment
- Scotsman
The EIBF has learned nothing about real diversity
Sign up to our daily newsletter – Regular news stories and round-ups from around Scotland direct to your inbox Sign up Thank you for signing up! Did you know with a Digital Subscription to The Scotsman, you can get unlimited access to the website including our premium content, as well as benefiting from fewer ads, loyalty rewards and much more. Learn More Sorry, there seem to be some issues. Please try again later. Submitting... Last year, the board of the Edinburgh International Book Festival was forced to sever ties with its sponsor of two decades, Baillie Gifford. The threats from protestors to disrupt the festival due to Baillie Gifford's alleged ties with Israel and fossil fuel companies were simply too grave to ignore. Greta Thunberg pulling out of the programme and a pious bunch of petition-signing celebrities helped pile the pressure onto the EIBF and, with regret, they kowtowed. For those of us in the writing world with openly heterodox opinions, it was a sorry but predictable farce the Scottish arts world had brought on itself. This is what happened in a culture that had done nothing but, for instance, pander to trans activists when they were hounding people with reality-based views on sex and chant blindly along with every trendy 'social justice' slogan. If you make political diversity heresy, don't act surprised when the torch-bearers turn on you. Advertisement Hide Ad Advertisement Hide Ad Activist Greta Thunberg, seen at a protest in Paris, cancelled a planned appearance at the Edinburgh International Book Festival over investments in the fossil fuel industry by the event's then-sponsor Baillie Gifford | AFP via Getty Images Alongside the justified schadenfraude there was also tentative hope that a lesson would be learned. That the Scottish literary scene would start to amend this crisis of its own making and start platforming a spectrum of political views. The theme for this year's festival is 'Repair', after all. Alas though, things remain broken. One would think that in the year the UK Supreme Court confirmed the definition of women in law and multiple politicians have rescinded their support for gender self-ID, there might be a single event featuring a notable women's rights campaigner. Quite a few of them have written excellent books recently after all. Victoria Smith. Julie Bindel. Susanna Rustin. Orwell-prize shortlisted Hannah Barnes. The Scotland-focused Sunday Times bestseller The Women Who Wouldn't Wheesht, edited by Susan Dalgety and Lucy Hunter Blackburn, has come out on paperback, in which over thirty essayists (including myself) are featured. Yet nothing. I'm not naive enough to be surprised but it remains highly depressing. One particularly glaring omission There is one omission that seems particularly glaring however, and that is Jenny Lindsay, a performance poet and leading figure in the Scottish literary scene. In November last year she published a book 'Hounded: Women, Harms And The Gender Wars' and there's few texts that would have complemented the 'Repair' theme more aptly. Because before you can fix anything, you have to understand what's gone wrong, and that's exactly what 'Hounded' explores. Advertisement Hide Ad Advertisement Hide Ad Drawing on Lindsay's own experience in the arts, where overnight she found herself a target of wrongthink hounding for the crime of calling out violence against women, her book moves through the psychological, social and democratic harms the normalisation of bullying-disguised-as-virtue is wreaking on society. Lindsay had drawn attention to trans-identified Cathy Brennan, a writer for The Skinny, who'd advocated online for physical violence against lesbians at that year's Pride. For this, Lindsay was branded a 'TERF' and subjected to years of harassment and career disruptions. A matter of days after, Brennan allegedly attacked lesbian and women's rights campaigner Julie Bindel at Edinburgh University. As Lindsay speculated in a recent podcast interview , her being proven right was the most unforgivable thing in her hounders' eyes. Of course, it's at the EIBF's discretion to invite who they please. No one is entitled to a platform. But on the programme are several of Lindsay's most vicious and vocal hounders. Alice Tarbuck, for instance, the Literature Officer at Creative Scotland who brought disgrace on the institution when she was exposed as having actually rang bookshops and demanded they do not stock Lindsay's book. There's also Harry Josephine Giles, who co-authored a censorious petition to The Scottish Poetry Library against Lindsay and fellow poet Magi Gibson. (I confess I've a particular abject loathing for those that orchestrate petitions against individuals, trumped only by my disgust at the sheep who sign them). Statement of allegiance? Giles, whose most recent noteworthy public appearance has been screaming 'Give us wombs and give us t***ies!' to a crowd of baying activists after the Supreme Court ruling, will be appearing at six events in the programme. It's hard to read this as anything but a statement of allegiance to misogynistic bullies over a renewed dedication to freedom of expression. What a concerning indictment of the Scottish arts scene. Susan Smith, left, and Marion Calder, co-directors of For Women Scotland, celebrate outside the Supreme Court in London in April after its ruling on the definition of a woman | PA In the interest of transparency, Jenny is a dear friend of mine. I've known and loved her as a sister in feminism trying to navigate the Orwellian artistic landscape in which we (still) find ourselves. But before that, I knew her as a poet and writer. Without bias, the EIBF has snubbed not only a throughly principled artist but an enviably talented one. Around the time she published her brave, articulate essay 'Anatomy Of A Hounding' in The Dark Horse magazine, I was a creative writing student and seeing first hand the damage ideological hiveminderey was doing, not only to aspiring writers' freedom of expression, but literary quality itself. 'Without freedom, no art; art lives only on the restraints it imposes on itself, and dies of all others' as Albert Camus said. There are seemingly few artists left that embody this spirit. Jenny is one of them. Advertisement Hide Ad Advertisement Hide Ad My favourite poem of Jenny's is 'The Schism Ring' from her collection This Script. She opens it by describing the menu for a feminist literary gathering - a superficially inclusive, oh-so-safe borefest of gluten-free and vegan cakes, before going on to describe the meaty, unctuous, mischievously un-PC feast she secretly craves - frogs legs, steak on the bone, duck eggs and full-fat buttery mash. It's a beautiful metaphor for the intellectual hunger so many of us feel around modern feminism, the literary scene or both. It would be disingenuous to say the EIBF doesn't feature a lot of talented, compelling writers outside the likes of Tarbuck and Giles. All the same, I read the programme and see an artistic climate that remains starved, mostly of courage.
The Herald Scotland
27-04-2025
- Politics
- The Herald Scotland
Biological women have been discriminated against
Ruth Wishart ("What a tangled web we weave when we try to define legalese') attempts to clarify the judgment. She rightly condemns our MSPs: 'In truth no Scottish politician comes out of this with much credit." She might have added Westminster MPs to this list. Kevin McKenna ('All civic bodies complicit in The Great Silence') as always refuses to sit on the fence concerning an issue that has caused a psychological civil war in the UK and Europe. His excoriating criticism of every civic body in Scotland is well deserved. I am much more convinced, as Kevin McKenna seems to be, that it is biological women who have been discriminated against for over 20 years, not trans women. It is women who lost their jobs for claiming that they had a birthright. Mr McKenna declares his great admiration for JK Rowling, who 'made a conscious decision to enter the fray, knowing that she would face an onslaught of violent abuse, threat and defamation for doing so'. Doesn't that suggest that women who spoke up for their rights can now live in a world much less cruel than it was before the ruling? Ms Garavelli worries about 'a trans women having to walk into a toilet full of jeering men'. Ms Wishart has a simple solution: she has seen loos with three cubicles, labelled men, women and mixed, so people can choose the one which they feel most comfortable in. But she continues: 'Which begs the question: whose comfort are we talking about? Well, I'd say women and children who until now had to run the risk of visiting a loo in which a man, who may or not present a risk to them – it isn't always obvious – is sharing the space. But then, until the Supreme Court's ruling, civic Scotland and the cowards and imposters who dominate our lives refused to accept that any such risk existed. I'm looking forward to reading the Equality and Human Rights Commission's guidance when it is issued. A few humble pies will have to be eaten to restore women's rightful place in society, but so be it. The guidance is 20 years overdue. Lovina Roe, Perth. Read more letters • As editors of The Women Who Wouldn't Wheesht, an account of the campaign to protect women's sex-based rights, we are saddened by the tone and content of Dani Garavelli's column, not least the assertion that women campaigners now 'hold the purse strings'. Our book explains exactly how the campaign, including the court cases brought by For Women Scotland, have been resourced, which is mainly through modest individual donations from thousands of people from across Scotland and the rest of the UK. However, her inference that the campaign lacked empathy was even more disappointing. We would therefore be pleased to arrange for Ms Garavelli to meet some of the women whose personal experiences were at the heart of the book. These women, whose names and faces remain hidden for very good reason, will be happy to explain directly why they were so relieved by last week's Supreme Court ruling. Susan Dalgety and Lucy Hunter Blackburn, Edinburgh. Norway's advantages Arina Russell's article ('Scotland is no longer a leader on climate change', April 20) is commendable and expresses some valid points. However saying "such as Norway already have the highest number of heat pumps in Europe and consequently enjoy cheaper bills" is a simplistic statement. Norway has a totally different topography compared to Scotland and thus is able to generate 88% of its electricity using hydro schemes, a reliable source of "clean" energy. The rest is mainly a mixture of increasing wind, and dwindling gas and coal. Norwegian domestic electricity prices are much lower than here, averaging 1.35 Krone per KWh, that works out at roughly 9p a KWh including the equivalent of VAT and Standing Charge (based on the exchange rate as I write of 13.86Krone = £1), whereas I am currently paying 25.3p a KWh excluding VAT and the standing charge. Norway has been investing in hydro-electric schemes for decades compared to Scotland and the rest of the UK which was much more dependent on coal-generated town gas and then switched to natural gas using the existing domestic network and building the pipe network from St Fergus and the like. It is important to note that in Norway power generation and distribution is owned by the state (Statnett),which is investing billions in maintaining, upgrading, and adding new hydro schemes and wind farms. Compare that to our fragmented, privatised electricity system. In Scotland the current lack of reliable renewable power generation and distribution, a different social structure and attitudes and different housing standards all possibly add to the reason for Norway having more heat pumps and cheaper bills, a much more complex answer than Ms Russell's simple statement infers. So I suppose it's rather ironic that the Norwegian state can afford this investment in renewables as the Norwegian Sovereign Wealth Fund is built on the back of nearly 50 years of oil and gas production. Malcolm Vie, Near St Cyrus, Angus. New ferries not green I read with interest Vicky Allan's article ('Alarming report claims Scotland's economy 'could be bankrupted' by climate change inaction', April 20). I quote: "An economic report had laid out the devastating impact climate change could have on the Scottish economy if mitigation measures are not pursued. Not tackling climate change, it says, could leave Scotland between £30 billion and £140bn poorer by 2035, and 'bankrupt the Scottish economy'." Acting Minister for Climate Action Alasdair Allan tells us in the piece: 'The Scottish Government continues to drive climate action that is fair, ambitious and effective at addressing the scale of the emergency which faces us. We will carefully consider its recommendations.' CalMac has chartered the MV Alfred as a stopgap to try to maintain some credibility as a ferry operator whilst its CMAL assets wither and die from old age. The Scottish Government-owned CMAL regards such catamarans as the work of Old Nick himself as the Aldred consumes six tonnes of diesel per day. The "ambitious and effective" solution are apparently the eco-ferries Glens Sannox and Rosa, championed by no less than Nicola Sturgeon as the greenest ferries ever to ply the waters of Scotland. But what of their daily fuel consumption? They burn 19 tonnes of diesel and 20 tonnes of LNG per day on the same route. I'm with Vicky. Peter Wright, West Kilbride. The MV Glen Sannox (Image: Gordon Terris) In defence of Russia Tim Cox (Letters, April 20) claims that Russia is ruled by Nazis. This is grossly insulting to the Russian people, given that Hitler was bent on genocide against them. It is true that Stalin's USSR supplied the Nazis when Britain stood alone, but that is semi-understandable given our Establishment's hatred of the Bolsheviks for having overthrown centuries of largely tyrannical monarchy, latterly the Romanovs. In 2018 BBC's Newsnight reported on fascist elements within Ukraine's notorious Azov Battalion, but since Russia invaded in 2022 to defend their own folk in the Donbass, the West's mainstream, singing for their Nato/EU supper, have desisted from further investigation. George Morton, Rosyth. • Tim Cox claims that "the Nazis of Russia" never thank the British merchant seamen [of] the Arctic convoys". In fact they do. Andrey Pritsepov, Russian Consul General, has said: "It is important both for Russia and the United Kingdom to preserve memories of this most heroic page of our wartime alliance as a tribute to the veterans for the sake of future generations". The Russians also awarded the Ushakov Medal to scores of men who served in the Merchant Navy and the Royal Navy in the 78 Arctic convoys. A list of recipients can be seen on Wikipedia's Medal of Ushakov page. The next time Mr Cox is in Scotland he should visit the Russian Arctic Convoy Museum up at Loch Ewe and see for himself a time when Russia and Britain were allies not enemies. William Loneskie, Lauder. Change laws on rugby scrums The women's Six Nations Scotland v England game did not make easy watching for a Scotland fan. It was never going to be easy for the Scottish girls to contain the bigger, heavier, stronger English pack and almost every scrum with an England put-in led to an England penalty and a major gain in territory. Penalties should be awarded for a deliberate breach of the laws of the game, such as going offside. It hardly seems fair to be penalised for being outmuscled. Winning the scrum brings its own rewards. It would be fairer if a free kick were awarded instead, without the option of a repeat scrum. The team awarded the kick would then only be able to kick directly to touch from its own 22 and would not get the throw-in. Penalties should only be awarded for deliberately collapsing the scrum. Many of Scotland's problems in the men's Six Nations stemmed from scrum failings which may have arisen from the absence of Scott Cummings' power in the second row. Scrums were originally devised as a means of restarting the game after a knock-on or forward pass. They are an integral part of the game but have become far too much of a deciding feature. Ronald Cameron, Banavie.
