o HOT10008
19 Sons and Daughters GILT EDGED ROCKERS
16 The Inglebys VISUAL ART VISIONARIES
With a big sexy roar, their Bernard Butler-produced album This Gift, all 1960s girl group shimmies and cinematic sweeps, together with sparkly single 'Gilt Complex', marked a new, glossier direction for the Glasgow four-piece this year. They've been selling out increasingly large venues all over the world, hanging out with Nick Cave, and still finding the time to play thoroughly brilliant, sweat- drenched gigs on home turf. (KI)
18 Barry and Stuart PURE DEAD MAGIC
The first Edinburgh festival run for twisted, shock-showmen Barry and Stuart turned into a runaway success, as their macabre magic collected five- star reviews and led to an extended run. More telly, more touring, and a probable return to the Fringe beckons in 2009 for the badass pair of anti- Paul Daniels. (CS)
17 Robert Carlyle MAN IN THE SUN
It felt like Carlyle came home this year. He not only scooped himself a Scottish BAFTA for his skilled and [see number 28] detailed performance as the illiterate Shaun, in Kenny Glenaan’s excellent Summer but he could also be seen in historical caper Stone of Destiny, feted TV conspiracy thriller The Last Enemy, standalone 24 feature Redemption. Carlyle remains the unstoppable force of the Scottish film industry. (PD)
Sons and Daughters
The family-run Ingleby Gallery’s high profile move from the rarified air of their New Town house to the derelict buildings behind Waverley Station has not only galvanised the area and saved the much-loved venue formerly known as the Venue, but they’ve created the largest private gallery outside of London in doing so. (KI)
15 Janice Galloway MODEST MEMOIRIST
It’s been six years since one of Scotland’s best and best-loved writers published Clara, a novel based on the life of Clara Schumann. This year she turned the technique on her own life with the fictionalised memoir This is Not About Me, one of the most beautiful, original, stylish and satisfying books of the year. (KI)
14 Biffy Clyro HIRSUTE ROCK HEROES
It’s been a between-albums year for the grungy power trio from Ayrshire, but they didn’t disappear from view while working on the follow-up to 2007’s hugely successful Puzzles. Instead, Simon Neil and James and Ben Johnston released single ‘Mountains’, which got to number five, their highest chart position ever, while they blew away all comers at Glastonbury, T in the Park, Reading and Leeds festivals. A huge UK tour, including two sold out shows tops this off, while the band have already been named as headliners of the Rock Ness festival 2009. (DP)
13 A year in the life of . . . Grant Morrison COMIC WRITER/SCREEN WRITER
‘It seems like I’ve been
working like a madman. I’ve been wrapping up the big two storylines at DC, Final Crisis and Batman RIP [where Morrison killed Bruce Wayne to massive media coverage]. These shallow things still excite me, to actually see them referring to [Batman villain] the Black Glove on the BBC News, was orgasmic. All-Star Superman also finished with great fanfare and was declared by some to be ‘the best Superman story DC have ever done’, which I loved because three guys from Glasgow [Morrison and artists Frank Quitely and Jamie Grant] did that one. It’s got a touch of 1930s Walt Disney, but we’re trying to be serious about what Superman represents as an idea with a big old mythical story.’ ‘Other than that I won a few
awards and doing the panel with Stan Lee at ComicCon in San Diego was great. He’s just such an old bugger, you think, ‘he’s an old man, he’s in his 80s, so I’d better be kind to this guy’. No, he’s sharp as a tack with a really cruel Madison Avenue 1950s wit. He just started ripping straight into me, so we ended up almost having sparring matches. That was one of the highlights of my life. I did another one at ComicCon with Gerard Way [lead singer with My Chemical Romance] with an audience of teenage goths, which was brilliant, he’s a smart kid.
‘I also finished the Area 51 script for Paramount this year, which underwent a complete re-write – I’ve got a list of what I can and can’t say – there’s forms and there’s lawyers and stuff. The big news is three things happened to me this summer which were the biggest things which have ever happened to me, but I can’t say anything about them.’
21 A year in the life of . . . Rodge Glass
AUTHOR
‘I spent much of the last three years writing two books – a novel called Hope for Newborns, and Alasdair Gray: A Secretary’s Biography. The biography, in a slightly different form, was also a PhD at Glasgow University, without which I wouldn’t have been able to afford to write. So, between all-night sessions trying to put the novel together and following my subject around I was also going to seminars, trying to learn how to become an academic. Attempting all that at once is a pretty effective way of losing your mind, and I wouldn’t recommend it, but as all three projects finally finished I began to feel very lucky and grateful. My novel was published at the beginning of the summer, the biography appeared a few months ago, and I graduate from Glasgow University this month. I am proud of both the books, and am pleased that they have been received so well, especially the novel, as it was a real struggle early on and I’m really pleased with how it ended up. I now feel incredibly free. I’m having fun writing a part-fiction, part-fact book about a striker who plays once for Manchester United, gets sent off, injures himself and never makes it back. He then develops an obsession with the man who took his place in the team: it’s called I Kill Cantona. I’m also the new Writer in Residence at Strathclyde University, where I started out ten years ago.’
20 Sophie Martin PRIMA BALLERINA
French-born Martin joined Scottish Ballet in 2003 and quickly emerged as one to watch. Combining beauty and talent, Martin has been the company’s poster girl twice in the past year, for Sleeping Beauty and Romeo and Juliet, playing lead roles in both shows. In August 2008 she was rightly promoted to principal, the highest rank in a ballet company. (KA) 30 THE LIST 11 Dec 2008–8 Jan 2009