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✽✽ HITLIST

ECOLOGY, ECONOMY, BURNSOLOGY

A change can do you good Quick, before the month ends and your new year resolutions fail! Kirstin Innes finds the best ways to get you out of the house this fortnight.

S o this year, you’ve decided, is going to be the year when you Make Things Happen. However, recovering from your hangover took a good few days, and then you were back at work dealing with the email backlog; now you’re aware that it’s almost the end of January, and you haven’t really Made Anything Happen yet, and before you know it it’s February and you’re snowed under (literally, probably).

Don’t worry. We’ve pulled out a few of the more interesting courses and potentially-life-changing events starting this fortnight. The renewed sense of purpose on your happy wee faces will be thanks enough.

Glasgow Want a new hobby, to meet people and lose weight? A ten-week course in Taiko drumming at Sounds of Progress in Glasgow starts this week. It’s an energetic, disciplined art, and the course will take you from the rudiments of practice to a group performance. You need to be pretty fit already to wield those sticks, though. (Sounds of Progress, starts Sat 22 Jan, 11am–1pm, £120 for whole course. Call 01357 522008 to book). Wanna be in the movies? Either join the queue, kid, or head on down to Write, Camera, Action (CCA, Sat 29 Jan, 7–9pm, £5), a networking evening where anyone in the Glasgow film biz can be found producers, independent directors and actors galore. Decided that this is the year you’ll get published? Trongate 103 are running a Pitching Your Manuscript workshop, in which editor Claire

Wingfield teaches you how to approach prospective publishers (Sat 22 Jan, 1.45pm, £60). Or maybe you want to spend time on the gentler, tastier things in life, in which case we thoroughly recommend Heart and Soul Gastronomy: Bread 1, a back-to-basics masterclass in breadmaking with Andrew Wilson, founder of Glasgow organic sourdough bakers differentbreid (Heart Buchanan, Thu 3 Feb, time tbc, £45. Call 334 7626 for more info). Edinburgh In the ’Burgh, they’re less concerned with your creativity and more interested in your mental state. For a start, those lovely folk at the Melting Pot on Rose street are running a 12-hour Melting Pot Jelly (Thu 27 Jan, 9am–9pm, free), a chance for freelancers, home workers and other folk who spend all day staring at their own walls to get out of the house and talk to people (shouting at Jeremy Kyle doesn’t count as ‘talking to people’), apparently. Once the stimulation kicks in, and you get a taste for debate, why not saunter along to Edinburgh Skeptics, a regular opportunity for rational thinkers to meet up and worry away at received wisdom. They’ll be getting in about climate change on Thu 20 Jan (at the Bongo Club, 7.30pm, free). Oops. Does even the thought of that stress you out? Still a wee bit tender after the festive season? Spend a day exploring the theraputic and relaxational properties of Tibetan singing bowls, vocal sounds and instrumental works at Resonance, Relaxation and Recovery Through Sound, a day-long course at the Botanic Gardens (Sun 23 Jan, 10am–5pm, £45).

✽✽ The Inventors of Tradition Fascinating new exhibition on the social history of the Scottish fashion and textile industry, with new work by Lucy McKenzie and Beca Lipscombe. See feature, page 24. Glasgow, 22 Stockwell Street, Sat 21 Jan–27 Feb. ✽✽ The Fascinating and Sometimes Bizarre Cultures of the Pacific Illustrated talk on the societies of Papua New Guinea, Tonga and Easter Island by travel writer Patrick Richardson. Glasgow, Renfield St Stephen’s Church, Thu 3 Feb. ✽✽ Edinburgh Iranian Festival Back after 2009’s success with a great programme. See picture, 29. Edinburgh, various venues, Fri 28 Jan–Sun 6 Feb ✽✽ Burns Night Celebrate our national festival in style, aided by our guide on page 28. Sat 22–Tue 25 Jan, everywhere. ✽✽ The Global Commune At the third annual gathering of the Global Commune, trade unions in all their forms come under discussion. Expect controversy and heated debate. Edinburgh, Out of the Blue Drill Hall, Sat 29 Jan. ✽✽ Stem Cell Roadshow Find out more about this often- misunderstood area of science with an event hosted by the UK National Stem Cell Network. Edinburgh, Royal College of Surgeons, Tue 1 Feb. ✽✽ Last Chance to See . . . With Mark Carwardine Stephen Fry’s co-presenter on the BBC series Last Chance To See pops up to discuss their search for the most endangered creatures on Earth. University of Edinburgh Appleton Tower, Thu 3 Feb. 20 Jan–3 Feb 2011 THE LIST 27