By Kelsey Clarke, Form 6 • 1) Please write a little description of yourself and your work, for the benefit of possibly unaware readers. I’m a slimebabe who makes art! Games zines selfies poems videos comics drawings slime whatever. Radical politics and the feminine are important to me. I’ve done extensive games curation and helped…
By Kelsey Clarke, Form 6 • Why review two songs whose moments have passed? Why bother comparing them, despite them seemingly having nothing to do with one-another? Well, I won’t lie and say it’s not because I want to justify my particular artistic sensibilities. But these songs have a lot more in common than immediately…
By Kelsey Clarke, Form 6 • In the most recent edition of the Galley I laid out a proposed strategy for countering IS (the Islamic State, the terrorist group/pseudo-state setting itself up in Iraq and Syria. To summarise: Sunnis must be convinced they have a place in a future Iraqi state; a competent, secular Iraqi army…
anonymous • For those of us who, like me, have been bypassed by this craze, Yik Yak is an anonymous chat group sorted by location. It uses your phone’s GPS to connect you to other people nearby, with whom you can then anonymously share whatever comments you like. My first thought on researching this was:…
By Amenah Cheema, Form 6 • Some people seem to think that Saudi Arabia and Islam are synonymous. This is a problem. Islamic scholars always emphasise the fact that Islam is a religion that urges people to ask questions. Rather than taking something to be true at face value, it invites its followers to ask…
By Iris Martyn, Form 6 • In 1903, outspoken suffragettes “defaced” thousands of one-penny coins by stamping “Votes for Women” onto them and releasing them back into circulation. In fact, ever since complex human social structures came into existence, those who have suffered under their dividing, categorising, and often somewhat arbitrary rules have sought…
By Kelsey Clarke, Form 6 • Bruised from foreign policy failure and turning towards illiberal Putinism, Erdogan plays a dangerous game. Has any country changed as much as Turkey in the 20th century? Following the collapse of the Ottoman Empire, Turkey went from being the heart of the world’s last caliphate to being a secular,…
by Ellen Peden, Form 1 ♦ Have your parents ever told you to stop playing video games because it will damage your vision? If so, they are wrong. Scientists believe that, although they don’t do much for education, video games involving guns or shooting will improve a person’s eyesight in low-light conditions. Research has found that…
By Amy Marsh, Form 1 ♦ The definition of slang is: the informal use of phrases and words. Slang can be used in many different ways – in texts and talking to friends, tweets and Facebook posts, but are slang words such a good thing? I am sure that you could think of a few right…
by Iris Martyn, Form 6 ♦ In Guinea on December 8th, a two-year-old boy died just a few days after developing feverish symptoms. “Patient Zero” lived near Liberia and Sierra Leone, where over 2,000 people have been infected and nearly 1,000 have died. The primary reason for the uncontrollable spread of ebola is that it is…
by Kelsey Clarke, Form 6 • I feel sorry for anyone who didn’t stay up for the referendum; I was exhausted literally, mentally and intellectually by the end of it, and the reason why might be hard to appreciate if you just had a nice sleep instead. The shock Clackmannanshire result at 1am; the excited comments…
By Kelsey Clarke, Form 6 • “It is an ugly album, full of hate and fear.” It has often been remarked that the album is a lost art form. In this world of mp3s and easily downloadable singles, an album is really nothing more than a bundle-pack of songs. Obviously there are exceptions to this rule…
By Amenah Cheema, Form 6 • As the Independence Referendum carries such heavy potential consequences for Scotland’s future, it is of huge importance to inform voters and answer the vital questions. Keith Brown, a member of the Scottish National Party and the Member of Scottish Parliament for Clackmannanshire and Dunblane, was kind enough to come into Dollar…
By Kelsey Clarke, Form 5 • The world watches in horror and awe as a desperate search is mounted to rescue some two hundred kidnapped girls from the terrorist group Boko Haram in Nigeria. Meanwhile, we also continue to wince as Syria haemorrhage refugees and life in its increasingly brutal civil war. In the midst of…
By Iris Martyn, Form 5 • 1. Chocolate. The Aztec ruler Montezuma II is reported to have drunk fifty cups of xocolatl, a spicy cocoa drink, every day. Cocoa, and the word “chocolatl”, was quickly accepted by Spanish conquistadors in the 16th century and spread to Europe, eventually being adapted to a solid, milky, sugary product.…
The Galley 