PREVIEW OF THE YEAR 7
6 SKAGBOYS Irvine Welsh delivers a Trainspotting prequel
Wonder how Renton, Sick Boy, Spud and co got to be the drugged-up life- rejecting Leith loons in Trainspotting? Well, wonder no more, as the publication of Skagboys brings us a bit more background on the individual and social circumstances revolving around them in the 1980s. And there may well be a few surprises along the way.
Renton cracks under the pressure of being the first person in his family to go to university; being spoiled as a child leads Sick Boy to try and control everyone he encounters; Begbie climbs the ladder of hardnuts to become a ruthless soul; Spud struggles after losing his job as a removal man. Welsh has spoken of the affection he holds for these boys, his ‘old pals’ who helped put him on the literary map, but the book will also seek to analyse just how parts of Edinburgh became so embroiled and trapped in the supply of heroin. (Brian Donaldson) ■ Out Thu 19 Apr.
20 THE LIST 5 Jan–2 Feb 2012
FASCINATING MUMMIES Exhibition of Egyptian death rituals
If, by any chance, you happened to be in Edinburgh in 1988, and at school, there was a very good chance you went on a trip to see the Gold of the Pharaohs exhibition at the City Art Centre. It was a big deal, up there with the Glasgow Garden Festival in terms of generating buzz and keeping the turnstiles spinning. The mask of Tutankhamun was on loan from the Cairo Museum, there were jewel-encrusted death masks, sarcophagi and priceless relics acquired by tomb-raiders on display, and it spawned a series of copycat library exhibitions and school projects.
Twenty odd years on, the newly refurbished National Museum is playing the masterstroke of kick-starting its exhibition programme with Fascinating Mummies, the first major show since their reopening. The treasures of Ancient Egypt have a knack of capturing imaginations – perhaps by simple virtue of them being so old (some artefacts going on show at Chambers Street date back to 4000BC), and ornate (can hieroglyphics be beaten for their primitive blend of aesthetic beauty and usefulness?). But a large part of the intrigue is down to the Ancient Egyptian treatment of death. Based around the concept of ‘dying to be born again’, their elaborate tombs, complex funeral rituals and mummification techniques are off-the-scale in terms of attention to detail. Fascinating Mummies aims to focus on this aspect of their culture with a two-part exhibition. One half will include the items from these death ceremonies – painted coffins, amulets, jewellery, papyri, embalming equipment and a mummified crocodile and cat will all be there to gawk at. The second half will examine the techniques used by scientists and archaelogists to make sense of the artefacts they have discovered. For example, after finding a mummified body, scientists faced the dilemma of unwrapping it; thereby damaging the corpse underneath, or piecing together the facts based solely on inscriptions on the coffins and objects around the body. The exhibition aims to shed light on modern techniques including DNA investigations, X-rays and CT (computerised tomography) scans which let scientists perform facial reconstructions of the bodies.
It will be the first UK date for the exhibition, on loan from the National Museum of Antiquities in the Netherlands, one of the world’s leading ancient Egypt collections. Additional artefacts from National Museums Scotland’s own collections will also be on show, including mummies and coffins gathered in the mid-19th century by Scottish archaeologist Alexander Henry Rhind. (Claire Sawers) ■ National Museum of Scotland, Sat 11 Feb–Sun 27 May, nms.ac.uk
5 MARTIN CREED: ALL THE BELLS Turner Prize winner invites Brits to ring in the Olympics
TRY: LIKE THIS? Speed of Light Runners wearing light suits illuminate Arthur’s Seat. Edinburgh, Aug,
speedoflight 2012.org.uk
Controversial he may be but conceptual artist Martin Creed has always been brutally honest with the paying public. His most famous work to date, Work No. 227: the lights going on and off, did exactly what it said on the tin and helped the Glasgow-raised artist to scoop the Turner Prize in 2001. And you’d be hard-pressed to find a more bluntly descriptive title than Work No. 79: some Blu-tack kneaded, rolled into a ball and depressed against a wall. Creed’s latest project, a special commission for the London 2012 Festival, is the pithily-entitled Work No. 1197: All the bells in a country rung as quickly and as loudly as possible for three minutes. The nationwide bell-ringing will start at 8am on Friday 27 July to mark the launch of the Olympic and Paralympic Games as part of the UK-wide programme of events that is the culmination of the four-year Cultural Olympiad. Anyone interested in joining Creed’s ringing community should visit allthebells.com for further information. As the artist himself makes clear, all bells are welcome, whether hand bells, door bells, bicycle bells, church bells, town hall bells, sleigh bells, cow bells or dinner bells. (Allan Radcliffe) ■ Fri 27 Jul, allthebells.com