News from nowhere

Hugh Masekela tells me that the ANC government in South Africa is afraid of the transforming power of music; two of the greatest comic book artists in the world reveal that they are going to make a graphic novel out of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde; the film maker Stephen Frears - who made The Queen and My Beautiful Launderette - dismisses the broadcaster Jeremy Paxman as a "savage" and a "bullying prefect".

Between Aug 6 and August 26, I had 26 news by-lines in Scotland, mainly in the Times Scottish edition, but also in Scotland on Sunday. They were all original stories, and not taken from the PA newswire, as is the case with a large proportion of national news on either the BBC or in the daily papers. Some were followed up all over the world. You can read a handful of my news pieces if you click the "News Stories" heading on the right.

The Masekela story travelled furthest. I interviewed him on the phone when he was touring America, prior to his visit to Scotland, and the story ran nationally in the Times. It was picked up by news agencies in South Africa, and afterwards I wrote a feature based on the original interview for four South African papers.

I interviewed Masekela for a second time when he arrived in Edinburgh, and chiseled out a second news story which ran in Scotland on Sunday - about reforming his partnership with Paul Simon - which again was picked up around the world.

That was how the news worked. As for Masekela himself, he gave an utterly sensational concert at the Queen's Hall in Edinburgh, arranged at very short notice. He normally rehearses a band for 10 days, this time he prepared only for two hours. The result was extraordinary, a moving performance utterly set in his own political struggles and it brought a Sunday night audience of white-haired Scottish Presbyterians to their feet with Stimela - his anthem about the gold mine, and a final chant for freedom, from the days before apartheid ended. Unforgettable. Really.