John Knox

We’ve just had our “Royal Week” in Scotland when the King and the royal household spend a special time with the people of their northern kingdom. It involved the 16th century tradition of the Rt Hon Lord Provost of Edinburgh handing over the keys to Holyrood Palace. There was also the opening of the new […]

I've just returned from a cycling holiday on Deeside and for the whole week it didn't rain! For someone like me, brought up the North East, this is astonishing.

The 23rd Commonwealth Games began its 10 day run on Thursday evening in the Glasgow Hydro with a kaleidoscopic opening ceremony. The King and Queen arrived in Dr Who’s Tardis and soon we found ourselves swimming on a big screen with the Loch Ness monster. Then a company of strangely dressed dancers took us through […]

It's one of the wonders of the world. A few days ago, I watched the great white birds circling overhead as our boat approached the Bass

It’s August, so Edinburgh is packed with six noisy festivals and twice as many people as in peace time. There’s the official International Festival with 147 performances of music, theatre and dance. This is dwarfed by the Festival Fringe with 53,000 performances of everything you can imagine, but includes a great deal of comedy […]

The wonderful thing about this year’s Edinburgh Festival, the 79th, is that the weather joined in the fun. It was dry, sunny a lot of the time and the coolest place in red-hot Europe. The grass was actually green. So the clattering circus of music, theatre, dance, comedy, book reading and military tattooing could spread […]

John Knox Guest Columnist Sept. 1, 2026, 4:47 a.m. ET

John Knox argues River District Hospital's closure leaves southern St. Clair County without essential care and reflects misplaced priorities.

I’m astonished at how little leadership our politicians offer. Both John Swinney and Andy Burnham are in a strong position to make bold decisions at the start of a new term, yet their programmes for government, announced this week, were nothing but exercises in wishful rhetoric. Bowls of thin soup, smelling good, but containing nothing […]

I’m coming down to reality after another glorious summer. But I’m still dreaming of our family holiday on Speyside, kayaking on the lochs and walking in the hills with a mild wind keeping the midges at bay. It was Scotland’s sixth hottest summer since records began in 1884 but it was pleasantly cool by English and […]