Tune in today at 4.30pm for Legal Matters with Robin Braidwood, Solicitor.
Many of us buy and sell on ebay and use paypal, but do we know our rights?
Tune in to the Friday Magazine Show at 1.30pm. Local author Margaret Elphinstone, one of Scotland’s most highly regarded writers is on air. Alive’s Fiona Blackwood caught up with Margaret to speak about her ground breaking novel “The Gathering Night” and more.
Margaret comes to us thanks to Bibliographic Data Services, an information rich data supplier based in the Crichton Business Park in Dumfries. 
Set in the Mesolithic “The Gathering Night” sets the scene for Scotland in a near unknown age and even gives a fictional account based on archaeological facts known of a real Tsunami that struck Scotland in that misty far past time. It is a gripping read from start to finish.
You can visit Margaret’s website http://www.margaretelphinstone.co.uk/
If you miss it do not worry we will be podcasting the interview for you to enjoy again.
http://www.bibliographicdata.co.uk/
Now we have cleared the clutter and brought the breath of spring into the house what now? How do we turn our humble abodes into the sort of house we want. Pauline Jack from Hollywood Carpets will give us the next installment of her great new series on Alive.
One DVD in our review this week. As we wanted something current historical but bucking the trend and being that most old fashioned of concepts – futuristic, Bibliographic Data Services gave us Jon Favreau’s blockbuster Cowboys and Aliens.
Now if you are thinking “Aww Naw, Ave had enough of Will Smith beating up intergalactic bad guys…just haud yer horses.
This certificate 12A sees Daniel Craig, Harrison Ford, Keith Carradine, Noah Ringer, Olivia Wilde, Paul Dano and Sam Rockwell
Based on a graphic novel, the picture stars Daniel Craig, a stranger both to the west and to sci-fi, and Harrison Ford, minus his wookie.
They play a couple of gun-toting hardmen in post-civil war New Mexico, the stamping ground of Billy the Kid and Pat Garrett, who have somewhat alarmingly close encounters of the third kind with extraterrestrials. The western is the set and backdrop to what unfolds, but the movie might well have linked several familiar franchises by calling itself James Bond and Indiana Jones vs the Alien Predators.
Science fiction usually marries the western and produces offspring sporting familiar plots such as in the reworking of High Noon as Outland, with Sean Connery as an isolated sheriff on a grim planet, and The Magnificent Seven exchanging their horses for spacecraft in Battle Beyond the Stars, where Robert Vaughn reprises his earlier role. Some, of course, think that in their purest forms the western and science fiction are at once complementary and antithetical.
The best part of Cowboys & Aliens is the first half, and the best of those is the pre-credit sequence. An amnesiac, later identified as Jake Lonergan (Daniel Craig), recovers consciousness in the wilderness, horseless, a photo of a woman half-buried in the sand before him and a curious manacle or bracelet on his left arm, which, given the movie’s title, suggests extraterrestrial origins.
Suddenly three bearded hombresd turn up on horseback, asking the way to the resonantly named town of Absolution. They’re bounty hunters and they’ve picked the wrong strong, silent man. Within seconds they’re dead and their would-be victim, who has yet to utter a word, has a gun, a hat, a horse, but no identity.
Jake comes to a nearby town where he encounters a philosophical preacher, a naive saloon owner, an intrepid sheriff and the spoilt, wilful son of a rich rancher. They’re familiar characters with a surprising amount of mileage left in them.
But they’re soon to be confronted by an equally familiar but altogether less varied collection of hideous, malevolent, HR Giger-inspired aliens, dripping goo from every orifice, jumping around like monkeys and flying small spacecraft from which they use lines and hooks to scoop up their victims like aerial fishermen. And sorry guys Sigourney Weaver does not make an appearance.
There is a hint of Swiss author Erich von Däniken has been telling us for decades that aliens have been visiting our planet for several thousand years. While it would be big news for us.
The odd thing is that nobody in Cowboys & Aliens seems particularly surprised by their appearance, or by that of the mother ship half-buried in mountains.
It all concludes in the dramatic final scene when a coalition of settlers, outlaws and Apaches take on the extraterrestrials.
Some will really lap up the mix of Aliens V The man with no name. If you do not like either westerns or Sci Fi it may not be your thing, but if you like either, it is likely to be a fab 118 minutes and at a 12A certificate suitable for most of the family.
That’s it from the DVD review this week. Next week, a big treat. Celebrated local author Margaret Elphinstone joins Fiona Blackwood in the studio when we look at “The Gathering Night” set in Mesolithic Scotland. A read stunning read that grips you from the start. If you read Jean Auel’s Clan of the Cave Bear novels, this will simply blow you away.
That’s next week at 1.30 here on the Friday Magazine Show.
Listen again to Fiona Blackwood speaking to local Poet and Author Tom Pow.
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www.dyingvillages.com | www.spl.org.uk | www.scottishstorytellingcentre.co.uk
Friday 3rd February at 1.30pm Alive features Tom Pow. Dumfries and Galloway has some stunning writers and thanks to BDS Limited in Dumfries, an information supply company with a great international reputation. We have our fab local authors talking about their works and how Dumfries and Galloway is an inspirational place to be.
At 1.30pm on the 23rd on the Friday Magazine Show, Fiona Blackwood is talking to Tom Pow about his writing in general.
Tom Pow was born in Edinburgh in 1950. Primarily a poet, several of his collections have won awards and three of his poetry collections have been short-listed for Scottish Book of the Year. Most recently, Dear Alice – Narratives of Madness (Salt Publishing) won the poetry category in the Scottish Mortgage Investment Trust’s Scottish Book Awards in 2009. He has also written young adult novels, picture books, radio plays and a travel book about Peru. In The Becoming, Selected and New Poems (Polygon) has recently been published (June 2009).
He has held various writing posts, including that of Scottish/Canadian Writing Fellow, based at the University of Alberta in Edmonton, and Virtual Writer in Residence (Scotland’s first) for the Scottish Library Association’s Scottish Writers Project. He was the first ever Writer in Residence at the Edinburgh International Book Festival from 2001 to 2003.
From 2000 to 2009, he worked for the University of Glasgow in Dumfries, latterly as Senior Lecturer in Creative Writing and Storytelling.
He is currently Honorary Senior Research Fellow at Glasgow University Dumfries and a part-time lecturer on Lancaster University’s distance learning Masters in Creative Writing.
Find out more about Mary Smith by checking out www.tompow.co.uk More information can be found about BDS, whose help in arranging these book reviews is very much appreciated at
Get the outside in!
fresh air flowing through the house from room to room, especially when you have a lovely day like today. Your house will thank you for it.
One of the best house tips you can have, is just open your windows.
When we make hot meals, tea, take a shower, have a bath, dry our clothes, or do anything else that adds moisture to the air (including breathing), we’re also creating an environment that’s conducive to mold. It loves warm, damp environments. The problem is growing as construction technology makes our homes even more water and moisture secure.
You also have cleaning products, bleach etc. They hang around in the air.
The next time you come back home, take note of the smell and how humid the house is. Is it stuffy? You don’t notice these things when you’re in the house for a couple of hours.
So today try opening the window. Feel the fresh, clean feeling that only actual natural clean air can offer, even if it’s just for a brief minute. You will feel energized too. You will realise quickly why your mother and hers all did this.
It is simple, it is green and it is free.
Join me in a fortnight,
Pauline x
It’s all about the bugs! Tune in tomorrow for Interior Design and Home Furnishings expert Pauline Jack. More great home tips!
Bibliographic Data Services, based in the Crichton Business Park have chosen for us two great DVD’s to review at 1.30pm today.
The moive that gave Gary Oldman his Oscar Nomination – Tinker Tailor, Soldier Spy. 
Plus an Eastern European film that has stood the test of time since 1999 – Black Cat/White Cat
This week is Dumfries and Galloway’s local Sexual Health Week – ‘Let’s talk about Sex – what’s new 4 u?’
Alive radio is working with NHS D&G to encourage you to consider your sexual health and what could be new for you.
Don’t be afraid to talk about it, it’s your body and you must always be happy and safe in how you approach sex and relationships. Check out what is new in contraception and STI testing on http://www.c4urself.org.uk/
BBC Local News
