Your Noon Briefing: Sandra Ratcliffe exhibition, Salmond ‘king of tweeters’, etc

AN exhibition of paintings by a former senior features writer at the Daily Record newspaper has sold out, within days of its opening – thanks to all the exhibits (bar one that had already been sold) being bought up by the one person.

Sandra Ratcliffe left the Record in 1999, having spent 27 years there, to pursue her love of painting. She began as a journalist at the Evening Citizen newspaper in Glasgow. She joined the Record initially as a news reporter.

Only 14 years ago, her first exhibition was held in Strachur Village Hall, in Argyllshire. Her current exhibition, meanwhile, is in Abu Dhabi and when Dubai property developer, Ali Dar, son of Pakistan’s finance minister, Ishaque Dar, saw her portfolio of seascapes and skies, he moved to purchase all that were available.

Says Sandra, who lives in Ayr, Mr Dar will be keeping one favourite painting for himself and giving out the others as gifts to business associates. She says the purchase may have also been influenced by the fact that all proceeds from the exhibition was going to charity, Breathing Numbers, a UAE-based organisation which helps Syrian refugees.

Read more, here.

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A FORMER editor of the Ayrshire Post newspaper has written, on his Facebook page, of returning home from hospital.

Writes Matt Lynch: “Now I am on the relatively long journey back to some kind of normality – fishing, cycling, marathons, taking part in the Commonwealth Games, climbing Goat Fell etc! In the meantime, I will stick with Scrabble on the internet. Can’t thank you all enough. You are in my daily prayers. For some unknown reason, I know this was all meant to happen. A spiritual wake up call.”

Lynch’s career also includes a spell at The Sunday Times Scotland.

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BEGINS Craig Brown, in today’s Scotsman newspaper: “A Scottish American football team which earned itself the title of the worst in the league last year is the subject of a new feature-length documentary.

“The Season follows the fortunes of the amateur side Dundee Hurricanes as they attempt to recover from their disastrous 2013 season during which they lost all ten of their games.

“The film is being made by Fife-based independent production company, Buy the Ticket, run by director, Alex Harron, and producer, Andrew Glen.”

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‘ADVERTISING is applied creativity’, writes David Amers, planning director of the Edinburgh-based creative outfit, The Leith Agency, ahead of an event in Glasgow later this month about ‘how great planning leads to great creativity’.

Amers writes extensively in The Scotsman today.

The event, on the 22nd, is being hosted by the Marketing Society. For more details, click here.

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THE Press and Journal newspaper is seeking a chief sub-editor, as advertised here and repeated on twitter.com/allmediajobs.

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BEGINS The Herald today: “[First Minister] Alex Salmond now has almost as many followers on Twitter as his entire Labour opposition.”

And chief reporter, David Leask’s article includes details of the social media activity of every MSP.

The survey is accompanied by a leader reminding readers of the valuable role played by newspapers.

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AND The Herald (here) previews a two-part documentary about death – being screened on ITV1, from tomorrow, and presented by Scots comedian, Billy Connolly.

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IN yesterday’s edition of The Scotsman – tucked within the paper’s Monday sports supplement – a four-page pull-out, comprising reports from a conference last week, in Edinburgh, hosted by The Scotsman: The Media in Scotland: What does the digital future look like?

Find the report via this link, here.

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