The Elevation of Audley Masterton Summer 1914. Determined to restore his career and regain the offer of a knighthood after an unfortunate mishap in London, Shakespearian actor-manager Audley Masterton embarks on a tour of the Empire, only to be wrecked on the Skeleton Coast of South-West Africa with a mere handful of survivors. Escaping German internment on a rusty train, he sets about welding them into a new troupe; whilst the endless permutations of young love and jealousy find their echoes in the plays themselves. And as they advance further into the interior, the tragic outcome of his own...

Most Scots are not descended from the Gaels, but of mixed Anglian, Celtic, Viking and Norman blood like the rest of us. Much of the Border Raiding was south for cattle and extortion, whilst the English only went north to try to stop it; sometimes by forcing formal submission. Scottish academics claim a centuries-old policy of genocide, but the reality is that most cruelty and oppression has been Scot-on-Scot. Sensible and humane Scots chose Union in order to put an end to slavery, the burning alive of women as witches, legal torture, feudal oppression, and the endemic poverty that annually...