Trans/national dis/connections: silenced networks and strained belongings with reference to Albinia Catherine MacKay and Una Marson

This paper seeks to examine the particular operations of gender and cultural politics that both shaped and restrained possible 'networked' interactions between Jamaican women and their British 'motherlands' during the first forty years of the twentieth century. Paying particular attention to the poetry of Albinia Catherine MacKay (a Scots Creole) and the political journalism of Una Marson (a black Jamaica), I shall seek to examine why both writers speak in and of voices out of place. MacKay's poems work against the critical pull of transnational modernism to reveal aesthetic and cultural isolation through a model of strained belonging in relation to both her Jamaica home and an ancestral Scotland. A small number of poems from her 1912 collection that are dedicated to the historical struggle between the English and Scots for the rule of Scotland and cultural self-determination, some of which are written in a Scottish idiom, may help us to read the complex cultural negotiations that silently inform the seemingly in commensurability of location and locution revealed in these works. In contrast, Marson's journalism, although less known even than her creative writings, is both politically and intellectually radical in its arguments concerning the mutual articulation of race and gender empowerment. However, Marson remains aware of her inability to articulate these convictions with force in a British context and thereby of the way in which speaking out of place also silences her.

How well can we model stream phosphorus concentrations in agricultural catchments?

Mechanistic catchment-scale phosphorus models appear to perform poorly where diffuse sources dominate. We investigate the reasons for this for one model, INCA-P, testing model output against 18 months of daily data in a small Scottish catchment. We examine key model processes and provide recommendations for model improvement and simplification. Improvements to the particulate phosphorus simulation are especially needed. The model evaluation procedure is then generalised to provide a checklist for identifying why model performance may be poor or unreliable, incorporating calibration, data, structural and conceptual challenges. There needs to be greater recognition that current models struggle to produce positive Nash–Sutcliffe statistics in agricultural catchments when evaluated against daily data. Phosphorus modelling is difficult, but models are not as useless as this might suggest. We found a combination of correlation coefficients, bias, a comparison of distributions and a visual assessment of time series a better means of identifying realistic simulations.

Better dead: J. M. Barrie’s first book and the shilling fiction market

This article provides a critical and bibliographical discussion of J. M. Barrie’s neglected first book, Better Dead, published by Swan Sonnenschein, Lowrey & Co. in 1887. Drawing on previously unexamined evidence in the Sonnenschein archive, it shows how this shilling novel was marketed and sold to its readers at railway bookstalls, and argues that the content and style of the story was conditioned by its form. Examining the many references and allusions in the story, it proposes that the work is best understood as a satire on contemporary political, social and literary themes. The article also shows how, contrary to all published accounts, the author actually earned a small amount of money from a work which, in spite of his efforts, refused to stay dead.

Response of the North Atlantic wave climate to atmospheric modes of variability

This study investigates the relationship between the wind wave climate and the main climate modes of atmospheric variability in the North Atlantic Ocean. The modes considered are the North Atlantic Oscillation (NAO), the East Atlantic (EA) pattern, the East Atlantic Western Russian (EA/WR) pattern and the Scandinavian (SCAN) pattern. The wave dataset consists of buoys records, remote sensing altimetry observations and a numerical hindcast providing significant wave height (SWH), mean wave period (MWP) and mean wave direction (MWD) for the period 1989–2009. After evaluating the reliability of the hindcast, we focus on the impact of each mode on seasonal wave parameters and on the relative importance of wind-sea and swell components. Results demonstrate that the NAO and EA patterns are the most relevant, whereas EA/WR and SCAN patterns have a weaker impact on the North Atlantic wave climate variability. During their positive phases, both NAO and EA patterns are related to winter SWH at a rate that reaches 1 m per unit index along the Scottish coast (NAO) and Iberian coast (EA) patterns. In terms of winter MWD, the two modes induce a counterclockwise shift of up to 65° per negative NAO (positive EA) unit over west European coasts. They also increase the winter MWP in the North Sea and in the Bay of Biscay (up to 1 s per unit NAO) and along the western coasts of Europe and North Africa (1 s per unit EA). The impact of winter EA pattern on all wave parameters is mostly caused through the swell wave component.

Brexit or Bremain? Future options for UK agricultural policy and the CAP

The outcome of the UK’s referendum on continued EU membership is at the time of writing uncertain, and the consequences of a vote to remain (‘Bremain’) or leave (‘Brexit’) difficult to predict. Polarised views have been voiced about the impact of Brexit on UK agriculture, and on the nature and level of funding, of future policy. Policymakers would not have the luxury of devising a new policy from scratch. WTO rules and commitments, the nature of any future accord with the EU, budget constraints, the rather different perspectives of the UK’s devolved administrations in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland, and the expectations of farmers, landowners and the environmental lobby, will all impact the policymaking process. The WTO dimension, and the UK’s future relationship with the EU, are particularly difficult to predict, and – some commentators believe – may take years to resolve. Brexit’s impact on the future CAP is also unclear. A vote to remain within the EU would not necessarily assuage the Eurosceptics’ criticisms of the EU, or the UK’s perception of the CAP. Whatever the outcome, future agricultural, food and rural land use policies will remain key preoccupations of European governments.