Bøker av Daniel Gray

A Scotsman and an Englishman, a camera and a notebook...McCredie's lens and Gray's words search out everyday Scotland - a Scotland of flaking pub signs and sneaky fags outside the bingo, Italian cafes and proper fitba grounds. A nation of beautiful, haggard normality.

One hundred and fifty years after it was first contested, photographer Alan McCredie and writer Daniel Gray spent the 2023/24 football season seeking out the charms of the modern Scottish Cup. Travelling to matches from hamlet to Hampden, they found them in abundance.

What if every day was like Sunday?

The story of Britain's fish and chips obsession. 'Gray is a master of observing and amplifying the things we love.' The Times

The postman and the primary teacher, the midwife and the musician. Workers in shops, workers at sea. Solidarity with the Columbian farmer and the Palestinian fireman...Modern trade unionists in Scotland perform roles in every imaginable location and are drawn from all backgrounds. They campaign to win on issues facing the colleague next to them or a comrade thousands of miles away. 'Mon the Workers tells their stories in their own words. It is a celebration of 125 years of the STUC, and a clarion call for the next generation to agitate, organise and win. This book demonstrates past achievements, explores the ideas trade unionists have fought for and rouses the movement towards future victories. 75 trade union members, reps and officials share experiences of union life from the anti-apartheid movement to Wick Wants Work. Alan McCredie's charismatic portraits of 50 other activists from the trade union movement provide a complementary visual narrative. This very human book pulses with the energy of Scotland's trade union movement, which has achieved so much and still has more to do.

'Powerful and poignant' Henry Winter'Empathetic and poignant ... the game's answer to A Journal of the Plague Year' Harry Pearson'The Durham City midfielder wore the resigned look of a man trying to find a jar of harissa in Farmfoods. Up front for Jarrow, a centre-forward darted around frenetically, as if chasing a kite during a hurricane...'When football disappeared in March 2020, writer and broadcaster Daniel Gray used its absence to reflect on everything the game meant to him. That bred a pledge: whenever and wherever fans were allowed to return, he would be there. The Silence of the Stands is the result of that pledge: a joyous travelogue documenting a precarious season, in which behind-closed-doors matches and travel restrictions combined to make trips to Kendal and Workington seem impossibly exotic. Offering a poignant peek at a surreal age and a slab of social history from the two-metre-distanced tea bar queue, this is the moving, heartfelt and surprisingly uplifting story of a unique season that no one wishes to repeat.

Featured in The Scotsman's Sport Books of 2020A collection of lyrical sweet-nothings whispered to late goals, local radio commentators, referees falling over and 47 other reminders of why we love football.Despite its flaws and excesses, modern football is still sprinkled with simple yet beguiling delights. In his previous book Saturday, 3pm, Daniel Gray captured many of them. Now he is back with a further 50 short essays of prose poetry dedicated to the game's charming, technicolour minutiae. From club lottos to undeserved wins, and from pitch-invading animals to the roar after a minute's silence, Extra Time is another romantic celebration of football fandom and its shared joys, habits, eccentricities and peculiarities. It is a salute to keepers going forward for corners, match balls landing on stand roofs and goals scored in quick succession. These chapters offer a gleeful antidote to disillusionment with modern football, VAR and all. They are reminders of why we care and justifications for our devotion. Each warmly evokes this sport's blessed capacity to offer escape and diversion. Let us share the delight once more.

The Spanish civil war was a call to arms for 2,300 British volunteers, of which over 500 were from Scotland. The first book of its kind, 'Homage to Caledonia' examines Scotland's role in the conflict, detailing exactly why Scottish involvement was so profound. The book moves chronologically through events and places, firstly surveying the landscape in contemporary Scotland before describing volunteers' journeys to Spain, and then tracing their every involvement from arrival to homecoming (or not). There is also an account of the non-combative role, from fundraising for Spain and medical aid, to political manoeuvrings within the volatile Scottish left. Using a wealth of previously-unpublished letters sent back from the front as well as other archival items, Daniel Gray is able to tell little known stories of courage in conflict, and to call into question accepted versions of events such as the 'murder' of Bob Smillie, or the heroism of 'The Scots Scarlet Pimpernel'. Homage to Caledonia offers a very human take on events in Spain: for every tale of abject distress in a time of war, there is a tale of a Scottish volunteer urinating in his general's boots, knocking back a dram with Errol Flynn or appalling Spanish comrades with his pipe playing. For the first time, read the fascinating story of Caledonia's role in this seminal conflict. REVIEWS: As seen on STV Documentary 'The Scots Who Fought Franco'. 'Daniel Gray has done a marvellous job in bringing together the stories of Scots volunteers - in [this] many-voiced, multi-layered book' SCOTLAND ON SUNDAY'...moving and thought-provoking.' THE HERALD' A new and fascinating contribution' SCOTTISH REVIEW OF BOOKS 'Book of the week - Gray deserves applause for shining a light on a lesser-known aspect of the nation's character of which we should all be proud. 'PRESS &p; JOURNAL. BACK COVER: Thirty-five thousand people from across the world volunteered to join the armed resistance in a war on fascism. More people, proportionately, went from Scotland than any other country, and the entire nation was gripped by the conflict. What drove so many ordinary Scots to volunreer in a foreign war? Their stories are powerfully and honestly told, often in their own words: the ordinary men and women who made their way to Spain over the Pyrenees when the UK government banned anyone from going to support either side; the nuses and ambulance personnel who discovered for themselves the horrors of modern warfare; and the people back home who defied their poverty to give generously to the Spanish republican cause. Even in war there are light-hearted moments: a Scottish volunteer drunkenly urinating in his general's boots, enduring the dark comedy of learning to shoot with sticks amidst a scarcity of rifles, or enjoying the surreal experience of raising a dram with Errol Flynn. They went from all over the country: Glasgow, Edinburgh. Aberdeen, Dundee, Fife and the Highlands, and they fought to save Scotland, and the world, from the growing threat of fascism.

Is it Really Possible to End Global Poverty?Every generation of people puts forth a prescription for handling poverty. To date, every antidote for poverty has been a miserable failure. Follow the Money looks at the history of failures, both liberal and conservative, in the United States and declares if the real causes aren't addressed we are headed for a catastrophic economic collapse.Daniel is an emotionally reclusive and secretive mathematician, who taught chess around the United States for over twelve years. He challenged himself with impossible questions to maintain his ownsanity. Over fifteen years ago, in the midst of a mental breakdown, he asked the question ';How Can I Destroy America?' Follow the Money is not only a solution to the question but a step by step process on how to stop the plan to destroy America. In these pages you'll discover: that the United States was almost destroyed twice by technology. ...that America suffered over 20 major financial crashes since its founding. ...that the technology to cause a cataclysmic economic collapse is already upon us. ...that there is an alternative to the banking system we currently have. that the future for you and your children may be a new form of slavery.Are you concerned about the future for yourself and your family? There is a solution to global poverty. If you are interested, then this book is for you.

SHORTLISTED FOR THE BOOKS ARE MY BAG READERS AWARDS!We lead increasingly time-poor lifestyles, bombarded 24/7 by petrifying news bulletins, internet trolls and endless noises. Where has the joy and relaxation gone from our daily lives? Scribbles in the Margins offers a glorious antidote to that relentless modern-day information churn. It is here to remind you that books and bookshops can still sing to your heart. Warm, heartfelt and witty, here are fifty short essays of prose poetry dedicated to the simple joy to be found in reading and the rituals around it. These are not wallowing nostalgia; they are things that remain pleasurable and right, that warm our hearts and connect us to books, to reading and to other readers: smells of books, old or new; losing an afternoon organising bookshelves; libraries; watching a child learn to read; reading in bed; impromptu bookmarks; visiting someone's home and inspecting the bookshelves; stains and other reminders of where and when you read a book.An attempt to fondly weigh up what makes a book so much more than paper and ink - and reading so much more than a hobby, a way of passing time or a learning process - these declarations of love demonstrate what books and reading mean to us as individuals, and the cherished part they play in our lives, from the vivid greens and purples of childhood books to the dusty comfort novels we turn to in times of adult flux. Scribbles in the Margins is a love-letter to books and bookshops, rejoicing in the many universal and sometimes odd little ways that reading and the rituals around reading make us happy.

Fatigued by bloated big-game football and bored of a samey big cities, Daniel Gray went in search of small town Scotland and its teams. Part travelogue, part history and part mistakenly spilling ketchup on the face of a small child, Stramash takes an uplifting look at the country's nether regions.