Malcolm Jack

A profile interview with 17-year-old Scottish freestyle ski sensation Kirsty Muir, ahead of the 2022 Winter Olympics in Beijing, for the cover of the Scotland on Sunday's annual Scottish Ski & Board supplement. Kirsty went on to become Team GB's youngest member and one of its very best performers, with a fifth place finish in the Big Air and an eighth place finish in the women's slopestyle.

Cover interview with musician Greentea Peng about how her journey towards R’n’B superstardom led her from hedonism to harmony.

Margot and Mikeal Isaksson lived in their dream home in the far northern Swedish town of Malmberget. That was, until a huge chasm caused by an iron ore mine began to eat away at the heart of the town. Rather than buy a new home, they decided to transplant the house altogether. This is their story.

Locals long complained that the event had gotten too big. In 2021, because of the pandemic, their wish for a reduced Fringe was granted. Is it a measure of how the Fringe could – and should – look in years to come?

My mind was blown on a trip inside the AI Song Contest – a global competition, created in the image of Eurovision, to choose the best song created in collaboration with artificial intelligence. From neural net-generated punk to Nepali grindcore, emo K-pop, a Swedish folk lament for a dead dog written by a fake news machine and an electronic dance song created by a computer fed 17 years of trance music, I for one bow down to our new robo-songwriting overlords.

I took a trip to outer space – well, Sutherland – for National Geographic to visit the site of what may soon become Scotland and Europe's first continental spaceport, and meet the so-called "space crofters" of Melness. There are huge environmental, scientific and legal challenges yet to be overcome towards this project reaching fruition, but I couldn't help but root for the locals who are working to see it happen – Sutherland clearly needs the boost (no pun intended) that it will bring. A beautiful corner of Scotland well worth a visit whether for rocket-spotting or not.

As an adolescent boy just getting into the burgeoning world of video gaming, I was exactly the target audience for GamesMaster when it hit British TV screens in 1992, and it became a fixture of Tuesday night after-school viewing. It wasn't until I began researching the show's origin story for this article that I came to fully appreciate what an impact it had on me as a kid – nor how much of its, shall we say, irreverent humour was lost on a pre-teen boy. Dominik Diamond and Jane Hewland were a total joy to chat to, and every bit as funny and entertaining and original as GamesMaster was itself.

I had a blast diving into the maverick, anarchic, hilarious and surprisingly untold story of Britain's first ever halfpipe snowboard competition at Cairngorm, Scotland in 1991. A story from when snowboarding was still a countercultural phenomenon on the fringes of snowsport, with chaotic, DIY roots in the skate and surf scenes. A hand-carved halfpipe, guys boarding in dressing gowns (another with a colander duct-taped to his head), wild parties, a champion who went on Blue Peter then later became a professional magician. This story had everything.

During the ’70s and ’80s, Harald Hauswald shot from the hip, secretly documenting life in East Germany behind the Berlin Wall – and making powerful enemies in the process. Illegally smuggled out of the GDR and published in West German magazines and newspapers, his photographs helped to bring down the Berlin Wall and topple the hated Stasi secret police. It was an utter privilege to meet Harald in Berlin in the summer of 2019 and hear his life story – he's one of my all-time heroes, and his photographs in many ways have helped shape my entire love of the city of Berlin.

Every year, Time Out survey thousands of people around the globe to discover the world’s coolest neighbourhoods. Last year the good citizens of Glasgow selected humble, working-class East End district Dennistoun. I don't know that I've ever seen such debate sparked by an article I've written, spreading like wildfire across social media into national newspapers and even TV news. Did we help a genuinely great neighbourhood find its feet again amid the turmoil of Covid-19, or did we enable the dark forces of gentrification? The former, I think, although the debate was an important one to be had.

I've had the privilege of interviewing Peter Keup several times now, and every time he always leaves me with more questions. The former ballroom dancer who was caught trying to escape the GDR as a young man, interrogated, tortured, imprisoned then later ransomed to the West German government, has been through so much in his life – and that was even before he later learned that his older brother had spied on his family for the Stasi. In this incredibly candid piece, he opens up about the psychological toll of being betrayed by a family member – and how it changed his life for the better.

The incredible story of 'Khochu Peremen' – the more than 30 year old Soviet-era rock song which has become an anti-government anthem in Belarus – as told through the voices of young protestors and a close friend of the song's Russian author, the late Viktor Tsoi. I love telling inspiring stories like this at the nexus of culture, history, politics and social activism. I'm very grateful to, not to mention admiring of, the three Belarusians who contributed, in spite of the very real risk of speaking out against a violent and vengeful government. I hope they see the changes they're fighting for.

As part of a campaign sponsored by VISA, I spoke to owners of three small, independent shops around the UK about how they were coping with the shock of being forced to close for a long period by coronavirus – and how they were preparing for reopening as lockdown lifted. I was really inspired by the resourcefulness each business had shown to keep trading in spite of everything, not to mention their optimism that they would find new ways of operating amid the 'new normal'. It was great to to be able to spotlight Glasgow Scandi design store HOOS in particular – one of my favourite local shops.

I spent an inspiring few days in London in late 2019, travelling around meeting three rising young musicians – Miink, Frank Lobo and Skinny Pelembe – selected as part of top music tech brand Shure's #Shure24 scheme platforming exciting new talent. The interviews were published in the #Shure24 Takeover edition of Shure’s #LOUDER magazine, which won Best Special Topic Issue at 2020 Content Marketing Institute Awards.