Strangely, I spent twenty minutes recently reading graffiti in a ladies’ toilet. Rest assured, there was no fibre-deficient reason for me hanging around a much-disinfected university cubicle on a Wednesday afternoon and, while I’m an avid reader, I’m not normally so captivate by the eyeliner-scrawled Joanie loves Chachis that I’ll brave the ecosystem of a public lavvy for longer than … Read More

Weightlifting isn’t the type of sport I imagined to be easy. I’ve never put down my book of an evening, kicked off my slippers and thought, I know, I’ll take up Olympic weightlifting for the night. It looks tough and physically punishing – even the professionals sometimes seem like they’d rather be standing barefoot on a plug than straining beneath … Read More

A labyrinth-like warehouse in a creepy industrial estate somewhere in deepest Ayrshire sounds more like the setting for an independent British horror than the location for my first glimpse of the noble sport of weightlifting. I’m not sure quite what I expected of the Scottish Masters Open Weightlifting Championships. A bevy of body-beautiful young men parading around in stretchy leotards … Read More