Alexander Graham Bell and Scottish Literature

Did Alexander Graham Bell invent the telephone?

As every schoolboy knows (or, at least when I went to school they did) Alexander Graham Bell invented the telephone, and that has been the correct answer in every quiz show -- that is, until now.

Now a new book, The Telephone Gambit: Chasing Alexander Graham Bell's Secret by Seth Shulman, argues that Bell stole some of the ideas from a rival, Elisha Gray. He argues that, "... Bell -- aided by aggressive lawyers and a corrupt patent examiner -- got an improper peek at patent documents Gray had filed ..." Interestingly, German inventor Philipp Reis, is reported to have beaten them both with an invention resembling the telephone in the1860s, but has never been never publicly credited.

How many more lies do we live on? Fiction will outlive facts all the time.

Associated Press


Scottish Literature is not English

We knew that. Just try reading Trainspotting by Irving Welsh. But seriously. Scottish literary are appalled at a decision by the US Library of Congress to reclassify their work as a subsection of English literature. This means Scottish literature will no longer have its own section in the world's biggest library.

Culture Minister Linda Fabiani has promised to raise the matter with the US Congress, and a spokesman for the library said it would be reconsidering the controversial decision, the report says.

Did you know that John Buchan, who wrote The Thirty-Nine Steps, was Scottish when you read it as a teenager? I didn't, and it didn't matter. How about Robert Louis Stevenson? I knew he was Scottish but that didn't matter either.

I wonder what they have done to books by Canadian authors? Like Rohinton Mistry, for instance. Oh dear, did I say that? I hope I didn't start a small war somewhere. (BTW, did you know Alexander Graham Bell was a Scot?)

BBC