JAMES NALTON celebrates Ruben Blades’s song Patria – played before Panama’s game against Ghana — a song inspiring hope instead of hate
THE news that Scottish film production company, Two Rivers Media, has been commissioned by US broadcaster, the Smithsonian Channel, to make a documentary on Muhammad Ali covering his early transformation from Cassius Clay into Ali — based on the book by Scottish author Stuart Cosgrove — should have fans of The Greatest brimming with anticipation.
The global importance and reach of Ali’s legacy is reflected in the Scottish aspect of this project — ie a book on the man by a Scottish author being made into a two-hour film by a Scottish production company at the behest of a US broadcaster.
But it’s also reflective of the extent to which the life and legacy of Ali continues to resonate, and perhaps even more, with the passage of time.
JULIA TOPPIN recommends Patti Smith’s eloquent memoir that wrestles with the beauty and sorrow of a lifetime
The book feels like a writer working within his limits and not breaking any new ground, believes KEN COCKBURN
JOHN GREEN welcomes a remarkable study of Mozambique’s most renowned contemporary artist
Still the only black man to win the US Open tennis title, a statue of the legendary champion, Arthur Ashe, is now the only one remaining on Monument Avenue in his Richmond, Virginia hometown, where confederate leaders of the Civil War were also once displayed, writes LINDA PENTZ GUNTER


