I've taught fifth-year Christmas leavers last thin...

I've got a very deep and abiding passion about education being far more than buildings and textbooks it's what children bring into school with them.

Scotland is my country, the nation that shaped me, that taught me my values. A nation whose achievements inspired and inspire me, a community whose failings drive me - drive my overwhelming desire to fight for social justice and equality.

Telling the truth, and confronting the challenge, is what politics is about.

With the song 'This Christmas' I wanted to do something that was kind of different. I mean, Donny Hathaway is an amazing artist. So I wanted to bring my flavor to the song so when people over the age of 45 or 50 hear it they'll be like 'OK, he did his thing with that record.' It's like I can appeal to everybody and not just a younger demographic.

My mother was a professional sick person she took a lot of pain pills. There are many people like that. It's just how they are used to getting attention. I always remember she's the daughter of alcoholics who'd leave her alone at Christmas time.

'The Christmas Song,' by Nat King Cole, is not only a masterful performance to me it just sounds like the holidays. I've never sung it, because Nat's version is so perfect. I gotta leave it alone.

Christmas lights may be the loneliest thing for me, especially if you mix them up with reindeers and sleighs. I feel alone. I feel isolated. I feel I do not belong.