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👋 Good morning! It’s Saturday 25 July 2026. I’m Neil McIntosh, editor of The Early Line, and it’s great to have you here.
📣 You’re reading the weekend edition of The Early Line. Paying subscribers get the full version, with six talking points and film, TV and sporting recommendations for the weekend.
They also have my huge thanks for making the whole newsletter possible, six days a week. If you’d like to join their ranks - thank you! - you can upgrade here.
And if that’s not for you, no problem: see you on Monday when the free Early Line is back at 7am.
Have a wonderful weekend, all!
🌧️ The weekend’s weather: We’ve got a wet weekend coming up. Glasgow will see some heavy rain this morning before settling into lighter stuff for the rest of the weekend, while Edinburgh will be more mixed today, with showers tomorrow. Aberdeen is bright today but will see rain tomorrow - not unwelcome, given the fires nearby, while Inverness will have showers all weekend. London will be hot and sunny today, but cooler and more cloudy tomorrow. (Here’s the UK forecast).
SIX THINGS TO TALK ABOUT
Europe ablaze as wildfires spread out of control | Odyssey of discovery | The best holiday books | Why coffee’s good for your heart | Theatre fit for a King’s | Exploring the Perth property buzz
🍸 The scenes of vast wildfires in Spain and France are extraordinary, and find a smaller-scale - but still very serious - sibling in a big wildfire in the Cairngorms.
On the continent, the wildfires have forced the evacuation of more than 110,000 people in south-west France and, across the border, another 25,000 west of Madrid.
In France, there’s been a complete evacuation of the Cap Ferret peninsula on the Atlantic coast in the face of an “intense, highly unpredictable” wildfire that has burned through more than 30,900 acres of forest. 50 firefighters were injured yesterday, alone.
The fire in Spain is being described as “completely unusual and catastrophic” and the worst blaze in the region’s history. A fire chief has said it is impossible to control.
The wildfire in Scotland is nowhere near as big, but is now entering its 10th day and took a turn for the worse last night when Nethy Bridge was evacuated, and a major incident was declared in the Cairngorms - by police, not the Scottish Government, which may become a bone of contention later. You can follow The Press and Journal’s live coverage here.
Readers with sharp recall will remember that last week’s Party Line had quoted hopes, from a Scottish Government minister, that the blaze there had been contained… but here we are. Hopes are being pinned on the weather changing. In the meantime, the smoke has reached as far as Aberdeen.
Upgrade to read the full Party Line, including
Why you should watch The Odyssey before you read it
The best holiday books - a review of the reviews
Why coffee’s good for your heart health
The King’s Theatre in Edinburgh reopens, finally
Let’s live in… Perth?
PLUS: find top TV, film and sporting picks for the weekend.
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