Richard Frazer – författare

Graffiti. It can be a diverse form of expression and thoughtprovoking art; whether painted on the side of a train or on a canvas hanging in a gallery. Or, as you will see immortalised in the glorious pages of Crap Graffiti, it can be crude drunken daubing, nonsensical statements or hilarious outpourings of uncontained rage.Crap Graffiti documents these bizarre and puerile creations, celebrates the inept and enthusiastically applauds creative dyslexia. This is definitely not art, but really awful, lame graffiti: the incompetent attempts of beginners or the ‘profound’ musings of lunatics scrawled on the back of toilet cubicle doors.Welcome to the Cream of the Crap.

From simple faith and active compassion, a single thought has mushroomed into a beacon of hope and fulfilment. This is the inspiring story of the amazing ways in which the lives of people on the streets or in resigned despair have been transformed to energy-filled hope.The Grassmarket Community Project in Edinburgh has brought new, wonderful horizons to those it helps and those who have worked to build it into an award-winning social enterprise. For all who feel powerless in the face of the social problems of today, this is the uplifting proof that something can be done.These stories of the gentle empowerment of unseen potential show how it really is possible to climb out of bleakness to break down the faceless barriers of apathy and bureaucracy.

Almost 300,000 people ‘officially’ complete the journey to Santiago each year – hundreds of thousands more travel at least part of the way.In this book, Richard Frazer discovers on his pilgrimage to the shrine of St James the Great  how a journey – wherever it is made – undertaken with an open and hospitable heart can provide spiritual renewal and transformation, filling what many people see as the spiritual void in 21st century life. This absorbing account reveals how the pilgrim journey can be nourishment for the human heart. It connects us to landscape and brings us to the mystery of what it is to be human and vulnerable and open to the kindness of strangers and the gift of the new and the unexpected.