Arts diary: Malala Yousafzai and a 20-year wait for breaking ground on the Dunard Centre

First Minister John Swinney was the first to break ground on the project, with a shiny new spade. The ceremony was preceded by a live performance by none other than Dougie MacLean, with a rendition of Caledonia accompanied by children from a local primary school. Our photographer, Lisa Ferguson, captured a touching video of Mr Swinney joining in with the final chorus.

"Dougie is a constituent of mine," Mr Swinney told the crowds of the musician, who holds the BBC Radio 2 Folk Award for a Lifetime Achievement for Contribution to Songwriting and was awarded an OBE in 2011. "It's always a joy to hear your constituent singing."

Work was due to begin by contractors Balfour Beatty yesterday (Tuesday), with the hall slated for completion in 2029. Chief executive Jo Buckley tells me she is "as confident as I can be" that the project will run on time and within budget, having already had something of an uncertain time due to spiralling costs.

A funding gap which saw the project's future hanging in the balance just a few weeks ago was plugged by an extra £20 million donation by the Scottish Government, taking its total contribution to £35m. That extra funding was matched by Carol Colburn Grigor, a US-born philanthropist who has been a driving force behind the project. However, Mr Swinney claimed, at the centre's time of need, the UK Government, which previously put in £20m, was "nowhere to be seen".

At a celebration on Monday night at Dundas House, Royal Bank of Scotland's registered headquarters adjacent to the Dunard Centre site, the mood was jubilant.

"There were many times when I never thought we'd get to this point," one supporter told me.

Malala finding her way

While not strictly speaking arts news, she has written a book - and it was possibly one of the most exciting interviews of my career, so I'm going to tell you about it anyway.

Last week, I spoke to Malala Yousafzai, who was shot by the Taliban as a 15-year-old while travelling on her school bus in Pakistan. Now 28, Ms Yousafzai has written her second memoir, this one charting her years at Oxford University - and her coming of age.

Having spent her latter teenage years initially recovering from her injuries in a Birmingham hospital and subsequently travelling the world as an activist and Nobel Peace Prize winner, Ms Yousafzai's writing is very honest about her desire to have a normal student experience at Oxford, where she admits she almost failed her course.

When I spoke to her, she was travelling between engagements in Seattle and Portland at the end of the US leg of her book tour. She must have been exhausted, but managed to muster a full quota of enthusiasm to discuss her book and her life. She has come under a lot of pressure in recent years - there are entire off the wall social media accounts dedicated solely to claiming that she was never shot in the first place, as well as unflattering comparisons to the more aggressively principled Greta Thunberg - but she appears to remain pleasant and balanced.

My interview came ahead of her appearance at an event at the Assembly Rooms in Edinburgh, where she chatted just as naturally with The Traitors' Minah Shannon about her memoir, Finding My Way.

It is worth a read.