Thoughts on music, books, films, TV, football…
Such was the long shadow cast over the 1980s in the UK by the government of the time, that when I was growing up as a boy I thought the purpose of General Elections was to decide who would form the Conservative Party. Their impact on the country was embodied and dominated by the Prime…
I’ve been zipping about a fair amount this past week. I’ve been ambling around in Inverness… …loitering between trains at Perth station… …and exploring Glasgow at night. The Glasgow visit was for an Explosions in the Sky gig on Monday night. It was my third time of seeing them and they were excellent. Beautiful, uplifting,…
It’s a sad symptom of our age that we are cynical about our politicians. Regardless of the fact that there are genuinely “good eggs” across most parties, such rarities are ignored amongst the wave of hostility we have towards our political class. They are all, we think, self-serving liars, detached from the needs of ordinary…
I spend a lot of time on trains. Too much, at times. I’m at the stage where I recognise train conductors, can recite stations along routes my most regular routes, and have often found myself at the whim of the vagaries and foibles of ScotRail. Mostly, to be fair, ScotRail does a good job, though…
I blogged last year about Calamateur’s album Each Dirty Letter, and it barely seems like five minutes later that he’s produced another album – The Quiet in the Land. I mentioned in Each Dirty Letter’s review Calamateur’s vocal versatility, comparing his voice to Thom York. Such is his versatility, though, that I am going to…
You may remember me raving some time back about the self-titled debut album by Liverpool post-rock outfit MinionTV. The album was my favourite listen of last year, I think, and its opening track, We Are Ghosts, a magnificent piece of music that remains one of my most-listened tracks of late. You can listen to it…
I think it comes from being a over a hundred miles away from any place of a similar size and thus being in no other city’s shadow, but there is a great confidence to Inverness. No more so is this true than in the city’s music scene. Half-decent (or, indeed, full-decent) bands can crop up…
It’s hardly your typical cheerful and easy holiday read, but while in France I finished off The Long Bridge, a memoir of a Polish woman’s experiences in Soviet gulags. I probably wouldn’t have known about it were it not for the fact that it was published by my publisher, Sandstone Press, nor have bought it…
I like to say that my political retirement must be one of the earliest on record: I quit the Scottish National Party when I was twenty-one, and after being active nationally for some years in the party I am quite sure there is a “Sliding Doors“-esque parallel universe version of me who is still heavily…
Last year I blogged a review of the excellent Max Brooks book World War Z. A documentary description of a fictitious future war against zombies, it was one of my favourite reads from last year and which, as I mentioned at the time, was to be turned into a film. With part of the film…
I went to the cinema at Eden Court last night with some friends to see Life in a Day, an unusual and surprisingly effective film experiment. The premise, created by YouTube, Ridley Scott and others, involved asking people all over the world to submit videos of their lives taken on one particular day – 24…
Twitter is a great way of discovering great examples of the sorts of stuff you’re into, not least music. When you tweet about a certain topic, you will often find yourself being followed by someone who has searched for that same topic. The downside to that is the huge amount of spam on the go…
Have you ever been to, or heard of, Biceps Land? Nope, me neither. But it exists in the world of popular board game Articulate. We were playing it with friends last night and it came up as one of the anwers in the “world” category. Searching on the internet renders no mention of such a place,…
I’ve uploaded some photos from my trip to Edinburgh last weekend, including the Explosions in the Sky gig and the day’s exploring of Edinburgh I wrote about here. The gig was excellent, and EITS were on top form, delivering a show that was powerful, gripping and beautiful. I was really glad I made it down…
On Saturday night, Nicole and I went to Eden Court to see Milton Jones on his live stand-up tour. You’ve perhaps seen him on TV shows like Mock the Week, with his hair by Wurzel Gummage, shirts by Nelson Mandela, and a signature array of one-liners and puns. With a quick, off-beat mind and perfect…
The new album by Explosions in the Sky came out earlier this week. It’s called “Take Care, Take Care, Take Care” and it is excellent. There’s always a special thrill to a first listen of a new album by a favourite band. It has a reassuringly familiar sound but also exhiliratingly different and fresh –…
After having got tickets for Explosions in the Sky in London in May, a friend and I are now a bit annoyed that they’ve just announced an Edinburgh date, which we are hoping to make instead. So if you are interested in a couple of tickets to see EITS at the Roundhouse, London on Thursday…
Nicole and I were in Aberdeen last weekend, the highlight of which was seeing Mogwai live at the Music Hall on Friday night. It was a great gig, with a mix of old favourites and some tracks from their forthcoming new album. The venue is a grand old place, and with the seats up in…
Explosions in the Sky have just announced that their new album “Take Care, Take Care, Take Care” will be out in April – and it’ll be released in the UK a week ahead of their native USA, which is both curious and cool. I’m immensely looking forward to seeing them live in London in May.
I’ve just watched The Guga Hunters of Ness on the BBC iPlayer. For those of you who’ve not heard of them, then a good starting point would be either Wikipedia or, more recommendably, the book by Donald S Murray. But in short, it refers to a centuries-old tradition in Ness, on the northwest corner of…