simonvarwell.co.uk

As you may know, there is a contest on for the leadership of the Labour Party.  It will elect a successor to Gordon Brown, the UK’s worst Prime Minister since Tony Blair, and the contest is relatively wide open with five candidates vying for the job. You may also know that I am a fairly committed SNP voter.

It may surprise you, then, to learn that I have a say in the election of Labour leader.  It certainly surprised me, when my voting form popped through in the post this morning.  You see, the Labour Party leader is not just elected by the party membership, but a complicated electoral college of firstly the party’s MPs and MEPs, secondly the party membership and thirdly the membership of affiliated organisations such as trade unions and socialist societies.

Many trade unions in the UK rather sneakily donate money to the Labour Party and charge a levy to their membership, regardless of their political opinions, and I was appauled to discover earlier this year that I had not opted out of this with respect to my own union (Unite).  To realise that I have been donating money to Labour – albeit just a few quid in total – has made my skin crawl and left me feeling disgusted, when I thought I was just getting the vital protection that a union offers.  It’s somewhat akin to eating a gorgeous mystery meal and then being told afterwards that it was actually minced slug in a dog’s milk sauce.

I called Unite up as soon as I realised the problem, and while my levy was changed immediately so that I opted out of the Labour Party payment, I was told that I would not be removed from the relevant membership category until January 2011 due to their procedures.  Fair enough, I suppose.

But obviously in that time, I still qualify for casting a vote for Labour Party leader, and Unite’s mailing is now inviting me to participate.  By the way, it’s disgraceful enough that the union should be connected to the Labour Party – whose policies are as utterly contrary to the interests of working people as those of the Tories – but they have the temerity to tell me at the same time who they recommend I vote for (Ed Miliband, if you’re interested).  Soviet era politics, eat your heart out.

My initial thought was to just bin the letter, but I hate abstaining from votes (I’ve never knowingly missed one in my life) and didn’t want my feelings on the matter to be ignored.  So I guess I have two options:

1. Vote for the candidate who I would genuinely most like to win the election, even though their victory would never persuade me to vote Labour if it was on fire and my ballot paper was made of water.  For what it’s worth, that would be Diane Abbott, who although hypocritical, spineless politician is still more left-wing than the other four clones of Blair/Brown who have more blood on their hands from Labour’s failures than most in the party.  Labour under any of those other four would be a disastrous failure in confronting the Tories (and of course being distinct from them), while Abbott at least is avowedly left-wing and might restore a little soul to the moral black hole that is Labour.
2. Engage in some destructive subterfuge by voting for the person I think would be the worst choice in terms of the national interest (I am truly spoilt for choice on this one), thus hopefully harming the Labour Party.  Probably not my favourite option of the three.
3. Spoil my paper with a diatribe as to why the Labour Party is a disgustingly anti-worker and ethically bereft machine of corruption, selfishness, spin, big business interests and cretinous warmongery, and email as many relevant addresses in Unite explaining my choice and condemning them for propping up a party so counter to the interests of the union’s membership.

Any thoughts?

I went to see “Mogwai: Burning” at Eden Court the other week. It’s a film by Glasgow band Mogwai, arguably among the grandaddies of post-rock, and is effectively a wordless documentary about a series of gigs they performed in New York last year.

Shot in a black and white, with blurry, fast-paced camerawork, the film is uncompromising and rough around the edges, a perfect commentary on Mogwai’s music itself.

With only the occasional exterior shot – a band member crossing a road, or fans buying tickets from a kiosk – the film focuses fully on the gigs, or more specifically the music. Not much applause, few words from the band, no narration – just shots of a guitarist’s hand, a cymbal, a brief glimpse of a face in the crowd, a pedal, a wire, an amp… it’s a film that dwells purely and solely on the music, and is thus quite hypnotic.

The way the camerawork matches and complements the sound really draws out the strength and depth of Mogwai’s music – brooding instrumental guitar music, with angry and haunting undertones and often tense build-ups that lead to explosive cruscendos.

One quite amazing example of the camerawork complementing the music comes during the epic, sweeping sixteen-minute classic Mogwai Fear Satan, where a loud spell gives way to a quiet intermission in the middle of the track.

There is just the lightest of riffs on the guitars and the softest of heartbeats from the drums maintaining a tense sense of anticipation, and the camera magnificently captures the briefest of glances of understanding between the band members as they lift their heads and shatter the tension by launching back into a ferocious whirlwind of noise.

The film – just released on DVD along with a live album – is short at around 45 minutes, ending abruptly and almost humorously as a result, but the format might not have worked for longer, and gave a powerful enough flavour of the music and of the gigs that I was quite satisfied at the end of the film. It’s not quite the same experience as watching live – for one thing, the sound in Eden Court was atrocious – but at least with this film the camerawork gave a stunning sense of the performance and of the music itself that you don’t always get in a live gig.

Definitely worth watching if you’re into Mogwai or similar bands; though if you’re like three bewildered people who left our showing halfway through then you’ll find it an uncompromisingly dour and minimalist film. Something it was perhaps meant to be.

This is quite amazing – a haunting, floating thirty-five minute soundscape reminiscent of early Sigur Rós work, particularly their weird, ambient first album. The track is by Shamantis, an American music producer.

It’s currently viral on Twitter, because it is not just any soundscape masterpiece – it’s Canadian pop singer Justin Bieber’s song “U Smile”, slowed down 800%.

I hope my view that it’s a gorgeous reworking in its own right, never mind simply being notable because of its origins in teen-pop, is persuasive given that I’d never actually heard of Justin Bieber until just now.

No, honestly, I’d not. Maybe I’d heard the name somewhere before, but I had no idea who he was when I stumbled across the Shamantis track on Twitter earlier and had to google him to remind myself of exactly who he was.

Only after did I listen to the Shamantis reworking did I listen to the original “U Smile” on YouTube.

And I really, really wish I hadn’t.

Right, after coming up for three weeks, I am now officially bored of the snow.

It seems that there is no let-up: no prospect is in sight of a thaw, the country’s transport infrastructure is going to pot, and the country is generally falling apart with shortages of grit, open schools and people doing any work.  Up here in the Highlands, temperatures have hit the minus twenties.

I’m working from home this week and suspect I represent about 10% of the effective economy.  Up until a venture to the supermarket yesterday evening, I’d not left the flat for forty-eight hours.  Streets and pavements round my neck of the woods remain either treacherous or tiresome to walk along.  Cars are hidden under snow.  It takes about ten minutes to lace up my hiking boots and put on enough layers to go outside.  We’ve not been further from Inverness than an hour away – that was only on two occasions and the journeys almost didn’t happen due to continuing snow.  The gas bill ticks up at an alarming rate.

This is in the middle of Inverness, too.  Out in the countryside, it’s even worse.  The A9 has been perillous (more than normal, I mean, and frequently closed), the train line south is closed due to a derailment, and many other roads are out of action or risky to take on.  People have died.  The canal is frozen.  The snow on the hills to the south of Inverness continues to fall, and the more it falls, the greater the post-thaw floods in Inverness.

And you know what?  I’m bored.  Cabin fever has set in.  I’m about ready for it to clear off.  I think it’s safe to say that as a country we’ve enjoyed our time off, we’ve all gone sledging, built our snowmen, and taken pretty pictures of the snow.  We’ve enjoyed the change.  And now we’re ready to go back to normal.  Not to have to put in strenuous effort just to walk down the street; not to have to abandon any plans to get out and enjoy the great outdoors that don’t involve skiing.

Yes, the country looks pretty – as the amazing satellite image above on the BBC News website demonstrates.  Yes, there are a few folk in the south of England complaining much more than they should about a few inches of snow.  Yes, we’ve yet to resort to cannibalism and wearing animal skins for warmth.  Yes, getting out and about in the snow is lovely.  But if you can’t even get the car to the near the hills, if hills themselves are knee-deep in snow, and if footpaths are lethal, smooth ice-rinks, and if you think skiing if for people with too much money and not enough emotional attachment to their legs, then there’s really not much fun in being out in the snow.

The best thing about when it snows is that it’s a rarity.  The novelty has firmly worn off and it is now feeling like the norm.

I’ll give it another few days (I’ll need that long to tie my boot laces and get my layers on) and then head outside to fight back with a couple of battery-powered hair dryers.  Who’s with me?

My friend Kieran, who coordinates aidconvoy.net (to which I am donating 10% of my royalties from Up The Creek Without A Mullet), is currently in Gaza.  He’s been helping an organisation called Viva Palestina in their attempts to deliver aid from all across Europe to the besieged Palestinian territory.  He travelled with their first convoy to Gaza last year, and this one appears to have been making headlines due to some political difficulties at the Egyptian border.

After having travelled through Europe and into the region via Turkey, the convoy of a couple of hundred vehicles was stopped the other day from entering Egypt, various bureaucratic barriers being erected, presumably under pressure from Israel.  Violence ensued as Gazans protested against the hold-up, an Egyptian border guard died, and – to cut a long story short – the convoy was eventually allowed to enter Gaza.  There is a good summary of the story – plus an opinion piece from one of the convoy team – on the excellent Al-Jazeera English-language site.

The blockade formed a part of the ongoing attempts by the Israeli government to put a stranglehold on Gaza’s Hamas leadership following last year’s war in which over a thousand Gazans died.

Now, much as I support the thankfully successful attempt to break the siege, it doesn’t make me wholeheartedly pro-Palestinian and anti-Israeli.  The fact that the Hamas government in Gaza is a xenophobic and violent terrorist movement motivated by a hatred of Israel and a perverted and warped interpretation of Islam doesn’t lessen the suffering of the innocent people of Gaza – indeed, it greatens it.  And the fact that Viva Palestina is a firmly partisan organisation and a brainchild of the controversial left-wing British MP George Galloway doesn’t change the facts that intolerable and inexcusable suffering is going on (and has been for years) in Gaza.

The Israeli government’s argument in favour of the blockade of Gaza is a sound one in principle: preventing materials that could be used to construct weapons used to attack Israel from entering the territory.  However, how that can be extended to food, medical supplies and other basic humanitarian resources is beyond me, and Israel can justifiably be accused of collective punishment in its strangling of ordinary Gazans.  For that reason, the convoy’s success is a humanitarian victory much more than it is any political or PR victory for Hamas or any indictment of the Israeli or Egyptian actions.

Indeed, I would put myself firmly on the fence in the debate over Israel and Palestine.  Both countries have the right to exist in a sustainable and secure way within their legally-recognised borders, and neither has the right to deprive each other of that existence.  Both countries are populated by folk who are probably often scared, angry and lacking in understanding of each other; and both countries’ leaders are perpetrators of war crimes.  That both Hamas and the Israeli government are democratically elected does not justify what either of them do; indeed, it brings further and equal shame upon them both.

How you get to the solution of a lasting piece is something that’s beaten the modern era’s best politicians and diplomats.  But allowing the people of Gaza to receive the humanitarian aid like the convoy has delivered, and which they desperately need, is a start.

With the book launch coming up, I’ve been doing quite a few bits and pieces relating to publicity, something I’ve written a wee bit about on my Sandstone Press blog.

I am hoping that within the next week or so I can unveil dates of a small number book readings around Scotland.  But in the meantime, just to remind you, the launch will be at 6.00pm on Monday 1 February at the Bishop’s Palace, Eden Court Theatre, Inverness.

As you’ve probably noticed, my website has now finished its major overhaul, and it’s great to finally have it up and running.

Although the content is much the same as my old-look website, and the old blog has been imported over to here, there are a number of benefits to this new design which I am really happy about.

Firstly, it’s all in the one place – the website and blog are both hosted on simonvarwell.co.uk, which means you can surf seamlessly between the blog and the other pages, and the blog is now at the succinct address simonvarwell.co.uk/blog.

So don’t forget to update your links, bookmarks and RSS feeds – though I am keeping the old blog up for the time being in case there are historic links to entries there from around the interweb.

Secondly, the design is a lot more flexible.  For instance, the old site was designed with iWeb on the Mac, and the old blog hosted on wordpress.com.  Both those formats, while pretty enough, were not just different to each other but quite rigid and the website was cumbersome to publish.  The new look, where WordPress is hosted on my own filespace, is something I can play around with a lot more, with an easy-to-use interface underneath the bonnet, and publishing is easy because it’s directly on my server space.

This flexible design means I’ve been able to make the site a lot wider than its two predecessors, meaning there is less wasted space on the left and right.  I’ve also been able to replace the single banner photo with a randomly rotating pool of over a dozen pictures, which will change over time.  These represent some of my best efforts at photography (or at least, those photos that lend themselves to a 900×200 pixels crop).  The random pool of images, I think, makes the site look continually fresh and interesting, despite my words’ probable effect to the contrary.

Of course, this isn’t really my handiwork at all.  The complicated and technical stuff is all down to my friend, web designer and WordPress expert Matt Bee, who I think has done a sterling job over the past few weeks in designing the site and working with me to ensure I know how to maintain it myself.

With the forthcoming book launch there might be a bit more traffic coming this way, so I’m glad the website is looking a little more presentable.  Unlike me…

The Hogmanay celebrations in Inverness were a wash-out last night; or a snow-out, to be more precise.

With the cancellation of what was an excellent line-up for the Northern Meeting Park, town was quiet.

Even without the fireworks though, it was still a pretty scene, and I took some reasonable photos.

Here’s to 2010.

We’re now over a week into the snowy conditions here in Inverness, and are by no means getting the worst of the UK’s snow here.

In fact, it’s not actually been all that bad here – it’s the cold weather and lack of rain, rather than much in the way of new fall, that has kept everything white.

Despite such a long period of snow – probably the longest I can remember – I’ve not actually been out much with the camera to make the most of it. It was only the last couple of days, with a walk around the Ness Islands and a day trip to near Huntly to see friends, that I’ve taken some good winter photographs.

As you’d expect, they’re on Flickr. And the snow shows no signs of abating, so it could well be a very snowy Hogmanay as well…

Dear reader,

Wow, what a year! Where did the time go? It seemed like it was only twelve months ago that I wrote my last circular.

Oh, actually, it was only twelve months ago.

Last year’s letter was pretty accurate in terms of predictions and plans, in that much I wrote as forthcoming has indeed forthcome. Lost series 5 was astounding, and I played (badly) in April’s Join Me North v South football match, got an iPhone, and saw Jay-play.

2009 also started with what would turn out to be one of my best photos of the year (right).

How could I top such momentous events? Well, one or two things spring to mind. Getting engaged, getting married, and having a book deal signed, for starters.

The wedding and honeymoon were, of course, terrific, and married life is wonderful, though the fact I’ll say little about it on this blog is not an indicator of its unimportance but of the fact it’s only half my story to tell.

Probably the next biggest event was the book deal. The launch is in February, but the writing, editing and early publicity have been a major commitment in 2009.

It’s really exciting that the mullet adventures will finally be in print, and with Up The Creek Without A Mullet only telling half the story so far (and only including a quarter of the total mullets), it’s also exciting to reveal that I am in discussions about a second book too.

This might sound geeky (in fact it definitely is), but the top highlight after that would have to be getting an iPhone. It’s not just a toy, or a gadget, something that is like most pieces of technology a functional improvement on one small area of life. It’s so much more than that – everything from a phone to an music player, the internet (web and email), camera and calendar, and so many other handy features that have permeated so many corners of life.

The camera and video camera are useful, the notepad is great for things like meetings or shopping lists, and the huge range of applications – from the frivolous to the functional – that I have barely scratched the surface of, all add up to something I couldn’t imagine living without now. It’s handy, beautifully-designed, breezily easy to use, and I can highly recommend it to anyone.

Workwise, I’ve travelled around most of Scotland and in February and September to London, and that’s allowed me to take quite a few photos, and for me one of the highlights of my year in photographs has been this photo on the right taken in Bradford en route to London.

A work trip to Shetland in June was expanded to a long weekend’s holiday, in which Nicole and I explored that beautiful place from end to end in the most remarkable weather. A far cry from our next big journey, a rainy honeymoon in Mull.

Those have been the most adventurous I’ve been travel-wise this year, and it occurred to me the other day that 2009 has been the first year with no travel outside the UK since (I think) 2002.

A mixture of doing up the flat, getting married and the whole book malarky has impinged on the time and money this year, unfortunately. The feet are most certainly itchy.

Moving on to music, I’ve been to only two gigs of note this year – Jay-play at Hampden and Explosions in the Sky in Sheffield.

Coldplay has just come back to mind because I had an approach the other day from the American special effects company behind Coldplay’s show asking if they can use the photo on the right on their website. The $55 is in the post, I understand.

Meanwhile the Explosions in the Sky gig was wonderful and reinforced to me that they are definitely my favourite band. I hope I see them again one day.

The other big musical discovery of the year has been chilled techno purveyor The Field, while my album of the year has to be The Side‘s excellent and catchy Nowhere Left To Run (available on iTunes).

As for films, the best I’ve seen this year at the cinema (from an admittedly small pool) are the highly-recommendable science fiction flicks District 9 and Moon. Meanwhile on TV/DVD, the Firefly and Serenity watchathon was brilliant, while of course Lost series 5 was superb and I cannot wait for February when the final series airs.

What will happen after “the incident”? Will everyone make it back to the present day? Will all the mysteries of the island be explained? Will Ben turn out to be good or evil? I am on the edge of my seat, and am sure series 6 will deliver and conclude spectacularly.

That’s about the size of 2009. A good year, without doubt.

2010, logically enough, comes next. I’m not sure precisely what it will hold, but I can rule in a book launch and rule out getting married again. I will no doubt also get stuck into a potential second book, and there might be a big overseas adventure or two and hopefully a bit more clarity and progress with the mullet mission.

I’ve written far too much already, and should be doing other things with my Christmas Eve.

Happy Christmas/Inclusive Winterval.