Monthly Archive for November, 2005

in the passenger seat while you are driving me home;

Published on November 28, 2005 in music and uncategorized. 2 Comments Tags: , , , , , .

After a weekend of Panic! At The Disco and The Go! Team and other such bands with jovially-inserted exclamation marks in their titles and summery, dancy sounds my iPod seemed determined to throw up the most wintry-sounding tunes it could on the way to work this morning. I’m not complaining, but pretty pianos and accoustic guitars make me want to curl up somewhere warm with a nice cup of tea. I suppose most things are preferrable to an icy Monday morning commute, especially when the train before yours is cancelled and you’re squashed in like sardines on the way up to Glasgow. I suppose it doesn’t matter if you can’t get near a hand-hold when you’re not going to be able to fall very far.

It seems to be Monday much more often than it seems to be any other day. It’s not very fair.

I dragged Tommy out to see Smoosh at Stereo on Saturday night; it was my first time in the venue but there were enough pretty fairy lights about the walls to keep me happy. Now seeing as how I’m keeping a blog in a whole new place this would be a great time to break with tradition, but I’m afraid slagging off support bands is one of my favourite things to do so Swimmer One are just going to have to bear it. Reciting what soulded like the litany of stops on the Ayr line over a faux-eighties disco beat is certainly a novel way of making music that sounds like something you’re convinced you should really want to dance to but somehow can’t bring yourself to. Maybe I wasn’t drunk enough.

Second band up were called the Milton Girls or the Milburn Sisters or something similar, despite only having one person of the female persuasion in the line-up. They started out fairly dodgy, but whether it was the frontman’s fabulous moustache or knitted waistcoat that changed my mind by the end I nearly had them down as a madder Arcade Fire fronted by the kind of guy you’d normally find sitting in the corner of the office looking up internet porn on his lunch break.

Smoosh were as delightful as you would expect, and other than that baldy guy out of Mogwai getting served at the bar before me even although I’d been waiting longer and am well hotter than he is just because he’s like Glasgow indie royalty it was a very good night.

I spent the rest of the weekend waging war on the cat, and – since I forgot my antihistamines – losing. I swear I’m going to shave that thing.

Lyns, Amber, Sharon and anybody else – no email yet because despite only having been in the house for TEN MINUTES I’m already getting kicked off the computer. Sigh.

but there’s free beer;

Published on November 22, 2005 in a little more personal, books & literature, current affairs, film, music and the media. 6 Comments Tags: , , , , , .

gin + excellent conversation + a bag of chips on the way home = my kind of evening. I’ve been grinning most of the morning, but I best not say anymore, as certain nosy people may have found this by now (and I should bloody well hope so, I only made it incredibly easy).

Oh Lis, for future reference – your violent antipathy towards Belle and Sebastian is probably more of a fifth-date revelation.

MC and I were at a sold-out UGC on Friday night, accompanied by the largest and most sugary bag of pick and mix ever, for the new Harry Potter movie. Word of advice for those who haven’t seen it yet – don’t go re-reading The Goblet of Fire any time before you go or you’ll only get narked at how much the producers had to take out. Watching it as a movie on its own merits though, it worked incredibly well and I think I have to say it’s my favourite to date, although a little too dark for MC’s liking and fairly fast-paced – again, time considerations being a major factor.

Plus, there’s a brooding Cedric Diggory for those bemoaning the lack of underage totty now Oliver Wood’s all growed-up and left Hogwarts.

One way in which the movie beats the books hands-down – and MC and I had a bit of an argument about this on the way home – is in its portrayal of the young characters’ awkwardness as they discover the opposite sex, particularly in the Yule Ball scenes. Although I love the Harry Potter books; the staging, wild fantasy and brilliant turns of plot; I’m not completely convinced by Rowling’s technical skills as a writer. Her depictions of teenage hormones and descriptions of “snogging” actively make me cringe – she comes across like yer mum and you find yourself thinking that real fifteen-year-olds just wouldn’t talk like that! The young actors are excellent though, particularly Emma Watson as Hermione, although its sad to see her character reduced to providing Harry’s moral commentary at times.

Bits and pieces:

Amber honey, you’ll like these – Sharon has some great photos of Kathleen Edwards in Edinburgh at smalldphotography.

The Press Gazette tonight unveils its newspaper hall of fame – a rollcall of the most influential journalists of the last forty years. Cue the usual sniping about there not being enough women in the list, but people seem to forget that these things go a little deeper – when you’re dealing with a predominantly male profession the prizewinners are obviously going to be just as predominantly male. Hopefully we’ll see a gender shift the next time such a list is announced. Although I’d rather give an award to Julie Burchill than Richard Littlejohn any day of the week.

And I couldn’t not comment on this story – plans for a Perthshire building development have been altered because of fears that the fairies who live under a rock on the site will be harmed. Fantastic.

three days in november part 3: one-two-three and i’m safe;

Published on November 21, 2005 in a little more personal, aff the telly, current affairs and the media. 7 Comments Tags: , , , , , , .

Aaaaand… I didn’t get to see Kathleen Edwards after all, as I made the mistake of getting the train into town with my little brother who whined at me until I agreed to go to the pub with him instead rather than coming out later. The work of a big sister is never done. But it was a good night in the end – even if nobody would have missed me for that first couple of hours – and I did meet a very nice boy who’s taking me out tonight, so it wasn’t a complete waste of an evening.

It’s Monday morning, but it could be worse – I could be one of those people dressed in cowboy hats who were flyering us for some new theme pub, fixed rictus grins on their faces, as we were getting off the train this morning.

This weekend’s hot topic of conversation, following on from the new series of I’m An Ex-Soap Star, I’ll Eat Bugs If You Get Me A Record Deal – would you rather walk that tightrope or jump from a plane? I think I’m with the ex-Eastenders alcoholic here, and I’m so physically timid I’d never have thought I could envisage a scenario where I’d be volunteering to leap 12,000 feet. But did you see how much she was shaking as she tried to inch across that rope? The initial jump would be terrifying of course but strapped to an experienced parachutist, with the responsibility for pulling that rope and ensuring you live or die taken out of your hands, it would be over soon enough if you just closed your eyes and got on with it. And I think the final glide to the ground would be utterly exhilirating.

One of those I-miss-my-LiveJournal moments. I wish I could post a poll. Let me know your thoughts in the comments.

Quick thought on Harry Potter – you know if that David Tennant’s star as one of Britain’s hawt young thangs ever fades, he’s made for life as a panto villian.

The Easy Group are a little pissed about mobile phone company Orange trying to stop them using the colour orange for their new mobile phone service – there’s a caption competition up on the website, where Stelios himself is inviting sympathisers to take their revenge, and maybe win one of their cheapass cruises. This from the company who famously went after a bunch of companies who could barely afford to defend themselves for using the word “easy” in domain names, including one easyArt.com. I’m not saying I have any sympathy for Orange, but there’s a faint stench of hypocracy hanging in the air around Stelios Towers…

Here’s a bit of more interesting reading for you – Jon Snow on the importance of on-the-spot reporters, from today’s Media Guardian It should never be forgotten that the most important ingredient in journalism is this human connection.

three days in november part 2: how does it feeeeeeeeel?

Published on November 18, 2005 in music. 1 Comment Tags: , , , .

It’s odd, but last night there was almost an intimacy about a venue that I’ve often said has all the atmosphere of an aircraft hanger. He may have played few of my own favourites and finished early enough that, even with roadworks to navigate, I was safely tucked up in bed by 11 o’clock; but Bob Dylan is such a hero of mine he could have sat on a stool drinking bourbon for an hour and a half and I would have applauded. Not that there was any question of that, for the man himself was on fine form and the electric crackle of the blues from the backing band was breathtaking. I think the people who booed him offstage back in the sixties were the same anaemic hags who complained the first time Elvis wiggled his hips. It’s a testament to the power of the legends of popular music that at an age when most people would be drawing their pension (that’ll be eighty-five by the time I get there then?) they can still unite a capacity crowd.

I couldn’t take my eyes off the couple in front of my dad and I for much of the show – middle-aged; him with a paunch and the unruly hair of the aging hippy, her looking rather prim and proper in her fifties; quite apparently the type who fell in love to a scratched copy of Blood on the Tracks. He wrapped his arms around her, bobbed his head and mimed air guitar with tremendous enthusiasm. Daddy remarked they’d either be going home to get the records out, or going straight to bed like he was!

Saying that though, the majority of the crowd were closer to my own age than my father’s, and I was relieved to see that there are still plenty of just the sort of man I’d want to fall in love with left in Glasgow. On the down-side though, there are far too many of the sort of girls that they would fall in love with here too.

Stuck in traffic on the way home, as I mentioned – you’d think it would be quite safe to cut down to one lane at 10:30 at night, but no, my dad acquiesced to my smirking at his Lionel Ritchie CD and put on Cat Steven’s Teaser and the Firecat. Those beautiful vocals would render road rage impossible, and I found myself wishing the flicker of the streetlamps above was actually stars.

The Guardian’s review of tonight’s entertainment. Quite excited, although a little worried I may fall asleep halfway through. perhaps I’ll feel better when I’m out of work and have had a couple of drinks. Or not.

i’d rather be a bitch than be an ordinary broken heart;

Published on November 17, 2005 in a little more personal and aff the telly. 2 Comments Tags: , , , , , , , .

Refresh my memory – if you’re paranoid, does that mean they are out to get you or otherwise?

I had the sort of shitty morning that’s just crying out to be made into a comedy blog post so here goes – I jumped on the train that gets me to work just in time without buying me a ticket or I would have missed it, but when the conductor came round I realised I had left my purse on the kitchen counter. I had to get off the train at Paisley to go back home for it, and by the time I made it back to the station there had been a points failure at Central and all the trains were either cancelled or massively delayed. I didn’t get into work until 10:30am, and even then had to practically be cajoled into the office by a sympathetic bezzer at the other end of the phone. It didn’t help that I completely messed up my eye makeup as well this morning, and managed to cry it all off after I finally got it on properly.

And it’s so cold.

I had to cancel my lunch date with Roberta and intended to work through lunch to try and curry favour with my colleagues again (sustenance was set to be merely a packet of crisps left over from yesterday and a bottle of Irn Bru) but I had to dart out of the office for a sister emergency, so there goes that plan (which isn’t to say I wouldn’t abandon my work if you phoned me up crying Rob, far from it). I sometimes think being a big sister is the only thing I’m any good at.

Five hours til Bob Dylan. Squ-to-the-ee.

So who else watched the comedy that was the Take That documentary last night? I was never really a fan – although I did have a teensy crush on Mark Owen, merited entirely by a poster of him feeding a lamb with a bottle of milk that appeared in Live & Kicking magazine – which meant I could watch the shamefully awful early videos involving gelatin-based products and blonde models with a sense of detatched irony that completely precluded any cringing rememberance. Of course I missed the ending, and obligatory reunion which I’m sure Robbie Williams skipped since he actually still has a career, in order to serenade Roberta with my own take of Ryan Adams & the Cardinals’ cover of “Always On My Mind”. I think she was impressed.

My own boy band were, of course, Ant & Dec in their “Let’s Get Ready to Rhumble” heyday, in case you think I’ve gotten too cool to recall my past in these pages.

I love that the lawyer I have a massive crush on is still the kind of person to use emoticons in emails, no matter how much money he earns.

three days in november part 1: tell me why you lied//and what it is you do to keep your eyes so shiny;

Published on November 16, 2005 in a little more personal and music. 1 Comment Tags: , , , , , , .

Blogs. What all the cool kids get when they’ve run out of people to phone up and go See that Goldfrapp song? Fuckin’ Sweet Dreams My LA Ex, innit? at.

And do I need to keep holding my breath, or will somebody hurry up and make the blatantly obvious Summer of ’69 vs Jesus of Suburbia mash-up?

So, the fact that it’s early evening and I’m sitting at the computer rather than killing time before a gig means I’ve caved to external pressures and have given up the Decemberists to recouperate at home instead after my first day back at work. My skin is breaking out to the extent that it looks like a leftover slice of pizza, but apparently that’s normal as all the toxins drain out of my blood. Still, over the next few days I have Bob Dylan, Harry Potter and Kathleen Edwards so I can’t complain.

I was discussing the Pipettes in Virgin with a very nice young man (yes Steve, I bought the single, are you proud of me?) and it wasn’t until I got home I noticed he’d slipped a Dylan promo CD into my bag when I wasn’t looking. I feel so much better for offering him my Decemberists ticket now, although he was going somewhere else and couldn’t take me up on it. I also got The Like’s What I Say And What I Mean on vinyl – ace song, shame I can’t play it because I still don’t have a record player. God bless the humble mp3.

take me by the hand and tell me you would take me anywhere;

Published on November 14, 2005 in a little more personal and aff the telly. 6 Comments Tags: , , , , , .


Leah was unimpressed by the new series of Top Gear

I didn’t have much of a weekend, yet today I seem to be struck down by the migraine to end all migraines. It hardly seems fair.

Now I’m not really one for watching The X Factor. And no, that’s not the inheresnt cultural snobbery that’s par for the course in the age-old Guardian readers vs. reality television debate – more that I just don’t have the time to commit to the whole televison programme plus website plus text message updates plus twenty-hour hour coverage on E4 experience that most of these phenomena seem to consist of. I have seen bits and pieces of this series though, which is how I know that Saturday night’s eviction of the only one with any talent in the competition was an absolute travesty and if I did watch it, I wouldn’t be now.

Hmph.

On Saturday during the day I met up with Susan, my best friend from when I lived in Edinburgh who I haven’t seen in a year and a half. We had coffee and then trailed around my favourite shopping centre in the world, Princes Square, lusting after articles of clothing that even in full-time employment we can’t afford. My general philosophy when it comes to buying clothes is to pick up bits and pieces as and when I fall in love with them – somehow, I haven’t run out of necessary items of clothing yet – but I can’t really reconcile that with a £210 dress from Raspberry Ripple or this skirt in Monsoon.

I might be tempted into getting some new perfume for Christmas though.

Accessorize have a range of pet accessories for Christmas – mostly little jumpers and jackets for dogs, if you like that sort of thing, but they do have some pretty collars and pendants for cats. They’d be wasted on Leah though, who would rip them off as soon as look at them. She went to the vet on Friday to get “done” and have her long-overdue vaccinations, and returned with one of those plastic cones around her neck to prevent her from worrying her stitches. It was supposed to stay on for ten days, during which time she was also to take it easy as anybody should after an operation. She was five minutes in the door before she managed to get the cone off and started tearing around the house, ending up on top of the fridge freezer.

By the way, is anybody looking for a ticket for the Decemberists in Glasgow on Wednesday night? Our Helen’s wanting rid of hers, and it’s leaving me without any company.

i know you might roll your eyes at this//but i’m so glad that you exist;

Published on November 10, 2005 in a little more personal, aff the telly and film. 6 Comments Tags: , , , .

Elizabethtown: shmaltzy, sentimental, horrendously contrived, at least half an hour overlong, starring two of the most irritating actors of our generation… and thoroughly lovely. I guess any film with a soundtrack featuring Ryan Adams, Kathleen Edwards, Lindsay Buckingham and Tom Petty was going to get a thumbs-up from me at the end of the day.

It’s not only that though – I just love that type of story, the person-meets-person-who-in-a-matter-of-days-changes-their-life-forever relationship stories. I guess you could say I’m a fan of films where not very much happens, sort of the televisual equivalent of a telephone conversation until the bathwater grows cold or a long picnic in the summer sunshine. I like watching people interact even if they’re fictional ones (well, more so if they’re fictional ones, because you can put down the book or turn over the telly when they start to annoy you). I like the thought that there’s somebody out there who’s going to become this massively important part of your life, and you don’t even know they exist yet.

Back when I was younger I had this “Book of the Unexplained” that some well-meaning relative had picked up for the sci-fi nerd in the family, and it had a section on palmology… is that the word? It sounds suspiciously like a brand of shampoo… I’m meaning like fortune-telling anyway, and I do have a point to this anecdote somewhere. One of the things I discovered is that there are some little grooves between the base of your pinkie and whatever line it is that is the first one, and they’re supposed to relate to the life-changing people you are going to meet. The thing is though, the lines are supposed to appear at roughly the distance the relationships will occur in your life, and so if the two people who I would traditionally think such a description would apply to are it for me I’ll die… hmmm… next week. So I’m not giving up quite yet. And hey – two months ago I was barely aware of your existence. So what the hell do I know?

I got caught in the rain last night – after my comment about my missing umbrella – but I ran home in it with my head back and my tongue out, singing along to whatever was on the iPod.

I’m buying a new brolly on the way home right enough.

The last episode in the current series of Spooks is on tonight, 9pm on BBC1, with a rip-roaring Princess Diana conspiracy theory yarn and plenty of smouldering sexual tension. Lola and I will be sitting with our mobile phones poised, lamenting the end of our favourite Thursday night entertainment (though I suppose there’s always 30 Days, the Morgan Spurlock documentary series on More 4 that would have been worth a look before now if it wasn’t for my favourite spy trash-slash-drama show). The lawyer I have a massive crush on even says he might watch it. What’s your excuse?

if you don’t he’s not a real punk boy;

Published on November 9, 2005 in aff the telly and books & literature. 1 Comment Tags: , , .

My sister fair comes out with some lines of utter genius. It’s essay time again, and this month we’re looking at humanism in relation to Shakespeare’s plays, specifically King Lear. Last night we were lying on the floor with our elbows in a pile of textbooks, digesting a particularly fine tomato pasta she’d cooked with chicken and red peppers, and she said, “I love Shakespeare so much I almost don’t want to spoil it by actually reading the plays.”

Which sounds ridiculous, but is fair comment I suppose from Marie-Clare’s point of view of the importance of the particular language used in transmitting what at Napier we always referred to as “the message”. Much of my sister’s understanding of the tragic story of King Lear comes from the additional reading she has done on the play. “I don’t speak the language,” she says. Still, if you take a work and ‘translate’ it, if you will, into contemporary language, is what you are left with anything like the same product? The BBC would certainly agree, and I was miffed at having to work late on Monday night and miss most of the first installment in their ShakespeaRe-Told season. From what I did see it was a fairly slick product, with enough of the Bard’s own lines worked naturally into the script to leave the viewer in no doubt as to what they were witnessing. I say that having once been given a scene from Romeo and Juliet to bring up to date in drama group, which went on to feature the immortal line: “You’re a pure good kisser.” Hardly that which we call a rose…

My sister’s desperate to see the real version now though, almost as desperate as she is to see Wicked ever since I popped a few tracks from the musical onto the iPod for her, and there is no denying the power and poetry of some of Shakespeare’s most famous speeches – whatever Tolstoy might have said.

It’s bright and cold today and, hatless, I find myself hunching up my shoulders to hide my ears in the fake fur of my coat collar. I was going to comment here after Monday night about how much I love bad weather – the kind that whips up your skirt and turns your hair inside out, wild and unmistakeable and uncontrollable – but since I left my brolly on the train yesterday I don’t want to tempt fate.

all you ever want to do is drink and watch tv;

Published on November 7, 2005 in a little more personal, aff the telly and music. 4 Comments Tags: , , , , , , , .

I don’t know if it’s better going back to work after a really good weekend, or worse (because you really know what you’re missing).

Friday night is my favourite lazy TV-watching night, and you should have heard the strangled yelping noise I let out at the news that my favourite anti-hero, Mr Jeremy Clarkson, was to be guest presenter on Have I Got News For You. As my brother rightly pointed out, I wouldn’t have gone out if you paid me. The West Wing was also rather ace – I’d say Kristin Chenoweth makes a valuable addition to any cast, though if you gave her her own show she’d probably drive you mental.

(Haha, if you’re still stuck for DVD ideas for Christmas William, this comes out today – described thus in Jeremy’s Saturday newspaper column (swiped from a copy of the Sun that was lying on a table in the tub, so I didn’t have to miss my favourite trashy weekend reading despite the fact my dad was in the Lake District this weekend):

[A]s the title suggests, it’s full of all the world’s best cars – which I drive around, very quickly while shouting – and all the world’s worst – which I kill using a selection of hammers, chainsaws and dynamite.

And if that doesn’t sound like the greatest two hour’s entertainment ever, you are more sad than even I.)

I spent Saturday with Sarah and my godson Ryan, who seems to double in size every time I see him and who now has six tiny teeth he’s not afraid to use. Saturday night’s plans sadly changed at the last minute (next time m’dear, and I’ll hold you to that) but my brother and Claire whipped me out to the pub before I even had time to finish watching Casualty. We went to the charmingly-named Crow Bar first of all (it is in Paisley, what did you expect?) – a dingy establishment full of gloomy-looking youths in dark clothing and band t-shirts which played heavy metal completely out-of-sync with Kerrang! TV on in the background. I don’t understand bars where the music’s too loud to talk and the tables are too close together to dance – there seems to be little else to do but stare gloomily at the other patrons while knocking back your drink as fast as you can. Which is what I did in my hurry to get out of there, and probably why I spent our first half-hour in the next pub huddled over the toilet. It was a really good night though – the chat was good (although my brother now knows several of my more… um… interesting stories), the late-night cheeseburgers and lollipops were better, my sister woke up to a ten-minute voicemail that made her day and a certain lovely lady kept me up half the night. Oh, and Bombay Sapphire? It may look pretty, but I’ll stick to Gordons from now on, fanx.

I spent most of Sunday in a pyjama-clad downloading splurge, then fell asleep on my sister’s floor when I should have been helping her with an essay.

It’s impossible for me to listen to The Weakerthans and not feel better about myself. It’s Monday morning, my stomach’s playing up and I’d give anything to be on a plane to… oh, Mexico or something right now but they’re a band who save me time and time again from hurling myself in front of the traffic on St Vincent Street (although it’s nose to tail most mornings, and I doubt ever hits a top speed that could do me much damage). I’m sure “Aside” is one of the mp3s I have up at the moment, and it’s omg lyk the gr8est song EVA.