Irn Bru Haiku

Mighty orange drink
O girder-based caffeine hit
You dissolved my teeth

Hello Again

Apologies for not posting for a while, you know how it is. Been busy and that. Christ, this feels like one of those emails you send to you old school friends that you can't be arsed to keep in touch with. Bollocks to that. I APOLOGISE FOR NOTHING.

Here are some musings:

- Look after your inner ears. Falling over in public isn't fun (and watching TV for a whole week whilst bed-bound will erode your faith in mankind).

- The humble bicycle is the most efficient machine ever invented. If everyone cycled more I think the world would be a better place. Albeit one in which more people wear lycra. Maybe I haven't thought that one through.

- Growing a beard makes me feel like a grown up. But also makes me look like a ginger-faced vagrant. I think I might grow one too keep my fave warm when ice-climbing though - just so I can grow icicles on it.

- I think I've broken a couple of toes.

- Yesterday I saw first-hand what can happen if you're not careful in the mountains. I will be replacing my battered climbing helmet and maybe taking a first-aid course. I really hope the poor guy is OK.

- I miss listening to John Peel.

- Everyone should check out Married to the Sea every day. DO IT NOW YOU FOOL.

Thus spake I.

Like the Heat of a Thousand Suns

I have rope burns on my wrists and I'm not sure how they got there.

Likewise the bruises on my knees.

I need to improve my technique.

This blog post was brough to you via the power of childish smut.

*Creak*

Right, well that's got rid of both of my regular readers for now. Several months of silence does wonders for one's blog readership. Stops the riff raff dirtying it with their bloodshot little eyes.

In true lazy mofo style, I shall try to recount the last few months in the form of a list. List order and chronology bear no correlation.

- Listening to Sufjan Stevens, reading Cloud Atlas in a tent on the Lofoten Islands in Arctic Norway.
- Going climbing at all hours ofthe night on said same islands.
- Sleeping in a cave on the Moray Firth coast whilst the sky collapses with rain.
- Deciding that I don't like Borrowdale.
- Extracting ticks from my areas.
- Having my first job interview in aages.
- Getting the job.
- Sleeping rough for 2 nights in Oslo sculpture park.
- Falling in love with granite.
- Jamming (and sincerely hoping that you like jamming too).
- Listening to the collected works of Mono at high volume.
- Being calm in the face of swearing motorisits.
- Swimming in lochs.
- Being grumpy about the Edinburgh Festival, but still enjoying the nightly fireworks.
- Growing a comedy ginger beard.
- Shaving it into an awful handlebar moustache for fun.
- Reading lots of other David Mitchell books.
- Not really understanding Jpod by Douglas Coupland.
- Lusting over mountain bikes.
- Spending my future salary on mountain bikes (in my head).
- Reading lots of internet comics.
- Being a bit underwhelmed by Thom Yorke's The Eraser
- Not tidying my room.
- Hurting my feet on discarded bicycle parts in my room.
- Sleeping in an industrial estate near Aviemore
- Climbing 'The Classics'.
- Being scared.
- Being brave.
- Bar-B-Q.
- Boycotting trendy bars with a 'no trainers' policy.
- Sweating my nights away in blistering heat.

Nice.

Punishment

There is no greater form of art thean the mighty pun. Observe:

Stevious says:
fucking hell. writing about climbing is hard

Del says:
an uphill struggle?

Stevious says:
yes. I want it to be the best article ever (est)

Del says:
soon it'll be over, hang in there

Stevious says:
dunno. it's looking a bit ropey

Del says:
er...

Del says:
ah, fuck it. get knotted

Stevious says:
yeah. and your gran

Stevious says:
ite

Del says:
ooooh. no need to rock the boat. if you want more puns you only need axe

Stevious says:
gneiss of you to offer

Stevious says:
but you might cramp(on) my style

Durrrr

Durr durr durr durr durr.

That is all.

It's raining music and it burns. Ouch, I like it.

 

So, after a wondeful few days of gigs, here's the round-up of what I saw at tritych this year.

Adem & Akron/Family at the Bongo Club

Firstly let's get the 'headliners', Akron/Family out of the way. With plenty of charming banter and a good line in noisy blues stomps they seemed promising on the outset. Unfortunately, they fell into the dull stoner rock trap of thinking that you could put 6 minutes of meaningless feedback in EVERY BLOODY SONG and still be entertaining. They were wrong, and as a result somewhat patchy.

No such disappointment from the real star of the night - Adem. With a clutch of effortlessy beautiful songs played on an array of esoteric acoustic instruments, there was a danger that music so fragile would fall apart in the bongo club. Opening with a solo rendition of new song 'spirals' it was clear that no such thing would happen. Somehow managing to avoid all the singer-songwriter cliches without making a hoo-ha about all the whacky instruments employed, the band managed to make you feel like you were the only person in the room. A rare thing indeed.

Extra point also go to Adem's band for using abotu 5 different glockenspiels during the gig. Plink-tastic.

Mogwai at the Usher Hall

Mogwai were my first real love in music and as such I find it hard to describe them without descending into a flurry ofsuperlatives. I've been going to see them live since I was 17 years old, and every gig has been spectacular and unique. Despite the poor acoustics of the Usher hall and the omission of 'My Father My King' (possibly the best live song EVER) the gig was still beautiful, mesmeric and punishing in all the right ways. After tugging on your heartstrings with perfect melodies, they assault you with a veritable barrage of sound. It's a very physical and emotional experience and I urge anyone who hasn't had the 'Gwai live experience to seek it out at the nearest possibility. Just don't expect to leave with your hearing intact.

Keiran Hebden/Steve Reid & Battles at The Venue

Laptop deviant Keiran Hebden has always floated on the more organic side of electronica, so teaming up with Steve Reid - a legendary drummer - for some live shows seems like a brilliant idea. In reality the results were somewhat patchy, but bearing in mind that the whole hours performance was improvised that's no big loss. It was certainly fun watching the interplay between a wizened legend and a twitchy upstart, and the mutual reverence made for a rather touching stage chemistry. Certainly not an essential event, but entertaining nontheless.

Battles, on the other hand are nothing short of incredible. Their records seem a little bit too robotic to really excite - almost verging towards dull muso wankery at times. On stage, however, they create a truly compelling spectacle, but more importantly they make you want to dance your fucking legs off. Combining astonishing musicianship with oodles of spastic energy, they all but tear your face off with their ferocity all the while juggling absurd polyrhythms and dancing like fools. If there's any justice in this owrld they'll be headlining the pyramid stage at next year's glastonbury, and as the camera pans out into the crowd, you'll be just able to make out the banner 'More Human Beat-Box in Post-Rock'.

Tunng & Buck 65 at the Bongo Club

At first I thought Tunng might be a bit like a British version of The Postal Service and was getting rather excited by theor performance. By the end, however, I got a bit bored by their distinct lack of performance, despite having some very accomplished and engaging music. Possibly just wasn't in the mood.

Buck 65 is utterly unique as far as hip-hop artists go. Drawing from his upbringing in rural Canada and seemingly fathomless music collection he crafts superbly skewed tales of, well, just about anything really. On stage, he's like a performing re-embodiment of John Peel. The musical esoterica and technical hitches of Peel's music shows (rapping to obscure classical music and skipping records) blending with the superb storytelling and emotional honesty of Home Truths (each track came with a funny, touching prologue) are enough to make any sane person grin all over.

In summary, then a rather fine festval. Bring on next year! 

Horsepiss

I spent ages writing a post about how wonderful climbing is last night and Blogger appears to have dissolved it. It was a prose of such unrelenting beauty that to gaze upon it would heal lepers and cheer goths up. I'm starting to think I might have dreamed it, but still hold the vague hope that it ended up on some random blog somewhere - I like the idea of it nestling in between missives from some podgy canadian teeneager complaining about being misunderstood by all the losers at school.

Ah well, it was probably a load of quasi-emotional pish with a few long word thrown in to make me seem clever and that.

I'm oof to see no less than FOUR GIGS IN A ROW this week as part of the Triptych Festival, some of which I might even review on here if you're particulary unlucky.

All I need now are some really big chips.

Just back from a fantastic weekend in Dumfriesshire - a part of Scotland I've never really been to before. I must say I was blown away with how remote it seemed out there despite being only about an hour from Glasgow. It's a truly stunning area, with some superb coastline and some world-class mountain biking to boot. All y'all should check it out.

Anyhoo, we were staying in a friend's 'hut' by the sea (which was far more luxurious than that sounds) and decided to go for a stroll along the coast. Barely a soul there apart from a couple of dog walkers, which is just how I like my beaches. We wondered over to one of the wee islands that is normally submerged at high tide for a bit of a poke around.

Look at what we found


Apparently the locals are now trying to build the world's biggest deep-fat fryer.

Civil Liberty

Well, I have yet another reason to love this wonderful nation - Scotland now has a ban in place prohibiting smoking in all enclosed public places. I'm jsut back from the pub, and I smell only of my own glorious scent, and not the stale cancerous smell of tobacco. And hooray for that.

It's a bit of a cultural turning point, and here's why:

Imagine you're in a cafe, enjoying whatever continental bread is trendy this week washed down with a wonderful cup of caffeiene juice. You're with a good friend - maybe even a potential love interest - smiling, gesticulating and generally minding your own business. And then along comes little old me. I stand right next to you and do the foulest, stinkiest fart you've ever experienced. A putrid stench so thick with evil it stains your clothes, your hair and even dries out your contact lenses. You'd think I was a bit of a dick, right? I mean what sort of antisocial bastard would do that?

Well, that's just what smoking's like. Except it gives everyone concerned cancer too. And until now it's been socially acceptable for smokers to inflict this on everybody else - even considered cool to flaunt 'no smoking' signs. But now it's actually illegal - you get a fine for it and everything!

So whilst it's almost a shame that it requires government intervention to establish something that should be a matter of common decency, it's by far the most sensible legislation I've seen in my lifetime. And to those who think it's an affront to civil liberties - is it an affront to ban people from letting their dogs shit on the pavement? Of course not.

So here's three cheers to cleaner air, and a big, mighty fuck you to all the smokers. I hope you enjoy standing outside in the pouring rain like the social lepers that you are.

Duvet Day

Slept through my alarms this morning and decided that it was as good an excuse as any to take a sickie. In America they call it a Duvet Day (possibly).

In celelbration of this, I bring you some photos I've taken of the view from Stevious Towers:

Daytime



Night time

Nice.

Das Wochende

I'm not sure what the shitting bastard happened this weekend but I can assure you it was brilliant. Here is a monumentally lazy list of events in no order:

- Rugby-tacking a jacobite warrior in half.
- Almost drowning in snow.
- Climbing nearly 200 metres of styrofoam.
- Deep-vein-motherfucking-thrombosis.
- Mr Beast.
- Breaking into a minibus.
- Watching a polish man drop-kick a government troop in the chest.
- Pitching a tent by balancing the poles in snow.
- Using more petrol than the USA

Bring on the sleep.

Thursday Night Lights

Thursday nightis probably my favourite night of the week. I meet up with my climbing buddies in the pub, discuss the week that was and make plans for whatever the weekend has in store. Tonight was particularly good.

I rushed out of the door at about ten to eight to go and see Guy Robertson speaking about some of the climbing he's donme in Scotland and abroad. There's nothing quite like an enthusiastic climber beaming about the things thay've done, and Guy was certainly enthusiastic. And incredibly inspiring. I'd reccommmend going to see him if you ever get the opportunity.

Anyhoo, armed with buckets of Scottish Climbing Psyche® off I toddled to the pub for this weeks tales of one-arm pull ups over dodgy pegs and debates about arctic weather systems. Not only did I sort out some badass climbing fun for the weekend, but a total stranger, overhearing that I'd had no dinner, gave me a bag of crisps. And I spent most of the night talking to pretty girls too.

So now I've come home, full of the joys of human kindness to a steaming hot bowl of cock-a-leekie soup (it's nutristious, tasty AND hilariously named - result!), a spendid bit of Delrico Bandito, some Godspeed YBE! and the buzz of anticipation for the adventures of the next few days. Imagine Christmas Eve when you were eight and you get the idea.

So now it's off to catch some sleep before the mundanity of work where I will dream, as I always do at these times, of strapping myself to a bit of frosty rock in the name of fun. See you on the other side.

Fwour

I should really try to pretend to hate these things, but I started this blog because I love to talk about MEMEMEMEME so big thanks to Del for tagging me.

Four jobs I've had
Giant Dancing Gnome, The Metrocentre, Gateshead
Washing Powder Scientist, Procter & Gamble, Newcastle
Child Care Worker, Sunrise Mountain Childcare Centre, Connecticut, USA
Policy Assistant, Crofting Branch, The Scottish Executive, Edinburgh
(I could do about twenty of these, by the way)

Four movies I can watch over and over
High Fidelity - More or less for Stevie Wonder playing out over the credits
Fight Club - Similarly for the Pixies
Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind - I am in love with Clementine
Forrest Gump - Makes me blub like a baby

Four places I have lived
Birtley, County Durham
Washington, Tyne & Wear
Various bits of Bristol
Marchmont, Edinburgh (my favourite neighbourhood of any city I've ever been to)

Four TV shows I like to watch
Peep Show
The Simpsons (Obviously)
ER
120 Minutes on MTV2

Four foods that I like
Ice Cream
Olives
The Mighty Bacon & Cherry Tomato Sandwich
Roast things (meats, vegetables, whatever)

Four websites I visit daily
EUMC Chatpage
UK Climbing
Dilbert
Mountain Weather Information System

Four things I want to do before I die
About a squillion different climbing things.
Have someone tell me that they want to be with me for the rest of their life.
Find the thing I'm really good at.
See a total solar eclipse properly (ie, not some clouds going dark)

Four places I would rather be right now
Lofoten, Norway
The arms of a beautiful woman
A highland Bothy, watching the snow fall as I sit by the fire
A really good gig

Four people I'm tagging
Big Sis
Jimmy
Jazy Lames
Toby

Opposition

So it turns out that I didn't know how to ski. Finding that out whilst gently sliding down a snowy alpine vally is probably not too bad, but the discovery came to me whilst carreering down a busy dry-ski slope just outside of Edinburgh. Nothing too damaged apart from my ego. Oh, and my thumb.

So the rest of the evening passed, and I learned how to control the foot-planks a bit more. Lessons were learned. Although obviously not the right ones, as the next day I found - to my surprise - that I had gone climbing.

It doesn't take a rocket scientist to figure out that this wan't good for my thumb, and resulted in it ballooning up to quite a size and going 'Burple' (a cross between blue and purple according to Pimp My Ride). This has resulted in much hilarity this week. Basically, I can't hold a pen properly, or indeed use my right hand for much at all. Yes, even that is off the cards just now.

But if I have learned anything from al of this it's how lucky we humand are to have opposable thumbs. I bet camels have an awful time doing up a button fly, and I defy any walrus to open a bottle of Irn Bru. I would mock the inferior species, but I'm down to their level right now anyway. Have you ever seen a man trying to fix a punctured bike tyre with one hand? It's probably the least graceful thing you'll ever see this side of a manatee trying to tapdance.

Anyway, I ask not for your sympathy, but merely post this as a message for you all - look after your thumbs, kids. You might miss them when they're gone.

Musical thoughts...

I've finally got round to doing some of the mix CDs I've been threatening to do, which has given me some thinking time whilst my feeble computer wheezes away at the concept of encoding the odd MP3. I have come to the following conclusions:

Arctic Monkeys: Poor sods. Their singles are brilliant, and their album's a quality peice of work - any band would be rightly proud of capturing a generation so well. Is it the dawning of a new era of rock music? I hope not, because the peurile, ficticious 'scenes' that sprout up around any decent success story are all precisely 95.3% shite and are a pox on all that is good about music (except britpop, which was 99.7% shite). It'll mean that their next album is a load of bumwater and 400 utterly useless identikit troupes of automatons will pile through the CD:UK doors and into our eyes and ears like Sarin nerve gas. To be honest, the monkeys aren't even that great either. Just very, very good. Still it does mean that Domino Records will have another million-selling artist on their roster and be able to afford to bankroll more spectacular music from more challenging artists.

"Cheese" Music: When someone says "I just like listening to cheese" it makes me want to sellotape them to the floor and inject them with insulin until they pass out. Have I got a problem with "cheese" music per se? No. The average pop music club will play approximately 60% music that I like, actually. but to describe something as cheesy is basically saying it's predictable, soulless guff with no merit. Like Bon Jovi for example. But any good pop music that makes it into such nightclubs gets dubbed as cheese too, which is criminal. A good pop record (say, S Club's 'Don't Stop Moving' for example) is a thing of unrivalled beauty and should not be tarred in the same pap way as Chesney Hawkes. Maybe I just lack the requisite self-conscious irony to appreciate shite music.


Why Hip-Hop Sucks in '06: It's the money.

Goodnight fair folk.

Pants on Fire

So I did say that I would be more frequent with blogging. I am a big fat liar.

This week, I have mostly been mourning the lack of Scottish Winter. And whining about my lack of MP3 player.

WHERE IS MY MP3 PLAYER?

Where is it?

*sob*

Inn(u)it

Chillin with my igloo homeboys

Good things today...

As promised, more blog. Things that have been good today:

I found a new way to work today which is not only 5 minutes quicker (on a half hour cycle ride) but also has amazing views of this incredible city. Bit windy though.

Winning an argument with one of the customers at work and then laughing behind his back because it was about his prescription for Viagra.

Sneaklily downloaded Mogwai choons. You can use some of them to remove stubborn limescale too.

A quiet pint in the pub. Which is only 5 minutes walk away. Not half an hour like in my old flat.

Sky TV. I might be throwing my money at that Murdoch chap, but in return he constantly dribbles the Simpsons into my eyes. I win.

Hello Peasants

Firstly, happy new year to one and all. I hope that you all enjoyed the ACTUAL festive season as much as me (thanks to big sis for some superb xmas fun).

The big news is that I no longer dwell in a flat with no furniture/carpets/rent and have now moved into a rather nice wee flat with a view of Edinburgh Castle. Oh and the internet. In my room. I can now fire blog-crap right into your eyes form the comfort of my own house, and feel I may well do so. Consider yourself warned.

I also have a brand new job which is just as pointless as the last one, but slightly better paid.

That is all for now.