Snow Joke

Well, the snow arrived in the Central Belt on Saturday. The earliest snow fall in 17 years (thanks a lot God). My better half and I were asleep when we were awoken at 7.30pm to the whining of a cat being dressed with no anesthesia. We then realised it was a car’s wheel spinning. A familiar sense of dread came over me as I realised it had arrived. This was confirmed when we looked out of the window.

Children welcome snow. It means that they get the day off school and they can build snowmen and frolic about making snow angels. Some adults feel this way too as they have a legitimate reason not to go to work and maybe they want to make snowmen and angels. I however, HATE the snow. This is because it usually means all civilisation grinds to a halt where I live (not a major city, so we aren’t important) and even though the trains may still be running, if the bus link to the station decides to have a ‘snow day’ then everyone in the town who doesn’t have a 4×4 is not getting out.

This is what happened to me this morning. I woke up at 6am and was on hold for 20 minutes to my trusted friends, National Rail Enquiries. I was told about all the times of trains we could get to Glasgow (me for uni, him for work) and for half an hour, things were looking up. Then other half went out to get the bus to the station. He came home 45 minutes later with yogurt and breakfast rolls declaring no buses had passed. The bus is meant to come every 15 minutes. I phoned the bus company. The line kept hovering to engaged to just ringing out. Cue me getting angry and shouting to no one in particular at how incompetent the local monopolising b*****d bus company were to not even have a voicemail explaining the situation.

So, I am stuck here for the forseeable. This is not good at all as it is the last week of term at uni, I have an exam tomorrow and a presentation to present on Thursday, as well as an overnight trip to Cheshire and I was supposed to be celebrating my birthday on Saturday. I live in hope that tomorrow will be a better day as I have a chance to be within spitting distance of JLS at the St Enoch Centre in Glasgow (not that I would spit on them). BBC weather says it won’t be snowing here after tomorrow morning, so I hold on to this Met Office verified fact.

So, come on council, get your act together and come and grit the bloody roads round here and bring that nice farmer back who plowed the snow away on Sunday with his tractor. Oh, and please can we have some food sent to us? The paranoid ones have ransacked the Co-Op and we have no milk nor bread. We have newspapers though and the Royal Mail, alas we can’t eat them…

Religious Children’s Books

I got my Wesley Owen autumn catalogue through the door the other day. I had forgotten I was on their mailing list. Then I remembered I had put myself on it in order to get a 10% discount on a holy communion present. I noticed that there was a children’s section in the catalogue. Now, I would think this would be for a lovely children’s illustrated Bible perhaps? Well, there’s a lot more nowadays to Christian children’s literature…

This book is about best friends Big Bart, Tommo and Pip, on the periphery of Jesus’ main friends/disciples. Getting themselves into various situations including partying, facing storms and ‘run-ins with the law’ (?) Entertaining stories while learning about Jesus…

Although the title is not grammatically correct, this is a very clever idea to target the pre-teen girl market. This comes in a pink hardcover, with a magnetic closure that opens to reveal a handbook, personality wheel, door hanger, quiz pad and stickers. With a strong theme of friendship throughout the pack, it includes activities such as starting a Bible study club, making a prayer ring, planning a Christmas party and making a year book about your group of friends. I think I want one of these…

Twenty Old Testament stories retold in a way that will be engaging to the Harry Potter/Twilight generation. Designed to be accessible to young people not familiar with Bible narratives. You can read a preview chapter on ‘The Giant’ on the official website at http://www.yhwhbook.com/index.html

In my opinion, these books have gone a long way from when I was a child with my illustrated Bible. With children more streetwise and savvy nowadays, literature has had to move with the times to keep interest with them. I’m not overtly religious but I feel in this day and age, it’s nice to have certain values still in play.

Interview with Admiral Fallow

This is an interview feature I wrote for Edinburgh’s Fresh Air Radio back in August 2010, for the Edinburgh Fringe Festival. Glasgow band Admiral Fallow had donated the track ‘Bomb Through The Town’ to Fresh Air’s charity album ‘The Inside Track’. Here, I spoke to front man Louis Abbott…

Admiral Fallow have kindly donated their track ‘Bomb Through The Town’ from their album ‘Boots Met My Face’ which was released back in April and has had the privilege of being a Daily Record Album of the week – ”One of the best albums to have been produced in Scotland this year.”

Meeting at College in Glasgow 5 years ago, Louis Abbott (Front man, Guitars, Singing), Kevin Brolly (Clarinet, Piano, Drum), Philip Hague (Drums), Sarah Hayes (Piano, Flute, Singing), Joseph Rattray (Upright Bass) and Tom Stearn (Guitars, Singing) initially formed the Brother Louis Collective. One name change later and a debut album, they continue the renaissance of Scottish folk and rock music.

I asked Louis what the song ‘Bomb Through The Town’ is about. ”The song is roughly about the point in a relationship where it starts to change and becomes something a little more than just a fun time; something a little more subdued for better or worse. It’s also about five and a half minutes.” Joking aside, this particular track is a song ”for anyone who can understand where it’s coming from or has been in that situation.”

‘Bomb Through The Town’ – a phrase meaning to move fast through a place where people live – is a joy to listen to with its stirring orchestral strings, finishing with a sweeping crescendo. What inspires the band with their eclectic mix of folk and rock? ”We all listen to a lot of pop music which, in turn, leads to a fairly diverse input musically.” Says Louis, ”It’s important to have a rich variety to pluck ideas from, writing wise, I generally pick little lines of my everyday life and the songs grow legs from then, usually one line or idea kicks everything off.”

The album ‘Boots Met My Face’ draws on experiences of childhood memories, growing up and friends. Louis states that the record was inspired by his upbringing in Edinburgh, ”particularly focusing on my teenage years.” Even though Admiral Fallow have received raving reviews regarding their live performances and album, they are not ones to rest on their laurels. On their views on the Scottish music scene, ”It’s strong but it’s important to listen to as much music from anywhere as possible, otherwise we’ll all start sounding the same.” Louis goes on to say ”it’s all relative really. There are some really great bands that draw reasonable crowds in the central belt and perhaps a little beyond but nobody really knows about them further afield. If they’re happy like that then brilliant. Others have a good team/label behind them and are getting out and I think if the music is strong and they are good people then that’s a great thing.”

So what do they make of Edinburgh and their time at the Fringe Festival? ”We played a really good show in sneaky Pete’s recently as part of a little tour. It was sold out on the strength of our record that came out in April. I only know this as we played the same venue just before the release and it was pretty quiet. So it was nice to return and have a good sweaty one.” Does Louis have any favourite venues to play? ”I generally like smaller venues but I’ve had a couple of pretty great shows in the Ironworks, Inverness. In my high school band I played in WhistleBinkies and Bannermann’s a fair bit – hairy.”

Admiral Fallow advise to check their MySpace for details of future Scottish live dates. Last words from Louis, what do the band ultimately aspire to be?

”Good Christians, failing that, and we will, we just want to keep making music that makes us and the people who hear it happy.”

Find out more at myspace.com/admiralfallow

Daytime, otherwise known as hell…

Just a quick one tonight. I just watched last weeks episode on demand of Seven Days and Ben STILL hasn’t left home. Cher is still on the X Factor with her smirkmace (a cross between a smirk and a grimace) and daytime television still makes me severly depressed.

Why was I watching daytime TV? Well, because I have been ill for the past two days and unable to leave the house. This is what has stood out for me as particularly bad during the day…

Heir Hunters (BBC) – Series following the work of heir hunters, probate detectives looking for distant relatives of people who have died without making a will. How morbid is this? Do I really want to watch this at 9am, being reminded of imminent death and the fact that a random family member can get their hands on your stuff if you are not careful? Dire.

There is then To Buy or Not to Buy (BBC) – which helps people with specific requirements to accomodate to find their perfect home. This programme always reminds me of this sketch on the Mitchell and Webb Look, infact if these types of programmes were anything like this sketch, they would be a hell of a lot more interesting.
Mitchell and Webb – Avacado Bathroom On Youtube

This is then followed by Cash in the Attic and Bargain Hunt (both BBC) which will eventually almalgamate into one programme with people holding auctions in their attic spaces. Just an idea.

You could try the alternative of ITV and watch The Jeremy Kyle Show. Even in my sick induced state I feel very guilty when he says to me ‘Why don’t you get off your arse and get a job?’

Or you can watch Loose Women (ITV), which is basically a bunch of aunties sitting about drinking tea and talking about HRT and bonking.

Oh well, only five and a half hours till the news comes on…

Unless you tune into Channel Four that is…

Review – The Social Network

I went to go and see ‘the Social Network’ at the cinema last night. I really liked it! It was interesting to learn of the story behind the most popular form of social networking and then for that story to be told in such an entertaining way (as entertaining as law suits can be).

Simon Amstell esque actor Jesse Eisenberg plays uber nerd Mark Zukerberg who creates Facebook back in 2004 with the help of best mate Eduardo Saverin (Andrew Garfield) and then pick up Napster’s Sean Parker (Justin Timberlake) on the way. There are then two lawsuits brought against Zukerberg, one from Eduardo who to be fair, receives a rough deal from Facebook. The second from the Winklevoss Twins (Armie Hammer Jr.) who claim that Zukerberg stole their idea for a website.

A thoughtful, humourous film, with good dialogue between the characters and 97% on Rotton Tomatoes. Something that makes business, computer programming and lawsuits sound interesting to me on a Saturday night can’t go wrong…

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