January 2009
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Went to Clydebank last night, to the dubious Empire multiplex (next to the really scruffy but surprisingly excellent Shanghai Express restaurant) with Mag and Laura to see the new Mickey Rourke flick The Wrestler, which is, as Springsteen’s song says over the closing credit, a one-trick pony of a movie. Two tricks, actually. Turned by…
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A beautiful day in Glasgow, and after too much morning coffee with old mate TC, it was time for a stroll along the river to work. There’s so much work going on (and weird bits of the riverbank which appear to have been privatised) that you end up weaving in and out of bollards, JCBs,…
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It was Mic Calder who reminded me of the 1969 Lulu show, in which, inconceivably, the Jimi Hendrix Experience was allowed over nine minutes on peak-time Saturday BBC TV to demonstrate to the entire UK why our lives and our music needed to be entirely different. I remember the blue carpet, Brownie the dog, Stewart…
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It’s like Thunderbirds, or possibly something from a James Bond movie: the Science Centre, I-Max Cinema, Tower of Doom, Armadillo and the Beeb from/at Pacific Quay in Glasgow together make up a vision of the future as…well, resembling what I imagined as a child, from viewing the aforementioned, plus various Dr Who episodes way back…
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I tried to cancel the boat an hour ago, but failed to get through on NorthLink’s reservation line. Suddenly, I just couldn’t be bothered with all the discomfort and potential sickness involved in travelling aboard a flat-bottomed floating car park in a force eight. It sounds worse than that at the moment, but I’m hoping…
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The scene from the Victoria Pier in Lerwick earlier today. One of the benefits of being in Coalfishreek, the Capital of All the Shetlands is being able to revive the ancient habit of ship-spotting. Not much in the town bit of the harbour but a dirty great oil survey ship and the Banff fishing boat…
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I just got a new compact digital camera in the Amazon sale (a Samsung S1070, 59 quid, much more expensive now!) and decided to see how its movie facility worked…this is a pretty rough compressed QuickTime version…and I think YouTube have removed the Beach Boys soundtrack for copyright reasons! Anyway, Susan and I went off…
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….was missed by me, of course, though weirdly I was wakened at 5.30am by…something. I thought it was the tin of Guinness I had before going to bed… Anyway, I’m grateful to listener Allan Milligan for pointing me in the direction of this excellent website – it’s a daily ‘seismic monitor’ which tells you where…
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I’ve just about finished Roberto Saviano’s astonishing book Gomorrah (the movie is set for a foreign language Oscar) which is subtitled ‘Italy’s Other Mafia’ and is a journalistic….immersion is probably the best word…in the world of the Camorra, the Neapolitan ‘mafia’ – a ‘system’ (Saviano’s word) at least four times bigger than its better-known Sicilian…
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Much against the instincts of my inner protectionist hack, may I recommend this celebrity New York Times column by Mr Paul Hewson?
