Little talk of monsters

At ten past nine on Friday night Of Monsters and Men took to the stage, emerging from the dark shadows behind the instruments like creeping, dark woodland creatures from one of their own songs. After some uncertainty about what to expect on the night, our first night out childless after the birth of Sophie, we stood transfixed in the packed O2 Academy for the duration of the following hour and a half, bewitched by the Icelandic act’s music. The bands two lead singers Ragnar Pórhallsson and Nanna Bryndís Hilmarsdóttir held us and the rest of the crowd’s attention easily with their beautiful, soulful voices which accompanied the other five musicians on stage before the packed old cinema house. Of Monsters and Men are probably classed as something along the lines of indie folk rock but have a very distinctive sound. An earthy, melodic, exciting noise that rears from quiet ballad to epic drums, Of Monsters and Men's music is a mix of Arcade Fire, Mumford and Sons and, fellow Icelandic band, Sigur Ros. Merely comparing them to other bands however probably doesn’t do them justice and could possibly act as a distraction to anyone considering listening to them.
Whilst running on the treadmill one day last year I happened to notice the fantastic video for their first single “Little talks” on the gym’s tv screens and I’ve been enjoying the band’s music since. The animated music video tells the story of five sky sailors (the five blokes in the band) discovering a meteor and a mythical female creature, played by female lead singer, Nanna. The rest of the video follows the sailors as they decide to try and help the female creature get home and back to her people depicting the story of them on their dangerous, treacherous journey.
The animated video itself reminded me of the kind of artwork created by the likes of Dave McKean and Neil Gaiman, the basic, child like depictions of the moving figures reminded me of J.R.R. Tolkien’s own illustrations for his Middle Earth books.
The video was actually created and produced by design team We Were Monkeys, Mihai Wilson and Marcella Moser, and since the single “Little Talks” the same team have went on to create another video for the band's next single, “King and Lionheart”.
After downloading their first album “My Head is an Animal” last November, Ka bought us tickets after hearing of their live tour hitting Glasgow in February not quite comprehending the feelings of uncertainty and guilt we’d be feeling at having to leave a 13 week old baby behind when the night of the gig actually came around.
so we travelled into Glasgow on Friday night leaving the sleeping Sophie in the care of my Mum and Dad. Lynsey Ann had also invited herself round and was going to join Mum and Dad for dinner, a large fish supper bought from Emanuels around the corner, whilst Sophie's mild snoring buzzed out from the small baby monitor at the end of the couch. So, after giving Sophie one final check, as she lay sound asleep in the moses basket, we bid Mum and Dad farewell and jumped in the car to head for Gardenhall.
Ka and myself were not the only ones going to the gig. Pauline and her mate from work, Dawn, had also purchased tickets for the same concert at some point at the end of last year and I offered my services as taxi driver. Ka and myself left the house on time, and drove round to Pauline's house to pick the two work colleagues up only to find the two of them supping beers and just beginning the process of putting their dinner out. Sitting patiently with our jackets on Ka and myself watched the two of them eat, not making them feel rushed at all, whilst Pauline repeatedly told us how she loved us, before the four of us finally headed into town. Unfortunately we missed the support act and when we left the square bar nearest the large hall’s entrance after purchasing our first drink we only then realised how busy the place was.
It wasn’t just busy, it was mobbed busy. I hadn’t expected such a strong crowd for the folkie band from Iceland and had obviously completely underestimated their popularity. It didn’t stop us fighting our way down through the hall to the front of the main standing area within only a few metres from the front of the stage. It was a great gig with the band’s two singers, Pórhallsson and Hilmarsdóttir, on top form with their acoustic guitars and their vocals, working perfectly together, bouncing off one another just as they mirrored one another, standing at the front of the stage, under the lights and in the dry ice, left and right, male and female, left handed and right handed whilst the other guitarists worked around them, the trumpets and pianos played to their right and the tall, bearded drummer with the big, whacky hair yelled at the crowd from behind his kit on their left.
After giving Dawn a quick lift to the bus station to await her journey home, and getting Pauline back to Gardenhall, Ka and myself rushed home around half past eleven to find Mum, Dad and Lynsey Ann chilling out before our television. They’d spent the evening watching the Coen Brothers’ patter filled classic The Big Labowski for the first time. After taking off our jackets Ka and myself individually checked Sophie who I don’t think had moved since we’d left four hours earlier. Our wee baby girl remained sound asleep in the moses basket, proving that we could in fact, contrary to paranoid feelings of guilt, leave our sleeping baby safely in someone else’s care for an evening. This proven fact will hopefully come in handy in the years to come, though we probably will need a little more practice at it.

Bath time, Boris and Bowie

I'm still feeling guilty after Thursday night.
Sophie was in her luminous green bathtub, gifted to her by her Uncle Colin and Auntie Jillian, kicking and bobbing about the usual for seven o’clock on an evening. As it was Thursday it was my turn for bathing baby Sophie, as I’m generally never home in time Monday to Wednesday. Holding her small body semi afloat in the tub Sophie lay back, a looking around little uncertainly as usual, but generally content. Sophie’s big wide eyes gazed up at the ceiling taking the occasional break from the plaster to look up at me as I struggled to keep her at the same horizontal angle.
Sophie likes to moves around, you see. She likes to try and turn herself around in the shallow depth of water and explore it as she lies but then usually changes her mind at the last minute as the water hits the side of her big eyes and it’s usually at this moment she’ll start to freak out and moan for help. Generally speaking she does like the bath. Sophie certainly doesn’t cry and scream when in the water but she also doesn’t laugh and giggle, she merely lies back and looks around, sometimes with a look of wonder upon her face, as she sporadically kicks her legs out to splash the water over the end of the bath on to whom ever is bathing her. Her arms remain outstretched at either side, evidence of her uncertainty with the wet surroundings, occasionally jerking and moving as she sometimes grabs for the side of the bath or the hair on your arm with her small hands, which are topped off with her unclipped long nails. Sophie will usually be quite content until it’s time to leave the water, at which point she’ll then start screaming the place down.
Thursday was different, however. Sophie started screaming early.
Whilst holding Sophie with my left hand, her head cradled in the palm of my hand and my arm under her back, I reached down to grab one of her toy plastic fish with my other hand. These plastic fish only occasionally join Sophie in the bath. They are small, colourful plastic toys with a hole at the mouth where they will fill with or, if squeezed, release water from. Sophie sometimes likes getting the water squirted from the fish on to her tummy so, in order to keep her entertained, I reached for one of the fish with my right hand. Unfortunately, just as I did this, Sophie decided to take one of her exploratory turns and swivelled her head round on to it’s side in the palm of my left hand. Looking up I realised Sophie had moved and was inadvertently gulping water. Spinning my baby back round on to her back I accidentally forced Sophie to gulp down the water she’d taken into her mouth and after a rather heavy gulp, worthy of the best Scooby Doo impression after seeing another particularly scary ghost, her gulping mouth grimaced and an intense scream was released from within her. The crying and screaming refused to cease. No matter how much I tried to placate my wee daughter, she was not having it. Not even to put her pyjamas on. Ka trudged upstairs to investigate the intense screaming and ended up taking over. Sophie would not be pacified. Her father had tried to drown her and was no longer trustworthy. So that was me for the rest of the night. Riddled with guilt. Waved away with a frown and an impatient hand whenever I approached.
It’s quite worrying when Sophie goes into those fits of grief. A grimace will come over her face which will turn a pale shade of scarlet and Sophie will start shaking her head slowly from side to side as a loud scream slowly emits and grows from within her. It often reminds me of the lion in the opening credits of an MGM movie, except fiercer, louder and scarier.
Thankfully, Sophie seems to have forgotten the watery incident in the bathtub on Thursday evening and is now far more relaxed around me again after a Friday spent shopping with her Mum and Auntie Chris while I sat in the Central Quay office making up the promotional adverts for the week to come.
The estate agent dealing with the flat, (what are we calling them, “Your Maneuver”?), called today to inform me that our new tenant had now picked up the keys. Yes, finally. After six months the estate agent has finally found someone. Whether they’ll last or not is a different matter. Fingers crossed.
Ka and myself were back in the flat yesterday, giving it a little wipe down and taking photographs for an inventory, an itemized list of the flat’s fixtures and fittings.
That’s inventory, pronounced “invintory” rather than “invent-ory” as I have been inadvertently pronouncing it. Even though I know it is pronounced “invintory”, I somehow struggle to enunciate it this way. On more than one occasion during the conversation with Liz, the estate agent, I accidentally pronounced it “invent-ory”. This makes it sound like some form of waterway where you go to devise new creations.
Kelvin Okafor. Now there’s a guy that comes up with some fabulous creations. Ewan, my boss in the studio, showed me the BBC report on this guy yesterday. Okafor, an artist from Tottenham, draws with pencil and charcoal to create the most amazing photo realistic portraits you’ve ever seen. To look at them you’d think they were simply photographs against a plain white background they are that impressive. The report even said that a lot of his work is drawn from memory, which reminded me of another brilliant London artist, Stephen Wiltshire.

Wiltshire draws whole cityscapes, intricately detailed, all from memory. Recently Wiltshire was on the news once more after drawing the view of London city from the top of the Shard.
At 800ft high the triangular Shard is Europe’s newest and tallest building. Designed by Italian architect Renzo Piano, the Shard is part of a £2 billion redevelopment in its area of South London. The tall, triangular glass building is filled with offices, luxury apartments and restaurants and sure to be another major tourist attraction after its grand opening yesterday. Boris Johnson, with yet another of his fantastic, colourful, speeches described it as “the tip of a cocktail stick emerging through the skin of a super colossal pickled onion”. That’s one hec of a cocktail stick. Bigger than the one I seen in Edinburgh when U2 brought the Popmart tour to Murrayfield. They had an olive though, not a pickled onion, not to mention the giant mirrorball lemon on stage. The band must have been having some sort of mid life creative crisis back in ‘97.

Something David Bowie has presumably been suffering for the past decade after being away from the music scene for so long. You could argue that it’s not exactly “mid-life”, (that may have been Tin Machine) but on the Tuesday morning of January 8th on the dawn of his 66th birthday news broke that he had released a surprise single to the world. I heard the single “Where are we now?”, on the Chris Evans Breakfast Show in the car on the way into work. The slow, melancholic music was not what I had expected as a “comeback” single but, as the weeks have gone on, it’s grown on me none the less. Throughout the song Bowie reflects back on his Berlin days, where he escaped to in an effort to battle his drug addiction and whilst doing so produced ‘Heroes’, ‘Low’ and ‘Lodger’ hanging out with Brian Eno and sharing an apartment with Iggy Pop, surely a strange choice for a flatmate when you’re trying to get off the drugs.
Anyway, it’s now 5.30pm on Saturday evening. Ka is out for Agnes’ retirement shindig, in which they’ll be dining in luxury at Jamie Oliver’s George Square restaurant. Just as they’ll be tucking into their main course and sipping their wine, served up by the finest chefs and waiting staff in the land in the splendour and convivial surroundings of the tv chef’s Glasgow restaurant branch I’ll be taking Sophie back up to the luminous green bathtub. Wish me luck.

Kitchen sinks and room service

Last Saturday morning we enjoyed The Shaftesbury Premier London Paddington Hotel’s breakfast once more, the only difference being that we were sitting listening to Sally Morgan on the next table the whole time. The woman at the next couple was with another lady and her voice just seemed to ring through the dining area, the same accent and tones as Fulham born Sally Morgan, or ‘Psychic Sally’ supposedly Britain’s best loved psychic. The only difference was this woman was not pretending to be talking to dead people, only the taller, glammed up woman sitting next to her and she talked on and on about how she was content with her life, how she felt that she was quite happy without a man and how her cat had died.
“Did you not know Jeffar had died?” she asked of her friend, shocked. If she had been Sally Morgan she may not have moaned so much about her cat dying as she’d still be able to talk to him.
The breakfasts in the hotel were great though. Full English breakfasts, all laid out in big silver trays, buffet style. Sausages, eggs, hash browns, you name it. Along with the healthier options of course of fruit yoghurts, fruit juices, toast and croissants you were each given a whole pot of the caffeine preference of your choice. All fantastic. And for us still free, due to the ‘inconvenience’ of the hotel moving us.
The whole stay was pretty damn close to being the best hotel stay I’ve ever had anywhere. The only complaint I’d have would be the single glazed windows which enabled us to hear the constant drone of traffic from the busy street outside. Not that you noticed it so much after a while as you lay on the bed on top of all the quilt layers, pillows and cushions, watching all the television programmes you’d never usually watch at home, whilst drinking all the tea and coffee sitting alongside the kettle, eating all the biscuits, eating all the fruit you’d picked up from the buffet table at breakfast time, using as much toilet paper as you liked and nonchalantly throwing towels about on the bathroom floor when you were finished with them, knowing full well that everything would be back to it’s neat and tidy state by the time you got back in the evening.
Saturday afternoon was cloudier but still dry as Ka and myself made our way to the Ambassadors Theatre to see Stomp.
Stomp is a popular theatre production of dance, rhythm, noise, a little more rhythm and a lot more noise. The production is not a story but a variety of different scenes with the performers and set design all dressed giving the impression of the setting being in some sort of junkyard. The scenes all involve the participation of eight dancers who perform with no, or very little speech, using only the noises and tunes they make to create music using only various everyday objects such as bins, tubes, tins, newspapers and even kitchen sinks. Such scenes involved the clacking of a wooden brush against the ground, for example, the thumping of a trash can, the banging of a giant rubber ring or the emptying of a kitchen sink full of water, (which is not particularly good if you’re now suffering the after effects of a couple of pints).
It was a great show, admittedly not one I would have rushed to see before, but Ka had always wanted to see it, probably because it was all based around people brushing up, using dustbins and tidying rubbish away whilst making as much noise as possible. If you were to sit and close your eyes whilst in the theatre it almost reminded me to waking up on a normal morning in Kenilworth listening to Ka rattling about the kitchen. Or those moments on the couch when you’re trying to watch an episode of Spooks and Ka decides it’s a great time to clean the kitchen cupboards out.
Before hand we’d went for an afternoon tipple in The Marquis of Granby, just across the road from the big, old Palace Theatre, currently adorned in colourful, open umbrellas for the running production of Singin’ in the Rain. A cackle of older ladies sat at the window table to the side of us, all downing the wine and gabbling like geese, prime suspects for the Singin’ in the Rain show. A couple in the other corner rowed quietly. Arguing over the menu with fierce eyes and the odd comment muttered through gritted teeth.
We had had to seek out the theatre early and managed to get lost in the West End streets in the effort, after Adventure Ted made another brief appearance in Trafalger Square under Nelson, we got momentarily sidetracked in Charing Cross Station and we spotted more Faberge Easter eggs.
We eventually found the small theatre on the corner of a block in the middle of West Street just across from the Club of the Ivy, which we recognised as the restaurant that week’s winners of The Apprentice had just dined in a couple of nights before. After finding the theatre we wandered off for a stroll and got lost once more and ended up milling around the town looking for somewhere to get an afternoon drink when we eventually found the Marquis of Granby. As I ordered our drink I asked the barmaid if she had any idea where the Ambassadors Theatre was.
“Go out there and turn left” she frowned slightly at me over the taps. I quickly went back out into the narrow street outside and looked down to see the familiar white fronted theatre not sixty meters away. That was handy, I thought, considering our circular route around the West End.
If you don’t know the West End well it would be easy to get lost in, going round in circles, through the streets filled with their shops, boutiques, small galleries, coffee shops, theatres and pubs.
After the show, and a quick walk around Covent Garden, at which we seen the largest paella known to man, an abundance of silk scarves and some artwork by Bob Dylan and Billy Connelly, we enjoyed a meal in Spaghetti House, served by Sacha Baron Cohen. The tall, dark waiter with the large eyes and high forehead serving our meals grinned from ear to ear at Ka all the while gesticulating with his hands whilst shouting in his thick, almost exaggerated Italian pronunciation. He looked very much like Baron Cohen in yet another cartoon like extremist character. Ka and myself had to have a quick look around for other actors and hidden cameras but seen only the other far more stressed looking staff members, all running around the restaurant floor in the Saturday night rush all putting on the same, overly pleasant but less enthusiastic or actorly performances on for their own tables.
The next day we were back at Euston, jumping on the train back to Glasgow Central, our weekend trip coming to an end but with a whole other week off lying ahead. Unfortunately there’d be no more Shaftesbury breakfasts or room service but as I awoke on Monday morning to the sound of Ka in the kitchen and a glass of orange juice on the bedside table waiting for me I thought, there’s no place like home.

Aunt Ann, Adventure Ted and Big Ben

Friday morning and the sun was still burning in the London sky as Ka and myself made our way to Piccadilly Circus, or Pilladicky, as I mistakenly named it for some reason on more than one occasion, to head to the Royal Academy. The Royal Academy of Arts is an privately funded, independent institution, situated in Burlington House in the middle of Piccadilly, governed and led by a whole committee of painters, designers and artists from many different fields known as Academicians.
King Geogre III founded the Academy way back in 1768 with the help of the portrait painter Sir Joshua Reynolds and Scottish architect Sir William Chambers, who became the Academy’s first President. The membership club, known as the Friends of the Royal Academy, was set up back in 1977 to provide the museum with financial support whilst giving all it’s member unlimited access to the exhibitions housed within. My Auntie Ann is one of those friends and with her membership managed to get us some tickets for the current David Hockney exhibition, ending on the 9th April.
After arriving in Burlington House’s courtyard, Ka and myself stood in the sunshine, alongside the massive queue for tickets that had formed outside the building to await Ann’s arrival by bus.

Needless to say Adventure Ted got her photo taken outside the exhibition, again no one really batting an eyelid at the sight of a Scottish couple holding a small, colourfully dressed bear, high up into the air to get it’s photo taken alongside the large banner, which depicted Hockney hard at work on one of the colourful landscape paintings featured in his show.
Ann eventually turned up looking around quizzically under the large archway for her visiting relations after Ka almost surprised and cuddled a complete stranger who was innocently making her way up to the exhibition entrance, and who only had a passing resemblance to my Aunt. After a quick cuddle, (with Ann, not the passing resemblance), we quickly got the introductions over with, introducing Ann to Adventure Ted. Ann obligingly met Ted with a big smile before giving us our tickets for the exhibition pointing out she’d already seen it twice and was quite happy to sit in the sunny courtyard and read her book for an hour.
So Ka and myself battled our way through the crowds into Burlington House to view Hockey’s landscapes. The exhibition wasn’t what I had been expecting as Hockney is famous for being one of Britain’s first big celebrity artists, a bit of a rebel, famous for painting scenes of LA, splashes in swimming pools, portraits and creating photo collages of streets, highways, buildings and people.
With this exhibition Hockney shows a more traditional side, concentrating his painting on the landscapes of Yorkshire, collections of paintings depicting the same location over and over but in various seasons and months of the year. There are brief glances at works from different parts of the world, the giant ‘A Bigger Grand Canyon’ being the biggest, brightest, and boldest of the lot but most of the exhibition is taken up by the trees, blossoms, fields and hills of Yorkshire, some mad, brilliant, lurid, luminous and surreal and others, such as some of the smaller sketches, not quite as impressive. Not all of it worthy to be under the name of one of Britain’s most influential artists anyway.
The crowds were unbelievable. The Hockney exhibition had already been on since mid January but yet the halls were still heaving with people. A lot of rude old folk in suits and scarves made up a good portion of the crowd, seemingly believing they had a right to elbow, stop directly infront of you or ignore the few people in wheelchairs politely asking to get by from down below.
After an hour and a half we made it back out into the sunlight and after a brief stop at the local Pret a Manger made our way to Green Park for a picnic.
Looking out over the bottom half of Green Park, Buckingham Palace obscured by trees to the south, we sat in the grass, surrounded by fellow picnickers, Adventure Ted sitting in the daffodils behind.

We discussed what to do with the rest of our day. Ka and myself had planned to take Ann to a theatre show or dinner, a treat for her big birthday coming up. Ann, however, had a better idea.
“I think we should get Adventure Ted to Buckingham Palace!”
So off we went to get the kids of ELU their photograph of Adventure Ted outside the Queen’s house, passing two large colourfully decorated Easter eggs on the way through Green Park.
London is hosting an event over Easter named the Faberge Big Egg Hunt in which over 200 large easter eggs, each decorated, painted or designed by famous artists and designers have been positioned at various points over and across Central London. Following the opportunity for an eggciting (gawd!) egg hunt the eggs were to be gathered in Covent Garden where they were all to be auctioned for charity. Ann, Ka, Adventure Ted and myself came across around ten or so on our walk on Friday. If we’d known about it we could have attempted the whole 200 and got Adventure Ted’s picture taken with all of them. Fortunately, we hadn’t known about it.
After a few shots at the gate we approached a policeman guarding one of the barrier gateways. Chancing her arm, Ka started explaining Adventure Ted and her quest for the ELU. The poor guy was obviously the unlucky one on tourist duty at the time as two of his buddies pottered around behind him, further back in the palace’s front grounds.
Before Ka could finish her explanation as to why she was offering the guy a polka dot teddy bear, the policeman quickly interrupted with a quick “I ain’t holding the teddy!”

The rather bemused but cheerful bobby did agree to pose with Adventure Ted though, obviously used to similar requests, and smiled for the camera.
After the pics at the gates Ka talked me into climbing up one of the statues surrounding the Victoria Monument for a picture. A task I accepted with a shrug until half way around the groping of the bronze lion on the Statue of Justice, I nearly slipped back into the fountain of water four feet below my behind which I had thought to be pavement not dissimilar to the side I had started climbing from. I felt like Doc Brown shuffling along the front of the clock tower.
After Ka took the snap and I made it back on to paved ground in a rather undignified landing, Ann insisted that Adventure Ted see Big Ben next. Ka and myself looked at one another wondering who was the more excited about this whole trip. Adventure Ted or Ann?
So I led the way through St James’ Park, through the willow and blossom trees up into Westminster, avoiding some brawling ducks and scary looking geese, and passing more Faberge eggs, which were attracting mild interest from similar tourists passing through the park. The only difference with other tourists was that they didn’t excitedly produce a polka dot clad teddy bear to get it’s picture taken next to the giant oval.

After a few pictures in and around the red telephone boxes on our approach to Westminster square (Ted waving from inside whilst on the phone. Perhaps to the male Adventure Ted? There is a bloke version too, he just wasn’t lucky enough to get to go to London. He was probably in the pub, enjoying himself while the Mrs was away) and a few shots of Adventure Ted with Big Ben we crossed Westminster Bridge, heading for the South bank where we would grab a coffee under the shade of the London Eye before heading back over to hit Westminster Abbey as Ann suspected that Adventure Ted would really like to see where William and Kate got hitched.
Back over the bridge we went, stopping briefly outside the gates of the Houses of Parliament where a couple of coppers were guarding the barrier in a small, sparse huddle of Japanese tourists. Ka reached in to get Adventure Ted back out for another pic but stopped when the two coppers gave some rather blunt, bored and almost angry responses to some little Japanese ladies requesting photos alongside them with Big Ben in the background. These coppers obviously were not as tourist friendly at the Buckingham Palace lot. The Parliament coppers simply shook their heads gruffly and grumbled “We’re busy”.
So, leaving the Parliament coppers milling around at the gate twiddling their thumbs, Ann led us onwards to Westminster Abbey, our final stop before we jumped on a busy tube back to Fulham where we made a pit stop at Ann’s place to see a rather grumpy Bandit the dog and discover how red and burnt my balding head was. Within an hour we were walking again, now along to Putney and Ann’s favourite Tapas restaurant.
Our last and best stop of the day. Well, before Ka, Adventure Ted and myself headed back to Paddington, of course. And no, I don’t mean the bear.

Over iced and overpriced

Ka and myself were back in Glasgow, late on Saturday afternoon. With the intention of dinner and drinks we headed for the Merchant Square in Candleriggs. It felt like we hadn’t been out for ages, as we’ve had a few quiet weekends recently, and now that George Square was free of zombies, crowds running amok screaming and breaking their arms and detoured Number 20 bus routes, we thought it would be a pleasant change and get us out the house.
The city’s old fruit market and surrounds, in which much of Glasgow’s old Victorian architecture still proudly stand in cobbled streets, has been a bit of a favourite for Ka and myself when it comes to going for a wee tipple at the weekend. Although a little pricey, the atmosphere is always relaxed, comfortable and enjoyable as you can sit in one of the Square’s bars inside the roofed courtyard with it’s high ceiling of curving, twinkling lights which shine down over the cobbles of the people filled square below.
On Saturday the Merchant Square’s Craft and Design Fair was taking place. It turns out that it’s more of a permanent fixture these days, and there were various traders attempting to sell the product of their various hobbies and pastimes.
Paintings, drawings, photographs and jewellery were all on sale around the various stalls in the Square along with two stalls selling fairy cakes… sorry, cup cakes.
Ridiculously overpriced and ridiculously over iced cup cakes sold by large grinning ladies in silk scarves. These small sponge creations sit there on the silver plates, innocently looking up at you with their colourful décor, probably containing enough icing on top to easily feed you double the amount of your daily sugar allowance by just eating one. Enough to send you off in a wild eyed buzz to buy a horrendously overpriced print of a photograph at one of the surrounding stalls before going off into one of the bars and ordering yourself ten Mae West cocktails.
Don’t get me wrong some of the photographs at the fair’s stalls are great. There are some really nice shots of various Glasgow locations and beyond. But selling small A5 prints straight from the computer’s inkjet computer, in small card frames bought in large packs from stationery websites and charging silly amounts of money for them, is a bit much.
The painters, illustrators and jewellery makers are the one’s that really interested Ka and myself.
The work of Glaswegian artist and designer, Adrian B. McMurchie, for instance, really grabbed my attention, with his fantastic architectural line drawings and watercolours. In fact, my own style of sketchbook and watercolour work is very much like McMurchie’s, only a lot less detailed and not half as good. His eye for catching the details, perspectives and structure of his chosen, architectural subjects is brilliant and well worth a look.
Another stall that took Ka’s eye was the jewellery of Moon on the Loch. This is the work of Scottish jewellery designer, and fellow East Kilbridian, Stephen Dickie. Dickie works with silver, gold, copper and glass to create fantastic and stylish jewellery in elegant, often simple, smooth, minimal shapes. Using nature and reflection as inspiration, Dickie creates ear rings, necklaces, bangles and cufflinks all to a beautiful, polished finish.
Ka’s eyes lit up when we looked over the jewellery laid out over the ‘Moon of the Loch’ stall but with just under 100 days to go, I simply took a business card and moved onwards to Arisaig for lunch, after which we spent the rest of the evening on the big, black, comfortable cushions of Bar Square.
Bar Square’s Vodka based Mae West cocktail was particularly good. That was our pudding. The Cup Cake stalls had closed by then.

The Briggait and Buried

It had been years since I was last in the Briggait. What was the old fish market in Glasgow's Merchant City on the banks of the Clyde, just up the street from where Paddy's Market used to be every Saturday morning, is now a bright, airy new space for visual artists, companies and organisations.
Ka and myself walked in through the new front doors, escaping the rain and were both immediately lit up by the large entrance hallway's high glass, iron vaulted ceiling.
A couple of girls hung from silks and ropes, circling and maneuvering under a large, rectangular frame at the opposite end of the hallway. The frame was surrounded by a large group of people, watching and learning, listening to a tutor going through the basics of aerial acrobatics, his voice echoing through the Briggait's giant central hallway as we were welcomed by a couple of receptionists.
The last time I'd been in the Briggait's central hallway was during my Art School years, for a lecture by the design group Tomato. Tomato was a design collective formed back in 1991 by Karl Hyde and Rick Smith, among others, who, when not producing weird and wonderful graphics for the entertainment and print industries, went under the title of 'Underworld'. These techno, electronic musicians hit it big when they were featured heavily on the soundtrack for 'Trainspotting' with that brain numbing, hand banging 'Born Slippy' track that everyone screamed to in clubs at one point or another. Unfortunately the track just reminds me of Ewan McGregor sliding down into a heavily used toilet bowl.
Anyway, Ka and myself had went along to the Briggait, on Saturday, for the WASPS open day, WASPS standing for Workshop and Artists Studio Provisions, Scotland's biggest Arts organisation for providing studio spaces for local artists. This organisation is mostly behind the building's recent redevelopment which has not only mended all the cracks in the old walls but created over 5,500 square meters of studio, office and public space, including the artists' studios which were the main reason for our visit last Saturday.
On our wonder throughout the building's innards we investigated most of the artists studios, which varied in size and space, colour and creation. From paintings to sculpture, and photography to embroidery, it was all there and the artists all seemed very welcoming, open to the questioning visitors. One of the artists, a guy called James Murphy, stood and talked about his work and his inspiration for a good fifteen minutes, talking about his fantastic, colourful, visuals.
After the Briggait, we headed up town to the cinema to see Ryan Reyonolds in 'Buried'. Only Ryan Reynolds, it turned out, as he is the sole actor seen in the movie, about a guy that wakes up in a coffin, somewhere underground in Iraq,after being ambushed by insurgents. He wakes with only a semi charged mobile phone, a small knife and a lighter for comfort. That's basically it. The claustrophobic film is entriely based in this coffin and around this character, Paul Conroy's, efforts to escape with the aid of his trusty mobile whilst piecing together his memories of how he got there, leaving lots of messages on answering machines. Which is always the case when you're in dire need of help. Answering machines. Although Paul Conroy, doesn't have the same problem of not knowing what to say on the answering machine as I always seem to.
Depressing, dark, intense and uncomfortable to watch, it ain't a movie I'd rush to see again, but worth the watch if you're interested... Interested in being depressed and uncomfortable in an intense, dark place with Van Wilder...

The Tyne and place

Woke up around eleven on Saturday morning, confused, with a Scotsman stuck to my face. With a newspaper headline printed backwards across my, not inconsiderable, forehead I realised we'd arrived and I had fallen asleep on the train to Newcastle over the table before me.
Ka and myself had got an early train to spend the weekend in Newcastle upon Tyne. We stayed in a rather posh hotel for the night, a Christmas gift from Ka's Mum and Dad, situated just behind the old Castle Keep. Upon arrival Ka and myself were greeted by a pleasant receptionist from which we obtained a map and ventured out towards the Tyne. There was no fog but plenty of cloud as we went out on to the Quayside. Unfortunately we never seen the latest addition to the river, Wilkinson Eyre's Gateshead Millenium Bridge, in rotating action but did have a wander over it to the Baltic Centre for Contemporary Art and the bulbous Sage Centre.
In the Baltic we jumped into the glass elevator and went up to check out Damian Hirst's 'Pharmacy', on loan from the Tate, where I'd seen it previously. Boring. Hirst collected loads of cabinets, bottles and prescription drugs and made a big chemist. Hmmm. My sister used to collect yoghurt pots and cereal boxes and made a shop once, and she was seven. We should have phoned Charles Saatchi?!
Afterwards we then checked out the new exhibition by award winning Korean artist, Kimsooja, upstairs. Kimsooja is mostly a video artist who, through her work, poses questions about human nature.
One of her pieces entitled 'A Needle Woman' was basically a giant black room with eight different films projected on to the walls. These displayed the artist with her back to the camera, standing, straight and motionless in the middle of busy streets in eight different world cities. The crowds milled around her, constantly moving, some people staring, some trying to talk to her and most paying little attention at all as they went about their daily lives in a blur of vibrant colour. A project about displaced self, anonymity and alienation that in some ways reminded me of the city shots from the film Koaanisqatsi, as it showed the frantic, crazy life of these eight different cities comparing them with the still, unmoving landscapes of nature, in Kimsooja's case, the artist herself.
Kimsooja's videos would have certainly been interesting if she'd stood in Newcastle's Newgate Street on a Saturday night.
After a great meal in the trendy Rosco's on the 45 degree hill outside the hotel, Ka and myself headed uptown to the Gate, the epicentre of Newcastle's nightlife.
Ka took me along to see the infamous dentist chair, which the then bride to be had discovered with her Hen troops last June. In a rather sleazy bar known as Sam Jacks a dentists chair sits on top of the bar where blokes, usually either pissed, stags or of questionable moral standards, sit up to be served shots by various bikinied girls who dance either over, or on, them whilst the chair vibrates frantically underneath.
Moving on from here we headed to Beyond where we annoyed a drunk dancer who spun around us all night because we had the audacity to sit at two empty chairs around her table. Waving her arms, singing loudly and performing the splits, all the while the majority of her company rolled their eyes behind her back. After doing the splits there was more than a few seconds of panic on the girls face in the split position. I suspect she'd found herself or her pants fastened to the sticky bar floor.
We also passed Craig David in the street on the walk home. Presumably he was looking for 'our kes' as there was no sign of any birds around him.
From only a few hours walking through the bars in the area it is easy to see where Newcastle gets its reputation for wild nightlife and as an ideal location for Hen and Stag nights.
It was a lot calmer the next morning, back down by the river. There was a quiet market closing up shop by the time we got down there and the only noise other than the circling gulls was emanating from a small, foreign looking man on the Gateshead bridge. He seemed to be yodelling in a loud, crackly voice which echoed up the river and as we got closer realised he was jumping out aggressively at passers by with his guitar. As we walked cautiously by we realised he was singing a very disjointed version of the Beatles 'Hey Jude'. Maybe he had taken a wrong turn somewhere and thought he was on the Mersey? When I say disjointed, I mean that the only words he knew were 'na, nananaanaaaaa' and the obligatory 'Hey joooooo-ed!'. He couldn't even get the na's right?!

Coloured hexagons and dashings of ELO

Music moguls everywhere and somewhere have voted Muse's 'The Resistence' album's sleeve artwork the best of its kind from 2009. Designed by London firm, La Boca, the cover depicts a sole figure standing on a bright platform leading straight to the planet Earth breaking through a strange landscape of coloured, interlocking hexagons suspended in space. A fantastic cover illustrating the weird and wonderful epic themes of the music on the album itself. The parents got me this album for Chrimbo and I've only had around three or four listens so far. Like U2 and Coldplay, to name but a few, Muse always get a bit of a slagging in the press for being pretentious with their lyrics and themes but Muse never fail to make a pulsing, energetic album this time with lots of dashings of dance and ELO and even a suspiciously similar version of the Doctor Who theme tune in the track 'Uprising'. Just in time for the new Doctor Matt Smith getting onboard the TARDIS.
Jenny Saville's fantastic painting on the Manic Street Preacher's 'Journal for Plague Lovers' came a close second in the vote with Fever Ray's artwork in third place. Fever Ray's artwork was designed by Martin (Mander) Ander who came from a graffiti art background as did Robert Del Naja (3D) of Massive Attack who also appears in the top ten for the design work on their latest EP album, 'Splitting the Atom'. 3D's work is always exciting, weird, challenging and crazy to look at, just as his band's music is to listen to.
LaRoux's cover also appeared in the list and immediately makes you think of classic photographic album covers such as David Bowie's 'Heroes'. Obviously La Roux ripped off Bowie's hairstyle from the same cover for her whole look and it's probably not the only thing 'ripped off' either.
It's nice to see that CD artwork still get's recognised with some respect in this downloading age and makes you realise just how great it would be if these works were still widely available as proper vinyl sized cases.

Chamber of secrets

The sun was out over George Square as various nutters jumped from a small metal cage suspended high above George Square from a ginat red crane. Screaming yelling and swearing these guys plummeted and then bounced on the end of the bungee cord with onlookers craning their necks whilst eating their Greggs and feeding the pigeons in the square below. Maybe it was just my imagination but there seemed to be far more tourists than usual strolling around with their cameras on Saturday but it could also have had something to do with Scotland's Open Doors Days which Glasgow had over the weekend in which many of it's buildings and locations, which are usually closed off to the public, were opened for us to explore. I discovered the surprisingly impressive City Chambers on the eastern side of George Square with it's large marble staircases, archways, balconies, halls, rooms and stained glass windows. Some of the hallways were like something out of a M. C. Escher painting (without the impossible diagonals). I felt as if I was back in Italy as most of the decor seems to be of great Italian influence alongside the murals and the domed ceilings of the Banqueting Hall. It was also quite interesting walking down the Upper Gallery, under the glass domed ceiling, viewing the many different portraits of the various Lord Provosts that Glasgow has had through the ages. Walking down the hall of paintings you can't help notice the portraits of the seventies and eighties seemed to favour the simpler, more boring, drab, option of a photograph after the magnificent painted portraits of the past. Now, in more recent years, the classical portrait has been embraced again with the likes of Peter Howson's Pat Lally and Alexander Stoddart's Liz Cameron. Stoddart's painting came as a bit of a surprise as this guy is more of a classical sculptor but you could see the resemblance in the approach he took to the portrait.
After the City Chambers I walked over to the GOMA and had my first wander round the Gallery in a good few years. After a wander round the galleries inside, and getting extremely dizzy by simply walking up and down before a Bridget Riley for half an hour, I lurched back out into the square and had a look at the paintings on the railings. Every time I pass the 'paintings on the railings' sales I always end up hating the artists selling. They're so flamin' organised and talented. At that moment I then made another promise to get back to my canvases. Not that I'm as talented as those guys... well, most of them anyway. Come to think of it, there were a few dodgy bowls of fruit...

Wall street

The Street Art Awards Party 2008 was held last night in London. An awards exhibition of artwork produced solely on the dirty brick walls, grimy, dark underpasses or the sides of tall buildings of the streets throughout the country. Banksy is of course the most 'commercial' and recognisable of these rebellious, vigilante type artists but these awards showcase so much other really impressive artwork and show that it, as a true artform, is getting more and more exposure and appreciation. The works of Adam Neate, Conor Harrington, Replete and Guy Denning are particular favourites of mine. The colour, vibrancy and sheer dynamism in their images is really amazing. Guy Denning is another who is featured in the online exhibition having become involved in Bristol. He is largely more famous for his portrait work and paintings but obviously still has a major following in the urban art scene there. His work combines collage and painting fusing colours, characters and messages together with powerful emotions, his subjects often screaming or twisting in movement. Adam Neate is another who is slightly more conceptual in his approach who, after finding canvas too pricey, started painting on cardboard, material and bascially any old shit left lying about the streets. He is now an internationally recognised artist after being approached by the National Gallery and having his work sold at Sothebys in London. Moving away from the portrait like images by looking at the likes of Replete's work, you can quickly tell the inspiration and styles he has picked up through his computer graphic animation. Though this style is perhaps a little more 'conventional' for street art it's impact and sheer volume cannot be lost on the viewer taking you into another world as you stroll down the street for a pint of milk. Fantastic stuff. If only i lived in London. There seems to be so much more of it down there. Unfortunately Glasgow does not have much in the way of Street Art except from the occasional cartoon willy. The most urban art in Glasgow I've seen has usually been around the Kelvinbridge area but even then it was pretty minimal and certainly no Denning or Banksy. Maybe there's a career opening for someone there..?

Black and blues

A blue rose this time. Today I've spent the day painting. A new rose, this time in blues and blacks. It's going quite well and now has all the basic layers in place and in colour. It is another rose but the way I see it, every rose I have done in the past year or so has been an original in itself. Although the basic form is the same they all contain different shades, shapes and tones. Last week I completed another, very different, painting entitled 'Angel or demon'. A female angel but with a fiery elemental look about her which could give the idea of her form being a deception - the fiery look being at odds with the angelic image (like some women I've known!). I've yet to put it up on Reidnet's gallery.
Have been listening to Roisin Murphy's latest album whilst working. There are some great tracks on it including the brilliant discoesque You Know Me Better. Great to jive to around an easel!

A Hirst for money

111 million pounds. No, not the amount the government made today on fuel tax but the amount Damian Hirst has made over two days selling his artwork, produced over the past two years, making him the King of Contemporary British Art. Cutting out the dealers and selling straight to the open market ensured Hirst of a serious amount of cash that he would not normally have seen. Some of his usual dealers were doing some of the bidding - White Cube being one who managed to purchase 'Here Today, gone Tomorrow'.
When Hirst first emerged in the early to mid nineties I remember not being that impressed by his work thinking it to be over hyped, ripped off and unimpressive... then I went to Art School and a visit to the Tate Modern in London, 1997 changed my mind. His piece, Pharmacy, a life size recreation of a Chemist shop had been installed at the time. It was then I realised how wrong I had been! His work, is intelligent, daring, emotive and largely quite dark in it's themes. Something I appreciate now in his work more than ever. The audacity of the things he does just scuppers everyone else. From cutting animals in half and preserving them in formaldehyde to covering a human skull in 8,601 diamonds. Each piece very different but each about life, death, it's riches and shortcomings.
Contrastingly, the winner of the Jerwood Drawing Prize was announced today as Warren Baldwin for his 'Study for Portrait' pencil and charcoal piece. A slightly more traditional piece than anything cut open and preserved in formaldehyde but just as worthy for any prize... obviously just not 111 million. Some would say it should be worth more than the mere six thousand pounds it did win.

Glasgow Art Fair

Went along to the Glasgow Art fair in George Square on Friday and was very impressed byt the show they put on, as always. Plenty to stimulate the eyes! There were the usual Peter Howson, Francis Boag and John Bellany pieces to attract the crowds and there's nothing wrong with that but it's great to see the new artists emerging as well. Anna King's great landscape and architecture paitings are really atmospheric  for me and The Lost Gallery from Aberdeen is always a favourite with it's mix of sculpture, portrait  and landscape work. Quite a 'safe' exhibition but obviously one that's there to make money. The more money they make the bigger the Fair will become in the future.