I like to move it, move it

Travelled into the rain soaked streets of Glasgow to see Roisin Murphy at the ABC in Sauchiehall Street. Decided to drive as the weather was so poor and could not find a parking space anywhere in the Sauchiehall vacinity. Eventually got parked on the other end of Blythswood Square, the Square that used to be notorious for it's ladies of the night. Trailing through the sheets of rain the show proved to be well worth the effort though. What a star Roisin is! It was the first time I'd seen her live after having listened to her and Moloko for so many years. Together with Murphy's weird but strong voice the music of Moloko appealed to me for it's brilliant, sometimes haunting, tunes that swing between pop, rock and dance beats. With the latest album 'Overpowered' Murphy has well and truly hit her mark as a solo performer, and was a job she does live too. Belting out her hits with her trademark whacky dress sense and fantastic band who helped the songs glide voraciously quickly over two hours. Excellent stuff.
Tonight Ka and myself sat and watched 'In Bruges'. A tale of two hitmen sent out to Brussels to escape the London authorities after a mission goes wrong thanks to the new start of the duo, Colin Farrell. Brendon Gleeson suffers as his mentor and Ralph Fiennes puts in a great performance as the angry, highly strung, crazy eyed boss who ends up joining them in Bruges. A great character piece with some brilliant moments. Missed it in the cinema so it was good to finally see it. Definately one to see if you haven't done already and contrary to what Farrell says I think Bruges looked quite nice! The city square especially reminded me of Prague with it's cobbled paving, old town houses and it's bell tower.
Tomorrow night it's off to the Armadillo, or the Clyde Auditorium as it is properly known, to go and see how Vince and Howard are doing. Before that I'm tiling with Dad. My Mum and Dad have decided to regenerate their whole kitchen space and have combined two rooms to do so and I, whilst feeling generous with my time, volunteered to help out with the tiling duties. Not that I've ever put up kitchen tiles in my life so this should be interesting...
Ka, meanwhile, will be going out with her Mum, sister and niece to watching a bunch of rabbiting African animals
with American, Hollywood star, accents singing, dancing and generally goofing around. Again, maybe with the odd long forgotten hit suddenly made popular again but this time for kids half the age of the original audience.
Talking of Africa, Harry Hillwalker is just back from a trip to South Africa and sent me some collections of the shots he took over there. Some great pictures and fabulous scenery. Whilst driving through the rain tonight it kind of made me feel more than a little envious.

Renovation

Anyone watching Dead Set on E4 at the moment? It's a rather entertaining drama horror based around the premise of a Big Brother rudely interupted by a zombie outbreak in the best George A. Romero fashion except with a more 28 Days Later atmosphere to it all. It's actually surprisingly better than I thought it would be and a lot more dramatic with a lot less comedy. Charlie Brooker is the man behind it all. He usually writes for The Guardian and does a show on BBC four called Screenwipe in which he reviews and snidely slags of tv. Like Harry Hill except without the stupidity and a ladelfuls more sarcasm (and when I say Harry Hill, I mean the TV one, the one with the big glasses and collar, not the one that I go hill climbing with!). We've also been watching more of The Mighty Boosh, 'The Legend of Old Gregg', to be precise in which our hero Howard Moon has a scarring encounter with a strange, transsexual merman who likes watercolour. Brillaintly weird as always.
Talking of brilliantly weird what's all this about David Tennant leaving the TARDIS? Gawds sake. Gutted! Who could possibly replace the mighty Tennant as the Doctor?! It just cannot be done! When Tennant first donned the suit I wasn't so sure but his sheer enthusiasm and brilliance in the role got me hooked again (more than Eccleston's personification did). Steven Moffat is taking over the writing duties as of 2010 though (a great tv writer), so that should breath some new life into it. Was never a major fan of Russell T Davies' arc building and then disappointingly demolishing...
Passed Crystals in EK the other day. The other night my sister claimed it was being demolished and replaced with a very similar building. It is in fact being renovated and is now surrounded by scaffolding. Ah shame... those sticky floors always made those Crystal nights memorable. It was a bit of a dive. It got so bad that at one point, earlier this year, Ka, Chaz, Kenny and myself opted for Centre Point instead... and that's saying something.

Ben Arthur

The pictures from my Ben Arthur climb are now in the Reidnet photo album. Harry and myself are seen here poised on one of the rocks infront of the Cobbler's 'needle'. I was ineptly sliding down the slope of the rock as the photo was being taken and Harry stands relaxed over the 150ft drop behind him. Some of the shots are pretty good considering the weather conditions. Unfortunately the mist at the peak of the mountain completely obscured the supposedly wonderful views you usually get from the highest, middle peak at 'the needle'. However, the mist did help make some of the shots quite eerie and would not look out of place on some old, british horror movie. An American Werewolf in Arrochar perhaps. There's also a few nice shots of Loch Long. The Faslane Naval Base have a depot on the Loch, up at the village of Coulport, and use the Loch's depths to practice sailing their submarines. Faslane is the home of the UK's armed nuclear submarine force, or nuclear deterrent, as they'd probably prefer it to be known. In fact, I'm sure Sharon used to go the Peace rallies there to wave her boards about. Strange to think of a place of such tranquility and beauty housing nuclear warfare.
Anyway, Click here to go straight to the Ben Arthur photos.

The long way up

My legs are a little achey today as yesterday Harry and myself climbed Ben Arthur, or the Cobbler, as it's most popularly known. A good walk, 884m (2946 ft) in height and and 5.5 miles in all, though it seems longer. Harry is the expert when it comes to the hillwalking having completed all the Munros south of Fort William, as well as walks in New Zealand and Sri Lanka to name a few. Unfortunately I am a mere amateur. The last time I was on the hills was around three years ago on Ben Vorlich. Harry led us into Arrochar in the morning, the small town that sits on Loch Long, and from the small car park at the foot of the hill we set off. Unfortunately for us it was a very grey, misty day and the clouds hung low over the peaks around Loch Long but the rain held off and the temperature remained pretty warm, with only a slight smir of rain in the air, making it a pleasant climb up the front side of the hill.

We took the harder route up over the rocks and burn descending on its southern side. The mist held fast though and the views and skyline were still completely cloaked at the top of the mountain. The rocks were also quite slippy so, once at the top, we had to opt out of 'threading the needle' which is involves crawling through a hole in the summit rock formation from the north side and climbing up on to the very highest peak, a metre length rock standing over a 100 ft drop. The rocks were just too slippy for any foolhardy attempts.

We rested at the foot of the needle and had our lunch talking with some fellow walkers, who were taking a break from Fir Park. After our short break, Harry led the way down the northern side of the mountain, not hitting the proper path until around a quarter of the way down. We passed many a walker on the way down, all following the walkers code of pleasantly greeting one another as we stomped along on our various routes to and fro. I was even surprised to meet someone I knew from back in the Auldhouse days when I worked behind the bar. Alastair was sitting rolling a cigarette, having a break with his son, his camera tripod sitting at his side. He was going up the hill to try and get some photos. On the trek I managed to get a few shots on the hillside myself but it was just unfortunate the views from the peak were mere cloud. I'll probably revisit it at some point in the near future and try and get a decent view next time (I'll be putting the rest of the photos I did take on reidnet's photo album shortly). As we descended it looked as if the mist was clearing a one point only for it to quickly drift over again and submerge the top half of the hill once more. Even though the views from the top were poor there's nothing quite like a good walk in the hills. It's strange to think that these hills, and fantastic landscapes, sit just an hour outside the chaotic city scenes of Glasgow and home.
In the evening Ka and myself headed to the Shawfield Stadium, for the first time, to the dog racing, and to meet up with Claire and Martin and the rest of the mad squad to celebrate Claire turning the big 3 - 0 . There was also the hope of maybe winning some money at the same time. Claire's brother, William, had hired her a wee surprise. After we arrived and hooked up with Cheryl, Roslyn and Aaron inside, Claire, Martin and some of the others turned up after a few glasses of champagne on the Scooby Doo Bus! All drinking champagne except the birthday girl, herself, of course, who is preggers. Scooby snacks have certainly changed since I last watched the cartoon. Needless to say some fun was had, but alas, Ka and myself were unlucky with all our bets and didn't win anything. Claire's Dad managed to win over fifty quid, Jane managed to win a good thirty pounds but our dogs were pipped at the post (or finishing line in this case) everytime. Can't win 'em all. We all had a good time though and enjoyed the night.

It's a cracker

Went in to work to the expected questions about the car this morning. Mary and Margaret having another heckle from their box. I explained that it'll be fine. No great emergency. They looked a bit disappointed. Finally returned Lost Ian's DVDs this morning. He gave me the whole series of 'Cracker' to watch around two months ago and I managed to finally finish it at the weekend. What a great series that was. Definately Coltrane's finest hour - why aren't they still making it?! Brilliant telly with so much depth put into the characters through the brilliant storytelling of Jimmy McGovern. Great. By the way, the reason he's called 'Lost' Ian is because that's the name he's given in the flat. Ka has never met him so he goes by the name of Lost Ian as, like us, he is a big Lost fan and records it for us every week as we no longer have Sky (after Sky decided they would no longer sell their channel to Virgin Cable back in '07). The same goes for Creamy Chicken John. John gave me a brilliant Aussie recipe for pasta last year, involving herbs, cream cheese etc which Ka has used on more than one occasion and as a result he is now called Creamy Chicken John. There are other names which I'm sure I'll write later but just can't think of at the moment or which I daren't mention!
Came home after work to find Claire (Montgomery) and Jane in with Ellie relaxing after a plate of Ka's meatballs and spaghetti. Nice. Fortunately there was some left, which I'll keep for myself till a later date. Had a bit of Ka's gorgeous lasagne in work for dinner, straight from the microwave. Have never been sure of microwaves. Work is the only place I use them, except from the occasional hot chocolate. Sometimes it's like Radioactive city in that work kitchen with all the microwaves droaning away at the same time probably damaging our brain cells with their cooking power.
Also watched the excellent 'The Matador' starring Pierce Brosnan and Greg Kinnear at the weekend. Very enjoyable movie again with great characters. Brosnan played a blinder. A hired aging hitman stressed out with age, anxiety and maybe even guilt alongside Kinnear's straight guy salesman. I wasn't solely just sitting watching tv all weekend by the way. It just sounds like it... but the fact I have to drive whilst holding the door at my right shut is a definate hindrance.
I was hoping to get out on to the Scottish hills this weekend but it looks like work is going to get in the way of that now! It may have to wait till next week. Harry said he's going to pick an easy hill for us to climb. 'Easy'? Why easy? Does he think I'm not up to it? It must be about three years since my last Munro walk mind you... Ben Vorlich. 3232 ft high. That was a great day but tiring. Towards the end of the walk I think I was actually tumbling down the hill rather than walking.
Off work for a week next week though so hope to see some of the fringe in Edinburgh. There'll be plenty of walking then.
Claire's just left with a piece of lasagne for Martin. Hope you enjoy it mate, that was my dinner for tomorrow!