Looping the loop

Posted on June 6, 2013 by Joe

Down at North Berwick on a very warm, sunny Sunday afternoon earlier this week, strolling along the beach we heard the drone of a propeller engine – not unusual as there is a small airfield nearby and light aircraft and small microlights fly out from it and along the coast regularly. This sounded much more powerful though and when we spotted the plane it was moving a darned site faster than the usual little Cessna type light planes you see around there (which are really the small car of the skies, very slow). This sounded like an engine beefed up for speed and it roared past quite low; as it tilted we realised it was a biplane and we thought hey, few years back, last time we saw a biplane at this spot he was practising his air display routines, I wonder… And lo and behold on went the smoke cannister and the pilot launched into a series of maneuvres, rapid climbs, dives, looping…

After several moves the pilot roared low over North Berwick, from this perspective seemingly in line with the rocky headland which just out beyond the Scottish Seabird Centre and the harbour and I quickly tried to zoom and focus on the fast moving plane and was lucky enough to capture this scene:

And a moment later I got another decent pic of the plane with the local landscape, this time flying past the mighty Bass Rock (once a site of pilgrimage, a monastery, a fortress and a prison across our long history, now one of the largest seabird colonies in Europe, given back to nature):

We even got to see the pilot pull a classic stunt that goes back to the World War I dogfights, climb up at full speed, almost vertically until stalling then let the plane ‘fall’ over and straight back down into a dive:

Turning into a climbing loop:

And then it was all done, our brief one-man air show was finished and the biplane was roaring back inland towards the airfield. But what a cracking little surprise show we had:

Cloudscape, skyscape, landscape: Scottish river, Scottish sky

Posted on April 1, 2013 by Joe

Crossing the Tay rail bridge at the weekend, a bright, sharp but chill Easter weekend. As the bridge curves across the mighty Firth of Tay towards Dundee the river was at low tide, still as a mirror and reflecting the cloudscape above beautifully. It was a glorious Scottish landscape to view from the train and I didn’t expect any shots taken through the window from a moving train to come out very well, but sometimes little experimental shots like that work and you get something beautiful like this:

Seahorses

Posted on July 9, 2012 by Joe

Heading down the coast a few weeks ago with a chum and his dog we stopped off briefly at Longniddry Bents to let the dog have a quick walk and in case he needed to ‘use the facilities’. As we walked down to the beach we had this rather lovely sight of a pair of horses being exercised in the shallow surf of the Bents (which have a long, very shallow beach so at high tide you can wade around a fair bit before it gets too deep, the odd dips notwithstanding):

This one was actually being lead rather than ridden as he’d injured his leg and the salt water was good at cleaning out the wound:

Changing light on the landscape

Posted on April 25, 2012 by Joe

Out with my dad a few days ago, one of those days where we had bright sunlight, rain, hail and more all within minutes of one another. May make the weather unpredictable for going out but it also means constantly changing quality of light, something I rather love in Scotland, it makes even scenes you’ve seen many times before look different. We had driven up and over the Campsie Hills (a range of extinct volcanoes a little north of Glasgow) and coming down the far side towards Fintry we pulled over to watch a band of sun and rain move along the hills and mountains in the north. Above you can clearly see Ben Lomond, the most southerly of the Scottish Munros – a Munro is a mountain over 3000 feet and hill walkers and climbers who try to do all of them and tick them off are known as Munro Baggers – which is in the Trossachs and Loch Lomond National Park, still snowcapped as you can see even in late April, caught here in shafts of sunlight from gaps in the cloud while dark curtains of rain flicker over the other summits nearby.

You can see huge areas such as the foreground in deep gloomy shadows from the heavy clouds overhead, some of the peaks in the distance being hammered with rain, others basking in sun (we watched the sun and rain move along the whole range in a few minutes), if you click on the pics to go the larger images on the Woolamaloo Flickr you can even see some smaller, lower clouds floating around below the actual peaks themselves. All this landscape beauty is just a short drive from Scotland’s largest city – it’s one of the reasons I love living in Scotland, even in the middle of a city you are never far from our landscape. Here where I live in Edinburgh I can catch glimpses of the Pentland Hills from the middle of town, or views down to the might river Forth and the hills of Fife on the other side. Best of both worlds.

Autumn in Edinburgh

Posted on September 19, 2011 by Joe

Scotland in autumn, my favourite season here, not just because of the riot of colours as the leaves change, but because of the quality of light we get here at this time of year.

Because our little kingdom lies so far north, as the world tilts on its journey around the sun Scotland is at such an angle that we have the sun much lower in the sky, casting long shadows and meaning the sunlight is stretched out to a redder part of the spectrum, meaning we get this glorious, golden quality. It’s like warm honey slowly dripped across the land, beautiful copper-amber colour that splashes over the landscape and the man-made structures alike, giving an amazing glow to everything from trees to the old buildings hewn from native stone. Gorgeous.

(Greyfriars kirk as the evening autumnal sunlight splashes across the western end)

And right now we’re in that perfect time when much of the foliage is still the deep green of spring and summer (doubtless helped by all that rain we get!) but parts have started to turn now, mixing russet, gold, vermillion and more colours, especially as the sunlight shines through them.

All the fun of the fair

Posted on August 14, 2011 by Joe

Nice, sunny afternoon, pal decided to get the hood down on his old MG and go for a run up the coast, we ended up in Burntisland in Fife for a short stop, wandered through the wee funfair, sudden rush of childhood memories – if we came back this way when I was a kid my mum and dad couldn’t get past here without me spotting it and a stop off would normally ensue. Nothing huge at it, but when you’re six it’s fun!:

From a distance we thought this was a helter-skelter, but when we got closer we realised it wasn’t a slide spiralling down the tower, it was a track and wee cars ran down it. How the heck did they get up to the top though? We watched and it turned out the cars went right up inside the tower – kids get in them, it enters then flips up so it is sitting on it’s backside and goes up vertically with the passengers lying on their back, then at the top it emerges, flips back to horizontal and starts its spiral downwards, looked fun.

and here’s a short video of the ride in action:

Happy 110th birthday, Kelvingrove

Posted on May 2, 2011 by Joe

Today marks the 110th anniversary of a true Scottish institution opening its doors to the public: on May 2nd, 1901 the Kelvingrove Art Gallery and Museum first admitted the people of Glasgow and Scotland to enter within this temple of delights. Generations of Scots have grown up with the Kelvingrove, walking through the pleasures of nearby Kelvingrove park, or coming down from the Gothic spires of nearby Glasgow University and the Bohemian pleasures of studenty Byres Road, to the banks of the Kelvin and this palace of wonders and knowledge and art. Those generations include me: like many children growing up in Glasgow the Kelvingrove was a regular pleasure, my parents taking me in there. It was my childhood idea of what a great museum should be – knights in shining armour, Egyptian mummies, mighty dinosaur skeletons! My, what treasures to delight a wee boy, to spark his imagination and generate a lifelong love of history and learning.

And the adult me adores it still – when my friend (who also grew up visiting the Kelvingrove) and I went through after the museum re-opened after an extensive refurbishment we both still loved it. A real Supermarine Spitfire hanging from the cieling in one gallery right above a giraffe! An Egyptian sarcophogus. Exquisitely made medieval armour – among the many collections the museum enjoys an international reputation for is its arms and armour, it boasts one of the finest collections anywhere. And then those light filled upper galleries full of artworks, from the Scottish Colourists and the Glasgow Boys to an international panoply of artists of the ages. It is the first place I saw Salvador Dali’s powerful Christ on the Cross, an amazing work even to those of us who have no truck with religion. And it is still free – free to all the citizens of Glasgow and Scotland and our visitors, a people’s palace, open to and run for the people of its city and country, long may it continue.

rrroaaarrrrr!!!

I wonder if this house’s number is 6?

Posted on March 27, 2011 by Joe

Going up the Fife side of the Firth of Forth the other weekend, passing through Limekilns, saw this old house with a tower. My eyes were drawn upwards to the “witch’s hat” roof on the tower:

And look what the weather vane on the top was – perhaps this is where Patrick McGoohan’s Number 6 went to after he left the Village in The Prisoner?

“Be seeing you“

Sunset

Posted on November 20, 2010 by Joe

North Berwick, rising tide and setting sun…

“I’m Popeye the sailor man…”

Posted on September 3, 2010 by Joe

Spotted walking along the coast between North Berwick and Yellowcraig:

Spring time in Scotland

Posted on April 3, 2010 by Joe

It’s, Scotland, it’s Easter, it’s spring time… So, plenty of snow then… Walking in the Pentlands today, snow left from the dreadful weather earlier this week which dumped snow over a lot of Scotland and storms that have made a mess of a lot of bits of the coastline. Some of it has melted away but in the Pentlands on the edge of Edinburgh it’s still lying there, from light dusting on some spots to seriously deep snow in other spots, coming up our shins almost to our knees.

Walking up the hill the skyline gave a great effect, making it look like the clouds were rising up from below the horizon:

Walking through snow is tiring, time for a breather; this also means time for Bruce the dog to scrounge a biccie from his master:

You can see Edinburgh spread out in the background here (click for the larger version on Flickr):

Hi-Ex comic-con in Inverness

Posted on March 29, 2010 by Joe

On Saturday I took a very pleasant trip northwards from Edinburgh to Inverness to attend the third Hi-Ex, crossing over the mighty Forth Bridge (images of the 39 Steps playing in my mind as always when crossing this huge landmark which rears from the Forth like a Steel cousin to the Loch Ness Monster), around the coast of Fife, sun glittering on the Forth and the North Sea, Edinburgh across the water glimpsed in all her magnificent, volcanic majesty in profile against the still rising early morning sunshine. And on north, through Perth, through hills becoming mountains, still retaining their snowy caps even as daffodils and crocuses signal the rebirth of the land and spring at lower climes. Highland Cows and the occassional deer are glimpsed as the train climbs through the peaks of the British Isles, ears popping to remind you that you are ascending into the Highlands as the train rolls on, clickety-clack, clickety-clack. One of the simple pleasures of attending Hi-Ex is that most basic of travelling delights, sitting back and looking out the window. We’ve now got an admirable mixture of comics events in the UK, from the Indy press events to the big guns of Bristol and Birmingham, but I’d wager few of our comic cons offer such stunning landscapes on your voyages to them, right through the Cairngorms National Park, the last, great wilderness of the United Kingdom, home to our highest peaks. Yes, I know, this is indeed a blog about comics, but forgive me for waxing lyrical on my homeland (BTW, Visit Scotland, I’ll have that endorsement check now, please), but seriously, if you are travelling northwards to Hi-Ex then enjoying some of the finest scenery in the entire kingdom is a part of the pleasure.

(“these aren’t the comics you’re looking for, move along…” Some of the 501st directing visitors where to park their landspeeders at Hi-Ex, click the pics for the larger versions on Flickr)

(Hi-Ex co-organiser Colonel Richmond Clements, with artist Alex Moore. Not pictured, leading brand of stain remover who were sponsoring Rich’s ensemble)

It’s been a great day, as anyone who followed my and other attendee’s Tweets will attest. With the Eden Court venue having a very good complimentary wifi several of us were able to log on and enjoy posting updates on Twitter and a bit of live-blogging. Several times I cyber-squatted next to Dave Evans and the FutureQuake Press table to post some updates; I have to say there’s something enjoyable about being able to sit cross-legged with a laptop across your knees posting updates on the con and even getting some photos onto the web. Gone are the days when we attended conventions, wrote up our report in the local inn afterwards then either handed the copy to a fast pony express rider to carry to the editor or used the new fangled telegraphic device. By the time I stepped off the Edinburgh train the Saturday Hi-Ex (there are many more events on the Sunday) was in full swing – after a short walk along the Ness I came to Eden Court and a plethora of Imperial Stormtroopers guarding the entrance, a whole bunch of the 501st on parade. Inside I was to find that Hi-Ex has grown – when I came to the first convention two years back most of was in the adjoining 19th century Bishop’s Palace. Now the main room in the Palace was used for the role playing gamers while the dealers and the artists now shared one much larger space than before in the main theatre, in the spot where at the first con the panels were held. The theatre seating cleverly recesses backwards into the wall leaving a great two-storey space, plenty of room for the writers, publishers and dealers to set up their tables and for the crowds to get around.

(some of the artist’s tables – Alex Moore, Gary Erskine and Simon Fraser just visible from this angle)

(Looking down into the main hall with the artists and dealers’ tables)

And crowds there were – it was impressively busy by midday and quite a few of the dealers’ table and the artists had good crowds around them. Dave Evans with his FutureQuake Press table told me that by mid afternoon he thought he’d done as much as he’d do at a busy day at the Bristol comic con, so he was a happy bunny and there was busy traffic around all the table. The artists seemed to be doing a steady trade with original artworks being browsed and sketches drawn and again I noticed that the contingent of manga artists, along with the Beano crew, were a big draw with the younger convention goers (Asia Alfasi seemed to have a constant line of folks waiting to get a manga portrait made and her mini-comics tied up with ribbon were things of beauty). Actually again, as with the first Hi-Ex, I was struck with the number of kids who were there and clearly having a ball, it’s a very family-friendly event and although I don’t have a breakdown of guests I got the strong impression a number were local families who had come in because it looked like a fun event, complete with face-painting, sketching and how-to classes. Sarah McIntyre and friends were obviously enjoying themselves with the kids and I noticed she was constantly posting up more artwork some of the delighted kids were making with her.

(Sarah McIntyre and her other half Stuart – you have to dig Sarah’s Gerry Anderson UFO-era retro SciFi costume and shiny white space boots!)

(Dave Shelton with his Good Dog, Bad Dog, part of the very first wave of DFC Library releases which we’ve been enjoying. Fortunately the dogs were all house trained)

There was a good mixture of folks in the main hall – guests ranged from some of the small press crew (I’ve come home with several fun looking mini-comics, which I will post more on later) through to very well known names. In addition to the aforementioned Sarah McIntyre, Asia Alfasi and Dave Evans there was Gary Northfield, Gary Erskine, John Higgins, Jeremy Briggs (flying the flag for Down The Tubes), the boys from the Indy Scottish superhero movie I mentioned recently, Electric Man, Simon Fraser, Cliodhna Lyons, Will Pickering (fresh from doing a stint as an extra on the John Landis Burke & Hare movie – clearly not content with just being the artist on the B&H graphic novel), Colin McNeil, Kevin F Sutherland, Charlie Adlard, Graeme Neil Reid (who I somehow kept missing), Cam Kennedy, Andi Ewing, the Com.X boys, Roger Gibson and Vince Danks and from the Harker comics (solid faves around and more. Panels included discussion on horror comics and the European scene and Kevin Sutherland managed to entertain and more than likely scandalise some with the Scottish Falsetto Sock Puppet Theatre which had me roaring with laughter (seriously, I know many of you have seen bits of the Falsettos at various cons or the videos Kev posts on YouTube, but if you get the chance to go and see the whole performance, take it, you’ll thank me. His Sock Puppet Star Wars is genius).

(Dave Evans with the latest issue of FutureQuake)

(Asia Alfasi’s manga portraits were hugely popular and despite being so busy she always seemed to be smiling)

Co-organisers Richmond Clements and Vicki Stonebridge, ably assisted by a team of enthusiastic young helpers, were buzzing around radiating a fascinating mixture of urgency, pleasure, concern, tiredness and happiness that I generally associate with convention organisers. Rich was especially fetching in his dapper three-piece white suit, somewhere between Randall & Hopkirk, Deceased and a scary Southern evangelist minister crossed with Colonel Sanders (Kentucky Fried Comics anyone?). The now annual Hi-Ex charity auction took place in the afternoon – Rich told me he was pretty pleased with the amount they had raised between the auction and raffle (we’ll get the final figure later in the week, but unofficially it was looking like £1500 quid when I had to leave) and, in a very touching gesture, a number of the artists present came up to Rich to present their own further contribution in the shape of money they had made from their sketching during the day. Since I know many artists who attend comic cons rely on paid sketchwork as part of the way they can make a convention financially viable for them that’s a really generous move on their part and huge kudos to them.

(Roger Gibson and Vince Danks, the team behind FP blog fave Harker)

(Cliodhna Lyons, Deirde and Kyle Rogers with a fine array of mini-comics – including some in Irish Gaelic they were showing to some of the Scottish Gaelic readers of the Highlands. On the basis of Mr Rogers’ mini-comics he is a very sick man and I look forward to telling you more about that later)

All in all a cracking day out for kids and big kids alike – the only small niggle for me and, as I heard later, others, was the bar staff were rather bad (I gave up after several minutes of them taking turns to ignore me, heard later there had been other problems with service, which seems downright unprofessional not to mentions self defeating given the sheer number of visitors Hi-Ex was bringing in to the venue). But other than that minuscule aside I had a great time, even better than I had at the first Hi-Ex, and I loved that. It’s grown nicely, there’s more space, more guests (guessing the arts council funding must have helped a bit too and how great was it to see a comics event getting arts council help?), but it’s still at a nice, human scale that makes it very easy to move around, talk to folks and simply to enjoy it. Congrats to Vicki, Richmond and everyone else who made the third Hi-Ex a great success and here’s looking forward to it continuing to grow in future years.

(an Iron Man fan – perhaps he should have come as Big Daddy! – with adorable but getting a bit sleepy mini-fan’ there were a lot of very happy looking kids wandering around Hi-Ex)

(hunting the most dangerous of all prey – comics fans...)

I know more of you who were there will be posting your own write-ups and pics from Hi-Ex, so please do send in links to those postings (and also the folks who were at Schmurgencon or The Thing over the weekend too) and we’ll try and post up a links round-up for them for everyone; there are more photos from Hi-Ex on Flickr here.

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