Let's start the week with some wonderful weirdness (start as you mean to go on, after all). John Cusack, guest blogging on BoingBoing, celebrate the work of the 'Prague alchemist of film', Jan Svankmajer, a truly remarkable, artist who has been one of my favourite animators for many years. From Cusack's post: " They call Svankmajer a surrealist, but his visions make as much sense to me as escalators or velcro. It's hyperreality, and after all, it exists because he made it, so there it is —just like styrofoam and Fresca. Absurdism is the logical extension of the truth— or of current trends. Surrealism is true becouse it unearthers the subconscious, the stuff of fever dreams and fractured memory. It exists if one has the guts or madness to bring it to be... ( combine Surrealism and Absurdism and mix it with Dada, you get the Sex Pistols)."







(a clip from Svankmajer's Alice in Wonderland)



I've been in love with the cinema of Svankmajer for a couple of decades - like Cusack I can't remember where I first saw his work, probably a short piece somewhere, but it got under the skin and into the brain, seeping, trickling, dripping slowly into the subconcious where it lived and moved, casting strange shadows on the screen of the mind... I sought out his feature works in the arthouse cinemas and anywhere else I could find them - and as Cusack notes in his article, one of the wonderful things about today is that you can now find huge amounts of his work easily online through YouTube. When I first found Svankmajer's works I had to look about arthouse cinemas for a screening or a retrospective at a film fest, now you can go and explore it whenever you want - god, sometimes I love the web... His work is fascinating; often mixing live action with various forms of animation; it can be funny, it can be creepy, it can be downright disturbing, combining the seemingly everyday then watching the unusual, the odd, the downright weird and surreal bleeding through that everyday, a world where logic can melt and flow like a Dali timepiece.



And since I'm on a Svankmajer kick, here's a clip from Dimensions of Dialogue, which many of you have quite probably seen a bit of without knowing who it was by as it has been used frequently in a number of programmes over the years and spawned countless imitators:







As with all the most interesting artists in any medium I've found developing a fascination with one artist has lead me to others that I might never have come across otherwise, which is one of the remarkable qualities of any good art, be it animation, comics, books, music, film, you never take it in isolation, other works you've seen feed into your experience of the new work and the new work sparks ideas and images in your imagination that lead you on paths to other works and those lead you to more... Here's the Brothers Quay (huge admirers of Svankmajer) with their famous Street of Crocodiles:







and part 2:







Considering how easy it is to find some of this work nowaday you owe it yourself to go exploring for more - especially if you love work by people like Tim Burton or Edward Gorey or Neil Gaiman, or you devoured the disturbingly weird old Doom Patrol strips. Go look; if you haven't seen them before, you'll thank me later, if you have seen them you'll be delighted to find it is so simple to rewatch them now. And you'll have strange dreams...

Android 207

While exploring for some completely unrelated animation work I came across something else, as is the way with such searches, which sidetracked me because I thought it was a cracking wee bit of animation and finding it by accident made it a nice surprise:

Ghosts in the Hollow

Photographer Jim LoScalzo toured lost ghost towns in the Appalachians, once thriving mining towns which became deserted when those mines closed down, leaving the decaying, abandoned structures as ghosts of the past, crumbling monuments to the everyday life of the many men who toiled beneath the ground and their families who they toiled so hard for (and often lost their lives for, deep below, away from the light of the sun and the caress of the wind). Link from Selectism, via Jonathan Carroll.

Ghosts in the Hollow from Jim Lo Scalzo on Vimeo.

Reminded me a little of a day wandering around Prestongrange mining and industrial museum, early in spring, not another soul around, just me and rusting rail tracks, the long-disused winding wheel and old machinery. Not quite the same as his piece with the abandoned homes but still that feeling of ghosts of people, of a whole way of life gone forever, although at least here people can still come and explore that part of their industrial heritage.








I was also struck by another of his works, this time a more modern yet no less haunted ghost town, empty areas of New Orleans, street lights still working but few people returned or some neighbourhoods even devoid of those who once lived there...

Twilight in New Orleans from Jim Lo Scalzo on Vimeo.

Academy Award Winning picture

This trailer sends up so many 'worthy' Oscar hungry Hollywood type movies in a few minutes, it's genius (via Stephen Fry's twitter):

Botanical

I'm enjoying some time off and lo and behold the grim, gray weather of the weekend vanished to be replaced by gloriously sunny, spring-like weather (although still pretty cool, if not actually frosty in the shade). Good lord, good weather on a week off? Gasp. And it's that beautiful, golden quality of sunlight at this time of year, not the brighter, bleaching sunlight of summer (well, when we get sun in summer in Scotland...) while the air still has that clear quality from winter, a combination which is especially good for taking photos, I find, especially of some buildings. Yesterday the sunlight was complimented by a wonderfully clear sky, like a blue crystal dome, utterly cloudless, as I decided to head down to the Royal Botanic Gardens in Edinburgh. Despite the fact I have lived in the city since the start of the 90s I've rarely been down to the Botanics, mostly because it's never really been near where I lived or worked, nor is it close to any friend's home I might be going to or any other place I might be visiting.








I ended up spending hours walking through the greenhouses, from the lovely original Palm House (above), which dates from 1834 and is a splendid example of the glass, iron and steel construction the Victorian period pioneered so spectacularly. Still gorgeous today - especially on a bright day - but imagine how much more impressive this structure must have appeared to the Edinburgh citizens of the 1830s, who lived in a city of tall, impressive stone buildings.In the Old Town towering stone tenements used the limited space effectively but also make for shadowed canyons; even the New Town with its Georgian splendour and much larger windows and wider streets still would not have this quality, a space flooded with huge amounts of natural light sparkling through glass suspended from a seemingly frail - but actually very strong - slim latticework of iron. Being midweek it was fairly quiet and I often had entire glasshouses to myself and it was delightfully peaceful.



















I shot far too many photos as I toured through the various public glasshouses (there are others which are for research) from the Palm House through tropics and arid biospheres; I've only uploaded a few so far and will do the rest later, although I also shot a brief video in each of the glasshouses as I went through them and I've edited them together into a 'virtual tour':

Brrrsville!

Walking along the gorge of the River Almond by the weir and ruined old mill by Cramond, big chunks of ice floating in the river, large, flat sheets which the ducks were using to sit on, and huge rows of icicles hanging down from the overhanging rocks like enormous fangs. Couldn't resist taking some pics and shooting a brief video 360; the roar of water over the weir and the current in the river below it were both very strong, presumably with some of the snow and ice melting into it (going to be a lot more of that over the UK when the cold snap actually lifts properly). The temperature was actually slightly better during the daylight hours today than it's been recently, but on the banks of the nearby Forth the ferocious wind felt like it was straight from the Arctic. Still, at least it was good for the kite surfers who were having fun when we passed along the windswept and still icy prom.

Alma

BoingBoing points out this delightfully creepy animation by Rodrigo Blass: Alma is a short, five minute piece with some lovely animation and the feel of the old style fairy tales (before they were all made acceptable and twee for small children):

Alma from Rodrigo Blaas on Vimeo.

Star Trek meets Mythbusters

Great, two of my favourite geek things in the world, Star Trek and Mythbusters, are coming together - the Mythbusters team are going to test out a classic scene from the original 60s Star Trek, where Captain Kirk is kidnapped and placed on a desert planet to battle the captain of the Gorn ship and told there are materials scattered around that can be fashioned into weapons. Finding some sulphur and other material he takes a large bamboo like hollow cane and imrpovises a primitive cannon, with some diamonds shoved in the barrel as ammunition. Its a now classic Trek scene (with the rocky desert setting now a cliche for the show, endlessly lampooned). But if you improvised such a device in real life would it work or just blow up in your face? That's what the Mythbusters are going to test - sounds like a Trek themed follow up of sorts to the medieval wood cannon they did a couple of years back.

A Glorious Dawn

I see that this fab remix of the late and much missed Carl Sagan's word from Cosmos that has proved popular on YouTube is getting a release as a traditional 7 inch vinyl. Funnily enough a friend sent me some music tracks he came across recently, from Cosmos, which we both remembered watching; it was instant nostalgia for me. As a boy I adored the series; I was already fascinated by astronomy and the exploration of space and this fueled it, as well as introducing me for the first time to Sagan. Years later I'd admire him for speaking out for the importance of scientific research for the sake of research and not simply for commerce, for the value of knowledge over susperstition and the need to take care of our own remarkable world, so different from the other planets we were exploring - he even publicly berated Margaret Thatcher once when she was Prime Minister, scolding her for her lack of support for pure research and environmental awareness, telling her it was shocking that someone who actually had proper scientific training could be so foolish.

Apparently the B side of the single looks like the cover of the famous gold record disc which was placed in the Voyager spacecraft, so that long after they had completed their mission of exploration (which they did so magnificently) and headed out of our solar system and into the deep, cold depths of interstellar space, should they by some remote chance be found by another civilisation they could play them and hear sounds from Planet Earth - greetings in many languages, poetry and snatches of music, which Sagan helped oversee. Carl's been gone a while now, sadly, but that gold disc is now travelling still, further than any man made object in the entire history of the world has ever travelled, waiting for the day when someone - something,perhaps - finds it and plays it. (via Third Man Records)








And while we're at it, here's a short video, the Pale Blue Dot, by Carl. As the aging Voyager reached towards the edge of our solar system he argued for NASA to turn it to face back towards us - no easy task when the vast distance meant even radio signal commands travelling at the speed of light would take some time to reach the craft, then longer for returns, assuming it even worked. But he argued and they did it and the result was 'the family portrait', a view of the worlds of our solar system as no-one else in the history of our species had ever seen it, a shot taken from the edge of what we know from a little machine about to cross that boundary, a parting gift from one of the great missions of exploration. And in that picture a tiny dot, a blue dot taking up even less than one pixel. That dot being the Earth. Everything we've ever known, every person who has ever loved and lived, every cat, every dog, every Triceratops, every dolphin, every fern, every bush, every fish, every work of art, all contained inside that tiny, tiny dot... Sagan had that wonderful gift of enthusiasm and the ability to communicate the sense of wonder to all, a great spokesman for science.

blowing your own trumpet

In early to work, out late so a little narked; beautiful, golden autumn evening outside so decide to enjoy slow walk home, wander up the Royal Mile, camera in hand, coming across this bloke playing some jazz on his trumpet. Nice autumn evening, cool breeze, cool jazz, nice. Put some coins in his instrument case, took a couple of pics then just settled nearby to listen for a few minutes and enjoy it.

Even Hitler hates the trams

Some wag has reworked the subtitles on Downfall so now Hitler is ranting about the fucking awful tram line which is being imposed on Edinburgh (no referendum to ask the people like they did with the proposed congestion charge, but then the people voted against the politicians wishes and told them to shove that up their arses, so now they don't give us referendums before ruining the city in case we tell them what they don't want to hear. Democracy in action). Its a huge, multi million pound white elephant already running late and over budget and pretty useless since it is just one line which doesn't go near where about 3/4 of the resident actually live, which makes it pretty useless as a transit system - I live fairly centrally and work centrally yet I can't even use it when finished to go to work.

electric ukulele land

A couple of buskers on the Royal Mile doing the rock thing but with ukuleles instead of electric guitar, but doing the full guitar heroes movements; as I listened to them rocking out on their ukes I realised they were giving big licks to Queens of the Stone Age! First time I've heard QOTSA on ukuleles - I had to shoot a brief vid clip so I could share the sound as well as grabbing a photo:

Nocturnal cycling piano player

A couple of evenings ago I was drinking in the city's Grassmarket, an area I rarely drink in these days - its mostly tourists and first year students who go there - but I was meeting some friends who have been working abroad and arranged to meet several folks there. The whole square has been done up recently to make it more open; if you don't know the city its a square behind and below the imposing bulk of Edinburgh Castle in the Old Town, one side lined with pubs and inns, some of which are very old (going back to the 1500s), some of which, when they were actual coaching inns, played host to Robert Burns on visits to Edinburgh. And as we sat outside on a warm evening we heard music. Not unusual in a public square, especially during the Edinburgh Festival. And we all turn to see where it is coming from and we see a man in evening dress and top hat cycling his piano through the Grassmarket as he plays. When I told other people of this the next day I got the 'oh, Joe's off on one of his magical fantasy land tales again' looks, but I have documentary evidence:







I must apologise for the low quality of the pics, but shooting freehand (not that a tripod would have helped if I had it since he was moving most of the time) in a dark square at night is never going to give crisp, clear pics and the flash wasn't much use in that situation either. But I had to try and grab some pics because even in Festival time Edinburgh you just don't see a man cycling a piano through the city streets at night all that often. It was all wonderfully eccentric and delightful and magical and I loved it. Little bizarre delights like this that the city sometimes just throws up to you are part of what makes life fun. And here's a very short video clip - its brief and even darker than the still pics, very murky night-time streets (and far away from the street lamps) but it was the best I could do on the spot to give you a tiny taste of this piano moving through the streets as he played:

The Ukulele Lady sings!

And here, as promised, is the short video I shot of Amanda Palmer singing us all an appropriately sci-fi themed song with her ukulele before her book signing yesterday:

Je suis jalouse

And since its Bastille Day, another French-themed post, methinks, this is a pop video from Emily Loizeau who I've been getting into recently, most of her tracks are in French, with a handful in English, most enjoyable.

Pulling Gs

New research from the UC Berkley show that hummingbirds in a dive can pull 9Gs, enough to make a trained human jet fighter pilot black out and lose control. A little reminder that no matter how clever we think we are and what remarkable machines we construct nature usually managed it earlier and better... (link via Boing Boing)

Hummingbird Diving In Action from Science News on Vimeo.

Fleur de Saison

Rather like this video track of a French pop track by Emilie Simon, found by following a suggested link on YouTube while looking at some Dave McKean animations (on which note, we've got a major Dave McKean interview in the works for the Forbidden Planet blog in the near future to look forward to):

Sebastian's Voodoo

This lovely animation, Sebastian's Voodo, by Joaquin Baldwin comes via Boing Boing and is in the running for a short film award at the prestigious Cannes Film Festival; you can vote for it via YouTube and while you're at it check out some other animations (and other works) from the National Film Board of Canada on YT:

Mutiply your money animation

This slightly naughty animation for services to 'multiply your money' is brilliant:



(link via Boing Boing)

Scottish mining museum

When I was off earlier this month I went down the coast a little outside Edinburgh to the Scottish Mining Museum, which I've been meaning to go to for ages (the 26 bus right from the city centre takes you to right to the entrance). Annoyingly the visitor centre and inside attractions and tours weren't up and running, even though I had checked the website before going down and it indicated everything was, but I did get to wander around all the surface remains and had the place largely to myself at the time too, quite atmospheric, so quiet now but once teeming with hundreds and hundreds of men working in the mine, the mighty boilers of the power house and the nearby brick kilns. Shot quite a lot of photos and only now uploading them - the first batch are on my Flickr page, with more to follow, and also a short video 360 panorama:

Bach

One of my favourite pieces of classical music, some of Bach's beautiful cello work performed by YoYo Ma:

horses on the beach

Down on the beach near Yellowcraig by the Fidra Lighthouse, walking along the long shore towards North Berwick, it brightened up as a couple of riders on horseback came along the beach:

Watchmen - the Keene Act

Readers of Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons seminal Watchmen graphic novel will already be aware of the Keene Act, legislation passed in the alternative America of the Watchmen to outlaw the superheroes as vigilantes. New Frontiersman (named for one of the magazines which crops up throughout the graphic novel) is a marketing site which has been slowly releasing bits and pieces of pics, info and viral videos ahead of the film version of the Watchmen coming out in March, including this latest one, done in the style of a really bad 70s public information film (incidentally, there's a possibility I may be back on the BBC radio again to talk about the movie next month too, more if and when its settled):



(link via the FPI blog)

Tesla Coils do Doctor Who theme

The Tesla Coils do their own unique interpretation of the iconic Doctor Who theme (via Boing Boing) - geektastic!

Pink Martini - Lily

Melanie's really got me into Pink Martini recently, I've been totally grooving on their albums Hey, Eugene, Hang on, Little Tomato and Sympathique, with an intoxicating mixture of styles, themes and even different languages on some songs (Spanish, French, Italian, English and more). Check them out, your ears will thank you. This is them performing 'Lily'; it makes me want to grab someone and dance...

Snowy hills

In the Campsie Hills (an extinct volcanic range north of Glasgow - my parent's home has a great view of them) a couple of weekends ago with dad taking some photos; snow lower down had melted, snow on top of the hills and bens was still there, the streams and burns full of ice and the wind bitterly arctic. Still beautiful though and the weather didn't stop people going out for a good walk on the hills as we passed quite a few.

Neil Gaiman talks buttons

Neil Gaiman says a few words about the humble button (ahead of the release of the animated version of his book Coraline, which featurs the superbly creepy Other Mother, with her button eyes...):

Edinburgh in the snow

A very quick 360 degree video panorama of Edinburgh from North Bridge (which connects Old and New Towns) during the heavy snows on the way to work last week. It only took a minute but my coat was covered white in that time and the high winds on such an exposed spot were swirling the snow flakes so much you can barely see the Castle, but I thought it was worth it for a quick capture to give you an idea. In better weather this is a great spot for views across the city (if you are ever visiting its a good spot to take pics from)

Edinburgh at night 360

A short 360 panorama of Edinburgh on a cold, December night, taking in the Balmoral Hotel, North Bridge, the Old Town, Castle, Princes Street Gardens and the Christmas Winter Wonderland fair.

Strange fruit...

Via Boing Boing a link to a great Billie Holiday rendition of the haunting Strange Fruit. First time I ever heard this song was back in the early 80s, being covered on a Souixsie and the Banshees album and back then I was too young to realise it has been around for decades. I've heard it by different artists numerous times (not uncommon in some films and documentaries dealing with the Deep South of the USA and racial prejudice) but I think this version by the great Ms Holiday is the best:

the bells of St Cuthberts

the bells of St Cuthberts
Originally uploaded by byronv2

The light was fading so the pic quality isn't the best on this short clip, but I couldn't resist trying to capture the sound of the bells of Saint Cuthbert's peeling, just below the shadow of the Castle and but yards from busy Princes Street where the Christmas shoppers were utterly oblivious to this lovely little moment...

Spiegel im Spiegel

Arvo Pärt, one of my favourite 20th century composers and one of his more beautiful (and yet elegant and fairly simple) pieces:

ice over ice

Up by the dam behind the Colzium in Kilsyth, again very icy. And walking along the path was also full of ice-choked puddles (which made very satisfying cracking sounds when you stood upon them). Then dad and I tried throwing some broken sheets of ice from the path onto the much larger frozen surface of the loch - shatter like glass then explode in a tremendously satisying explosion, fragments scattering and sliding across the ice with a great noise. Yes, I am easily amused, so what?

ice, ice, baby

Damned cold at the weekend - dad and I walked along a bit of the Forth & Clyde Canal between Kilsyth and Dullatur; large chunks were slushy with chunks of ice floating in it, while other sections were frozen totally solid, even stones we threw in just skidded across the icy surface rather than breaking through to the water below. Some swans were having fun - a couple had come out of the few open water channels left and onto the ice. One seemed to be managing okay, walking slowly and carefully, the other was taking a step and those big webbed feet would just suddenly slip back and he'd land on his belly, get up, try again, another step, feet slip back, land on belly... After a few minutes of this he decided to turn and get back into the water. The sounds you can hear are from the vibrations resonating across the ice; sounds a bit like the sound sometimes heard in overhead wires or in railway lines before a train comes; the same sound could be heard when we skidded stones over bits of ice as when the swan's feet hit the surface, just a strange vibration sound which we really liked. There are some pics from the scene here on the Woolamaloo Flickr.

Christmas market

The Winter Wonderland and German Market on the Mound which comes to Edinburgh each Christmas season:

Christmas market vid

Christmas market vid
Originally uploaded by byronv2

A quick 360 view around the German Market, Christmas Fair and Winter Wonderland in and around Princes Street Gardens and the Galleries on the Mound which just opened in Edinburgh the other night.

Metamorphosis

One of my favourite pieces by Philip Glass, Metamorphosis One. I was listening to some of the music from the Battlestar Galactica soundtrack and thinking the composer Bear McCleary was clearly influenced by Glass, then during a couple of episodes of the show they actually go and play this particular piece...

View from Mercat Cross vid

View from Mercat Cross vid
Originally uploaded by byronv2

Taking advantage of Doors Open Day to go inside the Mercat Cross and to the top - not terribly high up, but it does give a different perspective on the Royal Mile from what I normally see and besides, I walk past it all the time but had never been inside it, which was reason enough.

view across Glasgow from the Lighthouse vid

view across Glasgow from the Lighthouse vid
Originally uploaded by byronv2

A panoramic view from the top of the highest tower in the Lighthouse, the old building restored in the centre of Glasgow into a gallery, art and architecture space, looking across the city of Glasgow from several stories up, shot during Glasgow's Doors Open Day

McKean video

Browsing YouTube I came across a singer I hadn't heard before, Izzy - pretty song but I was more taken with the video, which is by the excellent artist and film-maker Dave McKean, who I had the pleasure of seeing at the Edinburgh Book Festival this summer.

Like a drug

Going through some old albums recently I came across one I hadn't listened to in ages, one of my favourite bands that no-one else ever seems to have heard of when I mention them, rock band They Eat Their Own, who I picked up years ago in one of the second hand record stores in Edinburgh - must have been the early 90s because I remember the lyrics to one song, Better Now, turned out to be appropriate for a college essay I was working on and I ended up quoting them to add a nice touch to the paper. There isn't a huge amount out there on They Eat Their Own, but there is a YouTube of Like a Drug. Which is, as it happens, the song that reminded me to dig out that album because Fiona Apple who I've been listening to recently does a cover of it. Although her version isn't quite as rude and sadly this video version by the original creators is also slightly censored version - "you consume every thought but if you called me I would tell you to fuck off" becomes "tell you to get lost" which just doesn't have the same raw impact, but it was all I could find.

"I don't buy
Your true life stories
'Cause I've seen
The way you lie
But I don't mind
The things you tell me
Because I know
We'll say anything to get by

But when we're together
Somehow I feel better
My disease always tricks me
I believe you can fix me

You're insane
I love the drama
Tell the truth
You love it too I know you
Reason strikes
We fight and break up
'Cause it seems
The easiest thing to do

But when I don't get your call
I go into withdrawal
You consume every thought
But if you called me I would tell you to fuck off

I need you
I need you like a drug
I need you
I need you like a
I need you
I need you like a drug
I need you
I need you like a
Drug

It turns me on
To say I love you
But deep inside
I know it's lust not love at all
One day we
Will leave each other
But we pretend
The end's not inevitable

I require protection
From my own obsession
In the object of you
One day I will rise above you

I need you
I need you like a drug
I need you
I need you like a
I need you
I need you like a drug
I need you
I need you like a

Until then
We'll stay together
I guess things could be much worse
One day things will be much better
But I don't really want to write another verse

'Cause when we're together
Somehow I feel better
My disease always tricks me

I believe you can fix me

I need you
I need you like a drug
I need you
I need you like a
I need you
I need you like a drug
I need you
I need you like a
I need you
I need you like a drug
I need you
I need you like a
I need you"
I need you like a drug"

La Tour Eiffel - the view from the top

Still processing pictures and some video from the brilliant Paris trip; there's about 300-odd pictures up on the Woolamaloo Flickr already (there you can click on the 'all sizes' button to see the full size versions, handy for detail on some of the aerial shots of the city) and I still have a number to sort and upload. Today though I uploaded some video clips I shot from the top of the Eiffel Tower. We walked up the first two levels - you can take stairs or the lift up the legs, so we opted to walk up just because hey, we can say we did! Final segment is by lift only and they run up the main central spire of the tower. The views, as you can imagine, are amazing - the whole of the City of Light spread out below you. The first one, looking north, is more than a little windy!



When we got to the west facing side we noticed a football match going on at a sports ground below - from this height it looked like a Subutteo game! Talk about grandstand seating...



Out of the wind on the south facing side looking down into the Parc des Champs and the Ecole Militaire with the Montparnasse Tower in the distance (an ugly modern building which most Parisians hate, but apparently gives great views of the Eiffel Tower from the top of it and if you are in it you don't see the ugliness of the modern tower, which is very out of keeping with the rest of its area), then pan round towards the Latin Quarter and Les Jardins de Luxembourg (which our hotel was next to) and the Pantheon (which has more than a passing resemblance to the front of St Paul's):




And of course a quick view looking Eastwards along the Seine towards Les Invalides and further in the distance Notre Dame:

And more Paris

I'm still beavering away processing and uploading pics of the Paris trip to my Flickr site - 184 up and I still have a ton to go, not even got as far as the Eiffel Tower pics yet. I was going to post a few of the ones I had one on here but blogger is arseing around and for some reason just not uploading images, although it seems happy to post video... So until it lets me put some more pics up and I get round to doing more pics on Flickr, here's another short video panorama of the Louvre, this time taken from the gardens between the wings and the famous Tullieres. As it turns round you get to see the Eiffel Tower in the distance over the top of one wing of the Louvre.



Darn it, I miss Paris, although it has to be said when you live in a city like Edinburgh having to leave Paris to go home isn't quite such a blow. I was suffering some withdrawal pangs though so towards the end of last week I wandered down to Haymarket not too far from me and into La March Francais, a French deli/cafe which fills up wine bottle right from the barrels and corks them then and there for a very reasonable rate and then parked my Magnificent Celtic Arse - or perhaps Le Derriere Celtic tre Magnifique - down for coffee and a read of my BD (Bandes Dessinee, basically comics and graphic novels) journal and felt much better. Why aren't I extremely rich so I could just keep an apartment in Paris and flit back and forth between there and Edinburgh whenever I felt like it? Real life, pah! Mind you, if I did I would need to import some Linda McCartney's since trying to eat veggie in Paris is a nightmare...

This time last week...

... I was walking round the Louvre... sigh...

Birds and lighthouses...

... down on the beach near Yellowcraig, as dusk falls and a flock of birds fly over and the Fidra Lighthouse comes to life...

Stephen Fry's Podgrams

The national treasure we call Stephen Fry has progressed from starting his own blog to now doing a Podgram - essentially a podcast in MPEG-4 format as opposed to an MP3 so there is video as well.

And suddenly there were canoes in Edinburgh

Heading up to Mel's to take care of Dizzy, the incredibly pretty kitty, close to sunset I paused on the bridge which crosses the Union Canal. It's always worth stopping for a moment there because sometimes you see something nice sandwhiched in between the Victorian tenements; sometimes ducks, geese or swans, sometimes just the sun reflecting off the water or, as in today's case, a group of canoeists paddling past. I guess they were making the most of an unseasonably mild and very clear, sunny day which was more like very early spring rather than early February in Scotland. Isn't it nice the things you can just come across walking round your neighbourhood? (click the pics to see the bigger versions on the Woolamaloo Flickr)

Marching band Tetris

I pinched this from my mate Olly:

The iron road to the Highlands

Early yesterday morning I caught the train for Inverness to cover a brand-new comics convention for the FPI blog. Crossing over the mighty Forth Bridge (I can't remember going over that since I was a kid, usually I'm going over the nearby road bridge) the train went along the Fife coast to begin with, curving around past Burntisland, giving great views right across the Firth of Forth where you could see all of Edinburgh in profile, the Pentland Hills behind the city dusted with snow and an orange glow behind them as the early morning winter sun struggled to rise above the hills. As the train turned further inland the rolling hills of Fife were sprinkled with snow too, while the rich farmland between them was mostly snow (although not ice) free.


(click the pics to see the full size version on the Woolamaloo Flickr stream)

However, as I got further north, heading up past Perth, Pitlochry and further, the snow went from a light sprinkle to deeper, purer, whiter. As we got up into the Highlands proper and the Cairngorms national park it got colder and ever more spectacular. The view from the train window was quite simply spectacular: snowbound forests (fallen trees with their skinny, snow-covered branches looked like the skeletons of some long-spined creature), rivers swollen and fast-running with recent rain and snow runoff from the mountains, except where the water had frozen fast into ice.



Deer ran lightly through the snow; as the train past one field I saw a young buck, couldn't have been more than two years old, bouncing through the snow and off into the treeline. There were a number of football fans, all loaded up with beer, on the train (I think their match ended up cancelled because of the weather) but even they grew quiet, totally taken in with the astonishing beauty of the Scottish Highlands passing outside their window to the clickety-clack, clickety-clack beat of the train on its rails. You can feel the pressure on your ears as the train begins to climb steeply - it isn't as clear from the view but your body can feel it as the train pulls you ever higher into the land of mountains.



I haven't been up that far north in years, not since going on a few ski trips many moons ago and that was driving so you don't get to appreciate the view quite so much. Sitting on a train with a great big window you could just watch all of this slip past, one of most scenic parts of the whole of Europe just sliding past my window. God we're so lucky to live in this country - next time any of us moan about our weather we should think about these scenes then realise just how utterly beautiful our mountain kingdom is.

Accordion by the beach



Down on Portobello beach this afternoon (a dry day!!! a day with no howling gales!!! Quick everyone outside!!!), my mate's dog happily running around sniffing interesting smells (most animals walk about with their heads held up to see around them, except dogs, who trot around with their head pointing downwards so they can sniff everything) and as we walked along the beach we could hear music. Walking up onto the nearby esplanade we saw this chap playing the accordion, while nearby a wee boy was dancing happily to the music. It sounded like a little bit of France in the middle of Edinburgh's seaside and put us in happy mind of our trip to Paris coming up in a few weeks. I imagine in Paris accordion players busking must be a bit like bagpipers in Edinburgh.

Rhythm song

Checking YouTube for something completely unrelated I stumbled across this decent quality clip of one of my favourite musicians, the Scottish solo percussionist Dame Evelyn Glennie. I've loved Evelyn's work for years; being a solo percussionist was pretty remarkable in the classical world, being a woman who chose to forge a path as a solo percussionist even more so, but being a deaf woman who carves out an international career as a highly respected musician is just astonishing. I've been lucky enough to hear Evelyn perform live several times and she is a powerhouse on the stage, utterly immersed in her music; the notes she cannot hear she feels.

This clip is from the documentary Touch the Sound, which I saw at the Edinburgh International Film Festival a few years back and at which Evelyn surprised the audience by appearing during the director's Q&A and giving us an impromptu performance, just her alone with a snare drum, in the dark a single light shining up through the skin of the drum as she stood on the Filmhouse stage and utterly transported a rapt audience. I came out of the cinema into a bright summer day, a head full of music; that was one of those days where I floated home feeling the world was wonderful sometimes.

Surf's up!

Kite surfers taking advantage of the breeze at Longniddry Bents on the Forth for a bit of winter surfing across the waves and sometimes right into the air - so damned cool.





Take off time!

"Space, the final frontier... These are the voyages of the Starship Enterprise; her five-year mission to seek out new life and new civilisations. To boldly go where no man has gone before..."

I've been cynical and wary about JJ Abrams' new Star Trek movie - if you haven't been following developments the Alias, MI-3 and Cloverfield creator is taking the series back to before the beginning, with the early days of the classic 60s Trek characters (Zachary Quinto - Sylar in the brilliant Heroes series - plays a young Spock). I have no problems with Abrams' storytelling abilities but I am wondering if I can possibly accept other actors in these roles, even essaying younger versions than we saw. After all I grew up on the original Trek - repeats of that and Pertwee then Baker era Doctor Who were my 1970s televisual SF fixes in those old, three-channel days - and I'm not sure I can take anyone else in those roles. Nonetheless this glimpse of the original, classic 60s style Enterprise under construction is pretty exciting to a geek like me; I especially like the way in the bigger version you can see inside the ship where the hull plates haven't been fixed yet; this looks like the original ship being 'born' and there's something romantic about the big ships, fictional or otherwise.



Trekmovie also had a link to this low quality YouTube someone uploaded of the teaser trailer being shown with the opening of Cloverfield in the US. Little to see except flares of light from welding torches as the camera pulls back to reveal the Starship Enterprise in drydock, being completed for her five year mission. The soundtrack is a mixture of speechs from the glory days of the Space Race, which again appeals strongly to my geek heart (I wanted to be an astronaut when I grew up; I still do), from Kennedy's inspirational speech to Armstrong's "one small step", culminating in Leonard Nimoy (who returns to play the older Spock) uttering those immortal words, "space, the final frontier..." Despite my wariness the geek hairs on my neck stood up...

Quack quack

Walking along the Union Canal this weekend, ducks and other birds (sadly I do not know everything and bird types is one area I am weak in - anyone know what these black waterfowl with the white bills are?) swimming around. The ducks go past, the black birds swim past, their little red-orange webbed feet just visible through the greenish water, working away like the paddles on an old Mississippi steamboat. Then suddenly they start diving. Ploop! One minute they are there, next moment only concentric ripples spreading outwards on the surface of the water to show where they had been, then suddenly they pop up again elsewhere, like a WWII German U-Boat doing an emergency surface. I had a sudden urge to do my Jack Hawkins impression and call for the depth charges...

It was very hard to capture these sudden movements on the camera, so I switched to video mode instead. You can hear a voice at the start which is a tiny little girl with her dad shouting "quack quacks!" in delight. Nearby some narrowboats which are lived on the whole year long, the restored old Leamington Lift Bridge (I don't know why but it gives me such pleasure to see it raised and for holidaying folks to sail under it), the floating restaurant barge which cruises at the weekend, new waterfront cafes, offices and homes, the remains of the old Scottish and Newcastle brewery slowly being taken apart as the area is remade (Sean Connery lived just right round the corner from this spot as a boy and delivered milk in the area - now he comes back to the nearby cinema on a red carpet for the Film Festival every year). And this is all a short walk to my home in one direction and to Edinburgh Castle the other way. The little marvels we can see even in the middle of the city if we only stop and look for a moment and share that simple, childlike delight in these little surprises and presents the world offers us.



(apologies for the poor quality - my camera does very good video but that means big files so I need to reduce it so much to fit on YouTube it never looks right - oh well, it's free!)

Party on Princes Street

Dark and very wet in Edinburgh as they are doing the final preparations for tonight's Hogmanay bash - maybe not the best weather for standing outside for a huge open-air party. I'm giving it a miss - been there and done that many times (was there right at the very first one) and now at my age can't be bothered freezing outside for hours, queuing ages for the loo etc, better at my age to retire to the billiards room of my Gentlemen's Club with the port and (chocolate) cigars... The traffic was utterly fubared by the closure of Princes Street for the party, an endless line of cars and buses all the way back past Haymarket (I decided to walk, rain or not, it was quicker), which makes me worry how bad my daily trip to work will be when the stupid tram roadworks hit Princes St soon - wouldn't mind if it was useful, but the line won't go near 4/5 of homes so its bugger all use to most Edinburgh folks... Anyway, shot a quick panorama just after sunset; you can see a camera crew setting up on a platform to cover it, the lights of the fair in front of the illuminated Bank of Scotland Building over on the left, the stage almost ready in the Gardens and the Castle above it all.