The Sunday Posts 2015/Smile

Smile though your heart is aching
Smile even though it's breaking
When there are clouds in the sky, you'll get by
If you smile through your fear and sorrow
Smile and maybe tomorrow
You'll see the sun come shining through for you

 

Light up your face with gladness
Hide every trace of sadness
Although a tear may be ever so near
That's the time you must keep on trying
Smile, what's the use of crying?
You'll find that life is still worthwhile, if you just smile

That's the time you must keep on trying
Smile, what's the use of crying?
You'll find that life is still worthwhile, if you just smile

Words John Turner and Geoffrey Parsons
Music By Charlie Chaplin. arr John Barry

Home on Autopilot.

I stand outside where I’m working and savour the coffee in the cool of the evening, letting its heat and dense flavour work out the kinks that have grown unnoticed over the last few hours. It’s been a hard shift and this is the first chance I’ve had to stop even for just a drink in several hours. The garden is cool and tranquil in the late evening light and I linger there away from the house which has absorbed so much heat from the day.  I notice a cloud of tiny black flies gathered under the eaves at the nearest corner just under the roof, perhaps drawn by some warmth escaping into the night or reflected by the pale stone of the building. They twist and turn in the last of the sunlight until suddenly three swallows come tearing round the side of the house banked steeply on their wingtips and cut through the swarm. The moment is imprinted in my mind like a slow motion high definition movie and I see the birds’ creamy bellies flash crimson as the last rays of the dying sun hit them perfectly. One of those incredible memories you might carry a lifetime.

An hour later, within moments of leaving work, the car crosses the battlefield of Prestonpans, where the screaming charge of Charlie's Jacobite Highlanders routed the Government redcoats in 1745.  The tune of ‘Hey Johnnie Cope’ comes to mind; the famous song written soon after which commemorates their victory and lampoons the English General as being the first soldier ever to bring his king news of his own defeat, so quickly did he run for Dunbar and a ship to safety in England. A few moments later I follow his route as I swing the car onto the A1, the famous Great North Road; the easiest, most direct of the ancient routes from London to Edinburgh and which echoes many of the trails of long forgotten combatants in one direction or the other across the centuries. It will take me to Dunbar and beyond through a landscape littered with the echoes of its history.

The car accelerates and a steady thrum builds between tyres and road while I turn up the volume on the classical music station I’m listening to. Sometimes, especially on nights like this, classical music is the only thing for me and there’s a Debussy piece oozing from the speakers as I lose myself in music and in pondering potential strategies to help a client facing huge challenges from his autism. The car cruises on at a steady pace without any conscious thought from me as the road rises from the coast. There will never be more than a few miles between the road and sea for the thirty-odd minute journey while I cut across the county to home.

 Debussy gives way to Chopin and to a wonderful choral piece which therapeutically massages the day away. Outside, the old county town of Haddington and its neighbour, the huge, rocky plug of Traprain Law - hilltop capital of the Celtic Votadini tribe in the first centuries AD – pass unseen but somehow silently acknowledged in the gathering darkness. Speed increases as the car swoops down Dunpender hill and barrels across the high bridge spanning the Tyne and a mile further on the lights of nearby East Linton catch my eye– linn is an old Scots word for waterfall so this is ‘the village of the falls’ – and I realise for the first time that I’ve been on autopilot for more than a dozen miles. I’ve no recollection of the road since turning onto the A1 almost twenty minutes ago. Its incredible how you can drive this way – doing something so familiar that one part of the brain takes control to manage perfectly while another part wanders free. I wonder just how safe it is, or am I just kidding myself, fortunate that a deer or badger hasn’t jumped out from the gloom around me. Yet I don’t feel tired. I feel alert and engaged apart from this ‘absence’ of miles. If anything my thinking while on the road has revived me and I’m sure I’ve been safe. But just in case I decide it’s time to pay attention and get on with the last ten or fifteen miles to home.

The road to Dunbar and beyond is a level ten minutes of fairly straight dual carriageway interrupted only by a couple of roundabouts. From there the road rises on the sleeve of the hill from where another Scots army descended long ago to fight an English one, this time with devastating results for the Scots. By the time I’ve mused this I know I’ve passed the ‘battle-stane’ memorial which commemorates the event and am passing the site of the oldest house found in Scotland so far, a roundhouse constructed eight thousand years ago. I carry on past little villages tucked away unseen in the dark folds of The Lammermoor Hills; places whose names echo their Celtic, Pictish, Saxon, Viking, Northumbrian, English or Scots heritage, and hint at just how crucial this easily traversed little coastal plain has been to human existence for millennia. How much turmoil in the turning of centuries?

I speed on past Torness, the nuclear power station, incongruously and garishly lit in the midst of all this history, the car rushing to get out of its light like a nocturnal animal. The road is empty as far as the headlights can reach and I’m alone for the next two miles by the water. Another minute and I’m crossing a bridge high over a tumbling stream in a deep but narrow ravine and feel the four earlier bridges still nearby in the dark. The road tilts gently up toward a brightly lit roundabout and here I swing right into the dark again and take the hairpin as the road turns back on itself before the short climb to the brow of the hill, past the graveyard and on down to our ancient village originally named for a long dead Viking where at last I turn into the drive and put such thoughts from my head. The car bounces on a pothole at the start of the drive and suddenly I’m back in the now. Debussy is again pouring from the radio and I realise I'm completely exhausted.

Despite that it seems my autopilot has got me safely home again.

Thank goodness.

See you later.

Listening to:

Late night Listening.......

Some music, writing a blog for tomorrow - and a single malt.

















Time for bed.

See you later.

At Last

Etta James 1938 - 2012

What a voice....

If Music Be The Food of Love.....

Late night listening transports me back in time.

 It's 1975 and it's late, but here in my bedroom the schoolboy me is wide awake. The first chords have just struck on what will become a lifelong favourite album as for the seventh, eighth  or twentieth time tonight I'm listening to Mike Oldfield's 'Ommadawn'. I just bought it today and I've spent hours devouring the artwork and every word on its cover. It's an obsessive trait that I'll carry long into my twenties - until the demise of vinyl for the more modern CD, with their loss of artwork and cover design as a communication medium. Oh for the return of the gatefold sleeve!  But like many in the years to come I'll cling to the old ways for a while before I can let vinyl go - partially at least.

 I lie stretched out flat on my single bed, the curtains closed to the smallest glint of light from outside and the turntable on the chest of drawers is turning the disc at the required speed. I have the feed arm up so the record will constantly repeat. It's not a great record player but it's all I'll have for another couple of years yet until I can afford to buy one of my own that will give me the kind of quality sound that albums like this deserve. Now though any money I get is invested on buying vinyl. Albums only - singles are for fools swayed by the rubbish on 'Top Of The Pops'. Real men - and of course I include my fourteen year old self in that category - buy albums.  Real men are interested { and interesting} because we buy artists and albums by our inate understanding of what's mature and meaningful, not led by the pop charts, although any future trawl through my record collection may not quite prove that point. Or not yet at least. My tastes are developing and opinions are largely unformed.

So here I lie, horizontal, connected to heaven by the headphones  {saved for over weeks of self sacrifice and reduced record purchasing} plugged into the record deck and preventing my parents from realising that I'm playing this - like all my albums - at near full volume. This means that I can hear the needle chart its way across the track, adding its own base note. That would be frustrating to the modern me but it's completely normal at the present time so I'm all but oblivious. Still, I yearn in the dark for a better player; more clarity and especially; more volume.

 Maybe I have the album cover lying on my chest, but it's also possible that I 'm doing some air guitar or silently doing some fantasy conducting of the talented Mike { by dint of album ownership I now get to call him that} as I guide him intricately, knowingly and insightfully through the multiple shades of meaning in this piece, showing him that I understand: I get it.

I'm lost inside now, carried by layers deeper and deeper into the sound, hairs rise on my arms and on the back of my neck as if connected to an electric pulse. Each listening has lead me to a new discovery and I'm acutely aware that magic is happening.  In years to come my union with such magic might be heightened by alcohol but now it's pure and unadulterated by beer, the opinions of others or the need to be cool. Tonight is a musical experience that'll both change me and continue like this for the rest of my life - horizontal, at full volume and in the dark - and all the better for it. I'll come to learn that it's great to share but I've somehow already found my ideal way of communing with important albums is solitary Tonights experience will also open the doors to teach myself how to wash away anxiety and think clearly while being soothed by important tracks or albums; something I'll be particularly grateful for in the next angst ridden couple of years.

It's the first album that's done this to me, completely blowing me away and carrying me off into other worlds, other realities. The first time that an artist has shown me there are incredible possibilities out there. I've never heard anything like this before and I'm entranced, enthralled, enthused, amazed and astounded. It's so different to the crappy pop music that's everywhere. Soon there will be others being loved too: Jean-Michel Jarre: Rick Wakeman: Vangelis: Supertramp: The Floyd: The Who and Thin Lizzy amongst others, but for the moment I know nothing but this sublime album which reaches to my core and tugs emotions so far as yet untouched. It's so perfect I want to cry. That's a first for me too.

As a result of tonight, in the next couple of months I'll also become intimate with Oldfield's first two albums: Hergest Ridge and the sensational Tubular Bells but even these wonders won't have the same effect as Ommadawn.

Tonight it's just us here in the dark. Tonight it's doing all the talking and tonight for the first time - I think I might be in love.......

Play on.........

See you later.

If you also fancy another bit of what does you good?

New Music....

Something new for the New Year: The first track released by Scots prog-rock band 'Abandoned Stars' who hail from Edinburgh and include my two brothers-in-law in the line up playing drums and bass guitar.

The track is called 'Beyond Reason' and comes from their first EP  'Opening Act'

Members: Tony Hodge - Drums / Peppe Schiavone - Guitars / Olivier Hadder - Vocals / Leen - Bass  

Check-out
http://www.abandonedstars.co.uk/

Can't stop the music.....

Hullo ma wee blog,

Occasionally a song gets inside your head and plays havoc as you try to ignore/delete/just lower the volume. This is what's doing my bonce in this morning and apparently can't be removed by anything I try...........

Annie's Song.

Hullo ma wee blog,

Don't tell my lovely G, but I may have feelings for another woman. Don't worry, it's not what you might think, but I have to confess I do love Annie Lennox.


Over the last couple of weeks I have been suffering from terrible insomnia.  During my night time sojourns to the internet I've spent a lot of time listening to music on the laptop while I've either been reading or checking out the latest from the blogs I follow.

During that time I have rekindled my love affair with Annie Lennox, rather – with her voice. I've always loved the quality of her voice, which I feel has a rare perfection. I thought she had tremendous range and clarity and also I thoroughly enjoyed most of the music she was making at any time. She is a great singer/song-writer who can create some beautiful, intelligent lyrics. Oddly, for someone like me who loves live music and has been to numerous concerts over the years she's one performer I have never seen. She's often on my playlist through the night and I thoroughly enjoyed revisiting old favourites as well as the more recent material from her. Her voice if anything, has grown richer over the years and I was struck once again by the beautiful clarity that she has. While her voice was always pure she now has a richness to it that could be lacking in the past. I occasionally felt that her voice was so pure that it would veer into a kind of brittle clarity that was cold and steely, perfect for some somgs but not for others. Despite that, her voice has always had such an alluring hold over me that I found her irresistible to listen to. As well as that voice and creativity, I appreciate her emotional intelligence, humanity and her political views.  She would be one of those welcome dinner guests you'd love to sit around a dinner table with and share a few glasses of wine with as the conversation flowed.

I hope you like these examples of what I have been trying - and probably failing - to explain adequately.

See you later.

THE EDINBURGH TATTOO 2011.

Massed Bands.

Hullo ma wee blog,

Last night we went to see the Edinburgh Tattoo. This is one of the highlights of the Edinburgh Festival and is - I am reliably informed by My Lovely G - the worlds top tourist attraction and we love the festival in all its guises. Why not? And after all Edinburgh is only a short drive from the house.. She and I had been to the Tattoo about 20 years ago but had never been back. Last year, we gave my brother two prime tickets as a Christmas present and he invited one of my uncles, who had always wanted to see it, to go with him. They both enjoyed the show so much and were so enthusiastic in telling us about it that we decided that this year we should treat ourselves and go back.

We decided to go to the late show, which takes place on a Friday, starting at nine p.m., as it incudes a firework display over the castle as part of the finale. The show lasts for two hours and, as you would expect, is an incredible spectacle and is watched by a crowd of several thousand appreciative people. The weather was quite mixed across the show with a couple of showers of rain, which swirled in the wind around the stadium on the Castle Esplanade and made taking photographs difficult at times. Here though despite that, are a few photos I managed to take during the performance as well as a couple of video clips from You Tube showing this years performance.

The word "Tattoo" is derived from "Doe den tap toe", or just "tap toe" ("toe" is pronounced "too"), the Dutch for 'Last Orders' Translated literally, it means: "put the tap to", or "turn off the tap". The term "Tap-toe" was first encountered by the British Army when stationed in Flanders during the mid 18th Century. The British adopted the practice and it became a signal, played by a regiment's drums or pipes and drums each night to tavern owners to turn off the taps of their ale kegs so that the soldiers would retire to their lodgings at a reasonable hour. Later in the 18th century, the term Tattoo was used to describe not only the last duty call of the day, but also a ceremonial form of evening entertainment performed by Military musicians.

A lighter moment - visitors from Holland - and of course with bicycles

I can be fairly cynical about the way Scotland, or at least its tourist industry, choose to portay everything here as being tartan - and certainly when you come to something like the Edinburgh Tattoo you could be fooled into believing that Scotland is tartan from end to end. Despite that, we both had a fantastic night and thoroughly enjoyed the spectacle. Aye - and the tartan too!

The performances were flawless and the staging of the whole show was excellent. It is difficult not to be impressed with the backdrop of Edinburgh Castle against the evening sky, lit spectacularly and decked with flags flying in the breeze. Watching some 250 tartan clad, red coated, gleaming specimens of manhood marching up and down the Esplanade it was difficult for me with my interest in Scottish history not to think just for a wee moment or two about the reality of why Scots have been such a huge part of the British Army - a fact born out of huge adversity and manipulation. I thought too, about the tragic armed mutiny that took place right there on the esplanade when the Seaforth Highlanders turned against their officers and marched off down the Royal mile and out onto Arthur's seat where they took up defensive positions against their commanding officers who they believed had betrayed them and were about to send them to India to serve there. Something I posted about here.

All in all, it was a great spectacle and an event well worth going to see. I would recommend it to anyone. It's impossible not to feel moved as you watch nearly 300 bandsman marching and feel the wave of sound from all those pipes and drums. The live performances of military bands from the UK and around the world have always been a huge hit and sell out well in advance. The Tattoo runs throughout August. More than 250,000 people see The Royal Edinburgh Tattoo live each year and 100 million see it on television around the world.


Unforgettable!

See you later.

Listening to this:

La Garriga - Things That Make Me Smile.

Hullo ma wee blog,

Sometimes it's nice to get away from a world that often seems to be petty, self obsessed and too narrow minded for it's own good. It raises my spirits to see people do things for others without thought for what's in it for them or do things that simply make their community and therefore the world a better place. I was reminded of that this morning when blogger pal Jono over at e-clecticism posted the newest release from the 'Playing For Change' organisation - a group who I feel fits this concept perfectly simply by showing that music unites us all and by inference that we are the same the world over if we just stop for a moment and realise it. They do this by sending a recording around the world and getting local musicians to add a layer to it as it goes. The results are wonderful.

Unfortunately I couldn't get any sound on the posting, but as I obviously like 'playing for change' I headed through to the youtube version. It's a great version of 'The Rolling Stones' track 'Gimme Shelter'. Another clip there also caught my eye. It's called 'La Garriga is playing for change' and is a wonderful version of one of my favourite songs from old musicals. The intro below the post simply says " La Garriga Is Playing For Change Too  and doesn't pretend to copy the initiative of the organization "Playing For Change", it's just a tribute made with all the resources that we have. We just want to support these idea and talk with the universal language that anyone understands: music."

It continues;

"La Garriga is a little town 35 Km far Barcelona (Catalunya). Maybe we don't have extraordinary cathedrals or fountains or great business buildings, but we have extraordinary people, this video is just a little proof of it. Enjoy it!"

I did enjoy it La Garriga - and you have started my day with a smile.

Thank you.

Listening to

Late night music.

Hullo ma wee blog,

Sitting doing social work reports prep into the wee small hours for a hefty set of childrens panels next week and listening to some music to help the information sink in.

I thought I might as well subject you to it as well. Headphones on. Volume high. Malt whisky to hand - check!






















Time for bed.

G'night.

Will you please TURN THAT MUSIC OFF!!!!

          A beautiful version of this track

Hullo ma wee blog,

The header to this piece would have been very familiar to my mother, although she would usually have ended it with "and come down and have your dinner" or something similar. Strange - looking at me now you would never believe I missed a dinner in my life!


You may {or not} have noticed that the last couple of posts have had a song posted from a particular concert. I found a series of clips on youtube of Neil Finn {Crowded House} Roddy Frame {Aztec Camera} and Graham Gouldman {10cc} playing an acoustic set together. I really enjoy the stripped back sheer musicality of this type of set and when it's handled by such wonderful singer-songwriters as these three it's doubly special, hence me not being able to resist posting yet another piece  {well two actually} from their set. This set me thinking about music and the blog.


Regular readers will know I often post a copy of what I happen to be listening to as I write {if I can find it} and also you may notice that it often reflects the theme or tone of the post itself. This is an unconscious thing for me. I usually have music on about the place, especially when I'm here on the laptop, and I tend to write posts just on impulse or instinct off the top of my head. Usually I've no idea what is going to come out when I sit down unless I'm doing one of my history posts as they need to be a bit more organised and so I tend to plan them out a bit beforehand, although I do have to confess to having a notebook where I jot down things which come to me that I feel I might be interested in writing about. Over the life of the blog I've come to realise that music is an integral part of my blogging experience so that's why I share the songs that have accompanied the post. Most times a post takes two or three {or more} songs to get me to the end with my limited secretarial skills and so I'll add whatever I'm listening to at the time of publishing and it's often only then that I realise there is sometimes a direct link between what I hear and what I write.


{I've no idea why or even if this is important by the way!}


There have been comments about the songs at times but they tend to be relatively few and far between so I really have no idea if most of you take a moment to listen, listen if I happen to post a favourite of yours or just pass them by. I've often wondered how many people listen and what they think of either just the music or about any connection they might have to the piece?  I wonder if these songs sometimes resonate?  I wonder if I should post them at all -is it important or just a distraction?  Do most people flit in and out without listening?  Would it help or hinder the blog if I dropped them?  Should I post them nearer the start of the post so that readers could hit play if they want and read on while it plays?


In some way though I think it makes the blog more personal, more immediate to me at least and so for now at least they'll keep making an appearance as and when they can.


See you later.


Listening to

          Roddy Frame - Hymn to Grace

Call it Synchronicity, Call it Deja Vu........

Hullo ma wee blog,

Music connects many of us to incident, time and place and here are a couple of pieces that do that for me. I spend a lot of time while on the computer with earphones on listening to music, be it via radio, you tube or uploaded CD.  {I'm not that into downloading music yet}  A few days back I was listening to Classic FM and Rossini's Thieving Magpie came on through my headphones and I was taken back to a dark Edinburgh night in the 80's sitting in 'The Playhouse' waiting for a concert to start when the lights went down and cheers of anticipation and whistles of approval grew until after a few moments, the sound of this piece began to pour out of the speakers all around the pitch black hall. It started very quietly and slowly but deliberately someone in the background began to raise the volume very gradually so that over a few minutes the sound had become almost deafening. The anticipation of the crowd had grown along with the volume of this uplifting bit of music and roars of anticipation, cheers, whistles and cat calls would at times come through the sound as people become more and more whipped into fever pitch by the amazing sound until quite suddenly at the end of the piece the curtains whipped up and the unmistakeable sound of local superstars 'Marillion' took over the volume as they launched into 'Incommunicado'.



At the end of this video you can hear the crowd chanting "Geeza Bun" {give us a bun} during which time lead singer Fish and the band would traditionally be pelted with bread rolls by large parts of the audience. It was very funny and enjoyed by all - probably less by the band as the years passed - but I've no idea where the tradition came from.

It was a welcome memory and led me to play a lot of my Marillion favourites over the next few hours and days and has taken me back to many exciting concerts of the time in small intimate and deafening venues.
Perhaps thats why I love my music played so loud.

But.

Does it sound better when upright or is it best savoured horizontal on the floor or laid out on the couch?

Now 'horizontal dancing makes me think of  'Gregories Girl' and the final scene.......


ignore the ad at the start and concentrate or you might fall off!



See you later.

Listening to Marillion of course.........

A Night at the Oran Mor

Hullo ma wee blog,

On Tuesday night we went through to Glasgow to the 'Oran Mor', a music venue in an old kirk, to see Lissie perform. This was a new venue to me. I'd heard about it but never been before even though it's been around for some time. It was easy enough to find, sitting as it does on the junction of Great Western Rd and Byers Rd,  two famous Glasgow streets on the western side of town. For once parking was straight forward too and we found a place on street within a hundred yards of our destination. A quick look around showed there were also several restaurants to choose from for a quick bite and we settled on an inviting looking little Italian place almost next to where the car was parked.

An hour later and we were ready to make our way across to the venue and check out whoever might be on support. The small space was quite packed by the time we got in and, as is often the case, it was going to be a hot night all packed in together. Luckily we had both left our jackets in the car.  Despite the crowd at this mostly all standing venue,we managed to find ourselves - well me really - a couple of nice soft seats with a view of the stage, although that would change later as more people arrived. The crowd seemed to cover a large range of ages, which I always find reassuring as I hate to feel that I'm the oldest swinger in town, mainly because it usually tells me I'm not going to enjoy the music as much as I hoped. The support act, a one girl, two boy trio called 'Ramona', presumably after the lead singer, were well into their set and comfortably banging out some tight guitar-driven rock which reminded me of 'James' or 'Texas' meets 'REM', but with a bit more modern edge to it. She had a good voice for lead vocals and I was quite sorry to see them go after only a couple of songs. I would have happily listened for a lot longer. 

The roadies efficiently handled the small amount of kit change and after only about fifteen minutes Lissie appeared on stage, with the small band from the video above, to kick off the first night of her first UK tour as a headline act in her own right. I'd heard of few songs from her on the radio and the first song which I ever heard - which I've chosen for the video -  struck me with the similarity between her voice and Stevie Nicks, one of my all time favorite singers. Much of her material is American folk-based rock and fairly mainstream, but my goodness she has a great voice and needs just a microphone to hold you spellbound. Her voice just soars out over the band across the audience in a way that almost no-one does these days. The vocals are the key to her success. Her voice is very friendly and yet commands attention. I like it. A lot.

I'm going to finish here due to some computer problems which mean this short post has taken almost an hour to write.......

back soon.

Chi M'in Geamhradh /Alba.

A couple of favourite Runrig songs. In Gaelic but with English translations. The first fits the time of year I think and the second still fits the political situation pretty well.......



See you later.........

Who?

Hullo ma wee blog,

Computer, coffee and one of my all time favourite songs by one of the best bands of my youth.

Sometimes, despite other offerings, original is simply best.

This brings back so many memories of my sometimes angst laden youth. How ridiculously simple it all seems now.

See you later.

A Bride Dances By.........

Hullo ma wee blog,

It's not that unusual a sight really. A bride dancing by that is. After all you expect to see a bride dance, especially at her wedding reception. And Lisa was the archetypal beautiful bride, slender and elegant in a stunning figure hugging white dress, her startling blue eyes and the glow of her slight tan lit equally by excitement and pleasure at being among friends and family with her husband for the first time. Lisa and Sam had recently come home from their marriage in the states where Sam's family now live and had arranged last nights celebration for family and friends who could not attend the wedding.

They make a perfect if contrasting pair. They are complete opposites. something that's often said about couples but is rarely so true as it is in this case. Sam is calm and thoughtful, his African heritage shows in an athletic build and in skin that shines from inside. Serenity beams from his face and is communicated by his bright smile, crinkling eyes and a soft spoken voice that hints at a good, and expensive, education. He is the cat who has the cream and he knows it, but he's not about to brag. Sam walks and talks with an even and considered pace as if everything should be savoured.  Lisa is bright and energetic, a petite, pale skinned Scots lass with those aforementioned startling blue eyes and a frank, inquisitive look always on her face.  She's full of the life which beams out of her every pore and shows in restless activity and a mouth which rarely stops talking. What you see is what you get. Rarely will a thought or feeling cross her mind without honest expression. If Lisa doesn't like you, you will know about it. Thankfully the reverse is also true which has brought her a band of close friends, my lovely G included. Always excited and enthusiastic, she communicates at breathtaking speed, vocally, by phone or text.. She lives in the moment, or did until Sam, and then motherhood came along, and likes to have everything organised on her terms. They make, as I said at the top of the paragraph, the perfect pair. They were joined last year by a son, Jacob,  as bright eyed and smiling a wee piece of humanity as you are ever likely to meet.

The reception started traditionally with the bride and groom greeting arriving guests until, with the hall filled, they moved to the dance floor for their first and solitary dance, cheers, clapping and whistles ringing round the room. As guests joined in the evening followed the norm and we celebrated with dancing and drinking, children running round tables, playing chase or hide and seek and young girls hauling Dad's, Uncles and even Grandad's off their chairs as they wanted to dance, dance, dance to every song the DJ blasted out from behind his light-box. People leaned into one another and shouted conversations took place about mutual friends, relations or even football. Intimate groups formed at tables or by the bar as friends and relatives sought each other to chat or catch up. Older relatives congregated together at tables to talk and to watch while the young, the energetic and the deluded stayed on the dance floor.  Time passed quickly and the lovely G and I, who had intended to stay for only a short while as we had a long drive ahead to get back home, realised that we had passed our planned departure time in good company and easy, if loud, conversation with the group of her workmates we were sitting amongst.

By the time we noticed we were an hour behind our planned departure time we had come to a break in the proceedings and, as the DJ announced a short break, the lights came up around the room. Lisa took to the floor with a microphone to make a speech of thanks to the assembled crowd. As she came to the end of this she asked Sam to step onto the floor as she had an announcement just for him. Sheepishly and not, I suspect, without some trepidation, Sam duly made his way towards his wife who began to explain that she had a secret which he had been keeping from him and that she now needed to confess. She had for some time been arranging for a special surprise to come to the reception and that it was now time to reveal her surprise. She wanted to have a performance for Sam. She wanted to find an African dance and music group and had found that just such a group was performing at the Edinburgh Festival and that she had managed to book them to come to the reception to perform for Sam.

The groups name was 'Grassroots' and this would be the first time they had played at a private function such as a wedding, normally playing only full blown concerts. I guess they experienced how determined and persuasive Lisa can be when she gets started.

As she introduced them, drums began to beat and the five performers came in with deep voices chanting, the beating of the drums marking the rocking gait as they slowly passed through the wedding party to take center stage on the dance floor. For the next thirty or so minutes the room was transformed by these imposing performers draped in lion and leopard skin, black and white ostrich plumed headdresses scraping the ceiling as they danced and jumped and cavorted to the native drums and the rhythms they created.  We were taken to sun baked village squares, to royal enclosures and to women working pounding corn or rhythmically scrubbing clothes on river stones by sun drenched riverbanks . As bare feet stamped a rhythm and gourds filled with small stones rattled you could feel the heat of the sun and the dust rising from baked earth. They shook knobkerries and small shields as they sung songs of celebration, of manhood and of rituals from a foreign land and culture. They sung and danced a blessing for a happy marriage and a joyful life. They taught us in the audience to accompany them in the song of blessing, the words echoing across the room from performers to audience and back in hypnotic repetition and as we sang and chanted and clapped to the rhythm Sam and Lisa began to dance, sometimes together and sometimes turning to move on their own, an instinctive and spontaneous reaction to the music and the emotion.

It was mesmerising and I could do nothing but watch as the bride danced by.

Lisa and Sam.

I couldn't believe I'd accidentally left my camera at home........



Listening to Ladymith Black Mambazo,  'Inkanyezi Nezazi'.

Sleepless in a Haunting of 'Waterloo Sunset'

Hullo ma wee blog,

3.15am on Sunday morning and I'm being haunted and kept from sleep by this track pounding round and round in my skull. I know what's done it because it's a song heard on the radio today and one of those iconic tracks of a particular summer in my childhood. It was released by ' The Kinks' in 1967, when I was just 8, and it was a song that was always on the radio.

When going on holiday, we always at that time went to a small fishing village called Helmsdale in Caithness on the far north-east coast of Scotland and always with my Mums glamorous younger sister and her husband as Uncle Bob and Dad were great fishing buddies. If at all possible, Gordon or I would always try to engineer at least part of the trip in Uncle Bob and Aunt Agnes' car. They didn't have any kids and always had a newer and better car than we did and anyway, Aunt Agnes looked like the singer Lulu and was to young boys, always much cooler than our Mum. Best of all though, they listened to great music on the radio and that summer was the last before BBC Radio 1 came on line, so it was pirate radio - Radio Caroline - which was being forced off the air during that long ago summer holiday.

I hadn't heard this song for ages and memories came flooding back when it came on the radio this afternoon as the lovely G and I were out for an afternoon jaunt through the borders. We had stopped for coffee and cake at 'The Flat Cat Gallery' in Lauder and spent a pleasant hour savouring the coffee and the items on display, including a beautiful wee bronze of a pair of boxing hares, probably my most favourite animal of the British countryside, at an eye watering £249.00. Needless to say, it stayed on the shelf, but oh, how I drooled.......

The song came on just as we left Lauder for the return journey and I spent some time telling G about what happy memories it brought to me.

That of course was before it came to haunt me in my sleep and now I feel as though I have been hearing it non stop for days. Great song it undoubtedly may be, but if I could get my hand on Ray Davies right now........

I'd definitely ask him to turn the volume down and stop repeating just that one verse that's constantly running through my head, or give me a change of track. Come on Ray, how about 'Dedicated Follower of Fashion', or 'Lola' or 'Sunny Afternoon'?

Anything but bloomin' 'Waterloo Sunset'!!!

See you later.

I think you already know what I'm listening to...........

Music! Maestro, please.............

      
Hullo ma wee blog,

It's  part of its strange and fantastic power that you can listen to a piece of music or look at a painting or sculpture and find yourself both moved emotionally and your thoughts veering off in a completely different direction from whatever you happened to be doing or thinking at the time. It happens to me a lot, usually with music as that's the art form I have contact with most. I can be taken to far away places or different times and find myself wondering what moved the composer to create those sounds, what experience or emotion, what need, what vision dictated such a response. I find it incredible that someones experience translated into music can communicate to me down the years, even down the ages and elicit something that is vivid, unique and deeply personal in return. A direct connection between composer and listener, sometimes separated by centuries.

Sometimes, of course, we know what the stimulus was - a visit to a place or some recorded upheaval in the composers personal life. Often we just don't, but the music connects with us just the same regardless. I was driving to Dunbar earlier to see a friend when a piece of music, a favourite classical piece, came on the radio. I've known Albinoni's Adagio in G minor since I was at school in my very early teens. The first time I heard it I was mesmerised by its drama and solemnity, by the slow yet relentlessly pacing beat that drives it constantly on, broken only in a couple of interludes by a solo instrument lifting away and above just for a moment before returning inexorably to the main theme once again. I've often wondered what the trigger for that piece was.

I thought it was beautifully and poetically used  in the Peter Weir film 'Gallipoli', a movie which effectively brought Mel Gibson to the fore. I can look back and see too that it in some way prompted my love for similar pieces, left me prepared to listen to music that before meant nothing to my childish likes and helped shape the musical taste, certainly for classical and instrumental music, that I have today. It came also to evoke memories of my Grandfather, once I had established the connection with Gallipoli through the film score, as he had served there in the Royal Scots Fusiliers in 1915 and 1916.

Music is a fascinating means of association. All of us have music that reminds us of the finding or loss of lovers, of wedding days and other happy or sad occasions, some critical,  but some equally and bewilderingly unimportant points in our lives that are forever marked by one song or piece of music that when heard, always takes us back to that specific point in life and allows us to reflect or to remember those poignant moments. These associations become deeper and broader as reflection and life experience add layer after layer on top of original memories. These audio mementos are very precious to me as a natural hoarder of the physical version - the domino set my grandfather carried in WWI, grannies mantle clock that literally chimes with my childhood, great grannies wedding china and the like. Stuff which fills cupboards and drawers and comes to light infrequently. Things to be held in trust until the time is right to pass them on to another generation. At least that's what I sometimes tell myself, but whether the next generation will want them is debatable.

Musical memories, triggers, are all round me at home through our music collection. Some have been posted across the blog at various times, like audio stakes in the ground that mirror sentiment or feeling linked to particular blog posts for instance, or just a reassurance for me where maybe I've felt that a post needed something, even not directly related. I suppose too it's reflected in my sign off where I'll usually let you know what I'm listening to at the time. Each week there will be a trigger that send me thinking about something or other and as the years pass and experiences build up there are of course more and more triggers around to excite, reassure, reaffirm memories and feelings anew.

Hearing this piece again made me think of my Grandfather, especially so as my brother and I had recently walked some of his footsteps in Belgium, in Paschendaele and Ypres. Once again the imagery associated with the music came to me as images of war. No longer under a blazing sun in Turkey but in the mud and filth of the western front, in that seemingly endless flat ground perfectly made for mans worst creation.

Music is magic, of that there's no doubt. It's incredible how man can be so creative and so destructive and how both can be represented by the same thing.

see you later.

Listening to Albanoni, 'Adagio in G minor'

Big Love - Lyndsey Buckingham

Hullo ma wee blog,

I'm not normally one for just posting video, so please excuse me for indulging myself with this great bit of acoustic guitar playing which was on my playlist last night too. Saw him perform this live last year and thought it was just tremendous.

Hope you enjoy it too.

Normal posting resumes from now I promise........

see you later {when we have a new government perhaps?}