Filed under: Uncategorized
finneston sunset a la Florence
Originally uploaded by mark gorman.
Great Sunset from the office at STV today
Filed under: Arts, humour, tv | Tags: 6 feet under, anna paquin, david ball, deep south, HBO, horror, Sookie Stackhouse, true blood, vampires
Watching this?
It’s cool.
HBO is really pushing the limits of taste.
Again. (See Eastbound and down.)
On two occasions in the last two episodes – the first watching Jason Stackhouse, the main protagonist’s brother masturbating so hard that the blisters on his palms are bigger than the hands they grew on AND his poor member is engorged to the point of elephantiasis, requiring a blood withdrawal of epic proportions; and the second when the aforementioned star Sookie Stackhouse indulges in a spot of self indulgence as she dreams of her desired vampire lover “taking her” – my youngest daughter had to politely remove herself from the room.
But, the fact remains, it’s a great piece of TV, wonderfully shot (the outside scenes of houses at night have an otherworldliness about them that is unique) and the script crackles and fizzes throughout.
It’s purty sexy too y’all.
I’m going to be performing this on December the 19th at the Forth Adults Theatre Show (if I can pluck up the courage). It’s my song of the year and actually really suits the barely passable singing voice I have (Second Tenor/Baritone).
Sorry about the recording. It does the song little justice.
Filed under: Arts, life, photography | Tags: canon Eos 450D battery grip.
Somewhat anoracky, I know…
Filed under: Rants, life, politics, stories | Tags: gordon brown, misspelling, mrs janes
Gordon Brown spells a poor mother’s son’s name wrongly and all hell breaks loose.
Jeana was firmly on the mother’s side, but then, if one in ten people spell her name correctly I’d be surprised.
Me? I think he deserves a break, after all he did take the trouble to write personally to her and not put it through the civil servant machine.
Frankly, it’s hard to tell if it was misspelt or otherwise. Looks to me like he wrote…
Davots
New Ma Domes
I enclose a letter minah gus o’donnell lu revise foo portishead advisers caneloni has apologise varseverally are left his pot etc….
Filed under: Rants, humour, jokes, life, politics, stories | Tags: Being belgian, belgians, belgium, Homeless miss belgium
The Belgians are freaks.
Only they would have a competition like this.
The winner was the dug (holder).
Filed under: business | Tags: apple, apple mac, apple magic mouse, mac, magic mouse, mouse
This little baby is really quite hot.
If you have a Mac. You want it. You need it.
Get it.
Filed under: music | Tags: bbc 6 music Ingmar Bergman, freakzone, mael brothers, sparks, stuart maconie
Stuart Maconie’s Freak Zone is one of Radio’s treasures and tonight he played this unbelievable Radio Musical by Sparks.
Words cannot describe how extraordinary an event this was. Sparks are weirder than weird. Perfect for the Freakzone. But their music is utterly beguiling and this ‘opera’ is a new creative high for them.
Transfixing. Check it out on BBC iplayer.
Arise Sir Stuart.
The only Hibby stuff I saw was this…
And I was at that match at Parkhead where Coisty came off the bench and beat us singlehanded in a league cup final with an overhead kick.
It was a killer, By a legend.
Will. Before you start. You were with me.
Filed under: Hibees, Scotland, football, humour, sports | Tags: cabbage and ribs, Hibees, Hibs, scottiszh premier league, SPL, the cabbage
Bring on the Jambos. Managed from hell.
Gradually Petrie is being vindicated, as I have mostly supported. (He’s had some amazing transfer deals – Whittaker, Brown and Fletcher in particular.)
Intake of breath…we have a team. Have you seen Liam Miller? Wotherspoon? Zemmama (on form)?
It’s actually quite exciting.
Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: fireworks, real radio, scotland's firemen
I was listening to what could have been a very convincing radio ad on Real Radio this afternoon.
In it a fireman (Chief Fireman I think) was saying that November the 5th was a hell of a time for the fire brigade because they had the additional pressure of ned bonfires, middle class stupiditity when fireworks didn’t go off right because parents were letting them off with mood candles, and life at that time of year in the fire brigade is short of hen nights.
But this ad had a really good point. It said, spoken by the fireman, that one should exercise care, not set up bonfires and go, instead, to organised firework displays, “Just like I do with my family”.
OK. Fair enough, but if you’re at the organised firework display what are your firemen doing?
Making up for your day off?
Filed under: Arts, music | Tags: alicia keys, empire state of mind, hip hop, jay z, r&b
But I like this.
The worry is that this is at least the fourth hip hop/r&b song that’s in contention for inclusion in my year end album of the year.
Filed under: Arts, music | Tags: crazy rhythms, Domino Records, the Feelies
…this outstanding album (Crazy Rhythms) immediately finds its way onto my albums of the year list on account of it being re-released this month by Domino Records.
My vinyl copy from 1980 is amost unplayable now. But it really rocks. Indeed it apparently ranked #49 in Rolling Stone’s top 100 albums of the 1980s, and #69 on Pitchfork Media’s similar list.
Although every track is a classic and self-penned by the band the one that totally freaked me was “Everybody’s got something to hide except me and my Monkey” – a Lennon/McCartney cover fro (I think) The White Album. It’s played at a hundred miles an hour on jangly guitars that apparently were fed straight into the sound-desk for their distinctive sound. It’s a classic and you can hear it on Spotify.
Trust me. You’ll love it. And I count myself among the visionaries who bought and cherished it! (I don’t know ANYONE else that has it).
Filed under: Arts, family, humour, jokes, life, tv | Tags: esther ranzen, sausages, that's life, That's life dog
This was a highlight of my childhood and it is as funny today as it was then.
It is humongously funny. MUST WATCH!
Filed under: Arts, humour, jokes, life, politics | Tags: cassetteboy, gordon brown
The loan shark gag is appaling but hilarious.
Filed under: Rants, humour, jokes, life, politics | Tags: Adolf brent, cassetteboy, Nick Griffin, Question Time
Thanks Alan.
This is quality…
Filed under: Rants, politics, stories, tv | Tags: BNP, Nick Griffin, Question Time, racism
There’s a lot of hot air blowing off on this subject and in particular I listened to that oaf, Peter Hain, the Welsh Secretary, mouthing off on 5 Live the other day to Nicky Campbell about the subject. His argument was repeated again and again that Griffin shouldn’t be allowed on the programme because the BNP were illegally constituted!
Oh really? So that’s the reason that freedom of speech in a democracy should be denied?
Maybe Mr Hain prefers the regime in Afghhanistan.
Now, I fully expect Nick Griffin to be seriously undermined and his attitudes exposed for what they are, no more than racism.
Nevertheless, his party has an elected European MP and a considerable number of Metropolitan council seats across England. Therefore they, as we, the electorate, have decided, now have the right to broadcast their views.
Hain described them as a minority party, but what then are Plaid Cymru, the SNP, UKIP, the Greens? No-one is saying any of them should be denied a voice.
Clearly Question Time is going to have its biggest ever audience tonight and certainly the reporting of the Programme, and an analysis of Mr Griffin’s performance, will be in every paper, blog, facebook posting and tweet tomorrow.
That’s good.
Let’s hope he fucks up big style.
Hats off to the The Drum for thinking up one of the inanest awards schemes ever. The Golden Twits; a scheme that awards Twitterers for great “Twiting”. My opinion of Twitter is no secret. I think it reeks of piss and ham, but I do persevere.
Anyway, I thought I’d enter in a subversive way and this is my entry…
I hope they take in the spirit it was meant.
Filed under: family, life, olympics, sports | Tags: beth tweddle, british gymnastics, gymnastics, gymnastics world championships
Could you do that? No. Could David Beckham? No. Could Beth Tweddle earn a percentage point of his income? No. Is life just?
I totally agreed with Robert Kitson’s column in The Guardian today that lamented the relative prominence of news stories on Monday; reflecting on the weekend’s sporting achievements.
Like many, I was enthralled by Jenson Button’s critic-bashing performance. Sublime, determined and gutsy.
Well done mate. You showed the sneering hacks.
But…
It wasn’t a bloody patch on Beth Tweddle’s.
My youngest daughter knocked her pan in for a number of years as a member of our nearest gymnastics club (10 miles away as it happens). She grew muscles that put me to shame. She was fit as a butcher’s dog. She had extraordinary strength AND flexibility and yet she was at the bottom of the gymnastics ladder.
Gymnastics is for superheroes and you better believe it.
And Britain (as Kitson rightly points out) is football’s equivalent of the Isle of Man (reserves) on the world gymnastics stage.
So, the fact that Tweddle crashed and burned in her top apparatus (the asymetric bars) where she had previously gained our ONLY EVER world gold, yet picked herself up to qualify for the floor final was a feat of incredulity in itself.
But that wasn’t the end.
She won it.
Yes. She won it.
Unlike Andy Murray.
Unlike any British golfer in the sport we taught the world, in a major, in ten years.
Unlike England’s football team since 1966.
Unlike all of our highest paid sports, ahem, personalities in most of their disciplines.
But Beth did.
We voted for Beth to win Sports Personality of the Year the last time she won gold. Fat chance.
This time, she didn’t even hit the bloody headlines. That achievement should have been front page news. Not in the sports sections – in the main papers.
It’s a bloody crying shame.
Beth Tweddle. We, the Gormans, salute you…
Filed under: Arts, Scotland, life, politics, theatre | Tags: Calvinism, Confessions of a justified sinner, drama, Drama in Scotland, Gil-Martin, James Hogg, Mark Thomson, religious intolerance, Royal Lyceum theatre, Scottish Theatre, Terrorism, The Lyceum, theatre
A rather amusing “no animals were killed in the making of this smoke” type announcement preludes the opening of this play and then the curtain rises to reveal a dark, brooding, half-lit miasma that remains throughout.
And yes, it’s smoky.
The darkness is entirely appropriate as this is a tale from the early 18th century when dark deeds were done, folk lived in smogs of half truth, rumour and mountains of religious guilt. And we’re not even talking Catholisism here. No, welcome to the dank, scary world of Calvinism.
YE WILL NOT HAVE FUN. YE WILL NOT FORNICATE. YE WILL NOT SMILE. YE WILL NOT DAE ANYTHING THAT THE LORD WOULD FROWN UPON.
Because the Lord, back then, was all seeing, all telling, all rule making.
This was a land of ignorance and powerful religious figures. The meenister was all.
Sound familiar?
Yep, it’s a fascinating allegory (or is it a metaphor) for our times today where religious extremism, east and west, is a licence for abhorrent and inexplicable sinning.
The early days Obama (Mc)Bin Laden of James Hogg’s novel is played at just the right side of lampoon by the truly terrifying Kern Falconer and he is the axis of evil that the play revolves around. It’s into his house that the naive Robert Wringhim is brought, with his mother, to “enjoy” a life of strict religious instruction. And enjoy it he does, to a point, until the Meenister sets out on a campaign to “justify” his pupil. To make him immune to sin on earth and guarantee him a place in heaven, no matter what. In time, the Damascan moment arrives and Wringhim is indeed (apparently) granted that place in heaven.
His ticket safely tucked away in his inside pocket the charming young Wringham is now granted the right to exact retribution on all wrongdoers that cross his path; and there are plenty of them.
The central premise of the play then unfolds around this – that if a place in the afterlife is guaranteed, rather than has to be earned, where does one draw the line?
If one can sin and not be called to task then surely sinning will follow. And if this sinning is not actually considered a sin then the atrocities that might result are presumably acceptable. Is this not exactly the point that appears to be brainwashed into suicide bombers the world over (because Wringham is essentially Calvinism’s suicide bomber).
Is he mad? Is Gil-Martin his voice of conscience – or the devil? There’s certainly a thin line between schitzophrenia and devotion in this play.
The “11th man” of this astonishing performance is the set. It rocks. Built on a rotating platform the oblique monoliths that seemingly stretch to the sky are variously abstract tables, beds, tombstones and pulpits, but mainly they are dark foreboding skyscrapers of the future. They are the metaphoric twin towers that I believe this play alludes to.
Ryan Fletcher is stunning. He does not overplay his quite considerable hand. Iain Robertson as Gil-Martin nails it. Lewis Howden is a scream. and John Kielty plays his parts with restraint. This is a blokes play. Sure Rae Hendrie carries her part beautifully as the Mother but all the lines belong to the men.
Mark Thomson has to be lauded for both the writing and the direction of this very superior night of theatre. And I’m certain he will be.
It’s brilliant. It’s funny. It’s electric. It’s dark. It is an absolute must see.
Filed under: humour, jokes, life, tv | Tags: eastbound and down, kenny powers, What's his name? Fucking Shrek
Simply the funniest comedy this century.
Please don’t watch this if you are in any way prudish. ‘Cos it’s foul.
Borat on steroids. (Thursdays on FX.)
