Chatiryworld

Waffled up

NOW WE FEED! NYARRRRH!, originally uploaded by Falling Sky.

We had an amazing time in Brussels, thank you so much to Marilou and Frederic for being such great hosts and letting us stay in their lovely flat.

We seemed to be on the move a lot while we there, but mainly we were wandering and talking, doing a bit of window shopping, deciding that Belgian children are much better dressed than British ones, that kind of thing.

My birthday on Sunday was lovely, I had a special breakfast complete with candles on a bread ring. Jon and I went to the Natural History Museum then slowly wandered back via the European Parliament, a few shops and a late lunch at Cafe Arcadia. That evening we went to see Sigur Ros who were fantastic. I'd never seen them live before, which made it extra exciting. We sat high up on a balcony which was a little unnerving but we had a fairly decent view of the stage. If you get the chance to see Sigur Ros, go go go!

Then it was back to reality and sitting around in London for the train. London is hard work, there are good bits, but it's hard work. We ate well in Leon though, and I enjoyed browsing in Muji and Liberty.

Je vais a Bruxelles pour mon anniversaire.

Grand Place - Bruxelles, originally uploaded by Spigoo.

A few weeks ago, as we sat down to dinner, Jon informed me that Sigur Ros were playing in Glasgow in November.

'We've got to make sure we book and go!' I said enthusiastically.

But Jon looked a bit odd.  He had to spoil a surprise, that was why.  He'd booked tickets to see them in Brussels on my birthday and this was going to be my present.  He had to tell me so that I didn't get suspicious as to why we weren't going to the gig in Glasgow.

I suppose it's a good job he told me, not least because I had to get another passport (application posted on Friday, received passport the following Wednesday, unheard of!), but also so I can do my usual reading up and plotting.  Not that we'll be there for that long.  We'll travel to London on the Friday, have an early night and get the first Eurostar to Brussels on Saturday morning, giving us a good chunk of Saturday and then Sunday in Brussels.  Back to London and then Edinburgh on the Monday. 

We're staying a with a very good friend, and I'm really looking forward to seeing her.  I'm not sure what we will do in Brussels, we'll be staying very near the centre in a lovely area.  Both of us have been to Brussels and have a bit of a soft spot for it.  I can see lots of just wandering around and stopping for waffles and hot chocolate.  Yum.  Jon's never been to the comic strip museum so I'm sure we'll end up there.

I love having an adventure to look forward to, especially when it involves one of my favourite bands and my birthday!

Veggie

I like Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall, even though he's most definitely a carnivore and his programmes tend to concentrate on meat, not that he's ever claimed otherwise.  I signed up to his River Cottage newsletter and was pleased to see that he's starting offering a vegetarian night at the farm.  Sounds absolutely delicious although perhaps a little far for us to go (and a bit pricey). 

On Sunday evening Jon and I went to see Nina Nastasia at Stereo in Glasgow.  It was a great gig, she's fantastic live, and the audience managed to keep quiet.  I'm thinking the yapping throughout gigs is an Edinburgh thing as I never experienced it in Sheffield.  Anyway, we discovered that as well as being a small venue, Stereo is also a vegan pub.  We decided to eat there and it was absolutely delicious, highly recommended and great value for money.  I had gnocchi with sundried tomato and walnut pesto and Jon had chilli tacos.  We both had banana chocolate sundaes for dessert, I don't know whether it was soya or tofu ice cream but it tasted lovely.  It's on our list of favourite places now.

Sew good

How cool is this video for Architecture in Helsinki?  Never heard of them before but couldn't resist checking this out after reading about it on Craftzine.  Embroidered animation and a catchy tune.

Architecture in Helsinki - Like It Or Not from helsinkids on Vimeo.

Portishead

We went to see Portishead at the Corn Exchange here in Edinburgh, bonus points for it being within walking distance of our flat.

Reviewing gigs is not my forte, but they were damn good.  I've never seen them live but it was just as I thought it would be, loud with great visuals.  It was brilliant to hear those classics from Dummy that I used to play over and over again in my room when I was 17, worrying my mum.  I didn't think that nobody loved me, but I did love that song.

Bad points?  The little 'discussion' I had to have with two Australian blokes who shouted to each other all the way through support act A Hawk and A Hacksaw (very good too).  I didn't want to have to confront them, they were drunk, but they were seriously pissing me off and their arm waving antics was taking up too much space.  Everyone else around us was pissed off too so I just asked them to be quiet so we could listen to the music.  I don't have a high tolerance level for people talking at gigs (maybe from a childhood of classical music concerts) but I do understand that it happens and all that but this was ridiculous.  So did they kindly STFU?  No, they had a go at us (Jon helped out) and said 'NO!  WE'RE TRYING TO HAVE A CONVO!'.  We suggested they might like to go and have it elsewhere but they thought this was particularly unreasonable and if we stood in front of them we wouldn't hear them.  I did want to ask them if they had got their tickets free and I was also this close to chucking my pint of water over them, felt both those things would inflame the situation.  We moved in front of them and got lots of sympathetic looks from other people but decided we should move away before the whole gig was spoiled.  Unfortunately that meant they were someone else's problem but they could try talking to them instead of us.  A couple of people thanked us for saying something, I only wish you could have all backed us up but I know not everyone wants to get involved with that kind of thing.

So we moved a few rows back and didn't have such a good view but as long as we were away from those fuckwits I really didn't care.  Jon noticed other chattering more than me but I just had an overwhelming sense of relief.  The other thing I noticed was the enormous amount of people who seemed to be viewing the gig through their camera lens.  Now Jon likes to take photos at gigs (although he didn't last night) but it's always secondary to actually watching the gig, plus the amount of time he spends taking pics is negligible compared to the entire thing.  But in the same way people wonder about tourists viewing their holidays through the video camera, I'm wondering about people viewing gigs this way, there were several people blatantly filming last night (oh look what's turned up, and god, the singing along sounds even worse!).  Plus if you're not near the front (and we weren't that far back) your view of the stage is spoiled by tiny LCD screens.

Anyway, rants aside, they were fantastic and Beth Gibbons is amazing.  And we got the free flash drives with a couple of minutes of images and noises from the recording of the album.  Here are some other reviews from their tour
The Guardian - read the second vox pop, I think there were several of them there last night
Gigwise.com - read the comments, are all gigs now blighted by idiots?
The Times
Portishead Official Forum - Edinburgh gig

Some bits

Off work with a yucky cold, here are some bits and pieces.

A blog post combining atheism and knitting, hilarious advice on finding your pet cat.
A library card catalogue quilt.  Via Craft.
Listening to Martha Wainwright's album.  After seeing her duet with her brother on the BBC's Glastonbury coverage I had a listen on MySpace and liked what I heard.  The album is even better than I thought it would be.
We got the new Sigur Ros CDs, DVD and book yesterday.  We're saving the DVD for the weekend but the book it comes with is absolutely stunning, as Jon said 'the chatiry-est book ever'.  Full of gorgeous photos of Iceland including lots of blonde people in Lopi jumpers (and here's a photo of me in one as a small child).  Highly recommended and worth asking Santa for.  We plan to go to Iceland in the next couple of years, can't wait.
Sad news that the An Tuireann arts centre on Skye has gone bust (read in the West Highland Free Press but not online).  Glad I didn't apply for a job there last summer after all though, not that I think I would have got it anyway.

Bothan Àirigh am Bràigh Raithneach

I've watched a couple of the BBC's Transatlantic Sessions recently.  Jon isn't really into folk music, but we both really enjoyed Julie Fowlis' rendition of Bothan Àirigh am Bràigh Raithneach.  Here are the lyrics and a translation (as an aside, did you know there's a Gaelic Wikipedia?), and here is the performance:

Round up

I don't even know where to start on Stephen 'Dog Shit' Green and his views on the HPV vaccine, I'm almost rocking in anger.  I love the way Mediawatchwatch refer to his organisation Christian Voice as Stephen Green's Voice.  Idiot.

The last paragraph of this Guardian article on the Silver Ring Thing school debacle is very telling.

Chris at Rude Cactus has written brilliantly about all anti-depressants not being the same, I love his analogy.

I finished uploading my Skye photos and will write a post on it soon.  Jon has also put all his photos up and has started blogging about our trip.

Enjoyed watching Arcade Fire and Rufus Wainwright at Glastonbury on BBC4 last night, top stuff.

Work entertains me

Well, not continuously, but I get to be entertained every so often thanks to my job.  Today at an awards ceremony I saw Bruce Airhead, who gets inside a balloon for your entertainment.  It wasn't Prisoner-style, which I was slightly disappointed at but given lots of the people at the event were still at school they probably wouldn't have got that reference.  Anyway, I thought Bruce did a good act, look out for him.

I'm also getting to go to T in the Park thanks to work, although I have to do some work whilst there.  I'm not doing the whole thing, the idea of camping fills me with absolute horror and festivals are a bit hardcore for a delicate flower like me.  I'll be up for a while on the Sunday and hope to see Air, Tori Amos, and Mark Lanegan with Soulsavers, depending on work commitments (I want to see Air at the least, saw them in Sheffield in 2001 and they were great), and maybe a few more acts, I don't know.

It's cold here, it's also cold in Glasgow so it's not just an east coast thing.  Hard to believe we were basking in warm sunshine further north just a week ago.  It's raining badly down at my mum's though.

Finally, I'm now on Ravelry (Web 2.0 for knitters, still invite only), look for chatirygirl if you want to add me as a friend.  I won't cry if you don't though.

My cultural world

Yesterday I popped into the National Library of Scotland to see the Happy Birthday Miffy exhibition.  There was a similar exhibition touring public libraries a few years ago and I wasn't sure if it would be the same one (it was in Leeds when I worked there and I helped out one morning), but it wasn't.  If you don't have kids, Saturday isn't the best time to go, but if you do, there are loads of fun activities alongside the exhibition.  I tried to avoid tripping over any little ones and wondering if lots of them needed their nappies changing or were just farting with excitement.  I didn't really get a chance to linger but what I liked best were the non-Miffy things, I'd never seen any other examples of Dick Bruna's artwork and it was really interesting.  I'd love to go and see the Dick Bruna Huis in Utrecht in the Netherlands, another thing to add to the list.  So, in conclusion, great exhibition, just don't go at the weekend if you want to spend quality time looking at the artwork.

Music now.  I heard the Soulsavers track Revival a few days ago on 6 Music, and then my cousin's hubby Ben blogged about it and I thought I'd look into them a bit more.  I may not appreciate the religious content (indeed I'm going to have to get the video for Revival out of my head, it's a cracking track but the video sums up a lot of what I don't like about religion, even if it is well filmed) but the music is bloody good and their latest album features greats such as Mark Lanegan and Will Oldham (big favourite in our flat).  It's also available in Fopp for £7. 

I'm filing Soulsavers alongside Nick Cave's Into My Arms (although they're not quite as good), which is a beautiful song and were Jon and I to have a big celebration in the future where we were committing to each other for life we might want to play it.  But we can't, because we're both atheists, not just one of us.  Actually, there's nothing to stop us playing it, we probably would at some point during that celebration but it's so powerful and we can't quite match the lyrics ourselves so we wouldn't be able to play it at any particularly significant point in that celebration.  In fact, why don't we all take a moment to appreciate it:

It's not cultural, but I tried to go shoe shopping yesterday.  I'm not sure I've recovered yet.  And I didn't come back with any shoes.