Well....

Apart from being the most useless blogger in the known universe, I have no other excuse to offer as for my lack of communication.

So what have I been up to?

All manner of things really (work), did a whole plethora of music festivals in Scotland with Aboyne based Taylored Sound, we managed Shetland, Rockness, and the Wickerman, Plus some almighty efforts in the AECC... Proper job!

Most recently though is the news that I have moved back to the south, no longer will I prowl the Highlands making things louder. London beckons, and I am to follow, wife, dog and fishes all in tow! Complete and utter upheaval, Sadly we had to vacate our lovely flat in Aboyne and we are now homeless, penniless (due to moving away from work) and without prospect. Still one is becoming used to being thrown from pillar to post!

We have been sofa surfing around London and also staying in Gloucester, the poor dog doesn't know if she is coming or going! Sorry, in danger of turning this into a rant... must not do that, or I'll be reprimanded for not being positive.

Anyway, back off to the bis smoke tonight, staying with my brother for a couple of nights, ought to be fun!

I think I'll keep this one short, in the knowledge that I will be back tomorrow, or maybe even later tonight, or just when I'm not so ranty!

So that'll be my password!

Ah ha!

And with a whoosh and a bang I return to the world of my blog!

Ok so there wasn't really any noise and/or pyrotechnics involved in the discovery of ones seemingly long lost password. I know, I could have reset the damn thing but, I never really got round to it, time has a funny way passing before your very eyes without being detected! And what a time has passed, new decade, new season (finally green things are deciding to grow up here in Scotland), new lease of life as a sound engineer. Yes, back doing what I do best, making all manner of random nonsense louder.... I had quite forgotten just what it felt like to do four 18 hour days followed by 22hour corporate show.... it doesn't really hurt as such (that bit comes later), it's more the numb autonomy you experience by day three. Nothing tastes of anything, coffee stops being effective, and cigarettes stop making it feel any better! The numbness works its way into your head as well, conversations take a lot longer, basic channel lists and over plugging seem like quantum theory, people less numb than you become extremely irritating. It's all a bit shocking really, having spent two whole years working in the green and pleasant Scottish Highlands, to not see daylight for five days is odd, plain and simple odd.

By the way I am ranting about being busy with work you might think I didn't find any enjoyment in it at all, you would of course be wrong! I love it, and wouldn't have it any other way, I had simply forgotten (as the human brain is so good at) about the more difficult bits.

Anyway, I have to confess that was all a week ago, having had a lovely 3 days off I'm feeling rested and ready for the up and coming festival season, which, at the end of the month will thrust it's self upon us with little thought to mercy or sleep! This year I start with the Shetland Folk Festival, yup, Shetland.... Only one of the most important festivals in the folk/world music scene ("start as you mean to go on" and all that). You can check it out here www.shetlandfolkfestival.com

Pictures and comments will be posted if I manage to find some internet or as soon as I get home...

Before all that I have a gig in a local venue, an arts centre called Woodend Barn, it's a theatre effort so, long day and probably very boring, but hey ho, it's only down the road and it will pay a bill or two!!!

Sun, Daffodils and Nick Drake.

Yes, the sun is out,

Bathing us in glorious, vitamin D enriching, life giving photons. There are Daffodils flowering everywhere you could care to cast your eye, there are birds building nests, the ducks have started laying (YUM).

Yes that's right, in our little corner of Scotland, Spring is Springing... all over the place! and its welcome too, dull and grey has been the colour scheme for far to long, I like the colour of fresh green, it's full of promise, Spring is of course my favourite time of year (as if you couldn't tell). Cynical old git that I am, I actually quite like it when mother nature comes along and proves me wrong, she does somewhat replenish a world that I would so easily give up on. Fed up with seeing the brown, and pale coloured world of winter, suddenly this young and vibrant set of new colours appear as if out of nowhere, and they kind of shout "wait! Wait just one minute". Various bits of old and tired looking grass, now playing host to a plethora of springtime flowers, looks like a Vari Lite has been sick over the lawn!

And yet we have this feeling of melancholy, really we are saying our final goodbye to the past year, for me, Spring is the point at which we should have the new year... Think about it, it is the time when the ground around us stops playing dead and gives us the first new shoots of the year. Now is the time for looking forward to the new, for the year ahead, for saying goodbye to the past! Its like saying goodbye to an old friend, even if it hasn't been the greatest of years, hence the Nick Drake!

An end to the desperate cling to power.

Really..... general election, manifestos, lies, lies and more lies...

For my ten pence worth, I'm fed up of the way we are all being treated by our politicians. At the very mention of the the word "election" suddenly every MP out there is saddling up to whoever and however many they can with very big (very fake) smiles, and a great list of promises as if to buy your vote with "everything's going to be better with us". Is it? no, I didn't think so, would somebody in parliament please stand up and say something along the lines of "actually it's not going to be easy, the current government has in fact buggered us all sideways, it's going to cost a lot of money and take a long time to sort it out".

I would vote for someone who would actually treat me with the level of intelligence I deserve. I would even give my vote to an MP who could come clean and tell me tax will go up if you vote for us, at least that way we can start to pay off the colossal debt the labour government have decided that shall be their one true lasting legacy. After all, we did keep voting them in, we only have ourselves to blame.

All the time we hear soundbites of each party stating that every other party out there hasn't changed, will fail us again, and can't possibly lead us out of recession. Does this mean none of them can? Should we all go to the polling station on May the 6th and spoil our ballot papers, in a massive vote of no confidence? Does anybody really wonder why there is so much voter apathy?

Have to take the Lovely dog for a walk... will be back to rant some more later!!!

Back in good old Blighty

So it's Friday, we have been back in the country since Monday afternoon and I can tell you now, Scotland is not coming up with the goods, however I am!

Yes, yes, yes I know Thailand, it was indeed an amazing place. It was very hot (35-42c) the sun shone, the sea was the most beautiful turquoise you could ever want to feast your eyes upon. We were blessed by a monk, it was a very emotional experience with both Tara and I in tears after leaving the temple. More about all that later....

But Scotland Pah!... rain and cloud, having been clear and sunny, snowy and beautiful! I also thought spring might have sprung but sadly not. I however have been fantastic for today I have built a webpage for my new company New Horizon sound and light. Address will be posted as soon as I publish, should be in the next two to three days, just waiting for some more photographs to go with all my self absorbing egotistical blurb written in the vague hope it might make it sound that I know what I'm doing!

Got to go, will come back later and tell you all about Thailand...

it's been a while

I had one of those moments this morning. At somewhere around 8:30 whilst out walking the dog and listening to the iPod on shuffle, there was a moment of multiple coincidence of such greatness I thought I'd write it down. Half way round the walk (half way up a hill in Scotland) there is a clearing in the dense pine forest, I walk through it most days, it has a wonderful view of Deeside from valley to mountain. Today was no special day at all, just another walk, the air was clear, still and had a slight chill in it. As I walked towards the clearing with the dog way out front and my iPod giving me AC/DC delivered at eleven I wasn't really taking it in..... However just (and I really do mean just) as I walked out of the wood and in to the small patch of light Back in Black came to an end, and as the view suddenly sprung it's self on me I heard the starting glissando of Elbows one day like this, for the first time in months there wasn't snow on the ground and grey clouds in the sky..... a crisp vista of clear fine detail stretched out in front of me, from the rich green of the scots pine to the brilliant white of the snow caped mountain and a sky to blue you swim in it. For a moment I had to sit down and drink it all in. I'm not one of those who believes anything like this can happen by any other means than sheer coincidence, sometimes the world can show you some truly beautiful things, for me, the world today is a slightly better place for it.

Just why do super models always look so god damn hacked off?

Is it me or does every model in the whole of the known universe look completely pissed off with everything and everyone?

Is this a prerequisite of the modeling profession? Have they always looked so very moody? And what is it with the heroin eyes?

I know, so many questions, but I was quite innocently browsing through the Sunday papers and their relevant magazines, only to find myself confronted by an army of sour faced, dark eyed, male, female, and indeed hermaphrodite models. Wearing an odd excuse for some clothing and jewelry may well be reason enough to look like you've had the arsehole for the last ten years, but really, are these poor people purposefully made too look angry with us or is it the fact that they haven't eaten anything since the dawn of time?

And does "the look" really make the world of fashion appear so very glamorous and indeed can it really sell the product? Would you ever want to buy that shirt or perfume if it was going to make you feel and look like Skeletor chewing a wasp?

I don't know.... It's all so very confusing.