ianbee: this is instead of getting a dog

The Martial Arts

"The Martial Arts" are probably the best Glasgow band you have never heard of. I've sat on the secret for a year now, but I suppose it would be nice to share some jangly guitar tunes that worryingly shorten the commute to work.

I have discovered a band who are masters of the catchy chorus, memorable verse, unforgettable bridge and grungy breakdown. There is about three albums worth of ideas quashed into one here; each song is packed full of pop delight bundled into three-minute nuggets of joy.

Oh, did I mention you can download their album for free? Why are you still here? Someone go see them and tell me what they're like live.

Rain, Skip, Mattress, Hagrid

It was a funny week last week. The weather did this peculiar thing where it rained intensely for five minutes every hour for four days in a row. I think I put my washing out six times. The postman still likes putting my letters in puddles.

IKEA gave me a new mattress and in return I gave them some money. It took ages to buy because the first time I went I forgot how big my bed was. The second time I went, the one I wanted was sold out according to the tag and the assisstant in the bed section. But I found a pile of the 'sold out' mattresses in the warehouse so I bought one anyway. Strange shop.

Buying a mattress feels very grown up. I don't like purchasing material goods out here, but I was swayed by the whole "third of your life is spent sleeping" argument and I was spending my third wallowing in the softest most rubbish mattress I have ever owned, and waking up all achey. Can someone explain to me why a firmer mattress has to be thicker? Surely it could be thinner, more like a table?

The other funny thing was the time I spent shovelling mud and gravel on telly. Some friends run a community playgroup and they asked a telly reality makeover show if they would come and help sort out some damp and flooding issues. I went along to help move earth, although I spent just as much time removing children from skips. Small children are attracted to skips like magnets.

My preconceptions about precious telly presenters were demolished. This one looked like Hagrid, all beard and hair. I turned up at dawn to find he'd been at work for an hour on his own already. This guy worked just as hard when the camera wasn't on him and really went the extra mile to see the project through. It'll be on telly in August and there will be several moments where I am scrubbing a brick in the background whilst the presenter crouches in the foreground explaining the virtues of an intact damp-proof membrane.

PS Hagrid isn't in the photo.

Breakfast Music

There's a restaurant near me that do the most amazing breakfasts. The best thing on the menu is their rhubarb French toast. You get two slices of eggy-bread sprinkled with icing sugar and layered with stewed rhubarb. It looks just like a big slice of victoria sponge! And it comes with fresh figs and honey mascapone on the side. It is absolutely wonderful, both to look at and to eat. And to talk about.

There has been a song on the radio this week called "The Waitress Song" by a guy called Seth Sentry. It is a bit of a Streets/Just Jack/Skint & Demoralised white-guy hip-hop story-song ditty. It contains the line "This relationship is built on breakfast" which is the best lyric I have heard all year. I think most of my relationships have been mainly about breakfast. So I was inspired to make a breakfast-music playlist, when there were lots of other things I should rather be doing.

Here are the obvious ones ...

Breakfast in Bed - Dusty Springfield

Breakfast at Tiffany's - Deep Blue Something

Breakfast in America - Supertramp

And the rest ...

Wake Up O Sleeper - Phatfish

Coffee and TV - Blur

Sun in the Morning - Saint Etienne

Black Coffee - All Saints

Englishman in New York - Sting
"I don't drink coffee, I take tea my dear. I like my toast done on one side."

Banana Pancakes - Jack Johnson

Breakfast in Bed - Dntel

Writer's Block - Just Jack
"I must have got up about twenty to seven, had a shower, and had breakfast, and um, had a couple of pieces of toast, you know forced it down and had a cup of coffee."

Morning Song - Zero 7

Any others?

Gran Torino

Nothing I have seen at the cinema in ages comes close to being as good as Gran Torino. I saw it weeks ago now (at the Cameo in Edinburgh), but it keeps popping back into my head. So many films leave fleeting, temporary impressions. You pay your money and the images fade when you walk out of the cinema, next morning you find the ticket stub in your pocket but you can't remember quite what it was about. In contrast, the experience of Gran Torino seems to be burned onto my retina. I catch myself playing back scenes in quiet moments. It caught me completely by surprise; funny and harrowing, light and dark, violent and heartwarming. Clint's vocabulary consists mainly of  penitrating stares. And growls. Grrrrr.

And it had a dog in it. I'm coming to believe quite strongly that many of the best films have dogs in them, we're not talking "Lassie" here, or "Marley and Me", but dogs as supporting actors.

We're not talking talking dogs either, dogs just being dogs, hanging out with their owners. Like in "Tell No One", "I Am Legend", "Hot Fuzz" ... as is usually the case with the internet, there is a resource dedicated to everything you can think of. Even the cataloging of dogs in films.

Holiday of a Lifetime

I have been busy booking my "holiday of a lifetime" in New Zealand. Yes, another one. This one is the pinnacle of holiday potential though. Here's what I have got planned or arranged for July so far ...

This is my hire car. I shall call her Amanda.

This is my B&B. I have a view of the lake.

And this is what I am saving up to do! (sorry Mum)

Does anyone want to join me?

Invasion

I am having trouble with lots of little ants. They are really really small and they are in all the wrong places, like my food. In Australia you can't just leave food in a cupboard...

"It's okay, I'll put it in a plastic bag"
- No! They can undo the knots and even the zip-fasten thingys.

"Right, well then, I'll use those plastic clips similar to the ones they use on umbilical cords"
- No! They lie in wait at the top of the bag and when you open it they grab the opportunity and run in so when you next need sugar it's full of teeny weeny little ants.

"Plastic containers from IKEA?"
- They lay their eggs under the lids (this is absolutely true).

"Tins?"
- Wouldn't put it past them. Tiny drills.

Accidental Coastal Skipper

A couple of weeks ago I took a sailing course and accidentally became a coastal skipper. I had intended to do a course that would qualify me as an inshore skipper - if I passed I would be allowed to take a boat out on the harbour or within an enclosed inshore area. So I booked myself onto a five day course. In hindsight five days did seem like a long time for an inshore potter-round-the-bay course. When I turned up on the first morning we were handed an itinerary which had us sailing straight out of Lake Macquarie and up the coast to Newcastle. (No, not that Newcastle, the other one.) We were then to sail back to Sydney. Then back up to Lake Macquarie via Pittwater. At night time. I swallowed hard. This was not what I expected. I carefully explained to the instructor that he should expect me to be at the lower end of the class of three students.

It turned out to be a wonderful week. Very hard, very challenging, but a lot of fun. Dolphins followed us on several occasions. We tied up at the fishmarkets in Sydney and brought fresh prawns for breakfast. I can now plot an overnight course, identify a dredger by it's navigation lights, plan an entry into a busy port and do a three point turn in a busy marina. I passed!

Sailing offshore is fun, but on the East coast of Australia you are limited to going up (North) or down (South), turning round and then sailing back again. There are beaches and cliffs and sunsets, but very few corners. In contrast, sailing offshore in Scotland involves weaving erratically inbetween islands, sticky-out mainland bits and wrecks. It's the difference between an athletics track and a cross-country run.

The Rise And Fall Of ...

I could have sworn I'd written about this already, but I can't find it anywhere so I guess not. I'm on an album! I'm part of an "international collective" of musicians! It's all because of my friend Phillip who has creative energys that overflow into vastly complex musical projects.

This time his modest plan was to make an album that documented the rise and fall of civilisations throughout history using musicians local to those cultures. Easy.

Back in May 2007 I soundproofed my bedroom and recorded all the bass parts onto my computer. I'd then cycle down to see Phillip and hand him my efforts. He'd call me back with comments and I'd have another go. A couple of years pass by and I get a shiny new CD!

You can get one too, from here. Or you could just download the tunes for free from this exceptionally attractive website here. Or come round and I'll play you it.

photo from coda.co.za

Underground Choir

I sing in a choir. Last weekend we sang in a cave.

It was one of the most surreal episodes of my life.

The Jenolan Caves are under the Blue Mountains, about three hours drive from Sydney. We were going to perform in one of the larger chambers, the Cathedral Cavern, an intricate gash in the rock with a 54 meter high ceiling. We descended the 910 narrow stone steps and lay in wait for the unsuspecting members of the public who had signed up for a "cave tour and gospel choir" package. When their tour entered the Cathedral Cavern they found a waiting choir and rows of picnic chairs. We sang our hearts out, popped round the corner into another cavern then back for an encore, congratulated each other with high-fives, then joined at the back of the group for the rest of the cave tour! It was, like I said, surreal.

Here we are busking outside the entrance to the cave.

Here we are milling about inside the cave waiting for the audience (we were told not to touch anything).

And here we are singing inside the cave!

The tour was brilliant. The guide used just the right level of technical detail in his descriptions. There was none of this "cave origin via sulfuric acid speleogenesis and recognition of microbial mediation of cave processes, blah blah blah..." rather, "There are two types of rocks down here. Waxy rocks and shiny rocks. That's a waxy rock, see how it looks waxy? And that's a shiny rock. See how it shines?" You get the idea. Perfect, especially catering for the attention span of possibly the world's first post-gig-party cave tour. The guide proceeded to point out all the stalactite formations that looked like funny objects. We found other ones that were even funnier.

We were taken to the first cave in the world to get electric light (how do they know that?). First we were shown the cave lit up by green light (ooh!), then blue light (ahh!) then red light (ugh). There was one cave where animals used to fall in and die becuase they couldn't climb out. To illustrate this the subtley lit bones of a wombat were pilled up in the corner. This fascinated us.

At the end of the tour the guide asked for questions. Someone asked why there was a tap in one of the caves. Brilliant question! Millions of years of geological history and we want to know about the tap! Tell us about the tap! The guide replied that with they have to wash the caves. With thousands of visitors passing through each year shedding skin, hair and lint, apparently the caves get a bit fluffy.

www.insteadofadog.com

I told someone about my blog the other day and about how it was instead of getting a dog. They asked what the address was and were disappointed to hear that it wasn't www.insteadofadog.com

Well now it is.

Can't believe I didn't think of that before.