wandering architects
We attended the first screening of the Camcorder Guerrillas new doco Deadly Cargo. Covering the secret convoys that transport nuclear warheads for servicing from Faslane, north of Glasgow down into England, on public motorways via many of the UK’s significant cities it was a timely reminder.
You can download from the guerrillas website, if you register. Or just have a look at nukewatch for more info.
We managed to get something resembling a greenhouse up (above). Now all we need is a roof and a door…
Also spotted our first fauna – a fox and these little fellas (below), as well as their amorous parents.
There was a fantastic classical concert by the BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra at the City Halls last night. Despite missing the first piece we caught a brilliant delicate performance of Beethovens Violin Concerto in D by Canadian James Ehnes, followed by a more rousing Symphony No. 1 which was perhaps overly cinematic but whose minimal first movement I particularly enjoyed.
Loch Tay, provided some spectacular scenery, and a rather snow bound attempt at canoing as Jen and Marco demonstrated their turning ability rather too well. Other highlights were the brooding Loch Lubnaig and the incredible countryside around Crieff.
As we meandered back on Monday we stopped of at the Lake on Monteith and caught the teeny ferry over to the abandoned Inchmahome Priory (below). A delightful picnic in the sun trap created by the atmospheric ruins capped off a fantastic weekend.
inchmahome priory, originally uploaded by tim&chhay.
Apologies for the absence – was waiting for godot. Well perhaps not, but we did catch a performance of Beckett’s masterpiece at the citizen’s at the beginning fo the month. It was a solid simple production, and as the first time I had seen the play I found it quite entertaining. Left me feeling that theatre still has something to offer.
a last minute decision saw us squeezed up the front of hipster’s paradise nice’n’sleazy’s for a midweek Casiotone for the Painfully Alone gig. Although he had a head cold the gig was more entertaining than when we caught him in Brooklyn late last year, great chat and occasional accompaniment livening things up.
Support was an Edinburgh band called Meursault who’s albulm Pissing on Bonfires I picked up and have been listening to fairly regularly at work – well worth checking out their myspace.
Last weekend we tasted quite a wide range of musical genres – after a quiet patch through jan & feb it was quite a bit to take in at once.
Starting on Friday night after suffereing horrendous disco battling my way to fourth place in my office bowling night, we crammed into the basement of the Liquid Ship to catch a chaotic, late but ultimately entertaining set from Claire’s friend’s band the State Broacasters. Their fun filled songs of lust & love kept us entertained till close.
On Saturday we shifted to a more formal gear and took in the new production from Scottish Opera: 5:15. The premise of five fifteen minute pieces that were collaboration between Scottish composers and writers sounded interesting, however the results were uneven at best.
Craig Armstrong with Ian Rankin was easily the most polished performance, although quite traditional. The Queens of Govan by Suhayl Saadi, composed by Nigel Osborne & Wajahat Khan contained the most interesting ideas and conceptual approach however was let down by attempting to sing opera in Scots! The other three performances were perfectly competent but didn’t seem to push any boundaries – one suspects that opera is best left to the professionals. Alexander McCall Smith’s Dream Angus was the most surreal of these and quite entertaining in parts, although more like a musical than opera (although that is quiet a fuzzy line I guess)
To crank things up to another level following the opera we changed moods and outfits and headed to town for a set by Autechre at the legendary art school club.
Their set while interesting didn’t have the same level of intensity as at Dour, it was more scatty with the connections and feedback from track to track that made that gig so special. They weren’t heped by an indifferent sound system and a crowd that weren’t there just for them. Our lack of energy may have played a part too.
With several more of our favourite acts touring March is already looking like a busy month musically – lo-fi antics from Casiotone for the Painfully Alone, some Australian electro courtesy of the Presets, and perhaps the uber-hip math rock of Foals if we can face the hipster crowd.
We tackled our less than complete greenhouse as our first significant project. Once we determined that the extisting frame wasn’t suitable for any of the pile of existing windows we have on site we distmantled most of it down to the floor (above). Having clad the back walls with the tin that had unsuccessfully formed the roof previously we then began assembling prefabricated frames from old scaffolding planks to form the front wall. While slightly over engineered they should give us a good substrate for fixing shelves and things once complete – which seems a distant prospect given the after shot below!
We had our first proper sticking around snowfall in our new flat! Hopefully the early spring will give us our own Korean collections of photos from our lounge before we move downstairs.
If you have ever wandered what our flat looks like, you can take a sneaky peak here as it is now plastered all over the internets. It could all be yours for a little more than £200 k! The photographs are actually quite poor – they have given our place a delightful eastern european washed out colour palette.
