T&C – Page 5 – wandering architects

paris & london with mum & dad

Mum & Dad came to visit through September. After a couple of weeks with my aunt & uncle in Lyon we met them in Paris, where gorgeous weather let us explore all the highlights, Eiffel Tower, Louvre (outside at least) Notre Dame, Monmartre and the Sacre Coure.

Catching the eurostar we moved on to London for a couple of days where some decidedly British weather kept us a little housebound (luckily we were staying in a spacious modernist gem of an apartment in Bloomsbury so all was not lost).

M&D provided an excuse to do all the tourist things we would never dream of in our usual east-end hipster type jaunts to the capital. Dad and Tim went up the London eye, we saw the crown jewels at the Tower of London and said g’day to Liz at Buckingham Palace. We also managed to catch up with Touch and meet Annalise her new super-cute baby and have a birthday dinner for me to catch up with all the Glasgow expatriates of the credit crunch!

Having squeezed all of that in we were suitably exhausted by the time we collapsed onto the East Coast mainline for the scenic ride back to Glasgow.

festival fun

We managed to squeeze in quite a few trips to Edinburgh to catch the festival action this year. A lot of our interest centred on the visual arts, including a visit to the newly opened though somewhat underwhelming Jupiter Artland.

The highlight was a performance by the Royal Ballet of Flanders of Return of Ulysses which was mesmerizing, powerful yet stark. Scottish enfant terrible Michael Clark’s New Work – was suitably mad yet lack coherence and felt forced and overly stylised.

As per usual most fringe acts didn’t seem worth the entry price although Kristen Schaal of Flight of the Conchords fame was quite entertaining!

sports in yorkshire

Late in summer we had a taste of Yorkshire sporting action (and an introduction to real ale) with a weekend down in England. On teh Saturday we watched our friend James’ team Sheffield Wednesday succumb to Barnsley in the Championship before seeing Australia wrap up the Headingly test in Leeds on the Sunday while Chhay toured the modernist edifices of post-industrial Sheffield.

Interspersed was an intense game of backyard cricket at James’ parents place in Derbyshire where the wildly swinging gaffer taped tennis ball was introduce to much acclaim!

stereo sounds

A couple of comments on gigs we attended at stereo in August.

First up was a bit of a punt on Crystal Stilts with Veronica Falls in support. They were actually a bit crap, quite messy and not as good as their studio work – cool brooklyn kids who weren’t that interested.

A couple of days later, in a vindicated a spur of the moment decision we went to see Israeli punks Monotonix. They were totally mental and it was absolute madness madness with four hairy sweaty guys in speedos traipsing all over the venue, playing on the bar, getting audience members to support their drum kit and stool above their heads while they played! As well as (or perhaps in spite of) their great show they also happened to be good musicians.

the lakes weekender

Ullswater from Side Famr — Ullswater from Side Farm

The annual mountain goats weekender headed south this year to Ullswater in the lakes district. The campsite was the incredibly located Side Farm with amazing views across the lake (Above).

Eschewing the energetic hill walks or mountain biking expeditions to nearby Helvellyn Chhay & I opted instead for a more lesiurely sail on the lake in true Swallows & Amazon’s style.

Miserable weather on the Sunday kept us to a short lakeside walk before a languid afternnon tea in nearby Pooley Bridge. Oswald proved very popular with the kids who claimed him as their castle during the days.

some australia nostalgia

We dragged a bunch of our mates along to The Luckmiths farewell gig at Stereo. Chhay met up with them before the gig (they were pretty impressed with Stereo’s location right next to Central station and tasty selection of vegan food) before we headed down to catch the very twee supports.

Their set included all the classics and their typical high quality banter – they left our friends suitably impressed and a little sad that this was the only time that they would see them.

Chhay & I really appreciated the chance to see them before they disband, I think the Australian shows would have been amazing. See if you can spot us in the photo below!

i heart hiroshima

Way back in the dark ages we popped in to the twisted wheel to catch Brisbane pop rockers I Heart Hiroshima. We were incredibly tight and played an entertaining set to a tiny audience. Their drummer was as incredible and hypnotic as ever.

On their tour blog they noted this show as the best of the tour – I hope they at least got a few more people to see them at the other venues!

eiff

We made the first of many jaunts across to Edinburgh over the festival season to sample some of the Edinburgh Internation Film Festival. Unfortunately most of the films we wanted to see were sold out, so we killed time playing hopscotch in front of the castle and trying the rather expensive (but pretty good) dumplings at Chop Chop

We did manage to catch the quite surreal but fairly entertaining low budget flick ‘Modern Love is Automatic’, late in the evening to justify our trip.

indie poptastic at the flying duck

The Smittens have defined the soundtrack of our trips in Oswald thsi year with their song The Interstate, they are friends of our firend Katie’s band the Zebras, and we missed them at Indietracks last year so we were reuqired to attend this twee pop extravaganza.

We were packed into the back room of the Flying Duck (decked out as a kitchen, although there was no toast) and the cardigan count was pretty high, but everyone had a good time. Locals the Just Joans were just so, while the Specific Heats were great (and cute) possibly the best act on the night.

By the evidence of this bunch its seems a requirement that all twee pop bands have female drummers.

walking for lunch

The mountain goats have been pretty quiet this year with leader of the heard Niall Iain lame. Chhay, Marja and I did manage a rather pathetic stroll near Loch Fyne, all to justify an extravagant lunch at the expensive-but as good as we had been told-Loch Fyne Oyster Bar!