Nuthin to say?

I'm not very good at this blogging thing.

It's not that I've got nothing to talk about. It's not that I have no opinions, no hopes, concerns, interests or life. It's just that I'm never really that sure anyone else wants to hear my thoughts on the state of the economy, the transport infrastructure of Edinburgh, the beautiful game, whisky, interior design, music, or indeed life.

Truth be told, as I'm going about my day, I'll be pondering some issue or other, and I occasionally think to myself, "Hey, I should write about this on my blog". Then by the time I get round to it, I've either forgotten what I was going to talk about, or it really doesn't seem all that important any more.

The list of topics, above, are all things I have had the intention of writing about but never got round to at the time, and then when I started doing something about it, the moment had passed and I could no longer be bothered.

I'm not so conceited as to think that anyone is really very interested in reading my every move or thought in Twitter stylee, and nor do I feel that need to impart my wisdom to lesser mortals or tell anyone how they should lead their life. But maybe that is what Web 2.0 is all about, perhaps cyberland (cyberia?) demands it!

So, I suppose the secret is, do it quickly and do it often. Too much procrastination leads to postponement and eventually cancellation.

I'm off for a lie down, that took it out of me. I leave you with a funny picture.

Nationwide is yer lot

It's never that great a feeling. The sense of impending doom when you bend down to pick up the mail from behind the door and it's an envelope with a little plastic window on the front.

I mean, how often has it turned out to be your bank offering to refund all those charges they've hit you with over the years? (Which you should be the process of reclaiming) Or the power company telling you they've decided to drop the prices of gas and electricity?

Not often I'll wager, so I was expecting something not that barry when the latest was lying on my doormat. But when I ripped open the envelope and pulled this little sucker out I wasn't too worried.

The Nationwide bank after all are the good gadgies of the banking world. They run their business properly and profitably. I like to think of them as the bank equivalent of The Guardian (when nepotism goes wrong) newspaper. They are the cats who don't charge you for taking money out or using your card abroad. Who needs traveller's cheques? Why carry your entire spending money for your trip around with you after getting it changed at M&S the week before you leave? (If you're organised that is, often it was a last minute dash to the Post Office on my way to the airport.)

And we get these things all the time, telling us that the interest rate we receive on our savings has dropped to 0.05% per annum or some other boring information about something or other.

Ostensibly it was the same as any other mundane circular, but within its folds was the news that as of 1st June 2009, the bank will now pass on any charges they incur as a result of 'transactions in certain currencies other than sterling'. The bank has, until now, covered these charges but it will now be hitting us with a fee every time we use our Nationwide Visa card on a non-Sterling transaction.

The only reason I got a Nationwide account in the first place was because they offered the free overseas transactions. Until recently they built their advertising on it. Remember of the guy from the ad saying 'Think of it as a tip'? So for them now to do a U-turn this policy is a bit rich. (Pardon the pun)

I know that the bank will point to this as a necessary measure to remain a properly run and profitable business. And I am also aware that the charges exclude the Visa Europe region where you can still get charge free transactions. But what about the rest of the world?

The main point is that it wasn't so long ago they were using the very fact that they didn't charge for using your card abroad as a marketing tool. To paraphrase another of their ads; they used it to hoik people in.

Makes my head spin

I've been promising to write about the club for a while and here it is.
It was Headspin's 11th birthday last weekend, on January 24th. A quite scary figure that I never thought we would reach. I was just 22 when I started the gig and would have been happy for it to last five or six years. I think it must be a bit like how you count a dog's age, though maybe not quite multiplied by seven. In club terms we're now surely beyond middle age and approaching retirement, so multiply by a factor of 5 and we're about 55 now. That puts us up with a few legends of Edinburgh clubland, alongside the likes of Pure, Manga, and Tribal Function.
I make no secret of the fact that I've reached something of a crossroads with regards to my own feelings about the club. I feel I do the lion's share of the work in promoting the event and lay out any cash that needs to be spent, but when it comes to who gets to play, I take my turn just like everyone else and I will always be the last to get paid when we make any profit.
The reason I started the club in the first place was to give myself a chance to play out, to let people hear the music I thought was good enough to play loud and dance to. Somehow recently it has turned round to being that everyone must get the same chance to play and I have to wait my turn like a Muscovite standing in a queue for a loaf of bread. I don't want to be a Nazi about it and insist that I always play at peak time or anything like that, but the style of music I tend to play is undeniably suited to being played at that time.
So putting a lot of work in, investing time and money promoting the thing, only to get to play two half hour sets once a month and probably not get paid doesn't really seem worth it.
My feelings were brought into focus at the new year event when I got the distinct feeling that the club has run it's course; that what we had always done had ceased to be relevant, and our attempts at keeping up-to-date by playing the most up-front and recent tunes was a bit desperate and reactionary. We've never really been about playing the freshest, most recent tunes. We've always kept up to date with what's going on musically but we've never been a slave to the trends, fashions and fads of the day. We've done our own thing and it has been an almost timeless selection that spans decades but fits together like it was all made to be played together.

Over the past 18 months or so it has become a real problem getting the guest DJs we have wanted to play at the club. Deciding upon someone we are all happy with - who we think will play across the board enough to suit the music policy, but also being a big enough name to draw a good crowd, yet still sticking within the budget of what we could expect to recoup - has become more and more difficult and we're running out of names. When we do decide on someone the next challenge is trying to secure them for a reasonable price. This has proved really frustrating recently and I've been continually let down by agents who don't respond to my emails or feel they can get their artists more money elsewhere.

No disrespect to any of the guests we have had on over the past year and a half but many of them wouldn't have been first choice had we been able to secure the people we wanted. Others who we were sure would do well and were excited about have turned out to be less of a draw than we had expected and we've ended up either losing a bit of cash on it or just breaking even.

Obviously nothing can continue running at a loss so if things don't improve in that regard the decision will be made for me.

But I don't want you to think it is all negative; if it was it would be an easy decision to walk away and finish it up now.

On the plus side, we do have DJ Format booked in for February. He has been with us twice before and is a great DJ who is usually pretty popular. On top of that he is also a really sound guy, and probably one of only two or three guests I have booked who I would say have developed into being mates of mine. So I'm looking forward to hooking up with Format again and spending a bit of time with him.

At the birthday party at the end of last month it turned out to be a really good night as well. I enjoyed it much more than at new year. There was a good, happy, party vibe; the dancefloor stayed busy all night and everyone enjoyed themselves. We played a lot of classic tunes, not bothering with too much new stuff. We didn't stick to the rostered times but instead mixed it up with each of us putting a couple of tunes on then the next person jumping in. It left me feeling much more involved and raised the energy levels of the music. At the end someone finished off with Public Enemy's 'He Got Game'. Wouldn't have been my choice but I didn't put the last one on.


In the past couple of weeks one or two people have talked to me about how important they think Headspin is and how it is one of the only clubs of its type left and that Edinburgh needs it to continue. This wasn't anyone who knew that I was considering the future of the club but still they were enthusing about it and talking about how good it was. Their enthusiasm made me feel a bit better about things, but I wish more of the clubbing population shared those positive feelings and enthusiasm.

I don't want our audience to become apathetic and Headspin to fade away, tarnishing the memory of what it once was. If I feel that is happening I will have to pull the plug.

Big Smoke

Last weekend me and my bird went to London for a nice long weekend to catch up with a few mates.

We took the Friday and Monday off work and caught the train at 11.30 am from Edinburgh Waverley. In an unusual and controversial move, we decided not to get steaming. We remained true to ourselves and didn't go to the pub at the station, didn't get a cargo for the train, and certainly didn't pay over the odds for a miniature can of warm Heineken from the trolley. I was tempted by about the time we got to York though; when the novelty of the train has worn off, you can't be bothered playing cards, and it's a bit annoying sharing the headphones of the iPod.

So we got there about 4ish and made our way to London Bridge where we then had a supposedly short walk past Tower Bridge to the pub we were meeting our mates Hilary and Tim who we were staying with. Hil and Tim came along once they finished work, we had a couple of pints with them then went back to theirs in Bermondsey, had a spot of dinner, stayed in and got a bit wellied drinking red wine and cocktails amongst other things.

Woke up in the morning feeling a tad rough but a cooked breakfast sorted us out and we all went off to the Tate Modern on the south bank. We had passes which entitled us to get into the paid exhibitions as well as the members café area. They currently have a Rothko exhibition so we went to check that out. Now I like art, I like abstract art, I like expressionism and I like surrealism; but I must say that I don't really dig his stuff. The clincher was when I went into one of the exhibition rooms and there was all these folk scratching their chins and staring intently at a large canvas painted completely black. To their right was another large canvas also painted completely black, and another to their left, and another behind. In some other rooms there were about 20 versions of a floating red frame on a red background. In his own words - I'll paraphrase slightly - 'If a thing is worth doing once, it is worth repeating again and again, exploring the possibilities'. That is fair enough, but how many versions of that do we really need? Move on to something else.

So after all that we were ready for a drink and a scran and had arranged to meet more pals so looked for a boozer to get a pint. Being a Saturday afternoon, everywhere was packed out, but we eventually got a seat and ordered some food. Our pal Louise came along and met us and a few more people were on their way. My pal from my Fopp days, Christophe, and his bird came and met us. It was great to catch up with them cos I've hardly seen Christophe for the last couple of years, and he's been living in London for 9 months or so and I haven't seen him at all since then. Unfortunately he was made redundant for the second time in 18 months recently, but aside from that he was in good form and seems to be enjoying himself in London.

Another pal, Dan, came and met us, as did Ian and Justin and Debs. Christophe and Gemma left and shortly after that my old mucker, Neil, came along with his lemon, Kate. We had a good few drinks before we decided it would be best to head back to Hil and Tim's where we could relax a bit. The usual kind of nonsense ensued, along with lots of booze. The night ended with me and Tim jumping from couch to couch like a kind of living room assault course. Mel tried it as well but fell off and landed on her arse. She's still complaining about a sore arse now, and it's not even been my birthday.

Didn't feel too bad the next day but plans for a walk up Hampstead Heath were shelved for a pub lunch and trip to the cinema. After lunch and a couple of pints we shelved the plans for the cinema in favour of a DVD and an Indian takeaway.

Next day we were traveling home on the 1.30 pm train but first I wanted to go to the Design Museum which was only a ten minute walk away. Tim has a membership so we got in for free again. They had some ceramics exhibition which was ok, but they also had an exhibition by illustrator Alan Aldridge, the Man with the Kaleidoscope Eyes. He came to prominence in the 60s and his stuff is really cool. He illustrated lyric books for the Beatles, album covers for The Who and Elton John, illustrated children's books such as The Butterfly Ball and designed adverts and identities for iconic brands such as the Hard Rock Café.

After that it was a quick lunch then off to catch the train home. Got a bottle of wine for the journey this time, having learned our lesson on the way down. Eventually got home after a delay at Newcastle and got dinner, wine, bath and bed in that order.

A cracking weekend in all, though not cheap. Even though we got into the exhibitions free I still spent about £170 over the weekend, not including travel, and my bird would have spent about the same.

This weekend I am all about Headspin's 11th birthday party which is on tonight. I'll let you know soon how it went and tell you about some of my thoughts on the future of Headspin.

Stay cool now, ye hear?

Three years later

So after a hiatus of over three years I'm resurrecting my old blog. I should have waited until Easter to be traditional.
The thing is, it's easy to lose enthusiasm for it when you're unsure anyone ever actually reads the thing. So, if you do happen across this and want to see more of my musings please leave a comment saying whatever you like.
In the intervening three years and a few months I've become married, moved house, moved job, moved from PC to Mac, joined a band, been chucked out a band, got drunk approximately 300 times, been to three funerals, two weddings and on two overseas holidays.
I've had about twelve new favourite bands, I've bought less records than ever before, I've read a few good books and a lot of mediocre books. I've watched a lot of films, but I still don't get the subtleties and imagery that I'm sure are hidden away by the more accomplished directors.
I've become more cynical and less patient of fools but understand that it's important to try to be nice to people. I still can't stand bigots, racists, fascists, idiots, morons, cheats, liars and the lazy.
Here's a picture I took on Christmas day three years ago.

Let's not leave it so long next time, eh.

Vive la France

Happy holiday had by all. A few stressed out moments along the way but mainly good times, good food, good company and good wine.
Must not grumble.
More later...

G8 to fuck

Well last week was a bit of a mad one.

The Make Poverty History march through Edinburgh on the Saturday attracted a crowd of about 200,00 middle class families who thought that hanging out in the Meadows and walking through the streets might bring an end to the suffering of millions in developing countries. Did it fuck, will it fuck.
The cost of policing and stewarding the thing would have went some way to helping though.
Does it help raise public awareness or convince politicians to do more? Does it fuck.
Does it make these twats think they're doing something useful and worthwhile for an afternoon before they fuck off back to their semi-detached in the suburbs in their 4x4 and stop off at Domino's Pizza on the way so they can fill their face with overpriced, under nutritious grease soaked cardboard washed down with 3 litres of Coca Cola and 5 gallon tub of Haagen Daz? Of course it fuckin does.
Anyway, I was there too and it would have been pretty shite if there hadn't been a squad of us getting pissed. Check the link for a picture of some of us earlier on in the afternoon. http://http://photos.newconsumer.org/images/photos/full/IMG_1526.JPG
Monday was better but still it was almost pointless.
Started out well. I skived off work so I could go on the anti-capitalist demo and there was a bit of a buzz around the city centre. Lots of photographers hanging around and all the shops had security staff on the door looking a bit nervous.
It started off in very good spirits though. There was a heavy police presence but that didn't matter, we were in the main group with the drummers and the clowns, and a few folk with scarves over their faces and we wear wearing our rubber George Bush masks we had bought for the occasion. Marched up to the financial district and were then forced down a side street and blocked off at both ends by riot police and basically held there for a couple of hours while the shit kicked off elsewhere. There were a few scuffles with people getting frustrated at being kept against our will when it had been peaceful but nothing too major.
Once we eventually got out of there after having to get searched and give our names and shit we went to the pub and drank quite a bit before heading off to find some action. It was mainly done but the police were still pushing folk around and telling them where they could and couldn't walk for no apparant reason.
We walked along a bit and there were a few hundred people gathered with a bunch of them throwing bricks and stuff at the busies but it all seemed fucking ridiculous to me. No one is actually making a point by throwing a brick and it makes fuck all difference to the police. To them it's just a reason to break your head and chuck you in a cell.
I went to the pub.
Next thing there's more fighting and shit on the Wednesday at Gleneagles and then bombs going off all over the place in London.
Why doesn't everyone just chill the fuck out?