Archive
Atlantic crossing
Thanks to the miracle of Catch-up TV I am now Catching-up with the HBO series, Newsroom. So far I’m pretty impressed. I have never seen Dumb and Dumber, but I will avoid it, for after this I could not imagine Jeff Daniels trying to play an idiot. It’s a classic piece of Aaron Sorkin, with all the virtues and vices of West Wing, the rapid fire dialogue, the politics and the will-they/won’t they sexual chemistry, with a triangle thrown in. If the fictional ACN’s News Night was a real programme, I’d watch it, for sure, ahead of the BBC version.
Music while I work
Arrogance ignorance and Greed – Show of Hands. Thanks to my friend Mike for the tip.
Jolly
Am I wrong or is Bryan Ferry looking more and more like Rikki Fulton, the older he gets?
Mud on the tyres
I have just driven to Haddington and back, and arrived home wearing my Mr Grumpy hat. Isn’t it time that farmers were obliged to clear up, on pain of a financial penalty, the crap, mud, etc that their vehicles leave on the public highway?
Music while I work
In Time – REM. To get me in the mood for going to the dentist, and also because it contains a wonderful version of ‘Star Me Kitten’, with vocals by W S Burroughs.
Open wide
Lowlight of my day: I’m going to the dentist in an hour.
Stranger sets sail
And so farewell Mr Acker Bilk. I go back to the Trad Jazz days of the Sixties, when all the top bands played the old St Andrews Halls in Glasgow. Acker was the only one I didn’t see live, but there were plenty of tales of him in the surrounding pubs. As a young man I once tried to match the scrumpy record that he set in a pub called the Avalon. Big, big mistake.
Music while I work
Stacey Kent – Close your Eyes. In preparation for hearing her sing live, next Sunday in the Queen’s Hall, Edinburgh.
Thanks
To everyone I met on my signing tour yesterday, thank you for being there. And many thanks also to GM for arranging everything, for the constant tweeting and doing the driving.
PS Good luck to Robert Topping, a true bookseller, and to his family. I look forward to meeting up again, next time I’m in St Andrews.
Music while I work
Two Men with the Blues – Willie Nelson and Wynton Marsalis . . . . . and it’s Live!
Copped it
Is that the end of Scott and Bailey, after only four seasons of the ITV flagship cop show? It looked that way last night, with one of the three lead characters retiring, another applying for a new job, the third seemingly bound for stardom in the force, and Rachel’s sket of a mother killed off.
If that is how it plays out, the producers have probably timed it right, for a concept that is overtly sexist, and an affront to health education, cannot go on for ever, however entertaining it might be.
The worst thing its makers could do would be to bow to the critics and continue the show with a male actor as the third lead player. It was what it was, and it was brilliant, but its time is up.
Gone
After looking up Loretta Lynn, I checked out Jimmy Scott, to discover that he died last June aged 88, unremarked upon by the British media, most of whom had never heard of him, I’ll wager. Their loss, for he was a true great. If you don’t believe me, check out the catalogue he left behind him, from his younger days with Lionel Hampton right up to the recordings he made in his seventies. There will never be another.
Music while I work
To all the girls: WIllie Nelson.(It was a gift, okay.) The old guy duetting with 18 very high class ladies, including his daughter Paula, and Loretta Lynn, who’s even older than him. In her dotage, she sounds remarkably like Jimmy Scott.
Infamous 5
It’s all very Hallowe’en at Restaurant Mark Greenaway, Monday October 27
March 7, 2015; a date for the diary
I had a fine time last night at a dinner hosted by Ian Rankin and Mark Greenaway, in the latter’s multi-rosetted restaurant at 69 North Castle Street, Edinburgh. The intimate event was the precursor to a much larger project, ‘The Big Dinner’, the brainchild of the wonderful Olivia Giles, CEO of the charity ‘500 Miles’, which supplies artificial limbs and other prosthetics to amputees in Zambia and Malawi.
‘The Big Dinner’ will take place on March 7, when thousands of people will sit down to eat at venues all around the country, with the goal of raising at least £500,000, to get people back on their feet. To be part of this unique and exciting evening, follow this link:
Last night was part of the preparation for the project. Its purpose will become clear as the promotion of ‘The Big Dinner’ is rolled out over the next few months. All I’ll say for now is that there were five writers round the table, the other guests being that formidably talented trio, Lin Anderson, Hardeep Singh Kohli, and Sara Sheridan, all of us being filmed and interviewed as we enjoyed the work of the real star of the evening, Chef Mark.
For example, this is his Chicken and Potato Pressé,
complemented by beetroot meringue, pickled heritage plums, goats cheese parfait and bread tuille.
If you’d like to try it, this is where you’ll find it and the rest of his unique and imaginative Scottish menu:
There was much interesting conversation: (the best of it wasn’t recorded). My only regret is that I was driving, for I know a good wine by its nose.
Note the date again: March 7, 2015.
Frustration
A new experience: being involved in a minor traffic accident in a car park then discovering that the driver of the other vehicle, a middle-aged geezer who lives and works in Edinburgh, does not speak a single word of English.
Early dark
The day I hate; the last Sunday in October.
Music while I work
The Early Years, Vol 2: Tom Waits
Rex doesn’t get it yet ‘cos he’s only eight months old, but one day he will, I promise.
On Fire
I am something of a geek. If it’s out there I’ll buy it. This month’s acquisition is a thing called Amazon Fire TV. It’s their version of Apple TV, but it’s easier to use and lets you access all the music you’ve ever bought from Amazon, plus pics etc. Crucially it lets you access Netflix as well as Amazon Prime. So far it’s a winner.
Quintin Jardine's blog 