Oh what a sleekit horrible beastie
Lurks in yer belly efter the feastie
Just as ye sit doon among yer kin
There sterts to stir an enormous wind.
The neeps and tatties and mushy peas
Stert workin like a gentle breeze
But soon the puddin wi the sauncie face
Will have ye blawin’ all ower the place.
Nae matter whit the hell ye dae
A’bodys gonnae have tae pay
Even if ye try to stifle,
It’s like a bullet oot a rifle.
Hawd yer bum tight tae the chair
Tae try and stop the leakin air
Shift yersel frae cheek tae cheek
Prae tae God it doesnae reek.
But aw yer efforts go assunder
Oot it comes like a clap a thunder
Ricochets aroon the room
Michty me, a sonic boom!
God almighty it fairly reeks;
Hope I huvnae shit ma breeks
Tae the bog I better scurry
Aw whit the hell, its no ma worry.
A’body roon aboot me chokin,
Wan or two are nearly bokin
I’ll feel better for a while
Cannae help but raise a smile.
Wis him! I shout with accusin glower,
Alas too late, he’s just keeled ower
Ye dirty bugger they shout and stare
I dinnae feel welcome any mair.
Where ere ye go let yer wind gan free
Sounds like just the job fur me
Whit a fuss at Rabbie's perty
Ower the sake o won wee ferty.
Anon.
Friday 25 January 2013
Tae a Fert
It's Burns night - one of my favourite of the year's celebrations as it involves two of my favourite things: Whisky and Haggis. It also features some decent humorous poetry although one of my favourites is not actually by Robert Burns but is dedicated to his memory. I originally heard this at a Burns supper about 15 years ago. I have no idea where it originates from but I thought it worth sharing here:
Sunday 20 January 2013
Saturday Night Starts Here
Over the last year or so I’ve been renting “classic” Doctor Who DVDs off LoveFilm. On the one hand this is a way of indulging my own geekery but it also means I have something to watch with the kids. As the disks are from episodes from the early 60s through to the late 80s (and in no particular order) I keep getting asked “which Doctor Who is this.” I did think they meant which actor was playing the lead role but I have noticed more and more that they mean which opening titles are being used. This was confirmed to me at the weekend when I re-watched the Christmas episode and Raymond commented on how the new title sequence had copied elements from the shows 50 year history:
I hadn’t really given it that much thought but one of the unique features of the show, right from the start, is that the opening titles are quite unlike anything else on TV. It’s probably the first thing I can actually remember about the show, a strange electronic signature tune and surreal psychedelic images that announced to the world: “Saturday Night Starts Here”. The actual title sequence has changed significantly over the years but it must have been quite something else back in 1963 when the first titles appeared using a technique called “Howl-Around” whereby a TV camera was turned onto it’s own monitor with bizarre effects:
The other thing to note with this title sequence was the electronic theme performed by Delia Derbyshire – utilising effects techniques that were rarely heard outside of Avant-Garde circles. She updated the music again in 1966 to go with a refreshed title sequence now featuring the face of Patrick Troughton. To my mind, this doesn’t work quite as well as the original “Howl-Around” sequence but the music does feel more imposing:
1970 brought the advent of colour TV and a new Doctor. The production team tried to reproduce the “Howl-Around” effect in colour but the results were disappointing. The actual sequence used was achieved by colourising a black-and-white image but I mostly saw this in black-and-white anyway as we didn’t have a colour TV at the time. I did occasionally see it in its full Technicolor glory at my grandparents house and was rather taken with the blood-red opening but I think it lost the idea of time-travel at this point (as did the show itself):
In 1973 the opening sequence was remade using a technique called “Slit-Scan”. This was pioneered in the film 2001: A Space Odyssey and was later used in Star Wars (the Millennium Falcon hitting light speed) and Star Trek (the Enterprise going warp-speed). If you look carefully, the Doctor Who sequence only uses a few seconds of footage but the join is seamless. This classic “time tunnel” opening is (almost) my favourite title sequence and was used for most of Tom Baker’s reign as the Doctor. It was also the first to feature the TARDIS in the titles but Baker’s first series only used the TARDIS prop two times: once to get on the Arc In Space and once to get off again:
When John Nathan Turner took over the show he replaced the time tunnel with an animated “Star Field”. Aside from looking like a mid-90’s screen-saver he also updated the music with a synthesiser arrangement by Peter Howell. In retrospect it isn’t actually that bad but at the time I was mortified as this series that was supposed to be about time-travel was now changed into one about space-travel: a kind of low-rent Star Wars. Tom Baker left at the end of the first series that utilised this sequence and it was used in amended form throughout Peter Davison’s tenure in the TARDIS (which, ironically, tended to have many stories about travelling in time but not space):
The “Star Field” was modified again for Colin Baker. He also received some revised music which, as far as I can tell, was composed on a Commodore-64. At least there was now a “hint” of time-tunnel about it:
The last title sequence of the original series featured Sylvester McCoy before he became a wizard in The Hobbit. I think the titles are a bit of an improvement as it now sounds like it was composed on mid-80s synths and the images are pleasingly surreal (why the crystal ball?) apart from “The Wink”: Why, Sylvester, why?
The Doctor Who TV Movie of 1996 finally introduced an orchestra to the proceedings. For all the failings of this venture it is clearly a stepping-stone between the low-budget series of old and the high-budget 21st Century incarnation:
Russell T Davies brought the show fully back to life in 2005 and he clearly has similar tastes to myself as far as the aesthetics of the show are concerned. The opening sequence combines the time-tunnel idea (or possibly more of a worm-hole idea going on) and even incorporates elements of the original 1963 theme tune alongside the BBC orchestra. Saturday Nights were back!
And that brings us up to date with Matt Smith’s Doctor and a revised theme and opening sequence. It’s a bit of a curate’s egg as I like the visuals but I think the theme tune is over-egging it somewhat:
So that is 50 years worth of Saturday Night Fever (apart from the 80’s when they put it on at the same time as Corrie – but I’d rather not go there). As for my favourite, it’s the “Slit-Scan” opening from the 1970s but not quite the Tom Baker one. The sequence was introduced in 1973 when Jon Pertwee was at the TARDIS controls and his version included a brief star tunnel sequence at the beginning as well as having the titles reversed at the end (to give the impression of traveling backwards). This is how Saturday Night is meant to start:
I hadn’t really given it that much thought but one of the unique features of the show, right from the start, is that the opening titles are quite unlike anything else on TV. It’s probably the first thing I can actually remember about the show, a strange electronic signature tune and surreal psychedelic images that announced to the world: “Saturday Night Starts Here”. The actual title sequence has changed significantly over the years but it must have been quite something else back in 1963 when the first titles appeared using a technique called “Howl-Around” whereby a TV camera was turned onto it’s own monitor with bizarre effects:
The other thing to note with this title sequence was the electronic theme performed by Delia Derbyshire – utilising effects techniques that were rarely heard outside of Avant-Garde circles. She updated the music again in 1966 to go with a refreshed title sequence now featuring the face of Patrick Troughton. To my mind, this doesn’t work quite as well as the original “Howl-Around” sequence but the music does feel more imposing:
1970 brought the advent of colour TV and a new Doctor. The production team tried to reproduce the “Howl-Around” effect in colour but the results were disappointing. The actual sequence used was achieved by colourising a black-and-white image but I mostly saw this in black-and-white anyway as we didn’t have a colour TV at the time. I did occasionally see it in its full Technicolor glory at my grandparents house and was rather taken with the blood-red opening but I think it lost the idea of time-travel at this point (as did the show itself):
In 1973 the opening sequence was remade using a technique called “Slit-Scan”. This was pioneered in the film 2001: A Space Odyssey and was later used in Star Wars (the Millennium Falcon hitting light speed) and Star Trek (the Enterprise going warp-speed). If you look carefully, the Doctor Who sequence only uses a few seconds of footage but the join is seamless. This classic “time tunnel” opening is (almost) my favourite title sequence and was used for most of Tom Baker’s reign as the Doctor. It was also the first to feature the TARDIS in the titles but Baker’s first series only used the TARDIS prop two times: once to get on the Arc In Space and once to get off again:
When John Nathan Turner took over the show he replaced the time tunnel with an animated “Star Field”. Aside from looking like a mid-90’s screen-saver he also updated the music with a synthesiser arrangement by Peter Howell. In retrospect it isn’t actually that bad but at the time I was mortified as this series that was supposed to be about time-travel was now changed into one about space-travel: a kind of low-rent Star Wars. Tom Baker left at the end of the first series that utilised this sequence and it was used in amended form throughout Peter Davison’s tenure in the TARDIS (which, ironically, tended to have many stories about travelling in time but not space):
The “Star Field” was modified again for Colin Baker. He also received some revised music which, as far as I can tell, was composed on a Commodore-64. At least there was now a “hint” of time-tunnel about it:
The last title sequence of the original series featured Sylvester McCoy before he became a wizard in The Hobbit. I think the titles are a bit of an improvement as it now sounds like it was composed on mid-80s synths and the images are pleasingly surreal (why the crystal ball?) apart from “The Wink”: Why, Sylvester, why?
The Doctor Who TV Movie of 1996 finally introduced an orchestra to the proceedings. For all the failings of this venture it is clearly a stepping-stone between the low-budget series of old and the high-budget 21st Century incarnation:
Russell T Davies brought the show fully back to life in 2005 and he clearly has similar tastes to myself as far as the aesthetics of the show are concerned. The opening sequence combines the time-tunnel idea (or possibly more of a worm-hole idea going on) and even incorporates elements of the original 1963 theme tune alongside the BBC orchestra. Saturday Nights were back!
And that brings us up to date with Matt Smith’s Doctor and a revised theme and opening sequence. It’s a bit of a curate’s egg as I like the visuals but I think the theme tune is over-egging it somewhat:
So that is 50 years worth of Saturday Night Fever (apart from the 80’s when they put it on at the same time as Corrie – but I’d rather not go there). As for my favourite, it’s the “Slit-Scan” opening from the 1970s but not quite the Tom Baker one. The sequence was introduced in 1973 when Jon Pertwee was at the TARDIS controls and his version included a brief star tunnel sequence at the beginning as well as having the titles reversed at the end (to give the impression of traveling backwards). This is how Saturday Night is meant to start:
Monday 14 January 2013
Ziggy Returns
It was a surprise, albeit a happy one, when I turned the breakfast news last Tuesday morning. At first, I didn’t have the sound on but could see a montage of David Bowie on the screen. I couldn’t think of any reason that he would be appearing on the half hour bulletin so my initial reaction was somewhat apprehensive as I thought he may have died (he isn’t known for being in the greatest of health). However, the news was far more cheerful: a new single and a new album – the first for 10 years. Having listened to the single, I rather like it: his voice may be frail compared to years gone by but the emotion is still there.
This all lead to a discussion in the office about what his best records were. It also seems to split between those that like him and those that don’t – some people just don’t get him but even amongst those there was a begrudging acceptance that Life On Mars, Rebel Rebel and Space Oddity were pretty good records. For me, I tend to listen to Bowie on an album-by-album basis and there are albums whereby the individual songs may not stand out but the album as a whole works: Diamond Dogs is a good example of this. However, it is difficult to pick out a favourite when his output has varied from pop to avant-garde. If I was to pick out one album that exemplified Bowie the songwriter I would pick Hunky Dory; as a performer Ziggy Stardust; for Bowie the artist I would go for Low and for his later output I often come back to the excellent Heathen album from 2002.
So what are my favourite Bowie songs? I could quite happily listen to Life On Mars on loop for hours but there are many album tracks which I think are often overlooked. "God Knows I'm Good" from the Space Oddity album is a quirky little folk story about a shoplifter; “All the Madmen” from The Man Who Sold The World is one of several songs he wrote about his mentally ill brother; all of side 2 of Low just sweeps over me – Philip Glass produced a symphony based on this which actually sounded more pop than the original. There are other later tracks which get overlooked: I still think Loving The Alien was one of his best singles of the 80s (even if the rest of the Tonight album was largely forgettable) and he has produced several excellent songs for soundtracks – Absolute Beginners (again the highlight of an otherwise duff film); When The Wind Blows (the title track of the devastatingly miserable Raymond Briggs satire); and The Buddha of Suburbia – a seemingly forgotten BBC series from the 1990s which was, to my mind, the best thing Bowie did during that decade.
It looks like the new single has gone into the singles chart at No 6 – his first top 10 since 1992. That means that there is a whole generation of kids who will never have seen a new Bowie single in the charts: the X-Factor Generation. The Next Day album is due to be released in March: I’m looking forward to it but I can’t help feeling that this not so much a new beginning as a final goodbye.
This all lead to a discussion in the office about what his best records were. It also seems to split between those that like him and those that don’t – some people just don’t get him but even amongst those there was a begrudging acceptance that Life On Mars, Rebel Rebel and Space Oddity were pretty good records. For me, I tend to listen to Bowie on an album-by-album basis and there are albums whereby the individual songs may not stand out but the album as a whole works: Diamond Dogs is a good example of this. However, it is difficult to pick out a favourite when his output has varied from pop to avant-garde. If I was to pick out one album that exemplified Bowie the songwriter I would pick Hunky Dory; as a performer Ziggy Stardust; for Bowie the artist I would go for Low and for his later output I often come back to the excellent Heathen album from 2002.
So what are my favourite Bowie songs? I could quite happily listen to Life On Mars on loop for hours but there are many album tracks which I think are often overlooked. "God Knows I'm Good" from the Space Oddity album is a quirky little folk story about a shoplifter; “All the Madmen” from The Man Who Sold The World is one of several songs he wrote about his mentally ill brother; all of side 2 of Low just sweeps over me – Philip Glass produced a symphony based on this which actually sounded more pop than the original. There are other later tracks which get overlooked: I still think Loving The Alien was one of his best singles of the 80s (even if the rest of the Tonight album was largely forgettable) and he has produced several excellent songs for soundtracks – Absolute Beginners (again the highlight of an otherwise duff film); When The Wind Blows (the title track of the devastatingly miserable Raymond Briggs satire); and The Buddha of Suburbia – a seemingly forgotten BBC series from the 1990s which was, to my mind, the best thing Bowie did during that decade.
It looks like the new single has gone into the singles chart at No 6 – his first top 10 since 1992. That means that there is a whole generation of kids who will never have seen a new Bowie single in the charts: the X-Factor Generation. The Next Day album is due to be released in March: I’m looking forward to it but I can’t help feeling that this not so much a new beginning as a final goodbye.
Sunday 6 January 2013
Rummelpott
This year, we spent New Year at our friends’ farm near Schleswig in Northern Germany. We went by ferry, partly due to cost, partly due to not wanting to be abused at the airports but mainly because there are no convenient flights to that part of the world from Scotland. Scotland has a reputation as the New Year party location with huge Hogmanay parties in Edinburgh and other major towns but many countries have their own interesting traditions and Scheswig’s tradition is the Rummelpott.
The weather whilst we were away was pretty dreadful. There is usually snow on the ground at this time and when we have done Rummelpott before the younger children have been towed around on a sled. There was no chance of it this year as we appear to have arrived during the monsoon season. Fortunately the rain mostly held off for the Rummelpott and during the tour of the village our children somehow amassed 4.5 Kg of sweets. In fact I had to carry the bag for Sophia as she was struggling to lift the thing. We were struggling to walk straight as well as that is one serious amount of Schnapps to be drinking in one go and I'm sure that someone was propped up at the Burgermeister's house.
The other big thing with German Silvester celebrations is fireworks at midnight. This has some similarity with Hogmanay celebrations but it is much more common for each family to buy their own rockets. These were the ones we had. (Incidentally, that is a picture of the rockets next to a lit candle – they were actually sitting in the candle jar before I had the foresight to remove them: although this is also the village that has a cigarette machine outside the fire station, so what can I say?)
I took the kids out for a walk on New Years Day and they spent most of the time greeting on about being removed from the comfort of the television. However, I did find something that rather appealed to my sense of local history. I had noticed a sign next to the road near Lottorf but always assumed it was indicating some utility access. Having walked closer to it I noticed that it indicated the location of a military grave:
The text reads (as best as I can make out): Hier ruht ein Kaiserlich Österreichischen Krieger gefallen am 3 Febr 1864 (Here rests an Imperial Austrian Warrior fallen on the 3rd February 1864)
Having done some research, this appears to be from the Battle for Königshügel during the Second Schleswig War. This is about 4Km away near Selk but I’m not sure whether this was an official grave or whether it was just local people giving the soldier a decent burial. Whatever the reason the grave does appear to be well tended in spite of the moss on the headstone. There is actually a larger memorial to the battle in Selk but there doesn't seem to be any reference to this lone, nameless Austrian soldier.
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