Heroes

I was saddened to hear of the death of Neil Armstrong this mornig. I was born before men landed on the Moon but wasn’t old enough to remember the night of the Apollo XI landing or to initially appreciate the enormity of what Armstrong and NASA had achieved. I grew up when men went into space and landed on the Moon almost as a routine thing:  it was what mankind did and what we were striving for (at least that and tempting nuclear annihilation) so it just seemed like the way things were.  I was, however, old enough to remember men actually being on the Moon and can distinctly remember walking through the local swing-park and being told that there were men standing on the Moon at that very moment. I looked long and hard at the bright disc in the sky and strained my eyes desperately trying to see them. However, I grew to appreciate that this was one of the most remarkable achievements of all time and even had a picture on my bedroom wall of Neil Armstrong standing on the lunar surface.

It is almost 40 years since men last went to the Moon. It’s difficult to say when they will go back but I suspect that if they do they will most likely be Chinese rather than American or Russian adventurers. However, Neil Armstrong and his fellow astronauts (and cosmonauts, for that matter) were a huge inspiration for me and my generation. I even once applied for a job as an astronaut – I didn’t get very far but, oddly enough, the woman who was selected now works with my brother at the National  Physical Laboratory. I never had the chance to meet Neil Armstrong. Despite being one of the most famous men on the planet he was also a very private individual but he still had time for people. One of my work colleagues did meet him whilst over in America a few years ago and he was more than happy for them to pose for a photograph with him.

I’m interested to see who the heroes to today’s children are. There doesn’t seem to be the same ambition of wanting to be an astronaut or explorer. I think many children seem more impressed with the latest Apple consumer electronics gadget than rocket science. It would be easy to dismiss modern idols as being vacuous publicity seekers but I think the Olympics have shown that many children still aspire to be the Usain Bolts, Mo Farahs or Jessica Ennises of this world (or, in my own son’s case, the next Andy Murray). Outside of that, I think there are still individuals who inspire the best in young people – it’s just that the frontiers that are being pushed are somewhat closer to home.

Of course this still didn’t stop some halfwit on the BBC commenting on the tired old Apollo landing conspiracy theorists. I thought they had rather disappeared back into the woodwork now that modern telescopes had been able to show the landing sites in quite some detail. However, there are still a few people who insist it never happened. A few years ago Buzz Aldrin actually punched someone in the face for hectoring him about this. Maybe, it’s not the most politically correct thing to do but I’m sure we have all wanted to deck a wanton idiot at times.

Highly Strung

Since I was wandering past the guitar shop in Falkirk on Saturday I decided to buy myself some new guitar strings. I should have bought new ones ages ago but I never managed to get around to it and I am both tight fisted and very lazy. I’m usually forced into this when one of the things snap but they had remained resolutely intact – even if they were fraying a little at the ends. I’ve seen guides that say that nylon strings are best changed every 5 or 6 weeks. I’m rather of the opinion that such advice is put out by string manufacturers as I am sure it’s been 5 or 6 years since I’ve swapped them – and I think I’ve remembered the reason why.

Changing guitar strings is a fiddly pain-in-the-neck job but after they are swapped over the tone of the instrument is warm and bright. It took me about 40 minutes to swap them (it’s a while since I last did it) and tried out playing Led Zeppelin’s Babe, I’m going to leave you which always sounds fantastic on a classical instrument. At least it did for the first couple of minutes, after which it started sounding a bit off. I did wonder if it was my playing but the top strings had actually dropped a whole tone. After some quick retuning I tried again and it rapidly dropped a semitone. In fact, I couldn’t get the way through anything without the damned thing retuning itself. I tried the old trick of stretching the strings but it still refused to hold a note – a bit like my singing voice, in fact.

After a while, the guitar did seem to be capable of keeping a tuning. However, it was only after picking it up again in the morning that I noticed it was completely out again. In fact it still played harmoniously but the whole thing had dropped by over a tone. I tuned it up again and even checked it against an online guitar tuner which rather pointed out that I don’t have quite as perfect pitch as I was led to believe. I think it’s started to level out now so hopefully I won’t have to constantly fiddle with the thing. I’m also not going to go messing about with alternate tunings – which is how I usually break the things in the first place.

Anyway, to relax I thought I’d have a go at playing Pink Floyd’s Brain Damage. I also tried singing it. Good grief, I wish someone could tune me.

Brave

I finally got round to using my free cinema tickets (well, free with about £200 of ESSO petrol – but I would have bought that anyway). I decided to take Raymond along to see Brave – Pixar’s latest CGI masterpiece. I have come to the conclusion that Pixar work on a “one for them, one for us” basis with Disney. They will do a lunchbox friendly Disney type film like Finding Nemo or Cars and then do something a little more esoteric for themselves like WALL-E or Ratatouille. I have loved pretty much everything they have done since the ground-breaking Toy Story but I tend to like the latter type of film – the ones where they push the boundaries a little. I expected Brave to fall into this latter camp, and it largely does, although I feel it has been reigned in at times from something much darker. However, whilst it still gets a PG rating I wouldn’t advise taking very young children to see it – at least not at the cinema.

The story is a faery-tale set in the Scottish Highlands at some undetermined but distinctly Middle Earth type era. It surrounds the misadventures of Merida, a flame haired tom-boy, who is the daughter of King Fergus and destined to be married off to one of the eldest sons of the neighbouring clan chiefs. Of course, Merida has different ideas and runs off into the forest with somewhat disastrous results. It is the episodes in the forest which leads to some of the films darker segments with a very much Grimm feel to it – in spite of the obvious humour. I did wonder whether this would lead to a more Disney take on the film but it felt much more in line with the impish visions that Tim Burton would produce. Overall I think this worked but Raymond commented that he didn’t think it would be that suitable for his younger siblings (which I think translates as him finding it a bit creepy himself.)

The one great thing with this production is the use of an almost entirely Scottish cast (I think Emma Thompson counts here – and she did have the sense to go with a well spoken Bearsden-type accent). Apparently they originally asked Reece Witherspoon to voice Merida but when scheduling didn’t allow for that they went with Kelly Macdonald which I think was a very smart move. Other notable voices include Billy Connolly, Robbie Coltrane, Kevin McKidd and Craig Ferguson. Having avoided forced Scottish accents they also avoided the Caledonian mawkishness of Brigadoon or the wanton Tartanry of Braveheart – at least when they did hint at such stereotypes it was to mock them rather than reinforce them. This came through in the language as well with Scots words thrown in and knowing references to the likes of The Broons. Whether those references will transfer to a wider audience is unclear but I think Pixar films have always operated on several levels anyway.

The other interesting thing with this film is that it has a female lead and explores the relationship between mother and daughter. It may have been quite easy to turn this into some sort of bratty teen picture but the relationship that unfolds is more subtle and complicated than that. In fact it is this something that really sets it aside from other mainstream animation – at least those produced in America. Although the animation is obviously Pixar there are many elements of the  film that would not look out of place in Japanese animations such as the Studio Ghibli films (Spirited Away springs to mind – in fact there are a surprising number of similarities in the themes given that they are quite different films)

So overall I think this was one of Pixar’s successes. It may not have been the game changer that Toy Story was or as original as WALL-E but at least it does leave me wanting to see it again (which is more than I could say for the Cars films). I was also rather taken with Merida who is the split of one of Raymond’s schoolmates. Next up for Pixar is a sequel to Monsters Inc. One for Disney, then?

Disc Rot

If there are two things that one should never operate whilst inebriated, it is cars and computers. The former is pretty obvious and there are very strict laws to try to prevent the carnage that this can cause. The latter is a bit tricky as there must be many people who will regret an ill conceived venomous email or poorly considered Twitter comment. For me, it was more of a mystery as to why, on Sunday morning, I had a set of Amazon confirmation emails and an invoice from a media firm in Berlin. As it transpired, I thought it was a good idea to purchase several Pink Floyd albums late on Saturday night. My memory then started to drip feed back the details of the whole episode…

It actually started last Friday whilst watching the Olympic opening ceremony. Just after the cauldron was lit the closing track from "The Dark Side Of The Moon", Eclipse, was played. Of course, being well up on dodgy 1970’s progressive rock albums I was immediately able to point this out. However, I haven’t been able to play it for a few years as three Floyd albums went “odd” on me. The three in question were Dark Side, Meddle and Wish You Were Here – also known as “the good ones”. I have several hundred CDs (it may be more, I haven’t counted them all) but I have never had any problems playing them back – even from the earliest ones I bought around 1990. It seem odd then that three CDs sitting next to each other should all deteriorate to the point of being unplayable (or, at least, sounding like 78rpm vinyl that has been sand-papered.)

This kind of damage goes by the nickname “disc rot” and is, apparently, due to UV damage or (presumably in my case) chemical damage of some sort - although I couldn’t actually see any physical damage to the discs or their packaging. It must be fairly rare as these are the only examples I have come across but it is rather alarming considering I tend to regard these things as fairly indestructible (barring the action of dogs, children or spouses.) I suppose there is always the MP3 route but that simply means bigger potential losses or more backups and a definite loss of audio quality.

As it is, I seem to have managed to get some decent bargains during my drunken spending spree. However, Pink Floyd are still as miserable as ever. Apparently, they are lining them up for the Olympic closing ceremony. You have been warned!