The archive

Having had some uncharacteristically spare time over the holidays, I've made some changes to the site. Firstly, I've found myself wanting to write more about music in recent times, and to blog about the soundtrack to my travels.

Today was something of an afterthought. The way that the Christmas and New Year holidays fell made it possible to have an unbroken ten-day stint off work at the cost of only two days of annual leave. This lured me into breaking my usual rule of…

I agonised over the wisdom of posting a list like this. The drawbacks were of course very apparent - I open myself to accusations of whimsy or elitism with some of my choices, or I miss out something I really liked and realise too late.

It was something like six years between my first two Belle and Sebastian shows, and on the cold bus ride to Bristol tonight I calculated it was something like four years since I'd last seen them. Across the numerous performances in between my first…

What if you threw a party, but no-one came? Sadly this became an all too real experience for the promoter of tonight's gig at the Fleece. I should have suspected there was going to be a low turn-out when I appeared at the door a few minutes before…

Even in my youth I don't think I managed to go to four gigs in a row. This thought dawned on me today, as I lingered over a coffee and felt like I was properly on holiday for the first time in years! However, if there has been one aim this week…

I'd been to Paisley once before...I'd decided to fly up to Glasgow on a whim, and soon realised that the associated hanging around and the time wasted at the airport quickly made my much loved train journey a very sensible option.

Its become apparent that age and aging will be the recurring theme of this visit to Glasgow. Turning up the day after my birthday, in the midst of a month which is always turbulent, means that it was never going to be far from the agenda.

It's been a long day - and Birmingham seems like another country now. Quite a bit has happened since then in fact. I got up early, and disappeared into the bowels of New Street while it was still dark.