That Petrol Emotion – Live in London 26th August 2008

Of all the bands I’ve loved there are possibly a group of 10 that I’d consider my all time favourites. And, like many of us of a certain age, a lot of these 10 are no longer together. There are a couple who I have no hope of ever seeing live for various reasons (Cabaret Voltaire, Ultra Vivid Scene, Propaganda) and there are some who I know will tour at some point (The Cure, Kraftwerk, Duran Duran, Steve Wynn). And then there are those that I had seen when they were together but figured they broke up so long ago that there was no hope for a reformation.

Well, first to confound expectations was Carter USM, who I’m off to see in November. Much excitement. But better was to come, as I find out from the That Petrol Emotion website that this wonderful band, this underachieving, never had the success they deserved band, were getting together and doing three secret gigs at London, Dundalk and The Electric Picnic festival. That Petrol Emotion were my first ever gig. It was amazing. As was every single time I’ve seen them since then. The news got even better when I realised they were playing in August – holiday time! Okay, so it was also the day after Molly’s birthday, but that was no problem – and suddenly the whole family is having a London trip.

(From sweetfoolthemouth’s photostream on Flickr)

They played the Boston Arms, Dirty Water Club in Tufnell Park. The place was sold out and full as it could get. Anticipation was high, very high, as most of us were fans from last time around and we’d all been waiting at least 14 years for this moment.

Band makes the stage at ten. And the years melt away, time goes backward, aching backs, weightgain, mortgages, children and stress are all at least temporarily forgot and we’re all back in our youth once more, dancing like idiots and having such a great time. I don’t think I’ve ever seen so many middle aged men smile quite so much as I did that night. And I should know, because I was one of them. Grinning ear to ear for a couple of hot, sweaty, frantic and wonderful hours.

And if the audience felt the years wash away, the band certainly did. That Petrol Emotion were always a great live band, always tight and powerful, but they were incredibly good this night. They nailed it from the first song and I think they had just as much fun up there as we did watching them.

(From rickenley’s photostream on Flickr)

So it was a spectacular, ecstatic, wonderful night watching one of the greatest live bands I’ve ever seen. The whole gig was just perfect. Thank you boys. But don’t leave it so long for the next gig eh?

The plan was to take a few pictures, but that didn’t happen, I was far too absorbed by the music to take photos. Luckily there were many people there and the footage is already out on Flickr (set 1, set 2, set 3, set 4). I imagine something will be up on You Tube pretty soon as well.

Bruton Family Holiday – London 2008,

This was the holiday that wasn’t really meant to be a holiday. Initially this year we’d only thought we’d be going away just once to Northumberland. But sometimes circumstances dictate otherwise. Instead we headed down to London for me to see That Petrol Emotion once more and Louise and Molly to go and see Grease at the theatre as a birthday treat.

(York Station. Molly in charge of camera.)

It was also the first trip with Molly’s new camera and she became principal photographer for the entire journey, with me only being allowed access to the camera when she was too busy having fun doing something else.

The majority of the photos from the trip are at Molly’s Flickr stream. And I’m on a very tight end of holiday schedule so it’s only the briefest of write ups about it all.

As I remember about the first time I went to London the thing that Molly enjoyed most was the Underground. Whether it was busy, empty, fast, slow, long trip or short – she just loved whizzing around London at will – especially the escalators:

(Molly outside St Paul’s – one of the few occasions I was allowed the camera)

The quick itinerary went as follows:

Tuesday – train down, check into Youth Hostel at St Pauls, off to Camden Market and Covent Garden for mooch. Then off to gig and theatre. All was enjoyed. More on the That Petrol Emotion Gig here.

Wednesday – tourist overload – Millenium Bridge, London Eye, Buckingham Palace & The Mall, Trafalgar Square, Big Ben, Parliament, Comic Shopping at Gosh (well, it wouldn’t be trip to London without it). Tea at Rain Forest Cafe. I’ll end up writing about Gosh somewhere else no doubt, but the whole day was a whirl of tubes, walking and doing all of the big tourist things. I’d recommend the London Eye to anyone, a great way to get an overview of London. Dinner was at the Rain Forest Cafe, not so much as a restaurant as one big excuse to sell children merchandise with a meal as a minor part of it. A rather upmarket version of the Happy Meal if you want to think of it that way. But very, very nice food and Molly picked well, getting herself a lovely Orang Utan from the shop.

Thursday – Houses of Parliament tour, Tate Modern, train home.
Unless you’re very, very against the idea of government and the opulance of Westminster, I’d definitely recommend signing up for the 75 minute tour during summer recess. Fascinating for all three of us.
Tate Modern was great, but not quite as wonderful as I was hoping, probably because there was nothing spectacular (indeed, nothing at all) on view in the Turbine Hall. So the visit was essentially a trip around the galleries. But just four public galleries took th ethree of us 2 hours (and that’s doing the quick tour with Molly pushing us on).

(Outside Tate Modern, almost art in it’s own right.)

(The outer wall of Tate Modern – by Blu from the recent Street Art exhibit)

An exhausting time, but very enjoyable indeed.

Calvinball, Calvinball, Calvinball…..

If, like me, you are the source of entertainment and fun for your family during these loooong summer holidays, you may be struggling for something interesting and exciting to do that isn’t going to cost you a small fortune.

Ladies & Gentlemen: I give you Calvinball…..

Some are nodding in wild excitement, others are looking at me all mysteriously. I shall explain. Calvinball is the near mythical sports event played by Calvin & Hobbes at various points in the strip’s long run. It is basically a nonsense game, played by two or more people that up until now has been largely unknown because the rules were shrouded in time. However, thanks to Simply Calvin & Hobbes we now have a full set of the rules.

To give you an idea, here’s the first couple:

1.1. All players must wear a Calvinball mask (See Calvinball Equipment – 2.1). No one questions the masks (Figure 2.1).
*IMPORTANT — The following rules are subject to be changed, amended, or dismissed by any player(s) involved.
1.2. Any player may declare a new rule at any point in the game (Figure 1.2). The player may do this audibly or silently depending on what zone (Refer to Rule 1.5) the player is in.

Molly & I shall be off to the local park, with masks, to try it out. I may even post a full report and photos at some point. (Thanks to Laura of Comic Foundry for the link)

Bizarre Chair induced toe injury

Oh, I forgot to mention in my little roundup of Molly’s birthday party that I think I’ve broken a toe.

This is what you get for dropping a chair onto it from a great height. I was trying to do the right thing and not drop Molly’s birthday cake at the time and could but watch as the chair tipped over and the edge of the seat hurtled down to the floor. Luckily my toe was there to stop it or it may have been injured.

My toe didn’t hurt much at the time, certainly no more than if I’d stubbed it, but I noticed a little later that it was getting hot, starting to throb and, tellingly, seemed to be bending backwards at a point that wasn’t a proper joint. It’s a few hours later now and it’s painful, but not too bad (painkillers and gin doing the trick there then) but is still doing the bending where it’s not supposed to bend trick.

I know full well of course that there’s no point going to the doctor about it. If it’s broken all they’d do is tell me to rest it, elevate it, apply ice and strap it to the next toe. All of this I can do. I haven’t been for an X-ray, that’s just some broken toe X-ray from the interwebby.

Molly’s Birthday Party

Like I said back here, today marked the start of a looong celebration of Molly’s birthday. For one reason and another her birthday, which is this Monday, seems to be spreading over the next ten days.

Today was day 1 of the celebrations – Molly’s birthday party:
The plan; Off to Kung Fu Panda at Pocklington Arts Centre at 1pm. Get out at 3pm. Head to Burnby Hall for fun and a runaround. Off to Pan e Vino at 5:30 for food and then all home at 7.

Good plan.
Rather falls apart when Kung Fu Panda finishes at 2:30 though. Ooops.
Okay, a change of plan, back to our house for a quick play and then across to Burnby Hall with 5 very excited children, especially Molly. Hyper doesn’t really begin to cover it. Hyper hyper perhaps. Although even that doesn’t really begin to explain how she’s been today.
Next stage of plan falling apart rather. Just as we’re heading out of the door – it starts raining. Oh poo. Back inside to play in the garage and wait out the rain. Half three. Two hours before food. This may be a loooong afternoon.
4:00pm. Rain looks like it’s stopping. On with coats and off to Burnby Hall. Get as far as the entrance when rain starts again, although somewhat mysteriously the sky appears to have nothing but blue sky and fluffy white clouds. No idea where the rain is actually coming from, but it is making us wet so it’s off to get an ice cream. Ice creams take 10 minutes and by this time the rain has stopped. Children head for playground. Rain starts again. Back into the tea room for drinks and a look round at the Stewart Museum at the gardens. Shower turns to proper tipping down.
A quick check on the bag shows me I made the right decision to bring every one of Molly’s waterproofs and brollies along. We have just enough to make it home with the children dry. Of course, I managed to forget mine.
Finally home at 5pm, just in time to get dry and ready for a meal out.

A lovely day, chaperoning 5 children. It didn’t go according to plan, but was a great day out nonetheless. A most importantly Molly and her friends had a great time.

This is just the opening salvo in the Molly birthday weekend. Next up we have friends around on Saturday and Sunday and then her actual birthday on Monday. And it carries on until next Monday in one way or another. By the end of it all I imagine she’ll be exhausted or she may well have exploded with excitement.

The end of the holidays looming…

In the final straight of the holidays, always a difficult time. It’s difficult to express the feeling at this point. Having had a month off suddenly not working becomes the norm rather than it just being another holiday. Of course, the end of August is always marked out by a double birthday, first Louise, then just one week later and effectively marking the end of the holidays it’s Molly’s birthday. We’ve had Louise’s now so it’s full steam ahead with Molly’s birthday.

Much excitement this year as she’s finally getting the party that she’s missed for the last couple of years. When we were in Birmingham it was too difficult organising her friends to get together on the bank holiday weekend. A combination of being away for holidays and the distances that her friends lived away from the school made it very difficult. We tried a few times to have something either before or after the holidays but it never really worked. And last year was the first in Pocklington and we didn’t feel we knew enough people to organise something.

But this year we’re off to Pocklington Arts Centre to see Kung-Fu Panda with four of her friends. After that we have a little down-time, either at our house or at Burnby Hall for a runaround and an ice-cream. Then, to top the day off we’re all going out for a meal at Pan-e-Vino, our favourite Pocklington restaurant. And guess who gets to be chaperone for the five excited 8 & 9 year olds until Louise finishes work to come along for the meal?

Me. I’m expecting an afternoon of giggling and fun and hopefully no upsets at all. Or at least I’m hoping that’s how it will go.

We also went to the pictures last week to see Space Chimps. It looked like it was going to be a really film from the trailers. But although it was pretty good, there was nothing marvellous about it. A real shame. Molly enjoyed it though.

Highlight of the week was a trip to Cruckley Farm. It’s a working farm near Driffield full of rare breeds and absolutely perfect for children with a lot of paddocks full of sheep, goats, pigs and chickens that you could go into, walk around and be surrounded by animals all very keen to take the food from your hands. Molly and I went last week and had a fantastic time.

Holiday half way point.

Is the holiday really halfway over already? I know it’s hardly likely to get me much sympathy but it’s a bit of a swizz this year, as we don’t get a full 6 weeks off since the first week only started on a Wednesday and we’ve got to go back on a Monday for a couple of training days. (Oh woe is me).

So really, discounting the first week as just a three day mini week and the second week we spent on holiday proper, the last week was our first at home holiday. Surprisingly I haven’t really done that much with Molly this week as she’s been in demand from her friends. Which is lovely but slightly unsettling as I’m used to being the main entertainment provider for the holidays. Another sign of her growing older and being popular I suppose, which is a lovely thing (not growing older – that’s horrible).

We did go to the cinema on Monday to see Wall-E but after that it either off to play at her friends or having friends round at our house. It might be silly but I always feel I’m not doing the parent thing properly when things like this happen. But the most important thing is that she had a load of fun. The weekend was rather curtailed by the weather but it did mean lots of board games, lie-ins and Olympic watching, then ending with Prince Caspian.

This week we’ve already organised three visits. Now I shall just have to figure out what we’re doing on the other two days.

Bruton Family holiday 2008: Northumberland – part 9

Summer Holiday 2008 Day 6: Once Brewed / Hadrian’s Wall

The final youth hostel was Once Brewed just south of Hadrian’s Wall, that delightful border control checkpoint used by the Romans to police all of those difficult Celtic folk up even further North. The YHA may not have been as nice as Kielder, but we could at least go outside in the evening without fear of being eaten by the midges.

As far as Molly’s concerned it did have the best surprise of the entire holiday; a pool table. We booked an evening meal the first night and ended up staying up late in the hostel playing endless games of pool.

During the day we headed to Chester’s Fort. Neither Louise or I thought it would be particularly wonderful and just figured it would be a good stop off point for the journey from Kielder to Once Brewed. But this ended up taking most of the day and we really enjoyed ourselves there.
It’s the most intact example of the fort outposts that were dotted around Hadrian’s Wall and had extensive remains of the buildings, the bath house and a good museum with Roman remains galore.

Strangely enough, as I’m studying the walls of the museum I catch sight of some artwork of Roman soldiers at the time and realise the signature seems familiar. Ronald Embleton. As in Ron Embleton.

Seems he has a little history on the subject of Hadrian’s Wall, as this little excerpt from the Ron Embleton bio on the site British Comic Art shows. (Interestingly and incredibly, a site called British Comic Art focusing on some of the greats of Bristish comic art features almost none of their art whatsoever.)

All in all, Ron provided around 140 paintings of the North-East to illustrate Graham’s publications. Among this work are included 80 pictures of life on Hadrian’s Wall; 15 paintings of the Farne Islands and their bird life as well as pictures of local places and characters. He produced eighty coloured plates and over one hundred black and white drawings for twelve booklets on Roman life which have sold more than 50,000 copies and one particular painting of life at Housestead Fort, which was produced as a postcard, has sold more than one million copies. Indeed, total sales of his series of postcards of Roman life have exceeded six million. In 1984, Frank Graham produced a hardback volume entitled Hadrian’s Wall in the Days of the Romans which is packed with Ron’s paintings and drawings, some of which had appeared in the earlier booklets. (It is interesting to note that some of the small, black and white illustrations are by Ron’s daughter, Gill.) It is acknowledged that Ron Embleton’s illustrations are among the most authentic reconstructions of Roman life ever produced.

Summer Holiday 2008 Day 7: Once Brewed / Hadrian’s Wall

Second day here we had an early breakfast and then decided that we fancied ending the holiday on a real high note. Molly always loves a zoo and there were none around in the Northumberland area. So we’d had a look at the maps and found the South Lakes Animal Park. About 100 miles away but we figured it looked worth the two hour drive.

On the way to the animal park we stopped off at Westmorland/Tebay services. A perfect example of how a motorway service station can and should be run. It’s the only family run place in the country and it shows. There’s a huge array of food on offer. And all of it looks a lot nicer, more appetising than your usual service station fare which I always find seems to consist solely of a choice of overpriced, bland, unappetising sandwiches or a Burger King. And it looks and tastes lovely. There’s even a delicious looking selection of homemade cakes there. How un-service station does that sound? Add in a lovely location, attractive layout and pleasant surroundings and I think we’ve found the best Motorway service station in the country.

The animal park itself, once we arrived, was everything we were hoping for. Molly was over the moon with the choice and definitely had her best day of the holiday. We saw all the usual suspects, but it does everything very well. As with a lot of zoos and animal parks now South Lakes is very conservation led and has several worthy initiatives from the tigers trust to the charitable foundation. And they’re also doing that thing that a lot of places are doing now, mixed enclosures and open enclosures. Their primates enclosures were particularly open and inviting and did away completely with high fencing to allow great visibility of the animals. They also have a couple of lovely walk through areas. Of these, the obvious highlight is the lemurs. Everywhere we looked there were wild lemurs roaming around. Of course, they were also everywhere that they weren’t meant to be as well which means we got the delights of seeing keepers armed with those pump action water pistol things squirting any lemurs that ventured onto the picnic and foodcourt areas to scavenge food. And inevitably some of the lemurs managed to sneak out into the areas they’re not meant to. Including the shop. At one point there were three of them in there. The slightly surreal sight of lemurs sitting in amongst the cuddly lemur toys was only beaten by the almost human way they hid from their keepers, sticking their heads out when the keeper passed by and almost taunting them by keeping their new-found freedom. A great day out.

Saturday.
Homeward bound. Holiday done for another year. We’ll definitely be doing the Youth Hostel thing again though. I’d recommend it to anyone, particularly if you have a young family and you don’t want to pay a fortune for cottages or hotels.

Northumberland 2008 – start here

Bruton Family holiday 2008: Northumberland – part 8 – Mapping & Mirage

After the loooong trek to Skyspace, it was considerably easier to sell her on the next piece of public art, since it happens to be a mini-golf course called Mapping.

From the press release about Mapping:

Mapping has been designed by artist Wolfgang Weileder to enhance and complement Kielder Water’s beautiful environment. Weileder has taken inspiration for the site-specific piece from the dramatic change in Kielder’s man-made surroundings spanning the past 20-years – before and after the dam was built. North East-based Weileder has cleverly ‘overlapped’ two different maps of Kielder – pre and post dam – to come up with the structures, content, contours and character for the ‘fully functional’ golf course. He wants to create a ‘small scale’ landscape that reflects the historical issues of the area – everything can be traced back to the overlapping maps.
The artist has introduced a more challenging and interactive way of playing the visually stimulating golf course, re-writing the linear rulebook to create a non-linear game that always makes the player think about their surroundings. Weileder has replaced the numbered holes with names instead and the idea is that the game has no official end or beginning; it’s up to the player to engage and interpret the course in their own particular way. Traditionally people queue up and wait for the next person to finish, Mapping allows the player to explore the landscape in different ways and creates a ‘public space’ that encourages interaction.

The great thing about it was not just it’s artistic delight but the playfulness of the thing as well. The idea behind it there is no particular order to play around the course. Pick a start point, pick a hole, try and get around all of the features. A really great game of golf from Molly and I. but I couldn’t help but notice that everyone else looked at the scorecard in confusion, even after reading the instructions to play how you want. Then they flip to the back and see that there’s a recommended route for during busiest times. You could almost hear them sigh in relief that someone had taken the choice away from them. But what was annoying was that they then got a little annoyed when Molly and I were playing it the right way and going how we wanted. Bah. Cattle.

Final artwork was late in the day. Mirage by Kisa Kawakami:

Japanese architect and sculptor Kisa Kawakami was commissioned to create an artwork that would reinterpret the landscape of Kielder forest from his own unique view point.
The completed work will animate an area in the forest, inviting a variety of activities for differing age groups while also acting as a device to help visitors to orient themselves in that part of Kielder.
The work will consist of a thousand stainless-steel disks hanging in a three-dimensional shimmering cloud from wires stretched between the trees, which reflect the light from beyond the forest. The artwork will alter its appearance as weather conditions change, the sun moves across the sky and the wind strength fluctuates.

An installation in the forest of a thousand silver discs designed to catch both sun light and the reflection of the lake beyond, turning gently in the breeze and just generally looking pretty and nice. Not as impressive as Skyscape but still nice.

And that was it for Kielder’s quite beautiful sculpture and art trail. There are many more pieces dotted around Kielder, but sadly I didn’t get chance to investigate them all.

Northumberland 2008 – start here

Bruton Family holiday 2008: Northumberland – part 7 – Skyspace

Kielder Skyspace. Described in the leaflets as:

Visitors to Skyspace will find themselves in a circular room where the artist manipulates our normal perceptions of light and space. In daylight hours, this chamber, illuminated only by natural light through the roof opening, is a contemplative space that focuses the visitor’s attention on the sky. During the changing light conditions at dusk and dawn, the lighting system becomes active and visitors can expect to experience a rich and unforgettable display of tone and colour

Described by Molly as “good to look at for a second, and nice to photograph”.
Described by Louise as “Okay” & “Not worth the walk”
Of course, since it was one of those destination artworks there was the small matter of at least a mile and a half to walk up to it through the forest. Which was lovely, but it was all uphill on a very loose, rough forest road.
But I loved it. I could easily have sat there all afternoon and just relaxed. And at dusk, when the lighting system turns on it must be even better.

It’s one of James Turrell’s Skyspace installations. There’s another one at the Yorkshire Sculpture Park which Molly and I will try to get to this holiday. According to this piece the Yorkshire one is better as the reviewer just didn’t think much of the Kielder Skyspace. Personally I don’t agree and actually found the idea of the “pilgrimage” undertaken to the Skyspace made the contemplative and restful nature of the installation work so much better. It was a wonder to just sit and rest and watch the sky.

Of course, doing a little reading on Turrell was as illuminating as always. Particularly this BBC piece and the lines:

After more than 500 hours flying his single engine plane in the search for the perfect volcano, in 1974 Turrell found Roden Crater. In 1977 he bought the volcano and began the long process of raising funds to develop the site.
Without drastically altering the natural site, Turrell’s vision is to create a number of chambers within the volcano where visitors will ‘feel the presence of gathered starlight’. To this end he has engineered a set of dimly lit corridors and rooms that have a perfect view of the craters rim, therefore limiting the horizon and providing a bowl like view of the sky.

Buying an extinct volcano to create a huge viewing area designed to restrict the actual view available to the visitor. Genius.

A little photography session entailed from Molly and myself. She’s just so much better with the camera than I am. Not fair. But she seems to instinctively take a good photo whereas I look at something and think it will be a good photo and find the results disappoint me. Molly just looks, points, shoots and ends up with something really good. So all of these are by Molly, except, obviously, the last one.

Northumberland 2008 – start here