Rangers have lost again, this time it’s only a manager and not a match, phew, well that’s a relief eh boys?
The report says “Rangers manager Paul Le Guen has left the club by mutual consent“. Aye right. Bet the air was blue.
BBC SPORT | Football | My Club | Rangers | Le Guen and Rangers part company
Technorati Tags: Football, Rangers, Le Guen, David Murray
With all the ’spoilers’ in the Sunday press about who’s going to be in the Celebrity Big Brother house I wasn’t particularly looking forward to this year. However they were wrong about several and to my great delight one of my all time heros, film director Ken Russell is in the house. Ya beauty! He’s a one-off original. I was wondering what he was up to these days as he doesn’t seem to be making episodes for the South Bank show each year like he used to. Last time I heard about him he was filming some schlocky low-budget film with a hand-held video for the internet, seemed to involve naked nuns (old habits die hard). He’s almost 80 you know. Camp as Christmas but with an eye for the ladies.
Sad that practically none of the other housemates seemed to know who he is. He’s a quite unique artist who brings the full earthiness of life and passion, flesh and blood into his films. He spent time in the sixties working for Huw Weldon on arty documentaries of composers that broke new ground and breathed new life into biographic film. And so many films with music at the core or with sumptuous soundtracks Tommy, Mahler, Aria and plenty of pop/operatic videos. So many films full-stop. Plenty of box office turkeys in latter years but for sheer bloody inventiveness always worth watching.
In the dark days of British cinema with folk whinging about lack of money he got off his bahookey and assembled a crew and shot many films around the Lake District, no matter what country they were supposed to be set in 
Yes they were cheap but you couldn’t fault the wild imagination. Glasgow, as far as I’m aware, still holds the dubious distinction of being a city that still bans his film “The Devils” from being screened in cinemas (for fear of igniting a religion-fueled backlash from Catholics) but strangely allows it sold in video/DVD. Watching “the devils” on video for the first time was amazing, if you can push past all the sensationalism about the sexual scenes and concentrate on the story there’s really a rather moving morality tale in there contrasting the true believers as flawed individuals with the outwardly pious but privately corrupt religious authorities, and with such startling production design from the late Derek Jarman - it looks absolutely stunning visually.
I really urge you to seek out a copy of Ken’s autobiography “A British Picture”, it is hilarious, especially his various colourful and hair-raising adventures with Oliver Reed.
Technorati Tags: Celebrity, Big Brother, Ken Russell, film, TV, creativity, genius, director, Celebrity Big Brother
Well happy 2007 everybody. Each year I go through the same dilemma. Should I make any New Year’s resolutions. As years go I by I get less and less minded to do as I’ve been concentrating a lot more on enjoying the moment rather than planning for the future. Still, what the hell, here’s some of my geekier wishes for the year ahead.
Technorati Tags: Gaelic, New Year, resolutions, Carbon, Scottish Parliament, Quine, Katie Meldrum
The current heidie of my old school has received an CBE in the New Years Honours list. Mary McLaughlin has championed the use of technology in the school, vocational training and community involvement among other things and the girls at Notre Dame gie it a fright.
“Mary, Mrs MCLAUGHLIN Headteacher, Notre Dame High School and Principal, Notre Dame New Learning Community, Glasgow. For
services to Education. (Bothwell, Lanarkshire)”
When I was leaving secondary, the woman known as Sadie was nominated for a BEM (British Empire Medal). Sadie was unarguably the most important person in the school, even the heidie wouldn’t argue. Trust me you wouldn’t want to experience the wrath of the Sadie. Sadie was the toilet warden and patrolled the mean streets of 1960’s green and white tiling, mop and Ajax in hand, stubbing out smoking (whilst nipping out for a fly puff herself), keeping a clean patch and served over a quarter of a century. That woman deserved a medal and By George I Think She Got It! So Sadie ya bam morphed to Sadie ya bem. And the most amazing beehive hairdo with never a hair out of place. Bet she scrubbed up well for Her Majesty. So from toilet cleaners to headteachers, when it comes to serving the country, Notre Dame’s bagged them all.
You can download the audio from Mary’s (and pupil) session at SETT 2005 - ICT in a Curriculum for Exellence
BBC NEWS | UK | The complete New Year Honours lists
Other Scottish women with honours: Dame Evelyn Glennie (percussionist) just about single-handedly created the role of touring soloist percussionist, Heather “the weather” Reid (BBC Scotland weather), uber-geek into Physics, science and helping kids and women to get interested in science and technology, she spends a lot of her off-screen time supporting these kinds of projects.
Technorati Tags: New Year Honours, Mary McLaughlin, CBE, BEM, headteacher, school, Notre Dame, Sadie, beehive, Glasgow, toilet cleaner
Thanks to American Dave Winer for pointing out that Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth has her own podcast feed. If there’s been any publicity in the UK about this I’ve missed it. Gaun yersel Bessie! The Queen’s English from the horses mouth. She’s in her eighties now so she’s probably one of the oldest podcasters around too. Great to see part of the British heritage keeping up-to-date with changing technology, we already know that Andrew bought her an iPod a while ago. The Commonwealth is still nearly two billion people right around the globe so using the web for Royal Family messages makes bloody good sense. Maybe like Adam Curry’s sign-off sound of a lighter click she could just rattle her jewelry. One supposes that my podcatcher and I would receive the traditional Christmas message when it’s officially released, so sign up now in good time. Come on folks, let’s help push Bessie to the top of the iTunes charts where she belongs, it is your civic duty to subscribe. God save (to hard disk) our gracious queen.
The Queen’s Speeches podcast [via www.royal.gov.uk]
Technorati Tags: Queen, royal, podcast, speeches, Queen Elizabeth
Had an absolute nightmare of a time at the dentist today. On Monday I’d had a root canal and a temporary filling placed over it with a proper filling due to replace it today, it was an uncomfortable process but not painful during treatment. Afterwards though, it was sore for a solid couple of days but seemed OK today for the next phase. Then in the treatment room he utters the fateful words
“The X-Rays look good. Since we’ve removed the nerve you shouldn’t feel anything in that tooth. Let’s do this without a local (anaesthetic)”. I meekly replied “Are you sure?”, he “Yes”. “OK”
Famous Last Words. He was drilling half-way into the earth core before he noticed the tears spilling down my cheeks, I was too shocked, pained and stressed to raise my hand to alert him to stop and when he did stop I could barely speak for crying. Just what kind of mutant teeth do I have? The nerve physically *removed* but I’m still feeling pain from the drill work, if I hadn’t been having treatment I would have said it was a toothache kind of pain, throbbing but what the feck was causing it? He changed the drill bit and that seemed to be a little better but still painful. I feel bad for the very sweet young dental assistant, she looked mortified. Apologies all round but he still looked non-plussed and didn’t have an explanation for what might be causing the hurting. I’ve spent more than 5 hours in the chair already and maybe 3 or 4 sessions still to go. This episode has really spooked me. If you’ll forgive the pun, will I get my nerve back?
Technorati Tags: dentist, root canal, pain
Sadly necessary. Domestic Abuse Campaign 2006
Domestic Abuse Radio Campaign Advert (MP3)
Technorati Tags: domestic violence, domestic abuse, women
Listening to all the gushing predictions about Leona being the one who’ll ‘crack’ America and the global market, I can’t help thinking back to last year. Remember? Shayne Ward? He was going to be “The British answer to Justin Timberlake”, he burned brightly briefly then got throat problems and has been well out of the spotlight, in recent months though they are talking of a second album. If a week is a long time in politics then a year is an eternity in pop land, will he manage to get back into the market?
One of the guest boybands on the show had some sagely advice for Simon Cowell to say that he had a big responsibility to produce a good first album for Leona. Too true. Previous form has been to quickly punt out a CD to cash in on the first wave of publicity but the songs are usually largely bland and generic and not moulded to the talents of the winner. Will Young of Pop Idol fame went through the same curve but it was only by the second/third CDs that he really hit his stride.
It was a shame that in earlier rounds the Glaswegian Nikkita never really got given a meaty song that suited her soulful voice don’t think we ever got a chance to really see what she was capable of. Also think from a telly point of view it would have been a more interesting show if the group the Unconventionals hadn’t been booted out first week, they were certainly different.
I watched Leona’s progression it has to be said with a degree of sadness. She clearly has a natural talent but as the weeks went by you could see more and more vocal gymnastics being thrown into the mix, she has such a beautiful voice and really doesn’t need these gimmics. I hate the ghastly Americanisation going on where the audience will clap and cheer just because a singer sings a high note, is this competition now “Note Idol”. Low notes, soft notes count too not just the belters but these don’t seem to generate applause or appreciation. Whatever happened to lyrics, you know, communicating the emotion and meaning of the song, not just the notes? The more she went into this territory the less and less of the song was communicated. One of the strangest experiences was in a previous show watching her sing “Lady Marmalade”, pretty woman, cute as a button, note perfect but almost completely devoid of any sexiness, there seemed to be no connection between what was being sung and how it was performed, very strange. Ray her opponent was just about the polar opposite, he probably had one of the weakest singing voices but by Christ when he sang “My Way” you felt it was coming from the heart he meant every word and made you believe it. I’m sure Leona will win her share of fame and fortune and wish her well but to be a true diva takes more than good singing.
Technorati Tags: X Factor, Leona Lewis, Simon Cowell, Fame
Just switched to full RSS feeds on this blog rather than summaries. There are twice as many subscribers to Scottish lass than there are to my Big Brother feed, wee sister bigger than big brother? Interesting times.
Technorati Tags: RSS
Mini Mariah/Whitney sound-a-likey Leona Lewis has won the X Factor 2006 beating cheeky chappie Liverpudian Ray. In all the madness wish someone would thank the telly host Kate Thornton. She carries the main ITV show week by week all by herself and her consumate professionalism makes it all look so smooth. Simon Cowell looks like the cat that got the cream, both his acts were in the final so he couldn’t lose, probably Christmas No. 1, another cash cow for you Simon? Totally predictably right after Kate announced that the single was available for download, visit the site and get a “Service Unavailable” on the download link. These kind of sites always go down, that initial spike in traffic must be phenomenal as millions pile from TV to computer in a matter of minutes, a few minutes later get through but page minus graphics/low bandwidth version, bet the web devs are frantic right now to get back up to flog the download Update 22:56 and graphical version back Bravo! Well done Leona and Kate and web bods in the dungeons
Update 23:13: on the post show on ITV2 Simon Cowell’s in the studio and just said “it’s the fastest download of all time - twenty thousand in five minutes”. £1.50 a throw, wow, if it kept up that astounding selling rate for a day it would be bringing in over 8.5million quid in sales, and that’s with no iTunes in sight.
Technorati Tags: X Factor, Leona Lewis, Kate Thornton, Simon Cowell
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