Friday, 3 February 2023

Never Correct A Sketch

And now it's February.

TV: I'm digging "Fight The Power: How Hip Hop Changed The World" on BBC. 

Marie Antoinette was great. 


Here's a wee drawing of Emilia Schüle to celebrate:

Sarah Lancashire is brilliant in Happy Valley, of course.

I started watching Litvinenko. I'm in.

Juniper (daughter of Michael Shelley) has a new album "She Steals Candy". It's fun with a capital F. I listened to it on CD (remember them?) on a recent drive through to Edinburgh for a pretty special visit to The Granton Art Centre (more on that another time). Nice soundtrack for my trip.

Muriel Gray posted a photo of Jackie Kay's lovely "George Square" on-line recently. It's one of several Poems On The Underground. You can read it here.

Regular readers will be glad to know that I did track down a bottle of Felipe II brandy. 

A bottle of Felipe II brandy last week.

It's nice but has some kind of aniseed (?) note which threw me a little. If anyone has any other suggestions for Spanish brandies - I'm all ears.

I'm composing music for documentaries to do with crime, safari parks and a mythical monster. Variety is the spice of life.

Over a year ago I plucked up the courage to 1) attempt some sketching, and 2) share at least one drawing every day on my Instagram account. Sometimes it is two steps forward and three steps back but hey, let's remember the advice of JD Fergusson: 

"Never correct a sketch – just make another; don’t try to make good drawing, you won’t – or by accident, you may!"

It is fun and relaxing and provides a passing sense of creative achievement. And as addictions go it's less expensive/anti-social than some. Lots of folks (well, two) have mentioned I should try and exhibit some drawings somehow, somewhere. Hmm. We'll see.

So finally, let's take a look at the gallery (click here first)...

























































































Sunday, 8 January 2023

The Felipe II Blues

It's January!

It didn't work last time but what the heck: Happy New Year.

I sure enjoyed these extracts from Alan Bennett's 2022 diary.

Loving Happy Valley Series 3 so far. Sarah Lancashire is amazing.

I'm also grooving to Marie Antoinette on BBC TWO. It goes from gosh-lush to wobbly hand-held sparse/Wolf Hall-esque production values and back again. And Emilia Schüle is great.

I enjoyed Series 1 of The Boys on Amazon and I'm a late convert to Two Doors Down ("See the woman that got in that taxi? - I just shagged her.")

If you like Chuck Berry and you haven't seen this 1972 BBC concert - you now what to do (available for 20 days on i-player as I type).

Spanish brandy: an amigo has recommended Felipe II - but you can't buy it in Glasgow. Boo.

Cheese of the week = Hebridean Blue.

"Merry Christmas, Don Camillo" includes stories from Giovanni Guareschi's time as a POW:

I am writing music for a thing I can't tell you about. 

Still sketching away in stolen moments...