A catalogue of minor annoyances…

…but the gig was great!

We saw Michelle Shocked again last night at the ABC in Glasgow – great show!

I’ve seen her live maybe half a dozen times and Madeleine’s seen her three times now (I think!) We got there about half way though the support act, who were ok but I doubt I’d go see them again.

MS appeared with a small band – drums, keyboard and a great guitar/bass/horn/etc bloke who got his own spot for one song, and turned in a v.good performance that put me in mind of Stevie Wonder (vocally). Richard Armstrong, I think.

MS was well into it, very happy and keen on audience participation! She played a mix of styles, inc. some neat dub reggae, gospel, rock, country and more! She totally re-thrashed ‘A Hundred and Twenty Babies’ but later played some other older songs a bit more like the originals! Anchored Down in Anchorage and The L&N Don’t Stop Here Anymore, to (mis) name a couple. And her voice! Impressive, in-tune foghorn at times! Holding notes for longer than you’d think she could!

And the minor annoyances?

Faded to nothing compared to the music.

This month’s RSGS talk…

I’ve commented on the others; may as well keep up the tradition!

It was given by an Aberdeen Geography graduate who has obviously fallen in love with Antarctica and the sub-Antarctic – especially South Georgia. The first few minutes were a recap of her career to date, especially the chilly bits down south on the icecap and peninsula, then the bulk of her talk (with some great photos) was about S.Georgia…

Very informative, including the climate, vegetation, fauna (both land and sea) – pictures of penguins with reindeer in the background! (Introduced by Norwegians ages ago and doing extremely well with no plans to remove them from the island’s ecology, unlike the rats other sea-farers inadvertently introduced, which are a threat to a lot of the nesting birds and for which eradication plans are being drawn up… )

Next month – the Sahara! Much warmer.

And something I noticed last night – on Alien vs Predator (which I hadn’t seen before) the action is set on Bouvet Island, halfway between South Africa and Antarctica… gave up on the film, but Bouvet is a pretty remote place that doesn’t get mentioned very often! The link’s got a couple of neat photos if you scroll down, and a brief history of the place.

Winter; looking south from the Castle

This was actually taken a couple of days ago and isn’t as pleasant as the view really was, but the more recent weather feels like this looks!

Acvtually, the Flickr image is better…