Falling Sky

Happy Chazmas!

Yes, it's been that wonderful time of the year when we celebrate the arrival of my lovely Missus onto this unworthy planet all them years ago. As with other key national festivals, Chazmas has been marked with fine food, good company and a Doctor Who special (and what a cracker that was!). So how did we celebrate here at Castle Von Naggle?

Things kicked off nicely on Chazmas Eve (Sunday) when our ol' muckers the Dunns came over from Glasgow, complete with a trachy-free Emily who was in fine voice and top form. As she is currently mastering the use of computers, I fear it won't be long before I am no longer required for her complex machinations of the financial markets, but her plans to profit from the wavering fortunes of derivatives through the canny deployment of leverage reached fruition on Sunday, as the photo shows. Others might say that it was taken when we were looking at Yo Gabba Gabba, not Bloomberg, but maybe that's just what we want them to think. Em's dad is now uploading examples of his artwork onto Flickr and I would strongly urge you to check them out, the man's got a very good eye for using the white space of a page rather than stuffing it to burst and there's some really lovely use of watercolour there with a subtlety often lacking in modern illustration. It's always a pleasure spending time with the Dunns - watching Rob and Emily use the Photo Booth effects on the iMac to produce some eye-bogglingly bizarre imagery was a highlight - and it's been amazing to see how far the Emster has come in just a couple of years. Stars, all three of them.

 

As Chazmas tradition decrees, a great spread of homemade nosh was served up by the Missus & I, with me making the most of the opportunity to cook up some meaty goodies. Shown above are, starting from the bottom-right, homemade sausages (though without skins they ended up looking more like meatballs) made with Ballencrieff pork, then chicken goujons with meat sourced from Hugh Grierson, both recipes from Rachel Allen's Favourite Food At Home, with halved baked potatoes stuffed with cheese, onion & potato (and, for the carnivores, Riever bacon) from Nigella Lawson's Christmas. Up at the top of the pic, the almost-birthday-girl made some sweet potato falafel from the excellent Leon cookbook, then at the top-right there's some apple flapjacks I did from Leith's Vegetable Bible and some angel fairy-shaped cookies by the Missus which Emster cheerfully decapitated.

Alongside that, a big bowl of blue tortilla chips and the obligatory Mr Vikkis chutney goodness, along with our own homemade mango chutney (from the National Trust's ace Preserves recipe book), plus some delicious homemade mini-pizzas by the Missus and bowls of hummus and creme-fraiche, honey & mustard sauce rounding it all off nicely. And then... the cake, though maybe it should be called The Beast.

 

It doesn't actually look all that big in the above snap - look at this one for a sense of scale. It's ludicrously big and ludicrously buttery/sugary/chocolatey, and in retrospect not a smart choice for my wife's birthday unless we had her entire extended family with us to help eat it. I guess I wanted to make something impressive and put the Magnolia Bakery cookbook we'd been given as a wedding gift to use, going for one of their more restrained cakes, covered with chocolate buttercream icing. It tastes lovely but, lordy, you need a bit of a sit-down afterwards - and going by the ingredients, a vigorous exercise regime later on to balance it out. Cake-based showing off? Guilty as charged. Next year it'll be something altogether smaller, less über-sweet and manageable for a two-person household.

 

On Chazmas itself my good lady chose Henderson's Bistro for lunch, a vegetarian bistro in the centre of Edinburgh. I plumped for a Moroccan stew shown above, nice big chunks of aubergine and butternut squash in a suitably spicy sauce, served with couscous (£8.50). After the veritable meatfest of Sunday, it felt good to have something relatively light yet still filling, and the flavour of the stew was excellent. Certainly a place we'll head to again - the grilled vegetable enchiladas sound particularly delicious.

   

While the rest of the Missus's birthday was spent at home, keeping cosy and inactive, yesterday saw us heading over to the Royal Botanic Gardens for breakfast, specifically the brand spanking new John Hope Gateway centre which only opened a couple of months ago. It's a beautiful building clad in stone and wood, topped with a graceful curvaceous column of a windmill that was spinning like the clappers while we were there, generating a multitude of watts in the process. The interior was equally impressive, wood and green in abundance, the tables of the restaurant proclaiming the tree they used to be. While my sweetheart went for a stack of good-looking pancakes, I plumped for the full Scottish breakfast (£10.50 including tea/coffee and toast). More than one would usually pay for a cooked breakfast, sure, but by Jove do you get what you pay for. As you can see above, the breakfast isn't served in the usual big-pile-of-stuff all mixed up in baked beans as usual, but instead lets you appreciate each bit of the breakfast on its own. Usually I'd pile on the brown sauce but with ingredients this good it would've been a crime - highlights were a sharply seasoned fried egg, a supremely juicy mushroom, a fantastic slice of haggis that managed to be neither too dry or too stodgy, and best of all, a slice of Stornaway black pudding that in one mouthful demonstrated why it deserves protected status, so delicious that I almost started gibbering with praise. Easily one of the finest breakfasts I've ever had the pleasure to devour, we'll definitely be back for more.

Skye Larking

1. Cows and Clouds, 2. Pan Fried Salmon Fillet, 3. About As Free Range As It Gets For A Sheep, 4. Smoked Salmon Paté with Highland Oatcakes, 5. Remains of the Crab (2), 6. Smokey Roast Salmon, 7. Dew Drops, 8. Chocolate Truffle Tort, 9. Warm Clouds

So, what to tell of our fourth annual Skye sojourn? Let's see...

• A glorious return to The Greatest B&B In The World, known to the outside world as Tigh an Dochais. Rightly popular, you'll need to book months in advance to stay there, but by deuce it's worth it. Immense beds, soothing views of the bay and every morning the breakfast of the gods.
• An equally triumphant return to one of our favourite eating establishments in the land, the Harbour Restaurant in Broadford. Three evenings of glorious feasting that have inspired me to attempt a wider variety of recipes in the very near future, with the seafood a particular high-point.
• We spent one day walking out to the old settlement of Boreraig, the last on Skye to be forcibly cleared in the 19th century, via the old marble quarry. A great walk under normal circumstances, we angered the weather gods after crowing about our new waterproof walking clothing, who promptly sent a seemingly endless rainstorm our way once on the furthest point of the walk, the kind from which the only clothing suitable is a wetsuit. Walking back was an insanely soggy ordeal - it's a wonder we avoided trenchfoot - but the pleasure we got from putting dry clothes on back at the B&B was indescribable. And we saw golden eagles in flight, which is pretty fab.
• Some other nice strolls around Broadford - nothing interesting to report, but a pleasure to experience.
• Soundtrack for this holiday: a recording of the Bonnie Prince Billy 2006 Edinburgh gig, soon to get a proper release.
• I didn't produce any artwork this time around - still too much fear of the empty page and stupidly intimidated by how impressive the landscape there is. Absolutely ridiculous, I wasn't half as bothered in the past so why now? Hopefully I can still get some Skye-related artwork produced using the photos taken as source material.
• No artwork, but plenty of reading - a book review post is brewing nicely - and lots of working through a children's book story that's been bubbling away in my head, gradually turning thoughts into words. If it works out, it'll be a cracker.
• We also saw a submarine. Cool!
• And a long chain of sheep walking single-file with no shepherding in sight. Hypnotic!
• And a truly tragic man on the train in the midst of a midlife crisis reinventing himself as a fun-loving Geordie swigging back a 6-pack of Fosters at midday on the train and groping with his giggling harpy of a companion with a laugh that only an idiot could love, making us wonder why we'd ever got on a train back to the city. We eventually switched carriages to avoid his boorish bellowing of self-obsessed hedonist-wannabe philosophy, the kind that comes from leaving a trail of emotional wreckage through other peoples lives. Twat!

And... that's pretty much it. It wasn't an eventful holiday, but sometimes events are the last thing you want, with far more pleasure to be had letting days gently drift by in the company of your sweetheart, savouring that sweet fresh air as it rolls in off the bay. I cursed myself for the thousandth time for not choosing a vocation that allows me to make an affordable living out there, but hope springs eternal, and even a few days is better than nothing at all. Still, when Will Oldham sings My Home Is The Sea it resonates all the more with every year. In particular, one day the closing lyrics of that song make me long for the day I could say such words myself:

And with the sea air in my lungs
I am home
(You are home)

P..P..P..Pick Up A Knighthood

Finally, something newsworthy in Edinburgh! The video footage is mint.

Military penguin becomes a 'Sir'

A penguin who was previously made a Colonel-in-Chief of the Norwegian Army has been knighted at Edinburgh Zoo.

Penguin Nils Olav has been an honorary member and mascot of the Norwegian King's Guard since 1972.

Over the years, he has been promoted through the ranks after being adopted by Royal Guard who visited the zoo.

During the ceremony, Nils had a sword dubbed on each side of his head, where his shoulders should be, to confirm his regimental knighthood.

A crowd of several hundred people joined the 130 guardsmen at the zoo. A citation from King Harald the Fifth of Norway was read out, which described Nils as a penguin "in every way qualified to receive the honour and dignity of knighthood".

[...] Mr McGarry, added: "Nils always recognises the Norwegian guardsmen when they come to visit him.

"He loves the attention he receives at the ceremony and takes his time inspecting the troops."

Nils has also received medals for long service and had a 4ft bronze statue built in his honour.

Guardsman Captain Rune Wiik said: "We are extremely proud of Nils Olav and pleased that an enduring part of the Royal Guard is resident in Scotland helping to further strengthen ties between our two countries."

Skye 07: Skye Walkers

Wednesday:  Despite the huge thick 'blackout' curtain over the window/door, we were still aware of it getting light outside at around 4am.  That's one thing about shutters back in Edinburgh - they don't let a peep of light through.  As a result, my body clock went a wee bit wonky, seeing the light outside and thinking "ah, we're up!".  It got better over the next couple of days, but that first morning felt very odd.  Nonetheless, after a few hours of stop-start sleep and a supremely invigorating shower - after which a bog-standard electric shower feels just so feeble - it was breakfast time.  And oh!  What breakfast!  Starting off with knee-tremblingly good freshly baked muffins, the main course is cooked to order.  That first morning I had locally sourced smoked haddock with poached egg.  Fresh and delicious, it was a fine way to start the day, all the while looking out at the clear blue sky and sea.  Suitably stuffed and assured of a nice day out, on came the walking boots and off we went.

Walking along the main street in Broadford is always pleasant, even if there's a convoy of German motorcycles or great lorries laden down with timber roaring through it.  Heading past the Co-op that morning, we were supremely tickled to see six mallards sat in the car park, resting in the disabled parking section for some curious reason - a couple of mornings later we saw them resting in the same place again, despite cars being parked on either side of them.  A little further on, just over the bridge on the way to the post office, there's the start of the Marble Line footpath that can ultimately take four routes depending on how far you want to go, leading to Beinn Suardal, detailed here.  It's well signposted by the Forestry Commission, though don't be surprised when part of the path requires walking on the road (the B8803, I think) - it's a single track road with very little traffic, and it's not long before the path signpost appears to lead you off the road and onto a well-surfaced path that gradually rises and turns, with the mighty Beinn na Caillich rising up majestically on your right.

It's incredibly peaceful out on this walk, the only sounds really coming from the breeze, the trickling of tiny streams running past and the odd mehh from the sheep grazing on the slopes you're walking along.  There's not much sign of humans, which is always good, and the few houses you can see help you appreciate the sheer scale of the natural scenery around you.  The detail on the nearby peaks is fascinating to look at, marveling at the shadows of clouds rolling over the surface, and made me look forward to the day I do some proper full-on hill-walking/climbing on Skye.  We cheerfully wandered along for a couple of hours, turning back after a few kilometres.

Afterwards, we had a functional lunch at the Broadford Hotel bar and the Lass went giddy at her own personal heaven, eventually coming out with a faraway look in her eyes and a bag full of woolly stuff.  By now, feet were starting to throb, conditioned as they've been to usually walking no longer than half an hour in one go, so it was back to Tigh an Dochais for a bit of reading and sketching.  Soon enough, it was six o'clock - nosh!

Towards the end of our holiday in Broadford last year, we ate at a just-opened cafe/restaurant called the Harbour Restaurant, where they served a fantastic range of meat and veggie-friendly locally-sourced dishes that absolutely blew us away.  Ever since we'd been looking forward to going back and hoping they'd still be open - after all, could somewhere so good, so reasonably priced, stay afloat?  The answer, thankfully, is a resounding HELL YEAH.  Even better, one year on, the Harbour Restaurant is now so popular that you need to book in advance for a table (phone them on 01471 822687) - and with good reason.  The Lass has just written an excellent post about the Harbour Restaurant and anyone considering visiting Skye should definitely make sure they have at least one dinner there (we spent three of our four nights there this year, and would have gone for all four if it wasn't closed Mondays and Tuesdays).  The service is excellent, the staff very friendly and happy to talk, and the food, well...

I started with the Smokey Roast Salmon, smoked by Isle of Skye Seafoods just down the road (also where the breakfast haddock came from).  Fish suppers aside, I don't usually eat much fish, but this was delicious, smoked just right and a real treat on the taste buds.  My main course was Highland Lamb cooked Tagine style with apricots, dates and mint, served with couscous and brown rice.  The sauce was absolutely delicious, a bit like a good Hoi Sin sauce, hints of fruit and spice - just thinking about it now makes my mouth water!  The rice complemented the sauce and lamb, the couscous given a subtle kick with pepper.  It was filling without being stodgy and was one of the best meals I've had in ages, followed up with Baked Lemon Cheesecake and cream.  It tasted wonderfully fresh, though certainly not sour, a lovely thick texture worth savouring.  The icing on this culinary cake was the drinks list, featuring not just the usual Isle of Skye Brewery beers but also a few beers from the excellent Black Isle Brewery, regular visitors to the Edinburgh Farmers Market and responsible for some of the best bottled beer in Scotland.  I went with their Heather Honey Beer each night at the Harbour, a refreshing and light beer that didn't overpower any of the flavours and was just the ticket for those hot sunny evenings.

Skye 07: A New Dochais

All holidays
are whole small lives
lived somewhere else...
- Liz Lochhead

Saturday afternoon in Edinburgh in the middle of June.  Looking out of the window from our living room, all I can see is a pale grey sky that can't be arsed and the old stained stones, gutters and chimneys of New Town buildings.  Further away, behind a haze of drizzle, there's an even greyer modern building of metal and glass visible over the rooftops.  There's not a hint of nature in sight (unless you count the rain spattering the windows), with grass, flowers and trees eschewed for concrete, slate and brick.  No better time, then, to sit back and start reliving our holiday to Skye that was only a week ago but already feels more like a dream - the tedium and dreary annoyances of everyday life reasserted themselves so quickly on our return, as though to blot out all the fresh memories of light, peace and all-round happiness.  Nuts to that!  This, and the following posts, are my little way of keeping those memories fresh, and hopefully convince one or two of youse to make your own brief escape to that misty isle.

Tuesday: Woke up, all excited - first day of holiday! - and opened the bedroom shutters to see the sunny weather promised the night before, only to be confronted by multitudes of grey.  Tsk!  Nonetheless, we scampered our merry way over to Haymarket station, trying to avoid the commuting hordes pouring out of it.  Settled down on the train, devouring a bacon roll and the Herald, I got my new sketchbook and the usual watercolour pencils out, ready to start sketching the passing countryside as soon as the sun comes out and gives the landscape some real colour again.  Hours later, I'm still waiting - the cloud only breaks in the last half hour of the journey from Inverness to Kyle of Lochalsh, during which it practically vanished.  By the time we reached the end of the line, the sky was blue with just a few streaks of cloud and sunshine was beaming down, sparkling off the sea and lighting the landscape up.  The greens, blues, purples, ochres - compared to the overcast greys of Edinburgh that morning, it was almost like arriving in Technicolored Oz.

Following a bus journey over the bridge and up to Broadford, driven by a terrifically cheerful chap who made sure all the tourists on board got off at the right stops, there we were, standing in front of the B&B we'd gazed at last year with longing - Tigh an Dochais (House of Hope in Gaelic).  Architecturally it's a stunner, designed by Dualchas Building Design (whose Hebridean Contemporary Homes kit-houses are just what we want for our own new-build when we move to Skye in the nearish future) - you can read about the design here.  From the outside it manages to be eye-catching without being garish, settling nicely into the landscape of Broadford bay, while the interiors... oh my.  The guest lounge, with a huge floor-to-ceiling window looking out over the bay, is a wonderful, wonderful room, awash with natural light.  The view is breathtaking, soothing, almost hypnotic - goodness knows how much time I spent just gazing out - and so completely different to what we've been used to (hence the opening wail about greyness).  We knew it was going to be brilliant, thanks to reviews from Stu, Andrea and Homes & Interiors Scotland Magazine, but even so... damn.

Our bedroom was equally stunning, again using a large floor-to-ceiling sliding glass door to great effect (you can see some of it here), leading out onto a nice terrace where you can sit, watch and listen to the sea - and with a breeze coming off the water, the midges aren't the bother they'd usually be.  The terrace is shared with the other two guest rooms and Jess, the friendly and downright dippy B&B dog who, we were warned, would scamper into our room and run off with a shoe for chuckles given the chance.  She was a great bundle of fun who quickly sussed me as a willing playchum and by the end of our stay would sit outside, waiting for me to come out and play 'fetch-and-then-pretend-to-give-the-toy-back-but-then-scamper-back-with-a-har-har-fooled-you-look'  The nice big king-size bed has left our double at home feeling notably wee, while the en-suite bathroom was equally generous in size and features, with a good strength shower and nice deep bath - how perfectly sweet to have some complimentary lavender bubble bath from Highland Soaps!

With such a building (not to mention the superb customer service and ludicrously good breakfasts) you could be forgiven for expecting the nightly rates to be out-of-sight - after all, when the Burd first read about it in H&IS she assumed it would be prohibitively pricey for the likes of us.  Nope!  Instead, for a couple staying for four nights (like ourselves) it's just £30 each a night which, for the quality of service and accommodation you're getting, is a superb deal.  It's clearly paying off, with the rooms booked up months in advance (so book early!) and return business guaranteed from the many satisfied customers as the visitors book attests - I know Stu & Andrea are heading back there this year, and the Lass & I wouldn't think of going anywhere else when summer 2008 rolls around.

Anyways, having settled down and spent ages gawping at the view, we had a lovely walk along the bay in the sunshine before dinner at Beinn na Caillaich cafe, named after the great peak that looms over Broadford.  After that, back to Tigh an Dochais to admire the view as the sky slowly shifted colour - during which I did a bit of sketching - and listened to the very music that we've been playing over the last year while dreaming wistfully of the day we'd be back on Skye.  While the sky stayed bright, the most recent Boards of Canada album, The Campfire Headphase, worked perfectly, particularly Satellite Anthem Icarus with it's gently rushing waves, and Peacock Tail which to my ears is the perfect sonic snapshot of Broadford, the echoed guitar like a lone bird flying across the bay.  As the outdoors gradually darkened - slowly, it only really got dark around midnight - Bonnie Prince Billy's The Letting Go went on, a suitably hushed and sparse collection of music, especially the beautiful (and, again, echoing) Strange Form Of Life.  Both sights and sounds were gentle, relaxing, soothing - for the first night of a holiday, I couldn't hope for more.

Tomorrow - Wednesday!

Interesting Times

Ever since last Thursday I've been itching to write a great big post on the Scottish Parliament elections, the campaigns and the results, though it could've proved a tad contentious.  However, as someone working within the Scottish Civil Service, and expecting to continue to do so well into the future, this has the potential of being a rather foolhardy move.  That's the risk of blogging under one's own name rather than under a pseudonym, especially a name as distinctive as my own - it's easy to have your words found online, by anyone, at any time.  While I don't for one second think that anything I could write right now would cause me much trouble at work presently, being relatively small fry (aside from any Official Secrets Act stuff, which would clearly be begging for trouble), it's not impossible that at some point in the future I might be applying for a position where party-specific ranting from the past would scupper my chances.  After all, the internet never forgets.

Nonetheless, it's been a fascinating few days for a politics watcher like meself.  For anyone without a scooby as to what I'm talking about, the BBC News site has done a typically fine job of covering everything.  In particular, Brian Taylor has excelled with his blogging over the last few weeks, culminating in an exhausting all-nighter as the results came in... or not, in some cases.  The fuddle that has followed, well described by Paul O'Brien on Saturday, is pretty much unprecedented in UK politics, especially with the prospect of a coalition hamstrung by a single issue.  It's a very curious state of affairs and even now, days after the results, it's still impossible to say exactly how things will pan out in an election that seems to lack a real winner.  All things considered, the scenario suggested by the aforementioned Mr Taylor earlier on today offers the most sensible way out for all involved:

Alex Salmond forms a minority government - with the Liberal Democrats in opposition.
The SNP put forward their Bill to hold a referendum on independence.
The Bill is heavily defeated.
After a further breathing space, the LibDems enter talks with the SNP - with the issue of a referendum now settled and off the agenda.

After all, no matter your political position, mathematically it's perfectly obvious that any attempt at passing a referendum bill through the Scottish Parliament following last weeks results will fail, despite the wild ravings of committed comment-leavers on damn near any Scotsman or Herald article.  Either the bill never reaches Parliament, due to the SNP letting it go for the course of the next four years in order to agree a coalition with Lib-Dems or Labour in the next couple of weeks, or it gets to Parliament - and promptly fails.  Far more sensible, surely, to get an initial referendum attempt out of the way, allowing coalition to take place without any party breaking their word.  (For my part, I'd be furious if the party I voted for reneged on their stance regarding independence)  Remove the referendum issue for now, with the potential of reintroducing it in the future should there ever be a pro-independence majority within Holyrood.  While the SNP electioneering slogan was "it's time", the results demonstrate that, for an independence referendum at least, it clearly is not.  As to whether it ever will be, or my view of the whole issue, well, ask me in the pub sometime.  Walls have ears, comrade.

From House To Home

In retrospect, Friday's post was a bit of a whingefest, don't you think?  So enough grinching about what was - we've been living here just over a week, time to hurrah about what is.

• Warmth.  The old flat was pretty badly insulated, had high ceilings and there was always a two-degree drop going into the open plan living room/kitchen.  This place, by contrast, is somewhat smaller and therefore much cosier with less heating required.  Our utility bills should take a great dip from hereon, because the gas bills for the last year were sodding huge.
• SHUT IT!  At last, a flat with shutters.  Lovely old wooden ones that fold into the side of the window during the day but, come sundown, can be unfolded and hooked shut, just like in the olden days.  They're utterly marvelous and surely help maintain a cosy warmth after hours.  They're also incredibly good at stopping any light from outside so will be a godsend during the short nights of a Scottish summer.  In fact, I think I'll close them now.  *creak* *clunk* *cling!*  Oh, how satisfying!
• The view's not too shabby either.  While nowhere near the fairytale-village vista that I'd photographed in December from the old place, the church looks awfully nice both in sunlight and at dusk, plus the view of Edinburgh Castle promises a spectacular view at the next whopping fireworks display (probably the end of Festival ones in September - damn it, that's months away!).  On top of that, the other end of the flat has a good view of Corstophine Hill, another launch pad for Hogmanay fireworks.  We'll probably spend the first few minutes of 2008 scampering from one window to the other, making silly "wooooo!" sounds as we go.
• SOUND.  I only got the whole surround-sound system (of past post fame) set-up this evening - and the difference in sound quality is genuinely astonishing.  There was more distance betwixt us and the speakers at the old flat, plus the open-plan must have left more space to fill with sound and less wallspace or furniture for the music to bounce off.  I haven't tried any 5.1 encoded DVDs yet, but just listening to Massive Attack's Collected CD in the last hour has been a revelation.  I thought these speakers sounded good before, but given a smaller room they've become fucking awesome, the bass much more obvious yet the high-end coming through very crisp and clear, the sound seeming to envelop us, genuinely surrounding (the beeps on Future Proof seem to be everywhere around us as I type).  For this reason, I don't think I'll be able to play BLACK until the entire building is empty, especially as I'll probably be shrieking during firefights.
• And so to bed.  We'd bought a new mattress last year and brought it with us to the new place, but it's been demoted to the guest bedroom because the brand new bed in the master bedroom is brilliant.  Really really brilliant.  See, up until now I've always felt somewhat uncomfortable on mattresses, unsupported in some parts, over-supported in others.  But this... oh, my chums, it's divine!  I can kip on my side without the sense of bedsprings pushing into my hip - last night I had one of the best sleeps in ages, all the more amazing with it being a Sunday night, always the worst night for sleeping during the week.  I wonder if there's a particular make?  Let's have a look... Lumme, it's Ikea!  Sultan Hustad, says here, plus a nifty mattress pad on top.  Very nice.  How nice to be in a furnished flat where the landlord hasn't gone for the cheapest option on all the furnishings.
• Fireplace in the old flat when we moved in = gaping hole with cold air wooshing out of it and a big pile of rubble (later it got boarded up.  Much later).  Fireplace in this new place = proper fireplace than can actually be used for open fires when the winter comes.  Bring on the chestnuts!
• Slap bang in the middle of Edinburgh city, but still surprisingly quiet - the street is pretty much occupied by businesses and it's pretty much missed by tourists.  Very important if you're a masses-loathing misanthrope.
• Wooden floors means no matted clumps of hair in carpet left over from the previous occupants.  Say it with me now: EWWWW.  Plus those chilly floorboards are the perfect excuse to go and buy a jolly decent pair of slippers.  Memory foam soles?  Ooh, rather!
• Gas hob kicks electric hob arse.  Hot wok in a matter of seconds and that thoroughly satisfying *woof!* sound when it lights.
• The bath is a darn sight deeper than any I've had the pleasure of wallowing in before, meaning I could actually get my knees under the water when I had a soak last night.  Do you know how amazing this is?!  It's amazing!  Knees!  Under water!  Amazing!  Maybe you had to be there.  The luxuriousness is enhanced by the skylights above the bath, allowing one in one's bubbly reverie to gaze up into the night sky and, opening the windows a notch, feel a cool breeze brush against one whilst stewing in the steaming hot water.  All that's missing is a Flake bar.
• Walking to work.  It's brill, especially walking via Cockburns delicatessen on Queensferry Street, filled with nice fresh veg & right-on nosh of all kinds, or walking past the First Minister's residence while a small group of protesters lie outside playing dead, presumably as some kind of anti-war/Trident thingy.  They weren't very convincing, especially the one on the mobile.
• A proper double bed in the workroom/guest-room, so any of you lovely types who come to visit and stay with us from hereon will actually have a decent bed to kip in, rather than the old method of plonking a mattress on the floor.  Go on!  Come up and see us, make us smile.  Not that we don't smile normally here at Chez Chaz-Naggle, but visitors always bring an extra jiggle of joy to our world.  Plus it's nice to paraphrase Steve Harley & Cockney Rebel.
• Actually, to follow up on the view, this is what I saw from the kitchen/workroom skylight windows at 6pm today.  Definitely not shabby.

Why We Rent, #23 and #24

#23: Property ladder 'a step too far'

Edinburgh is the most expensive place in Scotland for first-time home buyers, according to new research.

The figures suggested buyers in Edinburgh need to pay about five times their household income, compared with a Scottish average of 3.67.

The study said the average house price in Edinburgh was £185,651, compared with a Scottish average of £119,344.

[...] "While overall Scotland remains the most affordable part of Great Britain, Edinburgh is among the least affordable areas, and affordability continues to worsen in Scotland as it does in the rest of Britain," [The report's author, Professor Steve Wilcox of the Centre for Housing Policy at the University of York] said.

#24: The view on Friday afternoon.

iBuckie

Coooooool!  From TUAW, SurvivingCinemas.org.uk on a shiny new arrival for Glasgow's Buchanan Street next year:

The Apple Store Glasgow will be in what is currently The Pier on Buchanan Street.
The planning application shows the removal of the existing mezannine floor, and its replacement with a new one. A new lift and stone floor will be installed, and the rear wall will be in stainless steel panels, as will the ceiling.  A glass spiral staircase to the left of the main entrance will connect the ground and mezzanine levels.
[...] Estimated start date for work: Feb 2007
Estimated completion date: July 2007

Top Chop!

We haven't talked music round here for yonks, have we?  Compared to last year, with gig after gig after gig, 2006 has been a sparse year for concerts, for a number of reasons.  One - with a flat this nice and a Burd so smashing, staying in is perfectly brilliant.  Two - I'm now living in Edinburgh, a city with a shamefully pisspoor record when it comes to live music, with mediocre venues and rubbish audiences.  Three - while I may hunger for gigs in Glasgow, the cost in money & time it takes to get there & back is often enough to put me right off, especially with week day gigs, most definitely if it's at a venue that's likely to keep the concert going beyond 11pm (which sadly includes my beloved Tuts).  So, while there's still been three good shows in Edinburgh this year - Will Oldham, Mogwai and Bob Mould - that's far too few for so much time.  Between the lame venues and the chattering peeps, I've been put right off.

Hopefully all the above shows you why, when tour dates for Lambchop were announced with Edinburgh and Glasgow shows included, the Lass & I plumped for the Glasgow gig.  While we could've gone along to the Edinburgh gig in August at the Liquid Room, the thought of being in such a hot and uninspiring place filled with yappy festival folk chuntering over the more fragile moments in Lambchop's repertoire filled us with icky dread.  Far more appealing was the idea of traveling over to Glasgow in November and catching the band at the ABC, a venue that opened just over a year ago but which I'd never been to (though reports from Mr Bob were extremely positive).  So that's just what we did.

Being in Glasgow, even for just a few hours, made my 2002-2005 nostalgia kick in strong.  I made little wistful sounds while wandering around the city centre ("ahhh, the no.38 bus!") and having dinner at Grassroots was a real treat, having first gone there with the lady back in August 2005, with us even sat at the same table as the first time.  The nosh was delicious, his and hers, and by the time we'd let the dessert settle I was in the mood for us heading back to my West End flat for a DVD and a bottle of wine... except that was a year ago and doing the same now would be tantamount to breaking and entering.  Going to the concert sounded far more legal, so off we bumbled.

O, ABC!  How did I live so long without thee?  The publicity croons about it being "passionately and meticulously crafted to offer music lovers an extraordinary experience" which all sounded very nice but could've been absolute guff.  Nope - it's all true.  I've been to a lot of venues around the world and within a few minutes of entering the ABC I knew it was a major improvement on any of those, especially those with a capacity of over 500.  You can read about the curious history of the building here (polar bears are involved) and the effort that's gone into reviving the place as not one but two music venues is immediately apparent.  Everything that Edinburgh's shockingly short-lived Gig venue did wrong seems to have been done right with ABC, pulling in an impressively eclectic range of performers from the opening night onwards.  There's no sense of claustrophobia, yet also no 'warehouse' ambience that some 1000+ capacity venues give (Usher Hall, SECC, Dublin's Point).  The acoustics are superb, the lighting cool with an effectively sparse use of neon... christ, how could I ever set foot in the dank stupor of the Liquid Rooms after this?

Anyhoo, after opening noodling from Hands Off Cuba, a Nashville-based laptop group who at their most active sounded like Tortoise but often were more like Fly Pan Am with atmospheric twiddling, the slightest of guitars and not much more, Lambchop joined them onstage at just after 8pm.  No orchestral/quartet backing, which I was briefly disappointed by, but that still left close to ten different musicians on-stage, and as soon as they started playing all was fine.  The music was as lush and rich as their recorded works, opening with the slow-burn beauty of Paperback Bible, Kurt Wagner sitting centre stage with five large paper spheres hanging above, upon which all sorts of things were projected over the next two hours.  As well as giving the new album an airing, including this freebie...

Crackers (MP3, 3.8MB)

...there were a fair few tracks from flat favourite Is A Woman (Bugs and My Blue Wave proving particularly swoonsome) and some older tracks.  The Militant was suitably sinister, an unsettling sense of doom reaching its peak as Wagner lurched back and hollered "Overrated!  Underinsulated!  Carefree!" while monochrome biplanes divebombed on the spheres.  While there were no surprises as such - aside from the piano player's bizarre forays in comedy with varying success - it was exactly what we'd hoped for.  Two hours of beautiful music performed with skill and passion by an extremely talented group of musicians, appreciated by an energetic yet respectful audience, watched in a cracking venue and finishing with plenty of time to catch the 22:30 train.  Add on some chips picked up on the walk home from the train station and you've got an absolutely tip-top Saturday night right there.

Of course, now I'm absolutely hankering to go back to the ABC, especially to try out the ABC2 downstairs venue... and this morning I discovered that Nina Nastasia is going to be performing there mid-November.  Result!  Now, if they could just relocate it from Sauchiehall Street, Glasgow to Lothian Road, Edinburgh, that'd be lovely.