THE NATIONAL – HIGH VIOLET

I have been quite enjoying The National’s latest album, “High Violet“, mainly because Matt Berninger has a nice baritone. Every so often I feel the need for songs to be sung by a man, and by a man with a man’s voice.

I don’t know why, but falsetto vocal acrobatics can wear me out fast some days.

I can find solace in opera, or I can turn to bands like “The Divine Comedy” or to Richard Hawley. “The National” are in that vein, and it is nice to have an alternative; there ought to be more of this sort of thing in my opinion.

Overall, the sound is fairly straightforward current indy pop. “Sorrow” is a case in point. “Anyone’s Ghost” has an odd drum pattern, but it is still melancholy and wistful, touches of Grizzly Bear and other east coast USA stuff permeate, but still. In fact, there are weird touches of all sorts — for example, of Johnny Cash on “The Runaway” at the beginning, and even bits reminiscent of the band, “Elbow” on tracks like “Vanderlyle Crybaby Geeks”.

I would think that if you like the likes of Owen Pallett, Grizzly Bear, you could do worse that give The National a punt.

[embedded video of Bloodbuzz Ohio from YouTube.com]

[embedded video of Sorrow from YouTube.com]

Links for The National:

Wikipedia

www.myspace.com/thenational

www.americanmary.com/

06 WEEK DUKAN

I have lost 1.8 kg since last week, 10.4 kg in total. BMI 28.4 kg/m²

I have survived my sixth week on The Dukan Diet.

My scales state that I am now 85.1 kg — which confirms the return to the kilo-and-a-half rate of loss per week.

See ya in two weeks as I am off on vacation next week!

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TANLINES

It’s fathers’ day today, and I’m being allowed to chill a bit. So I’ve been playing some tunes from the old hard drive, getting the kids dancing about a bit.

Then I thought I’d have a scoot around the interweb, and for some strange reason this tune caught on, maybe it is catchy?  See what you think:

[embedded video of Tanlines’ Real Life from youTube.com]

*Link to Tanlines on MySpace:  www.myspace.com/tanlinestheband

Tanlines’ Real Life — summer finally here?

• get the album on Amazon

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05 WEEK DUKAN

I have lost 1.6 kg since last week, 8.6 kg in total. BMI 29.0 kg/m²

I have survived my fifth week on The Dukan Diet.

My scales state that I am now 86.9 kg — which is back to the rate I was hoping for, maybe last week was a blip.

See ya next week!

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PEACHES

I have recently rediscovered Peaches. I vaguely remembered “The Teaches of Peaches” as being quite shocking and being from the year 2000 — and for those two reasons I associate her with Eminem! What a summer that was — in Sweden actually.

Born in 1968, Merrill Beth Nisker, the white, Jewish, Canadian school teacher changed into “Peaches” and moved to Germany to make electronic music with explicit lyrics and frank performance.  There’s enough there to keep students of Freud busy for years.

Anyway, not a thought did I give her or her music until I got into “I Feel Cream” — what a superb album!  This led me to get last years’  “The Flaming Lips and Stardeath and White Dwarfs With Henry Rollins and Peaches Doing The Dark Side of the Moon“.

When listening to Peaches’s music, one cannot help but draw comparisons to other music and even genres.  This woman can sing, but she can sound like Gwen Stefani, Kylie Minogue, Alison Goldfrapp and more besides.  The music conjures up bizarre things like Black Eyes Peas, The Prodigy, St Vincent, Madonna, Joan Jett, and even the Ting Tings!

When you remember that “The Teaches of Peaches” is ten years ago, it is clear that Peaches has been a massive influence. Presently she’s drawing comparisons with Lady Gaga.

[Embedded video from YouTube.com “I Feel Cream”]

[Embedded video from YouTube.com “Billionaire”]

It has to be said, she’s far from good-looking, but she’s well respected and very talented and has amazing collaborations and offers some original stuff — I Feel Cream tackles the issue of age, including “Trick or Treat (“you lick my crows feet”)”, “Show Stopper (“Nevermind my age, it’s like we’re breaking out of a cage”)” and “Mommy Complex”. Peaches has criticised ageism directed against her.

It’s something different, worth a listen — let me know what you think via the comments as usual.

More information: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peaches_%28musician%29

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04 WEEK DUKAN

I have lost 0.4 kg since last week, 7.0 kg in total. BMI 29.6 kg/m²

I have survived my fourth week/ first month on The Dukan Diet.

My scales state that I am now 88.5 kg.  It’s not much of a loss this week, I was hoping for 1.5 kg a week. Hope it’s not flattening out to a plateau.

See ya next week!

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MY PHOTOS OF GLASGOW 1

I was mesmerised by the pattern of light on an old brick building on Finnieston Street.  As the sun set, it reflected off the highly mirrored finish of the tall Sky Park building.

I saw a similar effect on Gordon Street, with the Ca’D’oro building, along with rainbows and a nice reflection:

And again with the old Dental Hospital entrance up near the Art School.

As a result, I began to notice more and more the reflections on buildings’ surfaces. I noticed the Gaelic School reflected the RSNO building nicely.

Churches make good subjects, so I took two pictures with my mobile phone one lunchtime on Bath Street.  The subject is Renfield St Stephen’s church restored spire.  There are two office blocks across the road, the first picture is 225 Bath Street’s entrance, which is clear glass.

The second picture shows the church reflected in the highly mirrored building directly across from the church.  I took another picture of this building from a different angle and disregarding the church’s reflection:

I realised that there are quite a lot of buildings that attempt to be invisible by being mirrored to reflect the Victorian surroundings.  In some cases the building is almost invisible when reflecting the sky:

Invisibility can make a building light and feint, and nonemoreso than the new Springburn College — known as North Glasgow College, which is formed in plan by two squashed boxes separated by a sharp or acute triangular portion. The pointed bit really is pointed, and vanishes into the sky, being mirrored on both sides.

Sometimes a building will be shiny and silvery, but not really act like a mirror.  There is a very strange building in the IFSD:

It is like a foil-wrapped building, and it still can reflect the sky to become almost invisible.  However, this picture was taken from a narrow lane at the rear of the building, so it mainly serves to reflect light into a dark area.

I like reflections of their own sake — buildings that were not designed to reflect can sometimes do so by virtue of their glazing — a=to great effect if what is reflected is noteworthy.  I spotted this window in the Park Circus area:

Another picture from the next street has a massive mirror to lend light and a feeling of spaciousness to a moat area:

The above point of the North Glasgow College, reminded me of a picture I took with an old Nokia phone of the Science Tower:

I like looking up at tall buildings; it certainly beats looking down!

No article on pictures of Glasgow could miss out The Stobcross Crane or the Armadillo landmarks, and of course, the Clyde itself — perfect for reflections. These three cameraphone snaps were taken from the Squinty Bridge (Clyde Arc).

Hope you enjoyed seeing around my home city of Glasgow through my eyes and the lens of my old trusty Sony Ericsson phone. There are beautiful things all around us all the time — if you choose to look for them.

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03 WEEK DUKAN

I have lost 1.3 kg since last week, 6.6 kg in total. BMI 29.7 kg/m²

I have survived my third week on The Dukan Diet.

My scales state that I am now 88.9 kg.  Things are going well. I am no longer officially obese, I am merely Over-Weight according to the BMI ranges.

See ya next week!

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