Woolamaloo Gazette LJ style

some stencil art on a Georgian building in the immensely expensive West End of Edinburgh's New Town. Personally I think its more likely Brown is too busy watching his own Cabinet colleagues for sharpened daggers to watch all of us, but I still appreciated the sentiments given how much he and Blair increased surveillance and quietly demolished civil liberties 'to protect us'. Somehow a government that says it might consider 're-writing' parts of the European Convention on Human Rights gives me the chills. Although I notice they backed off from that and besides they couldn't do it UK-wide as the ECHR was written separately into Scots law (which is different from English law) when the devolved Edinburgh parliament was established. But just the fact they said it shows how morally bankrupt that entire generation of New Labour tossers are.

The art crew at Saint John's church on Princes Street often post up some interesting works on this billboard on the side of the building commenting on current social, moral and political topics. I think this one, with the nod to Orwell's Animal Farm, is a nice comment on the pigs in the trough greed of so many of our dishonourable Members of Parliament in the House of Shame.

I was kept very busy this week finishing editing and setting up my mate Pádraig's incredibly Massive Mega Moore Marathon - its a new (15, 000 words or so, phew!) interview with Britain's Wizard in Extraordinary, Mr Alan Moore. In fact its so big I had to break it into three sections across three days on the Forbidden Planet blog - part one is mostly concerned with the League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, especially the new third volume Century, the first volume of which comes out this month (Century 1910), the second next year (Century 1969) and a final part which is set in the present day after that.

It will surprise no-one who knows Alan's work to learn that the subjects and themes and references covered are diverse, from the Threepenny Opera to Jack the Ripper and Monty Python. Part two is where Alan talks about future projects and other works (including doing some work for a local youth culture mag which included Alan telling the kids the truth about drugs! Brilliant), taking in magic and James Joyce along the way, with the third and final part, which I posted up yesterday, is where Alan graciously agreed to take some selected questions sent in by readers of the FP blog. Its enormous but fascinating reading - many thanks again to Alan and for it.

On a related note, earlier this week we found out that media analysts Cision had posted a list of the top fifty blogs in the UK. As you might expect its dominated by politics blogs and blogs from established traditional media like the BBC and the Guardian. And in there at number 31 a solitary entry from the worlds of comics and science fiction - the Forbidden Planet blog. Needless to say I am surprised and delighted - I started that blog just over four years ago, now we have several contributors and its grown a lot (so much so that its a real juggling act for me to balance keeping the blog fires stoked and working on the main webstore; usually that means I end up doing a lot in my own time to keepit going, as do some of the contributors). And its nice that its grown so much since I started it and that a lot of folks in comics and SF communities check it out, but to see that its in the top 50 of all UK blogs? That its up there with Guardian blogs? Wow. Just goes to show that if its done correctly (and honestly) a good blog presence can be more effective (and cheaper and more enjoyable for you and your readers) than huge amounts of advertising. That's the sort of thing that can happen when you embrace blogging culture as a company instead of screaming hysterically at it.

A very quick 360 degree video panorama of Edinburgh from North Bridge (which connects Old and New Towns) during the heavy snows on the way to work last week. It only took a minute but my coat was covered white in that time and the high winds on such an exposed spot were swirling the snow flakes so much you can barely see the Castle, but I thought it was worth it for a quick capture to give you an idea. In better weather this is a great spot for views across the city (if you are ever visiting its a good spot to take pics from)

New moon and venus rising over the tall, old tenements of the Royal Mile in Edinburgh's Old Town on the way home from work a few days ago.

The light was fading so the pic quality isn't the best on this short clip, but I couldn't resist trying to capture the sound of the bells of Saint Cuthbert's peeling, just below the shadow of the Castle and but yards from busy Princes Street where the Christmas shoppers were utterly oblivious to this lovely little moment...

Taking advantage of Doors Open Day to go inside the Mercat Cross and to the top - not terribly high up, but it does give a different perspective on the Royal Mile from what I normally see and besides, I walk past it all the time but had never been inside it, which was reason enough.

A panoramic view from the top of the highest tower in the Lighthouse, the old building restored in the centre of Glasgow into a gallery, art and architecture space, looking across the city of Glasgow from several stories up

A more palatable take on the Credit Crunch from Equi's, the finest ice cream parlour in Scotland.

I know I haven't posted for a while, folks, but I'm afraid my world has been turned upside down and pulled inside out and I feel like my heart has been too. I went to bed on Sunday 30th of March content after a pleasant late afternoon chatting to friends over drinks in my favoured haunt of the Caley Sample Room. And in the small, dark hours of the following morning a phone call, a sinking feeling because no-one phones at 3am for good news. Stagger out of bed, grab phone, its my dad. Its my dad more disraught than I've ever known him and through tears he's telling me we just lost my mum. I don't understand what's going on - I'm half asleep, mum wasn't in the pink but nothing serious that we knew of, what's going on, what does he mean. I'm still in shock shortly after as my cousin and uncle arrive to take me home to Glasgow, driving through the dark and I'm praying please let this be a bad dream, please let me wake up, please let me wake up, please let me wake up. It wasn't. We just buried my beautiful, warm, loving mother a couple of days ago and I feel like someone's ripped a chunk of my soul out.

I came home to Edinburgh today for the first time in over a week and when I checked my emails there was one from my mum, sent on that Sunday, which I hadn't seen because I had been out all day and because I never checked the following day because I was sitting back in Glasgow in shock with my dad wondering how this had happened to us so shockingly suddenly and why was it happening to us. She just got online a few weeks ago and was so proud about emailing the relatives in Canada and elsewhere. It was just one, short line, asking how I was and telling me her and dad had just booked their summer holidays - in fact there are two new cases they bought on Saturday lying unused in my room back home. It finishes 'see you Wednesday' - they were coming through to visit their wee boy and drop off his Easter egg. I didn't get to see her. Instead I saw her in the hospital and the spark that made her my mum was gone from her. And its not bloody fair, she was 61, her and dad retired only a year and I want to scream at the world for taking her from us. I wanted her to get up so badly, I touched her beautiful red hair and kissed her and she didn't get up and we had to leave her in that place. It feels like we've lived a year in the last nine or ten days, so damned hard and more than anything I need a cuddle from my mum and I can't have it and that's breaking my heart. I can't write anymore just now, its too raw and everytime I think I'm getting a grip something else will set me off again, I feel like my heart's made of glass. I wanted to write, to let some of it out but its just too hard right now. A month ago I was so happy walking round Paris, just over a week ago I spent a nice weekend with friends and was looking forward to a visit from my folks. And within the space of a few short, dark hours it was all suddenly ripped open and I'm still sitting here in an air of unreality.

Saint John's church on Princes Street often posts up large paintings commenting on current events and social problems, which I rather admire, especially as this church, in the shadow of Edinburgh Castle, faces onto Princes Street to thousands of shoppers, commuters and endless overseas visitors will see them and hopefully it might make a few of them think.

There is a great fair trade shop under the church and the One World Cafe which is a great spot to go for a break in the middle of the city. During the better weather the cafe (in the crypt-like space under the church) spills outside with chairs and tables in the sunken graveyard behind the structure so you can have your cuppa and muffin under a leafy tree by the crumbling old tombstones. The cafe also features as a location in Ken MacLeod's recent (and quite excellent) The Execution Channel novel. During the summer the old tree-filled graveyard becomes home to an open air craft fair throughout the Festival.

 

Given the events at the lighting of the Olympic torch this image seemed to me to become doubly relevant and since the TV crews covering that decided to be cowards and turn the cameras away during the protest (shameful of the camera crews) to avoid offending the Chinese government I thought I'd post this up here and should it offend anyone, especially from the murderous, totalitarian regime in China then they can kiss my Magnificent Celtic Arse. They are bastards and deserve to be humiliated and embarrassed at every single public event leading up to the Olympics. They wanted the Games to use as international propaganda - that goes two ways though and however much they like to pretend all problems are an invention of the Western media the truth is that they are murderous dictators and we should not be pandering to the sods.

Following a nice lunch of some nice, hand-made fresh crepes in a small cafe near the Eiffel Tower I spotted this (sadly closed) shop with old cine cameras and projectors in the window, including this magnificent old Pathe piece.

Despite the freezing wind and gray-green waves some folks weren't put off from splashing around!

The delights of a sparkling sunny Easter Sunday in Scotland as the delighted kids on their Easter break enjoy Edinburgh's seaside at Portobello... Jeez, icy wind made it feel less like spring and more like early February, except when we were down here in early February it was pretty mild! Typical Scottish flip-flopping weather, mild in winter so early flowers start to stick their heads above ground then spring rolls round and suddenly you have to dig out the big heavy winter coat again... The wind was driving the waves into the stairs and sea wall, then they were rebounding back out to hit the incoming waves in nice, big explosions of foaming water, sometimes splashing high enough up to hit the promenade right where I was filming from.

The bar/cafe just along from our hotel in the Latin Quarter. Dammit, I miss Paris...

Brilliant Quasimodo puppet glimpsed through the shutters of a closed marionette store (which had just the right mix of delight and creepiness) in a side street in Paris

And a second video clip from the twin room of the one in the previous post in the Richelieu wing of the Louvre, Paris, which I would have included in the previous post but LJ spazzes out when I try to put in two different media embeds, poor thing.

... I was walking round the Louvre (sigh).


(click the pics for the full size ones on Flickr)


(the world's original supermodel, the Venus de Milo, now romantically linked with Paul McCartney - will he never learn to avoid relationships with disabled models?)


(modest decoration in one wing)


(La Joconde - the Mona Lisa, the only painting I took a photo of. You're allowed photography elsewhere but they do ask not to do it in the paintings rooms for the obvious reason a lot of numpties don't know how to switch off their flashes and those damage paintings and tapestries. Despite this being an almost universal rule in museums and galleries legions of tourists, especially Japanese ones, were merrily flashing away right in front of many delicate paintings, made me want to hit them. I didn't use the flash but I decided on principle not to use the camera until I got to this and since folks were shooting away while curators didn't say a word I thought the heck with it...)



(the Richelieu wing - I loved the twin 'inside-outside' sculpture gardens where the squares had been roofed over with this hi-tech metal and glass canopy, like a smaller scale version of the one at the British Museum. It meant the whole space was like being outside while protected and it was flooded with light, perfect for sketching - which is why, as you can see below, plenty of artists were taking advantage of it to study and drawn the statues, a great way to train yourself in portraying human anatomy)

(I shot a couple of very brief videos just so I could show panoramas of these twin spaces since there was no way to capture it in a still image)

Couldn't resist snapping some graphic novels - or Bande Dessinee - in this Parisian comics store window, although since the French treat comics as a proper art form you can find a lot of BD in mainstream stores too. In fact wandering round the Saint Michel area I found some good material in a bookstore there which has almost as many titles as you'd expect in a specialist comics store, both kids and adults titles alike, including work from Brit creators like Eddie Campbell translated into French (and currently unavailable in English in fact - the French clearly appreciate good art more than English language readers). Coincidentally the middle book of the three on the bottom left, Chronique Birmanes by Guy Delisle, is one I just edited a review of from one of our European contributors over on the Forbidden Planet blog.

I picked up a couple of BD journals at a newstand including one with a collection of work by some of the biggest names in the business who have won at the prestigious Angouleme festival in the last three decades, from Trondheim to Crumb. I also treated myself to a hardback album of work by Berberian and Dupuy who won the Gran Prix at January's Angouleme (some of their work has been translated by the excellent Drawn & Quarterly crew from Canada) and some work by Jodorowsky - my French isn't brilliant and its also rusty but I'm hoping the pictures help with context for the bits I can't quite get; worth a shot anyway.

Our arrival point in Paris, the Gare du Nord - interestingly the direct train in from Charles de Gaulle to Paris passed Le Bourget, now just a spot on the graffiti covered railway line but this spot not far from the huge CDG airport is the simple little airfield where history was made; it was where Charles Lindbergh arrived from New York after the first solo Atlantic flight in history. I wonder how many of the huge amount of folks coming in and out of CDG each day ever realise that as they pass it