Winter walks

Just a few photos from a couple of walks we took at the weekend, around the beautiful
Westonbirt Arboretum and the tiny Gloucestershire village of Huntingford. Although it's technically still Winter, there was a definite feeling of Spring in the air...

Third Doctor sketch by Mike Collins

A couple of weeks back James and I went to the 2019 True Believers comic con in Cheltenham where I picked up this lovely Jon Pertwee sketch from ace comic book artist Mike Collins. I've met Mike a couple of times before and he's a lovely, talented guy who's always happy to chat with fans. I've meant to buy some of his artwork before but never quite got round to it, so I was extremely pleased with this sketch he did for me. It was great to watch him working and see this unique piece of artwork take shape. James and I also sat in on an art workshop Mike conducted where he gave us a few pointers on drawing Spider-Man. This was a lot of fun and the great man said my pitiful Spidey sketch was "really good"... which made my day :-)

As a bonus, here's some more wonderful artwork ( which the observant among you may have noticed as this blog's header image ), a print James bought from Dylan Teague. Isn't it lovely?

The Dandy Warhols at the O2 Institute, Birmingham

By sheer coincidence my most recent glimpses of those Rock 'n' Roll Bohemians, the Dandy Warhols, have all been in cities beginning with "B"  -  Bristol, Barcelona and, a couple of weeks back, the fine city of Birmingham. ( We had hoped to get to Berlin to see them on this tour but it wasn't to B... sorry, "be"... ) This was the Dandy's 25th anniversary tour so it was an absolute must. Sarah and I braved the snowy, sub-zero January weather and drove up to Brum, where we were stopping the night in the glitzy surroundings of a Travelodge next to the Bull Ring. ( Okay, it really wasn't that glitzy. Hopefully the band were staying somewhere a bit nicer. )
The O2 Institute is a lovely venue, yet another of those old, converted theatres we seem to end up in, with some pretty ornate furnishings and a huge arch above the stage. After watching support band Juniore ( a French synth-pop trio who looked cool but had left all their tunes on the other side of the Channel ) we met Borrowed Time superstars Glenn and Cliff who were also there for the promised "massive concussion of rock 'n' roll"...

With this being the band's Silver Anniversary tour, they reached back into their past and dug up a few songs that the more rabid fans ( like Glenn ) knew well but which weren't familiar to more casual fans like me and Sarah. Which was fine, except a lot of these songs were of the drone-y persuasion which made the set sag a bit in the middle ( a metaphor for 25 years? )  -  this, coupled with the strangely muted sound, meant it wasn't the best Dandy's gig I'd seen but it still had some fine moments.

Old faves like Godless, Boys Better, I Love You and Bohemian Like You ( of course! ) were all as immaculate as ever and they did a full-band version of Every Day Should Be A Holiday  -  a song usually just performed solo by Courtney and very welcome in this version. Of the recent material, STYGGO caused a mass singalong, Motor City Steel from the new album was a cheesy, infectious earworm and another new song even gave Zia the chance to do some Country-fied lead vocals. Awesome! Here are Cliff and Glenn adding their voices to the sound of the crowd...

The band were on fine form with the sound bolstered by the addition of a trumpet, which was perfect for Godless  -  even though we all " ba ba ba -ed" the trumpet parts anyway, as standard. Courtney gave a rambling monologue about curries ( well, it was Birmingham ) and loads of balloons were released over the crowd during ...Holiday. Which was nice.

And then it was over and we stumbled out into the freezing Birmingham night. Sarah and I went off to find some sustenance and ended up in a lovely Greek restaurant called Santorini which seemed to be the only eatery still open and turned out to be a very chilled and friendly place which served massive portions of food. We made it back to the bar over the road from the Institute where Zia was on the decks in her guise of DJ Rescue. We didn't stop too long but did see all of the Dandy's turn up and chat with the fans  -  I spoke very briefly to Brent and Zia and then we went back to our hotel. Glenn and Cliff went in search of their car ( they weren't too sure where they'd left it ) after taking the obligatory selfie with Zia...

Sarah and I spent the next day in Birmingham which was interesting because we hadn't been there in a loooong time. It was bloody cold but we had a nice time. Here are some random photos...

Things I Didn't Blog About In 2018 Part Two: Doctor Who Catch-up

Sorry, 2018  -  I'm not done with you yet. In a suitably time-warped kind of way I'm still dredging you back up from the temporal vortex to try and atone for my pitiful attempts at blogging during your titular twelve months. And this, er, time I'm looking at the last six episodes of Doctor Who, starting with:

Demons Of The Punjab ( by Vinay Patel )

After the tedious Tsuranga Conundrum had driven me to distraction the previous week I was really hoping for something with some more substance. Well, any substance really. Luckily this story set during the Partition of India delivered that, and how. The Doctor and her friends travel back in time to 1947 so Yaz can meet her beloved grandmother as a young woman. Unfortunately they land right in the middle of a cataclysmic event as India is being partitioned and Pakistan created with dire and violent consequences.
This episode was one of the highlights of the series for me  -  very well scripted and acted, with a sweet love story at its heart and some suitably gorgeous visuals. Although Rosa earlier in the series had also tackled the dangers of messing with history, this story was sufficiently different to get a pass from me for that slight redundancy.

Kerblam! ( by Pete McTighe )

An episode which could very well have been titled "Kerblamazon!", this was Who-style social satire, much in the vein of Seventh Doctor stories like The Happiness Patrol or Paradise Towers. And, like those stories, it was only partly successful. The concept of dodgy goings-on in a space-based delivery company was fine, with its skewering of modern day businesses who exploit their workers and don't pay their taxes, but the execution was mostly toothless. I think it could have been much darker and sharper but it ended up being just about average, demonstrating again that the new regime are more comfortable with Earth-focused stories than with intergalactic escapades.

The Witchfinders ( by Joy Wilkinson )

Another trip into the past, in this case to 17th century Lancashire, and a village in the midst of a witch frenzy. This was a terrific episode, Doctor Who tackling tea-time Folk Horror, with some bleak, wintry vistas and a suitably chilling alien menace. It also featured two of the best guest performances of the series from Siobhan Finneran and Alan Cumming as, respectively, a witch-obsessed landowner and a very camp King James. So far in its short run the Chibnall era has seemed very squeamish in terms of horror in the subject matter but this episode went a long way to redressing the balance.

It Takes You Away ( by Ed Hime )

A very strange episode, this, which may have benefited from being a two-parter, as the story changed narrative gears at least twice in its 50 minutes. ( I hope longer stories do return in future series so we at least see the return of the show's emblematic cliffhangers. ) The Doctor and friends went to the aid of a young, blind girl trapped in a cabin in a Scandinavian forest, surrounded by monsters. Although, that's how it seemed at first. The story turned out to share some ideas with Shyamalan's The Village before developing twists and turns involving a dimensional portal, Kevin Eldon in some very Star Trek-style "bumpy forehead alien" makeup, and a sentient universe in the form of a talking frog. It was that kind of a story. The mad concepts in this episode made it very divisive but I loved the audacity of it, giving us the kind of madness only Doctor Who would dare. And there was a brief return for Sharon D Clarke, in some lovely scenes with Bradley Walsh, which added a very poignant, er, dimension.

The Battle Of Anskoor Av Kolos ( by Chris Chibnall )

The series finale which didn't really feel like a finale. Nu Who fans have become used over the last 13 years or so to epic finales where the "arc plots", be they involving a Bad Wolf or a crack in time or a returning Time Lord / Lady, all come together and hopefully tie up dangling plot threads.
( Although, in Moffatt's case, some of these threads were never tied up. Just how did Rory escape from those Silence-infested tunnels? Huh, Steve? ) This year's was more of a stand-alone with the main "resolution" being that of Ryan and Graham's relationship issues.
But, saying that, this was still an enjoyable story which saw the return of Tim Shaw, some impressive glimpses of an alien planet, complete with spaceship graveyard, and a pleasing debate on the morality of executing ( or not ) genocidal alien monsters.

Resolution ( by Chris Chibnall )

The new Year's Day special gave us a return to Sheffield and a return of the show's quintessential villains, the Daleks. Only, this time it was a single Skarosian mutant which had been entombed on Earth for centuries and, after being awoken by some hapless archaeologists, went on the hunt for a new body. This was a cracking episode, very old-school, with plenty of action, stunts and special effects and some classic confrontation scenes between the Doctor and her oldest foe, this time in armour desperately cobbled together in a scrapyard. Daleks en masse and powerful can often be boring ( which is why Davros was created ) but a lone, vulnerable Dalek is always the scariest and most dangerous. Chibnall wisely realises this and pulled out all the stops for this thrilling story. Although it was disappointing that the 21st century Who tradition of a Christmas Day episode seemed to have come to an end, this New Year's Day special is hopefully the start of a new tradition.
Of course, the biggest disappointment is that we will have to wait until 2020 before we see the next series. Where's that Tardis?

I'll leave the final words to the Doctor herself:
"Keep your faith. Travel hopefully. The universe will surprise you. Constantly."

Soundtrack: Songs In The Key Of Life by Stevie Wonder

His Master's Voice silenced

My local HMV, in Gloucester's King's Walk, is on the verge of closing ( originally scheduled to close 19/01 but now delayed by a week ) so I got myself down there for probably the last time yesterday and picked up the musical beauties you can see above.

HMV was the last "record shop" standing in Gloucester after the demise of Virgin, Fopp and Our Price ( who remembers them? ) as well as a few indie shops that never lasted long. ( Well, we've still got a CEX but their stock is mostly games and DVDs with only a very few, second-hand CDs. ) It was only a matter of time, of course, with the onslaught from the internet destroying many high street shops over the last decade or so. The HMV chain itself had been in a similarly precarious position about six years ago but was streamlined and pulled through. But now I suspect this may be the last time, to misquote the Rolling Stones.

The closing of this store ( and possibly others, I'm not quite sure ) is a shame for old school collectors of music and movies. Sure, you can buy just about anything on the net, and certainly at a better price, but nothing beats wandering around a record shop, discovering interesting new stuff, spotting old favourites, getting advice from the staff, meeting up with friends... it's an experience that seems to be on the brink of extinction. For my final haul of music I went for a few faves I previously only owned on vinyl ( Metallica, Anthrax, Stevie Wonder... and who ever thought they'd be mentioned in the same breath? ), some albums I've always meant to buy but never got round to ( Small Faces, Kinks, Vangelis, NWA ), and a couple of jazz albums as a kind of mystery purchase ( Herbie Hancock and John Coltrane. ) Certain musical genres like Blues, Jazz and Folk will definitely be hard to find without actual record shops around to feature them. You won't find them in Tesco, that's for sure.

So, farewell then, HMV Gloucester, you'll be missed.

Soundtrack: Blade Runner Soundtrack by Vangelis

An Eerie Blog

For many years now, one of THE best comics blogs around was Bronze Age Babies, that wonderful repository of all things post-Silver Age and pre-Wizard / Image / Whatever Age. Promising us "Growing Up Goodness From The '70s And '80s", BAB more than delivered with a seemingly endless supply of entertaining, thoughtful and just plain fun posts on comics and pop culture of decades gone by. Unfortunately BAB is now in blog limbo, although its hosts, Karen & Doug, are still doing sterling work at the Planet 8 Podcast and Black & White and Bronze! respectively.

The latter is Doug's excellent new blog about the black and white comics of the Bronze Age, that long-lost time when Warren made a killing churning out the horrific likes of Creepy, Eerie, Vampirella and 1984, while the likes of Marvel, Skywald and even Atlas tried to follow suit. I was particularly fond of Marvel's B&W mags, from The Savage Sword Of Conan to Vampire Tales to Planet Of The Apes, and it's a treat to find a blog devoted to them and their monochromatic cousins.

So, I was very pleased, flattered and surprised when Doug asked me if I'd like to contribute a guest post to his blog. Of course, I said yes! After doing some thinking ( rare for me! ) about which mag to cover, I decided on an old issue of Eerie, #9 from 1967. Although my Warren collection is extremely limited and I know a lot more about Marvel's B&W mags, I picked this one because of the beautiful artwork inside, and because I thought I could tie the three pages I scanned into an overall theme.
But, anyway, please check out Doug's blog via the link above... and... don't have nightmares!

And the Brexit shambles keeps staggering along...

Yes, there is still beauty in the world...

which is good to remember in these absurd and worrying times...

Things I Didn't Blog About In 2018 Part One: Stones, Skids, Seaweed

Yes, it's that time of year when I look back at the previous 365+ days of my time on this planet and, without any apparent shame, post stuff that would have been more useful if actually posted during that year of which we speak. Or something. Starting with the invasion of these terrifying, tentacled creatures which brought a Cthulhu-like creeping dread to the inhabitants of the South-West of England last December...

Okay, it's actually a load of seaweed washed up at Portmellon Cove in Cornwall... but it looks pretty Lovecraftian to me. Sarah and I had a long weekend down in the nearby fishing village of Mevagissey, during which we came across all this weed which had washed up right over the sea-wall at Portmellon and onto the road. ( We also had a very good roast dinner in the local pub. Seaweed wasn't on the menu. Or the floor. )
Although the weather was mostly grim ( well, it was December! ) we had a great time down in our beloved Cornwall, in a lovely little old-school B&B, and this was the gorgeous view from the terrace outside our bedroom:

Beyond Mevagissey we took a long walk through some fields to get to the idyllic Chapel Cove, where we spent some time watching seals basking on a nearby beach. ( I didn't get any pics of this since my phone's camera wouldn't have done it justice, but I did get some nice shots of the cove itself, chapel and all. )

It was a short but sweet visit to Cornwall, book-ended by a couple of adventures on Bodmin Moor. Here's what a traffic-jam looks like near Colliford Lake:

"Get off my mmmmoooorrr!"

Elsewhere in December, things got rather loud...

The mighty Skids were playing in Bristol again, this time in a venue new to me  -  Fiddler's, a former prison (!) just outside the city centre in Bedminster. Since this was only a 20-minute walk from Sophie's house she came along with me for a night of punk rock 'n' roll. I'm not sure she really knew what she was in for...

First up were those Borrowed Time boys, bringing their distinctive brand of metalpunk to the good people of Bedminster. They've been gigging almost constantly lately and, as a result, seem to get tighter ( and louder! ) each time I see them. They played a short, punchy set which was great fun but, like the whole gig, was unfortunately over-shadowed by the death of the great Pete Shelley the previous week. BT singer Rob gave a brief but heartfelt speech about Shelley which encapsulated everyone's sadness at this great singer's untimely demise. Borrowed Time were followed by the awful, Oi!-ful Knock Off, shouting at us about beer and football in their turgid, sub-Cockney Rejects manner, which at least gave me and Sophie the chance to go and have a chat with a few friends at the BT merch stall. And then one of the best live bands around came and saved us...

The Skids are definitely on a roll after playing many, many well-received gigs up and down the country and releasing the fine new album Burning Cities. Although, apparently, they will soon be going on hiatus again as a full band and just performing acoustic sets??? No idea why. Anyway, they tore the roof off Fiddler's with a muscular, anthemic set... maybe not as jaw-dropping as when I saw them at the late, lamented Bristol Bierkeller, but damn good all the same. All the faves were there  -  Into The Valley ( of course! ), Animation, Woman In Winter, Masquerade and even a brief stab at early single Sweet Suburbia. Richard Jobson was, as usual, the focal point: whirling, shadow-boxing, singing his lungs out and telling outrageous stories between the songs. ( But, Richard... please don't attempt that Forest Of Dean accent again. It really didn't work. ) The band were on fine form, tight, enthusiastic and as loud as a jet engine. In fact, this sheer volume, coupled with the extremely boisterous crowd proved too much for Sophie ( who's more used to the more genteel surroundings of musical theatre ) and we had to sit out the end of the set, including a poignant cover of Buzzcock's What Do I Get and ( for some reason ) an impromptu cover of Pretty Vacant. Still, it had been a great gig and a chance to catch up with some mates, and Sophie and I had a good time, walking and chatting to and from the venue. ( And a nice meal earlier that night in a cool, American-style diner. )
Borrowed Time will be supporting The Skids again next month at the good ol' Gloucester Guildhall. I'll be there! Can't wait!

In other December news I turned ( New ) 52. Yep, it was time to celebrate another 12 months in this crazy old universe and we headed to darkest Wiltshire to commune with the spirits in the stones at myth-shrouded Avebury. ( How's that for purple prose? ) Here's James standing next to an ancient, craggy, weather-beaten monument. And one of the Avebury stones. ( Of course, Sarah was here too but behind the camera. )

By sheer coincidence you can see a might fine comic strip over at the multi-talented Pete Doree's Kids From Rec. Road blog which uses some of my photos from a previous visit to Avebury.
( Actually it's not a coincidence at all... ) You might want to head over there to enjoy Pete's reminiscences of the sheer terror of that legendary '70s kids' TV serial Children Of The Stones  -  you know... the one that traumatised an entire generation. Just don't blame me if you have nightmares after recalling that slice of kid-unfriendly Folk Horror. Happy Day...