Christmas

Twas the night before Hogmanay

bruceonthefringe 2022, Christmas, Hogmanay, Uncategorized, Weather, Yorkshire Tags: , , , , , , Leave a comment

…. And everywhere was sodden. Well, I’m back in Edinburgh and it’s very wet here, as wet as Yorkshireland was for the last week. Remember that reservoir I visited in the summer? In October the water level was barely any higher, then I went again this time, a tad higher, finally….

As I went past on my journey north I noticed that just in five days the level had risen about another couple of metres or so up the dam wall. It barely stopped raining, here in Edinburgh, at all today, luckily for tomorrow night’s revellers it looks like it should be drier for plenty of the evening. I’ll probably be in Whistlebinkies for a good part of the night, well, it is the Moanin Bones playing after the bells, sounds a fine way to start the year to me!

Unfortunately the forecast is for rain on New Year’s Day – not good for heading up Arthur’s Seat. Not just because I hate getting wet, but the ground will be very soggy and within the first hour of people walking up, the slopes will be a quagmire, a mud bath. Slippery ice is one thing, but mud can be worse – the fact that you’ve fallen over will be very visible to all! The way back down could be very precarious.

I’m hoping for a brief window of dry early on, that is, hoping I can be up early after a night at Binkies. Of course, if it were raining hard then the climb would be postponed til the next day. There is the extra remit that I don’t succumb to illness within the next thirty three hours; half the family came down with things over Christmas, I escaped, or did I? Is it just still incubating inside me – my throat has been tad sore today. Where’s the tcp? Time to gargle, then head to bed.

I’ll leave you with a couple more pics from Yorkshireland ….

That’s the reservoir on the left there. Just one little reminder that many years ago this house was a pub – the Blue Ball.

Not the best-looking but by’eck it tasted good!

Twas the night before Christmas …

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Yes, Christmas is just around the corner now, the last two weeks zipped by so quickly. I did get some festive baking done, cinnamon cookies and Christmas crinkle cookies to make up for no cake. They are rather good if I do say so myself, others have said so too! Guzzled a few while out seeing Matilda the Musical, which was rather fine, worth going to see. I did think some of the singing vocals were a tad muffly against the music, were they trying for how stage musicals often sound?!

A new Christmas movie that’s lots of fun is Violent Night, oh boy, is it violent! David Harbour makes a great Santa Claus, world-weary, droll and a dab hand with a big hammer (think Thor but less of the god thing). Violent Night has a vibe of an 80s movie for me (oh, and it was directed by the guy who did Dead Snow, a great film), and it has fun referencing Die Hard and Home Alone and probably others that I missed. Yeah, I could easily watch it again; an addition to the roster of films that must be watched at Christmas.

Usually I go to the cinema the night before I head back to the old country for Christmas, this year I went to La Belle Angele for Blue Christmas, an evening of festive blues, R’n’B and rock’n’roll organised by Jed Potts. That mild-mannered janitor does have a lot of friends he can count on for such an event (all the proceeds go to charity, this year to the Simon Community). Of course, the delectable Nicole Smit was there, in a devine sparkly blue dress (there is a clip of the lady singing Santa Baby on my Instagram along with other snippets from the evening).

I really should dig out my old Elvis’ Christmas Album, I was reminded of it when Charlie Wild did Blue Christmas, erm, not quite as sultry as Elvis’ version. Hearing Rockin’ Robin had me puzzled but I suppose robins are quite a feature at Christmas time. It was a cracking evening, another worthy addition to my things-to-do-at-christmas list. Any blues fans planning a pre-Xmas trip to Edinburgh in future years should definitely check if it coincides with Blue Christmas, just saying.

Up until I set off on the long trek southwards, my December travels soundtrack was Mr Hankey’s Christmas Classics, but by the 21st I was South Park-ed out; as mighty fine as it is I needed a change. If you’ve never come across it, I should warn that it is very South Park – not for the easily offended or delicately dispositioned. I’d never heard O Holy Night before, and now I can never hear it without thinking, that’s not a patch on Cartman’s rendition; and his Swiss Colony Beef Log song is awesome. The production values on the album are amazing, and the big musical-type numbers are all wonderfully earwormy.

So after all that offensiveness, I headed homeward to the strains of Michael Bublé and the MonaLisa Twins, gotta say the twins’ version of Santa Baby knocks the socks off Bublé’s! There is something I don’t like about the man, but wow, his Christmas album is awesome, as is the MonaLisa Twins. Those and a flask of strong hot coffee kept me going! It was dark before I got over the moors, which is great at Christmas, seeing distant twinkling lights festooning remote farmhouses (and odd when you thought that bit was sky) with Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas pouring out of the stereo.

I reckon I’ve been good this year, wonder if Santa concurs? Have a merry time wherever you are, and may your gods go with you.

I’ll leave you with a few recent pics….

Some charity shops are not like others!
Edinburgh Castle from Bruntsfield Links
Cockburn Street

Christmas is coming ….

bruceonthefringe 2022, a rant, Christmas, Cinema, Edinburgh Fringe, Live bands in Edinburgh, Uncategorized Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , Leave a comment

…. the goose is getting fat, but this moose is keeping trim. After lapsing somewhat from my daily walks, I’m getting back in the swing, after all it’s just three weeks to my annual NYD hike up to Arthur’s Seat. Well, that and the smattering of snow we had yesterday morning enticed me out, so two days on the trot I’ve been up in Arthur’s foothills. There is more snow forecast over the next week, yay. I do hope there’ll be enough for sledging. One time recently when I was down in Yorkshireland, I snaffled the old tray sled from the garden shed, well, no-one else uses it; bought years ago it was, in Aviemore when I was but a wee calf.

Christmas plans seem to be going well, cards all sent, presents mostly bought, the date is set for heading to the mothership. I’ve decided not to make a christmas cake this year – shock, horror! I know! Instead I’ll make plenty of parkin, it’ll be good sustenance when I’m freezing in the bleak midwinter! And, a cake is in the process down Yorkshire way, so I will get some of that (yeah, it won’t be a patch on mine, but I applaud the effort).

At the cinema they’ve reissued Elf, you know I’ve never actually sat down and watched it all the way through. I must have seen all of it over the years, bits here and there when it’s on telly, so I reckon this maybe I should take the opportunity to see it – I was going to add with no distractions, but, have you been to the cinema recently?! I went to see The Menu last week, a brilliant, dark film but the amount of noises from rustling various food packaging, folk unwrapping sweets, aargh, atmosphere flattened time and time again!! They obviously not really into it that their attention was on putting something it their mouth, rather than was what about to happen next. And breathe, rant over.

I’m almost tempted to see The Menu again, hope for a better crowd. I do fancy seeing Matilda at the flicks too, I wasn’t bothered about it but then I went to see Tim Minchin: Back when it was in cinemas last month – wow, he’s so good, and he wrote the songs for Matilda, I’m going! Back is bloody excellent, the man is so sickeningly talented and brilliant. I got home after seeing it, wondering what I put in my Fringe diary when I saw him, I had the feeling it wasn’t an outstanding review….

Ah, yeah. Thinking back that may well have been more about other stuff than Mr Minchin. Bud and I had just seen Aeneas Faversham Forever by our favourites the Penny Dreadfuls earlier that evening, the night before included Dead Cat Bounce … Late Night Radio. Our Fringe starter had been Sammy J‘s brilliant first Edinburgh Fringe appearance; the bar was set very high, our fourteenth and last show of the opening week, I was probably pooped out at that point (oh, it was 2008).

There’s also Violent Night in cinemas, I’ve enjoyed the preview clips and it is a christmas movie. I’m one of the few who quite enjoyed the other Hellboy film starring David Harbour and not Ron Perlman, I recognised him immediately, even under the Santa garb. Yeah, it looks like fun, switch your brain off time. I probably won’t be making it to the cinema until next midweek, mind.

There’s way too much good music around this weekend to go to the pictures! Tonight The Scat Rats are at Whistlebinkies at seven (well, the website says that, time enough to go see something if not, I suppose). The late afternoon slot at Whistlebinkies tomorrow is Jed Potts with Jon Mackenzie, followed by The Moanin Bones at seven. Annoyingly, Black Cat Bone are playing Stramash at eight, what to do?!

On Sunday Chris Buckley is back at Stramash doing a solo set at seven, then just a minute down the road, Jed & Nicole will be at Bannermans from eight thirty. Another slight overlap with The Buccaneers in Stramash from ten. So many good sounds, a great build-up to Monday and Tuesday when Logan’s Close finally play again in Edinburgh at Sneaky Pete’s. Sooo looking forward to that!

I’ll leave you with a pic I took this morning in Holyrood Park, adieu!

I had the Salted Caramel

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…. And very nice it was too! That’s the Salted Caramel chocolate from the Co Co Co. Festive Selection, a packet of six different christmassy chocolates. No, I’m not starting my christmas this early, its purely research for presents, honest, but I did hold back from trying them since last Saturday when I bought them at the Edinburgh Farmer’s Market at Castle Terrace.

Co Co Co. are usually at the Farmer’s Market fortnightly, selling an amazing array of sumptuous chocolates all made by Rob, naturally at this time of year he’s turned his hand to a few Christmas treats. Edinburgh is just one of a number of markets he goes to around the South of Scotland, and this weekend he’s back in Edinburgh at the 3D2D Christmas Art, Craft and Design Fair in the Assembly Rooms. Stalls with amazing stuff from all over the UK, it’s always worth a visit, maybe find a Christmas present or two!

Stramash had their Christmas decorations up when I went along on Sunday evening, it looks very nice, nothing too much, just right. It was Chris Buckley from Moanin Bones with the Handsome House Band, a shame that I only caught the last few numbers; mind, the Handsome House Jams are filmed so I can watch it on Facebook (Carl Marah‘s night will be on there too, if you’re interested!)

Stramash was nicely busy by the time the Scat Rats came on. Plenty of the seats around the balcony were taken and on the ground level any vacated tables, with a view of the lads, were immediately swooped on by eagle-eyed drinkers. Luckily I had a lovely Spanish couple next to me, who were happy to guard my seat for me whenever I got up (that’s one snag of solo drinking – keeping a good seat!) A stand-out for me was the Rats Norwegian Wood especially the intro; they like playing around with long intros and this time Carl threw in a snippet of a Scottish melody, nice! Not as good as his intro to Runaway, that’s very special.

A recent addition (at least to me) is Willie Nelson’s On The Road Again a jaunty country number. I was singing it as I wandered down home afterwards and just had to google the chords to have a bash at it when I got in. Not sure what the neighbours must have thought!? Well, they never banged on the wall – I’m counting that as approval!

It’s rather late, so I’ll leave you with pics from a recent walk up in the Park. Oh yeah, and exciting news – the video for Heart-shaped Jacuzzi comes out tomorrow! Yay! ❤

Not your run of the mill Christmas cake

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Well, that’s another Christmas over, almost time to head back up north in time for the New Year. First thing after breakfast I’ll get going, or at least, that’s the plan. Back home to my Christmas cake, oh yay! And how was my cousin’s cake? Well, interesting, different, erm, one of a kind. You know how some folk “feed” the cake with brandy? He thought he had, turned out when he grabbed the same bottle to make some brandy butter on Christmas Day morning, he realised it was whisky as he poured it over the butter and sugar mixture! Not wanting to waste the whisky he continued on, possibly the first whisky butter to accompany Christmas pudding. Indeed, it worked rather well.

The cake itself? The fumes that escaped as the first slice was cut and removed were quite intoxicating!! A brave few tried it – not bad! The nuts were annoying but big enough pieces that I could pick them out. Once the initial aroma had dissipated, the cake was still quite whiskified but the flavour of the almond paste went really well with it. The decoration of the cake, well, no penguins for one thing. The pictures made me think of a horror film with things emerging from snow. See what I mean?

Whilst Christmas was fine indoors, the weather outside was horrible, except for Boxing Day morning when we awoke to a layer of the white stuff. Not from the east though, so it was wet and quickly turned slushy, bah. It did look good first thing with the mist still swirling round the trees…..

Time I got some shuteye.

G’night, folks!

‘Twas the night before Christmas…

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And all through the hoose, not a creature was stirring, not even a moose, everything was ready for the morn and all presents wrapped….

Yes, I’m down in deepest, dankest Yorkshire for the festivities. I’m on veg duties tomorrow – a thousand sprouts to be prepared and cooked! Okay, that may be a slight exaggeration, we wouldn’t have room for the carrots and tatties for mashing (roasted parsnips and tatties has been assigned elsewhere). There’s a cake courtesy of a cousin, it looks okay but it won’t be a patch on mine waiting for me back in Edinburgh (for one thing, mine doesn’t have any nuts in it – I’m not allergic just not keen).

I had been starting to wonder if things would go bonkers in the run-up to Christmas again, thankfully not so much as last year. I made it down on possibly the greyest day of the year, at least I had a great soundtrack for it: Logan’s Close for exiting the Lothians, on to 70s Black Sabbath (Fluff is just an amazing piece), followed by Christmas tunes from the last seventy years, and as I still wasn’t quite back in happy valley, a dash of Hedwig and the Angry Inch. I may have sung along on the odd occasion.

Have a very Merry Christmas wherever you are in this big wide world. Now I must go to sleep or Santa won’t come! I’ll leave you with a couple of pics of Old Hummus bedecked with tinsel!

Y’know, 2020 wasn’t all bad….

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Saw yet another strand of tinsel as I downward dogged this morning, that’ll be the twelfth since my last blog post! It lay there glinting mockingly at me, bold as brass it was, well not any more. Oh, and we didn’t get the promised snow, so I closed the curtain again and went back to bed. There has been more snow outside of Edinburgh but nothing in the city, just freezing temperatures.

Listening to the news, it’s sounding like we’ll be lucky if we can do anything at Easter nevermind Mothering Sunday here in the UK. That’ll be another of my annual trips to the old country cancelled, I’ll have forgotten the way down soon! Yeah, 2021 isn’t looking that much better than 2020 so far. How depressing! So, to brighten the mood I decided to look back through 2020 and find my highlights, surely there were some?!

First off, Esther – our wee beastie o’the loch. I reckon she’ll be a highlight for a few Edinburgh folks grateful for the distraction. It’s been so good to watch this beautiful wild creature so close by. Hopefully she’ll be okay after all the recent weather, Dunsapie Loch has been frozen over a fair bit this last month. From otters to rabbits….

Way back last January I went to Jojo Rabbit three times at the cinema. Those were days, open cinemas, me with my unlimited card going to see two films in one evening, Nando’s chicken wings in between (will Cineworld reopen at all now?). Jojo Rabbit is such an outstanding film and a proper cinema film too. God, I miss going to the cinema, that sense of occasion (as a young moose a trip to the cinema was an event, that feeling has never quite left). The whole cast of Jojo were brilliant and Taika Waititi cemented his place as my favourite director and all-round amazing film person.

Thinking about it, I guess all that time spent in Holyrood Park, walking around, lying in sunny nooks reading, that was pretty special. We did have long spells of great weather in 2020, I did most of my reading outdoors. Highlights bookwise, finally reading Errol Flynn’s autobiography (an amazing glimpse at another time and place) and John Robertson’s The Little Town of Marrowville, I expected it to be good and darkly humorous but wow, it exceeded all my expectations! Yes it’s a kid’s book, but it’s a damn fine one.

Not Eurovision 2020 was a day of Eurovision treats for the fans on radio and tv. In the evening Graham Norton guided us through the main Not Eurovision Show, which just felt like one big love-in around the world (as Australia is now in it, yes I make that around the world). I thoroughly enjoyed a day of reminiscing, music, dancing, oh, and prosecco with pear juice.

2020, a shorter but sweetest year yet for Strictly Come Dancing. Bill Bailey with Oti was a worthy winner, confounding the initial assumptions of so many viewers with his capacity to learn and ability to dance. Their routine to Rapper’s Delight will go down in Strictly history. I learnt you could video chat on WhatsApp in November – yeah, Strictly brings out that need to share!

Fringey goodness was found online. April and May saw the magnificent Will Seaward online re-telling his Spooky Ghost Stories sometimes with live accompaniment courtesy of Jam With Humans. Yes, it was back in the early lockdown days, things went a bit wonky, not always online just somewhere in the vicinity, but no matter, it was great to see the maestro weaving his wondrous tales again.

The nearing of the NonFringe saw me checking to see what the Sleeping Trees were up to, if anything. Oh bugger! I’d missed getting to see MAFIA? by about ten days! Joys, I did get see SCI-FI? again. So is there a recording of WESTERN? somewhere? I’d love to see that again. Pretty please?! I could read MAFIA? by purchasing a copy the recently published Sleeping Trees at The Movies – Blueprints for Devised Comedy, but it just wouldn’t be the same as seeing it. But the best was yet to come – a Christmas Living Room Adventure! Oh yay, The Legend of Moby Dick Whittington was the highlight of my Christmas, yes, even above my Christmas Lunch Roll! That first sighting of the great white whale will stay with me forever.

Anything else, Brucie? Well, there was the small matter of Logan’s Close at the Caves for the release of their latest opus Lost In You at the end of February, like, a truly epic night! Best I’ve seen them yet; there was a gig planned for the end of this month but it has, of course, been cancelled. Lead guitarist and singer Carl Marah took to singing Bob Dylan to his washing machine in April, strange behaviour but captivatingly beautiful.

My top highlight of 2020? The Close’s Lockdown Cover of Fantastic Man by William Onyeabor. Having since put the original on one of my Spotify playlists, I love what the lads did with it even more; they’ve taken the best parts, condensed and Closified it into a summer classic of their own. Their video is rather fine too, and usually if I leave YouTube running afterwards it goes to a film of roller dancers skating to the original with some seriously cool moves (yes, I’ve watched both plenty of times after I’ve done online exercises – hey, its good cool down music).

So, wow, 2020 wasn’t all bad, and I did two seasons of Preacher and three of Lucifer, plus my uke playing is slowly coming on. Dear reader, I hope you too can look back and recognise your own highlights of 2020, to paraphrase Aidan Goatley, What made you happy in 2020?

Toodle pip!

It’s all over – bar the tinsel

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That’s everything put away for another year, just got a carpet of tinsel to hoover up. I say everything but I can’t help looking around for something I’ve managed to overlook. One year it wasn’t until the end of February that I noticed my glass mistletoe decoration was still hanging in the hallway! I say I noticed it but it was a friend who was wondering what it was, I remember it, “What’s that?”,”What?”,”That hanging up there” oh bugger!

It’s quite astonishing how tinsel manages to get everywhere; I guess it uses any passing static energy to get around, I’ve found bits in the bathroom and the kitchen. There’s never been so many bits before, does tinsel shed more with old age? Some of the tinsel in my Christmas box will be over thirty years old! Maybe the tinsel feels obliged to leave traces of Christmas to be found months later seeing as there aren’t any pine needles to hide out in the carpet. I used to get real trees but one year, just after Christmas, Sainsbury’s were selling fake trees that had been £12.99 for about £6; I reckoned it was worth buying one for the following year, if it turned out to be rubbish I’d donate it to a charity shop and buy another one. It was fine and dandy!

My Christmas mugs and pint glass are washed and put back in the back of the kitchen cupboard. I had the last two slices of my cake this afternoon, oo, I’ve still to clean up and thank the penguins for their sterling work again this year. I did buy myself a Christmas pudding to have – unusual for me as I don’t generally bother but I tried some last year for the first time in many and, you know, it was rather good! It’s still not eaten, but the use by date is March 2022, so I’m saving it ’til the start of December, letting it mature.

The town is eerily quiet with just a few decorations brightening up the Royal Mile……

See what I mean? Oh yeah, they really jolly the place up! Just help to make it all look starker and emptier, I reckon.

And snowmen, sometimes I wonder about them – jolly and answer to the name Frosty or something more malevolent watching us………

The one with the mask is trying to blend in, the one below is checking out everyone going past, bottom left is calling down either a god or the mothership and the other, well, there’s one in every family!?

I really should head for my bed now. It’s meant to snow tonight, it was meant to be snowing by now, its not. I really do intend to be up early to walk on the virgin snow.

G’night, sweet dreams!

A windy day even before the sprouts!

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Hello, my fine friends! I hope you had a lovely Christmas, or few days, depending how you roll. So did I rise at 9? Was Arthur’s Seat busy? Not quite and not at all, but I did make it!

See, there I am!

Right at the very top was a group of Japanese and Aussie students who wanted a photo taking, so I offered my services in return for a photo of myself. It was extremely windy up there, I was almost blown off the trig point! Luckily for me a lady was stood next to it and I managed to brace my leg against her arm when a gust tried to tug me off (she was very understanding, phew!). This was the best photo out the few snapped. At the time I just trusted that there’d be something useable taken, said my thank yous and headed down to calmer levels. As it’s not the most exciting pic I’ve funked it up on my Facebook, a collage of alien vistas, well, its nearly Dr Who time again.

Speaking of Dr Who, I felt like the Face of Boe on Christmas Day! Some clever clogs rigged up a large screen in a corner of the lounge at mater’s, so that they could include me in the family party by Skype – to the extent of making me join in Charades and quizzes where they’d hold up the question cards to the screen for me to take a proper turn in a team! I did serenade them with a few Christmas tunes on my ukulele while they ate. I’d already eaten a rather good Christmas lunch with a slice of my wonderful cake to follow. Bet my cake was better than theirs!

I shall love you and leave you with Me & My Christmas Lunch …

Have yourselves your own kinda Christmas!!

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The old grandmother clock has just chimed twelve – Happy Christmas to one and all! I’ll have to head to bed soon, if I want to get up Arthur’s Seat first thing. Yes, first thing, no really, first thing, about 9am-ish. I’ve never been up there on Christmas Day, wonder how busy it might be?

Earlier this evening I watched the magnificent The Legend of Moby Dick Whittington, this year’s annual Christmas living room adventure by the Sleeping Trees. What a treat! And it’s not just me saying that, it’s getting great reviews – including in the New York Times! My sides almost split on first sighting the whale, ’twas a wondrous sight indeed! Pinnochio makes a cameo appearance, well, it is a mashup.

You’re encouraged to join in (well, kids are, small or big) speaking whale, making your own boat out of whats around you – I did, but it was immediately commandeered by an owl and a pussycat who installed their own captain, some dozey sheep! Moby Dick Whittington is still available to watch in a number of countries up until the 31st December for a very reasonable price and you can watch it again and again and again before the 31st ends (on the same device). If you’ve had a crappy year and need some warm, daft silliness, look no further!

I’ll leave you with a couple of pics I dug up from a Christmas Past, when my good friend Humphrey visited. Things got a little silly ……..

I was the King of the Castle!!
after six or seven eggnogs