Frontal Lobes

As we meander back from Skye to Glencoe, I can reflect on the Isle of Harris which was actually rather magnificent.

Certainly one of the most amazing places I've been to. It was a heady mix of mountains, lakes and rivers alongside a rugged coastline that also boasted mile after mile of golden sandy beaches.

We even camped alongside such a beach at Horgabost on Harris. Heaven for a beach loving dog like Doggo.

The Western Isles were supposed to be notorious for wind and rain but we had little of the former and even less of the latter unlike the rest of the UK this week.

It's great walking country too. Even if the coffin trail was accompanied by some really ravenous horseflies.

The walk to Harris lighthouse was rewarding too, with coffee laid on in the lighthouse itself.

Christian and Anastasia keep us amused on the journey and I think amused is the right word. L though top and tailed that book with another one. One about pancake sex... which is entirely new terminology to me.

That book caused L to ask whether it’s true that all men want is a girl who is easy on the eye, not too taxing on the frontal lobes, and who will drops her knickers for a glass of white wine? Hmmm. No comment.

No pub quiz this time in the Clachaig, so neither of our frontal lobes are taxed. Other than by the beer and a couple of whiskeys randomly picked from the huge selection. We've barely seen a proper pub all week, the one thing lacking on the islands, so we're due a bit of a session.

(Sunday 8th July)

Preventative Measures

We’re off to Western Isles tomorrow so I hope the car passes its MOT today. Kind of essential really.

The car passes with flying colours yet still I am charged hundreds of pounds in ‘preventative measures’ to avert a major mechanical breakdown such as a new Cambelt because Vauxhall insist you change these things. One begins to wonder whether a major mechanical breakdown may be cheaper.

After stocking up on a few food items for the trip, I head off straight from work to Birmingham where the Editors have announced their only UK date of this year. Well that was until they announced another one, the day before. Already I feel a little bit cheated.

I really ought to be at home packing, as isn’t that what you’re supposed to do before a holiday. I’ve never been much into packing; some people can takes weeks over it. L has already announced her packing as complete. Three books, a few toiletries, a t-shirt with Nottingham on it and several woollies. No short skirt this time? I shall be following a similar strategy, although without the short skirt and also without the books. We travel light but I must remember to chuck in a bag of dog food and the tent.

It’s my first time at the HMV Institute in Birmingham. I like it. It’s a nice tight little venue which looks like an ornate old theatre but was actually built as a Methodist congregational chapel. Sort of appropriate for the locals who have come to worship Tom Smith and co.

First though, a couple of support bands and it’s good to see that the Editors have kept these local.

Swim Deep apparently make ‘sun kissed noise’, so their Facebook says. Well perhaps grunge kissed and as if to emphasise the point the singer is in his Nirvana t-shirt. Meanwhile the bass player appears to have pyjama bottoms on. Must be students.

They make a nice racquet though, although perhaps too much keyboard, at one point I thought they’d got Jean Michel Jarre there on the ivories. The overall effect is not unlike early Editors at times. So on safe ground then and oh he can spit wine upwards over himself. Yeah, must be students.

What can you tell from a band’s t-shirts? Well now we have support band number two and a Sonic Youth number adorns their bass player. This is Victories at Sea, who open with some frenetic drumming and a mostly instrumental number which is actually pretty epic. Then the bass player goes on the keyboards, then the drummer goes on keyboards and in his place we get a drum machine, then the drum machine goes on keyboards... only kidding. In between the musical chairs they make almost gothic soundscapes but their songs have a bit of everything, which means they sound like everybody and yet nobody.

Sadly they did slide a bit into the ordinary after a very promising start but certainly a band to watch out for. Not only that but they were handing out 200 free CDs at the end with unique Polaroids on each. Nice lads all round. Sadly such was the scrum for these that I didn't get one.

As tonight's gig was primarily marketed to the fan base I was sort of expecting something a bit different from the Editors but that’s not really what we get. True we get four new tracks but two of those ‘The Sting’ and ‘Two Hearted Spider’, part of the encore here, have been around for a year or more. The other two ‘Sugar’ and ‘Nothing’ bookend the set.

‘Sugar’ is a dramatic and an intimate way to start with Tom Smith at the piano delivering a brooding song that shows that whatever is new about the Editors it will still include a good dose of darkness. The piano continues with the unmistakable introduction to 'Racing Rats'.

This starts a bit of a crowd pleasing run through of the hits, which as part of the point of these gigs is to warm up for a couple of foreign festival dates is understandable but I expected a bit more tonight.

New guitarist syndrome I guess. The old chestnut of musical differences has seen off former lead guitarist, keyboardist, eye candy (so I’m told) and possible driving force Chris Urbanowicz. How important he was to them will, I guess, become clearer in time. One compliment paid to him tonight is that it takes not one but two people to replace him. Tonight the Editors are a five piece.

Perhaps I’m being a bit over critical about the set. We do get the not often played ‘Fall’ which is massive. Beautiful. ‘You Are Fading’ goes down a storm and a new version of ‘The Weight Of The World’ equally so, literally sending shivers down your spine. Otherwise it’s a set a bit short on surprises for saying it was a homecoming one off. Well, two off and the main set is exactly the same both nights.

There are also new versions of some songs, perhaps out of necessity. ‘All Sparks’ for one has been given a right spanking. In fact Tom introduces it as a ‘new song with an outrageous bass solo from Russell’. Hmmm, not sure what I think to that, so moving on quickly to the always outrageous ‘Eat Raw Meat = Blood Drool’.

Performance wise you can’t fault them and they are clearly loving it, we get repeated thumbs up from the band, which is better than a thumbs down obviously but I do wish they’d shift Tom’s piano to the side and some of their other mountain of kit while they’re at it. There’s a drummer in there somewhere fighting to get out.

They leave us with nothing, the previously mentioned ‘Nothing’, the most immediately impressive of the new ones. Then as they leave the stage we discover that none of them can manage to flick a guitar pick as far as the front row. Lightweights. The bouncers have to scrape them up off the floor and hand them out.

The encore starts quietly as Tom returns alone for his Twilight moment and ‘No Sound But The Wind’. Then ‘In This Light...’ builds things up further before ‘Munich’ blows everyone away, only for the newbie ‘Two Hearted Spider’ to make things feel perhaps a bit overblown.

But then as the closing and reworked ‘Papillon’ demonstrates, the Editors are still very good, still have their great energy but yet they’re now sort of different. Time will tell if this is progress.

(Wednesday 27th June)

A Plan Comes To Fruition

Let me tell you about the Heb3 Challenge. Which is to complete at least three of the five Western Isles Half Marathons - Stornoway, Benbecula, Skye, Barra or Harris in any one year. Apparently this is the longest running series of half marathons in Scotland and probably the most ridiculous for someone from the centre of England to attempt. So, here we go.



The first challenge was to get an entry into the hugely popular Barra race, which we managed, despite it selling out in 40 minutes. The second challenge is the 530 miles from Nottingham to Uig on the Isle of Skye, from where we will catch a ferry. Which will have to do twice. We couldn’t make Stornoway which was last week, so will return at the end of June to take in Barra and Harris. We could have done Skye of course but that would have been far too easy.

For all this we will get a t-shirt, complete with the Heb3 logo. We like little things like that. If we could have done all five, and this would have been a near impossibility in travel, cost and holiday allowances they would have overprinted our t-shirts with 'rinn mise na coig' on the back. Which I thought was Gaelic for ‘smart arse’ but apparently just means ‘I did the five’.

As we’re heading up the M6 on route to Scotland we stop off in Stoke to catch the Olympic Torch relay which kicks off from Hanley at 7am this morning in the hands of Tony Pulis, the Stoke City manager.

We drive in along the Cobridge Road to catch it on Waterloo Road and get stopped by the police, who have turned all the traffic lights to red to let the entourage through. Hey presto front row seats.



Sadly it’s only the sponsor’s vehicles and once they’ve come through we have to run back to our abandoned car as the lights go green again. Hurriedly we park up somewhere in time to see, rather appropriately, running legend ‘Blind’ Dave Heeley and his dog Seamus handover the flame to another runner, whose name we don't know.



Dave Heeley was the first blind man to run seven marathons in seven days on seven continents and last year he ran 10 marathons in 10 days for Macmillan Cancer Support.



So far, at least our first plan has come to fruition.

Then it’s back to what turns out to be 12 hour drive, if you include the few stops we had, doing one hour stints each. The early part of which is in on-off rain, until we got into Scotland where it quickly started to fine up.

Arriving in Uig we are understandably both starving and gagging for a drink. Up on the hill the Ferry Inn looks the most promising. Looks can be deceptive. We’ve come all this way to find that the local pub does not serve the Isle of Skye ales that are brewed 200 yards away and the only real ale, from Greene King of all places, has come further than we have.

If this wasn’t bad enough, the miserable landlord mutters something about new Scottish licensing laws not permitting food to be served outside on insurance grounds, which sounds like b******** to me, and we can’t take the dogs inside despite the fact that his totally customer free bar is a rather spartan wooden floored affair and therefore very appropriate for dogs. He clearly has no wish for us to buy four rounds of drinks and two two-course meals off him? Estimated cost... upwards of £60... Fair enough.

We depart, as we don’t wish to selfishly put the dogs back in the car that they’ve just spent around 12 hours in just so that we can eat. The Bakur Bar on the pier comes to the rescue.



They don’t allow dogs in either but they are more than happy to serve us food, ale from the Isle of Skye brewery and even whiskey, outside.

(Thursday 31st May)