Bubble and Squeak

Apparently Facebook will deprecate profile boxes in late 2009/early 2010. I don’t know what that will entail. Perhaps the 'book is finally going to become sentient (come on, I can’t be the only one who appreciates the inevitability of this state of affairs) and any time you click on a profile box it will shout abuse at you. Or maybe slap you in the face with a caustic pop-up.

In other news, I managed to completely forget about Edinburgh’s torchlight procession last night, despite several quite large clues (it always happens on or around the 29th of December; my bus – which usually goes up and down the mound - was diverted; and there was an enormous fireworks display). Apparently though I was in the minority as it was record turn-out this year. Which is nice.

And finally, a penny dreadful. Of interest to fans of Victorians, steampunk or unusual names. It's set out like a blog so scroll to the bottom to read part one first.

Found Stuff

Winterval

Christmas happened in Ayrshire this year. There was snow...


















... scary pirahanas...










... and a fraudulent 125th Anniversary of St Johnstone FC DVD (apparently it's not really their 125th anniversary) featuring Captain Tact's dad as a talking head (he's the club historian) and THE MOST AMAZING SONG EVER, Song for St Johnstone, written by Jim Malcolm. This appears to be totally unavailable anywhere on the internet, but if it ever appears I will link you right up.



Gifts included a funky hat and an enormous hardback Absolute Sandman. Oh yeah.




As the first Christmas without parents or siblings it was a bit strange, but I swapped them for a terrified dog so y'know... something witty. It was nice anyway. And of course it finished with a world populated exclusively by John Simm, so all's well that ends well.

Tantaliping is a word my phone thinks is real

Last night I dreamed that the kids who use the library were playing basketball with a ball made out of blu-tack, as a man with a stump for an arm (which I knew he had lost through cancer) lay on the floor and talked to me about something so I couldn’t go and yell at them for ages.

Merry Christmas for tomorrow, everyone.

Ellipsis

Joy to the World comes on the Christmas radio station we have on in the library.

14 year old girl : Could youse no play some Christmas songs??!






Meanwhile, this is a nativity happening down the road from my flat.

Om Nom Nom

Last night, Yul Brynner happened. For those of you who weren’t there when my mate invented it, this is breakfast for dinner (brinner, citation: Scrubs) at Christmas time, hence the ‘yule’ part.

This entailed more people than could feasibly fit in our living room coming round to squeeze into our living room, listening to festive choons such as the Official UK Christmas Number One, Killing in the Name, and eating an elephant’s weight in quality meat products and tatty scones. It was pretty epic.

Photos by Madame Bellamy.

A Review

I went to see the penultimate performance of The Corstorphine Road Nativity in the Festival Theatre yesterday afternoon, and left my hat behind to boot. Although that wasn’t really indicative of anything other than my own retardidity.

The premise of the show is a school nativity where the little kiddlywinks are played by adults. Hilarity ensues, along with some sad bits when you read between the lines of what the kids are saying and get a glimpse into their lives - there’s some stuff they haven’t quite got a handle on yet. S’a good dramatic device, that.

The rivalry between the girls over who should be Mary (it should be the prettiest one, and Jenny Bennett isn’t the prettiest, I am) was well realised, as was the world-weary attitude of the kid who’s grown up on a farm and therefore knows how childbirth works. When she explained about the pancake of blood and the play-centre that come out as well as the bairn, a woman a few rows behind us just about killed herself laughing. How embarrassing for her.

But yes, it was all very fun, and the cast list ran like a veritable “who’s that again?” of Scottish acting talent, featuring Julie Wilson Nimmo (Miss Hoolie in Balamory), Sara Crowe (who did those adverts for philly cheese in the mid-nineties - she's the blonde), Gordon Kennedy (Absolutely, and more recently the BBC Robin Hood where they all have impossible hair – he was Little John), Shabana Bakhsh (Waterloo Road), Jane McCarry (Still Game), and none other than that ginger manny out of Taggart, Sir Colin McCredie aka DC Stuart ‘the gay one’ Fraser. NB, he is not a sir, except unofficially because he is the crème de la crème of Scottish telly. The best person in it, however, was the aforementioned farm kid, played by Gail Watson, who I think I saw in Sunshine on Leith at the start of the year.

One negative point, in my opinion, was the overlong scene where they all got changed and played the parents talking about the play afterwards. It seemed a bit haphazard and didn’t really add much – they could easily have cut it down to their song, which was quite nicely done and explained some of the kids’ misunderstandings from the first half. But overall, very nicely done. Keep an eye out in case they do it again next Christmas.