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A Christmas Miscellany

December 23, 2010 in Books, Clips, History, Movies, Music, Podcasts, Short Stories by Brian | No comments

Thought I’d resurrect an old tradition around here – not that something that’s only happened once before, long ago, really qualifies as a tradition – and provide a randomish smorgasbord of odds and ends to mark the festive season.  So, without further ado:

For Movie Fans (and Superhero Fans), the trailer for one of the latest in the apparently endless sequence of movies based on comic books.  Thor, which I confidently predict will be the highest grossing superhero-fantasy-Norse mythology mash-up of 2011:

Considerably more promising than I thought it might be when I first heard it was in the pipeline, but I’m saying that from a position of low, low expectations. Vastly more promising, in my humble yet obviously expert opinion, than the other big budget superhero trailer doing the rounds at the moment: Green Lantern.  Still, trailers are only trailers; who knows how the final products will measure up.

For Book Fans, and in a somewhat self-serving spirit entirely out of tune with the season, my author copies of the Subterranean Press Speculative Horizons anthology edited by Patrick St-Denis turned up the other day, and things of compact but considerable beauty they are too.

The limited edition signed copies are very pleasing, with a whole page of signatures bound into the book.  Enough to make a chap giddy, to be keeping such august authorial company:

Available from the Subterranean Press website (where those nifty limited editions reside), or from the usual online venues, should anyone fancy a post-Xmas treat.

For Podcast Fans, I offer a couple of the more unusual items from the long list of stuff I’m subscribed to, in case there’s someone out there who shares my peculiar combination of interests.

The Norman Centuries.  An excellent, straightforward narrative history of the Normans.  For fans of medieval history, this is rich pickings.  Most folk – round here anyway – know the Normans as the conquerors of England, but less generally known is their habit of conquering all sorts of other folks, wherever they went: the French, the Italians, the Byzantines, the Sicilian Muslims.  Just about everyone they came across, really.

The Ink Panthers Show.  Exactly the kind of thing, in many ways, podcasting was invented for.  Two guys, with occasional semi-random guests, talk to each other about … well, about almost anything they feel like talking about, really.  They’re both comics creators, so that comes up now and again, but a lot of it is just about what’s going on in their lives and families.  I find them pretty personable, articulate and funny.  Once – if – you get on their wavelength, it’s a pleasant listen.  It’s mostly quite family-friendly, but sometimes strays into slightly more adult or non-PC areas, so consider yourself so advised.

For Fans of Ye Olde Classical Music … well, this (in case any overseas visitors don’t know, by the way, the chap introducing things is Matt Lucas, one of the current movers and shakers of British comedy):

You can only wonder what the neighbours thought …

And, come to think of it, I’m going to repost the musical clip from that long ago first iteration of the Christmas Miscellany, just because I still think, as I did then, that it’s one of the nicer sounds on the web and sounds to me suitably restful, reflective and contented for the holiday season.  How’s that for keeping a tradition going?

And For Everyone Else: well, just my best wishes for the festive season, however you choose to spend it, or celebrate it, or ignore it.  I’ll be back and blogging once the inevitable gluttony-induced lethargy and inertia wear off.  Happy Christmas!

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An Entirely Irrelevant Musical Interlude

August 4, 2010 in Clips, Music by Brian | 3 comments

Philip Palmer is on holiday.  You may think that’s of no interest to you – and you’re probably right, though I’m sure we all hope he’s having a good time – but it does mean he’s put up an in absentia reposting of my contribution to the regular SFF Song of the Week feature on his blog.  So if you didn’t catch it first time around, now’s your chance to discover what tops my personal ‘epic fantasy in the form of rock song’ charts.

Which reminded me of this other sff/music collision, which I found on some website or other recently (can’t remember where, sorry), and liked for all sorts of reasons, including the fact that it’s using possibly my single favourite song to have emerged from the 1990s Britpop frenzy:

In fact, let’s just have the proper version too, so that anyone unfortunate enough not to have heard it can do so:

Obviously, if you don’t like Britpop in general or Pulp in particular, or indeed that specific song, this post will have been a bit of a wash-out for you.  Sorry about that (although I know it’s too late to apologise now, down here at the bottom).

Some Musical Fantasy for You

February 17, 2010 in Clips, Music by Brian | 1 comment

Over at his Debatable Spaces blog the very nice sf author Philip Palmer has a weekly feature inviting fellow spec fic writers to showcase music with a science fictional or fantastical vibe. My turn this week, and you can see my choice here. You might want to browse around a bit while you’re there. Lots of diverse and interesting content on his blog.

Proclaimers Day

December 12, 2008 in Edinburgh, Music by Brian | No comments

I went to a musical this week. This is, to say the least, not something that happens very often. You could count the number of musicals I’ve seen in a theatre on the fingers of one hand; a hand that’s suffered some unfortunate partial de-fingering accident, come to that. So what came over me?

Short answer is that this isn’t just any musical, it’s a particularly Scottish one – an Edinburgh one, in fact. It’s called Sunshine on Leith, and is based on the music of Edinburgh’s best known pop exports The Proclaimers. (Actually, to be precise they’re Leith‘s best known pop exports: Leith is a formerly separate town that got absorbed into Edinburgh over time and became the city’s docks area, but has always had its own distinctive character.)

Now the musical was quite good fun – especially for a Christmas crowd many of whom had stopped off for a wee drink or several on their way to the theatre. More specifically, though, it reminded me how much I like some of The Proclaimers’ songs. So I decided to declare (or should that be proclaim?) today to be Proclaimers Day on the blog. Look away now if you dislike simple but catchy Scottish pop tunes.

First off, anyone who knows anything about The Proclaimers will know exactly which song inevitably forms the climax to the musical. And unsurprisingly, as show-ending songs go, this one gets quite a response from a thousand or more mildly intoxicated Edinburgh folk who’ve been waiting for it to turn up for a couple of hours:

I don’t know what proportion of the audience had actually come up from Leith to see the show, but some sure had. So the song that gave the show its name also went down quite well:

And what I think is probably the song with the best (if not always the easiest to actually hear) lyrics – at least if you’re Scottish or descended from those who were part of the great Scottish diaspora:

And thus ends Proclaimers Day.