Sun , rain, sun, rain, sun, rain. Evening. It's kind of confusing this Scottish summer. Usually when the sun comes out over Scotland people have one of two responses. Strip down to their bikini or continue to walk about wearing hats, jumpers and scarves and slowly die horribly in the sweltering heat. If I'm either one of them it would have to be the hats and scarves variety (as I don't own a bikini). Monday was by far the hottest day we'd had up here in ages and on my way up to the gym I noticed most folk were still walking about in their jumpers and jackets - even though the sun had been out, glaring down at Scotland, the whole day. Tuesday, however, we were back to rain and now, at the end of the week the weather doesn't know what the hell to do. Mum and Dad are away camping somewhere so I hope it's dry wherever they end up.
We completely missed this solar eclipse of the moon up here today, probably because of the afore mentioned rainclouds. Apparently Europe only witnessed a partial eclipse anyway but British astronomers caught some good shots which can be seen
here on the BBC website (except from the one with the kids... and the dog - that's just silly). It was also in the papers today that they have found water on Mars. Which means the possibility that life was on Mars, even if it was millions of years ago. Mars could have had a whole other species of being long before the dinosaurs even rose up out of the ocean on this small, blue planet. The Phoenix space probe, which was sent down to the planet a few months back, dug under the planet's soil, the resulting samples of which were scanned by the orbiting Odyssey spacecraft. Science fiction this ain't. Either is the story on Richard Branson's Virgin Galactic taking bookings for his suborbital flights into space for the pricely sum of $200,000 per customer/tourist. The first flights are expected to be as soon as the end of this year. Let's just hope they're a little more successful than his attempts at flying around the world on his balloon! Branson is cool. I like Branson. He's an extravagant billionaire whose not afraid of what his critics sneer. What other multi millionaires invest millions in flying tourists out into space? If I had a spare $200,000 I'd sign up! It must be the coolest thing - to see your own planet from space... All of us running about, living our little lives, working, breeding, eating, exercising, reading, driving, watching, playing, wondering about our weather, when the whole enormity of the universe moves around us. Just to go to the edge of our planet's atmosphere, a mere toe in the bathtub, and get the slightest hint of that would be mind blowing. Anyway, getting a bit deep there... sorry.
A Happy Birthday should go to Morgan who was the grand old age of four this weekend. Morgan is Ka's sister's daughter to whom I am known as Uncle Michael. The title is very strange to me as I've never been an 'Uncle' before and it makes me feel ancient. Thanks Morgan and hope you have a great party tomorrow, even though you won't be reading this... as you can't... yet. Hope it's a nice sunny day for you but at the same time - Mum and Dad, if your reading, remember to pack the brolleys.
Finished another rose painting this weekend. 'A grey rose'. Thought I'd try some grey tones this time with good old black and white. Quite tricky to duplicate a grey colour if you run out of it on the palette. The canvas had been lying about the flat half completed so I took the opportunity yesterday to get on with it and finish it off although I did keep allowing myself too many breaks to watch the swimming at the Olympics. Good to see Great Britain get a gold today at the cycling on the women's road race thanks to Nicole Cooke from Wales. Well done to her!
Felix (my immediate boss [he moves very fast!] in S&UN) and Shirley Ann had been watching the Life on Mars tv series recently on DVD which got us on to the subject of Bowie. Shirley Ann was shocked to find out from Barry that the line 'Mickey Mouse has grown up a cow' was a true lyric to Bowie's 'Life on Mars?'. She had no idea it was part of the real lyrics. Mickey Mouse - the saviour of kids entertainment when he was born, something pure and honest that was exploited and used to make the money, cashing in, becoming the 'cash cow' for Disney. Humanity losing it's purity and morals and Bowie looking for somewhere else, somewhere for hope and a better life. That's what I always took the song to mean anyway. It's also about a girl realising she's gay apparently. "But her mummy is yelling, "No!"
Listening to the Vampire Weekend and 'Accelerate' the latest REM. 'Accelerate' is definately their best and most exciting album in a while with some great tracks (well, all of them are great in fact). The 'return to form' is an often over used expression but in this case I reckon it's spot on. Ka's been listening to her Alphabeat album. I got her tickets two weeks ago to go and see them in November. I keep insisting that she doesn't need to take me. I don't mind if she takes one of her friends. Unfortunately there doesn't seem to be many other takers...
Have just spent half my Sunday building a chest of drawers. Then emptying the old chest, reorganising the clothes and reloading into the new. The other half - the first half, was a little quieter as I had a bit of a sore head from last night's wander into town. We started with a 'Dutch Iced Tea' in Revolution. This refreshing cocktail consisted of Jack Daniels, Cointreau, Bacardi, Vodka and coke. Quite strong but definately one to keep in mind for future excursions into the cocktail bars! We were sitting with a bunch of folk from Johnstone, one of which snapped a picture of us telling us afterwards we'd be on his Bebo page the next day. What an honour, I thought. One of his mates seemed a little too drunk but assured us it was because he was high on the sweeties 'man'. What 'sweeties' he was referring to is anyone's guess. Smarties is my guess. Too many E's in them. Afterwards escaping from Revolution we visited the Hope Street Bar Bhudda where Ka had a Champagne Raspberry cocktail (pictured half empty) and then onwards to the Butterfly and the Pig on Bath Street. I unwisely had a beer to finish the night when we got home which is always bad for the head the next day (nothing to do with the vodkas beforehand of course). Back to work tomorrow though and the beginning of another week.
We completely missed this solar eclipse of the moon up here today, probably because of the afore mentioned rainclouds. Apparently Europe only witnessed a partial eclipse anyway but British astronomers caught some good shots which can be seen here on the BBC website (except from the one with the kids... and the dog - that's just silly). It was also in the papers today that they have found water on Mars. Which means the possibility that life was on Mars, even if it was millions of years ago. Mars could have had a whole other species of being long before the dinosaurs even rose up out of the ocean on this small, blue planet. The Phoenix space probe, which was sent down to the planet a few months back, dug under the planet's soil, the resulting samples of which were scanned by the orbiting Odyssey spacecraft. Science fiction this ain't. Either is the story on Richard Branson's Virgin Galactic taking bookings for his suborbital flights into space for the pricely sum of $200,000 per customer/tourist. The first flights are expected to be as soon as the end of this year. Let's just hope they're a little more successful than his attempts at flying around the world on his balloon! Branson is cool. I like Branson. He's an extravagant billionaire whose not afraid of what his critics sneer. What other multi millionaires invest millions in flying tourists out into space? If I had a spare $200,000 I'd sign up! It must be the coolest thing - to see your own planet from space... All of us running about, living our little lives, working, breeding, eating, exercising, reading, driving, watching, playing, wondering about our weather, when the whole enormity of the universe moves around us. Just to go to the edge of our planet's atmosphere, a mere toe in the bathtub, and get the slightest hint of that would be mind blowing. Anyway, getting a bit deep there... sorry.