Working in web for 20 years, I am used to clients requesting animations and videos on homepage, and this seems an excellent use of the format. Perfect for the story behind it.
I'm currently on a family trip to Tenerife – hence the book updates on the site. I can't remember the last time I finished two books in a week.
Despite it being one of those places to which Britons the length and breadth of the country head, this is my first time on the Canary Islands. If you refocus your gaze beyond the tourist hotels and bars filled with the cast of Benidorm, it's a beautiful part of the world.
Back in the early 2000s, for work-related reasons, I started learning Spanish. I got to the point where I could have basic conversations and could travel around Spain, buying train and bus tickets and generally get by. I was very far from fluent, but I could hold a basic conversation.
As expected, I did not continue my studies; I haven't really spoken Spanish with anyone in years. That said, there's still some residual knowledge kicking around and over the past few days, I've tried my best to speak Spanish where I can.
And it makes a difference. I can only assume (and from what I can overhear) that most of the hotel staff speak English very well. If you ask a question in English, that's how they'll respond. But if you ask in Spanish, you fall into a conversation that doesn't seem to happen otherwise. It's a very stilted, broken-Spanish-based conversation but it happens all the same. And then the next time you ask the same member of staff a question, they remember you and help you with the language.
A lot of this is just down to the professionalism of hotel staff, but I feel a big difference in how easy it is to build up a relationship over the course of a few days if you're willing to get over the initial embarrassment at not being fluent in a second language, and just give it a go.
Really enjoyed reading this, and recognise a lot of the cliques and weirdos around the Scottish music scene. The same cliques and weirdos continued to some extent into the music scene that I found myself on the outskirts of in the 1990s.
Nathan Coley's We Are The Monument looks like it just sprang up overnight in Glasgow, atop the Glasgow Dental Hospital. Admittedly, there is a Glasgow Life article promoting it, so it's not like it wasn't planned.
Newly installed in Sauchiehall Street, on the roof of Glasgow Dental Hospital and School, the illuminated text-based sculpture displays the thought-provoking phrase, WE ARE THE MONUMENT.
“The Dead must be Remembered, but the Living are the Monument, the living who coexist in peace in ordinary times, and who save one another in extraordinary times”
I enjoy seeing some new art work in the city, and this one reminds me of Mary Ellen Carroll's It Is Green Thinks Nature Even In The Dark, which has left Glasgow residents scratching their heads for years now.
Coley studied at Glasgow School of Art, which is directly behind the Glasgow Dental Hospital, so I'm sure the location isn't an accident.
I also like his work The World Without, seen here installed in Abu Dhabi.
The World Without, installed in downtown Abu Dhabi
I recently hired a decorator to paint my living room. Clearing out the space before he started meant all our books had to come down off the shelves and into temporary storage (where they still live, admittedly). That got me thinking about keeping better track of books I've read.
So, I've added a /shelf page to the site. It pulls my reading data from Hardcover, a book tracking service that seems like a decent alternative to Goodreads (which no longer provides an API for this kinda thing).
The page shows what I'm currently reading and what I've read, grouped by year. If I've given a book 5 stars, it has a wee "Loved it" badge beside it. If I've written a blog post about a specific book, there's a "Blog Post" link that takes you to it.
Author and series names are clickable filters, so if you want to see only books by a particular author you can do that without wading through everything else. I say that, but I've not read anywhere near as much as I'd like to over the past 10-15 years. I blame that on having a kid, and on going back to Uni in 2017.
Hardcover seems pretty new so I've no idea how long it'll be around, but it has an API and it was easy to move over to it from Goodreads, so that was enough for me.
✳ Picture shown is much neater than my actual bookshelves at home.
Ten years ago I saw Super Furry Animals at the Kelvingrove Bandstand in Glasgow. It was the first time I'd seen them and they paid me back by not appearing on stage again for another 10 years.
They're are one of my favourite bands but the electronic nature of some of their songs didn't fit with what I listened to when I was younger, so I initially disregarded them for too long. Funnily enough, songs like Slow Life and (A Touch) Sensitive are now two of my favourites.
I saw them again last week at Glasgow's Barrowlands. It was great, but I'm not convinced they're back for anything more than a bit of a financial leg up; it's difficult to put my finger on it, as they're not the most effusive bunch on stage, but it was quite a low-key show.
Getdown Services were the support act and they sweat enough for 3 or 4 bands so it all evens out, I suppose.
