May contain a heavy dose of Jim Kerr
A rare dry night for Glasgow at this time of year. Fantastic. Nothing suits me more. I very easily get put off by attending gigs when the weather is shite. It had been pretty shite for the 48 hours leading up to it. Through Thursday night and into Friday it had been blowing a hoolie,…
Read full post “Ist Ist (+ Yaang) – Oran Mor – 29/11/2025” »
So, where do I start? TARA FB (AT LEAST FOR NOW ANYWAY) After the Cloth gig review, there were a couple of posts on the Simple Minds Facebook page that riled me. One was to do with “writing your own story” as implied by the text laid out accredited to Kerr. I think the title…
Read full post “Bits and (in) Pieces (NB: not sandwiches)” »
It was a busy weekend. On Saturday morning Sue arrived and during the afternoon we headed into the city to go to the Mitchell Library for an event. It was called ‘Love Letters to a Murder.’ The main aspect of it was a ‘In Conversation’ talk between the author of a fictionalised account of the…
Read full post “Rainy Days and Soothside Sundays – A Do at The Citz” »
I know that these days this blog is not exactly a hive of activity, particularly on the Simple Minds front currently as there isn’t much to report when it comes to the band, but also over the past 12-18 months my fandom has waned and I had also been writing my book (yeah, that still…
Read full post “Back to ‘School’ and Chapter 1 of OSATS Available” »
A post on the Simple Minds Facebook page confirmed there will be other signing events taking place in Glasgow and London (as well as the Toppings Edinburgh event) but the ‘cloak and dagger’ continues. Now, for me, I don’t give a flying hoot about attending any of these signings but I know a number of…
Read full post “More Drip-fed Details For Book Signings (Should it be Aye Write or “Aye, right”?)” »
He had been alluding to something else to come shortly after the performances of Life in a Scotch Sitting Room Vol. 0 but kept us guessing with the whys and wherefores then dropped a teaser yesterday. Then the announcement dropped this morning. Two gigs. One in London in Islington, the other at THE BARRAS on…
Read full post “Hamish Is For Every Day – But Also For Christmas!” »
UPDATE 19/09/2025: Thanks to Scott for the heads up on the change of date to the event. It’s now taking place (at least for now!) on Monday 20 October at a different venue. If memory serves me well, it’s the same venue where Graeme Thomson was in conversation with Bruce Findlay back in August 2022….
CUTLER’S CULT On Saturday afternoon I went to Edinburgh, suffering the Fringe hoards to see a new kind of show being performed by Hamish Hawk. A true performance piece titled Life in a Scotch Sitting Room, Vol. 0. I’m still struggling to pin down a succinct definition of what it was other than just the…
Read full post “Artistic Appeal: Sitting rooms and seduction” »
The initial travel plan for me was to get the CityLink 900 coach to and back from Edinburgh and then get the train to/back from North Berwick from/to Waverley. I booked the coach tickets via Megabus instead of booking via CityLink. I’d never had any problems booking with Megabus before but this time, although I…
Read full post “Hamish Hawk/Billy Nomates/Cloth – Fringe by the Sea, North Berwick 08/08/2025” »
I’ve been staying off Facebook more and more these days. Even more so at the moment, for as much as I appreciate the “Taormina Team” all being excited and ridiculously enthusiastic about being over there for those final shows, it will be all I’ll see if I open up Facebook and dare step in. I…