flossie suvara

Don't watch Bob the Builder then - it would appear that Zippy's voice has been taken over by the naughty scarecrow Spud... Flossie

Big fat bump for one of the finest people I've ever met - stunning guitarist and magic bloke. Go to this gig - you will not regret it. Regards Flossie

I once had the misfortune to be the first person to discover a jobby in a sink at my work (Aberdeen College) Regards Flossie

They all differ quite a bit (in that none of them have the descent into madness/perversion that the Bunker Man covers). Bucket of Tongues - as far as I can remember, most of the stories concern relationships between friends or couples. There are a couple of stories about Aberdeen football casuals - one called "A/Deen Soccer Casuals kick to Kill", which is about a young casual and his older brother meeting to go to the match - the brother is an ex casual, grown up and now working offshore and tries to get through to his brother the pointlessness of his actions. (The title comes from a piece of graffiti on South College Street which was there for years and years.) The other one is called "Druid's shite it, fail to show", which is about the falling out of a group of teenage casuals (in Dyce). Blackden is a rights of passage story of a teenager's weekend in a small north east village - coming to terms with his job, his family, his friends, etc. Having consulted the guru of google, the non-fiction one is called "Lone Star Swing" - here's the blurb from a website: "Using the prize money from his Somerset Maugham Award, Duncan McLean traveled from Orkney, Scotland, to Texas in search of the extraordinary mix of jazz, blues, country, and mariachi that is Western Swing. This account of his travels takes in barbed-wire museums, onion festivals, hoe-downs, ghost-towns, dead dogs, and ten thousand miles of driving through the Lone Star State. A constant soundtrack of vintage music from bands like the Texas Top Hands, The Lightcrust Doughboys, and the Modern Mountaineers cheers McLean as he tries, with great difficulty, to track down any trace of his greatest heroes: Bob Wills and the Texas Playboys. " Hope that helps - enjoy Regards Flossie

Bunker man is good, but a bit too twisted for my liking - I've never had much desire to re-read it (which is unusual for me) - Duncan MacLean's first novel "Blackden" is really good too - set in a north-east village which could be Blackburn. His collection of short stories "Bucket of Tongues" is also quite good ("Cold Kebab Breakfast" is one title that springs to mind". He won a literature prize for either Blackden or Bucket of Tongues, and with the money went on a literary pilgrimage to America to find out more about an American music star called Bob Wills (can't remember the name of the book or the full name of Bob Wills band, or indeed the type of music - Texas Swing is a possibility) It's a great read too - I can remember one quote when he meets someone in a tiny bar in the middle of nowhere who's playing the Proclaimer's "Sunshine on Leith", who asks him. "Is Leith a state of mind?" And his reply is "I suppose it is, really" Great Author - might have to re-read Blackden sometime soon. Regards Flossie

Head on/Re-possessed - Julian Cope Turlough - Brian Keenan (about 16th Century blind Irish harper O'Carolan) - by one of the Beirut Hostages) Who's Crazee now - Noddy Holder (just finished it - good read) Psychotic Reactions and Carburetor Dung : The Work of a Legendary Critic: Rock'N'Roll as Literature and Literature as Rock'N'Roll - Lester Bangs Regards Flossie

Were the Chisolm's not convinced that their son was the reincarnation of Mozart? I'm sure I've heard lots of dodgy stories about them, but old age has made me forget most of them... Flossie

It was the Bloody Mary's - unless you're going back even further to the late '80s, when there was a Dundee band called the Beaver Sister's, who dressed in drag and did various covers (quite a lot of Rocky Horror Show songs) - they played at RGU (or RGIT as it was in those days) union a couple of times before being banned for obscenity related stuff... Regards Flossie

Actually, the "Gay" in "Gay Gordons" is a mispronunciation of the Doric word "gey", which in the context of "Gey Gordons", means terrible or fierce, which is what the clan Gordon was known as in the past. I've never heard of any ultra-pc move to change the name of the dance. We sing baa baa black sheep to our daughter, but we also sing a second verse: Baa baa white sheep have you any wool Yes sir yes sir 3 bags full One for the jumpers and one for the frocks And one for the little girl with holes in her socks Regards Flossie

And at the Gallowgate you get the added bonus of being taught by Niall Mathewson (from the Mill Studio and from out of Pallas) - a top top bloke who really knows his stuff. On the downside, you may end up being taught IT by me... Regards Flossie

Cool - another thread in which I can list my collection and plan on how to get a bigger house... Piano (free from Evening Express) Yamaha keyboard Washburn Acoustic guitar Juan Alvarez Classical Guitar (from charity shop) Antoria Archtop guitar Blue Moon travel guitar 5 string banjo Crafter semi-acoustic mandolin washburn acoustic mandolin Eko banjo mandolin Autoharp 2 Violins (1 stentor from charity shop) Bodhran Recorders - soparino, descant, 2 alto, 1 tenor Tin whistles - heaps 2 thumb pianos ukelele gusla various hand percussion - tambourine, maracas, etc nose flute (really!) bamboo flute doumbek drum (not sure if that's the right name) 2 melodicas umpteen harmonicas Peavey Horizon II electric guitar 15 watt practice amp 40 watt peavey bass amp Zoom 707 multieffects unit Work in progress is a 3/4 size acoustic guitar which I'm converting to a bouzouki. But a wise man once asked me when he saw my collection "How many hands do you have?", which is a valid point... Regards Flossie

Slight correction to above theory - it's alleged that the cannonballs were actually stacked on a brass plate with indentations in it, which was purportedly called a monkey. Brass contracts when cold, so the cannonballs would topple over. Unfortunately, this theory is rubbish - there was never such a device known as a monkey. See this website for a bit more detail... http://www.worldwidewords.org/qa/qa-bra1.htm Interesting bit at the bottom suggests it's something to do with brass statues of the three wise monkeys - hear no evil, speak no evil, see no evil. But it definately does mean that it is very cold. Regards Flosie

I'd reiterate the reply about car boot sales, and include charity shops. I have a very large collection of instruments (70+ at the last count, and I'm not planning on selling any I'm afraid), and a reasonable percentage have come from jumble sales/car boot sales/charity shops, including: a violin, a classical guitar and numerous wind instruments - recorders/harmonicas/penny whistles. You very often see small kids keyboards in charity shops - it's just a case of doing a regular sweep of the shops. You can also get cheap kids percussion instruments from IKEA if you're down that way, or know someone whose going. Failing that - Early Learning Centre is good. Regards Flossie

Favourite poets: Adrian Henri Brian Patten Roger McGough Kahlil Gibran Robert Burns Charles Murray David Rorie Rudyard Kipling (Do you like Kipling? I don't know, I've never been Kippled) Regards Flossie

10 years ago I would have said Martin "Shambles" Watson. He had a fantastic talent in both writing songs and singing/playing. The sheer number of songs he wrote at that time was also impressive, as was his ability to record CD quality vocals in one take (album vocals recorded in one morning - bearing in mind this was at the Mill and Niall is a perfectionist). Nowadays - I'm afraid I don't know what he's writing, if anything, but he certainly did have an incredible talent. Regards Flossie

Dearie me - I must be extremely elderly (winces as gout and lumbago play up) Were you one of the many folk who we gave a lift to in a frantic dash to catch the last ferry back to Lerwick after the gig? Flossie

Ah the Death Star - does it still look like the stage from the floorshow section of the Rocky Horror? The Lorelei played the North Star in 1994 - we too had a fantastic time in Shetland - I don't think we got banned from it (but we did do a gig at the Bressay hall which caused all bands to be banned). However, we did get a letter of complaint in the Buchan Advertiser (or somesuch paper) from an elderly couple who saw us advertised whilst in Shetland on holiday - apparently we were billed as playing a "folk music weekend" and they wrote "Imagine our surprise when we entered the venue to be met with what appeared to be a death metal band..." Shetland rocks - (and getting the plane is much better when the seas are rough) Regards Flossie

"Fools Gold have to be one of the most succesful cover bands in Britain. Its not fair all they do is sing someone elses songs and get paid a shitload, a bit like Westlife, Girls Aloud, all Pop Idolers . . ." Yeah - just like Elvis. And as for that Scottish National Orchestra - all they do is play Mozart covers. :-) Regards Flossie

I can play the violin - played it in the school orchestra for 6 years (but I left school in 1987) - I wouldn't say that I'm a brilliant fiddler, but I can carry a tune well enough. I also played fiddle on the Lorelei's first album, but only on a few tracks, as mandolin is my main instrument. Regards Flossie

Doesn't ring a bell I'm afraid - mind you, memory is the first thing to go as you get older (then it's hair...) Regards Flossie

I may know your brother then, since I left RGC in 1987 - I also studied Latin for 6 years (well, I say studied...), emerging with a lovely Higher. Use in the real world - very little, apart from as a weapon to disparage the uncultured masses who didn't study classics. My teachers were: Mrs Bowie, Mrs Gray, and Mr Wilson (Batman) - Mr Woodman was there also, but he never taught me. Regards Flossie

Ah, good old Alannis (what's with the long face) Morissette and her definition of irony. "A traffic jam when you're already late" is NOT ironic - it's merely unfortunate. However, if you were in charge of sorting out traffic congestion and were on your way to a press conference where you were to announce that traffic jams were a thing of the past due to your reforms, and were made late due to a traffic jam, then that WOULD be ironic. Flossie

http://www.freesheetmusic.net/ Has a lot of links to various sites, but it's unlikely you'll find anything modern due to copyright. Regards Flossie

One of mine, bizarelly enough, is "Don't stop believing" by american AOR "giants" Journey - it's not an outstanding song, it has rubbish lyrics eg: "A singer in a smokey room, a smell of wine and cheap perfume" and "some you win, and some you lose, some are born to sing the blues" But every time I hear it, it reminds me of 2 seperate times and locations. 1) A venture scout bothy camp near Ballater 2) A venue in Lingfield (south of London), called "Rockits" (it was a squash club), where my old band played quite a few times - between the soundcheck and the gig, "Don't stop believing" was on a compilation tape So despite it's dodgy lyrics, It's got a firm place in my heart Regards Flossie

Was it not the Leningrad Cowboys COVERING Sweet Home Alabama' date=' with the Red Army Choir (I particularly remember the drumkit being on a tractor) If you haven't seen "Leningrad Cowboys Go America", then you've missed an exceptionally funny and surreal film - more info at [url']http://www.leninimports.com/leningradc1.html Afraid I haven't seen the other two films they're advertising, but the first one is a classic. Regards Flossie