Marillionboy

Saturday 8th at the Tunnels, that'll be a good weekend for me with Fish at Drummonds the night before. Who's coming to it?

Never ventured in there or Portals. I'm too young to die. Whatever is Secrets playing out, its boarded up with a banner on it saying "secrets is open". That it maybe but it doesn't seem to have a door anymore.

Believe me Stuart, it doesn't work.

To quote one of my favourite films: You know what's the worst thing about somebody breaking up with you? Is when you remember how little you thought about the people you broke up with and you realize that is how little they're thinking of you. You know, you'd like to think you're both in all this pain but they're just like 'Hey, I'm glad you're gone'. Beers for you fella. It will get better.

Hey I may be from Cullen and not Aberdeen and due to accidents of fate sound slightly more like Ray Winstone than that quine affa River City fi Torry, but I do know its nay Footdee! Just thought in my (faulty) memory that the sign spelt it the formal way! I assumed that Pegasus was a former band venue, as I know Pallas used to play in The Neptune years back, must have been in there!

Yes top of St Nicholas is good actually. A bar or restaurtant would be good but I can't think of any bars with a good view either, Oh Henry's used to have. If only Pizza Hut was a bar!

Schooner closed? Noooooo!!!! Flash if that was your teenage pub crawl by the end of it you must have been on first name terms with every hooker in Aberdeen! I took a great walk round the harbour area on a rainy afternoon a few weeks ago and noticed the Footdee bar for the first time, which actually looked really nice. But what's the score with The Neptune and Pegasus...what's Pegasus?

How'd it go mate? I'm going through it myself at the mo, totally fucking ripped me apart.

Thought that's where you meant...is it open to the public?

Thanks heaps...where's the CItadel by the way? Is it my imagination or does one of the roads off the Spital, maybe Sunnybank Road, have a good view from it too?

Sorry Mark, what sewage plant?

Thanks all, they're exactly the sorts of things I'm after!

No its for some filming actually. That hill near Pittodrie isn't bad from what I recall actually...

Cheers...though I'm actually needing an outdoor location, a hill or a street...

I've just finished Ewan Morrison's THE LAST BOOK YOU READ, which I got in Ottakers. Its absolute stunning: a great collection of short stories by a Glasgow writer. Two in particular are great: "Fuck Buddy" and "Re: Your Ad".

do you think you get the best view of the city? I'm trying to find a location for something, and I'm stumped!

Who's Gerry Jablonski?

Yes Sean's great. "Oh I see...British bulldog one-two-three" "I'm more British than you are fuckface." Sean Chapman did a great turn in another Clarke film too, Contact.

I think all Alan Clarke fans should join me for the Absinte tasting in The Moorings in a few weeks.

Yes the storyline is all wrong:ID would have been near perfect if it had just been about a bloke who had got sucked in through his surroundings, not because he was an undercover copper.

Yeah yeah the usual handed down opinion of Marillion. Yawn yawn. One day it'll be ironic to like them and people will suddenly claim they do. They might be the worst or best band in the world, but I wasn't trying to advocate them to anyone. At least at the moment they're irony free now. You might love Abba but Kate Thornton going on about them on list shows on tv is totally bandwaggoning.

I actually think its a shame Clarke's remembered mainly for those three films as I think most of his work post-Scum was bollocks. I think The Firm is a lousy piece, showing how bad a state tv drama was in ten years on from Scum. I think Gary Oldman is terrific but that was a terribly showy performance, not at all like the naturalism Clarke was so good at getting from actors. The whole yuppie-thug thing I thought was a pretty naive view of soccer violence (ID was much better) and the violence is not nearly ugly and clumsy enough, although the final scene is excellent. Made in Britain is terrific, especially that central scene with Geoffrey Hutchings' tour-de-force monologue with the blackboard.

I'm not a huge fan of Leigh actually, the only piece of his I really like is Hard Labour, his first Play for Today, before he got indulgent. I think Meantime has its moments but it plays like an actor's workshop and is well too long...

The nostalgia bubble has well and truly burst but they'll go on and on trying to make more money out of old stuff for a long time yet. What's frustrating is that old stuff that was good either gets ignored or misrepresented. Like old Dr Who always had wobbly sets (it didn't) The Sweeney always said "get your trousers on your nicked " (only said once in the pilot, sorry for being an anorak) overlooking the fact that without irony, The Sweeney was excellent and more than just a kick-em-in-the-teeth show, and 70s gems like Play for Today and The Signalman get forgotten. I fully expect ELO to get an ironic revival soon. How the fuck Abba got one is beyond me. Everyone thought they were shit even at the time. Like your parents forming a band. Every song sung like they were singing a child happy birthday.

Okay you just sold it to me. To get full advantage I'm going to The Light of Bengal first, best Indian in Aberdeen I reckon.