Bob Dylan - Live at the SEC Armadillo Halloween Night 2022

 The last time I saw Bob Dylan was in the SECC in 1998 when he was supported by Van Morrison (who was not great).  That night was almost a Dylan greatest hits show with fairly faithful versions of tracks like 'Blowing in the wind' and as a 20 year old I loved it.  For a variety of reasons it took me nearly 25 years to see him again.  My memory of that last show is ghostly faint but positive.  Tonight was crystal clear and very different.

Dylan played an upright piano all night.  His band was just brilliant.  A great drummer, great guitarists, a great bass player and a multi-instrumentalist on steel guitar and others.  Tone, sound and music was everything tonight with Dylan's voice, his vocal tone, another lead instrument.  He played some big songs from his past but the versions while musically excellent were almost a parody of the more familiar versions.  When I paint my masterpiece, gotta serve somebody, most likely you go your way and I'll go mine and I'll be your baby tonight were just tossed out, taken apart and rebuilt in very different.  This was not a pop hits night, this felt like an improvised jam band that was punching above it's weight.

The bulk of the set was from the excellent Rough and Rowdy Ways and I was glad to hear that album live.  Dylan is 81 and I'm not sure that he will play Glasgow again.  Surely the never-ending tour must pause with time.  I would love to see him again but I'm not hopeful.

Bruce Dickinson - What does this button do?

 I never liked Iron Maiden.  I just never for into them. I liked lots of other heavy metal stuff over the years but Iron Maiden just never floated my boat.  I think it's the way they dressed.  They just didn't do it for me.   I was never really a fan of Bruce Dickinson either.  I have vague memories of him messing about on the BBC Heavy Metal Heaven season in the eighties.  In retrospect he must have been channelling Spinal Tap.

I listen to audiobooks a lot.  When I'm commuting I like to use the time to do something and audiobooks seem efficient when I can't be bothered with music or the kindle. Using Audible you can often get an unexpected gem of a book for a couple of quid.

Which is how I found What does this button do?

Dickinson narrates his autobiography himself and he is funny.  He is very funny.  He doesn't take himself or anything else seriously.  Between his boarding school education, his adolescent interests and his general positive mental attitude this is a real feel good book.  He did very well with Iron Maiden and he became a pilot flying commercial airliners while on a break from music.  Eventually he was flying Iron Maiden around the world in 'Ed Force One',

He is, sadly, a 'Brexit wanker' although I do see that he has expressed dismay at the impact of Brexit on UK musicians which is good.  Thankfully we don't get any Brexit stuff in the book.  Just fencing, beer making and Spitfires.

He would be a better Prime Minister than the one we have.

Stephen King

 As a young teenager in the late 80s and the early 90s I went through my Stephen King phase.  I was always aware of Stephen King, even when I was younger than that but I was led to believe that the books were 'too scary' for a wee kid and to be fair, they probably would have been.

I can't remember which ones I started with but I did read almost everything that was available and fast.  I remember buy and loving the paperback of "The Dark Half'.  I'm sure I had a copy of Carrie and a few of his other early books.  I did have the hardback of the revised version of 'The Stand' with the Bernie Wrightson pictures.  Most of them I borrowed from the East Kilbride library.

More recently I've taken the time to catch up on some of his newer books.  11.22.63 is pretty good, The Outsider is enjoyable with some great characters, I finally managed to read the Gunslinger (book 1 of The Dark Tower) and I'm finally reading Doctor Sleep, the follow-up to The Shining. I'm glad I'm taking the time to read these books.

I can remember reading the Bachman Books collection when I was young and I was a bit surprised that King had withdrawn one of the Bachman novels (Rage) from print.  I think he had good reasons to do it but it is a bit weird to think that a book I remember reading 30 years ago has now disappeared from the shelves.

King writes with comfortable rhythms and that has been good over the past month while I've been recovering from minor surgery.  Looking at him now, I think he is a decent bloke.  I think his heart is in the right place so I'm glad that the young me spent so much time reading his work.  I don't think I'll ever read it all but some of it is good.  I wonder if my son will like his stuff when he grows up.

Piranesi by Susanna Clarke

 I read Johnathan Strange and Mr Norrell about 16 years ago and I loved it at the time. Piranesi was published last year and I've just had a chance to listen to the audiobook.  It's fairly short and well read by Chiwetel Ejiofo.

Piranesi is a magical and mysterious book that reminded me of the Narnia tales of CS Lewis. It's a story about a massive house, deserted and partially flooded, filled with strange things and inhabited by the narrator and another.

The story flows and was succinct and well constructed.  I totally recommend it.

The Dresden Files by Jim Butcher

Over the past few months I've worked my way through The Dresden Files by Jim Butcher and it's been pleasant.  Over the past 20 years Butcher has created a well rounded Dresden-verse focusing on the life and times of Harry Dresden, professional wizard and private investigator based in Chicago.  The books have spawned a short lived TV series, lots of comics and a few role playing games.  A great franchise.

The books seem to work a bit like a role playing game with Dresden developing from book to book, levelling up and encountering new challenges that push him further and further.  In later books there is some focus on the various attempts that are made to corrupt Dresden by supernatural entities.

In difficult times Harry Dresden is a great distraction.  There are two more books being published later this year and I'm looking forward to reading them.

I had initially intended to be more enthusiastic in this post as I genuinely loved the books - just read them.

Close Quarters by Angus McAllister

I saw this book in Waterstones the other week and I was intrigued.  I decided to check it out on my Kindle and I'm glad I did.  I got through the book in a couple of days and I very much enjoyed it.

I lived in the west end of Glasgow on and off between 1995 and 2008.   I did the university thing and the young professional thing and the overpriced rent for slums thing.  I also spent time renting elsewhere in the UK and interacting with factors.  I would not repeat any interactions with landlords or factors for fun.

McAllister is a retired solicitor who was a law professor.  He published books on Scottish property law.  He knows the hell of flats in the west end and psychopathic neighbours.  I recognised the geography of the book, the pubs and the characters.

Some of the reviewers online found the mid-section of the book a bit slow but I really appreciated the detail which added emotional weight to the story and fully filled out the details of the hell that Walter Bain subjects his neighbours to.

This book is funny and true to life.  Worth a read.

Smallbone Deceased by Michael Gilbert

I stumbled across this book as an Amazon Kindle 99p deal of the day.  I liked the title and fancied reading something a bit different.  Michael Gilbert was a crime writer and a lawyer who published books from the 1940s until just after the turn of the century and Smallbone Deceased is his masterpiece.

The crime, the death of the eponymous Smallbone, is discovered in a law firm in the famous Lincoln's Inn, one of the more prestigious addresses in legal London.  I'm not a lawyer but the setting is well drawn with characters that resonate well today, even though the book is 70 years old.  I've only ever spent a couple of months living in London but I could still feel the city in the words of the book.

A bit of internet research taught me that Gilbert published many crime novels, often with recurring characters (some of whom appear in Smallbone Deceased), but sadly few of them are available electronically.  Hundreds of thousands of books have been published in English over the past few centuries and only a small fraction are available electronically.  Hopefully more of Gilbert's work will appear on the Kindle in the future.

Worth a read.

The Testament of Gideon Mack by James Robertson

One of my favourite books isThe Private Memoirs and Confessions of a Justified Sinner by James Hogg and The Testament of Gideon Mack is a modern retelling of that story.  The original was published in 1824 and set in the late 17th and early 18th century.  Gideon Mack is set between the 1950s and 2005.  The best way to enjoy these books is to read both.

I read Justified Sinner at school, possibly for SYS English or higher English and I loved it.  A few years back I saw a play in the Tramway theatre that was an adaption of the book (again modernised) and more recently I have been trying to read other novels that borrow from Hogg.  Gideon Mack is one of the best.

I understand that Robertson won prizes for Gideon Mack and made the long list for the Booker prize. The book should have won in my opinion.  It is well written, readable, thought provoking and sad whilst being funny.

Gideon Mack follows the format of Justified Sinner with an introduction from the 'editor', the main text from the Testament written by Mack, and a fact checking post-script commissioned by the editor.  Taken as a whole, like Justified Sinner, Mack proves to be an unreliable narrator.

The story tackles religion, belief, hypocrisy, happiness, sadness and concepts about truth, self reflection and evil.  The characters are well rounded.  The world portrayed is similar to the Scotland I have grown up in.

I encourage everyone to read this book.  I'm sure it will be a feature of Scottish Literature courses until Scottish Literature courses no longer exists.  It will be constantly compared with it's ancestor and there will be discussion about shared characters and sly nods from Gilmartin.

I intend to read more of Robertson's books.

Beastie Boys Book

I've been digesting the Beastie Boys Book for the last month or so.  It's amazing, disjointed and brilliant just like the band.  I've been listening to the audiobook due to my lack of free reading time.  It's one of the best audiobooks I've ever encountered.  They have invited a stellar cast of narrators including Snoop Doggy Dogg, Kim Gordon, Chuck D, Will Ferrell, Bette Midler and Steve Buscemi as well as many many others.

The narrative jumps about from their childhood, through early punk adventures, Bad Brains and Black Flag concerts, New York Discos, career low-points (Def Jam), clothing labels, recording with Lee Scratch Perry and lists of equipment, recipes and mix tapes.  Everything is in this book.

Much of the book is a tribute to Adam Yauch, MCA, who died in 2012 from parotid cancer.  His fellow Beastie Boys clearly and understandably miss him.  In some ways he appears to have been a pathfinder for the band and is credited as being the Beastie who made things happen.

The physical release is beautifully illustrated with photos and comics strips reminiscent of the old Grand Royale magazine from the 90s.  It's a thing of beauty but the audiobook is worth your time too.

A fitting legacy for a great band.  Sadly, I never saw them and I deeply regret it.  I am glad I had their music (and their music videos).

Stan Lee - RIP

I never met Stan Lee.  I never had a chance.  He did come to Forbidden Planet in Glasgow but somehow I never knew.  Stan Lee did have an impact on my life in many ways.  I've spent a lot of time reading Marvel Comics in the last 40 or so years and Stan Lee was responsible for many of them.

The first american comic that I read/owned was issue number 3 of Super-villain Team Up featuring Namor, the Submariner and Dr Doom fighting some even more evil fish people.  It was a bit crap.  It came from a neighbours house and I read it from cover to cover many, many times.  I still have it somewhere.  I remember all the strange American adverts from the seventies and the slightly yellow paper.  It wasn't brilliant but it was my first comic presented by Stan Lee.

I had probably seen some Spiderman reprints by then.  I was certainly reading the Marvel UK weekly Star Wars comic as a very young child in the early 80s.  The old sixties Marvel cartoons were broadcast as part of Glen Michaels Cartoon Cavalcade in Scotland with Captain america, Fantastic Four, Iron Man and Spider-Man.  We also had the seventies Spiderman cartoon as well as Spiderman and his Amazing Friends and the Hulk.

Stan Lee infected every part of our culture.  He reached Scotland from New York and taught us about heroes and trying to be good.  His personality shone through in his Bullpen Bulletin. He had a heart and he tried to do the right thing.  He was cheesy and a bit of a self-promoter.  He didn't give his collaborators enough talent but he changed the dreams of lots of kids.  Like me, those kids are often successful adults and we live in a world that has seen both the Black Panther and Guardians of the Galaxy on the big screen.  Back in the early eighties this was unimaginable.

My fiancé's niece can name most of the marvel superheroes on a poster in our house and she is 3.  Stan continues to shape young minds.  His imagination lives on in all of us.

RIP

The Second World War by Anthony Beevor

Men of my fathers' generation spent a lot of time thinking about the second world war.  My dad was born a few days after the nuclear bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki killed almost 200,000 people.  His father saw service only as part of the home guard but a cousin died on the River Kwai in Burma, a victim of the Japanese.  The war loomed large in my dads perception of the world.

As a child I read the Battle comic and the Commando comics that were prevalent in the UK.  I saw the war films which old of a heroic war, where we got rid of nasty Mr Hitler and his Nazi chums and the 'cruel' Japanese.  As a child my dad took me to the old battlefields where ruined tanks still lay.  He also took me to visit Dachau.  War is not fun.

This book, by Anthony Beevor is a detailed account of the conflict that covered most of the world for about six years and resulted in the death of at least 60 million people.  A lot of bad things were done.  Human lives were discarded like used tissues, people were exposed to unbelievable cruelty and murdered.  War crimes and genocide were widespread. Caniballism, most notably by Japanese soldiers, was not uncommon.  Rape was used as a weapon of war.

The Second World War was not a good war.  It was one of the worst things that humanity has ever done to itself.  Sadly, many people in the UK, who did not live through this era seem to regard it with rose-tinted glasses.  It seems to be used as an excuse for Brexit, among many others.  The war is a warning from history, a warning against racism and fascism.  The war is a warning about 'strong men' leaders like Hitler.  It is a warning that too many of us ignore.

This book is long but worth reading.  Something to reflect upon.

Narconomics: How To Run a Drug Cartel by Tom Wainwright

I enjoy popular economics books and economics is one of many things that I wish I had a greater understanding of.  Much of economics is witchcraft and pretension papering over bullshit but it is useful to use different models to try to understand the world.  As part of my holiday week reading I decided to delve into the economics of drug dealing.

Wainwright is a British editor for the Economist and he writes well.  He decided to study the economics of the narcotics industry and he follows the journey of illegal drugs from farming to end user.  I've read a lot of this before in books like Freakonomics or the Undercover Economist but Wainwright does add some additional colour and detail to the scenarios.

Of particular interest to modern readers are sections on the use of legal highs in New Zealand, the legalisation of cannabis in Colorado and the impact of internet retailers (on the dark web) on the distribution and sale of drugs in the modern world.

The extent of the black economy and the massive potential gains in tax suggest that legalisation of narcotics may be a good way forward although the damage done by these substances cannot be underestimated.  It is also important to note that there is no such thing as 'fair trade' cocaine.  People who buy and use cocaine are partially paying for murder.

Legalisation, taxation and careful regulation are surely the way forward.

Stiffed by James Morrow

James Morrow is a retired consultant neurologist from Northern Ireland.  He did outstanding work in the field of epilepsy, particularly in his work looking at the effects of anti-epileptic drugs on pregnant women and their children.  He had to take early retirement when he developed autoimmune encephalitis and he wrote about his experience of this in Practical Neurology, a British neurology journal, a few years ago.

He has kept busy during his retirement and he has written a book, Stiffed, about the pharmaceutical industry and the various challenges it faces.  The book is a comedy crime novel in the vein of Chris Brookmyre and has a few unexpected twists and turns.

There is a palpable sense of reality to the book as Dr Morrow borrows details from his extensive medical career and work with the pharmaceutical industry.  I don't want to spoil things but there were a couple of sightly unexpected twists in the tale.

The text of the kindle edition could do with some additional proof reading but it's a good read.  I'd read another book by him.  Best novel by an eminent neurologist that I've read for some time.

Panacea by F Paul Wilson

I'm doing some holiday reading this week and another book that I've enjoyed is Panacea by F Paul Wilson.  I've written an appreciation of the work of F Paul Wilson before.  He's an American doctor who writes fairly intelligent supernatural thrillers, most famously the Repairman Jack series.  Panacea  is the first book in the ICE sequence and unfortunately it's not available for Kindle in the UK so I had to pick up an imported American paperback copy from Amazon.

The book is about a forensic pathologist who has a sick daughter and is asked to track down a mystical panacea that can cure any illness.  She is hired by a terminally ill billionaire and she is accompanied by a very capable bodyguard.  There are a lot of echoes of Repairman Jack but that's not a bad thing.  The medical bits, both scientific and ethical, are done well and I'm looking forward to reading the next book (hopefully in paperback or on the Kindle).

It's All in Your Head: Stories from the Frontline of Psychosomatic Illness by Suzanne O'Sullivan

Functional Neurological Disorders (FND) are hard to understand, both for people affected by FND and doctors involved in their care.  Functional Neurological Disorders are essentially real neurological symptoms which exist when damage to the nervous system cannot be detected with tests or on clinical examination.  The symptoms are real and disabling but the function of the nervous system is intact.  Many of these symptoms may be due to stress or psychological symptoms, some can be due to other non-neurological diseases or an exaggerated response to a neurological disease process and at times no cause is found.

Often, a person affected by FND can make a good recovery, especially if they engage with the diagnosis.  Others can be stuck with the symptoms forever.  The symptoms are extremely upsetting for those affected by them.

Suzanne O'Sullivan is a neurologist with an interest in functional neurological disorders and epilepsy who works in specialist neurological disorders in London.  In her book she tackles dissociative seizures, psychosomatic illness and functional neurological disorders.  Many doctors struggle to deal with patients affected by these illnesses, thinking that the patients are faking symptoms, attention seeking or trying to fool doctors.  This is not the case.  People with FND are distressed and often lead difficult lives.  Dr O'Sullivan puts a human face on these stories and tackles the issues surrounding this complicated diagnosis.  She highlights some of the mistakes she has made and the communication breakdowns she has encountered.  FND is a difficult diagnosis for both doctor and patient.

This book is a good one for neurologists to read and a good book for anyone affected by FND.  A good patient resource is the Neurosymptoms website, developed by neurologists from Edinburgh which can be used to help understand strange symptoms.  This book also helps make sense of odd symptoms and is worth some of your time.

Inspector Hobbes and the Blood by Wilkie Martin

Sometimes I like mild amusing books that don't require much thought. I like reading but sometimes I just want to unwind with a book.  I used to enjoy Terry Pratchett and Douglas Adams and similar slightly skewed nonsense books with a dash of the impossible.  Wilkie Martin, whilst not (yet) up there with those great departed authors, is ploughing a similar furrow.

Hobbes is an interesting mix of old fashioned police officer, detective and slightly otherworldly person.  He has his tongue firmly in his cheek for most of the story and he is a figure of mystery.  The book has an unreliable and often misguided narrator who doesn't always know what is going on, standing in the corner, often quaking with fear as the animalistic Hobbes deals with crime in a unique manner.

Other strange characters inhabit the novel including Mrs Goodfellow, the house keeper, a ferocious black dog, a pair of ghouls, some Roman happenings and a troll.

There is more to be revealed about this world and I'll keep up with Wilkie Martin and the Unhuman book series.

Updates and maintenance of the blog

I've been doing a bit of updating of the blog, I was considering a new theme but I'm going to keep this one for now.

I did update the Cool Stuff section a bit click here to read the updated cool stuff page

Life is busy and I always have a lot going on but I do enjoy playing about with this blog at times.

A confederacy of dunces by John Kennedy Toole

I finally got round to reading A confederacy of dunces, finishing it yesterday, on my birthday, on a plane home from Italy.  It's a great book and it's easy to see why it won a posthumous Pulitzer prize for John Kennedy Toole.  It's also easy to see why the book is considered to be unfilmable.  The horror of Ignatius J Reilly would be difficult to capture in the flesh.

I didn't really know what to expect when I picked up the book.  For some reason I thought it was meant to be a story about a newspaperman but the actual story of an arrogant fat slob causing chaos in New Orleans was equally appealing.  Ignatius is a brilliant character, prefiguring both Comic Book Guy from the Simpsons and internet trolls by several decades.

It's a crazy ride with a constant feeling that the piss is being taken.  I'm glad I finally managed to read it and I would recommend glancing at it at some time.

Jerusalem by Alan Moore

I've just finished listening to the audiobook of Jerusalem by Alan Moore and I'm a bit blown away.  I chose to listen to the audiobook because of the sheer size of the book.  The hardback is 1200 pages long and I think the word count is more than a quarter of a million.  The audiobook is 60 hours long but at least I could listen to it on the train, in the bath and while I was doing housework.  The audiobook narration also helped me get through some of the more challenging sections such as the bit about the daughter of James Joyce.

I will read bits of the book again.  I will dip in and out.  I really want someone to write a book about this book and I look forward to character guides and websites becoming available on the internet.  What a ride!

I wonder if Jerusalem is a reworking of Big Numbers, his abandoned collaboration with Bill Sienkiewicz.  That work was to be set in Northampton and the plot was intended to rotate around the building of a new shopping centre.  Even if the two works were not destined to tell similar stories I am sad that we don't have the complete Big Numbers to compare with Jerusalem.  I will need to dig out my old copies and have a look.

I was also reminded of Voice of the Fire.  This is not unreasonable as both books mythologise Northampton and are written by Alan Moore.

Moore deals with life, death, existence and time.  The book is funny and full of supernatural elements.  There are moments of horror and you worry about what fate will hold for the characters.  The narrative is also complicated by multiple viewpoints and multiple identities for some characters.  A few diagrams and annotations would add a lot to this book and I feel that multiple re-reading will pay off (although a kindle copy will probably be much more portable).

This book could be Moore's best work.  It's a different beast to Watchmen.  At times he appears to have thrown everything into the mix, possibly even the kitchen sink.  At one point the KLF even appear, burning a million pounds.

Much of the book is thinly veiled autobiography.  Alma Warren is a cypher for Moore, sharing the same year of birth, the same eye problems and much of the same style and characteristics of Moore.  Her brother Mick shares a name and a year of birth with Moore's younger sibling.  Melinda Debbie, artist and partner of Alan Moore is a character in the book.  I believe that other parallels with the reality of Alan Moore's family history in Northampton exist.

Should you read this book?  If you have the time and patience, yes.  It is rewarding.  I got a lot from it.  It resounded with me emotionally and it cheered me up a bit shortly after the death of my dad.  I wish he could have read it.  The audiobook is a good way to tackle the book.  People will pick this apart for years.  I know I will.

Drawing

I used to draw a lot when I was a kid.  I guess this was because I was an only child and I didn't always have much to do where I grew up.  I was also a massive comic book fan so I drew my own comic books as a kid.  I was never any good but I did it a lot.  It was always something enjoyed but I knew I did not have the ability to make a career out of it.  I always fancied myself more as a writer but life eventually got in the way and I put my dreams away in a box and got a real job.

Bills need to be paid and I have expensive tastes.

Recently I saw an advert for a course on creating digital comics at a local college and I decided to give it a whirl.  It's on the night when my partner has her yoga class so it gets me out of the house and it doesn't interfere with joint plans.  I had the first class this week and it was great fun.  I still enjoy drawing, just for my own pleasure and I don't mind if anyone else is interested.

The class was an interesting mix.  There are young kids, still at school, who seem to be into manga and pinky stuff as well as older blokes, some in their mid 40s, who are comic book nerds just like me.  The class is run by a bloke who has an art school degree and used to play drums in a sort of Godflesh style metal band.

We did stuff on basic drawing techniques as well as an exercise where we had to create a comic against the clock.  It was fun.

I'm looking forward to next week.  I'm not going to be Jack Kirby or Steve Ditko or anyone like that but I will have fun.  And hopefully draw some angry and bitter comic strips.....