Saturday's march in pictures

I know you've already seen hundreds of these over the last 48 hours, but just for the hell of it, here's how Saturday's march looked from my vantage-point(s).  One thing I enjoyed about it was the chance to see Glasgow with fresh eyes - although I'd been on almost all of the streets before, they somehow knit together differently when you take an unfamiliar route.  You also have more time to look around you and take it all in when you're walking right down the middle of the road very slowly.

As you can see, I was sporting some designer stubble and a hangover for the occasion.  (NB: Not really a hangover - just lack of sleep.  11.30am on a Saturday, guys?  What were you trying to do - finish us off for good?)

Spending the Summer Solstice at the School of Art

As a few of you already know (because I met you there), I was at the Glasgow School of Art this afternoon for the Common Space launch party.  It reminded me a bit of the first day at Primary 1, because I was given a name-badge upon arrival!  I met lots and lots of interesting people - too many to mention, but for example there was Mark Jardine, who wrote Neil Oliver's scripts for A History of Scotland, Gerry Mulvenna from Independence Live (who was beaming the event direct to a friend in Spain!), and William Duguid of To September and Beyond fame.  William and I were interviewed together for a Phantom Power video, and I also did an audio interview with Derek Bateman.

William said to me : "Events like this are all about networking.  Shaking everyone's hand!  Being shameless!"  And I thought : oh God, are they?  Are they not about sitting quietly in the corner listening to the music and sipping mineral water?  No, I suppose they're not.  Actually, people very kindly got me off the hook throughout the afternoon by coming up to me and striking up conversations, but I still wearily came to the conclusion that I'd better make at least one bona fide, spontaneous attempt of my own at networking, if only for the sake of tokenism.  So just before I left, I went back upstairs, and surveyed the room for a potential victim.  It occurred to me that it might be slightly less awkward to approach a stall rather than interrupt someone's conversation, so I boldly strode up to the NewsShaft table brandishing my name-badge.  Jack Foster and James Devoy were talking to each other and were oblivious to the world, but I caught Carolyn Scott's eye, made a few grunting noises, and then walked away again feeling slightly embarrassed.  And that, ladies and gentlemen, was the sum total of my spontaneous networking efforts this afternoon.  The maestro must conserve his strength.

One thing you can always rely on me for, however, is a thrillingly low-quality photographic record of proceedings.  Enjoy...

You may think you've seen some stunning pictures of the solar eclipse today - but just wait until you see mine

I knew you'd be impressed.  

It may not be immediately obvious from what you can see above, but the pin-hole projection method did actually work - which I was quite pleased about, because I can vividly remember attempting it to no great effect in our back garden in Kilsyth at the age of five or six.  At first I wasn't sure whether the shape I was seeing this morning was genuinely the eclipse or was just the shape of the hole in the cardboard, but then I punched another hole and found that the two projections looked exactly the same.

One thing that intrigued me was that a total eclipse was viewable from Tórshavn - and yet the 95% totality in central Scotland was a bit higher than we experienced during the 1999 total eclipse in Cornwall and Devon. Does that mean we're closer to the capital of the Faroe Islands than to southern England? Hmmm, there must be a political message there somewhere.

Celtic Connections Open Stage photos

At this point during the last couple of years, I posted photos from the final of the Open Stage at Celtic Connections.  However, this year I had to choose between the Open Stage final and the Young Trad Musician of the Year final, because they were both on at exactly the same time.  So I plumped for the latter - and paid through the nose for the privilege, thanks to bloody FirstBus.  Unlike last year, there were a few rows separating me from the friends and relatives of the winner, so I was somewhat more protected from the volcanic eruption after the announcement of the result.

I think Claire Hastings was definitely the right winner.  However, it's the second year in a row that a singer has won, and looking through the list of past winners on the leaflet we were given, an awful lot of them seem to have been singers.  One of the criteria that is supposed to be taken into account by the judges is "connecting with the audience", and it's hard not to feel that this gives an unfair advantage to singers.  It's surely more difficult for a harpist to directly connect with the audience, for example.

I did go to some of the heats of the Open Stage over the last couple of weeks, so I can post photos from those.  I believe one of the six winners is in there somewhere.

You might remember that last year I mentioned a band called The Cask, who were brave enough to sing a pro-Yes song on the Open Stage.  Well, this year there were at least two songs lamenting the referendum result.  Most memorably, an Edinburgh singer called Bobby Nicholson performed an almost ridiculously in-your-face song called Dear Scotland, It Wisnae Me, which was scathing about No voters.  I was worried there might be an embarrassed silence at the end, but in fact it was rapturously received.  You can hear it HERE, although you have to scroll through to just over halfway.

While it's fresh in my mind from Saturday night, I can also recommend a version of Karine Polwart's The Dreadful End of Marianna for Sorcery, performed by the North-East Folk Collective, which is a large band comprised of teenagers from...well, from the north-east, strangely enough.  You can hear it HERE by scrolling through to just under halfway.

(Click to enlarge.)