Some productivity, some news

Had a lot of trouble sleeping last night. On top of the normal problems (a specific issue that often keeps me up and general insomnia), I'd slept a bit during the day because of my work getting me up at a ridiculous time. What really hit me, however, was a strange, irrational fear of getting eaten alive by a snake. For some reason the image of the snake swallowing me whole and slowly, painfully digesting me would not leave me alone.

*shudder*

But yeah, finished the first part of that Dr Who story I wrote about a while ago. When I start posting other stuffs and have given it a bit of an edit, I'll share it with you lot. Got to edit chapter 5 of the Harry Potter too, try to eliinate the "sketchiness" it falls into, make it's structure a bit more fluid. Been using M'Word so much that everytime I finish a sentence I hit cntrl + S. It's a good sign.

Finished The Unsinkable Walker Bean a moment ago: very good comic, childish but not immature and a bloody good story all round. Will likely check out pt. 2 when it comes out. Also gonna write a perspective on Green Lantern from Rebirth - Sinestro Corps, including both GL and GLC. That's one blog entry really wanna do.

Finally getting round to watching Sherlock. Final episode this wednesday, and expect a review of the three episodes after that. Some more thoughts on Torchwood are likely too.

So yeah, got a lot I want to do. We'll see how much I get done. Peace peeps.

A night with my maiden of choice

So went to see Iron Maiden last night, was awesome. Firstly, we had to get to the SECC in Glasgow, however, and we went by rather a long, scenic route. Despite my worries, however, we got there just in time to miss Airbourne - not that we knew. We'd been worried about getting back to Edinburgh, and maybe missing the last bus, and standing there with it coming up to 9, we were getting a bit worried. The support isn't on yet? Then UFO's Doctor Doctor crashes out, and realisation hits: it's time.

Satellite 15...boomed out, and it was an odd intro, not really Maiden. Not bad. The Final Frontier was the official opener, a pretty simple Iron Maiden anthem. It's probably the most forgettable of Iron Maiden's such ventures, not particularly pacy or catchy. El Dorado was up next, and it is not what you call the best of their work either. The start was not the most convincing.

2 Minutes to Midnight kicked things into a higher gear: I've never been a massive fan of the song, but the crowd energy was up and everyone knows the lyrics. The Talisman was up next, probably the best recieved of the new Maiden songs - the momentum sweeps you up and, despite the length, it was a whole lot of fun.

Bruce then took a moment to talk to the crowd, but didn't really say too much. He led us into Coming Home, a fantastic song. Fantastic song. But much of the chorus was lost in the general sound, and the crowd didn't seem to know it, weirdly. I enjoyed it, but the crowd didn't seem to take to it. Dance of Death was up next, and for me it was one of the highlights of the night. It's a song that really succeeds at painting a picture with music, and it's got atmosphere and great riffs galore.

With the The Trooper, suddenly we're into the staples. The crowd drown out Bruce, and it's got the easiest chorus to sing in the world. The Wicker Man is up next, and holy shit is this a good song, which also served the purpose of killing my vocal chords. It was easily the best thing that'd been played to that point, and the crowd responded fervourously to it.

At this point, things took a turn for the odd. Bruce Dickinson decided he wanted to take a moment to do his Bono bit. Peace, love, don't discriminate. That stuff. So he talks about religion and race and then someone throws a Scottish flag onto the stage. Completely unprompted, the crowd bursts into "O Flower of Scotland", our national anthem. I'm not sure to be embarrassed or proud. The message was clear: don't patronise us, we're not gonna let go of our identities. Not that I disagree with Bruce, but you know, gotta pick your time and place.

The next run of songs was blisteringly good: Blood Brothers, When the Wild Wind Blows, The Evil That Men Do, Fear of the Dark. Some of my favourites, especially The Evil That Men Do, with Fear of the Dark being a live staple of the band. Really, what can I say? They were fantastic. When the Wild Wind Blows was an odd one, however, as it's not exactly a concert piece. It's a song that is atmospheric and not quite like anything else Iron Maiden has done. The music paints a picture, and is both big and small at the same time. Bruce gives one of the most restrained performances he ever has. The crowd was not exactly sure what to do, though.

Iron Maiden was their "closing" song, a different one from their earliest days. It's a lot more punky but energetic and very much crowd pleasing. The Number of the Beastpassed so quickly that I can barely remember it. It's an overrated one, but damn fun. Hallowed Be Thy Name came penultimate, another staple, and a song often considered by fans to be their best. No doubt, it's a great, great song. Atmospheric, fast paced, catchy riffs, with both energy and despair.

Running Free, their proto-punk first song, was an odd finisher, yet made so much sense. Listening to the original, it does not sound liek an Iron Maiden song, yet on stage there's no question that it fits and adds a welcome variety to their sound. It was a fitting end, and a great end.

So yeah, I enjoyed them a lot. The first two songs were somewhat of a weaker deal, but beyond that the setlist was the thing of dreams. It was not without darmatics, from Bruce's constant boardwalk running, to fighting giant costume Eddies, to a stage which turned into Eddie's head. The devil even made an appearance during The Number of the Beast. And Fear of the Dark live. Just Fear of the Dark Live.

A return

So I have this dream, and there's these machines digging down to the centre of the Earth. No, not the Earth - I'm somewhere new and strange and yet I seem to know the place well. I'm down in some caves, watching as screens show me the inevitable descent, the drills turning their way towards the centre of the planet. And I know they need to stop. What sleeps down there must not be awoken. Then the drills reach the bottom and stop, and it's free.

This dream did not act as the catalyst for Citizen Alpha, but it's the damned nearest I can get to identifying the one moment that kicked off my first ever real project. Citizen Alpha was a swirling storm of ideas and daydreams and concepts that had existed in my head for a good long while. We had people who could, through a computer, gain access to different worlds. There was a maze of corridors beneath the world of Citizen Alpha that was inexplicable in origin, and below that the drills worked. The whole city was an artificial environment below the surface of the planet, unbeknownst to its inhabitants, and at one point some was going to turn off the sky. A prophecy seemed to control the actions of the characters that moved through the pages, and a dragon was going to destroy the city. Demon-esque people, too, were involved. People with strange powers ran through the city and evoked a discrimination exploration very much reminiscent of that seen in any X-Men film. The story was driven by events that happened before the story took place, and old grudges and feuds informed the plot at every step.

Citizen Alpha was a veritable riot of ideas, a mess of such convoluted ambitious that I cannot help but admire the writing audacity of my younger self. Through my experimentation and attempts to push myself, my writing identity has been lost it often seems. I can't help but feel that it's about time I recaptured some of that lost spark.

Beyonce, Pyramids and Politicans

Last night I passively caught part of Beyonce's Glastonbury performance. If it's your kind of music, I guess I can't criticise it. The odd song had a nice energy and there was one catchy tune in there, although which one, exactly, has long since faded from my mind. They tried to make a performance, more than just a series of songs. Between songs music never stopped playing and the songs faded into one another. It was a landmark occassion, too, with it being the first time that a member of the female gender has headlined the festival.

Pity it was such an unremittingly overproduced borefest, meandering and padded by covers. If you took into account the Destiny's Child songs (and her collaboration with Lady Gaga) as kind of half covers, the amount of Beyonce original songs was likely equalled by the amount of songs not originally by her. Not that I'm opposed to covers, but when it makes up as large a chunk of your set as your own material. Also, it's just not music that benefits from the live treatment, so reliant on studio production. There was a sort of grandeur to the lighting that the music just didn't seem to deserve. This is club music, not festival music. If you like that kinda stuff, all the power to you, just never seemed to do justice to the attempt at spectacle. Then again, I missed a bit of it whilst a friend introduced me to Godspeed You! Black Emperor, so maybe I missed something essential.

But yeah, past few days have been good to me. Not sure if I have mentioned it here before, but a mate and I are co-authoring a Harry Potter fanfic. We decided that the world of magic was too stuffy and boring; HP could do with excitement and romance of politics. So we've got a rough outline, a lot of ideas and are doing a chapter apiece. I just finished chapter 2 these past few days, and will post it somewhere once it has been edited and shizzle. Look out for that.

I wanted to have a review for Gears of the City up by now, but the damn book has disappeared. Could review the first two thirds, but some I doubt that'd be doing the book justice. Ah well. Expect another villain study or something soonish.

Power Rangers Marathon, and other stuffs

So, I sat through a Power Rangers marathon the other day. Yes, I know.

But anyhow, it was a disappointing 21 hours, as I ended up sleeping through a couple of episodes. And when you've sat through fifty of the bastards, just missing the entire series by two is damn disheartening. Nonetheless, it was an intense quasi-delirious experience that cemented Bulk and Skull’s theme tune in my head for most likely the rest of my life. Not the worst soundtrack to live to, is it?

But beyond that, Dr Who has now officially knocked my socks off then strangled me with them. Every question that is answered opens up a couple more, and I figure that this one to be patient with. From the Moff’s blistering opener, to Gaiman’s introspective look at the Dr Who mythos, and then the most recent character based cloning exercise with an ending that hits like a baseball bat. So far, five out of six episodes have been at a ridiculous standard.

Working on a Who fic. atm. Kinda making it up as I go along. I’ll give it a proof read once I’m finished, then I’ll share it with ya.

So yeah, be scared.

Update-y date-y doooooo.

Since I'm pretty terrible for promising blogs then not delivering, I'm gonna do a quick run down of stuffs and my thoughts therein. Might be a topic on any one of these, maybe not.

1 - Finished Simone's run of Wonder Woman. Mainly, I'm kinda ambivalent. Will definitely do a full blog on this.

2 - Gaiman's much anticipated Dr Who episode was on last night. It was well written, charming, funny, clever, dark and had real heart. I find myself, however, not really in love with the episode. An excellent comparison would be The Girl in the Fireplace: both very well written and interesting and sophisticated, but with a resonant emotional and character core. I found I could never rate Girl in the Fireplace as high as it possibly deserved: more that I could admire rather than love it, so to speak. Same principle can be applied to yesterday's episode.

3 - Read the first volume of Morrison's Batman and Robin. Feels like, almost, the most simple thing Morrison has ever written, yet incredibly awesome nonetheless. Simple being a comparative mind.

4 - Probably canned the short story. Gonna give it one last try tonight, otherwise I'll just whip up some small pieces of flash fiction.

Some people...

So I'm in St Andrews, and my mates put on a failed party after having spent lots of their society's money and put in a good deal of their own money. It went wrong, and now a mate has responsibility for equipment he doesn't have. They were fucked over by the other organiser who, for all intent purposes, seems to be holding the equipment hostage. Now my mates, overburdened with coursework as they are, have to travel to Perth then to Dundee, spending money they don't have and wasting time they can't spare becuase this asshole knows that he's not the one who'll get hit with the consequences.

Going up to St Andrews Today

So, whilst I'm gonna try and do a bit of bloggin's whilst there, could be a bit of a silence. Almost done with Simone's run on Wonder, so expect a review of the series as a whole, and I'm also looking to get a short story done this week. Some musings on the Scottish Election too.

So yeah, even if there is a gap, eventually, silence will fall.

Sorry.

Couldn't resist.