Stop one on a journey to the far north — Dundee. Seen a lot in recent years but with an apartment to use as a stopover, a sensible place to break the journey. I asked Clare about the possible identity of this face and she reckons maybe drag artist The Vivienne; it’s possible. I just liked the image.
Originally I was heading for the Scottish Highlands again today, but a general sense that it was not the right time was confirmed by a dubious weather forecast — not for today, which remained a pleasant day, but for tomorrow, Monday, a forecast of wet weather which I already know as I post this seems to have come to pass. So I made the right decision, stayed in Dundee, and went out on a walk anyway, which included this agreeable stretch of woodland growing along what, a century or more ago, was one of Scotland’s first railway lines. Like many such spots it now exercises legs rather than engines, but is none the worse for it.
The point of travelling to Scotland was to be in attendance for at least one of the sessions of Joe’s final year exhibition, or should I say the Abertay Digital Graduate Show. Not that this piece of artwork is ‘digital’, but it seems that the BA Games Design and Production projects can be in whatever medium one likes. At least you can’t get an AI to do this kind of stuff. Good luck to them all.
The first concealed round number of the day: today I am exactly 20,000 days old. When I first saw the Nick Cave documentary 20,000 Days on Earth (it’s very good and worth watching even if you have no idea who Nick Cave is) I naturally worked out when I would reach this milestone, and, well, it’s today. In my case 20,000 days works out at 54 years, 9 months and 3 days.
The second concealed round number is that this is the 100th blog pic to be taken in Scotland. This last week has seen the country overtake Norway in the all-time table to now stand third, behind only England and Australia. To mark this, let’s feature Joe, and behind him, Dundee — the juxtaposition of person and place being the principal reason that Scotland has kept up its healthy rate of appearance over the last three years (Dundee features on 24 of those 100 shots).
The diorama of Dundee was created by photographer Sohei Nishino, and is a remarkably good piece of work which gives a totally new perspective on the place and which one can lose oneself in: both characteristics of great art, if you ask me. And according to this article about it, it used 20,000 photos. Back to the first concealed round number we go. It must mean something.
Despite having missed out on all of the last seven weeks, I am not giving up on the football season just yet. Nor were the blue-clad players of Newport AFC, who triumped 7-1 in tonight’s final of the Gray Trophy (aided considerably by the indiscipline of their opponents who obligingly reduced themselves to 9 men with quite a bit of the game still to go). Out they trot for the start of the game, not yet knowing how straightforward this will prove to be in the end.
Oor Wullie is a cartoon character who, since 1936, has appeared in the Scottish Sunday Post. He comes from the D. C. Thomson publishing house in Dundee, who also gave the world Desperate Dan, and like him, Wullie has his statue in the city centre. This family seemed to be enjoying his company — the women, anyway. Maybe not the guy on the right though.
I’m as satisfied with this portrait as I can be. Important elements come together: the woman walking past; his ankle (and what it implies); the just-lit cigarette.
I did want to get a photo of Joe posted from this weekend; after all we did go all the way to Scotland just to check up on him. Well, mostly. This is the first time he has appeared on here since July 23rd last year.
The orange-and-black colour scheme illustrates that we spent the afternoon at Tannadice Park, home of Dundee United FC — whose record against Barcelona is played four, won four, by the way. Labouring somewhat against Inverness Caledonian Thistle (it was 1-1) did not seem to please the locals particularly. At least the sun was shining. Meanwhile, I noticed the cranes of the shipyard behind and decided to see what I could do with the camera.
Ummed and ahhed over this one for a while (two days, as you can see) but in the end I decided to go for something without a Christmas reference at all. Except, of course, in what I’ve just said. Anyway — a view from my morning exertion up Dundee Law, the walk I usually try to take on Christmas morning in advance of the food bloat that is to come. This is only the second Christmas of my life that I have spent in Scotland, after a not-so-fondly remembered time in a cabin on Loch Awe in 1992.
Anyway — if a bit belatedly, a I hope you all had a happy Christmas, however you spent it.
Being 42 