Tag Archives: rock

Oct 27 2025
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Daily Post, Interior

Gogol Bordello, again

Sunday 26th October 2025, 9.15pm (day 5,176)

Gogol Bordello, 26/10/25

Happy birthday to the wife: I shall leave the exact number unstated (though you could work it out from looking at past October 26ths on this blog if you really felt like it). One of the weekend’s organised entertainments was to see Gogol Bordello at the Albert Hall in Manchester; they therefore become the first rock band (or should we say Ukrainian-American gypsy punk rockabilly band) to appear on here twice. Until I looked it up I was recalling our first encounter happening in 2017 or something like that but their first appearance turns out to have been 14th December 2013; nearly twelve years ago. Blimey. I’m impressed they have sustained the energy levels all that time. But I suppose Eugene Hütz (putting in a second personal appearance, on the left) is younger than me. (Although he’s older than Clare.) Well, good luck to you my friend — perhaps we will catch up again in 2037, if you’re still leaping about the stage at that point.

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Jul 27 2025
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Daily Post, Landscape

The Old Man of Hoy

Saturday 26th July 2025, 2.20pm (day 5,084)

The Old Man of Hoy is around 450 feet high and probably Britain’s most well-known pillar of rock, thanks in large part to a famous televised climbing of it in the late 1960s. Plenty more people have subsequently made it to the top, including an 8-year-old, who thereby demonstrated more desire and ability to propel themselves up sheer rock faces than I ever will. But the Old Man is not some durable phenomenon. A map drawn in 1750 shows a headland here but no stack. The first known painting of it was completed in 1819 and shows him with two legs, and looking much bulkier. And when he’s seen now — as from the Scrabster to Stromness ferry this afternoon — it does look like the next really big storm will take him down. Will the Old Man last longer than the Old(ish) Man now blogging about him? We’ll take bets…. after all, if I lose, I won’t be around to collect.

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Mar 16 2025
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Daily Post, Landscape

The Rock, from the runway

Saturday 15th March 2025, 2.45pm (day 4,951)

Rock of Gibraltar, 15/3/25

Gibraltar is my home for the next few days. I have been here once before, in 1991 — my “Inter-Rail Summer”, aged 21. Then, one could only enter the territory by walking across the airport runway, and this is still the case, as seen here. Presumably one gets a decent amount of notice before they close it, but let’s hope that one’s electric vehicle doesn’t run out of juice halfway across. The huge lump of limestone that is The Rock has always been a landmark, and a fortress, and the peninsula on which it and the city stands is now one of Britain’s last remaining outposts of Empire: an Overseas Territory that is sort of still part of Europe, only not. A gatepost to the Mediterranean beyond.

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Jun 03 2024
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Daily Post, Friend, Portrait

Jane’s Addiction

Sunday 2nd June 2024, 9.15pm (day 4,665)

Jane's Addiction, 2/6/24

So that’s another one ticked off the list of ‘Bands I Have Liked for Thirty-Plus Years But Never Before Seen Live’. Then again, Jane’s Addiction did their first ‘farewell tour’ in 1991, have still only ever managed to scrape together four studio albums, and the original four members have only just decided they are still prepared to talk to each other and go on the road again before one or more of them dies. Which in singer Perry Farrell’s case, has always seemed likely to happen imminently. Therefore, I never really had the chance to break the duck before tonight. But I’m not complaining — they were worth the wait.

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Jul 10 2023
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Daily Post, Friend, Portrait

Roger Daltrey does his scream

Sunday 9th July 2023, 9.35pm (day 4,336)

Roger Daltrey, 9/7/23

The Who should have already appeared on this blog one way or another. I had tickets to see them in Manchester a few years ago and then couldn’t go for reasons I don’t even remember properly. In March 2020 we were one week, literally, away from seeing them in Leeds (Live in Leeds!) when Bojo The Clown decided that the rest of the country (but not him) had to cease all this entertainment rubbish — postponed a year, that gig was eventually cancelled too. BUT — here we are, finally, in Edinburgh Castle, watching Daltrey and Townshend do their thing. At 79 years old, Roger Daltrey understandably doesn’t leap about the stage as much as he used to but he can definitely still sing, and right at this point he is reproducing one of the best screams in rock history — the one near the end of Won’t Get Fooled Again, which is up there in my ‘top 5’ all-time great tracks.

So yes…. all in all it could be said that I had a good evening.

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Jan 25 2023
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Art and architecture, Daily Post

Main Post Office, Jamestown

Tuesday 24th January 2023, 9.55am (day 4,170)

Main Post Office, 24/1/23

Philately is one of the few concerns that has ever made St Helena any money. If you want your hard-to-get first day covers of the local stamps, this is the place to get them. The rock walls above, 500 feet tall, are ubiquitous in all views from Jamestown, crammed as it is between them.

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Dec 01 2022
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Daily Post, Urban scene

Out of season

Wednesday 30th November 2022, 3.40pm (day 4,115)

Southport out of season, 30/11/22

Circumstances today brought me to Southport, a place that has featured twice on the blog before: here and here, both of them images of endless sand and sky (the sea here makes a notoriously long retreat at low tide, going out literally miles). These suggest the major function of the town is as a seaside resort, and that’s quite correct. So in late November, quite a lot of it looks like this.

I like this shot, except for the parked car. It’s impressive how often cars screw up an otherwise pleasing composition.

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Jul 25 2021
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Daily Post, Landscape

Climbing the Bowder

Friday 23rd July 2021, 3.25pm (day 3,620)

Bowder Stone steps, 23/7/21

Clare reaches the top of the steps that take one up onto the Bowder Stone — a famous attraction of the Lake District that I have never before seen. Its name is tautological, for a big Bowder (boulder) it certainly is; hollow it out, install plumbing, and I imagine a family of three could live inside in comfort.

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May 31 2020
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Daily Post, Hebden Bridge, Landscape

Craggy island?

Saturday 30th May 2020, 1.35pm (day 3,201)

Rock in Hebden Water, 30/5/20

There continues to just about be enough visual interest around my locality to keep this all going. Who knows how long it will be before Authority deigns to say that we can not just travel to other places, but stay there, and explore. Until then, let’s fake it. The thing I like about this shot is that there’s little sense of scale. This could be a substantial island just off the coast, with cliffs behind that are hundreds of feet high. Or, just a little rock in a stream, well lit. You decide.

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Aug 13 2018
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Daily Post, Landscape

Port de Moulin, Sark

Monday 13th August 2018, 2.55pm (day 2,545)

Port de Moulin, Sark, 13/8/18

The Isle of Sark lies a few miles east of Guernsey and in the 16th century was the haunt of marauding pirates, at which point Queen Elizabeth the First empowered a lord and a group of 40 families to settle it. And not a great deal seems to have changed since. There remain no tarmac roads, street lighting nor cars on the island, which is a spectacular and beautiful place. Today is one of those days where my limiting myself to one shot per day makes it difficult — I could have chosen any of a dozen pictures today, including the precipitous La Coupée, which is Sark’s most famous (and clichéd) sight, but I’m going with this one because I like the light. This impressive rock arch is down on the beach of Port de Moulin, one of the few places that you can get down to sea level from the upper plateau — one reason those pirates were so fond of Sark. Should you get the chance to visit here, I highly recommend it.

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