infoxicated – Page 34 – Digital infotainment from the life of Rob Foxx

Why the long face?

Sunday May 2nd 2010

I was quite sad to visit Hermitage Park in Helensburgh today to see the old rocking horse fenced off and clearly out of commission. The running boards have been disintegrating for a long time, but now they’re gone and with the rust on the underside it looks more like this once proud feature of the local park will be removed.

Admittedly, it’s a trivial thing to be getting all nostalgic about, but somewhere in my Aunty Helen’s house there’s probably some Super 8 footage of my cousins and I playing on that horse, and I have footage filmed on my PSP of my daughter playing on it with Crazy Uncle John a couple of years back.

It just seems a shame that something that’s been around for a couple of generations will probably end up on the scrap heap. It’s better built than most of the modern items that have turned up in the park, that’s for sure, having outlasted a couple of different climbing frame installations. However unlikely, I hope someone at the council will be mindful that the horse just about belongs there in his corner of the park and plans to restore him to his former glory are in the works.

helensburgh, Hermitage Park, Nostalgia

Airbourne at the 02 Academy, Glasgow

Wednesday April 7th 2010

Airbourne frontman Joel O'Keeffe atop a bank of Marshall speakers

I’ve been a fan of Airbourne for just short of a year, having been introduced to their anthemic Runnin’ Wild whilst playing Rock Band. It’s typical of pretty much every song in their repertoire – hammering drums, screaming guitars, and lyrics spat forth with relentless pace.

Elegant, Airbourne are not, but they deliver pure, distilled Rock ‘n’ Roll in the mould of AC/DC with the kind of drive and conviction that leaves the impression they’d never walk off stage anything less than completely spent.

airbourne, concert, Glasgow, Music, O2 Academy, Rock

For the Bard

Sunday February 7th 2010

In early January I answered my phone to an enthusiastic Crazy Uncle John, asking if I’d like to attend a Burns Evening at the Rosslea Hall Hotel. My ticket would be free on the condition that I could give the Address to the Haggis on the night.

Thinking it would be a private little party, I tentatively agreed. The fact of the matter is that although I’d obviously heard it being recited at various Burns nights, I did not know Address to the Haggis myself. Possibly confusing it with The Selkirk Grace, I took comfort in the notion that it was probably only a couple of verses that I’d be able to learn in no time.

Looking it up online a couple of days later I discovered, to my dismay, that it had eight verses. With my sense of panic rising only slightly, I printed off a copy of the poem and casually set about learning it by way of reading it on the train to and from work when the mood took me.

It would be later that week, whilst talking over a beer with my mate Adrian, he told me that the Rosslea Hall Hotel Burns Evening could be quite a sizeable event. By coincidence, Crazy Uncle called as we sat in Blackfriars to tell me that tickets were on sale at £20 per head and it was being advertised in the local paper. All of a sudden I found a new sense of urgency with regard to learning Address to the Haggis.