Blimey. Over a month and no post. I do apologise for that, but I find nowadays that there just are not enough hours in the day in which to do everything you want to get done. Right, let's recap on the past month...

First of all, the Handsome Family gig. Excellent. One of the best nights out I've had in a long long time. The band were yet again of perfect form (aside from a hilarously dealt with broken guitar string: "can I keep playing?" "No! you're going to start over"). I apparently was very much the Groupie as I hung around after the performances and shot the shit with the Sparkes (Darrel, Brett and Rennie, in that order), and they were all kind enough to sign some objects for me. Kudoes to them, and to Thom for coming along with me that night.

Shortly after this came by birthday/reading week, which has a sedate affair, and very strange to be back for a week in my old and largly abandoned life. Came back after that with muchos presentes, to find that Stuart was to come the next day (my actual birthday), to stay. We went out to a very good comedy that in a roundabout way, highlighted quite a nasty problem. Since about 60% of students at St Andrews are English, there are roughly 60% of people here who beleive that the national anthem for this country is "God Save the Queen". While many people have been on the wrong end of my "Flower of Scotland is the worst national anthem in the world!" rant, I still conceed that -for the time being at least- it IS our national anthem, regardless of how shit it is. I swear, these English fools wouldn't be nearly so hastry to make such stupid remarks about the state of the nation if we were still speaking Galic.

Speaking of which, I'm coming to notice how a great many songs in Galic/Gaelic resemble the Blues in terms of their composition and structure. It certainly wouldn't take much to convert them fully to a Blues format ("'S gann gun dìrich mi chaoidh" in particular). I'll definitly be looking into this for further adventures with my banjo. I just have to get the pronouciations down...

Not too much has happened since then, up to last weekend, whereupon I made my fist big foray into that "lifestyle exploration" last weekend. Conclusion: subcultures are fun and will make you new friends easily. Take the plunge into something you fancy. Despite the horror stories you hear, it's hugly rewarding. Thanks very much to pippa for inviting me along, she's a total star as usual, and may much wellbeing accompany Katie the researcher: the world rewards open minds with it's diversity.

On another note, you should all go and rent/buy the film "Koyaanisqatsi" as soom as possible. It's mesmirising.