When I was planning my Scotland trip earlier this year, of course some of the travel guides mentioned the traditional and very popular Scottish folk song “Loch Lomond”. I didn’t know it then and somehow never thought of finding it online somewhere to listen to it. Before I left for Scotland I told a few acquaintances about the trip and one of them (a 60-something guy) immediately sung the song for me. Very beautiful song indeed.

The “Museum of Scotland” In Edinburgh hosted a special exhibition about Scottish pop culture in the summer and they showed short clips of various Scottish singers and bands, Amy MacDonald, The Hooters etc on TV screens all around. There also was a clip of a band doing a live version of “Loch Lomond”. I just saw these few seconds, but it really moved me, because it is such a powerful song, when it’s sung by thousands of fans. I still didn’t know who the band was, but after some online research I was pretty sure that it had to be Runrig. During the rest of the summer I actually planned to download the song somewhere, but I never got around to do it and then I forgot about it.

Among my “Hockey-Weekend in Munich” travelgroup were two huge Runrig fans. I accidently found out about that when they talked about their trip to Edinburgh this summer and when I asked about it, they told me, they went there for the Runrig concert. They even spent their honeymoon in Scotland, which I didn’t know before either. Turns out that he has been a huge Scotland fan for years and years. After we got back from Munich I went to buy some CDs and decided to look for Runrig as well. I found a “Best of” for a rather reasonable price and ofcourse it includes “Loch Lomond” in a live version. The booklet (which I read on the train on my way back home) states about this song:

“The traditional Scottish folk song that became the band anthem. Written in the 18th century by a soldier, in gaol, awaiting execution for his part in a political rising. Runrig recorded this in their own particular style, and it became a huge hit. It is now firmly established as a song sung by everyone from the members of the Tartan Army, that follows the national football team, to party revellers at a disco or a wedding, where it is a firm favourite to finish off the evening.”

When I got home that evening I did not just listen to the song immediately, but aIso searched some more for the “Tartan Army” and this song on youtube, where there are quite a few clips. And it sounds awesome (well, as awesome as any rather low quality private recording in a football stadium can, but still…). I just love the mere idea of sport fans choosing a traditional folk song as their team’s anthem and as a sports team fan myself, I just have a thing for these kind of songs. That’s why I downloaded the “Hampden Mix” of this song right away, which Runrig did with the Tartan Army. The proceeds go to the “Children in Need” charity, so that’s even for a good cause.

I also checked wikipedia again for more information about this song and it’s meaning and I very much liked what I read there:

One interpretation is that it is attributed to a Jacobite Highlander who was captured after the 1745 rising. The English played games with the Jacobites, and said that one of them could live and one would die. This is sung by the one who was sentenced to die, the low road referred to being the passage to the underworld.

I’m a huge fan of the Outlander series, which deals with the 1745 Jacobite rising (at least the first few books do). So of course I tend to of love everything related to that. And if Jamie Fraser – my all-time Highlander hero – had been this rebel sentenced to die, he definitely would have said something like that to his friend Murtagh. It’s just such a Highlander-ish thing to say. At least to me, who might have a biased and screwed view of Highlanders :-)
It’s actually a really sad song, but if it’s sung a bit upbeat and by thousands of fans it just sounds great as supporting song. I’ve been listening to on my iPod for dozens of times in the last few weeks…I even made it my new ringtone on my new phone ;-) WordPress doesn’t let me embed youtube clips, so here is a link

Runrig & The Tartan Army – Loch Lomond

Without further ado, the latest Project365 pix…

2009-11-13: Lucky Dragon for my trollbeads bracelet

2009-11-14: Hockey tickets for May 2010

2009-11-15: Finally framed the signed photo again to put it back on the wall

2009-11-16: Urmel at the office

2009-11-17: Ready for the concert

2009-11-18: Essener Lichtwochen (Weeks of Lights)

2009-11-19: Bleak November day

My last.fm profile might be confusing for some folks, because there are very different artist on top of the list. Yes, I actually do like this variety of music. Best proof for that, were the two very different concerts last week.

I had a great time at the Ingrid Michaelson concert in Cologne on Tuesday. There are so many “artists” around, that need a large band and a huge production on the stage (with dancers and lights) to cover up the fact that the sound of their music is very much artificially manufactured in the studio with the help of programming and computers and such. Just like last year Ingrid was only accompanied by a female background singer, who also played the guitar on a few songs. Ingrid herself played keyboards and her ukulele and that was it. And it was awesome. Can you imagine any of the Idol or Superstars casting show winners to enter a stage with just her/his own voice and one simple instrument? Of course that would imply that these guys actually can play an instrument.

Ingrid can not only sing and play instruments, she’s also a very funny person on stage. Kind of crazy sometimes, but very funny. She definitely enjoyed being up on the stage and it’s always a plus during a concert to see that the artist actually enjoys what she/he is doing. One of the highlights was “The Chain” in which she asked for a third female singer from the audience, because the song is a round ["Kanon" in German] and needs three singers. She told that in the US usually there a dozens of volunteers, but it would be important that you really CAN sing, so noone should volunteer if she didn’t feel capable. Of course no girl volunteered after that remark ;-) There was a guy though who did and he got up on the stage and he was awesome! I think neither the audience or Ingrid herself expected him to be that good, so it definitely was a highlight of the show
Greg Laswell was the opening artist (just with guitar and keyboards as well). I knew a few of his songs from last.fm and Grey’s Anatomy and I enjoyed his performance very much as well. Just like Ingrid he is a great singer and musician and doesn’t need more than one instrument and his voice to capture an audience. And he was funny too. I’m still grinning, when I remember his tiny story about the spinning toilet seats at the restrooms along the German highways.

Thursday night meant a different venue and different music, but equally enjoyable concert. Hai_di and I saw Sunrise Avenue in Dortmund and had a great time. I have to admit that I’m really bad when it comes to Sunrise Avenue lyrics (except for “Fairytale Gone Bad” and the chorus of most of the other songs). It was fun to sing along and dance along anyway. They let the audience sing quite a lot actually. They had some funny stories to tell and stuff to act out as well, which was very very entertaining. I will definitely go and see them again on a new tour some time in the future.

Some of you might realize that I didn’t actually post this late at night on the 21st, but 12 hours later on the morning of the 22nd. I admit that this is cheating, but I really don’t want to mess up the look of the calendar for November and it would looked messed up if there was one blank day on it. Maybe putting up a few posts today will make up for the negligence yesterday. I was so busy with doing laundry and still getting to know my Palm Pre (I never thought smartphones can be so time consuming *g*, but I still have to figure out why my google calendar isn’t synched) and a TV marathon of “Flash Forward” with Hai_di, Ripper_Girl and KerrSmith2306. We met in the late afternoon (5 PM) so I thought I might be home before midnight to post something, but of course we decided to watch one more episode. And another one. And a last one *g* In the end we managed to watch the first 8 episodes, I’ll be watching the 9th tonight and then I’ve caught up and can put this show to my “weekly watch list” ;-) As you might have guessed: I liked it a lot.

There are a couple of minutes left of the day, which should be enough for my Grey’s review. I’m back in the mood I was in after 6.08. Season 6 is just not my season. Or it’s not my show anymore. On a scale from 1 – 10, I’d give this episode a 4. Or maybe just a 3.5. It all somehow just didn’t work for me.

This review is going to be really really short. Because it has to be finished before midnight and because I don’t want to waste time with venting about how much I disliked some (or most) of the storylines. It was a bad idea to squeeze three holidays into one episode. It all felt so rushed and superficial. And wouldit have been too much to ask, to maybe have them remember George during one of the holidays. I would have expected at least some reference, that he’s missed during these days.

I still don’t care about Webber and I almost resent him for the way he is denying his alcoholism and tring to get closer to Meredith again. Why does she even let herself get sucked into this. Well, probably because they share this weird relationship (connected through her mom) and she still has Daddy issues and because he is mentoring her. So maybe to some extend I understand her reluctance to tell anyone about his alcoholism. I still don’t like it and I’m really worried that her naivity and good intention might backfire on herself as well.

I have no idea what the purpose of the other two parental storylines was. Bailey’s dad seemed nice, but I just didn’t understand where his feeling of shame came from. It didn’t make any sense to me. Neither did the whole Mark’s daughter storyline make much sense to me. Where is that suppose to lead to? Will the girl stay around? Or will she be send off again in the next episode in January? And why should I even care? I still liked Derek’s reaction “The way Mark acted before he met Lexie, there might be quite a few ‘Sloans’ around. Sloan Smith, Sloan Jones” ;-) But the whole storyline itself? The pregnant highschool drop out? So not interesting to me.

I liked the medical stories this time, even though I’m not sure if the surgeons really just craft their own instruments from time to time :-) The “without a heart” girl and her four-dates-guy were kind of cute, so at least that was a plus in this episode. I also liked the lunch scene. Thank God Meredith is back at the hospital and the remaining three of the Fab Five are having lunch together again. During these moments the show always feels like good old Grey’s.

Owen was acting weird through most of the episode, being torn between these two women. And of course he had loved Teddy all these years as well *yawn* But now he loves Cristina, or at least he says he does. I’m sure we will still see more of this triangle in the future and I don’t think I’m going to like it very much.

Geez, that’s a really short review and that’s not just because I’m running out of time. I just don’t want to spend too much of my time with the negativity, which the episode made me feel. Once again unfortunately. There were a few nice and funny moments, but most of all this episode left me rather indifferent…

Wish I were back there: Isle of Skye, Scotland in July

I actually planned to write about yesterday’s Ingrid Michaelson concert, but I’m too lazy and tired to actually finish the half-completed post, so that has to be postponed till… Saturday, probably. And I already now I won’t have time to post tomorrow (what happened to the plan of writing posts in advance *sigh*?), so I can already announce I’ll have to pass on that one too. To write a daily post is harder than I thought it would be. Especially if you don’t want to report mundane and ordinary things…

I have to admit, that back then, when owning a cell phone was still new and exciting, even I had a lot of phone conversations in public and didn’t really care about it. I still answer the phone in public when it’s ringing, but I usually try to not talk too long and not too private. Because people DO listen. I know that, because I do it now and then even though I not try eavesdrop. Sometimes you just can’t avoid it unless you put on your ipod headphones or something similar.

During my Munich trip I overheard two memorable phone conversations. The first one happened on the train to Munich. A little girl (maybe 4 years old) was travelling with her Grandpa. He called the girl’s mother (his daughter or daughter-in-law) to let her know, when they would arrive. He then passed the cellphone on to the girl, who said Hi and listened to a question her mom asked. I’m pretty sure the mom asked something like “And what are you doing (on the train) at the moment?” Because the little girl answered earnestly: “Right now I’m talking on the phone”. It was just so cute, because she didn’t try to be funny or a smartass or something like that, she just honestly answered the question.

The second conversation was overheard on the bus back to our hotel on the second night. We were coming back from the game, we had had a lot of fun, so we were in a good mood, goofying around. A young woman and a young man were sitting a few seats ahead of us, it wasn’t clear if they were a couple or just friends or just two persons on a date. I would have guessed “date”. Her cell rang and she answered it with “Hi, darling!” Which probably got most of ours attention, because she was in company of this other guy :-) She continued with something like “When you called me earlier I wasn’t allowed to get outside to take your call. “ which sounded pretty contrived to me and most of my friends. She listened some more to what her “darling” was saying and then she replied with “No, I’m at home right now.”
And we just couldn’t stop ourselves and burst out laughing. She obviously was startled but couldn’t figure out why the people around her started laughing. After she quickly ended her conversation, the guy, she was with, had to explain the reason for our exhilaration. I think she never really got it.
We started laughing again when she got off a few minutes later and M. with a straight face said to her: “But don’t lock your front door on the way out, because we want to get off as well.” I don’t think she was very amused by that remark. But we were even more.

So, you really better be careful what to say when you’re talking on the phone in public. At least, when I’m around ;-)

I almost forgot to post this tonight. I really should head to bed soon, because I won’t get that much sleep in the next few nights. I know there actually is no such thing as “sleeping in advance”, but I still should get a good night’s rest tonight.

2009-11-06: “Brotzeit” (Lunch) in Munich

2009-11-07: Mariensäule (Marian Column) in Munich

2009-11-08: Livingston on the train’s music program

2009-11-09: Autumn is almost over

2009-11-10: Leftovers from the Munich Weekend

2009-11-11: Coffeeduck for my Senseo

2009-11-12: Lots of lighthouses for my office

I was extremly busy with local Greens stuff and my brain is too tired to come up with some interesting stuff to write about. Next week will be insanely busy, so I don’t know if I’ll be able to deliver some interesting posts either. Monday: committee meeting + Green party meeting. Tuesday: Ingrid Michaelson concert in Cologne. Wednesday: work meeting till late at night. Thursday: committee meeting + Sunrise Avenue concert in Dortmund. Friday… nothing planned for Friday so far. Catching up on sleep, I guess ;-) No idea how I will squeeze in some posts, but I’ll try.