Journal

Had a great catch-up with my friend Doug last night. We went for dinner at Gaga in the west end, where co-owner Mark (who we know well from years gone by) gave us a warm welcome and a complimentary cocktail on our arrival – cheers Mark! Food-wise, small plates were the order of the day so we tried fried chicken, prawn toast, sweetcorn fritters, lamb curry and more. Gaga has a great atmosphere and we thoroughly enjoyed it.

From there it was onto a nearby pub we both know and love, The Thornwood Bar. There, another well-kent face, Scott, served us and also passed on his latest obscure techno tips (always welcome).

Over a few hours we had the chance to talk family, music and life and I’m feeling all the better for it.

Had a lovely catch-up with Gayle over lunch while in Edinburgh for work today. We went to Maki and Ramen and I had tonkotsu (broth, egg and noodles) with some vegetable gyoza. It was all pretty tasty.

Gayle and I have been friends since university back in the nineties. Having only exchanged texts of late without seeing each other, a catch-up in person was long overdue.

It was great to hear that she is happy, her business ticking along nicely and that she’s keeping her mind occupied with wider side and societal interests as always. Gavin is recovering well from a recent health scare and mostly back to normal. Her mum, who I’ve met several times, is moving from Glasgow to close by in Edinburgh and that sounds like a sensible move all round, albeit it’ll require adjustment. The kids are doing great and still full of energy.

They now have a wee dog too, although I can’t remember its name or breed. I do however remember Gayle’s horror story about their previous pet guinea pigs and some foxes in the night. The only way they could console the kids is with the introduction of a wee dog!

Loved catching up and hopefully the next one will include Clair and Gavin and we’ll eat out somewhere nice.

Whitney Lewis covers four accessibility considerations for implementing forms: autofill, error messaging, date fields and auto-formatting fields.

I found the explanatations of the autocomplete attribute and the section on an accessible error message pattern particularly useful. The latter part felt similar to the good advice Adam Silver gives in his book Form Design Patterns.

Clair and I just had a brilliant night at our friend’s 40th. It was held in the upstairs function room (The Old Burnt Barns) at Lynch’s Bar on London Road, Glasgow – just next to the Barras market. I didn’t know the venue before but it’s great – cool interior and loads of space.

It was a tonic to see so many familiar faces. I worked with Andy at Bright Signals a few years back and lots of the crew were in attendance including Pete, Woody, Oli B and Andrew M.

Among my music buddies present were Jamie T, the Radio Magnetic stalwarts Dougal P, Vic and Davie, and lots of the Stirling crew – Robert, Jamie, Julie, Ciaran, Matt. Always great to catch up.

We also got to spend time with Martin E and Izzie. I even made new friends, including Wendy T. While I was complimenting her on not leaving the dancefloor we realised we could count not only Andy but also Gav S from Edinburgh among our mutual friends.

I also really enjoyed the chance to DJ again, especially alongside folks like Craigy Moog and Ragnar. I played two sets. One at the start where I played records like Komiko, Dayton, A Certain Ratio’s Constant Curve and Krush’s House Arrest. There was one pretty comical moment. Asked around 8pm by Andy’s sister to play Stevie Wonder’s Happy Birthday while they brought out the birthday cake, I had to tell them I couldn’t… because all the DJs had been warned explicitly by Andy not to play it! She gave me a weary look that said “Yep, that sounds like Andy” and we found another way.

In my second set, a back-to-back with Ragnar, I played Mr K’s edit of Thelma Houston, Southern Freeez (much to Robert’s delight), Sylvester and closed with one of my all-time favourite house records, Mike Delgado’s Jazz Works.

At the end we shared a cab with Ragnar and Solveig for a brief nightcap at Andy’s place, but even still managed to get home at a reasonable time (despite Martin and Izzie’s best attempts to steal our taxi). I’d managed to exercise a few senseible tactics, like starting with non-alcoholic drinks, and that served me well on the night and the next day.

Cracking night, and Andy seemed to really enjoy it. Here’s to your health and happiness, chief.

Last weekend was pretty dull and rainy in Glasgow but Clair and I visited a bunch of great local places to keep the spirits up.

On Friday night we ate at Wasabi for the first time. It’s a lovely little spot on Pollokshaws Road with a nicely-sized menu. Between us we had Chicken Karage, Avocado Maki, King Prawn Tempura and Beef Ramen. We loved it and will be back.

On Saturday early afternoon we took Rudy for a walk around Pollokshields including Maxwell Park. We were then able to leave him nicely tired and chillin’, and headed to the FONDS exhibition at the Tramway.

Next was a visit to Pisces although we were runnning a bit early so stopped for a drink at Heraghty’s. Tom and Nessa have been telling me they do a good pint of Guinness so I gave it a try.

At Pisces (which was once the site of the legendary Greek Golden Kebab) we both tried the Smash burger and fries, and it was pretty tasty.

We’d hoped to visit the ‘hood’s latest cafe, bar and restaurant Henry’s for a nightcap, but on arrival there it was jam-packed so we resolved to come back another time.

Enjoyed the lively little party-not-party at Jason and Lydia’s last night.

I didn’t manage a whole lot of time chatting with either of the busy hosts, especially as I kept It sensible and didn’t stay too long. But they seemed in good form and Lydia seems well recovered from last year’s shoulder operations. I did managed to catch up with Craig and Anna, Mick, Aldo and Ritchie amongst others. Mick was telling me about how many gigs he has lined up this year (including The The and Jane Weaver) and making me jealous.

The hosts’ new kitchen and living room layout was looking really great too.

Had a great little post-Xmas catch-up and blether with Simon last night. We had a chance to trade stories of Christmas hosting – the good, the bad and the ugly.

Simon filled me in on how his kids are doing – a joy and a handful in equal measure just about sums it up – and how his work situation is changing and will lead to more travel and responsiblity this year.

He also shared a few funny stories of holiday adventures – he and Nathalie love nothing more than an unplanned night out with absolute strangers!

It’s always entertaining to hear about his golf trips with a motley crue I know all too well.

Brilliant to catch up, and I hope we do it more often.

Prior to Christmas we’d been talking about giving ourselves the present of a trip to London. However the train prices were pretty offensive so we opted for a different type of weekend trip – one that was rural, cosy and Rudy-friendly.

Friday’s check-in wasn’t til 4pm so we started with a drive to North Berwick. There, we visited the Lobster Shack. Clair had fish and chips while I had seafood chowder (which Clair admitted was the pick of the dishes). The weather was of the good January sort – chilly but sunny so we had a wee stroll along the beach and let Rudy have a run.

Charlton Gate cottage was perfect. We were in splended isolation, except for the neighbouring sheep and grouse. The cottage itself was comfortable with all the cooking and telly-watching facilities you’d need, plus a comfy bed.

On Saturday we visited Newbiggin-by-the-sea for more beach-walking fun.

Later that day we also paid a brief visit to Morpeth, which is a lovely town.

I really enjoyed my morning walks with Rudy. It was so peaceful and the sky and scenery were beautiful.

Thanks as always to my fam Clair and Rudy for a beautiful weekend.

I just deactivated my Twitter (X) account. Within the wider current context of other small, positive changes I’m making, it feels like the time is right.

I gave it a little thought, but not much. There were plenty of reasons to deactivate (for my own good and because X under Elon is x-crutiating) and not many good reasons to stay.

I used their download your archive feature before deactivating.

I guess I might lose a bit of touch with some web and music folks but I’m sure I’ll catch up with them in other ways.

And I s’ppose someone might try to get in touch via Twitter and find I’m no longer there, but if they want to find me online, I’m sure they will.

One less avenue for procrastination!

I’m starting 2024 as I mean to continue – by seeing and hanging out with friends more often. Yesterday Tom and I had a great day moseying around Edinburgh.

After meeting at Waverley and grabbing a quick coffee and bite, we headed to the Scottish National Gallery on The Mound. Tom was keen to see the Turner watercolours exhibition which is on every January – apparently the ideal time of year to best show off the works. I probably wouldn’t have visited this unprompted but I’m glad I did. My favourites were perhaps The Falls of Clyde and Lake Albano.

From there we made the short walk to Cockburn Street and into an old haunt, Underground Solush’n, for some record shopping. I got a few, with the pick being the album Flying Wig by Devendra Banhart.

Next stop was St Andrew’s Square for a saunter around the menswear floor in Harvey Nichols. Neither of us were in the market for anything in particular but still it was nice to browse their sale including coats by Copenhagen-based brand NN.07 as sported by Jeremy Allen White in The Bear.

We hopped on an Edinburgh tram outside (first time for both of us) headed for Port of Leith. We caught the Leith Saturday market where Tom was beguiled by a purveyor of exotic olive oil (I can't believe I'm typing this) before we stumbled upon a great wee record stall. To my surprise it wasn’t just the usual selection of records no-one wants but instead had plenty of gems. I picked up two LPs from my wishlist – Vangelis's Earth (featuring the glorious Let it happen) and Spacek’s Curvatia.

All that record shopping gives you an appetite so it was off to Teuchter’s Landing for some food and refreshments. With Burns Night just around the corner we honoured the bard by enjoying haggis, neeps and tatties and a dram (Craigellachie 13y).

Our final stop was the Shore Bar where we caught up with a couple of Edinburgh-dwelling pals, Gav and Nick.

After all that I was back on the train home by around 10 pm – mission accomplished.