Scotland in November

Glencoe is my favourite car journey on earth.

Last week I was able to make the journey for the first time in several years, on a crisp November day that blended blinding winter sunshine with thick blankets of fog.

It was an unusual route for me, not starting from Edinburgh or Glasgow. Instead it was north from Fife, cutting west at Perth on the Loch Earn road. Socked in fog all the way down the valley with nothing but the babbling stream for company, we finally emerged after St Fillans down the side of Loch Earn itself into the blazing sunshine.

Looking south across Loch Earn, with the late morning sun lighting up trailing wisps of fog.


Turning back the way we came, this is east down Loch Earn with St Fillans eclipsed, and a think finger of fog floating west over the loch.


Back in the car, and further on we’re back into the fog, and then north through Crianlarich with the amazing scenery hidden behind an impenetrable veil. A few miles on at Tyndrum, the perishingly cold car park at the obligatory Green Welly Stop is just starting to hint that there are hills around.


The edge of Tyndrum sees the weather break again, and up here it turns out to be freezing fog, with all the trees within eyesight encased in a dense layer of frost.


Plants closer to the ground have really been getting the treatment.


Free of the fog and making the turn for Glencoe, there’s time for one last look back at Tyndrum, sitting encased in the cold.


Here, nearly three hours in, the proper journey begins. Dragging up the endless hill from Tyndrum, you immediately feel tiny skirting the immense wall that is Beinn Dorain. Then it’s on to a crest, cruising past Loch Tulla, and the train line departs on a massive detour (it can’t make the grades to come) – clanking across the little bridge, a sweeping bend, and now we’re really clambering hard up the side of a slope, until we reach the viewpoint short of the top.

Jumping out here (seriously windy, but not as cold as it was), the view is epic back towards Beinn Dorain and the loch.


This view always reminds me that I had the motorbike through Glencoe once – I remember driving back towards Tyndrum, waiting forever to get past a long line of cars and carvans, and finally making it past the last of them on the hill further down from this viewpoint – sweeping around the bend at the bottom, and then charging out ahead of everyone, thudding across the bridge (lower left in the picture above), and whistling away across the moor alone. Still the three best minutes of my motorcycling life.


Back in the car and beyond the viewpoint, the top of the hill takes you on to Rannoch Moor. No matter how many times I come over that rise, it is always like landing on the moon – one of the most desolate, bleak and awe-inspiring places I know.

A few miles across the moor and Buachaille Etive Mòr rears up - a heaving cone of rock marking the start of Glencoe proper.


The road skates around Buachaille Etive Mòr, and into the glen.


Glencoe itself is the most monstrous sweeping glen with the road taking cars like toys through it, hemmed in by mountains that become closer and more claustrophobic the further you head west. It’s a daunting and imposing place.


As you come to the most narrow section (the actual pass of Glencoe), you tread carefully down the hairpins and then you are out, easing down across the valley floor to the Atlantic and on to the shore of Loch Leven. Here’s Loch Leven as the sun comes up on a beautiful November morning, the mountains of Glencoe simmering in the clouds.


Often, we stop here – but this time it's pastures further west on our mind, so on we went. A few miles further on, the Corran Ferry plies endlessly forwards and backwards, bridging Loch Linnhe for those that want to head to Ardnamurchan.


If you ever get the chance, you do want to head to the empty and mighty spaces of Ardnamurchan. Here’s the Corran lighthouse at sunset, with the mountains of Ardnamurchan behind.


Past Fort William and the brooding hulk of Ben Nevis, the Road to the Isles begins properly, darting west to Glenfinnan at the ridiculously scenic head of Loch Sheil.

Further on, you move up and over hills again, passing Loch Eilt – which was so still on our mid-day return trip, it was like polished glass.



A few miles further on, we’re finally descending out of the hills for the last time to the sea again, where rough and wild rocky countryside meet several miles of the most amazing tiny silver sandy beaches, and the small islands of Eigg and Rùm peeking out of the rain offshore offset the brooding cloud-shrouded presence in the distance of the Cuillin on Skye.




And here, finally, is where my new favourite hotel is.

Caledonia

Certain adverts from your youth stick with you - and none stuck with me more than this one.

Notwithstanding the fact that Tennents is drinkable but pretty ropey lager, years later, this ad still sums up pretty much how I feel every time I'm in London - and as the guy walks out on Princes Street under the castle, it sums up pretty much how I feel every time I get back to Scotland.

Aslan - "Jealous Guy"

Aslan have been around for ages in Dublin - something of an Irish institution. Apparently they were on the brink of breaking America with one of their best albums, and pretty much on the eve of the tour the entire band self-destructed, including lead singer Christy Dignam zipping off into something of a heroin habit.

Now, I went to see them a year or two back in Dublin at the mighty Vicar Street (one of my favourite venues in the world as it happens) - and what an experience it was - they're an absolutely brilliant live band. As I've opined before on here, I think in live music the difference between great and not-great is often the believability of the folks up on stage doing it. You can be technically brilliant, note perfect, but still look like you're up there either giving a music masterclass, or just going through the motions. But it's different when you have people who are absolutely, utterly believable, who really appear to be living the music. Dignam has as they say been around the block ("we never sold out" as he pointed out to the crowd - I can't imagine who he's referring to!), and whether that adds to the authenticity factor is an argument all of it's own.

What I can say is that you can feel the difference when someone who is that convicted by their music steps on stage. They aren't singing the track - they are singing to you.

Here's one from this year - a cover of Jealous Guy by John Lennon.

Freefall and denial in the Irish Housing Market

The Irish housing market (and the ongoing attendant commentary) is pretty interesting.

I purchased a house with my better half (deciding that we couldn't wait forever) early in 2006. As luck would have it, that turned out to be very shortly before the peak of a historically insane price bubble, which is now in the process of bursting in an extended and messy fashion. They say the secret of comedy is in the timing.

Since 2006 or 2007, there's been an ongoing fall in the value of houses here, but recently there's been intermittent talk of green shoots of recovery, a bottoming out, a slowing down in the rate of descent (you always know you're in trouble when things getting worse at a slower rate is presented as an improvement), the start of a recovery etc etc.

For some reason connected no doubt to my interest in economic trends, statistics, truth, and a desire to view life-changing financial crisis through the prism of small, cute coloured Excel graphs, I started tracking the asking prices in our immediate neighbourhood in September 2006, about 6 months after we purchased.

Since then, every month (or thereabouts), I tap in the asking price for every house in about a half-mile radius that is on the market. While this doesn't give an accurate picture of prices achieved, it's a good guide to the trend. You can also make a reasonable assumption that when prices are falling, the achieved prices are below the asking price, and the opposite when prices are rising - in other words, the achieved price most likely drags the asking price around kicking and screaming behind it.

So based on the figures I have for my own area of Dublin (old settled low-density ex-council estate close to the town centre, for those seeking Irish context), from Sept 2006 to October 2009, here is what has happened.

Asking prices stalled in summer-autumn 2006, and remained static until Feb 07, when I recorded the first fall in my area. (My guess: achieved sale prices stalled somewhere around summer 06, and started to fall back prior to that Christmas.)

Between Feb 07 and May 08 asking prices fell slowly and steadily, shedding around 8.6% from the peak during this 15-month period (averaging a 0.7% drop per month).

Something went seriously to hell in spring 08, because around May prices started falling off a cliff. In the 17 months from May 08 to Oct 09, asking prices dropped 31% from the May 08 figure (averaging a 2.5% loss every month).

So where are we now?

Well my figures from the official asking prices (which come from a variety of estate agents) say this: we are currently in a situation as of Oct 09 where asking prices are 39% off their late 06 peak. So the next time you hear a news item telling you that house prices might fall by up to 40%, it's worth remembering that in reality, they already have. Not only that, there's nothing in the figures I've collected in my area to even hint that there's a floor in sight - the asking prices this month have fallen as much as any other month in the last 12.

Apart from the rash of unemployment in Ireland, a major reason for the continued express-elevator treatment house prices are undergoing, is the fact that the banks have abused their position as lenders, speculated wildly in markets and products in which they had no understanding of the risks, and now we the public are supposed to be paying through our taxes to keep them afloat.

As a result of the fact that the banks and financial houses are sitting on a carelessly stacked wobbling deck of completely opaque financial products, nobody knows where all the debt is. It's sort of like playing pass the parcel where everyone has a parcel, and a few of the parcels have booby-trapped bombs inside - except nobody playing the game thought to check before starting. The music has stopped, everyone has been left holding a package, and nobody wants to open theirs. Everyone wants to pass their package on, but nobody wants to take anybody else's. Endless stalemate - and the dissipation of trust that results means that the banks are not lending anything, to anybody.

In short, the banks totally irresponsible game of pass-the-parcel in the hope of astronomical profits has led them into a cul-de-sac where they are terrified to loan to anyone - they may need all the cash they can possibly lay their hands on when they are finally forced to take their grubby little grabbing hands and open their little parcels.

Without banks prepared to loan, there can be no mortgage approvals. Without mortgage approvals, the only way is down.

Minus 39 percent, and falling...

Carl Craig - At Les

There have been many good electronic records, but I'm not sure that anyone has ever written one greater than Carl Craig's Detroitian masterpiece "At Les".

I've lost count of how many times I've listened to this tune, and it still never fails to blow me away. A grumbling breathy 5th counterpointing the sighing chords, the most subtle of lower notes here and there, a tough pinned down synth eventually riveting the beats in to place to prepare for the shuffling quasi-acoustic breakbeats, electronic china cymbals heralding the arrival of a buried kick drum - and that haunting wind motif falling, falling, falling...

The Timewriter - Flicking Pages

Something about the Friday tune is becoming a bit too structured for me - the output here is supposed to be slow and random, and having a weekly predictable post on the same day every week seems to fly in the face of both slowness and randomness in the output stakes.

But then I heard the latest mix from Mick Chillage, and this track stood out so heavily that I couldn't let it go. The Timewriter, who I'd never heard of before - seems to have a fairly impressive career in spitting out tracks and releases, and after hearing this track on Mr Chillage's mix, it shouldn't come as any suprise to find Mr Writer with top friends on Myspace including David Alvarado. It's that sort of sensuous super-deep powerful sound.

Anyway here's the track. A little introduction, and then the most mindblowingly powerful deep block chords, ultimately backed up with some vocal wisdom being intoned. I'm not that mad a fan of the listen-to-me vocal stuff, although I do make exceptions - and this is one of them. I can't help but think that Kevin Saunderson discovered something special when he stuck those solid drone basses over thudding house beats - particularly thudding, mid-tempo, strident house beats. (Strident house is in fact a term I've coined in my own head, in a vain attempt to capture some of what it is that makes Orde Meikle's DJing so special).

In any case, this is the destructive groove of E-Dancer Saunderson combined with the oceans-deep atmospherics of Alvarado at his best. Deep, powerful, emotional late-night material.

5am moment anyone?

As we begin to grow older - life is not the same...

Maurizio - M4 (M)

Friday, and another epic slab from the Basic Channel vaults. This time, it's the ultra minimal M4, part of a chain of M-numbered releases on the suitably titled BC-offshoot label, 'M'.

It's another one that I couldn't really get my head around at first, but the more you listen, the more amazing this record becomes. The two wobbling and chugging main synth sounds come and go in washes of delay and filtering, twisting in and out of each other in an endless dance that initially seems like a one bar loop, but slowly reveals itself to be a constantly contorting reimaging of itself.

A crisp offbeat hihat and a backbeat clap provide the upper drumbeats. The clap in itself you could be studying all day - it has a perplexing ambience going on - not only does it sound like it's a little way back from you, but it's got this strange feeling that it's round a corner or something, although it's actually panned dead centre. It's almost like there's an obstruction directly in front of you, and the clap is coming from just behind that. How did he manage that?

As for the kick drum, it effortlessly outclasses any rivals. An unremarkable thud (or so it seems) is articulated by a deep tuned bass note, and the combination of the two together makes the entire beat push and pull and give and take.

The end result, is an incredibly powerful, hypnotic work in minimalism. And if you think it's good over headphones, you need to try it over a big club system.