I love...

Beverley Knight - Get Up!

Sunday November 20, Beverley Knight at The Lowry, Salford

 

Thank f*ck for Yuck

Wednesday November 16. Yuck at The Leadmill, Sheffield, Wednesday November 16

In a world of 'indie' guitar band mediocrity I'm thrilled that Yuck have appeared and delivered my favourite album of 2011.

Dum Dum Girls - Only In Dreams

Tuesday November 15. Dum Dum Girls at Brudenell Social Club.

Girls with guitars. Girls. With. Guitars. Electric guitars. Not just in dreams.

Veronica Falls - Bad Feeling

Tuesday November 15. Veronica Falls at Brudenell Social Club.

 

Silence on the summit

Remembrance Sunday, November 13 - Great Gable

Usually I'm looking for solitude in the hills. But today it's a case of the more people, the more moving the occasion.

 

 

Middle English

Saturday November 5 - along the Grand Union Canal, Oxfordshire

The phrase 'quintessentially English' could have been invented for scenes like these.

Not your average HGV

Saturday October 29 - near home

We're walking up the hill behind my house and there's an odd sound coming from the road at the top. We can't see anything but there's a smell of steam in the air. A few minutes later, just along the road, all is revealed.

It takes all of 10 seconds to find it later on Google. Here is that very one.

Curved Air - Hebden Bridge Trades Club

Saturday October 22 - Hebden Bridge Trades Club

How times change. Back when I was a teenager, greedily lapping up all the music I'd been missing as a kid and reading about the mysterious and wonderful people who made it, I would have gone weak at the knees encountering Sonja Kristina. Tonight I bump into her on the stairs as I exit the club and casually thank her for a lovely show. And she seems vaguely bashful as she thanks me back. We're all older now. Just ordinary people, with different jobs.

 

Another victim of Bleaklow

Saturday October 22 - Blackburn Botha crash site, Black Moss, Longdendale Valley

The story of this crash site is especially sad. A 19 year old Air Transport Auxiliary pilot, First Officer Thomas Rogers, seems to have flown this unpopular and unfit-for-purpose 'crate' into the moors on Round Hill, Black Moss, on December 10 1941. He was flying it from the factory where it was built, near Leeds, to an airfield near Chester. When you read about the Blackburn Botha, it's no surprise people regularly lost their lives in them. It's a beautiful day for my tiny quest. As always, I pause for a few minutes' silence to reflect in respect of the fact that someone died here. This wreck and many others are detailed in the book 'Dark Peak Aircraft Wrecks Vol 1'.

 

Old faithful

Saturday October 15 - Kinder Scout

If I don't get onto Kinder at least every other month, my brain starts to go wrong. Just a simple ascent of Grindsbrook, a walk along the southern edge and back down Ollerbrook, in great company. Works for up to 8 weeks.