Bloody hell, what's in the water in Scotland?

i clearly remember heading to the record store and selecting this record from a bunch of random rock cds . the imagery of a boy with the chair completely seized my 14 year old attention. maybe part of me related to him. i probably wanted to throw every high school chair into every window of my neighbourhood- damansara jaya, the center of all excitement and the wonder of the universe. DJ (that's what the locals call it here) is heaven for newly married couples and hell for frustrated teenagers.

i expected punk rock (check but not typical punk rock), screaming vocals (not really, more like spoken word being shouted out), and metal-zone distortion (nope). well maybe for the chorus. i wasn't expecting slow burners like 'bronze medal'. songs like that made the long days go by quickly. these strong anti-hero themes resonated somewhere i didn't even know existed.

so while everyone was getting into slipknot i secretly got hooked onto Idlewild. fast forward 10 years, a million R.E.M. comparisons (i like R.E.M. a lot so this is no problem) and i get hold of lead singer Roddy Woomble's solo album. it's hauntingly good. a folk album full of melodies that linger for days after. in his journal he notes


Friday 21st June 2002

" The windows are open down onto place de la rebublique as i sit at the desk in the Holiday inn. Paris is so full of life it's dangerous. especially if you're driving. Arrived here yesterday to do some press. Went out for a meal with French EMI and a fellow called Arno (who smokes more than a chimney and speaks better English than I do). The meal took four hours but it was rich and delicious. Rare steak, red wine, too many cigarettes - almost too many Parisian cliches.

Concert this evening was a bit stressful, mainly due to Allan's flight being delayed so he basically arrived as we were walking onstage, and as a consequence everything that could go wrong did. It was one of those fashion parties with a band, and the Hor d'ouvres were seemingly alot more exciting than we were. Jean Paul Gautier was in the audience ignoring us. oh well. Incidentally I'm writing this looking in the mirror (it's in front of the desk) but i worry this isn't healthy. I love Paris. The life that people seem to have here. I think ultimately that i'd like to go everywhere."

and in 2008

" It has been 13 years since I last stayed in a youth hostel. In my teens it was a favourite thing to do - catching the post bus and travelling around the Highlands and Islands, exploring the area, then staying in youth hostels at night. Hostels provided a familiar, tartan-carpeted sanctuary. The faces might change, but the ratio of German cyclists to geriatric hikers stayed the same.

Last weekend I decided to try them out again. Loch Ossian youth hostel high up on Rannoch Moor is one of the most remote in the country. No roads lead there, so you get the train to Corrour (itself the UK's highest, most remote station) and walk a mile down a track to the little green wooden hostel that juts out into the loch. Powered by the wind and the sun and with dry compost (outdoor) toilets, it's set a standard for other such "eco hostels" to follow. The fellow that runs the place has something ex-army about him, but he's friendly and helpful and is followed everywhere by a bristly, inquisitive little dog. There's no bath or shower on site, he tells me matter-of-factly. Later, when I ask him how long he's been here and he replies "five years", I resist the urge to ask him if that means he hasn't bathed in half a decade.

Sitting in the common room, the pine-clad walls heavy with framed photographs of local sunsets, drying my soaking socks in front of the stove, I get chatting to a fellow hosteller, a Japanese girl elaborately preparing a traditional meal for one. She sits across from me asking questions in between thoughtful chews.

Her: Have you been walking?

Me: Yes Me again: Are you on holiday?

"Yes"

"Where else have you been to?"

"Dundee. Long pause. Inverness."

The conversation goes on in a similar fashion for quite a bit of time, as if we're talking in slow motion. But there's a certain stillness to the girl that fits in perfectly with the atmosphere of youth hostels. Stuck in time, but getting where they're going slowly but surely. The click of the dominoes on the opposite table from a Yorkshire couple punctuates the silence; at the next table two German hikers sit, brows furrowed over thick books. Frame it and it could be the cover of a Scottish youth hostelling magazine in 1956. "

thank you roddy for introducing this malaysian boy to gertrude stein, robert burns, Scapa whisky, sonic youth, Ingmar Bergman, Edwin Morgan and getting purposefully lost. and also thank you for writing many a good song.

Thank you very much.