August 2007

Welcome to September... Here’s what’s been happening in my strange little world in the past month.

(By the way, if you have no wish to receive further issues - just hit reply and enter "unsubscribe" in the subject box. I won't take offence!)
www.drewmcadam.co.uk

Drew McAdam Newsletter: AUGUST. 2007.

MEET YOURSELF IN THIS MONTH’S NEWSLETTER:
GARY JAMES
RICKY McLEOD
STEVE HARLEY
DAVID SUTHERLAND
HELEN KING
JOHN MACPHERSON
CHRIS COX
STEPHEN LONG
BARRY CRYER (Hello, Barry!)
LI’L EMILY
PAUL ZENON
BRIAN BLESSED


MEGA-MOUTH
Remember the film Jaws? Who doesn’t? It’s been showing a lot this month on TV and I still love that film; it always reminds me of a promotional photographic shoot at Deep Sea World that involved me pulling on scuba diving gear and clambering into the massive tank with a host of sea creatures, including two massive – and I MEAN massive – sand tiger sharks. Of course, the photographs were useless… the person with the wild, staring eyes behind the mask and regulator could have been anybody! What an incredible experience that was, though. And for those of you who are fans of the film: “We’re going to need a bigger... pair of underpants!”

PURE MAGIC
Gary James (those of you who attended the party last year will remember him well) got a great piece of coverage in this month’s Evening News. You can read it here http://living.scotsman.com/tv.cfm?id=1221192007

He really is a remarkable young man. Oh, and while we’re on the subject of Gary, congratulations to him and “Tricky” Ricky McLeod who won a prestigious magic competition at Loch Ness this month. Well done, guys!

HARLEY AND THE STONES
You’ll all know by now that I’m a massive fan of Steve Harley (and Cockney Rebel, of course!) Busy as he is, Steve has become a good friend and usually takes the time to reply to my newsletters (that’s what it’s for, folks.) So, this month I’m passing on a link to his online diary http://steveharley.com/diary.html#070807 where you can read about his escapade when he supported the Rolling Stones in Warsaw last month. Lucky beggar!

STATISTICS
There is a statistic detailing the chances of an American soldier being fatally shot in Iraq. Apparently the rate is 60 per 100,000 soldiers.

Yet the firearm death rate in Washington DC is 80 per 100,000 citizens.

The conclusion, therefore, is that the US should pull out of Washington.

THIS MONTH’S GIGS AND BEYOND
This month I had gigs in Larbert – where I saw The Singing Waiters for the first time. What a hoot they are – and then two gigs at The Dalmahoy Hotel. I also ended up doing a gig in Glencalvie, Sutherland. For those of you whose geography is a bit rusty, Sutherland is north-west of Inverness. It’s a wilderness of tumbling rivers, lochs, light, forest and hills. It’s actually closer to Arctic Circle than to London! My accommodation was in a small B&B, where the little old landlady had put a hot water bottle in the bed for my return. How sweet is that!?

One of the great things about my job is that I get to visit places that are on my tick list. And Glencalvie is one of these places. (Thank you, David Sutherland). Or, to be more exact, Croick Church, This is where one of the more “harrowing events in Scottish history took place. Known as the Clearances, 18 families were cleared from the glen where they had lived for generations. The families comprising about 90 people – men, women and children - took shelter in Croick churchyard and their wretched plight is recorded in messages scratched on the outside of the east window of the church. These writings can still be seen clearly. It’s a poignant place, and even more poignant for the fact that several of those who look after the sheep have recently been cleared to make way for forestation. Just ask hotwater-bottle-weilding Katie about that!

There was also a gig at one of my favourite hotels, Norwood Hall, Aberdeen, which gave me the chance to visit the Maritime Museum and the Thermopylae exhibition (The Thermopylae was a tea-clipper – the only ship to ever beat The Cutty Sark. My great, great grandfather was the skipper of that particular ship.)

I also had a fantastic gig at Herriot Watt University, in the very auditorium that had been the venue for my daughter’s graduation ceremony earlier this month.

All this was rounded of with a gig in Alloa. Held out of doors, it was a really energetic affair with a lot going on; part of which was me. Great stuff!


‘ELLO ‘ELLEN
Some of you who read this from my old North Berwick days will remember Helen King (We both grew up in the same street.) Well, it was my great pleasure to meet up with her again, some 30-odd years on. We had a great laugh about our schooldays and youth-club days; childhood memories and adventures. The annoying this is, she’s hardly changed!


CLICK CLICK
I bought a camera this month… I’ve always had an old cast iron office-safe-type Pentax K1000 kicking around my office, and have spent many happy hours snapping landscapes and oddities that took my fancy around Scotland over the years. So, I upgraded to a digital version of the same camera. You can see some of the results from this month’s journeys here… http://aolpictures.aol.co.uk/galleries/espmcadam

Now, while surfing the web I came across some truly astounding pictures by Scots photographer John MacPherson. We got into an email conversation, and I must say he was very kind about my efforts. However, he gave me permission to duplicate part of one of his emails which I think is just wonderful. I’d like to share it with you, so here it is – advice to a tyro snapper, though I feel the moral runs a little deeper.

“I'm regularly asked how I find the stuff to photograph, and reply - well there's no shortage of stuff, there's loads of it lying around all over the place - the challenge isn't about knowing what to include in your pictures, but what to leave out. Recording an image that 'works' is all about finding the essence of a location/subject - trying to isolate certain aspects/qualities that define it - and that’s the fun of photography. If you can strip away all the stuff that’s not relevant what you'll have left will be very very relevant.

And I did this intuitively, and didn't think too much about that process until I heard a wonderful interview on Radio 4. A rather snooty middle-class woman talking to a 'rough' sounding country fellow who carved walking sticks.

She described the standard of work on one of the pieces...’I am holding an exquisite walking stick made by Charlie, it's yew and ash combined and the handle is a leaping fish and is an elegant and sensual evocation of a brook trout in mid leap - and you can just visualise the elegant arching trajectory it took when it grabbed the mayfly in the air above the brook's glassy surface. And I'm running my hand over it, the individual scales are perfectly formed and provide grip under your palm, the dorsal fin a raised lip under your fingers. It’s a wonderfully realised piece that encapsulates both the elegance of a wild thing and the astonishing skills of the artist, for this is true artistry.....to be able to take a piece of roughly hewn wood and through some almost alchemical process create this sinuous and exquisite wild creature… Tell me, Charlie, how do you do it, how can you possibly create such life from something inert?’

To which the master replied ‘…Errr you want tae make a fish shape, so ye just cut away all the bits that don’t look like a fish, and you'll be left with.....err....um.....a fish’.

Now, when I'm asked how I can make such photographic compositions I just smile and say: ‘I just cut away all the parts that don’t look like fish.

Good stuff is all around us, all the time. We just need to look for it.”

Isn’t that wonderful?

And you can see John’s work here. http://www.john.macpherson.btinternet.co.uk/pixindex-landsca.html DO, please, spend some time looking at them. They’ll inspire you.

A WEE JOKE
A man and woman were having dinner in a fine restaurant. Their waitress, taking another order at a table a few steps away, suddenly noticed that the man was slowly sliding down his chair and under the table, but the woman acted unconcerned.
The waitress watched as the man slid all the way down his chair and out of sight under the table. Still the woman appeared calm and unruffled, apparently unaware that her dining companion had disappeared.
The waitress went over to the table and said to the woman, "Pardon me, ma'am, but I think your husband just slid under the table."
The woman calmly looked up at her and said: "No he didn't. He just walked in the door."

FESTIVAL
Edinburgh Festival again, and this year I only did a few reviews, and those were performers who interested me. (Chris Cox earned 4 stars, as did Stephen Long. But I machine-gunned the hypnotist.) Both had some wonderful new approaches to the art of mind-reading. But get this; Stephen Long rewards each participant who comes onstage to help him by suggesting they help themselves from a bag of Revels sweets, (You know, orange, toffee, raisin and so on?) On the way back to their seat, he stops them, and announces what flavour it is they’re sucking on! How DOES he do that?

BEST YEARS…
What an exciting time it’s been for my wee chum, Li’l Emily. Within a few days she has celebrated her 5th birthday, had a party, left nursery and started school – and on top of all that she has somehow taught herself to talk without ever having to breathe in. Phew! Great to share in her excitement, though, don’t you think?

SHOWTIME
Last year I wasn’t able to meet up with top TV magician Paul Zenon on his annual pilgrimage to the Festival. (I was working down south while he was performing up here.) However, this year we more than made up for it. And that’s where it gets a little bit weird.

I had driven into Edinburgh, thinking I MUST give Paul a call and find out where he is. At the same time (I later discovered) HE had been thinking that he must give me a call. To cut a long story short, I popped into a public loo and I happened to glance next to me – and there was Paul at the next urinal! (Okay, I KNOW it’s all a bit unsavoury, but it’s also rather weird.)

And in a further coincidence, I had just discovered that Barry Cryer was up for The Festival (those of you who have been getting this e-mail might remember that Barry and I were on the same bill in York.) And there he was! (I still get embarrassed when some bloke hugs me, but somehow with Barry that’s all right!)

Anyway, it just so happened that Paul had some free time, as did I. (No, really!) So we had a couple of great days. Paul wanted to visit Rosslyn Chapel – so that’s off his tick list now. We also had a couple of beers and a couple of great meals. We also took the opportunity to take in a couple of shows, including the visually stunning “Fuerzabruta”. Here is a review, entitled Sensory Overload from Nicol Husband: A man runs frantically on a conveyor belt headlong into unavoidable obstacles; nymph-like beauties writhe, close enough to touch, on water-covered perspex; women somersault across floating tinfoil walls bathed in an aura of multicoloured light as wind and water pound the audience. Is it about trying to cling onto reality as you struggle through the obstacles of everyday life? Man’s need to reconnect with nature? The necessity of taking risks to achieve fulfilment or nothing at all? Standing room only and with audience interaction aplenty, this is a unique and memorable Fringe experience.

Yeah... you had to have been there… and I was! Thanks, Paul!

BLESSED
I caught a short excerpt of Brian Blessed (the loudest man alive) on a talk show recently. What an incredible man… Funny, a great lover of life and a nice fella’ to boot. He is about to make his fourth attempt on Mount Everest – at the age of seventy! He really is somebody with whom you would just love to share a pint and listen to a selection of his stories.

Well, long before these newsletters started, I had the pleasure of working up-close with Brian on a film (terrible film, right enough!) There is nothing of the luvvie about him: what you see is what you get. One of my heroes, I guess.

And here are a couple of wonderful quotes from him: “‘Stop dreaming’ is the worst thing any teacher can say. Play, adventure, fresh air, wilderness, stimulus, travel in the end are the great educators. I can’t stand this society’s concept of success and its material needs. It’s all crap. The older I get the more all I want in life is a rucksack and a tent. And the most important thing of all is to have a go.” And then this: "Every time I see Patrick (Stewart) he weeps; 'You're going to die on one of your expeditions.' But I feel the biggest danger in life is not taking adventure.
The man speaks the truth!

Oh, and if you get this newsletter – and we meet up some time – that entitles you to hear the story about Brian Blessed and the poor sap of a fork-lift driver.

A YEAR GONE BY ALREADY?
And, finally, this from last year. Exactly a year ago, my newsletter reported this story… Can’t believe it’s a year, but here it is again for the latest additions to the newsletter mailing list (and welcome to you, too!)

A over T
For those of you who have been in my offices, you’ll know that it’s a two-storey affair, with all the toys and fun-stuff downstairs, and the nerve-centre / command room upstairs. So, there I was, in front of the computer, in my big, leather, IVI (I’m Very Important) chair... rubbing a spoon and willing it to bend (Hey, we all have to practice, you know!) I was suddenly aware that my chair felt unstable. Leaning over the arm to take a closer look, yes... it seemed that one of the solid steel and chrome legs was actually bending! I leaned a bit further to get a better view. YES! It was definitely bending... and SNAP! This was followed by a spectacular backward somersault as the whole thing tipped over. I SWEAR I saw the reflection of the soles of my shoes in the monitor as I vanished backwards. It was only by an amazing turn of fortune that I didn’t actually continue my journey head-over-heels down the stairs! Metal-bending? Enough!

ENDS