Stories doing the rounds at the moment are suggesting that Luke Skywalker plans return to Yavin 4 to build a Jedi knight academy.
Star Wars fanboys will remember Yavin 4 was the location of the rebel base in Star Wars episode IV, as It is from here that the rebel assault on the first Death Star is launched. 
As of yet, nothing is confirmed by Disney yet…But its sounding like there is the building blocks of something good anyway. Lets see.
Unofficial news doing the rounds is that Matthew Vaughn will direct the next installment of Star Wars, Episode VII. I’m rather excited by this news as I feel he is still a young, fresh director with enough edge to give us something we haven’t seen before.
Kick Ass was an astounding (& underrated) movie, & his last blockbuster X-Men: First Class was also a great movie & proved that he could more than handle a sequel (or prequel) without fear of messing it up. We can also look forward to a good cast, as Vaughn’s usual suspects are of fine talent.
Colour me excited!
Maybe he could remake Episode’s 1, 2 & 3 then?
Dee was a complex character, as mentioned before he had a history of alcohol & drug abuse, & had addictions to other things in his life. These issues plagued the rest of the band. Looking for an AA meeting in the middle Germany or Sweden at 07:00 was just some of the torments we had to endure with life on the road. He made our life hell sometimes, he would also fall in & out of love as quick as it would rain on a scottish hillside, this would drive us insane. He also had a good side to him too, but he had a manipulative side, & this was hard to bare. Does this excuse our behaviour? No, but life on the road is tough, & wind-ups will happen.
Craziness… After Copenhagen, we travelled to other cities in Scandinavia, & soon after we ended up in Uppsala, a rather beautiful swedish university city. The owner of the venue was Irish, & had a reputation for being a gobshite, so we weren’t sure about his part in the wind-up. As it happened our agent had already told him about it, so a plan was set.
Gav our fiddle player was enjoying his birthday on this day, & he had a friend studying chemistry at the university. She came to our soundcheck to say hi & had also been filled in with the ongoing events between Switzerland & Copenhagen. It seemed she had an idea.
Before the start of the gig, she arrived back at the venue, & gave Gav a small gift. ‘Happy birthday’ she said to him give him a hug. ‘Whats this’ said Gav, & as he opened it she said ‘it’s something new, we’ve been playing around with it, but keep it quiet please. Oh, there’s one each for you all. Yes, it was cake. Four little small white pills in a metal box. But what the hell were they? I asked, ‘salt tablets’ she whispered, just plain salt tablets.
She gave us instructions, ‘take it 15mins before going onstage, it’ll take 20mins to kick in’ & it should last for 30mins only, but you may feel a little down afterwords.
We did as instructed (pissing ourselves) & went onstage. Gordy was a great drummer, tight & always in time, he never needed a click-track except when we were recording. 25mins into the gig Gordy start speeding up, Dee turns round & looks at him with a stern face, Gav was a very unemotional fiddler, wonderful player, but never moved his body, ridged. He began moving, swaying as he bowed, Dee was amazed. I just started jumping to the speed that Gordy was playing as I played my bass & forgot about singing any backing vocals. Dee turned to Gordy & shouted, ‘I’m really high’. Cotcha!!!
The venues owner dragged us into his office after the gig, he told us that he knew were on something, closed the door quietly & asked if we were using Cake, & if so, could we get him some?
Dee stepped in & gave a lecture about the good feeling that Cake gives, how it’s made, & how difficult it was to get a hold of, but he would talk to Gav’s friend. How we kept a straight face, I will never know but this what we were used to. We waited to see what he was doing after the gig, so we could do the opposite, which was find a club & laugh until it hurt.
To be continued… Helsinki & home-of-the-opathy
Cake – A True Story, Part One, can be found here.
Once we reached Copenhagen, the first thing to do was set up the equipment before finding our hotel, but there was always time for a beer before any hard work would be started. Dee was looking for guitar strings while the rest of us sat at the bar, laughing about the Cake wind-up. The barman asked what we were laughing about, we told him, & as he knew Dee he thought it would be fun to… string him along a bit. So later that evening when Dee was at the bar getting a pint of Diet coke, he mentioned Cake to another barman (who was in on the act of course), Dee immediately joined in telling them what he knew about it, again the foundation had been firmly laid & was set so hard!!! The barman told Dee that there was a place in Christiania that sold ‘Cake/cake’, he gave him directions & told him what to ask for. Dee decided to go the next day.
We had one more gig in Copenhagen the next night, & while the rest of the band rested, Dee went for a walk to Christiania. Later that evening before our soundcheck, he came back to the venue, annoyed, he couldn’t find the place. What we didn’t know was that the barman had set him up with a friends coffee shop, and had normal cake waiting for him which when asked for would think it was Cake/cake, but obviously failed to show, but he genuinely couldn’t find the place, & thought that his chance of trying Cake would be his last.
We all had our minds set on keeping this going, but how long could we possibly keep it up for? All the venues had staff like the guys in Copenhagen, & all knew Dee. This was going to be good, but how far would we really go??
To be continued…. Uppsala, a chemistry graduate & salt tablets!
The following what your about to read is a true story. The events that took place happened over a period of 4 years, & of which I’m not hugely proud of, but as a result has ended up being a one hell of a laugh.
Many years ago I was a musician, a hard working one at that. There wasn’t much time at home, studios & gigs (with many bands at one time) was my job. I founds self playing Scottish & Irish folk music around the mid 90’s, & there was a lot of work around the world for us. At a time when I was juggling between The Journeymen, Hair of the Dog & Shinaig, I chose to play full-time with Shinaig,& with a full Calendar of gigs across Europe with some fine musicians, I made the right choice.
Our singer (Dee) was an colourful character, energetic, stupid & gullible. He had a history of alcohol & drug abuse, of which he was many years sober. He was difficult to be around due to his mental state, but we got by, & onstage we were incredible, so it evened up.
One night (December 1997) we were travelling from Switzerland to Denmark through the night to the next gig, Dee had an opinion about everything, even if he knew nothing about a subject, this was a constant source of amusement to the rest of the band, we would quite often take the piss for our own amusement, it helped the long journeys pass quicker. However, on this trip we started talking rubbish (as you do) discussing a new drug that had the same effect as cocaine & ecstasy, but without the side affects. We called it ’Cake’! Yes, we had just watched Brass Eye, but we knew Dee hadn’t.
He started asking us about Cake, & the other band members gave each other a sign to keep this going. ‘it’s mentioned in that copy of the New Scientist’ is said, somewhere in the back of the van probably, ’yeah’ said Dee, ‘I seen that back there’. We had laid the foundation.
To be continued…
Nike have made a leap into the “lets get motivated” to be active with their new product The Nike Fuelband.
It works in a similar way to a watch, you wear it, it counts your calories (based on information you input from initialisation), steps & importantly Fuel. Fuel points are gained by the amount of activity you do in a full day, there is an accelerometer in the band, so the more active you are, the more points you gain. This is all linked to the Nike + you can set up, & you can keep careful track of your performance each day. You can start by setting a goal of 3000 fuel points, & if your doing regular exercise each day you will hit your goal really easily. So after a few days you can set your goal to be higher & try to reach it. You will get achievements when you reach your goal, & three days in a row for example, & these achievements are rewarded by cool animations on the Nike + site, or your smartphone. Having a smartphone is very important with this devise, as the Fuelband is connected to the app by Bluetooth, sync & your points are updated. Simple. It’s also social media friendly, you can link your Facebook account & share with friends, link to Twitter & tell the world you reached your goal, there is also a API for Path.
I guess this can be used for most sports, running (my main use) football (second main use), aerobics & anything you do at the gym. The only sport I can see not benefiting from this would be cycling.
The band comes in three sizes, small, medium & large, & each band has an extender just in case it’s a little tight. I got the medium & it fits perfectly, & it’s not big & clumpy like other sports watches, it actually looks quite cool.
The band runs for 4 days on a full charge, it comes with a USB cable, docking stand & the extender, but I just plugged the band straight into the USB socket, the full charge doesn’t take long.
I’ve not seen the Fuelband in Finland yet, so I bought it online at the Nike online store, it cost €139, & included free delivery.
Am I happy with the Fuelband? Yes, as winter draws nearer its good to have the motivation to keep active.
Helsinki Cathedral
On the 8th of August Glasgow Celtic will return to Finland to play HJK Helsinki in their Champions League qualifier. This is a return from their UEFA Cup qualifier in 2000, where Celtic managed to qualify. The HJK fans are passionate & vocal, their memorable chant is ‘Klubi’ which means ‘club’. In 2000 there were more HJK fans than Celtic fans, & yes, us Celtic fans were louder!
This blog entry is for the visiting Celtic fans, a few tips to get by & enjoy their stay in Helsinki with ease.
Helsinki is the capital of Finland, & its a fairly small city by comparison to other major capitals in Europe. Its compact, efficient & very versatile. Finland is known as a cold country, & in winter it is, very. But in the summer it can get very hot, as much as +35, & you can expect temperatures to be quite high in August also. Helsinki is not a rainy city, but it can rain, & when it does it can be heavy, but never for very long.
Helsinki Airport
Arriving in Helsinki, is usually flying into Helsinki-Vantaa Airport (or Tampere airport, 2 hours away) which is 40 min bus ride (€4 max, bus number 615, or night bus 620N takes you to the centre) or a 20 min taxi ride (around €40) Helsinki Airport is an international hub to Asia, & can be very busy, but its very well organised, & has free wifi.
The city of Helsinki will be busy with tourists at this time of year, & many Finns will be returning from their summer cottages to get back to work, so expect the city to be lively. Finnish people are very hospitable, honest, friendly & calm. There is very little crime in the Helsinki & Finland in general, so if you leave a bag in a bar/shop or station, you are likely to find it in the same place or handed in for you to collect, unique I know.
Public Transport in Helsinki
Public trasport in Helsinki is fantastic, there are buses, trams, trains & even boats. To get to the Sonera stadium from the centre, you need to take tram number 3B, 3T, 4, 7B or 10. Oh & there is free wifi on most of the trams too. The Sonera stadium is next to the 1952 Olympic stadium, easily visible from afar. You can walk to the stadium from the centre, it should take 25mins via Töölö Bay.
Free wifi is available around Helsinki city, just search for it on your device, & theres no need to sign up for it, just accept & surf.
Ive had a lot of tweets from Celtic fans asking me the same question, how much is the beer?? Well, it can be expensive depending where you go, anything from €4-€6, & please remember, its not a full pint you get here, they press a button & it fills to the amount. Unless your a Guinness drinker, then you’ll get a proper pint. So where to drink? Molly Malone’s is where most people went the last time Celtic played here, it can be expensive & over priced but its the only place to have live music seven days a week. Its also the only pub in Helsinki that has Sky TV. For the Finnish experience, try Zetor, its fun & quirky with Finnish food at a decent price. There is a unique pub in Helsinki, it’s a tram, the Koff tram (named after the Finnish beer) runs throughout the summer, its 8€ & will take you on a tour of the city as you drink beer, its very popular, & you cant miss it, its bright red!
This wishing to buy alcohol can do so from any supermarket (S-market, K-market, CityMarket) From there you can buy beer & cider, if you wish to buy anything stronger you need to go to Alko, its the national alcoholic beverage retailing monopoly in Finland. Its sounds dodgy, but its not anywhere near like that. Prices are the same as the UK. You have the ability to recycle your empties, all shops have machines, so if you have cans or bottles, return them, you’ll get money back.
Eating in Helsinki is great, & if your a little open minded it will be a pleasurable experience. Fish is plentiful & fresh, straight from the baltic sea, & definitely worth trying. Herring & salmon is always available. Meatballs & mash potatoes is a traditional dish, you may also get a side of berry jam with it, so don’t be offended or shocked if you see it. Reindeer is also available to eat, again worth trying once in your life. There are plenty Grill kiosks around the city which are open to the wee small hours, try a Lihapirakka (meat pie) or a makkara (sausage). But you can check out every place to eat on the site eat.fi, where you can define what you want to eat. A very good site.
If any of you miss Irn-Bru or Tunnocks caramel wafers you can visit Behnford’s in the WTC, in the heart of the city. Again, its expensive, but if your desperate…
The city of Helsinki.
There are plenty beaches around Helsinki, you can try Hietaniemi beach (or Hietsu as its known) its a 15min walk from town & has golden sand. & there are plenty of football fields around the city too, all have goals (with nets), they’re free to use. If your in the Hietsu area you should try the famous Cafe Regatta, The only cafe in the world to give you money back when you ask for a coffee refill. All buns are freshly baked & there is an open fire outside to cook sausages if you want, it sits by the sea & is very popular & has friendly staff.
Hietsu Beach
Sightseeing, there is plenty to see in Helsinki if you have the notion to look around. Soumenlinna is a fortress build on a beautiful island, & you can get to it from the Market Square. The boat trip is part of the public transport route, so its cheap, highly recommended.
If you happen to find yourself in need of help, lost passport for example, you’ll need to contact the British Embassy. Its not far from the centre of the city (15min walk) & the phone number is +358 (0)9 2286 5100
Enjoy, & hail hail!!
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