the amazing bettyhill hotel

Have just found this website...the images of the landscape are beautiful - those of the hotel are a lot less inviting - it looks so bad its good...like the hotel california without the glamour, the drugs, the chandeliers, the clientele, the carpets etc

http://www.bettyhill.info/
http://alopex2.blogspot.com/1999_03_01_alopex2_archive.html

burningpilot website

burningpilot have just updated their site and it has music downloads and will soon have a short of their first video. Jon says he looks terrible in it, I'm going to check this claim as soon as they post the thing. The site is looking more coherent if a bit black and red..if they'd only gone for my artwork they'd have a rainbow of colour! Though, perhaps it wasn't masculine and urban enough - I don't do ironic very well - must be my highland roots (and perhaps the swans were overdoing it!).

http://www.burningpilot.com

turner prize winner and big brother contestant

In 1994, Jeremy Deller decided to embark on a quest for the maracas-shaking, goggle-eyed, 24-hour party animal Mark Berry (aka Bez), who used to be a backing dancer for the indie band The Happy Mondays. The Search for Bez (1994) took place in Manchester, Bez’s home town, and took the form of the artist wandering around the city centre armed with a video camera and a home-made map asking unsuspecting passers-by, ‘Have you seen Bez?’

Had he tried to do this more recently, his task might not have been so difficult...

henry darger

Side A: Are enabled to get away as storm starts
Better known now because of a documentary on his life which has been nominated for an oscar - 'In the Realms of the Unreal' directed by Jessica Yu. Darger's images are exceptionally strange and evocative of children's story books. His visual style is easily copied but the huge background of writing and stories which go with it is very powerful, disturbing even. The drawings remind me of illustrations of children and pixies my grandmother used to do for DC Thompsons in the twenties, but Darger's images are weird in a way I don't think she could even have imagined!

http://acer-access.com/~darger@acer-access.com/art.htm

...what a panics in thy breastie!

have just remembered why I know this Robert Burns poem - learnt it at school and recited it in Strathy Village Hall at a Burns Supper. There was snow coming in through the roof and drifting through the warm air before it melted...

To a mouse (On Turning Her Up In Her Nest With The Plough)
The best-laid schemes o' mice an 'men
Gang aft agley,
An'lea'e us nought but grief an' pain,
For promis'd joy!

Not sure what it has to do with fabric design except that its very evocative...perhaps I'll read the whole thing again with a fresh eye.

http://www.robertburns.org/works

oh wee bit coorin' timorous beastie

timorous beasties wallpaper
Just reading about the nominations for the Design Museum's Designer of the Year and saw Timorous Beasties, who I haven't heard of before, and are based in Glasgow. They have some beautiful fabric and wallpaper designs. Especially liked the Glasgow version of a traditional French pastoral scene, replacing sheperdesses and cottages with addicts and tenements.

http://www.timorousbeasties.com

999 or 666?

Elvis is the 999th UK number 1 single (he also became the 1000th - how boring!).
I wonder what the 666th was - I want it to be Billy Idol...
...but after a bit of research unfortunately I discovered it was Jason Donovan with Any Dream Will Do.

Have found a pop trivia treasure trove (cough) though...
http://www.everyhit.com/1000numberones

transgressive records

Went to their first showcase on Tuesday evening at the Camden Barfly. I was there to see burningpilot who were fabulous and will be releasing a single in March, I think. Check out the link - nice and simple site with basic info on a group of bands who are all starting out with their first releases.

http://www.transgressiverecords.co.uk