Surprise...

Playlist
Various – The Alan Brodie Radio Show
Various – Top 150 Artists MP3 CD
Bob Marley and the Wailers – Wail’n Soul’m Singles Selecta
Catherine Bott – Virtuoso Italian Vocal Music
Craig Armstrong/A R Rahman – Elizabeth The Golden Age OST
Phil Collins – Face Value
Various – Alan Brodie’s Birthday Party Soundtrack (5CD)

Up at 5am and final working on the present to be given to my old chum over the weekend...

Into town around 10 am and to FOPP where I went a bit daft on the old DVD front:-

Destiny of the Daleks (99 Mins) £3
Genesis of the Daleks (2DVD) (142 Mins) £3
Francoise Truffaut – La femme d’a cote (101 Mins) £3
Francoise Truffaut –Les deux Anglaises et le continent (124 Mins) £3
Francoise Truffaut – La peau douce (112 Mins) £3
Pat Metheny Group – Imaginary Day Live 1998 (93 Mins) £2
Pat Metheny Group – Speaking of Now Live 2002 (135 Mins) £2
Planet Earth: The Complete Series (643 Mins) £8

Also picked up three more CDs:-
Bob Marley and the Wailers - Wail’n Soul’m Singles Selecta £2
Catherine Bott – Virtuoso Italian Vocal Music £3
Phil Collins – Face Value £3

I believe Mr Collins really ought to be rehabilitated – he is a quite superb musician and songwriter – I thought I might already have his debut album but was relieved to find, on returning home, that I didn’t....

Walked up to the library and took back the CDs borrowed three weeks ago (and to which I have not listened to since)...

Then, returned to the car through the heat, taking a few pics on the way – Victoria Street....



The old Bank of Scotland Head Office on The Mound...



And a view of the west of the city from the Mound which I’d never really noticed before...



I would return here tonight...

Back home for lunch and wrote this up for the whole of this last week, while Anne was at Tynecastle watching Hearts against Sunderland in a friendly (1-1)...

In Dumfries, QoS were down to 10 men after 37 minutes and 1-0 down on the stroke of half time to newly promoted Raith Rovers – ah another season has started...

Celebrations towards five o’clock though as Queens equalised in injury time (after Raith had a man dismissed) to take their first point of the season (and lose their first two)...

On Anne’s return we made the final preparations for Count Brodski’s secret 50th birthday party...

I had been in charge of roping in all his old musicking chums while his partner, Penny, had swiped his mobile phone a couple of weeks ago and texted all his work and other contacts...

I was loaded with CDs as we left the house – a ten CD set “The Alan Brodie Radio Show Vols 1-10”, featuring tracks by almost 200 of Alan’s favourite artists, together with a 5CD version which was to soundtrack tonight...



In addition, a short intro CD, featuring seven tracks from the nice wee card box with 3 double CDs comprising “The Alan Brodie Anthology 1982-2005” – hence all the work over the last couple of weeks in finding old tapes, and compiling and remastering both the anthology and the “Radio Shows” in preparation for tonight..

I knew Alan occasionally pops by this blog so, until now, I have been being suitably vague on matters to maintain the element of surprise...

He arrived at the venue with Penny, thinking he was meeting up with me and Anne and we were going to Jim Park’s show – his big worry was we were setting him up to be ridiculed by some stand up comics...

Through a wicked ruse of telling him one of our old school chums was coincidentally upstairs, I was able to lure him up into a room full of his cheering buddies...

Success!

Alan was delighted and gave Penny a big hug...



He greeted his workmates....



He chatted to his chums...



And to various lovely ladies...



Alan and Penny worked the room...



Penny did a briliant job in rounding up the majority of the crowd tonight and it was great to see Alan's ex, the lovely Julie, too, that's her in the background...



Suffice to say the night was spent drinking and carousing, with my hard work from the last couple of weeks soundtracking proceedings to good effect...

It was good to meet new people - and have them spill drinks all over my trousers and shoes...



Although the room was full of different groups of Alan's buddies, we cross pollenated (for want of a better term) on the night - here are Shawn, Bobby, Malcolm, Jamie and Alan with Lynn, the Exec Producer and Julie...



...and George, Paul, Sandy and Ranald...



As the night wore on we all became more "relaxed"...



For the record, along with Alan’s workmates and old chums Sandy, Shaun & Ranald, and Penny and her friends, and lovely ex-girlfriend Julie, attendees included old schoolchums Rory MacRae and lovely wife Catherine, Fred Hessler (and his amazing magician brother, James) and Steven Black...

Here are Fred and Rory - I hadn't seen Fred for probably over 20 years - and I discovered I've spent my entire life mispronouncing the name of Rory's childhood pet dog Grieg (pronounced Grig not, erm, Grieg)...



Here are Steve and Catherine...



And again - Steve has recently become a convert to the music of CBQ and is encouraging his friends to download it to their I-Pods - huzzah!!



Here's one of Alan's bestest mates, Sandy with Ranald and a lovely lady...



Here's ex-Dancer of San Martino and accomplished artist Bobby Gillies with two lovely ladies...



And here's ex Disco Complex bassist George Coleman behind superb magician, James Hessler, in town from Australia performing in his own show on the Fringe (and who I last saw when he was a teenager) entertaining the Exec Producer (out of shot) while Dr Prog looks on, amazed...



Of course Dr Prog was not only amazed by the magic but also by the fact that, earlier in the evening, Mr David Byrne had autographed his ticket for the ex-Talking Head's concert tonight...

The Doc was also amazed a few days later at how easily he was able to convince me to remove a photo of him, taken tonight, which he reckoned made him look a bit weird...

Of course you're not weird Dr Prog - you are the Doctor of Prog!!

Along with Alan's "normal" chums and his musicking buddies such as Jamie (James Jamieson) Frain, Paul Reynolds, George Coleman, Bobby Gillies, Malcolm Logan and Jim Park (hey - a stand up and a drummer), also in attendance was a texted-phoned-and-cajoled-into-coming-out-of-her-house-for-the-evening-and-along-to-the-party Lynn, Anne’s bestest friend...

Here's Paul, no doubt amazing the Exec Producer with his chat about synthesisers...



Here are Jim and George, no doubt sharing one of Jim's jokes...



And here are George, Paul, Fred, Jim and Jamie providing an entertaining variety of expressions...



And here's the lovely Lynn - like Dr Prog, if she reads this she will ask me to remove this picture - she is very shy...



Here are Fred and Jim, the latter drawing attention to his sell-out Fringe show...



And, right at the end of the night, still drinking, it's Jamie and Paul with Dr Prog in the distance...



Of course your correspondent (thankfully not pictured) was exceedingly drunk - in a "good" way of course – and was to be found at various points in the evening with his arms around his old mates telling them how much he loved them...

We were finally thrown out of the venue towards 3am and walked down the mound and along Prices St before catching a cab with Lynn and Malcolm...

To bed at 3:30 am...

A good night...

Highlight of the Day : Surprise party for the Count of Counts...