January, 2006

A couple of months ago, I was sitting in the car listening to an Ulster Scots radio show. Among the highlights was an interview with a Scottish singer/songwriter, Emily Smith.

Throughout the interview, they played some excerpts from Emily?s album and I was instantly captivated by her singing. A few weeks later, I managed to get my hands on a copy of Emily?s latest album, A Different Life.

Now, regular readers know that I?m more likely to be rocking out to late 80?s hair metal than Scottish traditional tunes, but I?m actually pretty diverse in my musical tastes!

A Different Life is filled with beautifully crafted stories, the playing is straightforward and the acoustic guitars and violins sound rich and earthy. And above it all, Emily?s clear, sing-song voice narrates tales of love and loss and simple rustic life and life in bygone days.

A Different Life: Favourite Moments

My favourite track on the album is Edward Of Morton, a song about a young servant who refuses to get involved with the lady of the house he works for. She tells her husband that Edward was making advances toward her and he is cast in a dungeon and eventually tortured to death by her husband. Morbid stuff, but compelling. Oh, and Emily tells it better than I did, so you’d be better listening to her version of events!

Always A Smile is also worthy of note. It’s a charming story of a young farm girl who leaves home facing a life of adversity, and who eventually overcomes her tribulations to raise a family in Scotland. It always makes me think about my grandmother, late in life surrounded by sons, daughters and grandchildren and that nostalgia looking back over her life. A simple and lovely song.

Strong Winds For Autumn - I’ll admit I couldn’t quite follow the lyrics of this one, but the music is fantastic. The acoustic guitar is deep and rich and Emily’s voice is clear and sorrowful.

The remainder of the tracks are excellent. Like I say, Scottish folk isn’t usually my forte, but I have been listening to this album solid since about October. I put it on with the intention of reviewing it quickly, but it has grown on my to the point where I actually had to remind myself to take it out of the car!

Final Thoughts

A Different Life is lacking one thing in my opinion ? a good live track. Emily tours the world with her band and has entertained many people along the way. It?d be nice to hear one of the songs in a live setting just to get a feel for the atmosphere.

Go to Emily’s website for more information, and to listen to a few sample tracks. Many thanks to Jamie for hooking me up with a copy of the album! If Emily’s playing Northern Ireland anytime soon, I’ll let you know.

Wednesday, January 11th, 2006 // General

I’m sure this is slightly irregular, but EWI from Free Stater suggested it, and I actually agree. As well as myself, I’d like to nominate David Vance for an Irish Blog award.

Reasons? A Tangled Web is one of the most controversial blogs to emanate from the island of Ireland. Yeah, alright, he probably won’t love the reference, but most of us in the North pop in for a chat at least once a week. There are folks who hang out there every day, but some of us have work to do!

EWI thinks David should get Top Irish Blogger. What do you think?

Sunday, January 8th, 2006 // General

After a truly stunning 20 votes (none of which were mine, BTW), the people have spoken on our first ever poll.

Almost half of you believed this to be the work of the dreaded Securocrats, an evil, lurking menace whose sole intention is to snatch well-deserved power from the hands of Sinn Fein. Well, I don’t know about that. I almost felt sorry for Sinn Fein at the time the news broke, but part of me believes in Karma and that if they’re getting dirty tricks now it’s because they’ve played enough of their own.

A third of people believe there’s someone higher up in Sinn Fein whose identity was covered by the sacrifice of Denis Donaldson. Unionists would be rubbing their hands in glee at the prospect of this. Did you consider this might be fuel for dissident republicans to reorganise? I mean, if there have been agents in Sinn Fein pressing a ‘peaceful’ agenda, then that implies the leadership were duped into taking a political path. Yes, I agree that Sinn Fein should be put under instense scrutiny, their agenda is one-sided and unrealistic if you ask me, but at least it’s relatively peaceful. What happens if they lose control of that dissident element?

Stormontgate And The Collapse Of The Assembly

As you know, I don’t have a lot of respect/trust for the boys and girls in Sinn Fein. I heard an interview between Martina Purdy and Martin McGuinnes on the radio back when this broke.

When pressed as to why Sinn Fein weren’t pressing for an inquiry, McGuinness said something strange. He said that an inquiry wouldn’t suit Sinn Fein’s position (or words to that effect). What? What does that mean, exactly? I translate it as “We’re pretty sure there’s more dirt out there and we’d prefer if people didn’t do too much digging…” Very suspicious…

But what about the larger implications? We don’t have an assembly. We’re being governed by direct rule (remember water charges?).

Perhaps we needed Stormontgate to move the IRA toward disarming, but society has suffered in the meantime? The extreme parties are flourishing in a period of political uncertainty.

At least when the Assembly was running, the politicians were earning their money! We could see them and assess their abilities as real politicians - how they handled policies, the foot and mouth crisis, education, etc. They were finally accountable to us on real issues!

Stormontgate gave politicians a much needed reprieve from the need to prove themselves to the electorate. They went back to good old partisan politics, like putting on a comfy old pair of slippers. I don’t care how the Assembly was wiped out, we need it back, if only to watch how our politicians perform in normal society. Whether you agree with the posturing and point-scoring of the other major parties, the losers in Stormontgate are the people of Northern Ireland. Yet again.

Questions need to be asked. And I’m surprised that Sinn Fein are on the frontline.

Sunday, January 8th, 2006 // Northern Ireland: Politics

I think it’s high time The Levee Breaks was recognized for it’s massive contribution to society in Northern Ireland. Damien Mulley has opened nominations for the Irish Blog Awards. So, for the first time in my life, I’m going to take advantage of my dual citizenship and nominate myself (and my cohorts here) for an award!

I know the posting’s been piss-poor for the last month. Blame pressures of work. Blame the weather. Blame the DUP.

Anyway, there’s a rake of categories. Probably thinking about best political blog/best personal blog. Who knows if we’ll get anywhere, or indeed what the prize is (ooohhh, visitors), but sure we’ll give it a burn anyway!

Of course, if we’re up against Twenty Major, we’ll have no chance…

Saturday, January 7th, 2006 // General

It seems our two year old Jay is a bit obsessed with the disappearance of all the Christmas decorations over the past few days. So much so that he has even concocted his own wee story about the cause of it all.

It would seem that Christmas time is over because the police men came and put Santa in jail. I have no idea why it happened or what Santa did to deserve such punishment but I am just amazed at what can come from the imagination of a toddler.

Ray (our 4 year old) upon hearing Jay’s version of events then decided that Santa had subsequently escaped only to be recaptured and taken to the dump by the same law enforcement officers.

I have no idea what grudges my children bear towards Santa Claus, maybe their gifts just weren’t up to scratch this year. But if anyone is wondering where Santa has gone and why he is no longer found in every shopping centre you venture into, now you know. I hope we have put your mind at ease!

Thursday, January 5th, 2006 // Family Life

Hello folks, I hope the New Year is going well so far. Things have been quiet on The Levee Breaks, I know, but I’ll do a little bit of updating this week and we’ll see where we go from there.

In the meantime, check out our new poll on the right-hand-side. I’m going to let the current one run until the end of the week, then I’ll do a quick summary and change it to something else. Any suggestions?

Levee 2006

At the risk of getting some sharp answers, where do you see The Levee Breaks going in 2006? Are you here for the Northern Ireland debate, the infrequent movie and music reviews, the thoughts on family life, the once-in-a-blue-moon illustrations, the rare Sister In-Law post?

The Levee Breaks is read by folk from all over the world, not just Northern Ireland (although the Norn Irish are the most vocal)! Judging by the patterns in the comments, most of you turn out for the Northern Ireland punditry and maybe some movie review stuff. Anyway, let me know what tickles your fancy and I promise to do my utmost to provide it. Or not. Whatever…

Linking To Levee

If you’ve got your own blog/website, make it your New Year’s Resolution to link to The Levee Breaks! Ah, go on now….even Slugger did it!

And thanks to all those decent bloggers out there who are already linking to us!

Tuesday, January 3rd, 2006 // General