Toque

Here is a picture of my fellow PhD student, Alex, wearing Paul's toque (a Canadian term for a winter hat with flaps):

 

Viking Metal

So this past Wednesday I went to this gig at the Rio in Bradford with the other resident metalheads among the postgrads in medieval studies: Nicky, Thom, Ralph and his friend Lev (short for the Leviathan). We saw three viking metal bands: Týr, from the Faroe Islands; Winter Sun, from Finland; and from Sweden, Amon Amarth. Týr was the main reason I wanted to go to the show. Ralph gave me a copy of their album, Eric the Red, a couple of weeks ago and I loved it. It reminds me of early Metallica. Half of their lyrics are in Faroese, so I can't understand much of it, but their songs are mainly based on the old viking sagas, such as Regin the Blacksmith. They also do a cover of "The Wild Rover" that is absolutely fantastic, and another, prophetic, song about the Greenpeace vessel, Rainbow Warrior, calling for it to sink.

Anyway, the concert was great! We walked in just as Týr began "The Wild Rover", and ran up to the stage, horns in the air, hair flailing everywhere. Unfortunately, Týr's set was quite short, only four songs, but I got to hear my favourite song of theirs ("The Wild Rover"). Here are a couple of pictures of Týr performing:





You can't see it in the photo, but the base player was wearing a chain mail shirt.

The second band up, Winter Sun, was mediocre at best. They are your generic death metal band, that look and sound more like a parody than the real thing. Their music is rather uninspired. I would much rather have had Týr perform a longer set than listen to Winter Sun. I didn't take any photos of them.

The headliners, Amon Amarth, were phenomenal. The lead singer could be a real viking. I think if you gave him a sword and a ship, he could do some serious damage. He had a drinking horn attached to his belt that he drank from throughout the show. By the time they came on, the place was more crowded, so I was further away from the stage. Therefore, my pictures of Amon Amarth and as good as the photos of Týr.



Much fun was had by all. My neck and throat are still sore though. That's partly because I haven't given them a chance to recuperate, considering the shenanigans that occurred at the Thanksgiving party Kat and I went to last night. Go read her blog post about it. She describes it much better than I could.

Vader informs Palpatine about the Death Star

My favourite quote concerning the elections

"And nowhere did the American people make it more clear that we need a new direction than in the war in Iraq. 'Stay the course' has not made our country safer, has not honored our commitment to our troops and has not made the region more stable. We cannot continue down this catastrophic path."

Nancy Pelosi, Speaker of the House

View from the Le Patourel Room

Working late on a Sunday in the Le Patourel room, I look out the window and see this magnificent sky view:

Leeds

 

The pictures didn't quite capture the depth of colour, just an inferior representation of reality. Enjoy these photos.