Summer at the slopes

We spent a day at our winter hangout, Port del Comte in the Solsonès… here are some pictures (click the image to open the set on Flickr).

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July 10, 2008 | Filed Under Catalonia, Home, Photo posts, Spain | Leave a Comment

Stormy April Sunset

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April 20, 2008 | Filed Under Photo posts | Leave a Comment

Quiet here, recently

Yes, it has been sunny. I've been studiously ignoring the news here too. The only thing really worrying me is the current water crisis, which has us on a hosepipe ban already, even though we're at the beginning of April.

Our great friends Mary and Ben came to visit, which gave us the opportunity to visit the Castell de Remei winery in Lleida province. It has a pretty good restaurant and my wild boar cooked in the local wine was absolutely delicious. We also picked up a few bottles of 'Gotim Bru' (about €6) as well as the delicious '1780'.

The next day, we took a stroll in the Collserolla park, which is just a ten minute walk from our front door. Not as wild as the Prepirineu but pleasant all the same.

We've also been lucky enough to really start enjoying our terrace, which at this time of year becomes an additional kitchen, dining room and salon, and gives us a bit more room to stretch out (the interior of the flat is only 50m2).

More photos at Flickr.

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April 5, 2008 | Filed Under Catalonia, Home, Photo posts | 2 Comments

New toy

This is our joint Christmas present, the Pentax K100D Super. It's absolutely gorgeous and we're really happy with it. As our first move into the world of DSLRs, it may take a little time before we get used to it… but as soon as we're up to speed, we'll try to put together a nice album of photos of winter in the Collserolla & South Hams or something like that.

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December 13, 2007 | Filed Under Home, Photo posts | Leave a Comment

Gallery

Our photo gallery includes hundreds of images depicting life in Barcelona, our terrace garden, as well as concerts, festivals and trips we've been on.

Click here to open thebadrash.com gallery (in a new window)

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July 26, 2006 | Filed Under Photo posts | Leave a Comment

Some pics from this spring

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Pete Doherty and Babyshambles at Primavera Sound
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The Forum complex in Barcelona

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An 'okupat' house in Cerdanyola was buned to the ground.
It's not known who started the fire, but reports say that the Mossos are investigating a far-right wing connection
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Andrea wore this classic t-shirt when we went to watch England's first World Cup game. The robotic monster girl at the counter didn't even register the hilarious comedy happening in front of her very nose.
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We saw this car by the Apolo club/theatre just off ParalÂ·lel. It's had a hard time.

Took this picture to mock my brother back in bristol when it was cold and miserable there.

Here comes the summer!

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June 14, 2006 | Filed Under Catalonia, Home, Music, Photo posts, Spain | 1 Comment

Albums and their covers

In celebration of the exhibition coming to the MACBA this month, here's a selection of album covers which I find to be, in turn, thrilling, sickening and indie-cool-self-affirming.

That is to say, here are the covers of some albums I like and love. Not all of the covers are great works of art, but many are. Royal Trux, being my favourite pop-group, dominate the field somewhat. I've always enjoyed their album art, given that it combines a variety of rock clichÃ©s, fan-art, corporate-style logos and blocked toilets.

Elliott Smith's epnoymous album has an evocative image of bodies 'falling' or 'floating' between buildings in an American city. The design represents a haunting pre-shadowing of the 'falling man' photograph taken on September 11th 2001 in New York City.

The Flaming Lips' 'The Soft Bulletin' album features an awesome photograph taken outside an 'Acid Test' party in San Francisco in the late sixties. I love the way it captures a young man's intoxicaton, no doubt due to some of the acid he'd been testing.

Bonnie 'Prince' Billy's 'Master and Everyone' has a simple cover photo which needs little explanation: his face, with its idiosyncratic beard fills the sleeve… his eye seems abnormally deep and reflective, as if it's been 'photoshopped'.

After these, the Rolling Stones' explicitly erectile cover for 'Sticky Fingers', Basement Jaxx's homage to Copito de Nieve, the albino gorilla late of Barcelona's city zoo, Super Furry Animals' collage of a famous drug dealer's various passports' photos and Primal Scream's stunningly primal 'Screamadelica' cover are all firm favourites.

Album art is a special form which combines the necessities of commercial success and hip styling with an interesting glimpse of how the pop-group (or their record label) view the music contained within the packaging. A good album cover should give a clear idea of the feeling and agenda (I wanted to write 'philosophy', but that seems too much) that the album espouses. Either that, or it should have nothing to do with anything. An album cover is, therefore, both an advertisement for the product, and a part of the product itself. As to the design included on CDs or vinyl records themselves - and the other design elements in on an album's packaging, that's a different matter. But Royal Trux's highly suggestive hypodermic skyscrapers which feature in one of their EPs, (though I can't remember which one), represent to me a pinnacle in album art by virtue of their combination of drug imagery and the New York City skyline.

In a brief note which didn't deserve a whole post: here's a great article about the most important website in the world. GYAC: it's Popbitch.

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May 7, 2006 | Filed Under Music, Photo posts | Leave a Comment

Some more pictures

I've posted a couple of October pics to the gallery. More terrace stuff. The weather's abysmal at the moment.

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October 18, 2005 | Filed Under Photo posts | Leave a Comment

Image gallery

What the gallery looks like I've added a new feature to thebadrash.com/: an image gallery featuring all of the terrible photos that we've taken over the last few months. There are also about five good pictures. At the moment, the pictures aren't categorised or ordered really, so there may be a bit of a random feel about the whole thing! Also, I've run into issues getting all the thumbnails created. And the images are far too big!

Click here to open the new gallery.

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October 9, 2005 | Filed Under Photo posts, Site news | Leave a Comment

Some pictures

I've been messing about with the camera today.

Also saw this wierd plane… does anyone know what it is?

Edit: I have now discovered that this amazing aeroplane is an Airbus A300-600ST Super Transporter - or 'Beluga'. There are only five in existence but I have no idea why one was flying over the VallÃ¨s Occidental! It could be connected with some sort of airshow nearby: last year we saw a EuroFighter showing off.

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October 2, 2005 | Filed Under Photo posts | 4 Comments

Sunday afternoon

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September 4, 2005 | Filed Under Home, Photo posts | Leave a Comment

Our house from space

This is a satellite image of our suburb. Surprisingly, you can't see Gemma outside killing slugs (her favourite hobby).

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September 2, 2005 | Filed Under Home, Photo posts | Leave a Comment

Bummer in the summer

The weather this August has been mostly terrible. It seems incredible now that we survived Benicassim Festival without being rained on once. At the moment, the climate seems to swing between sweltering 35+ degrees and humid and chilly, but absolutely pissing down.

Spain was never meant to be like this.

Edit (23-agost-2005):
But, to be fair, the sunset and the morning after were both glorious.

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August 20, 2005 | Filed Under Home, Photo posts | Leave a Comment

Our tent

Continuing the theme from my post about Benicassim, we tried our tent out yesterday, in preparation for the main event.

Gemma's dad, Jaume, took some photos of our progress. The images do not capture the sound of me saying "Look, Gemma, I've read the instructions, ok?" over and over again.

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July 18, 2005 | Filed Under Home, Photo posts | 1 Comment