3 Cool things this week

First off, is how class Iron Maiden new album The Final Frontier is. For a bunch of goldie oldies this album is bursting with ideas and adventure, ideas that would put bands half the age of Maiden to shame. It's their 15th studio album which is quite amazing in this day and age.

Steve Harris once said that once Maiden record their 15th album they'll retire, hopefully the album title 'The Final Frontier' is a tongue in cheek gesture, and it would be a shame if they went out now, because it seems they are totally back on their game.

I'm really finding it hard to pick out one standout track, they really are all epics, at the moment though it’s a tossup between The Man that would be King and When the Wild Wind Blows.



The second cool thing I found this week was by total accident. When I googled 'Isle of Avalon' off The Final Frontier (just to see if it ever existed etc, etc.), I somehow ended up reading all about the Isle of Man.

Previously all I knew about the Isle of Man was the motorbike races held there, I didn’t know they had their own language of Manx, or used to at least. The Isle had a strong history of Irish settlers and Manx itself is a form of old Irish. Here's an old audio recording on YouTube from 1964 by Brian Stowell, of the last native Manx Gaelic speaker, Ned Maddrell. Ned was born in 1877 and died at in 1974 at the age of 97.



Ned, who went to sea at 13, found he was able to keep his Manx "alive" by talking to Gaelic-speaking sailors on British ships. He was brought up in the remote village of Cregneash, where "unless you had the Manx you were a deaf and dumb man and no good to anybody." To me I find it fascinating to listen to, it sounds like a mix of Irish and Welsh, you can definitely pick out words that aren’t too far removed from Irish.

Thirdly the Visa is booked and I’m off to Oz for the year can't fucking wait!!