Latest news with #ParallelLines
Scottish Sun
3 days ago
- Business
- Scottish Sun
Much-loved music store in major Scots city shuts down after 11 years
Punters will have one last chance to visit the store as it hosts a closing down sale SHUT UP SHOP Much-loved music store in major Scots city shuts down after 11 years A MUCH-LOVED music store in a major Scots city has pulled the shutters down after 11 years. Union Vinyl, located on the Market Brae Steps in Inverness, closed on Saturday, just weeks after celebrating its anniversary. 2 Union Vinyl in Inverness pulled down the shutters on Saturday Credit: Facebook 2 There will be a closing down sale later this week Credit: Facebook The store was known for its extensive collection of albums, though it did not stock music from some of today's most popular artists. Owner Nigel Graham said: 'We do have a certain type of customer. 'If they are into Taylor Swift or whatever, they can quite happily go to HMV for that." Instead, classic albums like Pink Floyd's Dark Side of the Moon, Blondie's Parallel Lines, and Fleetwood Mac's Rumours would only last a few days on the shelves at Union Vinyl. Nigel explained that rising costs had become "too much" for the independent shop to handle. He told The Press and Journal: 'The cost of living has proved too much. 'Unfortunately, it was just not sustainable to keep the shop going. 'I had been looking to have someone take it over, but no one could get it over the line. 'It takes a special kind of person to do this job. 'It's a passion project. It's not for the money'. Oasis vinyl The business was born out of Nigel's love of collecting records. It began as a pop-up shop on Union Street in Inverness, later moving to Academy Street and eventually settling on Market Brae Steps. In 2021, he opened a second store called Vinyl 2 Vintage in his hometown, Nairn. Despite the second shop's success, the Inverness location has since become financially unviable. He said: 'The overheads are not as high for our shop in Nairn, but in Inverness we were paying a lot more and it just got too much. 'We just weren't getting the customers. 'They say there is this big vinyl resurgence but I don't think there is – we have never really seen the impact of that. 'Big businesses and corporate companies do kill the independent shops.' The Inverness shop was just a stone's throw from where Nigel used to hunt for records as a young man. He said: 'I do feel it's a shame. 'There has been a record shop on Market Brae steps since the 1970s. I think it's a loss of a tradition. 'I would love someone to take it on.' Pulling down the shutters for a final time, employee Robert Ross played David Bowie's The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust - the last song of which is Rock 'n' Roll suicide which Nigel described as "quite apt". There will be one final chance to visit Union Vinyl during a closing-down sale on June 6 and 7. However, much of the remaining stock will be transferred to the store on Nairn High Street. Nigel continued: 'I was also stretched between the two shops. That was a factor. 'The shop in Nairn is bigger and better and I will have more time to devote to it now. 'I hope some people will want to cross the divide to Nairn to come look at some vinyl. 'I like to think some of my regular customers will come over.'
Washington Post
5 days ago
- Entertainment
- Washington Post
Edward St. Aubyn's ‘Parallel Lines' is bursting with characters and ideas
More than 200 pages into 'Parallel Lines,' Edward St. Aubyn's second novel in an intellectually roving series about separated-at-birth twins and seemingly everyone they know, one exasperated character claims that she's had enough. Lizzie has just listened to her daughter, Olivia, quote from 'The Tempest' and lecture her on the relationship of light and shadow. 'Oh, for goodness' sake,' Lizzie, a psychoanalyst, says just before insisting that 'we're not here to discuss the physics or metaphysics of shadows, or the incorporation of the unconscious into an individual psyche, we're here to talk about family.'
Press and Journal
5 days ago
- Business
- Press and Journal
Union Vinyl no more: Haven for Inverness music lovers closes its doors
Union Vinyl owner Nigel Graham has never been one for the easy option. Even when struggling to keep his Inverness business afloat amodt costing of living rises he has been loathe to sell some of the biggest albums around. Taylor Swift, he explains, won't be found on any of his shelves. 'It's not really what we do,' he told The Press and Journal. 'They can go to HMV for that.' Nigel quietly closed the doors of the Market Brae record store on Saturday for the last time. The business celebrated its 11th birthday just a few weeks ago, but rising costs meant it couldn't continue. It has been a must-visit destination for music lovers from the city and further afield, and will be missed by its many regulars. His musical journey will, however, continue at Union Vinyl's sister shop in Nairn. Nigel told The Press and Journal: 'The cost of living has proved too much. 'Unfortunately, it was just not sustainable to keep the shop going. 'I had been looking to have someone take it over, but no one could get it over the line. 'It takes a special kind of person to do this job. 'It's a passion project. It's not for the money'. Union Vinyl was born because of Nigel's long-time love of collecting records. He began at just 10 years old and would travel around the country as a teenager to find Bowie recordings. When money was tight, he decided to sell a few of his prized records and discovered that he could turn his passion into a business. Initially opening as a pop-up on Union Street, the record store went from strength-to-strength, moving first to Academy Street and later to Market Brae Steps. How an obsession for collecting records cued up a business opportunity in Inverness Nigel also opened a second premises, Vinyl 2 Vintage, in his hometown of Nairn in 2021. Vinyl 2 Vintage will remain open and Nigel plans to move much of Union Vinyl's existing stock to the shop on Nairn High Street. There will, however, be a final chance to visit Union Vinyl and maybe pick up a bargain. A closing down sale is to take place on June 6 and 7. Although Nigel has no desire to stock many of today's more popular artists, plenty of his records were still flying off the shelves. Blondie's Parallel Lines, Pink Floyd's Dark Side of the Moon and Fleetwood Mac's 1977 album Rumours 'never last more than a couple of days' before selling out, he revealed. He was also always keen to recommend any album by his idol David Bowie. On the shop's last day, Nigel's employee Robert Ross played Bowie's The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust one last time before closing the doors. The last song on the album is Rock 'n' Roll suicide, which Nigel described as 'quite apt'. Nigel said: 'The overheads are not as high for our shop in Nairn, but in Inverness we were paying a lot more and it just got too much. 'We just weren't getting the customers. 'They say there is this big vinyl resurgence but I don't think there is – we have never really seen the impact of that. 'Big businesses and corporate companies do kill the independent shops.' He added: 'We do have a certain type of customer though. 'If they are into Taylor Swift or whatever, they can quite happily go to HMV for that. 'It's not really what we do. 'I was also stretched between the two shops. That was a factor. 'The shop in Nairn is bigger and better and I will have more time to devote to it now. 'I hope some people will want to cross the divide to Nairn to come look at some vinyl. 'I like to think some of my regular customers will come over.' Despite looking forward to devoting more time to his Nairn shop, Nigel said he was sad to close his Inverness shop. It sits just yards from where he used to hunt for records in his younger years. He said: 'I do feel it's a shame. 'There has been a record shop on Market Brae steps since the 1970s. I think it's a loss of a tradition. 'I would love someone to take it on.'
The Guardian
29-04-2025
- Entertainment
- The Guardian
Parallel Lines by Edward St Aubyn review – troubled minds and family mysteries
Edward St Aubyn's previous novel, 2021's Double Blind, was something of a challenge even for his devotees. Leaving aside the usual gripe that he is never quite as compelling without the shield of his authorial alter ego Patrick Melrose, the obsessive nature of the book's inquiry into bioethics, narcosis, psychotherapy, oncology, venture capitalism and inheritance made too heady a cocktail to be more than sipped, a few pages at a time. I struggled with it until the very last scene, a charity bash where a schizophrenic young man takes his first terrified steps in employment as a waiter and happens upon a woman who, unknown to both, is intimately related to him. Their chance encounter was intensely moving and tautly suspenseful – you felt an immediate longing to know what would befall them. That longing is now answered in Parallel Lines, which picks up the narrative five years later and reintroduces its cast of interestingly troubled characters. Francis, a botanist pursuing a rewilding project on a Sussex country estate, has now joined an NGO in Ecuador trying to save the Amazonian rainforest. He's also raising a son with his wife, Olivia, a writer producing a radio series on natural disasters and wondering whether Francis can resist the amorous lures of his philanthropist boss. Olivia's best friend, Lucy, is in the throes of treatment for a brain tumour, the traumatic reverberations from which have forced her boyfriend – wild man plutocrat and drug fiend Hunter – to seek refuge with 'compassion burnout' at an Italian monastery, where he's hosted by a gentle abbot, Guido. The central figure of the story, its unlucky star, is Sebastian, dragging himself from under the boulder of a recent breakdown and driven to find the 'bio mum' who abandoned him as a boy. That a scary psychotic episode of his dominates the opening pages feels like a risky move on the author's part. The uninitiated reader will perhaps wonder what the hell is going on – which may be partly the point. The book survives it thanks to St Aubyn's potent compound of dark wit and flinty compassion, particularly notable in the relationship between Sebastian and his therapist Martin. The latter's kindliness has coaxed his most fragile patient – an orphan of the storm – towards the possible shelter of sanity (though the meds help, too). The Bob Dylan song Shelter from the Storm is referenced here, but it is arguably another from the same album, Simple Twist of Fate, that has a more significant bearing on events. Martin is the adoptive father of Olivia and has belatedly realised that she is in fact the long-lost twin of Sebastian: 'The trains he had been watching from a high hill, as they moved towards each other along the same track, were about to crumple into each other, as they were always going to.' Via the wrong-headed meddling of their birth mother, this sibling encounter has now come to pass. But is it reconciliation or tragedy that awaits at the end? I have seldom read a novel that argues more cogently for the hard-won breakthroughs of psychoanalysis. Martin and his wife, Lizzie, are wonderfully sane exponents of a practice that remains susceptible to charlatans and a breeding ground for narcissists. One of the novel's funniest passages is Lizzie's long riff on the advisability of 'a minimum amount of analysis' for all aspirant world leaders. If George W Bush, for example, had gone on the couch instead of dodging the draft, the second Gulf war might never have happened. Under careful guidance the president might have come to understand that he was in competition with his father, an actual war hero as opposed to W's wannabe, and could simply have imagined invading Iraq (the 'Mission Accomplished' banner was his crowning act of hubris). Considering the present incumbent of the White House, this prescription takes on even greater urgency. If there is a flaw in St Aubyn's dramas of consciousness it's the tendency of his characters all to think and talk in the same register of droll irony. Imagine a game of intellectual catch in which the best and most aphoristic impersonation of Gore Vidal wins. Even Sebastian, the innocent abroad, delights his interlocutors with his manic word association and upside-down logic. At the novel's grand finale – an exhibition of the work of James Turrell, the American artist known for his investigation of light – our damaged hero accidentally convinces a gallerist that he's a serious critic and should be commissioned to write a catalogue essay. From suicide observation room to cutting-edge art installation, Parallel Lines plots quite the journey. Can a young man be saved from the abyss of self-extinction and then face the disconcerting appearance of a family he never knew he had? When brother and sister visit Kenwood House in north London and look at a Rembrandt self-portrait, Olivia observes that the painter's gaze is 'vulnerable but strong', which seems to encapsulate this novel's philosophical vision. In a lesser writer the temptations of sentimentality would get the upper hand, but St Aubyn is clear-sighted and humane on the basic requirement of life: 'Compassion is just love in the face of suffering and love does not run out with use – it grows stronger.' Sign up to Inside Saturday The only way to get a look behind the scenes of the Saturday magazine. Sign up to get the inside story from our top writers as well as all the must-read articles and columns, delivered to your inbox every weekend. after newsletter promotion Parallel Lines by Edward St Albyn is published by Jonathan Cape (£20). To support the Guardian order your copy at Delivery charges may apply
Telegraph
20-04-2025
- Entertainment
- Telegraph
Love the Melrose novels? Things have gone downhill
The Patrick Melrose sequence, by Edward St Aubyn, comprises five autobiographical novels, including the Booker-shortlisted Mother's Milk (2005). They document Melrose's trajectory from a wretched upper-class childhood, in which he's sexually abused by his father, through heroin addiction and, eventually, a hard-won redemption. The destructiveness of Melrose's parents, and his unlikely survival, trace British society's change in attitude, over the 20th century, from repression and oppression to liberalism. Savage, hilarious, glittering and tragic, these novels rank among the finest fiction of the past decades. In their fascination with torment, class and style, they're our closest contemporary equivalent to the work of Anthony Powell. There are, however, two St Aubyns. He can just as readily resemble Simon Raven, whose novels of upper-middle class life range from the slightly sparkling to the flat. Whether we get St Aubyn on Powellian or Ravenesque form, in my experience, depends on whether Patrick Melrose is involved. And in Parallel Lines, unfortunately, he is not. What one wants from a St Aubyn novel is, at the very least, a coke-snorting, Baudelaire-reading duke, who'll stub out a cigarette on a waiter before being sick in a gutter. But Parallel Lines is a sequel to 2021's Double Blind, which followed Lucy and Olivia, friends from the University of Oxford, as they navigated the world of high finance. The large cast of characters here, most of whom we've met before, ranges from high to low society, and none of them is badly behaved. Instead, St Aubyn's focus is on family. Olivia's husband is Francis, a worthy man who toils for an environmental charity, and they have a small son, Noah. Events revolve about the psychological problems of Sebastian, Olivia's twin brother, from whom she was separated at birth. She thrived in comfort; he was abused by their father and beset by psychosis. While their names immediately hint at Twelfth Night, there are no further Shakespearean resonances, bar the novel's general movement towards reunification. This, unfortunately, is typical. St Aubyn dips in and out of his characters' viewpoints somewhat randomly. A Catholic priest pops up, meditates, then vanishes. The plot is minimal, hinging on Olivia's adoptive father, who's also Sebastian's psychiatrist. He doesn't want them to meet for ethical reasons: hardly a powerful enough force to control a novel. The social chasm between Olivia and Sebastian is barely explored. The most convincing emotional thread concerns Olivia and Francis's tenderness towards Noah, but other characters are under-developed: Lucy suffers from a brain tumour, and her travails feel like an afterthought. It's clear, at least, that St Aubyn is fond of Sebastian. The latter's rehabilitation gives the novel its principal arc, and its best writing. When another patient stabs himself in the chest with a knife, believing that this action will open a portal to Japan, Sebastian muses: 'The doctors didn't understand what was going on at all and were treating him like some random loony who had stabbed himself in the chest.' Such mordant humour abounds. Still, nothing cuts too deeply, and you quickly begin to notice that everyone talks in this mannered way. One cameo character quips: 'Her pearls may have been cultured… but she most definitely was not.' That may sound clever, but isn't buying cultured pearls exactly what uncultured people do? The subject matter hums with wasted potential. Climate-change activists, high finance, modern art and cryogenics are on display. But wherever you expect St Aubyn to land a hit, he veers away. Francis has built an ark in his garden, in preparation for the day the waters rise. This would have engendered a withering putdown from a Melrose character; here, it doesn't cause an eyebrow to lift. Parallel Lines is underscored with gratitude for a happy family life, and for divisions healed – and that's all fair enough. Yes, contentment can forge good fiction. But how I longed for someone to puncture all the affectations, then pass out, cocktail in hand, on a nearby chaise longue. Let's hope St Aubyn gives Melrose another chance before too long.
