The Poached Egg Principle

Inspired by both real life and imaginary events: I was reminded this morning that if you have a method for doing something/anything regularly and successfully, meaning the method works well, then you must never deviate from that method unless exceptional circumstances apply. Today I deviated from my normal poached egg breakfast process - I simply began the task at a different kitchen worktop. This small change resulted in chaos. That being I spilled the egg white which caused a mess on the worktop, cupboard door and floor. It took me about ten regretful minutes to clean it up, all because I thoughtlessly moved away from the system.

At different periods of time in my working life, between logistics and technical jobs, I was involved in work study and also production control. I "learned" that once a working method is established and is understood whilst it can be refined it may be costly and counter productive to make changes for the sake of it, i.e. if you introduce new personnel or technology without proper planning and training. Understanding how the work is actually done whilst taking into account any limitations etc. and then sticking to and gently improving the proven method* unless there's an obvious flaw, is the key to a consistent performance. Poorly considered changes are messy and costly. 

*Don't fuck about with guitar and amplifier settings.

 Don't fuck about with car radio or hi-fi settings.

 Use a regular routine in the shower.

 Hang up your coat in the proper place.

 Don't change the temp guide on the toaster.

 Always drive your car into your garage the same way.

 Microwave cooking times are not negotiable.

 Use the same pattern when mowing the lawn.

 Always make a paste first when using Nesquik.

 Don't forget to use toothpicks after eating fish or chicken.

 Half a bottle of red wine is enough for a quiet evening.

 Only ever fill bird feeders up to 50%.

 Check the family birthday list on the last day of the month.

 Mirror, Signal, Manoeuvre.

 Spellcheck your docs.

Cake

Two band practices this weekend, Sunday's was spent doing covers of material by Bowie, Lou Reed, Eno and Bryan Ferry. I find myself almost but not quite mentally and physically exhausted. Here's a photo by CBQ capturing a piece of the sponge cake we've been living on. Once you reach a certain age (?) and stature all you really need is one square meal a day (usually on a round plate) and miscellaneous pieces of cake or similar sweet treats. Younger people know nothing of this life changing change and I'm not going to be telling them as they'll not believe it.

Anyway today's session, something of a spur of the moment and mostly unplanned thing was recorded and is available here on Bandcamp. For various reasons it's called Minimal. All organized and executed by Dave Reilly.

Dugs

More animals: I was on a sensibly slow day once, far from away any of my pseudo intellectual musings so to celebrate here's something from the irregular family dog portraiture series. Bez and Baxter on standby.

Toyah and Robert's Rabbits

In a strange case of accidental interweb interference* (if such a thing is possible) I discovered a video about Robert Fripp and Toyah's two new (?) and very cute pet rabbits. Their names are Fripp and Eno and that tells you everything. I'm not sure which rabbit is which. I'm also not sure quite what to make of seeing large rabbits asleep inside someone's house, so says a man with three cats regularly sleeping all over his house. Also there's a hell of a lot of frets on that guitar in the first pic.

* I'm only on here for the days when stuff like this arrives to be honest.

South Queensferry Daily Photo

Random skies possibly from a recent Friday night sunset show. We're easily excited and entertained here, stuck on the same latitude as Moscow and staring out of the windows to the hypnotic beat of the town's malfunctioning car alarms.

A more sober photo of a bit of garden fence that I spent almost a week removing ivy from and then repairing the main support posts. Not really a technical challenge more a war of attrition between me and the willfully stubborn ivy. There's a lot more ivy to go and two more sections to tackle before bolstering more failing posts. The fact that ivy isn't edible or remotely useful provides yet more proof that there is no god. This is how I spend my time these days, punishing innocent ivy and idly reflecting.

The Real Disease

Wow! That was all I thought, there he was, hunched over a plastic table outside a Waffle House just off I-40, smoking Marlboros, staring into a coffee mug and wearing a t-shirt that read "Jesus would be alive if he'd had a gun."  The kind of thing that makes your brain stutter. My early morning buzz hadn’t even peaked yet and already the universe was unraveling. One numerical string of reality at a time.

He had the look of a man who’d stared too long into a gas station microwave and found some meaning there. A greasy truth. Worn out eyes, cracked lips, a .45 bulge on his hip, this wasn’t a man playing dress-up. This was the real disease, the terminal velocity of American lunacy. God, make us great somehow.

I asked him where he got the shirt. He mumbled about an online store someplace. $20 worth of makeshift theology. “It’s a statement,” he told me, eyes twitching. “A spiritual one.” And then he laughed, all sharp, dry, like gravel in a blender. I didn’t argue. You don’t argue with a man like that in a place like this, not with that shirt and not in this heat. No sir. The line between prophecy and psychosis is thin, and I was in no mood to find out which side he was preaching from.

A Tree in the Wrong Place

Every so often my internal narrative decides to debate the pros and cons of stylistic consistency and conventions on this blog page. Honestly I try not to listen but I keep getting sucked in. There's the usual basic stuff about what regular font to use, what size and when a change might be useful. Then links, paragraphs and indents etc. Also maybe a more rigid structure in terms of subjects, post lengths and photographic content. I'm starting to doze by this point, under normal day dream circumstances.

The topic that jars me back to life is about what way to go regards capitalization in the title bar: should all words be fully in capitals, should all words begin with a capital, should it just be keywords - nouns, adjectives and pronouns, should there be none, should I even bother? It's a dilemma of sorts without an easy end as a) I forget and b) who cares? I'm going to have to move on. This (semi capitalized in the title) post was brought to you by using the latent energy of a Katsu Curry pot noodle thingy.

Minimalist Shoes

Still don't know what I was waiting for and my time was running wild, a million dead-end streets and every time I thought I'd got it made it seemed the taste was not so sweet. So I turned myself to face me but I've never caught a glimpse of minimalist shoes until a few days ago. Now I own a pair. I've no idea what I'm doing anymore.

It seems that in the 2018 paper for the Journal of Sports Sciences, Devon R. Coetzee defined minimalist footwear as having a sole and upper that weighed 200-gram (7.1 oz) or less and were highly flexible, a heel height of 20 mm (0.79 in) or shorter, and a "heel-toe differential" of 7 mm (0.28 in) or less. They're supposed to be good for the feet and the foot area's general health and well being. So the trial begins. I've always seen myself as a complicated minimalist.

Cats Gain the Advantage

When our cats were kittens we cat proofed the garden gates to stop them jumping up on them and escaping over. The two gates are about seven feet high. However now that the cats are adults none of that matters and naturally they like to take the piss by climbing across and along the top of the gates and then jump down onto the other side. Clearly our resistance against cat instincts has proved to be futile. 

We call this situation the "Zippy Paradox", it goes like this: If you do some work to prevent the cats from getting out a safe area but they eventually do get out of that area then you need to have a simple way to allow them back to safety. There is an answer of course. Life isn't just a meaningless set of puzzles, or is it?

Golden Filter

Sometimes you just need to view your small part of a big and often crazy world via the "golden filter". The golden filter makes everything err ... golden in a way that suggests some kind of higher life form at work and gives clearer perception and a "glow up" to the commoner. This philosophical revelation was once only available to ordinary people after imbibing at least six pints of a dark and often quite heavy beer or for those of a lighter frame, five or six gin and tonics. Thankfully those days are almost gone and a temporary dose of happiness can now be found somewhere on the right hand side of any reasonable photo editor under the filters icon.

Random Marks of Crisis

"There is a crack in our world and a panic – a sense, across Europe, that the peaceful times are over. But it’s a kind of panic combined with a feeling of numbness, one that says ‘I can’t really do anything so maybe I’ll just party, or nod, or look away because right now I’m completely overwhelmed.' " Somebody said this recently but I'm not sure who.

Every so often a fake cow will appear in your mirror.

Once this mixture was all the rage. For cakes, bakes, drinks, arty sharks, fake cows, keys and more unrelated content go no further than where you just might find yourself to be. We are all verbally challenged pilgrims lost out on the road to oblivion or thereabouts. Embrace the uncertainty of it all.

"Gimme Back My Bullets!"

"No, I'm keeping them and will recycle them by turning them into useful key rings. They're currently on my night stand resting. Please don't ask me about used ammunition again."

In other imagined news: "John (followed by a string of random digits and letters) you've been chosen to receive a fully funded full English breakfast with all the trimmings if ..." I just can't click on these messages. I never did.

On the day of the Pope's funeral. I've no personal issue with this Pope, perhaps he was a decent fellow as is being reported. However the overall sense I have, looking at the scenes, the crowds and the ceremony is one of sad absurdity and needless ritual. Then there's the VIPs, royals and politicians, most of whom couldn't give a shit, jockeying for positions and needing to be seen and photographed. A tedious mockery of position and importance, they're all just other people. 

Meanwhile we're happy because the "Rainbow" cats are back home with us.

Lost Keys

I have found some keys - but they are not my keys. They might be yours. They are/were on the stone lintel over the blue gate. You, both of you, as there are two different keys may have left them there for good reasons. Reasons I don't know or care to know. That's your business. All I'm doing is reminding you that your lost keys are there so in a sense they are not lost as I've told you where they are. 

All you need to do now is retrieve them. Of course something quite different may be going on here, something sinister, secret or simply a private arrangement. Anyway you didn't plan it very well because it was easy to spot the keys in the position you'd placed them. I could have taken them but I didn't, another person might. I'm far away from this place now and by tomorrow I'll have forgotten the whole thing.

Then there's the tiny plastic frog ...

Satisfaction

 

I cleaned up this somewhat neglected log burner. Quite a satisfying thing to do. I doubt that it'll burn any better but it's lost the dirty haze of carbon deposits that had built up across the glass and door mechanism. Should've taken a before pic for a proper comparison.

Glen Esk Daily Photo

Nice enough day outside but no firm plans to go out anywhere further than a few steps away. No intentions of ranting about anything either. Peace in our time. And as for the urge to add just one more stupid sentence ...

SMEG Trivia

I recently stayed in a large and very comfortable hotel that had placed SMEG fridges in each room. I thought that these were going to be full of the usual mini bar items but all that the fridge contained was two small gin bottles, two bottles of tonic, two dried lemon slices and two monogramed glasses. Odd. The thing was that the fridge wasn't even cold, the contents were hardly chilled, a pint of milk would not survive in there, even in a Scottish winter. I actually thought that it was broken so it was reported to reception as defective. They said, "it's all fine, it's not a fridge at all, it's a cooler". 

To me that's a whole new thing; it looks like a fridge, but it's not really cold so it's only a cooler. Hmm. These SMEG coolers cost about £999 each (no kidding). That's a lot of cash for any fridge but a lot more for a mere "cooler". With over one hundred rooms in this hotel, each with a SMEG, the economics are crazy. Crazy unless the gin company took the hit and installed them. Now they're crazy. The thing is as they only contain gin, how quickly do you recover your SMEG/gin investment? When mini bar munchies strike it's the peanuts, crisps, beer, coke and wine you dig in for, not gin and tonic, nice enough as it is. All niff-naff and trivia I know but to me this is a slab of simply disastrous business economics and not very cool.

Widdershins at Duck Duck Go

Old or passionate politicians and activists confuse me with their unerring sense of purpose. The notion that argument changes things deeper down is a peculiar one. If you "win" an argument what do you really win? Life's tawdry tapestry shows us that few people actually change their mind in that moment, if ever. They go away and silently grumble.  Argument tends to hammer in nails and harden resolve. Perhaps a generation later there will be a shift when the nail eventually rusts, perhaps not.

If you can just sit back and take comfort from whatever you find. Binge TV shows, books, movies, podcasts and music, binge whatever entertainment you like. None of it matters much, it's temporal and it provides no long term satisfaction either but it passes the time. Like leaving a comedy gig or film show unsure of what you were really laughing at; you can't quite put your finger on what you experienced but it was probably OK. You saw other people who laughed along with you.

Alternatively run Widdershins and chant around some sacred spaces, old trees or standing stone circles wearing only well worn tennis shoes on the night of the summer solstice and see what happens next. There may be consequences and Hell's own sweet fire will still beckon. Who knows. I'm heading for the hills right now.

You Tubing

Deciding to kick-start a YouTube channel is a bit like deciding to go to the gym regularly or befriend someone who lists “crypto investor” in their bio. So you're full of optimism, wine-fuelled delusion, and the vague hope of becoming mildly successful without ever leaving your couch. On the plus side, you get to fiddle about with stuttering images, wear T-shirts and shorts while inwardly pretending to be polished and professional and possibly gain thousands of followers who adore you for being “talented” in a quirky way as you edit videos munching on a cold burrito. 

Then along come the pitfalls: the soul-crushing pressure to be consistent, the existential dread of a video getting 13 views (12 of which are you "testing"), and the sudden realisation that the algorithm is less a helpful friend and more a moody ex-wife who ghosts you but needs you to pay the bills. Still, armed with caffeine, unhealthy snacks, and an ever-growing collection of cat related mugs, you march on, because deep down, there's always the faint, flickering hope of becoming the next musical sensation by happy accident and maybe even hoovering up some lucrative (?) gigs. Yes, Capital Models have a new YouTube page. (Still in the development phase). Let's not forget impossible songs either.

Elsewhere on the interweb I've discovered that about 7% of the world's population are older than me. A sobering thought and statistic. I'm guessing that many of them are the folks I'm regularly stuck behind in the queue at the local Co-op.

New Machine

Mr Flymo has entered the chat: The afternoon hung heavy with the sweet, sultry promise of something new, the kind of day where the light seemed to spill slowly, like treacle across the black railings. There was a bearable tension in the air while the slow clock ticked, back there on the pale kitchen wall.

He sat with the stillness of a man whose heart beat to the rhythm of a calm, almost narcotic anticipation, glancing now and then down the road that wound like a lazy ribbon through the grey hush of this dull suburban community. The old lawn mower, rusted and obstinate, lay discarded in the garage like a relic of a less dignified era, and in it's place, though not yet arrived, lived a gleaming promise. The new machine, all shiny plastic and controlled quiet, humming on electric power. 

It symbolized something ineffable: novelty, precision, a kind of modern and bright grace that whispered of a cleaner reinvention. It was made in and shipped from China, hardly an exotic thing these days. He slowly smoked half a cigarette, supped warm coffee, watching the shadows lengthen, waiting for the delivery truck as though it were summoned forwards by some imaginary green light at the end of his own driveway.

Meanwhile, a few miles away, the skies above Falkirk released an unexpected and unseasonal hailstorm upon the town. Another day was passing.

Macchiato

 Macchiato at McMoo's Cafe. This is mostly how I roll.

9/10.