Wednesday, November 06, 2024
Magic Beans
Tuesday, November 05, 2024
Blah Blah
Monday, November 04, 2024
Vietnamese Condensed Milk Party
A party for one. Good health's fractious dream and general dental welfare are cast to the wind. The persistence of the inevitable aging process and internal rot that robs me of my looks and faculties seeps into every aspect of my fragile existence. I hear a constant buzzing, some distant appliance churning up electricity, the edges of my vision go fuzzy, my teeth are on end, there's a new pain in the place of a familiar pain, my thoughts are distinct but foggy, my imagination rewinds to find familiar paths where I'm lost, my breath is sour to the taste as I breathe in the fumes of a soul's lifetime pollution. I now have more hills to climb that I ever expected. It's that bloody but marvelous, sweet as heroin's opioid sugar, running straight through the condensed milk that's fighting for it's very existence as it nearly drowns in an ocean of hot dark coffee; Vietnamese style.
Sunday, November 03, 2024
Asparagus Dreams
Untended and misunderstood bits of the garden can go crazy over time, a bit like people might. It's not as if we've ignored the asparagus, it's just remained untrained and now it's sort of unkempt. I've not really ever had a dream in which asparagus featured strongly either. Then again I'm a bit of a non dreamer. I have not as yet received the gift of regular dreaming. The inside of my head is an unfathomable void at night time. I'm highly skilled at sleeping though, it comes naturally to me. My one true but mostly hidden talent.
Saturday, November 02, 2024
Radio Amazing
Friday, November 01, 2024
Found Things
Thursday, October 31, 2024
Wednesday, October 30, 2024
Other People
A big thanks and shout out to all the good people from the land of "Other", 148k views for this blog in eight years* is good going. You know who you are. Cheers.
*To be clear this blog has been going since 2004 but for some reason the CIA and MI5 web crawlers (possibly following the instructions of the Russians and the Fessbook Mafia) decided to delete a large number of years and traffic records from my scattered and battered files. However the good news is I'm no longer considered a threat.
Tuesday, October 29, 2024
Scotland
"Tonight will be mostly cloudy, but the north-east will see a few more frequent clear spells. Light rain or drizzle is expected in both eastern and western areas and will also develop for the Northern Isles."
Monday, October 28, 2024
Farewell Unseen Disciples
A soft and controlled farewell to most of the Twitter (X) monsters and also those good people I've been in the habit of following. Turns out that some aspects social media might well be better viewed as a bit of a failed experiment and put to rest. Overall it's a shame things haven't worked out as well as they might have, though I'm not sure what that would even look like. When a downfall happens it's often quick and merciless and a bin fire is a bin fire. I have not yet deleted X but I've consciously uncoupled from numerous accounts that were tedious, unhelpful or that I've come to disagree with. I'll be less likely to visit it too and will now get back to my neglected stamp collection and regular home baking.
Do I feel better for this? Not really, but if something has the potential to drag you down maybe it's better to let go of it before it's poison really starts to work. In other news, for the few remaining years that I'm likely to be driving road vehicles, I won't be purchasing any Tesla products. It seems like only yesterday when that whole thing was futuristic, cool and inspirational; little did I know how it was going to develop. I've also returned my one way ticket to Mars. I doubt I'll get a refund though.
Sunday, October 27, 2024
Routine Cat Procedures
In the dimming of the day, the weathering of the weather, the passing clouds of cloudiness, as the seasons slowly shift, delivery people and postmen come and go, traffic rumbles outside, TVs and lights flicker on and then off, fluff floats across a field of vision, the times between meals and other meals moves on, the dull hum of unexplained existence and unknown distant activities: beyond it all cats just snooze around doing something close to nothing, or so it seems.
Friday, October 25, 2024
Paw Patrol
Ignorance can be bliss: I saw this vehicle parked up in a supermarket parking lot the other day. I thought it looked odd. It's not a police vehicle but it looks like one. Lights, livery and maybe even action. How do they get away with that? I did a quick Google and after wading through the usual irrelevant shit Google freely provides, I got my answer (as below). I'm not quite sure what to make of it but ... there you are.
Thursday, October 24, 2024
Ancient Apocalypse
Dear Mr Netflix Person,
I've now watched two seasons of Graham Hancock's revisionist views on world history. I'm sure you're aware that he proposes that, in a nutshell, a race of highly (?) superior beings somehow survived an "ancient apocalypse" (the flood of legends) about 14000 years ago and set the other more "primitive" survivors back on the track to civilisation by passing on their wisdom and practical skills. In so doing they laid the foundations for the modern world. Sounds fair enough to me but nobody in the mainstream of education or science is agreeing with this right now. I wonder why?
Hancock spends a lot of time picking at pieces of unchallenged evidence to support his theory and I actually like that he's out to disrupt the established view and it'd be nice to think he might be right (and I suppose he just might be) as it would kill off the various creation myths religions have fed us and also explain many mysteries surrounding the numerous huge and ancient stone buildings, ground works and sophisticated ancient structures that are out there. Academics often need a shake up - history does teach us that too. He's maybe just not the guy to do it IMHO.
Of course the format, his quirky victim attitude, laconic delivery and the tedious editing style used throughout the show undermines everything he says. It's flawed and disjointed as a structural piece of documentary story telling, always jumping across time and places rather than going deeper. I thought the old Discovery Channel documentary format was bad but this is even worse. Fictional animations, all slow paced for maximum cheesy drama, false starts and the repetition of statements abound as does a pounding and unsubtle musical score. I did like many of the computer graphics and views of the ancient sites, they were all quite well rendered and watchable and much of the detail was new to me so I'm not totally negative about everything.
You should note also that when GH is in front of the camera, using those weird shot angles during conversations coupled with the style in which he delivers his dry and progressively more unconvincing narrative, the overall experience is quite infuriating. Having said that I willingly watched it just hoping that a shaft of light might be stumbled upon that would perhaps clear up a little of the darkness from humanities history (for me and every other viewer no doubt). That's the whole point of the show. There is that tantalizing promise of red meat in each episode but the actual payoff never comes. So it was an interesting but flawed and bumpy journey. However many episodes spent wading through the snake oil and enduring GH's unblinking stares into the camera was uncomfortable for me. In the end I guess Netflix earned some revenue from the adverts and viewing stats and pleased the community of radical historians out in the left field. I'm done now and can only really say, so long and thanks for all the lovely fish.
Respect and Smarties
Wee John fae Fife (age 69ish)
Wednesday, October 23, 2024
Slow Wicks
Time for reflection and all that shit: Now the seasonal cruise ships have passed into the mist, there's winter coal to be stockpiled and the nights are fare drawin' in, achieving a reasonable level of physical fitness is back on the agenda once more. The unchained unicorn of well being is chased across gardens and rooftops, over rainbows and cloud castles until it settles on Joe's early morning YouTube channel so that exercise sessions can safely resume, slowly.
The cats remain a torment and an inspiration but I know I'll never climb a tree or scale a fence with their level of attack and energy. I'll never manage any of Joe's fully adult sessions either, it would just lead to injury and self inflicted pain, the worst kind. Slow and steady and quietly follow on at your own pace and level of competence and confidence is the mantra. "Nice and easy does it", as Mr Sinatra might have sung in his world weary, lounge lizard style. Back in the day I was a long distance, short attention span runner you know. I don't miss any of that.
Monday, October 21, 2024
Goodbye Pork Pie
Farewell and adieu to one illustrious pork pie and one that is most definitely not a piece of headwear. I might say more but probably wont. This brief and lightly worded elegy is to a real pie that has now passed. As must all pies.
Saturday, October 19, 2024
Teaser and the Firecat
Well there's a nifty little fire alarm and a black cat made from sugar paper. An actual Teaser character image that fits with this cannot be located right now. I apologise for any confusion. No moon has fallen from the sky on my watch either. Things may have been worse but probably were easier in 1972.
I'm currently existing at a critical point of life where sausage rolls disappear, slow punctures happen quickly, ancient history is unraveling before my very eyes (thanks to Netflix) and I may well finally understand the use of the Oxford comma. Stimulation is constantly there or thereabouts.
None of this is helpful I know, not even to me. Tomorrow some poorly named storm is likely to hit us and it's also my birthday but I already have at least one birthday bottle of whisky under my control so there's hope for us all. The cold never bothered me anyway.
Friday, October 18, 2024
Doppelganger Fog
Thursday, October 17, 2024
Nearly...
Wednesday, October 16, 2024
Exercises in Randomness
Tuesday, October 15, 2024
When Petrol Was The Future
Once upon a time petrol pumps were found on high streets or main streets. A fledgling roadside amenity. Perched on the pavements like drinking fountains, easily accessible for the odd vehicle that might pull up for a refill. The local iron monger or blacksmith might own the set up and sell fuel in between other more lucrative bits of business. Ordinary people didn't really own cars or much else back then either. It was the age of the famous moustache too. I'm sure that there are photos or records of black limos with small boys running alongside them looking for a hidden horse. A world long gone. One with no real health, safety or fire prevention regulations ... we don't want that again.
Every so often you'll see dead electrical switches like this on odd walls, mostly in rural locations, the rusty pumps and storage systems long gone. Petrol and diesel were not the dirty words they are today. We know better now but we don't really because it's all someone else's fault and we're as much the victims and part of the cash/taxation fodder as the third world crude oil workers who's products are cleaned up and sold on to us. Sad to say, interesting but ultimately ugly and over weight EVs shipped over from China don't really do it either. You know they'll be unsupported tech junk in seven years. We just might need a better solution.