First World Problems

 

"Can you please help us, we really need the Date of Birth field in our data gathering App re-coded so that instead of pulling up a current AirBnB style calendar it shows a simple data field that accepts dates as birthdays, you know the whole 1940, 1950, 1960 thing, please?"

It was that kind of day yesterday, and I burst a tyre (changed the spare myself), and my car key fob went wonky and set off the alarm numerous times, my contactless card failed at the till and I'd no proper lunch. First World problems abound you may say with a scoffing tone and you'd be correct, just don't start me on the traitorous app that I've trying to do actual field work with.

Actually I'm reasonably exasperated in what I consider to be rather restrained and civilised way with project that I somewhat stupidly volunteered to take part in. The truth is hurting a bit. "It seemed like a good idea at the time", a statement I am considering for either a digital virtual gravestone or a series of fashionable apparel pieces I'll release on T Spring or Shirt Genie or whatever.

Seaways Kilimanjaro

6.50 am and the sun rises silently over the Seaways Kilimanjaro, a bulk tanker moored at Hound Point that is, I imagine, being pumped full of oil, fresh from the North Sea. I'm newly awake and wondering around the house considering coffee, a shower and an early morning walk and this is/was the view from the window - yesterday.

The sweet, warm promises of the red dawn slowly died away as the day unraveled and a dull grey mist descended in the still air accompanied by some feeble rain. Autumn is proceeding at her own slow, grim but curiously pretty rate. Red sky in the morning is somebody's warning I guess, a reminder that the Covid never sleeps (until it's about two years old that is, weakened by relentless mutation and so it becomes just another annoying but powerful version of the flu).

Cat fight

 

Our cats (or the cats that we belong to, you can never tell) are not subject to any lock down as far as I'm aware but from time the do exhibit some signs of cabin fever. Can't blame the weather either but it may be something we're doing or even not doing. So they seem to celebrate their frustration by  participating in the ancient martial art of  ineffective indoor feline kung-fu. The worst possible injury being a mouth full of fluff. Nobody enjoys suffering from that.

Here's the shorter version, or the highlights even.

The wisdom of light

 

The four pillars of wisdom (at the moment).

1. The thinking persons light is designed for you to control your self imposed darkness, however you may wish to manage it via a switch. It can adopt two positions, off or on. There are no other options. Next step would be to discuss this with a like-minded friend using only binary terms.

2. Sometimes, when the internet is slow to provide immediate or vital information or maybe I'm just feeling a little jaded, I simply stare into a low wattage light bulb. It can be a transporting experience. I'm thinking about typing up a helpful pamphlet that goes into more detail.

3. One thing about the so called "Ancients" is that they certainly knew what they were talking about. How have their words survived all the way to today?

4. There once was a time when I do believe I had the knack of arranging words into sentences that actually carried some kind of meaning. Now I'm not so sure.

Climbing the Walls

 A famous old Edinburgh pub, near and dear to folkies, story tellers and singer songwriter types and a once regular stomping ground and meeting place for the outlaws of our local music scene. Not sure who took this great shot or how it came to be, somehow seems appropriate in these troubled times. We're all climbing the walls with our fears, contact limitations, restrictions and general uncertainty over so many aspects of everyday life. It's easy to say "man up" and we will but events and attitudes are still determined to grind us down. I don't want that to happen, I want to defy the gravity of the times. I want to climb the walls in a good way. So it's nice to see the Waverley looking spic and span, hope the dodgy beer keeping has improved and the toilet smells have been eradicated. There is an inside stair too if you really need to access the upper lounge bar. You don't have to be clad all in blue either.

SQ Daily Photo

Daily photo: Featuring the Jubilee Clock Tower in South Queensferry as RFA Fort Victoria sails by, past the rooftops, under the bridges and out to sea. What happens once she gets there only those in the know get to know. I certainly don't know. I do have some working history with this old ship, I was first aboard her in the yard where she was being built in Birkenhead, before her launch or commissioning. That must've been around 1989 or so, her paint was still wet and she was the first of her class. Turns out that idea, there were to be seven ships in class, didn't go so well. Over the years I saw plenty of action (?) with her in all sorts of circumstances. That part of my life is now long gone, it helped pay the rent for a bit and I'm left with many bitter-sweet and fairly confused memories. That's life in the MoD for you.

Barkley the dog

 

I've been wondering for a while if one of the local dogs we see every morning was in fact a small person in a dog suit, obviously acting like a dog and doing so in a reasonably authentic fashion. He or she is very convincing as an elderly husky lazing on somebody's driveway, a regular and well executed performance. So convincing that passing (genuine) dog walkers feed the beast with sausages. This led me to think about "fake" dogs and other beasts in the entertainment industry. Barkley from Sesame Street is probably the most famous (though the actor inside isn't). I wondered what real dog/animal actors made of a human getting a regular gig like that. I imagined Lassie, Hobo, Cheetah, Flipper, Mr Ed and Skippy all writing strongly worded letters of complaint via human lawyers about their status being undermined by so called "human animal actors". 

It is a pretty clear case of cultural misappropriation I suppose and I'm doubtful if this type of animal rights matter is taken as seriously as it should be. Humans as animal actors is a more economical and simpler solution and they'll take direction a bit more easily but they will also talk back and complain etc. They do need good costumes so that's possibly a problem. 

I've nothing against Barkley as such, I'm just thinking about those poor, unemployed animals out there and how their careers might be going. Please note I've avoided the rather difficult area of glove puppets, ventriloquist dummies and so on, oh, and pantomime horses and cows. Then there's the more complex issue of CGI ... and dinosaur rights.

DIY Swimming Pool

You may have noticed that garden improvements and outside living have become so 2020ish in these troubled times. Only in the fresh air can we meet and greet loved ones, albeit in strictly limited numbers. So, in preparation for the undoubtedly muted and chilly oncoming Christmas celebrations, I've imagineered a lovely dipping pool filled with Pacific style, warm, clear blue waters without plastic tat, sharks or used floating face masks. Potted plants from the tropics line the edges and tiny, weird fish swim past you and snap up your dead skin and toe nails as you relax in the clear, healing spa waters. There will also be a soft wave machine and mysterious champagne bubbles from sub-sea sources. It's still all at the planning stage but I've no doubt Edinburgh's forward thinking authorities will allow it to go ahead. The actual budget is a bit of a problem however. Further vigorous injections of furlough cash from HM Treasury may be required at key stages in the project.

Ladybird Diet

 

Some pages from the book the "Ladybird Diet". I was not aware that ladybirds were so versatile an ingredient. This changes everything.

McNuggets

At the drive-through, the morning after. Somebody hit the button. They're wiping the planet clean, but only up to a point. The chickens are resurrected, as described in the prophecy and written in the ancient scriptures that no longer exist. There's crying, wailing, the grinding of teeth and some determined scratching going on in the gravel where the deep freeze and the hygiene products used to be kept.

Not quite sure which particular religion applies here, you choose whatever one you think fits. They're all bollocks anyway (and if you're offended then ... bollocks). The cattle will be along in a minute or two. I have a great secret recipe for a special kind of sauce if anybody is interested.

Alternate Titles

Bit of a Chinese, wine from 2013 and Netflix's Boys* blowout of a weekend Saturday night. Quite a lot of external house painting done too (we have an external house as well as an internal house) whilst sucking up as much September sunshine as possible. You know it's been full on when you wake up inside a double bass.

*Actually now watching it live in Season 2, (or we will be come Friday).

Fortunately I completely failed to fall from any ladders, always a threat and some may say an opportunity but I'm far from complacent about personal safety. I did get a speck of dust in my eye, an injury that is so irritating you'd imagine a speck of dust could bring down an elephant or stop a lion in it's tracks (goggles on thereafter). In the scheme of things it's harder to imagine anything so small doing so much damage and creating so much irritation ... OK there's Covid-19, Bubonic Plague, Smallpox, the Prime Minister's brain. Size, or the lack of it does seem to matter.

I stole the original artwork below and, after some thought and perspiration made it slightly better by adding coloured bricks and crazy paving. That's only my opinion on it.

NESQUIK

Nesquik: The drug of choice for the over sixties who'd rather not be sixteen ever again but who need to find ways to use up the milk surplus in an overstocked fridge that's a daily occurrence for them and who, from time to time require something different and not in any way wholesome or free from chemicals. Also if you're fed up with umpteen different coffees and fruit teas and all that stuff, then regress, go back, taste the sweet excess of your youth but without all the emotional problems, confusion and guilt complexes. 

And another thing: "The Mere Presence of One’s Own Smartphone Reduces Available Cognitive Capacity". Stolen from a Twitter source that shall remain anonymous but possibly the most profound thought I've encountered (and not thought up myself) in the last 24 hours. I'm still thinking about it. There.

Jack Bruce, Bruce Jack

 

Gas Fired Electric Soup

OK, it's not really electric and I know that means something else but it's soup and soup powered by high speed gas (was there ever slow gas?). At the moment, as it's cooling in anticipation of that magical "second day maturity" that applies to all Scottish pots of soup, I'm thinking this may be one of my better, possibly best soup concoctions in recent times. Here in our lowland croft with our subsistence existence based around the rival Tesco and Aldi marques, the quality of the soup (when in season) is critical to our strategy of lying low but thinking high. Even more so now that the Covid shit has hit the Tory fan. Survival is key and reasonably nutritious regular food is vital if we are to win out in this war of attrition based primarily around competing elements of gross stupidity and toff schooled biased ignorance. A Touch of Grey? We will survive.

Favourites

 

All of my favourite pieces of logical art are in fact meaningless.

This statement is meaningless.

My art teacher used to say, "you have to find the form in the subject".

It was his fall back statement and unstoppable mantra.

Nobody ever understood what he meant.

After he'd dispensed this sage advice he seemed tired.

He returned to the staff room for coffee and cigarettes.

Once there he wondered how his life had led to this.

How it was so different from the dream.

Or so I speculated at the time.

But he loved Miss Wishart.

And his Triumph Spitfire.

Some teachers were cruel, some mysterious.

He was thin.

Like an early version of David Bowie.

(Who'd yet to shine).

"Why teach art anyway?"

I have no doubt that was an important question.

If you're an artist why teach art?

So I asked myself.

And so did he.

You still need to pay the bills.

And get over yourself.

Don't let them lie to you

Currently working on a film script, or maybe a novel, perhaps a musical or just a piece of abstract animation using coloured shapes, the working title is: "Why I believe in the alien lizard people conspiracy theory (or why you might as well believe any old tosh because it doesn't really matter anyway)."

Brexit, Imperialism, the British Empire, Colonial history, the class system, privilege and education, upholding the law, human rights, asylum seekers, how they'll tackle global warming, Scottish Independence, the future of the NHS, Covid-19 strategy, Universal Credit, fair taxation, the power and influence of Corporations, the East v the West, UFOs, what they are doing, what they are not doing, what they say they'll do, what they actually did. Don't believe a word of it. Don't let them lie to you.

For totalitarian governments breaking the law is just a sign of their strength and they revel in such behavior as if it was some kind of primitive fertility display. It's a cancerous way of thinking and within their secretive little groups of power brokers they will promote contempt for the law and human rights as a way of progressing towards their goals. These goals do not match those of "ordinary" people nor are they in line with published manifesto or party doctrine.

Within your head

For those like me who struggle with complex biological concepts, physiological explanations and great philosophical theories about the human machine and life's ongoing experience, I find this rather dated but charming and informative drawing helps my understanding. Pictures are generally worth a large number of words. Having said that this type of illustration has featured in many ways in films and comics from time to time, confusing and entertaining human beings in equal measure. This is what we should be teaching in schools  and colleges (said nobody ever). It, like flat earth theory, just might be true, hidden in plain sight.

Kamikaze

The track above is an honest and un-doctored (live recorded) version of the song Happy Like.

But...

Porco Rosso. Is a different thing altogether. Flight is however included as a theme and a concept. There may be an unexpected crash also. Strangely we all survive and our lives move on. Flying is of course risky up to a point, you could be turned into a pig or hit some clear air turbulence. In the end there will be a party on the beach, deckchairs and wine and who knows, we might all be happy ever after in some existentially correct way?

Dune

 

People are getting understandably excited about the new Dune movie (available only in theatres). It's a big story, big sand worms and big production values. Everybody will be talking about this except for those who can wait or who don't get it or don't like that sort of thing. I suspect this film may be part 1 with part 2 to follow. Strange little soundtrack links to Pink Floyd (as part of a previous failed adaption), I wonder if it will carry on into the actual film? I wonder maybe a little too much. 

Brave New Worlds

"They are just going nowhere. We are just going nowhere. There is no hurry, no need to be anywhere now. Just stand in the misty blue and the low glow of a faint sun in a faint sky. Enjoy that strange sense of space. Imagine the trees and the vegetation that were once there, like in old films and picture books. Now that's a pretty thought. Imagine they could come back or that you could drink the water or breathe without a mask and just keep walking. These are good thoughts if a little troubling. Counselors can help if it all becomes over acute for you. They check for signs. Inner peace is always there within you."

"There once was a time, that's a fairy story told to the few children we produce, when all sorts of things happened outside, even battles and sports and construction projects, wildlife and animals too. Nobody stays out too long in this anyway, there are risks, someplace around a 7 if you're over your allotted 15 minutes. We usually start the 'count down' or 'count back inside' I suppose at minute 9, just to be safe. Just to stay safe." 

"I heard that "stay safe" is the most popular phrase and greeting in the known world. It's on all the relay messages along with a thumbs up and a smiley face. It's on the Coca-Cola containers and the meal trays. We're good to go. We'll come back out next month for a few minutes recreation, assuming that there are no major changes or any major climatic events. We'll be well warned. There's a nightly bulletin and regular updates. The atmosphere monitors are very precise and active at all times. I means we can stay safe. Strong, stable and safe." 

"I guess we're all happy with that.You know that when you find yourself in the right place you can truly be all that you want to be. The people are friendly too and so calm and relaxed. Just enjoying sharing screens together and those kindly inspirational messages they pass across between sectors is all so rewarding. We like those cute and calming phrases they use and the pleasant music playing in the background. We've a lot to thank the large corporations, Mr Putin and the Trump family for, we are very well protected now. They've been so good to us".

Hejira - Live

Sometimes you just need a quick rerun of Hejira to move the day along and settle the mind. Live version but without Jaco Pastorius on bass. No Ibanez GB whatever number either, just a Strat. Still pretty good.

This is what I'd call a punctuation post, one that's been created and typed out but really there's no actual content or critique other than me saying I quite like the video or picture I've added. It's cheap and cheerful (rather than cheap and nasty) but I cant deny it's really just filler. Well perhaps this small paragraph isn't actual filler because now that I think about it I'm writing something at least original, I'm also being honest about the process of posting on line. Some days there's a lot you want to say or at least you have a clear idea and other days there's zilch so you just self aggrandize or promote with some random content so as to fill that empty space and satisfy an imagined KPI regards the frequency of your posting. I don't lie awake at night worrying about any of this, it's just a sort of gentle pressure valve that releases gentle pressure. I like the feeling of putting "something out there" regardless of the actual quality, that's pretty shallow and obvious I admit. Make a splash, cause a ripple, perhaps something will happen. Maybe I should have used "Take a pebble" by ELP rather than Joni Mitchell but there's really no comparison.Tomorrow is yet another day, there's a pattern to all this.

Almost Satisfactory

Never easy to capture a cat either in real life or via a camera. Satisfactory cat pics are rare, here are two. So if you're now lulled into things by my cute cat photos, good. Here's reality as it stands:

I suppose we are living in an unsatisfactory world and definitely in an unsatisfactory country (the rogue and lawless state known as the UK). We are headed down the tubes, BJ and Co at the reigns and clueless in a way only stupid, selfish, privileged people can be. It seems to me now that the time for complaining or ranting is over, it's way too late for that. We just hold on tight and observe the train wreck that is happening (whilst not gloating at the eventual mess). Only a proper disaster will wake up and shake up the systems and jaded electorate that voted these liars and criminals in and allowed this to happen. The best thing now is to plan for a better future beyond the next couple of years. Gird your loins, grit your teeth and try not to panic as the speed of the slide increases and the impacts thump us about the head and bank balance. I just hope we can get through without a full on blood bath. Just remember the Tories and the Brexit boys and girls will do their utmost to blame everybody else come the day and the media will yet again shield the guilty and blame the poor.

Cherries v Walnuts

All it takes sometimes is a reckless click* made on a Twitter post and the once solid fabric of your simple universe is torn and mulched down into cold custard and rendered unrecognizable and untrustworthy. I blame the people who set out the parking lot in the Aldi in Perth, just by the A9 roundabout (I think there may be an M&S and a Tiso branch nearby too). Some wag posted tree pictures on Twitter and I foolishly took the bait and was drawn into the dark world of the Perthshire tree spotters  and experts (this may not be a real movement of any kind). Reality then ground to a halt for a few minutes and there were more questions than answers.

To be precise, these seem to be people out there who know a few things about walnut trees, like how they are planted to keep flies away from cattle and how if you split their leaves they smell like Mr Sheen. Yes, tree knowledge goes deep, it's a complex place to visit in the garden or in virtual ways. Not much mention of the nuts themselves despite the fact that they adorn Walnut Whips and other sweets and cakes and things. So I'm now developing a wild opinion that what I thought was a quite fruitful cherry tree in our garden may in fact be a walnut tree furiously bearing walnuts. It might also explain the lack of flies in the garden (and cattle) and the strange, floating odour of cleaning products. I've got evidence now, so which is which?

May all your cherries turn out to be walnuts, and vice versa. Where's William Rushton when you need him?

Turns out it's a Spindle tree from China or thereabouts complete with poison berries (so putrid and evil that they could stun a buffalo) rather any than useful nuts.

*Never let the truth get in the way of a mediocre story.

Fruits of no labour

An unsung modern hymn with neither tune nor verses: "When you didn't clear the ground, you didn't turn the soil, you didn't plant the seeds or saplings, you didn't feed and nurture, you didn't prune and protect, you didn't stand back and admire the growth and shape. All you did was come along and pick the fruit. Unfortunately the fruits on this tree are pears and they are like some giant mutation of lead shot. You're all going to Hell or at the very least somewhere pretty unpleasant. Amen."

For some reason I can imagine Coldplay doing a reasonable version of this and getting away with it. In concert the fans would be enthusiastically singing along to "you didn't feed and nurture". They hold up their glowing phones, waving their arms in the air as Chris Martin holds his mic out into the audience to signal that it's time for them to join in which they do with gusto.  It's all happening right now in a Covid free parallel universe near to you.

Northside of the Masonic Lodge

This is nothing to do with Freemasons. It's on the cemetery side of the grand dilapidated lodge, the once proud meeting place of the great, the good, the mediocre and the troublemakers. Let's face it, in more recent times,  getting into the Masons was always about your face fitting more than your actual character, that and sopping up as much cheap beer as your face could take. So perhaps this is something to do with the Masons, maybe I've something to get off my chest. Maybe not, nothing worth saying other than that my own prejudice and dislike of them is based on my own family history and that skews my view. This is after all Central Scotland, an area well known for wonky and spiteful opinions, mindless cults and stupid followers and of course bigotry with a capital B (except that's not how I formatted it). 

I'm not sorry for you and your big grinning gravestone. Perhaps you were a good family, perhaps you were complete bastards. The stone tells us nothing other than you're gone and that for the safety of the family souls you carved a piece of Bible text on your front panel. Nobody's buying this stuff anymore and guess what, your pious text makes no difference. As useful as a Trump bumper sticker. (Obviously I regret saying these dumb things about something I know nothing about but I'll just leave them away).

A frame without a name, sad really but then we all come and go alone. Some marks and chips in the stone don't make much difference, time wipes everything clean. For the best perhaps.

This grave looks like it was designed for some Triffid or an early attempt to visually describe the central nervous system of an alien visitor caught, beaten and killed up by Masonic vigilantes who blamed it for the poor crops, turning the water to wormwood and befouling the local tabernacle with green slime and strange unmusical sounds.

Not in the same boat

Short and unreliable quiz for your tea break. 

So what's playing on the fishing boat's radio today? You can make tiny guesses or rather large guesses. I'm not sure what the difference is apart from size and I'm unsure as to how you measure actual guess size. 

So I'll go first and suggest that it's a Radio 4 program just randomly playing, possibly "Woman's Hour" or as a second guess (of indeterminate size) I'll say Radio Forth (as the boast is fishing in the Forth) and to be more precise I'll plump for Forth 2 with the catchy strapline "the greatest hits". Third guess (unsporting I know) is that it's VHF Channel 16 in case there's any trouble out there.

Next question: Is "and" a better and more useful word than "but"? Asking for a friend.

Next question. What is the fishing boat fishing for and (no but) just saying "fish" is not an acceptable answer. Is it a) Mackerel using baited lines? b) Lobster using kreels or c) Crab using kreels.

Next, next question: Is the boat facing east or west or is it steadily rotating clockwise?

Final question: Estimate the crew size i.e. not heights and weights but actual numbers.

Thank you.

Whatever you think, remember ... there is no answer.

Detectorist

In the distance a lone detectorist scours a newly cropped field hoping for treasure. I'm in a nearby lay-by taking five. Perhaps he knows something no one else does or likes to think that. So I was briefly reminded of the TV show, dry humour, back stories and escape, oh and the nice theme song. Out in the Fife countryside the other day on an appealingly warm and calm morning it almost seemed to be the perfect low key pastime. Like buying sets of slow moving lottery tickets and quietly waiting for some lazy, lost buried jackpot to be uncovered from the soft brown soil. You keep half of the treasure's value, the rest goes to charity and the historical item, once cleaned and catalogued, sits in some glass case in a dull museum. A small slip of card mentions you as the finder and the one who made the donation - all in a tiny font.

Of you go back out into fields, keep searching but never find anything else of significant value, then you die weather beaten and happy with a few quid in the bank. Your detection equipment hangs dusty and unused in the garden shed, all is forgotten. A few years later one of your grandchildren finds it, switches it on and is puzzled by the flickering LED display and the lack of functionality. As it has no screen or visible apps installed they throw it into the house clearance skip sitting on the driveway. The museum is currently closed because of a COVID-29 outbreak.

To all the lonely lone wolves

Sometimes I just get a little misty.

"It's not easy being me any more than it's easy being you." 

So you are hearing pearls of wisdom directly from the gentle heart of the leader of the pack. The old wolf's wisdom, the great white elder, transferred by thought transfer and wobbly eye contact. Transfigured and in the slow glow of the power from the eternal life in all animal spirits that stalk the earth and battle to keep it safe and wholesome.

 

The wild is something to savor and difficult for the dulled and detuned human mind to grasp. Like a fine wine on the top shelf or even a not so fine £6.50 plonk with an appealing label, both can be effective but why pay a greater price? What the wolf says or even suggests, goes (and sometimes what the wolf says stays and sometimes the wolf doesn't really say anything; that would be the unreliable, flakey but interesting thought transfer concept thing mentioned earlier). Oh, and please don't mention the moon. The pale orb of nightly pain.

So you'd all do well not to ignore wolfy wisdom however it may be communicated. They are like the ancient forest spirits that live within the trees and branches, except they are animals and not made of wood or squiggly, smoky, spirit kind of ectoplasm stuff, just wolf meat, bones and fur. The one in the photo above is living it up, having the best life in South Queensferry right now with his best friend a tennis ball, albeit always behind bars. 

Given the chance though he'd go straight for that soft, fleshy, narrow throat of yours. I'd wear a thick scarf if I was you.

Plums etc.

 

*Plums: Plums are in season, we are living in the season of the plum. All of us here, brothers and sisters, unite. Nobody talks about this. The fresh fruit is tasty and the rapid acceleration possible in your metabolism if you eat enough of them can be very useful. Mentioning plums early in any conversation is always seen as a good starter topic and will win over rivals. In these troubled times, they may be very good for you. Unite or face the consequences of your body works slowing down way too soon.

Pears: Pears grown in Scotland are not generally fit for human consumption. In the middle of the Middle Ages locally grown pears were used as a form of currency or as house building materials due to their inherent density and resistance to various plagues and also because of feeble Scottish engineering knowledge. Much of the housing on Edinburgh's famous Royal Mile is constructed using horizontally sliced pears as foundation materials, laid out across an oatmeal base and cured with pickled herring tails and heads (minus the eyes). Some buildings constructed over 600 years ago still stand but nobody actually wants to live in them. For some reason English based banks and building societies tend to be unwilling to lend against any building or property using pears as part of the original construction materials. Buyer beware.

Rhubarb: Safer but less photogenic.

*Other fruits, vegetables and edibles of all sorts are readily available here and there.

The Open Road

I may go out tomorrow if I can borrow a set of wheels.