A place to park those random thoughts, stolen images, hidden conversations and incoherent babble from beyond the wall of sleep. Odd bits of music and so-called worldly wisdom may creep in from time to time. Don't expect too much and you won't feel let down.
Or is it the River of Tortured Souls? Or the River of Somewhat Anxious Spirits? The Stream of the Great Unwashed's Consciousness? The Slow Torrent of Political Incompetence that Poisons the World? The River of Feckless Liars? The Huge but Steady Stream of Liquorice Negativity? A Cloudy and Overcast Day in the Nether World? Always tough to assign a title to some random images you've invested so little of yourself in. It could be a video game title though, or an album.
Are you at an age or time of life when you might just be curious about trying CBD?
CBD, or Cannabidiol, is one of over 100 different cannabinoids found in the cannabis or hemp plant. Unlike the more well known cannabinoid THC, CBD is not psychoactive and therefore does not cause you to experience a high that is typically associated with cannabis*. Research into CBD is still in early stages, however anecdotal reports have shown positive results and it is being researched as a potential treatment for chronic pain among many other conditions. CBD is extracted from the hemp or cannabis plant using a range of different methods before it is then diluted with a carrier oil to create a CBD oil. It’s also used in a range of other exciting products such as balms, lip balms, edibles and capsules to name a few. The list is only growing as CBD companies find new ways to innovate.
* But you can get it in chocolate bars too.
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The above photo shows the famed SQ VAT-69 distillery in all it's 1960s glory as well as the green spaces that formerly surrounded the site.
It was taken by a Samsung Vesuvius time traveling drone (now available at Amazon, eBay and in selected Aldi stores) for just £99.99. This powerful little machine can be set up to fly back to any period in recent history and take high or low altitude, full colour arial snaps of what ever target/landmark you manage to program in from your own smartphone using the time travel app. Batteries are not included (base model has a clockwork motor and perpetual motion feature). Special "Time Paradox" insurance (recommended) is available at extra cost, price etc. TBA.
The drone contains numerous other "safety" time travel features including a block on the software that prevents retrospective historical assassinations from being carried out. Please don't expect to set up your device to simply head off into the past and crash into the skull of that nasty dictator, politician, high school teacher or disreputable family member you'd like to eliminate. Other less reprehensible "disturbance" options are available, again at extra cost.
Strikes me that a few more books are crying out for similar treatment if this is now a thing: the Bible and the Quran being good examples. Swearing your truth on a highly suspect, violent, bigoted and divisive book of made up legend, weird history and primitive religion isn't a great idea. It doesn't hold up. Let's get it edited/censored to neatly fit with the current generation(s) and their own interesting and developed values. Nobody wants to cause offense now do they?
Meanwhile the UK media takes the view that without Nicola Sturgeon the Scottish independence movement will collapse and that Labour will once again reign supreme in the green hills of Caledonia. That's an odd piece of logic and assumption but guess what, the media also tell lies. Sure the SNP is a bit of a shit show right now, full of duffers and idiots promoted beyond their abilities but so it is in every other UK political party. It's always a nervy judgement call on how you might manage to vote for the least worst.
The SNP remain a peculiar beast, in typically Scottish fashion they manage to move both forwards and backwards at the same time as they remain stuck in the vacuum of an evolutionary loop that is inescapable. They just don't have the balls or vision to agitate for their cause. You can tell that even MI5 don't think they pose any actual danger, when was the last time an SNP MP fell out of a hotel window in India?
Anyway I'm going to enjoy seeing how many of their gravy train riding MPs pledge their allegiance to sour puss King Charles III and wish him well on his big bucks coronation. OBEs and MBEs all round.
Answer? I can't say for sure but I've just eaten a four finger one and is was 60% more than reasonably adequate.
Kit-Kats are big in Japan, there they have exotic flavours and colours. We here in the west struggle with that sort of thing according to the marketing people, mainly because of our tendencies towards serial dullness, so we miss out.
The wide eyed and manic contestants line up like guests at some D-lister and lowly public service worker's wedding, all unaware of the kind of event they've landed in. Some loud, some moody, some needy, some just obviously ignorant of most of the normal behavioural traits that their fellow humans exhibit. Life has taught them very little. You wonder how they ever manage to do everyday things or hold casual conversations ... but they're here and now playing an adult game with a big cash prize. It would be fine then if they simply understood a) how adults act and b) what an actual game is.
I suppose none of this matters, the whole thing is a chaotic car crash that's highly addictive and entertaining, cringe worthy and even funny at times and how people can claim to "love" and "trust" perfect strangers after few hours under some gilded gothic roof makes no sense. Perhaps it's the highland water and the mountain air. However it does turn out that a few of the contestants are far from being unfocused, dumb or malleable and that really is the main and unexpected twist. If your attention span and dislike of loud Americans can't cope with all ten curious episodes the final three will probably do it for you.
Whilst leaving the local shop the other day I overhead two postmen having a conversation. One was older, bearded with the correct amount of white beardy flecks, the other younger one wore a bobble hat and had a wispy, ginger beard. The kind of beard that the navy would've made you shave off as it wasn't up to naval standards. Why on earth am I describing them by their beards? It's as if they had no other physical features of note, maybe that's the point. H. G. Wells' "the Invisible Man" is all about a postman after all. Are postmen mostly invisible and hard to describe without using words like beard, shorts, Rastafarian or chatty?
These postmen were discussing Cat Stevens' albums. "Oh yeah, that one's a classic", said the older postman. The younger one nodded. "I've got quite a few of his", added the older one.
He's got them on vinyl and CD I imagine, none of that streaming stuff, he's not of that generation. I could make an educated guess of what's in his listening collection and how he remembers rolling five skinner joints on the book fold covers. The trouble is that often it's all about the memory and the context, listening to the actual music and enjoying it 50 years later isn't so simple.
"Favourite tune?" "Ah, well, probably Matthew and Son". "Aye". "Then there's First Cut, that's a belter". "Aye". "Father and Son." "Aye".
By now I'm moving away, heading across the car park with my lunchtime hot pie and egg mayo baguette. The postmen are back to loading the van. It's a familiar kind of conversation. The appreciation of music or films or whatever ... always going back to some golden time. A pub chat that's forever circular, like some YouTube search that keeps throwing up fragments and tangents you just don't need.
When it comes to art and music I know I sometimes say I like things but I don't really like them. I'm being supportive of other tastes so I bluff. Sometimes I've never even listened to the album or seen the film that the conversation is about. I might admit to that, I might not. A lot of the older stuff is a bit shit really, you just have to dig down and be selective. I've certainly never bought any of Cat Stevens' albums but he was always OK and interesting. I reckon it's all down to who you hung out with at high school. That sets you on a road. After that not much else counts.
The AI image above features a giant "Cat" with his famous five legs and a single unbearded postman who may or may not have a gun. The AI image below has simply been added because in the end (?) these things will dominate our lives and outlook to the point we wont know reality from unreality so we best get used to it. These postmen have beards and do regular work for a street cat called Steven, about whom the less said the better.
I can confirm that the new funky and solar powered Bird Buddy is now locked, loaded and fully operational. For the birds the good times are just about to begin. I'm not sure what this will mean for us.
Here's my home made Vesuvius or Etna or Stromboli. It's not Mount Olympus as the title suggests but that was my first thought, then I realized that Olympus wasn't a volcano, I think. More research may be required but it's unlikely ever to happen. It's not really a model at all, just the first spurt of flame when the firelighter awakens under the logs and kindling.
I do wonder about the Greek and later Roman gods, up there on Olympus in their daft and hedonistic pomp. Did the clever and deeply philosophical Greeks really believe in those ridiculous gods? I think it's always about opium for the masses, it works so well in every civilisation. Add a few well thought out legends and fables and you're away, then get those idiots to spend their lives putting up beautiful but meaningless temples where they can sacrifice a few pigeons now and then.
Recent press information has given me some concerns about log burners but the "bad press" seems to centre around inner city (London mainly) readings or figures. We're out in the sticks, by the coast and on a windy hill, no one nearby seems to use a log stove, does that make anything right? Will we live to regret our smoke signals or is it simply a minor mark in our already enormous polluting footprint?
It never did happen. What nobody knew (well me mostly) in those pre-whatever years was that this country, whilst not a Utopia could actually be a pretty good place with a lot of potential. Then along came the villains, the greedies and the serially corrupt. They didn't really have the same dream, they just wanted disruption and a kind unfair simplicity where privilege and nepotism could quietly gain and maintain the upper hand, even more so than before, and it worked. We're now living in their Uptopia, made in their image and we still don't own a single piece of it. That's because it's all theirs and it always was. We're displaced people.
A final word to the "middle classes": you don't exist. The media and some potted history created you a while ago. You act as a deluded buffer for the ruling minority, in place as an ignorant bullwark against the "working class". You think you have something to lose and a lot to defend, but you're just doing their dirty work by craning your neck to see how far above you those lords of the stratosphere are actually flying with all their twinkling resources; shining as a faint spectacle beyond their own armoured ceiling. You'll never join them. Yup, it's all a big sham, numbers on bits of paper and blips in digital vaults. Enjoy.
*I do relish a good vacuous splurge sometimes, just to clear out the passages.
Nothing lasts forever in the material world: This car, minus a rear quarter light has been left abandoned in the local shop's car park since last December. I don't think it's been reported to anybody and I doubt anybody cares. I thought about reporting it myself but recent experiences with the police suggest to me they'll do very little. When car, shop or house burglar alarms go off any report is met with a chilly indifference.
There's no resource or energy there to get involved, that's pretty obvious to me. The traffic division prefer to monitor speeding offences and little else. I wonder how long this car will sit here. I'd imagine at some point it'll get torched and then there may be some resources deployed. It could have been resolved in a far simpler way. Ho hum.
Below are some out of date dates, they "expired" early January but I decided to try them last night. They were overlooked in the Christmas extravaganza. I'm still alive and typing this report a day later having scoffed a few. Please don't try this at home.
When you're drifting in and around new worlds and different dimensions it's easy to lose track of time and think that today is Shrove Tuesday (Pancake Day). Turns out it's not, there's still two weeks to go and I was once again wrong. Funny but we never celebrate anything on this day nor actually feel the need to eat pancakes at any time during it. Why does it somehow seem important?
"Today's the day the Teddy Boys got their shit nicked."
This is the sort of puerile and idiotic humour I like. I should probably apologize to everyone and even myself for finding this kind of statement funny but I've no intention of doing so. Of course the art/illustration is via the dreaded AI prompt, thus making the whole thing even more silly, hateful and pointless. We are here because the internet brought us here and we're all stuck with it now.
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A glitch in the unrelenting weather matrix. Unreliable forecasts predict 0% from Sunday onwards. I'm unsure as how to react. Days without rain in February. No damp conditions, drizzle or pounding great sheets of water falling from the sky. Does anybody know this is Scotland, home of the dreich and dreadful, the dim foggy and soaking place where there is no respite from all forms of H20 coming at you?
P.S. It was my 14th year on Twitter the other day. 14 years in which I've steadily gone nowhere and failed to grow, respond or make any kind of difference. I didn't bother to post this either. I'm not much of a community person it seems.
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We've yet to evolve into a more circular and all encompassing vision of our lives and times. So we trundle on in some kind of darkened chaos peering through the slit in the prison cell door, looking at things presented through the odd angle's distortion so we can't quite fathom them yet. I blame Wes Anderson for skewing my world view but also thank him for somehow making it all real to me.