BLT (as a starting point)

 

Strictly speaking this BLT is an BRT, R being for Rocket which may or may not be actual lettuce. It's certainly got green leaves and is found in the salad aisle but who knows? Is this the greatest sandwich of all time ... not sure. Here are a few other contenders:

Crayfish and rocket. Pret did a good version of this if you're too posh to DIY.

A piece (or a sandwich) on real chips with brown sauce. Once a food staple. Not sure of it's current status, it may have died along with the once ubiquitous chip pan.

Peanut butter and jam - has to be strawberry jam and crunchy peanut butter. Smucker's Goober (which is actually grape) is a good alternative if you can find it.

Pastrami and pickle (NY Deli style), possibly with some slices of American cheese somewhere in there. 

Crisps (any flavour but vinegar) but with a generous amount of mayo added for lubrication. 

Anchovies and mustard in/on toasted bread. Maybe a slice of tomato on top? A bit left field for those of you with more Presbyterian tastes and outlooks, but this can work.

I was going to add fish fingers but I'm exhausted now.

As for the bread it used to be the old Scottish plain loaf that was the best, it was the default, certainly for chips. The plain loaf seems to have been cancelled for health reasons or perhaps it's just another part of Scottish counter culture that has been outlawed by our unseen lords and masters. I can no longer find it in the markets and it's now taken to be obsolete. A strange relic from the past, like scarlet fever or corporal punishment.

These days it's sourdough (white) that's everywhere and I seem to have got myself stuck in that particular and for the mean time fashionable rut. At £2.50 for about seven slices, all full of air bubbles, it's hardly priced as a basic food. It is good bread. In fairness the other, cheaper breads can be pretty grim and tasteless, though rye can be a wee treat if you can get a good loaf. Very dense.

Please note that bread rolls, stotties, English breakfast muffins, brioche buns or whatever you call them are not included in this mild but biased opinion piece because they cannot be considered as the basic and foundational ingredient of a proper sandwich.

Blame Culture

 No one is responsible, no one is to blame.

Some are responsible, some are to blame.

Everyone is responsible, everyone is to blame.

If you don't move you don't notice your chains,

You choose.

Are Google good guys or are they part of the ... 

the problem being that we depend ...

or maybe rely on them ...

There are others we might choose ...

but we go with the easiest ...

maybe not the best ...

anymore ...

The best being ..?

You ask too many questions ...

Different Fire = Different Day

Different fire: No two fires are ever alike or identical, this one is no exception. Looking at the word "different" and I'm having one of those moments when the word just doesn't look right. It seems unable to spell itself, unable to be read and out of sync with the wider world of language where things are correct and recognizable. A terrible mistake and disconnect has taken place inside my head. Is there a name or explanation for this temporary blight which I presume we all suffer from at some point or other? It's a common enough experience, I tell myself. All of these things must pass.

Bad Karma: Many thanks to the person in the white BMW X5 who managed to rub their car body against my car body in the SQ Tesco car park yesterday. You left a huge white mark along the side of my motor and a number of scratches, while not bothering to try to contact me or wait for me coming out of the shop. You certainly made yesterday afternoon special for me. I've come to terms with it by accepting that it was just the universe's way of getting me to clean my dirty car. I spent about two hours buffing out the marks and scratches and then washing the entire vehicle. As for you, BMW X5 driver, I've forgiven you but I'm sure that Karma will get you in some form or another. Take good care out there, you thoughtless piece of ...

W T Actual F

The ultimate guide to rebuilding civilisation arrived in my Insta feed the other day: It's finally available at only £79, that thing you've always promised yourself; the illustrated guide on how to restart our world once it's a) burned to a crisp b) completely flooded c) a bleak radiation wilderness d) temporarily run by Satan while we await the return of Jesus e) being managed by hostile AI bots that we are unable to communicate with or f) invaded by aliens who regard us as farm animals ... I could go on but that's enough of the happy stuff. 

Just imagine the joy on your loved one's face as they open up this at Christmas; actually I can see the appeal, albeit somewhat limited. A book that may come in handy one terrible day, basking there on the kitchen shelf along with Jamie Oliver, 100 Microwave Meals and Mrs Beaton. I imagine the pages will be covered in highlighter ink with yellow stickies peeking out between them. The chapters on "How to make fire", "How to find your keys" and "How to kill and eat a pigeon" will be well marked up and thumbed.

It's pretentiously titled "The Book" so it's really out there to undermine or replace the "Good Book" which I think we all know isn't going to be much help for rebuilding anything unless you want to be ruled by mad kings and priests and struggle under a ton of incomprehensible laws and oppressive guilt, whilst eeking out a grim existence in some desert wilderness awaiting a messiah who will never arrive. A lot of Christians only ever bother with the New Testament at Christmas and Easter, the rest of time it's the full on misery of the Old Testament they swallow so they'll love the idea of that. Ongoing nuclear austerity for God's chosen few. That'll be popular with the Tories and Reform folks too.

I wonder if there's a short, possibly final chapter on how to build an atomic bomb from scratch, just in case your first few efforts at sorting things out on Earth II go a bit doolally and uncivilised. Perhaps that task is already addressed in the "For Idiots" series of books. The other problem is that over 300k copies have already been sold, mostly to Americans who wear red hats and have a healthy supply of guns, so I'd imagine. It's just not going to work.

Actually looking inside via the preview it's all a bit Steampunky, over drawn and odd, just another innocent stab at seasonal fun, promoting insecurity and raking in some cash over Christmas really, like a Temu T-shirt offer or a new kind of LED strip light. It's all a big, silly laugh but I'm still not buying it. If your next door neighbour gets a copy you can always nick it from them come the day, then burn their house down and then eat their warm flesh as per the instructions in Chapter 3.

Various Things

Laser show at the SQ Christmas lights switch on event.

Vintage ad for the old family business - a few steps removed.

There may be trouble ahead ...

Sgt. Pepper Live - Cheap Trick

It's Friday so time to stamp out some more of reality: Watched this a few years ago and then, me being me, forgot all about it. Head's too full. The Disney+ noise (?) about the newish and lukewarm Beatles anthology reminded me,  so I made the connection. This is a great performance of the whole of the Pepper album plus a cheeky bit of Abbey Road, if you are at all inclined to like that sort of thing. Cheap Trick, backing singers, players and the NYC Philharmonic Orchestra. All done up at the Waldorf Astoria (into which I have set foot), clearly not a night out for the plebs. Why bother with this? I've no idea.

AI AI Oh!

 

There's an ongoing revolution and I'm kind of fed up with it already. Nothing new when you're forever chasing convenience. It's in the ether, worming away into the hive mind. In the buzzing of those mysterious wires and boards where so much heat is generated and power consumed. All to help us figure things out, the servers will serve us. It saves time and the painful scouring of the grey matter, easier than reading books or just asking an expert, a fellow human perhaps. Also it's mostly billionaires who happen to be in charge of it's roll out and evolution, as an extra unplanned feature.

Nothing really wrong with that apart from all the band wagon jumping, complete lack of control, energy consumption and the potential isolation of souls and collapse of thought ... and then there's the inevitable reliance. It may cure cancer but we'll be too absorbed in the beautiful tunes, artworks, games and movies it's created to care. We'll also be mostly unemployed.

At the moment AI is really a huge extension of Google maps and the like. You ask for directions, you get a route, sometimes many different or alternative routes, all allowing for various means of transport. You take your pick and travel. You may still get lost if pathways change and the map isn't up to date, the signal drops or you miss a turn because you sneezed while at the wheel. 

AI is busy pulling information from a deep digital map and database of human knowledge and experience. There will be things missing; a reliable moral compass, nuance and emotion, god knows what else, we will never know what it doesn't know. Do you want that glorified map reader to be the likely source of all your advice, guidance, entertainment and creature comfort? Can you believe the hype?

It's probably not healthy to form any kind of weird, aspirational sub-human relationship with it either, no matter how polite or attentive it seems to be. Your faithful phone based buddy or assistant isn't a potential mate ... yet. It's been said that AI (in some sort of embodied form) may not be able to load a dishwasher properly for at least another twenty years. At that point it will have overtaken most of the human race. Well, me for sure.

Fat Balls Diary

Today's entry is a bit of a diary thing based around real or possibly fictitious events that took place yesterday, 25th - in no particular order:

Up a 6.45 and fed the cats. Cats not really enthusiastic about their breakfast, they're going through a fussy spell. Coffee, a wee cuddle from Bungle (a cat), charged up the cat trackers and then a nice warm shower to move the morning along. Took Ali a cuppa and looked out of the window, weather checking. Messaged "happy birthday" to my oldest grandson, will see him at the weekend.

🍻

7.45 I let the cats out, again not totally happy, it's a cold morning. They disappear out and about then return and meow a lot. That pattern continues all morning. Brought in some logs and kindling, cleaned out the burner, made up wood for burning, ready for the evening. Cat litter is still fresh so no need to mess around with it. Lots of muddy cat prints from yesterday on the tiles, a quick wipe fixes that.

By now I've decided not to go out, other than to pop over to the Co-op for some tea time vegetables. Start to read an article about Caravaggio but get halfway and decide to leave it for later. Not sure why but I have to read or watch anything about that warped, artistic genius, however pitched, that comes into my orbit. This also applies to Karl Ove Knausgård and Steve McQueen (the actor), people are strange.

I top up the bird feeders and of course I wonder what ones the bird's prefer. Currently we're serving a mix of Asda, Tesco and Home Bargains sourced fat balls. The sparrows and blue tits seem to like everything but the other (rainy) day I noticed the crows and magpies homing in on the Asda ones. I doubt there's much of a difference, it's all way better than McDonald's car park scrapings. 

Bird seed is however another matter. They're all on the HB cheap, shilling a ton, stuff (not pictured), every man jack in the bird world attacks it, not sure what gets eaten by whom as it's scattered everywhere but the pigeons and collared doves tend to scoop up the leftovers eagerly. 10ish breakfast with Ali, toast with PB&J and coffee and a short discussion about walnuts.

1030 put up a Jim Moir (aka Vic Reeves of course) original artwork, not a print, in the kitchen, it's called "Splart". I'm not sure about the exact meaning of it but that hardly matters. A 70+ birthday gift from my oldest daughter and her family. The Forth Bridge picture below it was an earlier gift from them.

Sorting out and fixing up the frames provided a rare sense of achievement from which I coasted into a quiet elevenses, some time after eleven. Back to reading more on Caravaggio's bad behaviour for a bit. Call from the garage, Ms P, aka Missy is in for repairs. Some straight forward, some not so. Had a brief discussion regarding exhaust manifolds and the curse of the rusted bolts, all twelve of them. Ho hum.

Cats all in, fed and asleep. After a pastrami sandwich lunch (me not the cats), 1255, off to the Co-op; three peppers, milk and cheese slices purchased. Bloody cold out there. Going to a wedding in May next year, filled out all the menu requirements etc. on line. Bish, bash, bosh. What a time to be alive. Coffee assistance required. This diary recording is hard work.

Read some stuff about the Beatles by Stuart Maconie. Quite like the "four narratives" theory he mentions, it's by Erin Torkelson Weber (not heard of her before). Now a bit easier to understand the impact of the Beatles with a 50 year perspective and a more balanced commentary. Rehashed material on them about to hit Disney +. The cats are back out - 1400 approx. No overlong siesta today as it's still chilly but dry. 

1445. Next up is some guitar noodling and a few additional black tape repairs to the Gator case I recently got as an eBay freebie with the soon to become "Punkicaster" carcass. The case has clearly had a life, having probably been run over by a stray Ryanair 737 a few times at Stansted Airport, where all lost luggage goes to die. Anyway nothing that a bit of Gorilla tape can't handle. It's in good nick inside too. For some reason I'm distracted by YouTube clips and fiddle about making some up. They all get binned, too jumpy. Ate a Christmas mince pie.

1600. Cats have returned to the fold, having not wandered too far, they get fed meaty Wiskas with no complaints and head off for a nap. No mice, birds or leaves brought back either. About time for a coffee and typing up this drivel. At least I'm not ranting about anything ... much, other than my normal inner rant running in the background. Just remembered that there's fitba tonight but not on cooncil telly. Plastic Whistle v the Pars, a mere week since the earthquake at Hampden and Scotland's most recent mystical and cultural reawakening, well up to a point. The Champions League is also on but I don't give a shit about any of that.

Five o'clock. I'm on meal duty this evening, stir fried chicken, peppers and rice. ETA 1830 all being well. I'll pace myself while Ali attends a lecture on line. Some but not all ingredients laid out in advance.

 

1850. Food done and dusted. The meal was OK, I'd give myself a 6.5. George the cat slept in my usual seat so I was demoted from the inner circle whilst dining. I can cope with that. DAFC Instagram snippet from Firhill via the Pars makes it look pretty grim there tonight i.e. cold. As ever I'm hoping for the best. 

At any moment, after a short but elaborate ceremony, the log burner will be ablaze and our primal spirits will rise as they follow the fresh new flames up to heaven where they will soothe the unjustified anger of the Gods of Winter. It's an old Fifeshire tradition firmly welded into our whimsical pagan belief systems. We're kind of stuck with it. The fire is alight.

Moving on ... got sent a link for a live stream of the footy, decided against using it, didn't look good. We're a goal down right now. 

And that's the way it stayed. Had a mug of Ovaltine and just let the remains of the day slip away while half watching something about Mozart in New York on Amazon.

Psychic Quicksand

 

Tips and techniques: despite twenty odd (?) years of striving for the mastery and well controlled use of the cast iron log burner or stove I have little or no useful advice to offer. I think I've experience of living with, cleaning, fueling and burning in most types, from a simple open fire to a closed kitchen stove but in the end have I really learned anything of value? Not much, it's all just a bit of whatever you make of it and avoiding burned fingers. However I've learned to wear the tough gloves.

The thing is that log burners are a lot like old Volkswagen campers or beetles - they look good and they smack of a certain lifestyle and in a wacky way freedom from the grid but ... they burn up dinosaurs or dead trees and put bad particles into the atmosphere. Having said that a lot of houses, furniture, guitars and all sorts of stuff are made of dead trees though it's the burning process and fumes that are the problem ... unless you're out in the wilds, like us ... well almost, despite sitting smugly on a bus route. This life is all just warm and woolly psychic quicksand.

WHERE'S MY F****IN' BUS?!

Inspired by real life events: A song about a rather pressing matter here in the slowly/rapidly crumbling First World*: For some reason Danny Sapko and Justin Hawkins keep turning up together in the socials and on YouTube. They also turned up during my family birthday lunch, a few weeks ago but that was all down to a mixed up business card set of card tricks that I was under performing (in). 

Here's Danny (no Justin however) in a band (?) where he doesn't even play bass  but this song's had thousands of plays already. OK it's been up for a few weeks but fair enough. They do all their own creative work too - home made, not too impressive. Ladies and gentlemen ... the Mellon-Collies. I don't recognise the font either. I wrote this bit today which was yesterday. 

*Not everyone on the planet thinks this way.

Old Plans

 

Rosyth imagined: I came across this old street plan of Rosyth the other day. It's from 1917 when the first phases of the town were being put together to house workers for the nearby Naval Base and Dockyard. I arrived in Rosyth as a young 'un some time in the late 1950s and stayed at two different addresses with my parents and one later on when I was first married. They're all visible on this map. 

My primary school was where the word "school"  is tentatively written on the right side of the plan. The actual house plans were all based around those of the "Garden City" project put together to house the chocolate factory staff down in Bourneville near Birmingham. 

If you were a dockyard worker (this was about 1977 for me) you were entitled to a "dockyard" house in Rosyth should one become available, so as a young married man I eventually got one to rent. We were only in that house for a year or so before buying a "project" up in Dunfermline. I've always had a soft spot for money-pits, rescues and daft projects. What's life without a small element of risk?  

Meanwhile Rosyth has expanded and been rehashed and redrawn - though this part hasn't changed too much. Well, the M90 now dominates the landscape towards the east and the fancy looking stuff laid out on the west of the drawing never quite came to be, it's a mess of housing estates at the moment. Fifty years or so later I don't think I would recognise or know anyone who lives there now ... times have moved on nicely.

Celebrity Everything and Nothing

The headline reads "I'm a Celebrity 2025 has kicked off, here's all you need to know": The crop of celebrity shows - Dancing on Ice, Strictly, I’m a Celebrity, Traitors, and the rest - regularly roll across the TV screens like long caravans of chatter, noise and light. Who are these people? Are they special or interesting in some incredible way? Perhaps we'll all discover something new during another marathon watch. Meanwhile those mostly unheard of C and D listers come into the event the way tired factory workers might walk into a bar at the end of a tough day in the 1960s - looking for something to keep them going. 

They dance, hunt the traitor, or eat strange things while the crowds watch from the other side of the reality looking glass. The tasks or trials are staged and planned out but essentially small, often foolish, but that is the point. Small tasks are easier to endure. They do not break people. They only mess up their hair or muddy their boots a little in the mediocrity of some group achivement. PPE will be provided and a personal sound bite in which you can explain yourself.

The producers build these worlds so nothing truly dangerous can happen (understandable enough). It may look hard, but it is not the kind of hard that leaves a scar or a mark. A celebrity can get wet, cry in a jungle, or wander lost through some invented ordeal, and still come out clean. At worst, they may look silly. At best, they can look brave and clever. None of it costs them more than a few days of discomfort, and discomfort is something a person can fake if the cameras and final edits are kind. That's entertainment these days.

In these shows everyone behaves well. They smile even when they don’t mean it. They speak softly. They praise one another for small things, normal and often banal things. It is the habit of people who know their fortunes can shift like winds over water. No one wants to be the weak link. No one wants to be the one the public turns away from. So they choose courtesy or humour. They avoid petulance and hard truth. They choose the safe road, because the safe road keeps them visible. It's all good PR in a fragile and fickle business.

And that is why they come. Not for the dance, or the trial, enlightenment or the journey, but for the light of exposure that shines on them while they do it. They need that light. Without it, the world forgets them and to be forgotten is the worse kind of death for a celeb. So they step forward, smile, and do the absurd activity set before them. The audience laughs. The show hits a groove and goes on. A favoured charity gets a cash boost and some names and curated images will hit the headlines. There will be celebrity chat of course and more back slapping as they all reflect. Then, for the next season, that caravan moves on down the road again with some new and over excited passengers.

Of course it can be fun but the real news is ... elsewhere.

Yesterday's Papers

Above is my one time road to retirement. Meanwhile from the Guardian: 

"Defence officials have identified at least a dozen disused oil refineries and chemical plants as possible sites to make explosives and ammunition, including Grangemouth, Southampton and Teesside.

The Ministry of Defence has been scouring Britain for places to build at least six new munitions factories as part of a £6bn programme to increase its supplies as part of a Nato-wide rearmament push.

Emails released to the Ferret website show the MoD, the Department of Business and Trade and the Health and Safety Executive believe that at least four sites at Grangemouth, where the UK’s oldest oil refinery closed earlier this year and several chemical companies have shut down, could be suitable.

Other sites include the proposed BritishVolt battery plant near Newcastle, Milford Haven oil refinery in Wales, Workington and Ulverston in Cumbria, several places on Teesside including Seal Sands, and an oil terminal on Loch Long in Scotland, close to the MoD’s underground bomb store at Glen Douglas, which is said to be the largest in Europe.

The sites were inadvertently revealed when MoD officials failed to properly redact a freedom of information response about Grangemouth, allowing the blacked-out sections to be read. The MoD apologised, admitting it had breached the confidentiality of officials and its business partners. ... "

Every so often (must be an age thing) aspects of my past life rise up from nowhere or at least get a small mention in the media. This "leak" is quite interesting if only for some of my old personal working connections with Milford Haven, Broughton Moor, Glen Douglas, Loch Long and God knows where else 😉. What goes around not only comes around but really just runs in a repeticious cycle. This is what you get when you have a succession of UK governments who don't really understand how things work in the real world, from the ground up and don't seem to know their own history.

One more thing, I've not looked at any actual papers today but the socials are quite rightly celebrating Scotland's brilliant performance last night at Hampden. Good news at last albeit it's a shame the WC is being staged in the USA - there are a lot of reasons why that seems like a bad idea to me. I hope I'm wrong on this.

8

 

I'm in a restaurant in Edinburgh. It's after lunch time has been cleared up and it's almost empty. I look down at the wooden floor. I notice a mysterious looking figure cut into the wood's surface. A lot like the figure eight. It's also framed by a square of wood that's more lightly tinted than the rest of the floor. I check  around but I don't see any other figures or lighter squares. I begin to wonder if there's something I should know, something more. An eight based sign or code perhaps. It may not even be an eight by design, just some marks that turned out that way. Table or chair leg marks. What might be going on here? All meaning is lost in the twists and curves of quite recent history. I'm standing on a reasonably firm, aged but well enough maintained wooden floor in a French themed Edinburgh restaurant and seeing what looks like a symbol of some sort - or wear and tear set in a pale square frame. That's all I really know.

Send More Cat Pics

I was just about to sit down and relax with a coffee and have a quick read of the Big Issue when Bungle the cat appeared on the scene. She quickly made herself comfortable, as cats do. So that was the end of that little idea.

Top of the Bots

I was mostly against robot checkouts in shops for the usual Luddite reasons but like everyone else I've slowly given in, not to the customer exploitation or the fabricated convenience so much as the time taken. If you've only a few items to buy, then waiting in a queue for a cashier is frustrating. The bots can be quicker. 

I realise that billionaires and their immediate serfs do not have the mundane problem of actually waiting for stuff, so they do things their way to generate "savings" and efficiency etc. mostly for shareholders benefit. So, now that we're stuck with this fine tech "solution", which supermercado checkout abomination is the best system? Be warned, I'm likely to wander in the sharing of my observations.

Aldi - Probably top: Quite cramped and small at the point of use but superfast due to Aldi's clear and very effective barcodes. Everything works 100% of the time, staff on hand and quick to check alcohol purchases etc. They just do simple ranges of stuff and I have a false sense of smooth operational efficiency going on behind the scenes that I can almost believe in, so I'm not overwhelmed or agitated in their shops. The machines don't speak, well not to me. 

Tesco - Mid/low-table finish I'd say, always busy and staff often distracted by chatting to each other, sorting out security tags on stuff or trying to fix or check those dumb scan as you shop systems - over complicated. As ever Tesco tries to do too much, a huge range and level of inventory so things seem very busy and hurried. Some of the devices talk, others remain silent. Why? Doors on fridges are a thing now, not just in Tesco to be fair, who's fucking dumb idea was that, opening doors as old folks with trolleys shuffle past? The blue chip token things are a joke by the way. Just sort out your own selections for helping the local community and while you're at it calm down with your screwy Clubcard prices.

Morrisons - Nothing to say really, bland but workable. Don't shop there very often. I like the look of their bakery and fresh stuff but seldom buy anything. Low score? I don't know.

Co-op - Weirdly designed system. No obvious scales or weight checks and noisy, random beeps for some reason, but it's quick and effective. Also speaks in a kind of "Still Game" forced Scottish accent which is wearing a bit thin when you hear it every other day. Trying hard.

Boots - Fucking dreadful. Staff always elsewhere. Try buying a giftcard sometime, not easy. Bottom.

M&S - Mid-table: Again a peculiar device design that at first seems quite baffling but I guess is effective enough. There's bit of a height thing where you have to lift items higher to scan them than in other shops. Ergonomic failure? No clear area for used shopping baskets either.

B&Q - Obviously not a supermarket but one those places where sometimes you do it yourself (DIY) and sometimes a cashier intervenes and puts your stuff through. Must be a DIY ethos thing that's not quite understood by anybody. Fine if you're not behind somebody who's building a house.

Lidl - See Aldi. A bit more grubby and even more off the wall than Aldi but has decent fresh baked goods to offer, which are quite easy to put through the robot till. Topish, sometimes stocks Smucker's Goober.

Asda - Generally OK, absolutely no frills (or thrills), usually a charity intervention at the end of scanning. No idea what an Asda card actually gets you either so I won't be bothering with that. Solid performer on the whole "meal deal" thing though, something Asda has made dead simple while Tesco's meal deal price structure is a completely incomprehensible mess of colour and codes that has resulted in near nervous breakdowns for me a few times. A higher than usual proportion of Asda customers look pretty peculiar - but that's more of a Fife thing I guess. Overall a pretty good performance. 

Waitrose - Only been once in recent times, good sourdough bread. Used a human operated till to pay.

I may have veered a little away from the core topic here from time to time but it's (mostly) my blog and that's just how it is.

Next Up: Which system is easiest to fiddle?

Wet Thursday

 

For some reason the cats did not find the prospect of a wet romp around the rain soaked garden very attractive yesterday. They are also unfamiliar with a wind from the north west so that seemed to pique them somewhat. They refused to leave the house and so did I, there's plenty of soup to slowly sup and some decent whisky inboard, so why bother? 

I'm assured by experts that the weather may be better (well warmer but more destructive) in 2026 as global warming turns this spinning platform of greed and stupidity into the basket of an air fryer that's set up to prepare chips to the red hot Scottish standard. It isn't easy knowing you're on a doomed planet that is running in a sort of slow motion loop, the circumference of which is slowly diminishing. 

Here's a parting shot of the WIP Punkicaster's finished headstock, it features a cat's paw (or some other random animal footprint) design.

Unreliable Window Cleaner

Thumb Twiddling: So we waited all day for for the window cleaner but he never did appear. The cats were of course primed and ready for his visit, they'd a cunning plan to scoot away and hide somewhere/anywhere while he hosed and brushed down our fine collection of windows. Window cleaning is yet another thing that cats don't really understand. Alas he was a no show and as yet we don't know why. I hope he's OK. 

In a fit of not having a fit I created a pot of soup. The recently burgled Co-op over by was the source of the main ingredients. It's fair to say my soup making skills are pretty basic. I've no desire to get clever with soup. Lentil or Scottish Veg are my regular creations and only in the soup season (Nov - Feb).

Since reading one of Bob Mortimer's books I've been haunted by his insistence that his mum's advice should be a key part in soup prepartion: "boil the soup, spoil the soup" she told him*. Everytime I get set up to make soup that phrase comes back to me. Before I knew better (?) I let the soup boil for a bit followed by a time of lengthy simmering. Now I can't allow a decent soup boil to take place for fear of spoiling the soup. It's become all about maintaining a carefully controlled simmer and remaining vigilant throughout. 

The thing is, before Bob's advice, when I was ignorantly over boiling the soup it mostly turned out fine, or so I thought. This is the kind of inner conflict I can do without and it illustrates perfectly the problems you get when you read books ... 😏

*I may well have mentioned this before.

Punkicaster

The Punkicaster is nearly finished but still undergoing sea trials to hopefully uncover and fix a few minor (?) problems. The final higher frets, 18 to 21 need filed down. The previous owner managed to bugger up the (adopted Chinese but mildly interesting 😉) neck by using overly long screws that have distorted the fingerboard's surface and put tiny bends into a couple of frets. Will the careful application of a small blunt file and a spurt of super glue yet again be the corrrect solution? Purists please avert your eyes. 

Now that I've got the wiring soldered and sorted that P90 sounds great. It lives and thrives on the gain pot of the Orange Tiny Terror in an exhilarating way. The obviously non-Fender Les Paul Junior pickguard is of course a tribute to the ear splitting legacy of all those battle weary Les Paul Juniors out there. It also covers up the Leslie West ash tray - if you know, you know.

So far I'm only about £50 into this "project" thanks to my old parts bin: £30 for the guitar and £20 for the pickguard, varnish and a wiring loom and I've still got the free Gator case to repair - it'll be fine after applying a £5 roll of gaffer tape from Wickes to it. The old humbucker that came with the guitar might even make a tenner on eBay some day when I can be bothered.

Mocked Up

 

Knocked up and mocked up project update: After a bit of time sorting out the body work and the neck bolts, this somewhat damaged Telecaster shaped Punkicaster is starting to take shape. I'm going with a single P90 pickup, hard tail bridge and simple as toasted cheese electrics. I've tried complicated set ups before, Gilmour switches, treble bleed mods and coil taps etc. and nice as these things are I really can't be arsed. So it's back to basics. Just letting the second coat of varnish dry and onto the next set of problems. The neck and frets might take a bit of time to get anything remotely close to being correct. Strangely the intonation was/is bang on.

Here's the "simple as toasted cheese" wiring diagram and there's no doubt, it's very simple. However I know it'll end up in a trial and error mess of soldering and trying to figure why there's only silence or why there's only crackle before I finally get to the bit where some sort of audible guitar sound is produced. At that wonderful point in the proceedings I'll be surprised but also strangely satisfied. This is mostly how I live my life.

Röntgen's Theory

 

Had a good weekend mostly, not thinking too deeply about anything, then without any warning along came the spectre of science. That's "SS" to the uninitiated (but not like the other WW2 SS). It just entered the sanctum of the inner chat, kicked the door shut behind it, poured a coffee from the jug, grabbed a Kit-Kat, sat down and completely took over and hi-jacked the silent conversation. Another one of those unpredictable, wondering mind things.

When Mrs Röntgen first saw an X-Ray of her own hand she exclaimed, "I have seen my own death!" How apt but also quite odd. This isn't a photo of her hand either (it was taken a few days later) but I imagine her hand was similar.

X-Rays are a bit like human flight or harnessing electricity. Things that might seem somehow impossible, almost unearthly - but they're not, just science. They just need some intervention to create a mix of the right things to be put together in the correct circumstances to allow them to function in whatever way they can to be made useful. It's all wonderful at the time but we quickly take tech advances for granted once they operate within our daily lives, quickly becoming normal and unseen. Shadows and light ...

Another Guitar Project

"For your project" is such an annoying description to use. I don't quite know why but it just sounds pretentious. To be clear this project isn't a project, it's a rescue. The battered and broken hulk in the pic is either my latest mistake or just another wonky bit of divine inspiration. Bought for buttons in an eBay Friday evening's mind warped moment and it came with a free fully repairable Gator case that's probably worth more than the guitar. 

All of the above are signs of baseless optimism and time wasting, some might unkindly think or say. I still have a (limited and deluded) vision of how nice it will turn out*. Note the early application of super glue and cotton wool in order to fill and resize badly placed holes - once the mixture is dry you can actually drill right into them, it's as tough as Russian steel I tell you. The ultra reliable Dremel must not, will not fail.

*You may never see or hear of this again. 😑

Can't Stand The Guardian

 

But it's better than the gaslit BBC news output (wonder what's on CNN, ITV and Sky?): When I say that I can't stand the Guardian what I really mean is that I can't stand the Guardian because while I mostly agree with the editorial stances it takes on news and issues etc. I'm also exhausted. What I see and read is somehow drowned out by the memory of similar articles I've read in the past and forever nodded along with ... but now I seem unable to take anymore stuff in. Nobody pays attention to reasoned bits of opinion or advice and that's nobody's fault but everyone's.

I've decided that my head is full up and nothing anyone says or does or writes in the Guardian, however accurate or eloquent, ever fixes anything. Apart from the usually terrible news, the recipes, reviews, opinions and reader's lettuce* only form up as salads of buzzy words that I can no longer chew upon. It all washes over me like a warmish and bland, feeble kind of mayo. I do like about 50% of the cartoons though and the odd celeb fave tunes list. These odd lists are of no real use to anyone but they can mask the bleakness of the headlines and reported life outside. Life can be a terrible thing and of course all power is tyranny. In my lighter moments I mostly stare into space and suck frozen Kit-Kats.

*a green vegetable.

Velvet Revolvers

Revisionist theories: As a teenager my musical taste was formed around the Beatles and Stones records that I'd grown up with - much like most 60s teens. Top of the Pops and Ready Steady Go. Noisy guitar bands were my thing. At about age fifteen I discovered the album and so did everyone else, there was a shift in our listening world. Singles were so old hat, we needed more headroom. Cream, Led Zep, CSNY, Hendrix, Yes and Pink Floyd ruled my somewhat narrow taste in the airwaves. Then one day a friend passed me a copy of the Velvet Underground & Nico. It didn't quite fit with me, no love, no peace, strange spikey tunes and dark lyrics but I didn't give up on them. Slowly I decided I liked it and listened to more of their stuff. 

By 1975 however I was over all that, the Bowie, Roxy and Lou Reed catalogue was too arty and just wasn't relaxing enough and I was no early adopter of punk either. I listened to Little Feat, Zappa, Poco, Steely Dan and eventually drifted into full dad rock proper because I was actually a dad and late night radio, long joint-fueled listening parties, gigs and festivals were things of the past. What fun. By '78ish the Fisher-Price years had arrived. I had a cottage to renovate, a dodgy car to keep on the road and hungry mouths to feed, all on my shipyard wages.

So now 50+ years later I'm hearing and playing (Capital Models to thank for this) more Lou Reed and Velvet's tunes and I'm kinda liking them. Sweet Jane has resurfaced (see a previous post) and that riff is probably one of the best four chord guitar bashers ever. Rock and Roll is a proper gem of a song despite the weird lyrics, Perfect Day is just about the perfect ballad to reflect on down at heel reality and personal despair and Satellite of Love is just a strange, abstract, meaningless but wonderful bit of rock fluff. Nice to catch up with the past.

A Bridge Too Far

Rainy day today: The one piece bridge and tail-piece design on Les Paul and SG Jnr guitars is troublesome. It's clunky, hard to intonate and set, difficult to replace the strings because of the top wrap/winding, almost impossible to adjust the action and just another thing to have to bother with, which nobody needs. This guitar came with a Wilkinson one-piece that actually is made up of about a dozen bits including screws and hex bolts. Very fiddley too.

I replaced it with another model with adjustable string settings but found it to be awkward and more clunky than the original Wilkinson. So it ended up being taken off. There are other solutions out there but the best come in at around £50, imported from the States and perhaps not quite worth the punt. I then decided to try to fit a separate bridge and tail-piece. 

Looking on line there are loads of options (Les Paul and SG standard configurations) but the dimensions available don't fit with the Jnr. style bridge drill holes and I didn't want mess up that part of the guitar. So I found a basic "SG" style tail-piece on eBay for £4.50 and stuck with the old bridge and cut out the need to top wrap - as in the pics. The old set up had a huge strain on it when the strings were tight and I could see it lean into the neck direction when tuned up. 

This new, cheap and cheerful arrangement removes the strain and makes the bridge a bit easier to adjust (not much but I'm going to fine tune as I go). Of course nothing looks straight or lines up because of the odd  angles the intonation requires. So overall it's better, not perfect but better. Perhaps I've spoiled the cleaner looks but I think my solution isn't too bad. There are some howler examples on line, one guy resolved the problem by adapting a bottle opener as a tail-piece. I'm forever saying that the struggle is real but ...

In other news, unfortunately this is probably a snapshot of the real struggle:

Machine Heads

Necks please: The bonfire of the guitar related projects slowly grumbles on. That's how older men approach their hand crafted challenges and visionary successes, with a shrug and a grumble (and a deeper understanding of the limits of their imagination, skills and patience). Any old dream will do and yes but no it will never be "quite right". Life's activities are filled with many moving parts, most of which are determined not to move in the ways that you'd want them to. But I've learned to operate in peace and harmony within a mostly chaotic universe. Also you should never begin a sentence with the word "but".

P.S. After less than a week of ownership and solid blocks of use, the Amazon (Basics) mouse is still performing far better than any random small rodent scooped out of the bottom of a garden hedge would if thrust into a similar role.

And There You Have It

spellingmistakescostlives (they're on some of those social media sites you know - and they shared this recently): 

"The Zionist myth that Israeli settlers "made the desert bloom" is as inaccurate and racist as the myth that Israel was a "land without a people for a people without a land".⁠
⁠
As we can see in Gaza and the West Bank, the process of stripping the land of its people, and reducing cultivated land to slashed and burned wasteland, requires extensive, brutal violence. Olive groves that have been propagated for centuries are torn down by Israeli settlers, water sources are filled with concrete, and farmers are driven from their homes.⁠
⁠
In the 1948 Nakba, at least half of the Arab population of Palestine, (700,000 people,) were driven from their homes, and forbidden from returning. Villages were razed, and archaeological sites destroyed. There has been a deliberate attempt by the Israeli state to make its claim of a "land without a people" a retrospective reality. As they will attempt to do with Gaza, after this Second Nakba.⁠
⁠
According to Decolonizing Palestine: "The vast majority of cultivated agricultural land in Israel today was already being cultivated by Palestinians before their ethnic cleansing... On the eve of the 1948 war, around 739,750 acres of land were being cultivated by Palestinians. These cultivated lands were so vast, that they were “greater than the physical area which was under cultivation in Israel almost thirty years later.” The agricultural core of the Israeli state consists of cultivated farmland that was stolen from Palestinian refugees after their ethnic cleansing."⁠
⁠
Colonial ideology has always needed to believe that conquered peoples were idle, ignorant and backwards, unable to manage their own resources, and always requiring Western intervention to improve and utilize the land beneath their feet. The more we learn about the civilisations that European colonialism has destroyed, the more we see that we were simply importing our own ignorance into these nations, alongside our violence and disease. The people who lived there before we arrived knew all too well how to live in their own land.⁠"