Cockletrees

Out for remedial walkies today and no hangovers in sight, all still, faintly crisp, the ground dry like perma-frost, steps easy to take but hard to find. The wind was some other place and the light came directly from a huge burning orb at least eight minutes away. What warmth there was was eight minutes past it's best but it turned out alright. We saw a few folks who looked a lot like their dogs and visa-versa, that always happens but they themselves remain unaware. I missed the sunset but I believe that it came around at the usual time and being a purple pink colour was photographed by many and share all across social media. At this point I was ironing shirts and watching Pink Floyd in Pompeii, It's taken me over forty years to get to that place and fifty nine to get to this. 

Day Six of the flu and headaches: This morning we were rudely awoken by a mouse that had taken up residence in a bedside drawer. It had rifled through belongings and eaten sweets, some of which we had eaten before we realised the mouse had gotten there first. Needless to say it has escaped and is still a large. It also ate part of a guitar stand. As I'd accidentally locked one of the cats in the garage overnight I can't hold them fully responsible for this security breach but they will need to focus a little more on their core tasks.

How many black bags of rubbish can you get in the back of a Jeep with only one seat folded down? 10, there, now you know as much as me.

Ha ha ha

Surely the lamest thing ever. KPMG what were/are you thinking? It's a great strap line...no it's not and it'll presumably figure on his tombstone. "That's how I feel about infrastructure". Any client who buys into this has a serious problem.

Drink

Some random incoming Tweet today told me with a reassuring degree of possibly fictitious certainty that a regular glass of whisky has been proven to reduce cold and flu symptoms. There is absolutely no research or decent evidence to back this claim up but I for one am choosing to firmly believe it. Time for a slug of Glenrothes Gold then.

Now it's...

Just to be clear, let's sort out a few things regarding where we are in time.

The magical powers of paracetamol are there to be understood but are difficult to fathom. The small white capsules are swallowed with a splash of water in the hope of killing a headache or calming a fever. Sometimes that works, sometimes it doesn't, it's just medicine, good or band. But what if there are unknown beneficial side effects and bonuses? Trials are tough, I won't be bothering but my recent bout of irritable flu syndrome and suffering and grumbling and still stumbling onwards to work has taught me one little thing. These everyday meds have overhauled, possibly by accident or cosmic intervention some of the jolly old internal plumbing and all the rusty bits...or so I think. Well even in this winter chill, when it's -5 and the car seats are frozen solid there's more glow and less annoying flow it looks that way. We shall see.

Alternate title

Guilty pleasures: it's probably awful, likely to be terrible and guaranteed to infuriate most of the great British public from the "right on righteous" to the "serious motorist" looking for meaningful reviews and sensible motoring journalism. "Ugh!" they may say but it remains a strangely, funny, stupid, self indulgent, patchy, creepy, idiotic and engaging TV show. Top Gear that is, BBC's bastard child and big earner. Of course if you stray onto the Discovery Channels there's hundreds of similar ridiculous shows that must drive those suffering from terminal sense of humour failure crazy. Yup! Step away from the remote.

Anyway, back to the Golden Rule and good advice from beyond the grave via Bob Hope.

The god of sweet sandwiches

February already? I must have missed a day with this stinking, sweat bursting cold. There probably isn't any god so if that's the case then rather than waste a whole word by applying it to something non existent and discredited then why not apply it to sandwiches thus creating a new defining measure for god and godlike things - the humble sandwich. Savoury is tricky so I'm not going there at present, too many tastes, shapes and variations and I suspect that the topmost of sandwich gods may well dwell in those cloudy, mustard smeared courts above the ether. No, we'll leave it and I'll drone for a few more lines about sweet sandwiches; smaller, more graceful, easier to digest and most importantly crammed with sugar. The true god of sweet sandwiches being: white bread, butter, a decent portion of strawberry jam and (placed squarely in the middle) a round and unbroken, pristine digestive biscuit (from a reputable supplier). There, done, dusted and crunched.

Still on the subject of god, I quite liked Stephen Fry's recent rant about the nature of god. He put it all rather well (even though he can be creepy). The last paragraph being particularly to my liking (just don't get me started on Churchill's wild historically sanitised and surgically removed summing up of Islam). I'm not sure that religious people can ever appreciate eccentric sandwich combinations either.

“It’s perfectly apparent that he (God) is monstrous. Utterly monstrous and deserves no respect whatsoever. The moment you banish him, life becomes simpler, purer, cleaner, more worth living in my opinion.”

All those who wander

Glasgow daily photo and a walk across the rooftops: In town today and up on the top deck of the Lighthouse, I took these unremarkable photos and in the continuing spirit of lazy and vacuous blogging I share them now. I did enjoy being up there in the calm and cold, though the stairs were hard work and I had to pass through an irritating Charles Rennie Mac-shrine and some well meant but clumsy right-on Citypoliticbabble  to get there but it was worth it. Glasgow is dirty, compressed, noisy (with street music, traffic and sirens) and cluttered with debris but also serene, chilly and magnificent.  Lunch at the Wander Cafe was disorganised but pleasant with strong coffee and air whipped cream as we continue to explore the randomly scattered eateries and food shops knowing full well we'll never get around them all. Then home along the crusty old tobacco road where snow threatens but seldom falls. The weather people just don't know what to do with themselves at this time of year. Below: this is the safest route back to earth.

Down by the seaside

(Indeed these are the actual pictures of two views I viewed (as above), there are no photos of the views I missed however). I spent a couple of days in Cornwall. Most of the time it was wet and gloomy, the roads were narrow and the breeze from the English Channel icy as I sped around in a nippy wee hatchback. The real ale was pretty good as was the seafood. Now I'm back home...and that's always best.

I wish you all well

Whilst I certainly wish these obviously sincere folks well in their lives and chosen careers it's pretty hard to look at a photo like this, presented in any context and not think that religious processes and the garb that goes with them (and the ritual, tools and the surroundings) isn't all pretty screwy and (you have to say) it looks like it was all made up by either a lunatic or complete joker. There I've said it. As an alternative here's a likeable alien I made earlier...

Acropolis Now

From the Daily Mash:

"Greeks vote to stop having the shit kicked out of them".

GREEK voters have defied expectation by choosing not to be beaten like cringing dogs for the next five years.

Offered the choice between another half-decade of soaring unemployment and plummeting household incomes or a bit of a change, the Greek electorate has stunned Europe by making the wrong decision.

The ruling New Democracy party is still wondering how its platform of Endless Suffering For Everyone was defeated by Syriza’s competing message of Maybe Not That.

Athens voter Elena Mitropoulos said: “I was going to do the responsible thing and vote for continuing austerity, because I know how important it is not to damage the German economy, but madness overtook me in the polling booth.

“Now we face a future of working hospitals, of recovering industry, of my children not begging for food in the streets. I wish I had not been so rash.”

EU technocrat Denys Finch Hatton said: “There is a very real danger that people across Europe, inspired by the Greeks, will no longer choose to be ruled against their best interests by people they never voted for living in massive wealth hundreds of miles away. Though we hope they will follow the fine example Scotland set and continue to do just that.”

(That's a killer of a final line, let's just hope they carry on and retrieve the Elgin Marbles as part of their healing process).

Blinded by science

A Stirling engine, powered by warm air and temperature difference as opposed to hot air and general indifference.

The famous 3157 12volt auto bulb, never seen one in my life until today. Now I can die happy.

Though I know I should understand I never will understand why there are so many variants and variations in the design and specification of simple, disposable, consumable objects. What is the advantage of having so many different kinds of bulbs and fittings none of which are ever compatible? Well it's a free market and there should be no restraint shown on design and innovation and letting folks have the opportunity to take their own unique goods to that market so that they can see how they do is a basic right and you would think a benefit. So it doesn't matter what I think nor does it matter that my auto-jumble bulb collection will never run out, it will just slowly grow. Thank you Mr Jeep and Mr Volvo.

Food for thought

Peanut butter &

Today was unusual in that I drove three quite different vehicles all of which had automatic transmission, thereby immediately making the left foot lazy and redundant. They were; a 14 Ford Galaxie, an 03 Daewoo and 10 Smart Coupe. Now that I have arrived at the difficult age where (apart from knowing all the songs on Planet Rock playlists) I will quickly forget simple instructions and how to go back to driving a manual (or stick-shift as an American might say). Road testing was mostly carried out on the Alpine like steep hills, tight bends and long fast straights that is the familiar Top Gear favourite piece of high quality tarmac - the super highway connecting Burntisland to Aberdour.  Just put a little Matt Monroe on the stereo, adjust your designer shades and you're away.

The persistence of memory

John Barclay ‏@Johnbarclay1  7m7 minutes ago

@BillWillingham @mickmcavoy I bought this in a paper shop in Anstruther in the 60s

Oh well

Sunset over the water

At this time of year and in the dark I often mistake by boots for cats but I have never mistaken my cats for boots. Socks and pants also suffer from the same mix up but they seldom scurry away or have smelly, furry bottoms (not when clean). I think these thoughts as I slurp warm home made soup from a cup shaped like a hand grenade. Sometimes it's the little things in life that make the least sense. With that in mind I consider a brace of tweets released on Sunday that badly quoted famous lines of dialogue from the 1979 film Apocalypse Now. A film that had been on my mind all week as funnily enough I'd watched it the previous Sunday on ITV4 or some other obscure channel. The tweets sank without trace except for single retweet from a surfer dude in California who clearly liked my almost comic take on "Charlie don't surf" featuring a cat. One of the cats that I have never mistaken for a boot. None of that helps me believe in aliens or an afterlife. I'll only believe in aliens if first and foremost they believe in me and I'll only believe in an after life if I can manage to scratch together some primitive belief system that covers the possible existence of intelligent  life on this earth. Impossible really.

Sunset over the water.

Messages in the stone

The tribes of our elders and visiting divine presences of Scotlandshire aided and abetted by aliens and alliteration left a series of complex messages hidden in ancient stone structures all across the blasted and sometimes frozen landscape. A brisk, hangover clearing walk any given Sunday accompanied by a pair of binoculars and a large magnifying glass will reveal their hidden secrets; so I have been told. The truth is (seldom) out there if you only know where to look. I'd say more but the strict laws of blasphemy currently practiced in Fife force me to hold my tongue. Heresy is an unspeakable crime so best not to speak of it. In terms of understanding history and the nature of god and suchlike I must say that I found the recent blockbuster DVD release "Noah" starring the wonderfully concrete faced Russell Crowe, the girl from "Labyrinth"  and a truckload of special effects extremely helpful. Religious groups of any moderate persuasion should take note.

Being creative

OK it's 11:45 on what I thought I would call a "creative day"... I'm starting slowly burdened down by the bitter cold and having too much fried bulk for breakfast. I started by lighting up the stove, it's still blazing hours later and the house is full of a hazy smoky film or fugg, a bit like my head.  So far I've only managed to place three rather puerile and distorted quotes onto Twitter based on famous lines from Apocalypse Now. I also added some tenuously linked up up photos taken whilst scraping around in the house this morning. Waiting for inspiration sucks. I watched Nick Cave's 20000 Days last night (?), his output is phenomenal but the quality is patchy to say the least. He ate fried eels and also ate sloppy pizza, he has very enthusiastic fans, he's different. I'm clearly not Nick Cave but he is clearly not me. I take some small pieces of damp consolation from this. He does have a nice Jaguar though.

Favourite shirt?

Two people wearing shirts as well as other clothes.

It's a question that I often ask myself. It's also a question that I regularly find I can't answer. I probably have about twenty five shirts, some obviously worn more than others, some that fit better or are more "wearable" or just feel good. Some, sadly are nearing the end of their lives, a few more washes and they will be gone, stuffed into the bin after years of faithful service and tipped into the refuse cart on the second or fourth Wednesday of the month. That's how it goes, the life cycle of a shirt. Many of my shirts come from Debenhams, I have no idea why. Maybe it's because their shirt department is straight in front at the top of the escalator, not far from the gents loos. A convenient location you might say or is it their keen prices, reputation for quality and well laid out display area?  Tesco shirts are the worst then it's Amazon's unseen buys. Choices matter but it's all pretty random really, anyway a purge is coming up. Faded and tired out shirts, beware!

Danelectro do some crazy and almost disturbing guitars. I've never owned one, seldom played them either. The Sitar Guitar (directly above, below the Longhorn Baritone) is a classic oddball. At £388 who would buy such an instrument? It's not even anywhere on Ebay yet. Strange.

Freezing Conds

Beware, freezing conds could damage your building.

I was a bit baffled by the wording on the high level motorway warning signs today on the M90. "DRIVE WITH CARE FREEZING CONDS" they said. Not really a clear message and you cant help but wonder what a dyslexic, elderly or non-English speaking driver might make of this ill thought through message. Could it be referring to:

FREEZING CONDOMS - not a pleasant thought (but some fetishists may disagree).
FREEZING CONDOMINIUMS - over enthusiastic or badly adjusted air conditioning.
FREEZING CONDUCTORS - if at some chilly orchestral concert.
FREEZING CONDORS - birds of prey descending on the road from a high altitude.
FREEZING CONTENDERS - winter Tough Mudder venue up ahead?

On balance somebody probably meant "freezing conditions" but what could that possibly mean around here?

Cat interrupted

In a desperate bid to avoid any further negative examples of posting or random carping about irritating types, rubbish music or all the evil in the world  here's a cat waking up from an otherwise peaceful sleep on a basketwork chair just as a blizzard is about to start.