Bamboo & nonsense

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Bamboo is not pictured - just a frosty thing in a field


Feed the winter in your heart, feed the fog that stalks your mind. Look out over these fields close by, frost and white slices of cloud and filtered light. Dream of the strange warming, the spring that rushes towards you to end the winter’s battles and skirmishes.

In the heat of the fight the mother’s desert their children. Their white angry eyes cannot quite see a right way so they stab backwards in anger, tearing at any emotion too raw to make sense of. You have become some unspeakable cannibal and the direction you lost was the fault of that bigger, unimagined navigational mistake – a long time ago. Here comes the song of timely revenge and sick vengeance. In the mean time I have turned into a phoenix yet again.

These are the days you never dreamed you’d see, days when you’d talk to yourself and do your best to squeeze the happiness from every moment, funny how that can work so well for us.

The bamboo will rise in just three days, so says the book of the wise and voices that whisper. Anoint your head with bamboo juice and black bean sauce, sweet chilly pickle and all I’ve ever cooked for you, seek shelter in its thick bamboo and sauces, dripping new growth. Hide and be safe in some sunny garden somewhere behind this bamboo curtain I have constructed for you. I love you more than my Meccano set.

These are the words that some of you will repeat.

Brokeback Mountain

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Brokeback Mountain

Saturday evening came around and we’d planned to go to the cinema to see “Walk the line” The Johnny Cash biopic. It sounded the best of a not very interesting selection of movies so we both fancied it and as I’d grown up with JC’s music I was curious to see how he’d be portrayed. I ‘d always liked the corny country stuff, despite the fact that for many years he was uncool, unhip and all the rest of those crap labels get applied to talent in that “mid-life/ mid career” place. Anyway the show was sold out so ice cream and tea bought and in hand we had little other choice than “Brokeback Mountain”. It seemed to me over hyped, Oscar hyped, gay hyped etc. so do we wait for the DVD and see from the couch? That was really how we both felt and I expected Ali to sleep through most of and I thought I would just get sleepy, restless and irritable.

The dull ads and trailers nearly had us both asleep by the time the film had begun. Then I guess as things took hold and the story unravelled we both found ourselves fully interested and affected. The film turned out to be stronger, starker and much more powerful than I had expected. The gay sex scenes and so called cowboy issues were strangely irrelevant in the overall story of bleak and blighted lives hampered by an inability to change circumstances and seize opportunities. The traps that are convention, responsibility and acceptance sprang hard shut on these two individual’s in ways that many of any sexual persuasion would empathise with. Pivotal moments creeping up and around and then the release of gut-wrenching emotions as realisation and resignation kick in. So when was / is / has been the best time of your life? Think about it, you may be surprised and if it’s not right now perhaps you have some work to do.

So whatever you love, whoever you really love, your need of them may well force you to make the toughest of choices. If you’ve never reached a point like that in your life then to be honest I’m not sure if I feel happy or sad for you, you’ve certainly missed something. Come the day I hope that you choose well young Skywalker.

Getting back to the basic film, the cinematography was pretty good and young Donnie Darko’s in it; don’t you just think time travel is the best thing?



Grave of the fireflies

Friday found us at the BG annual dance in the Edinburgh Conference Centre. As ever (?) I was on my best behaviour and did not get pissed nor even feel the need to. My kilt did require some urgent first aid with some black thread and a needle but this was administered a home just before we left. Ali of course looked sexy and splendid in a slim, shiny red dress, her shoes however, though right for the outfit were clearly hurting her feet from fairly early on in the evening.

The meal was fine, the company pleasant, and the speeches short and at times funny and then the dancing began. I’m a firm believer that if you go to a dance, you should dance and that’s it, just let yourself go. We were quickly up for the first dance and I guess Ali’s shoes lasted about 30 seconds tops; they were quickly abandoned by the front of the stage, beneath the band’s guitarist’s Line 6 effects bar. The golden shoes, upside down, lying there like two accident victims hurled from a speeding train wreck or air crash. Alone, rejected and as sorry and sad as any given scene from “Grave of the fireflies”. We danced on, shoeless.

Bootleg Tom Mackay

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Bootleg Tom Mackay

“Killer Civil Servant” The Foul: First in what may turn out to be a hundredweight of Fall tribute bands is the solo incarnation of the out of the bedroom incarceration that has become the Foul. I believe this CD lasts for all of 31 minutes and can be played at weddings. (Giggly, excited girls, you read it here first!).

As sweet as a bus journey through West Lothian, as risky as riding down the side of a coal bing on a mini scrambler (without a helmet), warm as Waverley lager, as comforting as a fistful of dynamite, as enlightening as the next four episodes of “Lost”. The city of Edinburgh, and all of her city fathers (from just outside of South Queensferry) is/are so proud of this piece of work and also that Tom is an ex-Fifer.

Tom is also in fact, in fiction and in real life a civil servant; so it came as no surprise to me that he has had a long time love affair with progressive rock music, nights out on the town, anti-smoking legislation in the 80s, laminate flooring and a band called the Fall. It was his admiration for the Fall however that went on to inhabit the very core of his being and also made things happen at the core of his life long learning and enterprise enterprises. In a nut shell it has given us this magnificent recording which history will completely envelope in myth, mystery, mince, muggles and Maltesers. My favourite track is “Ballroom Insect”, but that’s just what I think today.

Things that people are saying already:

“This CD may be free but I’ll not be giving you my copy officer!”

“As I was playing “Killer Civil Servant” this morning the sun shone through my bedroom window, “what a remarkable coincidence” I thought.”

“As I was whistling “Ballroom Insect” I actually looked down at the ground and saw some insects cavorting.”

“Whilst going past a butcher’s shop and looking in the window I remembered that I had heard a song on this CD entitled “Your heart out”.”

“I had no idea he had it in him.”

“A woman walked past our house talking loudly into a mobile phone just at the beginning of “Clear off”.”

“Fame and fortune beckons.”

“Dice Man is not a character in the Tom Cruise film “Top Gun” is he?”

“Just get some rolls, a paper and a lottery ticket pet.”

More information? A free listen? A free download? A free lunch?

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Cannonballs to be fired

Thinking of things that have been left in our house by family members made me think of the following things that have been left in our house by family members:

Ice axe, drum kit, baby shampoo, Nintendo magazines, Galaxy chocolate, dress shoes, hair bands, plates, dishes, soap, bananas, coats, a glove, socks, DVDs about football, cuddly toys, Happy Meal toys, beer, wristbands, White Stripes CD, mobile phones, poetry books, various small sweets.

Thinking of fangs that have beer left in our luxury liner by family pets made me drunk at the thoughts of tinkering with time left in our lives by complete strangers:

Ice cube, oil drum kit, baby snakes, Nintendo boxing gloves, Ford Galaxy, stone age shoes, metal bands, pirates, fishes, soapy bananas, cords, a golly-wog, sticks, DVDs about philosophy, cuddly trees, Happy Meal crumbs, bears, wristwatches, members of the White Stripes, mobile shops and libraries, poetry people, various small seats.

Tinkering with prangs that have been happy accidents in our luxury laundry by famous pets made me Rin Tin Tin at the idea of an Alsatian breakfast with all the time left to think of complete idiots:

Iceberg, oil rigs kit, snakes eating cows, Nintendo peace programme, HMS Ford Galaxy, stone age petrifaction, metal age petrifaction, plots, fish fingers, banana skins inside out, chords, absent without leave, cheese sticks, DVDs about pills and cola, young trees from the Sahara, Happy Meal change, rats, wrists exposed, members of the KLF, mobile sculpture and librarians, poetry’s raw materials, various small exposed sentences.

Flying the coop.

Chicken noises are rare round here, it’s mostly wild dogs you hear, early morning serenade, to various rabbits and bitches and mates. The chickens are quiet, understandably, the cock wont crow or assert himself, their little hen house is a silent place, until the sun comes up then out they race. Don’t try to experiment with chickens, unless some rare inspiration has landed upon you and drives you to do something culinary that none of us have ever thought about: To serve a nice, cooked chicken dinner to your immediate family.

Dead people

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Dead people on mountain tops

The cremated ash of dead people scattered or piled on top of mountains, so where better to be? Part of somebody else's' good idea? So when you expire and capsize, roll off the top, roll and shuffle from this mortal coil to a higher physical plane. Under the big blue sky as your ashes become part of the hill, part of a mountain range, an eternal piece of the bigger picture, caressed by gentle clouds in a heavenly illusion. Few people (if any) are born on top of mountains. Some will never get to the top of any mountain either dead or alive. So it remains that romantic, hill minded outdoor people could at least in death escape to somewhere where their heart can lie at peace (sic). For others, life spent in board or management or production meetings, on the shop floor, in a cab or in a kitchen. Here is a final lone grasp at the elusive, abstract truth that is freedom. Jeremy spoke in class today. Jeremy spoke in class today.

Poor people will not bother. They stay in the clay in the graves of paupers or will squirm as their ash is squirted over some ugly rose bush in a "garden" of obscurity and forget. Rich people will fight death as long as they can afford to and then lose the battle quietly. They may go to the football stadium or penalty spot or mantelpieces or cupboards or into the sea. They may be laid out in a cardboard box and interred at the correct depth to have a tree grow from their stomach. One day that tree will be cut down. But those purple mountains call one and all in a strange way.

Ash stifles the growth, the healthy alpines starve, the grass dries and browns and petrifies, as all their roots fail, the ash chokes the life from them and they give up their grasp of the summit. Winds and frosts, snows and teaming rain, weak sun and blistered mist hack at this tired rock. Black rain has fallen. Your ash has brought about the end; your ash has cracked the strength of the peak, your years now gone are at the heart of this personal rot.

Scientists from the University of Bavarian Soil Design Team have (thanks to EU funding) established all that has ever been said on the matter (of all the above) is completely true and examples can be seen on 1177 European peaks and hilltops. Pope Gregory is of course to be thanked for all of this and the subsequent chanting in the corridor. Dead people's remains’s remaining on mountaintops is not sustainable. Bring your dead back down to earth, to their former battlefields and golf courses, to their back gardens and mausoleums, to their allotments and friendly carrot patches. To the pure all thought is pure, to the impure it is a lottery scratch card.

Some say that Jesus left earth from the Mount of Olives - but he was not made of any kind of ash at this time.

Cryogenics and the Antarctic call out as possible options or places, even just your DNA reflected in a mirror, someday could be regenerated into your actual DNA on this side of the mirror. If the mirror can be preserved and your DNA revitalised them perhaps we can make you into a small blob on a pilot dish. You will not be recognisable, your self-awareness will be very low and being ash on a mountain may seem very attractive but the processes are developing all the time. Come back and surprise your grand children in their own dotage. Think of how many times you could say, "I told your parents so.."

These are your precious atoms, divided and scattered like some lost tribe that has passed the pinnacle of it's civilisation and now runs afraid before the descent of a Dark Age.

No time for electricity or entropy or synergy: living in a modern life.
Not time for prematurity, for shadows or impurity: living in a modern life.
What's mine is mine is mine is mine, is mine is mine is mine is mine: living in a modern life.
Those ashes pass from peak to sea, the dust explores the atmosphere: living in a modern life.

Middle aged mind

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Go away, throw away

Go away; let’s just throw away.

Lookin’ after aging relatives

Wishin’ they’d take a little more of their sedatives

Making the mistake of holidaying down in Wales

But I'll be ok, I'll drink the local ale,

Being so far behind the times that you miss the January sales.

Feelin' less and less sympathy for dolphins and whales,

These are all, troubles of the middle aged mind

These are all, troubles of the middle aged mind.


Come back here, down to zero

Come back here, right down to some place close to zero.

Pin number fits right into the convenient slot

Bought some things, they’re in my trolley, not sure what I got,

Making the mistake of trying to make a plan,

Making the mistake of trying to understand,

Being in love, trying the best to be who I am.

These are all, troubles of the middle aged mind

These are all, troubles of the middle aged mind

If you think it’s funny, brother it's coming up, straight behind.


Credit card bills, just numbers on a page

Call the call centre, try to cap the rage

She’s on page three but can’t count up to the page

I’m livin’ life at that slightly awkward stage

These are the problems, this is middle age.

I’ve got no problems; I’m just middle aged.

May all your rats turn out to be voles

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May all your rats turn out to be voles

The detox week may be over but the effects go carry on. This Saturday I had about six cups of coffee and two glasses of wine during the day. The caffeine and alcohol rush made it impossible to sleep and impossible to think creatively. I found myself on the couch at one thirty in the morning flicking between Big Brother Live (tedious) and “A man called Horse” (annoying). I did eventually manage to sleep and decided to eat normally for all of today. The rest of the week has yet to happen.

Whilst trying to describe a road map of Switzerland this morning I could not remember the name of Jackson Pollock. I was trying to say that the map looked to me like one of his works, every other artists name (and a few authors were attempted) and we explored various theories about memory, recall and filing systems. I tried to think myself back to our visit to MOMA in New York to hook onto something but nothing came, then after half an hour and whilst frying two eggs the name popped back into by head. How the hell does that happen?

Every so often you come up against people who have never heard of Salvador Dali, or the House of Commons or existentialism or something. What makes them tick? Then I think how little I know about mathematics or soap operas or rugby and I realise none of it matters.

Today we cut the hedge (8 feet high x 100 feet long), it took two hours. After ten minutes we both realised how unfit we were and also what a devilish instrument a hedge trimmer can be. Ali cut the sides whilst I cut the top and also the part adjacent to the field. The field was of course a quagmire into which the stepladder and I sank numerous times. During the process we found one birds nest and a dead rat, which we decided on a politically correct basis to describe as a vole. “How do you think it died?” asked Ali, it seemed likely the cat had had a paw in it’s demise but we will of course never know. It started me thinking about Ratty in “Wind in the Willows” and how pleasant and friendly he seemed and of course the similarly named Ratty in “Tales of the Riverbank” (Jonny Morris voice over). Both these rats were champions for the rat cause but are not really associated with the more unpleasant sides of rat habits. We agreed that these rats were of course cleverly disguised voles; Mole and Vole would never have worked well as a named partnership nor been so popular so Ratty was not doubt born as result.

After the arm crushing hedge trimming we went out for a cycle, after half a mile and with only half the right amount of air in both my tyres and lungs we stopped. We did see either a grouse or a sparrow hawk (middle aged sight cannot be relied upon) and three deer that were very close by but over the wall in the deer park itself. We struggled back home, cycling up the muddy hill and collapsing onto the couch for lunch and an hour’s recovery coma.

On the creative side we’ve written two new songs from scratch this week; “Time of your life” and “Modern life” (maybe too much of a life thing going on there). Whatever it means we’re on target to demo a mixture on brand new and older songs prior to our next recording venture in Germany with Martin at the end of March. Good progress.

Original lyrics are not easy to write but we soldier on, anyway - but imagine if Frank Zappa had invented the George Foreman Grill it could have been the Frank Zappa Fat Zapper.

Detox diary (zzzzzzzz)

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Detoxing the impossible

This detox thing hasn’t worked out the way I thought it would at all. I’ve (faithfully) stuck to a not unreasonable regime of fruit and veg and simple meat and fish and avoided caffeine and sugar and wheat and dairy. I’ve felt a little listless and always close to having a headache (though it has failed to materialise). My energy levels are low however and I feel like I have no huge appetite for life. This is not me. Is this how vegetarians are all the time, living life in slo-mo? I expected to have real headaches, brown urine, bright eyes and a clearer thinking mind than I’ve had for years. I thought that great clear beams of powerful ideas and inspiration would penetrate my frazzled mind as it fed and grew strong on the pure organic, clean unsalted fuel I was pushing it. I thought that cup after cup of clear water would flush my system, breaking down blockages like some evangelical message to all my deepest inner pipes and tubes. Blast after blast would drain me out and leave a jet washed system eager and ready to perform. All would shudder and judder with the pleasure of having not to break down all those complex molecules and fats and sugars that made up the junk (mixed with good stuff) that I ate. Well none of that happened.

Ok, it has hardly been a bad experience; it has just left me a little cynical about the “power” of eating the right things, whatever they may be. I know that a hangover sucks and that indigestion is horrible, any kind if suffering following over indulgence is bad, but what about the good time, the pleasure and the high that preceded it? There’s a whole big control thing going on in the way that food and eating habits are portrayed by the various media gods and by politicians. Do the right bloody thing but for what? It has to be about balance not the saintly and stupid bickering and badgering about food we are constantly subjected to. It’s good to eat simple ordinary food, vegetables and chicken cleanly cooked, but it’s good to eat fish and chips or KFC or drink six pints of Guinness if that’s what you feel like doing. As you may imagine after a week of bland food (not impressive I know), hot, sweet, spicy and tasty anything becomes very attractive.

What the hell must it be like if you really were cast away as in the TV series “Lost”. Nuts and berries and the odd bit of fish, never mind the brawling amongst survivors there would be over the scraps, mind boggling. Your energy levels would plummet and your brain workings descend into some kind of thick fog. I am therefore convinced that we need a variety of foods, hot, cold and effervescing to fully function. The lesson I’ve learned is that I’ll have days when I do eat five pieces of fruit and no bread and some nice lean meats, but there will also be days when I’ll eat a curry, a Big Mac, A Mars bar and drink a bottle of wine or two. Headaches? They always pass eventually don’t they?

I’m ranting a bit; I suppose some of it is an unjustified sense of disappointment and a naive sense of “I know best”. I expected more, more than I got, but that doesn’t mean that sometime, someday I wont do it again and maybe keep it going longer. There is both a Burns Supper and the BG dance coming up...

Detox time for me!

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Night of the hunter.

A fair plague of serious hunter’s descended on the estate at the weekend all looking seriously like they were chasing after ET or some other mysterious alien prey. Many shiny 4x4s, lots of flat caps and discussions, time spent milling around and then walking around in a large group. Very interesting to observe. We also saw a young stag over in the paddock and three others just to the north of our house. I don’t think any deer were being shot this weekend and it probably was DeNiro’s finest hour and Walken’s most arduous. I never did like the bloody theme song mind you. Music in films is critical to getting the feel of the film right. We were talking about the music in “Garden State” and “The OC”, of course the best ever is “Easy Rider” where music, images and the whole time of life thing were welded together in a perfect combination, oh and Toni Basil’s in it, and then there is the movie “Oh Brother where art thou!”, I loved all that stuff.

I liked the Big Brother bit where they were in the cardboard boxes and some one (probably Pete Burns) quipped how much like a Yoko Ono exhibition it all was. Then as they spoke from inside the boxes the camera focused on their images pasted onto the outside of the box. An odd, clever, surreal piece of television. As for the rest..

Mouse Hunt

In the middle of the night the mouse hunter hunts mice, prints and paws, no time to pause, only hunt, eradicate, exterminate the vermin, terminate the rodents.

This should happen but it doesn’t, cats and mice play a long game of hide and seek when you happen to be in the right mood. If not in the right mood then sleep and ignore the little beasts, even if they are running across your nose.

What I didn’t know last week:

William Shatner recorded a version of Pulp’s “Common People”.

Detox is not really fun but..

I’m on full (for me) detox this week. No coffee, tea, alcohol, chocolate or sweets or dairy products, no bread. This week my intake has consisted of:

a) Smoothies (fruity) of various kinds and fruit juice
b) Moroccan vegetable stew
c) Fruit (apples, bananas and grapes - no real imagination)
d) Chicken breast stir fry with vegetables
e) Water

So far apart from a slight headache, brought on I suspect by a lack of caffeine I feel ok. I’m surprised not to be missing hot drinks or chocolate snacks. I am thinking a bit about double cheeseburgers mind you and I feel a little slow in the thought and reaction department. Maybe I shouldn’t be driving? I'll eat some oily fish tomorrow.

So that was Christmas

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A day in pyjamas (but not today – an other day altogether)

Read a little, made a stack of pancakes on the portable gas stove, played Sponge Bob games, rattled around a little on the PC, thought of Meccano models, watched the Simpsons and Futurama, looked at Q’s top 100 album list (utterly predictable tosh for the most part, not even accurate track listing at times). Music exists in time, the Stones time, the Beatles time, the Zep time, the Floyd time, the Bowie time, even the Nico, Rush or Ramases times. Lists are pointless but fun and good for provoking even more pointless argument. That set me thinking about the play value to toys purchased as Christmas presents so I thought I’d produce a table: and I did but it's not here...I think Nintendo triumphed.


Birds v being God

Wild birds are eating all day at our suspended table and now extended pole and hanging device thingy. They expend so much energy just getting to the food, flying around it, picking some and flying away and returning that you wonder what the point is. Well I suppose it’s all part of the circle of life for small birds and we get the strange god like satisfaction of feeding them. (So if this is what it feels like to be god, does that mean god actually appreciates us or enjoys watching us? – not likely is it!)

We did observe the most unexpected bird yesterday, a “Tree creeper”. It skips and creeps and spirals up the trunk of a tree, then across to the next and so on. At first I thought it was a small woodpecker but Ali checked the bird’s bible and came up with its identity.

Pendulums of the sky, swinging and swaying to their silent inner songs, composed and thrown away in a stream of chatter somewhere beyond my hearing.

Clouds

To those of you who are living in the clouds, where do you go on a sunny day?

Sin

To those of you living in sin, where are you living when you are good?

Cuckoo Land

To those of you living in Cuckoo Land, how did you actually get in there?

Ridiculous

To those who find themselves ridiculous, sit down with me.

Celebrity Big Brother

To those of you who now find yourselves in the Celebrity Big Brother House, what were you thinking?

On a prayer

To those of you living on a prayer, amen.

It's not a Fender Tweed Deluxe..

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Mini Amp

Packing all the pent up power of a pent up puny amp, the mini-Marshall is joy to behold and a fun piece of kit. Stick it on your belt, down your trousers, on a worktop or a couch, the dash board of your car and just tootle away on your chosen guitar. The overdrive is fuzzy and louder than you’d expect. Still to try it with a wah pedal. (It’s not a Fender Tweed Deluxe, it only cost me a couple of bucks*). Yahoo!

*Actually my son gave it to me.

Gas guzzler and sausage deprivation

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Gas Guzzler.

The kids arrived this morning along with an enormous 4x4 RC Jeep. A prize for dancing (?) musical bumps over the New Year. Rough as a badger and noisy as Guns n’ Roses it cruised around the lounge for a while, grunting and groaning and oozing menace. Once the novelty had worn down a little it retired to a windowsill – whilst the first-aid super glue set.

The quest for sausage.

We have a new George Formby (not made by Hornby sadly) Grill. It cooks sausages in 8 minutes, or 10 if you are particular, or 12 if you want them actually cooked. My sausage fantasy ran on for a few hours this morning. I finally tracked some down (it’s a public holiday) in the Co-op at Rosyth, along with a newspaper and a bottle of HP sauce. When I got home nobody was much interested in sausages for breakfast. Pop tarts, breadsticks, crisps, cola and other left over snacks were much more popular. Feeling rejected I did nothing for a few hours, then at about twelve thirty I cracked and ate four of the big fat boys on two rolls. The GF does look a little like a nineteen fifties flying saucer (see above), could that be the real reason I like it?

A Nintendog is just for Christmas...

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A Nintendog is just for Christmas..


Virtual creatures,
Juvenile teachers,
We have reached that critical stage
Where we are no longer engaged
Now all is calm and training complete
Now that your life is tied up and neat
No need to be discrete
We forgive insensibility
We can end it all so painlessly
Without responsibility
“Touch the bottom screen to delete”.


Virtual Complicity

Spoiled the cat’s fun by pining down the loose kitchen board that led to mouse land / Narnia. I reasoned that the mice will now need to find an alternative route into the house, hopefully via the garden, so not “in” at all, at that point they should encounter the scourge of all Hopetoun mice, “Syrus” our confused, nervous but at times deadly cat. Goodnight mice!

Is this a road?

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Is this a road?

For no particular reason Ali and I agreed to go for a walk today. We decided at about one thirty, but it was three before we left the house. Despite having lived here since September this is the first walk we’ve taken together. (No it’s not, we walked to the gamekeeper’s house when we first visited the area and last night, New Years Eve, we walked and drunkenly stumbled a little up the hill to see the fireworks of Fife and Edinburgh. As a bonus we heard numerous ship horns from the river Forth and startled a lot of local wildlife).

We walked through the woods to the hidden pond, large, overgrown and frozen over. Pheasants and partridges flew out of the trees in all directions and at heart stopping short notice. We walked across the moss covered concrete dam that holds the pond in check and via an old rotted gate found the road again. We followed it back around the houses and out towards the deer park. Here we saw about ten deer and one stag all staring back at us from about 400yds. They looked us up and down for a few moments and then headed for the crest of the hill as if to get a better look at us, then they vanished.

Returning to the road we met some fellow New Year strollers and then saw across the potholes and puddles of the road a red Porsche heading towards us, slowly. As he approached the driver of the 911 slowed down even more, rolled down his window and said, “Is this a road?” Clearly not all Porsche drivers have grasped some of the basics of driving and possibly reality and geography. We set him right with some reassuring advice and returned to the warmth of the cottage.

It’s been a rather sedimentary new year so far despite the two walks. Eating, drinking and couching over TV programmes and DVDs. During last night’s cooking we did manage to instigate a minor monthly mouse hunt. I thoughtlessly removed a segment from the bottom of a kitchen unit and Syrus the cat immediately moved into the underside of the unit and disappeared into the strange and confined space I had opened up. A moments panic ensued, the beef stir-fry was halted as Ali and I peered via torchlight into the gloom to try to locate the cat. The torchlight revealed shadows, fluff and mouse poo but no cat. Ali was speculating about calling the fire brigade or chopping up the kitchen floor with an axe, thankfully neither was necessary as Syrus appeared as we tapped on his food dish and dangled scraps of raw meet in front of the gap. No mice appeared to have been injured during the incident.

Oh, and over brunch we planned how best to conquer the world in 2006, happy new year!

So clean

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The range of things, the danger of things,

the persistence of the same, the remembering of the name..

Special effects, each more special than the next,

still you get it in the neck, eat your egg,

the protein's so clean, unlike the things that lie between ,

the blissful and the strange ……serene.

Scottish food

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Scottish food is the best.

Walked up to the village this morning in a bid to blow away a mild hangover and get a paper. Looked over stone dykes, across fields and fences, into woodland and gullies. When you drive you miss so much, you also stay warm, however I enjoyed the change. I’ll do it again sometime. At about 1130 a big family breakfast followed, eggy piece (French toast but Ali likes to call it this), toast, sausage, tomatoes, bacon, rolls, mushrooms and dumpling. Is there any other culture where food is cooked twice as it is in Scotland? Frying an already cooked dumpling, infact burning it until the fruit caramelizes and then eating it with brown sauce. Tastes magnificent, but you’d never expect it to, it should be dreadful but it’s not. It’s the deep fried Mars bar thing again, totally odd foodstuff rehashed and made into a work or culinary art. Those foodies on TV haven’t a clue, a bit like the Scottish Exec.

Yesterday was spent studying the effect of carrying shopping bags long distances (between shops) on my shoulder blades trying to reach equilibrium in their balance. I now know my safe loading limit and for how long it is safe to exceed it. I survived without long term damage and did feel just a little smug about getting a hutch load of Christmas presents in one visit to Edinburgh. Much of the success of this was down to Ali’s planning and navigation as we swept across the tarmac and chewing gum surfaces of the city. Favourite shop? Blackwell’s bookshop is great, the staff are helpful and we got a lot of what we were looking for. Worst shop? Well I don’t dislike the shop as much as I used to, but Habitat in the West End is looking a bit shabby – best sort it out folks.

The wild birds that we’ve started to feed are now relying upon us I think, two great tits, a sparrow and a robin. Not much compared to the summer’s Mangey bird fest in Glen Esk but a start. Trouble is round here (on a shooting estate) birds tend to get shot at so you can understand if they are less than trusting of human kind. They’re not so keen on pork scraps however; seeds and fatty bits are the most popular. The cat is of course confused by this activity – he is spending more time in the fields and getting muddy, then coming in and jumping onto your lap to share the mud.

We paint the scenery

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Painting the Scenery

Convince yourself, you may be right,
The one to fix and tell the story,
Chosen to paint the scenery,
While this play unfolds before me.

The boards are sprung and steady trod,
The words are elementary,
Design and weave this make believe
The plots and flops break gently.

They say there is master plan
Somewhere beyond the bright blue
Out where the brave dare not explore
In spaces answers dance, delightful.

You carry on your wicked ways
Entranced by glitz and greenery
To stake the higher claim they always will
Remain to paint the scenery.

Chocolate sleeping fountain.

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More sleeper types you may encounter:


Limpet. Clings to his or her partner all night very tightly. The more the partner tries to shake of the limpet the more he/she clings. Often the struggle will become territorial with the limpet clinging and pushing across to the other side of the bed. In serious cases the limpet may have either cold feet, claw like toenails, bad breath, hot breath or some other tricky or unsocial characteristic. There may be a deep-rooted emotional problem that sparks this behaviour. Take great care.

Shape shifter. These awkward sleepers try to almost get into your space by treating you as if you were the bed yourself. They try to dominate and control all bed space by continually spreading around and (in their terms) exploring the bed. In extreme cases shape shifters will lie directly upon you, taking up the exact space you are trying to sleep in.

Cryogenic Lab. A seasonal variation problem, the cryogenic lab involves sleeping in a cold and unheated bed. For whatever reason body heat appears not to be sufficient to warm the bed, the room is cold and the attempting sleeper remains cold throughout
the night. A thoroughly unpleasant sleeping experience follows which seems to extend the night unreasonably. A hot water bottle may cure this but only if applied early in the night.

Cryogenic Lab Assistant. Basically sleeping with a very cold person, one who cannot or will not warm up and who also has the ability to suck the heat from you and your space until you are both equally cold, unhappy and wide awake.

Vixen. Bringing out both the animal and maternal the vixen curls into a half crescent shape as if suckling cubs and offering protection. As the night progresses small foraging trips may take place, usually to the kitchen. The vixen at these times is looking primarily for chicken or chicken flavour snacks that are required to keep the cubs fed. The snacks will however be consumed in the kitchen, usually by fridge door light only and in great haste. The vixen suffers also from increased anxiety at this time and a fear of discovery whilst foraging. Some vixens can experience unexplained weight gains during the lunar cycle that prompts this behaviour.

I am Chocolate. The sleeper believes that he or she is a bar of their favourite chocolate or sweet. They will remain still most of the night and in a rigid state wrapped in a sheet or duvet. Attempting to unwrap them will case confusion, distress and they will awake feeling disorientated. Problem cases may wrap themselves in t-shirts, astro or space blankets or zipped up sleeping bags at other times. Please take care.