DIY Dentistry

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Do it yourself dentistry.

Over the past few days I’ve struggled with a stubborn crown that has refused, despite all sorts of persuasion to remain in its rightful place, namely in my mouth (upper level). Monday was the last straw as it worked itself loose and fully clear of its gummy metal root while I was enjoying the sinful pleasure of a simple Scottish meat pie. Since we returned from Germany last week (where the hard but tasty bread rolls inflicted untold damage) I have been valiantly sticking the errant crown back in place using the traditional method of super glue and cotton buds. This makeshift and quite pleasing solution does at times result in having a cotton bud stuck to your teeth but still works, for a while. I’d already lost it to a cheese and salami roll that Ali had made on Sunday and also to a vigorous tooth brushing session (which I thought it would appreciate). Anyway I gave up yesterday, went commando and so spent most of my time not smiling, not talking and not showing any significant sign of facial expression. The strain began to tell and I eventually cracked and reached for the phone and called a proper dentist. Today a ten-minute visit to the same dentist solved the problem, for the time being anyway. I have a feeling that, after six years or so my body is rejecting the crown and in a few months time its fate will be sealed and it will be replaced by a bright, shining handsome new bridge, once I can get the funds together.

Crazy Golf

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Crazy Golf

I’m not a big golf fan but I was glad to hear that the British Army have built a crazy golf course in Iraq. What an idea! Peace and diplomacy achieved through the use of the common language and bond of playing crazy golf together. The oh so playable magic or astro turf, tunnels, slopes, twists and stupid themes coupled with a small white ball. If only Columbus or Cortez or William Wallace had possessed the foresight to bring the gift of crazy golf to the countries they sought to conquer or defend. No cheap beads and trinkets for the indigenous people, no insulting or harmful religions, no foreign germs and diseases, no political heavy-handedness, no exploitation or capitalistic greed. Just the honest putt and poke of a simple game of crazy golf. If we are to learn anything...

Space

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Space

I have a space outside

That I can be in

Eat chocolate, drink wine, smoke cigars,

Write down my ideas,

A bamboo courtyard half a world away.

Trees in the mist stand silent across the fields

Trees in the mist.

Rhubarb is growing

Painted by words

As I feel more than ever intoxicated by the night.

I have returned to change myself

Apply this moisturiser to my aging skin

And feel no guilt

You made it so when you can back into my life.

Father figure

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You are looking for a father figure
Maybe he could help you figure it out
You’ve been looking to forgive him
For as long as you’ve sat under this cloud

Still a little girl
Still a little boy
Still a little too difficult
To pull yourself through the night
All by yourself

Summer of 70

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What exactly was Jon Anderson on when he wrote those lyrics?
Brown ale and acid?
Bubblegum and new religion?
Birds fly by, sheep stand and visions of chaos pass by
Explained in a primary school pen ride.
I once tried hard to understand
To make some sense of it all,
Summer of 70,
This fantastic trip, ritually and regularly mocked
And derided for the more sophisticated wordplay
he just couldn't manage..
Now in the days of the Artic Monkeys, Coldplay and KT.

Music for scarecrows

"impossible songs" busy in a Swiss field.


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Switzerland: Ali and I are travelling in our normal web booked, cheap flight hire car style up from Geneva on the warmest March day I've experienced in a long time. Our car is a large black Chevrolet whale, the result of a free upgrade thanks to an Alamo booking mix up. After a few minutes lost in Geneva and a close call with a local taxi we locate the required motorway and set out in a north easterly direction. This is fun already. The countryside is green and pretty, the snowy Alps to the south and lots of artistic and provocative graffiti and solar panels by the edge of the road. Even on a Sunday the roads around here are congested and by the time we eventually get to Zurich it is getting dark and we are getting tired. The radio on the car won’t work either; this is due to a missing code that despite searching in every one of the whale’s nooks and crannies cannot be found, we can entertain ourselves however. From Zurich it’s a muddle of roads to the town of Constance and the ferry, from where the next stage of the journey begins. We get there about eight, cross the border and mount the on ramp as the whale lumbers into the (very) empty car ferry deck. We are moving before we realise, quietly carried across the water in the still of the night and the warm darkness, the lights of Germany, Austria and Switzerland shining out across the lake – another pretty picture and well worth the fare of eleven Euros.

Germany: Forty five minutes later we are at home with our friends Martin and Heike sitting at their dining room table, drinking beer and eating cheese, wurst, mustard and salami and laughing about my interpretation of distances on maps. Travelling is great but finally getting there is much better. The next day the rain begins, as does the recording process. The basement of Martin and Heike’s large house contains a recording studio and a collection of band equipment and musical instruments, mainly bass guitars. Recording for us means laying down basic tracks of guitar and vocals, adding a drum pattern and then redoing each track until the original reference points are no longer required. Then the secondary vocal, guitar, synth, bass and keyboard tracks are added into the mix. Ali and Martin make extensive use of a flip chart throughout the week, I avoid all contact with it trusting in their notes, effects numbers, timings and numerous comments on each track. Ali photographs the chart on a regular basis “just in case” (?). Songs are also deconstructed, lyrics rethought, breaks revisited and ideas reborn at the same time. A fair amount of food and alcohol helps the time go by all too quickly but after a review of the day’s progress we sleep soundly while the rain batters the window. Each working day lasts about fourteen hours and by the end of the week we think we have ten songs ready for remix, and the final addition of some worked out drum formats. Siggy Richter has already added three keyboard parts by late Wednesday night and we hope that “Foxy”, another member of Martin’s band “Mobil”, will add some kind of harmonica track to our song “rainbow” on Friday night, but we will be gone by then.

Switzerland: Thursday morning we load the whale (4 bags, sweets, beer and 1 guitar) and start the journey to Interlaken, the rain restarts at the same time. As a diversion on the way we take photographs of borders and Ali devises an interesting time-lapse technique for photography when inside road tunnels. We encounter many tunnels (some as long as 5k on the way). The photographs are random and quite spectacular mixes of lights, running colours and the blurs of speeding traffic entering and leaving tunnel mouths. What can we do with them? The journey through the Alps takes place in a mixture of driving rain, bright sun and snow. We break for coffee in a high Alpine pass and looking out of the window, through the trees see a train pass the café, travelling up a slope into the snowy wastes at an angle of about 55 degrees. This is not something you’d see in the UK.

At about three thirty and still in pouring rain we arrive at Interlaken. We find the hotel easily but spend about half an hour trying to locate a parking space. Eventually I give up and park right outside the door in a space that says “Hotel Bus”. Wandering aimlessly around the town in the rainy-grey afternoon we buy more chocolate and marvel at the numerous mountain and skiing excursions on offer, the “top of Europe” looks fantastic but we have no time to explore. In the evening we both enjoy a celebratory “recording over” meal in a local restaurant, five courses of real Swiss food with wine and beer. I’m happy.

Next morning’s breakfast is a fine blend of European and (because of the numerous Japanese guests in the hotel) Eastern cuisine. The usual fruits, rolls and cold meats are there but so is Mizu soup, rice and multi coloured eggs. Ali braves the soup while I stay true to tradition with coffee, eggs and bacon. The journey back to Geneva for the afternoon flight to Edinburgh is sunny, pleasant and uneventful and we catch a few more tunnels on camera as we speed along. We spend a few Swiss Francs in the airport mall and then retire to a cramped departure lounge for a half hour wait. Already I’m thinking about catching up with the family news, the new Harry Potter DVD, tomorrow’s breakfast and visiting the pig and baby highland cow at our local farm shop when we restock on firewood. Then Monday will come as it always does.

A pie, no drugs.

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Reprise from Ali for all the right reasons…

A little bit of bigness
Pierces through the wall
Front line trickles crack and grow
Speed and pressures build and flow
Bowing to the greater will to change
Infrastructures rearrange
God is too large to be contained
In man made vessels bound or tamed
Who is the man who does not sin?
Benevolence and grace will win
Are judges and judged not one and the same?
Forgiveness is a safer game
Barriers and lies will fall
Who is the greatest One of all?


Dull

Recollections from before the fall,
I saw a banner in the sky that said it all,
These are the ways the wise should go
Take care of the business if you want it to grow.

Diary

What a long week it seems to have been.
The cat ate half a rabbit and discarded the rest.
Put some type two on the drive, still got puddles.
Ate fish three days this week.
Cup final fever never really happened.
Two tomato juices and two oranges juices.
The Apprentice.
Garlic in the fridge?
5 hours of sleep.
A backlog of washing and ironing.
Buddha machine.
Move the PA, store the PA.
Restrung two guitars, so much better.
Syrup sponge pudding and custard.
O’Brien’s do lunches.
Psychometric testing for all.
Buddha machine played through my mini system.
Did no remixes.
Nintendogs win prizes.
Grandsons: one with blue eyes one with brown.
Sons: three with blue eyes.
Stretched pink Caddy in Dunfermline.
Finished my PDA at last.
Thomas the Tank & Bertie the Bus.
High Fidelity & Harry Potter.
Plants die in frost regularly.
I visited a car wash by Christ.
The sky was blue on numerous occasions.
A pie, no drugs, a fudge donut.
One week.

Marx & Parks

I was never in love with Nico, but I was in love with the idea.
I was never sure about anything, but now I am.
I was never in love with Nico, but she was in love with me.
In the end, it was all adopted like an orphan's eager dream.
Whatever I may think , it could not be as it seemed.

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Born with a name like Marx

Born with a name like Marx
With no linkage to the Vaudeville stage or the lyrics of Van Dyke Parks
A watery light shining in the dark
Floating like some alphabetical candle over all our thoughts of progress.
Through the world of modern history,
In the mists of explained mystery,
The Devil’s detail in the heresy,
But born with a name like Marx.

Fallen Fifers.

Another cup final is over,
Another afternoon in the sun,
Another day of parking problems,
At least it didn’t end up eight one.

Another Hampden Park Hamburger
Another sea of white and green
Another piece of football murder
For one more time think what may have been.

Seven Nation Army get Into the Valley
Cheerleaders and Republica do the dance
Our heritage seems so squashed and fragile
Last subdued outpost of circumstance.

MOTs and normal stuff

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MOTs and the cat and normal things

A week of preparation for tests and test passing, centred around the pain and tension of the MOT outcome. Two Mazdas in one week, both performed well and we can now salute the skill of their Japanese designers, amazing how these machines, so neglected (well in my case anyway) for 364 days a year still manage to pass this annual eleven-plus examination. The same cannot be said sadly for my elders son’s Fiat which died this week and will not be mourned (expect perhaps for the loss of it’s Irish number plate) as it is replaced by a new Astra that I am assured has all the right toys.

The cat’s MOT took place today at the Vets surgery just of Lothian Road. He performed well also, though the journey to the vets and the arrival of two barking dogs in the surgery did not exactly put him at ease. He was fine anyway; we departed the surgery with a bag of fur-ball biscuits, worm drops and a fully weighed, sounded and vaccinated Syrus – and a bag with dirty towel. The kids came along for the spectacle and enjoyed most of it, apart from the “nervous cat” smell that now hangs in the car. Magic tree anyone?

A short hop across to Sainsbury’s at Craigleith left me infuriated. The shop was packed, chaos seemed to reign in every aisle, and the tills were awash with queues puzzling over their pin numbers and to crown it all I couldn’t get the items I was looking for. Finally getting to the head of my till queue the unfortunate assistant had to tell me that his machine had “crashed”. I could take no more and in an unusual move for me abandoned my shopping and walked out the store. I wont be back, well not for a few weeks. God bless Tesco South Queensferry, it seemed like a haven of calm and organisation after that and I got all the stuff I was looking for. Saturday lunch, hunted and gathered.

The afternoon was spent watching “the Cat Returns” a Studio Ghibli DVD. The four us sat in the lounge watching this strange Alice in Wonderland type of tale about a young girl and the kingdom of cats. I think we all found it to be an odd mixture of puzzling, amusing, quirky but always great to look at. The story never really catches fire and the dialogue is wooden, but the animation quality and the draughtsmanship of Studio Ghibli within this and all of their productions always impress me. We are not fixated with cats by the way.

Tea. Pasta and mince and sauce and wine, quite a successful combination that helps Saturday evening roll along. We also discover, courtesy of the BBC that we are a far from stupid family, if you believe in the odd measures, tests and general mixed messages about fitness and mental health they send out. We’re planning an eco-igloo now anyway, probably without a full-time TV.

Then of course the slightly off-season snowfall, a snow ball fight, cars stuck in the snow and an unusually laid-back Sunday morning (football cancelled). Works for me.

Live sleepover

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Live sleepover

Tickover, Nico on the desertshore
Past, present some time before
Grey days in a fictional attic
Punished by god for my antics
Cable-tied wrists of good humour fanatics
These are the crimes that go unrecognised
They were black and white before my brown eyes
Trouble brews in a three sugared tea
Isn’t that just like me?
I hear the holidays are over; the kids next door are home,
Bored,
Next year we’ll try harder not to bother,
Another live sleepover.



Christmas Passed

Seems odd to think, that bag over there held my children’s Christmas presents once.
Now it’s full of leads, cable ties, adaptors and bits of microphones.
Dirty.
Forlorn by the side of the stage in a gig tray.
While somebody strikes out on the white guitar made by the Gibson Company.
The bag is a part of his audience now and as the music carries on,
I think of a Christmas past, here in early March.
A cocktail of the happy and unhappy, of making the best of things, as usual.
Panic buying, all in that bag, gift ideas that burn brightly then come to nothing,
All wrapped in that bag.

Nico

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Nico

She wants to be like Nico
Dark and slim, mysterious and dim
In love with him.
Hanging around smoking long cigarettes,
Day dreaming in cafes, learning to forget.
Drifting across the cracks in the New York sidewalks
Staying in bed till three, talking the street talk.
She wants to be like Nico
But she lives in Bellshill
She’s just failed her standard grades
And her mother is ill.
She ate a deep fried pizza and bought an NME,
Some more black eyeliner and a cup of sweet tea.
She found the old LPs in her dad’s collection
When life makes no sense, you just make up connections.
She wants to be like Nico
And ride a white horse,
She’s dead – of course.

Dangerous Mice

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If you any sense of humour at all and like small, dark eyed, furry animals and music..

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House + four other things

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House

Light the fire without firelighters
Sticks and stones, pyramids, coal and wood
Burn all the evidence
Hide the story of the heist
Hide all the trails in vapour and in smoke
Years in which to live
Years to live out a dream, watching birds raise families
And never reaching such a quiet conclusion.

Altered states

In a constant state of rebellion with gods and men
But just sit here for long enough and the security light goes off.
Watch the stars and aeroplanes; track the changes in the sky
Just you and I
Sleep in a peaceful bed; sleep sound in a peaceful bed
And I’d eat you up with a spoon
As everything can now make sense between us
Fire and water runs between us
And no further explanations are necessary.

OOTB 201

Smoking cigars with Scott Renton and David O.
Our backs are sat, to the wall
And the performers have all gone home
And we reflect, on the marks we make upon this world
The performers have all gone home
But there is still a lot to do.

Listening

Listening to Beth Orton sing
On the your small stereo by Sony that I like
No bells or whistles just music in the dark, songs spreading
All across the house and out into the dark.
Sleeping animals hear the sounds
And puzzle over man’s mysterious habits if they puzzle at all.
I must visit the bottle bank.

Parents

Just think of how little your parents know about you
How you are perceived so inaccurately
With what you let them see
A frozen image of misunderstanding
Their relative testimony so fractured
And all far away from the truth about you,
I like to think I know the truth.

Questions

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Not quite right Questions that cry for vague answers of a sort.

Has anyone noticed that when “the Chain” by Fleetwood Mac is playing on your car stereo it is impossible to get stopped by a red light?
Is anybody worried that in the near future (by 2016) there will be heaps (mountains possibly) of discarded mobile phones by the sides of our clogged up roadways?
Does drinking Coca-Cola make small children hysterical?
What is the best course of action to take when trapped on the beach trying to locate a lost football?
Do farmer’s markets represent good value for money or is it all overpriced shit?
Does the bottom of the sea have a smell?
Is the most common password in the world S3cr3t?
What do pigeons eat that makes them so fat?
Has anybody ever assembled a piece of flat pack furniture correctly at the first attempt?
Extended warranties – do they represent good value for money and on what appliances is it best to take them out on?
Divorce and marriage – what is the point?
Timing belts, do they ever really break, apart from on Fords?
Why do you have to wash out bottles that are due to be recycled?
Esoteric is a word that did not exist in common conversation before 1981, true or false?
Vegetarians are all rather irritable and concentrate on chewing food and salivating too much – true?
Where is the tipping point in pirate impersonations?
Is smoking now the most desirable form of anti social behaviour?
Shaving doesn’t have to hurt does it?
Can you eat mussels without feeling sick?
Where can I find my socks?
Exactly which trees should we cut down in order to maintain our view and is this behaviour morally reprehensible?

OOTB 200th edition

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OOTB 200

Over and done
Fun
Selected reports and performances
Some folks missed out
Some folks dipped in
We made the big figure
Pirates emerged
Had a few laughs
Figure it out for yourself
The best experiences are shared and live.

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Of mice and herring

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Herring

The herring have returned to the Forth Estuary, seventy-five years after they were driven away or exhausted by thoughtless and persistent over fishing – by members of my family. Now they are returning, from breeding grounds in the Baltic and on the Scandinavian seaboard, from Iceland and Greenland and some mysterious icy depths. I saw two today, in oil and a tin. We all partook of the lubricated flesh, on toast with cream cheese. We may well buy more and store them up, dead shoals in their tin coffins, bathed in embalming oil for viscosity out of water, neatly placed in our many new white plastic containers. Perhaps in years to come archaeologists will come across them and marvel at their unexpected discovery lurking under our windowsills, the treasure of the herring catacombs.

Mice

5am and Syrus the cat caught another mouse. Some poor rodent soul, scavenging to feed himself and the family caught unawares. There were apparently dull thuds and other odd noises as the cat finished of his mortal enemy on our bedroom floor. He was clearly satisfied with the kill and the consumption but still ate a hearty cat food breakfast half an hour later. Fortunately I slept through the entire event thanks to my crystal clear conscience and having spent the previous day in Birmingham. Ali described it all to me in graphic detail however. Cats don’t seem to understand electricity or heat or keyboards, what do their parents teach them?

Later as I stood in the kitchen eating a fried egg roll and looking out of the window a passing rifleman shot twice at something (not me thankfully) in the woods across the road. He disappeared with a colleague as if in pursuit of something, something larger and more interesting than a mouse or a herring I suppose.

The house is also going through a phase of reorganisation or reinvention. Furniture is moving, items are being put away, and new shelves, units and drapes are appearing. For a few days I thought we had a poltergeist but then it turned out to be more natural than supernatural. Having as big (and as complex) a family as we do means that our house has to be Tardis like in its adaptability to deal with the constant sets of changes, expansions and occupancy that we enjoy. It all works anyhow.

Pancakes:

1 pack of pancake mix.
2 eggs. (preferably a little overage)
250ml of cold water.
A drop of blue milk.
Oil & pan.
Source of heat.

Mix up the stuff. Cook the lot a small ladle full at a time in the (hot) oil in the pan. (when the batter bubbles all over it’s time to turn or flip the pancake). Eat straight away with syrup, condensed milk, butter and a fork. I’ve no idea what is in the pancake mix, it looks like wall filler.