A Scottish erection

impossible songs

impossible songs

Did my vote make a difference?

The people of Scotland have spoken, almost, well some of them managed to successfully tick two boxes and put a number in another. What a struggle it turned out to be, who ever said independence would be easy? For many wee souls ticking the boxes was the toughest written trial they have faced since attempting Standard Grade Bingo, putting a line on at the bookies, failing the 11 Plus or counting their change at Aldi. Thankfully all that lottery mumbo jumbo and card-scratching training finally worked for the majority, modern society’s methods and the democratic system are indeed wonderful things.

So what of the poor one hundred thousand (many more than ever fought at Bannockburn I believe, unless you count the camp followers, weirdoes and Irish that joined the battle later ) who failed to register their precise voting desires? King Eck the First, our likely new ruler has promised a full and frank investigation in order to soak up some of the surplus cash from the Scottish Executive’s budget, so have no fear.

Next time there is a general election or we need to decide on bringing back hanging or witch burning I propose a good show of hands across the nation and then results can be checked using Google Earth – just take a pixel each to check. Who says that the Scots can’t make the most of modern technology?

Nettles

impossible songs and the scourge of the great weed.



impossible songs

A garden of nettles

Gardening is hard work. This week I’ve been battling nettles with a strimmer. In a way all a bit like Boromir hewing at Orcs or William Wallace poking sharp things at and into the English. Anyway we have a garden that is prey to nettles, thistles, spiky things like thistles that aren’t thistles, various sprouting weeds and more vigorous nettles. Thankfully we have three apple trees, some mysterious berry bushes and rhubarb to balance out this axis of evil. So far about 40m of strimmer chord had prevailed against the advancing nettle hordes; we are about even in the May Games – if a score was to be kept. Over the weekend however I plan to both strim and rake in a bid to finally gain the upper hand. My main aim being to clear the green festooning thorn birds from the structure we call the chicken coop, (it’s full of nettles, mud and a rabbit hole). Then on Sunday my number two grandson can have fun shutting himself in it without fear of being stung by the green enemy.

Joseph and I attacked the thorny beasts tonight briefly but the battery in the strimmer ran out and there was football on the telly, Lucozade to drink and school projects to do. I may also bring in my mighty WMD over the weekend, aka the lawnmower, it’s not fully happy on uneven ground but I do think that its well wired supercharged 50cc power could give us an edge against the nettle threat.

Staying Focused

impossible songs

impossible songs

Tuesday Afternoon.

Thankfully the weekend’s giant pizza has been digested, the Arts Festival meeting is over for the week and I’m now in Birmingham airport and at a loose end for short while. I did have some nice asparagus on Sunday which I believed would do me all sorts of good and would also make me pee green urine. Sadly this didn’t happen, perhaps I didn’t eat enough or maybe it was the wrong kind of asparagus…

So the queues are not too bad and I’m just hoping that my flight will be on time. Over a late lunch watching Sky news (whilst consuming coffee, tuna wrap and a maple and peanut Danish) I was wondering how many Ford Focus cars I’ve driven in the past five years (the poor quality of my thought processes is scary sometimes), generally with all of these cars have belonged to Mr. Hertz or Mr. Enterprise. Those fine tin cans have been ferrying me around the UK on a regular basis, almost in comfort and for so long that I can’t remember the previous model the rental guy's used. I can never have had the same one twice so I’m guessing the usage figure must be well over 100.

Longest journey? Birmingham to Plymouth to Bristol (I think), shortest (and most frequent), Birmingham to Sutton Coldfield. Of course I could just get a taxi or just not go but I always seem to land up in the cold driving seat of a Focus first thing in the morning in the grey Brummy air. Motoring anominity? It certainly is but if it picks up Radio 2 and the heater/air con works and it can sniff out the M42 I don’t really care.

My stick pizza

impossible songs

impossible songs

Mystic Pizza

They do things differently in Aberdeen, well some things but I’m not going to list them. This weekend was spent at grandson number threes first birthday party. A bouncy castle had been deployed in the McDuff garden as a threat and opportunity for older folks like me to a) make fools of themselves and b) injure themselves on. Of course we all piled on a various times scattering small children, cakes and cats in our wake, nobody seemed to suffer any long term injury however. So the sun shone, the candle (he’s one) was blown out, the presents unwrapped and a few bottles of beer and some pakoras and spring rolls were consumed. It was a grand day out and we all had fun, sore limbs and mild sun burn to show for it. So it was back down to Aberdeen for Dr Who and tea and the magnificent pizza pictured above. It may have been called “the Beast” or the “Mister T” or the “Heartbreaker” or “Heartstopper” I don’t know, anyway it was 2 feet square, contained a selection of toppings (I had the chilies mostly) and could feed ten grown men, or five fat men, or fifteen men with a mild eating disorder, or fifty teenagers with anorexia. It was fun to eat and even more fun seeing it arrive at the door (after a struggle). For some strange reason we brought the box home as a souvenir.

Memories of Mr. Clay

impossible songs

impossible songs

I was never…

I was never in love with Sheena Easton or much of the Eighties,
Those times seem like other times, when other generations were at war,
Drinking cheap beer in Vietnam or Berlin.
Looking to the skies and listening to the crackle of a radio.

I was never caught up in hearing New Order or the Smiths,
Other things were on my lists, not this.
I didn’t really get arrested or molested; I sat smoking on the top deck of a bus,
Perhaps hoping you’d get on, or someone like you. You.

I didn’t have clear picture of fixtures and fittings, I just went out and did what I thought was best, like the rest were doing (or so I thought).
They were busy in their Cortinas and fiddled with eight tracks and Cadbury bars and talked incessantly but I seldom listened.
I was all so easy and different then.
If you were not for me.

I was never in love apart from once or twice maybe, brain freeze and ice cream effect. Different.
No emails or Google or text messages, just passing thoughts, to puzzle over.
I came home feeling wrecked not knowing how to connect or how,
I’d ever get what I wanted or what it really was. That piece of advice was somehow missing from my repertoire, like a torn out page.
And still is.

Poor & Needy? Welcome to our weekend!

impossible songs fly over New York in a virtual hot air balloon.

impossible songs

Friday.

A long day in Birmingham is ended with a glass of wine, at home on the couch doing that strangest of things, watching TV with an appropriately blank mind. Whew!

Saturday.

A visit to the local sawmill yields a large chunk of tree timber that I’ve decided can be molded, transformed and fiddled with to accommodate the house name sign Ali has recently commissioned. It’ll weigh a ton a probably sit in the garden forever, or at least long after we’ve gone. Nice to make a small mark in this postage stamp spot on the globe. We also hung up a series of fine curtains and the Pars got 3 points against DDU at home. Saturday night saw us pay a visit to Crispycat Towers for a “very tasty” curry extravaganza provided by Mr. and Mrs. CBQ. Thankfully I was drinking and not driving (Ali in charge of this) and so enjoyed a fine evening of mellow conversation, eclectic music and gorgeous food and lounging on their large couch along with Meg, a beautiful black cat.

Sunday.

As ever dominated by kid’s football and alas a home defeat by the “Currie Boys” (nothing to do with last night, simply a quaintly named team from an Edinburgh suburb). The afternoon was spent at the other house trying out appliances and cutting grass in the Howe of Fife sunshine. Then an hours journey home via the customary tailbacks on the mighty Forth Bridge and its approaches (Fife and Mid Lothian that is).

SQAF gala night of rare funk.

The Stag was the venue; our PA was the instrument of torture as we blasted out an unwelcome welcome for the first of the Arts Festival gigs and what a stellar line-up there was. Jo Jo Sutherland took centre stage as compere and told filthy stories in between a smattering of high quality local acts. Everybody put a good hard shift in and we had a great night, of course we made no money whatsoever (or did we?). A good time had by all and none of us won any prizes, naturally. The line up? Elspeth Murray – pop poet priestess and flip-flop queen, Tommy Mackay – manic political animal and Alan Sugar impersonator, Norman Lamont – Goth-head visionary and CD salesman, a fine young local (cannibal) whose name escapes me, Scott Renton & Dylan – like Arthur Monford and Bill Tennant on speed and social commentary, Jo Jo Sutherland – rude and incisive comedy and general audience abuse and Impossible Songs – specialists in tension breaks and not switching on microphones. A nice wee arts display also figured and the Ferry Scary Troupe added a surreal dimension that was indescribable, thanks to the committee for putting it together and the Stags Head for putting it on.

The beach of broken dreams

impossible songs

The end of innocence

I’ve been reflecting over what has been a busy and draining week so far, I took a few minutes time out to watch the world and a few other worlds go by in order to try to collect my thoughts. The party of course dominated everything, it probably was the event of the year so far and has exhausted Ali and myself but in a worthwhile way. We’re both glad that the party went as well as it did and having opportunity to get family and friends together on a warm spring day and have a good time doing it was a complete blast. The Sunday after the party was also fun with children and grandchildren still bouncing around and adults moving slowly and chilling in a tired, sunny haze: we had survived. Of course I wish we’d done a few things differently, played more live music, invited more people, had fireworks etc. Sometimes I’m just never satisfied.

It was also Ali’s birthday this week and that in itself brings a time of reflection and thoughtfulness. Ali’s birthday revolved celebration around an early evening present opening bonanza, a makeshift curry with elaborate rice dishes that I concocted on the hoof and a liberal splashing of champagne. The twins were there as were Emma, Paul and Kevin so it constituted the week’s second party, albeit a lot smaller than the other. As the drink kicked in and Ali toyed with her prezzies and thumbed over philosophical works we discussed deep issues of morality, the right to vote, Scottish Nationalism and gun crime in the USA. As opinions were varied it was good night of debate and we all had honest fun and few laughs, it went on a little late however prior to busy working days for us all.

So where are we going? Impossible songs and our various projects are floating in a Sargasso Sea of foggy indirection at present. We’re pushing out internet sales steadily and we’re pod casting and broadcasting. We are not however breaking sweat and my own guitar playing and creative workings are few. The good news is that the onset of summer promises to push us into a few local festival ventures (starting this Sunday) and, once we get cracking on the garden and cross off a number of odd jobs on the list, we can get back to work, in parallel with a hundred other things. It's the end of innocence (again), parties are over and time to get back on and into it, till the next party that is. Beltane bonfire? July BBQ? E&G’s wedding? Autumn Wickerman? “Smoke follows the witch” September bash? New Year fireworks?



impossible songs

SQAF Fund Raising Gig

impossible songs

impossible songs

Can you beat this?

Another bonkers night in South Queensferry at the jolly old Stag in the High Street, Sunday April 22 at 7.30pm. Just look at the high quality line up...

Bring money and help the arts festival, have fun and win prizes and various other things.

The party is over...

impossible songs

impossible songs

The party’s over

Our house warming party on Saturday turned out to be a real success. Ali had been building a better beast of a party all week; I had been opening doors, putting stuff away and fiddling around in something of a haze. Thursday saw a piano arrive and a Tesco delivery, Friday saw a fog descend and various family members gather, Saturday saw the fog lift, the sun break through and a period of hyper activity start up. About 50 people came along and participated in a rolling programme of activities revolving around music and eating and drinking. The Grand National sweep was fun (but I didn’t win), then the pasta marathon that Ali had organized, then a BBQ with a range of exotic meats and marshmallows, all day trampolining (for the under fives and over twenties), football and fruit tree flattening and finally a shed-consuming bonfire.

The bonfire activities consisted of a series of impromptu home made experiments in physics and thermo dynamics, these were: hot air balloon flying, party popper pyrotechnics, melt the Stella bottle, photo through a flame and the old favorite “catch the burning flying debris”. All were conducted in a sane if slightly drunken manner and no (major) injuries were reported.

Once the fire had died down and the PA volume was lowered the clan gathering was treated to a variety of late night musical performances from: Tommy Mackay, Norman Lamont, Fi Thom, Lindsay Sugden, Nelson Wright and of course Impossible Songs themselves – all over by one in the morning and no complaints from the neighbours.

The West Lothian UFO question.

Scottish UFOs in action over West Lothian etc.
impossible songs


impossible songs

A life in a day

Yesterday we discussed the possibility of alien abductions and how to react should one occur; as we are close to a “thin area” where there are around 300 sightings a year it could happen, welcome to West Lothian. “Thin” in this context presumably means that something around here allows / affords easy entry for UFOs, time machines (future tourists), dimension hoppers or those on a day out from a parallel universe. I have no idea why this should be the case and I have not seen a UFO since 1971. It is interesting that we don’t seem to exist on Satnav and that our postcode covers about twenty square miles of sparsely populated countryside, equally few people know anything about his place or are aware of the history of the site. Maybe we are in a “thin” bubble – I’m watching the skies.

Florida Podcast

More pod casting interest has been shown. Thanks to Ed in Florida for playing “Tokyo Skyline” on one of his shows (Ed’s mixed bag) http://www.myspace.com/edsmixedbag . I have loads of pleasant Florida memories, my last (nearly last in the fullest sense) being of me standing up to my middle in sea water, drinking beer by the beach on Amelia Island near Jacksonville at about ten in the evening. A full tropical thunderstorm was also under way with spectacular lightning flashing across the sea. Unfortunately a large amount of beer and a degree of jet lag had robbed myself and my colleagues (it was a working trip) of any sense of danger – we survived and drove up to Charleston the next day in a red Chevy Impala with suitably appropriate headaches, rock and roll!

What the fizz bang have we been doing?

Working to survive.
Playing “Adventure Golf” in Aberdeen.
Sleeping on floors.
Watching “Borat”, “Extras”, “Film 4” and “Who shot down Douglas Bader”.
Getting the suspension fixed on the car – country life has its price.
Distributing Easter Eggs.
Building flat pack stuff, putting up curtains, painting and moving stuff about between here and Freuchie.
Recycling and unwrapping.
Setting up bonfires in the garden.
Mario V Donkey Kong.
Reading the Sunday papers the next day.
Eating hot cross buns and not being sure if I like them.
Taking pain killers after I jerked my neck.
Deciding to set up the home studio (but where and how and can I be bothered?).
Removing dead rabbits from the kitchen floor (cat at it again).
Avoiding running over nocturnal and suicidal frogs.

Failed frog trees

impossible songs

impossible songs

A home for failed Christmas trees.

The piece of woodland next door is full of failed Christmas trees, cursed by being unsuited to a fickle and frankly stupid marketplace. These poor creatures were planted with the Christmas sales rush in mind, sometime around 1998. Sadly the soil they were planted into was too good; they thrived and grew quickly and a little more vigorously than their planters had planned. They missed their window of opportunity and now border our garden with their long spindly trunks and inelegant branches, like a group of teenagers who have outgrown their latest trainers and tracksuits and can’t quite afford a taxi to JJB to buy the latest Nike or Kappa crap. Each one the wrong size, look and shape for your Persimmon semi, your Bett Brothers bungalow or your Wimpy footballer’s wife-style mansion. They have walked the green mile and survived and now reach for the sky in this forgotten corner of West-Lothian where, for us and them, everyday is Christmas, whatever that means. Nice be a little bit of a misfit sometimes – it might just save your life.

Close the frog gates.

The annual plague of frogs of Biblical proportions has descended upon the Hopetoun area. The drive from the main road to our house has been transformed into a perilous journey (for them) as by headlight and white stick you try to avoid these lost, dazed and confused amphibians. The asphalt surface is a foreign land to frogs and they get rather afraid and freeze in the presence of a speeding car. I counted about 18 last night and stopped/crawled as many times in order to avoid creating carnage on these country roads. I propose that frog gates are set up and diligently closed at dusk and opened at dawn to allow the frogs safe passage between the many ponds and streams around here that make up their breeding grounds and natural habitat. Some rabbit gates and some pheasant gates might be useful also as none of them have even the smallest amount of road sense. You’d think they’d learn by now, what do evolutionists make of this kind of behavior? (Roadkill I guess - they all taste like chicken.)

Stairway to Friedrichsafen

impossible songs

impossible songs

Stairway to Friedrichsafen

Martin Freitag complete with what appears to be a hand crafted hybrid Fender Precision bass and Fender Stratocaster. I suspect that Martin, an ingenious and clever engineer and a university professor designed and built this crazy looking beast himself. Martin’s band Mobil will no doubt feature this instrument in their next set of live gigs somewhere in deepest Germany. Martin is of course our regular producer, bass player and drum programmer as well as a host of other things – he’s helped keep impossible songs working smoothly over the last five years and also allowed Ali to indulge in her passion for flipcharts. I’m not sure about the specification of the instrument, I imagine that there will be some synthesizer bits installed in the body and that the electric guitar half will only ever come with four strings – they do things very differently in Germany.

The other thing with a double neck is the weight of the thing; you need a strap the width of the M6 to be comfortable at all, no wonder a wee guy like Jimmy Page could only ever do three live songs at a time with his Gibson 6 /12. I recall that the two guys from Hot Tuna (an off-shoot from Jefferson Airplane), Jack Cassidy and Jorma Kaukomen had problems with them. Jorma had a Les Paul/Strat double neck and Jack had a Gibson/Fender bass, a course of steroids, push ups and personal training in pumping iron is mandatory.

Any Dram will do.

Sadly I won’t be entering the “Dream” competition, I’m thinking about the dram one however.

Pooh Sticks

Had a great game of Pooh sticks today on a sunny road way down by Hopetoun sawmill. We found the perfect bridge, stream and height combination and loads of useful raw materials to turn into racing devices. Sticks, dried weed stems, pine cones, bits of wood – ok I know it’s juvenile don’t want to grow up this week.

Short return post

impossible songs






impossible songs

From West Lothian to Japan

The move is over and we are (almost) settled. The house is warming and responding to our TLC, we hosed down the front of it today, rebuilt the trampoline and hacked away some of the jungle and the sun shone as we ate lunch outside. The broadband has also stammered back into life and we are reconnecting with the wider world. As an example tonight I discovered that we were played on a Japanese podcast a few hours ago. Funnily enough they played the track “Tokyo Skyline” from the “Heartburst” CD. I thought it came across well in what is basically a 50 minute “letter from Japan” radio show in the great broadcasting tradition of Alistair Cooke. The show is called Japantalk but is broadcast in American/English, nice to get a mention there so thanks…

Easy Japantalk link: http://music.podshow.com/music/listeners/podshow_details.php?ShowHash=7cc791c6ec03cba601b7a5416a2dacce

(I think we appear at about 26 minutes into the programme.)

Door the Billy.

Just like “My name is Earl” I now have a list though I’m not trying to straighten out my Karma or be a better person – I’m trying to door the Billy (IKEA parlance), fit the cabinet, hang the picture, paint the floor, cut the grass etc. Of course Ali is painting, sorting and planning feverishly at the same time. We are slowing winning.

White Room

impossible songs


impossible songs

White Room.

Flat is the bottom and white are the walls and ladders are not to be tripped over even by accident. We inspect the new billet for signs of infestation, heel marks, slips and slides and drastic battle damage. The garden (in place quite correctly) is not visible unless you stare out from a large or tiny window or care to step outside.

Goodbye/farewell.

Only a few short hours till we move, only a few hours before the broadband is disconnected and we are plunged into the abyss of disconnect in a strange house ?? miles away from the nearest telephone exchange. Our fate is therefore in the hands of “local circumstances, weather, pestilence, crows on cables and connection distances prevailing”. We may never blog, upload, download, browse or shop again. Then again we may find that a brave new supersonic highway runs along the shores of the silvery River Forth and we can hitch a long and a smooth ride upon it – is it possible, do such good things happen in a cruel world? How can God be bothered to listen to one hundred million Chinese mobile phone conversations every day, watch George Bush and his minders and read all our thoughts simultaneously and still keep the universe in its imperfect balance? Hasn’t he got better things to do with his time and will it rain over the moving weekend? Too many questions and too few answers. Thank you all for your collective indifference and whatever else, see you in the future.

The Castle has been found

impossible songs - Abercrn Castle, midhope

impossible songs

Big old castle: After living here for almost two years we’ve just discovered that the huge bulk of Abercorn Castle is on our doorstep. Proof of how effective castle design can be if you want to avoid annoying neighbours and invading armies.

Thursday.

An evening spent reviewing at OOTB. It turned out to be a full and varied show and the place was busy all night. I was pleased to see four new female acts debuting (possibly some kind of first for OOTB) and they were all stylishly different and pretty interesting. We ride an odd curve in OOTB, a few months ago when it was quieter we were considering dropping back to a twice a month thing and now it’s just about impossible to get a slot unless you turn up really early and new faces are appearing every week. That’s show business.

Friday.

More boxing and packing and sorting. Becoming bored I was starting to play a game of secret box subversion. The idea being to include incorrect items in a labelled box i.e. a bongo drum in the bathroom box and so on. I was caught on the first box.

Saturday.

An Italian meal (that was fine for me but not so good for Ali) surrounded by jubilant Irish rugby fans and then to the Usher Hall for the Garfunkel concert. He was very good, still possessing that unworldly and at times scary voice, no hint of the aging process cracking the ethereal veneer. The material was as good as you can ever get, all the old songs and a few standards thrown in for good measure, a nice change from rock and blues and delusional singer songwriters.

Sunday.

Several small furry creatures revisited: I was cleaning out the garage and came upon a rats nest in amongst some cardboard boxes that I was about to transport to the dump. Not a pleasant discovery so I gingerly raked the nest outside, found no rats (thankfully) and than decided to set fire to it. The fire took hold far more quickly than I’d expected and in no time various odd, stained and useless boxes were added to the fire and were ablaze. At one point when the wind changed direction there was a real possibility of the garage catching alight – what fun you can have when moving house.

Putting cushions in a clothing recycler: As I was dumping some of our excess baggage I found myself filling a clothing skip with cushions, handbags and strangely enough a wooden Zulu figure. Quite who would wear such an outfit beats me but if you ever see anybody wearing seven blue cushions, carrying two small black hand bags and clutching a black figure, I don’t want to hear about it.

Goose train

impossible songs

impossible songs

Geese

We’re now pondering over the pros and cons of keeping some geese at the new house (in the garden), as watch dogs. Goslings are surprisingly cheap to buy, even cheaper if you buy them as eggs but that involves some very tricky early rearing techniques that I’m not confident about. Of course if they outlive their welcome or fail in their primary task of guarding your possessions you can eat them. That process involves some unpleasantness however. The other thing about geese is that they can live a long time, some 20 to 25 years, some (and I find this hard to believe) have reached 80. The downside is that that the geese could out live the pair of us and become poor homeless orphans one day and a rather tough lunch for somebody in 2075. Best not to think about it.

Black and white.

Why is it that black and white photos seem to convey a warmth, soulfulness and depth of reality that coloured pictures just don’t? Maybe monotone vision is more natural to us and we’ve evolved (I hate the term) into colour vision but still relate more easily to black and white, it works in cinema too, once you adjust. Is the colour of the world truly artificial and we’re stuck in an inappropriate and unfamiliar point on the spectrum with more colours to come and unfold as our perceptions deepen? (Err..no!).

Trains

I got a train to work today (despite the impending strike) as my car was in for an MOT, service and quick rub down with a wire brush. Being without a car and traveling by train is a slightly disconcerting experience but at least allows a regular driver like me another angle on the world. The train was clean, not crowded and on time and I enjoyed the view of mysterious back gardens and queuing traffic for all of ten minutes before alighting at Inverkeithing station. Then the world turned rather drab as I experienced the grayness and crammed new building works and the desolate properties that surround the station – Fife badly needs a makeover, somebody needs to start caring about it because much of it looks a complete mess. The planners, the Councils and the people are allowing houses to rise that look terrible now and will end up like downtown Baghdad in a few more years.