Seventh Tree

impossible songs

impossible songs

Goldfrapp: Seventh Tree

A whirling, spiral maze of pop weirdness, strange and vague lyrics, harsh observations and scan free, childish, meaningless vocal noodles. Synths and guitars that sound like Nick Drake jamming with the Human League, drums straight from Sgt Pepper and Alison Goldfrapp whoops and whispers on top of it all in a completely over produced muddle.The CD is shorter than it should be, the cover art is awful and it all looks to have been cobbled together in a chilly Wiltshire wood on a Tuesday afternoon. It is also the best thing I've heard in ages and I'm likely to wear it out with play after play on the car CD. Fantastic.

Somewhere else

impossible songs

impossible songs

Everybody comes from somewhere else
Or so I've always told myself
One man has beans, another wealth
That's the politics of stealth.

It started in the Middle East
Had a quarrel but got released
Some know famine, some had feast
Built their fine temple, killed their beast.

Then they chose their different names
They spoke in strange tongues, up in flames
They saddled horses, loosed the reigns
Talked to a big god, they could blame.

Now time to journey to the moon
To suck in valium, lick their spoon
Watch the horizon, play this tune.
I hope I join them, one day soon.

I hope you join them, one day soon.

Helium:The little I know

impossible songs

impossible songs

The great helium mines of Texas and the Mid-West.

Deep below the badlands of Texas near Waco Junction lies the world's only deep helium mine.
Gas caught up in the ancient rock strata is carefully removed by expert migrant workers and used for numerous industrial and commercial projects. The mine was first opened and worked in early 1933 by Aristotle McDonald a former cattle man, gold prospector and stunt cyclist.

Aristotle failed to see the massive potential of the gas and sold the mine and all the future rights
to the Minnesota Mining Machinery Mechanics Co, (later to become 4M) for $1,000,000 and
then retired. 4M mined the helium throughout WW2 where it was used for balloon fuel systems and the brilliant but flawed experimental helium bomb project. Thereafter the mine continued production, building up sales and exports and it does very well to this day albeit the reserves are not finite. "For how long and how low can the Texan helium go?" is the question.

As long as it lasts the precious helium will be pumped into large road tankers (all fitted with lead
tyres) and taken to Hallmark retail outlets, Zeppelin factories and cheap comedy gag suppliers.

The truth is: After an oil drilling operation in 1903 in Dexter, Kansas, U.S. produced a gas
geyser that would not burn, Kansas state geologist Erasmus Haworth collected samples of the
escaping gas and took them back to the University of Kansas at Lawrence where, with the help
of chemists Hamilton Cady and David McFarland, he discovered that the gas contained, by
volume, 72% nitrogen, 15% methane—insufficient to make the gas combustible, 1% hydrogen,
and 12% of an unidentifiable gas.

With further analysis, Cady and McFarland discovered that 1.84% of the gas sample was helium. Far from being a rare element, helium was present in vast quantities under the American Great Plains, available for extraction from natural gas.

All this has put the United States in an excellent position to become the world's leading supplier
of helium and yes it is mined in Texas - and I thought it was all a big lie!

Zabriskie Point is not pointless

impossible songs

impossible songs

It could be the best or the worst film of 1970 and the metaphorical and actual lowest point in America (and it's history). What's not to like about this weird film? Teenage angst, the Grateful Dead, Pink Floyd, a tiny plane, sex in the desert, the police, students on the rampage, being misunderstood, death and the ultimate question and a house blowing up in slow motion. Set the controls...

Equal enough

impossible songs

impossible songs

I spent most of this morning doing a little interactive learning on equality and diversity. I was surprised at how many of the little tests and situations I bumbled through correctly. The video clips built into the session were a little in the style of the cult soap giant "Crossroads" 1969 but I persevered and I'm now an expert (?). It is quite remarkable at how, when now taking these tests and building up training on this topic you can see how your attitudes have changed and (in my case) improved over the years. The world has spun for yet another 24 hours and many more things have spun in time and around in my head.

Open mike at the Stag. The monthly shuttle across the Ferry was a pleasant experience last night. I arrived late and puggled but Ali and I played about six songs without any major hitches. Not bad when our one practice this week was done in between episodes of Torchwood. Our commitment to music never ends. Thanks to Tommy and Norman also.

Double sided sticky pads are a nightmare to use.
Tile paint is best in black it seems.
I don't enjoy seeing a cat being sick.
Sleep is a gift and a treasure.

Steve McQueen

impossible songs

impossible songs

I don't know why but the story of Steve McQueen's struggle against cancer and his desperate battle to beat it using unconventional methods has always intriged me. McQueen was the loner, anti-hero type in many of his films and chose to take a similar unconventional path in a bid to beat his illness. None of what he tried worked and McQueen died at the age of fifty in Ciudad Juárez, Chihuahua, Mexico of a heart attack following surgery to remove or reduce a metastatic tumor in his lung.

He had been diagnosed with mesothelioma in December 1979, and had travelled to Mexico in July 1980 for unconventional treatment after his doctors advised him that they could do nothing more to prolong his life. McQueen was cremated, and his ashes spread in the Pacific Ocean.

Mesothelioma is a form of cancer usually caused by asbestos exposure. McQueen may have been exposed to asbestos during his service in the United States Marine Corps, or during his racing career.

Strangely McQueen sought a very non-traditional treatment that used coffee enemas and laetrile, a supposedly "natural" anti-cancer drug available in Mexico but not approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, the method failed to stop the cancer. For some reason his brave and possibly stupid attempts at finding a cure made him more of a hero to me than any of the roles he played in his movies.

Jimmy Squibb and Radio 2

impossible songs

impossible songs

In weaker moments in evenings and when driving in fog I listen to Radio 2. Tonight on Mark Radcliffe's show I encountered the tale of Jimmy Squibb, a speedway ace from the 50s to the 70s. With a name that could have graced any action strip in a copy of the Victor or the Eagle he has emerged from historic obscurity and is alive once more as a two wheeled legend. I used to watch speedway on black and white 425 line TV when I was a kid, a bizarre motorcycle and mud fest that lacked the frenzied leaps of the scramble tracks but I absorbed it anyway(there was nothing else on). Funny but I never did hear of Jimmy. Speedway's probably got a huge following in Scandinavia and Eastern Europe now and Jimmy Squibb (with two bs) will, no doubt be a cult hero - if only I'd known all of this sooner.

Food & Thought Police

impossible songs

impossible songs

Things that are not quite right but we're stuck with them:

Hot Cross buns being on sale, all year and always on BOGOF offer in Tesco.
The demise of seasonal fruits.
Brick hard strawberrys forced grown in Kenya or Holland and appearing on supermarket shelves like late, confused tourists leaving a flight.
Easter eggs available from January.
Mother's Day, Pancake Day and Valentine's Day all running concurrently.
Daft and excessive packaging on things in general.
Where are Macintosh Apples? All that you get are pink insipid things, or (green) Golden Delicious.
Why the hell are smoothies so expensive? Who is kidding who here?
The way the labels on bacon always cover the fatty bits.
Non-standard sizes of Mars Bars. There should be one size (normal) for a Mars Bar. How else are you expected to work, rest and play on one?

Another visit to Aberdeen, nice lunch, nice ice cream, cold weather, daughter and son-in-law's flat inspected and found to be rather good, complete with high BG factor and sitting in a swish area full of Bentleys, Range Rovers and cake shops.

Mr Cougar is unwell thanks to some faulty pipework, a little like me on some Sunday mornings.The downside is that his pipes must come from Detroit, Ebay, Hong Kong or somewhere crazy and because of all the strawberrys on the plane they can't get a seat, not even in the cattle truck part till Monday.

The global markets can work for and against us all it seems.

Heart like a big wheel

impossible songs

impossible songs

Heart as big as a wheel, carbon on the valves, leaks in the matrix. It has been a busy week and today marks only Thursday.

Valentines are good things, great when you get one all to yourself. I got an electric one that has it's very own brain. Actually a modern man/woman machine replicant that cannot be confounded or stopped. Like a nuclear ferret on speed it seeks out the correct answer for that eternal burning question: "How much do I love you?" The current pulses all its yellow life around the universe and back any number of times, I don't quite understand it. It's more complex than a Torchwood plot and more dangerous than the underside of Cardiff during a solar eclipse, and as Life on Mars returns for a second series but without the meaning my question gets a better and more correct and unique answer everytime.

The answer is of course YES and 6 cream eggs.

Other answers could be: YES and a Vauxhall C'mon toy. YES and a balloon. YES and a bunch of tulips. YES and a visit to the cinema. Love is a wonderful thing.

Carbon

impossible songs

impossible songs

It can get everywhere and be everywhere. That delightful dark material, that building block, that black gold, that factor of fear and fun and scary emission figures. Now if it's on your valves just what do you do? The carbon moves in mysterious ways and I for one wouldn't have it any other way. Valves do stick from time to time but once freed the roar and the power are things of a rare and focused beauty. And as for the heating matrix...

Now I lay me down to sleep to dream of BOSS DR880 (or whatever number) drum machines.

International class catering

impossible songs

impossible songs




Birds on wires etc.

The meaningless mess of various fast food outlet's signs grow and grow whilst we spectate from our queue of hostile traffic. Then I start thinking "what would the correct one be for ours?" Surely "International House of Fish Pie" (IHOFP), or simply "Pie House", a title that works on so many levels. Then there could be "International House of Pasta" (a second stab at IHOP) or just "International House of Grub" (IHOG).



At this time of year I always take a few moments to apply a liberal amount of Vaseline to the seals on the doors of my car. Firstly because it keeps the pesky magpies away (they don't like the taste) and secondly it's very good for those wintery chapped hands we all suffer from. It doesn't do much for self inflicted steam iron burns or the little rash you may get between your toes however, these need proper medical care. Thirdly it stops the car doors sticking when it's frosty. A wise young man in Boots the Chemist told me this once whilst stuck between flights at Heathrow Airport.



Today I took a spade and like some traditional French "old man of the road man" attacked the nasty potholes in our unmade drive. Various bits of rubble and bric-a-brac were deposited in a vain attempt to soften the many blows we are taking in the bumper and lumber department. A fair days pay for a fair days work I say (I don't know why), so the pothole wages are red wine and sushi and the chance to meet and pass the time with some genuine townies who are out for a walk with their ugly dog.



Today we are listening to:

CBQ "Anthology"


Aberdeen v Celtic (on the steam radio)


The Greatest Hits of Jefferson Airplane


Two songs by the Eagles, the names of which escape me


Cats purring and tumble driers whirring.

Departure from reality

impossible songs

impossible songs

Today has been Thursday all over the UK, I imagine without exception. Our law system has been placed under a small threat by the Archy of Canty but that gay blade and son of the manse Dr Broon stepped in at the eleventh hour at half past five and waved the rules. We are all spared but extradition is still possible. Meanwhile interest rates are falling by a quarter of a percent and so are spans of attention. England beat the poor neutral Swiss 2 - 1 and who really cares about that. Traffic is building up but me and my motor skipped around it all via Dalmeny listening to an epic song by Elbow "Grounds for Divorce". My car has comfy seats so I can relax at long last. Home and I ate the scramble eggs and toast that I had made only a few seconds before, what a coincidence and few crumbs to contend with. Now it's milk and whisky all the way and I hope to sleep until morning.

Favourite crisp: Kettle Chips au naturelle.
Favourite CD (this week): Trout Mask Replica.
Looking forward to: New Goldfrapp CD next week.
Favourite toothpaste: Macleans in a squirty tub.
Favourite Microwave: Sharp "Express Cook".
Favourite socks: Scoobie Doo Christmas Special.
Looking forward to: Arrival of mini helicopter.

Toll Free

impossible songs

impossible songs

Come Monday the great toll-free time of our lives begins when after 40 odd years the Forth Bridge is free to use. Perhaps as a gesture the redundant booths could be used to hand back shiny pound coins to the many jaded motorists who have faithfully paid for God knows what during the life of the bridge. I'm not counting my free range chickens yet though, I imagine that the price of oil will rocket up a little more so the others can keep up with Shell and the money saved on the toll will end up in the tank. In the short term I'm reclaiming the streets and dodging the pot holes.

Curry sandwich. Today I ate lunch in a west coast eatery and wishing to avoid a full meal opted for a spicy chicken club sandwich. What I got was an enormous cold chicken curry divided between small triangles of bread complete with a tiny but healthy salad. Memo to self: avoid the spicy sandwichs in future (that means stick with crayfish and rocket from Pret a Manger).

Carbon on the valves - one of my favourite phrases from the movies.

Don't bomb the East Neuk

impossible songs

impossible songs


This is the view from the "summer seat" at Cellardyke Harbour. My grandmother spent every sunny afternoon sitting at this spot for many years, talking to friends, neighbours and passers by. Everything seemed to be at a slow and easy pace and the talk was of the past, the dead and the old days. I spent my first year in nearby Dove Street before moving away to the cranes and noisy docks of Rosyth. I came back numerous times but I never felt at home or at ease - there is something in the air here that is not good for me. The narrow, shaved and salty streets, the squawking gulls to whom fish are now a luxury, the cruel barbershops and the ghosts of my dead fishermen forefathers all now drive me away and leave me uncomfortable. I choose to be elsewhere, away from this corner of Fife.

Small towns and communities can at times turn in on themselves and foster a hostile, insular and fearful outlook and mindset that promotes uncertainty towards change and mistrust of anything from the wider world. I see this now manifesting itself in the language of my aged mother who has become stuck in the communal mind of Cellardyke in the 1930s. There is no escape either, with each circular spiral of memory she is regressing back into the homespun and well meant but dangerous "wisdom" that her mother and father cobbled together at the turn of the last century and ignorantly used to infect an entire generation. Old age is a trap if you allow it to be and it can quickly snap you back to a childish and feeble state where all the worst things are possible and nothing good ever happens. So blame it on the kirk, the schools, the poverty, the herring, the culture, the war or the Churchill government: nothing makes any difference now, the past is not a good place to be stuck in.

Primitive

impossible songs

impossible songs

List of the improbable:

The warm snow of January.
Clear and dry motorways.
Not liking a fish finger sandwich.
Red dawn, red sunset.
Switching off all appliances.
A Christmas tree that does not shed it's spines.
Tricky situations made easy.
Locked up in Parliament.
Headlines that make sense.
White wine that tastes like red.
Toilet breaks at the right time.
Three out of four speakers working.
Sustained activity.
No junk mail or spam, ever.
Frost that is not frozen.
Liking a cold wind.
No head injuries whilst doing DIY.
Primitive sophistication.
A degree of doubt that is certain.
Three yoghurts in a row.

Small things

impossible songs

impossible songs

In the grip of small things:

Shelves and a grand panoply of odd items.
The use of tools and implements.
Dreams about the tooth fairy and ufos.
Friends drop by after 30 years - in a marvelous manner.
Drinking whisky till two and time slipping away.
Understanding that memories are a primitive form of time-tourism.
Finding out about food and being left wondering...
It was the best of times it was a Sunday morning sleep in.
I drove to Pitlochry in the the rain and in the dark only to be waved down by a man with a torch who turned out to be my son.
33.2 mpg at a steady 75.
The wonders of a model helicopter that you fly in your lounge.
Having a small helicopter take off from on top of your head and not thinking that to be strange.
Sorting out a credit car mess and feeling satisfied.
A dangerous light-headed feeling threatens.
Music.

New Shoes

impossible songs

impossible songs

Things I have been doing over the last few days:

I bought emergency new shoes in Asda as the current pair had sprung a difficult leak.
Visited my mum in hospital and then met a school friend (who works in the hospital) whom I hadn't seen in 40 years.
Received a welcome postal package of fine art work from two of my (under 4s) grandsons.
Visited OOTB and saw two brilliant acts and talked to a guy (aged 71) who had built and was playing his "glute" (guitar and lute) - marvelous stuff.
Bought a new set of tyres for Mr Cougar from Farmer Autocare.
Ate some cannelloni with Ms Ali Graham.
Got my January Cream Egg and also ate it.
Listened to the wind blow.
Visited a new Aldi in Dunfermline where I purchased three packs of Ritter Sports and a bottle of wine.
Booked a flight to Birmingham with my £75 credit from Flybe.
Got a track played on a New Jersey podcast show (second this month).
Filled an ipod nano and an ipod shuffle with tunes.
Thought a little about Heath Ledger and Brokeback Mountain and 10 Things.
Saw half of Torchwood.
Scaled the heights and plumbed the depths.
Researched Egypt and various dark materials and prepared to sort out the felt tip pens mess.
Cleaned the kitty litter.
Browsed the web and read some emails.
Slept soundly for no good reason.

Ancient Egypt was not cold

impossible songs

impossible songs

It was so cold this morning that I nearly cried, I was chipping ice from cars and pouring warm water over their frozen locks. This is not a civilised way to be. It makes you understand why life began in the Middle East or the bosom of Africa or Cyprus or some other where that is warm. Temperature is important for growth and welfare. Some crazy misfits must have migrated to Scotland, driven away by their lords and tyrants, rulers who couldn't put up with their constant jabbering, their incomplete personal hygiene and their ability to do nothing for long periods of time. We here in Caledonia are those people from that lost and unkempt African tribe. Mind you we did in the process escape from a somewhat bizarre set of cultural and religious beliefs. Unfortunately whilst on the long road out of Egypt we came up with a few daft pagan ideas ourselves, these morphed into Christianity, the Masonic Lodge and Conservatism which thanks to Dickens, Henry Ford and Spike Milligan have turned into the absurd spiritual systems and political practices we tolerate today. Frying pans and fires I suppose. As William Wallace once said when asked about the cancelled football fixtures "If it was not so cold in Scotland we'd have invented cold and exported it all across the world before selling out to the Japanese". It's a gift really and you can get all these facts on a novelty tea-towel at our local petrol station.

Do what thou wilt

impossible songs

impossible songs

Unfortunately the January cold is causing us to wilt. Thoughts stop and coughs cackle in the background. MRSA runs rampant. The chill fog descends. Normal folks have cravings for deep fried chicken suppers and lashings of tea. Your breath freezes in the air and your toes are numb. Potted plants refuse their water as they stiffen in their pots. Going out is painful and coming home to a cold house is like jumping into an October swimming pool in the north of Spain. Windscreens become cryogenic coffins for early morning inhabitants and the TV, glowing warmly in the corner is not at all interesting. Cats have cold paws, handles nip your fingers and ears grow pink, then red, then numb. We go to bed early and rise early and work early, crawling like vampires and lost ghosts. The bathroom light dazzles cutting across the mushrooms lazing in your sleeping head. A warm shower is temporary refuge but no shield from the myriad infections floating and hanging in the still air. January's nearly over and I've not eaten a single cream egg so far.

Mr Cougar at home

impossible songs

impossible songs

A new and hairy pussycat has come to stay with, we don't know for how long but his name is Mr Cougar and unlike the smaller variety of cats we own he doesn't chase mice - yet. He also has a rather nice Ford Zetec 2.0 engine which purrs most of the time, hopefully it will be a long while before it clanks, pings or even worse clonks. The purring is a good sign, my limited experience of real cats and real cars tells me so.

His first run out into the wild was to Ikea on Saturday as part of a small convoy (one other). Like many families we arrived there, shuffled around, sat on things, lay on things and queued for various kinds of warm foodstuffs. We exhibited the classic "grand-mall confusion and size unbelief" as well as "mild indecision" and some "loss of bearings". We also drank weak coffee and bumped into fellow customers carrying trays of similar food items. The kids ate squishy ice cream (which I failed to capitalise on) and my daughter Erin got an unexpected bargain. After a while we emerged, blinking back into the sunlight and then crammed our well chosen and ultra useful things (two stuffed hedgehogs, a rat, shelves, frames, a rug, two plants and a mail box) into Mr Cougar's large boot.

We went home and unloaded - shopping is quite simple and pleasant really. The Ikea food effect wore of and as tea time beckoned I surprised myself and a few other people by somewhat experimentally, nicely roasting some sweet potatoes, peppers and onions in honey, all to go along with the previous night's left over home botched curry - now strangely enough more tasty and potent. It was possibly the best meal of the month and if I hadn't had to head over to Fife it would have laid me out nicely on the couch for the rest of the evening.