Iron manic

impossible songs

Life is full of little surprises, never did I expect to be teaching any one of my sons the guitar riff from the Sabs 1971 "Iron Man". A truly awful piece of work that even then (I recall there was a very short time when handling the first Black Sabbath album was cool) was disliked by everybody except complete meat heads. However time and marketing are strange things and now that leaden, 6th form, primitive riff has re-emerged and become associated with what looks like a very good film. My 13 year old likes the basic riff but not the rest of the song so at least he has some good taste. Iron Man should be last of the big Marvel movies, I can't imagine Dr Strange easily making it to the big screen and if he did what music would fit - the Cure? The back catalogues continue to be pillaged and our imaginations and memories are put firmly back into some desolate and dark place.

The return to NYC

impossible songs

I reserve the right to return to New York, that is my stated state and I love the paradox. To be a tourist on pilgrimage to the haunts and quarters and pavements that first fired my imagination before it froze with age and experience. Bob Dylan, Nico, Lou and Andy on the mean streets and in the plush hotels and waterfronts and galleries bless me with a jolt and jump start. I'd swear I saw the ghost of Elvis being carried out of there or was it the Algonquin or the Somewhere Else? Cheap guitars and t-shirts in a Greenwich Village store and old furniture shops in Soho and the waving cats in porcelain. The intellectual bums and the taxis and the easy breakfasts suck up the sacred dollar and the all seeing eye but I fly by in my Volvo-like helicopter, safe with my borrowed insurance. Why does this all resonate and trigger reactions in a Scot from the Central Belt? (Borrowed and not returned from the library of the buckle of the Bible Belt and the cults of lesser men.) Where is my heart and memory in these last and late days of the green and blue familiar planet? Why do I gravitate towards Expedia and Trailfinders and browse there, savouring their hook, line and sinker wonders? Saviours of the modern man and benefactors in a time of discounted famine and need. New York is not my town but it is my city - I shall return and eat a Kenny Rodger's roast chicken and sip the world's finest coffee whilst avoiding the soup kitchens and the desolation rows.

Confessions

Confessions of a food poisoner: It was "Old Sparkie's " first outing of the year yesterday. The cleaned up barbie was fired up to feed the hungry family, all exhausted after numerous wheel barrow exploits around the garden, dinosaur hunts, football blowing up and (eventually) successful searches for bicycle pumps. The food was well done and marginally less hazardous to consume than anything the local fast food joints are cooking up (I hope). I do think that the sausages, which contained bits of apple and onion and other things were rather good, their subtle flavours and their finely carbonised exterior were missed out by the numerous small children present who seemed to prefer munching on Pringles and cheese. Whatever else happens we've at least welcomed the summer and the arrival of our family of nesting swifts from Morocco with our first outdoor spectacular.Next morning everybody woke up in fine fettle and I'm taking that as being a good sign that all the toxins in the food and dirty fingers were burned away.

impossible songs

Pan's Labyrinth: On Friday night we watched this strange and disturbing film, set during the Spanish Civil War it blurs reality and fantasy through some horrific events and graphic imagery. The overall effect was one of inducing the viewer to keep on drinking large amounts of red wine in order to dull the senses and focus the mind elsewhere. It may not sound as if I did but I liked the film and the sub-titles, been a while since I read a better movie.

The power of lime

impossible songs

There is a link between this Innocent looking material and a variety of problems that can occur in the inner reaches of the human body. I have proven that but I am still strangely drawn to this powerful substance both as a dip and an ingredient. Regardless of the consequences I am strangely drawn. I am a strangely drawn man and not a badly drawn boy. Such is the power of a jar of pickle that though I know it does me no good and in fact it causes me some discomfort, I am driven to finish the jar by fair means or foul. I must add it to more recipes and test the overall effect on others - my victims and victims of the pickle. Apart from participating in this kind of activity from time to time I am a normal person. I should also like to record that I do not enjoy the taste or texture of this lime pickle.

Now that it is truly May I feel that it is OK to get serious about gardening.

I'm listening but I'm not hearing very much.

Scribbles are returning to inhabit the empty pages.

Doctor Drum is in the post.

Human traffic

impossible songs

The feeling of not knowing where you are going but being aware that you are heading (led?) in a certain direction.

The loss of precious time and not being in control.

The soap suds running between your toes, along the shower bottom and down the drain.

Eating sausages, beans and fish cakes and calling it turf n' surf n' company.

The remembering of things passed and past.

Confusion caused by repeatedly mis-reading a series of signs and acting on them.

Far away rain that never falls, stays in the distance and hovers over higher places.

The last day of April and the first day of May.

Asking for the thing you really want and being surprised when you get it.

A jumble of words and ideas that travel around inside of your head and come out in the form of a song after a long period of time.

Dehydration.

Every moment can be a tipping point moment.

Sitting for a long time in an uncomfortable chair is better than wearing tight shoes all day.

My left foot switch

impossible songs

It was a nice weekend for the most part. Saturday was spent all day in all of Aberdeen mostly. Swimming with kids, bacon rolls at Brechin, a tea-party for a grandchild's birthday in the afternoon and then buzzing back down the A90 both conserving and wasting petrol by dodging the numerous speed cameras. Back on the couch with pizza and wine at 10 to watch an annoying episode of Dr Who set somewhere near the present day. I always feel short changed by these episodes, no proper time travel just another alien threat that manages to avoid any serious media exposure. I mean can you imagine how the media would react to an actual alien invasion, particularly on a slow news day. I don't much care for the regular contracted BBC cast of over exposed Londoners either, (it's better than Cardiff mind you).

Sunday allowed us a little recovery, after the regular Sunday morning football it was time for a lengthy potter in the strangely sunny garden: Cleaning the BBQ, stacking logs, hammering nails into things and rearranging the garden furniture back to where it was before we started rearranging it, though it does look a lot better where it is now. The cats chased bees which I hoped they would not catch, then gave up and disappeared into the hedge, a large and unique wildlife reserve in it's own right. No carnage was reported and we pottered some more until we grew hungry. A few drinks were consumed and by eight we were comatosed on the couch in from of a flickering TV screen. On Monday the rain began.

Also on Monday my new foot switch arrived heralding a rare outing for my flight case full of odd pedals and guitar related stuff. I fiddled for two hours and an understanding the basic layout of the fretboard is beginning to return.

Their greatest hits

impossible songs

Strange how listening to the past can be an effort. The greatest hits of Jefferson Airplane is not any kind of an easy listen. The music is often tuneless, with half baked songs, lyrics that are shouted rather than sung, harmonies that are clunky and two fingered guitar solos played through gutless amplification. Of course there is something else going on that I like (not just the nostalgia), I think it's the feeling and the anger but some of the material is hard labour on the ears. The quieter, acoustic stuff ages a little better, a lesson there for us all? Whatever nobody ever had cooler sunglasses and a better bass sound than Jack Cassidy and Grace Slick can wail with the best.

The fuel crisis has meant we've had no heating oil (so no heating) all week. The crisis was however self inflicted as we managed to run out prior to the real crisis and then had to wait for delivery and then for the plumber to bleed the system. Now we are bled (8.30 tonight) and hopefully warmer.

Favourite things this week:

Wooden Ships by Jefferson Airplane.

Bacon and eggs, toast and brown sauce.

Looking at but not using the new wheelbarrow.

Fires that stay lit.

The New York skyline.

Three days to eat an Easter egg.

A paperback.

Fixing a long time buzz on the 13th fret of my Antoria.

Dr Pepper Breakfast

impossible songs

Today's breakfast of choice was a can of Dr Pepper and a Mars Bar consumed alfresco at the Pitreavie Playing Fields in Dunfermline under a pale early morning sky with a fierce East wind slapping me in the face. However the accompanying football match had a good outcome, 4 - 2 in our team's favour. Not a bad start to the day.

Soon it was time to purchase a new wheelbarrow so I headed of to the local B&Q and acquired a nice mid-range model. The great thing is that when you buy a wheelbarrow, you don't need a trolley, you just wheel it around the store, clip a few heels, then through the check out and deposit it into your car.

Home via a fast food outlet (coffee break) and straight into the garage to attempt to start up the ancient, cranky lawn mower. It has been in hibernation for a few months and was pretty reluctant to start. After much futile pulling on the starting cord, sweating, swearing and a sore shoulder I removed the spark plug, cleaned it with a Swiss Army knife , sprayed WD40 here and there and tried again. It roared into life complete with a complaining cloud of blue smoke and a shower of dust. Together we ploughed across the garden narrowly avoiding a collision with the wheelbarrow and some solar lights. The garden has at least now been attended to this year (apart from one failed bonfire) and I felt fulfilled. It also helped that yesterday the kids and I rebuilt the trampoline, straightened the battered poles (Winter gales to blame) and thanks to numerous cable ties put the safety net together (correctly this time). Never forget that it is those same cable ties that keep the space shuttle flying, Disneyland functioning and also hold together much of the USA's nuclear deterrent. Cable ties are a vital invention that should not be over looked, they might just save your life, so keep a few handy.

Thanks to the limited West Lothian oil crisis we're heating the house using alternative fossil fuels, though the fossils all look a bit like coal to me and I know for a fact that the logs came from a petrol station so they are not fossils at all. If fossils did actually burn they'd be quite useful instead of being boring lumps of stripy rock that clever people seem to think were once rubbed on by fish or prehistoric snails. Most seem to end up as paper weights or under glass in a museum and are not used to fuel anything. It's a shame that they don't have a dual purpose. Of course in the future all that will be found to reveal our superior way of life with be the snipped ends of cable ties under a layer of Tesco bags.

Pot holes v speed bumps

impossible songs

The road building, modification and repair strategy in South Queensferry (and other chunks of the blessed UK banana republic) leaves me puzzled. Understandably speed bumps have been installed close to schools, pavements, houses and the resting places of dead squirrels. These creations slow traffic down and reduce the value of your car and any life remaining in it in the same unpleasant process. So the traffic is calmed, the drivers are irate but all is almost safe (unless you ride a motorcycle). However as time passes these fine roads and their bumps deteriorate until they resemble the surface of the moon, so providing a less than soothing, undulating and mostly awful experience to road users of all types.

My suggestion to resolve this pattern of chaotic road conditions is to dig up the speed bumps and deposit the surplus material into the pot holes thereby at least getting us back to a basic position of having roads that are all on one level. I think the Romans had this idea first and it is a good one. Speedfreaks, Subaru drivers and nutters should, after 12 penalty points get their left pinkies removed with a Stanley Knife. If only everything in life was so simple.

Santa Maria

impossible songs

We're playing at Jim Igoe's Secret CD night on the 7th of May. First live anything in about three months so we may start to practice any day or weekend now. It's a 30 minute slot along with Rosie Bell, Fi Thom and David Ferrard. This (from the outside) unproductive life is possibly on the verge of being productive once again, when we get the garden right.



Today at work I avoided coffee, my coffee maker was away and I survived on a can of diet Irn-Bru, a cup of tea and two cups of chilled water. Remarkably there were no blinding headaches, sneezing fits, spots before the eyes or attacks of the spider monkey chills. I did find myself staring into space or was it the BBC website?



I know that my holiday has done me good: I do not feel the need to rant, either inwardly or outwardly, I am tired at times but in a normal way and I've not put on any weight or developed any rashes or ticks. Time to book the next holiday I think.

So long and thanks for all the dolphins

impossible songs

Not too tedious a day today as I returned to work after two weeks in the sun, snow and the strange, thundery and wet weather of Aberdeen. The Algarve is now a distant but pleasant memory, grandchildren are elsewhere clutching dinosaurs and tractors and children are back at school mining for gold. Older children are busy making their way in the world and generally doing fine. I'm eating more than my fair share of chicken, Ali's home made bread and the pecan and raisin loaf that you can buy from the M&S petrol station in South Queensferry. I have recently had some red wine also, for the benefit of my health and well being of course.

Other things:

I wish I supported Queen of the South.
Enchanted is not a bad film if you've nothing else to watch.
The Eels make interesting music but not eating.
A dead wood pigeon in the garden - killed by various cats.
Sunday newspapers on a Monday.
Little pots of fruit parfait lined up in the fridge.
The sweet mystery of life and love and staying in bed.
Zorro.
Sticking pins in your windscreen washer jets and seeing where they may squirt.
Odd, unscripted bits of random cookery dished up to guests.
Pop Tarts for breakfast.
A birthday party in Aberdour with Spanish salad and prawns.
Filling road potholes with ashes from the fireplace.
Cakes in dreams and dreams in cakes.
Apple pie and custard in reality.
Reality in all it's forms - pleasant and not so. It needs to be faced up to.

Fish flags

impossible songs

A short list of various things done and experienced:

Saw the Spiderwick Chronicles.
Clean jeans tramped over by a muddy cat.
Realised that there is much to be done.
Couldn't get the bonfire to light in the rain.
Shopping in Livingstone.
Harry Ramsden's fish and chips.
Liverpool v Arsenal.
Grandson staying over = dinosaur youtube searches.
Moved the shed back with only minimal injuries sustained.
Pestered by cats when typing.
Frying eggs.

My favourite sardines

Skate fillet from "Julias'".

impossible songs

Sardines from "That Shack".


impossible songs

Oily fish, garlic, potatoes and a glass of wine, eaten and enjoyed on a warm Portuguese afternoon and at no time did a bone stick in my throat. That didn't happen until I ate my second plateful a few days later, the antidote to this problem was the simple application of bread and butter washed down with a bottle of red wine, some Superbock lager and nine hours sleep and "hey presto!"no fish bone, just a mild headache and the memory of a tickle. Seafood consumption is not without it's problems, try the spaghetti and clams if you don't believe me.

We rented a car that was amongst other things "sixty day blue" from a company called Thrifty. It was a Renault Megane estate. Thrifty were not the most attentive or punctual of hire companies - the first car they offered us (also in sixty day blue) was all bashed up and had a broken mirror, I thought at first they were having a laugh but they were serious. We got serious also and got another car.

("Sixty day blue" is a trade term for a certain colour of vehicle that will remain on a used car lot for approximately that amount of time before it eventually sells).

Skull City

impossible songs

impossible songs

The picture is of a roof covered in human skulls and bones in a small chapel in Faro, Portugal. They do things differently there, I can't imagine this idea catching on in Scotland as means of coating and protecting the ceiling of the kirk. It certainly would appeal to the young (Goths) and older, darker, left of centre types however. Perhaps I'm somewhere in that number?

We've just returned from a week in the Algarve so the next few posts will feature pictures of sardines, hills, beaches and holiday scapes of sorts, so today, just to get myself adjusted to normal home life I ventured outside and painted the shed, in the rain.

Ghost in the Shell station

impossible songs

impossible songs

A series of pointless rants:

Petrol at £1.05 isn't really expensive compared to paying £1.50 for a bottle of water at an airport WH Smiths or £7.99 for a twist of printer ink in Comet or £2.45 for a tasteless Latte in cardboard at Starbucks. That's really all I have to say, a fresh perspective is wonderful if you can gain it and you can find peace at 35.1 mpg. None of this means that I can excuse the evil oil companies and supportive banks their petty minded profiteering (or Alister (banned from every pub) Darling).

Terminal 5: I will spend the rest of my life trying to avoid this place and then once I get there marvel at it's wondrous baggage handling devices and helpful and courteous staff. Nobody tries to do a bad job but sometimes things just don't come together at the correct time - but I'm not sorry for BA or BAA. Air travel now is an awful, unglamourous and tedious experience filled with shuffling queues and pointless shopping opportunities for the feeble-minded. It could be so much better but like many modern experiences it's been reduced to a MacDonald's style of quick and dirty service. Managers are absent, staff are vacant and systems are inhuman. Blade Runner meets Brave New World and humanity is the loser. If you can, stick to the fast lane in your own comfort zone with the music at 11 and marvel at God's wonderful creation - the motorway.

Alex Salmond booed at Hampden: Good, it's time this pompous wee bugger heard what Scottish people really think of him and his daft and dated ideas and the shower of no-hopers that pretend to govern Scotland. Between them all there is hardly one that could open and down a bottle of Buckfast, unscrew a screw top of Mcewans Pale Ale, smoke twenty Regal or swallow a Mars Bar supper (with brown sauce) - call yourself Scottish? We reserve the right to do what we like and die from whatever poison we choose to imbibe (at least before the English invade us again) .

Ferrari

impossible songs

A Ferrari stuck behind a bus. Rev up your engine all you like, you can't get past the bus.

A pile of old photographs - in an order that keeps shifting.

Vegi-burgers & brown sauce.

Cinnamon Girl by Neil Young.

A chocolate brownie Easter Egg.

The cars owned by members of your family.

The growing season.

Holiday clothes, t-shirts, shorts and flip flops.

It only takes a simple hair clip to stop a mighty washing machine.

The water in West Lothian is full of gunge it seems.

Understanding the hallmarks on silver.

A casket of ashes.

Following the silver herring

impossible songs

impossible songs

My recent reminders on family matters and family history has brought back the clear memory of a formidable woman who I hardly knew but by reputation was to be a significant influence in my early life. The lady is Mary Jane Barclay (nee Geddes) my paternal grandmother, born and bred in Buckie in the North East. She died in 1968, probably not too long after the above photo was taken in Lerwick in the Shetlands. In it she is doing what she loved best - working outside on a fishing quay.

Her mother died when she was 14 (in 1902) and Mary Jean brought up her four sisters and only brother whilst looking after her crippled father. I guess she did the only thing she could and learned how to gut and clean fish in the local fish market in order to bring an income into the household. They all survived and she married into the Barclays in 1915 and brought up three children of her own but the call of the sea (the smell of fish?) was always there tugging at her sleeve. Right up until the mid nineteen sixties and in her late seventies she'd wander away with a huge suitcase and in a fox fur coat for seasonal employment from Lerwick to Lowestoft cleaning fish. It was what she knew, what she liked doing and she and her many friends (all ladies of a similar age and background) never wanted to stop doing it. Damn the pension, the comfort and the couch!

Sadly the herring boom years did not really last past the nineteen thirties and though she always found work I guess the fishing and landing patterns changed and the volumes decreased. Modern, intensive fishing methods, greed and lack of vision saw the fish stock diminish and the "art of the fishwife" die out. I'm not sure what she'd make of today's EEC quotas, the drug running and smuggling, the fish counter at Tescos or us eating prawns and shrimps by the bucket from M&S; in the old days the fishermen threw them back as there was no market for shellfish. Tastes and times change and Mary Jane's craft, wit and guile has gone forever.

Few things make any sense

impossible songs

impossible songs

It's been a week now since my mother died and I've now had a little time to think and to compose my thoughts. During the week life has of course gone on, I've been at work (a few days) and I've been making funeral arrangements and clearing out her house. Odd items have surfaced from the depths of drawers and cupboards, grey photographs have been thumbed over, letters quickly scanned and clothes and artifacts sorted and binned or collected. People have of course been very kind and helpful and in the busyness I don't feel any real sense of loss.

The last one of an older generation has passed on and now I am in the senior bracket, not the junior or intermediate anymore. There is no immature position left, there is no opting out for me, just a sense of responsibility and not now wishing to miss a moment. This is not a bad feeling by any means, it expresses and makes sense of an order that we all understand and live amongst: we move on as life moves on and we need to do things. My mother has moved on, peacefully as it turned out, and for all of us that time will come eventually.

In the mean time we will forget, other things will happen and overshadow and the churn will resume - one thing after an other as it is, but the details stay with you and stain their pattern into the memory and that is important and worth having.

Hard shoulder, soft heart

impossible songs

impossible songs

Not a place you'd want to be, abandoned by faulty engineering or unfair wear and tear, stuck on the hard shoulder while all of life passes by, ignoring your stranded plight. Based on my occasional and unscientific observations it's the continental motors that seem to end up there most of the time. The French models in particular, those complex design masterpieces by Renault and Citroen, seem most prone failing their owners at a critical time - I don't believe that anybody in the Hollywood set would consider driving one either. I did however clock a burning Mercedes roadster on the M40 last Wednesday evening, so you can never tell, prestige motors and reputation may not count for that much really.

Top failures:

Renault Clio, Renault Megane, Renault Espace, Renault Scenic, Citroen Xara, Citroen Saxo, Colt Spacestar, Fiat Brava, Fiat Punto, Fiat Coupe, Toyota Corona, BMW 3 Series, Alfa Romeo 175, Rover 25, Rover Metro, a Bentley I once saw, Ford Mondeo, Ford Escort, Kia anything, big silly Jeeps, Mercedes 180s and mobile cranes. Now I'm really bored with this...but I do feel sorry for all motorway breakdown victims.

Picture perfect

impossible songs

I like this picture but I don't really know anything about it. That's the way I'd prefer it to stay. It is possible that most people would recognise it. It may be seen as tacky, romantic, primitive, Hallmark Cards style garbage. Who knows. It may be a really good piece that is loved all across the world and placed on postage stamps, matchboxes and condom packets. It may be familiar and beloved by the Italians and French but shunned by the Polish and the Swedes. It may be worth millions of dollars and been stolen and recovered many times. Perhaps the Nazis had it along with all the material from the Amber Room and it has just been found. Possibly many students have it as a poster on a dirty wall or have a small version as a fridge magnet. Nothing about who likes it or owns it makes any difference to it's existence as a brief artistic moment in time. I'm happy with that.

In the end the bottom falls out, the fire dies and the bottle gets drunk dry. So be it.