Black finger-nail day

It's been a while since I had one but today was a black finger-nail day. The nails are not black with nail-varnish but engine oil and gunk and road grime. I had the socket set out, screwdrivers all over the place and the car all jacked up as I tried to fix my suddenly defunct windscreen washers on Mr Cougar. Ford have cunningly hidden the pump and washer system inside the front wheel arch so a road wheel, the front valance and the inner wing all have to be removed to access the beast. After a few hours struggling with rusty fasteners in the hot sun I had a clear route into the area and thankfully it was just a case of reconnecting a hose that had come away from the pump and taping it up. All done with only a few scratches, minor bruises, graveled knees and (most likely for the rest of the weekend) black finger-nails. All in all a fairly satisfying experience. Now for a spot of cookery...

King Burger

Can there ever be a greater burger than the BK Angus? All others fade into insignificance and at only a white Victorian fiver for a meal (chips + strawberry milk shake) is there any better way to get vital proteins into a pale, thin, artistic body and tomato stains on your tie? I don't think so. No doubt Frankie and Bennie do a nice cheeseburger, McDs do bargains and if I was in the US I'd go for a Wendy's or Checkers but here in South Queensferry where choice is a little more limited then it has to be BK. As the incredible (what's green and sits in the corner) sulk would say "nuff said".

ubuntu utnubu

Constant change is here to stay. One of the problems of turning grey on the top is the prospect of also turning grey on the inside and becoming cautious about if not afraid of change, or at the very least trying something different. So (in a Simpson's newsreader voice) I'm happy to announce my new but not fully consummated love affair with ubuntu (software that is). This free, openly developed software that mimics all we know and love in Windows and MS office has to be worth a try, at the worst it can only cause me a few small seizures and some chronic time wasting. At best it will open an orange and yellow rainbow of delights into my dark and stilted world of no risk and experimentation computing. We shall see.

Speaking of computers what do we need them for anyway? Apart from writing and reading this stuff, managing a few bank accounts and pin numbers and telling you the mpg of your rapidly depreciating car what good are they? Once I'm bored with ubuntu, fed up with facebook and played out on play.com I'll lie back, let old age sweetly wash over me and read a few books through my bottle-bottomed specs whilst slurping away my pension in red wine. There's a real change for us all to grasp at.

Men find that shopping is more stressful than fighting in the Battle of Bannockburn or dodging shells at the Somme. It's official but not really my actual opinion of how things are. The queues at Tesco can be grim and padding around in Jenners tedious, but it's not quite the same as having a mad Englishman running at you with a rusty spear first thing in the morning.

Food of the day: A banana dipped into a Muller fruit corner (oh yeah).

Drink of the day: Hot chocolate from the machine in our conference room.

Song of the day: "I told her on Alderon" by Neon Neon.

Book of the day: Dr Drum's manual.

Web page of the day: "Five Easy Pieces"on Wikipedia.

Weather of the day: Rain from 1700 onwards.

Cat of the day: Smudge for her incessant mewing.

List of the day: Not this one anyway.

Euro 2008 running in the background

It's with a certain interested detachment that I'm watching Euro 2008. From a distance whilst doing other things and stuffing strange objects into vacant time gaps you could say (but probably wouldn't). So it's the kind of Scottish summer we've become used to, a major sporting event takes place and we have no involvement apart from office sweeps and interrupted TV schedules. The pundits are all finding it particularly hard this year and the coverage is comprehensive but wafer thin in terms of it's passion and actual content. Nobody in the BBC cares who wins as long as it's not the French or Germans and my soft spots are for Croatia and Portugal for no good reason and as yet I've still to watch more than twenty minutes straight of any match. Perhaps I need to introduce a little more beer and crisps into the equation.

Ok, its now 21.45, two packets of crisps and some lager later Holland have beaten Italy 3 - 0. It seems that some strange, dark magic from the deep mists of time is starting to take effect.

Reach for the ambience

The weekend's nearly over and we are sunburned and worn out for various reasons. All meals (with the exception of breakfasts) have been al fresco, all cooking has been experimental, all drinking has been necessary to avoid the twin horrors of dehydration and reality, clothes have been functional and loose and our attitude remains a healthy mixture of positive, reflective and de-constructionist. Speaking of which I have managed to deconstruct some of the skin from my hands, mainly thanks to the rough edges of garden implements such as spades and heavy, unforgiving materials like concrete slabs, the guitar playing hasn't suffered mind you. A little rough skin is perfect for the Johnny Cash dunk-dada-dunk C to F to G7 sequences I'm perfecting along with my associate the good Dr Drum, I've no idea where it's all leading. Many new plants and seeds have been scattered across the garden and puzzled birds and squirrels observe all and try to correct their bearings in this seismic shift.

Today's under 13 football match was disappointing, the cruel and unmanicured pitches of the so called "garden city" (Rosyth) were useless and as there were no stanchions on the goal posts our team coloured nets could not be erected. We also got beat by a Kelty side that didn't really look up for the job but still managed to do it. Sunday is often the worst day of the week for football dads and soccer mums. Next week we'll try bigger bottles of Lucozade, the veiled threat of physical punishment and avoiding shouting anything intelligible or helpful from the touch lines.

Politicians - I'm fed up with politicians who are:

a) Unmarried, middle-aged, have no children and are clueless about real life.
b) Unable to drive and dont know how to operate a petrol pump.
c) Professional politicians who have never had a job outside of politics or Trade Union business.
d) Tory toffs with independent wealth and total detachment.
e) Scrounging socialist bastards who screw the system for every penny of expenses and their "creature comforts".

(I've nothing much of a creative nature to offer on this topic).

I'm also fed up with the UK media's covering of the USA's ridiculous pantomime of primary, pre-presidential money wasting, flag waving and utter drivel speech-mongering. Who gives a toss who gets elected in the US? Which ever grinning puppet gets in we're all on a hand-cart to Walmart via Hollywood anyway. I do love America so.

Busiest day of the year

We dug a hole the size of the Titanic.

We scattered stones and graded earth.

We drank beer and toiled under the hot sun.

I put up a fence.

We listened to Aim - Flight 602.

We talked about Uhersky Brod.

We laughed and gulped and were stunned at Little Miss Sunshine.

We ate chicken and salad and sweets.

The world turned some kind of revolution.

Football kicked off in Europe but we watched Dr Who and remained puzzled.

We hummed songs that are not written yet.

The washing machine took an awful beating. We built a water slide with a hose pipe, Fairy Liquid and a tarpaulin. It's hard to get some rest these days and the kitchen was in a terrible mess. The cat's remained laying low on account of a serious amount of small children running about. We waved at a tractor. A huge beetle was discovered along with long worms, they have all been living amongst us for some time it appears. We may well be up to no good. There is a bicycle in my boot. A large Kit-Kat and two phone calls of a work related nature. My grandchildren hosed down my dirty feet and sandals at the end of another epic day out in the garden. The tools were all very useful but the wheel barrow remains my favourite. Lara Croft films are a complete crock, so some people say. Opening Jiffy Bags in panic mode slows the overall process - thank you and goodnight Amazon.

Sweat like Jonny Cash

Uhersky Brod playing at the Phoenix 04/06. Scott Renton, Bruce Thomson and Paul Cumming (minus Dylan Matthews). I joined the band for the set by playing djembi badly from the edge. Some thoughtful and clever music from this eclectic trio with an uncompromising Scottish rasp and a black sense of humour. It all can be savored in a new, beautifully packaged cd called vz.61. A Skorpion vz.61 is the locally built small arms weapon produced in the town of Uhersky Brod which forms the subject matter for a song written and performed by "the Brods". My own favourite "Nae Drama" ended the set. When will we see their like again? Underground and unsigned: There is a huge raft of talented, careful and careless writers and performers out there, playing, performing and getting on with life whilst the wider world focuses on the trite and manufactured music that makes the media moguls rich. This unfocused but real band of musicians form an informal community that keeps some age old dream alive, writing about what they see and how they live - not a bad thing to be a small part of. The role call present last night included: Impossible Songs, CBQ, Tommy Mackay, James Jamieson, Nyk Stoddart, Fi Thom, Darren Thornberry, Ian Sclater, the Beggar Girls, Peter Micheal Rowan, Dave O'Hara and Jim Igoe. (I may have missed a few but...)

Reasons to be cheerful

Black Hole Thinking

If you've ever felt you've dug yourself a black hole and then fallen into the black hole of your own making then you'll perhaps know how I feel at times. It's as if normal thinking, basic instincts of survival and good sense elude you, you are in the moment and you act, you act in a natural way not realising you have taken a step into a black hole. That is how it all begins.

Welcome to the non-world but real enough world of Black Hole Thinking. If only it was Black Whole Thinking, then all the possibilities would be covered but no, it is a hole, a space, a void, an empty place and once you've disappeared into this hole there is only one workable strategy possible, hang on and tolerate (enjoy is not possible) the ride. You may be lucky enough to become a little numb during the ride, you may be able to bite your tongue or the fleshy part of your thumb and so divert the pain, that does work for a short time. You may close your eyes and try to drift into some safe place but you have no real protection there. The Black Hole bites.

The journey through the Black Hole nicely defies the laws of life and physics, up can be down or sideways, out can be in or inside out, time can be quick and breathtaking or crawl like an alligator in the sun on downers. Negatives spin sharp and cut, positives charge and electrocute, Black Holes are charged full of all the stuff you'd want to avoid but you can't like boxes of cutlery dropping and china cups smashing over and over again. Still you cling onto the belief you can make it and slide through this inky interior that is nothing substantial but remains real in the moment.

Then comes the final jolt and the searing heat of re-entry, crashing back into the place you left without the aid of a parachute and into cold water. It's a kind of life but nobody should ever know it.

So now you are at the other end, bruised but alive and armed with the handy tool of persistent optimism and a poor short term memory. The experience is there as a shadow in the mind but gone like a stitched up nightmare in the morning. You run your fingers through your own hair, pat your head, scratch your chin and rub your eyes...time for a cup of coffee.

Vashta Nerada explained

Staying on the subject of Dr Who and the Vashta Nerada as featured in the latest episode (the Vashta name means "shadows that melt the flesh"), these bad boy shadows are in fact (or in fiction) microscopic beings that swarm all over the universe and eat meat in a rapid piranha kind of fashion but without the trashing and biting. If you're worried at all about this tricky creature(s) then perhaps it's better to sleep with the light on (as if that would help).This link may explain more and also lead into all sorts of murky truths and facts about Dr Who, most of which are of no interest to me at all: http://tardis.wikia.com/wiki/Vashta_Nerada

In a (for us strangely) TV dominated weekend Lost reached a series finale climax last night. Lots of lost type things happened, ending in that modern time-lapse kind of way with the Island going of every body's radar, the ship blowing up, the helicopter ditching and the confused (but never hungry) survivors making a pact to lie about their experiences (groan!). Now they are back amongst us, the critics, the bewildered viewers and the many millions more who couldn't care less. So long and thanks for all the endless enigmas.

Vashta Nerada

It's hard to think of a sci-fi TV franchise more patchy and troublesome than Dr Who. In the BBC's hands it's been created, deleted, ignored, developed and finally has matured into it's current mildly compulsive form and been a mega-earner for spin of products and other series. Having said that it remains on a constant pivot point between absolute crap and brilliance, maybe that is the secret of it's survival. A great idea that is both enhanced and pillaged on a weekly basis, slave to rubbish acting, BBC contract players and dodgy production values ultimately saved by now and again good scripts, modern CGI and some kind of intrinsic x-factor that holds it all together. Perhaps it's the (good) Time Lords themselves that actually maintain it as a future-proof PR stunt. The producers of Lost, Heroes and the like must look at it and think WTF.

Thanks to Sky Plus we watched Saturday's show this evening (Sunday) after a heavy curry and a few glasses of wine, this seems to have had the desired effect on the quality and credibility of the episode, roll on next week's undoubtedly spiky conclusion.

Six silver bullets

Weather wise and otherwise it was almost the perfect day today. I did have to take six silver bullets to survive the unexpected heat but that's no matter, in fact it was a pleasure. The shopping was done, the tyres checked, tank filled up, a few minor chores and then out into the garden, shorts and all. It seems Ali and I are now one with nature and apart from a noisy garden party in the distance we enjoyed the strange privacy and cocoon that is the world of the garden. The only snag was that we were working in it rather than enjoying it but the labour was pretty pleasant in the still and in the sun. Progress is being made.

CD of the day: The Raconteurs, Connsolers of the lonely.
Song of the day: Guitar by Pete Atkin.
Food of the day: Sweet and sour chicken.
Pudding of the day: Rhubarb crumble (from the garden).
Effect of the day: Delay pedal.
Film of the day: Into the Wild.
Cookie of the day: White choc chip.
Chord of the day: Am.
Shower of the day: The evening one was the best.
Tool of the day: The edge tool.
Cat of the Day: Clint (slept indoors and ignored the wonderful weather).

Some things

The mid-week crisis of mid-life carries on, a strange tiredness smothers all life. Shoes cause small red marks on the rubbed toes or could it be the socks? Rain returns to this land after a brief spell hovering in the mid-Atlantic where I presume it bothered nobody. Three mids in this so far.

Nice to have a wee change now and then and gardening certainly helps. So here are a few other things related and otherwise:

Skyphone - All is wood
Isobel Campbell and Mark Lanegan - The flame that burns.
Polish food sections in the supermarket.
Back to back episodes of Smallville.
A familiar pie from the past.
Car cleaning and rubbing away the scratches.

It seems many funky laptops are available on the web, all deals are good, all offers are splendid and never to be repeated, all specifications are high, all delivery is free if you pay a little more than you want to, all lists are long and full of confusing numbers, all combinations are possible except the ones you might be interested in. Software isn't free as by rights it's price must remain extortionate. If only it was petrol or highland water.

The tall plumber fixed the running watery thing that has annoyed us for months but didn't do anything about until clearly exasperation set in and I should say that it was not reported by me. A small rusty washer was to blame and certainly not God, the powers that be or any of the cats, perhaps it was a guest or just fair wear and tear.

This week I spoke to a man who is almost blind. Car number plates are all he can read.

Tonight I'd like to do something worthwhile.

Stone Chips

Dropped your chips?

You load 16 tons and what do you get? Well I got some tuna risotto and a white wine spritzer thanks to Ali's intervention, now I'm very tired. It was all thanks to some kindly HGV delivery driver who dropped two pallets of stone chips in the middle of nowhere, a little south of our house, not per the instructions on the note or the ones I tried to pass across a dodgy mobile phone connection. Such is the fun of being in the middle of an extensive home and garden improvements programme. In actual fact most of the chips were bagged and it was all a wheelbarrow job but one that left me fairly sore and exhausted but also strangely satisfied. That must be the noble glory of carrying out actual physical labour or "real work" as some would describe it. Perhaps the path to true enlightenment, peace and serenity follows the road of blood, sweat, tears and stretched wheelbarrow arms and a dizzy feeling when you sit down.

Bambi burger

A warm, blue skied and sunny weekend has passed and I finally got my Bambi burger and a warm pint of beer in a plastic beaker at the Hopetoun House Carriage Trials. Lots of horses and buggies of course and all the horsey people out in their finery. Always good fun to mix with the toffs, tread in horse shit and enjoy the great outdoors, of which there is plenty around here. The horses and buggies are a splendid sight and the elegant riders and competitors make the whole thing easy on the eye and a reminder that not all in the country calendar is fox hunting, strangling badgers and snaring rabbits.

The cup final had a predicable outcome with the Huns winning (as expected) and the hard working QoS getting a grand day out but no trophy. Let's hope the mighty Gers win exactly he-haw next season. The Eurovision Song Contest was an exercise in complete crap but of course we voted for a number of the mad Eastern European offerings. Much wine, roast beef sandwiches and chocolate was needed to sustain me through it, I survived, the British entry, a pale and sickly piece of cod-funk did not. We wondered on how well Scotland might do was it permitted to enter this annual banal song-fest, would we, on our own (seen as a conquered and crushed race of course) suffer from the same tactical voting that the UK does?

Today after another visit to the temporary horse kingdom next door we returned for some sun drenched gardening, more wine and the customary back ache that goes with hard labour. Reviewing the outstanding works it's clear that one of those nice horses and a plough might come in handy about now.

Marks & Sparks

I probably have an obsession about the Marx Brothers based on the notion that heaven and eternal life may turn out to be quite similar to being trapped in one of their films. A strange kind of cross over place between hell and heaven, with love, laughter, comedy, torture, bad songs and acting and every so often some surreal piece of intervention. I am probably wrong about this.

Sparks on the other hand have produced some interesting music over the years, most of which I've avoided but that's not because I dislike them. It's more down to my capacity to take in and absorb, it's always been low compared to the true music fans.

Tea tonight was a hotch potch of M&S goodies (£10.00 for a meal for two with wine), as it turned out I added to the feast with additional M&S finely packaged chicken. Heated and served in moments and then it was gone in the ping of a microwave.

Next over to field to check on the many horses and shiny caravans that had arrived for the weekend show and then on to locate the buffalo burger van for tomorrow's lunch. No problems, it looks ready to roast and I'm assured the sun will continue to shine. It's been a long week.

Can't be bothered

Things to do when you otherwise can't be bothered:

Make scrambled eggs on toast in the microwave and toaster, add lots of pepper.

Add a liberal amount of whisky to your tea-time Nescafe.

Shop at Maplin on line for a power adaptor.

Strim large tracts of garden and be ruthless with weeds and nettles.

Clip your nails.

Recycle a few good things.

Ponder on holidays and sort a small amount of personal stuff.

Delete those texts you were keeping.

Upload a few photos and orientate them.

Sit on the couch, watch football and play with your DR3 drum machine.

Drive a Ford Fiesta with 47 miles worth of fuel left in the tank.

Imagine yourself buying and eating a buffalo burger on Saturday.

Wonder through the land of maddening emails.

Discover some "cat-kill" and bloodstains hidden behind a door.

Decide not to iron for the third night in a row.

Flick your fingers in an OC way until they hurt.

Look for a dishwasher filling methodology, find one and then abandon it.

It's the middle of the week of course.

Blank

Welcome to the world of blank things set in lists and by numbers.























The seven patterns of human wisdom in a linear form:

1. The stir fry and muddle it all up approach.
2. The make it up as you go along.
3. The intense follower and the finisher.
4. The restless believer asking questions.
5. The dreamer and whisperer.
6. The face down, hands up unbeliever.
7. The staring ahead, thinking and not blinking.

None of these are pure obstacles but each one is able to form a wild and natural barrier to clear thinking and its pursuit. Choose wisely young Skywalker.

The beat goes on

Badly behaved Space monkeys visiting the Ideal Home Exhibition and making full use of modernistic furniture and appliances. The connection with Half Man Half Biscuit and whatever nonsense they are up to will make sense to some. These monkeys were won in a magical fairground far away and are, in real life 100 times larger than this image.

The cats stare out of the window and ponder the wonders that float by on the other side of the glass. Wasps, birds and bees and everything that lives in woods and hedges gets caught up their lazy radar until one day the two collide and something tragic happens with the cats coming out on top. No matter how much we feed the cats and try to civilise them they refuse to leave their wilder ways.

Trying to put a pedal board together should be simple enough I suppose but I find it all a bloody pain. Firstly there is all the fiddling and setting up and understanding what the various things do, then putting them in an order that works and then connecting and testing. Once done its reading the manuals and a long trial and mostly error process to get the sound, effect or rhythm that you want. So far so good (it works) but I'm still a power supply and few patch leads down. Then I have to coordinate my feet to stamp on the stomp buttons at the right time so it all sounds right and tuneful. It's been a long term work in progress but this weekend has at least seen it stutter forwards and who knows where it will end?

Best photo

After some consideration I've decided that this is the best photo I've ever taken.