Stormy Sunday Blues

Leaves blowing everywhere and rain spattering windows and windscreens, wet and cold and very much the seasonal turning of the weather. Down at the football field today at Inverkeithing it was like standing at the edge of Terry Pratchett's Disc World whilst watching a game. No hiding place from the wind and squally weather, it all seemed to come from every direction at the same time. None of this helped the flow of match or those like myself holding onto the touchline at a weird angle, grimly trying to remain upright. We lost the game 2 - 1 but it was a good humoured friendly and the Barclay representative was cool about the outcome.

The preparation of food as presented on TV and it's disproportionate importance as an art form is now really annoying me. TV chefs (decent cooks is all that they really are) hog the limelight and talk bollocks about something half the world can't do on a regular basis - eat. I'll be happy if the credit crunch bites into these twats enough to ration their ingredients and tasteless indulgences out of existence. Who cares how you chop onions or drizzle oil or marinade chicken and it's never going to make entertaining TV as far as I'm concerned. So that's another pointless rant from me over and done with.

Tomorrow it's my birthday and I'm 53 - so far the presents (received early) are lookin' good: A bottle of wine, mint chocs, Seasick Steve CD, Elbow CD, wallet, Bunny Suicides diary, car organiser and a Russian Roulette chocolate set (already used and won and lost) and a good few nice and funny cards as well. So what's still to come on Stormy Monday?

No possessions

I've been doing a lot of scampering around thanks the wonderful airline Flybe this week. The pleasant grey and concrete city of Dusseldorf was the main destination and strangely enough all the flights were on time and without incident. The taped message however about emergency routines struck a profound chord (I was listening for a change), "you must leave all your possessions behind"...how true, you might be as well to start getting rid of a few right now for all the good they'll do you. It's funny how some of the most spiritual people I've known are also the most materialistic and grabbing. I think that the basic problem is their desire for certainty, you may seek it in doctrine and theology but you'll also find affirmation and security in all the stuff (of whatever kind) that you can surround yourself with. A pity you can't take it with you though.

Best things over the past few days:

Large meat feast (of unknown origins) in a Greek restaurant somewhere in Northern Germany.
Pink pepper sauce served with the above.
Grandchildren returning from a few days spent in the wigwams of Loch Lomond. They were excited and invigorated by the experience.
Football in St Monans on a bright Sunday morning - overlooked by my aunt's old house (long since passed out of the family).
Seasick Steve on CD.
Sales and stats from CD Baby.
Mr Cougar is MOT'd again despite a slight emissions problem, now put right.
Realising that burnt shepherd's pie a few days old is perfectly OK to eat.
Reading the Times from cover to cover to pass dead airport time.

These guys above remind me of those nameless individuals who like to place their nasty (and that's not nice) comments on this blog from time to time. These troubled folks seem to think that there should be some deeper point to what I'm writing and that free speech is not to be encouraged, however badly it's cobbled together. They also hide behind the web's screen of apparent anonymity which they mistakenly think shields their cowardly actions from the wider world, or does it? Just don't f**k with the senior service when leaving your IP address behind.

Intermittent Stimuli

Not quite the truth about the Big Lebowski

I find the BBC's Robert Peston a bit irritating these days, his face and expert opinions are everywhere. The misery of the collapse of capitalism has made him famous and he looks and talks like the twat in charge of the swimming pool in the Brittas Empire. Enough of the BBC and the financial crisis.

Will the killing ever stop? A shrew, three mice (one stuck in the cat flap) and a mole. Bored cats avoid the rain somehow but still retain their ability to hunt and kill.

The weekend is nearly upon use and there is much to do but much of the stuff that has to be done is weather dependant so it will not be done. I did however, as a pre-emptive strike, design and build a further two shepherd's pies to sustain through these dark and godless times as we watch the walls in our finance news proof bunker.

Capitalism in action

Today we are all a little poorer and further in debt to the public sector and ourselves. The sub-prime market stretched out of shape by ordinary folks and trailer trash has broken up entirely. The little people and victims of the greed within the finance world have brought down the high and the mighty. Like some Biblical prophecy finally come true the world of bad debts and irresponsible lending has collapsed as market confidence is gone, lost for a generation. A true revolution has occurred but nobody planned it and no expert saw it coming, now all that can be done is to mop up the mess and hope for the best. Schools, hospitals, roadways and railways will suffer but we'll never know by how much. The bloated Olympic Games fiasco will run on regardless as if we care about it here in the backwoods. So at some time in the future, in some dark place a clutch of bankers will receive a generous bonus for a job well done - did I say conspiracy?

It's not just money that's running out, today at Birmingham Airport, Hertz ran out of cars. "You'll have to wait an hour for the next trailer load", said the frazzled assistant. I'd had enough of trailer trash at this point and so headed next door to Alamo where cars were a-plenty, some were trashy but they were all drive able. This is capitalism and the free market in action, go out and go elsewhere.

Today's fine-fare: A fair bit of coffee, a chicken sandwich from Costa, biscuits from a red tin, fish and chips in Wetherspoons (and a pint) and odd drops of yogurt. None of these have helped my sore throat but I never expected them to either.

The Existentialist Factor

A weekend in which the vital ring was sorted, shepherd's pie reinvented, accounts settled, grass cut and various interesting or vacuous TV shows watched and digested has passed. All in all it was very satisfying and I feel a better person as a result. Today I am at home, alone and about to embark on various house and home related duties whilst the cats watch, puzzled and tolerant as ever. After a quick school run and a mid morning cup of tea with Mr Gorman of SQAF fame I'm awaiting the weather breaking and my energy running out as per usual.

The weekend football yielded some positive results, the Pars getting three points at Clyde, Joe's team getting a decent 3 - 3 draw at Glenrothes (he scored 2 of the goals) and the Buddies beating the Huns after a lifetime spent trying. Never give up and expect the unexpected.
A strange picture here, where Little Red Riding Hood (wearing fur) pets the (big, bad) wolf as it steals her scattered picnic and the contents of her handbag, make of it what you will, there are many roads and vehicles to carry you towards the great light of understanding and awakenings. Sadly this is not one of them.

Most blogging is just a repeat of the same things over and over again anyway, common themes, rants, events and the daily drudge regurgitated. Pictures are added in, often they are irrelevant to the text, they are simply there to bridge a gap or add a feel or pad out the thin text. This one is no more unique or better value than the next, just a cry in the darkness and a wolf with it's snout stuck indifferently in a scented handbag, all because it knows no better.

Ring a ding ding

Today we shopped without any obvious dropping for the engagement ring. The well chosen model being an antique (pre 1837) Georgian diamond and pearl example bought from a highly reputable source in the diamond district in Thistle Street Edinburgh. It was safely packed away in a little box and duly placed on the correct finger whilst eating chips and drinking coffee by the checkouts in IKEA. We like to do things properly and traditionally in this family.
The finger + ring + flowers from Emma photos were taken once we'd made it back home armed with our IKEA biscuits, cat cushions and shower curtains. The rain never seems to stop but life in all it's fullness and richness carries on regardless.

Brotherhood of the Cougar

That strange and mystical bond does exist, between man and machine and between Cougar owners and other Cougar owners (male or female). It's a spiritual and esoteric thing that holds us together in our long life's journey across the wide asphalt plains. Sometimes it takes a real and tangible form like a headlight flash, a gesture or letting you pass a tractor or some tiny European scooter that's wavering in your path. It's a mystery and wonderful one that enthrals and captivates - a bit like worrying about next week's MOT Test.

Bad Robot

As mentioned previously we received this fellow as an addition to our many pets, strays, creepy crawly and wild animal collection. He needs little if any food and is a but seasonally challenged. He is of course a robot but with human feelings and needs, all thanks to some clever nano technology and the out workings of the principals of necromancy, something of a lost art in modern day Scotland but we try. Keeping dead things alive is tricky, that last minute cough is not easy to deal with and the electric start treatment always makes me uncomfortable. Just looking again at young Frankie Boy there is a certain family resemblance.

Last night we went to see an adaption of Sunset Song at the Kings Theatre. It was well staged on hard wooden set that dipped and dripped like a Salvador Dali canvas with nicely distorted perspectives that captured the hardness of the Scottish heart and added to the tragic allegory of the tale. I don't get out much and I seldom experience live theatre so this was a nice wee treat and a reminder that simple things can work well in the right context and with the right story.

Clint the lazy cat at full stretch and fast asleep.

Beecraigs, trout and sausage.

Saturday was spent mostly wandering around in circles at Beecraigs Country Park, West Lothian, quite pleasant really. I was offered two large, frozen trout for a mere fiver at the fish farm "to help empty the freezer" as the man said, but I declined the offer. My heart was already set on some kind of wild meat formed into sausages and sold in the nearby farm shop or M&S food from the petrol station. The wild meat was either wild boar, deer or some thing less well specified so I opted for the M&S versions, a pot of cream and a Lottery ticket. The sausages appeared later as part of a hurried breakfast menu for 6 on Sunday morning, I grabbed one between a slice of Hovis and headed out to the football as is customary around here.

As I drove over the bridge to Fife I was haunted by the thought of the trout and the opportunity I had missed to re-fill the freezer. I was also haunted by a large green singing and dancing Frankenstein that we had been given as a Halloween Engagement present. The perfect combination of crazy gifts and events you may think and you'd be right. The reason for this of course is that Ali and I are now planning to marry (later in the ?) and it's almost October 31, in 31 days or so. My daughter had the idea and the £10 necessary to carry it out, all to celebrate the up and coming happy event.

When it happens it'll be a small and intimate family affair.Using some wax crayons I quickly sketched a likely layout design for first stage of the reception, as below.

My mind's a blank

This is a sunburst Telecaster.

More pictures in the occasional series of rambled oddities called "things I like".

This is a red Mercury Cougar.

Today on the 9am news I heard Gordon Brown say "I fully support George Bush's initiatives on the handling of the economic crisis, regardless of the details". Regardless of the details? It strikes me there may be a few significant details in a $700 Billion Dollar package of measures that affects everybody in the US and huge chunks of the rest of the world, it might be an idea to know what some of them are before you pledge support and sign up for it. Capitalism is fine in theory and often decent and rewarding in practice, if you were born in the right place with any kind of spoon in your mouth. However the current economic buffoonery we're now seeing has seriously undermined it as a model for a generation to come and what credible person would want to become involved in politics right now?

Things we are eating this week:

Pasta and sauce mixed with smoked sausage.
Toffee Yum Yums.
Scrambled eggs, beans, Aberdeen Angus sausage and toast.
Trifles, cookies and corner yogurts.
Bananas.
Irn Bru, coffee, tea and yogurt drinks.
Chicken in red wine sauce.
A lot of asparagus, either steamed or boiled.

Towns

On Monday I was back in Livingstone admiring the clarity of the road signs but still trying to understand what the planners had been thinking when they laid it out. Festooned with roundabouts and narrow interchanges, surprising little right turns and oddly cambered corners. It was designed for the age of the Hillman Imp, the Singer Vogue or the Vauxhall Velox, when three gears, sticky plastic seats and radio were luxury and refinement. You can easily imagine these cross ply shod beasts rolling along the roads and sliding around the grey bends and the driver's being happy with the motoring experience (even I can recall that feeling). Now it's Subarus and Beamers that scuttle across the lanes, every driver impatient and anxious to stay just above the speed limit as they jostle from queue to grinding queue. Perhaps Livingstone's infrastructure should be better loved as a relic and a lesson now that the bulging malls and Wallmart clones have stretched it beyond any reasonable limit. So what should towns look like, where are the good examples and how can the present methods of human connection and collection have a future? What is the real purpose of West Lothian apart from being an alternative and opposite to somewhere else called East Lothian?

I suppose that that as an extension of the house, towns are machines for living in, but a bit more widely, the problem being the relative width we all take up. Our social bottoms have all become a lot bigger in the last thirty years and staying at home to work or doing the shopping on line isn't yet having an impact on the width problem. In the mean time I'll continue to scuttle along the rat runs of the Lothians avoiding motorways at peak times and sneaking a glance over the hills and across the shining Forth to the apparently wider, greener shores of my home (Garden) State - Fife.

Another strike today and another shuffle to sort a kind of "single parent" problem as the schools closed, albeit appeared open to me. The key people (viewed no doubt as drones by their detached chiefs) deserve more and are making a valid point to their employers and the community and I'm using up my holiday quota and a bit more petrol in the process.

Fair Game

A man makes curious shapes from timber and cookie dough with the aid of (what appears to be) either a chainsaw, a tiny guitar, or a Steely Dan III (? read your William Burroughs) and a partly finished tent.

The weekend was spent for the most part in child friendly pursuits. With three small grandsons on a reckless sleepover and ready for fun it was never going to be dull. Mainly we travelled around the garden via wheelbarrow express, shopped for school shoes in Livingstone, watched and played various kinds of football and stumbled in and into the mud at the Hopetoun Game Fair. I had a great time.

Livingstone is a disturbing place, many people there are still habitually wearing white shell suits and unattractive scowls, they drink large amounts of fizzy liquid and walk with no apparent purpose from retail outlet to retail outlet, passing various building sites and baker's shops in the process. These building sites make the promise of eventually providing more spaces for this mindless wandering and sneering. It may be that in these vast halls of modern learning, the discussions and expressions of deep and profound thoughts will be shared with fellow scholars over the crowded mobile phone networks. Once the works are finished I'm sure it will be an excellent place to dawdle and ponder, as might have been said of parts of Spain at one time.

The people at the Game Fair are a different breed from the "townies" of Livingstone's wide open spaces, few daring to sport Chav fashion or Kappa joggers here. Green was the colour theme as people tried hard to blend into the undergrowth and control various kinds of ugly and excitable dog-creatures at the same time. The catering was not however up to par, £3.50 for a Frisbee style cheese burger complete with tomato sauce direct from the Hammer House of Horror surplus sell-off. The wasps remained in seasonally fine form and the birds of prey looked well groomed, smug and hungry, some peasant eye-pecking would have been nice but it's been banned since the Industrial Revolution.

Everything you need to survive out of doors is for sale here, most of it crap and overpriced but oddly "authentic" in some kind of non-Chinese way. It was strange to see two vendors leaning on huge 4x4s trying to sell hot-tubs the size of Cadillacs. These come complete with fins, shiny decks and seats, buttons and jets that can be aimed at every orifice. Just the thing to take back home and dump in the garden of your semi in Livingstone, as proof that bad taste gets everywhere quite easily these days.

The weekend footballing pilgrimage saw us visit the Fife town of Balingry where the local side were quickly destroyed in a 14 - 1 rout, with the Barclay family representative hitting a hat-trick. Many restless natives escorted us away from the pitch once the final whistle had sounded, their congratulatory messages ringing in our ears. I could be wrong but there is some evidence to suggest that Balingry and Inverkeithing are still at war with each other having never fully settled their differences after the great rape-seed flood and pig riot of 1557.

A 4x4 wooden turtle climbing on the ancient grassy banks of the Hopetoun lagoons : a snip at £25.00.

Lack of ideas

The notion that there is lack of good ideas around just now is neither true or false or some kind of mental corruption from which we (or maybe only me) are all suffering. Things seem to have stopped or have run out or are in a cycle of repetition that confuses unfamiliarity with innovation. We are failing to recognise the repetition, we see it as originality and are duped and believe what we think we see to be progress. To do this is to avoid or at worse deny the obvious cycles that are continually running around us in the world and often in our own lives. This revolving door universe is not necessarily a bad thing, it is where we are, in a place, in space where things just "come around". Accept it and get over it and ride the universal curve.

Radio is a good medium.
The Scots are confused about a number of issues.
Blue or green milk - which is best?
Who listens to jazz for long periods and do they really listen or is it wallpaper?
Economics can be studied but can't be understood.
Spell checkers save careers.
The west is in fact the best.
A garden can be restful and stressful.
Irritations to the surface of the skin are just that.
I'm confused about the purpose of most insects.

Banks etc.

When I was a small child banks were all dull, dusty, dark wood and as uncomfortable as libraries. People whispered, money was passed across the polished counter high above my head and then secreted away like a strange drug or a bad and unspeakable family member to the sound of scratching pens and safe doors thumping shut. Going to the bank was an event in itself and, as far as I could understand something to be slightly fearful of, don't go there without good reason or you'll be in trouble was the unsaid message. Accounts were managed using leathery passbooks in blue and gold full of handwritten figures describing Pounds, Shillings and Pence and only the rich and business men or lawyers used cheques instead of real money.

Then it changed and it turned out that these banks are suddenly run by traders and salesmen thinly disguised as cartoon best friends to manage your life, insurances, money and investments. They look at products and market shares and shifting lumps of cash and credit as if they were airliners lost on a Pushing Tin radar screen or burgers sizzling on a hot plate and about to burn. They produce ugly, noisy and expensive advertisements and try to convince you that their meagre percentages and supposedly low charges are good lifestyle choices that will improve your lot and allow you to sleep soundly at night. You will be safe and happy in their greasy hands. Now the bottom has fallen out, the greed and the unsustainable hard sell have caught up and a black hole has opened up in front to end their progress. It's hard to feel sorry for the die-hard bankers, in my view they've squandered a privileged position and in a few short years turned something respectable and solid into a cheap poker game with no winners.

Tank Girl thanks you for looking in and hopes for a return to fame following a bad film and long spell in undeserved comic strip obscurity, such is the fate of one with a fickle public following and fan base.

Things the cats killed today and brought to the back door: Two mice, one finch and a rather large white egg (now presumed dead) from an unknown source.

Doctor Doctor

I am not a Fascist but I like the design.

I had a doctors appointment this morning, I was supposed to tell him about three different ailments (none life threatening). Out of the three I managed to forget two (well skip over one by forgetting a feline connection) and only talk about one properly. It wasn't that I didn't want to discuss them, it was that I simply went blank, had a chat and he wrote me a note and I bumbled out and into the early morning rain. I'll be back once I've mastered the fine and lost (to me) art of multi tasking.

For diversion at lunch time I did a piece of web research on Italian aircraft of the Second World War. They all had great names and numbers and all looked like they've inspired modern Japanese cartoons with their great cowls, fat under carriage set ups and fins and silly paint. None of them were any good either, each one or model a catalogue of aviation disaster, crash landings and losses in battle. All too slow, heavy or under developed for a task still being defined and led by British and American engineers who were too far ahead to be caught. A sad and brave time for the pilots and crew who flew to defend Fascist ideals that were as doomed as their aeroplane designs.

The Glen Campbell (no not Glenn Lampshade) version of this Green Day opus is rather good in a strange and modern way.

RIP Rick Wright who died on Monday aged 65. The quietest man of the quieter men that were the quiet monster Pink Floyd. I liked his plink plonk keyboard and soap sud synth additions to their material. I liked his nonchalant approach to the music amid the carry on, back-stabbing and fluff that passes for rock and roll and entertainment.

Thought for the day

The real reason for the lack of personal progress in so many of our undertakings and projects is a lack of the drive that leads to proper obsession. Obsession is the mad spark that turns an ordinary act around on itself and pushes it to a new limit where it becomes special and unique. Without that colourful burst of energy to propel and idea somehow beyond itself it will amount to nothing. If you believe in something then get obsessed with it. That is unless it's religion, terrorism, mass murder, collecting aeroplane sick bags, hand washing, stalking fellow humans, biting your nails, being the member of some political party, jumping red lights, speed, drinking beer or eating fast food. None of these things will ever have a happy ending.

So was Della Street obsessive with the secretarial and office skills she provided for Perry Mason or did she just suffer from an unrealised, unrequited love for the detective bloke who was, in real life the son of Hedda Hopper who also may have been a relation of Dennis Hopper but no relation to the cartoon grasshopper "Hopper" in the film "Bugs Life"? The answer to this and many other questions is of course out there somewhere.

Recording sagas: The word "ambient" springs to mind as both a description and a damning criticism for my latest efforts. Why are structures so hard to find? Why are song constructions either so forced that they jar and irritate or so loose that they drone on in no particular direction? Creation comes from obsession and my obsession sessions are not running on long enough with enough sustained effort to get them over the critical hump. As somebody famous and in the recording know might have said, "a lot of "B" sides in there son". It's a start.

Parking paranoia

Following on from the little shunt a few weeks ago that resulted in Mr Cougar getting a new front wing and five night's B&B a kind of silent parking paranoia has crept over our lives like a crawling weed or virus. The main cause are those we refer to as the "Churchy people". These itinerant visitors come to the local "Churchy" events next door and quite naturally park their cars in the area around our house. It can get busy and as it's not well lit, not really surfaced and many of them are old (in a good way), so there is it seems a high chance of further unplanned events taking place. It's not of course surprising that the good people of the congregation when coming back from another riveting and inspiring service might have their thoughts placed elsewhere and not on driving or reversing out of parking spaces. They are thinking about the glorious path that their church is on, their missionary lives in a hostile and sinful world and what they need to get at Tesco on the way home. Accidents are inevitable in this heady mix of inspiration, kilted and Sunday best chatter, impeccable behaviour and niceness and driving home in the family bus, but we are watching from the window...
After a month of not drinking I had a few glasses of wine over the weekend, watched a predictable (as ever) X Factor and steamed some vegetables and other assorted goodies for a late tea with various children and grandchildren - the drink produced no adverse effects. I slept well, breakfasted well and have just done a (sweaty) spot of gardening and will be asleep again in about five minutes.

Toad count: Last night two at the back door, one behind the cooker and a rather large one that I locked in the downstairs toilet, it's a seasonal thing.
Mouse count: Three dead in the garden and one dead under the back door mat (ugh!).
Bird Count: One dead under the garden table.

Which one's Pink?

Funny how you can use words, hear them, speak them and still not have their (obvious) meaning register with you, well me anyway. I've been aware of Pink Floyd since 1967's See Emily Play and the Piper etc. but never really though of Pink being pink the colour, I never, ever thought that pink was actually pink. Furthermore I didn't think that Floyd was the christian name Floyd. Pink Floyd have always been and meant the sum of their total parts and not the parts themselves. I'm sure there are many other examples of not taking the literal meaning of things or connecting with the obvious particularly with band names. Mind you I did think a bit more about the name when Tommy Mackay was first performing his rather clever "Pink Floyd are shit" song, a worthy piece written from the perspective of Mr Syd Barrett.
I've always wanted to do a similar thing to the (above) Ummagumma picture for Impossible Songs (Dr Drum would take up most of the foreground) with a couple of older sports cars bringing up the rear in place of the Commer van. There's not really enough flat land around here though and the hike to Cambridge is just not do-able.

Nice comment below (ta) from the one and only Glenn (two ns) Lampshade, alas I knew him not very well.

Glen Lampshade

Tonight I heard a gentleman on the radio describe himself as a "Chippie from Wolverhampton going under the pseudonym of Glen Lampshade". It seems all his pals on the building sites where he's employed adopt odd names for themselves to alleviate the boredom generated by hanging out on such sites, their associated trade activities and the inclement weather that goes with the task. It's good but not great. He was also struggling with the dogs that lived next door and their constant barking, he was on the edge. Every so often I listen to Radio 2 in the evening, so far it's led me to Elbow, the Fleet Foxes, the Felice Brothers, Josh Ritter and Percy Plant, now I've landed up with Glen Lampshade at the dawn of his career. It's not been a bad year really.
Songs about stuff: "Runnin' up that hill" by Kate Bush is about problems achieving a female sexual climax, "Four seasons in one day" by Crowded House is about PMS, "Rattlesnake shake" by Fleetwood Mac is about masturbation - I can't think of anymore.

The pros and cons of ready meals. Pro - they're ready in minutes, cons - they taste crap, pro - they're cheap or on BOGOF, con - they are full of crap, pro - you can fill your fridge with them and not cook for weeks, con - you can fill your fridge with them and not cook for weeks, pro - there are no dirty dishes, con - we have a dishwasher anyway, pro - there is no waste, con - you'll end up with a huge waist. There must be an answer hidden in the fine balances and tuning between convenience, diet and necessity.

Questions and solitude

The repetitious addition of stolen images and re-hashed ideas, fruitless searchings, self centred lists, trivia and the trivial and opinions that don't matter to anyone. That's the way it goes with blogging and predicting the end of the world. Time wasted and diversions explored in a bid to find meaning and reason. Am I bothered?

It may not end up being called "Off the Rails" and that may in fact be a true statement of it's position but for better or worse the current attempt at a South Queensferry Arts Festival has been renamed and we've done the decent thing: started a group for it on Facebook.

Last night's episode of Smallville stretched a thin thread of plot to the limit and then allowed it to snap. Clearly the writers were having a bad day and so were the viewers. There is the germ of a great, epic sci-fi series in there somewhere but the network seems to be struggling to get it out. Perhaps this will be the last batch and the story will die on the vine naturally, starved of ideas before it teeters into something far worse.

At least we didn't all end up dead in a black hole today. Perhaps the next revolution will catch us unaware and sleeping, the best way to go I think.