Jamie Oliver had a word for it

There is no pasta recipe that isn't improved by adding in hot dogs - we've all heard that one before.

Back to back episodes of Lost. Things on that island just aren't right, where will the time bandits crash next and how come the physics displayed are counter to Dr Emmet's Back to the Future basics? Talk about being lost.

Dangerous cup cakes.

Spiders in the shower that cannot be dislodged.

A road gritting spree that proves futile as floods return.

Snippets of weather, news and Iggy Pop selling car insurance.

A cat that refuses to move despite veiled threats, pressure and some gentle heaving. Then it snores loudly.

I'd have an early night if I could accurately ascertain the actual time but then I'm lost as is, some may say, my mortal soul. Not sure about my immortal soul but I think the ability to express emotion is the indication of the presence of a soul of whatever type.

Pavement cracks that threaten to talk back.

Shackleton had a word for it

Snow brings hysteria and peace in equal measure, a bit like alcohol or being in love. Once steady and reliable shoes are suddenly slippy and hated, ears fail to listen as they glow red, fingers fail to grip bags and phones and dropping cold spirals of frozen water crystals are allegedly all unique but you can never see them properly without your specs.

The news bulletins cover snow as if it came in a bomb from Russia, out to destroy capitalism, public transport and the British way of life and everybody must not travel unless essential. What the hell does that mean? What's optional travel anyway?

They could put Lord Peter Mandelson in charge of giving snow clearance advice, give him a brush and shovel and send him mincing down to some oil refinery to tell the protesters that they shouldn't have traveled out in such awful weather because it's much more reasonable to let those foreign chaps do the travelling.

Driving in snow is the worst, for one thing you always get stuck behind some joker who wants to drive exactly five miles an hour slower than your car can manage in a decent gear. You don't want to run into him but you're fed up changing gear and if he drops his speed you might start to stick. Worst of all if you try to overtake (and that involves heading out into the less clear and well gritted lane and getting splattered) you look like a complete maniac. Possible duvet day alert coming up.

Want a laugh? Click here. Thanks to P. It's not a link to the £50million appeal for funds for the forgettable but "lovable" Titian, why don't they do BOGOF at art gallery sales? Just what the Scottish economy needs right now.

Chuck Berry had a word for it

The truth is we can never quite get enough of anything, good or bad; as one Mighty Bush checks out, up springs another that sets itself alight and starts talking to you about the "Promised Land".

Nice to hear Gordon Brown admit that the current worldwide financial crisis is beyond the understanding and experience of any of the key players. That might well mean we get a little less "wisdom" imparted on us from 25 year old economics graduates and fast stream bond brokers who think that they shouldn't stir from bed for less than £100k a month. Perhaps Robert Peston will also shut his trap and curtail his published works of doom laden rambles and allow the big boys to fix things (by experimental means of course)out of sight of the hysterical mass media glare.

While the world passes by I will continue to build better bowls of spicy mince dishes, fight against the cold with coal fired heating systems, plunge into pools of icy cold lyrics and sparse punctuation, tell lies on Twitter, Facebook, Bookface, Arseface, Mr Big Blog and Tweety Pie, detune untuned guitars, iron my socks, consume copious amounts of yogurt, quaff spicy vitamins and minerals, marvel at each lost episode of Lost, explore the bigger plan and curl up in a snug duvet whilst keeping an eye on the treeline.


UFO over Burntisland Shock:

It was a bloody shock, the blood almost ran back into my frozen feet. Picture if you will a Baltic football pitch in the heights of Kelty, snell (?) winds frae the east freezing oor lugs and nethers, very unforgiving on a Sunday morning. I look over to the misty green glow that is the distant, ancient conurbation of Burntisland. High above in cloud and cold hovers an eerie amber light, twirling with queer white flashes like a drunken majorette in a Fife gala parade. I watch, my jaw dropping and my blood almost curdling (too cold to change in reality). The flying beast hovers over the ex-home of aluminium looking for some innocent to abduct and study, possibly on their way back from the Coop armed only with a Sunday Mail, a pint of milk and 16 paracetamol. It dipped, it dived and it was gone in an instant. Time stood still and somewhere in Burntisland milk spills white chill into the gutter and Glaswegian newsprint twaddle flaps alone down an alley, unread. Oh yeah.

Hard to read as presented but a good example of early Broon type lateral thinking. Good man Gordy!

A little bread with that sir?

"I can assure you that no animals at all were harmed in the planning of this wedding officer."

Things are moving in the way they are bound to, in all directions in a fairly uncoordinated way. As a part of that I spent a very pleasant rock n' roll Friday night in the company of Teddy Thompson, Tift Merritt, Miss Fi and Ali, mostly talking about mint based drinks, the music of the spheres, the magic building site that is Edinburgh and Teddy T's chat up routines.

The quest for a visually stunning drink continues. Is mint tea acceptable? I think it is. Could you add whisky or gin to it to perk it up? Probably. Does it go with cake? Not quite sure. We'll have to carry out a series of controlled experiments under test conditions once a cake base has been identified.

The spectre and horror that is Marryoke has raised it's head and it won't go away. I am veering towards some kind of adoption of this practice, indeed forming plans (and then discarding them), then forming them again. I may have to apply for some kind of meaty grant from either a public body or a drinks manufacturer or a family member. The cinematography gene in me is itchy and the artistic muse calls aloud and demands an answer (of sorts), You-Tube and the Oscars beckon and the loss of reputation and personal credibility are a small price to pay.

Teddy T in action, great band and lots of charisma, songs may need a little work. No sure about the shoe statement but that's show biz.

Sympathy for Glenrothes

Some guy who writes a newsletter dislikes Glenrothes because like many other places it's out of time and suffering from the (economic) structural decay that will become common place as the banker's revenge continues to run it's course. Bah Humbug! Art, imagination and architecture are great things when at their peak, when a major decline sets in, the temples, markets, theatres and circus tents collapse and the wild beasts and feral children run free. You could say we get what we deserve.

So what about the wider issues in Scotland? I have to admire the Greens trying to screw 100 million a year for ten years out of Wee "pointy finger" Eck. Based on my primary 7 maths that's £20k a head (maybe £60k an average household) for insulation, wind turbines and solar panels. Just imagine going down to B&Q with 60 grand to spend on your house's green credentials every year, might need a roof rack. My course of action, should I be given the opportunity would be to spend the princely sum on a nice villa in southern Spain so reducing Scotland's pollution, insulation and energy consumption problems rapidly and in my case permanently.

Survey results just in:

What is Scotland to you?

The best small minded small country in the world.

The best nationalistic dictatorship in the world - looking for the right dictator.

Where a good quality diet doesn't matter.

Never best, not even second best.

Where potholes find homes.

Where recycling means confusion.

Where mountains are small and the welcome smaller.

Where industry used to be.

Where football shirts are fashion statements.

Where culture remains primitive but engaging.

Where modern media has yet to develop.

Where there are plans but no cash.

Where we have ambition but no vision.

Where we have social services but no social life.

Where pub culture has been outlawed by pricing strategy.

Where currency is worth less than a Euro.

Where music and poetry means a series of Burns tribute acts and sod all else.

Where equality is a possibility.

Where refugees are welcomed for the recipes they bring.

Where religion is misunderstood by each generation.

Where the national sport is scratch card scratching.

Where you'll have had your tea.

A place where schools don't consider national history worth teaching.

Where mediocrity is celebrated.

Where division is by common language.

Where wild things (occasionally) run free.


Thanks to the good folks of Glenrothes.

Coming around

It's a healthy and good thing to change your mind about something, particularly if it's in the positive axis. Before I'd ever been in it I disliked the local Datoka hotel because it was new, big, brash, next to Tesco and the A90 and it just seemed out of place. Now I've been in and around it a couple of times my position has changed, for one thing it's very stylish, for another it really does work well as building. The space is sensibly and usefully divided, the decor is veering towards tacky but fits in well, the materials are rough but the effect is warmth and economy. Black is in there big time and it's serving the environment well.

The actual bedrooms are thoughtfully put together and when compared to hotels in the same price bracket actually quite nice. So I feel a little smug having moved seemlessly from one position to another, proof that my inherant stubborness has a healthy limit and than nothing is beyond redemption. Nothing that is apart from Carry On films, the excessive wearing of sports clothes, monkeys, 1970's town centres, the Lords and those with deep pink to redder necks.

Those goons in the House of Lords have set up yet another cringe worthy performance with the cash for law bending and manipulating revelations. It is scary to catch a glimpse of how arrogant and out of touch a group of people can become when they have spent years in a cosseted talking shop badly running great swathes of this country and lining their pockets in the process. In the other House of course they bellow and argue like buffoons over their black and white views on who is right and who is wrong. Strange how it never occurs to them that finding some common ground, sharing a little clear thinking and the pooling of resources in positive strategies might just help the old country along a bit more than their childish bickering. Two tribes.

The frog and toad totem pole photo collection goes from strength to strength, how's your's doing?

New dawn of some golden day

It can get noisy around these parts but we mostly respect the environment.

More than ever we're now using some obtuse and oblique strategies to describe, understand and justify our lives and I suppose to re-connect with people who orbit the same sun but not the same spot of land. A constant balancing act of blogging, micro-blogging, texting, blue toothing photos and music and the odd 150 or so emails that wraps the process in fun and clever mechanics. Sometimes watching TV is almost relaxing, the friendly ping of Twitters in the background, newspapers littering the floor as Jonathan Ross returns to the screen to grin at Tom Cruise, already busy out grinning him. Which one would the average straight guy go gay for? Is it a contest at all?

The morning frost was scraped from the car and a light January sun rose over the hedges as we headed away into Edinburgh to collect the little box that contained the remains of Smudge our cat. The usual mess of roadworks and debris greeted us into and waved us out of the city, Smudge's carton sat on the back seat, like a gift from Amazon or Play.com. At least she's back home now and we'll scatter her ashes somewhere, sometime. It seemed a good idea to buy a selection of chocolate, pizza and finger food to munch through for the remains of the day.

Before that is started on it was the heavy but healthy brunch with smoothies, sausages (must be beef), eggs, hash browns, beans, toast, bacon and a pot of tea for Ali. It set us up for a hoovering and dusting marathon, experiments with light bulbs and starters and a stream of weekend laundry. Saturday is the day for utilities, kids wrestling with PC applications, Sky Soccer Saturday, dreams of the great Scottish novel, waste bins, exploring the depth of the freezer, glossing across the mail and papers and a single candle burning on the table to remind us of a little cat.

Tomorrow is Burns 250th birthday, the media and the tourist board are excited, it's their big time and they milk like it really meant something. Haggis will be stabbed and eaten and Burn's rather inaccessible works skimmed over as cliches and warm but now exhausted phrases are repeated with an acquired profundity by people trying to connect with something already dead and disconnected from most of our daily lives. The books are dry and open, the pages are staring at the ceiling but the words fail to to lift off and fly, mainly because no one really wants them to or needs them. They are like Bible passages or Dickens prose, best summed up in a few short songs, skimmed phrases or strap-lines and then put back on the shelf for the next festival of the glorious past or redundant holiday ceremony. On Monday Tesco and M&S will discount the neeps and mash and then lay out the aisle ends with Easter eggs, yellow chickens and daffodils. You know it makes no sense but you'll put your PIN number in anyway, these are your sins and you carry them with you, no matter where.

Mr Shed 2009 & America under new management

The shed fever continues, the pressure and the sweet pain of competition grow and become as addictive as some sweet drug - like a Muller strawberry fruit corner yogurt. Now, today almost nothing else matters as much. As things hot up I've taken the radical step of adding photographs taken in the searing light of a typical West Lothian January day. This natural approach will I believe reveal the best aspects and the true nature of our wonderful shed. Click on the title link or here to see the latest suite of pictures, read and enjoy the blurb or if you are brave enough post some clean and creative shed related comment.

Meanwhile the question of the day is (and isn't likely to be answered), what is the best meal for a healthy but middle aged chap like me? Diet and lifestyle choices these days provide so many quandaries and moral dilemmas.

a) A Big Mac and a medium latte (no fries, no ketchup).

b) Poor Man's noodles with a curry twist and mackerel sauteed in olive oil.

c) A banana, a pack of 50p carrot batons and a slice of birthday cake.

d) Instant coffee, a cereal bar and a chunky Kit-Kat.

e) £25.01 worth of BP unleaded at 85.9p a litre.

f) Listening quietly to the Tom Morton show, eating nothing but possibly swallowing some saliva.

e) A plastic cup filled with fizzy vitamins and chilled water from the "Middle-aged man" Tesco range of healthy stuff.

Answers on a postcard please...

America is under new management says America, fine by me. When do we get to have a go at this over here?

Shed of the year

As it's been a hectic day at work I naturally came home eager to relax and as means of reaching new competitive highs and creative peaks and calming myself down I decided to enter our shed in the "shed of the year "contest. We are up against stiff competition from a number of international shed specialists but what the hell. My entry is simply called "Small shed ensemble with barbie and barrow accessories, at night".

The unique features of our shed are a)that you can't actually get into it, b) that it once contained a wasps nest, and c) it stands on four unique house bricks. I fully expect the judges to swoon with delight and award us some handsome prize, hopefully a new shed that the average person can get into.

Projects and the rest

For some reason I didn't want to post anything over the previous Smudge post. Some kind of respectful distance needs to be placed between the memory of the wee cat and my ramblings and occasional rants. Somethings don't easily coexist in certain kinds of space but under pressure they have to, in other words life goes on and on.

Today the Obama show has taken over everything in the media and imagination and I suppose quite rightly so. Today I have parked my cynicism, my distrust and my unbelief and decided to be moved (a bit) by his address to the nation and be impressed by the crowds and their hope and (likely) baseless optimism. Hope is the greatest thing, even if unreasonable or unrealistic it forms us up and allows a forward motion and an energy release that can change worlds. Hope is also hungry and needs the fuel of recognition and tangible success in goals realised, er..Go Obama Go...

Meanwhile looking around the room and into the PC files, unfinished projects pile up like debris on the beach, ship wrecked ideas and bits of other things that I can't quite put a value on or somehow develop from some base position. I compile lists of their names, peer into them like avatars on Facebook and stepping back see only bits of a jigsaw but without the box lid. Striking a better a better note than my twisted black guitar currently can I found a short story I'd written hidden away on the (newly re-jigged) OOTB site, how on earth did that get there? The Great Gondolli or something like that...

Smudge

Our beautiful little cat Smudge died this weekend. She'd been missing since Friday and we were fearing the worst. After searching in the woods, roadways and gardens Ali found her this morning, she'd been hit by a car a few hundred yards from home. She was a smashing, cuddly wee thing, full of fun, mischief and a great mouser and we're now missing her badly, as is her big ginger brother Clint. There are somethings you just don't want to ever have to write about.

Ah! Sweet mystery of Fife

Fife is blockaded this weekend, held hostage by FETA terrorists bent on preventing the escape of millions of doe-eyed, straw sucking Fifers hoping to stretch out their credit card advances on the streets of Edinburgh, but FETA says "thou shalt not pass". The reverse is also true with central Scotland now sealed of from the bonnie southern banks of the Firth of Froth to the bonnie ex-banks of the credit crunch. I may sneak over into Fife tomorrow, early in the morning when no one is about and the border guards are occupied with the Sunday Mail crossword or queuing for a sausage and egg McMuffin breakfast at the golden arches drive-thru.

In the mean time my supposed creative weekend has hit a dip thanks to an unexpected and so far fruitless pussy cat search. Recording and mixing plans have been dropped in favour of head scratching, looking out of the window and wandering around the hedgerows. Bugger, things are looking bleak.

Toys out of the cupboard (funk 4)

A pile of equipment litters the dining room, almost joined up by imperfect leads and devices looking a bit like the inside of Neil Young's barn after it's been robbed. Pedals and power supplies are lying across the floor in tribute to the failure of the music industry to standardise connections. A guitar waits patiently in the distance eager to rush up to Gm7, D and then back to Amaj for a last hurrah.

As it's January the salmon and home recording seasons are once again open and nothing in the vicinity is safe. The drum loop known as Funk 4 has been edited, reverbed, muted and then topped and tailed, it now lasts a mere 1 minute 30 seconds but in that time it buries the wah guitar with the slight delay and the FX effect that struggles to find four notes. Well done funk 4, we salute you.

Lost in a car park

The trouble with silver cars is that a) they are common as muck and b) muck is very common, so returning to a large open car park after dark and trying to locate your ride home can be tricky. Usually at Edinburgh airport I park in the multi and manage to just about remember the level, the rest is easy. On Wednesday I chose the open air long stay in a burst of economic anguish and thanks to a quick bus pick up and little thought on my part, on my return I could not find my car.

Panic however didn't set in, I just walked around for a while, at angles, across bays, from sign to sign, from pay point to bus stop. Many cars were found, none were mine. I thought about asking for help at the office but the potential humiliation was too much so the random walking continued until after about twenty minutes we were reunited and I sped of as if nothing had happened. The last time this happened was in Disneyland when I couldn't remember the colour of the hire car only that it was in the Dopey area with a cuddly toy on the back window shelf.

Favourite old tunes of the day:

The King will come - Wishbone Ash.
White room - Cream.
Folsom Prison blues - Johnny Cash.

Soup of the (yester)day: mature vegetable.

Amplifier of the day: TEC6200 Stereo Power 100w.

Sweet of the day: Chunky Kit-Kat.

Pie of the day: Mince round.

Effect of the day: Phaser.

Gavin and Stacy chic

Sometimes it's good to get into things later than everyone else. This series is honestly funny, well acted and there still are a load of unseen (for me) episodes to come. Some little touches are perfect, the blue Saxo is great, the fat friend and the surreal Nessa, Wales and the extended family. The house in Essex is a study in contemporary life style that David Hockney would love, thank you BBC channel whatever your number is.

Art is everywhere

Art is everywhere, art is out there to be enjoyed, disliked or tolerated - in unexpected places. Art has little to do with galleries, £20 million price tags, diplomas and cocktail parties. Art doesn't need more funding or prizes, receptions or patronage by corporations. It just needs to be conceived, carried out, looked at and appreciated.

High Hopes

Why will the USA and the UK continue to support the state of Israel despite their violent and heavy handed conduct towards Gaza?

The answer is almost simple: The USA and all the other western powers that have grown into Christian based democracies cannot, for a series theological, historical, moral and philosophical reasons bring themselves to condemn Israel. In the minds of all the modern Hebrew based religions and the government systems that they co-support the position of Israel regards the “rest of the world” remains as it was first described in the Five Books of Moses (the first five books of the Old Testament). The Jewish nation remains the “apple of God’s eye”. Put simply they are God’s chosen people and their struggle to maintain Israel is fully justified by the earliest of Bible teachings and is therefore not a principal to be trifled or disagreed with.

Many contemporary church sermons, methods of teaching and pillars of thinking remain based on these early writings, available to all as the books Genesis to Deuteronomy, translated and incorporated into the Holy Bible. To unpick one part undermines all the other passages, so if Israel’s status is threatened then so is the creation story, the doctrine of original sin and the fall, the Ten Commandments, the moral absolute that is the Hebrew Jehovah and the need for a messiah to arrive to redeem fallen mankind. The rest of the Old Testament and the significance and relevance of the New would also fall apart as a piece of joined up literature and template for life. It’s a bummer of a theological trap that the USA’s political system and its church based followers cannot allow themselves to fall into, otherwise we’re (as stupid white people) all completely guilty of all the (western) colonisation and evangelical crimes of the last 2009 years and we’ve no mandate to move forward.

The violent and intolerant situation we’re now seeing is worsened by harkening back to the latitude God apparently gave to early Jewish heroes like Joshua and Caleb to go out and ethnically cleanse the tribes that were occupying the promised land of Israel when the Jews returned from captivity in Egypt. That thinking still lives on and in various forms, both practically and metaphorically and influences a great deal of modern political thinking and Christian teaching. There are Jews, there are Christians and there are the rest of us, so sending air strikes into schools and hospitals in Gaza when you view the victims as being outside of the love and care of your God is easy. The Christian religion is very good at the convenient use of exclusion, separatism and the drawing of hard, judgemental lines, often despite what the very core values of the religion may profess to be about.

As a further complication the numerous Biblical prophecies about the progress of the Jewish people, their dispersion, persecution (no joke) and their return to Palestine in 1948 all add weight and depth to their beliefs. A further problem is that the other “yet to be” stories at the far end of the Bible work backwards towards the present day. They contain a huge amount of prophetic writing that shows the end of the world, Armageddon, occurring above or around Jerusalem following a long series of violent wars and conflicts all fought out in the Middle East. What good upstanding, church going Christian or God fearing Jew can afford to deny the significance of these current events when seen in the context of a Biblical wipe-out? The whole of the Middle East has now become a huge self fulfilling prophecy that cannot be overturned because so much is a stake for the credibility of our (sic) cherished beliefs, rich, fat and obstinate churches and wayward parliaments. Never mind the oil either.

Everybody wants a little certainty and justification in their lives and that’s what the Bible, when interpreted in this fundamental way gives. Good guys, bad guys, slanted eyed Arabs or dark skinned godless tribes from the edge of the world, they are sheep or they are goats. Sadly the people of Gaza are all in the wrong place at the wrong time and because Hamas is bad (which it is) and the vengeful God has said so, we need to fix it with our tanks and aircraft regardless of where that leads (and in the minds of many because it leads to certain Armageddon).

It helps to look for constructive humour from time to time but where can you find it these days?

Untitled 574th post

This is soothing and almost fun, click here.

A busy and entertaining weekend is coming to an end, lots of food and drink, family and friends around and surviving some dodgy weather and eccentric cat behaviour.

The placebo is working

Shopping for Placebos in the sticks.

The mind is greater than the body and it is possible to live for a thousand years and overcome sickness, old age and the vapours. My daily course of tablets will see me through, each one transformed in an effervescent sparkle into a healthy gulp of water and chemicals, thereafter the darkness will fall but a bright light will surely shine and you get in Tesco for £2.99.

Tonight it was a large Rogan Josh with heavy portions for one and all while listening to the Cult, Wishbone Ash and Ted Nugent. I may watch Grey's Anatomy at some point once the cats are fed, the sun goes down and the dishwasher cleans all the bright little pieces of cutlery. It is Friday after all.

Shopping in Aldi seems like a good idea until you pack your bags and realise you have all the right things with the wrongs labels and they may turn out to be the wrong things after all and you've missed bits from the yellow sticky list. Damn.

Secret CDs and UFOs in January

My favourite news story of the day has to be that of a UFO colliding with a wind turbine, I'm more inclined to think that a big boy did it, hit it with a stone and then ran away - but then aliens will be aliens.
Edinburgh's Secret CDs night isn't as you might think a pub night out for Midlothian cross dressers but is the recurrent showcase night for local original music run by Jim Igoe. Jim tries hard to put together a varied combination of acts and in the process allows them to hawk their CDs (on the night and via the web link in the blog title) and hopefully gain a wider audience.

We attended the first session of the year last night and enjoyed the easy going efforts of William Douglas, possibly the best undiscovered talent in the city. William pushes light humour with strong observation and getting the maximum melody from the minimum chords. He also has the look and charisma of a young Neil Young, hungry and edgy. His songs and the use of 7ths and repetitive sequences ending up in unexpected places are polished, the lyrics are childlike, fresh and just a bit dark and unsettling. I've watched him now for about five years and always expected a breakthrough to occur, maybe this year, maybe these songs.

Ali enjoyed a quartet known as "Lipsync for a Lullaby", a strange mix of cello, guitar, drum, bass and a loop pedal. I'd need to hear a bit more of them to form a final opinion as their live performance was a little disjointed and the high and floating vocals were lost in the lipsync and cacophony.

At home retro cooking returns with Poor Man's Noodles back on the menu.