Trumpton riots revisited

Song of the day: HMHB Trumpton Riots.

Do you ever think of how difficult it is to keep up with films and books and music? How can you stay in touch with what's out there? The easy answer is not to really care and avoid all the pressure or even more easily lie about what you've read/heard/seen and form an opinion based on nothing in particular or a quick gander into Wikipedia.

Of course every so often you feel the need to tell the truth about what your views and actual experiences really are, ahem:

I've never listened to a single Leonard Cohen album in my life.
I've never listened to the Beatles "White Album" but I can't stand it.
I've only ever heard about 20% of Neil Young's work but would consider myself a fan.
I've not seen Trainspotting.
I've read half of a Jack Kerouac book and no William Burroughs.
I've not seen Slumdog Millionaire and don't fancy it much.
I've only listened to "The Rising" by Bruce Springsteen and none of his other stuff.
I've never purchased a Beatles or Rolling Stones record in my life.
I only started listening to the Grateful Dead about two years ago.
I've read one Shakespeare play and about two lines of Burns.
I avoid Coldplay whenever I can.

Now I feel a bit better.

Power Walkers

What's up with these people? They walk around at nights in odd shaped groups, over dressed in sports apparel and acting like walking was some special treat, how do they get about normally from A to B? Walking is a normal, everyday activity: couch to TV, TV to fridge, fridge to couch, couch to garage, garage to garden and so on. You don't need a special costume or a set of pals, just move freely in a chosen direction using your feet and legs.

Power walkers staring at a passing toy helicopter.

Cameranious

This is about something that is taking place somewhere else and it involves many things but mostly lost words. I am an expert.

Thank you all for the snowdrop medley of reminders, threats and other random feedback, particularly via Facebook and the odd burning envelope shoved through the letter box. Tricky to read and have you no sense of common decency? If I go silent for a short while it's only because I'm thinking about the length of time it can take to boil pasta or I'm recollecting the whereabouts of the many potholes and bits of broken road surface that have annoyed me today.

Fell asleep on the couch last night not watching Elizabethtown whilst somebody else was. I thought those days were over, nice that they're not.

My Snowdrop friend

Snowdrops dropping in actual snow: 08/03/09.

I'm grateful to our correspondents at the Daily Reckless for some updates on the current local values being speculated upon for this season's snowdrops, the top pic's crop would probably be worth about £100. I'd say that these bottom beauties would get at least a grand on the open market, maybe more from an ice cream van offering them to eager schemies and the upwardly mobile. As they are residing on our property (as far as you can ever have property or ownership) I'm now feeling the unfamiliar light headedness and intoxication that comes with a sudden unearned increase in wealth. If you are in the Mafia and reading this then please put the suitcase full of money somewhere in the snow by a fence post near to Fargo. I'll find it eventually come the spring and your consignment of snowdrops will be in the trunk of the black Lincoln Town Car in space 37.

Notwithstanding any of those arrangements I'd be happy to broker a deal with any ex-bankers or lottery winners who may have some spare cash they'd like to convert into something more organic, stable and with real growth potential over the next few years.

The Mars Bar sweet mentioned previously was an unexpected if exhausting treat. I ate it all and slept like a bloated chocolate log.

Work, rest and played out

It does look a tad more peely-wally than I recall.

OK they are not what they used to be, the recipe has changed, the food police have neutered them by removing their sugar balls and great thrusting, pulsing chocolate veins but they remain an iconic snack and have conditioned a generation into believing in the work, rest and play ethic. I love them still, particularly straight from the fridge or microwave. Confused by the sizes though.

Why not try this gravity defying trick at home?

Ali sees them as sinful but necessary, Castro said they were decadent, Marianne Faithful never did do what they said she did with them, Bowie wrote"Life on Mars" about them, Johnston fired them frozen at the Vietcong, they were given the freedom of Slough (no-more), they are deep-fried in religious ceremonies in Fife, they've been to the top of Mt Everest and the moon, Obama keeps one under his pillow and one in his jacket pocket but Gordon Brown hasn't tried one yet.

Tonight we're melting them with cream and floating Maltesers in the resultant sweet and sticky soup. I canna wait!

My work on Earth is done...

...or so I thought, like the mythical Gort because in a small way I have brought peace, prosperity and some quaint wisdom to an area of West Lothian the size of an Argentinian postage stamp. Having thought about it though, I now realise that I've still to make the path in the back garden a bit more "wiggly", there's a spot of ironing to do and those cats won't feed themselves. Ho Hum.

I'm very sorry to hear that a number of innocent diners have been poisoned at Mr Heston Blumethal's restaurant, more victims are coming forward every day it seems. I consider myself lucky, I've never eaten his actual food but I have also felt a little unwell when seeing it shown on TV or even hearing people describe it. Whatever the overall toxic effect I hope he survives to concoct more surreal foods, as long as they are not eaten by anyone young, feeble-minded or hungry. The world needs cooks, that much is obvious but it needs good pies a little more.

We're catering for guests this weekend so I adjourned to the shops (avoiding the petrol stations) for supplies. Once inside our big blue shed I was overcome by a strange compulsion to buy things that were labelled £1, whether or not they were worth it. I also wondered about "stocking up" on things we don't actually need or in some cases use, I managed to resist. Must be age related.

The blues is on the radio tonight - incessantly hammering in my ears; bends, wails and hollers, misery and failure and turnaround phrases, trills and excessive use of the word "baby". It's all Gary Moore's fault apparently.

We've a complicated regime in place just now to control the cats when in the house. It involves a) knowing where cats are and b) not opening doors thoughtlessly. So as one door closes another opens and a cat escapes, so my work on Earth continues.

I've no idea what's going on in this picture, I just quite liked it. The man is Justin Timberwolfmother and the girl is too thin and tall for anybody but she has a small dancer on her head.

A short history of ready meals

What old people should eat to remain well preserved like me.

In the news today, which frankly you either read out of boredom or the need to leer at the misfortune of others: Old people are living on ready meals these days it seems, sorry don't see the problem. Well some people would dream of living on ready meals, particularly if they were the £10 specials from M&S. In fact I'm already forming a retirement plan centred around eating, drinking and doing Christmas shopping from local petrol stations where bright multi-coloured ready meals dominate the shelves along with rugged torches and obscure DVDs. Great value, great selections and no need to endure public transport and tedious journey's into part bombed city centres resembling Prussian battlefields and tram graveyards.

I also heard that a school in the garden city of Falkirk has abandoned the subject formerly known as history. Normally this would anger me and I would rant in some unstructured way without making any clear point. Now, clothed, washed and in my right mind I see some fine irony in history in effect being history itself. A perfect day spent listening to Neil Young, MGMT and the Groundhogs whilst eating a ready meal that was more surprised than ready.

History no more, education no more, sense of belonging no more, understanding the complexities behind the Italian civil wars of the nineteenth century - no more.

The restless...

Tricks of the light and weather dominate the days, uncharacteristic measures and relying upon toasted segments of dried bread to sustain the softening machine. It was chilly in the backwoods but the floors looked marvelous. I remain your faithful, confused correspondent.

Fixing mobile phones is never easy. I'd suggest going to a professional every time and, once you've understood the Polish accent and the low volume of the speech, secure your in-house repair. A new screen was duly added with much snappy plastic sounds and clinky noises and switching off and on repeatedly. Now it works and I am £35 the poorer but family communications are restored so we can relax again.
The snow froze like concrete snow this morning despite not registering as being below freezing - odd, and so late in the winter and early in the spring. The little birds and rodents compose their letters of complaint and post them for onward transit on a ladybird's back to Mother Nature and her board of eager helpers.

Any given Tuesdayish

Impossibles early incarnation on a beach by Lake Constance and I am not really that shape. It's a trick of the lens.

Today was a rubbish day at work so I'm glad to be home and at 2030 starting to relax and thinking about the work we need to do for our next trip to Germany to record to succeed. There's a fair bit to do and time is running away with work, rest and play getting all confused - nicely.

The design of airports leaves me puzzled. Instead of getting you quickly onto the plane and on with your journey they want you to spend more and more time shopping , strolling in Betjeman's canteens and not travelling. That's not what we want, we want airports to be like bus stops, you step up, step on and go. All this in built delay and dead time needs to be tackled and killed not exploited and stretched out. Once the airports are fixed can we please start on cut in bus stops on busy roads? This tedious rant was inspired by two trips to Edinburgh airport and a queue of traffic on the A8.

Food today was a divine combination of Limekilns pie based business lunch and toasted cheese avec salami and mango chutney once I had returned home to the couch along with Ali, our laptops now interconnected in a lavish and mysterious wireless connection that that makes all other forms of coupling seem clumsy and primitive.

On TV the baffling and pointless Mistresses, where a series of actors feign shock and surprise with painted on expressions, mockney good looks and suburban animal indifference. Not sure I see the point but then I've been hooked by Lost and no TV seems the same anymore.

Aberdeen Daily photo

The local authorities' financial crisis has had a devastating effect on civic amenities in Aberdeen.

A bright and warm day in Aberdeen, but not for me today. Back home to discuss the always engaging and entertaining topic of mobile phones with cracked screens in the good company of the staff in Carphone Warehouse. Oh how they laughed, oh how we thought, bollocks, what can we get on Amazon that's a cheaper solution?

Funny how things like DVD players and CD players get cheaper whilst the stuff you really need/want/lack doesn't. Of course it's down to the triple curses of product life cycle, recouping R&D costs and economies of scale in the Eastern markets except for...

We can now print without wires, an Ali solution to the tangled wire problems that have plagued us and tripped us up for ages. You can print whilst stirring the beans on the hob, toasting your toes by the fire or struggling to escape the clutches of a warm duvet and all for £69 from Pee Wee World. What was I saying about things not being cheap enough? This is a ridiculous bargain and every home should have one, Peter Mandleson are you listening?

Laughter from a passing car

Whilst I struggled to carry an enormous bag of coal on the streets of Aberdour (not sure of the bag's exact contents mind you), the two shadowy figures in this car had a good laugh at my expense. I allowed myself a small chortle at their reverse parking thereafter.

Busy weekend mostly spent falling backwards into mud in an Aberdeen park, driving in rain, grandchild sitting (ancient Scottish sport and pastime), watching football in Inverkeithing, cat calming, Alfred Hitchcock musing and putting up shelves and pictures in the hail-stone hit Fife resort of Aberdour.

I am back to normal now and sitting at the news desk appalled by the cheap and ludicrous rhetoric employed by Harriet H. If there's anything worse than greedy bankers it's ignorant and arrogant politicians who have failed to grasp the basic concepts of democracy. Of course this isn't really a democracy, once the votes are cast and counted the manifestos are burned, and then policy is made up as we go along to suit a whole other set of agendas.

Domino's Pizza should be good for the price but isn't. Could it be some of the taste is diluted and bases shrink as a result of that long truck journey up from Penrith?

Quote of the weekend from an Aberdeen pub: "A bottle of Magners, and four glasses please". I kid you not.

Ban the bland

Proud to live in a land where abject and spectacular failure is rewarded with a generous pension. It's still worth fighting for.

Fags will soon be banned from display in shops, hidden under the counter like proper drugs or the British Rubber Co.'s contraceptives were in the 70s. Shop assistants will develop back trouble due to excessive bending but no more hacking coughs, they might have talk a little more as addicts try to describe their chosen pack of the poison paper and weed. Meanwhile in the brave new world of high banking finance and low forecasting skills rugby balls and racing cars may lose the dreaded RBS logo along with the colourful cigarette sponsors they no longer have. In this ciggy crunching, crooked time everybody benefits in some (very) small way.

The sailor on the pack fascinated me as a child, for one thing he looked like my dad (in a wartime navy photo) and my dad smoked this brand and my dad was a bit of a mystery to me. I liked the two ships in the background, they reminded me on Navy Days in Rosyth, my one big day out during the year other than the (always scary) Dunfermline Schools Gala. Tobacco always had a grown up and homely smell that still stirs me and haunts me and is strangely evocative of my early childhood, like frost on the inside of windows, cold floorboards, coal fires, Bob Hope movies and boiled eggs with toast.

I'm not sorry cigarettes are going, they belong in the dim and unhealthy past, like carrying LPs to school for a swop, loon pants, Bazooka Joe comics, bikes with no brakes and hose pipe inner tubes, the tawse and the Black and White Minstrels. Time is time is time for your time and I do think that Coldplay's lyrics make even less sense than Yes's. God bless Jon Anderson.

The very essence

Damn, a finger mark!

Split by the Groundhogs - and stuff.

Getting stuff is generally better than not getting stuff but stuff and it's resultant baggage adds complexity to life and unexpected pressure, but better to have than not. So I have decided to enjoy my stuff even though and this is main problem, I never seem to maximise it's use and take full advantage of what I have. This results in piles of not completely used or appreciated stuff in corners, on tables and on shelves. It's like a small corner of Japan round here in many ways.

Bank Bashing

What is the point in bashing banks, bankers or anything to do with RBS or HBOS? I hate to be mean spirited but they are sorry for what went wrong and not for what they did or the plight of their staff and customers. I do like this little vignette from RP however:

"We had chapter and verse on the(RBS) plane: its make (a Falcon 900 EX with a list price of £17.4m); its registration number (G-RBSG); and its flight log. But for several days before we published, RBS denied to us that it owned the plane and, finally, it only conceded its existence when I pointed out to a senior executive that the bank was in danger of looking a bit silly if we published everything we knew about the jet alongside RBS's on-the-record statement that the thing was a mirage (no pun intended).I was reminded of the incident a couple of days ago, when I learned that the plane which didn't exist is now up for sale, by a new management team at RBS that wants to prove its penny-pinching credentials (there are rather a lot of used private jets on the market right now, so it's moot whether RBS will get a decent price)."

Nice new former private sector office complex but now a public asset up for sale, a replacement for the St James? Serious offers only please.

Casting your fate to the wind as you do

These good guys deserve a little more exposure.

Today's been one of those empty days when not much has happened, time is loose and untied and despite it also being pancake day I've no inclination to produce, procure or eat any pancakes.

I came home to find a message on the phone to say that Parcel Line or Parcel Magic or the Magic Parcel Company couldn't find our house. Fortunately they could find a phone and left me a kind and polite message to call them back on some 0800 number so that I can tell them where I am and in the same conversation where the house is. I sense a certain complicated situation about to arise where once again my skills in communication will be put to the test and it'll all end in tears and a trip to their depot on Shetland so that I can collect my jiffy bag of blank CDs or whatever crap I've ordered whilst drunk in charge of a computer and a non-shredded credit card. It seems some these commercial chaps might be interested in biding for our dear PO with it's sweet red vans, chatty postmen and 10:00 delivery. I'm not happy with this, at least the current public sector version manages to recognise and find prominent houses, most days anyway. Don't do it Gordy!

It's never fun, big or clever to poke fun at minority groups like motorists or MTV TV programme makers. Shouldn't it say Amish Edition?

Irish prison breakfast

Missie leaves the safety of couch-land to check out the fire bucket.

Last night's tea was really the remains of Saturday's tea - redux, a cosmopolitan mix of leftovers with an emphasis on fish based products and potatoes. A passing wag with a jaunty quiff (we get a lot of them here in the Bohemian sticks) described it as an "Irish Prison Breakfast". No it wasn't the classic fish-finger sandwich or two fried eggs on a roll either, much more sophisticated, in fact you could have eaten it with a fork. The cats ignored it anyway and we slept away the rest of the evening right up until the start of Lost.

In a flurry of multi-coloured daydreams I came up with the hair brained idea of taking Mr Cougar (and various family members) on an expedition to the Arctic Circle, mostly via the North Sea and Norway. Two snags reared up to bite right away: the first being information given on the Big Mac Index for Norway and the second being a maximum speed limit of 59 mph all across the country, they are both a hard burden to live with and something of a hindrance to a 2000 mile road trip. Time to think again but not about elk collisions, lager, heavy metal and ice hotels, perhaps Canada would be a better place to avoid the curse of the Krone and Euro, I must research the possibilities and then decide between France again or a West Highland wigwam.

The cats are settling in mainly by accidentally avoiding one another, that will work well.

Clint remains alert, aloof and a little alone wondering if that new cat could be a relative of some kind.

Tesco weekly photo

The light that glows brightly in the unfathomable darkness belongs to Tesco.

Following from last week's shock news that Tesco had redeveloped valuable car parking space for some so-called "environmental" works I give you the new recycling centre after dark. It looks even more strange by night, lo! a glow in the West (or East depending where you park) that guides you to a place where old clothes, bottles of various colours and cardboard boxes that once held new flat screen TVs can be dumped painlessly. Go to the neon garbage god and deposit your offerings for the recycling fairy to deal with and then feel that warm, guilt free touch you get when, against all the odds you do the right thing but possibly in the wrong hopper.

I nearly put my back out taking this pic.

This is Missie in her new home, sandwiched between the couch, the wall, the floor and the radiator. This place suits her fine at the moment though we have offered her the full use of the house and it's extensive grounds, roughly ranging from Galashiels beach to the far end of the Kinross mountain range. The radiator spot is however winning hands down at the moment for undisclosed reasons. Cats are strange, solitary, deep, marvelous and oddly beautiful creatures and when I die, if I get the chance to come back in some other living form (not sure about any of this) I hope it's as a senior member of the Cuban Communist Party and not a cat.

Welcome to our room(s)

Thanks to CS for this image, apparently from Surgeon's Hall.

Cat related

There's a new cat in town, we welcomed home a rather reluctant Missie, cajoled and basketed over from Fife as an adoption and kind of replacement for the departed Smudge. Missie is of course Smudge's mum (and Clint's) so there are lots of eerie resemblances and little nuances we are picking up. Cats generally are not wholly easy in accepting one another so there was a bit of spitting and growling this morning, that was followed by some hiding and sniffing around but thankfully no territorial urination ceremonies. Anyway enough of Ali's and my behaviour (ching!), the process of cat acclimatization will run on for a few days, doors closed, movements controlled, food intake observed; then we can let them get on with the more meaningful business of culling the spring crop of mice, hiding in the bushes and waiting to invade.

Leaves

In a vain attempt to make a vain attempt at gardening I spent a couple of hours raking leaves between passing showers and low clouds. I ended up with a binful of highly compressed dead leaves and bits of moss and stick but the garden hardly looks a lot better. In the brain dead and automatic state of raking I wondered if any creative or revolutionary thoughts would enter my head - none did, not even a chink of watered down day light. The brain seems to switch off at a higher level and only concentrates on not picking up worms, dog shit or those little thorny things (thorns) that hurt like hell when they prick your fingertips. Back to nature.

Listening to (Fraser's compilation):

Gil Scott Heron - The revolution will not be televised.
Grateful Dead - Ripple.
John Cooper Clark - Hire Car.
Sigur Ros - Various.

Edinburgh Daily Photo

Daily detail of the soft, dark underbelly of the city formerly known as Edinburgh.

My City in ruins

Last night I had the pleasure of driving across Edinburgh after dark. It is at this time that the cones come out, the flashing lights flash and organised confusion reigns in a blitzkrieg of roadworks, barriers and uneven and hostile surfaces. Motorists and pedestrians alike are corralled or herded across great swathes of construction sites all for the greater good of a mass transit system known as the tram. I may regret saying this but at the moment it all seems like a complete mess heading for a full-on collision with a bad idea.

Art

Once the late night shopping traffic had been negotiated we headed for the R&A or A&R or A&E (a big, curious building anyway) to view an art exhibition. The overall effect of the show was "underwhelming" though some good pieces were on display and one or two were quite provocative. I find that at these public events the people attending are often more interesting than the exhibits:

The nervous young artists, talking loudly to friends and not quite sure how or where they should be standing, they shuffle and shift their weight. Glad to be there but a little embarrassed by the setting and the amount of older people looking at their stuff as if it was a discovered stash of their hidden porn.

The old hands, the teachers in big cardigans with unkempt hair, strange glasses frames and battered loafing shoes, chewing and mulling over and wondering where it went wrong for them, hoping for a free moment to dive out for a quick cigarette.

The patrons and helpers anxious to spread the wine of hospitality and good spirit and hoping for the best for sales and attendance, higher profiles and footfall. They hold out glossy pamphlets and flyers and smile at everyone, because every one is important after all.

The cynics and hacks who've seen it all before and have lost the eye to see fresh talent but are stuck with going through the motions though they don't know why. They focus in on a few key pieces, standing guard and allowing the exhibit to crown them with wisdom by association and osmosis.

Proud parents who wanted a doctor or a lawyer in the family who now have an artist who'll swallow their assets like a hungry pac-man and squander their right to a peaceful old age with the highs of critical success and the depths of no-sales despair. Their child's art now invades their dreams of restful cruises and caravan weekends. They now feel the impact of some twisted revenge knowing their concrete-willed offspring will feel too strongly about nebulous and unresolvable social and moral issues to ever produce the grandchild they wish for.

So what did I like best? See below:

A veritable vertical tableaux of family wedding china, famous throughout Fife and the North East. An un-buried treasure and true piece of Scottish working class history expressed as a fragile city of porcelain and bone, telling of the desperation to have and display some meaningful possessions, irrespective of anything else .

Age before beauty

Me as seen by my children, locked in mortal combat with another old-timer.

"I'm traveling in some vehicle, I'm sitting in some cafe, a defector from the petty wars..."

Everything should be as good as I can be, that is my first rule of the New Universe. The journey to this place, this state, this Nirvana if you like may not be straightforward but it should be (yes) as good as it can be, so why is it so tough and disappointing getting through bits of normal life? I'm not going to even bother answering, I'm getting on with establishing the New Universe, featuring the New Universal(s) and exploring the wide boundaries of New Universal thinking. After that I'll probably have small nap because I'll be rather tired. Being a creator and a finisher can be tough though always rewarding.

Currys web site

Why sell your stuff on a web site and show photographs of things, like laptops, that have no resemblance to the ones they are selling in the bloody shop. What's the point of having three photos of a fecking laptop that you can rotate and zoom into when they are not that actual model. ARRGH!!!

Then when you go into the shop and ask for help some goofy 20 year old with an unbroken voice tells you, "those pictures are only there as a guide, they don't represent the actual product".

I suppose it's no worse than the Spanish Tourist Board using beach footage from the Caribbean to advertise the Costa Brava - buyer, member of the public, mug or punter - beware, nothing out there matters to big brother.

Refuge of the rose

Grown in Kenya I suppose, for our pleasure here.

Driving across Fife yesterday (well being driven by Ali) and over to Glasgow today (mostly by myself though the car was an automatic) I realised I was in the process of viewing exhibits in a long, linear collection of road signs and street furniture. Each piece is (almost) unique as it counts down the miles, points to places mostly unknown, shows brown signs to named attractions and the miscellany that are cones and lights and the gathering trash that surrounds them. How kind of the Highways Agency and the various local authorities to put this show together for free, apart from the small cost of road tax or a bus ticket or something. Travel is all the more a Zen experience now thanks to this illumination but on the whole still fairly dull. I do quite like the signs that tease, those part hidden by overhanging branches or foliage or simply faded and covered in road film. These dirty signs hide their true message like Burlesque dancers or comedians joking in some dark partly shielded code. They provoke the innocent driver into the danger of a wrong turning or failing to reduce speed, sometimes anyway.

Glasgow was almost fun, a business presentation and a meeting and for lunch the interesting marriage of salami and scrambled egg in a baguette. A combination I'd not experienced before but one that worked, I may experiment with a toasted version at some point if I ever get round to eating actual warmed up food again.

I don't really care for music do I?

Now that I've found Spotify and a wealth of free music I find that ubuntu (Linux) won't support it and I'm not geek enough to figure out the unix codes needed to bridge the unbridgeable gap. I say this despite spending two years as a systems guy working on a unix system in the early nineties. I did drink Coke straight from the can, read newspapers and had an actual Walkman in those un-networked and dark days. I have forgotten more than I can remember or is it the other way around or have things just changed beyond my grasp and recognition anyway.

Sometimes it's good to just see yourself sitting on this globe and allowing it to spin you around apparently slowly while you suck a nice stalk of dry grass. Meanwhile the ever present threat of a new laptop, huge unmanageable debt and a diet of Pot Noodles and Loch Fyne oysters looms large.

The dilemma of whether or not to Twitter or Facebook or ping or pong or micro-blog whilst snowboarding and drinking a latte remains also hard to resolve. At least we're back to writing songs and rediscovering a few that missed the boat and a few more that are stuck as rough but recoverable mixes.Progress.