Monday, March 30, 2009
Zen and the art of driving backwards
Once I've recovered from this euphoric state I'm drawing up the plans for an ironic eco-house made from the old tyres from wrecked gas guzzlers, body panels from Range Rovers, walnut trim from Jaguars and Granadas and the electric motors from their powered seats to operate the retro wind farm as back up in case of a still and calm day.
Today we ate two kinds of sausage, middle sized and small but presented artfully in a sea of baked beans and HP sauce - classy but nae spuds. Meanwhile I'm dreaming of planting potatoes and learning the ancient and hidden language needed to coax them up from the ground come the solstice. Until yesterday's illuminating session at the Chic Murray Garden Centre I didn't realise that potato whispering was still big in West Lothian, I think there may be an evening class running in Broxburn in the Lidl car park at dusk on Tuesdays.
Sunday, March 29, 2009
You in your small corner
Saturday, March 28, 2009
New Economic Model Army
New Les Paul, needs a little work but plays well enough.
Economics for the economic.
Buying things in batches is working nicely these days and, thanks to my recent PhD in economics is allowing me to develop a new purchasing strategy that I intend to use for the rest of my life or at least until the end of the month. Successful batches so far:
Meal for £10 from M&S - Wine, chips, sponge pud and cheesy meatballs.
Les Paul from Boffer, £40- Guitar, bag, electronic tuner, two sets of strings, lead, strap,plectrums and misc. booklets and cds. (guitar is a Gibson (?) has bolted maple neck, rosewood, humbucks and (after an hours worth of fiddling) easy action.)
Emergency bulb set from Halfords £16 - Loads of auto bulbs, set contained the bulb I needed which was £17.99 on it's own!
Laptop bag and funky mouse from Amazon £18 - HP bag and mouse that changes colour in a trippy way.
So bundles and batches are the way ahead and I think it could signal the end of the crunch if applied across a range of applications and situations.
The fantasy and the reality.
At last the FF1 has got going. A certain amount of parallel processing gave us team combination issues but that seems to have been sorted if a little after the deadline. I may well be deducted points for failing to pass on key text messages about changes and the fact that this was in the middle of the night is no excuse. The prize pot is £120, could get a nice Scaletrix bundle for that.
Friday, March 27, 2009
Escaping the world of solutions
Chasing the fading bulbs.
They burn brightly, they light the darkness and show you the way. You switch them off and on and they burn and glow, they push the darkness in on itself and make you feel safe. You squeeze the switch and fall asleep, peace and a dark blanket overcomes you and smothers all around you in a warm void of dream and recovery. Then the day comes when they are burned out, dead and useless and replacement needed. You either stay in the dark or seek out a new one. It screws or clips or snaps into place and you are connected to the world of light once more. Light is good, bulbs show us the way but seeing all or thinking you see all isn’t everything, the ways of the dark carry hidden rewards and favours. Senses tingles as you step out, squeeze the switch to off, hear the click and explore these same surroundings for the first time.
Escaping the world of solutions.
For sport and world financial gain I need to attempt to write a long and twisting screenplay set in some future post apocalyptic society, all in a blasted landscape about a lost child who arrives as if from nowhere and is destined to bring peace and progress to the battered and struggling population. This can only happen once he/she has performed a series of elaborate trials that are to be revealed to him/her as he/she journeys across the remains of the surface of the world. Along the way encountering mutants, UFOs, villains, heroes and freaks, extreme weather, aliens, earthquakes and crossword puzzles but learning and overcoming in each trial until the final revelation is given in the form of a whispered phrase passed on by the tiny five toed frog (Bob) who lives at the foot of the Himalayas.
Once Bob has passed the secret on he rolls over and dies in the arms of his frog lover Bobette. She carries his body into a the warm waters of a deep pool , the ripples caused by her tongue touching the water carry him away and he floats into a fine mist and his body disappears. The child is distraught at this loss and cries uncontrollably, unable to reconcile the gift of the knowledge and the loss of a small frog. Time passes and the child recovers, grows and retains the revelation by writing it onto the inside of a small matchbox hidden in a deep pocket in a magic cloak that once belonged to an actual magician.
Now that the revelation has been given out, the information on the matchbox is then passed onto Abraham one frosty night in the foothills following a drunken game of arm wrestling and a spicy meal. Abraham is the lost monk of the East who has accompanied the child throughout the journey and shared in the hardship of the travel all the time carrying an old stick. Consumed in a fit of unusual jealousy Abraham then kills the child, steals the matchbox and armed with the new knowledge heads to the Middle East where, after gathering the remains of the three main races of man together he founds three new religions, one of which he bequests to each of the races, all whilst sitting under a golden palm tree drinking the holy milk of a coconut.
The three races start their religions well enough and separate but after ten years become exasperated by their differences (all of which are trivial though to them significant) and go to war against one another. Diplomatic solutions fail and Abraham is called in from the desert to help to resolve the conflict. Abraham tries to broker a fresh peace deal based around compromises in public transport, musical policies and the amount of “proper” chapters in their holy books but it all fails and the conflict continues. He retires to the desert to experiment on cosmetics and treacle whilst the religious wars rage on. Eventually the three races destroy each other thanks to their newly acquired weapons of mass destruction, mostly made from treacle and cosmetics. Into this post-post apocalyptic world a lost child arrives as if from nowhere, one destined to bring peace…
Listening to:
The Bees, the Byrds and the Honeycombs. Miles Davis, Camera Obscura and Sparks.
Eating:
Variations on the theme of yoghurt and leftover pasta.
Small and disappointing muffins that were BOGOF, (always a mistake).
Gatorade still holding it’s own against stiff competition from tap water, ordinary Coke and blueberry Ribena.
Shaving (the face): The eternal conflict remains, do it in the shower, save time and water but risk cuts and missed bits or in the wash basin through a steamy mirror whilst dripping in the cold bathroom air.
Thursday, March 26, 2009
Wreckage
It's no secret that I like history and I like geography. Not sure which one would win in a straight fight, history would have depth and experience, geography would have space and natural resource. It would be a good and gory punch up. So I spent time today checking on the locations of ship wrecks in the Forth Estuary, there are a few, some nearby and some way out there where the sea blue and sky blue connect and blur.
Wreckage is interesting even when it can't be seen, just knowing it's buried or sunken under your feet or deep in far away water protected by the mist of it's elusiveness. Lost and unobtainable after all the effort expended to build, launch and travel only to end abruptly and tragically when least expected. So now I know that the first surface ship ever torpedoed by a submarine (in 1914) was sunk in the Forth and the last ship sunk in WW2 also went down in the Forth, in 1945. Secrets and hidden depth, all around and inside.
Wednesday, March 25, 2009
Some brains and a little...
Will my gamble work? The Fantasy F1 League (link on right) is almost ready to run and my winning strategy is now ready to be revealed. First get the two top drivers and then get the cheapest but fastest car, if you can believe the hype. As for drivers it's the best or biggest cheats : Lewis Hamilton and Felipe Massa, what could possibly go wrong? The team name, ethos and make-up is still forming but likely to be "The New Caledonian F1 Church of the Kamikaze League of Flying Cougars", or something perhaps a little less serious and a little longer.
Tuesday, March 24, 2009
Would you buy a used car from this bear?
Monday, March 23, 2009
We seed the green planet
We shall spread this growth as if the world depended on it, as it might. The rain forest failed us in 2004 or there abouts when it accidentally produced more Co2 than it took in, a bit like Grangemouth. A few more years of this and we'll all be wearing face masks, anti-bee sting hats and our eyes will be gritty. In the mean time I refuse to support the various groups of professional and career anarchists that threaten to disrupt the city next week. Why don't they just get jobs in the city and bring the whole thing down from the inside or has that already been tried?
Sunday, March 22, 2009
Wild Bean Cafe no more
While he's at it I'd like Neil to take similar stance over airports (not air travel), shut the shopping mall aspect down, make the flights run on time and stop charging 65p for a Whispa and £2.99 for a medium latte that would be a small latte anywhere else. Sell bits of BAA? You bet, sell it to MacDonald's or IKEA please and get some proper throughput and economies organised, then nationalize it.
Cat of the day: Clint for scratching this laptop.
Corner of the day: Joe's leading to a 2 - 1 victory.
Soup of the day: Veg and tomato by Ali.
Song of the day: "Like a hurricane" by Neil Young.
Alarm of the day: 7.25 to get up and set up the goal posts.
Firelighter of the day: Zip.
News story of the day : UFOs over Pitlochry.
Chicken of the day : Sainsbury's herb and garlic.
Building Society of the day: Dunfermline, in the shit like the rest of them.
Saturday, March 21, 2009
doubt
Friday, March 20, 2009
Soft top
A large part of the afternoon was spent sitting in a traffic jam on the A90 heading home from a vibrant few hours shopping in Craigleith's sunny environs. A fairly serious looking shunt had occurred where the A90 meets the M9 and the usual grumpy queues formed up behind. What struck me was that there were many convertibles in the line with their tops down all carrying large items in the back, things that would never fit in with the top up. Do convertible owners wait until the sun shines and in this uncertain climate rush out to buy the huge flat screen TVs, bikes, plants and wooden front doors (in a Saab) that I saw today? I guess they must, I salute their bravery, their deference to the weather the rest of the year and their courage in withstanding the aerodynamic stresses that these ungainly loads must place on their cars and their foreheads.
Things that are not true:
Dogs can sniff out cancer - though many seem well practiced enough in checking for the testicular variety.
The angle at which a car driver's seat sits at does not correspond to his/her IQ.
Maggots are a useful way to cure a festering wound.
A bargain is a bargain at any price.
Things that are good for you are not what you fancy eating.
Obama can speak without an autocue but not quite so eloquently.
I'm going to win the Trumper/Barclay Fantasy Formula 1 tournament for 2009/2010.
New drink in town.
Why not try M&S's wild strawberry and clotted cream milk drink? It kept me alive and almost sane during the above mentioned jam, caught the attention of three young ladies in an Audi, was nearly stolen by a passing motorcyclist and there is no number four.
Thursday, March 19, 2009
Future Buildings
The house in the picture is Pittencrieff House, the upper floors are closed thanks to DDA and probably a lack of local funding. I can't imagine the house designer thinking some 300 years ago that access would ever pose a problem. That made me think about today's current crop of modern buildings. I don't believe that many of today's buildings will be around in 300 years either, they'll be stumps, brown earth or at worst slums. If you imagine the future to be a cross between Blade Runner, Star Wars, the Jetsons and Woody Allen's "Sleeper" then our gift to the future will be a deadly mess and getting up and down stairs or into working lifts will be the least of the tomorrow people's problems. I guess that Edinburgh Castle, Holyrood Palace and the New Town will survive but the Parliament will have long rotted away along with vast swathes of housing schemes , IKEA/ASDA sheds and the plastic and concrete flats that have stalled on the Forth waterfront. My descendants will be wearing tin foil clothes, eating protein pills and hovering in their Chinese hover boots all along the remains of those hateful tram tracks that famously brought the city to it's knees and resulted in revolution, a mass exodus to Fife and the colonisation of the great northern wilderness. I also hope that the wolves will have established themselves by this time, picking off the town planning refugees one by one.
Tuesday, March 17, 2009
Elsewhere
Passing time in Dunfermline while the car undergoes a service which hopefully will be routine and inexpensive. The local Starbucks is my refuge for a few hours, a bright and polished canteen in a half vacant mall that belongs in some other town. Travel agents still full of offers call out to sell two weeks in Turkey or fly-drives in Florida. None of them are attractive or inspiring or busy. The shops open their mouths, hungry for customers who only want to sit this one out munching muffins and grasping cardboard latte cups while the holiday business holds it’s breath and prepares more handwritten discount cards to display in their windows. Meanwhile I need to form holiday plans for the summer.
Muffins aren’t all they are cracked up to be, they give too much on the first bite, no resistance, no fight back, then a sweet taste that turns to dry and then a further aftertaste that milky coffee cant seem to neutralise and all for £4.00, the rough price of a rough fish supper out in the colonies. I know all the prices but I don’t get the values these days. All freshly baked in some barn on an anonymous industrial estate and run over to a common loading dock with all the other supplies in mud spattered white trucks while we all sleep and dream of holidays.
The play park in the picture brought back some memories, I walked past it today on the way to the music shop (string buying). A number of years ago my access to my younger kids was severely restricted due to a marital dispute, not a happy season. When I did see them we often spent time in this playground, glossing over the background troubles and trying to play, chase, hide and seek and be normal for a few minutes in between the collection and the partings. Some lines have been drawn under all that now I’m glad to say but I still choked a little when passing by.
The Glen is full of plaques on trees and benches placed out in the weather in memory of dead relatives. It’s strange how you can envy the dead, considering the step ahead they’ve inadvertently but inevitably taken, no longer trying to fathom life or fighting to hang onto it. Now their place is to be some where but nowhere and the subject of a family conference about the price of a bench and how many appropriate words can be fitted along the top. Trying to make sense of life and find meaning is a life long and generally pointless practice, whilst it demonstrates and tests all the higher aspirations that most people would naturally applaud it also shows a certain lack of consideration for the hard facts and the laws of science and nature which whilst arguably flexible and developing are also, in most cases fixed and time critical. Make the most of the space between the forceps and the stone, don’t ask too many clever but unanswerable questions and don’t waste what you have.
The Scottish Organic pile that is Pittencrief House sits in the middle, a ground floor museum is all that occupies it, the swish and spacious upper floors are closed thanks to the DDA regulations and a stone spiral staircase, a marvellous piece of twisted legislation that helps some and hinders others in the name of equality and against all common sense. The ECC may fund some ugly lift or means of access in 2017 or thereabouts. Meanwhile the building is rendered pointless and a frustrating example of laws that are unworkable in the real world.
I did have a pleasant wander around the rest of the Glen and the Abbey, bright and glistening in the still March sunshine, noting one great and economical gravestone, “Thomson, Tailor, Two Rooms”. Life, occupation and occupancy in stone as some immortal memory and message in four Spartan words. Mine could read “Barclay, Bullshitter, No Room(s)”.
As usual once I’m back in a shopping mall I realise I’ve forgotten all the useful things I need to make the trip worthwhile and useful, the watch that needs the strap and battery, the M&S vouchers that need spending, the phone that needs unblocked, the bent key that needs copied, the measurements for the fence timber - all elsewhere. Maybe that would be a better epitaph: “Barclay, Absent minded, Elsewhere.”
Where does my look come from you ask? How can I get it?
Jumper from Ali (Christmas), jeans from Primark (yes), shoes from New York, pants and socks from Tesco, Umbro T shirt from JJB, combat jacket from Next., HP bag from Amazon. Total cost? No earthly idea or interest.
Listening to:
Sam Stone - John Prine.
Kingdom of rust - the Doves.
Jeremy - Pearl Jam.
Solitude Standing - Susanne Vega.
Various unknown tracks - St Etienne.
Monday, March 16, 2009
Tesco daily washroom photo
Sunday, March 15, 2009
Saxo Neds
Saturday, March 14, 2009
Hangover TV
Hangover TV is best defined as being Soccer AM on Sky 1 on a Saturday morning. Brainless, trivial and worse than reading the Sun but OK with a coffee and a sausage sandwich.
Friday, March 13, 2009
At the Academey of Speling Mistackes
Crow conflict
I'm puzzled by the apparent current popularity of crows amongst the rich and famous. It seems Imelda May had a pet crow that she raised from a chick, but couldn't look after so she gave it to Jeff Beck. Eh? What did he do with it, put it in his hair? I feel my old crow paranoia returning following on from the last skirmish in the legendary "Crow Wars of Parkhead". Then again perhaps I should be out looking for rejected crowlings and offering them sanctuary as some kind of Karmic gesture. It's all possible.
Pointless lists of non-vehicles
More confessions: I've watched Citizen Kane at least four times but I just cannot like it, the plot, the corny backdrops, the dialogue or anything. I still prefer Viva Maria or Easy Rider but I've still happily argued that CK was the best film ever for many years whether drunk or sober.
I've never seen "Love Story", "Mama Mia" or "The Texas Chainsaw Massacre".
Over the years I've listened to and owned four Bob Dylan albums and I liked them all but that was quite enough thank you. I do like his theme time radio.
When my dad said that Jimi Hendrix was an "ugly, noisy, long-haired idiot" when he first appeared in 1967 I agreed with him. About a week before Jimi died I changed my mind and bought Electric Ladyland for £1.00 (my mum collected it for me from a record shop in Dunfermline).
I didn't bother watching Neil Armstrong stepping onto the moon. I was at Army Cadet camp and thought the space race thing was all a bit dull. I lay on a bunk smoking a fag and reading a dirty paperback instead.
Thursday, March 12, 2009
Trumpton riots revisited
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.
Monday, March 09, 2009
Cameranious
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.
Sunday, March 08, 2009
My Snowdrop friend
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.