The simple pleasures

.

The simple pleasure of getting a decent haircut.

The world remains further away when viewed through my failing glasses, now due an upgrade. All things are distant and in some cases pleasantly blurred replicating the effect of three good glasses of red wine but without the after taste. The big decision on whether to plump for a haircut or a visit to the opticians’ is not easy, a planned visit to the dentist also looms and there are other complications. The barber or hairdresser is the cheapest and easiest option and the one most likely to be taken, probably on Friday. For a fiver and a one pound tip my unruly and thinning barnet can be tidied up to an almost presentable point. All I have to do is grin and dimly endure the drab conversation and blank boredom generated by staring at myself as a shrouded floating head in a large mirror. The opticians is less straightforward, I have to book and then wear a number of devices, read and concentrate and then pick out a pair of frames from pre-arranged selection, most of which will look weird. All glasses and spectacles are weird, it’s just that we’ve become used to seeing them and using them. Anyway, the ones I like will be expensive and so I’ll settle for something cheaper and hopefully thinner and then not think of such things for another three years or so. The dentist is more of a routine, like a car MOT but with even less meaningful conversations and a bit more pain and discomfort. Radio Forth plays in a background in the surgery, this adds to the pain, in fact most of this audio assault is worse and more distracting than the dental pain. Perhaps the dentist is making some point here, there is the pain of the monthly £18.66 to consider also. (In the end I go to the barbers, there are five guys ahead of me in the queue and so I read a complimentary copy of the Sun then wait some more. My hair is then cut but not without a pointless conversation about holidays in Egypt and the many gay waiters there, apparently).

Neither commands respect, neither is fit to run what's left of the country.

Intelligent, capable, and seemingly competent MPs charged with running the country seem unable to run their own lives or account for their expenses. When caught out, having in some cases committed obvious fraud they simply say “I made a mistake and I’m sorry”. In any other walk of life or career that statement would quite simply get you fired, you’d lose all professional credibility and you’d possibly go to jail, but this is Britain where we accept politicians saying glib, patronising and stupid things (“we’re doing everything can” - just what is that?) and then when caught out some one sided investigation runs for two years at the taxpayers’ expense and ends up drawing no clear conclusions and it all blows over until the next whistle is blown. Nice work if you can get it.

Penelope Cruz at Cannes & Free Software

Or on reflection...

I do feel a bit sorry for the old chap who managed to reverse his Ford Mondeo over the pier edge at South Queensferry. A slip of the foot and you're immersed in Fife's finest sewage, a few wee-wee trickles from West Lothian and the diluted fish and chip vinegar and sauce from a thousand discarded half eaten and ill considered suppers. With the amount of Grocs that head down to the sea-front I'm surprised there aren't more accidents of this type. It's a prime spot for coffin dodgers, pension dodgers (my current grouping) and responsibility dodgers (you know them by their fast and stupid looking cars) many of who haven't the faintest idea why they are there or what on earth it is they should be doing. They gaze moon-faced over into the desolation that is a glinting Fife and point as the trains click-clack across the bridge whilst squinting through inappropriate designer (?) sunglasses - at least this one mature driver brightened up the afternoon with his unfortunate dunking.

Lost still has me intrigued and baffled, I now cannot imagine life without a weekly fix and am living in dread of the series end not meeting my ridiculous and unreasonable expectations. Then there will the vacuum that it leaves and the prospect of knowing that nothing is likely to fill it for the next ten years or so - complete TV desolation beckons. Odd moments in the evening are spent scouring the web for clues and plot spoilers and the reworking and summaries of episodes that may allow me to build up my understanding of this fiction. Oceanic Flight 518 has ruined a fair few lives now and mine is just another on the long list. Perhaps I should buy a Find 518 t-shirt to identify and warm my soul as I continue to drift and pension dodge.

Late nights find me down loading more free music mixing and mashing software. All of which works surprisingly well, distorting, clouding and occasionally enhancing the material I submit into it's wonderful mangle. The 21st Century is a strange and mesmerising place and the digital gods are truly smiling on us and you can get three large tins of Heinz beans in ASDA for £1.00.

Periodic Tables Tuesday (as ever)

Full Moon over the 'Ferry.

Five portions of fruit a day is the target, the score is a little less but heading in the right direction but I have a few questions: How many portions (or protons, much more interesting) are in a pineapple, a water melon and a chicken. Oh and what is the healthy status and relevant position of a Muller fruit corner?

Flight of the Conchords is funny and clever and in the space of a week I’ve watched all the episodes in the first series. Not normal behaviour but fun and useful.

Commonly misunderstood misunderstandings:

Van Gogh hacked his own ear off. True but only because Gauguin suggested that self harming was going to be the next big thing.
A hanged Munchkin can be seen in the Wizard of Oz. False but there is now a new theory that various members of Pink Floyd played the flying monkeys.
Mussolini got the trains running on time. False, he simply got the timetable rewritten to match the actual times the trains were running to.
The Great Wall of China can be seen from space. False, but it is true that space can be seen from the Great Wall of China.
Swallowed chewing gum stays in your system for seven years. False it says in for fourteen years, a bit like hot dogs or red meat.
Walt Disney’s body was frozen. True, of course it was. He was stone cold dead.
Bob Holness played saxophone on “Baker Street”. False he played saxophone on “Born to Run”.
A coin dropped from a skyscraper will kill a pedestrian. True, provided it’s a 50kg New Guinea stone penny (with a hole carved into the middle).
Lemmings deliberately commit suicide. False but one or two have done away with themselves when their novels or works of poetry failed to be selected for publication.

Not really impressed by the use of colour here but was it 1936 and it's all allegorical and only relevant to the turn of the century (1900) anyway, or the end of the world.

Ways to move soot: Part 2

Never easy to complete the domestic chores in the rain. The soot has now become a weather based routine and will therefore be absorbed into the existing regime. Why worry about small, flying pieces of carbon. What possible harm could that do unless the molecules decided to form themselves into some sort of footprint and then stamp all across the face of the planet.

It does my heart good to hear that our careful and diligent politicians have respectfully been using their precious allowances to boost the ailing economy with a series of wild and random purchases. This selfless action may well save SS Great Britain and the RBS from sinking under the present incessant onslaught from Chinese made torpedoes and fire crackers. It’s disappointing to see that the popular press has so far gotten the wrong end of the stick and corrupted the details of their measured spending sprees and generous philanthropism towards the small businesses of Britain. Meanwhile they’ve been free to invest the full weight of their salaries in Camen Island savings schemes and West African gun running cartels. Good for them, we need more politicians not less, let’s elect some more in June and send them of to Stuttgart or Belgium where they can rack up some more ridiculous claims.

A treatment for Toe Friction: As the weather warms and the non natural fibres in socks fight back so the incidences of toe friction increase. This happens when your toes vibrate very quickly and rub together creating the aforementioned toe friction. This generates heat which damages the delicate skin surface leading to a degree of redness and rawness appearing. This can hurt a bit unless corrective action is taken quickly. Remove all footwear and retire to a wild and lonely place where your feet can relax, free from their cramped and panic attack inducing location in dark socks and questionable shoes from the last century. They will then adsorb and adjust to the ambient temperature and stop looking like elongated bits of boiled beetroot. A modicum of Savlon squeezed out and applied to the areas with your index finger may also quicken this effect. I believe that the Scottish Government are planning to put a helpful pamphlet through every individual’s door (or perhaps every actual door in Scotland), as to whether or not this publication will be about Toe Friction I have no idea.

Martin Clunes was born to play Reginald Perrin as well as a number of other parts and also to do voiceovers for commercials and documentaries. So writes the drama and TV correspondent of the “Sunshine Desserts” newsletter in a blistering piece that also describes in some detail his courageous lifelong battle with toe friction.

Ways to move soot: Part 1

No she wont.

As we travelled across Germany last week we couldn't help but notice how clean their dirt was compared to ours. Scottish dirt (maybe this is UK wide, we've yet to check ) tends to be grubbier, dustier and less orderly than the European kind. Maybe this is why our governments never really agree or harmonise on things and the occasional war is sparked. They just see us as dirty, dust cloud covered, awkward little plebs, not unlike Linus was in Peanuts. Our dirty dirt hampering harmony and possibly making the more sensitive European types feel a bit itchy now and then when caught in our repulsive Celtic and Anglo Saxon presence. It's a theory anyway.

In soot management and combatting terms I've arranged the Times sports section into an elaborate Origami type construction that deflects the advancing soot in a way similar to the operation of a Formula 1 spoiler or damper. This highly engineered method seemed to be working until a stronger than expected down draft distorted it's finely tuned surfaces and rendered it less effective than I'd hoped. Back to the drawing board and the newsagents. Today's big regret is the consumption of a impulse bought steak bake - never a wise thing to do on a rainy Friday such as this.

George Best had a girlfriend

George & Mary

I came home tonight to find yet another pile of mystery soot to clean up. What did the common people do to amuse themselves before the invention of soot? Evenings must have dragged somewhat in those dark days. I'm sure that by the eighteenth century many large country houses had teams of soot cleaners armed with bellows and brushes and donkey carts fully employed on a 24 hour basis on the extraction and removal of their stately soot. It may of course just be our persistent use of tons of cheap Eastern European coal bought on the black market (of course).

Random use of the Wikipedia site keeps me level headed and peaceful these lunch times. Today I researched the R101 catastrophe, the Hindenburg crash and the SS Lusitania, so tragically lost some where south of the Irish coastline in 1915. Disasters make oddly compulsive reading, truth is stranger etc. I also browsed the ex-girlfriends of George Best and the ongoing weight problems experienced by one time Cheers bar-person Kirstie Alley (or was that another actress?).

Once the daily soot clean up was over it was straight out into the customary May hurricane and rain weather cocktail to cut the grass and render the garden a better shade of respectable. You never know when an irritated and impatient passing funeral party or some tiny private wedding group will crane their necks over the hedge and issue loud "tut tuts" and waggle their pointy fingers at our green constructions and ongoing landscape projects. After that I ate a whole pizza and am now regretting that I did.

Favourite soft drink

Everybody in this family likes a drop of sugar free Sprite.

10 years of painful, costly and irritating self (righteous) government have been inflicted upon us I hear. Makes you want to form some impromptu victim support group to deal with trauma dealt out to each of us from this hall of shame: McConnel, Macleish and Salmond to name but a few, what a sorry shower, all stuffed into a stupid building and drunk with a sense of power they don't even possess. Meanwhile the over excited Scottish media suck up to them like they'd just won the battle of Bannockburn when in real terms they're somewhere in the third political division slightly above a "toon cooncil".

Nice to see the Senior Service moving their subs all up to rainy Faslane (no need to ask Alex Salmond's permission), I feel sorry for the Janners mind you but they've a lot of other good things going for them down there, sun, sea and a ferry to Spain.

More mystery soot has appeared and then disappeared up the hoover followed by a stray pen. This was followed by hoover surgery to remove the foreign object and so restore normal service. Hoovers in my experience tend to effectively resist being taken apart or being probed surgically by wire coat hangers. Blood, sweat and tears follow and there are more chronicles of wasted time to log.

The folks from Dundee who make their own Star Trek home movies deserve an Oscar, a Bafta and transported to Fife - Live long and prosper on Tayside.

Ace of Bass

Ali and part of the cellar collection.

Strange black dust pours our of the chimney breast, no fire lit, no passage of air or draft. Space soot. Missie the cat sits squarely on top of the sky remote, trembling and purring, her eyes turned to sleeping slits. The football match on TV is over, I'm back home from Fife and Ali is breaking the tech barrier. At tea time the chilled pineapple worked rather well and lasted no time at all other than the ragged bits that remain in the teeth still releasing some vague memory of taste and the rain has stopped. I'm now recalling last seeing my driving licence somewhere in a rucksack pocket, in a small case in a large case buried at the back of the cupboard under the stair - I can't afford to forget this and must remove and declutter and I may find that old copy of Cubase in the process.

At least Swine flu isn't making headlines tonight, the hype is hopefully dying down, the ignorant and stupid media coverage may now die the death from the virus of public indifference and boredom. Meanwhile proper medical advice, balanced reporting and media credibility is undermined in the process.

What is more?

Martin and Hieke's apple tree - last weekend.

Our May day holiday began with a coffee on the couch and the bewildering viewing that is BBC early morning news. First there was one of my least favourite politicians, Harriet Harman saying that though she was ambitious she was satisfied to be GB's deputy and the top job wasn't for her. Unbelievable. This was followed by the highly likable Sister Beckett, the art critic/historian nun who described the viewing of Christian Icons as "leading us beyond the known", which I thought was rather good if a little optimistic. "They show us more" she added, then in some strange rhetorical way asked herself the question "what is more?" Neither her or the interviewers bothered to answer - and the question hung in the mind and mid air as it quite rightly should. Next up was a puzzled looking Ian Broudie back with a Lightning Seeds album after ten years. Not something I'm excited about nor was Ian really, come backs are tricky and for some best avoided.

Last night we all sat riveted, welded and with jumpy legs as the 100th episode of Lost was aired. It was a bottle of red wine and three double Baillie's' session with the plot centering on Faraday's time travelling injuries and the dilemmas generated by trying to engineer the future from the past, the usual stuff, fun, irritating and compelling. Only two left in this series.

Swift return

In Ravensburg, by a toy shop, a teddy attempts to impersonate Mr Swift while Ali looks on.

Our old friends from Portugal, Mr & Mrs Swift have returned to their nesting spot in the coal cellar roof. The cats have of course clocked them and a few frustrating months of waiting and pouncing now begin. Otherwise most of this weekend has been laundry and gardening with a smattering of football and catching up on life in general. One of the best bits was playing hide and seek in Dobbies with various children and grandchildren, much more fun than shopping and fine if you don't get caught. We didn't.

The whine of various airports

Bought at Pret at Stanstead, a classic rhubarb blend with a daft name that I had to try and buy. This was the second of four airports visited in a week of wandering, recording, drinking, meeting old friends and avoiding rain and crashing in the same car.

Lindau is damp but pretty, cobbled and a good stop for coffee, soup and views of the Swiss Alps (almost).

Mobil rock out in a fun pub on a warm Saturday night and I'm about to do a guest spot on Willie and the Hand Jive - I almost avoid any classic pop gaffes in the process.

Drives like a handbag

It's been a good week (or so) for freeloading. a few days ago we got a five star lodge at Cameron House instead of a room and a goody bag full of cosmetics. Today in sunny Birmingham it was at Hertz's expense and it was a Mini Cooper S. Funky inside and fast outside but I rather felt like I was driving a large blue and white handbag albeit one that moved like dark material from a steel shovel.

Back to airports: I've finally realised what we need, no malls, no coffee shops, no supercar raffles and shoeshines, it's just a simple chute that carries you from check in to the door of your aircraft, a bit like the launch sequences in Thunderbirds. I'd pay Ryanair an extra fiver for this and Flybe at least a tenner.

I think it's aliens who drive white vans, how else can you explain their uncanny speed, bumper to bumper accuracy and an ability to appear in your mirror from nowhere and when the need arises, park unseen on the hard shoulder for hours

Green Growth

A strange green growth causes concern as a twiggy tree is revealed.

Greedy burger recipe: 1 tomato, 4 bits of bacon, 2 eggs, 2 slices cheese, 2 rolls.
Method: Cook/fry everything apart from the rolls. As they are four days old they must be toasted. Eat at the end of a long day at work and then sit on the couch watching the Apprentice but not really paying attention to it.

"We sell things on the basis of a way of response".

More brandy

She said "on a good week I blog every day, on a bad week I can't quite stay away, when the wind blows I am cold and unclear, when the frost bites it's just brandy and beer". Somebody save me.

Glencoe daily photo

I can confirm it, the rumour is true: "She's a waterfall".

Wednesday already when it's really Tuesday and a cold mist has descended into my nostrils and the raw salad palette at the back of my throat. If it was Monday I'd be fine but the money wont be in the bank until Thursday and on Friday I have to catch the cats. What a week to lose touch with the concept of time, the annoying length of my fingers and the angry, pointless rant that would usually follow. Next week at this time it will be my Christmas birthday, all my dreams may come true and a foreign country will seem like home for a few short (59 minute) hours.

I did visit Glencoe and it only cost me £15 to get out of there. It was bleak but enjoyable, a bit like Pittenweem. Next time I'll take a jacket and full membership of the National Truss for Alba before asking for political asylum. Meanwhile I regarded the waterfall, encountered many a slip and found it all rather pleasing. Some day soon I'll be seen blethering to myself on the fast lane of the M5.

I did have a hangover once

That may have been Saturday morning, what a feeling.

A blank v a blur

Chasing down the remnants of memory strands, not easy for me, the persistence of it all and the ragged edge of what I can't remember, in this case what I did with the cat's vaccination records, easy for some, tough for me.

Another hectic weekend over, much of it spent at the now (by us) highly regarded Dakota Hotel where everything ran as close to plan as any plan ever does. It was manic, frantic, relaxed and fun and a celebration to remember plus they do really good chips. Who'd have thought it?

For the last two days it's been the new salad, fruit and the marinated anchovy diet, I think that's less than four ingredients as per the latest Australian instructions. There was also a pint of Guinness on a sunny afternoon under the railway bridge just to add some pleasant toxins to the mix.

Back from the West Country

Alexandria car wash - detail.

Back from touring the West Highlands for three days, sleeping in a mixture of wigwams and five star resorts and getting the latest postings from the many bi-lingual road signs now set up north of Tyndrum. What a complete waste of money that is, twice the ugly signage and sod all for the actual roadway. My recurring thought however, based on a chance encounter at the Duck Bay Marina is "do Native American women get large tattoos of Weegie men done on their backs?" If so then the world is in perfect balance and intervention in the form of some pre-emptive nuclear strike is totally unnecessary. I certainly hope so and say let the good taste prevail whatever the outcome.

As a seasoned pothole ranter the road from Tarbert to Fort William left me wavering, shuddering and speechless. It rewards the dumb tourist with a totally awful surface and a driving experience that would rattle the pants from anyone in anything from an Ascona to a Zafira. Pity help any Homecoming 2009 victims who attempt to traverse this road disaster, a homecoming in an ambulance with a shattered spine is the likely reward. Where does the road tax money actually go and why are they filling up the holes with surplus porridge instead of something more substantial?

The West Lothian cow question has been settled, temporarily. Numerous sightings of the disappearing cows have been made by a selection of reputable people including me. I even saw some dressed up in black and white.

Cow rapture

One of the most frustrating things about living in West Lothian is the tendency that the cattle seem to have to play hide and seek on a regular basis. Casually (to the outsider) but with some grim determination (to the locals), they move from field to field as if in some grand, golden bovine ballet. I'm slowly getting used to this.

One school of thought suggests that a cattle "rapture" is underway, the great beasts caught up and transported to wherever their final destination lies. I can neither confirm or deny this as the evidence is patchy or anecdotal or based on unreliable testimony smattered with the poison that is cheap alcohol. West Lothian is a tortured landscape of many mysteries that require urgent attention and fuller investigations, don't mention rustlers either.

Good Man Friday

I made these myself from real bunny parts.

There is clearly too much chocolate around the house today and not enough protein. Despite my best efforts the brown addictive sweet treat is in every corner and going down well with coffee and sometimes just on it's own. It's nothing to do with religion or belief, it's the power of the supermarkets and media pushing us to exercise our pin numbers to add to those squiggly lines on bits of paper that curtail all of our finances at some point. It seems I've surrendered to the power of the state and to the weakness of a sweet tooth that costs £18.99 a month to maintain on Dentalplan (Group B).

Pathetic as it seems exhuming six stone slabs from the garden this afternoon came pleasantly close to killing me. Extreme gardening can verge into some almost "snuff" related territory as your body says "stop" but your inflated vision of the finished gardening masterpiece says, "a bit more and ignore the pain and the black fingernails". Soon enough rain stops play.

South Queensferry, the bustling hub on a Spring evening.

Spent a fun night in the SQ Stag yesterday inventing subversive alternatives to Twitter - "Stutter" being my favourite. The trick is to get your message in b-b-b-b-b-before you use up all your allotted character spaces.