Before the hard disk fails

Music has outgrown radio. Have you tried finding something decent to listen to on the radio in the evening? Presumably the radio stations think that they are pandering to some audience somewhere with their musical choices and their types of presentation. Currently they’ve lost me. Any love affair I had with radio is petering out. Media sources say that music videos and performances are too suggestive to the point of being pornographic, I’d say that they (the performers) are becoming increasingly desperate to gain attention thanks to their lack of original ideas so they push a bit further. With all that pushing they’ve finally done the thing your parents warned you about; broken it. I would say that.

Stating the obvious: After experiencing the highs of last week’s creative weekend, this week has been less so. The good/bad non-creative head feeling thick and slow, as if full of straw and weeds. So much so that on Thursday a passing swift (those little birds that fly for the first two years of their lives without alighting anywhere) decided by head would make a good desert island upon which to settle. The beaming bald spot no doubt called out to him so he crash landed Lost style on the beach that is the bare patch somewhere between neck and temple, I can never see it properly, like the dark side of a strange moon. Anyway the tide must have appeared to be out and the landing lights on. He didn’t stay long, clearly recognising a hostile environment and flew away, perhaps not to land anywhere else for another two years. I recovered quickly but am remaining in a state of readiness, just in case a passing cat might suspect the bird was still in there somewhere. Then I began to think about Alfred Hitchcock.

Technology is unkind. The phrase “just for fun” is seldom one you’d expect to use when sitting at any laptop or PC. Designs and functionality create a constantly adversarial relationship between user and machine. Just try extending your Norton cover (set up for up to three other machines in the first place) to actually do that. Do they make it easy, is it a single click or the entering of an account number in a some convenient and easy to find box? No, nothing like that, in fact they don’t even attempt to make it in the least way intuitive or open, that way the punter may well give up a shell out another £50 for a whole new package. It is a clear conspiracy, why else (Norton) would you hide the download button or just avoid a straight and convenient path between the user and the answer to FAQ links. When confronted with this kind of user obstacle I use my twin attributes of focused anger and a mean spirit - then give up and drink coffee. Once the coffee kicks in I realise I’ve missed a step in the instructions, that would be normal but in this case with Norton, they’re just hell-bent of being difficult.

A year in the Facebook life

The rare moment when Facebook and Blogger meet and collide in a matrix of Mondrian photo forms. If I was a proper dedicated Facebooker I'd post this onto my profile - but I decided not to. I'll allow the anonymous images to stay away from their complex root and float freely in the relative obscurity of the blogsphere.

Earlier this evening we watched Andrew Marr eulogising about mega-cities in glorious HD. Mexico City, London, Dakar and Shanghai were explored and flown over repeatedly. The sights, sounds and smell presented a chaotic but optimistic picture of a crammed and constrained life that never looked quite as unpleasant as the narrative wished to make it. One day we'll all live like this, in silver suits, dining as fregans from dumpsters, cycling and colliding, sleeping in stacks and escaping to the tranquility of floating farm's fields when we need a break from our fellow travellers. The mass conscience will rule and provide purpose but the wit and guile of the citizens needs to set and keep the rules; the citizens own the city after all. I wonder if that ever occurred to David Cameron or Nick Glegg?

Just another band from Friedrichshafen

Heike - logistics, fuel and movements.

Martin - mainly bass and a lot of clever techy things.

Siggi - keyboards and backing vocals.

Ali - vocals, twiddling and flipcharts.

Middle-age bloke - middle-aged blokery and Gumtree guitars most of the time.

Something old

They did do things a little differently in those days and there were numerous options and God chose to teach his Middle Eastern, European and eventually world wide family about relationships - as above. Slaves, rape victims, widows and multiple combinations all figure. Of course this is Old Testament teaching and none of this kind of thing happens these days.

Meanwhile a thundery gloom hangs over our garden and we await the deluge that will break the weather's tension, perhaps. June will bloom one of these years and the grass doesn't cut itself. Regarding our musical exploits the weekend in Germany was a great step forward. Thanks to Martin & Heike we recorded five tracks and having listened to them now (a few days later) they sound pretty good. The next steps are polishing and presentations and a big gulp of ideas juice - things now need to come together and they will, always an interesting part of the process.

Back in the kitchen the cats have brought in another refugee mouse, I try to release it back through the door, it refuses and runs deeper into the house, the cats in hot pursuit. Under tables, carpets, in amongst wires and cables. The cats toy with their prey and it twists and turns and somehow eludes them disappearing into a mousy wonderland of curtain, skirting and black holes, for the time being it is gone. Something tells me I'll see it again, still on the floor, a present from the cats tomorrow morning.

I like model aircraft

This is a nice model which of course I didn't put together - but I haven't made one in over 40 years so I'm not familiar with the techniques. I guess you still need patience and a steady hand.

Home via Ryan Air

Back from the land of the modern airship, much chatting, recording, drinking and eating done in the process. By now feeling pretty tired with strangely sore feat but it was all very much worthwhile. Even the world's favourite airline (?) behaved well, the same can't be said about the weather but who really cares, we got five tracks done.

Scrambled eggs make a pretty good breakfast, over and out.

The answer is 43

For some it is the strangest and most mystical bus journeys on this lonely planet, a run that takes you to the very edges of the known world, passengers are like characters spewed up from James Joyce or William Burroughs texts. Here on board time and distance don't really matter, the fare will always be exact and large open expanses of free seating will call out to you (except at peak times and on public holidays). I am of course describing the famed No43 bus that runs between our capital city and the silvery strip of water and sewage that separates Fife from the Lothians: Edinburgh to the 'Ferry.

We followed a "lost" 43 last night, a prime moving example, trapped in a thunderstorm, in the the dull afterglow of a lightning strike. We struggled to keep pace with the great angry beast as it rolled past hedgerows, dead seagulls and prospective sites and drill holes for the new Forth crossing like a beached Moby Dick. Alas we could not keep up with this rain soaked, Falkirk built apparition as it suddenly winked an amber light and turned left into oblivion - towards the town centre. We'll never know what became of it or the solitary unfortunate, screaming passenger, it seemed to be bound for a weird place called "SORRYNOTINSERVICE".

There she goes, looking for a "non-cut-in" bus stop in which to trap poor, unfortunate motorists and young cyclists with their LED flashing hats and wet legs. Some say the violent, rearward pointing spray is a toxic mix of cat urine, Barr's Tru-Lem and Ajax, some say it's all part of a complex and primeval mating ritual unknown to human kind. All I know is that it makes your Timberlands go a funny colour.

Any Jaguar will do

Interesting old Jaguar seen here in it's natural habitat, needs a good loving home, needs help from SKY and regular sponsorship from the wallets and bank accounts of ordinary people, needs about £1400 also. Remember my advice about regularly driving a vehicle from another century, they don't come better equipped than this.

The Internet has been so slow recently that I thought we were being cyber-robbed by passing white vans from the CIA, I was on the verge of moving to the 24 hour MacDonald's (nicely done out these days in tasteful brown hues and comfy if a little stained seating) to take advantage of their free wi-fi. I resisted the temptation and crushed my cookies, buried my caches, deleted anything deletable and some more. Then I spent some quality time flagellating, wearing sack cloth and an RFC strip, removing skelfs and then putting them back in. I also imagined myself painting a fence. None of this drastic action improved performance...then I looked up the book, back inside my head. Off and On does it every time.

Toasting garlic bread makes the garlic much more pungent, you might want to watch out for that if you ever tempted to experiment. Meanwhile I've been wondering about the Labour Party recently, my problem is that unlike any of the other parties I cannot think of what it is they actually stand for. They seem to be critical (not in a very imaginative way) of everything but unable to articulate or construct anything positive. Maybe I should join them and embark on a second career. People in the Labour Party have Jaguars don't they?

Looking for Heaven in the wrong places

A few little things that came to me today, out of the blue if you will or from a place called nowhere (where paradoxically they were headed) caught and captured and so on:

Keep looking out for the pieces of something that might prove useful. The exact purpose and the eventual outcome of the exercise may be unclear at the moment of finding.

If you sit and stare and try to construct sentences it can take quite a long time to get anywhere, you may get nowhere but you could produce a book eventually.

Gazing out of the average window is unlikely to teach you anything.

Change the oil a bit more often than the manufacturer's recommended timings. Doesn't apply to Tesco Extra Virgin olive oil.

If you want to learn wisdom then listen carefully to what other people are saying. Don’t let odd thoughts and distractions cloud the process.

If you are way too conscious of your empty stomach or your dry throat, concentration will prove difficult.

Always observe the use-by date but ask yourself “do I have to use this?”

Check your shoes.

Regularly drive a car from the previous century.

If you are wondering “why have I no true friends and seem to be disconnected from the modern world?” - it's because you're an unfriendly dickhead.

Every so often a cat will sneak into your bedroom, sleep beside you and then leave before you are awake. It's plaintive whispers will be audible to your subconscious, it's ticklish whiskers will not.

Tight or uncomfortable clothing will not help, best to rid yourself of these things.

Always look down when in a public toilet.

Always look up when walking in a city.

Always look ahead when riding horse or a bicycle. No need to pedal the horse however.

Read a book about Keith Richards whilst listening to Let it Bleed.

Knowing the deep relief of getting a wood splinter out of your finger, when the skin is red and inflamed, the splinter is brown and your tether has ended.

Don't ever brag about food you've bought from petrol stations.

Make friends with an animal but be aware that it may quite unwittingly break your heart at some point in the future.

Observe the various boiling points of foodstuff and liquids and what happens shortly thereafter. Turn down the heat if appropriate.

It's good to have a job, better to have a career and best to have an independent income. A pension is also useful.

Go outside now and then.

When life hands you a lemon then it clearly failed to read correctly the request you made for a melon – that's because it's dyslexic.

Nobody understands conceptual art, don't worry about it.

If you are wondering where exactly the “cloud” is then I'm here to tell that it was a few words ago in inverted commas in this very sentence. That's all you need to know.

Regardless of their actual belief systems religious people generally consider themselves to be more noble, moral and upright than others. This is a seldom the case however.

Say hello to an Irishman. It'll make his day.

In the night your imagination is available.

Retain a childish fascination for the top most contents of waste bins and magazine racks.

Stand alone at the far end of the bar and enjoy your pint of beer in peace.

First, boil your sausages.

There are no racoons in Scotland because of prohibitively high travel costs.

When you walk in the forrest respect the silence of the great and ancient trees; avoid crunching on sticks or fallen branches, stumbling on loose stones, stamping on wild flowers or seedlings or stepping in dog shit.

The spellcheck is never, truly complete.

Most organisations (however large or small) are fundamentally broken, those that run them often fail to see this or bother to try to correct it. Be aware an keep your expectations realistic.

Much of the music played on Radio 6 is crap, that's why the people playing it are unsuccessful. That doesn't make the so-called mainstream music played on Radio 2 any good either.

Looking sharp isn't the same as being edgy.

When going through airport security practice your most pissed off look on anybody within your field of vision. This doesn't get you through any quicker but God will notice and might eventually do something.

What's the difference between a buffalo and a bison? You can't wash your socks in a buffalo.

Golden tickets

(Old news from the recovery file) Olympic tickets. I’m struggling with the whole Olympic application, ticketing and general minority sports enthusiasm that is building up. Frankly I reserve the right not to care about the Olympics (other than the odd sport or drama that I might come to like) at all. I hope it passes quickly and peacefully and that media hysteria remains in check, fat chance. I don’t care either if the UK wins loads of flag waving medals or whatever else but I am amused a the thought of stupid people paying lots of money to sit through sports and events they don’t really know about because that was all they won in the ballot, how sad is that? If it’s so important to be there and be part of it them, well if you are on these islands at the time, you are, no need to spend £13k. I’m with Graham Norton on this, “I’ve got my Olympic tickets…mine are for Miami in 2012”.

Naomi Campbell. I’ve never thought she was particularly pretty or talented, a bit of a zero kind of celeb in my view, a dull clothes horse. Now she’s miffed because Cadbury (or Kraft to be precise) somehow raised here irritating profile by comparing her to a bar of chocolate, so she plays the racist card. What a humourless tube she is, I’m glad she’ll soon me old and average, someday she’ll hoping for that kind of attention or mention. More important is the gradual degradation and depreciation o f chocolate flavouring we are all experiencing. The classic sickly sweet British recipe has been Europeanised into a bland, heat-proof mess of brown drudgery. A bit like Ms Campbell come to think of it.

The pen is mightier than the hard disk

Hard disk failure is imminent on the old HP laptop I am being told, I'm therefore left wondering as to how best to react to the series of alarming messages that crop up at carefully timed intervals. A back up is strongly recommended and there is the vague promise of some kind of self repair, like an amphibian growing a new tail section or a fresh leg. Of course the messages have appeared when I'm without the pocketful of DVDs or massive memory sticks I know I'll need to follow the badly worded on-screen instructions, so immediate and unstoppable doom awaits just around the corner. In desperate mitigation I did try running those impotent utilities that lurk in some of the less well known directories, not much change followed however. Overall I'm left with that awkward feeling that Laptops (and computers in general) fail to deliver what you really want. They are forever telling you what is going wrong, what might fail, how full they are or just giving you daft messages and choices you don't need to hear. So Microsoft have given the world brilliant but petulant software that demands attention, meaningless upgrades, long periods of rest and recovery and a crippling level of over sensitivity to any rogue atmosphere or device it detects. You wish that some of the more sophisticated programmes and facilities had been held back and that a more stable platform could have been arrived at, then you add in all the “nice to haves and toys”. Now I have a (thankfully spare) laptop that acts like it is some kind of rare Italian sports car forever needing a rebore or middle-aged operatic diva (also needing a rebore). Windows, Microsoft, HP and the rest, you are just too high maintenance and frankly annoying to bother with. Come back to me when you can make things work first time and then maintain a decent level of performance all of the time.

I ate coconut yoghurt and blueberries for breakfast. It forms the basis of my new healthy addiction and gives me deep joy and satisfaction, most of the time. Right now it's given me a tummy pain that I'm not enjoying and doubts are being cast over my so called healthy lifestyle. I may need a bar of Naomi Campbell.

Why does Dr Who put me to sleep? (In fairness he's not the only thing that does that of course) Twenty minutes into every episode and I'm sound asleep, not sure why I bother. Age, supreme sofa rapport and bad eating habits I suppose. I was thinking about how long it might take to roast a chicken – in the midst of the battle of flashing lights and electrodes. Then when I did come around (with a start) it was pretty much as I'd expected: River Song / Amy Pond etc. but it is supposed to be a kid's programme. Meanwhile Universal Karma is catching up on the Doctor, in a good way of course.

Light and shade and sunlight

Today the weather surprised everybody, Edinburgh basked in 25 degrees - unexpected. We chose to go out in the crazy heat and visited the Camera Obscura and on the way up the five flights of stairs that take you to the original attraction were seduced and confused by the numerous effects and exhibits that guide the way to the top. There are too many to list but I like the sparky stuff (as above), the maze of mirrors and the vortex. "To infinity and beyond" seems the best way to sum it all up. Go see.

Button money

Irrelevant photo

Three girls waiting for their flight in Southampton Airport, they are dressed in similar but different black jump suits, well coloured hair and with lots of disorganised baggage. They are pretty but are not pretty enough to be in a girl band but they are acting like they are in one. The most blond girl strolls across to the duty free shop and comes swaggering back with a bottle of champagne. The girls all have used Costa drinks cups at the ready. After some giggling and screaming the bottle makes a loud pop, everybody looks around as the girls lash the drink into the cups, at that point their flight to Amsterdam is called. They seem indifferent to this information and lark about drinking the champagne (which must be unpleasantly warm having just come from the drinks rack in the shop), the flight is boarding a few feet away. One girl jumps up brandishing the half full bottle and slings it into a nearby waste bin. The other girls are still sloshing around with their drinks and don't seem to notice, then they decide perhaps they should board the flight but they cant find their passes. Then they realise that their bottle is missing, the guilty girl laughs, empties her cup and heads out onto the plane. The other two giggle, throw their cups in the bin and follow. The lady at the gate laughs and waves them on. Over in some nearby seats and Asian guy is talking in a very loud voice. "Taliban time" says a man sitting next to me. A young, uniformed soldier sits in a triangle with three young women, they are all strangers but he is talking to each one in turn. The girls' eyes are all alight as he flashes his attention between each one, telling a tale or making some observation. The conversations reach an unexpected peak and then fall away, they all return to their headphone worlds or magazine reads. The evening sun reflects on the curved girders of the roof and I look across to the hall, there are queues of people boarding flights to Guernsey and Jersey. Everybody seems to be over sixty, that's the pattern of travel for the Channel Islands perhaps.

Button money is everywhere, in button businesses, invested in button enterprises and returning button profits (sometimes making button losses) - we have a button economy.

Last Christmas

Maybe it was last Christmas or maybe the one before. Anyway it's the decoration that time forgot, it has stayed successfully hidden for all this time but today I outed it. Having said that I considered the situation, tomorrow is June 1st, Christmas is just six months away, any real point in taking it back down now?

Sorry to say that the Fleet Foxes have failed me miserably with their latest release. Driving up to Pitlochry today I listened to "Helplessness Blues" for a third (painful) time. This album is truly awful and when I think of their sublime first album I'm lost as to how they came up with this lyrical and musical drivel. Like Enya drum beats meet Yes's poetry meeting Love's guitar strum with fishy production and disjointed and pointless songs, it's all those things but on a very bad day. Do yourself a favour buy anything but this piece of jigsaw puzzle pieces complete with long fades that should never have started in the first place. Ugh. You might consider Alison Krauss and Union Station's latest, 10000 times better.

Every meal consumed produces 0.5 m3 of stuff that you didn't realise you had in the first place. Every McD's produces enough landfill each week to fuel the average moon rocket with methane and of course fill the Albert Hall many times over. I may well be lovin' it but I'm not sure.

Sepp Blatter is innocent

Funny how natural it has become for all of us to distrust large organisations, banks and businesses. We suspect the worst, we assume corruption, double dealing, backhanders and unfortunately these assumptions are often rewarded with confirmation. We are seldom disappointed, we are proven to be right and in the words of Russian cinema "All power (well appears to be) is tyranny". Today I read that the average pay increase (in certain significant directorships) was running at around 32% for the current year, not a number that goes down well here in the frozen strata of normal living standards.

So now the suits and smug Five Star smiles of FIFA are on the verge of falling apart, World Cups are bought and sold, there are no free or fair votes and there is no noble end to this. Sepp Blatter is a slimy toad but is technically innocent until proven guilty, something that is unlikely to happen, he'll wriggle away under some convenient smoke screen; but the damage has been done. They had a beautiful game, they still might but heads will have to roll. Next for exposure and reputational surgery must be the Olympics, another greasy sporting mess that needs sorting.

Cat mint

Cats like cat mint a lot, so much so they will risk diving into dangerous and unfriendly baskets to indulge in this irresponsible drug use, then they stagger in an undignified manner. What are they thinking? But they are cats and we are the humble watchers of the universe, Dr Who, Grey's Anatomy, Andrew Marr, drinkers of red wine, chicken eaters, petrol consumers and drivers of ridiculous vehicles, wind dodgers and washing machine operatives. The cats in their idle and indistinct passions win...most of the time. Then there are the opposable thumb issues.

Meanwhile in a fit of storm correction and victimisation activity I saw the foaming glory of a Glenrothes car wash, a rainbow across Dalgety Bay, watched a cute dog become intimate with a sheepskin rug and felt the breath of an angry and unjust god blow across the car park at Dobbies. Average Sunday in most respects.

Look sharp

These days the ancient trade of knife sharpening doesn't really get the exposure or recognition it deserves. Where, as a civilisation would we be if all our knives had been blunted and stayed that way? No dead and butchered mammoths, no carved religious icons, no stab victims (Brutus, Ritzio etc.), no gutted herring, no topiary chickens, only worn out pencils on board of the space shuttle...the list and awful consequences just goes on. I was therefore heartened and encouraged to see that the age old trade is alive and well in the Lothians with a roving exponent out on the highways and byways every so often. I'm seriously thinking of booking a servicing session for my Swiss Army knife (7 blade model, 1989) and the garden shears. He'll be gigging at the New Hopetoun Garden Centre on 4th June...a piece of living history not to be missed.

Speaking of living history, this webcam is trained on the zebra crossing at Abbey Road. Strangely entertaining and worryingly compulsive.

This is not quite enough

I came home early from work (well about 2ish), I'd been daydreaming about going out for quick spin around the estate on my new bargain bike bought from a bloke in Buffies Brae so I wanted the weekend to start. The dream however was quickly quashed or squashed by Mother Nature's determination to provide a backdrop of raindrops to my outdoor adventures. I looked out of the window and willed the rain to stop, that didn't work. Then I thought about getting wet and how maybe that was not so bad. Then I thought about what people would think (?) and how I'd be labelled as a mad bloke from that house who cycles in the rain for pleasure. Then I sat down for a period of reflection, a beef salad sandwich and a bit of the Tom Morton show. Then I wandered over to the garage in the rain and sprayed WD40 here and there and loosened some Allan headed screws (that was good, satisfying and it's not any kind of euphemism). Then I chatted to a neighbour and picked up an errant package that he'd collected for Ali. Then I came in and started writing this drivel...and laughing to myself at the stupid monkey picture and decided that this is enough of that for the day. As Tom Morton said "If I'd known that it was this far away I'd never have come here in the first place".

Gumtree bike

You can tell summer is somewhere nearby, the air is strangely moist and the wind is strangely strong and a young man's mind turns to cycling and other two-wheeled type of endeavours - but I had no bike. That was yesterday of course, today I have a bike and I am officially a cyclist again thanks to exploring Gumtree's huge selection of keenly priced, used bicycles and after a few phone calls, ta-da! buying one. So I'm already planning a brief circuit of Loch Lomond, an excursion to the weekend horsey event at Hopetoun and a jaunt to John O'Groats via the May Island. I'm not planning on falling from it, getting soaked in rain showers, bumping into potholes or going up hills, ever.

Funny how in some photos bike wheels can look less than round, in fact they can look crooked and quite uncircular and unwheel-like. It is an optical illusion brought about by a dodgy lens, bad light and unsteady hands.

On a more serious note

The Scheme: I’ve avoided this BBC TV show for a while (one of many I purposely stay away from) but I accidently saw some of it last night. A sad and disturbing programme that chronicles the trials, tribulations, despair, stupidity and occasional warmth to be found in “typical” Scottish housing scheme. The turgid and repetitive misery must rankle politicians and do gooders in general as the drug abuse, petty crime and circle of squalor and meaningless behaviour is displayed and negotiated. It’s not a great advertisement for the habitual wearers of Glasgow Rangers football tops either. The message is clear; there is no way out and though they are certainly in need of some it’s hard to summon up sympathy for the real life characters all of whom comply nicely with the middle-class view of schemey stereotypes. I can imagine the smug but guilty feeling voyeuristic viewers sweating over the desperate antics of these victims, wondering were on earth our society is going and what is the point of having any aspirations in a place where socially mobility is actively seen to be running in reverse. The cast last night were both desolate and formidable in a way that makes you want to punch your own head and then the head of any nearby politician:

The gangly, inarticulate junkie who’s in a spiral of dependency, who will look forty-nine on his twenty-fourth birthday and who will be dead before he’s twenty-five.

The teenage trouble maker whom social services try to train and educate but who, despite support and cajoling falls back into robbery and violence when he’s bored or disaffected, which is mostly all the time.

The long suffering mother, robbed and abused by her feral offspring but with no option other than grow older and weaker defending the indefensible.

The teenage mum daubed with cheap make up and bruises, abandoned by her child’s feckless father who tries to build a home and find some meaning. Her clueless and dependant approach to life forever supported by a weak system that will relentlessly churn out another lost generation that will in turn make all the same mistakes.

The rough and evangelical carers, trying to build a community with real teeth on the dead gums of a rotting estate. They struggle to milk funds from a frustrated and broken system only to be forever beaten back by bureaucracy, cost hurdles and the apathy and pithy disregard of their own peers.

A well meaning, careworn gardener creating an oasis of expensive floral colour within the rubble, beaten down grass, strewn litter and graffiti who gets only a second prize (presumably for pluck and persistence) year in year out in the local gardening competition. His appreciative wife looks on and shrugs as he is crushed and denied the glory of a deserved victory.

Watching this a few weeks after the SNP victory and the jingoism and bluster that followed I can’t but worry about the soft underbelly of Scotland and the fatal flaws we all know lurk on the edges of our national psyche. Even the most deluded optimist can see that the difference between this version of a civilised pocket of Scotland and any given Third World shanty town is measured in single figure millimetres. There is a big job to do out there and Cameron’s Big Society doesn’t look tough enough to tackle it just yet.