Would you credit it?

Wednesday: A day without grace or favour it seems, sunk in a whirlpool of worky, testy types of things and relentless bad weather. I decided to wash the curtains to cheer myself up and despite being temporarily beaten back by a large spider I managed to remove them from the rail. Then it was a mad dash to the machine and a carefully chosen programme - lowest temperature but maximum disinfectant. I celebrated this triumph with knifeful of Nuttella and accepted the full sugar rush as a down payment on inconvenience and years of recurring back troubles. The drive backwards was uneventful enough and for a few brief seconds feelings of euphoria and unexpected holiness flooded over me. At that point the sky seemed to darken and I momentarily took my eyes away from the road, you know how it is, next thing I see ...

History of the Stones Part 99

My ongoing research into the history and adventures of the Rolling Stones continues and occasionally surprises. An extensive search of papers, files, records and shoe boxes has turned out the old letter shown above. Funny the things that you discover hidden under beds and at the back of closets.

Person of restricted growth

This Lego DV lookalike is taking up valuable sales space in the John Lewis Emporium in the fair enough city of Edinburgh. The trouble is that he's slightly out of scale, complete with a full size head but only three feet worth of height. He looks like the kid in the VW ad or an Ewok in disguise, maybe I'm just missing the joke as usual. Tidy piece of work though.

Meanwhile I've recovered from yesterday's brief dose of the Tram City Festival which seems to consist of great crowds of mixed up European tourists milling around, queues of Australians around cash points, miscellaneous opportunist beggars and various kinds of street theatre with magic tricks using thick and quite attractive pieces of knotted white cord. Somebody somewhere is making millions from this annual charade and general Tom-foolery, the local economy is clearly over stimulated and rampant. The feeding frenzy is strangely infectious and also disturbing; everybody is trying hard to have a good time/cultural experience/spot the celeb/talk it all up/get out of it/get into it or just survive. It's what people do best I guess and a life without festivals would be exactly that.

Today the rain almost relented and I relaxed into primitive gardening mode, hot, sweaty and all cut back to number two on the imperial lawnmower scale after three weeks of green and swirling anarchy. I feel fulfilled.

Edinburgh Daily Photo

Lots of tracks, not too many trains. Framed by foliage the mighty rail terminal that is the Waverley, constantly being repaired and upgraded, redesigned and renovated. The problem is that despite all these efforts and grand schemes it hasn't really improved in 50 years, apart from the end of steam and smoke and you cant get a car anywhere near it. Outside confused tourists stand bewildered as great tides of people stream by, shoppers and junkies mix, police and traffic wardens look for new customers, somewhere over the horizon and in some secret streets a festival of some kind is taking place.

Wandering along George Street to experience a little of the mud and the blood of the Book Festival drinking coffee, cream and carmel and avoiding the rain. Book lovers gather and stare at great piles of books, authors sign copies, sup on lattes and try hard to look cool and interested. It's that time of year again, hoping for big sales and decent returns and a break in the weather.

Deep blue nowhere

At times that's just the way you see things, for an alternative view see below:

The best advice you'll ever receive: "Pay attention. Be astonished. Tell about it." Not the opposite: http://bit.ly/qnXrXj

Blowing up bridges and sleeping on a bed of money

There are many things going on, in and around in people's heads, even now, wherever you are, whatever you are doing. One from Bob Servant on Twitter:

This a Partridge radio link “@BBCNewsnight: Is bad parenting partly to blame for the riots? Singer-songwriter Jamelia joins us to debate"

Ghost Hotel

Ghost hotel: a cool new chain, available all over the world in many fantastic and exotic locations. Just make sure that your expectations are ready and set at low. This one hasn't seen much action for quite a few years, access available by road (just) but arrival by sea, in daylight is advisable. Beware camping hippies, wild dogs, poor sanitation, infestations of various kinds and the sludge at the deep end of the swimming pool. I also hear that the catering standards and the staff conduct leaves quite a lot to be desired. Avoid the all inclusive package if you can. On the plus side the weather is great and so are the views and if you survive the first night you may well get most of the beach to yourself.

July (Turkey)

Turkey's own version of ASDA, quite unspectacular really. Much of Turkey's infrastructure and structure could be best described as ramshackle or verging on the pleasantly chaotic. The rest of it is unfinished, unsafe and absent. Interesting place to visit.

At night orphan cats come out and sit on the roofs of still warm parked cars, then they check out the tourists and the passing lizards and chickens. It's a life I suppose.

From a boat deck strange islands float past in a deep blue and deeply salty ocean or sea or some kind of body of water. Sunflakes sparkle across the water and it's time to relax, lie back and enjoy a cool drink. Turkey is OK.

July (Greece)

In Greece when you ask for a large beer you get a litre of the stuff in a glass boot. As a tourist this makes you feel a little exploited at first. You get over that feeling once you've finished supping the beer. Funny the effects you get with alcohol.

On a tree in a car park somebody has painted a cat chasing a mouse down the tree trunk, an unlikely scenario. Of course this image may have it's own deep meaning and significance in Greek society. Probably belongs to some political party or anarchist group.

In a cafe a stuffed and dressed hare armed with a shotgun welcomes all customers - except me. I didn't find the prospect of being help up at gun point by a large animal particularly attractive.

July (Wickerman)

It's been a very busy July, too busy to blog or stop and think, however these are some catch up photos from the Wickerman Festival in the South West of Scotland.

Wickerman awaits his fiery fate, in the distance.

Incredibly blue skies meet and greet at the arena entrance. Between the two stages we saw a number of decent bands; Feeder, the Coral, the Pigeon Detectives. The best bands however were on the second stage - two ska outfits, tight, loud and a lot of fun, oh and a Johnny Cash tribute, you never know what you're going to get and, best of all you never know what you're going to like.

Festival domestics are interesting and colourful at times, wish I'd thought of this as a company name.

The path

Sometimes the ground under your feet just crumbles away, sometimes the road disappears and for a moment you are lost. But that's only how it seems at that time and time is nothing more than moments, connected and joined by indistinct blurs and passing thoughts. When the next moment comes along perhaps a new path will appear and a new way forward will become your obvious route, just ahead and not too far. The broken stones that were under your feet and that hurt you are behind you, they can't be forgotten but this sweet and magical journey will continue...wherever it takes you.

For G.

Lego: Game of Thrones

Everything has it's mirror image in the Lego universe, whether real or unreal or unwritten.

Guilty burger

Dining in Burger King is a guilty and over indulgent pleasure, too large, too filling, too much onion and over priced. Their tills and price list don't quite match up, after any order you always pay a fiver more than you expect, unlike MacDonalds here you end up paying less than you think for inferior concoctions. Angus burgers are tasty though, big, hearty and you just want to gobble them down which is exactly what I did. Salt is of course an optional extra and only used by the over 50s in a desperate bid to pep up the fries, they seem to have slimmed their fries down recently for reasons of economy not customer satisfaction. The shake was too small and too cold, so much so that I had three brain freeze moments in my first three sucks, I suppose that's my own fault. Overall verdict; the right thing at the right time, Angus has all the beef you need, nothing else really matters much – 7/10.

The school holidays bring in the yummy mums with their hungry broods. A few weeks into the break and already they look worn out. A handful of years ago they were bright students, head girls and prefects with clear skin and bouncy hair. Then they discovered the joy of sex, home ownership, fitted kitchens and the inevitable parenthood trap, their other halves planning separate futures from some traffic queue on the M80. Now the hair is pinned back, kids called Jack, Hamish and Sophie emerge from complex car seats and attempt to eat chicken nuggets, always one eye on the Jungle Jim, the other on the sachets of ketchup. Meanwhile procession of drug dealers and petty criminals crawl past the window on the way to the drive-thru, you have to do something to pass the time in the middle of the day. Then the tattooed bikers and truckers come in for a snack and unless I'm mistaken it's that fat couple from Falkirk who just won £161m on the lottery. Everybody gets hungry sometimes and sometimes only a burger will do.

Monster Munch

Monster Munch, you can have them for lunch.

I was trying to write something profound and clever about David Cameron, News International, the Apprentice, Twitter, popular music and Top Gear but it's too early in the morning -no brain juice.

Airstream dream

I've always (?) dreamed of owning an Airstream caravan, the only kind of caravan or moving/sleeping utility object I'd consider tolerable in any form. Anyway I stumbled on my ideal mobile home sitting in an oddly juxtaposed way on the ancient cobbles of Market Street St Andrews acting as a clothes shop. Eh? The poor thing has been emasculated a bit, unless you consider caravans to be sexless. This commercial usage seems a bit of a waste however it does look marvelous, check the condition of it and the shine. If I did have a few extra quid to spare there is no doubt in my mind that on our extended driveway there would be a Delorean and an Airstream parked and ready to roll most days. How predictable and juvenile is that as an idea? Not sure a Delorean coupled up to an Airstream would work as a towing combination, might need to check that out with the Caravan Club in order to preserve the full integrity of this fantasy - may be not a wise thought. It's always tough when technical problems undermine or cripple daydreams.

Nice restored milestone set about a mile away from St Andrews as you'd imagine.

It's close to being a mystery

The now infamous bad cat crossed a line early this morning, he entered the house without express permission and ate a packet of oat and raisin cookies from the worktop, for some inexplicable reason forgoing the obvious greater pleasure of a pack of white chocolate cookies. I have serious doubts about his taste. Having said that much of the evidence is circumstantial and other potential culprits lurk on the periphery, they are:

A mouse trapped halfway up the kitchen curtain (close to the cookies) at about 2200hrs Friday night. The exact whereabouts of the mouse are unknown, it was last seen being eyed up by a cat.

A sleek and hungry looking badger spotted in the lane running West at approx 2400hrs. (Heading away from the crime scene).

A small black frog on the kitchen floor this morning - unlikely to posses the wherewithal to open and consume a pack of cookies.

A large toad out on the back path at 0900. No crumbs or evidence to suggest any involvement.

The other cats, none of which have shown a penchant for biscuits of any kind in the past.

A few suspicious adults and teenagers were also in the vicinity and may have taken the early morning opportunity to scran the cookies. Anytime from 0130 to 0730.

The truth is out there, as are the cookies.

Reach out and touch

To BT or not BT: Today the BT man came to repair the BT phone which blew out unspectacularly in a (non BT) thunderstorm over the weekend. I waited patiently and the jovial repairman duly arrived an hour late and set about his task. I'd already performed all the mandatory tests and I'd had two texts warning me that if it wasn't equipment failure a charge of £150 would come our way, nice start BT. Of course there was a fault which he fixed but a complete fix was not possible because our BT router which runs on the same line had a fault. A simple question followed, “Ok, can you replace the BT router Mr BT repairman?”

Of course that was a stupid question, his apologetic reply was, “Sorry though I'm BT I can't replace your router, that's actual BT, I'm BT Openreach.” I looked out of the window and pointed to his van, “It says BT on your van.” “Yes but that's not the BT you need, I can only fix Openreach routers, Sky routers, Talk Talk and so on, in fact I can fix every kind of router except a BT router.” (I can feel the scream building up inside but then a still, small, far away voice says, “be calm, this is the UK, in a new and vibrant Europe, we were once capable and competent, in our own heads anyway, but those days are gone, it is was a brave old world and all that new world thing was just hype, so let it go, let it go, walk on and be at peace and without a working router). Next step, reach for the repaired phone, dial some 0800 number, listen to the options, listen to a robot, then listen to somebody talk to me like I'm five years old then...wait a long time for a postman to bring a BT router. (Three working days according to the nice young man.)

Anatomy of a song

Songwriters

Anatomy of a song: Have as many hooks as you can, strong hooks, sharp hooks, fish hooks, wild, original but familiar and splendid lyrics, guitar passages that run like horses fresh and fed from the stables, a deep bass that stuns and groans and grunts and drives like a taxi on speed. Drums that crash as waves on far away beaches, booming and bombing, tinkling and signalling some crisis or triumph while cymbals ring with deliberate collisions. Somewhere a voice rises above all this, screwed down, turned up, going in any and every way, telling stories and jokes, pictures and soundscapes, great escape, lovers and ghosts and a long way down and no way back in the well of souls and lost love. Drama and theatre, squeezed in some digital box, shiny disks blown through the wires and cables, unstable but able to consume, command and make you obsessed, make you guess, unwind or rewind in the stress.

You need to learn each word and know each chord, to imagine and fantasise on tricks and techniques, picture the moment and hold if for yourself your own time, spent in the cans, some strange and private land, only you go there, following the footsteps of a million other listeners and trailblazing for a million more to come, because this song cycle never stops, we echo every step, in reality, memory and lives soundtracked. In music and song there is and can be no turning back – but I still miss the times I spent studying the gatefold sleeve and scribbling doodles on the inner liner.

Welcome to the news

I think I've bought my last Times and Sunday Times, not that I was a regular reader but I would buy them if I had time sit and read a paper properly or as a kind of treat. I was also thinking about taking a sledgehammer to the Sky box, that would be costly and a bit to extreme, that's the trouble with having (or getting without much warning) principles, then I'd have to explain my actions to someone in a call centre. I love newscasts, media, debate and all the rest of it and the press badly needs to fight for it's freedom but not this way. News International is an unprincipled, unethical bully of an organisation. It needs to be put out of it's misery. Sadly we've a crop of idiots and toadies running things, though I'm sure in some parallel universe Dennis Skinner is the Leader of the Opposition and Boris Johnson is Prime Minister and I'm an ice cream vendor.

So we have many talking boxes, talking all the time, their gathered and cleverly constructed messages are still getting through to you. This happens whether you like it or not, your mind repeats, thinks foreign thoughts, ones unspecified by you, ones that lead you to somewhere you may well wish not to go. When you get there, let me know. Meanwhile there is always the thought that someone else is listening in to this crackling conversation, a divine being perhaps, far reaching all seeing CCTV systems, aliens, an Apple Surveillance Ap of which you know nothing, the FBI or a hack journalist in a cream cotton suit with a loose neck tie. The good news is that, thanks to all of this we are never alone.

Dont fear the slowly fried egg

Cat out in the sun shock.

It's in the early morning that the brain works best. All the connections are fresh, their hungry apertures wide open, sparking pieces of protein are readily available to go to work and connect. In this blissful state of clear protein connection a higher level of thought process can be achieved. It was in just this elevated state that Chaos Theory, String Theory, the electric light, chewing gum and the internal combustion engine were all first conceived. KFC's secret recipe (including the various Southern herbs and spices) was concocted, the Space Shuttle's wiring looms were designed (if they ever were to be unraveled they would reach from here up into space apparently), a device for threading needles for blind or one handed people, the home computer and the first five chapters of the Bible were written onto the inside of a cereal pack; all of these came to be just as the sun was peeking up towards the floating clouds, across some misty far away horizon with Stonehenge shrouded in the distance. With that great panoply of invention and achievement behind me and only my addled imagination before me I rose today at 0550 to take in the cosmic lentil broth and draw deeply of the inspirational ozone to seek what I might write, invent or break through on.

After a few moments finding my bearings (remembering my name, my mantra and what household appliances might not be working properly and therefore should be avoided) I ate a banana, looked out of the window, took a shower and cleaned my teeth...slowly a picture emerged...yellow, white and bubbling like that primal, life giving soup from which ugly, slimy creatures once emerged duly blinking in the wonder of that forgotten evolutionary moment, still full of all the essentials oils (and herbs and spices) and encapsulating all the vital and precious elements necessary for human life as we know and perceive it to be. Oh yes, the secret of the universe is what I always thought it might be, the humble fried egg.

The power and majesty of the eternal forces of thunder and lightening have ravaged the local countryside over the last couple of days. Sheep and cattle have been worried, toads have been absent and cats have been seriously perturbed to the point of distraction and emitting strange mewing sounds. Worst of all has been the cynical and clinical fork of lightning that has somehow severed our phone line, dead, dead as a dumb dummy. Strangely the inter-twerp has survived and is operating at full power (at a snail's pace in a race between two very tired snails). Faced with little choice I retired to another friendly number and phoned for help, not a good experience. BT provide a barrage of messages designed with the commonest of men /woman/people in mind, there is no escape, you have to listen to every word and of course obey. Step by step you follow but nothing happens, then the messages end leaving a handy customer vacuum. I phoned back again eventually getting placed in contact with a fellow human who spoke bad English. We exchanged pleasantries, the story of the storm and explored the possibility of other local problems. It was however all too difficult to fathom by phone and now an engineer must attend. We shall meet this great man on Wednesday it transpires, in the meantime the phone will not ring unless some of the white man's magic prevails. Surely a little piece of God's revenge on us all.