Friday, June 29, 2012
Harumph!
Waiting from the rain to stop so that I can surgically probe the MX5's roof and water management systems. I have two special tools devised and modified from curtain rods and coat hanger origins that I intend to insert and thrust into the tiny drain and so remove what appears to be a significant blockage. This blockage has resulted in a wet footwell and carpets, a problem already encountered and lived with in the old long lamented Cougar. However until the rain stops this life saving procedure cannot be undertaken. It's tough at times like these to be both mechanical and medically minded as well as cack-handed and clumsy. Maybe it'd be for the best if it kept on raining.
Thursday, June 28, 2012
Go and chill
This (otherwise very good) week has been blighted by things out there, in the wild woods, wider worlds and media that for some reason have got to me. It's mostly the Tories, they are easy to hate, Cameron and Osborne - setting up Chloe Smith with Paxo, pushing and pulling, U turns and talking bollocks, they have no idea. Barclays Bank and it's clearly criminal activities. RBS with their bungled outsourcing backfire and we'll just "blame it on the poor Indian staff" routine. Rangers Football Club, cheating for twenty years, not a shred of honesty or integrity about them, swindling fans and the game and no sign of an apology or acknowledgment of any error. Alex Salmond for being a smug and unfunny human being, Alistair Darling for being a big wet kipper and then the never ending incessant June rain. OK, said it all - now to just sit under this here mystical tree and drift away.
Wednesday, June 27, 2012
Glayva
Actual photo of our actual glasses, actual ice and actual bottle. |
Tuesday, June 26, 2012
Five Stones of Wisdom
The Five Great Stones of Scottish Wisdom. These stones are between 3500 and 2000 years old, their meaning and use has been lost somewhere in the deep mists of time. They are the true representation of history captured in stone, ancient, rough and elemental, fashioned with primitive care by unknown hands and forces, mysterious and signifying long gone ways and wisdom. Times past, never to be recalled, never to be reenacted, from the blue flames of the occult and from the early pre-Celtic light of new knowledge acquired. I found them at the bottom of my wardrobe next to a vinyl copy of Big Country "The Crossing".
Monday, June 25, 2012
Getting the most out of life
Traditional pot (showing tear-off ragged edge) |
The classic corner model |
The swirling but irritating artisan |
Traditional cylinder pot - performs well but it's hard work to clear the (non) corners, 7 out of 10.
Swirling artisan pot - usually has good or exotic flavours but inner geometry is flawed allowing contents to stick, hard for effective spoon action also, 6 out of 10.
Corner tri-pot - excellent dump function and clean and open spoon area. Generally satisfying on a number of levels with user choice and mix ratios well indulged, 9 out of 10.
Pump action tubes - messy, awful, bad even for kids, best ignored, 1 out of 10. Not even worth posting a picture of the messy gunk either.
There you have it. Many thanks to the Scottish Government, Muller, the National Lottery and "The Fifty Shades of Grey" Specialist Barbershop South Queensferry for sponsoring my ongoing research. More news soon.
Saturday, June 23, 2012
Home studio
Just spent the last seven hours in the err...home studio (or dining room filled with miscellaneous cables and boxes to be precise) playing guitar, this is how I feel, not quite how I sounded however. I'm also pretty tired and my fingers are sore. I need some cheese, some tomatoes, olives, wine and French bread.
Friday, June 22, 2012
Doing something brilliant
Starting. For all the days when you should be doing something better, something brilliant, finishing writing that song, drawing up that design, making a start on your short story, practicing those difficult chords, taking photographs and editing them, planning and scheming how you can get more publicity for your work, taking notes and making observations, working out costs, meeting and talking, doing the busy, scribbling like mad as if a demon had a hold of your hand, trying to get that musical problem straightened out, capturing an idea and developing it, starting something, finishing something. Finishing.
Zombie. Meanwhile the zombies and time bandits are there, inside and outside your head, thieves and ragamuffins, clad in the uniform of doubt, thumbs busy on phones and applications, skipping and spinning in other people's wake, eyes glazed and dim, focused on a technological horizon that's running away, lazy and idle...and all the while, with each unnoticed, undocumented moment the time just slips away as if it never existed, ever at all. Apocalypse.
Nothing is wrong. There is nothing wrong, all is well, the economists are just taking a break from thinking straight, from putting all the numbers in the right place, there's nothing really wrong. But this crisis just goes on and on and on until it's normalised and we are institutionalised, like banks. Big banks that cannot fail because they are too big to fail because failure is unthinkable because we all want stability and things like that so we can all sleep at night. Sleep in peace. Sleep.
Good morning, good afternoon, good night.
Thursday, June 21, 2012
40 shades of blue
Art: The blues and greens of some undersea world, corked and captured in an artistic window sill piece that uses the sky and the northern rain as a backcloth and the warmth and fun of a family room as a context.
Football: The tribal pulling power of football is a hard
magnet to resist. I get pulled in all the time, whether it's laughing
at the hapless and criminal efforts of Glasgow Rangers squirming on
their self inflicted hook or watching Spain, Italy or England
struggle or triumph in Euro 2012. The primal need to support and
feel superior, the heartless disregard for the loser or the pain and
empty innards that come with loss and defeat. Concentration comes and
goes, stars shine and dim, sweat gives way to a cold fear and the
long walk back – from the TV to the couch to the kitchen to the
couch as the second half loads up and runs. I make my own
substitutes, send myself off, get fouled and kicked and then forget
it all as if none of it had ever happened. Futile and pointless
entertainment, skill, comedy and blind passion on display and pundits
who talk like discarded newspaper back pages or angry drunks phoning in.
Football in 2012, no better or worse than it ever was and no more
relevant. At least nobody has to run around the country with a golden
torch in a golden convoy in order to try to connect the spectacle
with the common man, all you need are a coach load of young millionaires and an eager sponsor.
Wednesday, June 20, 2012
We're not brave we're just...
Brave: Will American tourists be
inspired to visit Scotland when they see a well rendered but clearly
unreal cartoon version who's central character appears to be an
exaggerated replica of Rebecca Brooks? Perhaps they will, in the same
way I've always wanted to visit Bedrock to call upon Fred Flintstone,
Springfield to share a beer and some wise cracks with Homer and of
course Gotham City to attend a cocktail party hosted by Bruce Wayne.
Such is the power of illusion and fantasy created by the silvery
trails of cinema legend, mind bending drugs and artistic visual fantasy. People (that's you and me) can't resist the urge to
explore these brave new virtual worlds presented so faithfully and convincingly via high end artists and computer generated graphics, it's all just like the real
thing, only better, it's not real.
Tuesday, June 19, 2012
Diddley Bo
Why is it that after 44 years – for some a little more than a lifetime, the Rolling Stones “Let it Bleed” still works so well as an album? It's a curious mixture of cornball rubbish, bad playing, bad singing, poor songwriting and a ramshackle production ( Exile on Main Street is worse), yet despite this it's a great album and strangely for me and my single figure attention span I never get bored with it, I fact it gives me goosebumps. The whole thing must be proof of the existence and the success of chaos theory and that music that is pristine and polished seldom cuts as deep as the rusty blade the Stones used then.
Moving from this we have the holy grail
of rough cut music, here's a Diddley Bo carefully handcrafted from 2
x 4, a whisky bottle, a spare hum-bucker and a string and some nails
by my son-in-law Guy. Does it make proper music? Of course and it's
also strangely satisfying and challenging to play.
Monday, June 18, 2012
No longer at your convenience
For sale in Rosyth, behind a bookies and a corner shop and near the Police Station; a fine development opportunity. |
Near the beach in Aberdeen, shut and blank while hundreds of folks play on the grass or sand and use the nearby McDs for their McPees. |
Saturday, June 16, 2012
Euro 2012 prediction
So who played the right handed Fender bass? |
Thursday, June 14, 2012
Cyclists - lighten up
Tuesday, June 12, 2012
Something that works
It's great when something actually works well. These guys are on the ball, ordered yesterday, arrived today and apart from an incorrect measurement on my part everything was just right - two James Bond monkey suits, two shirts, one tie and a carrier - delivered (or so I estimate) in less than 16 hours. Perhaps they have a unit manned by elves and fairies over the hedge in Broxburn. Try it here http://www.mytuxedo.co.uk/ .
Monday, June 11, 2012
Prometheus revisited
That Space Jockey moment. |
Alien is/was a case in point, low budget, grubby, a bit scary but with a good central idea and most importantly the promise and mystery of some back story that is never revealed in the film (this also applies to the Matrix, Easy Rider, True Grit and so on). The big mistake in Prometheus is that they (the guy who wrote the Lost scripts must take a load of blame) failed to understand that fans don't want a whole, bigger picture Von Daniken 70s trip shoved down their throats like a face hugger's tentacle, all they want is bit more on the back story as a tease and not so much actual full blown explanation.
Explanations in Sci-fi and horror are as useful as Penn & Teller pulling the curtain open away halfway through the trick. Cinema goers want to stay where they are, in the dark spooning ice cream and be allowed the fun and latitude to speculate on a story's outcome and to use their own imaginations - the spaces are very important. It certainly worked for God and Jesus when they left us to write the Bible's back and front story ourselves.
What else is wrong with this?
a) The basic premise - a team in space that don't know each other, are belligerent and have no regard for their own safety or understanding of the mission; how real is that?
b) A script that is stilted, laugh out loud awful, pathetic, inane and actually unhelpful in the storyline.
c) Jump cuts and badly timed edits that leave the viewer dizzy and confused as action and huge wedges of plot motion are crammed in to fit the running time.
d) A mystery central character already outed in the hype but hidden from the rest of the cast, why?
e) A supposedly intelligent back story that makes little or no proper sense because it plays on muddled myths that are too weak to sustain a plot.
f) Wild assumptions about the durability of a feeble human body - after highly intrusive surgery.
g) Unless you're Clint Eastwood or Woody Allan you should probably stop making films after the age of 70, or get some younger help.
h) I still give it as many as four stars - that's clearly wrong but the look, design and production are too good to ignore.
All very frustrating.
Sunday, June 10, 2012
Three o'clock shadow
I don't mind the shape I'm in. |
Here's the list.
- Butter a piece of toast while peeing.
- Brush someone's teeth against their will.
- Blow on food while it's in someone else's mouth.
- Help someone else blow on food while it's in someone else's mouth.
- Eat food that's fallen out of someone else's mouth.
- Eat food you found on the floor.
- Eat food you found on the mantle.
- Eat a sweet you found in a shoe.
- Turn on the TV at 5am.
- Wipe somebody's nose with your bare hand.
- Let somebody barf in your bare hand.
- Eat baby food.
- Blame a fart on a child.
- Blame a child's fart on your spouse.
- Get someone dressed while you're in the shower.
- Pass out from blowing up a kiddie pool/balloon.
- Cut up a grape.
- Almost agree to cut up a raisin.
- Pretend to enjoy the flavour of a prune.
- Ask someone why their hair smells like yogurt.
- Ask someone why their hair smells like your antiperspirant.
- Put someone else's toenail clippings in your pocket.
- Let someone watch you crap while they stare blankly eating an iced lolly.
- Have someone think you're amazing at frisbee/football/drawing.
Saturday, June 09, 2012
Social media and the death of song writing
Turns out that snails and insects enjoy stale sweet corn more than the birds do. |
Cat falling asleep #1. |
Cat falling asleep #2 |
Cat falling asleep #3. |
Cat now asleep. |
Friday, June 08, 2012
Looks like chicken
Compost heap padding materials. |
50% rhubarb, 50% apple, 50% crumble - it just doesn't add up. |
It looks like chicken but it tastes like a magical and romantic evening in Tuscany. |
Wednesday, June 06, 2012
Last word on the Jube
Live coverage from the Beeb features Fearne Cotton and Paloma Faith discussing the merits of the Jubilee themed sick bag, not really possible to make this kind of item up.
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