Bare bones and stones

The remains of the old pier, cannibalised and carried away to other places for constructions and creations. Now only the bare bones remain catching the creeping grass,  crawling green seaweed and the odd pieces of tidal debris.

Tesco emails

Food Concerns OUR RESPONSIBILITY AND OUR PROMISE. Dear Mr Barclay, Nothing is more important to Tesco than the trust our customers place in us. And that trust depends on the quality of the products we sell. Since we became aware that a small number of Tesco processed meat products have been contaminated with horsemeat, we have been working flat out to get to the bottom of the issue. While tests continue, today I want to make a clear promise  to customers and to tell you about the rigorous processes  we have put in place to prevent this situation happening again. Here's my promise: we will set a new benchmark for the testing  of products, to give you confidence that if it isn't on the label,  it isn't in the product. And that will be backed up by an industry-leading  commitment to enable you to find out much more about what's in the  food we sell and how it's produced. Let me tell you some of the things we are doing immediately: I have asked my team to review our approach to the supply chain,  to ensure we have visibility and transparency, and to come back  with a plan to build a world class traceability and DNA testing system We are building a new website, which will enable our customers  to see the progress we are making with our testing programme,  and which products have been tested so you can be sure of where  we are in the process We pledge that over the weeks and months ahead, we will open up  our supply chain, and give you more information than any retailer  has before to enable you to make informed choices about the food  you buy for your family. And I am determined that no customer will lose out as a result of the  testing process we are going through, so from Saturday 16 February  if a product is tested and then withdrawn from sale, we will provide you  with a better alternative for the same cost. You can find more details at  your local store. This is just the beginning: I am clear that, as the UK's leading food retailer,  it is Tesco's responsibility to lead on this issue. Our priority right now is to  complete our testing programme as quickly and thoroughly as possible, because  people need to have confidence in all Tesco products. In addition, we are  looking in great detail at every aspect of how products are sold in Tesco and  at how our relationships with our suppliers become more transparent and collaborative. Where changes are needed, we'll make sure they are made. And let me be clear   that this doesn't mean more expensive food - it just means doing things the right  way, and accepting nothing less than the highest possible standards in the supply chain. My absolute focus is on giving our customers complete confidence that every single  product on sale in Tesco is of the highest quality and contains exactly what it says  on the pack. It's what you expect of us, and it's what we demand of ourselves. Yours sincerely, Philip Clarke Chief Executive Dear Tesco, You're a bit too late with this, I'm now getting meat and vegetables  from my local farm shop, a little bit more expensive but better quality  and (in one word) trustworthy. Please don't preach to me  about how you're doing the right thing now. You, and the rest of  the supermarkets and suppliers should've been doing that a  long time ago. Best regards and fuck off. JB

Fraser

Farewell Fraser Drummond. Today was all about you and I feel very proud to have known you. That's it.

Anxious cupboard

Therapy: One of our cupboards is suffering from occasional anxiety attacks. It's really not pleasant to see or be close up to. "The path to a clear and stable head and a bright future begins here." Every day I repeat this to the cupboard, I light candles, strum moody minor chords and read uplifting books aloud. I'm sure it will all make a difference one fine day.

Tiger Balm: Yes that's me in the corner, back on Tiger Balm. I have a sore finger, perhaps age induced wear and tear arthritis, perhaps a bad case of Shredder's Finger, perhaps it's all imagined. Anyway the recommended treatment is lashings of room temperature Tiger Balm applied to the troubled area. Does it work? Not sure but it seems like the cats are both finding the exotic odour emanating from my middle digit area quite attractive. My main concern is; will I ever boogie up and down the silver fretboard of  the Great Gretsch White Falcon ever again? Only Tiger Balm knows the answer.

Twitter: In the dead of night last night as the world either slept or was skelped by Soviet meteorites my Twitter account was hacked and burgled by Wikileaks, Anonymous or some other less notorious data burglar or deep seeker of the truth. Not sure why anybody would want to get into my lowly and dull Twitter trousers, unless they are a "Bagger". Yes, somebody who goes somewhere just to say they've been there. Sad really.

Warmly Positive

Pagan Picture of the day: A hairy head of fiery fire as the Warm Witch comes along, rises through the murky sunlit tide and clutches the cold shore, pulling herself inboard into a naked winter wind coastal black out.

February brings the chill: One of those days when every part of the elements seem against us, snow and sleet and flooded roads and ice and really all rather wintery and unpleasant. Shovelling slush is not much fun, it's just ugly snow that's morphed into a dead alien frozen jelly. I should stay away from the keyboard on days like this, unable to find a warmly positive position until I'm home.

Economics: Funny but no matter how much I spend in Tesco (and I spend less than than I did before and will spend even less now that the great Donkey and Equine food scandal is playing out) I always get £5.50 in bonus ball vouchers.

Boys from the Black Stuff: The pot-hole fairy has visited our fine two mile single track Z Class road and deposited deposits of solid road repairing matter into the numerous holes and chasms that opened up in the last few weeks. These spring wrecking, coil bursting, car crashing pits are gone no more to bother and damage us...and will last at least until the next great flood, due this Friday.

Not quite sure...

...what this might mean but I think it means something.

Through the cat flap

Affected by the damp, damaged by stray H2O, then removed with a screwdriver (+head type), open to the elements, available for any dumb stray cat to abuse, ready for a newly enhanced silicone sealed and resilient alternative i.e. the same old model gunged up and waterproofed with fresh white gunk from B&Q. It still leads to the same old garden however.

Sweets

Sweets procured and gifted from the rare and spectacular world of Harry Potter, this is the kind of tasty, sugary thing you get when you exit via the gift shop. Please note that this post is in fact a week late and overdue. I apologise most sincerely to my numerous avid and disparate readers scattered as you are across space, time and the Lothians.

The future

As a distraction from the world's present troubles it's always nice to tune into  a little Sci-fi to check out the future. There's always trouble there. Sure enough in the film Looper time travel and the associated paradoxes and problems occur in that dirty, techy way I quite like. Meanwhile people are still driving around in MX5s and pickup trucks, urban decay abounds, searchlights and helicopters check on everybody, dustbins are always on fire and drugs and violence are commonplace; criminals rule all it seems. I wonder if politicians and businessmen today realise what they're bringing on us? Anyway this is a good film with a good cast and a decent, twisted story. Emily Blunt is surprisingly convincing as a 2040 American.

OK, so they've substituted horses for cows in various food products. We can add the food industry to the long list of bankers, politicians etc. etc. that we can now officially distrust and so in the process all get back on the Fife diet, makes sense to me. Meanwhile, just to get ahead of things I'd like to know what are they using now instead of horse. Beware!

Fraser Drummond

For Fraser Drummond who died today; a wonderful, intelligent, articulate man. A brilliant musician, songwriter, gardener, wildlife enthusiast and guru. One of Edinburgh's finest. He leaves his loving wife Karen and a whole host  of friends who were fortunate enough to know him during his all too short lifetime.
(Photo by Malcolm McLean).

Plasticine tyres

I seem to have made the almost fatal mistake of fitting plasticine tyres to the peerless family grandad-mobile Volvo. Poor quality boots make an erroneous purchase if ever there was one. These mighty chunks of flawed rubber, installed two Venusian years ago have now sadly expired after a mere 14000 miles, mostly spent in orbit around the planet Fife. That's about the distance from here to somewhere else and that's not far enough and to prove it I have a failed MoT certificate to treasure and possibly frame. In dawn's early light, or at least by tomorrow evening I'll be up at the local Farmer's Auto to get proper replacements. This time I'm going to ensure they're made of the finest quality Pakistani plasticine, hand made from holy-cow dung, vulcanised and baked to sun dried road burning perfection. No more of that British or Eastern European rubbish either, I'm out for the best black circles money (up to at least £54 per tyre) can buy. Long may you run.

More pretentious photos

Saturday past was one of those bright, still and frozen days that used to make up most of winter, typically crisp and almost exhilerating. Those were the old days before endless grey, overcast skies, biting rain and the Coalition Government. Petrol was 74p a gallon, we smoked hot fags, ate square sausage and music was some live and alive thing that it can no longer ever quite be. Anyway as I carried out some outside chores, hauling logs, harassing badgers and shoveling the river-bed gravel I took the photos displayed above. I then shoved them through a battered Fender Twin Reverb, a Coloursound Cry-Baby and a wonky Fuzz Face. The results are my low-toned homage to forgotten winters, the search for warmth and the cold hardness of our neighbourhood elements. All pretty much pretentious enough for sharing on a Monday.

We need a lot more logs

The log store has now been safely fastened to the wall and so houses  our small but perfectly formed winter fuel exhibit. Clearly we need more rotting, dead timber to complete the piece.

Reflections in an icy water butt #1.

Reflections in a watery butt of ice  #2. 

Reflections in a buttery ice water  #3.

Watery reflections in an icy butt  #4.

It's hard for me to remember a more memorable weekend than this but that's probably more to do with me and my constant battle with age and biology than the weekend itself. It may also be due to the demon drink, the demon vegetable soup, the demon chicken pie, the demon Lego and last but not least the demon Harry Potter Jelly Bean Collection. We have a lot of demons round here but they'll get their comeuppance one fine day. So on watery reflection it's true to say that sometimes things just conspire against you and sometimes they fall into your lap; all warm, lovely and wet.

Weekend Count:

47 wild birds well and truly fed.
1 butcher conversation.
1 farm shop conversation.
2 sleeps.
7 family members catered for.
1 foot dirty with sticky mud (left).
22 Harry Potter Chocolate toads scoffed.
1 squirrel running across the garden.
1 sock lost.
1 dead tumble drier.
1 stray cat assaulted with slipper (left).
1 MoT expired.
2 glasses of Orangina drunk.
12 text messages sent.
43 potholes dodged.
3 potholes driven into.
1 flat barrow lost in B&Q.
4 eggs, 4 sausages, 2 haggis slices and 6 bits of bacon (rashers) fried.
I could go on...

All is quiet

Cats are highly therapeutic creatures for their human companions with their purring and preening and sleeping and doing not much more. Well every so often they fight or jump around but mostly they are oddly serene - and they pass that serenity onto us...a few cats, a bottle of wine...peace in our time.

Don't drop the Dyson

Modern life (here in the whatever it is) can be seen as a series of encounters with domestic appliances and mechanical and electrical devices. Everyone comes in at a different level on this; the early adopters, the don't care about the details, the use it up wear it out, the avoider, the wrecker and so on. I also see that some families/individuals are prone to equipment failures on a common range of items. For some it will be washing machine failure, kettle burn out, car trouble, phones with rubbish batteries, hard disk failure, irons consuming their own cords etc. Anyway for us it seems to be hoovers, they come, work for a period of time and then give up the ghost, choked by gunge and fluff and that weird cosmic dust that just appears from nowhere but is deadly to any hoover around here. We're in Dyson mode at the moment and despite all the design sophistication and hype it seems to me a fragile and ungainly beast. It does however work quite well.

Yesterday it seemed that it's suction, when applied to imbedded cat hair in a carpet was a little less than desirable. Had one of those dreaded vacuum bowel blockages occurred? I carried the ill machine downstairs for further investigation and possible surgery. It was during the carrying process that I began to realise the nature of the problem. The main dirt compartment parted company with the Dyson's chassis and somersaulted down the stairs. In doing so it created an artistic and complex pattern of dust and debris that covered the staircarpet, wall, windowsill and the downstairs hall. I stood back and admired the stoorie devastation for a few moments and swore colourfully. Then I put the Dyson back together and Dysoned back up all the mess. It works fine and the stair is clean but I know I'm never more than a mbar (suction measure) from the next episode. What's worse, stuck in a loop or trapped in a vacuum?

Anyway if you like "What if?" as opposed to "WFT?" questions this a useful slight diversion.

Escapes of energy

Well not if this zebra patterned balloon has anything to do with it. It irritates after about five seconds, then you think you see a frog, then you imagine what might be in the balloon making all the fuss, then you stop caring and click elsewhere. This is in fact a good example and summary of all things (well most things) that are web based. I'm still looking at it however and that mysterious energy seems to be trapped in there well and truly.

Other people's lists

Three of my chosen albums; cosmic, twee and pish. Appropriate enough really.

I'm perversely proud of the fact that of the top 100 most influential albums of all time I have (or have owned) a paltry 17. My tastes and those of the rest of the world are strangely out of kilter, in a pleasant enough way. In fact at least 50 of the albums listed here I don't like at all nor would I consider them to be seriously influential (and on whom?), but that's the whole point of lists I guess. I think I can now officially describe myself as rather cantankerous but quite good at building bonfires. Test yourself here.

Cat Flap Repairs

There's only one way to chase the unwelcome moisture from your malfunctioning electronic cat flap and that of course is to administer a healthy dose of hairdryer heat at full force, preferably late at night when it's raining heavily. This practice may well be above and beyond the manufacturer's instructions and to some extent beyond the laws of physics but what else can you do?

Haggis: The Photo Portrait Collection

There can't be too many haggis portrait photo blogs out here/there on the intertwerp. What's the chances of "Haggis: The Photo Portrait Collection" coming up as a Google search? I may have started something. Hopefully in a few hours I'll have also eaten something. Happy Burns Nicht or whatever you happen to call it.

In Search of the Aspirated Wh

The search for the justified and fully aspirated Wh goes on. I was rather pleased to hear than linguists and academics all across Scotland were concerned that the use of the aspirated W was diminishing. The situation has been recognised and help is at hand, I think. This tragic failure is taking place today along with the rampant use of the term Burns' Night rather than the totally correct Burns' Nicht. Anyway the expert witness in all this said he would be eating vegetarian haggis and reciting poems, but not necessarily those of of Burns, on Burns' Nicht. At that point he lost all credibility. But, never the less and yes indeed I now feel fully justified and technically approved of by the great and marvellous bodies of Pictish education and science with seats of learning in such places as Glasgow, Aberdeen and Lochgelly. More blethers about the problem, (demonstrating the aspirated W or Wh as some would have it and the associated problems) are to be found here.

Meanwhile I need to brush up on my Wh-hisky, Wh-heasel and Wh-hat the feck is this all about phonetics.