Goats and chickens

As if in answer to that eternal question and conundrum over separating sheep from goats and chickens from tadpoles this Fife based device has been invented and launched with a small but audible fanfare. The goats seem happy enough, bereft of sheep and the chickens, apart from the occasional melancholy moan seem almost happy. Who knows quite what fate awaits them? We tried it out for ourselves using a simple mixture of ginger cakes and Haribos as bait, the results being patchy but in some respects promising. The trials are unlikely to continue mainly thanks to lack of funding and other vague holiday plans.

Coast

We live on the coast but we are not faster than most and we occasionally eat toast. So today as it's August it's time to buy the stock of logs for winter and the deep cold which could break out any day now. So I did, I bought too many for the log store. I also bought a box of doughnuts but they were not part of any long term plan, in fact they were part of a chaotic type of plan, one that seems to deny me fresh fruit and gives me only sugar. It's the unnecessary indiscipline that sets in all too quickly when the daily structure of the working day is gone for whatever reason. Normal, healthy service will shortly be resumed. 

Fringe 2015

First outing to the Fringe in glorious Edinburgh, a kids show in the Pleasance Igloo. Quite funny actually, both the act (Jay Foreman) and the audience. As you'd expect kids and modern parents. Sometimes I despair, then I laugh to myself. One Californian father of two sat chewing the same piece of gum for an hour, unmoved by the experience. Elsewhere confused kids kicked off as if they didn't know how to behave once trapped in a dark venue. There was breast feeding, face paints that were running and numerous tantrums. Some real beauties. Some kids shouted out things, so I joined in. As a grandparent I took it all in, enjoyed the stupid answers to clever questions and wondered for a while quite what sort of people, apart from us, come here. Crowds of baffled tourists, pretentious twats, locals avoiding things, the bewildered souls seeking culture hits and vendors. The vendors are the best, all new to the job and a little confused so getting served takes both time and long periods of eye contact tennis. A skill I've not quite developed. Then once you get your overpriced and slightly disappointing stuff they can't work out the change. Oh how we laughed and soaked up the cheery if a little contrived and highly sponsored atmosphere, but the sun did shine briefly.

Snog, Marry, Avoid?

Ok, I'm not going to be cruel here but sometimes I do wonder about things and how they ever came to be the way they are...

I love the smell of pop tarts and Calor Gas in the morning but there's none of that at today's International Balloon Festival in Bristol. I won't make it this year but I wish them all well. There calm weather and bright sunshine prevail. Eighty seven balloons will be in the air, maybe even more. Bobbing and drifting in the pale blue skies, at the mercy of the elements who today choose to be calm and benign, easy and supportive. They said that there would be days like these but they don't arrive very often. Some craft are like minions, penguins or giant advertising hoardings, almost free publicity that only your fellow free air traveller can appreciate. Free like a bird, serene and dreamlike, easy enough till the part where landing and recovery has to happen. So said the man with the broken arm, a balloon pilot and event organiser by profession. I wonder how he broke his arm? Meanwhile everybody wants to blame somebody else for the weather. I don't know why. There are no seasons anymore.

The last time I ballooned.

Somewhere else in the woods

Corpse in the woods

So if some random granddad, like me, is taking his grandsons camping in the woods, what advice should you give them about what to do should the old man somehow expire/pass away/ breathe his last etc. during the trip?

a) Phone granny.
b) Phone the police.
c) Maybe find granddad's phone first.
d) Call for help.
e) Don't do anything and don't touch the fire.
f) Check his wallet (steal money?).
g) Go back to sleep everything is better in the morning.
h) Pretend it's all a dream.
i) Phone your dad.
j) Any adults about? Can you trust them?
k) Steal the car.
l) Eat all the sweets or roast some marshmallows.
m) Consider how this might look on trip advisor.
n) Run screaming into the woods.
o) Administer whisky, that'll fix him.

OK, no too many good ideas there other than avoiding an untimely and solitary death if I possibly can.

Pocketful of clouds

Well I did have a pocketful of clouds once when, as a teenager, I set my trousers on fire thanks to the careless use of matches but that's another story for another day. These are some random clouds that I encountered on the road near Stirling and there's nothing remarkable about them apart from the fact that they can float above the earth and hold significant amounts of water vapour. These clouds are light, fluffy and happy; one imagines. It's those dark and angry ones you need to look out for. Goodnight!

Open Reel

“I had a friend once. He had an old open reel tape recorder. He'd often leave it running in the room, say during parties, just recording those conversations. All that party talk, hours of it, music playing in the background, doors opening and closing, glasses clinking, recorded. Perhaps someone would shout or sing, voices would be raised. Maybe some drunk person would stand too close to the mike, whispering or talking low, speaking out some dark secret or sharing an unpopular opinion. Then get a reply from another close by. Then there would be the loud joke where the whole place would stop and listen and then erupt no matter how rubbish the joke was. People would get off together sometimes, I suppose you'd hear all that. Occasionally somebody would see the mike, grab it and just jabber into it or do beat box stuff, lick it or put it in their mouth. People didn't get angry or upset about it, it was part of the fun and as the party progressed most everybody would just forget about it. That's what happens. But it kept on running. He had long slow tapes, big spools, I think so because I never did see them being changed. There were hours of recordings of everybody who ever came into the house but it was hard to tell the voices apart but I think he could. He said to me he had an ear and I guess I must have agreed. He did have an ear. He said that it was just like taking photographs. I'm still not sure what he got from holding all those parties, there were a lot of them most weekends and I'm still not sure what he did with all of those recordings. They must be there somewhere, in boxes, all those parties, recorded and in boxes. Funny. Sometimes people do things for no reason. Then again I was going to wash the car today but it rained so I stayed indoors, daydreamed and wasted time instead and eventually wrote this”.

Lost Cosmos

Never mind the bollox, the economics, the scaremongering or the alleged threats of awful things that might somehow ruin a long lost middle England that doesn't even exist. Never mind the polls and the statistics and the prophets of doom. Let's for once try to be a country that actually shows some compassion and concern for our fellow humans and doesn't disguise it in back-handed and uncontrolled foreign aid that buys who knows what. Let's give the stateless people and some modern version of peace a chance. Some Karma points for the UK at last maybe and we can stop labelling people as migrants in that horrible sub-human way that has become the norm.

Enough

I'm fed up with stateless people trying to find a new life being hounded by police and politicians and called "migrants" as if they were the scum of the earth. Most I've heard being interviewed a) speak decent English b) are articulate and c) are highly motivated and keen to come to Britain. Some may be criminals or spongers, some may end up in jail or the House of Lords but that's true of most people here, none of whom had to run the gauntlet across Asia and Europe to get here. These are real people who need help not persecution and it is a crying shame that neither the British or French governments can see that as they bend to the invisible will of right wing media and prejudiced opinion. More here...or here.

Cecil's last photo

Maybe it's the cats in the house that do it but I've been affected a little by the Cecil the lion story. Sadly it serves to remind that there are some incredibly stupid and bad bastards in the world who clearly have more money than sense and no real concept of anything other than serving their own perverted appetites. Maybe the right place for them is in the House of Lords or the KKK where at least they'd be labeled clearly and we could avoid them all. Maybe that's just how things are and (as I've said a few times) there is no point in campaigning or fighting and resistance is futile because at the end of everything we're hell bent on wrecking the world by mindlessly consuming everything in it - but hopefully not completely in my lifetime. On a brighter note an army of robotic synths may well arise and just put all these jerks out of their misery in a completely unfair but justified fight that wipes out humanity. Thank you technology for what we are about to receive.

Tuesday already

So dear diary, here we are at the end of another day where the dream of tomorrow and the reality of today meet in an uneasy meat sandwich of potential veganism and Mocha coffee. I'll pay no attention to those stray thoughts and just mump on about the weather, internally and stare over the acres of Wickerman dirty laundry that has fallen upon us from outer space via muddy field. Already I'm missing those great green, dung covered landscapes, the fags and beer, the endless junk food and questionable coffee, the sound checks and that deep, almost abstracted bass tone that rises up through the ground and robs you of sleep and sanity to the point where you just want a tea, a wee and a bacon roll. Sadly next year I plan to be elsewhere.

Post Wickerman Post

Here every year but who knows what it does?

Green panorama. 

Main stage, dull day.

Wickerbeast from far away.

John Cooper Clark in the distance. 

Lulu Q&A session.

The burning.

Well another year and another Wickerman. The weather almost kept itself together apart from biting occasional cold spells and the music was the usual daft mix of everything you'd expect. Lots of people were there in silly get ups. Downsides; not enough craft beer, beer prices and beer timekeeping. Upsides; nose sunburn, two out of three hot showers  and aimlessly wandering for 48 hours or so.

Later sometime

This will be edited, some time later, when I get around to it, to make the change or changes required. This will certainly be edited.

Economics of Mars Bars

Take a normal sized (?) Mars Bar, douse it in batter and deep fry it in bubbling, yellow deep fat for about five minutes, then sell it to tourists for £1.50 as a Scottish delicacy. Then tell everybody you invented it and that it was William Wallace's favourite treat anytime he was passing through Stonehaven in his Hillman Imp.  Tourists will flock in wide eyed and slavering, the world will beat a path to your doorstep and the locals will wonder what all the fuss about whilst whispering "we  never eat any of that shite  round here". Then along comes Aberdeen Council or somebody and they want to demolish your shop in the name of healthy eating and put the catering staff into stocks on the village green...aye, that sounds about right to me.

Fox P.S.

Sure enough the fox returned during the night and ate the egg, so that's that until the next event / sighting anyway. Meanwhile various stray and wild cat events occurred whilst the fox was scoffing the egg. This involved cat burglary, cat loitering, cat feeding, cat stealing  and being placed under extreme early morning scrutiny from a distance whilst staring into a mirror to observe the sky. Now it's back to being quiet and dull and we can relax as the weather closes in again, the days darken and wild winter draws down upon us. I predict that the next sighting will be that of wolves coming down from the hills prior to the ransacking by the Vikings and various hordes and unsavoury types running stir crazy. Things can be tough in a post-industrial and post-capitalism world.

Fox news

First time we've seen a fox in the garden, this young fellow was hoovering up bird's food and bread crumbs whilst the cats maintained a safe distance. As a tester I've left an egg out...we'll see what happens next.

Cultural event of the week

David Bailey's Stardust exhibition is on in Edinburgh having already toured Europe and the free world for a while before. Here in the city of swishing trams, cold winds and windows and irregular paving slabs it's set up home. Grey amongst the black and white. There are some great, signature pieces on display, the 60s and 80s featuring the strongest images, all familiar and resonant for those of us of a certain age. I wandered around in a monochrome daydream for a happy and innocent hour looking into the eyes of those iconic faces. The Rolling Stones are all there, Kate Moss, the Beatles, Andy Warhol and the lovely Jean Shrimpton. Somehow it seems as if people like that will never come round again and here they are, dead or older but captured, smiling, sneering, vacant and posing as if yesterday was yesterday. You still can hear the evocative long gone click of the lens and the 35mm motor sound echo in the distance, down some time tunnel where we are forever young, like all those images. 

Sunset on Mars

Sunset on Mars, not much you can say to top that. Also consider this, it's the only planet we know that's populated solely by robots.

Big day in space

Always good to hear that some man made object has survived out there in the blackness of space to get to the outer reaches of our solar system and take a few photographs on the way. It's what we humans do. Memory inevitably fails but photographs go on almost forever, so I imagine because of course I can't quite imagine forever.

So speaking of photographs and the act of taking them, here's a few that I took the other day.

In the end I had to stop half way through the cake section of the meal, I'd never eaten quite like this before (afternoon tea) and it was a challenging event. 

So just to keep things interesting and in order to succeed in filling up more of the never ending white space here are some cat antics from my favourite cartoon studio; Ghibli.