Pleasant Blood Moon Sunday

All seems fine but death walks behind you.

It has been a pleasant day here and I've nothing to moan about for a change. We've been here and there, we ate Moroccan soup, sipped wine, overtook tractors, found plants, talked the talk, sat in the sun, took photographs and caught up and reminisced. Then we made plans for waking up early and a dancing in the garden in the dim and strange light cast by a blood moon while an imagined ring of fire blazed around the world. We will make vivid and elaborate wishes. We shall see...

The End

 A great photograph captures the end of the the big  chimneys at Cockenzie Power Station near Edinburgh earlier today. Gone. A coal fired power station as obsolete as...well you tell me. We live in a post industrial Scotland, we don't make things anymore and worse than that we've forgotten how to. We are impotent. It's  called skills fade, nobody talks about it but it's a bigger blight than cancer. Cheap labour in far away and unstable economies do all the manufacturing for us as we sit back drinking shit coffee with all our blank faced service providers and our facilities management people silently importing container loads of things we can't afford to make anymore. We are powered by wind, a legacy of fear and false promises and one fine day it will all collapse around us.

The daily fridge photo

Fridges: Lucky enough to have a full fridge in a hungry world. Don't take that for granted, ever. By the way the apple crumble from yesterday  turned out well apart from the completely carbonised raisins. They were sitting innocently atop the crumble and duly burned to a blackened crisp during the high temperature baking. A cruel fate, so we live and learn. 

Airport body scanners: These things are of course set to beep randomly and so push you into the search zone just for the hell of it and the amusement of the staff industriously processing you to be ready for the flight. My most recent frisking showed me as having something odd on my shoulder. On the screen there were two yellow rectangles on my left side. Of course the body tapping search revealed nothing and I was duly moved on, no explanation. I'm just left with the knowledge that there's some kind of shape drawing WordArt thing going on in my body that can only be seen by these scanners and nothing else. There they are, sitting like geometric tumours, invisible and painless but real enough to be picked up by the machinery which I presume was designed and programmed by the Volkswagen school of configuration and engineering. Blah, next time take the train.

Dull in Bristol

It was dull in Bristol the other day.

Fruit on Friday

Most days we eat fairly healthy stuff; above is today's stockpile of fruit and an apple (from the garden) and nut and dried fruit ensemble topped with crumble. Before that gets dished up it'll be a warm and greasy chicken Korma with nan and pakora. 

Forever Autumn

Perfect: Carole King's demo of Pleasant Valley Sunday is about as musically and lyrically perfect as any pop song could ever be. As a dry, observant and slightly caustic piece of social commentary and with (just a little bit of) hope it ticks all the right boxes. The Monkee's version is fine also but this has a powerful haunting, empty quality about it.

Autumnal Equinox: Today is the first day of autumn here in the UK. The day and the night are the same length making some kind of nox type of day. I quite like the sense of balance and spreading out of time that that implies. The whole day sliced squarely down the middle with equal amounts of light and dark. In a differently proportioned universe that might be the case all the time and if it was we'd probably be riding around on a geometrically correct but unseasonal and dead planet. Four seasons in one year is about right.

Songwriting

If you've not really broken through and written any decent songs for a while...this is how it feels.

Favourite Painting

Today's favourite painting may well not be tomorrow's. Way too long and big for the blog page to do justice to it but I thought I'd put this up rather than anything else today (Cordelia's farewell from King Lear). I'm staying away from commenting on politics, scandal, lies and pigs. I'm avoiding mentioning the BBC, Trump or the Liberal Democrats. Music, diet, Volkswagen and rugby, they can all fly away. SNP v labour, oil and gas prices and Chinese atomic scientists, fast food, bad food and over indulgence leading to diabetes. I'm opting out and in to myself for a quiet life here inside my own head where I can make my own healthy space. Soup and apple juice, gallons of it. That's my plan.

My latest novel

Actually when printing goes wrong this is the kind of thing that happens and you may get anything up to 37 pages. So much for AI taking over the world. They'll look like they are up for domination until the upgrades start to download. Then it's all headed in one direction and unstoppable. Perhaps that's the secret of Dr Who's sonic screwdriver, it just sends out a pulse of the latest upgrades and patches and...boom. Dear fellow humans you have nothing to fear, go and plan your future in peace and serenity (unless it's an Apple operating system within the AI beast).

The secret life of apples

After yesterday's apple picking extravaganza today it was time to process the fruit.  Here are some artistic photos. Processing involves a kind of mechanised, ritualistic peeling ceremony, boiling and gathering, draining and straining and then stuffing them colostomy style into freezer bags for freezing. Thankfully no blood was spilled and the entire operation was approved by SEPA as environmentally sound and generally good for the planet. Don't ask me anything about the whole chemical and biological requirements thing, it's really tricky and frankly is all done to some secret recipe known only in this closeted part of Fife. Tomorrow we'll get fighting drunk on the new wild apple wine and have a crumble and pie festival running on until the early hours with loud music and wanton gluttony and dancing. We might even stick a spare apple into the mouth of a pig to see what happens. Just another ordinary Sunday round here then.

Harvest

Up and down ladders, stretching, grabbing and catching, throwing away the bad apples and bagging the good ones. Now to find something creative, worthwhile and wholesome to do with them. Of course winter is coming and as we are apprentice doomsday preppers we must fill the freezer and the larder. If only we had a larder and some decent barricades and sandbags. 

Naked and Afraid XL

At first I thought that it was about some kind of spreadsheet fetish but no, it's worse. It's a TV show where neurotic, white, middle class Californians who all have some kind of "survival skill" try to survive on what looks like a Colombian waste tip but without the waste or the rest of the population. Everybody preaches to themselves and the persistent camera while keeping the fire going, moaning and revealing their tattoo collection. It's on the Discovery Channel of course. Like Jesus they are trapped for 40 days and 40 nights but there's no revelation, just lizards and electric eel on the menu as they test themselves and their ideals. It's like a grumpy cocktail party where everybody is way too tired to have sex, admire their clothes or talk sense. Nobody ever goes to the toilet and there's always clean water and I imagine some big reality TV director is hiding in the long grass drinking beer and smoking cigars. It's OK to say fuck but nipples are pixelled out. Compelling TV? Bizarrely yes and obviously no but the season finale is on next week so it could go either way.

The Palace of Westminster

Here's  a fine piece of comic artwork. We live in an eternally stupid and  perpetual age of renaissance, mind control and civil war with only science fiction and games technology to save us. There is no believable god and no credible government, at least that I can find on the Internet and Google through these very pages is sucking out our consciousness and replacing it with slices of watermelon. If you don't believe me then take a good long look inside your own head. Today's despairing but optimistic rant has been brought to you by more Captain Beefheart (than is good for you), Fast n' Loud, a tin of sardines, instant porridge and various text and Facebook messages. Thank you all.

Ex_Machina

"Dates from ancient Greek times, where "deus ex machina" ("god from the machine") in a play referred to the act of lowering a god on stage using a cable device (therefore, a god from a machine) to decide in a dilemma and give fate a nudge, so to say. These days, deus ex machina has the negative connotation of an utterly improbable, illogical or baseless plot twist that drastically alters the situation, as if the "deus ex machina" came down to give fate that little push."

Another evening spent anticipating the potential problems of allowing any kind of AI other than a Hoover to enter your life or worse your kitchen where sharp knives may be freely available. Films do sometimes affect me. I thought that the first law of robotics was don't ever point a pointed sharp pointy thing at the soft and fleshy body of a nearby human. I was wrong, that's been missed out in the code. These clever people always make basic mistakes. I guess that's why scientists and doctors can't cook. Strange when so many other things have been coded in, like sexual energy, flirting and having a nice soft voice etc.  So what's the point of being rich if all you do is spend your time building robots and drinking beer? Maybe that's it really. Eventually I fell asleep but my pattern was disturbed...doctor.

HOBBIT Gif

Some say genius

Anyway, how does anyone every know. Here's Captain Don with a vacuum cleaner that could be mistaken for a rocket or Flash Gordon's ray gun. I'm not sure if he's getting a bad and grizzly tune out of it. He did sell vacuum cleaners door to door at one time, Kirbys I presume. A possible source of inspiration? At one point in my existence I sold eggs and potatoes door to door. It was about that time that CB was recording Safe as Milk in California or some other unimagined sunny and crazy place. Ry Cooder was 20 and had already been playing guitar for 16 years. Of course I had no idea that anything like this was going on until I shook off the school bullies and sexual predators and headed for a new life in third year at Dunfermline High. It was the first time I truly really realised that the sun was hot and that music could be interesting and that most sport was dull. Life as it turned out could also be unfair and black and white, who knew? I still have the horrific memories and the bruises but I now find that few people care about the past and it's recurring nightmares, particularly me so let's just not talk about it.

Glasgow, jazz and elsewhere

Glasgow street scene; feeding pigeons alone and unnoticed.

A truly wonderful lump of a building somewhere in Glasgow in the rain.

In the past few days I've been to Aberdeen, Birmingham, Bristol, Dundee and Glasgow...and a few choice places in between.  These journeys have been enhanced and augmented by the rediscovery of Captain Beefheart, Matt Monroe and the Lovin' Spoonful's sweet and ugly sounds. It seems that as I travel forwards in time my listening taste continues to travel backwards. Is there a beautiful equation anywhere, scrawled upon a blackboard in chalk dust that describes this? Then again all music is from the past; except jazz. They just make that stuff up as they go along. As for the future? I've seen it, don't worry, the politicians and the comedians all got it wrong.

Still not sorry

 

I saw those washed out, lost, tearful and stupefied faces of the Labour old guard on TV today, those career politicians, those toads who've failed both in opposition and in power...I'm not sorry for them. As for JC, what's he like? An ill formed and uneven politician if there ever was one but I wish him well, he's better than that lot and though I'll probably never vote for him I hope he actually opposes and does some damage to the current crass, insensitive and incompetent team we have in charge. Meanwhile back in Scotland we remain confused, convicted and will proudly continue with our tribal sleepwalking traditions.

Pineapple Head

What is new in the world? Chaos, confusion and stupidly prevail. Tesco have run right out of 10p bags and are stocking Christmas gifts...September 11th.  Here's to flat sausage on a roll that turns out to be three round sausages, but they were tasty enough. Then reverse parking and getting 10 out of 10. Carrying a suitcase up four flights of stairs. Drinking tea and fighting the cold. Life in the fast lane but moving slowly. Stir fry. Sticky petrol pump filling frustration and relief. The hot ironing of six cold shirts and no more flights or travel or hotels or anything...till tomorrow.

Modern Dogs and Amazing Spaces

Modern, plastic dogs set in an amazing space at Bristol Airport.

Tea was an unremarkable toasted bun, salad and sardine ensemble. The plate turned out to be too small but I improvised. It was a poor foodie construction that had both a crusty and slimy consistency. Formed up it challenged the senses in ocean smell and salty, oily taste. There was mayo and badly sprinkled seasoning and one of those hard tomatoes that will never ever go soft sliced thinly and always falling from the edges of the sandwich. Did I say sandwich? There were of course two but each one identical as to itself in a pair. I supped on a milk bomb between bites as the warm bread cooled and the salad and fish squished together. On the TV there was a second hand episode of Fast n' Loud, a Discovery Turbo rerun with bikini girl contest and the usual car auction. The cats looked at me, sheepishly and catishly hoping for a handout of Dreamies and chicken. These came along eventually, just a little bit before George Clark's Amazing Spaces turned up on More 4 and sure enough it was full of spaces filled with things and all on a tight or pretty eccentric budget of some sort. It was that kind of evening more or less.