Little rays of sunshine

I don't know how and I'm not sure how they do change things; by being awkward maybe? I suppose this is close to true but I'd like to think that non-conformists who express themselves with poor spelling, hygiene and bad manners don't change anything. It's likely that I'm firmly in the dull conformist sympathiser camp despite wishing otherwise, that's because growing older tends to lead me towards the path of least resistance and the pursuit of a quiet life, whatever that may mean. My chances of moving worlds or even nudging them gently may be numbered but I will not make that an excuse for despair or loss of purpose. Why only today good but normal things happened in various places; a corn bread & ham sandwich, milk bombs, laundry attempted and a spot of DIY tree lopping, the general avoidance of transport, printing out photos and framing them, wrapping birthday gifts, practicing wah wah pedal and removing cats from work surfaces. I also stayed out of the rain, spotted a piece of blue sky and saw some kind of thin moon in that same sky all whilst wearing some non scratchy, comfortable socks (as well as other types of clothing). A few more little rays of sunshine would have made it all perfect but then that might have been seen as conforming to some predictable and non-world changing pattern. 

Bring back the bridge tolls

 

Good to get away from the dark heart of an isolated and bitter Fife where brother strikes against brother and move over to the country's alternative capital...err...Glasgow. Here there are festive fairgrounds, free flying balloons, mixed icy drizzle and various coffee bars and branches of Nandos. People scurry with purpose and shout friendly and regionally adjusted abuse randomly. There is a European Market similar to the one in Brussels and everything is reasonably priced at at least a fiver. Even Buskers are on the living wage.  It's just like Fife but it's also a place where nobody moans about broken bridges, traffic management solutions and the fucking crowded trains.  I'm sure there are a few more underlying problems however. My journey home was a triumphant "stick it to the man Mad Max roar" across the Kincardine Bridge in the firm's Mini Cooper. I later found out that said road had been reopened for use by the general public about an hour previously. Start the revolution without me and bring back the bridge tolls.

Well that was eerie

It's not often, even in these last days of the planet earth the you come upon a flooded and naturally closed motorway. Going north to Aberdeen we encountered this and followed a lengthy detour in the wake of the mild sounding but rather nasty Hurricane Desmond as he poured rain onto the UK. As we passed by we saw that Glenfarg was a mess of blue lights, hose pipes and a lot of angry water close to the road and unfortunately in some people's homes. Our return later and after dark was a bit more scary. The motorway had reopened but all was not well, they were busy closing it again but only on the the northbound side. For me then, travelling south all I saw was a couple of cars, lights on and stationary in the northbound lane facing the wrong way. Uh Oh. There then followed an eerie  twelve miles of being the only one going south and nobody coming north in the rain and high and exposed in the bleak mid winter hills. At any moment I expected to hit a wall of water, a heard of stray deer or just plunge into some great sinkhole. Well that didn't happen, we just drifted further down this ghostly road to see the serene silence of Fife where once it joined onto the formerly busy but now redundant Forth Road Bridge. All quiet on the Southern Front for all the wrong reasons.

Some say "Big Ben", I'm not so sure.

FRB and the fractured links

I for one am relaxed about the closure of the Forth Road Bridge. I'm not so sure we ever really needed it anyway (and what have engineers ever done for us?). Stupid Scottish steel from the nineteen fifties. OK the roads will bung up a bit and tempers may fray but we're avoiding contact with the whole Edinburgh Christmas Market/skating rink/big wheel/New Year rabblerowsing serial sham that is portrayed as some kind of glorious festival. Here trapped in Fife we can enjoy an endless supply of Brussels Sprouts, turnip and Puddledub buffalo sausages whilst the rest of the world struggles with trying to enjoy itself. The drawbridge has been drawn up, we're stuck here in a seasonal siege with (let's face it) nothing to lose. Citadel Fife I salute you. Just wait till we get a touch of snow. The Kincardine bridge is the next to fail.

Munchy Box

I don't eat this kind of stuff but other people do.

I'm content to keep a safe distance from (most) social media at the moment, just in case I say something I might regret. It's all down to one thing or another and the avoidance of controversy. I certainly don't consider this blog to be social media either. It's more of a lonely dumping ground for tiny thoughts, quick impressions and a scatter gun selection of images that just might remind me what I was doing should I happen to look back in a week or two. In many ways I should have outgrown this by now or become more honest and outspoken. I've avoided both paths and in the process managed to get myself as lost as a postman.

Jean Liotard

I was fortunate enough to get a close look at this man's handiwork, much of which is currently on display in the Royal Academy. A remarkable talent, a curiously successful businessman and one of the most enigmatic and unrecognised figures in art history. And he worked mostly using pastels...

Climate change

Now that the great and the good and delusional have gathered in Paris to discuss global warming and how best to engineer global cooling our nearby neighbours have responded in their own sweet way.  By neighbours I'm referring to Ineos far away across the river (that's about a mile). They've turned up the petrochemical flare to around eleven on the dial. We can hear the roar, we can almost feel the heat and perceive the message to be "A Merry Christmas to one and all, don't worry, whatever you decide we're still going to do whatever the market's demand". If only all that excess of sound and fury and fire and brimstone could be channeled into something other than industrial fireworks.

Life is a piece of cake

Well it can be. Monday according to the calendar and various other expected events now and at last last week is over. Still alive afterwards after numerous escapades, travels UK wide and snow that looked bad but finally came to nothing. In the midst of this a song was actually written, a slightly disappointing Dobbies dinner consumed and more recurring theme TV watched and despite all the tension and action almost immediately forgotten. Unlike the lovely cake. I've also realised I don't really need various bits of social media to survive but I lack the heart, soul and resolve to cut them off. That's probably because I'm too lazy to embark on more of more meaningful things in life...this week. Maybe next.

That's entertainment

Or that's intertainment, a new and potentially meaningful word that may have something to do with:

internet-attainment, international-attainment, interweb-attainment, internet-entertainment...and so on. Some possible current examples:

Homeland
The Last Kingdom
The Vikings
Fargo
Fast n' Loud
The Bridge
Inspector Montablano

...I have no better ideas at the moment.

Hair like Adele

Cat dreaming and in the dream experiencing a deja vu; this may be a good example of parallel universes scientists say. Tea cup (that is a banana in a parallel universe) for scale. Meanwhile everybody it seems either wants to bomb ISIS or just have hair like Adele Atkins. Me, I'm somewhere else on all this but I'm feeling the benefits of two pints of Guinness, some fricasseed squirrel and seven wholesome hours of trouble/dream free sleeping.

The unbearable lightness of bicycles

Nothing to do with Christmas, this is bicycle art.

The grey cold continues, following in our tired footsteps across the path of months and on beyond the black hole of consumer heaven Friday to the wet weekend and beyond. At this time of year there's a powerful urge to just run and hide. Christmas is coming upon us like some dreadful, greedy disease that we must pay homage to or suffer. There's no such thing as doing Christmas on your own terms, it already chokes the life out of you well before December 25th. The sales pitch, tunes and tinsel get in your head space generating a blizzard of bi-polar conflicts. That's really just another day destroyed by our own need for self destruction and the frenzy of not missing out. Who needs bombs when you can spray this festive confusion on your enemies. We in the west are so sorted that our imported and distorted festivals deserve exporting to those who don't know any better and can't fight back. Future civilisations will look back on this and scratch their heads or possibly their bottoms.

Hot rails to Hell

Well no hot rails this time just a nice JB Humbucker, not quite what was planned but nonetheless another project and planning and design opportunity. Thankfully after some masterful work, pole climbing and standing in puddles by BT the phone line has returned to full serviceability so the Internet connection can be fired up. Life without it all? Strangely tolerable, like the nineteen seventies or thereabouts. The lesson learned is that if need be life can be lived successfully off-grid. Maybe I have a new ambition.

Random Access

Photos from around London, posted in Glasgow. Just me keeping my hand in and touching the virtual world over a coffee and a donut. One day all of life will be like this or at least feel like this. The cold of November and the warm remembering of a clunky internet connection shrouded in white noise. So if I haven't got time for this them what have I time for? The only answer is a foolish one, close down all systems, bide time and stare into the horizon. Soon it'll be April 1st (well not soon but soonish) and another braver, newer world will open up. Of course it may be that I'm simply dreaming all of this...

Awkward Silence

It's highly likely that an awkward but maybe useful and therapeutic silence will now prevail from my little corner of the blogging world. No phone, no broadband at home. It's like having an unplanned and unexpected holiday from on line action and serial time wasting. I may find that beyond the screen and keys I have more of a life than I thought...and if I need wifi there's always free stuff here and there. All I need to do is go out.

Early morning walk

Trees blown almost bare by a week of strong winds and driving rain.

The path is clear here but further along the water running from the fields has flooded it. Everywhere is the gurgling sound of  dirty, smoky water trying to escape.

A fresh torrent bursts across the path and down onto the beach where it splits into numerous streams all searching for the quickest route to the river.

Low cloud, mist and drizzle obscure the view, shielding the power station and the lagoons and hiding the geese and sea birds out on the mud.

Wild unpicked apples rot on the wrong side of a tree guarded by thickets and thorns. Only birds manage to feast on the fruit.

For some reason the gate is too big for the gap.

The ditch on the left is busy clearing the water from the hill but it also keeps the path clear. The old ruined church at the top of the hill stands quiet, the defiant grave stones slowly turn onto  their faces and lie at odd angles and the moss sucks up the water. The souls buried below long ago can hardly care what goes on.

Slippery pavement

No it's not any kind of suggested prog rock band name, the "Slippery Pavements" it's a fact and phenomenon that exists in Glasgow but is denied by the city fathers and most of the western world. I have experienced this in both pain and humiliation. So there's no mean city thing here, no city of culture, miles better or city of smiles and hawkers; none of that. I would simply christen Glasgow as the supreme, one and only "City of Slippery Pavements". Other over 60 Hush Puppy shufflers, am I wrong on this? Glasgow City Council please get this sorted ASAP by the application of neutralising chemicals or a revised slab purchasing policy of some sort.

In other news, these cruel Islamic State bastards need to seen in proper perspective:

Simple time travel

This evening has mostly been spent driving back from Dundee through the rain and singing along to the Grateful Dead's version of Me and Bobby McGee. Obviously not the definitive version of that arguable ruined and overkilled song but worthy enough in it's own right. In the end listening to this kind of music regularly represents a primitive form of time travel where you travel without any of the physical problems of travelling. Apart from the rain.

Culture will eat itself

Memo to self: must get an upgrade to a new smarter smart phone that will fill my life with connections and meaning. Once fully charged I can simply concentrate hard and stare into the black abyss known as the soul of technology. Then I can talk about it and message from it using a series of exaggerations  and wondrously wonderful made up adjectives. After than I'm getting an Audi.

Autism Test

There are quite a few tests out there nowadays if you're inclined to self diagnose. Some say that the ability to predict the collapse of a once healthy tree is a good indicator (either of autism or witchy powers) but I doubt it. Telekinesis is another possible side effect, you either have that or you don't. No, the most reliable test is listening to Adele's Hello and checking on your own private reaction to the lyric when it rises just at "hello from the other side ". If you can avoid a tear in the corner of your eye or the hair rising on the back of your neck at this point, good news (bad news?), you're well high on the spectrum.

From the relative comfort of the couch

Occasionally challenged, seldom beaten. Oh there's a book as well written by some Scottish bloke.

Somewhere between the soul and the soft machine, between the braised salmon and the apple crumble, the clear water and the red wine and Wheeler Dealers and Fast n' Loud we find Dr Jekyll and Mr (overacting) Hyde. This is in it's self somewhere before the baffling but addictive Homeland. It's so bad I almost reached for Dr Who on iPlayer but that also felt like a step too far. These quiet, pleasant, high value low action Sundays require discipline and control and the TV can ruin the moment. They may even require some reassessment of taste and discernment. Any way this Dr Jekyll is so bad that apart from the insurance company sponsoring the ad breaks there's nothing else in between. It's unloved and it shows. Proof that good actors, decent production values and homages to literature, steampunk and the Great British Empire are no guarantee of a decent programme. Currently my assessment would be about 1 out of 10.