Space City

Funny how much of distant, world wide news (now history) you absorb at a young age. Here in the Kennedy Space Centre I realised I'd lived through all the major Space Race events mentioned and explained and that it all had gone pretty deeply into my psyche. These rockets and the brave men that rode them really influenced me but until I walked among their now silent hulks I just didn't realise by how much. Quite an impressive and inspiring place full of wonderful material and still moving forward and focused on a bright future that many (normal) visitors might find hard to believe in.

4th July

That's the breakfast smoothie exercise completed.

As today is the 4th of July we decorated a nearby wild pineapple as is the custom. The first time I typed in 4th July it came up as $th July, probably a more accurate description.

It's a wonderful lunch

Well I thought that it was pretty good, first time in a long time I've been full up on vegetables and not bothered with any added meaty products. Could be the new way ahead and the secret of a healthy, long life.

The laptop's final lap

Breakfast today consisted of cheesy baked potato, water and a Twinkie, then out to the supermarket for further useful food and sanitary supplies and then the expected struggle with American petrol pumps. Devices that work after a while but usually require a certain knack, these ones needed payment in advance, all based on a wild guess and the helpful support of the gas station ground crew. Anyway I'm rolling once again.

All things must pass and the time is coming for this old laptop to take it's final, slow, steady but occasionally stuttering final lap. 100000 miles and numerous photos, social media interactions and worthless blog posts later the death rattle is rising in it's white plastic throat and in a few weeks we'll say farewell and thanks for all the sweet pixels. Hopefully this sad event will take place in the glorious UK which by then will no doubt be back to it's normal, civilised (?) self by then. All stable and sorted out and with a healthy economic future. This is known as baseless optimism running rampant coupled with a high degree of self delusion. 

Anatomy of Disneyland

Actually I've not been there for a number of years but I'm currently on the border like some illegal or refugee, unsure quite what to do next but certain that at some point I must cross over. This appears to be my fate, any day now as sure as the sun shines and the thunderstorms pass over this extended and developing house party that I have deliberately created.

Cars - found items in Florida:

Driving around

Driving around, probably too slowly for the locals, in a big white car, with the air temperature in the nineties and most likely looking like a bit of a dickhead. Pretty much a normal day of it here so far.

After some driving around some more I took a short walk in the blistering heat and came across a Cat Cafe still under construction and a bottle of some kind of heavy duty Baileys additive. I think that says everything.

Iceland v Goliath

Sitting here in the balmy and surreal environs of Florida, warm and slightly uncomfortable as the game unfolded like some strange, quasi, national tragedy. Except for viewers in Scotland and a small corner of the USA who saw it as a direct euphemism for England's plight following last week's disaster of a referendum.  The country can do nothing right at the moment and finding it's proper place in the world now seems to involve a series of painful falls from grace, one after the other.  The thing is this has been happening for many years, slowly, steadily and now it's picking up speed...and that's scary. I take no pleasure whatsoever in watching this unfold. The ineptitude of the ruling class, the fat cats and experts playing out their selfish and in some cases evil roles taking the nation to the that tipping point where our brand (their brand) is a toxic laughing stock across the world. The point of the car crash has arrived and people will get hurt. Scotland needs to get out of this mess now, whatever the cost, whatever friends we have in England, whatever the wonky ideology and daft economics, all that can be ironed out in time. This is the end, beautiful friend, the end (and also the start!).

Plan A

Or is it Plan B? It always was my post referendum plan to get the feck out of the UK for a few weeks until the heat died down and the rioting in the two main parties stopped. The USA seems a strangely safe place in the light of the last few days events back home, apart from the emerging new neighbourhood menace of big birds with long, pointy beaks that is.

Escape

It's 7:15 in the morning and the sun's just popped up to say hello. Sleep seems to have escaped me, that's the full five hour time difference not fully compensated for yet. So I'm supposed to be spending some time in Florida away from it all (?) apart from the fact that you can't escape any of the Brexit news or the rest of the political minefield that the UK has become. #Marr cuts across all social media on a Sunday morning. Having said that, despite all the obvious election, gun and violence problems here in the US, people seem more concerned about what's in Prince's will and that Cher is dying alone and broke (apparently). That was the consensus harvested from a late night shop in Walmart last night where beer, crisps, steak and some sense of a greater worldwide perspective are the items most in demand (sic). 

Arty Pic Post

After this morning's tricky referendum result there came upon us all an almost Biblical style rainstorm. It battered on the windows and roof and poured great heavenly tears onto everything. I'm maybe over dramatising the effect but it was a powerful moment. It helped get things into perspective, slightly better than alcohol might have done and then a few minutes later the sun returned (for a short time) and with it a bee or two pottering around on these giant, odd blooms we've managed to cultivate. I guess that life will still go on despite all the (other) twats in the world trying to spoil your day.

Mystery fur flying episode

The good humoured bit: Last night we suffered a bizarre cat fight of some sort, nobody was there to see what actually took place only the aftermath, lots of black and white fur scattered across the staircase. As our cats are ginger and mottled brown the mess is so far unexplained though one of our cats seems to be suffering some post traumatic stress.

Not so good humoured: In other news I awoke to find that our country had just managed to royally fuck itself up by stupidly voting to leave Europe and so play straight into the hands of some of the worst politicians and scoundrels I've ever seen. This is not good and I am mightily pissed off in a way I've not been since September 14, if anything it's worse. I know there's a long game we can play here over Scottish independence but the victorious crowing of the Tories and UKIP right now is more than I can stand. Make no mistake these are truly twisted individuals who care nothing for the "common good" and who will exploit their new position(s) of power wholly for their own devious and hateful interests. They have no shame and no sense of decency and the fact that the British electorate has rewarded them in this way appals me. To add insult to injury Donald Trump just landed in Scotland. It's like some weird medieval invasion coupled with ongoing, endless torture. I'm headed for the sun.

Attack of the Glamis Souls

So if you Google misheard radio announcements such as "Attack of the Glamis Souls" you tend to get little in the way of useful information but there are a few spooky pictures of Glamis Castle. I wonder what tomorrow's misheard announcement might be?

Today we vote and it's a fairly uncertain outcome, right down the line. Who really understands all the possible consequences of our actions? Of course people want certainty, they want the facts, they want to know for sure on all the main issues. The trouble is that in life there is very little certainty, you get up in the morning, what will the day bring, who knows? You go to the shops, you buy stuff, generally not the things you'd planned. You meet a friend, a conversation begins, who knows the outcome? So forget about being correct and the worry that goes with it, realise that you and everybody else actually knows very little of anything, particularly the future. Of course you should vote but don't stress either way, just tick the box you think best. The universe has the habit of interfering in life and changing whatever it is that you may have expected anyway.

Travelling man blues

When you get to the top avoid falling if at all possible.

In between the unexpected summer showers I took it upon myself to climb to great heights to repaint some of the blue bits and few of the white bits on the outside of the house. A big part of the numerous objectives here is not to fall from the ladder, particularly when the oil boiler service engineer is busy servicing. An important rule of any such imagined accident is to have as few witnesses as possible albeit they might be handy when it comes to informing the emergency services. Thankfully I made it back to earth just before another seasonal downpour soaked my clumsy work - so I adjourned indoors to sort out one of my travelling companions; the Chinese instrument of torture known as the Hofner Shorty. It was in need of a number of serious adjustments and sadly the usual YouTube advice was scant when it came to providing actual help. Mostly there was just simple criticism and a fair amount of rework and new parts, so some so-called experts suggested in their long drawn out broadcasts. The tiny guitar's action and intonation being the main problem. I knew that already.

An hour later having screwdrivered and fiddled with everything possible I decided I'd had enough and that venturing beyond the  12th fret in tune was not really possible if using current western musical scales. Everything in life is usually some kind of reasonable compromise so it'll do me for a few weeks and hopefully I can cram it into a reasonably sized suit case.

For some reason the bridge on this guitar is a complete pig of a thing, designed by idiots and then purchased blind by other idiots some of whom may be slightly musical.

Countdown to...

Only days to now thankfully as the messages get ever more mixed. I admire this little piece of graffiti and subversion, not that it'll make any difference. I've now reached the point in the process  (a point I probably reached in Thatcher's and then during Blair's regimes at various points) where nothing much is believable and those involved have lost all credibility. Whatever the outcome on Thursday it will take years for us to recover, if ever. We've (the UK) really fucked ourselves on this one.

Meanwhile in the real world of fantasy as opposed to the fantasy world that is real life, Game of Thrones delivered the most bone crushing, mother fixing, stupendous episode ever last night. "Battle of the Bastards" was an incredible mix of raw spectacle, CGI excellence and good old blood and snotters. Just about everything happened in what must be amongst the best bits of TV film making ever churned out. One of those episodes where you're just thinking FFS most of the time and then you're left stunned gawping on the couch afterwards as the dark and dismal credits silently roll. Next week I'll be in the US for the final episode, hoping for a great big HD television somewhere.

Hoovering a fly

One of my granddaughters kindly presented me with a temporary tattoo in a left handed Les Paul type of design. Fortunately it lasted a little less than 24 hours. Currently it has morphed into a sort of blue/black streak.

Despite their Matrix like ability to avoid being swatted, due to some "bullet time" kind of capability I think I may have discovered something that as yet they've not evolved to avoid. A Hoover. I noticed this during a routine blasting of dust around the window frames. When encountering the Hoover they don't seem to react in the same zig-zag way as they do when you're skelping them with a rolled up copy of Empire Magazine. In fact they don't react at all, they just get sucked up into the huge Dyson vortex as if it was a black hole. Of course it could be that it is, in the fly universe, a black hole and maybe once they go down it and enter it's churning heart...everything makes sense and true enlightenment comes to them and their lives blossom beyond anything in the normal imagination of a fly. Or maybe not.

Sunny Day

Turns out we have a sunny afternoon on our hands that may well turn into a full blown sunny day. Here's a photo of a rather serious minded cat pondering her next move, to the shade or to the sunny spot.

I've just bought four large sandwich party platters from a local Griegs. All the bread is white, something I didn't plan for and it all looks rather "bright" for a set of sandwiches, no soothing brown to balance the effect. I'm just going to go with this anyway. Some things are best left as they are.

Jo Cox and everything else

I'd never really heard of Jo Cox before yesterday. I just don't keep up with core political matters in enough detail to be familiar with most MP's comings and goings. Now her sad and tragic death is all over the news and it's hard to know quite what to think and make of it. A cruel and horrid personal loss for her family that cannot be recovered and that we will all now struggle to put somewhere into a thought vacuum either as a lesson, a reference or a warning. For me right now it's a warning. Feelings have been stoked up in the referendum debate, stupidly, needlessly and dangerously. Issues have become debased and exaggerated and there is little or no truth on which we, the ordinary voters can chew or decide upon. A toxic and incomprehensible soup has been created that we seem doomed to have to consume. The whole thing seems like a horrible mistake unless, like me, you see it as a callous act of mass manipulation to create some illusion of democracy whilst undermining it's principals at the same time via media, politicians and celebrity . Well I'm done with believing in anything, if you want to count me, count me out (but in Europe). Jo Cox RIP.

A brief spurt of progress

Imprisoned by unrelenting rain once more (apart from a quick drive to shops and travel agents), so I made a positive move and pushed ahead with some guitar building work. It was a time of  constant fiddling, making mistakes and near death experiences. I was sorting the electric components, easily the worst bit for me and one that I tend to avoid or put off. Well the recent rain has left me no excusable alternative and so a full programme of horror, trial and error, the emphasis being on error followed. How many ways are there to wire up a three way Telecaster selector switch? I thought three maybe, seemed obvious. Turns out there are many, a number beyond any mathematical calculation you could make because a) there are many switch types, b) there are many wiring configurations and c) there's too much advice and bollocks on the internet that contradicts itself. I've now gone "off message" and "off piste" on this. The dark side beckons and I've responded.

My new simple method (ignoring advice etc.) is simply to randomly connect the various components with cold solder and experiment whilst tapping on each live pickup with a screwdriver - trial and error. Eventually it all works and sometimes the normal hum and buzz even subsides into some eerie clean tone. At that point the dangerously hot soldering iron is introduced and things are either burned or finalised, then rechecked, then done again because either I made an arse of it or I forgot to route the wires through some guitar body cavity first. It's a challenge but I'm learning and it's keeping me inspired and enthralled in between dull and partisan football matches watched with the sound down and creative food experiments involving boiled eggs, crusty bread and beetroot.

And Home

Been away, now back home.

Beachcombing

A  consignment of wind farm blades and components chugs up the Firth from Estonia or maybe Latvia where engineering comes cheap and who cares...we can't compete anyway. It's smuggled here in plain sight while everybody's gawping at the new bridge or into their phones. This bargain basement recycled Chinese sourced tin and fibreglass will make a lasting contribution to Scotland's green and pleasant aspirations for renewable energy. Just not sure how long the actual hardware will last in our salty and poisoned environment but I'm sure that it's worth every Westminster pledged pocket money penny and it'll keep the statisticians and speech writers fuelled for a while because it's some kind of modern progress towards KPIs.  We're just not smart enough to know what direction we're headed in with it all. Ironic that these units sail past the now redundant dead eyed coal fired power station that once boiled all our kettles during the Coronation Street adverts or when Cathy Come Home became just too much. Now we're coming to rely upon warm air travelling across the Atlantic, the correct climatic conditions and cold air coming down with the MiGs and Badgers from the former USSR.