Now I know

I'm never sure how well or badly I'm fitting into the world. What jars about me being here or looks awkward or out of place? This of course has been my normal mindset for well over 50 years, or at least since I gained some form of self awareness. Here's a list I've lifted from somewhere that describes the 30 ok/cool things in 2018. It's all a bit conservative and disappointing really, all pretty worthy and self righteous. I wonder who exactly was polled in this and from what societal cross sections of  the country's under 30s.

Top 30 things which are considered “cool” in 2018:

1. Reusable coffee cups
2. Going on holiday to unusual places off the beaten track      
3. Going to the gym    
4. Having a balanced diet      
5. Staying in rather than going out      
6. Working from home
7. Record players      
8. Fitness trackers     
9. Coffee      
10. Being able to cook from scratch      
11. Being teetotal or cutting back on your drinking/drinking alcohol free beverages   
12. Yoga/Pilates/ Barrecore     
13. Craft ale      
14. Hosting a dinner party      
15. Instagram      
16. Cycling      
17. Gin      
18. Filter water bottles      
19. Tattoos      
20. Beards      
21. Baking      
22. Avocado      
23. Frozen yogurt     
24. Android phones     
25. High Intensity Interval Training     
26. Being a fan of things from ‘before your time’ / nostalgia      
27. Helping the family      
28. Charity shops      
29. The 80s      
30. Pizza

The research for this survey was conducted by frozen yogurt brand Yoomoo.

So what's missing (that I would add)?

Twitter, blogging, lo-fi music, sports cars, long holidays, gardening, CDs (they'll return), hill-walking, children, Wes Anderson, cover songs, showers, toast, saving bees, pyrography, red wine, plimsolls, resistance, bus travel, chocolate, AirBnb, Scandinavia, odd socks, getting up early, wild birds, rising above politics, helping out in small ways. This list is not exhaustive.

Mucky world

It's a very mucky world. I've decided to capture aspects of it as I wander through the land. Lost. Things rust and decay. Things are abandoned. There to be overlooked or tripped over. There's a strong sense of nobody caring, particularly me. Maybe it's all nobody's job. Perhaps costs are being cut. Ongoing austerity is an excuse to be untidy, to be mucky. So we see muck but mostly we don't because we are desensitized and it's just how things are. Sooner or later everything gets set aside, becomes overgrown and awaits the arrival of the next large meteorite to provide cosmic retribution and cleansing. Then the next new civilisation can start all over again.

Dundee Daily Photo

Dundee: Scotland's sunniest city and the only one boasting a V&A monster and Captain Scott's Discovery set side by side by the Tay. A city of smashed avocados, decent coffee, tattooed barbers, Beano figures, strange street dragons, conflicting football teams, out of place penguins, graffiti and the Kingsway. I'm there probably once a week and after making some adjustments for  my inner compass to function properly I'm now getting the hang of it. It'll be fine once the construction work settles and we no longer need to peer through fences or be blinded by hi-vis and deafened by hi-abs unloading materials in the street. Good times are coming.

Hidden past

I'm glad that some of Dundee city centre's past is on display despite the grime and clumsy modernization. Doorways signs and business names remain intact after who knows how many years of closure. The businesses are long gone, forgotten by all and part of an ancient history story that's faded away and too tired out to recount, but the marks and trade names are still visible, just.

Rare live appearance

Thanks to Malcolm for this photo taken last Thursday at OOTB in Edinburgh. I am playing the house guitar but wearing my own glasses. Ali is singing and also helping me interpret the actual content. 

List

Pic by Andrew F at BOO.

Extracted from an organic to do list with absolutely no actual/possible song titles hidden therein:

shim sunburst strat neck pocket*

fix pussy cat telecaster electrics

lubricate car roof and motors

fix plastic bit on conservatory roof

progress car radio done

shed empty at Kinghorn

visit the dump / bottlebank

paint well top done

do some more cement work / pointing

tidy work space

work more with audio interface

work on short stories

cat litter

chop kindling up

back step

wire brush / wash weatherboarding

purge wardrobe

purge old records / work docs etc.

cement work at back door

use less fewer capitals

eBay cardboard

avoid distractions

Air BnB Bilbao 

*replace centre pickup screws and also shim P Bass neck pocket.

Things I didn't say

For people of a certain age 

Nostalgia hooks like crack cocaine

Somewhere between divine and profane

An antidote and poison

I'm sick of blood poured on the tracks

Of friendly warnings "don't look back"

"You'll give yourself a heart attack"

As if I'm even bothered

Health warning mantras for those who know

Ignore them and the prostate goes

There's love and cancer up the road

And a series on iPlayer

The past is littered with the past

I lost it once but lived it fast

Now we're the bus pass underclass

The pensioned shuffling strangers

Tomorrow is a better day

Specsavers see through fakes and haze

You're aches and pains will melt away

On some brave new hejira.

For people of a certain age

Nostalgia hooks like crack cocaine

The worries they just melt away

I'm better now I'm older.

The fabric of our lives

Some things change, some stay the same. There you go. The fabric of our lives. Familiar, recognizable, solid, steady, fluid, different, damaged, cared for, washed out, washed in, comfortable, torn, lived in, loved.

Hands

Some hands are tender hands, some hands are dirty hands, some hands are soft hands, some hands are loving hands, some hands serve and soothe, some hands fix, some hands make fists, some hands aren't hands at all and end up like this. Dangerous.

Highland fence posts

OK. So I suppose you could say that these images would be best suited to a life lived on Instagram under some niche heading where they might attract attention or arouse interest. I'm too lazy for that so they are only going to have an on-line life here where everything is relatively easy. As I was exploring the lower slopes of Glen Orchy at the weekend  I was quite taken by these old fence posts. Each one differently rotten, rugged and weathered out of shape, moss covered and rusty wire, hairy splinters, decay and destruction but still somehow standing, faithfully obeying their last order to mark a line or a boundary, to keep in some sheep or to prevent chickens from running all across the yard. They are the forgotten markers of once worthwhile industry and endeavour and remain almost upright in place, stubborn and redundant, trapped out in all weathers, mutating and growing as they fade and splinter away back into the highland soil.

A bag and two kittens

Bank holiday Monday, returning from a break in the Highlands, all sun and blue skies and parade of caravans and motor homes. Stopped off for supplies on the way back and then to the cattery to collect our two incarcerated beasts, these two cute kittens were playing in their pen outside. The farm shop near Stirling is called the Smiddy, staff there are pretty PAF (posh as fuck) but nice. A few just walked around doing nothing, interns maybe. All the Doune and Bridge of Allan set probably hang out there for their artisan foods and neat and niche local produce. Nice lunch though and, despite my rude observation, nice staff and ambience, maybe I'm slowly turning over into the dark side.

Sunny Bunny #2

This is completely meaningless. Like most things. Amusing for all of three seconds but completely recyclable. So that's fine.

Sunny Bunnys

Another nice day out, so I made six sunny bunnys. You're welcome. (No actual rabbits were injured or damaged during the construction of this piece of work.)

Plum tree planting

Work to create the great plum harvest (and chutney brewing) festival of 2028 has just begun. It's good to invest in the future, even though it's likely to be someone else's and as I know very little of the early life of plum trees and the behaviours they might exhibit. At the moment anything seems possible. 

Peace breaks out

Every other post seems to feature a cat photo these days, I'm clearly turning into the sort of person my parents warned me about.  They weren't too keen on cats and a number of other activities I've tried in my sixty odd years, they're gone now so it's ancient history. Here's Twink and Clint completely ignoring one another in the garden the other day. Normally some unheralded/unexpected cat presence around here results in fur flying, loud howls and one cat being chased up a tree by another. There's a lot of scampering, hissing and hissy fits. Nice when they actually seem to get on for a bit because that's rare with cats, they (local ones, maybe not typical) are pretty awkward socially and like their own space. As do their eccentric owners perhaps? (I know fine that you can never truly own a cat).

Non glamorous vehicles

Number 1 in an unlikely and irregular series of photos I probably wont cherish or Istagram or do anything with, ever. So here's a big red Porsche tractor I was able to stand next to yesterday. 

Signs of summer

None of this anything to do with either cup finals or royal (deliberate small r) weddings.

Daily Tesco cat v existential angst

The wonders of modern life: easy to take a photo of a cat in a supermarket entrance and then just paste it all across the internet's various trading posts using slightly different filters and crops and amusing if not particularly clever captions so that you can fill up space and  so burn up your precious time. Will there be any true or meaningful interaction, any likes, useful outcomes or comments? Doubtful but you will do it anyway. The endless optimism and desire for some common and pointless expression brought home by the black, bottomless and busy void we've moved into despite the fact that it was created for a range of much more worthwhile activities which we've all now completely lost sight of. What were they again?

Dunbar daily photo

Yesterday was a lovely sunny day and I happened to be in Dunbar getting my car's stereo fixed.  Took the opportunity to go for a wander down by the shore and harbour, very quiet and colourful. That's about it.

Return of the cat

Twink the cat is a semi-regular visitor to our garden. He's generally rewarded with two tins of cat food when he arrives, usually for in time for the night shift at about 2300. Today he turned up early for some  breakfast, lunch and tea and took up position in the barbecue for some reason.