Dear Purveyors

Somewhere over those troubled waters there is a convenient and well rendered bridge.

Dear Purveyors of technology,

Firstly thank you for your hard work, imagination and resolve. Much of what you do makes the world a far better place: health, food supply, hygiene, medicine, communications, transport, convenience  etc. Above is a simple example of how a hand painted  artwork image can be saved and shared; wonderful stuff and it works thanks to your efforts. BUT!

Of course there has to be a but, a niggle, a bug bear, unintended consequences, impacts and trouble. The thing is that things (?) seem to always need upgrades and updates and well that's when all the wobbles begin. 

"It was all working fine until I had to install the updates. Now it's working BUT it's not the same, now I can't do ________ , there's no longer the option to _______ , the screen freezes when I ________ , the resolution has changed to _______ , I've lost the ability to ________, the upgrade can't be done on my older operating system so I'll have to ________ , it's broken now but it was fine yesterday before the _________."

Thanks to an upgrade my (otherwise fine) laptop has to be exchanged, three days work has been affected, a new one has to be couriered up from London, I've to stay home for the delivery, I'll have to reconfigure it over the phone via the help-desk, the old laptop will be binned. I'll never get those three days back. Hmm. Most progress is good, some not so good. 

As you are the smart guys and I'm just a humble user, please fix this.

Best regards

A well wisher.

Plant based

Plant based, plant baste, plant boast, plant bias, planet based, pant based, paint bias, plane based, place base, plant beige, plan based, place bias, plant bland, planet beige, plant placed coffee. It tastes OK, it's cool in a cold way, almonds are hard to detect, coffee flavour is bland, it's sold in supermarkets. Not sure who buys it. People like me I guess but do they do it regularly? Does anybody every say "I could murder a nice, cool, plant based, almond, vegan coffee?"

Isn't all coffee plant based or am I missing something (like cow's milk)?

Thundery downpours

Maybe it's global warming, maybe it's in between. We're obsessed with the weather, the gift that keeps on giving, the everyday phenomenon that makes or breaks our day. Cancelling plans, staying indoors, buying salads, wrapping up in tinfoil and scarves. Skidding and sliding and flooding and burning. Famine and hardship, holidays and parades. Animals and birds migrate in new directions, fish follow strange, fresh currents and we drown in new puddles. Anybody would think that the earth had had enough of us and was simply trying to wipe the planet clean (just like the Bible said). Hmm.

No direction home

Empty, broken down and being towed backwards. A simple open top, branded bus as far as I can see. A perfect illustration of something relevant to who knows what? Let's all just stand by as this tragedy passes our way inflicting on us whatever the universe deems appropriate. What is it with buses anyway?

There be dragons

Risk

As I walked out on the hottest day of the year: Sign in the local graveyard (well nearly local). Let's play Twister, let's play Risk. I'm fine with that but I will not be entering any ruined or dilapidated buildings. 

Large Ginger

Large Ginger Cat, wood, fur and random materials.

West Lothian Daily Photo

Hot, humid, sultry, dry, sweaty, summer, July, coffee, flat white, caravan coffee, signs, signs that mislead, signs that confuse, visitors, space and paths, small rises, woodland, gravestones, gibberish, heat, walking, talking, swans and ducks, cake, water, reeds, metal, iron, stone, follow the map, follow the crowd, ignore the crowd, follow the signs, the signs are wrong, there is art, artists, workshop, not really welcome, these are for others, tourists and punters, locals removed, roads bumpy, no signs, no direction, no direction home, trouble, plinths, reminders, peace, Zen chimes, water in bottles, no boats, we follow and escape but plan to return, on our own terms, to beat the paths again.

Golden time

Quite enjoying the quickly gleaned memories from seeing the Victoria Crowe retrospective in the City Arts Centre in Edinburgh. Here's one.

Buy before you try

The label said "Nitro Americano nitrogen infused coffee", sounds intriguing or something like that, the promise of the real. Turns out to be not so good, strange bitter black coffee with a beery head which I presume to be the effect of the nitrogen. Of course like any true scientist I drank the lot despite my increasing sense of dread and ultimate doom in the pit of my stomach. Then of course nothing actually happened. No big kick, no rush or high, no visible signs of either aging or regressing. No clear and godlike super thoughts or euphoria. Just that normal and almost comforting feeling of consumer disappointment. Nitro, you broke a promise you didn't actually ever make.

Game of Thrones is over

Anyway here's an early shot of Daenerys Targaryen and Tyrion Lannister taken from the 1942 original Broadway stage version. I guess the recent remake was OK but they've still got some work to do to catch up. As usual the measure of the production values gives it away.

Crazy thread time

The 13 month Kodak calendar, used by the company for some time and one that might have been adopted by all if not for the inconvenience of WW2.

I'm a sucker for a good (and possibly crazy) thread on Twitter. This one (if you care to click on it) is batshit crazy covering some wild aspects of Kodak's activity back in the day. Firstly how they wanted, for good business reasons, to rearrange the calendar into thirteen months based on an idea developed by one Joseph Cotsworth. Then how they discovered (due to contaminated film) that the US was carrying out nuclear weapons trials before anyone else and then became party to secret information about the program including test dates and areas of contamination (all denied to the general public and err... victims of the fallout) and finally how they had their own nuclear reactor built in New York State that was fueled by weapons grade plutonium. Of course it all may be untrue but...

A nuclear weapons test rig that doesn't quite meet with the required safety requirements (as required), but what the hell.

Unpopular window

One bar remains, no glass, timber shuttering in place, overgrown and sightless. 

Once a window but now functioning as a wall. 

Stony faced. 

Sad really. 

Chinks of light on the other side.

I imagine.

Expect rain today.

The farmers says the ground needs it.

Dawn Patrol

Up early, trying to catch a cat that has a dirty bottom (and then clean said bottom). It's quite a mission. This of course seems impossible. She's been avoiding human contact and remained outside since the problem was noticed yesterday so the offending poop is firmly locked into her fur. The cat firmly refuses to cooperate with any rescue and clean-up attempts. Bait is placed, it's chicken. The cat duly arrives and single handled I apprehend her. A brief scuffle ensues. The cat is eating a piece of chicken so is in two minds, flight or bite. Luckily I manage to squash her (a little) on the floor and the messy, furry, poop part is exposed on her bottom. This intrusion is not welcome. Holding her down with my left hand I make a quick incision using scissors with my right hand. She's not happy, it's more humiliation than physical pain but the dehydrated poop is surgically removed and binned. She slinks away, hopefully relieved that the operation is over. I'm not so sure, there may be more material lurking in her tangled fur but it'll have to wait. All I need to do now is apply a fine coat of Savlon to my various injuries and the world will be well again.

July

Hogwart's garden: Daily photo. (Not the actual Hogwarts).

Today has been a strangely hot day, hot to the point of being tiring and draining. We did lot's of things, kept busy etc. but the heat is uncomfortable. Makes me wonder quite why I pine at times to go abroad and soak up some sun. Seems like a daft idea today. Unrealistic and unpleasant. Eight hours of sunshine and I'd quite like some rain (it rained yesterday). Will it rain tomorrow? 20% chance or less. Tuesday? Up into the 40% but vague as every forecast tends to be. Actually I need at least two dry days to properly tackle the house painting, two dry days. July, July, July.

Upload / Download

Over the weekend I took some photographs. Nothing unusual there. So they were uploaded, downloaded and then uploaded again, sometimes they were uploaded twice despite already being uploaded and sometimes they were downloaded despite already being downloaded. In other words I have no idea what I'm doing here.

Despicable acts of Cowardice

Old 'toon clock.

Apologies: the title is nothing to do with anything, I saw it in a newspaper and liked the flow of the words. That's how things are these days, the content is meaningless and often ignored so how do those patterns and shapes of words actually sound? Good, bad, questionable? Different to different people. There is however such a thing as "despicable acts of cowardice", we know this because we are all capable of them. See it written down and you will either approach with caution or just ignore it.

Shelter for the dysfunctional

Dysfunctional shelter in grey tones, the Public Park Dunfermline, recently and photographed by somebody else. I should add that this is not meant to be a shelter for the dysfunctional (by my description). I simply mean that it's a run down shelter with a dodgy roof and no seating. Otherwise fine if a bit battered looking. As far as I'm concerned dysfunctional people are welcome to shelter wherever they can and to do so in peace. That does raise the issue of quite how well dysfunctional people can do anything peacefully but I think some can. Of course based on my own observations pretty much everyone on the planet, including me, can exhibit strong signs and behaviours that might be described as dysfunctional at times. We all need some shelter then. 

Earthly Delights

Yesterday was painting day. Painting the outside woodwork and rendering in the warm July sun. A successful operation. The paint spattered painting clothes sit in a pile, ready for the next time. The brushes are in water, turpentine is so last century. At the top of the ladder I found a wasps nest, strangely they were not as aggressive as I imagined but I remained wary whilst poking them with splashes of white Dulux. The neighbours spoke about things, we all spoke, things had happened that required a catch up, an understanding, information gathering then off into our separate dwellings (although mine is up a ladder). 

Today it's raining, time for indoors, plans shelved, no paint. No shelves to put up however. The rain holds the cats in the house, artworks flutter by. Podcasts. Yesterday there was a tiny mouse saved from the jaws of the cat. Returned to the wild garden. I hope it found a safe dry refuge, one a long way from garages and car wiring looms and the poison that I laid out for it's relatives. All a bit contradictory. Might have soup for lunch...

Flowers of Scotland

No.1 in an occasional series.