The Darker Ages

Recent deaths provoke temporary despair: I suppose that good people probably die at about the same rate as bad people but then I'm not sure as to the actual ratio of good to bad in the world and of course that kind of binary way of measuring is stupid. Maybe it's just about people in power and actual influencers, power brokers and decision makers. How many of them are...well more good than bad and vice versa? Recently good people seem to be either dying or disappearing more quickly than the others. Modern life is on a seesaw, we could easily tip over, things fall apart, the centre cannot hold etc. The new dark(er) ages could just open up at any moment, crazy people are in high office. Well too large a proportion of crazy people, you can never quite stop them getting in there and a lifetime of experience tells me that crazy people tend to gravitate to the places you'd least want them to be in. It's not just because "good" people do he-haw, it's because the crazies often have more guts and drive and self-delusion and that makes quite a difference. Then there's the rampant cognitive dissonance that prevents neutral people who've been fooled into a belief from piping up and taking the trouble to change their position. We're screwed.

Casa Sperimentale

"The ruins of Casa Sperimentale, an experimental concrete tree house built by Giuseppe Perugini and Uga de Plaisant in Italy. Entirely modular, it was designed to be built and expanded upon at will. The house fell into disrepair after the architects’ deaths."

I'm not wholly sure why but the phrase "the house fell into disrepair after the architects' death" is one I really like, it's rather like the prologue to some sinister movie and a concept (ongoing disrepair after significant death) that has a certain dark appeal. It's almost as if the book/film writes itself. Hmm..."the house fell into" that's a leading and intriguing statement. Can the the new Vincent Price please step forward? "The fall of the House of Perugini" beckons.

Edinburgh

Hello Blogger (or Twitter) my old friend, I've come to talk with you again, because a vision softly creeping, left it's seeds (?) while I was was sleeping, and the vision that was planted in my brain, still remains, within the sound of ... Edinburgh going down the toilet.

Busy

Abstract interior #1.

Busy: Busy means different things to different people, some people are not really busy but think they are busy because they can't imagine not being busy. Some people are busy but think that's just normal. Some people confuse being busy with importance so they say they're busy. Some people are doing nothing but think they're busy if they have to empty the bin or iron a shirt. Some people think being busy means you have a Netflix series set up to view and you must do it today. Some people think they're busy if they're surrounded by other people who are obviously busy (or pretending to be). Some people think they're busy because something unexpected happened and so their schedule changed for the worse.

I really don't know what busy is but I suppose if a bus driver is driving a bus or a pilot is flying plane then they're busy doing that very thing but nobody really thinks that those are really busy professions. Me? I'm busy being confused about busy but sympathetic towards all the apparently busy people out there of whom I might be one but I'm too busy/lazy to check. (A raspberry seed stuck in your tooth certainly makes you busy trying to get it out).

Award winning but...

The top ten coffees that may not contain ten actual entries.

Firstly I'm no expert or connoisseur of fine coffees, I just know what I like, so here's my current top scoring hot beverage experiences:

1. Straight in at No.1 Aberdeen Museum and Art Gallery cafe, nice and hot and full of flavour (as pictured).
2. Stephens the baker, creamy, smooth and the correct temperature. Consistent.
3. MacDonald's, decent and regular in taste and flavour.
4. Fire Station Dunfermline. Pricey but good.
5. No number 5. (Actually this should be "Down the Hatch" at SQ Marina but who cares?).
6. The Wee Bakery South Queensferry. Nice flat white but be prepared to wait.
7. Costa Drive Thru, OK.
8. Costa machine (Coop/Scotmid) OK but confusing to operate. Not really recommended.
9. Morrisons (to go). Hmm.
10. Peggy Scotts (A90 north towards Aberdeen) pretty shit really.

That's it, surprised that I made it to 10.

Rainy Friday

Magically transported by the power of magic to another land, another time, another space altogether. The fearless shrew gathering cat explores some strange forest that only exists in her own imagination and in stock footage stored in great and mysterious servers that can be accessed all across that internet thing. More rubbish to follow.

92% blue

Some days everything is 92% blue.

Sometimes, in your own head it just all goes quiet, well my head knows quiet times. The hurly burly moves on, upwardly mobile enough to trouble some other soul with it's smoke, mirrors and dredged up paranoia. It knows the road home well enough so the patch of blue sky can be enjoyed at least temporarily. Some other issue will emerge in due course. The trick is to enjoy, even exploit that blue sky on arrival and squeeze the most err... sky out of it. One way to do this to employ cheerful reflection, positive memories, telling yourself happy stories that may not be wholly factual but are at least happy. You could write these down in the hope of forming up a book or a decent article even, blue sky permitting. I have done this from time to time but tend to use a steam based font for the recording and so they end up as bathroom condensation dripping on the mirror. Typing for real is actually a bit of a chore and can dilute the mood and experience, keep it real and abstract if that's not too complicated. 

Once in a blue moon/sky the thoughts will morph into a breezy wee song, usually with a puerile repeated lyric straight from the playground. This attempts to fly while precariously tethered to some twelve bar blues progression. It's important that the words fall far from the usual blues patterns and idioms and remain oblique and stupidly repetitive.  Added Scottish slang words may help dilute the cultural misappropriation, the more obscure the better. The shelf life for this piece of genius is short but, like some gorgeous butterfly it only really exists to brighten up the day and by definition make the blue sky bluer and brighter. Remnants can be found on abandoned post-its in the bin. Pick them up and look at them a day later and they make no sense, lunatic ramblings and phrases, things that Lennon's beloved auntie would have chucked out straight away. They've been robbed of their  living context so perhaps the bin is best.

A cake, a coffee and a thousand yard stare. A thousand yards isn't even a mile. Looking out the window or across the garden I can see many miles, not just a fraction. What's special about a thousand yards? Maybe if you're looking down the sight of a rifle, that's a proper threat. No the cake, coffee and stare (distant not really relevant) also assists the blue sky therapy. Often partaken in a car, parked up and enjoyed via the glass in the windscreen and not facing directly into the sun. This just causes stress, blinking and isn't relaxing. Watching the world(s) go by from a comfy, stationary cockpit. I like that. Cafes are OK with company, on your own your weird unless you brandish a laptop and have the bearing of an author or an academic. I'm more of a paramedic, first aid for the soul and I can't easily read or write in a pub of coffee shop. I also slurp the coffee too quickly so my time at the table is short and focused on the hot drink.

Walking briskly is good for mental health, jogging or cycling a probably even better. Walking briskly to try to catch a bus that only runs at half hour intervals is not so great for mental health. Bus don't really run to timetables now, customer satisfaction is the thing, not timing. A bus driver told me this the other day, suddenly management have given him an excuse to drive the bus as he chooses. In their wisdom they have separated punctuality from customer "satisfaction", it's a killer move. Of course the railways and airlines have been getting away with this for years, we the public are easy meat and that brisk walk between randomly arriving buses will clear out any bad thoughts or negative experiences. Also if you'd a free bus pass any complaint is feeble, like blank ammunition, you can't score a hit, you didn't pay for it (and don't even mention the taxes you've faithfully paid for the last 45 years).

A colourful stir fry. Meat, fish, prawns, vegetables, oiling, chopping, pouring sauce, sizzling noises, stirring, adjusting the heat, dishing up. Red wine. Red is the new blue. Blue is the new sky, the sky is of course about 92% blue, most days, give or take.

For some there is an alternative way, another kind of space to occupy, one that's not binary, dull or sunny. Due to alternate choices, circumstance and the accidents of genetics they live in the informed and aware world. Here there is a full spectrum, here there is education and sophistication. Ideas and feelings are as fine wines. They have their own language, precise words and expressions that I struggle to translate. I see the speech balloons emerge from their mouths but I falter as I try to read them and their nuances and depths of meaning either sink to the bottom or fly far over my head. Too many letters in their alphabets, too many notes in their music, too many colours in their palette. They hold to firm views and high opinions, I hold to random objects flying by.

...random objects flying by, pierce the cloud that hides the sky.

A Message

Respectful Message: Hopefully clearly visible at a bus stop somewhere near to you. All that needs to happen is for you to look up from your phone or even (for older people) your newspaper and then just consider what is being said here. Thank you.

Days away

Goat: Enjoys food and head butting.

Lunch time colouring in activity, fairly successful and not any of my own work.

The view from the White Cafe.

Alternative view

Wispy blue skies, telephone wires, rooftops, chimneys and the Forth Railway Bridge.

VU

Velvet Underground: Contrived and ill equipped for playing music, hyped by Warhol and exotically dirty etc. All maybe true but they certainly sounded as if they'd just arrived from another planet in a junkyard flying saucer that had crash landed in a New York dive. Some members are dead, some are alive (I think). I've lost track of the living in today's world of zombie and hologram music.

Most of the time they sounded pretty terrible, I say that on reflection and from a safe distance, perhaps I thought it at the time but didn't dare admit it. I doubt that I could sit down and listen to the 17 minutes of "Sister Ray" easily now, the tones produced tend to be rather harsh. Maybe a few of the quieter songs would work, those sombre, fragile, dark blue songs, smothered by Nico's growl, that escaped the feedback and dysfunction. Of course the harshness and the actual weird noises they generated made them essential listening for any angry teenager 50 years ago. It was dressed up angry art, the best kind, punk before punk. They were never going to appear as a surprise guest on BBC's Billy Cotton Band Show any Saturday evening.

Definitely music to piss off your parents and that was really what counted, it doesn't age well either but it was all good (clean?) fun at the time, back when there was proper danger and pretend revolution. These pictures are as distorted as their sound.

Swans swimming

I saw seven swans swimming today but only photographed three. I whistled the well known carol segment briefly and then returned to my regular duties and the swans returned to there own. I was busy tracking a bus on my phone, that's  something you can do now. Taxis and delivery drivers are the same; sending out unconscious signals of their timings and whereabouts so that they can be more "productive". It pleases their masters, they like the bleeping noise. Not all location robotics progress is good or humanitarian in it's use, unless of course I'm waiting for a package to be delivered. Tracking swans is more difficult. 

£5.57

Another small but at the time optimistic investment goes pear shaped. The fallen coins have spoken. Gambling is a social sickness and you'll never win big or even recoup your original stake. Just go out and buy a decent piece of cheese for yourself instead, or reinvest in the necessary ingredients for a pot of homemade soup.

Mrs Coulter, evil but interesting

Evil is of course relative and controversial, just like truth and beauty and the best flavour of Pot Noodle. Evil probably would smack a monkey in most interpretations, that and meddle with and distort the lives of others for questionable ends. Evil is as evil does. So I'm rooting for Mrs Coulter of course, but I'm aware of the fate that lies before her so my interest may eventually wane.

So the BBC met HBO and decided to do a version of His Dark Materials. I presume HBO said "Let's make it real!" and the BBC said "Great, we'll do a good job on it, have you seen how we made Dr Who and how sleek and professional our production values are?" HBO said "Hmm, well, we'd better make the cast strong so they can at least carry the can..." BBC said, "Yeah, whatever, we'll put some of our best people on it and a few (cheaper to hire) passengers, just trust us and our wacky judgement. It all needs to stand up to scrutiny. We'll also bombard the public with stupidly long spoiler type trailers." HBO said "It's your neck and your network." BBC said "We've experience in this, the UK public are easily led and they'll believe just about anything we put out, trust us (except for viewers in Scotland who have their own programs as well as a number of delusional problems about their actual self worth)." HBO ..."OK we'll leave it there then."

Delete this at your peril

The Entombment (1957) by Paul Delvaux.

I was imagining deleting all this blog, easy meat, with the swift click of a trembling mouse finger. Done. It could be gone. There is that nuclear option. Down the pan goes 15 or 16 years worth of rambles, rants, changes in direction, photos, warped opinions, repetition and general nonsense. Blogging, a way to fill and mark time with loose thoughts. Some strange sense of actual achievement, making a mark, trying not to drown in a cyber sea, having your say when nobody really listens anyway, streams of consciousness, fun maybe. Words and blurb.

So I momentarily entertained the thought. Delete this pile of err.. data and then walk away. Do something more useful, more purposeful, less hit and miss ... so many misses. Burning all your diaries and going to a place where you can be just vacant. I did that once, in an actual bonfire and endured the long numbness that followed, it was me but no me.

Perhaps a break is required, some time away. It's strange how life has to be marked, events, records, statues and time lines. How we make sense of a life, all linear and rear facing. The future is just a black hole with bright puffs of hope pinging off and on,  out there in the distance, blinking, beyond reach and any proper understanding. It's all been said before and by better humans than me and they seldom left key words out of their well constructed sentences. 

Ignored etc.

Whatever is happening and regardless of any election promises made or broken, I can't see any real change, signs of lessons learned or actual maturity in any of the debate or arguments so far. Come 13th December when the result comes rolling out via the BBC's twisted foghorns most of the population are going to wake up feeling disappointed, cheated, unheard or just plain WTF. Pathetic really.

Perhaps a better way to view the election is as some kind of national intelligence test rather than an electoral contest. Even at that the outcome is unlikely to be inspiring. I'm thinking of all those well rounded and balanced individuals  out there that can't quite get their heads around recycling or the complex thinking involved in not throwing litter out of car windows and how they might vote.

Olga of the Roses

Princess Olga of Kiev or Saint Olga as she is better known in some circles. Something of a cruel mass murderer (as was the custom) until her conversion to what might be described loosely as the Christian faith. She looks like a bit of tease in this oily rendering with the smoky come hither eyes, odd way to be holding a cross etc. but what do I know? It was all very important around 975 AD or so.

There now follows a fairly senseless, formless scribble that's really no more than an uncontrolled rant or some kind of elaborate and ultimately unsuccessful typing exercise:

I'm not religious but I spend a lot of time thinking about religion. People sometimes talk about spirituality and religion as if they were the same, but they're not. Spirituality is mostly mumbo-jumbo beliefs that require certain behaviours to be exhibited, some are pretty daft some more reasonable. Eyes are often closed at key moments and you might be prone to talking to yourself a lot in candle light. If you're spiritual you've kind of given away a certain part of your life to some ghostly idea that you cant quite describe but you remain intrigued by that shimmering idea anyway. People often get spiritual when a close friend or relative dies, this is understandable and I have some sympathy for how that happens, fear and desperation can drive all sorts.

Religion is also about behaviours but more in a "have to" way than the "need to" ways of spiritual beliefs.  Combining these two things is in my opinion pretty dangerous (just look at  history) and often not at all useful for a stress free life. I know when I'm thinking about religion, most of the time I'm not thinking "hmm, perhaps I should start following this particular teaching etc." I'm mostly thinking "this is a complete crock of shit, how can I sensibly argue against it without causing too much offence". 

My problem is that I really don't want to offend people and I'm pretty much live and let live but I think it's necessary to have an argument or a view in place come the day you're confronted with some religious zealot who wants you to join in. So in my view religion is about power, dogma and control and the distortion and corruption of these very things. I suppose if it was expressed in political terms the Tories would be a strict but hypocritical religion and the Greens would be more or less on some spiritual kick. This is only important in my own head.

So I spend time thinking about these things and also trying to avoid them, that's not easy. Despite our generally heathen ways religious and spiritual trappings are everywhere and of course mostly misunderstood or distorted because the common language of expression in these areas means different things to everyone. Teaching with any kind of consistency doesn't work and there are many versions of the truth and none of them actually, properly true. It's a fine mess of questionable facts. Best not to hold rigid beliefs even though it actually is harder to believe than not to believe but people say they do, or they believe that's what they are saying. In the end I should never have read so much CS Lewis and peppered my brain with circular questions back in the day.

Dreams etc.

Once I had a dream about a fictional Eggs Benedict breakfast served up at Peggy Scott's on the road to Aberdeen but I never talk about it. 

Have you ever had a morning where you've woken up tired having experienced a dream in which you were awake all night? This may be one of my own pet common experiences and we all share in the common experience of never, ever talking about it. So then, out of the indigo someone does speak up about this unspeakable and common experience and all those present quietly nod but refuse to fully engage or even say a word. They simply pretend to listen politely. You may think there's some kind of group plot or conspiracy going on here and that might be true, but what is also true is that you'd spoken aloud the shaky and somewhat irritating narrative of a dream and that, my friend, never goes well outside of a therapy session.

Traction

Day after day stories of this type emerge, all seem highly credible, true even (of course I want them to be true...and to go further) but they seldom get the traction you'd expect in a "free" society, must be a good reason for this.

Criminal Records

Aberdeen, daily photos: I know nobody represented here or actually here, it's all about the roof beams and sunbeams and the supporting engineering. All the other people shown are strangers to me.

Buildings.

It all will be splendid once it's completed.

Criminal Records: A full size wall of recording stars and others as seen on their album covers, all meaningful text and explanation has been obliterated by the careful placement of black tape. This simple action may well mean the avoidance of any legal action in the event of any complaint. Evidence and content appears to have been gleaned from various charity shops and house clearances.